Chapter 23: The Mirror of Perfection
The problem with the word "And" was that it was an additive force. In a universe governed by the "Infinite Addendum," saying "And" at the heart of the Mainspring was like hitting 'copy-paste' on reality itself.
The shift happened at 0800 Cycles. Ne Job arrived at his office to find his door already open. Inside, the air didn't smell like silver ink or catnip. It smelled like... lemon-scented furniture polish and high-yield productivity.
Sitting at the mahogany desk was a man who looked exactly like Ne Job, save for one terrifying detail: his hat was perfectly straight.
"Ah, you're 0.4 seconds late," the other Ne Job said, looking up from a holographic tablet. His uniform was crisp, his gold braid was untangled, and he didn't have a single speck of 7.5% neon confetti on his person. "I've already processed the morning's irregular trajectories and filed them under 'Resolved.' I also took the liberty of organizing your paper-weights by density."
The Anti-Ne Job
Ne Job stood in the doorway, clutching his silver stapler like a holy relic. "Who are you? And why is my desk... shiny?"
"I am Ne Job-Prime," the double replied with a pleasant, professional smile that sent a shiver down Ne Job's spine. "I am the result of the 'And'—the version of you from the Parallel Bureau of Absolute Alignment. In my reality, we didn't introduce chaos. We optimized it into extinction."
The Muse poked her head into the room, then recoiled. "Ugh! Why does it smell like a hospital in here? And why is there a man with a scary, symmetrical face sitting in Ne Job's chair?"
"He's me," Ne Job muttered. "But... wrong."
"Nonsense," Ne Job-Prime said, standing up. He moved with a terrifying, fluid efficiency. "I am the 100% version. I've heard about your '7.5% solution.' It's messy. It's sentimental. I've come to help you merge our Bureaus. We'll start by deleting the Feline Dimension—it's a logistical nightmare—and then we'll put the Forbidden Protagonists into a strictly managed spreadsheet."
The War of the Ledgers
"You can't delete the cats!" The Muse cried, throwing a handful of glitter at Ne Job-Prime.
The glitter didn't stick. Ne Job-Prime pulled out a handheld vacuum-seal device and sucked the sparkles out of the air before they could land. "Littering is a Tier-4 violation, Muse. Please report to the Department of Joyless Compliance for re-education."
Ne Job stepped forward. "You don't understand. The chaos is what keeps the Great Eraser away. If you make everything perfect, you're just doing his work for him!"
"The Great Eraser is merely a symptom of poor filing," Ne Job-Prime countered. "In my Bureau, the Eraser is our Head of Janitorial Services. We don't fear the void; we use it to dispose of unnecessary subplots."
He held up a silver stapler of his own. It was sleeker, made of brushed titanium, and featured a built-in laser-alignment tool. "I am here to integrate your irregular reality into my perfect one. Resistance is... inefficient."
The 7.5% Defense
Ne Job realized he couldn't out-organize his double. Ne Job-Prime was faster, cleaner, and probably knew the entire tax code of the 4th Dimension by heart. To win, Ne Job had to do the one thing his perfect self would never expect.
He had to be a complete disaster.
"Architect! Princess! Yue!" Ne Job shouted into his intercom. "Initiate Protocol: 'Monday Morning Panic'!"
A moment later, the office was flooded. Not with water, but with life.
The Storm-Hair Woman burst in, looking for a misplaced sock. The Map-Coat Man followed, demanding an emergency meeting about the tectonic plates of the breakroom. Three kittens from the Feline Realm tumbled out of a pneumatic tube, chasing a ball of "Tangled Logic" that began to spark wildly.
"This is... unacceptable!" Ne Job-Prime stammered, his perfect hat finally beginning to tilt as a kitten climbed his leg. "There is no flow-chart for this! Where is the agenda?"
"There is no agenda!" Ne Job yelled, grabbing a bucket of neon-blue paint and splashing it across the lemon-polished desk. "There's only the 'And'! And the mess! And the noise!"
The Symmetrical Collapse
The Muse joined in, playing a kazoo at a frequency that was mathematically impossible to harmonize with. Assistant Yue projected a thousand conflicting weather reports for the office, and Princess Ling turned the gravity off just enough to make all the "organized" files float away into a chaotic blizzard of paper.
Ne Job-Prime clutched his head. "The entropy... it's over 7.5%! It's approaching 12%! The structural integrity of my logic is failing!"
"That's the secret, Prime!" Ne Job shouted over the sound of a singing toaster. "A perfect story has nowhere to go! But a messy one... a messy one goes on forever!"
With a sound like a wet sponge hitting a window, the Parallel Ne Job began to blur. He couldn't exist in an environment this loud and unpredictable. His brushed-titanium stapler turned back into a simple, leaky pen, and his lemon-scented presence evaporated into a cloud of lavender-scented steam.
The Restoration of the Gloom
The Parallel Bureau retreated back into the "And," leaving Ne Job's office in a state of magnificent ruin. There was blue paint on the ceiling, cat fur in the keyboards, and the Map-Coat Man was currently using the "Liquid Courage" coffee to draw a map of his own face.
Ne Job sat down on the floor, leaning against his tilted desk. He felt 100% exhausted, but his hat was finally, comfortably, lopsided.
LOG: CHAPTER 23 SUMMARY.
STATUS: Parallel Integration rebuffed. Efficiency levels back to a healthy 'Abysmal.'
NOTE: My evil twin likes lemon polish. I am officially declaring a Bureau-wide ban on citrus-based cleaning products.
OBSERVATION: Perfection is just a fancy way of saying 'The End.'
P.S.: I'm keeping the vacuum-seal device. It's actually quite handy for cleaning up after the Muse.
The Muse sat down next to him, handing him a fish-shaped biscuit. "You okay, Commissioner? You looked a little worried when he mentioned the spreadsheets."
"I was," Ne Job admitted, taking a bite. "For a second, I thought... maybe it would be easier if everything was perfect."
"Easier," the Muse agreed, "but 100% boring."
Ne Job looked at his messy, sparkly, loud home. "And we can't have that."