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"Damn it." It's never really been easy. It's rarely fun. But god, if you don't know where you stand with number, you don't know anything.

I call in with the men on the ground, "what do we see Winters?" He's an undergraduate, barely out of Calc I. I don't even know if he's seen an epsilon/delta proof yet.

"Seems contained to the Integers sir. Subsector Z. Section Q seems like it could go at any second but R seems stable."

If something was wrong with Z it would affect Q. Everybody knew that. Most people think Q is way bigger than Z. It isn't. it just feels like more is happening.

"Ok, Winters this is what you're going to do," I kept talking into my radio as I stood up. I was getting my jacket.

"Keep everything positive if you can. Once people start thinking negative they'll try to find the root cause. Then it gets complicated."

"Yes sir!"

"And close a ring around Z. It should be closed under addition and multiplication."

"Sir, if there's a riot what should we do?"

"Open it up to Q."

"Sir?"

The kid wouldn't understand. Not yet. But I had to let him know.

"If we can open this thing to Q we'll be able to keep it contained. You can set up a field, get more units."

"Sir?"

"We'll be able to divide the whole space. We can calm it down from there. Once that's done, then we can find the identity of the bastard whose behind all this."

"Who could it be sir?"

I chuckled, there were two choses. It didn't add up if 0 was behind this.

"One choice, Winters. One."

I have long wondered when my degree in maths would come in handy, and it's finally happened! This was fun, thanks for writing it

> "Open it up to Q." > "Sir?" > The kid wouldn't understand.

That has no right of hitting as hard as it does. Thanks for the laugh!

> “Once people start thinking negative they'll try to find the root cause. Then it gets complicated."

I see what you did there, and I love it.

This was written exclusively for math majors, some physicist, and a sect of dedicated computer scientists

In case anybody missed it or wasn’t familiar with the long-form pun…

>! Why was Six afraid of Seven? Because Seven Eight (“ate”) Nine. <!

Is this taking Brendan Lee Mulligan’s Game Changer speech as inspiration? Cuz it’s almost exactly what he said.

Nice story.

I'm too stupid to understand the jokes. But entertaining nonetheless!