After that perplexing meeting, I was returned to the confines of my cell and slept for several fitful minutes, just long enough to be reawoken and coerced into the morning routine. In my lethargic state, I was barely conscious, dully going through the rituals with little emphasis on my part, acting little different from everybody else there. On top of everything else, I was fined for getting the head bag dirty.
Once I was able to get some well-needed rest, I took time to reflect on my interview which was illuminating in more ways than one. Apparently, I’d discovered something so scandalous, so shocking that I had to be locked away and expunged of all memories of the event. Of course, it was like that for everyone here, so I wasn’t the only one. There were times when I wished I knew what crime I’d committed, and this was one of them.
That night, I expected that I’d be called away again, and didn’t sleep easy. But no one showed up to whisk me away, and I wound up tossing and turning for nothing. Nothing happened the next night or the next. But in the middle of lunch, I had a bag placed over my head to the indifference of all the comatose Prisoners surrounding me.
My headbag was removed, and I was facing the Man with the Canary Smile again. On the wall opposite was an unusual clock. It only had one dial, and the slots had no numbers, just different colours on them, not arranged in any rational order along the light spectrum. Right now, the solitary clock hand was pointing in the green section.
“It’s Light/Dark Green-ish Time! Did you remember to bring your times chart?”
“I didn’t have it on me when I was taken!”
“Figured as much,” he sighed, handing over a sheet of his making. This would come in handy for the 7x8 problems.
“Here’s a starter pack. Get cracking.” And then he and the Guards started to leave.
“Aren’t you staying?”
“I’ll come back when the time permits it.”
“Aren’t you worried I might try to take advantage of the system? Considering my record?”
“Right, because a bank robber from hundreds of years ago would be able to successfully steal currency today,” he sarcastically replied.
“So, I robbed a bank?”
“It’s a metaphor. Don’t take too much from it. Believe me, if you were abusing a loophole in the system, I’d know about it.”
“But what if - ”
“I’D KNOW.” he said with such authorial conviction I believed him. “Besides, you’d only be working on partial problems, not knowing what bigger picture they’re part of.” Then he left the room leaving me all by my lonesome.
This was a great validation of trust on my part, and it would be a gross betrayal of me to violate it. I got to work sifting through the files. It started off fairly simple - just a matter of double-checking the charts and making sure the figures added up. The information there was woefully basic, hardly benefitting tasks above grade school knowledge. There were only occasional mistakes found which alleviated the tedium somewhat. I didn’t see what was so difficult until about an hour in, the numbers suddenly changed right before my eyes. Not just the numbers, but the lighting, and I noticed the clock on the wall was no longer pointing in the Green zone, but Orange. I looked at the times grid again, and was surprised to see that all the numbers that once looked so familiar had now converted to Sanskrit digits instead.
It was then that the Accountant came waltzing back in, sensing that now was the appropriate time to make his appearance. “Having some trouble, are we?”
“How is this even possible?”
“Math is the ultimate universal language - its just the interpretation that’s different. There’s no rule that says we have to submit an annual report in any universal mathematical form. As a result, we’ve gotten submissions from every ancient system that ever existed from Mayan to Babylonian. That’s not even counting contributors with ancient languages that’ve long died out, requiring the efforts of yours truly to interpret the hidden meanings behind the text. So far, we’ve gotten papers in Hieroglyphics, Hieratic, Demotic, Assyrian, Phoenician, Syrian, Roman, Palmyrian, Kharoshti, Brahmi, Sanskrit-Devanagari, West Arabic, East Arabic, and tally marks. We once got a form that was nothing but scratches in rows of fives.”
“Doesn’t it get confusing?”
“It may seem intimidating at first, but once you get used to it, it’ll become second nature. What makes this tricky is that some mathematical symbols look similar, so you may not comprehend what you’re working on until you’ve compared your work to the rest of the symbols on the page. 2 can be easily mistaken for 22, but the power of two can’t be mistaken for twenty-two.”
Somehow, the Accountant was able to differentiate between saying a set of figures as numbers or as text. How did he do that??
“It’s never been easier for people to find glaring loopholes in the system.”
This was a lot of information to take in at once, and I could hardly do much more than nod dumbly. “Don’t you have computers or something to handle this kind of thing?”
“For all the advances machines have made, they’re still unable to copy our ability to combine information through senses. Only a thief would catch details that would go by unnoticed.”
Considering I’d been locked up for centuries over what normally would’ve been a minor infraction, that must’ve been SOME bank. “Just out of curiosity, how would someone attempt to rip off a large portion of the populace?”
“Thinking of doing some illegal activity of your own?” he asked with a teasing canary smile.
“No, just wondering how someone might come across large funds through borderline legal means. Theoretically speaking.”
“There are always ways to trick people out of their hard-earned cash. One is a scheme known as phantom debt.”
“Phantom debt?”
“There are so many invoices these days that no one bothers to check every one of them, which makes it the perfect opportunity for shameless hucksters to slip in some fake bills, demanding added interest for debts that never existed in the first place.”
“How can they do that?”
“You!” he pointed in a threatening tone. “Pay us, or I’ll hunt you down and sell your wife and kid! And your major organs, minor organs and kneecaps! And anything not tied down!”
“Okay, okay! Here!”
“Put your wallet away. That’s an example of how effective they are.”
It certainly was, considering I didn’t even have a wife or kid.
“This is accomplished by constantly harassing the clients with threats after receiving sold personal information to make their claims sound legitimate. Repeating their address, family members and personal secrets back at them make it hard to argue against unless you have the proper forms, and when you’re overwhelmed and haven’t kept your bookkeeping, this kind of thing is easy to get away with.”
“Whoa, slow down!” I interrupted, frantically writing notes. “This is good stuff! How’d you even find out about this?”
“They made the mistake that every overconfident huckster makes - target the affluently rich and brag about it.”
“How does personal information get passed around in the first place?”
“Well, they - ” he started, then stopped. “No, no! I’m not telling you! Why don’t you tell me how you think they do it? I want to see how close you can get to the truth. It’s more fun that way.”
There was a reason for this line of shady-sounding questioning. I needed to know what to look out for while going through the transactions. Besides, it wasn’t as if I’d be able to embezzle anything on my own.
As the bag was slipped over my head, the Accountant whispered, “Help me out when the time comes.”
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