“Madam Dimensional Overseer!”

Eh? Who said that?

The Dimensional Overseer, a violet-eyed blond woman who walked with bare feet, turned behind her to see who called for her. It was a black-haired man with green eyes, wearing a green and white lab coat, with a patch on his left lapel giving his name as ‘Hermes McDaniels.’ “Oh, hello there. Now, what seems to be the trouble?”

“It’s Elliot and Ricardo, boss lady,” Hermes said, shaking his head. “They’re at it again.”

What the… this is not good. “I’ll be over there right now, Hermes,” she said. “Thank you for this.” With that, she hurried over to the lab she needed to get to. Finally, after a minute of speed walking, she got to the door and was about to open the door when she heard the muffled voices of her direct subordinates.

“I’m telling you, we need to change the value in the x variable,” one man said, sounding rather exasperated. “Otherwise, what we’re doing will make us look completely insane.”

“You want to bet that it’ll make an iota of a difference?” a second man retorted, his voice gruff. “Frankly, this is going to be a right pain in the ass to deal with, no matter what way you look at it.”

Oh, great…

“Maybe you’re being blind to the truth, Ricardo,” the first man deadpanned to the second. “After all, there’s absolutely no way that this is within acceptable parameters, not when this variable has the value negative one!”

“Elliot, knock it off, will you?” Ricardo groaned. “Do you want me to get the Dimensional Overseer in here to clean up after you for messing with the values when they’re not an is—”

I need to step right in.

With that, the Dimensional Overseer opened the metal sliding doors, before she asked, “What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?”

“Boss,” Elliot, a scientist in white robes, sighed in relief. “Thank you for coming here. I think Ricardo’s in need of some remedial lessons here.”

“Elliot, if anyone needs remedial lessons, it’s you!” Ricardo, a scientist in black robes, growled out. “We were talking about the equation needed to solve the problem with the afterlives going away, and you think it’s a good idea to change the x variable for a different value when it literally can’t be a different value!” He shook his head. “Frankly, this is a hopeless mess to deal with, all because you can’t find it in you to stick with real—”

“Ricardo, enough,” the Dimensional Overseer snapped at Ricardo. Upon getting Ricardo to settle down, she continued, “I need to look at the values as written. If you don’t mind…?”

“Not at all, no,” Elliot answered, taking her over to the whiteboard, where they wrote the formula and values in question. “See what we had x equal in all of this?”

The Dimensional Overseer nodded. “I need more context, Elliot. How long has this value been negative 1 for?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Ever since the beginning of this experiment, boss,” Elliot pointed at the time and date next to the x value. “We have to change this value to a higher number than it is now, boss.”

“Why are you two ignoring reality regarding this?” Ricardo stepped over to the two of them, his footsteps echoing along the ground. “That was actually the first variable we changed. Someone forgot to mark the date as changed on that formula board.” He gave a pointed glare at Elliot. “Frankly, this is your fault, no two ways about it.”

Before Elliot could argue the statement, the Dimensional Overseer looked at the time value next to the variable and pressed a button next to the value, showing a time and date that was relative to one particular universe or another. Indeed, it was a rather long time ago when the number found itself changed… but it got changed, regardless. “Ah, that makes sense,” she nodded, before giving a sidelong glance at Elliot. “Elliot, next time, please remember to adjust the time value after changing a variable.”

“But, boss, I—”

“P-L-E-A-S-E R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R.”

Elliot drooped his head. “Yes, boss,” he groaned in defeat.

“Good, good,” the Dimensional Overseer nodded. “Now, how about we look at the reason for the value and flip it to a positive number?”

Ricardo, just as he was about to gloat, snapped his head in the Dimensional Overseer’s direction. “You’re joking, right, ma’am?”

What did I do in my previous assignment to get stuck with this level of stupidity? The Dimensional Overseer shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t joke about this,” she said. “Now, how to best handle this little mess…”

Elliot and Ricardo both looked at the data on the board before Elliot saw something that caused him to facepalm. “I can’t believe that this variable is widespread as an exponent the whole way through…” he groaned. “I mean, it’s everywhere in the formula!”

Indeed, the formula looked an awful lot like they threw together it in a way that was haphazard and messy, with no care for the result of the formula being a success. It sure had a lot of issues being kept straight by them…

“That was intentional, remember, Elliot?” the Dimensional Overseer asked her subordinate. “I don’t have to remind you of why that is the case, do I?”

Well… except for the Dimensional Overseer.

“I don’t remember why we did it that way,” Ricardo said. “Care to explain, boss?”

The Dimensional Overseer turned to face Ricardo and said, “Simply put, it’s keeping the enemy from finding out about our plans to preserve the afterlives and save the universes attached to them.”

“That’s a good point, yes,” Ricardo nodded before he walked over to the nearest computer monitor. “Now, how are we supposed to maintain a sense of understanding what happens within these simulations before we move on to the real thing?” He booted up the attached computer as he said that.

“Well, simply put,” the Dimensional Overseer put a hand to her chin, “it would have to be with the computers running, even if we can’t run them all indefinitely. That would be a reckless use of energy… and we don’t have that much energy to use for it.”

“You have a point, boss,” Elliot picked up an eraser from the formula board as he said that. “Should I change the x value for you now, boss?”

“No, not yet…” the Dimensional Overseer put a hand to her chin. “Actually, scratch that. Change the value of the x variable to positive 3 for this simulation run, then up it by 1 for the real deal, both of you.”

“You got it, boss lady,” Elliot and Ricardo saluted her before they began adjusting and inputting the formula one more time for a simulation run.

“Also, monitor the energy consumption in the simulation,” the Dimensional Overseer added. “Here, the more energy consumed in the simulation, the less we’ll have left for the main experiment.”

Elliot and Ricardo nodded at the same time before they continued their job, making sure everything was ready. They had to get it right, because who else would? This job was rather thankless for saving all of reality from being devoid of any afterlives.

They could only hope that their actions didn’t cause a massive upheaval in the time-space continuum. That was the last thing that anyone needed here.