Null Sum Proposal Offset 2

Link to article: Null Sum Proposal Offset 2.

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Overseer Thirteen lowered his knife from the toilet stall door, inspecting the words carved into it:

> = {{SHAL SIEVE C}}
> = {{O5 NOW – ??}}

A plethora of items were ritualistically spread out on the tiled floor in front of him, all taken from the pockets of his iconic black trench coat. He leaned down for his watch – a custom-made Citizen Chronomaster, old and worn along its edges – pressed a button to start its five-minute timer, then sat upright and stared blankly ahead.

He waited. He waited as he always did, and always was – never patient, despising all delays, but long, long ago forced to accept that they were inevitable.

The watch beeped. It was time.

Thirteen picked it up and fastened it to his wrist, then returned the scattered items to their respective pockets – sans the knife, which he first used to destroy the engraved message, depositing the dislodged chunks of wood into the toilet. He flushed; he left.

Site-01 was unique among the Foundation’s expansive repertoire of facilities, and not just because of the legendary importance bestowed by its title. It wasn’t the oldest facility in use – several other sites outdated it under different names, not least of which was Site-19 – but it //was// the oldest of them to retain its original aesthetics and stonework. The others had been progressively converted into the Foundation’s standard brutalist style, but the additions to Site-01 fitted its original affluent, neoclassical architecture – in short, Site-01 was one of the few facilities that still felt like it was supposed to have people in it.

Thirteen emerged from the latrines into a long, crimson-carpeted hall, flanked by Corinthian columns along its entire length. Between each was an oak doorway, a dazzling floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window, or an enormous oil portrait of someone important to the Foundation – Thirteen ignored all of these. He only paid attention to a specific pair of doors half-way along, and the card reader beside them; he stopped there, pulled out his ID – heavily eroded, black and misshapen along its plastic edges, the text and picture barely legible – and swiped it.

A red light blinked on the scanner. He tried again; the same result. The third time, the reader didn’t respond at all. He knocked on the doors, and after a few moments they opened enough for an identity-concealing tactical mask to peer out at him.

‘The reader isn’t working,’ Thirteen said, giving his ID to the MTF Gamma-1 agent.

The doors closed. Two minutes later they opened for Thirteen to pass through; the agent – one of fifteen, littered strategically throughout – returned the card and resumed their position. At the centre of the room was a full-body x-ray scanner with a baggage scanner beside, each manned by an agent; a third sat at a computer in the corner, while the other twelve stood to attention along the room’s perimeter, an assault rifle against their chests. Other than the second pair of double-doors opposite the first, the room was featureless and bland.

Thirteen dropped his knife and handgun into the baggage scanner, then added his trench coat and pushed them through; the knife and handgun were put in a drawer as he stepped through the x-ray machine. He donned his trench coat again and proceeded to the next room.

The Overseer’s conference room, like the one preceding it, lacked the opulent style found throughout the rest of Site-01. A single, colossal screen took up the entire furthest wall; between the two was a large oval table with thirteen seats around it.

Twelve were occupied, grouped together on one side. The other sat alone opposite them.

‘I was told this meeting would begin at three o’clock,’ Thirteen said.

‘Yes, you were,’ Six said, grinning.

‘With your arrival the Overseer Council is now in full attendance,’ One, the Passive, said. ‘This meeting can now proceed.’

‘What’s the reason for this?’

‘Overseer Six has indicated they are concerned the Foundation is being manipulated by Ulysses, and has motioned to compel you to disclose the identity of Ulysses.’

‘There is no reason to doubt Ulysses’ loyalty. They reported the Zeroists’ existence, which we independently confirmed, and the comprehensive information they provided in their report has proven accurate.’

Eleven, the Loyal, thrust a paper document across the table to Thirteen; a large paragraph on the open page was highlighted in yellow.

‘They said they recovered Null Sum from the Zeroists,’ Seven said, adjusting her suit. ‘Finances and Statistics went over everything – the AI’s findings, surveillance, our interrogations, after-action reports, everything. There’s no evidence the Zeroists knew about Null Sum.’

‘Which means there’s no evidence Null Sum exists at all,’ Four said. ‘We’ve either missed a very large and very important part of the cult that we need to deal with quickly, or Ulysses is lying to us, and we need to find out why.’

Thirteen idly flicked through the report. ‘I didn’t receive this.’

‘You were not sent a copy,’ Two said.

‘I will need one. Digital.’

‘Thirteen,’ Seven interrupted, ‘we need to know.’

‘Then I will contact them --’

‘No,’ Six said. ‘No, you won’t. //I// will.’

‘A preliminary vote was conducted in your absence,’ Two said. ‘You were assumed to have voted against the motion. The remainder of the Overseer Council voted unanimously in favour of compelling you to disclose Ulysses’ identity.’

Thirteen looked up. ‘I was not given an opportunity to argue my case.’

‘Your previous arguments were considered. Do you have any further comments?’

A moment’s silence.

‘It’s possible the only Zeroists who knew about Null Sum were reality manipulators, all of whom are now dead,’ Thirteen said.

‘Victor-John searched everything,’ Five said. ‘There were no traces of anything on their devices.’

‘They may have erased the evidence, or it was erased with them.’

‘And to find that out, we have to ask Ulysses,’ Six said. ‘You can’t worm your way out of this one.’

Another moment’s silence. Thirteen’s frown morphed into an irritated scowl; he closed the report.

He couldn’t salvage this.

‘Anything else?’ Six said, grinning.

‘No.’

‘Then we shall proceed to the vote,’ One said. ‘All in favour of compelling Overseer Thirteen to disclose the identity of Ulysses?’

Twelve hands went up, almost simultaneously.

‘Those against?’

None. Thirteen didn’t bother.

‘Overseer Thirteen abstains. The motion passes. Overseer Thirteen, you must comply.’

‘If I don’t?’

Six stood up, proudly straightening the lapels of his grey suit. ‘Then you’re off the Council and I get to pry it out of you by any means necessary. Pre-approved by the Ethics Committee.’

Thirteen looked to Overseer Eight. ‘Is this true?’

Eight nodded.

The man in the thirteenth chair stood up. He surveyed the Overseers, the representatives of the Foundation’s largest departments; One was the outlier, standing in for the relatively-miniscule High Command. He was uninvolved with the majority of the organisation’s affairs, abstaining from countless votes and essentially being a simple organiser, peacekeeper, and enforcer for the Council’s proceedings and decisions – passive, hence his moniker.

But even //he// had chosen to side against the thirteenth.

The man’s expression changed to complete indifference.

‘… very well. It will be easier to explain once I have the files.’

He picked up the paper report and stood. The double-doors swung open, and four Gamma-1 agents stepped in.

‘They can get them for you,’ Six said.

He shook his head. ‘They can’t access them without me in person. Fingerprints and biometrics.’

‘Fine. But they go with you.’

‘Seriously, Six?’ Twelve scoffed. ‘Where do you think he’s going to go --’

The man in the trench coat heard nothing further. The oak doors swung closed behind him as he left, the conversation cut off; he was alone with the Gamma-1 agents, the four of which followed him out into the carpeted hall. They didn’t travel far.

‘I need to use the restroom,’ the man said.

Two agents took up positions outside; the other two followed him in, checking the room was empty. The man went straight to the third stall, closing and locking the door behind him – revealing its scarred inner surface, vandalised mere minutes earlier.

He closed the toilet, sat down, then stared at his watch.

The clock’s hands vanished with the damage to the door. The date on the built-in calendar morphed into a blur, but the months changed slowly enough to make out each in turn.

December; November; October; September.

With every second – relative to the man – months were flying by. //Backwards.//

July: for a fleeting instant, the door was scarred again and a plethora of items appeared on the floor around – but they vanished just as quickly.

February: a trio of short, fat hands – hour hands – appeared on the watch, all equidistant and slowly rotating counter-clockwise.

December again: the illusion broke, the hour hand darting about wildly; the minute hand reappeared as a faint blur.

November: the changing date was slowing down. The minute hand darted about, vaguely following the direction of the spinning hour hand.

October 18th: the seconds hand reappeared with an illusory opposite. The hour hand was slow enough to follow; the minute hand seemed to complete a revolution roughly every second. All three continued to decelerate.

October 16th, 11 PM: the man looked up. The door was damaged again.

Midday. 

A collection of items appeared on the floor.

The clock’s hands froze, then resumed their clockwise turning at a normal pace.

There was legible, engraved text on the stall door:

> = {{ULYSSES 001}}
> = {{TO SEND REPORT}}

Ulysses reached down, taking the handgun and knife – the same as those he’d left in the future, but several months newer. He took the ID card too, rightfully identifying him as Overseer Thirteen, and deposited its older, non-functional duplicate in the toilet, followed by the wood he removed to destroy the engraved text. He flushed.

Overseer Thirteen exited the empty latrines.

If he turned left, he could set history back on the same path. He could write the preliminary report on the Zeroists, attributing the report to one alias and presenting it to the Council as another; the prospect of the anomaly, Null Sum, would force them to act, and from there everything would play out as it had again.

He turned right.

Ulysses/Thirteen had no need to set that chain of events in motion again. He only needed a solution to the problem of the Zeroists; the future had already provided something far more useful. He folded the paper report in his hand, adding it to a pocket which held an external hard drive – together, the two items contained the entirety of the Foundation’s work from the now-averted future, everything the Foundation would discover about the Zeroists, all the tools they would create to combat them, all the methods devised to control them.

Methods and tools Ulysses/Thirteen could use himself to control the group, steer them away from interrupting his plans as they often did, manipulate them into erasing his other obstructions – events, entities, rivals – without them ever knowing they were being used, how, or by who. With no future to trace them back to, the events that incited them unachievable without Ulysses’ guiding input, nobody else could know they existed either.

An impossible arsenal with no origins, used to direct an invisible force which leaves no evidence. The perfect weapon.