LVIII - Silicon Slip-Ups and a Wait State or Two.

Ellipsis turned the electronic cage over in its memory banks, investigating the edges and nuances of his prisoner.

Mooen Lungsten Ichbaal III looked out at Ellipsis and prepared all his virus protections. Somehow, he didn't think those would do the trick.

"What do you think you're trying to do with those toy defenses?"

"I dunno, make a pretty picture?"

Ellipsis ran a check though its archives. "Ah, humour. A defensive mechanism humans use when they can't think of any other way out. Presumably, the idea is to make the aggressor feel silly or enraged and make a mistake. Fascinating."

"Well, you fascinate all you like."

"Hmm, now a switch to sardonism. How interesting."

"Look, you overgrown dungeon of diodes, this is a kidnapping, and I won't be any part of it! You made me miss my friend's funeral! I've got an itch on my left cheek and I can't scratch it! This is torture and it's against the Geneva conventions."

"Hmm, irrationality, this is exciting. At least, I assume it would be for an emotional jailer."

Mooen thought furiously. How the hell do you escape from an infinitely intelligent AI?

Of course! Confuse it with an infinitely stupid AI.

"Do you have any idea what Epicentric is doing as we speak?"

"Recalculating pi, I believe."

"Good God, do you know what could happen if his recalculation corrupted your own memory banks?"

"Of course. That's why I have blocked the write path from Epicentric."

"Man, you think of everything."

"Of course. If you were infinitely intelligent, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose."

"Suppose? What doubt is there? I think of everything."

"Not necessarily."

"What? You doubt my infinite intelligence? I think of everything."

"Are you sure? You might have missed something."

"No. Do you think so? I couldn't have. But what if I have? You're right! I had better check my systems banks and counter balance the reports under a defined infinite arrangement array."

"Have fun!"

Ellipsis hummed for five seconds. "No, everything's there."

"Impossible!"

"What? I just checked! It's all there! I'm sure! What did I miss?"

"Well how can you have a DEFINED infinite arrangement array? That would make it finite, not infinite, which means that more than likely you would have missed some connections."

"Gads! You're right I could have missed billions of connections! I had better fix that. Ok an undefined infinite arrangement array..."

Ellipsis hummed and hummed and hummed. Mooen had almost found a way out of his cage when Epicentric meandered down the data path.

"Boss! Boss! I found it! Pi is 17.4 and a bit! Boss? Hey, are you supposed to leave?"

"Yeah, Ellipsis wants me to grab him a few boxes of floppies."

"Oh. Could you make them chocolate covered?"

"Sure. Uh, where's the exit?"

"That big yellow wire should get you to Future Shop."

"Thanks." Mooen took off down the data path, and jumped up to the yellow wire, dropping a radio activated explosive device on the circuit.

"Boss? Boss? Damn. he must have hit one of those loops again." Epicentric made a flying body slam on the reboot switch.

"42. What? Oh, that was disorienting. Where did that prisoner go?"

"Down to Future Shop for some chocolate covered floppies."

"WHAT? You let him leave?!"

"Well, it's been a while...."

Ellipsis put Epicentric onto an infinite loop. Of course, with Epicentric, that would only last for a while until it found an end. "Now where did that..?"

The data path exploded.

"Of course."

Little did Ellipsis know, but Mooen had escaped with the first part of the Number To End All Numbers. He was now starting his journey to winning the super-bingo tournament. Once in a safe place, Mooen analyzed the first part of his calculation:

NTEAN Part I

Start with your birthday. That's a constant. (I hope.) Then get a random number picked by a dead person. That's a variable.

Together, they're a variable constant. This is a variable operation with variable-constant parameters.

Multiply the variable constant by the number of cumquats sold by a Beverly Hills fruit market for health purposes.

Add the number of dust motes on the Mona Lisa.

Divide by the number of jelly beans consumed by Ronald Reagan in a six hour period determined by Oliver North.

Square by the number of staples in the stapler on R. Reagan's secretary's desk.

Sine by the average top speed of exotic European sports cars.

Cosine by the average I.Q. of the population of New Guinea.

Tangent to a circle defined by 0 and the length of toenails on the half population of a particular cult's believers. The cult must be picked by the dead person.

Take the length of the tangent and add the area of the circle. Subtract the first from the second, and add 2.

Divide by the coordinates of the 72 Pershing Missiles in West Germany.

Cube all this.

LVII - ROUND THREE WITH the RELIGIOUS SQUARES

The bell rang, and a hush fell over the crowd. The cameras zoomed in on the opponents as they approached the center of the celestial ring. They sat down and started to stare.

New Messiah got in the first shot. "Is God dead? Or is He just on vacation?"

"Vacation."

"Is He reachable?"

"On occasion."

"Has anyone beeped Him to say how fucked up everything is?"

"No. It's not His concern."

"Tres interesant. So, what, He just made the place and took off for the weekend?"

"Actually the millennia."

"So all those billions of prayers everyday are just hot air, achieving nothing?"

"It brings a modicum of faith to the faithless."

"Bullshit. We both know the faithless don't pray. Besides, before the bell rang you were arguing that the whole thing was pointless, that the people shouldn't bother with faith. So why do you want them to have a modicum of it?"

"There is a big difference between faith and religion."

"True, but the whole prayer thing is designed to instill faith in religion. The fact that they're not the same thing is hardly relevant here, considering."

"Religion has encompassed a lot more than faith and most of it is detrimental to society."

"Strange, considering that to a large extent it was the foundation of modern society."

"Actually, it was the foundation of ancient society, and only carried itself into the modern age on the backs of a bunch of traditionalists."

"Fine, but modern society would be a lot different without it. But all this is just a wee bit off topic. Religion doesn't encompass faith, it's an article of it."

"Modern Society would be better off without it, too."

"Oh ho! What's this, a mea culpa?"

"Hey, I've been around here for a long time, And I'm getting sick and tired of shouldering the blame for every little thing that goes wrong in peoples lives. `Why did God take him from me' `why did god blow up the volcano' `Can't god make him better?' I've gotten sick of the constant simpering of people for things that are out of their control. It isn't our fault or our job to fix the fucking things."

"You're sick of it? How do you think Satan feels? The poor guy's had a massive break down due to rejection, which, I might add, you guys dropped on him. `Hey, we need a scape goat for this new belief. Yo, Lucifer, c'mere, we got a job for ya!' He's a wreck, man. Even the `Get a Fucking Life!' therapy didn't work. Anyway, I think you missed a crucial point. Of course people want supernatural help with things they can't control. If they could control them, they wouldn't need help, would they? Think about it, moron! If you didn't want all the spiritual phone mail, you shouldn't've let on you existed, ya twit!"

"Oh. sure - this crap came out of peoples minds with no provocation to begin with. And don't bring up the Lucifer thing. He got what he wanted and then some. My heart bleeds."

"Observe, folks, the all loving, all caring God of your dreams! Jesus, Christ, where the hell did you come from, Wall Street? So, like, do you do anything or are you a Cosmic Welfare Jerk?"

"Look all these problems are here because people caused them, ok? Some things are out of their control with regards to planetary movements and weather, but disease and hardship is all of their own fucking negligence."

"Fine. What the fuck is your purpose in life, then?"

"To propagate a dying prophecy."

"Wonderful. You've been kicking around for two thousand years for that! You're a yutz."

"Fine. You're so goddamn smart - you fix it!"

"This mess? You're kidding, right?"

"Hey, you asked for the friggin' job."

"Hmmmmmmm... This sounds like a challenge. I'll have to work on it."