“Wishes in a bottle?”
37 doesn’t know how the subject came up. Maybe it’s because they’re by the sea. A sea in the Wilderness, but a sea nonetheless.
But Vertin is nodding, rolling the small bottle between her fingers. It’s a motion 37 has seen X do with his gears back in Laplace, usually when he’s bored or in deep thought. She briefly wonders if it’s some sort of commonality shared by integers living in the phenomenal world. Maybe fiddling with items is another one of their alternatives to taking walks by the beach, just like eating perfectly structured chocolate ice cream. Well, before the shop closed that is.
But she needs more proof to support her hypothesis. Only two won’t do. So she stores the thought for later, mentally sorting it to the right priority.
After all, she’s not on the island anymore. There’s no assistant to sort her ideas and guide her back to the path of importance when she strays too far. Like how there’s no one to tell her to take breaks and no one to clean up her mess when she gets too into her research. She needs to be able to do these things by herself, the outlines of the next square and the one after that only appearing after each task is done.
It’s a long way ahead, she knows. But the path to the Truth is never short, and it just so happened that the path she ultimately chose is the longest one of them all.
And maybe, just maybe, the reward that would be waiting for her on the other side is more than just the Truth. A question. A praise. A person. Apologies and confessions. I’m sorry, I took too long. I kept you waiting. But here’s my answer.
Can you be my Corrector again?
“Does Apeiron have a tradition similar to this?”
37 blinks, broken away from her rapidly spiraling thoughts. There it is again, another thing to correct for later. Another thing to try and make sense of.
But that’s not the pressing matter right now, no. Vertin had stopped rolling the bottle and asked another question, having not noticed her lapse in attention. Or maybe she did, but didn’t mind at all. It’s hard to tell with Vertin— 0 is still as enigmatic a number as when she first learned of it.
But questions, yes. The more pressing matter. Vertin is asking something. A tradition in Apeiron similar to putting wishes on a piece of paper and slipping it in a bottle.
A scroll with a number. A right triangle doodled in the corner. A bottle that makes a splash as it breaks the surface of an ocean mirroring the starry night sky.
“Oh! Answers in a bottle!”
Vertin tilts her head, a motion almost imperceptible if not for the way her hat follows the slight movement, offset from its usual position by a centimeter. A silent notion to go on.
“It’s something I learned from Sophia.” 37 eagerly elaborates, drawing the shape of a bottle in the sand with her fingers. “It’s not an Apeiron tradition, but it’s something we used to do.”
She doodles a rolled-up paper inside the shape. Then a small cylinder on top to act as a lid. “If there’s an answer we’re both searching for, the one who figures it out first will put the answer in a bottle to give to the other. And then they’ll open it to reveal the answer once they’re ready.”
37 can’t remember when they stopped doing that. When did Sophia stop asking questions?
“Why?”
37 blinks at the follow-up question. Why? It was Sophia’s idea. What did she say back then?
“I think it’s better to find our own answers, 37. I’m still learning about the school and the scriptures and I may not be as close to this Truth as you are but…”
I think I want to try.
“Maybe it’s an irrational number’s perspective.”
Vertin’s silence prompts her to continue. “Just like Regulus who denied the form of the Truth in the cave,” She carves out a line in the sand. Then another. One. Two.
Opinion.
“Irrational numbers want to reach the Truth in their own ways. It’s a peculiar observation.” 37 smiles. “But fascinating all the same. It’s another step to uncovering the secrets within irrational numbers.”
“... I see.” Vertin nods, her hat bobbing with the movement as she rolls the bottle between her fingers again. Once. Twice. “Then perhaps the opposite can work as well.”
37 blinks at the odd statement, and her confusion must’ve shown in her face because Vertin is taking out stationary and a slightly bigger bottle from the pockets of her coat and laying it on the sand in front of them. The stationary is familiar, it’s the same ones in Medicine Pocket’s lab.
“I heard you’ve handed over your reply to 6’s letter.” She starts, straightening the objects in the sand.
“Yes.” 37 nods, still confused but clearly interested. “Has he written back already? That was fast. He’s always been the best at solving problems out of all of us but I didn’t think he would come up with answers this quick.”
“No.” Vertin shakes her head, a small apologetic look crossing her features. “He’s not done with his reply. Regulus and Sonetto are still at the island, waiting.”
“Oh! He’s taking it seriously then. That’s good!” 37 claps in excitement.
Vertin hums noncommittally. Then she goes silent for a moment before speaking once more. “There’s a popular practice here.”
37 watches as she thumbs the cork of the bottle in her hand. “People write things on paper and slip them in a bottle before letting them drift in the ocean.”
“How peculiar!” 37 tilts her head, a thousand questions already running in her head, but she settles for the most important one first.
“Why?”
It echoes Vertin’s question earlier, but unlike her momentary silence as she searched for the answer in her memories, Vertin’s answer comes quicker. Genuine but seemingly practiced at the same time.
“It’s meant to reach a supposedly unreachable destination.” She turns to look at the horizon.
“They say if you’re lucky, the ocean will send it to where it needs to go.”
37 blinks. Thinks.
Ah.
And all at once, the pieces click and the enigmatic 0 becomes clearer in her eyes. 37 understands it all, the intent, the objects in front of her, the words exchanged between them.
It makes her smile, something bittersweet and warm at the same time.
How fascinating. This reminds her of Sophia too.
“... It can be anything, right?”
“Yes.”
And like a dam being opened, the words fill the page to the rhythm of the waves lapping the shore. Vertin stays quiet, her eyes fixed at the horizon.
It’s a series of questions. Apologies. Confessions. How have you been? I’ve been settling fine here. So many things remind me of everyone. I’m sorry, I’m still looking for the Truth.
Will you wait for me at the end?
Signed with a triangle. A square doodled in the corner. Then a pebble tied to the bottle’s neck.
Then sent adrift to the sea, a miracle waiting for the ocean to send it where it needs to go.
And 37 is aware of probabilities. Of all things related to mathematics and reason and Truth.
But her faith and now clear mind tether her to the ground, the next square’s outline now clear in her eyes.
“Thank you, Vertin.”
“You’re welcome, 37.”