by John Purcell
Chapter 10
10.20.2173.9:29PM
I booted up at 5:30 AM, unsure of what to do with myself. At home, I would have turned on the TV. I often watched baseball games or movies before school. Waking up Outside made that life seem very far away.
There was no point in hurrying back to the storm drain, just to sit around waiting in the lifeboat. Luma, Bim and Dogan wouldn’t reach Blessed Savior until approximately 11 AM. Moto and I could stay where we were until 10:30 AM and still make it back in time. Archibald might kick us out before then, but he was currently in his bed, behind a curtain on the opposite side of the room, snoring loudly.
When I sat up, the problem of what to do solved itself. On the coffee table, next to my backpack, lay an enormous book. The cover read: The New Columbia Encyclopedia.
I rested it on my lap and opened it toward the middle. The encyclopedias at Ryesong Elementary were nowhere near this size, and the entries all pertained to United North Korea. I could see that this encyclopedia covered subjects I knew nothing about. It was a reasonable assumption that Archibald had placed it there for my benefit, so I flipped back to the first page and started a scan.
Setting my comprehension level at zero, I scanned the entire 3,052 pages in 3 hours, 39 minutes, finishing at 9:09 AM.
I placed the encyclopedia back on the table, wondering how late Archibald’s bar stayed open and what time he had gone to bed. He was still snoring away behind his curtain.
To pass the time, I looked up “Achilles”: In Greek mythology, foremost Greek hero of the Trojan War, son of Peleus and Thetis. Thetis attempted to make Achilles immortal by bathing him in the river Styx, but the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable, and Paris inflicted a fatal wound in that heel.
I looked up “Trojan War”: in Greek mythology, war between the Greeks and the people of Troy. The events of the final year of the war constitute the main part of the Iliad of Homer.
I looked up “Homer,” then “Iliad,” then “Odyssey.” Each article I read contained references to subjects unfamiliar to me, and I bounced from entry to entry until Archibald went into a coughing fit. When the coughing finally subsided, he came stumbling out from behind the curtain, running his fingers through his hair and muttering, “Bloody morning!”
He stopped short when he saw me, squeezed his eyes shut, opened them again, and gave me a faint smile. “Hello, hello. You found the book, then?”
“Yes, thank you. Where did you get it?”
“It’s not mine, really, not mine at all. A bloke named Gutenberg popped in last night around midnight. Comes in now and again, he does, likes to chew the fat. I mentioned I’d met a lad in desperate need of an encyclopedia. When I told him your name, he practically soiled his britches. Goes dashing out and comes back huffing and puffing with that great bloody book. Best get yourself a wheelbarrow for that one, eh?”
“Where do you suppose Gutenberg got it?”
“Bugger if I know. Talk you ear off, he will, about books and such, but ask him anything about himself and he closes up like a bloody clam.”
“Any idea where he lives?”
“That’s the last thing he’d bloody tell me. Anyway, it isn’t like we have addresses around here. He’s living in a hole somewhere, like the lot of us.”
“Do you know of any way I could find him?”
“Well, he left you a note.” Archibald reached into his pocket and withdrew a slip of paper. “Bloody gibberish if you ask me, but here it is.”
The paper had three numbers written on it: 1703, 3 and 10.
I scrolled to page 1,703 in the New Columbia Encyclopedia and read the third entry, Liberty Bell.
I said, “Are we anywhere near the Liberty Bell? The one with the crack in it?”
“Not too far, as it happens, but it’s in two pieces now. UNK/C split it in half during the Invasion. Made a point of it. Bloody symbolism, I suppose.”
“Can you tell me how to get there?”
“A map would serve better, if it’s all the same.”
Archibald finished sketching his map at 9:53 AM. If my guess was correct, Gutenberg was expecting us at ten.
When I pressed the power button on Moto’s remote, she raised her head and looked around. I half expected her to fly off on another rescue mission, but this time she just hopped down from the armchair and stretched.
I shrugged on my backpack, saying, “Come on, Moto, we have to run.” I turned to Archibald. “Thanks for everything. Can we go out the way we came in?”
“Good as any. Don’t forget your book.”
I opened the door. “I don’t need it, I finished it already.”
As we hurried across the barroom, I heard Archibald say, “Finished it, my arse!”