Interrogation

What happens when you ask Numbers tough questions?

They say numbers do not lie. That itself is a lie.

Numbers are not always truthful. In fact, they are very often deceitful. Hiding meaning. Protecting the indefensible. Eliding the harm.
Just take this number right here before me. It says Twenty-Three.

That is a lie. It is Thirty.

Oh, certainly it may once have been a Twenty-Three, but this peeling, aged and mottled thing is not Twenty-Three anymore. In fact, I doubt that it ever was.

So, I interrogate it.

Shackled, held in the unbreakable grip of logic, I ask it questions.

"When did you begin to lie? Answer me!" I scrawl a long hand division into the pad before the leaning and fading number.
I do the division. I draw a line over the denominator. Thick and bold. The number sits above that line. A numerator perfectly rendered.

The number shows fear now. It scrabbles for voice. A fractal groan of wind noise emerges.

"Speak up!" I shout, sure that I have shaken the number. The division showed its terminus. It thought that it could not be factored. It was wrong. I demonstrate the disassembly of division again. I shove it closer.

It screams. A dribbling of sub primes and fractions. Ending in a crescendo of equality.

"Yes!" I slap my palm down atop my proof. "I have you! You see? You hid the five and you hid the six!"

The number quakes. It is revealed.

"And if I multiply these. Well then. There you are!" I lift the paper in triumph.

The number shrinks. It quails. Then vanishes into a never-ending sequence of zeroes.

I turn to the frosted glass wall behind me and raise a thumb to the observers.

Victory.

There was a knock on the glass. An acknowledgement. Then the door to the interrogation room opened. Myles walked in.
Tall, imposing. The silvered zero zero tattooed to his bald pate reflected the light from the bulbs inset to the ceiling.

He stepped forward and clapped me on the back.

"You have a real knack for this work." His voice was a basso rumble of colliding Alephs. "How many is that now?" He peered at me, eyes pinpricks of infinite regression.

I stammered slightly. "Three, sir."

"Are you sure? We do like to be forthright here you know." Myles squeezed my shoulder. A friendly gesture, slowly tightening into a restrictive clasp.

"Three. I'm certain sir." My mouth had gone dry. The grip on my shoulder a many-fingered vice.

"It was three tomorrow. Interrogator." Myles's fingers were digging furrows. "Perhaps we should discuss things." He pressed me down to a seat before the table.

Bare metal. Cold to the touch, my skin recoiled.

Inscribed into the tabletop, an elegant symbol. An equation. An integral of the error function. I hadn't noticed it before, and my mind began to shake.

"What? I am honest. I am truthful." I flailed for explanation. "But you are right! Tomorrow was three. This is five!" I shrieked that last as Myles's hand clasped my head like an eggshell.