Most things in life merely require a partial understanding in order to be applicable. The knowledge of how an engine works is not required to drive a car. A complete account of the amalgamated societal factors is not necessary to sense our aggregated trajectory. There is an evolutionary case for this; the lifespan of a human being is finite, hence so is our capacity for comprehension. Our survival relies on our ability to act on incompleteness. But maths is one of the rare exceptions. To understand a mathematical theory, one must understand the individual components that comprise that theory. In order to understand the consequences of an isolated result, one requires the holistic context granted only by a subjugation of the theory. And when a mathematical insight is detached from its rightful context, it is a sin punishable by divinity. The naive engineer without an understanding of harmonics would find their metallic bridge wobbling like a rope before collapsing under him. The programmer ignorant of fluid dynamics would feel the crushing weight of manslaughter as their missile defence system narrowly misses a target. We can therefore conclude that mathematics exists in a divine realm not meant for human understanding. To study it is a profoundly unnatural endeavour that risks the wrath of gods. And there are few who lacked the self-restraint from repeatedly committing this transgression. From this treacherous, unholy heist we discover a pragmatism and beauty that entices us further from some natural order.
Was this strange research proposition the same? Was it enough to take the incomplete pieces of the puzzle at their face value and act on my best judgement, or would it be impossible to understand the repercussions of my role without grasping at the ghostly context? And what would the research itself ultimately amount to? While I admired the beauty of maths and its potential towards greatness, I couldn’t delude myself into ignoring that most of the discipline was motivated by the seductive pursuit of multiplying one’s money, or the destructive demands of warfare. I wasn’t a romantic. Mathematics would not save us. And so as I slaved away at the maths bestowed upon me by some mysterious power, I couldn’t help but wonder what this research would amount to—and whether I would be struck down by the gods for peeking into their papyrus.
If there was anything that I could be sure of, it was that the maths was really fucking hard. Each day, I woke up early with a determination that that particular day held the revelation in which I would understand the mathematical payload the Receiverist research group had dropped on me. The only times that compelled me to leave the confines of my unimpressive office were coffee, the washroom, and the occasional lecture. Every second I had in my office was spent on trying to decrypt the impregnable manuscript. Even lunches no longer sufficed as a persuasive reason to take a break. I’d bring barely tolerable snacks or—if my body could no longer endure—sandwiches to my office and occasionally nibbled as I slaved over the document. I was never a social butterfly to begin with, but this obsessive episode over these documents of unintelligibility had certainly turned me into an unapproachable hermit. An apparition haunting the maths faculty, the existence of which no one could be sure of. With certainty, I was the first to arrive and last to leave. My mathematical preoccupations didn’t end when I returned home. Every night, I would do the bare minimum level of chores before resuming my plunge into the sea of unforthcoming symbols. And each night would end in much the same way; defeated. My mind would feel mushy at around an hour past midnight, and I would consummate my inadequacy by collapsing onto my springy bed.
During the hours of my subconscious, my dreams took on a consistency I hadn’t experienced in years. They were feverish. Upsetting. Images of what I could only describe as total societal collapse. Hostile wastelands ravaged by the brutal reclamation of nature. Violence between peoples whose sides were indistinguishable. Scenes transitioned from one to another without logic, the way dreams often did. And in between the cracks I saw familiar faces. Ones I hadn’t seen in a lifetime.
If the impasse had lasted a couple of days, then that would have been acceptable. Mathematics was generally difficult even for a seasoned veteran. A slow start to understanding a new problem area was perfectly reasonable. Expected, even. If the stalemate with the documents persisted for a week, then yes, that would be rather frustrating. A barrier to entry for mathematics was in knowing how to learn new maths, and I, a supposed world-class practitioner, should already know all the shortcuts in producing the most efficient route to comprehension.
Except it had been over two weeks. Two weeks of being unable to make heads or tails of the hellish documents. It was beyond frustrating. I began to doubt my own credentials as a mathematician. There had never been an instance in my entire life where it took me more than a few days to understand a concept. Two bloody weeks was downright unacceptable. I had initially felt a relief that I had a project that might rescue my tenure from fissuring grounds, however dubious the project seemed. Now, my anxious worries returned, compounded by a full assault of crippling inadequacy.
My awful mood had also bled into my interactions with others. In one instance, I had been lecturing when a student asked a question.
“Dr Young,” the student called out after my abstracted gaze accidentally landed on his raised hand. “Can you give us examples of why the Cayley-Hamilton Theorem is useful?”
This was, in hindsight, a perfectly reasonable question. Applications of abstract results were often not obvious on first acquaintance, especially to those new to the discipline. But in my irritable state, I had interpreted the question in the least charitable lens possible. It sounded snarky to my ears, as if in between the words they had said in the most petulant tone imaginable, “Why are we wasting our time learning this useless result?”
“Of course I can,” I summarily responded in a forced nonchalant tone. Not that I would have minded if it betrayed my impatience. “But what would be the point of that? The result is stated as-is. If you understand it, then it only takes a pinch of creativity to see its value. If you don’t see it, then you probably won’t even need it anyway.”
The atmosphere in the class became tense and uncomfortable. I could see that the students were stunned by my answer. Understandably so. It was unusual, even for me. In the heavy silence, I regretted my response. But the damage had been done. I wasn’t sure how to undo the tangible shift in mood—it was as if the temperature in the lecture theatre had suddenly become frosty. Apologising or properly dignifying the initial question wasn’t an option; I didn’t want to appear capricious. The students and I had no choice but to trudge through the fallout. I received no questions in the following lecture. Nor the lecture after that. It occurred to me sometime later that I didn’t remember seeing that particular student since.
On another occasion, I had ventured out from my office to the staff lounge. To my chagrin, there were a few colleagues having a chat near the coffee machine. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t like my colleagues, but rather in my current mental state I had less than zero interest in idle chit chat.
“Excuse me,” I muttered as I approached the coffee machine.
“Oh Alex!” Peter exclaimed in his usual boisterous tone. “How are you doing? Haven’t seen you for a while.”
“Good,” I responded tersely as I set my mug and pressed a button. “Just cooped up in the office, is all.”
“Solving a good problem?” a fellow colleague asked with a smirk. She was a short woman who had been at the university for nearly a decade now.
“God, I sure hope so,” I responded nonchalantly. “Either that or I’m wasting precious time.”
“Ah, I know exactly what you mean,” Peter said with a sigh. “A lot’s riding on it, huh? I’ve been there.”
Perhaps it had been the way he said it, or the subject matter itself, but there was an insuppressible annoyance bubbling in my chest. I turned to him and looked him in the eye. “What do you mean?”
Peter must have sensed the change in my demeanour from being not really there to suddenly being very present. He took an awkward sip from his mug. “Oh you know. I heard about what happened to your grant application. I get it.” He shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Times are tough. We all gotta do a bit of crunching when we need to.”
“You don’t have to pretend to ‘get me’,” I said with barely contained intensity. I could see Peter’s lip quiver. “Times are shit. Sure. But I’m the one working fifteen-hour days with no weekends. Not you.”
The room went dead still. Peter’s jaw hung agape. In defiance of not having been the one to cause the awkwardness—it was Peter, surely—I strolled to the fridge and back to add milk. I didn’t even like milk in my coffee. Punctuating with a “good day,” I walked with my mug towards the door. That was when I realised Hope had seen the entire exchange as she stood at the doorway with a shocked look in her eyes. I nodded at her and muttered an “excuse me” as I walked passed.
I wasn’t sure why, but it only occurred to me I was being unpleasant after seeing the expression on Hope’s face. Entering the sanctity of my office, I finally decided that this couldn’t go on any longer. Not only was no real progress being made, but it was affecting me. Transforming me into someone I didn’t want to be. And so I resolved to make contact with the shadowy people who had set me up in the first place. In my office, I spent half an hour composing an email. It had gone through several revisions, but I wanted to ensure the message carried the greatest likelihood of receiving a response. The final iteration contained my struggles with the convoluted mess of a manuscript they sent me, my dissatisfaction with their lack of communication and my ultimatum that if I couldn’t meet them, then I would dismiss the research entirely.
After pressing “send”, there was a slight but unmistakable reprieve. Progress in the research now depended on them to respond, not on me to grapple with the seemingly impossible. Not that it meant I wouldn’t of course. But the thought was refreshing.
Truth be told, I wasn’t actually anticipating a response from them any time soon, if at all. Perhaps I had imagined that they would take a couple of weeks before dignifying me with a “no”. And so when not only had I received a response, but a call later that same day, I was flabbergasted.
“Hello?” My voice was breathless as the phone was held up to my face. I had just finished taking a shower in my apartment when I heard the muted tones through my bathroom door. It is a universal law that phone calls never come at a convenient time.
There was a pause. My thumb hovered over the red button when a voice came through the speaker. “Good evening, Dr Young. Can I call you Alex?”
It was a woman. Her voice was smooth but flat in a way that made her sound naturally indifferent. It lay somewhere the middle of the spectrum of women’s pitches I had encountered in my life.
“Sure. Who’s this?” I asked with a tone that conveyed my expectation of the caller being someone from the university or a conference.
“Irene Law. I work with the Receiverist Particle Physics Research Group.”
My thoughts grinded to a halt. Hearing that phrase uttered from the voice of another person invoked a surreal sensation, not unlike that of a magician reciting one’s social security number. The accent sounded uncommon. I couldn’t place it. The way she pronounced the second R in “Receiverist” was rhotic in the North American manner, yet her inflections sounded English or Australian. “Oh. Nice to meet you Irene. I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear from one of you.”
“Well today’s your lucky day,” she said with lukewarm amusement. “Would you be available to meet tomorrow?”
Now it appeared to be moving too fast. “Tomorrow? Yeah. Sure.”
“Say, 3pm at Smith’s Cafe?”
“Let me just check if I have a lecture on—”
“You don’t,” Irene said dispassionately, as if that wasn’t unsettling at all.
I hesitated. “You’re right. Okay. Can I ask a question right now?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“That’ll depend on the question.”
“How much of it is real? The maths. The Receiverist stuff. You.” This question was perhaps too on the nose, and if I had more tact I would have waited to ask this in person where Irene couldn’t change her mind about meeting me. But I was impatient. Bothered.
“All of it,” Irene responded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. I could imagine her shrugging as she said it. She ended the call on her end.
It was somewhat of a pointless exercise to ask the suspect whether they were lying or not. The few cases in which a deceiver would admit the deception without being cornered were astronomically sparse. But there was information gained. Irene had sounded convincing. Hence, it was either the case that she believed in the answer she gave, or she was an excellent liar.
Even a few hours ago, the idea of meeting someone associated with the Receiverist research group was inconceivable. This outcome was astonishing. Returning to my desk, I opened my laptop and began querying for “Irene Law” in the search engine. There were thousands of hits, ranging from social media accounts of various people sharing the same name, to encyclopaedia entries of semi-famous individuals I had never heard of. While I couldn’t rule out with complete certainty that these people weren’t the same woman I spoke with minutes ago, they didn’t quite fit the profile generated in my mind. A terse, enigmatic woman whose extent of knowledge about me seemed uncannily deeper than would be polite. Querying for her name along with the keyword “Receiverist” led to no results, which was expected. It appeared that the only thing I could be sure about was how little there was to be sure about. It was almost as if anything that the Receiverist touched would be infected by obscurity. Perhaps I too would eventually vanish. The thought was meant to be amusing, not unsettling.
Smith’s Cafe was not a particularly notable establishment. The coffee wasn’t spectacular. The menu items were consistently priced at least fifty percent higher than what they were worth. The interior was quaint, for better or worse. It lacked the hipster air that the vast majority of inner city cafes abided by. I had only visited the place once, but an impression had been burned into my frontal lobe. The texture of the walls. The shape of the tables. The material of the seats. They all reminded me of the cafes I had been to on the outskirts of London. But the bald, middle-aged man who had served me last year had spoken in pure and plain American. Perhaps the sole redeeming quality of the grounds was that it was situated near the university. Unfortunately, it was closer to the law faculty on the other end of the campus from mine, so the few students who were found in the cafe at any given moment were typically studying corporate law rather than the relationship between copula and probability laws.
Walking to the cafe had felt like the culmination of my day’s tiresome labour in waiting impatiently. By lunch time, I had berated myself for not having the foresight to negotiate an earlier meet up time that would have rescued me from spending my waking hours speculating about the meeting. Coffee was no longer a feasible distraction. The staff lounge was, for all intents and purposes, closed off to me like the Garden of Eden. This exile was self-imposed. Thinking back to my outburst the other day invoked shame and embarrassment. Of course, I still thought Peter was a loud conceited prick, regardless of how he liked to pretend to be just a good fellow. But the unnecessary escalation was admittedly my fault. I should have just let it go, no matter what perceived slight I had felt. Whenever my mind wandered back to the event, it was always the image of Hope’s expression that punctuated my misconduct. Being outside of my office for the first time that day had felt nothing short of leaving a scorching sauna.
As I approached the cafe, my eyes drew towards the couple of tables outside. Only one table had a single occupant. A woman. A dark floppy hat rested on top of brunette, shoulder-length hair that was tied back into a clean ponytail. She wore a long, sleeved navy dress that revealed hardly any of her medium skin. Perhaps it was that the dress was rougher than it appeared, but it was devoid of creases. A little too perfect. Her arms folded in front of her, with gloved hands resting on her arms. Despite wearing sunglasses, the subject of her gaze was obvious. Her expression could have been bored or dryly amused. It was pointless to look any further into the cafe.
“Miss Law?” I probed on approach.
“Irene, yes,” she answered in the same flat tone I had heard the previous night. She nodded lightly to the unoccupied chair. “Please. Take a seat.”
As I sat down, I tried to think of something to say. “So.”
Irene dignified my monosyllabic utterance with the quirk of an eyebrow.
“You’re with the Receiverist research group?”
She nodded. “That’s right. I help out from time to time.”
“So you’re a physicist?” I asked.
“Not at all,” Irene said as she lifted the teacup and took a sip.
“A mathematician, then?”
Irene chuckled. “Definitely not.”
I began to feel exasperation. “Sorry, but can you give straightforward answers? I really don’t want to be playing twenty questions all day here.”
“I told you. I just help out from time to time.”
Before I could retort, a waitress gently cleared her throat. “Have you thought of what you’d like yet?”
Irene gestured towards the waitress with an almost imperceptible head tilt, and without a thought my gaze followed. “A flat white, thanks.” The waitress assured that the beverage would arrive shortly, before returning to the cafe.
I leaned back into my mildly uncomfortable chair. “A helper, huh?”
“Yes,” Irene responded. I wondered if she took pleasure in being nebulous. “A very helpful one.”
“Okay. What is it that you help the research group with?”
“Being here, for one,” Irene said. “When the occasion arises, I help facilitate connections with researchers who may contribute to their projects.”
“Like me.”
“Like you,” Irene agreed.
“Frankly, I’m confused,” I said. “Why can’t I simply talk to the researchers myself? I mean, you haven’t exactly done the greatest job in communicating with me. No offence.”
“None taken,” Irene shrugged. “Communication is not easy for my associates. Simply put, they can’t communicate with you directly.”
“Why not?”
“The research they do is sensitive. There’s an incentive to only use channels like myself to communicate with outside collaborators. And they can’t communicate with you, but that’s beside the point,” Irene smirked. “And anyway, you say that I haven’t done the greatest job, yet you have the research. And I know you’re working on it. What more is there for me to do?”
“Well, for starters—” I started before the waitress returned with my flat white.
“Enjoy,” the waitress said with a practised smile before leaving us once again.
“For starters, the least you could do is tell me about the research. Just a little context,” I said. It took effort to avoid sounding whiny and I wasn’t sure I succeeded. “I’m going in blind here. I’m not even sure if I can read this stuff.”
“That’s not something I can help you with,” Irene said. There was a hint of annoyance teetering at the edges of her flat tone. “The only thing I can tell you is that the problem is around a particle model that captures some fundamental dynamics of some sort. But I’m not an academic.” She paused for a moment. “And I’m sure you don’t really need the context. I’m not a physicist, but neither are you. You’re a mathematician. And a good one, apparently. Everything you need to solve the problem is already there.”
I had two whole weeks of evidence that justified my dissatisfaction with her answer. I took a sip from my flat white, hoping that the stretching of the silence bothered her as much as it bothered me. It didn’t appear to. Irene was like a rock. Apparently sturdier than what I was made of. I sighed, and asked in a resigned voice, “Why are you even here?”
“Because you asked me to,” Irene shrugged. “It seemed like that was what you really wanted. To see me in the flesh. A face to put the research group to. Am I wrong?”
Her question was a challenge. An invitation to contradict her. “I suppose you’re right. Yes. But only partially,” I responded. “I was hoping you could offer some suggestions on the material, but you admitted you can’t. Then, can you at least tell me more about this Receiverist research group? I’m not convinced at all that they exist.”
Irene smiled knowingly as she sipped her tea. “You are many things, Alex. But what surprises me the most is that you’re a terrible liar.”
“Excuse me?” I tried to sound offended. I am offended, I thought with indignance.
“You’re already convinced that the research group exists. You’ve seen the maths. Difficult, sure, but I’m sure you see traces of something there. Something great. It’s why you’re here, instead of in your office scrambling to find something new to research.”
It was difficult to meet her gaze. “Why do you presume to know so much about me?”
“Call it instinct,” Irene said. “Comes with the profession.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her.
“I was told there was a grant involved. It was why I accepted the research in the first place. Can you prove it’s real?”
Irene smiled. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a manilla folder and handed it to me. I opened it. A single page sat inside. It was a formal request to include me as a recipient of the research grant from the National Science Foundation. There were no signs of forgery; I had received one previously for my involvement in a financial mathematics project. It was perfect down to every detail. Even the tacky border I hated.
“All that’s left is for you to sign it.” Irene passed me a heavy fountain pen.
“But I don’t even know who I’m signing this with,” I said. “Why is it that I can’t find any information about the research group anywhere? Not even anything about ‘Receiverist’ comes up.”
Irene sighed. She didn’t seem like someone who sighed as a habit. “Look,” she started wearily, “we just need someone to do the research. You’re promising, but I’m sure we can find someone else if we have to.”
Even before she finished her sentence, I could feel my heart pounding against my chest. There was a tangible, falling sensation—I couldn’t tell if something was falling away from me or I was falling away from it. “I’ll sign it,” I said, praying that I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt.
Irene smiled subtly. Almost condescendingly mild, as if making the statement that she could boast about her exploitation, but choosing—with the goodness of her heart and the self-restraint of a saint—not to. “Fantastic,” she said. “Maybe we’ll see each other around, Alex.”
There was a coyness undercutting the seemingly casual inflection in the pronunciation of my name. I didn’t know what it meant. Before I could collect myself, Irene had already stood and began walking away. She was tall. Perhaps even slightly taller than I. She walked with a definitiveness that could be graceful. Or military. As I watched Irene’s retreating back, my only thought was, What did I just sign away?
My walk back to my office was at a meandering pace. It felt not unlike a walk of shame, like some unrighteous punishment administered by a cruel village chieftain. I hadn’t gained any clues to unlocking the guarded secrets behind the mathematical symbols I had puzzled over for so many nights. Nor any information on the so-called Receiverist group. Irene was tangible. Corporeal. But she was a mystery within a mystery. The grant appeared to be real, and I had signed it, but it felt at best a condescending consolation prize, and at worst an irrevocable deal with the devil. It was as if for every step I took, time reverses and I find myself ever further from whatever truth I sought.
Sitting at my desk while struggling to parse the same permutations of symbols over and over, I had the strange sensation that my office no longer sufficed. It felt disappointing. Inappropriate. That this painfully mediocre room should bear the guilt of my inability to make meaningful progress—perhaps in more ways than one. But of course, it wasn’t its fault. If anything, I should be grateful that it provided a convenient shelter from my colleagues who surely anticipated my disappearance.
It was late into the evening when I had decided it was time to return to my apartment. As much as I’d rather have gone directly home, I had no choice but to purchase groceries. Lest I fill my empty stomach with the murky tap water—I would have reported it to the landlord if I hadn’t been so sure that he would insist it was my responsibility to fix it with money I couldn’t spare. My local convenience store was nearby, but in protest of their prices I always venture out much further to the supermarket. It was at an hour in which the baked goods were old and the vegetables were stale, but this was welcome; I could get functionally the same goods for a discounted price. Quality was a foreign concept to me. Only sufficiency mattered. As I reached the checkout, there was a short queue. The hanging television—perhaps an investment by management to justify against a wage increase—was more noise than entertainment as it was ignored by everyone. Almost everyone. Despite regions of severe flooding in the north, Rural farmers in the south have experienced their sixth consecutive quarter of drought, forcing some to sell their land to investors betting on increasing property prices in the long term.
It was near midnight at my desk when I suddenly realised something that took me away from the documents. Something that shook me to my core. Since meeting Irene that afternoon, there was an itch at the back of my mind I was barely cognizant of. It lingered. Like an amorphous shadow just outside of my recognition. And as it hit me, I felt a petrifying terror.
When I had first arrived at Miller university nearly a year and a half ago, the head of faculty—a white-haired man who moved and spoke at the same pace—had met me personally to introduce me to the institution. As we walked, he would alternate between asking about my research and lecturing on the historical prestige of the great university. After the half-hour it took for him to dazzle me with the fancier architecture, he finally led me to the building that I would be stationed in. The details were hazy, half-forgotten, but there was a single oddity that stood out in the moment, before vanishing from my mind in the next as our conversation continued. As we passed the cafe in the courtyard, there was a woman who was sitting at a table in a corner away from the others. She wore a navy dress that was oddly creaseless. Through her sunglasses, it was obvious who she was looking at. It was as if she had been waiting for me. Expecting me.