Beale reached down to help Veronica pull herself the rest of the way out of the tunnel. “There you are, Miss Smythe,” he drawled solicitously, pulling her away from the edge of the tunnel as Niles’ hands reached through and grabbed the edge. “And how was your journey?”
“It went very well, Mr. Mayflower, very well indeed,” Veronica replied, linking her arm through his. The two of them were incorrigible flirts, but everyone knew that they weren’t each others’ types in the slightest. Still, it was nice to have someone safe to play with in this way. “The werewolves were very fine people, so willing to be helpful once they understood that we were just looking for things that didn’t quite feel right.”
“It helps that there were characters that had been there from the beginning of the series, as well,” Niles added from behind them. For such a large, imposing figure of a man, he was capable of great stealth. Veronica was used to it by now, as he was frequently on her away team, but Beale jumped a mile in surprise, then tried to pretend he hadn’t been startled in the slightest. Niles looked down on him quizzically. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine!” Beale’s voice broke on the single syllable, and he cleared his throat before speaking again. Veronica did everything she could to avoid laughing outright, but it was not an easy task. “I’m fine. You just startled me, that’s all. It does make sense that some of the earlier characters from the series would be able to identify the anomalies early on, though. Did you see much damage?”
“You’ll see when we get to our report,” Nuereddin groused as he speed-walked beside the small group. He used a type of locomotion that wasn’t quite running, but always gave the impression of his legs and feet moving very quickly, even as he didn’t cover much ground. He kept looking straight at the floor ahead of him as he continued. “I’d rather not have to go over the whole song and dance a second time, if that’s quite all right with you, Pretty Boy.”
“Now, Nuereddin, there’s no reason to be quite so charming this afternoon,” Sofya chided as she joined the rest of the group. They slowed down to allow her to catch up, then continued down the wide hallway out of the bare transit layer of the Library. “We understand if you don’t want to tell us anything just yet. It just feeds our excitement to see what you all have done and seen all the more.” She caught Veronica’s eye and winked, which Veronica returned with a grin.
Together, the group joined the main hall out of the transit floor that lead to the entrance to the main Library reading room. No matter how many times Sofya came this way, it always took her breath away for a moment. She knew that the others may not have something akin to her love of books in their universes - she was fairly certain Nuereddin hadn’t read anything that hadn’t been written on a scroll or a piece of parchment in his life. But she, like other more modern characters, knew and appreciated the world of books, and the sight of the Library was overwhelming.
The Library wasn’t in a specific location; it didn’t have an address, and couldn’t be found on a map. It had to be outside all of the universes, because it contained all of the universes. As such, though there were windows in the Library’s lobby and main reading room, they didn’t show anything specific - they were made out of frosted glass that let light in, but didn’t allow those inside to see anything outside. There were no front doors to the Library, as everyone who visited came through the transit rooms in the basement. While Sofya had never seen them, she’d heard stories about people from Prime managing to find their way into the Library, and even they travelled through the transit system to get in. No one ever mentioned how they got out, though, or even if they had.
There was a circulation desk to the left of the entrance to the reading room, tucked away unassumingly and staffed by a variety of people who all fit a vaguely similar mold - middle-aged, dark-haired, bespectacled, medium height, weight, and build. There were people of different ethnicities there, and of different species as well - the Library did not discriminate in their hiring processes. So long as a person could understand the Library’s unique cataloging system and the challenges of working in an environment where the books weren’t passive objects, the Library would take them on as employees and train them on whatever they needed to know. Sofya knew that Veronica harbored a wish to become a Librarian, and while she knew that Veronica would be excellent at the job, she selfishly hoped Veronica wouldn’t move on that urge. Sofya would miss the woman terribly if they didn’t work together anymore.
Being the main reading room, the center of the room was sparsely filled with tables and chairs, some of them pushed together into bigger groups, but most of them in small groupings of four to six chairs around a single round table. There were also a few larger armchairs around the edges of the open space, with end tables nearby to hold the other books one might have or other essentials. There were a few freestanding bookshelves in the area, mostly in place to break the space up a bit and not leave it as one big, cavernous room, but the books on those shelves were rarely checked out or read.
The inner offices were where the majority of the anomaly team work was done, when they weren’t on location in a specific universe or in Prime. Very few people had their own offices, of course, and everyone else had to make do with desks in a bullpen type area. The door between the main reading room and the inner office area was soundproof, and so no one would know that there were so many people talking - and shouting - in a building meant to be a place of quiet contemplation.
Once through the door, the team split up to handle their respective duties that are necessary upon return from a job. Sofya and Beale went directly to the Prime-side debrief desk, carrying their respective book purchases to begin the lengthy red-tape processing of Prime artifacts. Veronica made her way to her own desk, where the typewriter authentic to her universe was set up, ready to take the forms in triplicates that she’d be filling out for the next few hours. No one in any of the teams was more excited by paperwork than Veronica.
Niles headed with Nuereddin to the report center, where they stood in line behind members from other teams and went over what they would include in their initial report on the anomaly in the YA UrbFan. Niles was surprised to see that the line was more than just one team, and he remarked as such to Nuereddin. “There seem to be more anomalies being found and investigated of late, do there not?”
Nuereddin looked ahead and shrugged. “Eh. These things come in waves. There are times when we go ages with hardly anything, then suddenly there’s some big popular trope that everyone decides needs to be in everything they write, and we’ve got magic wands in the Old West and nonsense like that. Doesn’t really mean anything, just that there’s a lot of little bits of clean up that need to be done.”
“Do you think that is the case now?” Niles inquired, frowning at the notes he’d painstakingly written on the small wire-bound notebook Veronica had provided him. “The damage done in our book seems to be more extensive than one would imagine from a simple trope run amok.”
Nuereddin scowled at the notes Niles pointed at him, lifting his head to read them as best as he could. Niles’ handwriting was angular to the point of nearly being runes, which were closer to Nuereddin’s native language and thus made the two of them natural partners for this kind of reporting. “Yeah, there’s something more going on in our case. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on with everyone, or if we’re the only lucky ones, but ours is not what I’d expected.” The two men slowly moved forward as one team finished, moving back to their desks with a stack of paperwork in their hands and their heads together in conversation. Nuereddin shook his head as though he were shaking off an idea. “Never mind that. Let’s just go over what we found, get the forms, and get them to Veronica so she can play that loud thumping thing on her desk. I’ll never understand why she loves that thing so much.”
Niles nodded in agreement. “It is a large piece of metal made of many smaller pieces, none of which is meant to cause damage as a weapon should. It makes no sense that she should value it so, and yet, I have seen her ire when someone dared to use it for a personal letter once.”
Nuereddin looked up, his face filled with malicious glee. “I would have paid good money to see that. How badly did Veronica tear the person apart?”
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“Alas, our investigator teammate is not the kind of person to cause physical harm to another soul.” Niles grinned down at the diminutive druid. “She did, however, use her words and voice to send the young woman fleeing from the room, sobbing hysterically and promising never to darken Veronica’s desk again. I believe Veronica found the response satisfactory, though she made mention of some stickiness on the device afterwards.”
Nuereddin snickered as he imagined the scene, picturing Veronica’s olive skin getting bright red as she shouted. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that woman doesn’t work anywhere near the Library anymore, if she got yelled at by Veronica. Hell, I can kill a person three different ways without putting my hands on them, and I’m afraid of her.”
“Someone a little HighFan like you is afraid of? I never would have guessed,” an oily voice ahead of them said. Nuereddin raised his eyes to glare at the alien behind the half-door in front of them. The line had moved forward again while Nuereddin and Niles were talking, and they were now at the front of the line.
Before Nuereddin could begin letting loose a torrent of potentially offensive language, Niles stepped forward and caught the alien’s attention. “My sincere apologies for not responding more quickly, dear colleague,” he said after giving a short bow. “My teammate and I are here to give an initial report of an anomaly found in a Young Adult Urban Fantasy universe, and to find the proper forms to process the damage.” Niles ended the explanation with one of his most charming smiles, which worked on nearly everyone, regardless of gender or species. Niles was naturally talented at working with people of any shape or size, and so it made him a natural to be part of the away teams that would enter individual universes and find anomalies. The alien working the report desk, while usually unaffected by human displays of friendliness, found themselves softening in the light of Niles’ smile.
“Fine, that’s fine. What is your team, what is the Unique Book Identification Designation, and please briefly describe the anomaly.” The alien took one of their left hands and pulled a blank notepad close, clicking a ballpoint pen in one of their right hands and preparing to take notes while the top pair of hands gestured in the manner of their culture. Niles could never remember the name of this species, or exactly which universe they came from, but this particular alien had been working in the reporting desk off and on for longer than Niles had been on the team.
Nuereddin stepped up on the provided courtesy steps so he could face the alien on a more even level, and began rattling off the team’s ID and the UBID of the book with the anomaly. He paused after that to allow Niles to join in with regards to the anomaly itself, as Nuereddin had shamefully not seen anything clearly in that regard. It was the trees, that was all. The trees always remembered, and would never forget, and Nuereddin would never forget, either. He wouldn’t forget, and he wouldn’t forgive either the trees or himself for the amount of frustration and extra hand-holding he caused because of the trees.
Niles took over from his teammate, one hand on Nuereddin’s shoulder in a more reassuring way this time. He briefly outlined what they had seen while the alien continued to take notes, stopping to ask clarifying questions as needed. Soon, the two men had their own stack of forms to carry over to the desks, with strict instructions about which forms needed to be filled out first and in triplicate. These directions went straight out of Nuereddin’s head as soon as he heard them, and he marched over to Veronica’s desk focused only on maintaining the stack of forms without dropping any of them or tripping over something or someone along the way.
Niles, on the other hand, hung back for a moment after receiving his pile of forms. “Many thanks for your help, friend,” he said to the alien, taking a close look at the first few forms in his own, much taller, stack. “I appreciate that your job may not be the most glamorous, but it is very important, and so I wish to let you know that your work is seen and appreciated.” With a solicitous nod that almost turned into a shallow bow, Niles turned and followed Nuereddin across the floor. The alien watched him leaving, mouths hanging open in shock. Humans! Who could understand them?
Soon, all five team members had converged around Veronica’s desk, sitting at the large round table that constituted their team work space. Veronica was the only member of the team to have a permanent work space in the Library, as her books had been out of print for decades and her universe was stable without her in it. With those two factors combined, Veronica had the most freedom to come and go as she pleased from her universe, and found herself spending the most time in the Library; it was a natural fit to keep her there for work purposes. The other team members floated around to other desks when they needed a dedicated work space for more than an hour or two, but generally, the round table and small, cubicle-like area built up around it were more than enough to meet their needs.
Sofya and Beale were already at the big table with Niles and Nuereddin returned. Sofya had a steaming mug in her hands, while Beale was eating the last bite of something from a store in Prime. Niles was instantly curious, and asked immediately. “Did you get some kind of pastry while you were in Prime? How is the food there?”
“Niles, buddy, you have no idea,” Beale said around a mouth full of cookie. “The food has all this complexity to it, and it’s not just one or two flavors and that’s it. It isn’t just some thin veil of a thing that’s described in a few words and then never thought of again. The people on Prime have their problems, sure, but they know how to make one hell of a sugar cookie.” He swallowed the last bite, then rubbed a napkin all around his face, finally clearing the frosting from his face. Sofya sighed in relief.
Nuereddin sniffed disdainfully. “I’ll take my loaf of lemnus bread over your ‘cookie’ any time. At least I know what my lemnus is made of - I’m not about to eat something that could be more chaff than food when I don’t know how it was made, much less the possibility of poison.” Nuereddin had a lot of enemies in his universe, and so he was accustomed to being a bit more paranoid that most people believed was truly healthy.
Sofya rolled her eyes but refrained from making any comment about Neureddin’s choice of food for once. “I see you’ve gotten the forms. Is it just me, or has the number of forms increased with each successive job we’ve done?”
“Not just you,” Veronica said as she spun in her office chair, accepting both stacks of paperwork from Niles and Nuereddin. “I’ve noticed that our paperwork load has increased three to five percent with each successful mission, and ten to twelve percent with each failed mission. There are more events and details the Head Librarians want to track, and so they need more information from the agent teams in order to track those details long-term. Filling the forms out properly is the best way we have to provide solid, accurate information to the Head Librarians so they can maintain the overall stability of the Library and all the universes therein.” She frowned when she saw all of the faces her team mates were making. “What?”
“I swear it’s like she swallows the Agent Training Guide just so she can bring it up in moments like this,” Nuereddin said not unkindly. The training guide had been a miserable slog for him, and if it hadn’t been for Veronica, he doubted he would have passed the necessary tests to become an agent. Still, there was understanding the guide and there was reciting it.
“I do have to admit, I’m getting visions of you using the training guide as your bedtime reading, hon,” Sofya added with a smirk. “I know this team is your main focus anymore, but, well, dang.”
Veronica’s face turned bright red as she turned back to her desk. “I just think the paperwork is really important, and I know you guys don’t think it is all the time, and I want to make sure you understand why the Heads need it, that’s all.” Her voice came out a little small, like she was trying to hold an emotion back, and Beale swallowed audibly and shifted his chair back so he was next to her at her desk.
“Hey, no problem. We were just joking a little, but we understand. The paperwork is important, even if it is a huge pain in the neck. We’re just so lucky to have a great gal like you who can help us through all of it so quickly and painlessly that we sometimes forget how bad it was before.” He chucked her under her chin, surprising a smile out of her. “So don’t worry about it, eh? We’ll make sure to do things properly, if not for the Heads, then for you.”
Sofya did her best to suppress an eyeroll, but she didn’t think she was terribly successful. She knew that Beale was used to using the kind of language that Veronica’s universe considered normal, calling her ‘gal’ and ‘doll’ and such, and Sofya knew that Veronica didn’t mind it when it was meant earnestly. There was just something so galling about watching a strong, confident woman deal with the same kind of condescending crap after all the time that had passed between Veronica’s universe and Sofya’s. It somehow seemed worse to have it coming from Beale, who was supposed to be another Modern character and thus, beyond such trite nonsense. So long as he didn’t try any of that on her, Sofya knew she didn’t really have a leg to stand on. It still rankled.
Niles broke up the tension with a small cough, bringing everyone’s attention back to the table and the stack of forms at hand. “Much as I appreciate how Milady is so thorough in explaining the whys and wherefores of the paperwork at hand, the truth of the matter is that we still need to fill it out. The sooner we start, the sooner we can call the job finished and put it behind us, tucked safely away. So, where would you like to start?” Everyone turned to Veronica expectantly, as she had always been the lead when it came to the end-of-action report.
She smiled, picking up the top form and pulling a freshly-sharpened pencil out of the drawer of her desk. “Let’s start at the beginning, of course.”
