Day 1, Architect’s World

The building blew their minds.

Prudentia Wagner couldn’t stop repeating the applause in her head. It was cacophonous even in the expanse of the central dining hall where they had the hotel launch event -- the one some wags are already calling “the hotelwarming”. Men and women in expensive clothes, followed by expensive bots, toasted her, shook her hand, took photos with her, introduced her to children who they proclaimed “Would be architects one day.”

There was a speech, from Pru herself, but it was a short one since she didn’t really know what to say about the building except that she saw it in a dream one night and just made it real. There was a sound-bite, off go those drone podcasters into the night armed with those words, there go the next hour’s headlines on all the podnets: “Prudentia’s Dream Come True.”

And it was a dream come true, sure. In more ways than one. The hotel that sat all around the central dining hall stood firm and solid, arcing into the sky, Bablical, just as she had envisioned it. She was having her third flute of champagne, and it was a lot more expensive than the first glass of champagne she ever had, all those years ago, when she built her first commissioned in-vivo house. In mere days, she knew, exact copies of her building would sprout up everywhere in the Gnostic nations.

Two media-men in suits, followed by their livery drones, approached her and repeated a few things she’s been hearing all night. That she’s at the top of her game, that her design style was unprecedented, that they would love to catch up with her for extra comments, and what a wonderful dress she was wearing! Prudentia was nearly blinded by the flash photography of the drones encircling them.

Her eye caught Desmond’s, and he came over to save her.

“‘Dentia,” he said fondly, taking her hand.

“Des,” she replied, and nodding to the two dronemeisters she said an aside: “Nice to meet you gentlemen, but we must be off for the evening.”

The young couple[?] left the protesting men, went through the throng of besuited people, and left out of the very doors she had designed, into the silver-black lobby (which she had also designed). Little drones followed her out, but the yellow-black color showed that these were the bumblebee security bots owned by the Radisson hotel itself. She let them follow her through the lobby, knowing that they'll be left inside once she steps out.

A hotel employee noticed her, signalled the other employees in the lobby, and they all applauded. Not as loud as the applause she received earlier in the night, but as sincere.

Desmond put an arm around her and kissed her on the cheek, which drew more applause. "I'm so proud of you," he whispered.

Prudentia squeezed his arm and pulled him closer, as she gave the Radisson employees a small wave. She was never shy, but she felt sort of self-conscious now. These were strangers, clapping at her nonironically about a building that literally didn’t exist two days ago. A building she architected, sure; a building with a design never before seen in the ziggurats of this world, but it was just concrete, and plastic, and glass, and clay, and whole lotta SEM -- self-erecting matter. The only unique thing was its design, and apparently it blew people’s minds.

Outside, far away from the security drones, the air was still tinged with ozone and a sickly-sweet char odor. Remnants of the SEM, she guessed. The filtration system removed the smell inside the building, but there was no way to prevent it from permeating the air outside.

Desmond didn’t seem to notice. He took a deep breath and proclaimed it to be a beautiful night for a walk to the car. The car itself -- hearing its master -- decided to turn itself on and wait, humming, in the far side of the parking lot (which she also, also designed.) The car did slightly come out of its parking spot, to make it easier for its doors to open, a UX feature recently added in a software update, of which Desmond was extremely proud of.

As they walked, she could smell the tangy odor of the SEM actually getting stronger, the farther they are from the building. That’s weird, she thought absently. She tried to recall her architecture classes -- what would cause SEM to linger?

It was warm in the car, toasty heat coming from under the dash. Prudentia grabbed a cassette tape and put it in the deck. David Bowie’s 2020 album came out of the sound system, surrounding them in his soothing wails and instrument thrums. Desmond laughed at the choice of music. “He’s still got it. I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but he’s got it.”

The car drove out of the parking lot quietly, with nary a hum. It prepared itself for the long journey back to Desmond’s parents’ house, where they were staying for the night. It spoke a few words, denoting how long it was going to take, the traffic on the way, and the amount of gas it had left in its tank. (2 hours, bad traffic on _____ Avenue, Eth @ 75%.) Prudentia took one last look through the rearview mirror at the immense, Babliesque building she had designed.

And that’s when the building blew up.

Day 1, Mathician’s Realm

Prudence Wagner knew something was wrong with her math, but submitted the test answers anyway. She used Al-Baizir correctly, she thought, but the addition of the Hexaportos Ambivalence might mean that Al-Baizir requires a different modal noun, perhaps even SHA-1024. There’s really no way for her to know exactly, since she didn’t really do her assigned Hexaportos reading. She'd been sitting on her working desk for too long to be productive, though -- she was starting to doodle nonsense formulae on the test paper margins -- so she folded the papyrus up and gave it to the lector.

She sighed. Maestro Abbas is going to be so disappointed in her. For the last decamonth, she’s managed to put up a veneer of sophistication and intelligence for the Maestro, cultivated via well-strategized questions in class, and well-chosen comments during group discussions. Her fellow templars suspected she was brown-nosing, but made no comments so far.

That’s probably going to change once the test results come back and she gets a big fat null.

She stuffed the papyrii of test questions into her chalice, the free Bic pen she got for the test dropped unceremoniously in one of the inner pockets. As an afterthought, she grabbed the papyrus containing the autocopy of her answers and slid it in as well. She hooked the bag on her page’s waist, and left the altar room.

She really wants to go home. She really needs to go home. A lot of people romanticize temple life -- the fun, the friends, the formulae -- but she feels close to burning out after this Hexaportos debacle.

Back in her dorm room -- which she shared with a young undertemplar fresh out of school -- she wrote a letter to her family and let it fly home. Then she poked her head out of her room hatch and asked her page to call Danley over.

Danley stood astride the trapdoor a decaminute after, grinning. “Prudence, my lupine mongrel,” his voice rang in.

“Danley,” Prudence replied. [Sleeper’s note: It’s pronounced “Dan-uh-Lee”.] “Help me up.”

“Will do, mongrel.” Danley laughed mirthfully at his own nickname for his friend. The nickname referred to the fact that Prudence was only three-quarters-Semite. Her grandfather on her mother’s side was, in fact, a Gentile. And an Asian Gentile at that, from the lupine steppes of Ch’ing! How droll!

Prudence climbed out of her hatch and grabbed Danley’s outstretched hand. “I need to find a drink, Danley.”

“Didn’t do well in the test, I reckon?” He led the woman away from the hatch and into the extrance labyrinth. They walked, side by side, as the page dutifully followed.

“The test sucked. It was a Hexaportos matrix test --”

“Ah!” exclaimed Danley, “Good Old Hexie!”

“-- and I didn’t study ‘Good Old Hexie’,” said Prudence. “You’re not making me feel better, Danley.”

“Mose in Heaven,” he said, only half-jokingly now, “Skipped old Hexie, did you?”

Prudence motioned for her page to grab her chalice. She grabbed it and pulled out the papyrii of test questions. “And the entire goddamned test was ‘Old Hexie’. I’m in trouble, Danley.”

They walked in silence for a while, through the temple labyrinth and gardens, beautifully engineered flowers winking their petals at them and squirting currently fashionable aromae. Danley was reading through the papyrii as they walked and gave her a strange sideways glance. Prudence ignored the look.

It was late in the templar year and the two were nearly alone in the outer gardens. The page followed behind them, its head diligently lowered. Bales of hay and bushtongs of kava were being brought in through the gates of the temple, on the backs and pitchforks of other pages big and small. Danley made idle chat with the sapient gateworkers, seeming to marvel at the quality of foodthings and granules. Prudence knew this was mere politics -- Danley was, as always, the perfect and consummate Governor's son.

Outside, the sidewalks were bare, deserted. A recent bout of amateur mathematics had rendered part of the cement shiny with microcosms. Our two sapients skirted past the errata and walked up a slight climb, towards the noise and neon of _____ street.

They chose Prudence’s favorite bakery, which was currently serving fresh turnipbreads by the half-dozen. These things were delicious piles of carbs with mint-flavored stems still attached to them. If you’re lucky, a leaf or two might still be attached. These leaves were sweet, with a tangy aftertaste, built to counteract the umami goodness of the breadfruits.

After sitting down for a while and eating a few bites, Prudence said matter-of-factly: “Maestro Abbas is going to kick me out of temple after he sees how I did on the test.”

Danley shrugged. “He’s not. Or he will. Who knows? Who cares?”

“I care, Danley.” Prudence felt some heat behind her eyes as she tried to keep the worry-tears in. “Temple has been all I dreamed about for the last decayear. You’ve known me for most of those years, Danley. You know this.”

“I’m sorry,” Danley said. “But we’ve been friends long enough for me to always give it to you straight.” He gestured at the stack of papyrii, now in a pile between them. “Your answers -- aren’t good. I don’t know what you were thinking, my mongrel, but this isn’t really templar material.”

Prudence put her head in her hands then. The turnipbread stickiness of her fingers were in her hair; she didn’t care. Mom always told her not to pine for temple, that the disappointments in store for former templars were plentiful, that the taste of mathic power brings with it lifelong regret if not followed up with the permanence of Maestroship.

She was so distraught that at first she thought the keening sound she heard in her ears came from herself. But it wasn’t her. It was a high, howling note, seeming to come from all directions, everywhere at once. She lifted her head in awe as the noise changed to pure mathematics, encoded in Al-Kindi 2048 with a smattering of Russonian.

“What in Gehenna..?” Danley voiced.

Prudence’s page stood abruptly, making her stifle a small scream. It had been on the floor, the page, as per custom, sitting cross-legged behind her with its head bowed. Now it was lifting its head and cocking it, as if listening to the mathematics in the air.

Prudence gaped. “It’s a templar alarm?”

Danley said, mirthlessly, “It’s a templar alarm.”

The keening noise stopped abruptly. The page stood there, its head still cocked, for a while. Then it looked directly at Prudence.

“Prudence Wagner,” it said. “The high templars want you in interview room Alif. Maestro Abbas, of The Great and Countable Mathicians, is dead, and you are a suspect.”

In the decasecond that followed, several things happened:

• The page reached its silver-black hand and grabbed Prudence on the upper arm, hard.

• Danley stood up, said a mathic noun to the page, making its head implode and burn up in a spatter of dark blood and sparks.

• Everyone in the cafe screamed.

• From the direction of the temple grounds, a commotion; the silver-black shadowy figures of pages were running over. Some still held the pitchforks they had used to pack up the bales of hay.

• And then Danley looked into Prudence’s eyes, and said.

The two sapients disappeared in a flash of mathematics, leaving behind the charred remains of the page.

Day 1, Bookseller’s Earth

Motes of dust swirled as the glass door opened inwards, in that dingy brown shop where a thousand books remained. The foyer of rough-hewn oak and brick had been vandalized again last night, covered with rude graffiti and sketches. A rusted bell rang out throughout empty bookshelves, announcing to no one, amounting to nothing. As she stepped in and released the door-handle to let it close, Prudie Wagner wondered how it had come to this.

Standing between the heavy shelves of many books, alone in the shop, she said: “Today’s the day we write our tale.” The words felt empty, hollow, in the dusty space.

She grabbed a book at random from the shelves, as she did every day. The leather-black skin of today’s book was covered with silvery illustrations in the odd handwriting of the North Columbians, announcing that it was “The Great And Complete Compendium of Travels and Colonizations.”

Prudie sighed. Not really a book that would cheer her up.

As she approached her cashier’s desk at the far end of the shop, she noticed an amber light in her telefax’s bulb. A letter had come in. A letter, or two, or three. The telefax in-tray contained multiple sheets, about as thick as a pamphlet when combined.

Probably not just bills today, then.

She sat behind her desk and grabbed the fax sheets in a bundle. She put the bundle next to her, the silver-black book ahead of her, and sat back in the bucket chair.

From within the store, she had a full view of the outside streets. It was still very early, and market-mongers were carrying their wares to the central square as per their wont. Schoolchildren travelled in packs, livery maids gossiped when passing each other, and once a horse carried a cosmonaut right past the front of her shop. (She had to admit her pulse quickened despite herself: Cosmos were notoriously well-read, and might be interested in the display books. Then she realized that the cosmonaut probably wouldn’t come into a shop with rude graffiti covering the frontispiece, and inwardly cursed.)

She considered opening the book, but decided that the faxes are probably more important. She flicked through the first few sheets: Rental bill, electricity bill, water bill, vacuum tube maintenance. All in the barbaric block handwriting of the city councilman. She skipped those and put them aside.

She saw the word on one of the remaining faxes immediately. Danielle.

From: Danielle

The fax was handwritten with a light pen, judging from the evenness of the lines. The writer was Danielle, quite indisputably. Prudy would know that uppercase C anywhere, and the spaces between the letters were unmistakable.

Prudy read:

---

Prudie, (as that’s how Danielle spelled her name)

I know that this is belated. I beg to convey my apologies for the lack of communication in the long-passed year. I certainly hope you are well, and the shop has improved in business greatly. I’m sure you’ve by now seen my articles of the journey so far, of the crew and the wonders of interspatial forms, on gazettes delivered to the shop’s door.

I remember our common refrain when the two of us ran the shop together: “Today’s the day we write our tale.” I sometimes wonder if you still say these words, and whether you think of our partnership, hopefully with fondness for that past time. I sometimes wonder if you are happy for me, as I write my tale here in the dark oceans of null and void.

It is the sixth month here, mid-year 2020 of our Lord and Savior, and I have been pacing my floor in thought, finding a way to write this. Of course you will see this at the end of the year, as light is but sloth in molasses compared to the distances we venture (and the dilation of my timescape is substantial due to speed). But know and remember that I wrote this on the decks of HMS New _______ 6 months ago. I am separated from you by vacuum and space and time dilationment, my friend, but know that I feel you with me still.

The Commodore has been good to me, and splendid in his ways. He is a Prussian, of course, and that explains his candor and willingness to speak to me forthrightly. My journalistic methods are nary required, as the man is an open book to me. I need only to ply him with drinks and pharmaceuticalia, sometimes with love, and his knowledge is mine.

These comprise the bulk of updates I write about in my public articles. The swashbuckling gravity slinging, the asteroid corralling, the in-ship drama and action. Sometimes I wish tele-vision engines caught on, so I could send videos of these back to our Earth!

I’ve never mentioned in my articles, though, that the fine ship New ______ carries with it a complement of true, paper-bound books. It is a full library, more well-stocked than even your shop. I hope you know that I do not mention this to insult your shop’s collection! My God, I wish you could see how the ship’s library did carry some interesting books.

Being the only bookworm on the ship, I had my run of the place. Within the year, I have gone through hundreds of pamphlets and books, and one fine day I ventured into a corner of the library I rarely ventured in, sat on my haunches to look at the book spines, and I found the book there.

Prudie, I found the book. The Book. T H E B O O K.

I found “Multi”, by Herbert Wagner.

I found your dad’s book!

---

Prudy stopped reading right then and there. There was more to the fax, but she ignored it. She left the stack face down on her table, grabbed “The Great And Complete Compendium of Travels and Colonizations”, and left the store. She locked the doors and left, walking briskly, then sprinting as if running away.

She thought she was running home, but she wasn’t.

Day 2, Mathician's Realm

Teleportation mathic (isomorphic transport of structure via unspace vectors) fundamentally breaks realm rules. Prudence knew this. There was nothing illegal in mathematics, of course -- some rule breaking was expected for mathicians who had any hope of distinguishing themselves. But realm rules are usually held sacred even then, since to do otherwise would break the illusion of continuity. Templar dictaats have been erected in place to maintain the sacred rules, and Prudence had always been taught that these high-rigor formulae would prevent any violation.

Thus the teleport Danley executed for them was both her first and his first, and apparently the dictaats had effects. Danley was bent over on his large belly, barely standing. Prudence had a migraine which she felt on both sides of her head -- by definition not a migraine, but it felt like one -- and it hurt so much she had to lay in a fetal position.

They were ensconced somewhere in a hidden corner of a garden. She saw the Governor's Palace, a staggered pile of alternating silver-black boxes that now appeared larger than she had ever seen it before, and realized where she was. The garden they were in was, by her eyes' evidence, somewhere behind the palace walls. They were next to a porticullis gate and rough-hewn granite fencing.

"Yes," Danley said, "of course I took you to my Daddy's house. You alright, mongrel?" He was no longer bent over, but he did look red with exertion. He was breathing hard, too, but he was grinning.

"No," Prudence said. "No. What in Gehn happened? Templar alarms, and then my page said I ... killed someone?"

"Maestro Abbas," said Danley. "That's who they said you killed. Which, uh, you didn't, right?"

"Of course I didn't!" Prudence said in a pained shout.

"That's what I thought," said Danley. "Which is why I saved you. It's really first-order logic: If you really did kill the chap, would you not be halfway back to _______ village by now, instead of breaking bread at the bakery with me? Ipso facto, my lupine mongrel didn't do it. Hence, I saved my lupine mongrel."

"Thank you."

"Natch," he said. "Just be sure you didn't kill him since I got into a lot of trouble for you today."

Prudence raised herself and walked towards the porticullis gate. She sat back down, leaning on the steel. "I haven't even seen him today. I haven't seen him in a decaday, in fact."

"But you just had a test for the subject he teaches," said Danley. "Which is why I have a theory."

He said a mathic word then, which coalesced between them as a light blue volume of space. Prudence recognized the space as a miniaturized copy of an office. "Is that...?"

"From right inside the Maestros Temple, the office of one Kevin Abbas." Danley gave a mock bow. "Let's rewind to his death."

She crawled closer to look at the mathic structure. It was a simple holograph, but the detail was amazing. She could even see the Bic logo on the little pens on the Maestro's desk. A pet butterfly in a cage next to his seat kept fluttering its wings and she could see the patterns without a blur. "How are you accessing this?"

"I'm on the access control list," said Danley. Which does not make sense.

"How are you on the ACL? You're not a Maestro."

"Shhh!" Danley shushed her and pointed at the holograph. There was a cacophony of movement as, she recognized, Maestro Abbas' body was brought away by pages and medical scribes. They were watching this in reverse, as the holograph is rewinding, so it almost seemed like they were bringing him in. Maestro Abbas was face down on his desk, open eyed, a papyrus of test answers under his cheek.

"Magnification," she said, absently.

The holograph expanded in size, and they now saw that the papyrus had Prudence's name on it. The hieroglyph that denoted "Wagner" was very clear.

"Ah, that settles it!" Danley said, "He must have gotten a heart attack or a stroke, and somehow the megaminds up on Templar Hub thought you killed him since he was in the middle of grading your paper. Illogical, but it would not be the first time the temple pages errata'd up, they're old model golems and that's to be expected."

However, the holograph was still rewinding, and soon it showed the moment of Maestro Abbas' death.

The "nonsense formulae" that Prudence was doodling on the margins of the test papyrus operated as the Maestro touched it. A bright light emanated from the arcane symbols and right into his eyes. He released the papyrus, but it was too late. The mathic formulae had decomposed his mathic structure, fragmenting his sigma functions in sparks of pure numerics. The Great and Countable Mathician Maestro Kevin Abbas had already become a Tabula Rasa hollow corpse well before his head hit the desk.

"God's hooks, mongrel," said Danley flatly. "You did kill him."