I am failing BADLY at this attempt to take a 1-day break from fandom…

“A perfect number is one with factors that divide evenly into it –as the numbers 1, 2, 4, 7 and 14 are each factors of 28– and in which those factors, added together, also sum to that number. As 1+2+4+7+14 = 28.”

Clu half-listened to her, impatience growing. “And?”

“You’ve complained about our redundant features being a symptom of imperfection, how nothing truly perfect should ever need more than the absolute minimum. What you may not know is that each subroutine is, itself, a number–”

“Of course I know that. Every piece of programming can be expressed as a number.”

“And, each redundant one is repeated a specific number of times. Each one is, in a sense, a factor that divides into us a certain number of times.”

“And that number of times–”

“That number–or rather those numbers, all of the numbers of repetitions, added together with the numbers representing the routines that they repeat – all of that, added together, always sums to the number representing our entire program.”

“That can’t be right, you can’t even have one single consistent number representing you–”

“Our features can change and adapt, yes– and heal back to original states, quite easily, due to the redundancies you hate so much! But the original coding that permits it is one number. If you express any one of us as a number, it will of course be a number in the millions of digits… but if you bother to check, you will always find that the number is perfect.”

“You’re making all this up! And besides, that cannot be what the Creator meant by perfect!”

“What did he mean, then? What other meanings of ‘perfect’ even have quantifiable definitions? Not even the botanical meaning is that clear-cut – although, if you’d like a lesson on it, I’ve read quite a lot of books–”

“Botanical? Plants? No, I don’t care about that – there are no plants here; how could they possibly be perfect, anyway?”

“Hmm, you don’t care, and yet you do ask! Flowers contain the reproductive organs of the plant. Botanically, a flower is 'perfect’ if it contains both the male and the female organs.”

“And what does that have to do with you, ISO freak?”

Quorra smiled slyly. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”