“What is it that we humans depend on? We depend on our words ... We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down.” -Niels Bohr
"What language am I?" -Doug Ramsey (Cypher), X-Men: Necrosha #2
There’s a point at which too much information becomes indistinguishable from too little. Doug searches his memory for concepts and analogies: Asynchronous Development. Sensory Processing Disorder. Disorder. Disorder. Disorder.
Disorder is in fact the problem: a disadvantageous ratio of information relative to processing ability. Too many languages, at once; too little executive function through which to route them.
Doug tries to build protocols, fails, tries again, fails again. He sits in meetings and can’t figure out what’s going on, because the points of data have gone from navigable grid to dense static and there’s no longer a clear vantage point for him to occupy. There are words, but also connotation and inflection and the subtle unconscious language of which words why and where. He counts dozens of distinct physical languages, each with its own unique lexicon and grammar; and then he realizes that each is also unique to a single person, and in an instant the number leaps to thousands. There are the images projected on the screen, but also the choice of those images, and the reasons for the choice, and the angle of the pointer, and the quiet scuff of shoes on the carpet, and subtle smells, and how Dani has brushed her hair and how Illyana hasn’t. There are the threads of garments and the garments themselves, walls and air and chairs and molecules, and each speaks a language distinct and precious.
It’s not so bad on missions--on missions, he has focal parameters. The static dulls to a background roar, white noise he can ignore to hone in on his goals. He attempts, briefly, to bring the same sort of focus to conversation, but he can tell it unnerves his teammates, and he chafes against the strictly limited lexicon it affords him.
The fact of his isolation bothers him less than the new and sudden disconnect between language and communication. When he was still alive (not again alive), he had believed, in a nebulous and hopeful way, that language could make sense of things. Now he stumbles stiffly through conversations with his friends, reading their hurt and confusion over words that are supposed to be hopeful and reassuring, trying and failing to connect through the chaos. He finds himself thinking wistfully of the uncomplicated algorithms of the TrueFriend’s world, and even though he reminds himself that the TrueFriend wasn’t and isn’t and will never be him and he would die again before he let that future happen, he fears and hates himself for it.
Doug doesn’t talk much anymore. He’s come to dread the prospect of anyone addressing him directly. He’s surprised, sometimes, that he remembers how to speak at all.
His code name, he thinks, has become uncomfortably on-the-nose.
Warlock is an exception--Warlock is always an exception. Most people are a sea of simultaneous and contradicting syntax, half-truths and unconscious footnotes, but Warlock’s many languages speak in self-unison. There is no question of which to follow, because most of them are the same: Love. Concern. Trust. Everyone else coddles him nervously; Warlock is frank in both worry and reassurance. Doug doesn’t know if he’ll ever trust himself again, but he trusts Warlock, and Warlock trusts him, and sometimes that’s almost enough.
He worries: That it’s not fair for him to depend so heavily on Warlock; that their closeness will push Warlock away from the rest of the team or that split loyalties will tear him apart. Warlock insists with a child’s determination that that those things will never happen, but Warlock is kind and loyal to a fault, and Doug will not let his friend follow him into another hell.
Finally, miserably, Doug waits until he knows Emma will be alone and asks her to find an off switch. He’s not sure what exactly he’s asking for, only that he’s reached a point where something has to give, and--given that his powers are at least tangentially psionic--he hopes she may be able to help him discern what.
She raises an eyebrow. “Why not ask Betsy? I recall that the two of you were… close.”
“Yes,” says Doug, both answering her implication and affirming that it has correctly answered the question that preceded it. Just in case, he adds, “Betsy would be emotionally compromised.”
Her eyes narrow, and she pauses for a moment to skim his surface thoughts for intent, and for something else he can’t quite nail down. “Whereas I would lobotomize you without concern or compunction. Is that what you assume?” I want your trust but know I have no right to it.
He’s offended her. “I trust you to know the difference between what is necessary and what you hope is necessary,” he says. It’s close enough.
“You’re an abysmal liar,” Emma says, but her feathers are smoothed. She sits and looks very intently at him for a moment, then blinks. Surprise. Discomfort. Confusion. “I’m not sure where I’d even be able to begin,” she admits.
“Oh,” he says. “I see.” She’s leaning a little toward the door. Worry, he reads from her posture and carefully calm face. I don’t know how to help you, and I’m afraid of what will happen if I don’t.
“It’s okay,” he says. "I’m not going to--” He stops, unable to find an adequate word to complete the sentence. He settles for a shrug. It’s enough. She nods, fear breaks down to concern, and Doug leaves wishing he’d never come.
Logically, it follows that Emma will speak to Scott, who will delegate the problem to someone better qualified to handle it. It will be someone Doug trusts--and someone who’s not a New Mutant, because except for Warlock, they no longer really trust Doug; and no one wants to see Warlock’s idea of an intervention--so he’s not surprised when he hears the muffled knock of a containment-suit glove on his door.
“Hey,” Kitty says. He reads: Worried. Not sure how to talk to you. Mourning for who we were.
“Hey,” he says, bracing for a lecture. Kitty has two main crisis modes, teach and fix, and Doug’s not sure he wants to face either of them right now.
Instead, she opens her tote and shows him a bottle of tequila and a stack of DVDs. “Thought we could both use a break.”
He gives the containment suit a glance. “You can drink in that?”
“Oh.” she says, “Well, shit.” Doug laughs in spite of himself. Kitty sighs. “More for you, I guess.”
“No,” he says. “It’s okay. We’ll save it, for when we can drink it together.”
She smiles a little sadly and says, “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.” The float there in the doorway for a minute, suspended in a sea of uncertainty, until finally Kitty drops the bag and hugs Doug hard. Doug hugs back on reflex, wrapping his arms around the unfamiliar contours of the suit, and bursts into tears, which is horrible, but would be worse if he couldn’t feel Kitty’s shoulders shaking, too.
“I missed you so much,” she says into the helmet, which is pressed uncomfortably against his collarbone.
“Me, too,” he says.
After a long minute, she disengages and sits down on the bed. Doug plunks down on the floor and leans his head on her knee. She ruffles the suit’s clumsy fingers through his hair. “Oh, man, Doug. We are so fucked up.”
“Yes,” says Doug, because it’s true.
“Remember when we--” she starts, and Doug breaks in with “Yes,” because that’s the answer no matter how the sentence ends.
She sniffles again, and raises her arm like she’s trying to wipe her nose on the sleeve, but it just clinks uselessly against the helmet. “Oh, hell.”
“Yeah.”
They sit there for a long minute, and then she sighs, and reaches for the bag, and says, “So, I brought Hackers,” because what else are they going to watch, after this long?
The running jokes unfold like a ritual: Kitty says, “I wish the real Internet were this awesome,” and Doug says, “I bet we could fix it,” and Kitty says, “You should change your code name to Zero Cool,” and for a little while it doesn’t even matter that Doug reads the dissonance between the actors and the characters like bad 3-D or that Kitty keeps fumbling the remote. It’s fifteen years ago, before everything, before they even knew Doug was a mutant, before they both died and came back broken.
“I am never, ever, ever going to get tired of this movie,” says Kitty. “I will be ninety years old, and this will still be the greatest stupid movie ever made.” What she means isn’t exactly what she says, but it’s close enough to harmonize.
“Yes,” says Doug, to both parts.