You’d think understanding the Accountant’s frame of mind would relieve me, but the opposite was true. Every answered question only wound up revealing more questions. The more I thought I figured things out, the more I realized how much I didn’t know, only being aware of things that were increasingly going over my head. The Accountant’s tales of borderline illegal issues made me increasingly uncomfortable. It was likely that he was bracing me to do some potentially shady dealings in return for whatever ‘Revolution’ he had in mind, and I had no idea whether to resist.
It didn’t help that he kept telling me of all kinds of allowed illegal activities ranging from insider trading to pyramid schemes. “Are you sure you should be talking about this stuff with me? Surely you have coworkers for this kind of thing.”
“They’re too green to know the intricacies of the system. All the really smart ones get snatched up quickly for important duties involving higher math, while the dregs are reserved for school. They had their choice of geniuses spread throughout the ages and I was left with looking for alternate means, and by chance, I found you who managed to slip through the cracks. You’re a regular Epsilon (ε), 1 in 100,000!”
“Why not one in a million?”
“You’re not that rare.”
“As much as I appreciate the compliment, I don’t think I’m as smart as you think. I’m still in a depraved location.”
“I don’t mind. After all, the Dictionary was made possible with an inmate working within an Insane Asylum.”
“Another unforgettable story, huh?
“Sure, except that actually happened. The inmate happened to have a lot of time on his hands.”
“I’m surprised he was allowed to help.”
“The Wordsmith didn’t know he was mad at the time. But don’t worry! I know what you’ve done.”
These were not the reassuring words he thought they were. It was fine for him to know who I was, but *I* didn’t know who I was. The mere fact that he was openly telling me about these malicious acts did nothing to narrow down the potential crimes I could’ve been responsible for. I still hadn’t figured out why I was locked up in the first place. Without specifics, it only further expanded the limits I could’ve done. I kept going over the material again and again, picking up little details I missed the first time around, my imagination conjuring up all kinds of outlandish scenarios, each more implausible than the last.
I had the distinct feeling that if I ever found out what I'd done, I'd be disappointed. There was no way it could possibly live up to the hype.
It continued in that vein for several weeks of tumulus unrest where I discovered I could sleep with one eye open, AND with my eyes open; until the day I was tasked with a last-minute surprise assignment. I was used to being disturbed, but this interruption happened earlier than usual, just before I could go to sleep. At least they spared me the illusion of choice.
When I arrived at the workplace, the atmosphere was different. There was a small stack of papers waiting for me and the Accountant was surrounded by Guards. At first, I thought that the Revolution was finally happening at last.
“The time has come,” he said with a steady tone full of determination. “I’ve been called away. They want me for some kind of secret Government Project to look at a patch of space. And believe me, there’s a lot more unimaginable awe-inspiring stuff out there.”
“You can barely read maps, and they want you to look at space?!”
“There’s a difference between looking at flat surfaces and the real thing. The laws of physics can’t be broken, but they can be bent. At macroscopic dimensions, the geometric surfaces that govern their limitations begin to break down. Within those sizes, space becomes curved to the point that parallel lines meet. Seems I’m the only one qualified enough to help them out. Or maybe they’re going to covertly eliminate me, having sussed out my rebellious plans for revealing their dark underbelly. Either way, fill in for me.”
The Accountant gave me a Canary Smile before the Head of Security placed a bag over his head and all of them exited the room.
The Accountant wouldn’t have left me all by myself if he didn’t confidentially feel I was up to the task. I got to work in the light of Yellow time. The work was fairly challenging, but with some calculation and mnemonic tricks, was able to make steady progress, even as the time went from Yellow to Green to Blue. When it changed to Purple, I began to get concerned. This was the longest I’d been left alone. How long had it been? Shouldn’t the Guards have picked me up by now? For a place obsessed with numbers, there were no indications of time.
To make matters more concerning, the incoming papers were more incremental than usual. These were much larger numbers than I was used to dealing with; scientific notations of mythical and imaginary figures that had no place being on a balance sheet. The digits went up to astronomical heights around the Googolplex range which is a one followed by a hundred zeroes - times itself. Forget being off by one or two digits - you could miss fifty numbers in the middle and hardly affect the final equation at all.
But I’m a perfectionist, and insist on making sure everything is done right the first time to prevent backtracking later. By the 7th colour change, I was starting to get hungry, and there was no food or drink allowed. If I’d known, I would’ve eaten more before going to bed.
The light changed again, this time to White, and when I looked down, the forms were all blank. At first, I thought the Accountant’d gone through on his threat to collapse the world’s economy when I realized I hadn’t suffered from blindness - the math had. The text on the paper had been converted to braille.
I had a feel for numbers, but this was a different kind of feel than what I was used to. I needed to see the numbers in physical form, rather than in abstract ephemeral form. When I had to hold the figures in my head by running my fingers along the numerous dots on the board, their physical presence became too large for me to hold. To compensate, I used carbon paper, and started vigorously rubbing over the seemingly blank sheet of paper to highlight the indented buttons so they’d be easier to see.
The black markings with white outlines illuminated sporadic dots, but that had its drawbacks too. Braille numbers didn’t operate in visual code, but by a different set of patterns, and it was too easy to confuse the number of dots for the number of digits instead. (The number zero is represented by 3 dots) Not to mention that I still hadn’t memorized the alphabet yet, and there were words mixed in with the numbers as well. And I only had 5 sheets of carbon paper against the continuous massive reams of blank pages pouring in.
I felt muscles twitch in places I didn’t even know they could twitch.
Mercifully, after numerous unendurable minutes of braille forms stacked high, the light changed to something I could see. Unfortunately, the lighting started switching in faster frequency now, and I was struggling to keep up. No sooner did I get used to a new calculation than did a new colour pop up. There was a growing ringing noise in my ears despite how quiet the room was, the only noise being the ruffling of more papers coming in faster than I could keep up, my feeble efforts to keep the pile down dwindling with every new addition.
I looked at the latest figures, and realized that the symbol I thought was a six earlier was actually a seven, and needed to correct it immediately. But which paper? The OUT pile was already changing font, and the mistake was now becoming a fading memory. In addition, more papers were pouring in, faster than I could handle.
I sifted through the pile, hoping to find the elusive error, keeping the figure in my head, and my elbow knocked the delicate tower over, mixing the IN and OUT boxes together. The next batch came pouring in, with more papers, more number, more colours, pain, faster lighting, higher crescendo, colours, pain...
I looked at the clock; the dial was sticking straight out, all the coloured subsections rapidly spinning, running together no matter which way it pointed, the numbers changing faster than I could possibly cope. I was once more again reminded of the sickening psychedelic kaleidoscopic sky.
I was on the verge of blacking out when I heard another sound I didn’t recognize, until I realized it was my voice, and I was screaming. I had no idea I could reach pitches that high. Despite screaming for the longest time, no one showed up to investigate my stressful outburst. In that state of heightened awareness, I had the sensation of a malicious presence feeding off my frazzled nerves. I turned around, not expecting to see anyone there, and saw that the Accountant had returned with a murderous expression on his face.
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