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Chapter II: The Neutral Zone

Victor was genuinely surprised that he wasn't dead. He was, indeed, still alive, but he was not where he belonged. For instance, this was not dry land. He was bobbing around in something he couldn't describe; he floated in it like water, but it had the smoky wispiness of fire. Everywhere he looked, he saw the bland grey-tan of the calculator screen.

"What... what in the hell... HELLO!?" he yelled out into the emptiness. "SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT'S GOING--"

At that moment he saw some kind of fog clear, and in front of and behind him, he saw low parabola hills on the shore. "Oh, thank God," he said, paddling towards the one that was presently in front of him. As he got closer, he began to see a figure. Not the kind of figure you're thinking of, though.

A numerical figure.

"Okay, this is a load of crap," he said, stopping in the "water." "This cannot be happening. I am dreaming, no question. But that means I'm going to have to go through math class all over again..."

"Hey!" one of the numbers said. It was a negative one, calling out to him with something in its hand. "What are you doing... wait, what are you?"

"Uh, my name's Victor, and I need--"

"You're a vector? What magnitude? Wait, why am I asking that?"

"No! I said my name's--"

"Quiet, vector! What's your business here? Wait, you can't answer if you're quiet..."

"I need to go back to... to math class! Damn. I never thought I would say that."

"You're not speaking sense, vector! I'm tired of this." It raised its arm, and fired what it had been holding. In those few moments, Victor got a closer look at the object: it was like a spear, with a cross on the end. He didn't know what that meant, but he got out of the way. The weapon, Victor thought, presuming its purpose, sank into the deep.

"Oh. Crap. I have horrible aim. Dammit."

"What did you just try to do? Was that gonna kill me?"

"Partway, I hope. I should have multiplied you, that would've taken care of your ass."

"You know, I think I'm just gonna--"

"TROOPS! WE GOT A POZZI!" The number yelled this up toward the inland hills, and the land began to rumble. Victor didn't know for sure, but he put the pieces together, and decided it was time to run. Or swim. Whichever.

"No, no, no," he said, stroking his arms madly to try and make it to land. Soon, though, he was far out of the negative ones' range, and could slow down. On his way to the opposite shore, he had a similar encounter.

"Who are you?" asked a positive one.

"My name is Victor. Okay? VICTOR."

"Are you trying to say 'vector'?"

"NO! VICTOR! LIKE VICTORY!"

"'Vectory' is not a word."

"Ugh! FINE! MY NAME IS VECTOR!"

"Okay, Vector. You sure don't look like a vector. You're three dimensional, for example."

Victor finally reached shore, and reveled in being on Terra firma. "Where am I?" Victor asked sincerely, long abandoning the notion that this was a dream. "What was the other place, across the sea?"

"What's a sea? Do you mean Antiuni? Across the neutral zone?"

"Antiuni?"

"Yeah. And this is Uni."

Victor started to see it. A one. Uni. A negative one. Antiuni. The neutral zone. Zero.

"This is a number line."

"What?"

"You live on a number line. And these hills... they're parabolas! All of this is math! You live in a math world! I'm inside my STUPID FREAKING CALCULATOR!"

"I have no idea what all that meant. I mean, I understand 'math' and 'number line,' but the rest is nonsense. Are you one of those imaginary numbers? Huh? I'll kill you!"

"What!? No! No, I'm not an imaginary number. I'm not any kind of number. I'm a PERSON."

"You're talking crazy again. Why are you crazy?"

"Wha-- how would I know the answer to that question?"

"So you don't know why you're crazy?"

"I-- I'm not crazy! Can you help me get home?"

"Are you from Uni?"

"No! I'm from outside this world. Who can get me out of here?"

"Maybe I can take you Ahead. Maybe those Nines can help you. They have a lot of fancy stuff. First, we go through Uni."

The number pointed up an extremely steep parabola, towering over the rest, with a bustling town on top. That was probably where the rest of the Ones were.

Victor sighed. "Great. Why the hell not?"