Buzzword bingo!
“Excuse me,” I yelled as I vaulted over a desk or two, “but have you really focus-tested your storyscaping for sustainability?” This got the attention of a couple of mind-numbed minions — probably poor souls who didn’t run away fast enough — and as they turned to start chasing me down in the approved zombie fashion I shouted at them. “This operating paradigm you’re shackled to is undercutting the desired throughput! Internalize a new critical path checklist!”
…I sort of know what all of that meant, but I didn’t have to. The buzzwords are unimportant, except in how the Tome was using them as a framework for its actual goal: to wit, grabbing an office full of humans and escaping to its own pocket dimension. It’s like all the old spells for summoning demons; the actual words were unimportant. What mattered was intent.
The same is true for Jack and I, only we approach it from the opposite angle. I can actually hear the spells underneath the jargon, which meant I didn’t need to know Buzzword, any more than I would have needed to know Latin or Enochian or any of that crap to chat with some would-be Dr. Faustus before I decapitated him for Foul Sorcery. Instead, I just said what I wanted to say, and let the jargon attach itself. In this case, I was trash-talking the Tome, then confusing the Hell out of the minions instead of killing them.
I mention all of this because I know it can be confusing.