by Ryan Tang
Alex had met Jared through the Paragon piloting simulators. He was a sturdy and reliable pilot, and his constant jokes, even in the thick of a challenging battle, made him a lot of fun to fight alongside. They usually played together every weekend on a team with his fellow Southern Robotics employees, but they hadn't had the chance to play in almost a month and a half.
"That's fine. I'm exploring tonight anyways. But tomorrow sounds good!"
Jared grinned.
"Alright! I'm going to need you to save my ass again."
Alex laughed. She was easily the best pilot on their team. As a child, Alex was obsessed with the Paragon simulators. When she first moved to Plenty, she quickly rediscovered her love of them. Back then, she'd been too frightened to explore the tower by herself and even more afraid of trying to make new friends. By the time Emile finally forced her way into Alex's life, she'd already spent untold hours grinding away in the pod-shaped simulators, recapturing her childhood skills and then far more.
And Jared hadn't just been kind enough to add her to his team. He even let her use the spare pod at his house whenever she wanted. Alex could never hope to afford one of the expensive simulator pods on her own. Counting from her days as a girl on Diligence, she'd already spent an obscene amount of money on rentals.
"Of course! I'll see you then!"
When Alex looked closely, she saw just how tired her friend had become. He had dark bags under his eyes, and his hair looked shaggy and almost frayed. He looked like he could use a relaxing evening battling on the simulator.
Under her desk, Alex's fingers curled around an imaginary pair of triggers as excitement swelled in her heart. It was so much more fun to play with friends.
Tomorrow they'd dominate the battlefield, but tonight was for the book-corridors.
There was so much more to discover.
Most of the colony put their faith in Stock and Southern Robotics, but Alex knew the secret to returning to Old Earth had to be somewhere in the library. There were so many books there that just trying to find them was an adventure in and of itself. Some had been abandoned in the hundreds of offices that the current staff didn't have nearly enough people to fill. Others simply lay forgotten on lesser frequented floors. Tourists frequently visited the top five floors of the tower, so the librarians made sure those stories were clean as well, but everything in between was in extreme disrepair. Most promising of all were the books hidden in the Spire's countless secret rooms and passageways, particularly the book-corridors, the pathways built into the shelves themselves, with walls made of books all stacked side by side.
Alex had once counted out that there were exactly 2,037 books on the far wall of the first floor. There were four walls on each floor, and 200 floors in total. That made approximately 1.6 million books without even counting the book corridors - and the secret passageways had to have at least as many books as the outer walls. The secret to Eternium had to be somewhere.
She and Emile were slowly mapping out the book-corridors, but they were only two people, and the rest of Plenty saw the Spire as little more than an eccentricity. Governor Waters cut their funding each year, funneling more and more resources towards Southern Robotics, allegedly to encourage their innovation. Alex had to admit the company's Paragons looked impressive enough, but that was before she saw them in action. Without Eternium, the machines were only feeble and awkward imitations. She'd read the stories. True Paragons had the strength of a thousand people. Southern Robotics's machines struggled to move their limbs.
Alex shook her head and smiled fiercely.
She just had to keep exploring. One day, she'd find something so amazing that Governor Waters would see the Spire for what it was worth. Then she could map out every tunnel and discover every book, finally unearthing the secrets that had been forgotten for far too long.
"Alex! Ms. Alex! Over here!"
A young girl with short hair sprinted to the counter, breaking away from the guests filing out from the library.
Alex excitedly waved back at her. Laura was just seven years old, but she was one of the most dedicated of her listeners.
"What should I read next?"
With a little too much force, Laura eagerly plopped her copy of Captain Ray's autobiography onto the table. The thick tome was one of the few fully surviving texts of the Paragon era. It was a sad and tragic story written by the greatest pilot of them all – the man who'd gathered humanity together and helped them flee Old Earth for good after the Mad Nobles had ruined it.
Alex thought for a moment then pulled out a book from behind her desk.
Legendary Paragons and Pilots. The cover showed a stern-faced man with curly hair posing alongside a pure white machine with a rifle raised triumphantly over its head.
"Try this one."
The book was half-catalog and half-history, listing out the most famous pilots and machines of the Paragon era. Unlike Captain Ray's autobiography, the book was filled with torn out pages and incomplete profiles. But for a little girl fascinated by Paragons, it was the best book available. Alex couldn't count the number of times she'd pored over the same pages as a girl, excitedly imagining what sort of machine she'd build for herself.
Laura gasped when she saw the cover. She snatched the book off the table as soon as Alex set it down, sprinting back to join her parents.
"Thank you Ms. Alex!"
Laura's parents grinned and waved.
"Thank you! Thank you!"
They thanked Alex after every trip, saying that they'd never seen their daughter so excited before. Alex turned bright red whenever she heard their fervent compliments. Still, the thought of Laura's enthusiasm always brought a smile to Alex's face whenever she was wading through pile after pile of damaged books in the hope of unearthing some new information.
One day she would show Laura the complete version of Legendary Paragons and Pilots.
The rest of the guests continued filing out, followed closely by her colleagues. Margaret and Mrs. T walked right by her, stuck in a close conversation with Mark about new ways to conserve the library's dwindling funds.
Mark's thin face was twisted in concentration. He traced figures against the palm of his hands as he eagerly listened to the two older ladies' concerns.
"I like that suggestion. I'll start making the changes tomorrow. And I was thinking we should consider consolidating our events. If we were to take another day off, the savings on lighting costs would be a game-changer. We are already able to operate with the on-call model on the weekends without any problems."
Margaret shot him a thoughtful look.
"Yes. Yes. That could work. Perhaps we could shift to on-call for Monday or Friday."
Mrs. T nodded.
"I'll talk to Emile about moving her class. It shouldn't hurt to start hosting a few events concurrently. There are only a few guests who go to all of them."
Alex winced a little. At-call meant the library was closed off for guests and only available to people who wanted to borrow books then leave again. She hated the idea of cutting more open reading time, but it had to be done.
Mrs. T whirled around and smiled at Alex as she passed by the reference desk.
"I still need to show you that draft! I promise I'll have something put together by next week."
Mrs. T had been hoping to show Alex a draft of her modern history of Plenty for a while, but her research was facing continual challenges. She wanted everything to be perfect. The elderly lady was certain this would be her magnum opus.
Emile smiled apologetically as she walked past, balancing a thick stack of books in her arms.
"It's going to be a research week."
With Mrs. T's self-imposed deadline rapidly approaching, Emile had been working late every night to help her. She hadn't much time to explore with Alex recently.
As she left, Emile locked the door behind her, and then the library was empty.
Outside, the false sky dimmed to signal the end of the workday.
_
___
The library was silent and empty as she walked up towards the 9th floor. In spite of her excitement, she would not take the 20th-floor passage by herself. It was best to travel there with a friend.
The paths inside the 20th-floor corridor seemed deliberately designed to confuse. There were endless turns and countless diverging pathways, so many it seemed impossible they could all fit inside the Spire's walls. Just last week, she and Emile had hit dead end after dead end.
On some days, it felt like certain book-corridors didn't want to be navigated.
Alex shuddered and shook her head. Her heart beat a little faster in her chest. The librarian made herself laugh uneasily at her timidity.
For tonight, the passageway on the 9th floor was exciting enough. That path was much friendlier. There were Christmas lights tied along all of the shelves, and most of the bulbs still worked.
Some of the entrances were relatively mundane. The path into the 20th-floor corridor was simply a sliding shelf. Others were downright miraculous. To enter through the 44th floor, you had to leap through a waterfall of books. But the 9th-floor shelf had the trickiest entrance of them all.
Alex climbed the stairs up onto the 10th floor then hoisted herself over the balcony. She aimed herself carefully at the large protrusion sticking out of the 9th-floor shelf. Then she leaped. The top of the shelf stared back at her, seemingly hard and unyielding.
She stretched out her hand and smiled as the thought of what Mrs. T said the first time she saw Alex open the book-corridors.
"It means the library loves you."
At her touch, the Eternium flashed a brilliant shade of blue then parted like water. The metal heated and splashed around her. Alex felt a warm and comforting embrace from head to toe as she passed through the blue veil.
She flew straight through the shelf and landed on a smooth slide. She let out a small cry of exhilaration as she rode it all the way down before landing comfortably on the row of pillows placed beneath.
The librarians hadn't figured out how it worked, but there were places inside the Spire where the Eternium was soft and they could somehow reach through the holy metal. The color was different depending on who you were. When Emile used the 9th-floor entrance, the Eternium flashed a brilliant scarlet.
Alex grinned at the familiar well-lit halls around her. A number of the walls had books removed from them - books that she'd removed herself. The void black Eternium peered back at her.
A weird wailing wind suddenly blew through the corridor. It was only a whisper, but Alex winced and her hair stood up on end. Nobody knew where the wind came from.
The noise sounded like someone was trapped and calling for help. Alex sometimes had nightmares about stumbling onto a dead body in the corridors. If she ever got lost, it'd be impossible to call for help. Tablets did not work inside the shelves. The line would connect, but she would only hear silence.
The librarian shook her head. She hadn't gotten lost before, and she didn't mean to get started. Alex rummaged in her trusty sky blue backpack for the map she and Emile had drawn together. They'd already mapped out the entire 9th floor, but Alex didn't know it by heart yet. As she pulled it out of her bag, her hand brushed against a thin soft-cover pamphlet. Alex smiled and pulled it out along with the map.
The Familiars was scrawled across the cover in big bright letters. Her parents had gifted her a handwritten copy of her favorite story the day she left for Plenty. Her mom's drawing of a Familiar, a shellfish dressed in a cute white sweater, peeked merrily back at her from the cover. In many ways, The Familiars was why Alex became a librarian. The gift from her parents was always a welcome sight.
"You'll remember, won't you? You'll remember that it was Bret who helped you when you were lost and friendless! You'll tell him, won't you? You'll tell the boss it was me who found you?"
All of a sudden, a ludicrously high-pitched voice echoed across the library.
Alex started. She dropped her map and nearly dropped her book.
The library should have been empty.
Alex recognized the young boy's voice as she knelt to pick the map back up again.
"Once we find her, there will be plenty of time for rewards."
Once we find her?
Who were they looking for?
Alex remembered how intensely the boy had stared at her. It couldn't possibly be her they were searching for.
Could it?
CHAPTER 2: GUARDIAN OF THE SPIRE
The high-pitched man's voice was desperately eager. His every sentence was an exclamation.
"I can't believe I'm seeing a real lord! You have no idea how long the boss has waited for this! Countless messages! Countless! And the library! We searched so many times! He will not believe that she's in the library! This is going to change everything! You won't believe the reward he's promised!"
His footsteps were a frenetic staccato and he let out a high-pitched squeal after every step.
"It had to be me! Did you know that? The boss said it had to be one of his learned men. Munch and Anders are going to throw a fit when they find out! They never thought it was going to be me. Oh, they're going to pay! They're going to learn they shouldn't have disrespected good old Bret!"
The boy walked with long but quiet strides, the heel of his shoe lightly clacking against the ground. His steps were even as a metronome.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.
Squeaky voiced Bret prattled on and on about the power and wealth that awaited him and the humiliation he'd bring to his enemies.
"My own Paragon! They'll know not to look down on me once I have my very own Paragon!"
The boy was almost entirely silent. He only spoke once, asking Squeaky Voice why his master hadn't come himself. Squeaky Voice didn't like that.
"I don't have a master! I have a boss! And I already told you! He's in an important meeting! He has no time for babysitting!"
Other than that, he only spoke when his companion begged him to, and even then, he was very curt.
"You'll tell him right! Tell me you'll tell him! Make sure you tell the boss it was Bret who found you! Will you tell him?"
"Yes."
Alex's heart thundered in her chest. Her mind scrambled back and forth.
What were they doing here? How had they even entered the library? She saw Emile lock the door!
She thought about the boy's starving skull of a face, all sickly jaundiced skin and pointed angular bones. She thought about how he'd whispered in her ear and then flung her onto the floor.
Her mind conjured terrifying situation after terrifying situation.
They were coming to kidnap her.
No.
They were going to kill her.
No.
They were coming to destroy the book the boy hated so much.
No.
Even worse.
They were going to burn down the whole library.
Alex took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She couldn't let her mind run wild, not now.
Strangers had entered the library in the middle of the night. She knew at least one of them was hostile. Something like this was utterly new to her, but she'd fought through countless frightening situations in the simulator before.
She imagined herself in the cockpit of a Paragon.
She was sitting in her pilot's chair, and all the familiar knobs and dials were laid out in front of her. Her hands were wrapped around the familiar plastic controls. Jared's controls were carved from silver, but it was always the plastic of the arcades - the plastic she'd grown up playing on - that she imagined when she needed to clear her heart and mind.
The old stories said that Paragon pilots had to be exceptionally careful. Their machines had the strength of a thousand people, but that meant their mistakes were also amplified by a thousandfold. Alex had internalized that mantra ever since she was a little girl. In the simulator, she never made an ill-considered decision.
A torrent of calm gushed through her body. Her b
reathing slowed. Her heart gradually returned to its usual beat.
The voices outside grew softer.
They felt less important.
And most importantly, her mind stopped its needless sprinting. Despite everything, Alex grinned fiercely. She always felt better imagining herself in the cockpit of a Paragon. She called it her battle-mind.
She slowly traced the drawings along her left arm as she began to think again.
They obviously weren't searching for her. Squeaky Voice was looking for someone who would make him rich beyond his wildest dreams, someone his master had been spent years searching for. Everyone knew they could find Alex in the Spire, and if she could make people wealthy, the library wouldn't be in such disrepair.
Even if they did want to find her, she was completely safe. Nobody but the librarians knew about the book-corridors. She could hide in the secret passageways and discover what they were planning.
"Where is she hiding anyways? Tell me! Tell me fast!"
"She isn't hiding. She's been imprisoned by her enemies – the faithless, the heretics, and the Ignorants. They've trapped her inside the basement. I can hear her calling to me."
Alex blinked. The boy sounded wholly confident, but his statement was nonsense.
What in the world was he talking about? The faithless and the heretics? And who exactly were the Ignorants?
"Basement? What do you mean the basement?"
That might have been the most confusing part of his ramblings.
No building on Plenty had a basement. Beneath the surface was a core of solid Eternium, and nobody was foolish enough to dig into the holy metal that kept the colony afloat.
But then Alex thought about the book-corridors and the library's countless forgotten floors. She thought of its twisting and imbalanced structure and how it veered from side to side so abruptly that it looked like it should come crashing down at any moment. The Spire was full of miracles. If any building on Plenty had a basement, it would be the library.
"It's there. Deep beneath the surface. An abomination dug by the faithless."
"Yes, yes, I'm sure the boss will punish the faithless."
"I don't need your master. A true Lord fights for himself."