The time between missions seemed shorter, the next time the team was called together. Niles hadn't had a chance to finish dealing with the troublesome rebels on his western edge, but he was glad to get away from the sand and dirt of the battleground and retreat to the shade and cool, whispering air of the Library.
Nuereddin and his brother had spent a few days together in town, and Nuereddin had to grudgingly admit that Teodor had some skill at smithing, something that he'd never been able to see before. They weren't from a clan known for metalwork, and so it was extremely rare for someone to come up with a skill that wasn't handed down to them from an older relative. Nuereddin now carried a walking staff, topped with an iron spike that would serve him well as a weapon should the need come upon him. He felt like it was more likely to happen now, on his missions with the Library, and so he had made sure to bring it with him on this call.
Sofya felt somewhere on the other side of tired. She hurt, and had been hurting more than usual for the last...well, since they'd come back from the last mission. She'd wanted nothing more than to curl up in her bed and stay asleep for a month, but the universe was not about to allow her to do that. No, she had to be available to rescue Jery from all the trouble they got themselves into, which was always far more trouble than they were worth, in Sofya's eyes. She was grateful that she'd at least gotten one day of rest before getting the call, otherwise she might not have been able to move enough to make it through the transit tunnels. She was going to have to look into upgrading her cane soon, as well, since the one she was using was meant to be for occasional use, not heavy, everyday use.
Beale strolled back into the Library holding a latte from his favorite in-universe cafe and putting on an expression that all was right with the world, and nothing could bother him. It was all an act, of course; he and Kelly had broken up only a few days' earlier in his timeline, and he was still smarting from the blow. Beale had never been the one to be dumped before, and he was having a hard time coming to terms with the rejection. A mission was just the kind of thing he needed to keep his mind off of things.
Veronica greeted the rest of her team at her desk, with none of her trademark cheer or sass. She looked haggard, and like she hadn't slept in weeks. To be fair, she wasn't sure when the last time she had a good night's sleep was, but it hadn't been recently. She was grateful to see her team again, because she needed to discuss with them what had happened after they left last time. She waited until they were all seated around the table in their usual spots before she began.
"Before we get our mission, I wanted to talk to you all. We all know that our last mission, the one regarding the congressional werelion, was strange, and it seemed as though there was a force outside of the ones we normally encounter that put the universe in jeopardy. Since you all left, I've done some research, and I've heard some things. I think I might know what those forces are, and that we are in a world of trouble if they are what I think they are."
She took a deep breath and looked around the table. These were her friends, she reminded herself - the people she'd been assigned to work with for ages, who had been with her through thick and thin, well, mostly. There were newer members of the team and older ones, naturally, some of whom had been around for some of the bigger issues she'd encountered. Regardless of how long they had been agents of the Library, she knew them, and they knew her. Whatever she told them, they were likely to believe her. Probably. Hopefully?
It had happened only a week after the team had finished filing their reports regarding the shifter senator universe. Everyone else had taken a chance to catch their breath, get themselves together, and make sure they were as ready as they could be before they went back to their home universes. Veronica had been more than happy to have the team around for a little longer than usual - while she loved the Library and wouldn’t dream of moving out of the small apartment within that she’d claimed as her own, she did on occasion feel a bit lonely after a mission. Sofya stayed with her, while the rest of the team stayed in one of the guest apartments nearby, and she was there for just long enough to remind Veronica that she preferred to live alone . Once the team had left, Veronica fell back into her normal routine, making lists for herself of what she wanted to investigate or research at that moment. Considering what the team had seen, she was particularly interested in authors arriving in their own universes, and how someone could influence a universe from the outside without an immediate reaction from the Library.
She’d gotten some book titles from the reference desk librarians, who always seemed happy to help her answer questions. She made her way into the stacks, searching for one of the reports of an author found in their own universe in the early twentieth century. The section of the Library that housed reports this old was nearly abandoned, the shelves carrying a visible layer of dust that made it clear no one had pulled the books from those shelves in quite some time. Several of the bookcases were on rails and had turning cranks at the end, so a patron could adjust the distance between two shelves and make it easier to get to a specific area. Veronica consulted her list against the call numbers on the sides of the bookshelves, and, after verifying the other spaces were empty, turned the crank to give herself space to get to the shelf she needed.
The lighting in this part of the Library was terrible, and so it took Veronica a minute for her eyes to adjust before she could start searching the shelves in earnest for the report she needed. She was standing still in between the shelves, waiting for the words on the spines in front of her to become readable, when she heard footsteps. It would figure, she thought. No one would need things in this part of the Library for years, but as soon as I need something, so does everyone else.
She remained still between the shelves, hoping that she would hear the footsteps continue beyond her, but she didn’t feel comfortable dropping her guard just yet. Veronica had already almost been caught between the shelves once when someone didn’t check before adjusting them, and she didn’t want to experience that again. Feeling like the walls were closing in was very different when the walls were actually closing in. She kept eyeing the books on the shelves in front of her, casually looking for her report while waiting for whoever it was to continue on their merry way.
“Why did you want to meet here, of all places?” The voice carried from a little further into the room from where Veronica stood, possibly from another set of rolling shelves. The person speaking was using a voice on the louder end of the “library voice” scale, so it carried clearly but still wasn’t as loud as they probably spoke normally. Something about being surrounded by books and bookshelves automatically put a person on edge when it came to making noise, Veronica noticed.
“I had to talk to you somewhere they weren’t going to overhear,” a second voice said in a monotone. Veronica’s head snapped around in the direction of the conversation. She recognized that second voice, she was sure of it. She needed to hear a little more to place it, though. Slowly, she edged her way to the end of the bookshelf and leaned in the direction she thought the conversation was coming from.
“OK, OK, that makes sense. But what’s the problem? Everything went to plan, didn’t it?” That voice sounded familiar, too, though Veronica was able to place it easily. It was Randulf, the alien managing the report center most days. He always spoke with a kind of swagger that set Veronica’s teeth on edge, and it was no different this time. If anything, he sounded even more confident and arrogant at the moment. She wondered what kind of relationship he had with the other person, the one who called the meeting.
“Yes and no. There’s been major damage done, and the book has been sidelined in Prime, but the protagonist survived. The author managed to make an appearance and save the day, somehow.” The words were said in monotone again, but they still managed to send a spike of ice down Veronica’s spine. They were talking about her team’s last mission. The way they were talking about it…surely she was mistaken. She took a step out of the shelves where she had been listening and carefully moved herself around to get closer to the voices while remaining hidden herself.
“The AUTHOR? That’s not supposed to be possible. And if the protagonist survived, and the author knows what happened, then she’s probably going to try to recreate it.” Veronica managed to stifle a startled cry when she heard something like a large book slide across a surface and land on the floor with a deafening thud. “This branch can’t survive. You and I both know that. We have to do something. We have our orders.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Maybe we should shift our priorities.” Veronica shifted her position a little bit and was able to see just a bit of the two people in the shelves. One was leaning against the shelf with their back to her, while the other, Randulph, was pacing back and forth in front of them. Veronica couldn’t see much of the person leaning against the shelf, so she ducked back behind a different shelf and waited.
“If we change targets, then we have a chance of taking out more of the trash, rather than hopelessly grasping at the little twigs the way we have been. It would need to be big, much bigger than before, but we both know it’s necessary.” Veronica poked her head around just in time to see the shoulders leaning against the shelf shrug, and the tip of a long black tail flick upwards behind them.
The tail. The monotone. The shrug. Veronica knew she recognized the voice: Cassidy from the Archives. They weren’t someone that spent a lot of time among the other people in the Library, but she had done her best to reach out with a bit of kindness everytime she’d encountered them. They had started joining her in the afternoons for a quiet lunch and tea break, and even though they didn’t speak much, it was nice to have someone to be comfortably silent with. Veronica had thought of them as a friend, but now…
Now, she just wanted to grab the report she needed, and get the hell out of this space. The last thing she wanted was to hear more from her friend (were they friends? Had they ever been friends?) about their plans to destroy the institution she’d given everything for. Wiping the hot tears away with sharp, angry swipes of her hand, Veronica hurried back to the shelf where the report she needed was supposed to be. This time, her eyes had already adjusted to the dim light, and she was able to find the report quickly.
The entire time she was pulling the report and heading back to the circulation desks, Veronica was deliberately not listening for any other conversation. She didn’t think they had continued to speak, but she wasn’t willing to find out for certain. She’d heard more than enough to know that there were problems, and she needed to tell someone. She thought she knew who she could tell, but she was going to need some time to figure it out. Did she really trust them? Would they believe her? Did she believe what she heard? Veronica couldn’t answer any of those questions right away.
After she told the rest of her team the story, Veronica looked each of them in the eye for a brief moment. Nuereddin looked the least surprised of anyone, but then, he tended to see ambush and enemies in every interaction, so it didn’t surprise her that he would jump on this idea with both feet. Niles simply looked thoughtful, as though he were digesting the information she had given him. Beale had rolled his eyes quite a bit and was now leaning back in his chair with a sigh, and Veronica wasn’t sure if he just wasn’t interested or if he had an actual complaint about what she’d said.
As Sofya stirred her tea slowly, watching the liquid form a small whirl in the center of the mug, she tried to pull her thoughts together about what she had just heard from Veronica. It sounded bad, of course, but was it as big of a problem as Veronica thought it was? What were they supposed to do about this information? She looked back up at Veronica, who met her eyes nervously, biting her bottom lip as she waited for someone to say something.
Niles spoke first. “What you’re saying you heard sounds terrible, and like something that needs to be reported to the Head Librarians. Did they say what they had tried to do, or what they wanted to do next? We need to make sure we can give the Head Librarians as much information as we possibly can.”
Nuereddin cut in before Veronica could respond. “Are you crazy? There’s no way she can report this to the Head Librarians. You heard what she said, who was talking - they’re not working alone. They have their orders, remember? Who knows how high up it goes? It could go all the way up to the Head Librarians themselves! If she reports it, then she’ll be letting them know that she knows about their plots. No way. This is something we need to handle ourselves. No reporting, no asking the higher-ups for help.”
“And do what, exactly? What are we handling?” Beale leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the table as he stared Nuereddin down. “You heard the same thing I did, and that’s just not anything we can do anything with. Honestly, Veronica, honey, you’ve been under a lot of strain lately. Are you even sure that you heard what you thought you did? Or that it was the people you said it was? You might have dreamed the whole thing, or misheard what they were talking about.” He leaned back and crossed his arms again, settling back into a relaxed position. “I say we don’t do anything unless we get some actual proof of anything. And Veronica, doll, maybe you should put in for a leave of absence or something - you look like you could use a vacation.”
Sofya put her mug back on the table a little harder than necessary, making the table rattle with the sound of the ceramic hitting the wood surface. That was enough to get everyone’s attention, including Beale, who had the decency to look at least a little bit shamefaced about his comments. At least, that’s what Sofya hoped he looked embarrassed about. She cleared her throat to speak, looking around the table at all the men on her team before meeting Veronica’s gaze again.
“I’m going to try to ignore all the gaslighting Beale just attempted there, and focus on what Veronica said.” Sofya deliberately looked away from Beale’s affronted expression to continue. She knew he didn’t like what she said, and she really didn’t care. “Right now, we have some information based on what Veronica overheard, which include information that the last mission we went on was due to intentional interference, and it’s likely to happen again. I’m not entirely clear what they meant when they were talking about ‘changing the target,’ so it’s not as easy as staking out a specific universe to keep it safe.” She nodded to Nuereddin at that, trying to convey that his plan of jumping into action right now wasn’t going to work. He looked irritated, but not much more than usual, so Sofya went on. “I think we may need to include some people who are higher up on the food chain than we are-“ with a nod to Niles, “but not yet. Across the board, I think we need to get more information. We need to find out more about what kind of target they are talking about, and what exactly they intended to do with the universe they tried to destroy. Why were they so upset that the protagonist lived? And why did the author’s appearance scare them so much?” She frowned as she remembered that piece. “Come to think of it, how did the author show up?”
Veronica let out a shaky breath, one she hadn’t realized she’d been holding until that moment. It took her a second to realize Sofya had asked her a question that didn’t involve the issues she’d overheard, and even longer to pull her thoughts together enough to answer it. “I haven’t been able to find too much on the ‘how’ just yet, but I did see that it’s happened before,” she said as she searched her desk for her notes. “Here it is. The book was called ‘The Children of Darwin’ by D. Jensen, and the author showed up sometime after the first year or so it was in publication in 1925. In that case, it’s hard to tell if she was trying to fix a problem, or if she just got really drunk and wandered around her universe - there isn’t much information about what the book was like before the author’s appearance.” She looked up from her notes with a shrug. “It’s not a book I’ve read before, but I suppose I could go into the universe and see what’s what.”
“I’ll go,” Beale said coldly, standing up. “That’s at least something real that I can work on, something that makes sense for our team to figure out with regards to our actual mission, and not chasing shadows and listening to phantom voices in the stacks.” He held his hand out to Veronica for her notes, his eyes showing none of the warmth they normally had for her.
“You shouldn’t go alone,” Niles said reasonably, resisting the urge to smack the arrogance out of the young man. “Even exploring a known universe that’s outside of your genre can be dangerous if you’re alone.”
“I know that,” Beale snapped, not looking at Niles but keeping his glare focused on Veronica. She began transcribing the relevant details she had found onto a clean page in her notebook so she could give it to Beale, not wanting to hand over everything to someone she suddenly didn’t trust completely. “I’m going to the report center to tell them about this and request that it be a mission, and that they assign me to a team to go. Temporarily, I mean,” he stumbled, finally looking up at Niles and recognizing the disappointment on the older man’s face.
“That’s probably a good idea,” Sofya said softly, trying to keep her tone level. Beale looked at her, an eyebrow raised in question. “Going ahead with that piece of the research, working with some other people who aren’t us for a little bit. It would probably be healthy for there to be a little bit of separation for now. Just temporarily.” She met Beale’s gaze with a steady one of her own, trying to make her disappointment in him clear. Even if he didn’t believe everything Veronica had said, he had no right talking to her the way he did.
Veronica finished making her copy of the information and handed it to Beale. “Just…just be careful, all right?” She put the paper in his hand, her touch lingering for just a second too long. “I want our team to be whole and in one piece by the end of everything, you know.”
Beale glanced at the paper with the notes, folded them in half and stuck them in his jacket pocket, then gave Veronica the smallest of smiles. He gave a silly kind of salute to the rest of the table, and walked over to the reporting station. Veronica got a strange sense that she was never going to see him again, but she knew that wasn’t the case.
They were a team. One way or another, they would always be a team.
