The Book of Masks (Abridged)

The Precessionary Times-Picayune

THE BOOK DOES NOT LIKE FOR YOU to copy down any of the words it contains, except in short snatches, but you've managed to get some of the phrases from the title page into a search engine. The phrase "Libra Personae" returns one hit that seems promising. Alone among the handful of results entirely in Latin is a single blog post, and the hair on the back of your neck goes up as you read it. In its entirety, it says:

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 is called "The Precessionary Times-Picayune," and the other entries seem to be written in the same bizarre spirit. You really have no idea what to make of it, its author (one John Reilly), or what it says about this "Libra Personae." It does sound like a description of the book you picked up at Arnholm's, though, and it seems to refer to a book at least as old as the one you found.

You find the blog owner's email address, and send him a note. You keep it cagey, though, and only tell him that you stumbled on his blog post referring to the "Libra Personae," and ask him if he has any more information about it. Of course, you do not tell him that you have the book itself in your possession.

Then you go downstairs, intending to head out to meet Caleb and/or Keith. Instead, you are caught by your mother, and put to work doing chores.

* * * * *

"For Christ's sake, don't put that song on the thumb drive!" you exclaim.

"I'm not putting any songs on the thumb drive, on any thumb drive." Caleb's voice buzzes in your ear. You shift the cell phone to your other hand so you can tap more comfortably at your laptop as you check his list again. "What's wrong with it?"

"In the first place, it's a dumb song. In the second place, the future is going to have no idea what 'rickrolling' is, so they're not going to get the joke you're playing on them. I barely remember what it is. And in the third place—"

"I'm not actually putting any songs on a thumb drive, Will! It doesn't matter!"

"But Walberg doesn't know that! If you want to give him a good list of songs and not just a bunch of top twenty—"

"Will!" Your dad's voice rings from downstairs. "Down here!"

"Hang on," you tell Caleb. "I gotta see what my dad's—"

Running steps sound on the stairs and in the hall. A fist tattoos on the door. "Will, Dad wants you!" Robert yells through the door.

"Jesus, I heard him!" you shout back. "Be right back," you tell Caleb, and drop the phone on the desk.

Downstairs, your dad jerks his head at the front door, which is open. Some kind of deliveryman stands there. UPS, by the look of his brown shirt and brown shorts. "You Will Prescott," he asks, and clicks a pen when you nod. "You order something from—" He glances at the box in his other hand. "John Reilly Booksellers?"

John Reilly? That's the guy you emailed this morning. When you got done with your chores, you found a reply in your email box: The blog-owner telling you that he had a small treasure trove of research on the "Libra Personae" and that he'd be happy to mail it to you if you'd only give him your snail mail address. With some trepidation, that's what you'd done.

And now, only two hours later, it's arrived? All the way from New Jersey?

But it looks legit, though the UPS guy seems very young, and there's something slightly unsettling about the very bright smile shining out from under very blonde hair that seems too long, even when tucked under that brown cap. You nod, and take the pen, and sign for it. "Good luck with that," the driver says, and there's a loud snicker behind those words. You watch him go before closing the door. His truck must be around the corner.

"What did you get?" your dad asks.

"Just some research materials," you reply, looking down at the box. "Something for a school project. It didn't cost me anything," you hastily add. Word that you didn't put anything on his credit seems to exhaust your dad's interest in it, and he turns away.

You take the box upstairs. "I'm back," you tell Caleb as sit with the box in your lap. From your dresser drawer you take out a pen knife. "Yeah, it's the craziest thing. I ordered something online about two hours ago, and it's already come. From New Jersey, even."

"If I was in New Jersey, I'd be out of there like a bat out of hell too," says Caleb. "Now come on, I think Walberg would really appreciate a good 'rickroll' joke in here. It's like I'm not just including the music, I'm including a contemporary meme—"

But you're not listening. You've got the box open. You were expecting a stack of papers, but it only contains a small, clear tablet. You pick it up.

It's sticky. Your fingertips won't separate from it. "Hang on," you tell Caleb, and put the phone down. Then, like an utter moron, you grab the tablet with your other hand so you can pry it off your first hand.

Now both of your hands are stuck to it. You clench them. Now your palms and the heels of your hands are stuck to it. "Hey Caleb," you shout at the phone in a quavering voice.

You're distracted by a sound from your window, as of someone climbing up the trellis. A face appears, and the lower sash pops up. That delivery guy sticks his head in.

"Hey Prescott," he says with a grin. "Want some help with that thing? Shh," he adds when you open your mouth to yell. "I'm the only guy who can get you unstuck from it, and if you scream, I'll be out of here in point-oh-seven seconds and you'll never see me again."