The Budding Metalinguist

LIII

"I had a question," Lillian prompted, looking up at Dakota. He nodded absently in response, and she took it as an invitation to continue.

"In physics, the seniors ask us trick questions sometimes to see whether we can get the answers. One question I remember is why mirrors reverse things left-to-right but not top-to-bottom."

"Please tell me you've worked it out for yourself."

Lillian breathed out sharply. "Of course," she responded in frustration. "The apparent left-to-right reversal stems from the fact that you reverse whatever you're looking at on that axis to see it in the mirror. There's nothing inherent to the mirror that reverses images on a specific axis."

Dakota smirked. "Did you read that online?"

Lillian shook her head. "I figured it out."

"Good," he said in approval. "What was your question?"

"I know that direct transport doesn't have any effect on chirality." Dakota flinched immediately after Lillian stopped speaking.

"What?" she snapped.

"Nothing," he dismissed. "Go on."

"But what about portal style transport? If I'm thinking about it correctly, the points on the surface of one mirror would be mapped to the points on the surface of the other mirror, and an object transported would reverse in chirality. Is that right?"

Dakota sighed. He walked over to his file cabinet and opened the top drawer. He selected a book from the pastiche of scholarly paraphernalia coating the floor and lowered it inside, then opened the second drawer of the cabinet, reached inside, and revealed the book, tossing it to Lillian. She caught it reflexively and brushed off the cover, examined it, and frowned. The book was upside down. She tried flipping it over multiple times, to no effect. The text stubbornly remained reversed.

She looked up at Dakota with a realization. "Why do you have a set of mirrors in your cabinet?"

Dakota looked away. "It's complicated. Sit down."

❦

"In short?" Dakota answered. "I had an accident."

Lillian cocked her head in question.

"You obviously know what chirality means," Dakota began.

"Handedness. Things that aren't symmetric can have left or right chirality."

"Do you know anything about stereochemistry?" he prompted.

"I think so..." Lillian appeared to rack her brain. "Isn't that the chirality of molecules?"

"That's right." Dakota put up a hand in warning. "I'm simplifying it a bit, but this is basically the general concept. Due to one of our enzymes, people can only digest one type of glucose. Dextroglucose, the right-handed form. Due to my accident, this is reversed for me."

"Oh," Lillian answered, her eyebrows raising in understanding. "So the mirrors reverse food so you can eat it."

Dakota grimaced. "Essentially, yes. It makes things a good bit more difficult."

"Why don't you just reverse your own chirality?"

"It's uncomfortable," Dakota shuddered.

Lillian shrugged. "Then what happened in the accident?"

"Unfortunate metalanguage. I don't like talking about it."

Lillian decided not to press. She didn't seem like she wanted to know exactly what had happened to Dakota. He was relieved to see this.

"That must be hard," Lillian remarked. "You can't eat out."

"Now you knew why I wouldn't eat in the DIAO prison. If someone were to detain me long enough, I'd starve to death." He smiled sardonically. "Of course, it's not as if anyone can do that."

"Oh, that makes sense," Lillian realized. She apparently had paid no attention to the second half of his answer.

"Yes," Dakota responded shortly. He handed her the mirror Ray had retrieved, the one which led to the delivery dropoff outside the student union.

Lillian took the hint. She pressed her finger to its surface and disappeared.