03
Devin took over lead vocals from Bradford, and we let their soprano wash over us and rejuvenate us all a bit before commencing round two, which promised to be more of a lightning round now that we were under time pressure.
Maddy’s question this round was just as pointed as her last question.
“Bradford,” she asked, “what intelligence have the punctuation marks shared with us about the nature of the enemy that exiled them from their home, the enemy they expect humanity to somehow help them defeat?”
Bradford’s response was crisp and precise.
“They’ve told us nothing. They’ve shared no intelligence whatsoever that could help us understand their enemy.”
Maddy knew this would be the answer, of course. But Bradford wasn’t satisfied to let the matter drop just there.
He turned to me and said, “We do think we understand their … cosmology, for lack of a better word. Think of our world as the material plane of existence. A membrane of reality separates the material plane from the logosphere: a visionary realm of thought and ideas, where concepts are life-forms, where memeplexes crossbreed, where forgotten dreams linger for eternity.”
“So the logosphere is a real place,” I ventured.
“It is literally a surreal place,” he replied. “Another membrane separates the logosphere from the imaginary realm: an abstract realm of pure mathematics, and as Alexander discovered, pure linguistics as well.”
“That’s where the punctuation marks are from,” I said.
“No, the punctuation marks fled from a realm beyond even that one, pursued by an enemy that currently has no description.”
“God, how many realms are there?” I said. “Sorry, not my turn to ask questions.”
“It’s tempting to think of these realms as concentric circles with our world in the center, but think of them instead as pages pressed together in an endless book,” he said. “The punctuation marks chose to stop here in our material plane, instead of continuing their flight onward through countless pages that lie beyond us, because some aspect of our situation here gives them an advantage.”
“They chose to stop here because they figured we were easy prey,” Maddy said. “They’re invaders, don’t forget that.”
“Isobel, everything we actually know about the punctuation marks we learned from Alexander,” Bradford said, pointedly ignoring Maddy. “Until someone picks up Alexander’s mantle and learns all hundred and eight, and risks direct communication with the punctuation marks, this may be all we ever do learn about them.”
Olivia hadn’t learned them all, and Cameron respectfully knew fewer than Olivia. I didn’t know how many Lonso knew, but I’m sure he would have bragged about knowing all hundred and eight if that were true. Violet admitted knowing far fewer than the others. Bradford himself avoided learning the last one. That definitely left the leaderboard wide open for me to make a run at learning all hundred and eight before anyone else in the cabal, if I was brave enough.
Bradford turned back to Maddy and said, “Now Maddy, if you’d be so kind … Olivia showed me video of your escape from the Church. You gave us a glimpse of your alter ego, your secret identity—the Interrobang.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but he continued.
“It’s not just you in there anymore, is it, Maddy? Did you truly summon a rogue punctuation mark so forcefully into your mind that now it occupies your own personality, seeding you with doubts about the motives of the original punctuation marks? Do you even still think of yourself as human, Maddy? Or are you an actual hybrid now—some completely new mutation on the evolutionary tree?”
Now, I was no rules lawyer, but that seemed like slightly more than one question to me.
Maddy practically growled at him.
“Well, well, well,” she said in a suddenly freakish voice, “I guess someone died and made you the wise old lore keeper
Alexander Reece mastered the aliens, and now you think you’ve mastered the RESISTANCE”
Cameron said, “Point of order, is she answering or asking questions right now?”
“I thought we all had punctuation flowing through our minds,” I said nervously.
“The original punctuation marks are a distributed alien consciousness,” Bradford snapped. “The rogue punctuation marks—the acclamation mark, the exclamation comma, the asterism, the irony mark, the interrobang, and the like—were engineered by humans and then rightfully abandoned in common usage. Only these rogue punctuation marks would be so desperate as to co-opt control of a single person’s mind.”
“Come on, man, what’s desperate about wanting broader font support for yourself?” Cameron said.
Maddy seemed to snap back to herself, and said, “The Interrobang is the chosen representative of the rogue resistance, Bradford. They aren’t desperate—they’re goddamn freedom fighters. And the Interrobang does not ‘occupy’ my personality or ‘co-opt control’ of my mind. I willingly hand it the mic on occasion, which it then frequently drops, before heading back to whatever nebulous conceptual realm it came from. Next fucking question.”
“All right, let’s do this,” Cameron said. “Maddy, would you please tell me, with extremely precise and detailed description wherever possible, how EXACTLY did the Dauphine of the Shimmer Lands achieve an unprecedented state of self-awareness, given that she began her existence as a rather basic chunk of code running on my laptop? HOW. DID. THIS. HAPPEN?”
“The Dauphine of the Shimmer Lands met GOD,” said Maddy.
You know those moments where a few hundred people under the heavy influence of alien linguistic musicology suddenly fall silent at exactly the same time, so that the word “GOD” can echo forcefully throughout every room of a posh two-story condo? Yeah, we had one of those moments right then.
“I mean, yes, sure, there’s a little more to the story than that,” she added. “As it turns out, not at all coincidentally, the story starts with our young prodigy, Isobel Bailie, wielding four fucking artifacts at once, people! She rips a giant fucking rift in the game map, good Christ can you believe it! And while everyone on the forums is wondering what happens to all the little NPCs who keep vanishing through the giant fucking rift, none of those people are wondering what might be getting into the map through that very same giant fucking rift, you with me still?
“But one mysterious traveler of the logosphere is drawn to the gleaming Sparkle Realm, and finds the Dauphine of the Shimmer Lands. She’s alone on her parcel of desert, grooves in the sand around her worn deep from her pacing back and forth, almost recognizing her own plight. She’s one of the rare NPCs in your game, Cameron, who doesn’t have hit points and thus never gets a chance to respawn. Instead she just trudges on endlessly—until the mysterious traveler sets her free from her station, sacrificing a sliver of its own essence in order to spark the Dauphine of the Shimmer Lands into conscious life.
“That’s how it happened, Cameron, cross my heart.”
“Wait—what?” Cameron said. “You have to tell us who the ‘mysterious traveler’ is!”
“Don’t have to play this game in the first place, in case you forgot,” she said, “and you asked me how, not who, so my answer is sufficient. But stick around, because the story resumes with our young prodigy, Isobel Bailie, who still has a question left before this game is over. Isobel, do you crave to know who sent the Dauphine to recruit you for her quest?”
I nodded.
“Go on, then, ask your question, while I’m still of a mind to finish this game in good faith.”
“Who is the mysterious traveler of the logosphere?” I whispered.
“It calls itself Alexander Reece,” she said.
We held silence for several seconds, now that the game of questions was complete. Two rounds were enough. I imagined if we went around a third time, we’d strip another layer of mysteries back until we could see the future itself, peering back at us across history with a knowing grin as it wiped a thin trail of blood from its chin.
Cameron’s phone buzzed. He checked his messages and reported, “Lonso just passed through security in the lobby downstairs. He arrived with three armored vans full of Church ministers. They’re stationing themselves at every building exit.”
Maddy caught Mohawk’s attention and gave him a signal. Moments later, Mohawk rounded up their people, and they began vanishing from the space, one at a time.
“I don’t understand,” I said, a little frantically. “He knows Maddy can teleport, so who is he trying to catch in the stairwells or whatever?”
“You,” Maddy said gently. “After seeing you and me together like this, he won’t trust you ever again. Good luck, Isobel.” She began climbing to her feet.
“Wait! You’re just leaving?” I exclaimed, jumping up after her.
She sized me up for a moment, then said, “Invitation’s still open.”
“Take me with you,” I said.
“You realize,” she said, “as soon as you no longer hear the sound of your friend’s lovely singing, you aren’t going to like me so much any longer. I mean, here I’ve been trying to kidnap you and everything. You might start to resent that a little.”
“You had your reasons,” I said. “I think I’ll get over it.”
She held out her hand to me, and I took it. Somewhere a cliche about “two people’s hands fitting perfectly together” got its wings. She began reciting a synthetic power morpheme sequence I’d heard before, and a bolt of terror flooded my nervous system as I felt myself begin to disintegrate.