Once we believed the party had stabilized, Devin took a solo turn while Bradford, Maddy, Cameron, and myself sat together in a circle in the center of the dance floor. Bradford chose this location instead of somewhere more private so that our parley could be observed by our respective tribes—a gesture designed to keep our actions civil. I sat across from Maddy and we stared at each other, sizing each other up, knowing full well that the singing would eventually come to an end, and we had better know if we were truly friend or foe by the time that moment arrived. And I realized I had no idea what Bradford and Cameron thought of us or each other.
But for now, we were all smiling, feeling generous and forgiving, our knees touching to form a circuit of energy, grateful to be here in this thoroughly unlikely situation with our minds sharp, our hearts open, preparing to speak our truths.
Except for Cameron, who was immune.
Maddy asked him, “Aren’t there pills you could take so you can join the vibe of the party?”
“No thanks,” he replied. “I’m high on life.”
“I imagine we all have many questions that brought us here to this place, to this crux of our lives’ decisions,” said Bradford, using a gentle, convincing cadence. “I propose each one of us should ask a single question, and designate who should answer. After four questions and answers, we decide together if we’re prepared to ask and answer four more. Agreed?”
“Who starts?” Maddy asked.
“Whoever comes up with a question first,” Bradford replied.
We fell silent, ruminating on our options. This was a tricky constraint, because of course I had a hundred questions. Maddy realized that Bradford, Cameron, and I were all staring in her direction, each of us potentially lining up questions for her. This game was stacked against her because she was seemingly the most mysterious person here in terms of motives or history. She’d figured that out faster than me, though.
She said, “I have a question for Bradford, to kick things off on the right footing. Tell us, Bradford—knowing the entire logosphere was theirs to explore, what’s the true reason the punctuation marks chose to inhabit the minds of humanity?”
Bradford replied, “They’re refugees. They inhabited our minds because they believe, of all the other life they encountered as they fled across the imaginary realm, across the logosphere, into the material plane—they believe humanity alone can help them face their enemy. They came to us in order to survive.”
“So we’re conscripts in their war,” Maddy said, emotionless.
“He doesn’t have to answer a second question,” Cameron said.
“I didn’t ask a second question,” she replied, her eyes fixed on me. She’d asked that on my behalf, making sure I heard this theoretically disturbing information straight from Bradford.
“Maddy,” Cameron said, “let’s talk about the Dauphine of the Shimmer Lands. An NPC in my game. She’s way off her routines in kind of a freaky way. It shouldn’t even be remotely possible, but a potentially hostile third party has clearly hijacked her code somehow.”
“Waiting for a question here,” Maddy said.
“My question is: how are they controlling her?”
Maddy laughed and said, “Cameron, the Dauphine controls herself. She’s alive out there in the logosphere.”
Oh, I so desperately wanted to blurt out, “What the fuck do you even mean ‘alive out there in the logosphere’?” but no, I did not blurt that out. I remained calm and dignified. LIKE USUAL.
“How did it happen?” Cameron asked her.
“Save your follow-up questions for round two,” she said firmly.
“Maddy,” Bradford said, “how many synthetic power morphemes have you personally learned since leaving our laboratory at Jenning & Reece?”
Maddy paused, a little surprised at the straightforward nature of the question, and then said, “I lost count around five hundred.” She must have seen startled looks on all of our faces, which made her smile. She looked at me and said, “Your turn, Isobel. Must be something you’re dying to know here.”
“Why does the Dauphine want me so badly?” I said softly, uncertain I wanted to know the answer. “What’s the reason she cares so much about taking me along for the ride when she leaves the map on her quest?”
Maddy carefully considered her response. I started to think she dug being the center of our attention and enjoyed doling out precious scraps of data. How did Cameron and Bradford and their cabal fall so far behind this admittedly impressive freelance linguist?
“The Dauphine didn’t dream up this quest on her own,” she said at last. “The Dauphine wants you because she’s been told to bring you along.”
“Who told her that?” I exclaimed.
She leaned forward and said, almost in a whisper, “Save your follow-up questions for round two.”
We agreed to a five-minute break.
Cameron vanished into his office. Bradford rotated in to give Devin a rest. Devin in turn checked their phone and discovered several text messages from Olivia. This party was leaking badly—social media was full of images from the party, including the four of us sitting on the dance floor together just now. Cameron was a media celebrity; people cared about who he spent his time with, so suddenly Maddy and I were the center of a whirlwind of speculation about our roles in his life. Which of course made it very clear to Olivia that Maddy was here with us in the first place, that we were not physically restraining her in any capacity, that in fact for all Olivia knew we might now all be completely under Maddy’s influence, and that to the surprise of Olivia and everyone else who was paying attention, Bradford Jenning himself had gotten out of bed for this whole business for who could possibly even guess what reason.
Olivia’s final message to Devin indicated that she was heading over to Cameron’s immediately.
“She won’t be happy to see me,” Maddy said. “I might have stolen her stuff this one time.”
“She won’t be immune to Bradford singing, though, will she?” I asked. “Won’t she become a cuddly version of herself?”
“If she tells him to stop singing, he’ll stop singing,” Devin said. “He always defers to her, even though technically he’s her boss.”
“He can’t risk losing her, or he’ll lose the whole project,” Maddy said. “He already pissed her off once when he wouldn’t make her partner after Alexander died. I think if Alexander was still around, you’d be working for Jenning, Reece & Regan by now.”
“Did he tell her why he wouldn’t promote her?” I asked.
“Nope,” Maddy said. “He’s the owner, he doesn’t have to say shit.”
“Then why doesn’t she just quit?”
“Where the fuck else are you going to set up a lab to study power morphemes?”
“Uh—literally any academic institution or corporation in the world, maybe?”
“Maybe. Or maybe if you start publishing papers about how you can break reality in three easy steps, you disappear into a secret government facility and spend the rest of your life trying to build linguistic warheads. I’ll tell you this, though. Alexander knew that his research was dangerous, and I think he left a succession plan in case something happened to him. If you ask me—whatever his plan was—Alexander stitched those two together somehow, and they’ve been living with that fact ever since.”
Cameron emerged from his office and made a beeline for us.
“Got a nastygram from Lonso in my email,” he said. “He’s coming here. He made it clear he wants another shot at ‘chatting’ with you, Maddy. I’m supposed to keep you distracted until he gets here.”
“He’s nuts if he thinks our ‘chat’ will be any different than last time,” Maddy said.
“Lonso recorded you in his holding cell,” he told her, “and Olivia had at least twelve hours to study the recording. So my guess is she got a hit—she discovered something they think they can use against you.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Maddy pressed him. “Aren’t Lonso and Olivia your people? Isn’t this your cabal, too?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Maddy,” he snapped back, “did we start round two and I missed it?” He wandered off to resume his seat on the dance floor.
“Maddy, you should get out of here,” I said suddenly. Clearly Bradford’s singing was still making a major impression on me because I desperately wanted her to escape before Lonso Drake got here. I felt massive guilt for participating in his little interrogation scenario with Maddy back at the Church, and I did not want to see it happen again.
“I promised the Dauphine I wouldn’t leave without you, Isobel,” she said, “but I’m not in the mood to kidnap you just now. So we may as well play out round two. And then when Lonso Drake gets here, if your schedule permits, of course, you can help me rip his fucking head off his neck.”
She wandered off.
I glanced at Devin, who looked at me sideways and said, “This kind of shit’s exactly why we have a retention problem at Jenning & Reece.”