by C. A. Pack
“Not everyone,” Johanna replied. “This library provides a lot of resource materials for people conducting research, and many of the books they request do not have digital versions.”
“Yeah. My wife always says she likes to hold a paper book in her hands.”
“And you?” Johanna asked.
“Anything that’s worth my time is probably going to turn into a TV show or movie, and I’ll see it when it hits the screen, or watch it on my computer.”
“Philistine,” she mumbled under her breath.
“What’s that?”
“Like Wolverine,” she substituted.
“You’re an X-Menfan?” He grinned. “I love those comic books. But it proves my point. Even they’re being made into movies.”
The other officer walked back in. “The higher-ups decided to call in the FBI. This is more their turf. My partner and I will wait for them outside. If there’s any change in that thing, let us know.” The cops walked out, leaving the teens alone with the device.
Johanna sank down on the sofa. Jackson pulled a chair over and straddled it. “You originally planned to call the FBI. What made you change your mind and call police?”
“I don’t know. I guess I thought the FBI would be more responsive if the police called them, rather than us.”
“So now we wait.”
Within the hour, the cops returned with their chief of police and two agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The officials eyed Johanna and Jackson, but ignored them and headed directly for the orb. Their conversation mimicked the discussion by the scientists who had preceded them. Additional attempts to touch the sphere were futile.
The older FBI agent was a muscular man named Mace. “We have to move it out of here.”
“If we can’t even touch it, how’s that going to be possible?” a cop asked.
Salisbury, the younger FBI agent, caught his eye. “Backhoe.”
“What if it blows up?” the police chief conjectured.
“How did it even get in here?” Mace asked. “Somewhere, someone knows just what this thing is, and how to move it.”
“Maybe Scotty can beam it up?” Jackson said dryly.
Johanna unobtrusively kicked him in the ankle.
“Hey, the kid’s a Trekkie,” one of the cops said.
“Star Trek is not going to help us here,” Mace replied as he slowly circled the orb.
“I still think a backhoe is the way to go,” Salisbury said. “It might be a little tough getting it in here, but it should be able to handle the payload.”
“What if the driver fries on contact?” the police chief asked.
“There doesn’t have to be a driver,” Salisbury answered. “We can use a robotic backhoe, that way nobody gets hurt.”
“Yeah, unless the freakin’ thing explodes,” Jackson added. He felt Johanna’s shoe connect with his ankle again. “Hey,” he whispered. “I’m too young to die, and I don’t want these guys doing something stupid.”
“If you’re scared, leave, or else shut up,” she hissed under her breath.
Jackson clamped his jaw shut, fisted his hands, and stared at the floor. Johanna’s reprimand surprised him. Aren’t we in this together? he wondered, but didn’t say out loud, not wanting to upset her further.
“All right, young lady, who’s in charge here?” Salisbury asked.
Johanna bristled at the agent’s tone. “I am.”
“No. I mean, who’s your boss?”
“I am the curator of this library.”
“There’s no CEO? No board of directors?”
“The library board has little to do with the day-to-day operation of the library.”
“Just get the top guy down here, now. This is a matter of national security. Go on. Get on the phone!”
Johanna had no other choice. She called the head of the library board and told him he needed to come down right away. He tried to put her off, until she said, “The FBI is here.” He arrived twenty minutes later.
She could see his annoyance turn to fear as he stared at the pulsing blue orb.
“Johanna,” he called out. “Where did this device come from?”
“I don’t know. We found it sitting here when Jackson and I returned from working in the antechamber.”
“Where’s your loading dock?” Salisbury asked the head of the library board.
He shrugged. “Johanna, where’s the loading dock?”
“We don’t have one.”
“What do you mean, ‘we don’t have one’?” the director said. “We have to have one. All this stuff didn’t get in here through the front door.”
“As far as I know, it did. There is a narrow alley in the back, but it’s too small for a large vehicle. And there’s no ramp, just concrete steps up to the back door. So, as far as I know, there’s no loading dock.”
“A backhoe could fit through the double doors out front, as long as we can get it up the steps,” Salisbury speculated. “Maybe we could lay some planks across them and drive the backhoe up the incline.”
The older agent nodded. “That seems like our best plan.” He lowered his voice. “Just make sure we’re not going to all this trouble for nothing. Take a walk around the building and check whether what she’s saying is true. She’s just a kid, and how she ever got to be curator of this place, I’ll never know.”
“Would anybody mind if I went out and got some lunch?” Jackson looked from face to face. Nobody seemed to care, so he left.
Before long, more agents arrived. They measured the width of the front door and nailed planks together to form a ramp. Officials were intent on driving a backhoe through the main entrance.
Johanna felt the sting of tears. How could this happen? How could she have let Mal down? He entrusted her with the library, and now it looked like the entire place would blow apart as soon as the backhoe made contact with the blue orb.
She slipped away from the main room and went into her office to retrieve Mal’s diary. As she opened the book, she heard Jackson call her name. She placed the diary on her desk and walked out front.
“I got you a chicken-salad sandwich and a latte.”
“Thanks.” She picked up a cellophane bag filled with foil-wrapped chocolates. “What’s this?”
“I thought we could share a few kisses.”
Johanna smiled in spite of herself. She had to admit, Jackson had a certain amount of boyish charm.
The head of the library walked over to them. “I’m glad to see you two enjoying yourselves while the rest of us scramble to avert a catastrophe that could cut the future of this library short.”
“If there’s a catastrophe, at least I will have had a last meal,” Jackson replied, “because if that thing blows up, I get the feeling that a lot more than just the library will be affected.”
The head of the library board remained speechless for a moment before rushing off to the FBI agents, with whom he initiated a spirited conversation. A short time later, he climbed into a shiny, black, high-performance sports car. It was his pride and joy—the ultimate status symbol—something that made women notice him and men envy him.
He dialed his wife from his mobile phone and insisted that she grab the children and immediately drive to their country home up the coast. He told her she didn’t have time to ask questions or pack.
She argued with him, but he raised his voice. “Just grab the children and go. It’s a matter of life and death. I’ll meet you there and explain everything.”
“What’s happening?” she cried.
“Just do it.” He peeled away from the curb. He couldn’t care less if the library blew up, as long as he wasn’t anywhere near it when it did.
Johanna unwrapped her first kiss to the rumble of the backhoe making its way up the hastily built ramp. By the time she swallowed the chocolate, the machine had reached the outer lobby door. “No!” she said, choking.
Dax, the backhoe operator, let go of the joystick on the remote control as Johanna
pulled at one of the Persian carpets.
“Jackson, help me get this rug out of the way before it gets ruined.” The two of them dragged the cumbersome carpet into a corner.
“Lady,” Dax shouted, “if that thing is what we think it is, the carpet is the least of your worries.”
Johanna blushed, but didn’t care. Until they were all blown to kingdom come, she would do whatever she could to protect the library and everything in it.
“Get everyone out of here,” the backhoe operator told officials. “The last thing I need is another ridiculous interruption.”
Mace walked over to Johanna and Jackson and yanked his thumb toward the door, hitchhiker style. “Out.”
“I need my bag,” Johanna said, rushing toward the antechamber. She saw Mal’s diary and stuffed it in her purse. Jackson waited for her, and they walked out together.
The temperature outside the library was stifling. Johanna thought she could fry eggs on the sidewalk. The entire week had been unseasonably hot and humid, but she had forgotten all about the heat once the big, blue orb appeared. Now, with the sun beating down on her, she could feel the sweat on her upper lip.
Jackson took her hand.
“What are you doing?”
“If I’m going to die, like I said before, I want to die happy.” He leaned in and brushed her lips with his own. When Johanna didn’t pull away from him, he wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her closer.
“Hey, library curator, hot lips, we need you.”
Agent Salisbury’s sarcasm brought her back to reality. She pushed Jackson away. “What is it?”
“How do you open that door? Our man inside removed the chair propping it open, to get it out of the way of the backhoe, and the wall slid shut. Now we can’t get inside. And apparently he can’t get out.”
Johanna tried to enter the lobby. All she needed to do was push a button and say, “Illumination,” but the backhoe blocked her way. She tried to climb over it, but it effectively blocked her path. “You’ve got to move that thing out of the way.”
“Call Dax and tell him to reverse the backhoe, so the little lady can get into the lobby,” Mace ordered.
“I can’t reach him. He’s not responding,” another agent replied.
“What do you mean you can’t reach him? He’s just on the other side of the door.”
“He’s not answering on the two-way radio or his mobile. Do you think the orb is causing interference?”
“How the hell do I know?” The heat and the tension had started to wear down the professional resolve of the older FBI agent.
“I can let you in the back.” Johanna opened her bag and searched for her keys, but they weren’t there. She envisioned the last time she had used them, and remembered dropping them in her desk drawer. “Except I don’t have my keys.”
“Right. National security is thwarted, all because some little girl who somehow got to be a library curator forgot her keys.” The agent’s voice mixed scorn with frustration.
Jackson studied Johanna for a moment before replying. “I have a key to the back.”
“But you can only get him inside the gate,” she reasoned. “How are you going to get him inside the library?”
Jackson took a deep breath. “I have a key to the back door.” He avoided looking at her, shifting his gaze to Salisbury. “Follow me.”
The agent trailed Jackson around the block and through the alley. At the back door, Jackson pulled out a brand-new key and unlocked it.
“Your girlfriend didn’t know about that key, did she?”
Jackson shrugged. “She does now.”
Inside, the frustrated robotics operator banged his fist against the front door. He turned when he heard their voices. “Thank God. I thought I’d never get out of here. My radio doesn’t work, and neither does my mobile. I thought I was going to be trapped in here with that thing until the end.”
“You’ve got to reverse the backhoe, so the girl can open the front door.”
Jackson spoke up. “I can open the door from in here. Illumination.”
The door slid open to cheers from the people outside.
“Now for this—” Salisbury began. He stopped mid-sentence as the large blue sphere rose ten feet off the floor, and floated in midair above the information desk.
“Are you going to move this backhoe or what?” Mace grumbled before noticing that the status quo had changed. He followed his partner’s gaze. A guttural noise escaped his throat when he spotted the orb hovering overhead.
Outside, Johanna sat on the curb, despondent over the fate of the library she held so dear. It was her life—literally. She dug through her bag and found Mal’s diary. After she made sure no one was watching her, she nonchalantly walked into the lobby. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw the sphere floating above everyone’s heads. She claimed a corner of the floor not blocked by the backhoe and sat down. She held Mal’s diary open in her hands and whispered, “Nuclear device.” It brought her to Mal’s recollection of the Trinity Project and nuclear testing in White Sands, New Mexico. It outlined the devastation following the use of atomic weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It included the meltdowns at nuclear power plants in Chernobyl, Russia, and Fukushima, Japan. But aside from a few Cold War and Middle East references, there was nothing else.
Johanna leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. “Mal, why aren’t you here to tell me what the big blue ball is?”
The pages shuffled. She looked down at the diary, which now appeared to be an inch thicker. It lay open on one of the last pages.
—LOI—
4
Johanna felt her pulse quicken when she noticed a picture of the blue orb. She devoured the words written below the image. The device was a special reactor, independent of the electrical grid that provided energy for homes and businesses in the area. The orb supplied power for only the library and nothing else. It had been that way since before Mal arrived, but the former curator had noted that the reactor showed signs of failing and that he needed to do something about it.
Suddenly, the handwriting in the diary changed to printed instructions. Item number three advised against touching the device because a force field protected it. No kidding. Number six indicated the sphere would rise as it lost power. It’s getting weaker? Suddenly, she didn’t feel so bad. Number eight instructed curators to move the reactor into direct sunlight every half millennium to recharge it. How do I do that if there’s a force field? She found her answer in number ten, which indicated that the word illumination—spoken only by the curator—would give that person voice control to move the object. And number twelve said, once the object was charged, the word delumination would remove the reactor from sight. Number thirteen, however, chilled Johanna to the bone. It said under no circumstances should force be used against the generator, or a nuclear chain reaction could occur.
Johanna scrambled to her feet, and climbed over the backhoe. It was easier now that the inner door was open. Inside, she found everyone gathered around Salisbury, who outlined his plan to catch the orb in a net.
“Gentlemen,” Johanna cried out, “false alarm. We don’t need your assistance anymore. You can go.”
Mace spun around and glared at her. “I’m calling the shots here, and this is not a false alarm. I’m not leaving without that thing.”
Johanna tensed. How am I supposed to get out of this? When the group turned back to observe the orb, she walked to the antechamber and opened the diary again. “Mal,” she whispered, “you’ve got to tell me, is there any way to make them forget why they’re here?” She waited for the pages to flutter, but they remained still.
“You okay?” Jackson had followed Johanna to the antechamber.
“It’s not a bomb,” she whispered. “It’s a nuclear power generator that supplies energy to the library. It has to be charged every five hundred years, and now is the time. Except, how am I going to charge it without the authorities going all crazy on me?”
&nb
sp; “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Of course.”
“That five hundred years ago, shortly after Gutenberg came out with the Bible in the display case inside, a nuclear generator existed here on earth to supply power to this library.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t wait to hear you explain that”—he nodded toward the agents—“to those guys.”
“I guess ... I’ll just have to make something up.”
Jackson picked up a lock of her hair. “What can I do to help?” He looked at her and saw her eyes riveted to the strand of hair that he held. He dropped it. Now that they weren’t going to die, she seemed a little more standoffish.
Johanna remained quiet for so long that Jackson thought she hadn’t heard him. Finally, she looked at him and smiled. “You’ve got to get them out of the main reading room. Lure them down to the basement with the promise of showing them something odd that may be connected to the device.”
“What am I supposed to show them?”
“I don’t know. Improvise.”
“This isn’t some pawnbroker. These guys are feds. They can lock us up. I need to show themsomething.”
She pictured an old, clunky instrument gathering dust in a corner. “The Graphophone! Show them the Graphophone.”
“That thing you showed me the other day?”
“Yeah.”
“That thing’s as old as the hills. Only an idiot would think it’s connected to the orb.”
“Jackson, the orb is older than the Graphophone. I need you to do this for me. Besides, they already think we’re incompetent.” She grabbed each of his hands in hers and looked him in the eyes. “They can’t expect you to know what that thing is. It’s way before your time. It would be an honest mistake. And even if they do think you’re an idiot, I would know you’re a hero.” She stretched up and kissed him.
Jackson felt an electric current, almost as strong as the one he had felt the last time he tried to touch the orb. “Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll be your idiot.”