The Book of Masks (Abridged)

Reflections on a Plot Thus Far

IT WAS JUST A SMALL THING Lisa had done, but you frown over it as you pull on your old clothes. She had come to you--your replacement, technically--yesterday and asked to borrow the notes from Health class. "Can't you get them from Mansfield," you "remember" having asked in what was probably a sulky tone. She'd frowned. "He was absent, too," she'd said. It's not clear what your duplicate had thought--the mask doesn't seem to have recorded any memories of thoughts or feelings--but he'd pulled out the notes from the different period (but same teacher) and passed them on to her. Now--if not at the time--you shudder a little at the thought of Lisa and Geoff sharing "notes" on that topic.

It's not a matter worth pursuing, you decide as you trudge back to your house, and your initial excitement gradually sours into a resentment that she seemed to be trying to take advantage of the remnants of that special period you'd had together over the summer. Health class is stupid, too, so you decide not to even bother asking her for the notes back.

At home, as you get to the top of the stairs, your brother comes out of the bathroom, bumping into you hard. "Watch where you're going," he mutters.

You shove him. "Who shat on your shoes?"

"Will!" You glance back down the stairs to find your dad glaring darkly up at you. You turn away and go to your room. Robert's just probably having "middle school" troubles.

You slouch into your chair, feeling very disoriented. It's like when you go away to camp, and when you get back you feel like you've been away forever but haven't been gone at all. The memories and feelings associated with Cameron and James seem to have vanished, though you remember what you did as them. You look around the bedroom restlessly. This is boring.

With a quick groan you remember that you forgot to mention it to Caleb: that Carson had investigated the book and even talked to some professors about it. Well, maybe it's not important. You and Carson already agreed the book wouldn't get sold, and doubtless Caleb would refuse an offer, even for thousands of dollars; maybe not even for millions, not when you can use such a book to--

You swallow.

Not when you can use it to take over the lives of people who are already millionaires.

You drum your fingers on the desk. Surely the idea has occurred to Caleb if it has occurred to you. Though it didn't occur to you until just now. Would you use it to take over the life of a millionaire? You frown thoughtfully. Well, it would be nice to have all that money ... But there's a lot of work that goes with being the kind of person that has millions, right? Business to look after, money to manage ... Oh, it's gotta be a pain and no fun at all. You tap idly at your computer, flicking from one browser window to another. But what if you took over the life of a kid with millionaire parents? Now you cock your head. Kelsey Blankenship has a rich family. So does Megan Farris. You chuckle grimly: So does Charles Hartlein.

If you're the kid, you'd want to control the parents, too. So: Get masks of yourself, of the kid, of the father and mother. Treat the insides of all the masks (except the one you'd be wearing) with that stuff that puts people to sleep. Put yourself under the kid's mask. Put the kid in the dad's mask; the dad in the mom's mask; the mom in your mask. Huh, that'd work. Has Caleb thought of this? Your mouth twists grimly. Ten to one Carson has.

You shift in your seat. That was very nearly a bad scene today between them. They could wind up fighting over control of the group, and maybe even over control of the book. As you've just deduced, control of the book could be very lucrative. It's amazing that it ever got away from--

Now you sit up straight. How the hell did it get out of the hands of whoever had it? You found it in Arnholm's Used Books. Maybe the person who sold it to Arnholm's didn't know what it was; maybe they thought, like you and Ted Arnholm initially did, it was just a fake. But that just invites the further question: How did it get to that person from the last person to know what kind of book it is?

You are seized by a desire to know a lot more about the Libra Personae and its history, so you lean over your laptop and do an internet search on the title. Only a handful of results show up, and a quick perusal shows that only one of them relates to the book--probably it's the site that Carson had found.

It's a post at a blog called "The Precessionary Times-Picayune," and it reads, in its entirety:

Commenters on this site have long impressed me with their wit, their erudition, and their patience with its owner's eccentricities, so this recent dispatch from the world of computer science leaves me serenely confident that I have not set myself up as the idol of androids:

Researchers at the University of Birmingham say they are one step closer to inventing a computer capable of thought.

... In their quest to construct a machine capable of passing the "Turing test" by fooling human interlocutors into believing they are talking to a real person, [the team] has written a software program that can emulate posters in internet forums and chat rooms.

... "Programs that mimic the behavior of paranoid schizophrenics have fooled professional therapists when put in a Turing situation," Dr. Barzun says.

... So, working with university psychologists, [the team] fashioned a program that melds many of the characteristics of several mental diseases, and came up with an artificial intelligence capable of writing internet posts that are hostile, abusive and weirdly on-topic while being completely off-point. In a controlled test involving volunteers, the program was quickly identified as a "troll" and treated accordingly.

So, when the robots finally arrive, they may turn out to be a lot of jerks?

Actually, Luddites on the internet need not fear that they are about to be rendered redundant; a patent on a mechanical calumniator is unlikely to prove lucrative. Rudeness over the internet is a perquisite that humans will likely preserve jealously for themselves.

~ ~ ~

Speaking of things that are human in only the worst possible ways, moviegoers who remember Alexander Payne's eerily prescient Election may be forgiven for rushing to file for political asylum in Papau New Guinea after viewing the trailer for Payne's forthcoming movie, which the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly summarizes thus:

It's Star Wars meets American Pie in next year's The Student Body, when a group of rebel aliens and their pursuers crash in a small town and body-snatch many of the teens at a local high school.

... We not only get an outsider's view of teen life, but a satire on some of its workings. "The student council gets totally taken over by the two different factions," Payne says, "and since they can't fight with ray guns they fight with something even dirtier: politics." So Democrats and Republicans are from outer space? "Yes," Payne grins. And what about the Libertarians? "Not even advanced alien science can explain Libertarians."

It is, of course, this "student council" angle that leaves me laying awake at night, plotting traffic routes that will not take me past any marquees advertising this nightmare. It's not a new idea that our politics has been hijacked by shapeshifters and things not of this world: the United States has long deserved its characterization as a nation of pious Hindus governed by an elite of atheistical Swedes. Nor is it unique to Americans. In sixteenth century Lower Saxony, we hear, a witch employed the legendary Libra Personae to manufacture "simulacra" of local notables, and herself even impersonated one, in a bid to gain control of a duchy. That witch was routed, but the duke's heirs apparently found it expedient to accept a promotion to the throne of England, where repressed emotions are less likely to be taken as evidence of suppressed humanity.

~ ~ ~

Yes, yes, but what about the zeppelins, I hear you impatiently ask. It is not only for spaceships bearing the next class of House Representatives that we should be fretfully scanning the skies. Lockheed this week unveiled its design for a dirigible with a "sky hook," suitable for moving large, heavy objects over and into inaccessible terrains; the specs suggest its designers sought inspiration in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Horror of the Heights." Let us not fear such things; military pilots, like Doyle's hero, who glimpse these blasphemies will know exactly what to do.

* * * * *

The blog writer--John Reilly--seems to know something about the book. Maybe you should email him for more information. On the other hand, Carson has already made contact with some university professors who claim to know something about it.