“Okay then, I’ll start at the computers,” I say, controlling my voice. “You head up to the Religion section. Start with books on Roman mythology, and if you can’t find anything, head over to Languages. Here, I’ll trade you.” Reaching into my pack, I dig out the old power pack. I hand it over and take his, the better one, wagging it at him. “If you need me, use it.”
He nods and starts off.
“Take Pip,” I add. I’ll be a lot closer to the door; Pip will be safer with Enoch, hidden up in the stacks if anything happens. This time my little brother goes without complaint, giving me a nervous look.
I watch them as they walk off, wondering if they’ll find anything. Religion is always dicey, but you never can tell: although major players like the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Bardo Thodol, the Popol Vuh, the Bible and others are certainly gone, less grandiose texts still contain lots of information. Enoch is good at finding books, even if it isn’t his specialty. Really it’s mine, but I’m the expert at using the online catalogue, so I’ll start there.
I walk to the computers, glancing down at the power pack as I go. Flipping open the cover, I scan to the grainy map, which shows only the guard’s weak signal. I toggle the switch that turns the communicator on, wishing I’d made Enoch do the same to his while I was watching. Then I shake my head; that’s elementary, and he wouldn’t forget. At least if we have to be separated it is here, within the beloved Library where I feel safe. I’ve never seen anyone else inside its walls, and have even once or twice spent the night alone. Then again, the sense of security is pure illusion. The Party controls the perimeter, and it will not keep them out.
Taking a deep breath to quell my misgivings, I bend down and plug the power pack into a computer tower, hoping to see the blinking light that means it is booting up. I am disappointed. Not everything in this dusty place still works, but I had been sure this one did. Still, enough do that it won’t be a problem. I try another, and then another. A minute later, my ministrations produce results: the machine begins to make small whirring and clicking noises, the ON button glowing brightly. The screen flickers to life, a black octopus on a red background. The symbol makes me shudder, and I wonder what people thought about it before the wars, when the Party first assumed control of the Nation. Did it frighten them? Or did it fill them with peace and comfort?
I reach out a hand to touch it, but the screen changes, automatically pulling up a search catalogue. A noise sounds in the distance, and I jump, straining my ears. It’s just the boys.
Placing my fingers over the keyboard, I hesitate. Everything I type is monitored by the Party, and if they’re smart, they’ll be watching the system. On the other hand, maybe they’re counting on the guard to alert them first. Either way, I have to be fast.
I type in only the first four letters of the word, knowing my enemies will see this at some point and not wanting to reveal too much. But “term” pulls up a dizzying amount of information: linguistic references, novels, non-fiction, even medical textbooks on pregnancy.
I’ll never get through all of this.
I scroll through the seemingly endless entries, on and on, each useless line another small heartbreak. My palms begin to sweat, and I wipe them unsteadily on the thick fabric of my pants. Scanning faster, I search desperately for anything that might help, any clue that will save me from having to decide what to do if I find nothing. I’ve never had a trail go dead before.
There’s a first time for everything. I grimace, trying and failing to quiet the morose voice in my head.
When the name finally appears, it flies past in a blur, so quick I almost miss it. I reverse direction instantly, scouring the entries much more slowly as I thread back up the list.
“There you are,” I whisper, then look quickly around as though someone might have heard me. Nervously I click the entry, praying for something worthwhile. As the page loads I glance at the power pack, but there is no message from Enoch. Turning back to the screen, I am immediately discouraged.
Aside from the title at the top – TERMINUS – the page is blank.
I puzzle over it for several minutes, trying to make some sense of the missing information. The electronic document shows characteristic signs of erasure. The screen below the word is blank, lacking the small footnote at the bottom declaring the source. What’s interesting is not that the entry has been scrubbed, but that it’s only partially so. Usually when a document is wiped out, it contains nothing whatsoever. More likely, it is simply never pulled up by the search catalogue. Either there has been some mistake, or someone has snuck this in under the Party’s nose for a reason. It has happened before. Lacking the infrastructure of a vibrantly global world, even the resource-rich Party is hard pressed to manage all the technology that falls under its purview. But a blank page? Why?
Slowly, I brush my finger down the track pad, scrolling aimlessly as if waiting for something to appear. Normally I would abandon this search, as I so often have to, and look by hand, using indices at the backs of books to trace a word from one source to another. I don’t have time for that now. Besides, something about the blank entry tickles the back of my mind. Its existence is intentional, that much is clear. Otherwise it would have been removed entirely. As it is, it almost seems as though it is meant to indicate that more information exists. That I haven’t found it yet.
Drawing a deep breath, I put my fingers to the keyboard once more, and do something I have been expressly warned not to do. Never leave a trail, I hear Papa saying, right as I throw years of training in his face. I type out the whole name, my fingers shaking as I press the return button. I am immediately rewarded.
It is not much, but the twenty or so results are much more refined, closer to target: among them I see references to a few oblique works by ancient-sounding authors, some texts clearly spiritual in nature, and a scholarly book or two. I recognize Plutarch’s Moralia, but know it isn’t here; we also won’t find the religious documents. But the academic books might be forthcoming. Pulling a notepad from my backpack and a stubby pencil, I jot down the names.
“I found something,” I say quietly into the power pack. I tell Enoch where to meet me, then trot upstairs.
Unfortunately, of the possibilities, we immediately knock out a dozen or so. A few of the references turn out to be in comic books, science fiction novels, poems. Probably useless, but I carry them with me anyway: I can’t be sure where the clue I’m looking for might turn up, and even if we make it out of the Library alive – not a guarantee – we definitely won’t be coming back. Several of the remaining tomes are in a Latin too old and dense for me to ever decipher. Two promising books, both scholarly texts, are simply gone. Pawing through the surrounding shelves turn up nothing, and a thorough search of the Library would take weeks. Whereas we have only hours, and they’re mostly up. Despair begins to creep up on me.
“What’s the last one called?” Enoch asks quietly. I hand him the notepad: Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic.
Setting my mouth in a hard line, I march to the shelf where it’s supposed to be. Somehow I’m both devastated and utterly unsurprised to see it missing, a sad, blank stretch of metal shelf in its place. My eyes sting as I consider the possibility that the Library, my trusted friend, may have failed me entirely.
Enoch waits a diplomatic minute. “We should go,” he says finally.
I realize that I’ve been holding my breath for a long time, and let it out in a huge, frustrated gust. Dust billows from the crack between the books on either side of the empty spot, revealing a tiny mark. If I hadn’t been looking down, I might not have noticed it at all.
“Enoch,” I murmur. “Look.”
I point to the tiny symbol scratched on the metal shelf.
↵
“A carriage return,” he says quietly. A symbol we’ve seen many times in our hunts for old electronics, spare parts. Most people these days couldn’t distinguish it from a pictograph or an ancient rune or a letter in another alphabet, but
anyone who’s used an old keyboard knows it well: the return button.
“Return.” I search my mind frantically, trying to solve the tantalizing equation.
“Why would someone put that here?” Enoch says. “Random.”
But to me, it doesn’t feel random at all. It means something, I just know it.
“Naiya,” Pip says quietly, and my head whips up. He looks serious, his eyes once more a faint red. All of a sudden I feel it too. “They’re coming.”
“Then we have to leave.” Enoch is decisive, already moving, reaching past my shoulder to cinch up my pack, then grabbing Pip’s hand and chivvying us down the stairs. There is only one entrance, and if we’re not out before they come in, we’ll never leave. He reaches into my pocket for the good power pack, flipping open the screen and registering the presence of six guards less than a quarter of a mile away.
“Damn,” he whispers, breaking into a run. “Go, go, go.”
I allow myself to be shunted along, mind spinning with the attempt to add it all up. It isn’t until we’re back in the lobby that it clicks.
“Return!” I gasp, breaking free of Enoch’s grasp and whirling to the right, darting behind one of the big wooden desks.
“What are you doing?” he whispers sharply, keeping a firm grasp on Pip’s hand.
“Help me!” I say, desperately shifting a pile of rubble from behind the desk. Both boys move around back and bend to my assistance, tossing stones to the side.
“Naiya, we don’t have time for this,” Enoch insists anxiously, though to his credit, he keeps working.
“Just one more second,” I insist. “Just help me get this cart uncovered. Please, Enoch.” So he does, and a few seconds later we unearth a rotting canvas bin. On one side, in black block letters, it reads RETURNS. I pull it out a few feet on its dubious casters, and bend over immediately, pawing fiercely through its contents. Finally, I see it. Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic.
“Got it!”
Shoving it under my arm, I stand upright, and we dart back out from behind the desk, down the stairs and into the main entryway. I pull Pip into a small alcove as Enoch, breathing hard, pries up another white panel in the side of the wall, attaching the wire, keying in the code to the power pack in a matter of seconds.
“Done,” he says, motioning us through. We run, and instead of going down the main stairs outside, fold around the side of the building, using an access ramp to get down to the ground. Crouching, we wind around back and away, keeping under the shadow of Deck 2 and circling the Library until we have put ourselves behind the guards. We crouch among the detritus of an old railroad track, its rusty ties and wooden rails moldering into the earth.
“Just barely missed us,” I mutter as we watch them attend to their fallen comrade, and head up the stairs into the huge marble building. “Close call.”
“Too close,” Enoch says. “You shouldn’t have stopped.”
“I was right, wasn’t I?”
“Yes,” he admits, voice tight with strain and irritation. It kills me to hear him talk this way, a way he’s never spoken to me before. “You were right, Naiya. But you almost got us killed. Was it worth it?”
In answer, I open the book. Flipping to its index, I look for the word, then spend the next several minutes reading in silence. Enoch and Pip read over my shoulder, but no one says anything, because there’s nothing really to say.
“So Terminus is an old god,” Enoch says finally, disagreeably. “Patron saint of border disputes or something, is that it? Roman god of staying on your own damn side of the fence? Wonderful. And how does that help us?”
I turn the page, looking for more, but Enoch is right. Knowing about this god, about the libations poured in his honor, the rites in which people invoked his name, does absolutely nothing for us. Crippled with doubt, I turn once again to the index, but there is nothing else there. Sadly, I let the book fall closed.
That’s when I see it, right corner of the book’s inside cover.
Another carriage return.
“Enoch, look!” I whisper, jubilant, pointing to the mark. Against his will, he looks interested, leaning in. “It has to have been put there by the same person! Could it have been Papa?”
He shakes his head doubtfully. “He gave us a Bible. He would have given us this as well, if he could have.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Disappointed that the book isn’t from Papa, I bend closer. “Wait, what’s that?” I point to the return symbol, under which minute hatch marks are just barely visible. More writing?
Rummaging in his knapsack a moment, Enoch produces a magnifying glass and hands it to me. Bending down, I put my eye up close to the book, so close I can smell its friendly, musty scent. There, written in the tiniest possible script, are two more letters.
“PP,” I read softly.
“Wonder what that means.” Enoch looks thoughtful, his ire fading a little. That, combined with the new trail, fill me with hope.
Pip looks from one to the other of us, waiting.
“Well,” I say slowly, folding the book closed once more and putting it in my bag, along with the magnifying glass. “I’m assuming it’s – ”
“Now, now,” a strange voice interrupts, “is this really the best place to take break?”
ELEVEN
My fingers feel as though they’ve turned to lead. I fumble helplessly for the blade at my belt as I stumble to my feet, turning to face the most enormous man I’ve ever seen. Enoch steps quickly in front of Pip and me, wincing as his bad finger brushes across my waist. He is holding an old railroad spike in one hand, his own knife in the other.
“Who are you?” he barks, low and menacing. “What are you doing here?”
“Aw, there’s no need for that,” says the man in a surprisingly soft tone, standing quite still. His arms are out to the side, to show that he means us no harm. “I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
His visage is darkened by the overhanging decks, leaving his face in shadow, but it’s easy to see he isn’t ordinary. For one thing, he is huge, well over six and a half feet tall, with arms like an ox and legs like deck support pillars. He is wearing strange clothes as well, leather pants and a leather coat with rough stitching. His long, black hair is braided down his back in many places, beard flowing over his chest like a pirate. His tall suede boots are well-made, certainly not standard issue. Not in this City, anyway.
Slowly, as though confronted by baby animals, he bends and places a short dirk on the ground. Still bent, he reaches a hand across his back and draws a thin, deadly looking sword from its sheath with a hiss. He sets that down too. Enoch watches him, unmoving.
The man stands, steps back. “Would you like to share my fire?” he asks simply.
“You haven’t got a fire,” Enoch snaps.
“Ah,” the man says, as though just realizing this. “True. But if you come with me, I can make one.”
“Why should we come with you?” I demand, and, before I think better of it, “Where are you going?”
“Somewhere safer,” he replies, ignoring my first question and nodding over my shoulder at the Library in the distance. “I could probably take them guards, but I can’t say I’d want to.” He smiles crookedly, and I wonder if he’s joking. He’s big, no question, but I can’t imagine anyone taking on six Home Guard and living to tell the tale.
Enoch obviously has the same questions. “Who are you?” he asks suspiciously, knife still help up straight in front of him.
“Well, now, some call me Achilles,” the man says easily. “There’s some who call me other names as well. My mother, for one.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. A pregnant pause ensues, ripe with the noise of the evening trains somewhere above us. Pip takes my hand uncertainly, pressing closer to my side. The back of my neck prickles unendingly. I want to leave, but I don’t yet know which direction to walk.
“But you can just call me Achilles,” Achilles adds then, as though n
o awkward silences have occurred.
“All right then, Achilles,” I say warily, then repeat Enoch’s question. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here for you, Naiya Legerdemain.” He looks at me frankly, appraisingly, his arms still held wide open. For the second time that day, I feel as though I’ve been kicked in the gut. Something about hearing that name – Legerdemain – from the lips of someone other than Papa makes it stunningly, oppressively real, where before it was half a dream. A much larger silence rockets through the small space, seeming to bounce off the metal pillars and burrow into my head. Achilles opens his mouth once more, but he is interrupted.
“We have no idea who that is,” Enoch challenges, right as I blurt, “How do you know my name?”
We look at each other, him furious, me guilty.
Achilles chuckles softly. “Some dissension in the ranks, I see.”
Enoch looks murderous. I bite my lip, now eager to hear anything this man has to say, but unwilling to be the one to speak; I’m in enough trouble as it is. Pip, watching his angry older brother, looks as though he might cry.
“Look,” Achilles says then, “just come with me, somewhere safer, and hear what I have to say, alright? Enoch?”
At the sound of his name, the tall boy’s head whips up, at the same time as his knife. I’m almost surprised his eyes aren’t glowing red.
“Just because you know who we are,” he spits, “doesn’t mean you’re our friend.”
“But I’m not your enemy,” Achilles says softly. “If you’d give me a chance, you might believe me. Do you really have anything left to lose?”
“Yes,” Enoch says steadily. “Yes. Believe it or not, I still have more to lose.”
My eyes begin to water, but I look skyward until the feeling passes, holding Pip tight.
Achilles sighs deeply. “I suppose you do. I’m sorry. Come with me, get away from those guards, and I promise I’ll keep my distance, all right? I am your friend, Enoch, Naiya, but you don’t have to trust me. Not yet. Just come.” He motions around his body. “You’re free to leave a healthy demilitarized zone.”
Broken Moon Page 10