《The Infinite Library》


 Meet the Crew

    The lobby of the bookstore was silent, but for one noise - a whine Sofya knew could blow the entire operation, and dreaded every time she heard it. She took a deep, cleansing breath, letting it out slowly as she fought to maintain calm in the presence of this danger to the mission. It was up to her to stop the noise from happening, and if she didn¡¯t, the consequences would be unthinkable.


    ¡°But why do we have to go to another chain bookstore?¡± The young man next to her had the kind of voice that would pierce through walls at the best of times. When he was being a big whiny baby? It piereced eardrums. ¡°I¡¯m just saying that once, just once, I want to go to a nice independent bookshop, with an eclectic mix of decor and maybe a specialized collection of books for sale, and staffed by-¡°


    ¡°By a raven-haired, kind, gentle-eyed soul who would meet your gaze with a look that conveyed both hope and recognition?¡± Sofya kept her voice low, which helped her keep the sarcasm toned down as well. ¡°Beale, I¡¯ve read your book. I know what you want. You know why we have to go to the big bookstores sometimes. Now shut it and put your mask on. We have to blend in.¡±


    With the huff only the young and privileged can pull off with such aplomb, Beale took his hands out of his pockets and pulled out the face mask he¡¯d chosen for this particular escapade. Fortunately, face masks had become enough of a fashion statement that the bright geometric pattern with ¡°artistic¡± paint splotches didn¡¯t mark him as particularly unique. Sofya secured her own, more muted face mask, adjusting the top edge so she wouldn¡¯t fog up her glasses and letting her fingers drift over the embroidery of the fabric. The masks were a new wrinkle in the missions that took her team into Prime, but she had to admit that the people had done a marvelous job of creating art out of necessity. With a final glance at Beale that held both confirmation of readiness and warning, she opened the door into the main bookstore.


    Sofya and Beale were generally the members of their team sent for the Prime-side portion of the missions, because their universes were the closest to the current state of Prime. However, nothing ever truly prepared them for the overwhelming power of Prime, particularly when it had been a while. The smells were the thing that always hit Sofya first, because they were the thing that so rarely came up in her universe. It was disorienting to be in a place that was suffused with something that impacted a sense she so rarely used at home that she almost forgot she had it. She saw Beale take a deep, appreciative breath and start drifting toward the cafe, and she snagged his sleeve before he let himself be taken by the coffee and pastries. ¡°Job first. Then cookies.¡±


    Beale shook himself, as if from a daze, and made eye contact with Sofya. ¡°I smelled oatmeal raisin. I will be holding you to that promise.¡± The corners of his eyes crinkled with the unseen smile, and Sofya felt herself relax into a responding smile. Regardless of how irritating he was, the man could be charming when he wanted to be. One would hope, as it was his entire point of being, but he was one of the better-written Roms she¡¯d met.


    She pulled the list out of the pocket of her long, broomstick-style skirt, and consulted the information scrawled upon it. ¡°OK, we have two we need to pick up - one in YA UrbFan, and one in ¡®Fiction.¡¯¡± She rolled her eyes as she handed over the list. ¡°¡®Fiction¡¯ is such a useful genre here, isn¡¯t it? Like it¡¯s all one universe.¡±


    ¡°Well, as far as some of these people are concerned, everything¡¯s all one universe,¡± Beale remarked matter-of-factly. ¡°They don¡¯t know any better, poor things. I recognize the ¡®Fiction¡¯ - it¡¯s a thinly-veiled Revenge Memoir. I¡¯ll grab that one, so you can go amongst your people.¡± He handed her the paper again, and with a wink, strode off in the direction of the largest section of the bookstore. Sofya double-checked the title then made her way to the second-largest section, Young Adult.


    Sofya didn¡¯t come from a YA universe herself, but UrbFan was her home, so she knew her way around the younger stuff. She followed the telltale signs of disturbance in the universe - books shelved in the wrong section, series out of order - to the center of the problem.


    Unfortunately, that proved to be a bigger issue than she anticipated. She checked the title on the list once again, though she was certain she had the right book, and her heart sank. The book she was assigned to pick up and bring back to the Library for observation - the one that was no longer stable in the universe due to some kind of internal problem - happened to be one of the more popular YA publications of the last few months. As such, she was looking at a display of at least ten copies of the same book. Somehow, she was going to have to find the one copy that contained the other half of her team among all of these best-sellers. With a sigh, she picked up the nearest copy and started flipping through the first few pages.


    With luck, Niles and Veronica would remember the best ways to keep everyone together and let the Prime-side team know where they were. The first few chapters of the book showed nothing more than a standard YA UrbFan, apparently a later book in a series that had already established the existence of werewolf baristas in a small town in the Northeast United States. One of the werewolves was running for mayor at the beginning of this book. Sofya started to read more intently, before remembering why she was there. She set the first copy down and looked at the rest of the display, trying to suss out some kind of sign that would point her to the right book.


    Fortunately, the bookstore was fairly empty, and there was no one around in this aisle of YA. Sofya would never have tried this if there had been people were around, but she was worried - the fact that signs of distress had been visible all the way down the shelf meant that whatever incongruity was happening had been there for long enough to cause damage that might take ages to repair, if ever. She needed to find the right book, and fast.


    Just as she pulled her implements out of her pocket, she heard footsteps behind her. Trying not to look too suspicious, Sofya turned and saw Beale sauntering over to her, the Revenge Memoir under his arm. ¡°I took care of mine, what¡¯s taking you so long?¡± he remarked, before seeing the display. His face sobered. ¡°Oh. I see. What do you need?¡±If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    ¡°A little space and privacy,¡± Sofya responded as she set her supplies out on the shelf in front of the book in question. She didn¡¯t even look up when she heard Beale walking toward the end of the aisle, but she could see him looking at the books at the end of the aisle, putting him in a good location to stop people from coming much further and getting closer to her. As much of a pretty-boy Rom as he was, he had potential to be useful when the chips were down, Sofya thought to herself.


    Quickly, she took the string and two small quartz crystals from the pile on the shelf and looped them together to make a very loose web. Delicately placing the web on the shelf directly in front of the book copies, she held a button made of amethyst over the web and moved it over the string, following the loops and whirls it made around the crystals. As she did so, she muttered under her breath, letting the language flow through her and use her lips, tongue, and breath to come to life. Sofya always felt a bit drained after channeling magic in this way, but it was the most precise way of getting the information she needed quickly.


    Once she had completed the circuit with the button, she let go of it, still muttering. The button hovered in the air, spinning slowly, until it moved to the right and landed on top of the copy at the far end of the group. Sofya used a small pencil from her pocket to push the button onto a different copy, and watched it move back to the same one again. Satisfied, Sofya swept all of her things back into her pocket, leaving just the button. Once she¡¯d put away everything, she gently slid the book out of the shelf, and she caught the button as it fell from the top of the book. Once she touched the button again, it fell inert, the magic that had been powering it spent. Sofya tucked the button back into the same pocket as the rest of her implements, and walked over to Beale, holding the book in question.


    ¡°Shall we?¡± she said, nodding toward the cash register. Whenever possible, the teams would purchase the books they needed, rather than stealing them. Prime bookstores were in enough danger of becoming obsolete as it was; the Library didn¡¯t want to speed that obsolescence along any further than was absolutely necessary. Beale¡¯s eyes crinkled again as he followed her line of sight, and he grandly took the book from her and added it to both the Revenge Memoir and another book Sofya didn¡¯t recognize. When she gave him a questioning look, he shrugged, nonchalant. ¡°You left me alone in a bookstore for a minute. Be happy I¡¯m only walking out with one extra book. Now, books, then cookies, then Library?¡±


    ¡°Sounds like a plan,¡± Sofya agreed, and together they made their way to the front of the store, allowing the smells of hot coffee and fresh baked goods to wash over them all over again.


    Meanwhile, in the wilds of the Northeastern United States, Niles and Veronica were working to keep Nuereddin from falling into the clutches of the trees nearby. ¡°Seriously, how are you considered some kind of druid when you can¡¯t handle being around trees?¡± Veronica groused as she kept one arm around Nuereddin¡¯s waist, forcing him to walk into the shadows of a great oak.


    ¡°Verily, what milady says is true,¡± Niles intoned from behind the two of them. His large hand was resting on Nuereddin¡¯s shoulder, a weight that made it clear that, while it wasn¡¯t gripping and throwing him now, that could all change very quickly if need be. ¡°You are meant to be a man of nature, and yet the mighty trees of the forest, those great bastions of nature, cause you such fear? It does not make sense.¡±


    ¡°I know it doesn¡¯t, and I don¡¯t care,¡± Nuereddin grumbled, fighting the urge to push away from his team members and go running in the opposite direction. ¡°I had a bad experience, OK? Trees freak me out, and they always have, and they probably always will. Why are we even going into this godsforsaken place, anyway? I thought we were here to find an anomaly in the main story.¡±


    ¡°We are, we are,¡± Veronica sighed. ¡°Like I told you before, we needed to find the thing, which we did.¡± With her free hand, she gestured to her bag, which had an oddly-shaped lump in it. ¡°But we also need to make sure Sofya and Beale can find us. The book¡¯s more popular than we thought, so the connections are stronger here, and that means it¡¯s going to take longer for anomalies to cause a ton of damage. We¡¯ve got a little time, so we need to find a place to regroup and wait for the rest of the team. Once Sofya brings the book back to the Library, they can start researching and find out how to fix whatever¡¯s happening.¡± With a squeeze around his waist, she moved Nuereddin further into the trees. ¡°Now let¡¯s move before we get found by one of those werewolf coffee maker things.¡±


    ¡°Such a specific type of monster, that,¡± Niles mused behind them. ¡°But they do seem to be well-versed in the art of coffee-making. I still relish the taste of the hazelnut latte the young werewoman made for us earlier.¡±


    ¡°Pretty sure you¡¯re relishing the way she was looking at you more than the coffee,¡± Nuereddin grumbled. ¡°She was giving you the eye so much, I fully expected her to start flinging her clothes at you.¡± He rolled his eyes. Nuereddin didn¡¯t come from a universe that was always on the verge of having a romance break out, so it didn¡¯t make sense to him how often people flung themselves at Niles and Beale. He tried to believe it wasn¡¯t that he was jealous, but that was not an easy pill to swallow.


    Still bickering, they found a clearing in the forest with a few convenient tree stumps set up in a seating area. Veronica was somewhat concerned by this, as it generally tended to indicate that a place would be a setting in the book itself, but the fact that this was a book in a series meant that the clearing could have been used in an earlier book, and remained in place with each subsequent novel. Either way, she sat at one of the stumps closest to the edge of the forest, keeping her sight lines open as best as she could. Niles took a similar stance on the other side of Nuereddin, set up so he could see over Veronica¡¯s shoulder and vice versa. Veronica felt herself relax a bit, knowing that someone like Niles was watching out with her. Nuereddin, meanwhile, sat on the stump between the two, head slumped forward and eyes focused on the grass at his feet.


    They weren¡¯t sitting for very long before they saw a shaft of light shine down on them from above. The light wasn¡¯t natural - it didn¡¯t feel like a moonbeam or any of the kind of light one would expect from a fantasy universe, even if it were UrbFan. Instead, this was like a searchlight, pointed down at the ground from above. It drifted past the trees around the clearing before centering on the three team members, who were now on their feet and waving at the sky. We probably look like we¡¯re trying to flag down aliens, Veronica thought, the idea sending a small chill down her spine. Nevertheless, when the rope ladder dropped in front of her, she gripped the rungs with hands steady with a confidence she didn¡¯t entirely feel, and she began climbing. Sofya and Beale had found them, and they were heading back to the Library to figure out why the werewolf candidate for mayor was routinely seen carrying a laser gun.

 Debrief

    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?¡±This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    ¡°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.¡±

 Inter-Job

    After what felt like several years, but was probably only a few hours, Nuereddin finally managed to escape the Library back to his home universe. He liked his team, of course, and he enjoyed the work - he wouldn¡¯t have applied to be an agent if he hadn¡¯t liked the work or thought he would be good at the tracking and capture that were necessary components of keeping the universes safe. But the paperwork part¡­the only good thing about paperwork was the number of trees that died in order to make all that paper.


    Nuereddin grinned to himself as he made his way through the transit tunnels and came out in his home universe, not far from the cabin he¡¯d built with his brother decades earlier. It was twilight, as usual, and the fire outside was banked but not out. He took a long, deep breath of good, clean, proper air, and let it out slowly as he allowed himself to relax back into the place he belonged. He was home, and he would be able to stay there for a little while at least.


    #


    Niles made sure Sofya and Beale were safely off to their own universes before taking his own transit tunnel. Veronica very rarely spent more than a few hours in her home universe anymore, making more of a home out of the Library than the shabby studio apartment that had been her base of operations for so many years before she became an agent. As such, she shooed the rest of her team away once the preliminaries of the paperwork were taken care of, and Niles had seen her chatting up a dark-haired woman dressed in an outfit that complimented Veronica¡¯s own as he left. The woman¡¯s throaty laugh followed him out of the room, and he smiled to himself. He hoped Veronica would find someone she felt safe with, as it had been such a long time since the Incident.


    Once Sofya and Beale were on their way, Niles meandered through the transit tunnels to the area of his universe, which was quite a long way away from the Modern section where the other two resided. Being part of an epic fantasy universe meant being in a more isolated part of the Library in general; being in a sword-and-sorcery epic fantasy universe was more niche again. He sighed, wishing once again that Nuereddin had waited for the rest of them before running back home; at least the dwarf would have been company on the trip to EpicFan, even if he branched off well before Niles. Nevertheless, Niles knew that he was stalling because he didn¡¯t truly want to go back to his home universe.


    With a tremendously deep sigh, Niles passed through the walls of the Library and into his universe. He was in the throne room of his castle, having entered just behind his own throne, and as usual, there was an audience waiting. He took a moment to school his facial expression into something other than disappointment before settling in his throne and nodding to the page standing next to the chair, holding his crown on a velvet cushion. With trembling hands, the boy placed the crown on his king¡¯s head, then stepped back immediately, refusing to look Niles in the face. Niles closed his eyes for a moment, taking the time to remind himself of who he needed to be in this universe, and then opened his eyes and sat back in the throne. ¡°Who or what is on the schedule?¡±


    #


    Beale¡¯s commute back to his universe was much shorter, being a branch off a huge limb known as Romance. He was eager to get back, as he always missed his leading lady when he had to be away from her for more than an hour or so. The thing that bothered him the most about being a Modern character was that he was aware of, and capable of using, modern technology like cell phones; however, such things didn¡¯t work when he was in Prime or in some other universes. As such, he hadn¡¯t been able to call or text Kelly at all for almost a day, and it was nearly driving a hole into his very being. As soon as he made his way back into his own universe, his cell phone was buzzing with notifications of missed calls and texts from Kelly, all of them demanding his immediate attention.


    Beale had missed a page or two out of the agent training guide, and so had not set up a designated arrival spot in his universe for when he needed to come back from someplace like the Library. Because of this, he didn¡¯t have much control over where he ended up when he came back, and that frequently caused some awkward encounters and conversations. He really needed to fix that at some point. For now, however, he just made sure he hadn¡¯t ended up in a busy road somewhere (that had happened once already, and almost lead to a really sticky situation), then found a quiet place to sit and go through his messages.


    #


    Sofya sighed with deep relief as she made her way up the steps to her tidy home on the edges of a small town in middle America. It was autumn, and the leaves on the big tree in her front yard had turned color but had not quite started falling yet. A cold wind blew briefly, but the sun was bright in the early afternoon, and the weather didn¡¯t seem to have decided if it was going to swing out of summer entirely or have one last burst of heat. Sofya leaned on her cane at the top of her steps, looking out from her front porch at the yard and the almost-overgrown land around it. For some reason, she didn¡¯t feel the pain in her back and hips quite so badly when she was somewhere other than home, and she nearly forgot that she needed the cane. Every time she came back to her universe, however, the pain was patiently waiting for her, reminding her that she wasn¡¯t the hale and hearty lass of her youth. Still, at least she was able to have these brief interludes, which wouldn¡¯t have happened if she hadn¡¯t become an agent. For all the trouble and anxiety, being without pain for even an hour was worth any amount of frustrating paperwork.


    #


    Nuereddin worked through the ritual of building up the fire and checking the wood pile before even going into the cabin. He knew that he needed to eat, and it would be important to have the coals heated and ready when he had the food - the fire was nearly always his priority. It also gave him a few more minutes to shift from the mindset of dealing with people from the other universes to being back home, and only having to worry about being him. His was a good life, and he didn¡¯t always appreciate it as well as he should.


    As he sat by the fire, feeding another small log to the growing flames, he heard the soft footfall of his dearest companion walking toward him. Without looking, Nuereddin spoke. ¡°Missed me, did you?¡±


    A cold, wet nose briefly bumped against Nuereddin¡¯s shoulder, not hard enough to move him but with enough pressure to make it clear the move was intentional and not accidental. Nuereddin heard his companion¡¯s haunches drop to the ground as they sat, still holding themselves up at attention in case something required chasing or attacking, but not actively on alert for intruders, and he felt his shoulders lose some of their tension. If Lomo was relaxed enough to be attentive but not on alert, then they were probably safe.


    After prodding the coals once more with the poker his brother had fashioned out of an old pump handle, Nuereddin finally turned to face his companion. Lomo was a beautiful wolf, with amber eyes and grey fur that faded to white around his eyes and muzzle. He was still fairly young, as wolves went, and had been Nuereddin¡¯s companion for more than three cycles. His eyes met Nuereddin¡¯s, and his words appeared in the dwarf¡¯s head as clearly as if they had been spoken aloud. ¡®Miss¡¯ is a strong word, but you are a much better cook than Teodor is. Thus, I am pleased you have returned. Lest Nuereddin be underwhelmed by the show of affection, Lomo lowered his head, and the two friends touched foreheads in a manner that spoke of a long, close companionship.


    ¡°Well, let¡¯s see what food there is to be had, then,¡± Nuereddin said, stretching as he stood. Lomo stood and walked next to him, which put his back at about the height of Nuereddin¡¯s waist. It was one of the many things that felt wrong about the other universes - so few things were sized properly for dwarves, and everyone seemed to believe that taller was better. Nuereddin shook his bearded head again, and made his way into the cabin with Lomo, looking for both his brother Teodor and for food that could be turned into dinner.


    #


    Niles was still on his throne several hours later, having had a parade of peasants pass before him. Each was accompanied by one of his advisors, and each was begging his indulgence for something. Many times, it was a request to forgo or reduce the amount of tax paid for that growing season, as the crops had been quite poor and the people were having difficulty getting enough together to both pay the tax and feed their families. There were a few instances of disagreements between landholders and tenants, usually because the landholders wanted to rent the land out to someone who would pay them more for the same poor piece of land, and the tenants refused to leave. By and large, it was a series of audiences that didn¡¯t require any real decision-making from Niles, simply a symbolic nodding of the head, but it infuriated him nonetheless.


    Niles knew what his universe required of him, and what expectations his role in this universe meant he had to meet. He was meant to be a cruel, unfeeling regent, hard on his people and determined to make the most out of their labor and the land while giving back as little as he could get away with. Bad growing seasons and poor conditions were nothing to one such as he, so long as he received his just tribute and the respect due his crown and title. As such, he had to let his advisors have their way with the peasants in these audiences, demanding the taxes be paid and the tenants be removed from land the landholders wished to rent out on more favorable terms. At least in the second instance, the landholders also had to increase the amount of taxes they owed to the crown, so they didn¡¯t see much by way of a profit in changing tenants. Niles was rather proud of that addition, and the way his advisors had looked upon him with approval when he suggested it.


    There was only one case left on the schedule for the day, and then Niles could retreat from the throne room and hide away in his study, or in the gardens, or anywhere that wasn¡¯t the room where he allowed such terrible things to happen to his people. He nodded to the page at the door, who opened the door and bowed low, allowing the people to enter the room.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Niles noticed that this group seemed different than the ones he¡¯d seen the rest of the day. Instead of one or two stout, stalwart men, or even one or two malnourished, desperate men, the people being ushered in were women. Two adult women, their heads and faces covered modestly by the veils their religion required, led a small girl in between them. The girl was young enough that she did not have to wear a veil, and so Niles could see her face. That was unfortunate for the man being ushered in by two of his guards, both with and separate from the group of women.


    The girl¡¯s face was bruised, and her lower lip looked as though it had split recently - there was still blood on the skin. She had also been crying, and tears were still running down her face, but she was doing everything she could to keep herself from sobbing. Niles¡¯ heart broke as he saw her tiny fists clench and her chest hitch with a breath that wanted to turn into a wail of pain. The women on either side of her had hands on her shoulders, both steering her into the room and comforting her with their presence.


    Niles turned to the advisor who brought the group in. ¡°What is the nature of this request?¡± he asked, the standard language for beginning an audience. He kept his voice under control, but it was difficult when he could see both the girl¡¯s injured face and the man¡¯s scraped knuckles and the way he kept glaring at the women as though they were dirt on his sandal.


    The advisor, one who had been working with Niles since before he had taken the throne, cleared his throat and read from a scroll in front of him. ¡°Your Excellency, the matter stands that Jacob, father of Leah, husband of Sarah, wishes to make a complaint about both his daughter Leah and his wife Sarah, in regards to his granddaughter, Esther. Esther disturbed Jacob¡¯s rest after a long day of work, and when Jacob punished her as is his right under the law, Leah and Sarah berated him, using their sharp tongues to injure him with their words and their evil glares to cause his spirit harm, before leaving the home with Esther. He wants to ensure that Leah and Sarah are unable to take such actions again, and so demands that you put out their eyes and rip out their tongues, thus taking from them their only weapons.¡± The scroll shook a bit by the end of the statement, and Niles could see his advisor was shocked by what he was being asked to read.


    #


    Beale took a long, deep gulp of his hazelnut mocha latte, and sighed. No matter how good the baristas in his universe were, they still didn¡¯t hold a candle to the real thing he could get in Prime. He had to remind himself that Prime wasn¡¯t meant for people like him, and that going there was a privilege that could easily be taken away from him at a moment¡¯s notice if need be. He didn¡¯t want to end up one of those Prime junkies he saw outside the Library sometimes, begging for some scrap of Prime to add to their collections. There were whispers about people who had tried to make the jump to Prime permanently, and while some had supposedly been successful for a little while, none had ever lasted more than a Prime year. Prime as a universe simply wasn¡¯t meant for people from other universes. It was a nice place to visit, though.


    Beale kept scrolling through the text thread with Kelly, smiling as he saw the different emojis she used to tell him she was falling for him. He had responded in kind, of course, because what kind of boyfriend didn¡¯t use the same language as his girlfriend? A monster, that¡¯s who. He¡¯d already let her know he was back, and they had scheduled to meet up for dinner in a few hours at their favorite Italian restaurant. Beale had already called the restaurant to make sure their favorite table was able to be reserved, and of course, everything worked like a dream. It was one of the best parts about being a major character in a universe - generally, whatever they wanted, they got. Granted, there were consequences at times, but only for the really big stuff, the kind that involved changing the world somehow or getting married or divorced. Things like restaurant reservations, on the other hand, were par for the course.


    Once he¡¯d drained the last of his disappointing coffee, Beale stood up from the wrought-iron bench where he¡¯d been sitting and threw the cup in a nearby trash can before making his way back to his apartment. He had some time to shower and possibly nap before he saw Kelly, and he wanted to make sure he was rested and refreshed for her. He knew logically that it hadn¡¯t been that long since she¡¯d seen him, but to him, it had felt like ages. He was a little concerned (not jealous, never that!) that she was mentioning Trevor so much in her texts - it seemed that she was spending more time with him when Beale was away. He needed to remind her how he felt about her, and have a proper reunion.


    #


    Sofya had the kettle on and was getting her medications in order on the counter when her phone rang. Unlike Beale, she didn¡¯t carry her cell phone with her on trips into other universes, because she liked to keep her pockets free to hold the important things, like her ritual tools. Her phone was sitting on a cat-shaped stand at the end of the kitchen table, where it had been plugged in while she was away. Sofya sat at one of the padded chairs at the table before reaching for the phone, just in case the call would last more than a brief moment.


    ¡°This is Sofya,¡± she said in a low monotone. She hated talking on the phone on a good day, and when she was in pain, it was not a good day. Sofya had found out years ago that if she sounded more robotic, then unknown callers were more likely to hang up instead of bother her. It didn¡¯t seem to work in this case, however.


    ¡°Sofya, honey, where HAVE you BEEN?¡± The voice on the other end of the line was dramatic, full of excitement and excessive hand motions, and made Sofya tired just hearing it. She glanced at her phone¡¯s display to make sure the caller ID hadn¡¯t given her the caller¡¯s name, and saw only an unfamiliar phone number. ¡°I feel like I¡¯ve been calling you FOREVER and you are just not ANSWERING! I need your HELP, sweetheart! You¡¯re the only one who can SAVE me!¡±


    Sofya wondered how someone could use that many capital letters and exclamation points in such a short space. ¡°Hello, Jery,¡± she replied heavily, unplugging the phone from the wall charger. There was no way this conversation would be over by the time the kettle was ready for her tea, and while Jery was a lot of things, they were not worth neglecting the sacred act of making tea. ¡°I told you that I needed to go out for business for a little bit. I was only gone for what, two days?¡± Sofya frowned as she looked around her brightly-lit kitchen. ¡°I¡¯d asked you to check in on Vanta while I was gone, but I haven¡¯t seen her¡­ She didn¡¯t get out, did she?¡±


    ¡°Honey, I would NEVER let anything happen to one little HAIR on her precious furry head. I saw her last night and refilled her food and water, and spent some time talking to her about my troubles, since YOU weren¡¯t there to listen. She¡¯s a very receptive listener, you know.¡± There was an unspoken addition to that statement which hung in the air, and Sofya refused to rise to the bait. Just as she was going to ask again, she saw her cat¡¯s black head poke around the doorway to the kitchen, her fur rumpled as though she had just woken up. Sofya put her hand down to cat-level, and Vanta gave a small chirp and came trotting over, rubbing her head on Sofya¡¯s hand.


    ¡°Never mind, she just came out. Thank you for taking care of her, Jery. Now, what do you need? Advice or sympathy?¡± Vanta jumped up on the table, where she technically wasn¡¯t allowed, and Sofya gave her some skritches behind her ears before using her cane to pull herself to her feet again. She made her way back to the counter, putting the phone down and switching it to speaker so she could continue the conversation without holding the phone to her ear. When she only had one hand available due to the cane, it was inconvenient to use that hand to hold a phone if she had plans to do anything else at that time.


    ¡°Advice, of COURSE, doll.¡± Jery¡¯s voice came out of the phone¡¯s speaker, and Vanta perked up to hear it. No matter how flaky her friend might be, Sofya knew that Vanta loved them almost as much as she loved Sofya, and the feeling was mutual. ¡°But, um, I should probably warn you. I might have told a little bitty lie - well, not even a LIE, really, I just didn¡¯t give every specific DETAIL of the truth - and so, er, I might be in a touch of trouble with the police.¡± The line went silent just as the tea kettle¡¯s whistle began to sing, and Sofya hung her head in a combination of irritation and acceptance. She was definitely home.


    #


    Veronica was still working her way through the team¡¯s paperwork, the desk shaking as she pounded on the keys of her typewriter. While she didn¡¯t spend much time in her home universe anymore, not since the Incident, the typewriter was one of the few ways she was able to reconnect with the place that had brought her into being. She never felt quite so much like herself than she did when she was at a desk, typing the night away.


    The comments Nuereddin and Sofya made earlier had given her a lot to think about. She knew that the rest of the team saw her as the team¡¯s Gal Friday, particularly when it came to the bureacracy of the Library, and to a certain extent she appreciated it. Veronica had heard an agent from a non-fiction business management universe talk about ¡°subject matter experts,¡± or people who were heavily trained in one specific area and were the points of contact for other people working in the company who had questions about that one area, and the idea had stuck with her. She saw herself as the SME of paperwork for the team. It gave her a sense of purpose, and made her feel useful and valuable.


    All of that was well and good, until the team started to laugh at her. She knew why they did it this time - she had literally quoted from the latest bulletins from the Head Librarians about the importance of proper form completion, and she hadn¡¯t even realized it until they said something. Perhaps that was why the comments bothered her so much - they were pointing out something that she hadn¡¯t wanted to consider for herself, and it wasn¡¯t something she liked. Even so, the way that they made it sound like it was a bad thing to want to do things properly and help the Library be the best at what it was¡­ Well, something about that teasing rubbed Veronica the wrong way.


    Veronica finished the form she¡¯d been working on and set it aside, pulling out the carbons so she had the three copies that needed to go to three different locations within the Library. It wasn¡¯t just because she enjoyed the sound of the typewriter that it was so loud and she used so much pressure - using carbons required a great deal of force, but it was so much easier than filling out the same form three separate times or trying to push through a carbon while writing by hand. But no one ever saw that part of it, did they? No, they only saw that Veronica was using her strange machine again, and wasn¡¯t she quaint, wasn¡¯t she queer?


    With a sigh, Veronica pulled the cover over her typewriter and stored away the forms that had been filled out, as well as the few that still required work. She would be able to tackle those in the morning, but right now, she was just letting herself get stuck in a spiral of thoughts that were not helpful in the slightest. It was time to get her head down for a few hours, and start the next day off fresh. Her team members were all back in their home universes, so she didn¡¯t need to worry about them for the moment. With luck, by the next time they needed to come together for a mission, she would have gotten over her little snit and would be back to her usual good humor. In the meantime, it was time for a night cap and some time with Sam Spade before falling asleep.

 Light the Beacons!

    Time moves differently in the Library and in each of the separate universes. The Library strove to keep their days the same length as the days in Prime, for the sake of some consistency between two of the biggest universes that needed to communicate. Ideally, one day that passed in Prime was one day that passed in the Library, even if nothing of narrative significance happened in the Library that day. The agents referred to this as operating in Real Time, and by and large, the agents weren¡¯t fans.


    In their own universes, agents didn¡¯t operate in Real Time, but rather in Narrative Time. Readers would get bored if they had to read about each individual day in which nothing out of the ordinary happened, and so Narrative Time allowed the universes to move their people forward from one important event to the next. It was possible that the people in the universe would have survived a long, hard winter, for example, but that didn¡¯t mean that the people would have to live each individual day of that winter - they could simply skip to the end (or the middle, if something important happened), knowing they had survived something terrible. The consequences were real, but the time spent was simply ignored.


    Because of this change in how time passes, by the next time the team members gathered, they had each experienced a different amount of time. The call to the Library came to them in different manners, appropriate to their home universes, but they were bound by their oaths to return as soon as they saw heard (or saw) the call, and were all given the ability to create a direct transit path to the Library from where ever they were in their universe.


    Veronica, of course, had been working in Real Time, so she had lived through every day of the month it had been since the end of the last mission. Nothing much had changed at her desk, though there was a small bud vase holding a single red rose that had never been there before, and she smiled much more often than she had the last time the team had met at her desk.


    Sofya was the first to notice both of these things, as she was the first to make her way to the team¡¯s work area after receiving the call. Sofya¡¯s stride always relaxed incrementally as she moved further away from her universe, as it moved her away from the pain she lived with day to day. By the time she was in the bull pen, she usually had folded up her cane and stored it away in one of her pockets, because she didn¡¯t need it anymore. This time, however, the cane remained for longer, and she maintained a pronounced limp. After she and Veronica greeted each other with hugs, Veronica helped her ease her way into a chair at the round table and looked down her nose at her team mate. ¡°So, something happened, I¡¯m assuming?¡±


    Sofya sighed, brushing the wisps of graying hair out of her face. Veronica noted that there were more grays than strawberry blonde these days. ¡°Oh, yeah, something happened, and that ¡®something¡¯s¡¯ name is Jery. When I got back home after the last mission, that was the first phone call I received - I hadn¡¯t even had a chance to make a cup of tea! Speaking of which¡­¡± Sofya eyed the kitchenette at the end of the room away from the Report Center, then gave Veronica a pathetic look with her big, green eyes. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be willing to get a cuppa for an old friend, would you?¡±


    Laughing, Veronica straightened from the edge of her desk where she¡¯d been leaning and started toward the kitchenette. ¡°Only because I expect to hear all the sordid details about this ¡®Jery¡¯ character when I get back. It must have been quite something to cause you a lasting injury.¡±


    Sofya settled back in her chair with a sigh, and tried to make herself more comfortable. As far as she was concerned, it had been about four months since the last time she¡¯d been in the Library, and nearly all of that time had been spent trying to keep Jery out of jail, the newspaper, or the hospital. She¡¯d been reasonably successful on the first, less so on the second, and had wound up in the hospital herself with the last misadventure. Sometimes Sofya wished that Jery would find some other friend with mystical powers to bail them out of the trouble they got themselves into, just for a change of pace. However, Jery was the protagonist in Sofya¡¯s universe, so Jery¡¯s plot armor kept them safe while most of the repercussions bounced their way to Sofya, and there weren¡¯t many people willing to play straight person to that kind of behavior. Sofya managed to get her bum leg up on another chair at the table, relishing the stretch the change in position provided, and forced herself to take a few long, deep breaths. Spending a day or two in the Library would do great things for her spirit and her flesh.


    Sofya had only closed her eyes for a moment, but it felt like she had been jolted out of a deep sleep when Nuereddin pulled the chair out from under her leg. She started, then yelped as the sudden movement had caused her leg and back to have an extremely poor reaction to her decision to move to rashly. Nuereddin started as well, caught off guard by her cry of pain.


    ¡°Sorry!¡± His voice was raspy, as it usually was when he first arrived at the Library. He had told the team once that he didn¡¯t spend much of his time in his home universe speaking out loud, so it was like brushing the dust off his vocal chords when he met with the team. ¡°I didn¡¯t see your leg there. Are you all right?¡± Concern was shining through his eyes and what little of his face wasn¡¯t covered by his beard.


    ¡°I¡¯m all right,¡± Sofya gasped, then took a moment to breathe slowly and straighten out before she spoke again. ¡°I¡¯m all right,¡± she repeated, hoping to get Nuereddin to stop looking at her as though she were made of porcelain. ¡°You startled me more than anything, is all. Please, sit.¡± She gestured toward the now-empty chair, and used the gesture to readjust her posture into something more comfortable all around. Sofya was already feeling the healing benefits of being in the Library, which made the whole interaction much less terrible than it would have been in her home universe.


    Fortunately, Veronica¡¯s narrative timing was exquisite, and she arrived carrying a mug of hot water and an assortment of tea bags and sweeteners for Sofya. She set them in front of the woman, smiling. ¡°I know your tea preference varies depending on things that I have no understanding of, so I figured I¡¯d bring you one of everything and let you figure it out from there.¡± She then turned to Nuereddin and greeted him with a short bow, which he reciprocated before finally taking the proffered seat.


    Sofya felt herself relaxing a little more as she shuffled through the tea selection, finally choosing a black tea with ginger and peach for her first cup. She managed to open the small packet of honey without getting it all over her hands or her long, billowy blouse, which was an achievement all its own, and tipped half of the sweetener into the mug before setting the packet aside on top of a pink artificial sweetener package. She stirred the honey into the water to encourage it to melt, grateful that Veronica had thought to bring stir sticks, then removed the tea bag from its wrapper and dropped it into the mug. She looked at her watch to note the time and how long the tea bag should stay in the water, then leaned back in her chair, carefully moving the tea bag up and down in the water and watching the color of the water begin the slow change as the transformation began.


    Nuereddin watched the entire process with a sense of awe. He knew what it was to hunt down and kill an animal for food, and there were certain rites that needed to take place to keep the gods in their spheres placated and ensure that later hunts would also be fruitful - everyone knew that. Still, he¡¯d never seen anyone place so much reverence in the act of adding a bag of dried herb clippings into a cup of hot water. Only Sofya could make him even contemplate drinking something prepared by another person, and only because she gave the impression that she would consider it a personal and spiritual affront to sully the act with poison or some other adulterant. He¡¯d heard her get into a rather heated argument with another agent once about the addition of milk to this beverage, and Nuereddin couldn¡¯t get the image of the goddess of the harvest, coming to the Library to smite the disbelievers and the profaners. Nuereddin didn¡¯t even understand why one would add milk to a cup of hot water with dried herbs, but he was certain that it was Wrong to do so.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Veronica, meanwhile, went back to leaning against the edge of her desk, crossing her arms across her chest. ¡°Glad to have you back, Nuereddin. Anything exciting happening back home? Or just you and Lomo wandering the wilderness?¡±


    Nuereddin smiled, and what little skin of his face was visible flushed red. Veronica was one of the few women who could make him blush like a youth of eighty, instead of the middle-aged man of one hundred and twenty he was. ¡°Oh, not too much. My brother has decided he¡¯d like to move to town and start a shop, offering weapons and blacksmithing work to the heroes who come through the valley. He¡¯s been dreaming about that for years and years, but I guess he¡¯s gotten someone in town willing to rent him space, and he¡¯s packed up and started business. I wish him all the best.¡± Nuereddin tried to keep his voice neutral, refusing to acknowledge the memory of the row he and Teodor had had when Nuereddin first heard the news. Their parents would have been so proud of him, Teodor had stubbornly insisted as he folded his clothing neatly into his trunk. ¡®Proud¡¯ was not the word Nuereddin would have used, and he told Teodor so, along with several comments about how many blacksmiths there already were in town and how there weren¡¯t enough heroes to merit that many businesses and since when did Teodor know anything about weapons, anyway? Nuereddin had spent a month refusing to acknowledge his brother in any way, even ignoring the flyer that indicated Teodor was having his Grand Opening. At the last minute, however, Nuereddin forced himself to go to town and see what all the fuss was about.


    Beale dropped his long, lanky body into a chair on the other side of Sofya, spreading out to take up as much space as possible. ¡°Man, it is good to be back,¡± he drawled, stretching his arms over his head before dropping one hand on the back of Sofya¡¯s chair. ¡°How¡¯s everyone doing? Oh, sorry,¡± he added, recognizing the stink eye Sofya had just shot him over her shoulder. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize I was interrupting service at the Church of Tea.¡±


    Sofya sniffed with disdain, checked both her watch and the color of the tea, and carefully pulled the tea bag out of the water. While wrapping it around the stir stick to squeeze the last bits out of the bag, she replied to Beale. ¡°You¡¯re lucky that my tea had finished steeping, but hadn¡¯t oversteeped. If you had caused me to oversteep a perfectly good cup of black ginger peach, we would have had An Issue.¡± Nuereddin involuntarily leaned away from the woman, wanting to make sure he kept enough distance between them that she wouldn¡¯t associate the dwarf with the human man that had threatened her tea.


    Beale sighed with exaggerated relief. ¡°Thank the stars above! I would hate to be drawn and quartered for the sin of making undrinkable leaf water even more undrinkable.¡± He winked at Sofya, then turned his attention to Veronica. ¡°Well hello, nurse! You¡¯re looking especially Hepburn-esque today. New blouse?¡± He sat up a bit, straightening the collar of his light gray shirt that set off the amber tones of his skin to great effect.


    Veronica straightened, but kept her arms crossed. ¡°Only you would use Katherine Hepburn as an adjective, Beale, but yes, it is a new blouse. It¡¯s sapphire blue, according to the catalog. What do we think?¡± She dropped her arms to give the team a decent view of the full blouse, which had a masculine cut and strong shoulders that avoided looking like football pads by the smallest of margins. The fabric was less brilliant than a color like ¡®sapphire blue¡¯ would indicate, but it was a lovely dark shade that brought out the green in Veronica¡¯s eyes and looked wonderful against her olive skin. It tucked into the slim waist of her wide-legged trousers, which she managed to make look more feminine than any skirt or dress ever would on her. Sofya stifled a jealous sigh, reminding herself that her universe didn¡¯t require a plucky young reporter or femme fatale type, so there was no concern narratively that she was not built like Veronica.


    Nile stopped short in front of the table, startled by Veronica¡¯s appearance as she modeled the blouse for the rest of the team. Veronica was the least demonstrative or showy person on the team, and so seeing her turn and walk around as though she were one of the models Beale had once told him about was unnerving. She was laughing, as were the other team members, and Niles didn¡¯t think that they were being serious with treating her like a fashion model, but it bothered him for reasons he couldn¡¯t articulate nonetheless. He cleared his throat loudly as he pulled out the chair at the table that had been reinforced especially for him, and found himself glaring at Beale¡¯s guilty facial expression.


    ¡°Niles! Glad to see you¡¯ve made it. Hail, hail, the gang¡¯s all here,¡± Veronica said as she worked her way around the table to give Niles a hug of greeting. ¡°You were just in time to see me show off my new blouse. I know it¡¯s not the kind of clothing people in your universe usually wear, but what do you think?¡± She tilted her head back to look him in the eye as she pulled away and did a slow spin to show off the blouse.


    Niles suddenly felt very warm, and swallowed hard as he tried to concentrate on her arms and elbows. Those were safe, non-erogenous, friendly parts of her upper body that he could look at without making eye contact with a more problematic portion of her anatomy. ¡°It¡­it¡¯s very nice,¡± he stammered, before sitting down heavily and pulling up to the table. ¡°I apologize for my tardiness. Have we received the details of our next mission yet?¡± He deliberately ignored the snickering coming from Beale¡¯s side of the table, but it was not easy.


    ¡°Not yet, but I think Haz is coming over now,¡± Sofya responded, allowing Niles to recover his equilibrium (and let the bright red drain from his normally pale face) and move things forward as though the last minute or so hadn¡¯t happened. The poor thing didn¡¯t really know what to do with women who had their own ideas of how to romance or be romanced, and he was always adorably awkward when faced with a woman who flirted even a little bit. It was one of his best qualities, as far as Sofya was concerned, and she knew Veronica felt similarly. Still, Veronica must have been in a good space mentally if she was playing with Niles even a little - she normally refused to allow anyone to see her as a woman more than a reporter or an agent of the Library, much less parade around the table, showing off a new clothing item. Sofya hoped that whoever it was that had improved her friend¡¯s mood so much, they were treating her well.


    Sofya had drained about half of her tea and was contemplating the tea bag to determine if it was worth re-steeping when Haz finally arrived at their table. While the alien had more limbs than most agents, it paradoxically made them move more slowly through the Library. Generally, they kept to the report center, but when a new assignment came out, they were frequently the one who provided the details to the team. ¡°Hello, team alpha-echo-seven-one-niner,¡± they said without emotion, handing over a large manilla envelope to Veronica. ¡°Within are the details of the next anomaly the Librarians request you investigate. As usual, please investigate as thoroughly and as quickly as possible, bringing back as much information about the anomaly as possible. The Librarians will require a report of some kind, whether it be a final report or one that is in-process, after one day Real Time. The forms required for authorization to enter Prime are in the envelope along with the details of your mission.¡± All of this was said in a monotone that was less robotic and more the voice of someone who has had to repeat themselves several hundred times over the last few days, and was reciting the lines on auto-pilot. They paused at the end of the standard disclosure to wait for any questions; once they saw that no questions were coming, they slowly moved away from the team and began moving toward the wall to make the journey back to the Report room.


    Before Haz had left completely, Niles called ¡°Thank you!¡± after them, and they froze. Sofya was startled to see a shift in the color and pattern of their skin - a wave of bright green spots climbed up Haz¡¯s normally plain gray back, running up and down their torso and disappearing before Sofya could say anything. Haz looked over their shoulder at Niles and gave him a small nod, then continued back to the Report room. Their skin had a slight green glow, even with the spots gone, and Sofya suddenly wondered just what kind of creature they were, and if they had an equivalent to a blush. With a smile, she, along with the rest of the team, turned to Veronica to find out where they were headed next.

 Job Troubles

    Sofya could never have imagined that there would be even one UrbFan that involved humans who shifted into animal forms that were also running for political office. Now, she had discovered that it was an entire sub-sub-genre, and there were more problems in a related universe.


    ¡°Seriously, now we¡¯ve got werelion senators?¡± Beale groused as he and Sofya made their way to a public library. ¡°Why are we dealing with a glut of politically-active shifters all of the sudden?¡±


    Sofya shook her head, equally baffled. ¡°Your guess is as good as mine,¡± she replied, leaning on her cane less and less but still feeling more comfortable with it in hand that without it. ¡°At least this one isn¡¯t a best seller like the last one. I¡¯m pretty sure the only reason why the last one had sold so many copies was because it was a new book in an established series. This one is a stand-alone, new author, indie published. I¡¯m shocked it even showed up on the Library¡¯s radar, to be honest.¡±


    ¡°The ways of the Library are most mysterious,¡± intoned Beale, earning him a strange look from a woman walking through the parking lot toward the drugstore next to the library. She sped up, clutching her purse a little tighter, and Sofya tried not to laugh out loud. She didn¡¯t try all that hard, to be honest, and Beale glared at her as she giggled.


    ¡°I¡¯m not the only one who¡¯s out of place here, you know,¡± he said haughtily, attempting to sneer through another brightly patterned face mask. The combination of his attempted facial expression and the bright red teddy bears marching across his nose and mouth just made Sofya laugh that much harder.


    Beale threw his hands to the sky in what Sofya hoped was mock exasperation, and the two of them entered the tiny library branch in the strip mall in the very small town. Frankly, Sofya had been grateful they¡¯d been able to find it at all - the book containing the anomaly had been printed with only a very few copies, and the digital editions had been removed from all outlets due to some kind of copyright dispute. The Library had indicated there was one copy of the book publicly available at this small library branch, and the agents were going to have to be very careful in how they retrieved it. It was going to be one of the few times something would be returning to Prime from the Library after being taken in for cataloguing, and Sofya wasn¡¯t entirely sure how it would all work out.


    A small bell rang over the door as Sofya and Beale entered, and a young woman with bright blue hair looked up from the book she was reading at a desk up front. Her mask had designs stitched on it that represented several of the major YA book series, and Sofya found herself taking a liking to the young woman immediately. From the way Beale straightened up next to her and straightened the collar of his teal polo shirt, Sofya assumed Beale had also taken a liking to her.


    ¡°Hello there! Welcome to Rivera Beach. Let me know if you need any help finding anything specific, or just help in general. Otherwise, feel free to look around. We¡¯ve got limited capacity right now, but that shouldn¡¯t be a problem. I¡¯ll let you know if a big group comes in or anything.¡± Her smile crinkled the corners of her steel gray eyes, as though she were smiling extra-big to make up for the mask, and she gestured toward the shelves in front of them as she spoke.


    Sofya nodded her thanks and started moving toward the urban fantasy section. Beale stayed behind, heading to the desk and the young woman behind it. ¡°This is a lovely little library, I have to say,¡± Sofya heard him start with, and she rolled her eyes with her back turned to them. Leave it to Beale to start flirting with the staff the second he got within range. At least it would keep him out of the way while she looked for the book.


    For such a small branch, the urban fantasy section was fairly large and had a wide variety of titles and authors. Sofya noticed there were a great number of independently-published titles from authors whose names she didn¡¯t recognize, and were probably pen names at that. It wasn¡¯t common for a library to take an interest in what was essentially vanity publishing, and it made Sofya wonder why this branch in particular had dedicated so much of its resources to the niche type of books. Odd or not, it was the one place the Librarians had been able to track down an available copy of the book they needed, and so Sofya began scanning the shelves for the title on her list.


    Back at the front desk, the librarian beamed at Beale. ¡°Oh, we do all right,¡± she replied. ¡°We¡¯re kind of a specialty library branch, if you can believe it. We mostly handle indie books, the kinds of things that you won¡¯t find in most of the major branches. I see your friend has found our urban fantasy section - that¡¯s one of our more popular areas. I keep telling my boss that we should break it down into more specific sub-genres, but he¡¯s afraid that it would frighten the people who aren¡¯t as clued in to the more niche stuff.¡± She winked at him, and Beale returned it with a grin she couldn¡¯t see but could probably feel through the mask.


    Beale didn¡¯t really know what the librarian was talking about, since UrbFan was so not his genre, and his universe didn¡¯t spend a lot of time talking about other universes, but he made a mental note to tell Sofya about this when they left the library. It was possible this branch could be useful in the future if they needed to get a hold of other books that were less popular or common. ¡°Well, I¡¯m glad to hear there¡¯s a branch of the library out there for those of us with discerning taste,¡± he drawled to the librarian, leaning forward on the desk and toying with a golf pencil next to a note pad near her elbow. ¡°I¡¯m Beale, by the way.¡±


    ¡°Rosemary,¡± the librarian responded, and she gave him a wave. Beale was still not accustomed to losing handshakes in Prime, since it wasn¡¯t something he had to contend with in his universe, but he¡¯d been to enough foreign universes to know that he needed to follow the lead of the locals when it came to the greetings. He waved in response, and Rosemary giggled a bit, then her eyes widened in surprise at herself. Beale decided he should probably dial back the charm a bit, or he¡¯d end up getting himself in trouble with either Sofya or his girlfriend Kelly - probably both. He leaned back a little from the desk, and watched Rosemary¡¯s shoulders relax ever so slightly.


    While Sofya and Beale were in Prime, finding the copy of the book that the Library required, Niles, Nuereddin, and Veronica were working their way through the backstory of the book in question. Nuereddin was happy to note that there weren¡¯t any devil trees this time, though seeing the world made of concrete and steel was a bit unnerving. While he knew that he wouldn¡¯t do well outside of their home universe, he wished he could have brought Lomo with him to have that little element of comfort in such a strange place.


    Similarly, Niles felt out of place in a universe that contained so many people, all moving with such urgency and drive. Veronica had explained that the universe was based on a place in Prime called Washington, D.C., and it was similar to one that existed in her universe as well. While it was apparently the seat of power for the rulers of a rather large land, Niles didn¡¯t see any of the signs that indicated a ruler. There were no servants, for one, or people who were clearly in the upper classes that worked directly under the leader. There were very few banners flying, and those that were had stripes and stars that were crowded very close to one another, not like a war pennant at all. Niles pointed these things out to Veronica.


    ¡°Well, seats of power are different in different kinds of universes,¡± she explained, looking around and trying to keep nearly everything in sight at once. Even though she had spent a significant amount of time in a city in her home universe, it had made her uneasy there, and it was worse when it wasn¡¯t her home turf. Who knew what could be hiding in the shadows? Things in this city were so much different from the way she remembered them in her universe, but so similar at the same time. She focused on answering Niles¡¯ questions. ¡°This land isn¡¯t ruled the same way you rule your land, really. The person in charge changes every few years, instead of being in power for life. And the people are able to choose the next person to lead them.¡± She tilted her head, remembering some of the history in her universe as well as some of the stories she¡¯d heard about in Prime. ¡°Well, sort of. At any rate, there isn¡¯t one person who decides they are going to lead the entire land - there are lots of people who lead smaller portions of the land, and one person at the top of it all, but he doesn¡¯t have all the power. There are others who balance his power. Again, sort of.¡±


    Nuereddin shook his head in disgust. ¡°Rulers. People choosing who¡¯s going to rule over them. People worshipping kings. All of it is a mess. I say, each person should do as they want, and so long as it doesn¡¯t cause any harm, they should be left alone.¡± He scowled as he remembered his last encounter with the tax collector. That was a dwarf who had forgotten where his loyalties lay, and Nuereddin and Teodor had been quick to remind him of the proper way to be a dwarf.


    Niles, on the other hand, was astonished. ¡°The people choose their leader? But why would they get a say in who leads them? Their job is to be led, to follow the laws and obey their ruler or face his wrath. Nowhere is there space for choosing a leader. And smaller leaders under a larger, ultimate ruler - well, that makes sense. There are heads of clans that handle things in their individual clans that don¡¯t require my review, so they¡¯re able to make some decisions on their own. But even then, my advisors live with those clans and they have the force of my voice to veto any decision made by the head of a clan.¡± Niles shook his head in disbelief, then jumped out of the way of a large baby stroller being pushed by a woman speaking loudly into the air and barreling straight ahead, not even attempting to move around Niles. In fact, she shot him a dirty look as she moved past, and he felt a sudden urge to apologize. He wasn¡¯t sure why, and the feeling was incredibly unnerving.


    He pointed back at the woman, speaking to Veronica again. She and Nuereddin had both stopped when they saw Niles¡¯ impressive dodge. ¡°Why is that woman shouting at nothing? Why is she shoving a baby in a wheelbarrow that¡¯s bigger than my second wife¡¯s bed? And why do I feel like I did something wrong when she almost ran into me?¡±


    Veronica shook her head in bewilderment. ¡°I have no idea on any of those things. I don¡¯t like this universe at all. Come on. Let¡¯s find what we need and get back to the Library, where it¡¯s safe.¡±


    ¡°Well, at least until the Centaur Races begin,¡± Nuereddin commented as they continued down the sidewalk toward an extremely tall, thin building that didn¡¯t seem functional at all. ¡°The centaurs aren¡¯t the best at stopping suddenly, either, especially on the tile floors in the Library. They slide around, get their legs tangled up, it¡¯s a big mess.¡± He grinned as he remembered the last big crash as they continued toward their goal.


    Back in the library in Prime, Sofya was discovering just how broad the selection of independently-published books really was. The space was small enough that she could still hear Beale speaking with the librarian - Rosemary, apparently - and it sounded like either Rosemary or her boss, Jacob, were fans of the more obscure types of sub-genre. Rosemary dabbled in writing fan fiction herself, she told Beale, though she refused to divulge her pen name. Sofya knew that Beale would neither know what to do with that information nor care all that much, but poor Rosemary wasn¡¯t quite ready to let someone she knew in real life read her works. Sofya had a sneaking suspicion that the next chapter of Rosemary¡¯s story would include a character that looked a startling amount like Beale.


    Fortunately, the fiction part of the library was shelved alphabetically within the genre, so Sofya finally managed to find the book after searching the shelf twice. It was no wonder it hadn¡¯t shown itself the first two times - the printed book was a slim volume, the spine hardly wide enough to hold the title in any kind of readable font. The cover had been sealed with a plastic case, and Sofya realized that part of the difficulty reading the spine came from the fact that the spine was broken. Either the book had been read so many times in its short existence that the spine broke, or someone had folded the book back while they read it. Sofya shuddered at the thought of such sacrilege, and took some relief in knowing the plastic case would prevent that kind of abuse in the future.


    ¡°Found it!¡± Sofya called as she walked up to the desk, waving the book in her free hand. ¡°You know, this is the only place I¡¯ve been able to track down a copy anywhere? My best friend said that she read it when it was online and she thought it was the best thing ever, but the links were all broken and the ebook was taken down from the stores.¡±


    Rosemary took the book from Sofya, wiping it down with a disinfectant wipe almost without thinking. That would be another reason for the plastic case, Sofya realized, and it made her wonder if all of the books had something similar in place. The librarian started briefly when she saw the cover, so quickly Sofya thought she imagined it. ¡°Huh. I kind of remember seeing something about this online¡­¡± She flipped the book over to the back cover to scan the blurb about the book.


    Sofya was willing to wait patiently for the librarian, but she could see Beale was starting to get bored. He had pulled out his cell phone and was playing around on it. Even though he couldn¡¯t get any signal when he was outside of his own universe, he had a few games downloaded to the phone itself that still worked regardless of where he was. Sofya stretched her neck a bit, and saw he was working on one of the coloring book applications again. This time, it looked like he was coloring a picture of Winnie-the-Pooh. She couldn¡¯t help but smile, and she was grateful again for the mask that concealed her delight.


    ¡°That¡¯s right!¡± Rosemary exclaimed, in the kind of not-quite-whisper that librarians seem to claim as their right. ¡°I heard it was online, and then it was pulled from the free sites because the author was publishing it and putting it up for sale, so I convinced Jacob to order a copy for the library. By the time it got here and we processed it, it had been pulled from sale. Something about a hacker adding content the author didn¡¯t intend, or something?¡± Rosemary looked from Sofya to Beale and back, her eyes quizzical.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Sofya felt her face pale as she realized the implications of that statement. If a book had been pulled from sale because the content no longer matched what the author wrote, then the anomaly her team had been sent to investigate had to be severe, and had done a significant amount of damage. It might be irreparable, and it was almost certainly a cause for concern for the universe itself. The universe which, at that moment, contained three of her team members. When she met Beale¡¯s eyes, Sofya could see her own fear mirrored there. They needed to get this book to the Library, and fast.


    Veronica felt her skin crawl as she moved off the main walkway onto a side street where one of the main characters in the universe was supposed to live. The neighborhood was beautiful, filled with homes that had stood the test of time and most likely were extremely expensive (however such things were measured in this universe), and even though there were quite a few people out and about, things were peaceful. There was no reason for her to feel ill at ease or off-kilter, and that was why she felt both of those things. Everything was too quiet, too perfect, too peaceful. There was no conflict anywhere.


    Nuereddin seemed a little better off once they got into a neighborhood, but he didn¡¯t appreciate how all the homes were on top of one another, with hardly any space between them. There was very little green space at all - a few shrubs that had been manicured to the point of looking like things he would whittle when he had nothing else to do, and little patches of brilliant green grass that were unnaturally short and cleared of all other plants. From previous excursions to universes set in ¡®modern¡¯ times, he had learned about this idea of ¡®lawns,¡¯ but it had never made sense. Why destroy nature everywhere, then create a little patch of fake nature for the front of your house? It was so fake it wouldn¡¯t even grow on its own!


    Niles was equally baffled by the neighborhood, but for different reasons. There were so many people in such a small area, and they all seemed¡­different from each other. He saw people with a variety of skin colors, and their attire reflected status that he would expect to be much lower in the social order, alongside people with refined apparel that clearly cost a great deal and meant the owner was substantially more successful and important. It finally occurred to Niles that some of the people must be the servants of the more successful people - that would explain the different apparel. He didn¡¯t know why the servants were allowed to wander freely in the streets, but he supposed some masters were more lenient than others. There were very few children, and the ones he saw were but babes, held by their caretakers or allowed to toddle about in the patch of green in front of the house. However, each of them was separated - the caretakers didn¡¯t bring them together to watch as a group, which would have allowed a much more efficient use of resources. As a group, there would only be need of two or three caretakers at a time, leaving the others to carry on with the other duties of the houses they served. However, with each child separate, or only with one other, they each required their own caretaker. It saddened him to see good resources being put to use in such an inefficient manner.


    Veronica was scanning the numbers on the houses on the street, muttering under her breath as she tried to remember which was the house for their protagonist. ¡°Come on, come on,¡± she said in a low voice, walking slowly down one side of the street with her eyes fixed on the addresses and ignoring the strange looks her behavior and her companions were starting to gather. ¡°I know you¡¯re here somewhere¡­there it is!¡± She pointed at a large house on the corner, and Niles and Nuereddin followed to see what there was to see.


    The house stood out for several reasons, not the least being because it was the largest building in the neighborhood. It had three stories, with what looked like a tower in one corner. The house looked to be the same age as the other houses in the neighborhood, but somehow appeared more worn than the others. The gutters hadn¡¯t been cleaned properly in several months, at least, and the shutters on the second-story windows were missing a few of their slats. All of the windows were intact, at least, but many of them had a cloudy quality to the glass.


    The steps leading up to the front door were sturdy enough, and so Veronica climbed them, trying to exude a confidence she didn¡¯t feel. Between the neighborhood and this house, Veronica¡¯s sense of danger was increasing with each second. She still didn¡¯t know what, specifically, was causing her to fear this universe, but she hadn¡¯t had this strong of a reaction since The Incident in her home universe. She had to hope it wasn¡¯t anything that dire.


    She waited until Niles and Nuereddin had joined her on the top step before taking a deep breath and reaching for the doorbell. Before she did so, however, she noticed that the doorframe appeared damaged, and the door was slightly ajar. She looked at the two men in turn, trying to get their opinions on how to proceed without speaking.


    Nuereddin was starting to feel a similar dread to what Veronica was sensing, and he always felt that the better part of valor was getting the hell out of town and going back to his home. He nodded his head back at the stairs going away from the door, hoping like hell that Veronica would listen to him and they could return to the semi-normalcy of the Library.


    Niles, meanwhile, wasn¡¯t willing to leave just yet. He knew that Veronica had a plan, to speak with the protagonist in the backstory of the universe and see if they could give the team any insights of what they might be looking for in terms of the anomaly. It was standard operating procedure when starting an in-universe mission, and in his mind, there was no reason why this mission should be any different. Niles didn¡¯t dismiss Nuereddin¡¯s idea of leaving right away, but he wanted to make sure they understood what was happening before they decided to leave or move forward. It would be so much easier for all of them if they had a way to communicate amongst themselves that would allow them to speak without potentially bothering the opponent or alerting them to the team¡¯s plans.


    Veronica eyed the door closely. It was a bad sign - nothing in their report had mentioned the protagonist experiencing a robbery or assault in their home in the days leading up to the main action, so already the team was finding an anomaly. She pulled out the miniscule camera that Beale had helped her figure out previously, thinking fondly again about her old Kodak 35. The new one had the benefit of being extremely small and portable, as well as not requiring film and allowing her to see the images she had taken immediately. Veronica hadn¡¯t been the best photographer in her universe, but she was capable of taking photos when needed, especially when the team was involved in retrieving anomalies that may not be easy enough to take back in hand.


    She took a few pictures very quickly, showing as much of the damage to the frame and how far open the door was before anyone could get any closer. Once she had documented enough of the strangeness, she nodded to her two companions and shifted out of the way to allow Niles to step forward so he could ring the bell. Veronica told herself it wasn¡¯t because he was a man and she was a woman - it was because Niles was built like a brick wall with hair, and it would be easier for him to take a swing at whatever may be on the other side of the door first. Nuereddin stood next to her, clenching his hands into fists, and Veronica felt herself relaxing just a bit knowing that there were two people with her who could handle physical altercations if it came to that.


    The doorbell sounded a long, deep tone, ominous and more like a bell from a run-down church than a residential building. Niles stepped back from the door, giving himself room to move and to be out of immediate reach of anyone who may be on the immediate other side of the door, and then all three of them waited. And waited. And waited.


    Veronica felt herself getting more and more tense as they stood there on the porch. She felt exposed out in the open this way, and fought to keep from crossing her arms across her chest. She forced herself to maintain a straight, open posture, focused on the door of the house in front of her while allowing herself to hear the sounds coming from the street around her. Evidently, her little band had attracted some attention from the neighbors, because she could hear some of them on the sidewalk in front and on the side of the house. ¡°What do you think they want with Keith?¡± ¡°Dunno. Looks like they could be cops, maybe?¡± ¡°Nah, that one is way too short - he¡¯s probably like a circus performer or something.¡± ¡°What¡¯s somebody from the circus want with Keith?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know - I¡¯m just saying, that¡¯s what the little dude looks like.¡±


    Veronica¡¯s reporter¡¯s instincts told her to go talk to the neighbors, who obviously knew the person they were trying to get in touch with, and get some information from them - what he was like, when the last time they saw him was, if they knew of anyone who would have a problem with him, that sort of thing. However, the universe they were in was not meant to be a crime story, and treating the neighbors like witnesses to a crime would potentially open or thin the walls between the universes in an unsafe manner. Seeing as their job as Library agents was to protect the walls between the universes, it struck Veronica as a bad idea to potentially cause deliberate damage. So she held still, and she waited, trying not to fidget.


    Nuereddin was not doing well with waiting patiently. He really didn¡¯t appreciate being called ¡°the little dude¡± by the audience they¡¯d gathered, and while he wasn¡¯t positive what a circus was, he had a feeling it was not something the average person would be in. He hated being in universes where he stood out so much, but there were so many more Tall universes than there were properly-sized ones that he felt like he had to just keep his head down and work through it. At least he knew that his team members wouldn¡¯t think of him that way, and he could feel from Veronica¡¯s closer presence that she knew he was upset by the comments. Nuereddin took a long, slow breath and let it out just as slowly, trying to remember the breathing tricks Sofya had shown him about how to get through stressful or painful situations. If he focused on his breathing, then he wouldn¡¯t have the ability to focus on the idiots behind them. Long, deep inhale¡­slow, steady exhale.


    Niles was in a conundrum. As the largest member of the team and the one with the most experience fighting one on one, he was expected to be the first line of defense for the rest of the team when they came upon things that would attack. He was prepared for that, and understood his place in such situations with no problem. This case, however, wasn¡¯t cut and dried. It looked like there should be something willing and able to attack them - after all, it had done damage to a pretty heavy-duty door already. But it hadn¡¯t come out, and there was no sign that it was going to. Niles didn¡¯t even know if whatever caused the damage was still in the house, and he was beginning to feel a bit silly just standing outside waiting for nothing. He reached up to ring the doorbell again, thinking that he would wait for a minute after ringing the second time, then suggest to Veronica that they just go in and see what there was to see.


    The door came flying open, wrenched open wide by a wild-haired woman in disarray. ¡°Oh thank God you¡¯re here. You have to help.¡± She turned and ran back into the house, going up a curving staircase that was just off the front receiving room, and leaving the door open. The team didn¡¯t hesitate to follow, though Niles did take a moment to close the door behind them after Nuereddin came in - it wouldn¡¯t do to have the neighbors come barging in if something had gone wrong.


    The woman was flying up the stairs two at a time, somehow managing to keep her bare feet from slipping on the hardwood floor. The stairs continued in a spiral, and as Veronica followed immediately behind the woman, she realized that they were most likely inside the tower. Veronica was doing her best to keep up with the woman, but her sensible black flats were having a hard time finding purchase on the slick steps, and she had to catch herself from falling twice as she ran after the disheveled woman. The woman didn¡¯t even look back, just running and seeming to trust that the team was following her.


    Niles followed Veronica and overtook her after she almost fell the second time, putting his arm around her shoulders to keep her upright. The stairs were just wide enough for the two to pass each other, and without words Veronica indicated that Niles should follow the running woman closely. He dashed off, determined to catch up, while Veronica stopped to catch her breath.


    Nuereddin was moving steadily up the stairs last, pacing himself as though it were an endurance race rather than a sprint. He got up to a step below Veronica and stopped, looking at her with concern. ¡°Are you all right?¡± he asked in a low voice. He wasn¡¯t sure why he was speaking so quietly, but it felt like shouting or even speaking in a normal volume would somehow violate the sanctity of the space. Nuereddin leaned a little closer to Veronica so he could hear her answer.


    ¡°I¡¯m fine, thanks, just needed to catch my breath,¡± Veronica responded, her breath slowing and coming more easily than it had been a moment before. She also spoke quietly, and she turned and continued up the stairs after speaking to Nuereddin, moving more slowly now but still making progress to the top of the stairs.


    After another turn, they caught up with Niles and the running woman, catching a glimpse of her blue hair flying behind her as she ducked into a room. Veronica walked more slowly, less out of a concern for catching her breath now and more out of a desire to avoid running into a room containing unknown numbers of people or things. Nuereddin stayed right beside her, also moving cautiously, while Niles was ahead of them, standing in the doorway of the room. Judging by the curved walls and the small space in which they stood, Veronica figured that they were standing in the top of the tower.


    Niles hadn¡¯t moved from the doorway; he wanted to make sure the rest of the team saw what he did before making any sudden moves. He felt his shoulders relax when he caught a whiff of Veronica¡¯s perfume and the musk of Nuereddin¡¯s leather jerkin, and knew they were at the top of the stairs. He needed them to come quickly, but he also needed them not to panic or do anything too rash. He did his best to express these concerns with his body language, as he wasn¡¯t sure how loud he could safely speak. He slowly beckoned for the rest of his team to join him in the doorway, and waited.


    Nuereddin ducked under Niles¡¯ arm so he had a better view of the room, and froze. The woman they had chased up the stairs was kneeling next to a cot, upon which a man had been strapped. The woman was wiping the man¡¯s forehead with a cloth, murmuring to him in a voice too low for Nuereddin to make out, and gesturing (with very small movements) toward the team members in the doorway. The man didn¡¯t move much, though Nuereddin was pretty sure it was because he couldn¡¯t, rather than because he didn¡¯t want to. The straps holding him to the cot were wide and tightly bound over his chest, legs, shoulders, and each wrist and ankle, with one final, thinner strap running across the top of his forehead. Whoever had done the job had made a point of tying the man down as thoroughly as possible, preventing him from moving at all costs.


    Which is probably what had saved his life thus far, given the bomb that was resting on a thin glass tray over his broad chest. As Nuereddin watched, the man inhaled very slowly, and his chest just missed hitting the tray by the slightest of margins. Nuereddin had no idea how long he¡¯d been in that position, but just watching him lie like that for a minute was enough to give Nuereddin the shakes. He ducked back under Niles¡¯ arm to get to the hall and a bit of air.


    Veronica and Niles followed Nuereddin out of the room and huddled together next to the top of the stairs. ¡°Well, I think we know why we couldn¡¯t get in contact with Keith,¡± Veronica stated plainly, hugging herself against the sudden chill she felt upon looking at the poor man in that position. It had reminded her of things she¡¯d rather forget, and she was certain she was going to need a bit more than her usual one cider to get to sleep that night.


    ¡°You¡¯re from the Library, right?¡± The voice startled all the members of the team, particularly Nuereddin as it came from directly behind him. He whirled around and had his fists up and ready without realizing it. The woman from the front door looked down at him with a face full of worry and gave a small, exhausted smile. ¡°I know. I didn¡¯t mean to scare you. But you are Library agents, aren¡¯t you?¡± There was a plea in her voice that hadn¡¯t been there the first time she¡¯s asked the question.


    Veronica cleared her throat and stepped up, not walking in front of Nuereddin but managing to make herself the woman¡¯s center of attention. She held out a hand for a handshake. ¡°Yes, we are. And you are?¡±


    The woman met Veronica¡¯s green eyes with her steel gray ones, and shook her hand firmly. ¡°Rosemary,¡± she replied. ¡°I¡¯m the author. Somebody is trying to destroy my book.¡±

 Back to Base

    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.¡±Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    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.

 What the Hell Happened?

    Sofya shuddered, feeling much less comfortable in the space than she had only moments before, and hurried to the door out of the Archives. She wanted to make sure she got through the door and closed it before it, too, disappeared without a trace. She moved as quickly as her cane would allow her, even though there was no sign that the door wouldn¡¯t be there for her, and she pushed her way through and closed the door behind her with a slam that sounded like thunder in the work room of the Library. Sofya leaned against the closed door, trying to catch her breath, before she realized that there was no other sound in the work room besides her own, labored breathing. She straightened up, forced herself to breathe more naturally in through the nose and out through the mouth, and calmly walked toward the table where the rest of her team sat, looking bewildered. She did her best to avoid making eye contact with any of the other people in the room, focusing only on her team and on getting to her chair and sitting down before she fell down. She¡¯d already made herself the center of attention - the last thing she wanted to do was continue to call attention to herself by falling down or something similarly humiliating.


    Sofya finally got herself settled in her usual seat - Niles was kind enough to stand and hold the chair for her, helping her push the chair back in so she wouldn¡¯t have to worry about pushing with her bad leg - and Veronica kindly set down a proper mug of hot water and a variety of tea bags and honey on a little tray. ¡°I didn¡¯t know what you¡¯d prefer after the long day we¡¯ve all had, but I had a feeling you¡¯d want something,¡± she said, smiling at her friend before settling at the table. Sofya fought a sudden urge to weep, and covered it by focusing on the tea selection so she could keep her face hidden from the rest of her team.


    While she moved through the ritual of tea making (choosing an herbal tea with notes of ginger and orange this time), she asked Veronica, ¡°Well? What happened in the universe? We know something must have, because there was devil of a reaction in Prime.¡±


    Veronica had a cup of her own, filled with something that smelled like coffee, but not like anything particularly good in that category. She wrapped both hands around her mug, using it like a talisman to hold on to and keep herself grounded. ¡°I didn¡¯t know if things would show up in Prime, but it doesn¡¯t really surprise me,¡± she answered, staring into her half-empty mug. ¡°It was pretty bad in-universe. And it doesn¡¯t seem like it was an accident, either.¡±


    Beale sat up sharply. ¡°What are you talking about?¡± he demanded. ¡°Anomalies are things that slip into universes through reader misinterpretations or author folly. There¡¯s no way to deliberately introduce an anomaly. You know better than that!¡±


    Veronica felt her face redden with Beale¡¯s words. She did, in fact, know better than what she was saying to them now, and that was what bothered her. She did know better, knew what the Head Librarians had put in the training manuals and every other piece of official communication the agents had ever received from them, but. But she had seen the bomb strapped to the protagonist¡¯s body. She had seen the woman who claimed to be the author and the fear and uncertainty in her eyes. Veronica looked up and met Beale¡¯s challenging glare, and felt some of the redness move out of her face.


    ¡°I know what¡¯s supposed to be impossible, Beale,¡± she answered in the coldest voice any of them had ever heard from her. ¡°I also know what I saw. There was a bomb, attached to the protagonist, in a universe that had no explosives. Our protagonist was a lovely werelion who had recently been elected to the House of Representatives, making him the first supernatural-human elected to national office. That was the kind of universe we were in - UrbFan, but political. Nothing should have turned it into a mystery, yet there we were and here we are. All because of a bomb we haven¡¯t been able to trace, and weren¡¯t even able to keep from detonating.¡±


    Beale¡¯s face fell. ¡°Do you mean¡­I mean, the protagonist, is he¡­¡± He couldn¡¯t bring himself to say the words out loud, suddenly terrified of what their fate might be.


    Nuereddin smirked before responding. ¡°Oh, now you¡¯re all concern, are you?¡± He leaned toward Beale, though it was clearly an empty threat - Nuereddin¡¯s feet didn¡¯t touch the floor, and it made it very difficult to push off from the chair and make an attack. ¡°Well, you don¡¯t have to worry. The protagonist survived, and we managed to get a trained therapist into the backstory so that he¡¯s able to help the poor boy recover from his horrible ordeal.¡± Nuereddin winced, leaning back in his chair again. ¡°Would have been nice if we¡¯d been offered any kind of therapist too, but I suppose the universes believe the Library takes care of its own in that regard.¡±


    Sofya, having finished brewing her tea, looked up at the in-universe portion of her team again. ¡°I¡¯m glad to hear that things worked out in the end, though I know you all were harmed psychologically, if not physically.¡± She eyed the scorch markes on Veronica¡¯s blouse, the scratches on Nuereddin¡¯s leather vest, and the red welts that had appeared on Niles¡¯ arms. ¡°I¡¯m assuming you did something to the bomb so it wouldn¡¯t explode on the protagonist?¡± There were nods around the table.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    ¡°Well, it worked, but it still happened on-camera, and with quite a bit of fanfare,¡± Sofya continued, taking a sip of her newly-brewed tea. ¡°Beale and I were in the process of checking the book out of the public library when the first few pages burst open with a loud explosion, causing all of us to duck down, thinking we¡¯d been shot. By the time we realized we were safe, the first pages had been changed irrevocably. The librarian, who later admitted to being the author of the book, looked as though she would faint when she realized that words she hadn¡¯t written were permanently in her book. It gave the poor dear quite the panic attack.¡±


    ¡°What did this librarian look like, by chance?¡± Veronica asked, suddenly feeling the gears of her brain spinning. ¡°Was her name Rosemary, by any chance?¡±


    Sofya and Beale exchanged a glance before responding. ¡°Yes, Rosemary,¡± Beale said. ¡°We couldn¡¯t see much of her face, since she was wearing a mask, but her eyes were gray and she was tall and pale. How would you know that name?¡±


    This time, Veronica and Niles shared a look, while Nuereddin was simply befuddled. ¡°Why was she wearing a mask?¡± he demanded. ¡°Was she a robber, or planning a feat of derring-do or some trash like that? Seems like an odd thing for a librarian to do.¡± He noticed that all eyes were on him, and shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m just saying, it seems off. The lady we ran into, she seemed off, too, so it would make sense if they were the same.¡±


    ¡°You haven¡¯t been to Prime in a while, have you, Nuereddin?¡± Sofya asked kindly. She took a moment to sip her tea, hiding a smile and allowing herself a chance to school her expression into something more appropriate for the situation. ¡°The last few months real time, Prime has been dealing with a plague that has ravaged the populations of countries around the world. In order to reduce their risk of infection, people are wearing hospital-type masks to protect themselves from spreading germs or breathing in germs from other people.¡± She put down her mug to demonstrate the area covered by the mask, then pulled her own out of one of her pockets. ¡°Since people wear them any time they come in contact with one another, there have been a lot of designs and such that have come out of the whole mess. In times of strife, people make art,¡± Sofya ended, running her fingers over the embroidery of her mask fondly.


    Beale, meanwhile, focused on a statement Nuereddin had made in the midst of asking questions about the mask. ¡°What do you mean, the lady you ran into? Are you trying to say that you saw the author of the universe IN the universe? Is that¡­I mean, does that happen? Is that even possible?¡± He looked to Veronica for answers, knowing that she spent more time reading and learning about Library history than anyone else. If an author had found their way into a universe of their creation before, then she would know about it.


    Veronica took a deep breath, but Niles responded first. ¡°Yes, we are saying that the author of the book appeared in her universe. She was the one who alerted us to the bomb, in fact - were it not for her, we may not have gotten to the protagonist in time, and the universe would have been destroyed before it had truly begun. She told us there had been irregularities within her universe before today, but the anomaly today was the biggest problem she¡¯d come across, and she didn¡¯t know what to do or where to turn for help.¡±


    Veronica spoke up at last. ¡°Rosemary stayed behind after we got the protagonist, Keith, out of the house. She said that she didn¡¯t feel safe leaving the universe out of her sight, but I don¡¯t know what good it would do her to stay there. I also don¡¯t know of other authors who have made their way into their own universes, outside of copies of the author becoming the protagonists of their autobiography. That isn¡¯t quite the same, though, as the character in the autobiography is created from the character of the person the author writes, and not the person themselves, flaws and all.¡±


    Sofya nodded slowly, recalling the librarian¡¯s reaction in Prime. ¡°She seemed extremely distressed with us as well,¡± she replied, taking another sip of tea. ¡°She nearly didn¡¯t let me check out the book, but I reassured her that we would be bringing it back as soon as we could and that we just needed to document the changes that she had noted.¡± She scowled, turning toward the door of the Archives. ¡°I just hope that digital copy thing they made doesn¡¯t get changed somehow if there¡¯s anything else happening behind the scenes.¡±


    Beale frowned at the thought. ¡°I still don¡¯t understand how things can be changing so dramatically. If the author isn¡¯t doing it - and it really didn¡¯t seem like Rosemary had any idea of what had happened, or why - and there¡¯s no reader misinterpretation to add a bomb into the middle of things, then how did it get there?¡±


    Nuereddin leaned back and spread his hands wide. ¡°Sabotage, of course,¡± he said in a voice that brooked no disagreement. ¡°As I understand these things, bombs don¡¯t appear accidentally, and the device we saw was clearly put there by someone who knew what they were doing and meant wha they were doing. I just wish Keith could tell us more about who had tied him down and put the bomb on him, but of course, they did a good job of keeping him in the dark.¡±


    Veronica sighed, then pulled the top form from the stack she¡¯d already picked up before Sofya had come back. ¡°Well, this is going to be a whole lot of paperwork, no matter what,¡± she said, with a weary smile. ¡°At least there¡¯s always that to depend on. Let¡¯s start from the top, shall we?¡±

 The Plot Thickens

    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.¡±This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    ¡°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.

 Splitting the Party

    Beale tried not to grumble to himself as he walked to the report center, but it was difficult. Who was Sofya to call him a gaslighter? Why did that bother him so much? He knew that he was no such thing, and that somebody needed to keep Veronica''s mind on the task at hand. If everyone indulged in her little fantasy, then she would never realize that she didn''t have anything to fear.


    Beale was one of the few people Veronica had ever felt comfortable telling about the Incident, and he knew that it was a cause of great distress and paranoia for her in her day to day life. Even though she had told him what had happened, he had a feeling that she had kept some details back, and he didn''t blame her - it had been extremely painful for her to recount what led her to abandon her universe entirely and hide in the Library as much as she did. He knew that made her think there was someone after her at all times, and he felt badly for her, he really did. He just didn''t understand why he needed to act like all of her neurotic fantasies were real. The others didn''t indulge Nuereddin when he went on one of his paranoia kicks, did they?


    Admittedly, Nuereddin was much more likely to go off about anything and everything than Veronica was. And Veronica didn''t really talk that much about things that were making her anxious - she was much more likely to keep things to herself and just carry a lot of tension in her shoulders until they got out of whatever situation made her so tense. So yes, there might be something to the things she was talking about, but she had no proof! No details! Nothing she could point at and say see, here''s the conspiracy!


    Beale almost walked into the back of the person in front of him at the report center line because he was so lost in thought. He caught himself just in time, mostly because that person''s long black tail twitched up and came into his line of sight. "Oops! Sorry. Hope I didn''t, uh, step on your tail?" Beale chuckled to himself, trying to make a joke out of the situation and remembering belatedly that many of the creatures who had long tails didn''t take kindly to people joking about them. He wasn''t sure whether it would be better to apologize again or just stop talking, and decided silence was less likely to cause trouble.


    The person in front of him and owner of the tail looked over their shoulder, giving Beale an unreadable look before nodding a little and turning back to face the report center. There were a couple of people in line ahead of them, and judging by their stance, they were staring at something in their hand in front of them. Something about that stance tickled a memory for Beale, and he realized that he was standing behind Cassidy, the one Veronica had been talking about.


    Fortunately, before Beale made even more of a fool of himself, the line moved forward again and Cassidy was at the desk, speaking in an incredibly low voice to Randulph. Beale had an urge to listen in on what they were saying, but he knew that wouldn¡¯t go over well with them. Plus, he knew that his urge to find out what they were saying was tied to wanting to prove Veronica wrong one way or another, and he wasn¡¯t going to dignify that kind of pettiness with his attention. At least, he wasn¡¯t going to do it yet. Beale knew himself well enough to know that he was probably going to try to find out something to poke a hole or three in the theories Veronica had floated, but he was willing to put the work into the actual mission first.


    Cassidy didn¡¯t spend too much time at the desk, stepping aside and letting Beale move up fairly quickly. They stayed close, however, pouring over the screen of their phone as they leaned against the wall next to the door of the report center. The way their tail was thrashing about told Beale that something had gotten under Cassidy¡¯s skin (fur? Beale wasn¡¯t sure how much of them was covered in fur, as some patches could be seen around the edges of their clothing, but their face and hands were mostly free from excess hair). Either way, Cassidy was clearly done with the report center, and so Beale stepped up with Veronica¡¯s notes at the ready.


    Randulph greeted him with what passed as a smile on his scaly face. ¡°Back so soon, I see? I¡¯ve heard there was some drama surrounding your last mission. Veronica told me some of the details, and they are most intriguing. Are you setting off for your next mission now?¡± One of his hands reached for his notebook while the corresponding hand on the other side clicked a ballpoint pen repeatedly. ¡°I didn¡¯t see anything on the manifest for you, but then, things are changing all the time around here.¡±


    ¡°Tell me about it,¡± Beale agreed, forcing his body language to read as relaxed but ready for action. He spread the paper from Veronica out on the Dutch door in front of him, smoothing out the wrinkles he¡¯d put in it by fiddling with it and coincidentally giving Randulph a chance to preview his request. Beale wasn¡¯t surprised to see Randulph¡¯s third set of arms begin flipping through a registry on the second desk beneath the main desk, and he assumed it was to begin looking up the book he was about to talk about.


    ¡°Well, if Veronica filled you in, then you know that the author of the book we were sent to help showed up in the middle of everything, right?¡± Beale kept his tone friendly and light, making just enough eye contact to be engaging without putting Randulph off. It was working so far, as Randulph reacted the way any good audience should: nodding, eyes wide, mouth in a small ¡®o¡¯ of amazement. ¡°I know, right? Anyway, she did some digging to find out if this had happened before, and she came across this other book where it had. That time, though, the author showed up during the action of the book, and no one¡¯s sure if he came in to save the universe from some kind of threat, or if he was just, you know¡­¡± Beale made a motion like he was tossing back a beer, and Randulph laughed. ¡°Anyway, I figure the best way to find out would be to go to the book, you know, check in on the universe itself, see what I can find on the ground. Probably best that I don¡¯t go alone, just in case there was some kind of threat or something, so if you know of any teams that are at loose ends¡­¡± Beale trailed off and looked at Randulph expectantly as he handed over the page with the title and author of the book in question.


    Randulph took the paper but kept his eyes on Beale, looking quizzical. ¡°What do you mean, any teams at loose ends? What about your team? Aren¡¯t they going to go with you?¡± He was busying himself with getting the particular transit tunnel location for the universe Beale wanted to go to, along with the forms required for a self-directed mission request, but his curious look kept coming back to Beale.


    Beale grimaced a bit and leaned forward, speaking a little lower. ¡°My team¡¯s been through a lot the last few weeks, you know,¡± he said conspiratorially, looking over his shoulder as though afraid one of his team members might hear him. To be fair, there was a part of Beale that was concerned Niles or Nuereddin might follow him up to the line, and it never hurt to be careful. In the process of looking, Beale noticed that Cassidy had moved a bit closer to the door of the report center, and was probably within earshot of a normal tone of voice. He kept his voice down even lower, just to be on the safe side.


    ¡°Veronica¡¯s had a really hard time of it, you know, since she was there when things got bad with the protagonist,¡± Beale continued. ¡°Sofya and I had a lot of our own problems out in Prime, and she seems to be having trouble recovering completely. And the guys¡­I love my team, you know that, but sometimes, it¡¯s nice to have some fresh perspective, you know?¡± He gave Randulph a smirk that contained several things for the reporting agent to interpret if he saw fit.


    Randulph tapped the tip of his ballpoint pen against the edge of his main desk a few times as he thought, before he nodded and stuck his head through the half door. ¡°Excuse me a second- Hey, is Cassidy still here?¡± Randulph had a much longer neck than Beale had expected, and so it caught him off-guard to see him stretch past Beale¡¯s face to look out the open part of the door and search both directions before seeing Cassidy still staring down at their phone, still leaning against the wall as though nothing had happened.


    ¡°Cassidy! There you are. Come here, I think I¡¯ve got some work for you and your team,¡± Randulph said warmly, before retreating back into the report center and looking back at Beale with a smile. His hands had been working the entire time, and now brought up a map of the library with the appropriate transit tunnel highlighted, and the path to that tunnel marked out in ink. When he was settled back into the rest of himself, Beale realized with a start that it wasn¡¯t that Randulph¡¯s neck was particularly long on its own - he just had the ability to stretch it out many times its own length. It was both amazingly cool and incredibly creepy at once, and Beale immediately envied it.


    After a minute, Cassidy sauntered up, leaning their elbows on the shelf formed by the top of the half-door and giving Beale a brief nod of acknowledgement. ¡°You said something about work?¡± they said to Randulph, who had continued moving around the report center gathering forms and supplies together like a many-handed tornado. Beale was certain he hadn¡¯t seen any of the alien¡¯s hands stop moving since he¡¯d gotten to the front of the line, and it was making him tired just watching it.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "Yes I did!" Randulph responded with a cheer that didn''t sound forced to Beale''s ears. Who knew - maybe the two of them were actually friendly, or perhaps Randulph just liked Cassidy more than he liked Beale''s team in general. It wasn''t uncommon to hear that his team wasn''t the favorite around the Library - Beale knew that he and the others could be a bit of an acquired taste at times. "Beale here is looking into some history with how an author might appear in their own book''s universe, and is planning to make a trip to the last universe where that was known to have happened. What''s it called? Children of Darwin. D. Jensen. That''s right."


    Cassidy shot Beale a shrewd look before going back to the cool cat persona. (Beale wondered to himself if that persona had something to do with their species, or if Cassidy was unique among their own species as well.) "Yeah, that sounds like it could be cool," they said, looking back at Randulph. "You think my team should take it?"


    "Well, you were saying that you would love to know more about this whole idea," Randulph reminded them as he put together another couple of forms and made marks where Beale would need to sign. "Ever since we heard that the author showed up in your book''s mission, it''s all anybody in the Library has been able to talk about," he added for Beale''s benefit. Beale wondered if that was part of what made Veronica''s face look so tired and drawn. It must have been pretty bad, to have the entire Library talking about her team''s work all around her and not having any of the rest of the team with her to take some of the weight off her shoulders.


    Beale forced himself to stop thinking about Veronica and turned to Cassidy instead. "Is there room on your team for one more? I really want to find out what''s going on with this situation, and the more information I can gather for my team, the better off we''ll be to handle whatever comes next." Cassidy raised an eyebrow at Beale, then turned to Randulph with an inscrutable expression. Randulph laughed.


    "I know, Cass, I know, but the man''s legit. He means it. He wants to know what he can do to protect his team, and you have to respect him for that much." Randulph put the last of the forms on the half-door and turned back to Beale, holding out a pen with one of his dominant hands. "You just have to sign at the marks, and take this one with you to fill out after you make initial contact. You''ll have more forms to fill out for me when you get back, but you can work on those with your temporary team, since they''ll be working with you on the mission. Sound like a plan?"


    Beale looked from Randulph''s smiling face to Cassidy''s deliberately impassive one, and knew he needed to make a decision fast. If Veronica was right, these two were in the thick of something that could potentially bring down the Library entirely. At the very least, they could be trying to destroy part or all of the institution Beale had sworn to protect in whatever way they asked him to.


    If Veronica was wrong, however, then these were two people who had potential to be allies in finding out what had caused the kind of destruction they had found in the last universe, and they may be useful in creating a plan to help protect the universes that were under attack. The way the last couple of missions had come about, Beale couldn¡¯t deny that something was going on, and they could use all the help they could get.


    With a smile, Beale took the pen and signed his name with a flourish. He put the pen down on the counter, grabbed the forms, and gave Cassidy a quick bow. "Lead the way!"


    Beale followed Cassidy from the report center to a different spot in the work room than he was used to. It took a bit of effort to keep himself from auto-piloting back to the normal table, but, he reminded himself, he wasn¡¯t working with that team on this mission. This time, he was part of a new team, and he was going to enjoy it.


    He decided to try to strike up conversation, rather than remaining in the awkward silence with Cassidy. ¡°So! What¡¯s your home universe, then? I¡¯m from ModRom, myself, part of a main character¡¯s group of close¡­friends.¡± He tried to shake off the pain that suddenly came up when he remembered that Kelly had dumped him for another guy. ¡°I don¡¯t get a ton of screen time, but that¡¯s OK, it gives me a lot more freedom than I would have as the lead.¡± He looked expectantly at Cassidy, who was, once again, facing the phone screen in their hand.


    ¡°Space Opera,¡± Cassidy muttered without looking up. They moved through the work room unerringly, managing to weave their way through the gaps between people and desks with ease while not giving the slightest indication of watching where they were going. Beale was impressed, even as he scrambled to keep up and not get caught in the wake of Cassidy¡¯s path.


    Cassidy came to a sudden stop, and Beale managed to keep from slamming into their back by only a fraction of a second. He moved next to Cassidy and realized that this was another team space, with a few more people sitting at a table a little smaller than the one he was used to. It was square, and had metal folding legs, as though it wasn¡¯t meant to be a permanent or long-term addition to the space. It made Beale wonder how his team (his usual team, he reminded himself; this was his team now) had rated the heavy, wooden table they used. He turned on his most charming smile and aimed it at the other people seated at the table, all of whom were looking him over.


    Cassidy threw themselves into a chair and put their feet up on the edge of the table in a move so smooth, Beale couldn¡¯t believe it wasn¡¯t practiced. ¡°Got a new guy for you, and a new mission, boss,¡± Cassidy said in their usual monotone, looking up for once and meeting the eyes of the red-haired woman standing at the desk next to the table.


    ¡°So I see,¡± she said, her arms crossed and her face a picture of interested curiosity. ¡°How do you do, young man,¡± she added, reaching one heavily bejeweled hand out in Beale¡¯s direction. From the positioning of the hand, the manner of her dress, and her apparent age compared to his, Beale took the calculated risk of brushing his lips across the back of her hand rather than shaking it. He also made a note to turn down the seductive levels of his charm and go for ¡®boyish¡¯ charm instead - in cases of older women, he¡¯d found that was generally a better fit and worked a little better to get them to trust him.


    The gesture worked, at least, as the lady gave him a knowing nod as she pulled her hand away. ¡°I am the Lady Ruby, and this is my team of investigators and Library agents. Cassidy you know,¡± gesturing laconically at the human cat as they kept their eyes on their phone screen again. ¡°Let me introduce the others, and then you can tell us all about yourself.¡±


    ¡°Here we have dear Joan of the West, a HistFic whose series never really picked up steam, poor dear.¡± Lady Ruby walked behind a teenage girl dressed in buckskin, her hair in messy braids and a sour expression on her face. Her grey eyes held a challenge for Beale, and he gave her a nod and looked away, not wanting to meet that challenge just yet. He¡¯d just met her, after all.


    Lady Ruby continued around the table to the third occupant, a man with several silvered parts on his scalp and down one shoulder. ¡°And this is Kierkkegard, Hard SF cyborg and general softy.¡± She squeezed the man¡¯s non-metallic shoulder affectionately, and the parts of his face that weren¡¯t silvered turned red. He also shot Beale a look of warning, though his seemed to have more than a hint of embarrassment.


    ¡°Now, tell us all about this mission you bring us, and how you come to be attached,¡± Lady Ruby concluded as she took a seat at the desk by the table. While the table looked temporary and unimpressive, the desk had gravitas and weight. Beale couldn¡¯t quite tell if it actually was larger than Veronica¡¯s, or if it just looked larger because it didn¡¯t have most of its surface covered by the ancient typewriter. The chair Lady Ruby sat in wasn¡¯t a common desk chair; it was stuffed, almost like an armchair, and had the feel of a throne about it. Beale was sure that wasn¡¯t an accident.


    He cleared his throat, a little uncertain of how to begin. Fortunately, the paperwork in his hands gave him a good starting point. ¡°So, I¡¯m Beale, ModRom. My previous- I mean, my primary- My team came across something odd on our last mission, and did some digging, and found a universe we¡¯d like to investigate to get some more information. That team - my old team, I mean, - they¡¯re sort of out of the field at the moment, so I asked if I could be assigned to some other team to join the investigation¡­¡± Beale found himself trailing off as he looked from face to face.


    Cassidy, as expected, showed no emotion. Beale was just happy they had looked up from the phone, even for a second. Kierkkegard studied him, a hint of interest peeking through the metallic exterior. Joan still looked like she wanted to punch him just for¡­he didn¡¯t know, standing there? Breathing? But Lady Ruby, she was leaning forward in her chair, resting her chin in her hand and watching Beale intensely. Her attention was unnerving, and Beale realized with a start that he didn¡¯t know what kind of universe she was from. He¡¯d assumed HistFic of some sort, but perhaps he¡¯d overlooked the obvious HighFant possibilities? The woman could have magic, after all.


    Lady Ruby continued to stare at him, holding his gaze in a way that made him feel like a fly trapped on fly paper, before seeming to snap out of a trance. She reached a hand out imperiously. ¡°Give me the forms, and sit down. We need a full briefing on what we¡¯re going into, and what we¡¯re looking for, before we get started.¡± Beale, trying to recover from having jumped slightly from the sudden command, walked around to hand the papers to the lady before finding a seat at the table. Before he could let go of them, however, she pulled them, and him, close.


    ¡°This,¡± she said in a low, almost seductive voice, ¡°may be the beginning of a wonderful partnership. Or the end of your career as a Library agent. It¡¯s up to you.¡± She pulled the forms out of his hand so swiftly they left a burning cut along one hand, and she leaned back in her chair, her focus on the forms. Beale had never been so thoroughly dismissed before.


    Maybe this wasn¡¯t as good an idea as he thought.

 Research Goes Pear-Shaped

    Veronica was not having a good day. After telling the rest of her team what she had heard while they were away, she was stuck with the aftermath of that confession. Beale''s storming off and insisting that he needed to be with another team was hardly the most mature reaction he could have had, but it somehow didn''t surprise Veronica that it was the one he had chosen. He''d always been the type to run away if things got sticky. Regardless, she was now having to deal with the rest of the team, who were, predictably, at odds regarding what they thought they should do about what she heard.


    Nuereddin believed that the only thing to do was to ride into combat right away, that very minute, and to hell with the consequences. It didn''t matter to him that they had no idea what kind of plan Randulph and Cassidy had in place, or what their contingent plans might have been, or even what their target was. They were Up To Something, and that was enough for him. To be fair, he had made quite a rousing speech about the whole situation, but it wasn''t enough to convince anyone else that it was the proper time to head out to war.


    Niles, on the other hand, believed that the only way forward was to tell the powers that be in the Library, and let them handle things. Since Cassidy had worked in the Archives, he reasoned, Sofya should be responsible for informing the head of the Archives, Jane, about the alleged double-crossing. Cassidy having access to the entire Archives was something that made Veronica a little sick to her stomach, but she didn''t quite understand how the Archives worked exactly, so she didn''t know what Cassidy would actually have access to. As for Randulph, as far as Niles was concerned, there was one being above him in the hierarchy of the Library, so it would stand that they should receive any reports of alleged wrongdoing on Randulph''s part. (Veronica had begun to regret teaching Niles about the importance of the presumption of innocence, and how suspects were ''alleged'' to have done something until they had been found guilty in a court of law - he now loved to toss the word ''allegedly'' around in as many different circumstances as he could.)


    Sofya brought up the valid point that, while they may know the name of the person Randulph reported to in his day to day work, it was very different from actually knowing the person, and it didn''t feel like they should just barge in on that person and tell them that their employee was plotting to destroy the Library. "Not without proof," she added, and Veronica was almost immediately put in mind of a school teacher lecturing her students about the proper way to handle a scientific equation. "We can only really approach them if we have proof that there''s a plot, and we know more about what it is."


    Sofya''s demand for proof was what sent Veronica over the edge in terms of deciding her next step. She thanked the rest of the team for their comments and points of view, and told them that she was going to get to work on some things around the Library - paperwork, mostly - and learn a bit about what had called them to the Library this time. It struck her as odd that no one from the report center had approached them at all yet, when they''d arrived the better part of a day earlier. Beale had obviously spoken to someone at the report center, as Veronica could see that he was getting the forms and facts for a mission and would be joining Cassidy''s team. That was a whole other situation that she didn''t really want to think about just yet, and so she had firmly moved it from her mind for the moment. "I''ll let you know as soon as I hear something," she promised her team. "Meanwhile, you should get some rest in the rooms nearby, and just have a bit of a relax. Treat it like a mini-vacation, even." She smiled at the team members, willing the smile to reach her eyes and knowing that it probably hadn''t. It had been worth a shot, at least.


    Still, she managed to see them off to the apartments nearby, even going so far as to help Sofya walk back to her door. It worried her that her friend was in so much pain, particularly when being in the Library usually prevented Sofya from feeling so poorly. She said as much to Sofya as they limped along together, and Sofya gave a sardonic laugh.


    "I''m not sure what''s going on there, that''s for certain," she said, eyeing the cane she was using in the hand on the opposite side from where Veronica stood. "The pain started getting worse in my universe, and ever since last time, it hasn''t quite been the same. I need to schedule an appointment with the specialist in my universe when I get the chance to show my face there again, but something tells me that won''t be for a while yet." At the door to Sofya''s apartment, she turned and gripped Veronica''s hand tightly.


    "You aren''t going to go off and do something ill-advised and dangerous, are you?" She looked into Veronica''s eyes so deeply that Veronica was certain she could read the thoughts right out of her head. However, Veronica had experience hiding her thoughts, and did so now.


    ¡°I don¡¯t have the energy for anything like that, dear,¡± she said lightly, dropping a kiss on Sofya¡¯s cheek. ¡°I just plan on going over some of my notes regarding the previous author appearance, and make an early night of it. Maybe a glass of whiskey, if I¡¯m feeling particularly ¡®dangerous,¡¯¡± she added with a laugh, seeing Sofya¡¯s disbelieving face. That at least made her friend laugh enough to let go of Veronica¡¯s hand, and with another stern look (made less intimidating by the smile she couldn¡¯t quite keep off her face), Sofya made her way into the apartment and closed the door behind her.


    Veronica walked slowly back to her desk, thinking hard. She wouldn''t say that what she wanted to do was ''dangerous,'' exactly, but it might fall into the category of ''ill-advised.'' But that would only matter if she got caught, which she had no intention of doing. All she wanted to do was get some more information about the things that had been threatening the Library in the missions she''d been hearing about from the other teams in addition to her own, and find out what kind of things people had been finding when they went to investigate anomalies. If she happened to find something that indicated a specific person or persons from the Library might be involved with planting some of those things in the books, or anything else that would lead a reasonable person to suspect that there was something nefarious going on, well...she''d cross that bridge if she came to it.


    The important things were to get prepared, and to stay hidden. The first part would be easy enough; Veronica had handled enough investigations over her time in her own universe and then as a Library agent that she knew how to prepare to do some digging. She sat at her desk and pulled a well-worn leather satchel out of the large bottom drawer of her desk, rummaging through it to make sure she wasn''t bringing anything unnecessary. It hadn''t been used in a little while, because she had a different bag that she used for in-universe missions (the in-universe bag was a bit more universal in its design, making it easy to blend in regardless of where or when she was; the research bag was of the style more closely aligned to her personal universe, and had belonged to a dear friend.). Reaching into the main pocket, she pulled out a few scraps of paper with rushed notes scribbled on them, and she took a moment to read each one before deciding if they needed to be kept. Most of them, naturally, went into the trash, as they were related to things she had last researched months, even years prior.


    Veronica did find one note that wasn''t something she had scribbled down, but rather was tucked into her bag carefully, the paper soft from being handled over and over. As soon as she unfolded it, she recognized Beale''s distinctively blocky handwriting, and a smile involuntarily crossed her face. No matter what, the man had a way of making her feel better, even if just for a moment. She sobered then, remembering how he had looked when he''d stormed off earlier that day. Veronica had never seen him looking so cold, much less looking like that at her in such a way. She had to hope that she found some kind of evidence that would convince him, as well as the rest of the team and everyone else who needed to be convinced, that something was wrong and Cassidy and Randulph were trying to destroy the Library. She read the note from Beale over again, then folded it carefully and put it in the pocket in the back of one of her hard-bound notebooks. It would serve as a reminder of what she was trying to do, and what she was working to save.


    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.


    The satchel was fairly large, but Veronica didn''t want to fill it up too much. From experience, she knew that she might need to bring files or notes back from whatever she had found, and she wanted to make sure she left room to stash those pages safely in the satchel. She added two more notebooks (one small and spiral-bound, one larger and with a soft cover) to the hard-bound notebook already there, along with a handful of pens and pencils. Veronica remembered with a grim smile the time she had been trying to take notes on a conversation between two high-ranking mob members, and her pen had run out of ink. She vowed then and there she would never allow herself to go anywhere without at least two back-up forms of writing instrument. She also added the portable tape recorder she had liberated from a raid on a Russian spy novel ring a few years prior. There had been a large number of similar devices found in universes that were, chronologically, a bit too early to have such advanced technology, and she and her team had spent weeks ferreting out the last of them from the spies who had bought them on the brown market. Finally, she tested the batteries on her large metal flashlight (good for both lighting her way and smacking heads, if need be) before adding it to her bag and closing it up. She set it on the floor just under her desk, where it wouldn''t be immediately visible to anyone walking by. Now all she had to do was wait.


    Fortunately, Veronica had plenty to do while she waited for things in the work room to quiet down. She had meant at least part of what she told Sofya when it came to looking over the information she''d gotten about the previous author appearance, and it seemed like this would be the perfect time to learn more about the book and its author. She opened her main notebook, the one she used for her regular, day to day research, and began to read what she had previously found.


    In the last six months (as the Prime clock ran), the four main teams that handled anomalies had gotten an increasing number of calls for items appearing in universes in which they did not belong. This was bread and butter for the anomaly teams, of course, but the items had become more strange and diverse than the ones they were accustomed to finding, and they seemed to be causing more damage to the universes before the teams were called to handle them. Veronica remembered that when she first started working with the Library (more years ago than she could remember), her team would get the call to handle anomalies nearly as soon as they appeared in-universe, and their goal was to handle them before they had the chance to even be noticed by the characters or universe itself, much less cause damage to the universe.


    The laser gun in the werewolf barista universe, for example, had not only been found by a character in the universe, but had contributed to the beginning of a subplot to assassinate the werewolf protagonist before she had a chance to finish the campaign. Veronica had been fortunate that she and her team had been able to find the laser gun before the assassination attempt, but it had been a near thing, and even at the time, it seemed like an odd amount of time between when the anomaly appeared in the universe and when the team had been called to handle it. Veronica tapped her pen against her notebook, thinking hard.


    She¡¯d spoken with Murchand, a HistFan duke (earl? Veronica could never remember his title, just that he insisted everyone called him Murchy), talking about how his team had nearly been too late in handling an anomaly that had ended up in a town filled with werepigs. Somehow, a town set in the 17th century had wound up with a Tommy gun from Veronica¡¯s in-universe era, and that gun had ended up in the hands of the leader of the town¡¯s church. As far as Murchy could understand, the priest had planned to use the ¡°tool of God¡± (as the priest called it) to smite the unclean, which in his case meant the non-werepigs. It had taken a great deal of persuasion to convince the priest that the Lord would handle the ¡°unclean¡± in His own time and manner, and that the Tommy gun had actually come from the Devil. Murchy had rolled his eyes at it all when he related the story, but he was able to pull rank in the end and get the priest to hand over the gun before the great slaughter. ¡°Veronica, it was with no little relief that I took that implement from his eager hands,¡± Murchy had recalled, stirring his tea in his personal porcelain teacup. ¡°I shudder to think what would have happened if my team had been even one day later than we had been.¡±


    Veronica frowned as she reviewed her notes, drawing lines under the common elements. Apparently, the problem was becoming more obvious in worlds that had some sort of ¡°shifter¡± element embedded in the universe. She¡¯d known that werewolves had been regular and important elements in multiple universes for generations, though they generally stayed in the greater branches of Fantasy and Horror (and their various sub-branches). In more recent years, there had been a pull into the Romance branches with creatures beyond the typical werewolf, and Veronica had noticed that the branches joining Romance and Fantasy had gotten much broader as the ¡°shifter romance¡± universes had expanded. Veronica had seen more were-creatures showing up in the tunnels, and there was even April, a new library agent who was a were¡­llama? Alpaca? Veronica frowned, knowing that it was important to April that she get that right, but for the life of her not remembering which one it was.


    The point was that there were enough shifters in the various universes that the Library had called one of them to be an agent, which only happened once an archetype reached a critical mass. At least, that was what Veronica had gleaned from her years of experience - there was nothing in any of the manuals or histories of the Library that explained exactly how agents were called to the Library, or what led to certain characters to be called and not others. The manuals for agents focused more on the work of being an agent, searching for anomalies and working with their teams to keep the integrity of the universes into which they¡¯d been sent, which made a certain amount of sense. After all, it didn¡¯t matter why someone was called to be an agent once they began the work, just that they had been, and the work needed to be done.


    Veronica tapped her pen against her notebook again, the steady beat helping her focus her thoughts. There were three reported incidents of anomalies that had made it into the fiber of universes that contained shifters, and had nearly (or in the case of the werelions, had in fact) caused damage to the universe itself. She knew that these were the crest of the wave, and there was bound to be more information about incidents that had happened before these - the ones that hadn¡¯t gotten to the level of danger that these three had. Because they hadn¡¯t been bad enough to raise the level of alarm, they were likely to be buried in the report center.


    She sighed, then stood, stretching and taking the opportunity to see if there were other people around. She had been pretty sure she was going to have to break into the report center, she had just hoped she was wrong for once. Veronica had broken into her fair share of places over the course of her work as both an investigative journalist and an agent of the Library, but that didn¡¯t mean she liked it. It was breaking the rules, and she hated having to do that. Still, it wasn¡¯t like she could ask Randulph to let her read through the recent reports to find information about damage that he himself might have been causing, and it was unlikely that the reports she was looking for were old enough to be in the area of the Library where she¡¯d found the information on Children of Darwin.


    Seeing that no one was around, she scooped up her bag and walked briskly toward the report center, acting like she had every right to walk over there and enter the room if she wanted to. Veronica had learned a long time ago that walking as though she had the authority to do the thing she was doing got her halfway home. At the door, she briefly worked on the lock with her picks and opened it quickly, closing the door behind her as quietly as she could and waiting for her eyes to adjust before pulling out her flashlight. She had just managed to get her hand on it before someone reminded her that she had missed an important step in breaking and entering - making sure the place was empty.

 New Team Blues

    Beale hadn''t realized how exhausting being the new member of a team could be, but he was tired down to his bones. They hadn''t even gone to the universe they needed to investigate yet - this was all from spending the day doing ''ice breakers'' and ''trust exercises'' that Lady Ruby had insisted were essential if he was to become a fully integrated member of the team. Beale had noticed that Joan was frequently giggling at him, but she did at least do the activities Lady Ruby commanded she do, and with little resistance at that. Evidently, there was some kind of bond between them that made Joan willing to take instruction from Lady Ruby, even if she looked at Beale as though he were less than human. He was fortunate enough to not have to deal with that kind of attitude often in the Library, but he recognized when someone couldn¡¯t see past the color of his skin.


    After spending the day with the team, Beale had hoped to make his way back to his home universe and his own apartment, but Lady Ruby had stopped that thought in its tracks. "Oh, my dear, no! I can''t have the team scattered all over the universes, that simply wouldn''t do," she cried when he mentioned going home. "No, during a mission we all stay in the apartments in the Library, from the early briefing through the final paperwork. Joan, Cassidy, and I live in the Library full-time, actually - only Kierk goes back to his own universe, and I do believe he actually would rather stay with us. At any rate, I''ve arranged for you to be in the apartment block with the rest of the team, so we''ll all be close to each other and able to make a fresh start early tomorrow morning. The Library will wake you up when it is appropriate." At that, she had looked back down at the magazine she''d been idly flipping through, and Beale saw an article about the hottest new trends in the Romance universes. He was tempted to ask to see the magazine after she was done with it, but Lady Ruby had effectively dismissed him, and he didn¡¯t think she wanted him sticking around any longer.


    At least the apartment was close, and it was comfortable. Beale allowed himself to collapse on the bed face-first, not even getting undressed before pulling himself toward the pillows. He managed to kick off his shoes before pulling the blankets over himself, but that was the only token of civilization he was able to manage before falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.


    The alarm woke him far too early, he felt. Beale felt disoriented for a minute, trying to remember where he was and why he was waking up to the sound of some kind of birds singing, rather than the alarm tone of his phone. Things slowly began to trickle back to his memory, but it was a struggle. Evidently, at some point during the night he had gotten up, because Beale found his jeans crumpled in the corner, and his sweater on the floor next to them, tossed in a way that he never would have done had he been fully awake when he removed them.


    Beale took a moment to breathe and take stock of what was around him. The room was getting brighter, which was standard for an apartment in the Library - many of the boring, day to day needs were taken care of by the Library itself so it didn''t need to be mentioned by the characters staying there, keeping everything safely in the background and not distracting the readers. The bird song had stopped once Beale had woken up the entire way, replaced by a gentle sound of water running over stones, like a creek or a brook running nearby. Naturally, this helped Beale feel more relaxed, and also made him feel the need for the bathroom rather urgently.


    Having spotted his jeans in the corner, Beale took a moment to quickly look at himself under the blankets and make sure that had been the only article of clothing (in addition to the sweater) that had been removed in the night. It wasn''t uncommon for Beale to sleep in the buff back home, but with the Library taking care of so many of the basic necessities in the apartment, Beale had always felt strange about being completely naked in the space. It seemed like something a person could watch, and it wasn''t a pleasant thought for him. Fortunately in this case, he found himself respectably covered up in boxers and a t-shirt, along with mis-matched socks. It was good enough to keep the important bits covered, and that was all he needed at the moment. He hopped out of bed and moved to the bathroom with the speed of the freshly awakened.


    The water pressure of the Library''s showers made for excellent thinking time, allowing Beale to come back to himself and remember the events of the day before. He came out refreshed and ready to start the day, with a game plan in his head of what he wanted to do. He wanted to head to the book "Children of Darwin," with Lady Ruby''s team; he wanted to find the author within the book and ask how they had managed to make their way into their own universe; and he wanted to come back to the Library with the information in hand. After that, he''d like to talk to Veronica and see if he could patch things up with her, now that he''d had a chance to think things through a bit more clearly. She had made some good points, after all, and the things she had overheard did seem pretty strange out of context. Maybe now that Beale would be working with Cassidy, he might be able to find out a bit more about what they wanted and what they had been talking about with Randulph. Coming back to his team with information about both the author insertion in the universe and the potential Library destroyers¡¯ plans? There was no better way to make a homecoming.


    Beale was ready in record time, but then he waited. He wasn''t sure if he was supposed to meet the rest of the team at their work space in the work room, or if someone was supposed to come by the apartment to get him, or how any of that was meant to work. He had gotten the impression from Lady Ruby that she had a very definite idea of how she liked to have things done, and he didn''t want to inadvertently irritate her by doing something wrong on the first full day. As he stood hesitating by the door, however, the decision was taken away from him - someone rapped lazily against his door.


    Beale gave a sigh of relief, then held himself back for a second or two before answering the door - no point in looking too eager to whoever was on the other side. They didn''t need to know that he had been standing right there when they knocked. Unsurprisingly, Cassidy was leaning against the door frame, still scrolling through their phone, one hand ready to tap on the door again when Beale opened it. They didn''t even seem surprised that Beale had answered, which Beale found annoying. He felt it was now his duty to shock some kind of reaction out of Cassidy, just for pure spite. It was juvenile, he knew, but something about the human cat just got under his skin and made him want to poke them until they did something. "Good morning! And how are you this fine day?" Beale lobbed his first attack with Excessive Cheerfulness and waited to see what would land.


    Cassidy grunted and pushed off from the door frame, walking toward the team''s table. Beale sighed, closing and locking the apartment door before following the lazily waving tail Cassidy left in their wake. Beale still wasn''t entirely sure how Cassidy managed to navigate so well, considering they never seemed to look up from their phone, but once again, they got to the team''s work space with no accidents or incidents. Cassidy dropped in their customary chair, putting their feet up on the table and tuning everything else out - their job was done, after all.


    Joan sat on the side opposite Cassidy, giving the human cat a look of disgust as soon as their shoes appeared on the table''s top. She had a tin cup in front of her, filled with something that gave off steam and no discernible smell as far as Beale could tell. She transferred her scowl from Cassidy''s feet to Beale''s face before returning to contemplate her mug. She held it in both hands, and Beale realized just how small she was - her hands barely fit around it, and it looked like she needed both of them to support the weight. He had to remind himself that she was just a kid, really. It would make sense that she was a little on edge, he thought, if she was a young character from a series that didn''t go according to plan. He nodded politely to her, then decided to make a quick run to the coffee station to get some caffeine before things got rolling. He also wanted to give the others a chance to get there before he had to sit down, so he wasn''t forced to sit with the silent human cat and the girl with the dagger eyes. He''d been in some uncomfortable situations before, but this was just ridiculous.


    By the time he returned to the table with a mug of coffee doctored with milk and sugar (it still tasted a bit too much like terrible coffee for Beale''s taste, but there was only so much he could do), Kierkkegard and Lady Ruby were arriving. Lady Ruby had her arm linked with Kierkkegard''s non-metallic one, and they had been speaking with their heads together before getting close to the table. Once they arrived within earshot of the table, however, they pulled their heads apart from each other, and Lady Ruby withdrew her arm to stride more confidently to the work space on her own. Kierkkegard followed, his face becoming more blank and still with each step until he resembled the robot his metallic parts suggested. It was a very interesting set of changes, Beale thought to himself as he took another sip of his almost-latte before hurrying to the table.


    "Ah, wonderful, you''re still with us," Lady Ruby said as Beale came back to the table. She gestured to a chair that was on the side of the table furthest away from her desk, leaving the chair closest to her desk open for Kierkkegard. Beale took his proffered seat and made no comment, though his mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour, trying to figure out the dynamics between the team members. It was a puzzle for another time, but it would be a fun one to talk over later with the team. His team.


    "Now, we''ve gotten a chance to review the files on this book and the author that somehow made an appearance in her own universe," Lady Ruby continued, moving around the table until she was in her throne by her desk. Beale hadn''t seen it the day before, but Lady Ruby''s chair was on some kind of platform, so she was literally looking down on the rest of them. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the ridiculousness of it all, but it took quite a bit of effort. Lady Ruby nodded imperiously at Kierkkegard, who passed out folders of information to the rest of the team.


    Beale looked at the paperwork in interest, then noticed that he was the only one. Cassidy gave it a cursory glance before closing it and going back to his phone. Joan didn¡¯t even do that much, pushing the folder away as soon as Kierkkegard put it down in front of her. Well, that was their loss, as far as Beale was concerned. If someone had gone to the effort of writing up a report, then it was probably worth reading. He took his time settling in with the pages, well aware that he was making Lady Ruby wait and not really caring.


    The book was originally published in 1924 under the title "The Children of Darwin," attributed to one D. Jensen, and had first appeared as a serial in the magazine "Forensic Tales," which sadly didn''t sell very well. In fact, it looked as though the original serial wasn''t completed when the magazine went under, and it would be another year before readers would be able to find out what happened in the last installment. By the accounts of the day, Jensen''s serial was a big hit with readers, who enjoyed the story immensely, but were unwilling to spend the exorbitant (at the time) amount of $1.50 for each issue of the magazine. Groups of friends would pool their funds together, Beale read, and each month one would purchase a single issue of Forensic Tales that would then be shared with the rest of the group. It was an ingenious way of getting the story they wanted without spending too much money, but unfortunately did not keep that magazine in print.


    In 1925, D. Jensen had found a publisher willing to pay to have the entire book published as one volume. This time, the title had changed to "Apes of the Future," and it didn''t seem to pull in quite the same audience it had previously. It was also published under the author¡¯s full name, Dorothy Jensen. Beale privately believed that the change in title had not been for the better; he knew he would be much more likely to pick up a book called "Children of Darwin" than "Apes of the Future." Additionally, at the time, having a female author name probably didn¡¯t help sales. The publisher eventually agreed, pulling the remaining, unsold copies of "Apes of the Future" from the shelves to be remaindered and re-publishing the book under its original title six months after the first publication.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    This time, readers from Forensic Tales came in droves to the bookstores, as they could find the story they had been looking forward to finishing at last. The Library file included letters from various people who read the book in its second printing, and while there was still a great deal of excitement, there was also a fair amount of confusion. While it was common for any book that was published after first being serialized to have edits made in the process, "Children of Darwin" seemed to have gotten quite the overhaul. This, according to the original Library records, seems to be when the author made an appearance in the book itself.


    The details about exactly what had changed were sketchy at best, but the main point that everyone kept repeating in their reviews of the second printing were that a new character had joined the rest of the ensemble, and that character felt a little...lost. Her name was Dorothy, and while the other characters were all trained scientists and explorers, prepared to investigate a remote island that was reported to contain primates that had moved on in the evolutionary process far farther than the primates in the rest of the world (Beale found himself rolling his eyes), Dorothy wasn''t. She didn''t seem to be trained as anything, really. It was a little odd that she was a woman on the expedition, though not entirely novel - the group did include one other woman, a native guide who was there to give some ''color'' to the proceedings and tell the (white) explorers and scientists what to look out for and the proper rituals needed to soothe the savage beasts. Beale ground his teeth briefly, reminding himself that literature was a reflection of the society as it was when it was written, and it didn¡¯t mean people were going to treat him like¡­that.


    Dorothy didn''t even seem to be a character that added any kind of local information or even be someone''s sweetheart, giving him something to come home to. She just existed in and around the island, getting in the way and getting drunk. She wasn''t in every scene of the book; in fact, it was fairly easy to forget she was in the story at all until she made a two-sentence appearance in the middle of an action scene, and then disappear again. Even the other characters seemed baffled by her appearance, judging by the dialogue referenced by some of the book reviews. Beale could see why the Library would flag the character as an anomaly, and wondering why she hadn¡¯t been dealt with by agents back when she first showed up.


    Interestingly, the author, D. Jensen, didn''t seem to disappear from Prime while running wild in her universe. In fact, Jensen had written and published another fifteen books before passing away in 1949 of a sudden "attack of ill health." Beale shrugged, curious but not that surprised at the vague description of her cause of death. He looked up and nodded to Lady Ruby, who had been tapping her fingers lightly against the arm of the chair.


    ¡°Oh, are you ready now?¡± she drawled. She pulled herself upright and addressed the rest of the team as well. "This book, this ''Children of Darwin,'' is very much a book of its time, and so there are depictions that are unflattering to people of different backgrounds and ethnicities. The characters are frequent users of terminology that, in the modern day of Prime, is not considered acceptable, and the attitude behind those terms is not acceptable within the Library."


    Beale realized that she and the rest of the team, were all looking at him. He tried some of the deep breathing techniques that Sofya was always on him to learn, things that would help when he got angry or upset, but they had never really worked for him in the past. Still, he knew what they saw when they looked at him, especially given the information they were now digesting. While he might not be the darkest-skinned person they''d ever seen, he was a Black man. He looked ''Black enough'' to be picked out by the average racist, and books that were ''of their time'' were usually full of people who wouldn''t hesitate to either punch or run away from a face like his. It made him wonder if this was part of Joan''s problem with him, as well - he would need to find out more about her universe, but he was starting to get the impression that she was from a series that was ''of its time'' and thus not the friendliest to people who didn''t look like the white majority.


    Beale fought to keep his voice level when he asked, "So how does that impact our mission, then?" He didn''t want to assume anything with this team, because he knew nothing about them. For all he knew, Lady Ruby was a raging racist herself, and would be eager to throw him to the wolves of the explorers and hunters of a ''savage'' island set in the 1920s. Still, he needed to find out what this new team leader wanted to do about the situation, now that she knew there would be a problem.


    Lady Ruby smiled down upon Beale, and it felt almost like a benediction. Beale fought to avoid thinking about it in terms like that, knowing that it wouldn''t do him any good if he became besotted with her the way Kierkkegard seemed to be. "Thank you, Beale, for not immediately assuming that something like this would end the mission outright. Naturally, we want to make sure that everyone is taken care of, and that we''re sending the best people into the universe who will be able to find out the most information with the least potential for drama and strife. I do intend that we will carry on with this mission, but the split between the two groups that we normally have will have to be slightly different from normal."


    "What, are we bringing the new kid into the island where he belongs and leaving him with the other-" Joan began, but Lady Ruby gave her a cutting look that stopped the insult in its tracks. Beale had to admit that it felt good to watch the little monster of a cowgirl get her comeuppance, even if it was just with a look, and he fought to keep a smug smile off his face. "We don''t. Do that. Here." Lady Ruby proclaimed, her eyes on Joan with each word. Beale was fairly certain she hadn''t blinked, either, and he was starting to wonder a bit more about the possibility of magic in Lady Ruby''s background.


    Kierkkegard made a noise that caught Beale by surprise - even Cassidy looked up in alarm - before realizing it was the equivalent of a throat being cleared. "Lady Ruby, who will you send into the universe to question the author?" The voice that came out of the half-metal man was not at all what Beale had expected, particularly after hearing him clear his ''throat.'' The voice was clear, high-pitched, and sounded almost like a young man whose voice hadn''t yet dropped. It raised even more questions for Beale, who was finding his temporary team all the more fascinating, the more time he spent with them.


    He also was missing his usual team more and more. He really wanted to spend some time with Veronica, researching some of these characters he was dealing with now and seeing what they could find out about their home universes. And he would have loved to crack some jokes with Nuereddin and Niles about Kierkkegard and Lady Ruby''s possible relationship, as well as bouncing ideas off of all of them as to why Joan''s series never took off. (Beale held the opinion that it was because she was the main character, and people didn''t respond well to characters that were quite that unlikeable, but he was willing to entertain other ideas.) More than anything, though, he wanted to be back with a team where he knew what his place was. He knew that his talents were going to be used to the best of his ability, and that he wouldn''t be sidelined due to something completely out of his control. Based on the look of pity he was receiving from Lady Ruby, however, he was pretty sure that was what was about to happen.


    "I''m glad you asked, Kierk," Lady Ruby replied. (Beale wondered if he could get away with calling the cyborg by his shortened name, or if that was something that was reserved only for Lady Ruby.) "Based on the situation and the information we need, I believe we are in something of a unique position this time. I don''t believe that the entire team will travel to the universe; at this time, based on the information we''ve found in the Library itself, there doesn''t appear to be a need for a Prime-side portion of the mission. Given the state of the universe and the way in which people are portrayed, I have decided that Joan and I will travel to the universe and escort the author back to the Library, where she can be questioned by the entire team here. You, Cassidy, and Beale will remain in the Library, waiting for our return." She held her hands up preemptively, as though expecting the three non-traveling members to begin shouting at the plans.


    On the contrary, Beale felt fairly relieved with the plan. He hadn''t had any burning desire to go into the universe of this book, and bringing the author back to the Library, while tricky, would be infinitely better than trying to get information out of her in-universe. She would know all the ways to get out and around them, avoiding them all, and they would have to spend all of their time hunting her down and never getting an actual answer to their questions. Kierkkegard similarly looked relieved at Lady Ruby''s announcement, as far as Beale could tell. It was extremely difficult, trying to read a cyborg. He made a note to himself to never play any kind of bluffing game with Kierkkegard if he valued keeping his money or his dignity at all.


    Surprisingly, Cassidy demonstrated some emotion at Lady Ruby''s declaration. Their tale swished violently around their chair, and they put their phone down on the table. Joan stared at the phone, giving Beale the impression that putting down the phone was as momentous an occasion as he had thought it would be. "Why would you decide I don''t need to be there?" they asked Lady Ruby, their tone mild with a hint of irritation running under it. "I''ve gone on these kinds of missions before with no problem. I can certainly disguise myself as needed, as you have seen. What gives?"


    Lady Ruby shook her head sorrowfully, though Beale couldn''t tell if she was being genuine or faking her regret. "Normally, you are absolutely right, and I would love to take you on this mission. Unfortunately, Jane asked specifically that you remain in the Library to work in the Archives today and tomorrow. She said that they are working on processing the book his team-" nodding to Beale, "brought back from their last mission, and there have been some issues that require manual review and input." She shrugged her shoulders with a little smile. "You know as well as I do that the Archives come first when it comes to claims on your time. If nothing else, this could benefit us, as the book in question is the other one where an author appeared in their own universe, isn''t that right?" She turned to Beale, her eyes wide with curiosity, and the rest of the team looked his way with similar looks of interest (with a bit of menace in Joan''s case, though Beale was starting to get used to that).


    "That''s right," Beale replied, forcing his body language to read as relaxed, and not give away the tension that had sprung up as soon as Lady Ruby had brought up that damned book. "She showed up in universe and helped my team handle an anomaly that nearly took out the protagonist of the book. The author was also in Prime, working with my partner and I face to face, when this happened, so we know that the author''s physical self hasn''t moved into the book when they appear in-universe. It just added an extra layer of weird to the whole scenario." He turned to Cassidy, remembering how Sofya had told him that everyone appreciates a bit of encouragement and appreciation from time to time. "I''m glad you''ll be working on entering the book into the Archives. I feel better knowing you''re on the job."


    Cassidy''s tail went up and their face went pink, even as they faced the table to pick up their phone to go back to their endless scrolling. Beale had a moment to savor the victory, having finally made the human cat express some kind of emotion. It was even better than he had imagined. Before he could gloat too much, however, Lady Ruby continued with her statements. "Since the book the Archives are asking that you help with will tie directly into the question we have regarding ¡®Children of Darwin,¡¯ my dear Cassidy, you''ll be able to provide a great service for us here in the Library while Joan and I sally forth into the universe and bring back the woman who created it." She made a point of looking at Kierkkegard and Beale before adding, "Anyone else have anything they''d like to add?" Both men decided discretion was the better part of honor, and shook their heads no. ¡°Excellent. We should get started, then.¡±


    Joan had her arms folded over her chest, glaring at the table top because she didn''t want to glare directly at a person, but she looked up at that last statement from Lady Ruby. "When are we getting out of here, then? Do I need to pack?" Beale saw her drop one hand to her hip, where he saw the ivory handle of a pistol seated neatly in a holster, at the ready for a quick draw. He found himself even more grateful that she wouldn''t be staying in the Library with him for the next day or so.


    Lady Ruby examined the young woman critically, her lips pursed, before beckoning for her to follow as she got off her throne. "Come. I don''t believe you will need a complete wardrobe makeover, but it would not be a bad idea for you to cover some of the more unique aspects of your clothing to blend in more easily. Don''t worry," she added with a laugh as they started walking towards the apartments, "I don''t see any reason why your pistols would need to stay here."


    "Damn straight," Beale heard Joan say. "I''m going to need them where we''re headed." The voices of the two women faded away as they moved to the corridor where their apartments were. Beale shook his head, grateful that he didn''t have to hear any of the rest of that conversation. Unfortunately, he also realized at that moment that he was now seated with two people who rarely, if ever, spoke, and he had no idea what he was supposed to do with himself until Lady Ruby and Joan came back with the author. This had potential to be extremely awkward, he knew, and he had no idea how to deal with it.