Episode 8: Discriminant Boy, Spike Boy and Hyperbolia All Display Their Bad Taste.

Several months after Spike Boy's defection, Discriminant Boy was still despondent. In fact, considering he was still tied up in a sewer, he really had no other way to be. He hadn't needed to eat, thank Mathematics, but there were times when being immortal was a pain in the butt.

On the other hand, Spike Boy was living the high life in Molong. Under the wise rule of Mandelbrot, The Wet Willie Glee Club had been having non-stop fun since the day they assumed their rule over the Pizza Hut gutter. Wet Willie had had more plastic surgery than Michael Jackson and Dolly Parton combined (although she was still waiting on the Intelligence Upgrade), The Vampire was drinking unlimited amounts of fresh blood acquired by the Orange Blood Bank (pity about that unfortunate seven car pile up...) and Win Tin Tin had a kennel at long last. Spike Boy himself could now spend large amounts of time indulging his taste for playing the kazoo in the bath.

It now looked as though nothing would ever change under this despotic rule of perversion and ignorance. Yes, well, of course it wouldn't normally, but this is fiction after all. Anyway, it came to pass that Hyperbolia came back, after a journey covering vast distances. She had, in fact, been to the City Centre and back.

Rumours had reached her from afar that something was up, but even so, she was disturbed to come back and find nothing at the Pizza Hut gutter except for a few graphical calculators and a large lemon tree. Something was wrong, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Something was missing...

Some hours later Sensai Garden Gnome happened along to the Pizza Hut gutter to find a distraught Hyperbolia being counselled by two nuns. He hurried over, wondering if they knew why Spike Boy and his lord and master hadn't been over to pay homage recently. He was just in time to hear the following conversation:

Sister Gradient: 'Dear one, whatever your troubles, confess them to the One True Number, and It will provide you with absolution and forgiveness.'

Hyperbolia: 'But I don't need absolution and forgiveness, I want...'

Mother Derivative: 'Of course you need absolution and forgiveness, look at what you're wearing!'

Hyperbolia: 'But where are my friends? Oh yeah, hang on. They're not my friends I swear, they're just some losers I know who live in a gutter.'

At this point the nuns backed away hastily from this corrupt specimen of humanity, bowed down in the gutter and recited the doctrine of their faith. 'We believe that the angle between a chord and tangent is equal to any angle in the alternate segment, we believe that a polynomial is a function of a variable with more than zero integer indices and real coefficients, we believe that an indefinite integral must have a constant on the end...'

Ignoring their muttering, Sensai Garden Gnome walked up to Hyperbolia and told her that if something really bad had happened to our zero, the traitor and the 70-ft Woman, it must have happened several months ago, so there was nothing she could bloody well do about it now. He then proceeded to give her more details than anyone had every wanted to know about every watering can in his collection.

And so it came to pass that Sensai Garden Gnome wasn't a lot of help, and when he left Hyperbolia was forced to curl up under the lemon tree and wonder why she missed Spike Boy's toothless grin all of a sudden.

Meanwhile, not all was well with our errant want-to-be zero. He was becoming tired of giving yet another piece of advice to The Girl From Molong about whether having twelve fake fingernails applied every day was a waste of time. As far as he was concerned, paying attention to your fingernails was never a waste. He himself had a full manicure and pedicure every day, as well as a body wax once a week.

Indeed, the high life was a bit boring over all. There's only so many times you can be told how wonderful and charming and intelligent and good looking you are before you feel something is wrong. Spike Boy hated being lied to, after all. He went and had a talk with The Complex Father and Mandelbrot, interrupting a chess game. (The Complex Father was so bad, incidentally, that he was playing against himself and still losing.) They advised him to make hay while the sun shone, that too many cooks spoil the broth, absence makes the heart grow fonder, a stitch in time saves nine, you'll regret it all when you're older, things were better in their youth, and don't worry, we'll keep our election promises. Spike Boy felt so enlightened he nearly popped.

And to make a long story short, he saw the error of his ways and stormed out of the Treehouse of Horrors, throwing Mandelbrot at The Complex Father's head as he left, and made his way back to the gutter outside Pizza Hut. He found Hyperbolia huddled under the tree.

'What in The Number's name is wrong with you?'

Hyperbolia looked up in relief and love. 'I missed you,' she said passionately with tears in her eyes. Spike Boy turned away in disgust. For several hours she looked at him in adoration and he ate some lemons that were lying on the ground, missing Discriminant Boy's contempt and abuse more and more with every word of praise that fell from Hyperbolia's lips.

Eventually he became so desperate to see his old master that he went off to the sewer to dig him out, with Hyperbolia in tow. After hours of work they dragged up a filthy zero and handed him a pile of Mathematical Waste generated by spending time in a sewer, instead of doing Maths assignments (as you do). Spike Boy's heart rose at the sight of the degraded, yet unbroken, zero. He in turn was overcome with lust by the sight of Hyperbolia looking her usual self. (He must have missed the fact that she was slobbering on Spike Boy's shoes.)

In fact, they were all so overcome they spent several hours wavering between declaring their base passions in the most degenerate language possible and discouraging their admirer. They offered presents, promises of fidelity and devotion, hugs, kisses, passionate kisses, really passionate kisses and... yes, well, where were we? Anyway, they were offering liberally.

Then Hyperbolia woke up to the fact that Spike Boy had Rose of the Valley nail polish on and was revolted. She preferred clear. Spike Boy woke up to the fact that Discriminant Boy was covered in sewerage. Thus is love, and they fell out of it. Even Discriminant Boy's overwhelming and long lasting passion for Hyperbolia took a blow when he saw she was wearing clothes.

And thus, they wandered back to the gutter near Pizza Hut looking most embarrassed. They were exhausted and wanted a rest. They forgot that The Wet Willie Glee Club controlled the area and had declared it a Maths Free Zone. They ran smack into the fence. Oh well, it looked like there had to be a couple more adventures(?) in the works.