At a remote mountain observatory, Emek and Tara discovered that the telescope control system had been locked by symbolic algebraic codes after a software failure. Each control panel displayed an expression that had to be simplified or rewritten into an equivalent form before the next function became available. They carefully applied algebraic identities, combined like terms, and factored expressions where appropriate, checking that each transformation preserved the original value. As the final code was accepted, the telescope aligned with its target just in time to capture a rare celestial event, restoring the observatory's mission.