More Layers than an Atom Cake | Annabelle within Null Paradox

Annabelle’s strange relationship with The Bully started at one of Seth’s all-night poker card games.

As Seth’s card dealer, she made it a point to know everything about everyone. Part of it was for Seth–he’d made it a point when he first interviewed her that he wanted to know exactly who everyone was at his Game Nights, what they did during the day, and most importantly, who they socialized with.

The other part was that she wanted the same information that Seth did for her own reasons.

Then one night, The Bully started showing up well after everyone else had left.

 

Null Paradox | Annabelle

Thought The Bully and Seth were complicated?

First, she’s Victoria’s confidant. Victoria, as in the love of Seth’s life, who just ghosted him.

While she is Seth’s card dealer and spy, she’s also spying on a particular card player because she believes he may be a resistance fighter in the underground war against The Ministry. But she’s mostly spying for Seth because she’s using that activity to spy on him.

 

Null Paradox | Annabelle and Victoria

Once Victoria had ghosted Seth, Annabelle and Victoria established a monthly meeting late at night in the town’s park. This is where she learns why Victoria left Seth in such haste. Victoria suspected that Seth was not who he seemed. She also felt that Seth was beginning to know that she suspected him. 

While Victoria loved him dearly, there’s one thing that everyone in town agreed upon: Seth may be shy, but he’s also dangerous.

 

Null Paradox | Annabelle and The Bully

Trying to handle the complexities of Seth’s anger toward those he believed had harmed Victoria while maintaining her calm demeanor made Annabelle anxious. To deal with it, she started multiplying numbers in her head, sometimes letting them whisper out during card games so quietly that no one noticed.

Except The Bully noticed. He had seen a similar trait in Gertrude, and now he turned his attention to her.

But several things about Annabelle drive her–things that The Bully would soon learn:

• Loyalty
• Determination
• Resilience
• Patience
• Boldness

Annabelle bided her time and was rewarded by learning that The Bully was also spying for Seth. But his focus was on finding out what had happened to Victoria. 

She also discovered that The Bully’s preferred method for information extraction was psychological torture.

And with that information, she knew she had the better hand. 

Little by little, Annabelle grew closer to The Bully by sharing a helpful observation here and there, all seemingly in an innocent way.

She also learned about The Bully’s interest in her math tic. It clearly enticed him. So with carefully placed flirts, she fed him more. She started counting the steps that she took while walking past him. And after each card game, she would take the deck of cards and place them in order, all the while observing The Bully.

His intrigue in her was clearly growing.

After a few months, she boldly started following him after he left one of his late-night meetings with Seth. He knew she was following him and wondered how he could help her take another bold step. His motivation was simple: he wanted answers from her and knew only one way to extract them. He laid a careful trap for her by leading her randomly through the city during their late-night-cat-and-mouse game, trying to get her to a location where he knew he’d be left in peace with her.

But then he got thrown. Twice.

Annabelle walked up to him on a seemingly random evening, explaining what they were both doing for Seth and proposing a détente.

It’s amazing what you can achieve by telling the truth.

To his surprise, her disarming charm and boldness reignited an internal debate about the ethical implications of his own methods–a dilemma within himself that he thought he had successfully set aside a long time ago.

She had a Royal Flush, and he knew it.

 

Annabelle |  One

Like most Null Paradox characters, Annabelle lives in the same multiverse.

Physicists describe the multiverse as an object that contains all possible universes. At its core, the Null Paradox multiverse is the same, but how we navigate the infinite permutations of each universe within the multiverse is different.

In Null Paradox, we perceive life as a series of tiny hops from one universe to another stitched together to create the life the characters experience. This is facilitated by a machine briefly described in the first book (Gertrude & Grace), which plays a more significant role in the upcoming second book (Victoria & Seth).

 

Here’s the tricky part | Zero, One, and Two

The Gertrude, Grace, Victoria, and Seth that you read about are technically the primary ones. “Zero” is appended to their names to reduce confusion, as in Victoria Zero. The adjacent universe has a Victoria One. And so on, for all of them.

But Annabelle is different.

 

Courtesy of my work with images AIs, here’s a glimpse of Annabelle. This image is based on photographs of Caroline playing the role of Annabelle and from a photoshoot I did at the Fair Lane Manor, the home of Henry and Clara Ford in Dearborn, Michigan.