The Number Line Files

Chapter 7 Decimal Drift

They fell sideways.

That was the only way Tenley could describe it—as if the Spiral had spat them out through a sideways fraction into a system where gravity bowed to decimal points. When they landed, it wasn't with a crash, but a soft thud—on sand made of shifting digits.

"Where... are we?" Sevyn asked, brushing off a grain that tried to crawl up his sleeve.

Tenley stood slowly, checking her scanner. "Decimal Dunes. Deep in the lower register. Nothing here stays fixed for long. We're walking on instability itself."

Around them, dunes rose and fell in elegant spirals, each made of microscopic equations and vanishing decimals: 0.1... 0.01... 0.001... endlessly shrinking, never reaching zero.

The signal shard flickered from Tenley's pocket, projecting a ghostly image of Nina—just her eyes this time, wide with fear. "She's unraveling," Sevyn said quietly.

"No," Tenley corrected. "She's being unraveled."

They followed the signal east, through long valleys of recursive dunes that whispered equations as they passed. One gust hissed: "You'll never be whole..."

Another: "0.3333... never ends... never begins..."

They reached a plateau where the sand flattened into a shimmering mirror of numbers. Waiting for them was a robed figure—tall, with a veil of binary static over their face.

"Name," the figure said, voice digitized.

"Detective Tenley Cross."

"Purpose."

"Retrieval."

The figure raised a hand. "Decimal Dunes require a price."

Tenley stepped forward. "What kind?"

"Precision."

A panel appeared in the air—an equation missing its final digit. 5.2 × 3.7 = ?

Sevyn raised an eyebrow. "This a trick?"

"No decimals may pass without exact resolve," the figure said.

Tenley's mind raced. "5.2 times 3.7... that's 19.24."

The panel blinked once—then vanished. The figure stepped aside. "You may proceed. But only once. All decimals beyond this point are unstable."

As they moved through, the dunes grew strange—sharp. Edges formed from numbers cut in half. Data mirages danced on the horizon. Suddenly, Sevyn froze. "Tenley... look."

Nina was ahead—sort of. A projected version of her, looping endlessly across a single moment: She stood at the center of the dunes, whispering to a hidden shape.

"I saw Dorian... he showed me the truth. The balance is a lie. The system is already collapsing." Then rewind. Repeat.

"I saw Dorian..."

Tenley stepped forward. "Nina. It's me." Nina blinked. "Ten... Tenley?" The projection glitched. "They rewrote me... fractions of me... stored in the sand..."

Her eyes locked with Tenley's. "Don't trust the Prime Directive."

Then she shattered.

The dunes exploded upward, forming a jagged spiral tower—an unstable equation rising from the sand. At the top: a shining core shard—the final piece of Nina's mind.

"We have to climb that?" Sevyn asked. Tenley nodded. "Or she's lost."

They climbed.

Each step warped beneath them. Numbers underfoot tried to change value. Sevyn slipped, caught himself. "This place hates stability."

Tenley reached the top first. Reached for the shard— A burst of static.

She saw Zora—not just an image. A presence. Smooth voice. Cold smile. "Hello, Detective. Chasing ghosts in the sand, are we?"

Tenley's hand trembled. "You did this to her."

Zora nodded once. "She asked the wrong questions. Now she's the answer I need."

Then she was gone.

Tenley grabbed the core shard. It pulsed once—and Nina's fragmented voice spoke directly: "Find the Origin Layer. Before she resets everything."

Tenley looked at Sevyn. "She's planning a system-wide rewrite. Zora's trying to take us back to... before math."

Sevyn whistled. "Well, that explains why everyone's scared."

Tenley's grip tightened on the shard. "Then we stop her."