CHAPTER 02

Religiously, every morning, without exception, the Elder Physicist of the Temple of Precision recited Mu's origin. Always the same way, with the same intonation and the same words.

These few paragraphs had to be ingrained in every novice Physicist's mind. Women were handpicked from the walled city's population when they were still very young. Every year, dozens of them were abducted from the bosom of their families and taken within the palace's domains. And from there, they never left again.

Those words, recited by the Elder, were the first page of the Great Grimoire and, therefore, were sacred. And they were not just to be engraved in the mind, but in the heart.

The Elder Physicist noticed one of the novices, distracted and lost in thoughts alien to those words.

In other words, committing a grievous fault.

The Elder calmly walked toward the girls lined up before her in the great Equational Hall, a part of the temple restricted solely to that caste of women.

Using her gold-adorned crutch, the Elder struck the inattentive student's leg.

After the sound of wood resonating against flesh, the cry of pain from the little girl followed; she couldn't have been more than 12 years old.

The pain was such that she stumbled and threatened to fall, but if she had actually collapsed, leaving the line formation alongside her sisters and companions in fate, everything would have been much worse.

Almost crying, she quickly composed herself.

All the other students looked straight ahead, frozen and tense, afraid of being the next one to be corrected. They didn't even blink.

“The function of the Mathematician, exactly as it is in the Grimoire. Recite it for me, child,” the Elder ordered.

The girl, trying to ignore the pain, recited the text, though amid moans and stutters.

“The Mathematician is... the absolute sovereign of our fantastical city and... his primary mission is to govern every minute of all meticulously... his citizens' lives,” she began. “To achieve this, he works incessantly with extremely complex calculations... with the sole purpose of maintaining peace and order, even if it means sacrificing everyone's freedom.”

“What is this 'freedom', girl?” the elderly woman asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Freedom is a fantasy,” explained the poor thing, sweating cold, “because freedom leads man to war, and war, in turn, strips away freedom through death. Therefore, without freedom there is no war and, in exchange, we receive the gift of life. Life and freedom do not walk together.”

“Good, very good. If I catch you ignoring the sacred words again, I will ensure you receive a much more appropriate punishment. Are we understood?”

“Perfectly, Elder D'Art.”

“Good. Very good.”

The Elder turned back to her other students.

“Remember, obedience is the highest virtue of our faith. What if the automatons were not obedient to their programming? If they rebelled against their orders, would the boilers of Muspelheim still be lit today?”

That was a rhetorical question, and no answer was expected from the listeners. They were only allowed to listen, and the answer would be left to the questioner and the speaker herself.

“I'll answer it: No!” The Elder spoke with a smile that, in anyone's eyes, seemed sadistic.

“Without unquestioning obedience to the designs that we, Physicists, help the Mathematician dictate to the world, we would all be dead by this point in history.”

All the girls remained motionless, lined up like statues, but attentive.

“But no, thanks to faith, we are not dead. Thanks to the holy and true trust in the exactness of his science, in the numbers, equations, functions, and algorithms, we are alive. All honor and glory to the numbers.”

“Glory to the numbers,” all the novice Physicists repeated in unison. “Glory to the Mathematician.”

“Thanks to the First Mathematician, may his name be praised,” the elderly woman spoke almost in jubilation, “centuries ago we discovered the sacred code that allowed us some degree of manipulation over reality. This knowledge was refined by him during his glorious life, blessing us to this day, since through unraveled icons and signs, we have created over the centuries the symbols that grant us access to the Sacred Code.”

“Our beloved magic, the holy science that allows us to change or program reality at our whim, the art of writing and rewriting phenomena through command insertions directly into the source of the Sacred Code.” She smiled, satisfied. “Oh, girls, do you have any idea how blessed you are to earn the right to study the magic of programming? Do you have any idea of the honor?”

“Daily, we, the Physicists, assist the Mathematician in the use of Hvergelmir so that millions of calculations necessary for the management of all lives in this city are processed. Can you perceive the grandeur of this? How special you are!”

The Elder looked back at the little “offender”. The girl nearly wet herself with fear when she noticed the old lady's withering glare on her.

“And you disdain this grace, this privilege, giving your attention to other matters?”

The Elder stood before the young girl once again.

“What were you thinking about, child? What was more important than the holy words of the Grimoire?”

The girl remained quiet for a few seconds, but they seemed like an eternity.

“About... About my...”

“About my?” the Elder insisted.

“My home... about my mother.”

The girl received a slap across the face that knocked her to the floor.

“The Mother of Logic. Her Excellency the Queen Mother, the blessed progenitor of the current Mathematician, is now your mother. Remember that.”

“Yes...”

“I didn't hear you,” the instructor shouted.

“Yes, I understand... Lady D'Art, I understand.”

The old lady sighed in disappointment and turned her back to the girl.

“Good, get up. I will be benevolent today.”

“Thank you... Lady D’Art. You are... very... kind.”

“Yes, yes, I know I am. I am magnanimous.”

The older woman glanced at the large clock on the hall's wall.

“It is time for breakfast. Eat exactly what has been designated in your daily diets. Afterward, report to begin your tasks. There is much to do today.”

The Elder turned back to the little student.

“I had an idea: today you will manipulate Hvergelmir. You will be in charge of keeping the algorithm running perfectly for two shifts, assisting your sisters in the sacred task of managing all the citizens.”

“Madame... the computer? Me? I don't know if I'm ready... I...”

“You had better be. The numbers could have been less generous with you, choosing a job, a career less... let's say, noble than ours. But no, mathematics willed that you, among so many others, be chosen to be a Physicist.”

The girl swallowed hard.

“Have you ever imagined how miserable your life would be if you had to use magic to keep the automatons running in Muspelheim?”

“No... Madame... please, no...”

“No, you are not thinking about this the right way, child. You will succeed, since the Mathematician's designs are perfect and, solely because of that, I trust you. Again, if the numbers chose you, it is because you are the right girl for this. If you had the same faith, you wouldn't be afraid of failing and so fearful of ending up in the boilers, would you?”

“No... Madame... I wouldn't be.”

“Good. Hurry then, all of you go. Go!”

Orderly, all the girls left the room and headed to the dining hall in single file.

At that moment, with all the pomp her position demanded, the Mother of Logic arrived. Lady Lucia. The mother of the current Mathematician.

Surrounded by her personal female guard, Lucia embodies a spiteful, severe woman. Her presence always makes those around her uncomfortable. And with Madame D'Art, it would be no different.

“Madame D'Art, any unmapped incidents?”

“Not at all, my lady. Nothing that I haven't already corrected immediately.”

“I see. No incidents, then?”

“None. Mathematics has blessed us today with good numbers. There was nothing that could not be predicted, my lady.”

“I understand. Well, tell me, where is the Mathematician? I want to speak with my son.”

“I am sorry, Your Majesty, but our lord has not yet appeared here today; normally he would be here by now.”

“Are you insinuating that the most precise man in the world is late? Did he make a miscalculation?” Lucia frowned.

“I would never... raise such heresy,” the Elder said, almost stuttering. “Our lord is not late; he arrives... exactly when he needs to arrive, neither before nor after. I merely gave my lady an... answer based on the patterns I have already observed. I am very sorry for that.”

“Forget it... Anyway, where could he have gone at this hour?”

“Again, assuming based on the pattern I have noticed over the days... he must be in the library. He usually does this at this same time on some mornings.”

“No routine, no predictability, leaving room for uncertainties. Damn Ivan,” muttered the Mother of Logic in her thoughts.

“Shall I request to summon him, my lady?”

“No. I will go see him myself.” She reasoned that any lecture she gave her son needed utmost discretion; after all, no one could even dream that the Mathematician, the synonym of perfection in the world, would make mistakes.

“As you wish, Your Majesty.”

Without saying another word, the Mother of Logic and her entourage left the room.

When the door closed and everyone withdrew, the Elder could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

•••

Before entering the library, the Mother of Logic ordered her guard and attendants to wait outside.

“I want privacy with my son. Do not allow anyone to enter while I am inside with him.”

“As you wish, my lady,” answered one of the guards.

The Mother of Logic entered the vast library of the Temple of Exactness. She saw only the librarian engrossed in some bureaucratic task, and her son, the Mathematician himself, calmly reading a book in the center armchairs.

“Leave,” Lúcia said harshly to the poor worker.

“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” the librarian said, leaving hurriedly.

Lucia, besides being the Lady of the Physicists, was the mother of the world's sovereign. In a way, she believed she enjoyed more power than her own son. She wished this were true; that was her rejection of him and his way of governing.

She considered her son a weakling, a threat to the city's order.

“Tell me, Ivan, do you really intend to ignore your duties?” she began. “You, the Mathematician in the flesh, setting a bad example?”

“Good morning to you too, Mother,” he said without taking his eyes off his book.

“Do not call me that. I am the Mother of Logic. Not a mere 'mom'.”

He slammed the heavy hardcover book shut. She had managed to irritate him.

The four automated spheres that constantly floated around him suddenly sped up in response to his mood change.

“Of course, as you wish, Mother of Logic,” the man said ironically.

“So, aren't you going to get up from there and get on with your duties?”

“No. I am doing exactly what my duties entail.”

“Which one? Killing time?”

“No, acquiring knowledge. That is the function of every Mathematician: to discover new ways to optimize the code, to improve Hvergelmir's performance.”

“And that compendium in your hand, what makes it so useful as to make the Mathematician postpone his tasks?”

“This one? It is a very ancient text, by Master BahDehToh.”

“That mythical creature? That is fantasy, a fairy tale; this legendary being never existed.”

“No... I believe he existed. Look, this is very detailed; it possesses an elegance, a refinement I have never seen anyone use before to write a line of code. I can understand the concept he used when he began chain-compiling several previously written magic commands. Instead of reciting the program's code and making changes directly into the matrix of reality, he triggered them through signs made with his hands. A more advanced version of this book teaches us to extend this to other limbs of the body, allowing us to execute spells with movements strongly resembling a dance. It is fascinating; we can execute several spells at the same time and combine them, provided they have already been previously described.”

“I see...” the lady said, uninterested. “I have already seen Lady D'Art introducing this into the teaching of the novices as a new subject, but I, truly, do not like it. I am averse to changes in what is already working.”

“I am a progressive, Mother. But anyway, let that go. I doubt you came here to lecture me about my 'lateness'. What do you really want to talk to me about?”

“Natasha. About Natasha.”

“And what is your new problem with my wife now?”

“I do not like how she conducts the education of your heirs, and I think Lúcio should be prepared for the role of the next Mathematician. Lucas, your firstborn, does not share that love for numbers. He constantly wastes his time on foolishness, all of it encouraged by her.”

“That foolishness is called art. Without art, without literature, and without music, we would be no different from the ice beasts.”

“A waste of time, paintings that say nothing, songs that do not praise you, texts that do not advance the quest for the exactness of numbers... Vanity of vanities. The former Mathematician, your father, would have already ordered that...”

“I am the Mathematician, Mother,” he interrupted her. “I decide that. My father, and his disastrous legacy, are dead. I know you wanted Igor to have become the Mathematician in my stead, but accept this once and for all: He is dead, and he is not coming back from Hel's arms to claim my crown.”

“I have never forgiven you for that day.” Her words carried repulsion toward him.

“I know that. I have always known; you never hid it. I have already learned to live with your contempt.”

“That is why you should strive to regain my trust. Look, if you followed my advice, the city would already be...”

“...Dead!” he interrupted her again. “Your desires are only for death and pain. You see everyone as your servants and enslaved people. You cannot see that you are only in this position because people still allow it. I love the people; I want their well-being, but you? You love power. No, I will not listen to your whining about my reign.”

“You didn't listen to me before, and what happened, happened.”

“And it is in the past. It happened, and there is no going back. I gave up on your forgiveness a long time ago. I will never have it. I am sorry about your beloved and favorite, Igor, but what you have here is just me. Ivan, the Mathematician.”

“Do not think this matter is settled. We will return to discuss the future of Lúcio and Lucas.”

“There is nothing to discuss. Lucas will be the Mathematician after me. Just accept it.”

“I refuse. Do not think I am like the commoners who obey your daily orders without question. I know well how infallible you are.”

“I bear that great sin as a burden, but what about you? How many sins do you have to put on the scale?”

“I am the Mother of Logic. I never make mistakes.”

“Of course. If I am a 'mistake,' wouldn't you have been the one to make it by bringing me into the world?”

“How dare you, you...”

“Have a good day, ‘Mom’.”

Lúcia turned her back on her son and stormed out of the library.

Ivan scratched his hairless head and had to concede; it was getting late, and he could not continue his studies. It was almost time for the first supervision of the orders and directives that would be given to the citizens in the form of designs. He needed to oversee the Physicists' work with Hvergelmir.

The Mathematician stood up and went to his chambers to change. Unlike the Mother of Logic, who could only walk escorted by her guard of female warriors, he could move freely through the Temple of Exactness, since his flying orbs constantly protected him. Equipped with laser beams, he could not be threatened by anyone.

•••

When the Mathematician arrived at the Hvergelmir room, he found his more than 200 Physicists engrossed in their tasks. They all bowed respectfully.

“Good morning, everyone. How is the processing going?”

“12,000 directives already processed, Your Axiomatic,” said the Physicist responsible for the day's report.

“Why is this processing so slow? More than half the citizens have already begun their daily activities. How can they go about their day productively without our designs? Did the numbers not give any sign that something was off track?”

“Actually, Your Axiomatic...” the Physicist tried to begin.

“Just say it.”

“The most excellent Madame D’Art...”

“Oh, here comes trouble...” The Mathematician rolled his eyes. D’Art's administrative decisions were notorious for their incompetence. He did not like her; besides being a very rigid educator, she was incapable of managing and leading people. The madame's luck was that Lucia liked her very much and considered her the ideal educator for the Physicists. Ivan thought that if the Physicists were under his jurisdiction, D’Art would already be retired.

“Madame D’Art assigned the young Juliette to compile the directives in Hvergelmir today.”

“Who is compiling the programs?” He grimaced. “A child?”

Turning his eyes to the side, the Mathematician saw the little girl there, almost crying in panic, trying to manage all the processing tasks the sacred computer was running.

“D’Art said the numbers do not make mistakes... she said little Juliette would be able to accomplish the task and that we shouldn't interfere,” the Physicist said.

“Hmm, she did, did she?” He made another grimace. “That there would be no failures?”

The Mathematician always found himself in a tight spot with errors or incidents in the Temple of Exactness; after all, his religion preached the infallibility of numbers and that nothing unforeseen could happen. The citizens might question this faith if errors became notorious.

“A sign that the program that generated this result was not very accurate,” he said, shifting the responsibility away from the numbers and placing it on the weaker side, precisely the human side.

“Of course, Your Axiomatic, numbers never fail. Humans, on the other hand, make mistakes. A lot of them,” said the Physicist, agreeing with him.

“And even the wise Elder makes mistakes too; after all, she is human.”

“No one is like you, Your Axiomatic, a god among us mortals. You, the Mathematician, the infallible one.”

“Yes... exactly...” he said, forcing a smile. He hated that idolatry and, better than anyone, knew it was merely the fruit of propaganda and indoctrination into which these people's minds had been immersed since the cradle. A gigantic theater in which the protagonist's role fell to him.

He was visibly tired of it all, but he needed to continue playing his character; after all, it was for the greater good, for the peace and progress of the people. It was for Mu's survival.

The Mathematician walked over to little Juliette.

“Good morning, Juliette.”

The girl, seeing the deity who owned her faith before her, felt her heart trying to leap out of her mouth.

“Your... Your Axiomatic?”

“Tell me, child, how can I help you?”

“The algorithm... is returning many inconsistencies... and some non-standard orders were observed for certain individuals.”

“Are they such glaring inconsistencies? And what are you doing about it?”

“I am forcing Hvergelmir to re-run the code in dry-run mode.”

“That delays the whole demand, doesn't it?”

“Yes, exactly, but Madame D’Art insisted that the algorithm written yesterday is correct.”

“Right... let me see. Point out an inconsistency to me.”

The little girl fumbled with some papers. The magical computer was taking a long time to print the compilation output.

“Compiler, could you be faster, please?” the Mathematician asked gently.

She found a particular paper she was looking for.

“Here, my lord. Here. Look.” She handed the paper to the Mathematician.

“Let's see...” He began to read the script.

“Hmm. It says here that the citizen identified as AC0003-02C-450B must have sex with her partner at exactly 02:32 PM, given the very high possibility of conception today. What did you identify in this directive as an error for her?”

“First, her husband was designated today as one of the guards of the southeast gate. Therefore, it would take him more than an hour to travel across the city and return, because of the heavy flow of merchants after the ships arrived this morning. If he needed to be home at exactly that time, why had he been assigned to a task so far away?”

“Right, and what else?”

“What else? Oh, yes... let me see...” She began to leaf through a few more pages. “Here! Her period is due to arrive in a window of approximately three days. That said, she is not in her fertile window to receive such a specific design, including the timing of the act itself. The order is so absurd that we have even the exact minute when this must be done.”

“Indeed. Besides this one, any other anomalous cases?”

“Yes... There is another one here, my lord. The citizen... let me see... I lost her identification, but I know her name... One second... Here! The young Theresa D'Vinum.”

“And what was her design for today?”

“That she must change her fiancé. The algorithm is contradicting the previous directive, claiming she must marry the young Alex D'Abietarii.”

“How long had citizen Theresa been engaged to her 'former' fiancé?”

“Less than a week. The party introducing them had already taken place. Given this, they would now have to hold another gathering. As I can show you, Your Axiomatic, these are just two cases among another 232 pointed out and deemed inconsistent. If there is this high volume of possible errors, could it be that the rest of the day's designs already dispatched aren't also compromised?”

“Given the volume, it is mathematically possible. How are the dry runs turning out?”

“At the current speed, we will not reach promptly a sufficiently high margin of properly detected and verified errors to, only then, be able to request the revocation of the day's directives.”

Revocations. That would be a catastrophe for the people's faith. It had been decades since such a radical action was repeated. Ivan would not let it happen in his reign.

“Maintain the designs,” he was emphatic. “I want a task force to check the dry runs and another team reviewing the program that Madame D’Art supervised yesterday.”

“And the errors pointed out in the dry run?” Juliette wanted to know.

Ivan turned to the most experienced Physicist on the team.

“Serafine D’Computator.” He pointed to her. “Create a committee with four more Physicists and remake the designs only for the cases you believe to be extremely severe.”

“You are going to trust our judgment, Your Axiomatic?” Serafine became worried.

“I will; after all, it was Hvergelmir itself that designated you as Physicists, wasn't it?”

“Yes, Your Axiomatic. You can trust our work.”

“I am counting on you.”

The Mathematician turned back to Juliette.

“Leave the dry run to the task force. Continue compiling the programs; let them take care of the atypical cases.”

“Yes, Your Axiomatic.”

The Mathematician worked on the algorithm for a few hours, then decided to retire early and return to his chambers.

Visibly tired, he felt the crown's weight. The weight of caring for so many lives. It was a very heavy responsibility.

Even in his room, the work did not cease; many reports needed analysis, and he had been putting them off. He decided to sit in his favorite armchair and scan the numbers.

The graph shows the increase in the rate of non-compliance with the decrees issued to common citizens. Many deliberately ignored the orders and faced harsh punishments. Most were simple directives, such as what time they should sleep and what they should eat that day.

Even so, they disobeyed. If they did not comply with the simple things, how would they comply with the greater designs? For example, what they should study or work on, or even how they would respond to the determinations of whom they should marry?

Ivan knew what that was. Those acts of disobedience were a silent cry. Most were small acts, it is true, but the Mathematician could read them between the lines.

This increase in rebellion meant two things: a loss of faith in the designs and exactness of the numbers, or, even worse, the desire for freedom.

A collective cry for freedom.

But freedom for what? The Mathematician thought. He himself had once wanted to escape destiny, to escape the designs; he had wanted to be free to decide for himself what was best. For a time, he had fervently believed in this. He believed he knew what was best for himself, rather than strangers who had never seen him, never spoken to him, who didn't know him, yet coldly dictated his daily life by tracking numbers, spreadsheets, and patterns.

He experienced that freedom once.

And it was his greatest regret. A tragedy ensued, and he ended up losing the person he loved most in his life.

His own brother.

Ivan never forgave himself. Since that day, he had fought against freedom. People could not go through what he went through. He had to deprive them of error and regret. He needed to protect them from themselves.

Like children who need to be led by the hand, he felt like the father of all Mu.

And if he needed to be the villain, to receive everyone's hatred for depriving them of free will, then so be it.

The past cannot be changed, but the future ahead could be one of peace and prosperity.

Without mistakes, without regrets.

“I miss you so much, my brother. Oh, how I miss you,” the Mathematician lamented.