Lingua Franca Fractura

Lingua Franca Fractura

Mark A Davis

266

Curving white arches rose overhead, supporting a roof multiple stories high.  The Eluvia Five Erwin Schrödinger Interdimensional Gateway Station was like an airport on steroids -- a building so huge, so vast, that it made the largest of Earth's cathedrals and sports stadiums seem small and quaint in comparison.  Here was a temple to transportation on the grandest of scales -- moving walkways and elevators, marble floors and columns, pools of bright blue water ringed with trees and flowering plants, and thousands of people -- most of them not human -- rushing to their various destinations.

Grandpa Anarchy's current sidekick the Skype Avenger was a young man in a blue and white suit with short brown hair and a mask that covered the sides and upper half of his face.  He waited patiently while Grandpa Anarchy -- dressed in his usual rumpled gray suit with the silver anarchy symbol stitched over the left breast -- consulted with a blue squid in a service uniform.

As Grandpa returned to him, the Skype Avenger said, "I don't like being disconnected from the world wide web.  It makes me nervous when I can't narrate my adventures to my friends and followers."

"If we're going to catch the assassin of the Estonian President, then we're only going further away," Grandpa replied.  "The Amish Assassin fled to a place called Amish Earth.  It's a place where nearly everyone has converted to the Amish way of life.  They don't have any kind of internet there, let alone a direct connection to our home world -- but Eluvia Five connects to just about every active dimension."

"We need to catch him," the sidekick replied.  "Remember, he not only killed the president, but three others, including two bodyguards.  One of those was my uncle."

"Don't worry, I haven't forgotten," Grandpa replied.  "The squid said that we want Concourse π, Gate 374QQ."

"Concourse π?  Really?" asked the sidekick.  He glanced up and noticed a transport with the symbol for the irrational number displayed prominently on its destination board.  "Huh," he said.  "Guess this is our ride.  Oh and -- you understood a squid creature?" he added, as they boarded a transport.

"Sure," said Grandpa.  "It spoke perfectly good English.  Maybe with a kind of weird alien accent and unusual syntax, and its voice was kinda high-pitched and watery, but...."

"Do you mean they had a universal translator?" the Skype Avenger persisted.

"No, I mean they spoke English," Grandpa replied irritably.  "You'll find that when you start to travel in outer space and to other dimensions, everyone speaks the same language."

The transport hummed as they moved along.  The sights and sounds of the massive transport hub flashed by.

"And they always speak English, the only language you happen to know?" asked the Skype Avenger.  "That's convenient."

"It is convenient," Grandpa agreed.  "But when you're the hero, that's the way the universe works."

"But not so convenient if you happen to be, for example, a team of Japanese heroes...."

"Ah," said Grandpa, "that's where you're wrong!  In that case, everyone they met would speak Japanese!"

The sidekick frowned.  "Really?"

"Really," said Grandpa.

"And if your group of heroes were from Russia...."

"Everyone would speak Russian, of course," replied Grandpa.  "Same thing for if they were French, everyone would speak French, or Italian, everyone would speak Italian...."

"But that doesn't make any sense at all!" the sidekick exclaimed.

"What are you talking about?" said Grandpa.  "It makes perfect sense!  Imagine the problems if people on other planets couldn't speak your language.  Why, we'd spend all our time trying to work out translations, instead of getting on with the business of fighting villains and delivering justice!  Talk about boring!  It's all down to some kind of law of conservation of plot, or some such foolishness.  I'm sure if Dark Dr. Dark were here he'd elaborate in great detail."

They reached their destination -- a waiting area much like that which you'd find in an airport, with color-coordinated plastic seats, a small terminal for the attendant to work at, and a large, circular dimensional gateway built into the wall.  Grandpa confirmed their destination, and soon enough the two heroes were stepping through a gateway surface that rippled like water.

For several moments they were surrounded by icy darkness, and felt as if they were falling endlessly into the abyss.  Then the sensation stopped abruptly.  They found themselves in a much less impressive, but still vaguely airport-like building made of concrete blocks with a tiled floor.

There were guards here, dressed in black uniforms with no visible buttons or insignia.  They had wide, flat-brimmed hats, long beards, and carried only wooden sticks as weapons.

"Now, you just let me do all the talking," Grandpa said.

"Peatuma!" one guard exclaimed.

Grandpa Anarchy frowned.  "What?  What's that?  Look, we're heroes from earth, and...."

"Kes läheb?" the soldier demanded.  "Märkida oma nimi!"

"We're trying to track down a man, calls himself the Amish Assassin.  He assassinate the president of a country on our version of earth...."

The Skype Avenger stepped forward,  "Let me handle this, Grandpa," he said.  "They're speaking Estonian -- my native tongue."

"Estonian?" Grandpa exclaimed.  "Why the heck would they speak Estoniain?"

The sidekick glanced at Grandpa, and raised an eyebrow.  "Isn't it obvious?" he asked.  "Grandpa, you're not the hero of this story!"

FINI