Prologue
A Goodstein Sequence


There were many reasons behind Bill Hawks' presence on this precise day, at this precise hour, about to change History in what could be the most literal sense possible.

His gaze determined and veiled by nothing but his squared glasses, he had little care for his surroundings. The taste for theatrics was still quite far from him, so he gave not a single thought to the yellowing walls; to the scrawny furniture that was right at their breaking point; to the dilapidated plumbing forever waiting for funding that would never come; to the tall windows lined up at the back of the laboratory like electric poles waiting for lightning to strike. He had been standing in their presence for long hours, on every working day, and never had he particularly taken a liking to them.

No, truly, space hardly meant anything to him; only time mattered, as much as it was limited. His associate, the shy and dreamy Dimitri Allen, was on his last day of vacation, as he had preferred resting for one more day. Well, too bad for him and his lack of zeal; that will make more room on the Nobel Prize podium, he found himself thinking. He would already have to put up with the fact that his assistant would inevitably overshadow him: everybody remembers the renowned fool in that snowman costume and his legendary steps on the moon, but who will remember the one who sent him up there in the first place?

Ah, enough slander, he was being dishonest. After all, Dimitri Allen and Claire Foley were two perfect colleagues, both brilliant and passionate physicists, and even though he was their senior in both age and career, he owed a lot to them both. So many years of hard work, of dead ends, of discoveries, of false hopes, and, finally, of tangible results… Here was what all of this had been leading to.

Bill had little care for the place in which he was standing, little care for the university's administrative farandole, little care for this cramped office; but he had to admit that one thing in this room was still worth seeing. This immense clock and its golden hues—this is actually just brass, but don't pay too much attention to the brown traces in the corners, we all know how the budget works—was towering some sort of reddish cooker, itself surrounded by metal pipes of all widths and colors.

All throughout, he had been dearly attached to ensuring that their project, especially a prototype, would keep a design as plain and limited to the strictly functional as possible; yet, in this specific moment, while he was just about to run it for the very first time with an actual passenger on board… Part of him thanked Claire for her usual extravagance: because this clock, with its gigantic, uselessly well crafted hands, whose only purpose was to stand there for show and only remind everyone of what their research was about, was, in the end, he had to admit, quite magnificent and, most importantly, photogenic. It would be perfect for the headlines.

Before he could freely think about the media, however… an experiment was first to prove its worth. All in good time.

As he tried to collect himself, surprisingly, he found the need to subtly loosen the knot of his tie so he could catch his breath.

For the first, and perhaps the last time in his life, the short research director in a white coat could experience this ever so rare sense of nausea: the kind that comes neither from sickness nor from anticipation per se; but rather, the kind that falls from a sudden and poignant realisation. The kind that made him remember how crucial the next few moments would be. The kind that made him collapse from the sheer weight of the power he held in his hands. The kind that charmed him with the intoxicating knowledge that in this very moment, he was the one in control of not just his own destiny, but also that of so many others.

There were, once again, many reasons for him to be right there, right then.

Progress was one of them; the one he wished to keep upfront, and the only one he wished others to see.

Ambition was another; the one he constantly sought to justify as beneficial, as long as it remained the means to an end, rather than an end all by itself.

And then, greed… The one he pretended did not exist.