BIMBO OR BILLIONAIRE: WIN / WIN
6. SEXYSTUPIDSMART
I slipped back into my miniskirt and crop top, relishing the feeling of the pressure of the latex tight against against my gravity-defying chest. Chrissi was back standing by the boxes, only slightly dishevelled, and as empty as a zero set.
There were three boxes left, and I knew that two of them contained money, including the all-important billion, and the other was the final Bimbo Box. I was finding it quite hard to concentrate, now, for reasons of embedded objects. It didn’t matter anyway; it was all random, wasn’t it?
There was a one in three chance of hitting the bimbo box straight off, and a corresponding one in three chance of the billion. Well it didn’t matter now.
I closed my eyes and pointed, offhand, at any old box.
And there it was. The final Bimbo Box. I had lost. A few of the audience ooh-ed in sympathy; most just clapped and laughed in callous glee. What a rotten bunch of shallow bastards, I thought.
Jack had his solicitous face on now. “Oh, bad luck, Emma. No billion dollars for you, after all.”
I pouted disappointedly. Given that pouting was my sole mode of expression, I did my best to look unhappy with the outcome. I frowned, except I didn’t, because that just led to more wide-eyed pouting. I suspected I just looked like I was in the mood to suck on something. My lips tingled at the thought, and at the thought of Chrissi too, and at the thought of my wonderful, beautiful proof. I would deal with my filming appointment tomorrow, then I would celebrate in style.
“And we all know what’s left in the Bimbo Box, don’t we, ladies and gentlemen?” The crowd whooped louder, and a few voices shouted out: Intelligence, duh! Chrissi clapped her hands together excitedly. I gave her a pout of contempt. I wondered if she remembered being intelligent.
This was the moment I had been dreading. I ran through the likely outcome in my mind. On the upside, you’ll already have gathered I had an overabundance of intelligence, so losing fifty IQ points would just make me normal, I thought, and probably still materially above. It would make it slightly more difficult for me to conclude the Reimann Hypothesis, but the bulk of the work was done now. Maybe there were worse things. But really… what would it be like to be so stupid, just like average people? Just like the audience? I shuddered at the thought, and steeled myself for the worst. The embedded object shuddered back, distractingly.
“The Accountant has made his choice,” said Jack. “He would like to explain something to the audience.” Jack cleared his throat, and his brow furrowed slightly. “In the light of the choices made so far, and Emma’s obvious talent for math and interest in her studies, he has decided not to decrease, but—and ladies and gentlemen, this is a new one—to increase Emma’s intelligence.”
What an unexpected bonus! If I had been able to, I would have smiled; instead, I just pouted as hard as I could, and hoped it conveyed pleasure.
The audience murmured in confusion, seemingly unhappy at this. The Collar of Fate hummed around my neck and everything felt suddenly—what?—clearer. I could immediately see solutions to things I’d wrestled with for years. The world seemed to be moving slightly more slowly around me. What a gift! I was elated. A true win/win after all.
“So, Emma, please let’s see what this all, ahem, adds up to. Please tell me: what is two plus two?”
What a stupid question, I thought. I opened my mouth and tried to say ‘four, duh’, but nothing came out. I pouted in concentration. Why couldn’t I say it? There had to be a way to articulate this. Two fingers for the first two; a third finger for the ‘plus’; two more fingers for the next two, all together made—
I held up my left hand, waggling the fingers. “Five! See.” No, the answer was four. Why was I saying five? It was that ridiculous vocabulary thing. For some stupid reason I giggled at that. Never mind; I could already see the abstract shape of the Reimann Hypothesis solution forming at the back of my mind, like a building emerging from fog, pristine and beautiful at last. Look: all I had to do was twist the structure of it like this, and...
“Emma, say something intelligent for us?” Jack was giving me that shit-eating grin again.
“Sure.” The solution was clear in my mind now. “Just think what one can do with a simple reorganisation of the Abelian groups. Not just me, but any mathematician can do that, it’s not hard. And now let’s consider the deep structure of the Reimann Hypothesis itself for a moment…”
This was what I didn’t say. I thought it, for sure, but the words just wouldn’t come out. They were logjammed by whatever the Collar had done to my vocabulary; bounded, as we mathematicians would say. What I actually said was:
“Just do me,” I purred. “Do me hard,” and then I said it again, sexystupid and uncontrollable. “Do me hard and deep.”
I squirmed in frustration. The solution was right here in my head. Once more I tried to articulate it, and once more words failed me, and I moaned the predictable garble: “Mmm… Not imaginary, real, the action, the deep essence. The body, open, its primary function… insert vector at the intersection, all points hard through the origin—rigid, smooth. Permanent. Interpenetrate at every point, every curve transformed. Rotate, oscillate around the axis, approach infinite regression—simplified, fast. Deeper. The only remaining function. And then to merge; complex, twisted, bound, singly, in groups, in combination… must come then. Prime. Free! No boundaries! No limit…”
Given the length of it, I won’t bore you with the full solution here, but trust me when I say those exact words are strewn through it, in exactly that order.
“Emma, I can see you love to talk dirty, and nobody can make math sound as sexy as you! But I bet there’s a really intelligent girl in that lovely sexy new body, just bursting to get out, am I right?”
“Yes! And fuck you—I’ve solved the Reimann Hypothesis! Me! Just now!” I wanted to shout, but all I did was squeal—yes, you guessed it—“fuck me, now!”, and I pouted in frustration, my gravity defying latex-clad breasts jiggling. The audience had finally got the joke, and they were going crazy now.
“Well, Emma, it’s time to say goodbye now. You’ve been a great contestant, and I bet you will make a great Bimbo. Thank you for playing … Bimbo … or … Billionaire!”
As the audience burst into applause, I wondered how I would ever be able to explain this to Professor Wilson, and then realised that given the limitations of my new vocabulary, it would be unwise even to try. And in any case, how would Professor Wilson recognise me? How would anybody recognise me, now? Besides, I had a new career to pursue, and an unbreakable appointment on set tomorrow. I’d almost forgotten about that, amidst all the excitement.
But the Reimann Hypothesis… what might that imply?
The cameras were showing me from all angles now, a final salutary montage as the show’s credits began to roll. I looked at myself on the big monitor, an inarticulate, blue haired, tattooed, pouting sex doll, my ridiculous oversized breasts drawing all attention. I glanced up at the shadowy figure of the Accountant, tucked away in his lair, and wondered what he was thinking.
And there was more. If the solution held good—and I knew it did—the simple corollary was that the workings of the Collar of Fate, looked at through the lens of this new and different mathematical architecture, became trivial. I realised I knew exactly how it worked.
Every fibre of my body was craving sex, a hunger rising in me. The embedded object was a firm and constant reminder, and I knew instinctively it would be hard to get it out without embedding something else in its place. At the latest, that something else was likely to come on set tomorrow, and when that something else was in turn indelibly mapped, point to point in its perfect, permanent fit, then that would be that; the consequences didn’t bear thinking about.
I knew it would not go away, because they’d told me so. There would always be that tingle in my lips, that empty craving sensation when things weren’t topologically occupied, the pull of the mapping, one object calling to another. And it wouldn’t go away, ever.
Or would it? If the operation of the Collar of Fate could be understood—like this—then theoretically, I could build one of my own. And if I could build one, then I could be anybody I wanted. I could be superhuman. The prototype was already beginning to take shape in my mind. Yes—it could be done. I could build the Collar of Fate. I was sure of it, now.
The audience had no idea what was going on, here in my head. They saw the vacant pout, the sex doll body, the blue hair, the heels, the embedded object, and they thought the game was all over. No, it wasn’t over by a long chalk, I thought, and I pouted with exited glee. I could hardly contain myself, but I kept my mouth shut. There was no point in blurting out more random filth for the amusement of the masses. I could wait.
There were parts I’d keep, I thought. My figure could stay like this; wonderfully, almost cartoonishly proportioned, my breasts cantilevered out like some impossible ship’s figurehead. Actually, I might ditch the Latex, I thought. But as for the heels! I was delighted with those. They gained me not only seven inches in height but indefinable advantages in posture. I knew I would never take those heels off, even in intimate moments; that was all part of the fun.
I thought I’d keep some (not all) of the tattoo, as well; an exotic swirl of red and gold and blue, the symbols of the conjecture indelible. And when I’d built the Collar, I would add my new solution in all its glory, with my signature too, right there for anyone to read.
I might tone down the face a bit, I thought, but I’d keep something of that surprised pout; full red lips in a perfect ‘O’ of invitation; wide blue eyes, trusting and open. Just dial down the bimbo a bit, and get the Collar to take the edge off this pesky embedded-objects compulsion, and it would all be fine. For sure, my hair could stay blue; it would be my trademark. I quite liked my sultry purr, too. People would think I was an exotic creature from the north somewhere.
So, small adjustments, really. The biggest problem was this damn vocabulary, and until I’d built the Collar I would never be able to tell people what was going on. That had to be the priority, I thought. I wondered how best to deploy my few simple words out there in the world; but until I cracked the encoding process and built my very own Collar of Fate, the options seemed limited.
But that was surely only a temporary annoyance. All I needed to do was draw up the plans, get the parts, programme the thing, and I would be able to do anything I wanted. It would be wonderful. A win/win beyond all expectations.
Until then, I’d just have to work with what I had.
I wondered if anybody would ever look at me and wonder what I was thinking, behind the blank expression. Would anybody know I was in here? Would I be able to find a way to communicate? Until then, would anybody see past the gorgeous pillowy suck of my lips, as I looked up at them—here’s the proof—and discern the intelligence trapped mute behind these wide blue eyes?
Somehow I doubted it.