Book Six, Chapter 45: The Lightbulb Moment

As soon as we went Off-Screen, the silence in the room suffocated me.

“What is Daphne doing?” Kimberly asked. “Social Awareness is all over the place,” she said, referring to one of her tropes that allowed her to gauge a character’s Moxie and gave her insight into interpersonal relationships between characters.

“What do you mean?” Andrew asked.

“It’s giving me double responses. They don’t make any sense,” Kimberly said. “It’s like it’s arguing with itself. The only thing I know for sure is that she loves you and her parents, and that only makes things more confusing. Everyone else she is suspicious of.”

I thought for a moment.

“Did we ever figure out why Antoine was in the basement?”

“I figure he was doing basic exploration and wandered somewhere he shouldn’t be, into a hazard. Or perhaps he was chasing down a lead and was tricked,” Andrew said.

“Maybe,” I said.

It was true that in the early Party Phase, we could get pretty reckless with exploration, and usually, there were no consequences. But that didn’t mean there couldn’t be consequences. Exploring a location and discovering hidden hazards, treasures, or weapons was a basic form of gameplay.

Was it possible that Antoine had wandered into the wrong room, questioned the wrong suspect, or perhaps trusted the wrong friend?

“Remember the trope that the honeypot lady had?” I asked. “Something about We Go Way Back, how you might have a backstory with the blackmailers, and if you don’t figure out what it is in time, there will be consequences?”

The silence returned as they thought about what I had said.

“You think Daphne had a backstory with them and didn’t explore it?” Bobby asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “I really did find her cutting up something. She might have been Off-Screen before I got there. I must have caught her by surprise. She played it off well enough. She gave me a haircut.”

“I was meaning to say,” Kimberly said, “it looks great. She has a real future as a hairdresser.”

The sarcasm was a bit thick.

“Thanks,” I said. “Maybe Daphne failed to explore a backstory she had with the blackmailers, and the consequences of that were bigger than we could imagine.”

“You’re saying that she might be compromised?” Andrew said. “Wouldn’t that show up on the red wallpaper as infected?”

“It should,” I said.

And then all at once, we collectively paused and reflected.

“I didn’t think to check her statuses,” Kimberly said.

“Me neither,” said Bobby, “and I’m usually very careful about that.”

I hadn’t either. I hadn’t even thought to. This was a mundane storyline. The idea that someone could be infected either with hypnosis or some sort of mind-altering virus or drug didn’t seem likely. It wasn’t set up. Could there be a completely meta type of Infection, something that could alter a player’s mind that powerfully?

“I can’t see her at all,” Andrew said.

“What?” I asked. “You mean with Health Monitor?”

“Yes,” he answered. “She isn’t appearing at all. This is similar to what happened when Ramona and Logan died. They disappeared for a moment.”

Why did I let her leave?

“Don’t tell me she’s dead,” I said. “Please don’t tell me she’s dead.”

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know. Health Monitor is a very powerful ability, and I have observed that conflicting tropes often get a head start, so to speak, against it.”

It was a powerful ability. Being able to see your allies’ health statuses no matter where you were was a real game-changer.

“To be fair,” he added, “I cannot see Jules either. Perhaps whatever trope is affecting Daphne is simply masking her from me. That would make sense if there were some sort of powerful infecting ability.”

“Some type of ability that is making Daphne act on her own, making her not tell us what’s going on,” I said. “That has to be it.”

“Maybe we should consider something else,” Bobby said. “I’ve been thinking about it, but I didn’t want to say anything.”

“What is it?” I asked. “Just say it. You don’t need to keep quiet on my account.”

“Okay,” he said. “I’m thinking that maybe this Daphne isn’t our Daphne.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

Bobby was at a loss for words, but eventually he spat it out. “What if she’s been replaced? Something is going on here. Think about it. Why else would Ramona be here? Maybe something about this storyline replaced Daphne and gave us Ramona in her place, like some sort of trade.”

I didn’t like the sound of that at all. It made too much sense.

“Surely there would have been some mention of that in the Atlas,” Andrew said. “That is a fundamentally plan-destroying trope. Ida Rae was a well-known storyline.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “What if it isn’t an enemy trope?”

They stared at me, waiting for me to elaborate.

“What if Daphne is using some sort of betrayal trope? Do you remember the Stranger in the Ten Second Game? He had a trope where he had to act like a, well, maybe not a minor antagonist, but he was definitely lying to us, and he had caused a lot of the trouble we were going through.”

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A tricky betrayal trope could have caused this. Something that hid its own existence.

“You’re saying that she equipped some new trope, and it had some unintended consequences?” Andrew asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Something like that.”

There was a whole host of tropes categorized informally as betrayal tropes. They all centered around one idea: that a player could be antagonistic to his team in ways that could help the team overall.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” I continued. “Whatever is happening here, we just have to be aware of it. And we have to trust that our teammate knows what she’s doing. But… you know… maybe we treat her like she has been compromised.”

“Keep an eye on her,” Kimberly said. “Never be anywhere alone with her, no matter how much she begs or manipulates.”

Kimberly was ready to cut Daphne out completely. Her instincts were usually good with people.

“Yeah,” I said. “That. Something must be going on. Something big. There is no way Daphne wouldn’t tell me if she was able.”

“If she even is our Daphne,” Bobby repeated. “If she’s not, we may be in a heap of trouble.”

Maybe they had their doubts about that. I couldn’t blame them. There were times in a storyline where an ally might do something that was inconvenient to you. But normally, when you went Off-Screen, they could easily explain it. Any odd behavior could be forgiven with just a little communication, or so people kept telling me.

I didn’t know what was happening with Daphne, but I did know we could get to the end of the story together. We had done it many times. If she was compromised, and the more I thought about it, the more sure I was that something was up, then we would have to cross the finish line without her. We may even have to fight her.

You can’t play this game relying on just one person.

“So now what?” Bobby asked.

“We have to go after her,” I said. “I’ll insist on it in-character. It may be a mistake in the end, but it will push the plot forward. Staying in this room is only going to cause disaster. I’m pretty sure having everyone holed up inside the banquet hall is what caused the power to go out, but what do I know?”

“We kill anyone who tries to kill us first,” Jules said, looking at me as she said it. “Even if they are dressed in white.”

“You don’t have to tell me that,” I said.

“Alright, love bird. How long until we’re On-Screen again?” she asked.