Dan Dan and the Land of Maths

The Firebird

Daniel is recovering as Bill rages and gyrates, pushing buttons and pulling levers on the Machine, hobbling around the illuminated floor.

'I worked day and night to open a rudimentary viewing portal to your world. As I gazed across the multiverse to your planet suspended in the darkness, I could hardly believe how backward the people on Earth were. How was it possible you had travelled from such a primitive civilisation?

Eventually, I realised I had not only travelled across the vastness of space but backwards in the fabric of time as well, trapped in a period before your Earth's industrial revolution. It was almost humorous watching the earthlings scratching around without automation.

But what could I do DanDan? How could I inflict pain on your world, it wasn't enough for me to witness their primitive attempts at invention, I wanted to create real damage.

What could I do, what...could...I...do?' he asked rhetorically tapping the fingertips of each hand on each other while gazing up at the ceiling to create a sense of dilemma.

I started to connect the dots, slot together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. It didn't take me long to deduce how this world was connected to yours, the source of numbers from the data lake was a big clue. I watched the Quantum Birds with interest, observing the data migration to the cloud. I followed the seasons and changes in the weather, eventually understanding the data cycle in this world mirrored the physics of your world. Yet there was something more mysterious than that taking place. I saw something more profound was hidden deep within the code that I could exploit.

'Eventually, it came to me. I could take the small, inconsequential numbers from the data lake and apply advanced mathematics to them. By bundling them together, I could make them look and act like semiprime numbers. Carefully evaporating them into the atmosphere, those hapless Quantum Birds willingly escorted them up to the cloud. Then after they were neatly inserted into the computational processes, they broke down into subprime numbers, manipulating the operation of the cloud. By intentionally corrupting the dynamic data here in this world, I could influence the course of events in your world.

I experimented, again and again, to understand what was possible. Iterating and refining my code, sifting the data, looking for patterns in my observations until eventually, I discovered how to achieve planet-wide destruction.

Using carefully crafted packets of data created in the Machine, I gradually stimulated a revolution on Earth. The invention of steam power, steel production and industrialisation on a massive scale. All powered by coal, yes that's right beautiful black coal.'

Bill has almost forgotten his walking stick as he wobbles around revelling in his achievement.

'... and what happens when you burn coal? Yes, that's right, pollution! Thick wafting choking smog, degraded air quality and carbon dioxide. Plumes of carbon emissions drifting up to the ionosphere surrounding your twinkly blue world.'

He's barely able to contain himself at this point in the performance.

'That's the genius of my plan you see DanDan. I could never amass enough power to destroy your world in a single event. But by using my glorious Machine, I could harness the power of your climate and turn it against you.'

'You're insane, you're a psychopath.' cries Daniel.

'My weapon of math destruction turns your climate into a weapon of mass destruction... elegant and straightforward even if I say so myself.

I was able to throw your environment into chaos by tipping the cloud here out of balance. Through a beautiful reflection of the symbiotic relationship between the two worlds, I created colossal pollution in Europe...acid rain on Africa...that was me! Hah!'