This paper discusses the use of symbols, cryptograms and computer programming code as a vehicle for metaphor in various postmodern works of literature. With the emersion of electronic text and new media work, the involvement of code has drastically changed from being visible code that is meant to be read, to underlying, invisible code that interacts with the reader and manipulates the text. One of the main focuses of code in modern text is to act as a hyperlink to another page of the same work, or a different text all together. Hyperlinks mimic the footnotes and citations of paper literature, while also coming with one its main drawbacks. Just as classical texts allude to obscure sources that have either been lost or destroyed, the links that electronic text embed and use to point to other pages break and die, obscuring the path the reader was supposed to take. This paper discusses the work of Ted Nelson’s Project Xanadu that was founded in the 1960’s, but never came to fruition. Xanadu would have implemented two-way linking, creating a continuously evolving network of hyperlinks, ridding the internet of “dead” links. What I am arguing is that with the appearance of hyperlinks in electronic text, intertextuality between the citation and source is more prevalent and should be the focus of the next generation of new media work and the development of e-reading devices.