By the time the team reconvened at the Library, everyone was a little worse for the wear. Sofya and Beale were outwardly the most intact, though Sofya needed her cane more than she ever had needed it outside of her home universe, and Beale was favoring his ribs on his right side. Still, they were physically mostly unharmed, if disturbed by things they’d seen and hadn’t been able to describe to anyone yet. Sofya wasn’t sure if she was ever going to feel comfortable going into detail about the Prime side of the mission, but she definitely didn’t feel comfortable now. Beale refused to think about such things, and just wanted to get to the table and sit down.
Sofya watched her young team mate struggle toward Veronica’s desk and took pity on him. “I can take this to the Archives on my own,” she said, giving Beale’s arm a comforting squeeze. She kept her voice low and her movements slow to avoid startling him, which was mostly effective - he just turned his head quickly in alarm, but he didn’t jump or start or make any other full-body motion that would cause him more pain. Sofya had been there and done that, and she wasn’t eager to have her friends learn about it first hand. Once Beale’s breathing slowed back down, he gave her a look of relief tinged with guilt. “I’ll be fine, I promise. You can even watch me walk over there from the table, look.” Sofya gestured toward the door of the Archives, which was on the wall closest to the table where the team worked. “You’ll be within shouting distance if I need anything.”
Beale hung his head for a moment, struggling with an internal battle about what he should do and what he knew was best for him to do. Eventually, what was best for him won, and he gave Sofya a one-armed hug before hurrying over to the team area. Sofya smiled to herself, then pulled herself together and moved slowly to the Archives. The book was deep in the pocket of her skirt, where she could feel the outline of the plastic case bumping her leg with every step. If nothing else, it was proof that they had completed their portion of the mission, and the book was now going to be archived properly.
The Archives weren’t a place Sofya’s team frequently visited, as the books they obtained had already been acquired and archived long before their anomalies became enough of a problem for the Library to require interference. Still, now and then Sofya and her team needed to work with a universe that hadn’t been recorded in the annals of the Library yet, and one of the main goals of those missions was to acquire a copy of the record of the universe and bring it back to the Library to be recorded.
This was the first time that Sofya had gone out of her way to get a copy of a library book to add to the Archive, and she wasn’t entirely sure how that would work between the two universes. She had needed a library card in Prime to check the book out, which had been easy enough to forge, but now Rosemary was expecting that Sofya bring the copy of the book back to the library in Prime, and she wasn’t sure how to go about that task. That was going to have to wait for a different time and type of conversation, and one that Sofya wasn’t up to at the moment. One step at a time, she told herself firmly as she made her way down the hallway that was on the immediate other side of the door from the bull pen part of the Library’s main reading room.
The Archives weren’t the kind of place that people came to visit on a whim, and the decor reflected its unwelcoming nature. The hallway emptied into a slightly wider area, lit with harsh fluorescent bulbs overhead. After the darkness of the hallway, the bright, unforgiving light of the entry room made Sofya’s blue eyes stream with tears. She stood blinking rapidly for several seconds before she felt completely comfortable coming in the room with her eyes mostly open, and even then it felt like a piece of sandpaper lined her eyelids. It took her far longer than it should have for her to realize that she was alone in the room, which was completely bereft of furniture or any kind of decor, and there didn’t seem to be a way for her to call someone’s attention to the fact that she was there.
Sofya frowned as she looked around, trying to figure out what her next move should be. She wasn’t going to just leave the book on the floor in this place - it had been too difficult to obtain for her to trust to chance. At the same time, she didn’t know who the best person to hold the record would be among the people who knew the truth of the story. Would one of these Archivists be the best person to take the book and treat it with dignity, or would they see the book as yet another failed attempt to monetize fan fiction and put it at the bottom of their to do stack? Sofya could understand the knee-jerk reaction to a book such as this one, even as she hoped fervently that the team in the Archives would fight against that initial impression. The book was showing signs of a major problem related to multiple anomalies, some of which looked to be introduced intentionally into the text. It was far too important to be treated like some vanity published piece of self-insert fan service.
Sofya jumped when she realized that someone else was in the room with her. She hadn’t heard them enter, and she didn’t know of any other entrance into the space other than the hallway she’d walked in through. She was certain she would have noticed someone walking in directly behind her, but the sudden appearance made her question her own ability to sense what was around her. Sofya wasn’t even sure what had alerted her to the other person’s presence - one moment she had been alone, the next, someone was in the room, leaning against a wall and staring at a mobile device with the kind of perpetually bored eyes glazed over face that she was accustomed to seeing on Beale. Even though Sofya was the person coming into an area that wasn’t her normal stomping grounds and was therefor the visitor, she felt as though she needed to break the silence first to get the Archivist’s attention.
“Um, hello?” she began tentatively. The person continued to lean against the wall and stare at their phone. Sofya grew bolder, knowing that if she didn’t take command of the visit, she would never get out of the Archives.
“Excuse me? I’m Sofya Lennox, I’m an agent of the Library, and I’ve got a book that needs to be added to the Library Archives as soon as possible. There are signs of significant-“
Sofya stopped short when the person suddenly reached out a hand toward her, making a ‘come here’ motion with their fingers while still playing with their phone. They hadn’t looked at the Library agent at all, and Sofya had begun to suspect they hadn’t heard her at all, when she noticed that they had a very long, cat-like tail poking out from under the hem of their American-style vintage windbreaker. The tip of the tail was twitching back and forth excitedly, dancing back and forth rapidly in a way Sofya was fairly certain the owner of said tail couldn’t completely control. Some of her information was making it through, no matter how the person treated her externally. Sofya smiled to herself awkwardly, trying to figure out the best way to use this information to her favor.
“I realize that you don’t receive guests very often in the Archives, but might I have a chair or someplace where I might sit?” Sofya did her best to sound as though she hated having to trouble the other person with her needs, when in actuality she was prepared to lie down on the floor if need be. Her spine was not OK with the abuse it had recently undergone, and being forced to remain upright was asking a great deal more of it than it could really deliver. She moved to rest her right arm and hip against a wall, feeling the edge of the book press up against her leg through her pocket while also getting some blessed relief by transferring some of her weight to the wall for support. She smiled winsomely (she hoped) at the other person, hoping against hope that they would help her sooner rather than later.
The in-universe portion of the team made their way into the work room, all looking somber and distraught. Nothing had gone to plan in the universe they were sent to learn about and save, and none of them were sure they’d be able to do the tale justice to the other members of their team. Veronica’s lovely new blouse had scorch marks along the back, but at least it hadn’t burned completely through. Nuereddin’s beard was a bit shorter, and the long, trailing braids in his hair had come undone and were hanging around his head like a halo made of steel wool. Niles didn’t look as impacted physically, but his eyes didn’t seem to focus on what was in front of him; instead they seemed to be looking at something or someplace else entirely.
“Beale!” Veronica called hoarsely once they were close enough that she didn’t have to shout. The smoke had done a number of her throat, and she didn’t know how long she was going to have to deal with it yet - just that it was incredibly irritating. “I’m glad you’re back. Where’s Sofya?”
Beale turned in the chair slowly, swiveling around so he didn’t have to twist his torso at all to see the rest of his team. “She’s at the Archives, making sure this piece of garbage gets recorded for posterity. Glad you three are in one piece. Although…Niles, you OK there, buddy?” He felt like trying to snap his fingers in front of the warrior king’s face, but that struck him as being a bit over the line, even for him.
Fortunately for Beale, Niles didn’t need more than hearing his name to catch his attention. He looked down at the young man who was staring up at him from the place at the table where he sat, gingerly leaning back as though he hadn’t a care in the world though Niles could see the pain etched on his face. That pain, more than hearing his name, woke Niles up from his reverie, and he focused on Beale. “You are injured. Were you attacked in Prime? Is Sofya injured as well?”
Beale blinked, non-plussed. Niles had gone from zero to mother hen in less than ten seconds, and it was a little unnerving. “Yeah, I mean, I got a little banged up, no big deal. Sofya’s OK, she says, but she’s using her cane a lot more than I’ve seen her need it before. Though she was leaning on it before we even left the Library…” His voice trailed off as he realized he was babbling, and he awkwardly cleared his throat. “You guys should sit down. You look dead on your feet.”
Nuereddin had already walked around Niles to get to his usual chair, and had just dropped into it like a sack of dirt when Beale made that statement. He wasn’t wrong - Nuereddin felt dead on his feet, and he wasn’t entirely sure some part of him hadn’t died in the blast. What he’d seen in that tower room, and the way that the anomaly had been deliberately put in place to destroy the universe, had given him a shock deep in his core. Someone was trying to purposefully destroy a world, and he didn’t understand why. He looked bleakly at Veronica, hoping to see some of his friend’s optimism shine through and assist him through his crisis of faith.
Veronica had skirted the table entirely, going straight for her desk and settling in her desk chair with her back to the rest of her team. She just needed a moment before she spoke to anyone, that was all - she needed to make sure she could keep her composure before she said anything to them that might lead to touchy questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. Veronica ran her fingertips over the soft leather cover of her typewriter, using it to ground herself in the present moment. She was back at her desk in the Library. She had most of her team sitting behind her at the table. The one member that wasn’t at the table was doing necessary work in the Library, and would be back soon, and safely. Veronica took a careful, slow breath in, and let it out with equal deliberate slowness. Once she felt her heartbeat come back down, she turned around and faced the rest of the team. “It’s bad, friends,” she said solemnly. “We are going to need more help, and quickly. This is beyond just us and what we can handle - we need to escalate, and we need to do it now.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Sofya finally managed to get the person with the cat tail to look at her, at least, but it didn’t seem like they registered anything about her. “Isn’t there some kind of process or receipt or something that happens when a book is entered into the Archives?” she demanded, her voice growing shrill with irritation. “I have to return this book in Prime, so I need to make sure I can get it back after you’ve processed it.” For all the person responded, Sofya could have been shouting in an invented language only she understood. Their pale blue eyes looked through her, and the rolled-up sleeve of their windbreaker remained in place as they continued to hold out a hand for the book. Every time she stopped talking, they would return to looking down at their phone, held in their opposite hand and flashing through a number of different screens from what Sofya could tell.
She threw her free hand up in anger and let out a shriek of frustration. This was not how this part of the mission was supposed to go. She was supposed to go to the Archives, drop the book off, get a receipt, maybe chat with a friendly Librarian or Archivist, and then go back to her team and debrief on what had gone wrong with the whole bloody job. Sofya was getting the run-around from someone who seemed to have no concern whatsoever about what they were doing or why they were there, and that was the last straw for her. She spun on her heel as well as she was able (damned cane!) and made to storm out of the Archives.
Her planned storming was thwarted, however, by the woman who was suddenly behind Sofya. She stood at ease, as though she’d always been there, and held out a hand to help Sofya, who was thrown off-balance by the spin and then the sudden stop of momentum. Sofya didn’t ultimately need the help, but she did appreciate the offer of assistance. She took a moment to smooth her skirt and generally pull herself back together before addressing the mystery woman. “Can I help you?”
The woman’s dark face split in a wide grin, showing off exceptionally white and somewhat overly sharp teeth. “My dear, it is I who can help you. I am Archivist Jane, and I thank you for bringing a volume to our Archives. I must apologize for Archivist Cassidy - they are not our best when it comes to public-facing interactions, but they are an excellent processor and handle the actual workings of the Archive and its memory with aplomb.” As she spoke, Archivist Jane began herding Sofya away from the door and past the surly, unresponsive person she’d been dealing with before. Other than a twitch of their tail, Cassidy didn’t appear to take any notice of either Jane’s appearance or her comments. Sofya managed to restrain herself from sticking her tongue out at them as she walked past, but it was a close thing.
As they walked, more of the space around them began to come into focus and distinguish itself as separate, distinct walls and doors, instead of the featureless bubble it had appeared previously. By the time Jane had stopped Sofya, they were in a reception area that seemed much bigger than this area of the Library should have accommodated. There was a wall in the middle of the room that had water flowing down it, and the water ran under clear glass in the floor so people could walk on a stream without getting wet. Sofya peered down at her feet and saw several small fish of varieties both known and foreign to her, all moving in what seemed to be utter contentment. The light, thankfully, had mellowed, coming from several lamps on tables scattered around the space, instead of the harsh fluorescent lighting from the entryway where Cassidy had ignored her.
Jane moved Sofya forward toward a large desk backed against a wall covered in bookcases. Unlike the ones in the Library’s reading rooms, these bookcases held fewer books that were properly bound and more manuscripts that had been bundled together from loose pages, or notebooks, or printed on computer paper. There were sections that contained nothing but computer disks or flash drives, all held neatly in containers that fit perfectly on the shelf. Sofya was extremely curious about some of the manuscripts, particularly a few that appeared to be on scrolls that she spied in a top corner, but she didn’t think she would be able to get very far with asking to read them.
Jane walked behind the desk, which had been empty, and gave Sofya another smile that showed just a bit too much tooth. “Now. What is it I can do for you?”
Sofya shook herself from the daydreams of reading the manuscripts behind Jane and addressed the matter at hand. “I’m Sofya Lennox, and I am an agent of the Library. My team and I were sent to recover a book that was suspected to contain an anomaly that was dangerous to the universe. My partner and I were able to recover the book from its only publicly-available physical location in Prime, but that location was a public library. As such, I will need to return the book to the library in Prime after it has been processed, else the public library could become suspicious and would no longer be a potential resource for the Library on future missions.” Sofya felt calmer as she worked through the details of what she needed, as she always did when she had a plan. She always felt that she could handle just about anything in the world, so long as she had a plan.
Jane nodded as Sofya spoke, jotting something down on a notepad behind the desk as she listened. Once Sofya stopped speaking, Jane leaned forward, her voice conspiratorial. “I think we have just the thing to make sure the public library doesn’t cause any trouble for you and your team. It’s a good thing that copyright law doesn’t apply to the Library, because then we might be in a bit of trouble, but without that rabble, we can do whatever we need!” She laughed then, her laugh sounding almost, but not quite, like the beginnings of a cackle. Sofya smiled and chuckled a bit, trying to keep up a similar attitude while not entirely letting her guard down around the Archivist. She really just wanted to go back to her team and put this all behind her, hopefully with a good cup of tea.
Jane gestured behind her, to a cabinet that had been hidden by her body until that moment. Sofya squinted as she looked closer at the cabinet, trying to see what was so important about it or what it contained, but it didn’t read as anything particularly out of the ordinary. She turned with a confused look to Jane and shrugged, and the Archivist rolled her eyes.
“Honestly, I don’t know what universe you’re from, but it’s clearly not one that has much to do with technology,” Jane grumbled. “In that cabinet is a state of the art scanner, which will allow us to take images of each page of the book you have and add them to our digital archive, to be processed into the main Archive at our leisure. This way, you will be able to keep the physical book and take it back to your precious public library, with them being none the wiser about our little breach of copyright here.” She smiled brilliantly and held out her hand. “Here, I can scan it for you right now, while you watch. The book will never be out of your sight.”
Sofya felt a bit of relaxation to the tension around her chest at this. If she could stay and watch the process, then she would feel better knowing what she was getting back, and that the book was going to be the same one she handed over to the Archives. Well, it would be the same physical object - the story itself may still end up changing itself, depending on how deep the tear in the universe was. Sofya had to hope that the rest of her team was back, and that they had more information about what was going on inside of the universe. In the meantime, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the book, handing it to Jane while watching the Archivist’s eyes carefully. “I would love to watch how this thing works,” she said, hoping that she didn’t sound too eager. She wanted to watch the book get dealt with and handed back to her, not get a long lesson in scanning technology. It was important to demonstrate the right amount of enthusiasm, and not more than was necessary.
Jane pulled the book from Sofya’s hand, studying the cover and focusing almost completely on this new article of literature. “Fascinating, yes,” she murmured, so low Sofya could almost not hear her. “A vanity publication, so not many in circulation, and this one read often enough to crack the spine and have the book encased in plastic…” She turned to Sofya suddenly and pinned the woman with her gaze. “Were other books in this library similarly protected?”
“If…if you mean with the plastic, then yes,” Sofya stammered, trying to not seem as startled as she was feeling. “Prime is currently dealing with some kind of virus, and so most surfaces have been covered in something that is easy to clean and disinfect.”
Jane sniffed derisively and moved to the cabinet with the book open in her hands. “Yes, I’d heard that Prime was having trouble with such a thing. What are they calling it? Spanish Flu? Something like that. They like being able to blame someone for everything.” She didn’t wait for an answer as she opened the top of what Sofya had mistaken for a cooler and put the book, open, on the flat piece of glass now revealed.
“Yeah, I know, it’s nuts, right?” Sofya babbled, trying to strain around the desk to see how this scanner contraption worked while also not doing too much damage to her back and hip. It was a lost cause, but Sofya didn’t think it was likely that Jane would offer her a chair or anything that would make the experience any easier for her, so she didn’t bother asking. “That bright light - it doesn’t damage the pages?”
Jane kept her back to Sofya and returned her focus to the machine, opening the top and changing pages before putting the book back down on the scanner. “Not at all,” she called over her shoulder, holding the top closed over the book as the line of white light ran back and forth across the glass under the book. Sofya tried not to look directly at the light, but it was tantalizing, teasing in the way it moved.
Sofya wasn’t sure what else they chatted about - she doubted her mind was fully engaged in any of the conversation, other than the parts that caught something was a question and tried to come up with an answer that, if it didn’t make sense, would at least plausibly fill the gap in conversation. True to her word, Jane was finished with the scanner in short order, and she returned the book to Sofya with a smile. “See? Never out of your sight.”
Sofya took the book back, feeling the warmth that now permeated through the plastic case and on the pages themselves. She thumbed through the book quickly, making sure no damage had been done to any of the pages, but of course, Jane had been a professional. Balancing herself with her cane, Sofya managed to get the book back into her skirt’s pocket before returning her attention to the Archivist. “Thank you very much. Is, uh, is there anything else you need from me?”
Jane pursed her lips in thought, and Sofya found herself paying much more attention to the Archivist’s jawline than she had been just a moment again. Something about the strong line of the jaw, blending into the smooth contours of her neck and the muscles of her shoulders…It had been a long time since Sofya had had any kind of intimate thoughts about another person, and this was exactly the wrong time to break that streak.
Thankfully, Jane shook her head and the ends of her long box braids swung around, obscuring the lines Sofya had been admiring and snapping her out of her reverie. “Not at this time, no,” Jane replied, walking next to Sofya and guiding her gently in the direction of the door. Sofya felt what she was sure was her imagination, but just might have been Jane’s hand on the small of her back, leading her in the right direction. Sofya gave herself a good shake mentally, and focused on moving to the exit.
The walk out was much shorter than the walk in had been, though Sofya didn’t know if that was because Jane had somehow arranged things or if she had been taken to a different exit. She hoped it was the same door she entered, otherwise she might get hopelessly lost in the Library. Sofya felt almost cheered when she saw the other archivist, Cassidy, still leaning and staring at their phone, the only sign of movement coming from the twitching of their tail and the movement of their thumb as they scrolled through whatever they saw on the handheld screen. Sofya resisted the urge to wave goodbye to them, knowing it wouldn’t help matters at all, even if it would give her some personal satisfaction.
Jane watched Sofya’s expression with curiosity as they moved past Cassidy and back to the door out, and whatever she saw there made her smile broadly. “Now, don’t worry too much about Cassidy there,” she said, making no attempted to keep her voice down. Over her shoulder, Sofya noticed that Cassidy’s thumb had stopped moving, and their tail was thrashing around their ankles. “Cassidy’s harmless, just a bit anti-social. They know their job inside and out, and they’ve landed in the perfect place for themselves in the Archives.” Jane gestured straight ahead, and the door Sofya had last seen close behind her when she first entered this labyrinth was standing as though it had never been anywhere else. “Thank you for your service to the Library and the Archives, and have a pleasant rest of your day.” With that, Jane turned on one red high heel and went back into the nothingness of the Archives. Even as Sofya watched, Jane seemed to disappear from one step to the next, with no sign of where she had gone. Cassidy had followed, still staring at their phone, and similarly disappeared in the blink of an eye.
