1
00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:08,519
Speaker 1: Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.

2
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:12,640
Let's get into it on tape. My voice always sounded

3
00:00:12,679 --> 00:00:15,119
half stranded, a little hessened, like someone listening hard for

4
00:00:15,119 --> 00:00:18,039
a far away signal. Even now after midnight, with the

5
00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:20,679
doors locked and the lights humming tiredly against the black windows,

6
00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:23,440
I could hear that under tone, scratchy and uncertain, pressed

7
00:00:23,480 --> 00:00:26,160
up against the hush of the empty library night Lok

8
00:00:26,399 --> 00:00:28,719
main floor, I said, forcing sheer into my whisper. As

9
00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:32,039
a pressed record twelve twenty a m. First solo shift,

10
00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:35,679
everything seemed standard, I lied a little into the recorder.

11
00:00:36,399 --> 00:00:39,079
Standard I'd learned over my three weeks of training was

12
00:00:39,159 --> 00:00:42,280
mostly a matter of paperwork, impatience, making my rounds, checking

13
00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:45,240
the heavy glass doors latch behind me, enduring nobody lingered

14
00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:48,359
in the long corridors after closing. Then again, most nights

15
00:00:48,399 --> 00:00:50,880
until now, I'd stood watch with Goth, the previous God,

16
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:55,479
always a step behind, never leading. Tonight was different. My

17
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:58,119
shoes squeaked faintly on the tile as I pivoted, Shadows

18
00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:01,119
lengthening from the racks of encyclopedias and faded local yubiks

19
00:01:01,840 --> 00:01:04,480
somewhere above the ventilation found rattled for a cycle, and

20
00:01:04,519 --> 00:01:07,599
fell quiet alone. For the first time. The silence felt

21
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:11,599
more complete than I expected. Too complete, maybe halfway through

22
00:01:11,599 --> 00:01:14,120
my initial patrol. Bundled up in my canvas jacket against

23
00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:16,519
the stubborn shoul that haunted the place, I rattled off

24
00:01:16,519 --> 00:01:19,439
every little observation, just to keep myself company. South annis

25
00:01:19,439 --> 00:01:22,680
locked microfilm rooms secure, no movement in the mezzanine. As

26
00:01:22,719 --> 00:01:24,599
I fumbled a bit with my ring of keys, a

27
00:01:24,640 --> 00:01:27,120
steel teeth clinking. When I lifted one for the reference room,

28
00:01:27,280 --> 00:01:30,079
something small snout my attention appell card, poking from under

29
00:01:30,079 --> 00:01:33,280
a drawer. It wasn't library issue, not the formal beige,

30
00:01:33,359 --> 00:01:35,239
but a kind of yellowed and ex stock, faded at

31
00:01:35,239 --> 00:01:38,400
the edges, the corners softened from handlin I bent, nudged

32
00:01:38,439 --> 00:01:41,799
it free standard receipt sighs, but there was no stample

33
00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:44,040
stick of odly fine blue script. As orderly as the

34
00:01:44,079 --> 00:01:48,000
catalog cars had started memorizing, two columns of dates and times,

35
00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,239
stacked with careful precision, trailing each line with the coal

36
00:01:50,319 --> 00:01:52,920
numbers and cryptic titles, draw mostly from the local history

37
00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:56,680
collection four point sixteen seventy one eleven thirty two pm

38
00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:59,959
merges of carnevis aint nine point twelve seventy three one

39
00:02:00,159 --> 00:02:03,400
ten and transit board minutes ten point five eighty went,

40
00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:07,000
while three am very reclamation ledger. There were more dozens

41
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:09,159
stretching back farther than any one I'd ever heard about,

42
00:02:09,159 --> 00:02:12,840
scribbled with the retired librarian's neat compulsion. In the far margin,

43
00:02:12,879 --> 00:02:15,439
a single word was circled ones, as though in agitation

44
00:02:15,560 --> 00:02:18,479
or emphasis. Listen. I stared at the car for a

45
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:21,960
heavy moment, index finger brushing the pencil marks. The clock

46
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,840
on the wall funked as it reset its mechanism. Something

47
00:02:24,840 --> 00:02:26,960
about it then settled me out of place, not for

48
00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,280
the general public, but buried here in the least disturb

49
00:02:29,319 --> 00:02:32,800
of cabinet. I hesitated, then slid the card into my pocket.

50
00:02:33,319 --> 00:02:35,000
I didn't know if it was meant as a prank

51
00:02:35,199 --> 00:02:38,319
or a test for my supervisor, a mess Joansen liked her,

52
00:02:38,319 --> 00:02:41,360
a little game for something else entirely. Whatever it was,

53
00:02:41,439 --> 00:02:44,080
it felt like holding an unasked question between my fingers.

54
00:02:44,879 --> 00:02:46,759
Just as I pushed the drawer close, a burst of

55
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,120
noise snap through the quietest shoving carts land into a

56
00:02:49,120 --> 00:02:51,919
metal bookcase. The crash came from deep in the non

57
00:02:51,919 --> 00:02:54,919
circulating stacks, a place nobody should have been. My pulse

58
00:02:54,960 --> 00:02:56,639
polls tarred in my neck. As I pushed away from

59
00:02:56,680 --> 00:02:59,000
the desk, eyes darting to the control panel by the door.

60
00:02:59,479 --> 00:03:02,840
The lights overhead stuttered, faltered into a brief dimming. One

61
00:03:02,879 --> 00:03:06,280
tube pistatic blue recovered. I waited, every part of me,

62
00:03:06,319 --> 00:03:10,199
poised for some rational explanation to emerge. No steps followed,

63
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:13,080
no voices, just a long echo spiraling down the corridor.

64
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:15,879
Maybe a stray book had toppled from a shelf, or

65
00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:18,960
maybe maybe I'd missed a cleaner. Locking up against every

66
00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,560
rule in the manual, I called hello into the dark,

67
00:03:21,719 --> 00:03:25,240
my voice too loud, blood dry by cavernous shells muted.

68
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:29,360
Silence returned, the building hummed. My thumb pressed the recorder

69
00:03:29,439 --> 00:03:31,479
stop button before I headed in the direction of the sound,

70
00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:34,159
every sense on edge. It wasn't the first time this

71
00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:36,400
old library had startled me, but to night I felt

72
00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,439
tagged much by whatever the card meant to send. I

73
00:03:39,479 --> 00:03:41,360
tried not to think about the word circled there, but

74
00:03:41,400 --> 00:03:43,879
it stayed with me. As I moved, I realized I

75
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:46,560
was holding my breath, straining to hear, not the familiar sounds,

76
00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:48,479
the creak of lumber settling, the drip under the men's

77
00:03:48,520 --> 00:03:51,479
room sink, but for something else, something I hadn't known

78
00:03:51,520 --> 00:03:54,120
to listen for until now. What I wanted out of

79
00:03:54,159 --> 00:03:57,080
this job was quiet. Maybe a little money too, but

80
00:03:57,159 --> 00:03:59,280
mostly piece of place. With the world outside couldn't get

81
00:03:59,319 --> 00:04:01,719
at me. That hope seemed thinner with every echo that

82
00:04:01,759 --> 00:04:05,000
didn't pants, every light that flickered once more. When they'd

83
00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:06,759
first hired me, I had no idea how much of

84
00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:09,599
myself I'd need to leave behind at the door each shift.

85
00:04:09,599 --> 00:04:11,759
A tall grass library started with the signature in a

86
00:04:11,800 --> 00:04:14,800
rolled notebook, time stamped in blue. They didn't trust you

87
00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:16,920
with the digital system until you durned your badge after

88
00:04:16,959 --> 00:04:18,959
a month, so I had to lock every patrol, Every

89
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:21,399
chair completed in looping bulp and short hand, and nobody

90
00:04:21,439 --> 00:04:24,360
but missessed Duckell and Admon seemed able to read. She'd

91
00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:26,879
hand the log back every week, all my clumsy entrants

92
00:04:26,879 --> 00:04:29,839
corrected in silent red pen. The library filled half a

93
00:04:29,839 --> 00:04:32,720
city block, an oddity municipal ambition from the fifties, poured

94
00:04:32,720 --> 00:04:36,000
concrete spine and an endless run of pastel tile. Every

95
00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:38,439
corner seemed to have a secret patch of ceilings stained

96
00:04:38,480 --> 00:04:40,600
by summer night nosed leak, a window bricked up from

97
00:04:40,639 --> 00:04:43,040
the inside, a back staircase that didn't appear on any

98
00:04:43,040 --> 00:04:46,480
of the floor plans they'd given to employees. The main entrance,

99
00:04:46,519 --> 00:04:49,040
a set of double glass doors, framed and oxdized brass,

100
00:04:49,079 --> 00:04:50,560
was in sit so you could see every one who

101
00:04:50,639 --> 00:04:53,199
came or went before you stepped inside for us, and

102
00:04:53,240 --> 00:04:55,639
shadows ran down the carpet during the day, blinking into

103
00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:58,480
uneasy yellow at night. During daytime it was a place

104
00:04:58,519 --> 00:05:02,560
of quiet business. Students hunched in carrolls, retirees arguing over

105
00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:05,519
the best macrofilm readers, Clusters of children heroded by teachers

106
00:05:05,519 --> 00:05:08,879
through the maze of shelves. Staff patrolled the public floors,

107
00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:11,560
always with an armful of return books or a cleaning cut.

108
00:05:12,160 --> 00:05:14,759
The main reading rooms crackled with subdued energy, the search

109
00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:18,160
for knowledge or at least distraction. But come seven thirty

110
00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:21,439
p m. Everything changed. The doors locked, the last of

111
00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:23,879
the day's staff ducked out, except for maintenance, who swept

112
00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:26,120
up At Dusken, All that restless noise collapsed into its

113
00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:29,040
own wake. I tried to keep my dear's crisp and meticulous,

114
00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:32,199
the way a mess Johnson coached me. I'd clock in early,

115
00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,240
sometimes twenty minutes ahead, mostly to avoid the other income

116
00:05:35,240 --> 00:05:37,279
and shift in the uncertain glances that came with being

117
00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:40,120
the new guy. I'd run through the opening Chettley's double

118
00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:43,560
time North emergency exit breakerm fridge fire, alarmed by the

119
00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:45,560
stair will, then settle in at the tiny glass beef

120
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:48,079
in the lobby for a few measured breaths. They left

121
00:05:48,079 --> 00:05:51,279
me to myself most evenings, no shortage of first detention,

122
00:05:51,399 --> 00:05:54,199
though the tours. Too old for college but too young

123
00:05:54,199 --> 00:05:57,000
for respect. A graduate of night jobs and part time desperation,

124
00:05:57,600 --> 00:06:00,360
my last position was stocking pallets at the Hannofford war House,

125
00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:02,439
which meant ires alone and a buzz in lights and

126
00:06:02,519 --> 00:06:06,079
little discipline beyond moving fast and not dropping boxes. My

127
00:06:06,199 --> 00:06:09,519
mother call twice a week. Any trouble yet Eli. She

128
00:06:09,600 --> 00:06:12,199
didn't trust the long silences I let Bill, but here

129
00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:15,079
I could preserve them for myself. The jaw on paper

130
00:06:15,120 --> 00:06:18,560
was simple, secure the property, what the loops, every thirty minutes,

131
00:06:18,639 --> 00:06:21,600
keep a lock. If anything seriously out of the ordinary

132
00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:24,000
happened flood, fire, busted window, I was to call the

133
00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:27,800
uncull manager, mister saying, and wait for further instructions. They

134
00:06:27,839 --> 00:06:30,519
pressed this protocol into me with careful repetition. Don't open

135
00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:33,120
doors unless you're shore tours, don't wander down to Aka

136
00:06:33,199 --> 00:06:35,759
without a supervisor, and abovolve. Don't let them scare you.

137
00:06:36,399 --> 00:06:38,279
I joked with the day staff about what them meant

138
00:06:38,279 --> 00:06:41,360
the drunks the after I was loiterers, maybe even ghosts.

139
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:44,759
Nobody laughed hat but everyone smiled like they understood it

140
00:06:44,759 --> 00:06:47,480
was better not to answer. The archive, though, was a

141
00:06:47,480 --> 00:06:51,120
different matter. Donotite's bibraal staircase in the north wing passed

142
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:53,439
a crust. The fire door with private city records only

143
00:06:53,439 --> 00:06:56,040
sted soled and flicking black. The sub basement shells, hell

144
00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:59,560
boxes and piles of aging records, the odd artifacts, ledgers,

145
00:06:59,639 --> 00:07:02,800
glass negatives, court transcripts were all supposed to be chained off.

146
00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:05,800
But I had caught the cleaning subcontractor Misses crane dumping

147
00:07:05,879 --> 00:07:09,199
left over mops there one night. She shrugged, apologize and

148
00:07:09,279 --> 00:07:13,639
disappeared up the stairs. There were rumors maintenance gossip that

149
00:07:13,680 --> 00:07:16,319
the original chief trustee, a man named Hodge, was found

150
00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:18,920
in the archive dead at his desk in nineteen seventy seven,

151
00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:22,399
but nobody could say of what exactly. Some of the librarians,

152
00:07:22,399 --> 00:07:24,879
the younger ones, tight lipped but alerted their posts, almost

153
00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:27,439
never requested material from the basement, claiming it was out

154
00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:31,000
of rotation or being assessed for mauld staff existed in strata.

155
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,360
Misses Snidian, who'd worked downtown for forty years and now

156
00:07:34,360 --> 00:07:37,360
commanded the local History of Reference desk, wielded both respect

157
00:07:37,399 --> 00:07:40,120
and a kind of worry. Distance. She moved and set

158
00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:43,120
patterns circling the first four reading area each morning, like

159
00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:45,600
someone chasing back at title only she could see. But

160
00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,079
lately even she had become scarce, her name rarely on

161
00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:50,560
the shift lock, her desk chair always pushed in under

162
00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:53,839
the batter oak. Two weeks in I realized nobody had

163
00:07:53,879 --> 00:07:56,279
seen her leave at night for several days running and

164
00:07:56,439 --> 00:07:59,120
mister Fisher, maintenance nightman. It pulled me aside as I

165
00:07:59,160 --> 00:08:01,759
grabbed my first real solo passed key from the admin closet.

166
00:08:02,360 --> 00:08:04,480
He looked me over at this man in all stained blue.

167
00:08:04,519 --> 00:08:07,839
His speech bear and conspiratorial. It's a quiet job, Torris,

168
00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:10,759
he muttered through his mustache. If you keep your nose

169
00:08:10,759 --> 00:08:12,600
out of it, don't fix what is in yours, and

170
00:08:12,680 --> 00:08:15,800
don't try making sense where folk already gave up. I grinned,

171
00:08:16,079 --> 00:08:18,199
nodding along, But the last part had clung to me

172
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:21,839
where folk already gave up, Like he imagine, some umenable

173
00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:25,040
argument went through the stacks. Half the library was called

174
00:08:25,040 --> 00:08:27,439
in off most nights a security belt of velvet ropes

175
00:08:27,439 --> 00:08:31,000
and do not enter signs. The upper reading Mazzanine, once

176
00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:34,000
a popular study spot, now served as impromptu storage for

177
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:37,600
batter desks and oversized maps. Even the main floors felt

178
00:08:37,600 --> 00:08:40,600
off kilder after dusk, especially after maintenance dim the remaining

179
00:08:40,600 --> 00:08:44,000
overheads and all reflections pushed deeper into the glass. Night

180
00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:46,960
shifts were lonely but manageable. I found a rhythm in

181
00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:49,639
the patterns, full laps every thirty minutes, a quick run

182
00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:51,960
up the stairwell doors checked, returned to my booth to

183
00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:54,559
writ a line or two in the lock. Some nights

184
00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:56,879
I scanned the parking lot for two long idling vehicles

185
00:08:56,960 --> 00:08:59,320
or road delevate on ancient otie that stutted on level two.

186
00:08:59,399 --> 00:09:02,240
Just for a change. I started to notice things. A

187
00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:05,039
slant of whet plaster near the archive stairs, always damp

188
00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:07,679
and faintly metallic, no matter how dry the week had been.

189
00:09:08,159 --> 00:09:10,559
A whisper of mold from the fire doors masked each

190
00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:13,679
Friday with industrial lemon, the way the day's library patrons

191
00:09:13,720 --> 00:09:16,240
avoided certain carols in the local history stacks, or how

192
00:09:16,279 --> 00:09:18,159
some shells bowed out as if a hidden hand kept

193
00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:20,840
shuffling the weight around. Most of the habits are chalked

194
00:09:20,879 --> 00:09:24,759
up to professional restlessness or paranoia new jobs. I told

195
00:09:24,759 --> 00:09:28,399
myself invite the imagination. But once or twice, while adding

196
00:09:28,399 --> 00:09:30,519
my signature to the hand carp at incident Ledger, I

197
00:09:30,519 --> 00:09:32,879
caught messas stackhole giving me a private glance, as though

198
00:09:32,919 --> 00:09:36,639
she watched for something, something she'd seen before. I didn't

199
00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:39,039
realize then how much of what I'd overlooked was routine

200
00:09:39,039 --> 00:09:41,799
by designed deliberate rituals to keep questions from being asked.

201
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:44,559
Or that miss blazed card and my jacket pocket would

202
00:09:44,559 --> 00:09:46,399
become the first in a series of rules I didn't

203
00:09:46,399 --> 00:09:49,440
get to choose. It wasn't until the third week, during

204
00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:52,120
my second so low overnight that the pieces began shifting

205
00:09:52,159 --> 00:09:55,480
with purpose. Around two a m. Between rounds, I pulled

206
00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:57,240
a bat of print up from the reference desk. One

207
00:09:57,240 --> 00:09:59,080
of the shelf order forms that told you were every

208
00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:02,000
book belonded and six two hundred ten local history sub

209
00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:04,399
falby light from the stairwell blood in a checkerboard across

210
00:10:04,399 --> 00:10:06,960
the carpet. I checked the list against the shelves as

211
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,320
I passed, unsure if my grown unees was nose or

212
00:10:09,360 --> 00:10:13,360
some other influence. Several books stood out this binds, thin

213
00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:15,879
and worn, stamped in gold over brown cloth, didn't match

214
00:10:15,919 --> 00:10:19,200
the g numbers on the shelf marker. One drary reclamation

215
00:10:19,279 --> 00:10:21,519
ledger had moved half a bay over since my last check.

216
00:10:21,559 --> 00:10:25,399
In another, Childhoods of Parsonsdyke was johned backwards, its bark

217
00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:28,559
code hidden. My training had drilled into me that any deviation,

218
00:10:28,639 --> 00:10:31,240
any foreign volume had to be flagged, logged, and replaced

219
00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:34,159
by the morning shift. Carelessness, even at two a m.

220
00:10:34,279 --> 00:10:37,559
Wasn't tolerated. On instinct. I reached into my pocket and

221
00:10:37,600 --> 00:10:40,399
pulled the yellowed index card. I compared the dates to

222
00:10:40,440 --> 00:10:43,639
the call numbers. My eyes blue from too little sleep

223
00:10:43,639 --> 00:10:46,039
and too much Caien finally caught a link each date list.

224
00:10:46,080 --> 00:10:49,120
It matched a recently shuffled title. The pattern was a regular,

225
00:10:49,159 --> 00:10:51,440
but certain, as though someone was tracking the secret migration

226
00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:54,159
of knowledge through the library's arteries. The air in the

227
00:10:54,159 --> 00:10:56,519
local history I all felt heavy, then steel, like breath

228
00:10:56,519 --> 00:10:58,759
that had been held too long. As I tried to

229
00:10:58,759 --> 00:11:01,279
reshove one of the displaced book, something else pride at

230
00:11:01,279 --> 00:11:04,600
my attention. A faint sibilance, like paper torn gently but rhythmically,

231
00:11:04,639 --> 00:11:07,399
seeping in from a gap further down the rail. I waited,

232
00:11:07,480 --> 00:11:10,200
expecting a draft or the wind against event, but the

233
00:11:10,240 --> 00:11:12,919
noise came again, softly, light voices murmuring on the edge

234
00:11:12,919 --> 00:11:15,919
of comprehension. There shouldn't have been any one in the stacks,

235
00:11:16,120 --> 00:11:18,120
not at this iron, not unless someone had hidden away

236
00:11:18,159 --> 00:11:21,720
during closing. My skin prickled, gooseless marching down my arms.

237
00:11:22,399 --> 00:11:25,120
The whispering didn't resolve into words, only a texture of suggestion.

238
00:11:25,240 --> 00:11:27,679
Fowl stretched long enough to sting the inside of my ears.

239
00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:31,320
My mouth went dry. I thereforeward, trying not to knock

240
00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:33,720
anything off the shelf and trace the source down the corridor.

241
00:11:34,240 --> 00:11:36,879
This sound faded as I moved, a never loud, never closed,

242
00:11:36,879 --> 00:11:39,799
but impossible to explain away on the end of a shelf,

243
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:42,000
topped under the binding of an old city council report,

244
00:11:42,080 --> 00:11:44,399
was a slip of blue paper. It looked like a

245
00:11:44,440 --> 00:11:47,200
regular check of card, stamped with the library's faded logo,

246
00:11:47,279 --> 00:11:49,200
but the book listed him as spells R W T

247
00:11:49,320 --> 00:11:51,600
H and Commerce eighteen o seven minus ninety Tude didn't

248
00:11:51,600 --> 00:11:55,159
appear anywhere in the cattalog database. I searched the shelves twice.

249
00:11:55,240 --> 00:11:58,759
It was nowhere, another perfect lyre tied back to nothing,

250
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:00,600
stamped with a date fall all older than the rest

251
00:12:00,639 --> 00:12:03,879
two point nine sixty five. Swallowing. I thumb the radio

252
00:12:03,919 --> 00:12:06,639
clip to my belt and mutter based to all fand

253
00:12:06,639 --> 00:12:10,240
of material in sector two ten will log detail. The response,

254
00:12:10,399 --> 00:12:13,440
as I expected, was silence. Nobody else patrolled these floors.

255
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:16,200
I logged the incident in my pocket notebook and told

256
00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:19,960
myself again it was probably someone's archivel joke. But another

257
00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:22,080
detail nickeled at the beast of my brain. One of

258
00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:24,440
the security cameras in this aisle, a brush crumb device

259
00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:26,320
that should have covered mantry and every motion in the

260
00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:29,360
public stacks, was counted away, aimless, turning and on blinking

261
00:12:29,399 --> 00:12:32,480
lens toward the blank end wall. Instead, I stood there,

262
00:12:32,559 --> 00:12:35,320
surrounded by the hush, holding the blue slip between finger

263
00:12:35,360 --> 00:12:37,679
and thumb, suddenly aware of the pulse in my temples.

264
00:12:38,159 --> 00:12:40,759
Something was matching up the physical arrangement of the books,

265
00:12:40,799 --> 00:12:43,559
the official shelving logs, and whatever code played out on

266
00:12:43,639 --> 00:12:45,879
these tat of cards. They were all whispering, tucking from

267
00:12:45,919 --> 00:12:49,039
the libraries, hidden understructure. As I made my way back

268
00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:50,960
to the main hall, I pressed the record button on

269
00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,759
my voice log. I tried to explain the incident for

270
00:12:53,799 --> 00:12:56,840
any later audit, but my voice turned brittle. I blamed

271
00:12:56,840 --> 00:12:59,919
fatigue in my official entry. In private, I wondered if

272
00:12:59,919 --> 00:13:02,159
I had stumbled across something meant to remain buried, and

273
00:13:02,159 --> 00:13:04,399
if so, why it still clung to these aisles waiting

274
00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:07,000
for new hands. If there was a language at work

275
00:13:07,039 --> 00:13:09,360
beneath the surface, I wasn't sure I wanted to learn it.

276
00:13:10,039 --> 00:13:13,080
Weeks went by, marked by an increasingly feverish sense of occupation.

277
00:13:13,759 --> 00:13:15,720
I began to return to the odsies again and again.

278
00:13:15,759 --> 00:13:18,320
A shuffle books in the local history section, fresh shoving

279
00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:20,399
in prints even when no new loans were locked, and

280
00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:23,000
the disquieting discovery at some catalog numbers from the old

281
00:13:23,039 --> 00:13:26,120
index card match billings for titles invisible in any modern listing.

282
00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:29,440
I couldn't ignore it. I started to tie my patrols,

283
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:31,679
more carefully altering my route to catch glimpses of the

284
00:13:31,679 --> 00:13:36,000
security screens before the backup foot at automatically rewound. At first,

285
00:13:36,159 --> 00:13:38,960
every reaply seen normal rows of untouched bookshelves, the slow

286
00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:41,200
rotations of the cleaning crew and the staff at end

287
00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:44,679
of day, their routines orderly and predictable, but then pieced

288
00:13:44,679 --> 00:13:47,159
together across a handful of nights connections formed as staff

289
00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:49,960
member ducking furtively into the special collections room at Hires

290
00:13:49,960 --> 00:13:53,080
long after closing their badge out of sight, a shadow

291
00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:55,600
flickering at the base of the main staircase, vanishing just

292
00:13:55,639 --> 00:13:59,759
as the time could jumps. Missesnian's name resurfaced. On the

293
00:13:59,799 --> 00:14:02,159
third Thursday, Amy has Stamp appeared in the movement lock,

294
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:03,879
moving a crate to the ark of the nobody on

295
00:14:03,919 --> 00:14:06,320
the morning shift for call seeing her since the previous week.

296
00:14:06,799 --> 00:14:09,679
Another staffer, Rayleigh Mallory, loved a lost card and then

297
00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:12,519
disappeared from the rossa for four nights straight, returning with

298
00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:14,679
a mismatch in her signature, as if some one had

299
00:14:14,679 --> 00:14:17,240
copied her hand poorly and forgotten how she formed her ease.

300
00:14:17,879 --> 00:14:20,440
Tipping point came one evening when I caught emmess Leland,

301
00:14:20,559 --> 00:14:23,559
the children's librarian, darting nevusly down the corridor marked for

302
00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,799
special reference only on the video. She moved jerkily, her

303
00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:28,879
right hand pressed to her mouth, as though reciting something

304
00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:32,480
quietly to herself live. I surprised her coming around a corner,

305
00:14:32,519 --> 00:14:34,799
the sleeves of her cardigan half pulled up, her eyes

306
00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:39,240
wild and unblinking, MS flolland everything all right. I kept

307
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:41,679
my tone neutral clipboard in hand, desperate to give her

308
00:14:41,679 --> 00:14:45,879
every reasonable out. She froze, then, as if coming awake,

309
00:14:45,960 --> 00:14:48,120
smiled tightly. The line to her mouth carved deeper than

310
00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:51,080
I'd noticed before, Just making sure the rare volumes are

311
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,120
in Orderarily nights for arranging the things people should forget.

312
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,759
I laugh faintly, unsure he shouldn't be down here. It's

313
00:14:57,799 --> 00:15:00,799
after hours. Need me to walk you out, she seemed

314
00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:03,799
to consider, then placed a brittle hand on my arm. Illy.

315
00:15:03,919 --> 00:15:06,399
Her voice dropped, trembling against the tile. Don't go looking

316
00:15:06,399 --> 00:15:08,159
in the low stacks, he think you want to know?

317
00:15:08,519 --> 00:15:10,720
But she glanced over her shoulder down the aisle, and

318
00:15:10,759 --> 00:15:14,120
then shook her head, lip trembling. Curiosity isn't always its

319
00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:17,320
own reward I nodded as if I understood, but her

320
00:15:17,399 --> 00:15:19,840
words felt for sounded wrong, as though delivered by some

321
00:15:19,879 --> 00:15:23,519
one reeling instructions whispered by another mouth. She vanished through

322
00:15:23,519 --> 00:15:26,440
the stawell before I could press her further. Later, back

323
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:29,519
in the reference section, drawn by equal pars anxiety and curiosity,

324
00:15:29,559 --> 00:15:31,799
a leaf through the local history titles where the incidents

325
00:15:31,799 --> 00:15:34,840
seemed to circle most often. Tucked inside the front cover

326
00:15:34,919 --> 00:15:38,039
of City Grove nineteen forty five, minutes seventy eight, someone

327
00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:40,799
had planted another index card. No summary, just a tight

328
00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:43,360
grid of coal numbers and dates, each cross reference to

329
00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:46,159
file in the city's collection of Municipal Personnel Gun Missing

330
00:15:46,279 --> 00:15:49,480
nineteen fifty five nineteen eighty four. Each book was linked

331
00:15:49,519 --> 00:15:52,240
to a different file corridor Beaminis four, shelf nineteen or

332
00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:54,240
arc have won Sea titles, all scribbled as if some

333
00:15:54,279 --> 00:15:57,120
one did not want them read aloud. The more I poked,

334
00:15:57,159 --> 00:15:59,919
the less sense anything made. The digital wreckers from the

335
00:16:00,080 --> 00:16:03,200
main desk's tablet circulation locks, check ins and outs video

336
00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:05,360
from the last week ceased to correspond with the actual

337
00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:09,039
visible status of books and files. Staff would check out

338
00:16:09,039 --> 00:16:11,279
a title on the screen and then on camera walk

339
00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:14,399
away empty handed, or carrying a completely different volume. In

340
00:16:14,440 --> 00:16:17,799
one instance, mister Rinn's another clerk normally precise signed a

341
00:16:17,840 --> 00:16:20,720
release form for Carnaby Ledgers, but in the hall was

342
00:16:20,720 --> 00:16:23,840
shown taking nothing from its shelf. When I confronted him,

343
00:16:23,879 --> 00:16:26,440
fumbling for casual small talk, he laughed it off, told

344
00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:29,799
me the books he practically shelved themselves these days. I

345
00:16:29,879 --> 00:16:32,559
tried to keep pace with the irregularities, but soon lost ground.

346
00:16:33,200 --> 00:16:36,080
Each night new card appeared to sometimes filed between pages,

347
00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:38,679
sometimes folded into the leaves of city records, or pushed

348
00:16:38,720 --> 00:16:40,320
under my door in the booth, as if delivered by

349
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:43,519
secret cury. They all carried variations in the same threat,

350
00:16:43,559 --> 00:16:46,519
references that didn't exist, books that had never been printed.

351
00:16:47,159 --> 00:16:50,679
The paperwork began to number the physical evidence. One evening,

352
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:53,039
coming off Ranz, I plugged him my handheld recorder to

353
00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:57,279
document the day's disturbances. The device blanked twice, once mid sentence,

354
00:16:57,360 --> 00:16:59,279
emitting a groan of static loud enough that my head

355
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:02,799
friends squawked. The disturbance happened precisely as I circled Section

356
00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:05,400
two hundred tent. The interference returned each time I passed

357
00:17:05,400 --> 00:17:07,640
near the old city directories, or the shelf containing the

358
00:17:07,680 --> 00:17:10,960
Drury recommission ledger. On the third pass, just as the

359
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:13,400
digital clock ticked at thirteen past two, the background is

360
00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:17,519
resolved briefly into what sounded like voices, more accurately syllables

361
00:17:17,559 --> 00:17:21,079
lay delayed overlapping. Listen. Listen. It like water trickling for pipes,

362
00:17:21,319 --> 00:17:24,519
undeniable in the moment, and impossible to capture reliably on playback.

363
00:17:25,119 --> 00:17:27,720
The following night, my route led to the archive door, battered,

364
00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:30,400
still portal grim, with age padlock slightly skewed from where

365
00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:33,000
the chain had recently been shifted. I pressed my ear

366
00:17:33,079 --> 00:17:35,000
to the frame. By force of habit or incarnation, I

367
00:17:35,000 --> 00:17:39,599
can't say there were voices, definite conversation, snatches of audible

368
00:17:39,640 --> 00:17:42,680
English tons I recognized from meetings up stairs, but distorted

369
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:45,880
as if played backwards. The register of the voices deepened

370
00:17:45,920 --> 00:17:49,200
and faded, then abruptly cut off. As I knocked. Nobody

371
00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:52,000
answered my call. When I wrenched the knob, it wouldn't

372
00:17:52,000 --> 00:17:55,960
budge lock from inside. It was then stirring at my

373
00:17:56,000 --> 00:17:58,200
own uncertain reflection in the glass pane above a knob

374
00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:01,039
that I felt panic stop pricking in my nerves. I

375
00:18:01,079 --> 00:18:03,720
tried to rationalize maintenance must have held over, or maybe

376
00:18:03,799 --> 00:18:06,720
library staff sometimes worked late and lied about going home

377
00:18:06,799 --> 00:18:11,079
skirt city overtime procedures. Surely that explained the chronic inconsistencies,

378
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:14,680
the shuffling staff, the swap books, and the voices. Didn't

379
00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:17,920
it Whatever was happening inside the archive, I began to

380
00:18:17,960 --> 00:18:21,200
fear involve more than a perfection of bureaucractic delay. It

381
00:18:21,240 --> 00:18:23,160
was a pattern, at once too neat and too jumbled,

382
00:18:23,240 --> 00:18:25,640
tidied up just as quickly as it was disturbed and

383
00:18:25,680 --> 00:18:28,440
trailed by physical evidence. Only as seemed interested in gathering.

384
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,839
Whoever or whatever tended the impossible index had left a

385
00:18:31,880 --> 00:18:34,720
system of breadcrmbs throughout the building. My role had become

386
00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:37,359
that of a milling collector, documenting each ne anomaly in

387
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:40,839
hopes that a wider logic might eventually emerge. I started

388
00:18:40,839 --> 00:18:44,400
plotting things as systematically as I could each encounter, every

389
00:18:44,440 --> 00:18:47,160
misplaced book, the slips of paper, the odds surveillance footage.

390
00:18:47,200 --> 00:18:50,720
I loved it. All names, dates, call numbers, times of

391
00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,559
off patent shoving, and incidents of gobbled audio taken by

392
00:18:53,559 --> 00:18:56,599
my recorder, marked down to the second. My note book,

393
00:18:56,720 --> 00:18:59,039
once a bare record of work completed and doors checked,

394
00:18:59,079 --> 00:19:02,160
ballooned with cross roads, difference notes, arrows, and lines drawn

395
00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:05,640
between incidents that now see neither random nor coincidental. The

396
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:08,079
index card from the first night took on new significance.

397
00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:10,640
I compared the list of dates to every known incident

398
00:19:10,640 --> 00:19:12,279
a page torn a book out of place, and soon

399
00:19:12,319 --> 00:19:16,200
discovered that the interests glustered around unusual events holidays, staff absences,

400
00:19:16,319 --> 00:19:19,200
power outages. The strokes that made up listen in the

401
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:21,599
margin now suggested not a warning or a command, but

402
00:19:21,640 --> 00:19:24,640
a record of what to do next. Obsessed, a skired

403
00:19:24,640 --> 00:19:27,319
the public records on the building and its operation. The

404
00:19:27,359 --> 00:19:29,680
more I dug using the city's microfeici in the basement,

405
00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:32,240
the more our tale surfaced. Rumors of a demolition halted

406
00:19:32,240 --> 00:19:34,400
by a clerical error, a financial cover up in the

407
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,519
early seventies, and at least two documented missing persons tied

408
00:19:37,559 --> 00:19:40,079
to the library, one a night watchman vanishing on his shift,

409
00:19:40,200 --> 00:19:42,839
his rounds and completed the other senior clerk Huse personnel

410
00:19:42,839 --> 00:19:45,720
file was removed from public access three decades after the fact.

411
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,160
This was more than just staff turnover. It was as

412
00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:51,920
if at intervals mapped perfectly onto the calendar implied by

413
00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:54,359
the scrap card. The library itself shewed up personnel and

414
00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:57,160
left nothing but paperwork in their place. One night, in

415
00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:59,279
a dawn, after yet another round of sleep, a sceries

416
00:19:59,319 --> 00:20:01,279
and I found a partial the opened staff lock behind

417
00:20:01,279 --> 00:20:04,400
the main admin office. Most nights this row of beage

418
00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:07,039
lockers was empty. Only the odd sweater or sand which

419
00:20:07,039 --> 00:20:09,920
contained a tumbled out windoors used open, but now a

420
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:13,240
trembling sliver of light cut across the floor. Inside, Hanging

421
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:16,400
by its faded blue lineout was Misssenien's photo badge, her

422
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,480
name type with the old city standard duct Taped to

423
00:20:18,519 --> 00:20:20,720
the back was another card, this one stamped with a

424
00:20:20,759 --> 00:20:23,880
single jagged word here pin below at a furt copied

425
00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:26,000
floor plan of the library in Syre Yella. From the

426
00:20:26,039 --> 00:20:29,119
overhead circled the section of the sub basement, the archive level,

427
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:31,519
which had never been part of my tour. A fat

428
00:20:31,559 --> 00:20:34,960
red marker outlined, erecting the labeled access restricted by order.

429
00:20:35,599 --> 00:20:38,240
I removed the lanard, trying not to crumple the brittle card.

430
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:40,680
The air in the locker seemed denser, as if it

431
00:20:40,759 --> 00:20:43,240
caught at the edges of my breath, my pump sweat

432
00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:45,640
against the blue plastic, the word here vibrating in my

433
00:20:45,680 --> 00:20:48,000
head alongside the echo of whispered secrets I could almost

434
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:51,039
shape into words. For a long moment, I stood there,

435
00:20:51,119 --> 00:20:54,039
caught between rational protocol report, the missing badge locked, the

436
00:20:54,079 --> 00:20:56,680
misplaced card notify admined on my next shift, and the

437
00:20:56,680 --> 00:20:59,400
gut realization that nobody would welcome news of something so

438
00:20:59,440 --> 00:21:02,200
obviously not meant to be recovered. I tapped the here

439
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:04,680
card and the copied blueprint into a file folder, careful

440
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:07,119
to keep them sepparate from my official lock. When I

441
00:21:07,160 --> 00:21:09,799
made my next patrol past the archive, flashlight angled low

442
00:21:09,799 --> 00:21:12,720
against the battered floor tiles. The lights guttered, then steaded.

443
00:21:13,279 --> 00:21:15,680
My recorder, still running in its sip sleeve, clipped my

444
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:18,440
bill to let out a stutter of static. Then, beneath

445
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,039
the burable, a voice muffled and coal slithered from its

446
00:21:21,039 --> 00:21:24,680
tiny speaker. I stopped, heart ruching up. It spoke through

447
00:21:24,720 --> 00:21:26,599
the wine and crackle. No reaeding was for now, but

448
00:21:26,680 --> 00:21:30,480
the chill of certain knowledge, intimate and a nielding down Hereily,

449
00:21:31,200 --> 00:21:34,160
the words died back into static. The tape rolled on

450
00:21:34,400 --> 00:21:36,640
and spooling empty hiss as the ceiling lights regained their

451
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:39,880
fragile steadiness. I locked at the door, locked stolen at

452
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,039
the blueprint in my folder, the circle pulsing in my

453
00:21:42,079 --> 00:21:44,680
mind's eye. But now it was clear that the patterns

454
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:47,759
went random. They had encoded their own system of presents

455
00:21:47,759 --> 00:21:50,319
and absence, a private card catalog of people taken, and

456
00:21:50,359 --> 00:21:53,759
memories were written. The artifacts, cards, slips, schedules were not

457
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:57,160
archives but destructions. My last clay thought that night was

458
00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:59,400
simple electric. If any one else had heard what I

459
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:01,160
had heard, they were no longer here to warm me.

460
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:03,079
I was now the only one holding the thread, and

461
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,559
whatever it connected me to a script was only tightening.

462
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:10,119
I pressed record again, not expecting comfort. My own voice quivert,

463
00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:13,759
security log, main, floor, time, unknown, incident report and progress.

464
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:16,960
A pause, swallowing, as if the act of description would

465
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:19,759
save me from what might come next. Behind the echo

466
00:22:19,839 --> 00:22:21,920
passed the hush of books and pipes and settling dust.

467
00:22:22,119 --> 00:22:24,839
The library. Weited it not for discovery, but for obedience.

468
00:22:25,480 --> 00:22:29,160
The rules had changed, and the stacks were listening. I

469
00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:31,440
counted the flash light as I moved, convinced that any

470
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:34,119
sudden movement in my periphery would shatter what Nerva had left.

471
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,240
Patterns emerged everywhere now on the old tail floor were

472
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:40,160
overlapping mop Streak's coved secret sigils into sailed dust. In

473
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:42,640
the arrangement of duplicate coal numbers on the shelf labels,

474
00:22:42,680 --> 00:22:44,720
as if someone meant for hidden order to reveal itself

475
00:22:44,759 --> 00:22:48,200
only under certain conditions. The silence following the static voice

476
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:50,640
pressed in familiar and yet profoundly altered, as if it

477
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:52,759
ever haunted. The archive had pressed its palm against the

478
00:22:52,799 --> 00:22:55,920
glass between this world and its own. I forced myself

479
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,240
to remain methodical, clipboard in one hand. I started back

480
00:22:59,279 --> 00:23:01,720
through the aisles, not daring to look over my shoulder

481
00:23:01,759 --> 00:23:03,240
for fear I'd see a shadow in the gap of

482
00:23:03,279 --> 00:23:05,759
the doors. I stopped by the new books cart and

483
00:23:05,839 --> 00:23:08,640
touched since my round began, but now inexplicably a copy

484
00:23:08,640 --> 00:23:11,000
of Ledges of Coloneby Since at atop the stack, its

485
00:23:11,039 --> 00:23:13,240
bark could stick a half peeled as though repeatedly thumbed.

486
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:15,720
This was the same title from the first entry in

487
00:23:15,759 --> 00:23:19,440
the listen card. Repressing a shiver, I thumbed its pages inside,

488
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:21,759
tucked between the table of contents and the first brittle

489
00:23:21,799 --> 00:23:24,440
chapter a slip of note paper. It was lyed in

490
00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:26,960
the same touchscript as the car, but with a single difference.

491
00:23:27,039 --> 00:23:29,319
This time the scribble spilled over itself one day to

492
00:23:29,319 --> 00:23:33,440
overlapping another. Numbers distorted, almost frantic in their density, tiny

493
00:23:33,559 --> 00:23:35,640
arrows linked one year to the next, weaving in and

494
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:39,200
out of legible order. No explanation, just the same word

495
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:41,559
written again and again in a looping hand. Listen, listen

496
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,720
here here behind me, the air seemed to catch and settle,

497
00:23:44,759 --> 00:23:47,319
as if drawn and by invisible breath. I heard a

498
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:50,839
faint shuffling, the sound of schueson laxed lonoleum. Turning beam

499
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,200
raised a glimpsed a figure, not one of the usual staff,

500
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:56,680
but a tall, translucent silhouette just at the edge of

501
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,759
the microphone room. For an instant, the silhouette flickered. It

502
00:23:59,799 --> 00:24:01,960
helt lined apple, with a reflection of thousands of type

503
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,839
pack spines, and then it was gone. My heart beat

504
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,039
from the hollow rhythm in my ears. At the security desk,

505
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:11,880
I reviewed the perimeter monitors, fingers numb and stiff. On screen,

506
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:14,880
the gamma facing the lower stack stuttard advancing in dumpy increments,

507
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:17,960
six seconds clean, three of blurry motion, another five worthy

508
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,960
image flicker, and then blankness. I caught two figures, faces

509
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:25,119
indistinct moving along the forbidden corridor in matching blue. Linard's

510
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:28,799
shoulders slumped, walking without any obvious purpose or urgency. The

511
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:30,640
time stamp be lined with the moment I had stood

512
00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,359
paralyzed in front of Messsenian's locker. I reached for the phone,

513
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,640
debating calling city security on my supervisor at home, never

514
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:41,200
mind the rules about emergencies only. Instead, caught between the

515
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:43,640
unfamiliar rules of this place and might growing compulsion to

516
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,720
see things through, I phoned up the maintenance extension. It

517
00:24:46,839 --> 00:24:50,279
rang until the system motto disconnected. Only after setting the

518
00:24:50,279 --> 00:24:52,079
hands that Dan did, I noticed that my hands had

519
00:24:52,079 --> 00:24:54,359
begun to tremble the sweat from my palms, leaving prints

520
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,920
across the glass deftop. The building held its breath. I

521
00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:00,480
forced myself to circulate, moving through the dense shelves and

522
00:25:00,559 --> 00:25:03,359
Robert's step flashlights slicing the darkness every books by in

523
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:06,640
suddenly suspect. The air tasted faintly of old copper and

524
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:10,039
distant mildy. I caught myself listening, really listening, for the

525
00:25:10,039 --> 00:25:12,359
textures buried in the hush, the distant sustain of a

526
00:25:12,440 --> 00:25:14,759
vibrating methyl aduct. The soft page ruffle of the h

527
00:25:14,799 --> 00:25:17,079
fractchist above the oka, the subtle I heavy clicks of

528
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:20,160
library clocks adjusting for losses and gains, invisible to the public,

529
00:25:20,200 --> 00:25:22,759
but all consuming in the quiet. In the far corner

530
00:25:22,759 --> 00:25:25,519
of the reference section, a small locked cabinet sat flush

531
00:25:25,559 --> 00:25:28,480
with the wall, a relic of another error. My passkey,

532
00:25:28,599 --> 00:25:31,079
intended only for daily patrols, fit the lock with a

533
00:25:31,079 --> 00:25:35,640
little force inside. Instead of electrical panels or tools, rows

534
00:25:35,640 --> 00:25:38,200
of faded circulation cards stood found out, six to a

535
00:25:38,319 --> 00:25:41,720
row a collector's mena. Each card was stamped with a date,

536
00:25:41,839 --> 00:25:43,880
and every date matched one I'd found on the original

537
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:47,039
listen card. At the back of the cabinet a least envelope,

538
00:25:47,039 --> 00:25:50,519
weighted addressed in kevilprint to and night security free rears only.

539
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:54,480
Unable to help myself, I tore the envelope open inside

540
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,799
a cassette tape, no label, but the culling remains of

541
00:25:56,839 --> 00:25:59,440
a city sticker on one side and a folded memo sheet.

542
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:01,640
When forced listen, the voice will show you who is missing.

543
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,039
Do not resheve alone, and no signature, just the initial

544
00:26:05,039 --> 00:26:06,880
in a mark that looked disturbingly like the swell of

545
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,119
the library's floor layout, as seeing from above. A sound,

546
00:26:10,839 --> 00:26:13,519
not footsteps, more, the gentle shifting of books, the slow

547
00:26:13,519 --> 00:26:17,039
creak of overloaded joves, adjusting as if something or someone

548
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:20,200
anticipated my next action. I inserted the tape into the

549
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,680
battered the little player we used for citymen, dated announcement

550
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,839
recordings and press play. The hiss of blank tape surged,

551
00:26:25,880 --> 00:26:29,039
then cleared. For a moment, nothing but silence, thin, a

552
00:26:29,079 --> 00:26:31,759
low modulated handbas rising and falling, like the sound of

553
00:26:31,799 --> 00:26:35,039
wind under a lock door. Layered within it, voices, dozens

554
00:26:35,039 --> 00:26:37,640
of them, blended and blurred. Shovin you will see return,

555
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,240
and you will hear names withheld stacks. Remember the voices

556
00:26:41,279 --> 00:26:43,480
sounded half familiar, warping in the back of my mind,

557
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,440
like the memory of distant conversation. Beneath them all something mechanical,

558
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:49,359
the click and drag of a book being slid home,

559
00:26:49,359 --> 00:26:51,640
the quick scribble of pencil and card, the faintest catch

560
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,440
of breath held just one be too long. I snapped

561
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,480
the tape off, polse drumming in my jaw, fighting the

562
00:26:56,559 --> 00:26:59,440
urge to drop the player and run. Instead, I forced

563
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:02,160
myself to lofe my discovery behind the words coming thicken,

564
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:07,240
and certain evidence suspected staff communication, possible warning voices on tape, instruction,

565
00:27:07,319 --> 00:27:10,319
do not reshove alone, Further inquiry needivy, break in protocol,

566
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:14,359
record alteration, and staff disappearance patented. As I wrote, the

567
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:16,920
sensation of being watched sharpened, but I finished the jury

568
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:19,720
A thin to find sparking in me. A gentle knock

569
00:27:19,759 --> 00:27:22,279
sounded somewhere well past the closed saxoft polite, the kind

570
00:27:22,319 --> 00:27:24,880
of sound someone makes one hoping not to interrupt, I

571
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:27,759
called out voy, steadier than I fell. This areas close

572
00:27:27,839 --> 00:27:32,519
to the public, identify yourself. No reply, only silence, pulling,

573
00:27:32,559 --> 00:27:35,160
deliberate and thick at the edge of a light. As

574
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,880
the clock overhead clicked toward for, I realized how far

575
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:40,720
I'd moved from the habits of ordinary, cautious security work.

576
00:27:41,279 --> 00:27:44,400
The familiar dreadmingled now is something almost exhilarating, a sense

577
00:27:44,440 --> 00:27:46,480
that there was in a web spun through coal, numbers

578
00:27:46,519 --> 00:27:49,759
and quiet, a logic both beyond and within reach. I'd

579
00:27:49,759 --> 00:27:52,359
crossed into a different order of things, one not ruled

580
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:54,920
by employee handbooks or even by fear, but by old,

581
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,279
stubborn codes borne through index clouds, through forgotten whispers, through records,

582
00:27:58,279 --> 00:28:00,920
not quite a raise. What I've feard mos in that

583
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,079
moment wasn't the strange voices or vanishing people. It was

584
00:28:04,079 --> 00:28:06,519
the possibility that I was becoming shift by schiff one

585
00:28:06,519 --> 00:28:09,240
more line in the hidden catalog myself. I left the

586
00:28:09,319 --> 00:28:12,160
envelope and set locked in the maintenance cabinet, hands cramped

587
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:14,799
and head pounding from effort and lack of anzas. The

588
00:28:14,839 --> 00:28:17,359
sun was thinning the night, draining color from every window.

589
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,599
I signed out on the battered ledger in blockade uneven capitals,

590
00:28:20,599 --> 00:28:23,359
a pen stuttering across the damp carbon sheet in the

591
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,839
break room. My reflection hovered back at me from the

592
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,200
microwave's dark glass. The skin under my eyes had grown sallow,

593
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:31,839
flecked with grit, and my mouth looked permanently twisted, caught

594
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,440
between disbelief and the quiet terror of having finally seen

595
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,519
something you can't ignore. Stepping into the chill of the morning,

596
00:28:37,599 --> 00:28:39,680
I told myself I'd sleep, a hopeful lie that failed

597
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,680
even as I closed the apartment door behind me. Instead,

598
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:44,759
I pored a mug of old coffee, wandered from window

599
00:28:44,759 --> 00:28:47,440
to window, and rolled the notebook of notes between my hands.

600
00:28:48,079 --> 00:28:51,240
Patterns everywhere each RaSE from the tape thrumbed in my

601
00:28:51,319 --> 00:28:53,880
ear is adah. The only way out was drew and

602
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,640
to met knowing more. By m a day, my frustration

603
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,359
turned to habit. The room glowed with the weakful reescence.

604
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:01,839
I passed for day and out of old warehouse muscle

605
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,480
memory is set about sorting the evidence, the tapes, cards, slips,

606
00:29:05,519 --> 00:29:08,680
and digital locks with Wi Fi sluckish and the city

607
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:11,279
libraries on nine portal. Refusing to cough up anything deeper

608
00:29:11,279 --> 00:29:14,440
than recent acquisitions, I turned to the local government records instead.

609
00:29:15,079 --> 00:29:17,400
It took an hour then too, but eventually I found

610
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,799
public meeting notes scanned and poorly accadi dating back to

611
00:29:19,839 --> 00:29:22,160
the seventies, collected and fits and starts by long for

612
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:25,720
gutten clerks. My laptop screen showed the search terms flicker

613
00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:30,279
and tired, Grayskille, tall Grass Library expansion, missing corruption Archive.

614
00:29:30,759 --> 00:29:33,960
The consensus was a whisper of cost Overran's personnel complaints

615
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,279
as sudden, unexplained change to city contracts in nineteen seventy two.

616
00:29:37,839 --> 00:29:40,079
There were scattered mentions of an incident in the archive

617
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,440
level huston language too careful to be innocent, the phrase

618
00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:46,200
all night staff scheduled for review, repeated across several months,

619
00:29:46,319 --> 00:29:49,799
then stopped abruptly. Each year a different chief librarian or

620
00:29:49,839 --> 00:29:53,000
maintenance had signed off on round after round of emergency repairs,

621
00:29:53,079 --> 00:29:55,880
always to the sub basement's record rooms, always after a

622
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,519
cluster of absences. There was no official resolution, only a

623
00:29:59,559 --> 00:30:02,559
recussive blinking away of questions, as if each page existed

624
00:30:02,559 --> 00:30:05,119
only to send the curious reader in a carefully managed circle.

625
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,000
Every piece of the hidden system at tall Grassamus Space

626
00:30:08,039 --> 00:30:12,160
books files were drawn from public access absences that became disappearances.

627
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:15,480
Aligned to these windows. In oversize, I crossed compared dates

628
00:30:15,519 --> 00:30:17,880
from the index card's time lines, and as before the

629
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:19,839
schedule of allD, it is matched not only with the

630
00:30:19,839 --> 00:30:22,559
book's movement, but also with gaps in the security locks.

631
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:25,759
Every time the footage failed and NAM dropped from schedule,

632
00:30:26,279 --> 00:30:30,880
the dates looped seventy one, seventy three, eighty one. Now rattled,

633
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:32,880
I returned to the list of staff who had vanished.

634
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:34,920
Each time I butt migrated through the hidden network of

635
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,920
the stacks, a person at security librarian Clik stopped showing

636
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,599
up to work. Weeks later, someone new emerged badge and

637
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:43,400
smile and voice, but glazed over, working silently with the

638
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,119
same jittery perfection. It explained why nobody and hadn't quite

639
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,799
remembered my predecessor. The records before him gone purged and

640
00:30:48,839 --> 00:30:52,279
replaced with layered contradictory narratives. Restless, I rang my oldest

641
00:30:52,279 --> 00:30:54,279
friend loose. My hand trembled, and the phone as it

642
00:30:54,359 --> 00:30:57,759
rang ran and then picked up Illy. The voice sounded

643
00:30:57,759 --> 00:30:59,920
blowd by static or maybe just distance. They didn't ex

644
00:31:00,039 --> 00:31:02,720
begged you to call before dinner. Hey, I said the word.

645
00:31:02,759 --> 00:31:04,839
Then look, just if you get a word voice message

646
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:06,680
from me, or if I go sign in for a while,

647
00:31:06,759 --> 00:31:09,160
could you call the police. I'm working nights at Tallgrass,

648
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,240
and things here are messed up, like people are missing,

649
00:31:11,319 --> 00:31:13,680
old records are being erased or moved. I'm starting to

650
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,000
think I'm next. This was quiet for a moment. Then Illy,

651
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:19,559
are you okay? Did someone for revenue? You could say that,

652
00:31:19,839 --> 00:31:22,160
I whisper, glancing at the index card on the window

653
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:24,160
sill by my coffee. He just save this number. Don't

654
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:28,160
come down here though, seriously, He hesitated, then said I'm here.

655
00:31:28,359 --> 00:31:30,680
Just keep your phone on all right. If you need out,

656
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:32,599
call me, even if it's the middle of the night,

657
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,680
take care of yourself. I ended the call, reassured and

658
00:31:35,759 --> 00:31:37,480
yet not, and set my phone on the table with

659
00:31:37,519 --> 00:31:39,720
the voice members up running if anything happened to night,

660
00:31:39,799 --> 00:31:42,440
I wanted a record outside the library's care. Back at work,

661
00:31:42,599 --> 00:31:44,880
everything felt sharp, a closer to the bone. I rig

662
00:31:44,960 --> 00:31:47,000
my phone und about a digital recorder to run back

663
00:31:47,039 --> 00:31:49,200
to back once had to save locally the other pair

664
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,480
to a barely functional cloud. Back up from the lunch room,

665
00:31:51,519 --> 00:31:53,920
I pulled an old flask light, checked the batteries, ties

666
00:31:54,039 --> 00:31:56,279
and stuff to come back. Screwdriver into my jacket pocket,

667
00:31:56,279 --> 00:31:58,720
half for comfort, half for possible use. I tried hard

668
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:00,640
to remember what it felt like when the simple patrol

669
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,079
was bloke and play routined. As disk thickened, thunder tumbled

670
00:32:03,079 --> 00:32:06,000
across the horizon, rattling the library's windows in their channels

671
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:07,920
to the air before the storm carried hints of ozone

672
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:10,440
and meldew of a millerprooklying tension running through every wall

673
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:12,640
and dupt. I circled the building one more time, scurping

674
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:14,880
for maintenance vans or other staff, but the parking lot

675
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,359
was empty. Street lights beginning to thicker, run every step

676
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,000
closer to the side entrance turned my mouthburter, so I slowed,

677
00:32:20,079 --> 00:32:22,519
pressed my badge to the rear lock, and slipped inside.

678
00:32:22,559 --> 00:32:25,200
The main lobby was draped in shadow, emergency lights burning

679
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,119
low and mean above the desk. The air felt rom

680
00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:29,279
as if thousands of pages had soft The oxygen clean

681
00:32:29,359 --> 00:32:31,960
rain battered against high windows, echoing through the upper levels,

682
00:32:32,039 --> 00:32:34,519
and every draft set the book carts shivering on their wheels.

683
00:32:34,519 --> 00:32:36,359
My goal was the arc of the circle room on

684
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,200
Thessessinians map. The schematic had no door marked there, only

685
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,720
a blank wall adjoining the freight elevator schaft, But rumors

686
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,680
from day staff, the librarian's warnings, and a blinking network

687
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,000
of clues whole pointed toward the spot. I moved quickly,

688
00:32:47,039 --> 00:32:49,799
peraps blowed by anxiety. The only sounds were my footfalls,

689
00:32:49,839 --> 00:32:51,920
the wheezing of old plumbing in the thunder that held

690
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,160
its south side was down. The vent chases, each corner,

691
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,599
each narrow stack press closer, as if the library sought

692
00:32:57,680 --> 00:32:59,440
to contain me. I wanted nothing more than to pop

693
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:01,440
out the emergence, he ate it and run, But some

694
00:33:01,519 --> 00:33:03,960
fundamental stubborness kept me moving through the ritual. As I

695
00:33:04,039 --> 00:33:06,319
knew the archive. The lights flickered, then got it, drawing

696
00:33:06,359 --> 00:33:07,880
it up all the quiet in the building by thunned

697
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,559
on my flasklight and pressed the backup recorder's button, watching

698
00:33:10,559 --> 00:33:12,759
the little readily deflare to life. My notes said the

699
00:33:12,799 --> 00:33:15,400
hidden entrance was past the close for renovation, sign ply

700
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:17,759
with panel draped and plastic sheeting, and as I peeled

701
00:33:17,759 --> 00:33:20,079
it back, following the outline trace by the floor plan,

702
00:33:20,319 --> 00:33:22,240
until my fingers caught the edge of a concealed door

703
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,839
painted over, but the sem gave under pressure a faint

704
00:33:24,839 --> 00:33:27,519
pop of ancient lateral releasing, I slipped inside a world

705
00:33:27,519 --> 00:33:30,119
of dark closed Immediately around me, the seacre passage stank

706
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,400
of damp plaster and the old glue. My footsteps blasted

707
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,880
cross and even tile slicking spots where second hand water

708
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,799
had seeped up from below. Instinct shoved me forward, hot

709
00:33:37,839 --> 00:33:40,359
tripping as searching over the uneven ground. As I followed

710
00:33:40,359 --> 00:33:42,759
the corridors bend around the final corner, the space wide

711
00:33:42,759 --> 00:33:45,240
and abruptly into a small lock of unfinished with bookshelves

712
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:47,839
stacked haadly on all sides, leaving just enough room for

713
00:33:47,839 --> 00:33:49,359
a person to stand in the center. At the air

714
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:52,000
vibrated faintly with static deet. Book was sets by an

715
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:54,680
in the page's open. Columns of annotations crowded the margins,

716
00:33:54,759 --> 00:33:57,880
names and days, looping hand writing, and several hands crowded together,

717
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:00,599
as if recording attendants at an impossible meeting. Hello for

718
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,880
uming humpressed against my owns, half mechanical, half auditory illucination.

719
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:05,839
It seemed to roll up the spine of the library,

720
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,400
vibrating every shelf, every chip in the paint, and groaning

721
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:10,760
pape my floscil. I caught movement, a stack of bookshifting

722
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:12,840
manually as if being nudged by an unseen hand. Then

723
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,440
figures moved behind the shelves. I recognized them in a way.

724
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,239
Staff members whose faces had lately blurred into polite masks,

725
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,639
eyes bright button seen missas nullien, or at least her

726
00:34:20,679 --> 00:34:23,639
outline drifted past me, whispering lines from old catalogs under

727
00:34:23,639 --> 00:34:25,760
her breath. Her lips moved, but the sand swamp, repeating

728
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:29,159
broken syllables. Rochelle returned here, lessen, checkout numbers in lines.

729
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:32,800
Others followed, organizing and reorganizing the books without visible logic,

730
00:34:32,960 --> 00:34:35,320
walking patterns that have lapped everyone like a dance trace

731
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,480
beul only if you possess the password that has passed

732
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,199
over me without surprise, or noticed the space's boundary. Stone

733
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:44,000
fluid walls lickered between stained concrete and endless receding stacks

734
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,400
are terrible, with vast and impersonal threaten to flatten meat.

735
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,559
I thoughtful, almost magnetized into the endless routine. Some part

736
00:34:49,559 --> 00:34:52,039
of me lunch furiously for preservation. I tried to speak

737
00:34:52,039 --> 00:34:56,239
the names Masses, Nullien, ms lewland Rains. Each effort flat

738
00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:58,840
lined against the static bus. My flasklight trembled in my hand,

739
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,360
its beam jump in week. Then the pressure increased to bright,

740
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,079
squeezing headache that pressed memory thruss ive. What was my name?

741
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:06,079
What was I doing here? I knew only that my

742
00:35:06,119 --> 00:35:08,400
hand clung to the recorder, thumb fidgeting over the record

743
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,440
and play buttons, as if the tiny switch might anchor

744
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,480
me to myself. The room pulsed, the figures circled me wordlessly,

745
00:35:13,519 --> 00:35:15,679
but not silently. I could hear below the drone, the

746
00:35:15,679 --> 00:35:17,880
smooth and dixon of catalog cards, the soft thud of

747
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:20,920
return books, the careful, careful arrangement of paper and draws.

748
00:35:20,920 --> 00:35:23,599
I could feel the library's logic pushing into me. Sword shelf,

749
00:35:23,719 --> 00:35:26,480
forget sword shell, forget. A hand brushed my sleeve. It

750
00:35:26,519 --> 00:35:28,960
was cold, smaller than my own, familiar with the patient

751
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:30,639
calm of someone who would once spent days at the

752
00:35:30,679 --> 00:35:34,360
reference desk. Returned. The figure murmured, face flickering between Missesinean

753
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:36,760
and someone even older, her hair and badger double image.

754
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,039
You belong. Don't let the stacks dry out, don't let

755
00:35:39,079 --> 00:35:41,639
the pattern brick again. I wanted to scream, but my

756
00:35:41,679 --> 00:35:44,440
own voice sounded like someone else's rehearse line. All at once,

757
00:35:44,599 --> 00:35:47,559
the air churned, A shelving cart rattled into place, blocking

758
00:35:47,559 --> 00:35:50,199
my retreat. Other figures pressed closer. I could sense myself

759
00:35:50,239 --> 00:35:52,880
unraveling all's fears and routine splintering as my body move

760
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,920
of its own accord, sliding books onto Lige's cards into slots,

761
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:58,320
my mind receding as if watching a distant stranger. Do

762
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,239
not reshelve alone. I tensed every musle, so not to comply, clinging,

763
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,559
it said to the recorder in my palm. I pressed record.

764
00:36:03,639 --> 00:36:06,039
The device's red diode flickered and burned. A cascade of

765
00:36:06,079 --> 00:36:09,079
ghost voices spat back at me, merging and tumbling remember

766
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,840
late at this time, the voice was mind distorted, yet intent,

767
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:13,760
as if the memory of my own warning had worn

768
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,480
its way back through the arcad's logic. I rememberedly remember

769
00:36:16,559 --> 00:36:18,480
the pressure loosened faint as a breed in space. A

770
00:36:18,519 --> 00:36:20,440
pressed player on the old tape, the one from Missess

771
00:36:20,519 --> 00:36:22,679
Newien's locker, and the he spled out into the alcove,

772
00:36:22,719 --> 00:36:25,400
spinning up all the and quiet meanings behind the word Rachelle.

773
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,199
Suddenly the figures flinched, stuttering, mid sentenced shells, rippled books

774
00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:31,239
he aught open, and the static of half haud voices

775
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,599
climbed toward a crescender. I lunged for the secret door.

776
00:36:33,599 --> 00:36:35,880
Something tried to pull me back. Fingers cold and dry

777
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:38,800
on my jacket. I twisted, breaking free, bracking the recorder

778
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:40,559
and my body back through the corridor and up the

779
00:36:40,559 --> 00:36:42,719
stairs into the storm wrapped main floor. I ran by

780
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:45,280
instinct as much as awareness. The library behind me. Scraat

781
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:48,079
groaned and slammed the hidden door with an impossible organic

782
00:36:48,159 --> 00:36:50,320
force that rattled the cards and cables in my pocket.

783
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,519
When I collapsed on the sorting room floor, first light

784
00:36:52,599 --> 00:36:54,840
was seeping beneath the clouds and pulling over the stacks

785
00:36:54,880 --> 00:36:57,599
for long minutes. I gasped, dizzy, the world spinning as

786
00:36:57,599 --> 00:37:00,480
if gravity pulse on and off, rain drumm across the sky, yelights,

787
00:37:00,639 --> 00:37:02,679
and my stomach rolled. With the memory of rodigot and

788
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:04,719
static my limbs ach, I could in place the town

789
00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:07,119
except by the weight of lost iyos. I barely remember

790
00:37:07,159 --> 00:37:09,280
how the police arrived, though later I learned a neighbor

791
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,800
had seen flickering lights inside the library long after closing

792
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:14,199
in call dispatch specking a break in. The officers who

793
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:16,239
entered that morning found me somemer conscious on the floor

794
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,480
of the security file scattered across my chest and my

795
00:37:18,559 --> 00:37:20,800
jacket damned with sweat. They asked what happened. I tried

796
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,239
to answer, but from my voice slooping, saying the same words,

797
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:26,320
tice always check the books, check the cards. It's all

798
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,920
in the stacks. Their report, I'm told, listed me is exhausted,

799
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:33,199
if possibly disoriented by chemical exposure, which offered enough plausible

800
00:37:33,199 --> 00:37:35,880
deniability for city management to put the whole episode on ice.

801
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,360
Nobody wanted a scandal over the library, a core asset,

802
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,719
strategically embarrassing word get out about missing staff and secret tunnels.

803
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:44,559
I was given medical leave, bland counseling and warning. The

804
00:37:44,599 --> 00:37:47,280
further attempt to accuse colleagues of tampering with evidence would

805
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:50,360
be taken seriously, But the real changes weren't bureaucratic. Once cleared,

806
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,679
staff moved through the holes with a robotic precision head

807
00:37:52,719 --> 00:37:55,239
slightly tilted. I was glassy but bright. They spoke less

808
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,000
and less, their interaction shrinking to silent gestures and brief,

809
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,199
perfectly formed exchanges. No more gossip a bart but the

810
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,320
archive no more long smoky hallway breaks. When Tallgrass Library

811
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,400
reopened weeks later, night operations remained under review, the city

812
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,920
siding and building maintenance and safety updates. Nobody demanded my

813
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,480
badge back, but the new security guard, a matter of

814
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,000
fat retire re named Harry, started his first shift without

815
00:38:15,039 --> 00:38:17,119
so much as a low, and me my well shrank

816
00:38:17,159 --> 00:38:20,079
every night since I heard the library behind my catalog

817
00:38:20,159 --> 00:38:22,360
numbers culled on the inside of my vision, even blocks

818
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:24,760
away from the old Lanstone building, the hush would sharpen

819
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:26,960
and a panic picture and it doesn't have tracked books.

820
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:30,639
Shuffling through the dark, sometimes just before sleep, words would surface,

821
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:33,320
not from within, but press from without. Shelf return listen.

822
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,280
My phone vibrated with phantom notifications, slacked hats on my

823
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,079
door impossible eys. I ignored them with equal parts relief

824
00:38:39,079 --> 00:38:41,719
and horror, always expecting to open my eyes and find

825
00:38:41,719 --> 00:38:44,679
the brittle, dallow cards multiplying on every available surface. They say,

826
00:38:44,679 --> 00:38:46,599
you can't miss what you've never seen, But I glimpsed

827
00:38:46,639 --> 00:38:48,920
the old pattern. How the city tuned its inconvenient people,

828
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,679
tucked them behind codes and shelving schedules, and replaced their

829
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,360
faces with mimics just pausible enough to pass the next audit.

830
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:56,599
I sometimes wondered if I'd resisted long enough for my

831
00:38:56,599 --> 00:38:58,800
mind to snap back on its rails, or if what

832
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:01,639
resisted was simply another and another fixture, settling into the

833
00:39:01,639 --> 00:39:04,440
library's slow regime. The rhythm, at least had changed. My

834
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:06,800
own rhythms quickened on outside, but slowed each time a

835
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,519
memory twisted, each time words in my mouth jammed up

836
00:39:09,519 --> 00:39:11,519
and receded. It was weeks before I worked up the

837
00:39:11,519 --> 00:39:14,000
nerve to return my security badge and recorder in person.

838
00:39:14,039 --> 00:39:16,239
The day was bright, the air unseasonably warm, but the

839
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,840
stacks within pull shadows down even in late afternoon. I

840
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:21,159
walked up to the new guard's desk, handed over the

841
00:39:21,159 --> 00:39:23,760
badge in its plastic sleeve, and set the recorder gently

842
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,159
atop the signing book. Howry, the new man did not

843
00:39:26,199 --> 00:39:29,920
look up from his crossword Transfer of Property Elytores. I nodded,

844
00:39:30,199 --> 00:39:33,519
walled on, then later back home. I entered my backpack

845
00:39:33,519 --> 00:39:35,639
by habit, by the bottom of one pocket, buried under

846
00:39:35,679 --> 00:39:37,400
a spiral notepeed in the batter it remains of my

847
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,119
last work lunch sat a fresh stack of index cards.

848
00:39:40,119 --> 00:39:42,119
My fingers shook as I counted them, ten crisp and

849
00:39:42,119 --> 00:39:44,360
blank except for the top card. I lifted it hard,

850
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,960
tripping slow, heavy strides on the top card, pending a

851
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:50,119
hand not entirely my own was a single, inarguable phrase.

852
00:39:50,199 --> 00:39:52,599
Some books can't be returned, some voices can stop. I

853
00:39:52,679 --> 00:39:55,000
dropped it, pulse hammering, as if the words might singe.

854
00:39:55,039 --> 00:39:57,079
The apartment was quiet, windows open to the calm of

855
00:39:57,159 --> 00:39:59,800
ordinary city traffic. I turned on my computer, pludded in

856
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:02,079
my own old recorder, now clean of old logs, I thought,

857
00:40:02,079 --> 00:40:04,079
and click to play back the stored security locks. The

858
00:40:04,079 --> 00:40:06,800
foules flickered on screens called through by date, static thickening

859
00:40:06,840 --> 00:40:08,559
as I moved from one week to the next. Beneath

860
00:40:08,599 --> 00:40:10,360
the ambient room hump below a hiss of rain and

861
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,159
battered pipes. Voices waited in whisper and saw in half

862
00:40:13,159 --> 00:40:16,599
formed echo, at first only sibilants, then fragmentary syllables, my

863
00:40:16,679 --> 00:40:18,760
own name buried in the mix, and just below that,

864
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,440
a slow convoice in monotone, cycling through a list of

865
00:40:21,440 --> 00:40:24,400
called numbers, the pattern unmistakable ledges of Conna by transit

866
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:27,679
board minute Drury recommation, the next of kin file B seventeen.

867
00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:30,320
I hurry my own voice, the cadence twisted by repetition

868
00:40:30,559 --> 00:40:33,039
inhaling through the microphone, as if somewhere within the archive,

869
00:40:33,079 --> 00:40:35,239
a faceless watcher was waiting for the pattern to renew.

870
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:37,639
It was my voice, but not it was the libraries,

871
00:40:37,719 --> 00:40:39,679
continuing on whether or not I was said to listen.

872
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:41,519
I close the laptop. The room held its breath, and

873
00:40:41,559 --> 00:40:43,639
I fell as if shuffled into place fancine hands. I

874
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,880
knew I would never shell my memories clean again. I

875
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:49,440
sat motionless, barely breeding. The overcorder's playback continued or rolling

876
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:52,119
on the current, always my voice, at first listing the familiar,

877
00:40:52,159 --> 00:40:54,280
then the background, his tremor that might have been breadth

878
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:57,079
against the grill, then other sounds lighter, the flecking thud

879
00:40:57,119 --> 00:40:59,519
of cards, the mechanical clutter I'd come to associate with

880
00:40:59,559 --> 00:41:01,239
Shelvin in the deep ailes. But the whisper of the

881
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:03,280
voice that had called my name grew more prominent with

882
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,800
each passing second, freding beneath my own, like a double

883
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,239
exposed image. There were patterns in it two, not just

884
00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:10,119
the listing of titles, but a kind of muttered cal

885
00:41:10,199 --> 00:41:12,840
in response, as if one voice echoed and another answered.

886
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,280
I snapped the recorder, shut my hands, clammy. The new

887
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:17,639
stock of card satarayed on my lap. I shuffled them,

888
00:41:17,639 --> 00:41:20,280
searching the pristine faces for a message, just blankness, page

889
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:22,800
after page, until the last, turning it over, I saw

890
00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:25,639
the faintest and boss Chevron barely visible. The sword used

891
00:41:25,679 --> 00:41:28,480
by the library's ancient notary press did read in letters,

892
00:41:28,480 --> 00:41:30,199
so challow. I had to tell it against the lamp

893
00:41:30,239 --> 00:41:33,519
purven at clause A chill ran the seam of my spine. Suddenly,

894
00:41:33,519 --> 00:41:35,159
it was as if every detail of the last months

895
00:41:35,199 --> 00:41:37,639
had converged upon me. The glassy eyed staff, the impossible

896
00:41:37,679 --> 00:41:40,239
gaps in memory, those vanished nights when friends or routines

897
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:42,519
had flickered out like brief candle flames. My own voice

898
00:41:42,519 --> 00:41:44,800
in the recorder had not simply chronicle. It had become

899
00:41:44,840 --> 00:41:47,119
a key, cycling a pattern of access I hadn't known.

900
00:41:47,159 --> 00:41:49,960
I provided to sleep when it came, was restless and fevered.

901
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,719
My dreams arranged themselves in heavy, silent corridors, stacked with

902
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:54,880
books whose titles I could never keep fixed in mind.

903
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,920
I heard shelving Cott's rolling ceaselessly, voices receding just out

904
00:41:57,960 --> 00:41:59,840
of view, misses Knie, and sometimes in front of me,

905
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:02,639
her lips moving in private prayers, sometimes loose waving from

906
00:42:02,639 --> 00:42:05,199
a far windows, if on a departing train. In these dreams,

907
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:08,480
the library never ended. The staff shifted, blong gated blood

908
00:42:08,519 --> 00:42:11,440
around the edges, a slow motion dwance of ritualized repetition,

909
00:42:11,519 --> 00:42:13,960
somewhere always and in its cord, weighted face down on

910
00:42:13,960 --> 00:42:15,840
a rail or stepped, haunting with the certainty of a

911
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:18,400
missing word. I woke late, still drawn by daylight, having

912
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,079
managed a few hours and easy truce with sleep. Every

913
00:42:21,079 --> 00:42:24,000
sound in my apartment seemed double trailing, a faint after image.

914
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,920
I opened windows, hoping the air will clear my head.

915
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:28,599
But the drone persisted rain on the metal of the

916
00:42:28,599 --> 00:42:31,239
fire escape, echoing far differently than it had weeks before.

917
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,280
Folding the blunt cards together, I tucked them into a drawer,

918
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:35,840
as if out of sight might mean out of reach,

919
00:42:36,039 --> 00:42:37,920
aware that I was lying to myself as much as

920
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,760
anyone loose cold at noon. You sound like you've got coal,

921
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:45,280
they said, didn't sleep sort of, I said, picking up

922
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,159
the edge of a post is stuck to my disk lamp.

923
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:49,880
Just needed to I don't know yet outside my head

924
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:52,000
for a while, though that library's gotten under your skin.

925
00:42:52,519 --> 00:42:54,800
There was a gentle insistence and lose his tone, except

926
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:57,360
in shading into worry. He said there was a pattern.

927
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,320
Do you still see it? I hesitated, then said I

928
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:03,000
see it everywhere. That's the problem. I heard, only the

929
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:04,599
wind from this side of the call for a moment.

930
00:43:04,679 --> 00:43:07,239
Then you don't have to be the one who solves this.

931
00:43:07,440 --> 00:43:09,519
You know you're not alone in a city. Sometimes it's

932
00:43:09,519 --> 00:43:11,440
okay to let something go, but I wish I could,

933
00:43:11,519 --> 00:43:14,400
I admitted, press a knuckle into my forehead. But it's

934
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:16,440
like this, as this loop set running, I'm not sure

935
00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:18,880
I can get off. Maybe nobody can. We sat in

936
00:43:18,960 --> 00:43:21,719
silence for several long seconds, across town or across miles.

937
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,719
It suddenly seemed immaterial. When we said good bye, it

938
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:26,960
was with an unfinished edge, like pages left open for

939
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:30,480
annotations nobody could provide. I resolved not to go backwards,

940
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:32,880
so I cleaned to myself, repeating it like a charm.

941
00:43:33,159 --> 00:43:36,039
But some subtle pressure shifted inside me, a certainty that

942
00:43:36,159 --> 00:43:38,760
something a toll gras remained unresolved, and that the cards

943
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:40,719
the voice in the machine had only was treated to

944
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,320
lure me in again. When the city announced two days

945
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:46,880
later that the library would briefly reopen under reduced operating eyes, sighting,

946
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,679
staffing renewals, and partial renovations, a kind of fever to

947
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,239
cold the idea of leaving my pardon finished on. I

948
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:56,280
was restless, my apartment shrinking by the ire, shadows gathering

949
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,199
in corners that should have offered comfort. That evening, as

950
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,519
dusk gathered over the avenues, I couldn't help but pull

951
00:44:01,599 --> 00:44:04,679
out my notebook and last shifts tatted blueprint. I stared

952
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:07,199
hard at the floor plan's circle of corner, recalling every

953
00:44:07,199 --> 00:44:10,159
step through the hidden corridor, every breath of altamentt and meldia.

954
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,400
My hands moved over the drawing, almost unconsciously, tracing a

955
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,280
path from public stacks through the plouted breach. The alignment

956
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,960
of shells they shouldn't have fit in the space there

957
00:44:19,119 --> 00:44:21,199
less than enough fingers with from the elevator was a

958
00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:23,199
shape I'd overlooked, a sort of alcove carved out of

959
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,639
what on the city's plans offered only solid ground. I

960
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:28,719
cross checked every page of the staff log books had

961
00:44:28,719 --> 00:44:31,239
managed to scan, stacking names that had vanished in the

962
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:34,519
same intervals. Books with missing cross reference cards where the

963
00:44:34,559 --> 00:44:37,559
marks overlaped, I wrote beside them, entry book here gone.

964
00:44:38,039 --> 00:44:40,880
Returning to tall Grass became not a choice but inevitability.

965
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:44,400
Every other direction too saturated, woul unsolved questions to permit escape.

966
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,320
Late one afternoon, far closer to close and in comfort,

967
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:50,119
would suggest, I made my way back. The sky was

968
00:44:50,159 --> 00:44:52,199
metallic pale, with the threat of more rain and the

969
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:54,960
half light of autumn pressing against the city. I moved

970
00:44:55,039 --> 00:44:57,000
quietly the way of Tresposo might, though I was armed

971
00:44:57,079 --> 00:44:59,280
not with authority but with dull determination, and the batter

972
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,840
taper corridor battery swaped and ready, though open, A close

973
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:05,159
card folded tighten my inside pocket for lockword defense. The

974
00:45:05,199 --> 00:45:08,599
parking lot was emptier than I expected. Only a handful

975
00:45:08,599 --> 00:45:11,400
of cars lingered, their owners, likely making last minute returns

976
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,599
or burrowing into corners to meet some deadline. I skirted

977
00:45:14,599 --> 00:45:16,880
the main lights, approaching the staff entrance, Surprised to find

978
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,280
the side door unlatched. I pressed it open and slipped inside.

979
00:45:20,320 --> 00:45:22,639
The must of cleaner and ancient carpet washing over me,

980
00:45:23,320 --> 00:45:25,880
the silent of the stacks, to peculiar attentive quiet of

981
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,239
an institution at rest, felt instantly oppressive. My steps were

982
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:32,000
absorbed by the faded blue carpet. Every half heard rustle heightened.

983
00:45:32,559 --> 00:45:34,800
I made for the circulation desk, where a stack of

984
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:38,199
returned paperbacks strolled over the check and slot. No staff

985
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:41,280
in sight, I duck quickly into the shadow of the staircase,

986
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:44,400
retreacing familiar steps towards the supply closet, the battered old

987
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,440
cabinet where I had first played the anonymous tip left

988
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,480
for a night security. Something moved in the high gallery above,

989
00:45:49,519 --> 00:45:51,639
a vague, its low motion more sense than seen, like

990
00:45:51,639 --> 00:45:54,880
the watchful turn of unseen eyes. I swallow close in

991
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:56,880
my fists around the recorder so tidily that the edges

992
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,519
bit into skin. I wanted badly to find the place

993
00:45:59,599 --> 00:46:03,079
chained rider's grobe of its ghostly ritual, But everything seemed

994
00:46:03,079 --> 00:46:05,840
poised in blockade, as if some last performance waited just

995
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:09,000
for me to initiate. In a closet, the old cabinet

996
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,599
still stood, battered and faintly humming. The previous key still worked,

997
00:46:12,639 --> 00:46:15,199
and as before, inside lay the orderly fan of outdated

998
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,360
circulation cards, their edges off from decades of oil and thumb.

999
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,239
But now a new envelope waited atop the pile, this

1000
00:46:21,320 --> 00:46:25,119
one marked only with an empty box. No name, no label,

1001
00:46:25,400 --> 00:46:28,320
no night security, just the check of a box drawn

1002
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,719
in a hand trying not to tremble. I turned it

1003
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:34,639
over inside a second carroard, thick as cardboard, with letters

1004
00:46:34,679 --> 00:46:37,119
printed in a cramp child looked script who shells alone

1005
00:46:37,519 --> 00:46:40,599
beneath it pencil timey a catalog number two hundred ten

1006
00:46:40,639 --> 00:46:44,119
be minutes forty five. I sucked in breath, chest tightening.

1007
00:46:44,679 --> 00:46:47,119
That was the subsection in local history at flight time,

1008
00:46:47,159 --> 00:46:49,400
and again in the security logs on the precise row,

1009
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:52,360
where missing books and strange slip cards most often recurred.

1010
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,320
The implication was not just that the pattern persisted, but

1011
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:57,960
that someone aware and desperate had left the trail open.

1012
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:01,199
I pocketed the new cloud, closed the cabinet, and shouldered

1013
00:47:01,199 --> 00:47:03,719
my way back into the narrow corridor flanking the archives.

1014
00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:07,400
The library's official lighting of the lawn jaundice fuorescents flickered

1015
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,519
in series. Further, I moved from the public area the thinner.

1016
00:47:10,559 --> 00:47:12,840
The air grew every inhale, drawing the sharp chemical town

1017
00:47:12,920 --> 00:47:16,079
of dustue lodge of books, two lawn, and disturbed round

1018
00:47:16,119 --> 00:47:17,960
in the corner into two hundred ten B eight. I

1019
00:47:18,039 --> 00:47:20,760
paused the main stacks, ylned away in the gloom. The

1020
00:47:20,760 --> 00:47:24,400
air between each shelf compressed with expectation. My flashlight pressed

1021
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:26,000
out to my chest for fear of leaking too much.

1022
00:47:26,039 --> 00:47:29,159
Light painted narrow pools ahead. I passed the wall clock,

1023
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:31,679
watched the red second hand starter and jump, then stole

1024
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,920
entirely on the minute time itself seemed to hang somewhere ahead.

1025
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,960
The faint scrape of paper, then unmistakably the rattle of

1026
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:40,920
a card against an even floor, parallel to my own

1027
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,719
intrusive pulse. My grip tightened the card in my coat.

1028
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:47,480
Who shelves alone suited for thread or warning poles were

1029
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:50,280
sweat Step by step, I wewed my way down the road.

1030
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,360
Shelf forty five mid height, midway back. The book in

1031
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,400
the flagged position was not one I'd seen before. A

1032
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,320
cloth pound ledger olive drab stamped in gold stuff in

1033
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:00,719
dick Saarcowe rotation city records at time bine was cracked,

1034
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,760
the til frey to soft philes. I hesitated, then pulled

1035
00:48:03,760 --> 00:48:06,519
a free. The shelf beneath it seemed to breathe dust,

1036
00:48:06,519 --> 00:48:08,320
shuddering on its surface, as if to splaced by a

1037
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,440
moving hand. I flipped the book open inside. Instead of

1038
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:16,400
city records, the pages had been overdubbed, lists of names, dates, paired,

1039
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:19,679
winnings and losings, the crossing out of old signatures, newscrips

1040
00:48:19,679 --> 00:48:21,960
called in the margins not just librarians and security, but

1041
00:48:22,039 --> 00:48:25,519
maintenance clerks, two city engineers. One entry caught my eye

1042
00:48:25,519 --> 00:48:28,320
at the date three months prior, mashed both the disappearance

1043
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:31,320
of Massesenian and my own stock. The line beneath it

1044
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:33,639
freshly erased and penciled. The top and shaking script each

1045
00:48:33,639 --> 00:48:36,880
torus stand by. The circuit completed, the staff entered and erased,

1046
00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:40,519
as if each were not only catalog, but preordained phodol, don't.

1047
00:48:40,559 --> 00:48:43,800
A voice rasped at my shoulder. I whirled, nearly dropping

1048
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,400
the flashlight, the beams splattering across the opposite wall. A

1049
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,920
figure stood at the isle's end, half in shadow, but

1050
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:52,599
I recognized the shade a mess Leland or someone holding

1051
00:48:52,599 --> 00:48:55,239
her posture made slower, her cardigan drooping at the elbows,

1052
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:58,960
lip sucking in silent warning. I stepped back, nearly colliding

1053
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,599
with the shelf behind. Why is this happening, I hissed,

1054
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,599
Why all the rituals, the disappearances, the cards. Her eyes

1055
00:49:06,639 --> 00:49:09,440
met mine, hollowed by more than lack of sleep. They

1056
00:49:09,519 --> 00:49:11,880
keep feeding it, we reshelf, because it wakes if we don't.

1057
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:14,119
No one alone, not for long. Once you hear it,

1058
00:49:14,119 --> 00:49:16,079
it starts with your words. The but who what is

1059
00:49:16,119 --> 00:49:19,199
behind it? She raised trembling fingers to her lips as

1060
00:49:19,199 --> 00:49:21,000
if to shush me out of habit, and then swept

1061
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,480
her hand in a circle, down around, returning to the

1062
00:49:23,519 --> 00:49:26,880
starting point. Built on old ground, before the city, before

1063
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:29,400
the library. A wound, the books, the papers they muffle

1064
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,920
at Patten's safer than silence. I shook my head, struggling

1065
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,880
to keep my focus is anyone left the real you?

1066
00:49:36,519 --> 00:49:39,880
A mouth twitched. Sometimes I think so, But we keep

1067
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,519
the pattern where we become. She trailed off, Her eyes

1068
00:49:43,559 --> 00:49:46,360
flicked toward the book in my hand. That ledger wasn't

1069
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,199
meant for you. You read, you join, you listen, lily, or

1070
00:49:49,239 --> 00:49:52,519
you shlve alone. She stepped back, melting into the dim

1071
00:49:52,519 --> 00:49:55,320
stacks as silently as she arrived. I look down at

1072
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:57,880
the ledger, as pages fluttering, though no breeze moved, the

1073
00:49:57,960 --> 00:49:59,800
name shifting from side to side, as if refusing to

1074
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,360
fe my sie. My hands prickled, nerves firing. The sharp

1075
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:05,960
copper taste of fear pulled under my tongue. The card

1076
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,679
in my pocket open it clothes felt suddenly hot. A

1077
00:50:08,719 --> 00:50:11,039
low resonant hum moved through the shelves, as though the

1078
00:50:11,119 --> 00:50:14,320
city's generators had dipped in unison. My flask lights being

1079
00:50:14,360 --> 00:50:17,280
danced crazily, occluded by shadow, as if the stacks themselves

1080
00:50:17,280 --> 00:50:19,800
had swelled and thickened in the half dark. From the

1081
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:21,880
back of the aisle, a light pulse, brief and blue,

1082
00:50:21,960 --> 00:50:25,440
like the flick of all phosphorus screens. I followed my steps,

1083
00:50:25,440 --> 00:50:29,119
promture shuffling. I rounded the last bay, before the archive entrance.

1084
00:50:29,119 --> 00:50:31,280
The play circled. So many times in the blueprint were

1085
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,800
hidden things waited. The plywood barricade had been drawn aside,

1086
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:38,039
the step beyond plunged roughly in concrete, chipped and stained

1087
00:50:38,079 --> 00:50:39,800
down to a door, lawn denied me in daylight and

1088
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:42,800
now slightly dar as if by invitation. I pressed my

1089
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:45,239
hand to the door, feeling the oddly living quiver beneath

1090
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:48,000
the cold. My lips shaped the words opened it close,

1091
00:50:48,159 --> 00:50:51,559
and as the phrase left me, the door yielded inside.

1092
00:50:51,639 --> 00:50:53,920
Light pulled only from below in a ray of reading lamps,

1093
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:57,039
shroudered illuminated a human circle, heads, bad hand, straights in

1094
00:50:57,039 --> 00:51:00,400
index cards, and endless circular motion. The air was rank

1095
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:02,639
with the compounded smell of wet paper, faded into the

1096
00:51:02,639 --> 00:51:05,920
sweet rod of generations of texts. At the circle's center,

1097
00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:08,599
a stack of the faded ledger books, all open, all

1098
00:51:08,679 --> 00:51:11,320
un scrabbed, with lines and crossings, a genealogy of erasure.

1099
00:51:12,039 --> 00:51:14,639
New hands slid cards across the covers, their motions perfectly

1100
00:51:14,639 --> 00:51:19,519
synchronized pass read erase shelf. One face lifted to possess

1101
00:51:20,159 --> 00:51:23,199
new in eyes were in silver, gazed idea's eyes for

1102
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:25,719
shaking with the effort of words. Once my own illi listened,

1103
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,599
don't let the silent win. I staggered the tape re corrider,

1104
00:51:28,679 --> 00:51:32,000
knocking against my rapes, accidentally hitting play. My own voice

1105
00:51:32,039 --> 00:51:34,639
poured out the earlier log, mixing now with fresh stattic

1106
00:51:34,639 --> 00:51:41,159
from the machine, multiplying discordant. The circle broke. The participants rose, wordless, converging.

1107
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:44,519
I backed toward the wall. No, no, I'm not I'm

1108
00:51:44,559 --> 00:51:46,800
not staff, I'm not next. I won't each shell or

1109
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:49,320
be shelled. They murmured, words laid in not harmony, the

1110
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:51,760
same as in the tape. I squeezed the last card

1111
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,760
vaupin a close, so hard it creased somewhere deep in

1112
00:51:54,840 --> 00:51:57,119
the machinery of the walls. The light shuddered, and one

1113
00:51:57,159 --> 00:52:00,280
by one failed. I lunged for the nearest exit, pushing

1114
00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:02,440
past the mess leland ar much stretched, as if for

1115
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,960
comfort or restraint, The room's geometry twisted. A chef became

1116
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:08,320
a wall, A wall receded to a doorway, another bay

1117
00:52:08,320 --> 00:52:11,519
elongated to infinity. With every of the heartbeat, the order

1118
00:52:11,519 --> 00:52:14,639
of things changed, as if the buildings patterned reasserted dominance.

1119
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,760
Yet somewhere in the static in the course on the tape.

1120
00:52:17,760 --> 00:52:20,239
Another voice started to emerge, soft at first, then gaining

1121
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:23,599
presents not the old echo, but loose, indistinct at the

1122
00:52:23,639 --> 00:52:26,880
edge of transmission. Ilately, if you're hearing this, you're not alone.

1123
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:28,400
Get out if you can, don't let them of The

1124
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,719
tape scrambled were set, but the intrusion had broken the

1125
00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:33,559
rhythm of a hoarded silence. A ripper moved through the

1126
00:52:33,559 --> 00:52:37,679
old staff missus Nian, staggering ms lullen, pausing mid movement,

1127
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:41,079
and the air snapped. Clutching the recorder, I forced myself

1128
00:52:41,159 --> 00:52:44,079
toward a shaft of milded light. As I passed the shelves,

1129
00:52:44,159 --> 00:52:47,440
dozens of CODs cascadedly, swirling in downdraft, covering my feet,

1130
00:52:47,559 --> 00:52:50,159
each with names, each with the diatetsbroken lines of people,

1131
00:52:50,199 --> 00:52:54,159
half forgotten, half remembered. The pattern tremble then started to unravel,

1132
00:52:54,159 --> 00:52:57,480
as if finally pushed off, balanced by contradiction. Hands grabbed

1133
00:52:57,519 --> 00:53:00,920
for me, not violently, but beseechingly, pleading with body and gesture,

1134
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:02,920
as some small pot wished desperately to be freed of

1135
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:05,199
the cycle, to see their names returned to a living voice.

1136
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:08,280
I cried out in confusion and fear, but pressed onward,

1137
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:10,760
fighting the pull that wanted only order only to shelve

1138
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,519
and be shelved. I tumbled through the narrow stairwell, the

1139
00:53:13,559 --> 00:53:16,280
door slamming behind with a shutdow that reverberated up my bones.

1140
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:20,119
The storm outside held so long an abeyance unleashed. When

1141
00:53:20,119 --> 00:53:22,800
shrieked down the stairwalls, rattling glass and dragging spray up

1142
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:26,199
past the fire door, I didn't look back. I made

1143
00:53:26,239 --> 00:53:28,679
for the public side, half crawling up the mainstairs, head

1144
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,800
ducked feats, lighting as if the floor itself tried to

1145
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:33,840
remember me differently. Once in the lobby, the electronic door

1146
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:36,960
lock wine then gave a staggered on to the sidewalk,

1147
00:53:37,119 --> 00:53:39,480
ganning the empty lot. The vcant corners, the sight line

1148
00:53:39,519 --> 00:53:41,880
to the nearest lighted window release so overwhelming I thought

1149
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,159
my legs might buckle. It was minutes, not seconds, before

1150
00:53:45,159 --> 00:53:47,920
I realized I was not alone. A figure leaned against

1151
00:53:47,960 --> 00:53:51,440
a bush shelter, heavily bundled but unmistakable, and bearing both

1152
00:53:51,519 --> 00:53:55,280
hands clutched a tape bag of battered books loose. These

1153
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:58,000
on meeting, came forward, face grave but trembling, two white

1154
00:53:58,000 --> 00:53:59,639
a smile at oz with the weight in their eyes.

1155
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,199
You look terrible, they said, voice close and solid, utterly,

1156
00:54:03,280 --> 00:54:06,280
blessedly real. I tried to assemble a joke and failed.

1157
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:09,079
That place, I saw the worried s. H h, I know,

1158
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:11,400
Loose said, starting me with a hand at my elbow.

1159
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:14,400
I waited. I almost called the police, but something in

1160
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:16,920
your last voice memo, something said not to or you hurt.

1161
00:54:17,159 --> 00:54:20,199
Only in the head, I tried. My vision swam the

1162
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:22,679
after image of hundreds of cards fading from my mind's eye.

1163
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:25,920
You heard the recorder, the voices. It's light. They take over,

1164
00:54:26,119 --> 00:54:28,800
make you part of their pattern. Loose was quiet. Then

1165
00:54:29,000 --> 00:54:31,000
some patterns you have to break, even if it hurts.

1166
00:54:31,039 --> 00:54:34,400
Come on, we're going. I let them steady me. Neither

1167
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:37,719
of us looked back over my shoulder through the glass wall.

1168
00:54:37,760 --> 00:54:40,039
I saw the lights in the stacks, now flickering and bent,

1169
00:54:40,159 --> 00:54:43,960
weak lens, no longer marching lockstep, but spasming, uncertain. We

1170
00:54:44,079 --> 00:54:46,159
walked a long block in silence before I realized my

1171
00:54:46,239 --> 00:54:49,239
recorder was still running. Button john into place, battery, holding

1172
00:54:49,320 --> 00:54:52,840
on by a hair, I thumbed stop. The display glowed,

1173
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:56,199
then wavered, then with a final click when dead, the

1174
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:59,920
following days were fragied meetings with city officials, medical evaluation,

1175
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,000
a parade of well meant questions and polite denials from superiors,

1176
00:55:03,039 --> 00:55:07,079
barely masking the wish for silence. Reports were filed. My

1177
00:55:07,199 --> 00:55:10,000
name etched twice in the schedule, then removed pending recovery.

1178
00:55:10,639 --> 00:55:14,519
No clear answers, mass Lellander and mis Esnier enlisted as

1179
00:55:14,559 --> 00:55:19,480
on indefinite leave. Rains now temporary supervisor signed neat regular

1180
00:55:19,559 --> 00:55:23,320
emails offering no apology. Buildings and routines proceed even when

1181
00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:26,320
the cost is a memory paid out, and disappearances, but

1182
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:31,000
changes hung over tall brass. Night operations never resumed. Community

1183
00:55:31,039 --> 00:55:33,320
rumors swell, the talk of bad wiring, of break ins,

1184
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:36,679
no mention of anything more. Staff now moved a furtive

1185
00:55:36,679 --> 00:55:39,519
precision lingering only long enough to shelve or stamp a slip.

1186
00:55:39,679 --> 00:55:43,639
Conversation paired down to nards and tea word exchanges. Some nights,

1187
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:45,599
I heard the hush at my window of the distinctive

1188
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:47,880
papery drug of a book's bine, the distant eye of

1189
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:49,880
their pulled through a vent, and wondered what still weighted

1190
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:53,320
under those stones, behind those shelves. On my third sleep

1191
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:55,440
as night home. The blank stack of count again drew

1192
00:55:55,480 --> 00:55:58,440
me to the desk. Against my better judgment, I took

1193
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:00,880
a pencil end in a cramped, shaking hand, wrote the

1194
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,119
word listen on the top card, pressing so hard, then

1195
00:56:03,199 --> 00:56:06,039
print cut through to the table below. A moment passed,

1196
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:11,440
nothing happened. I say, l's uncertain, then softer than size.

1197
00:56:11,519 --> 00:56:14,400
My phone lying beside the card resolved to life. Not

1198
00:56:14,519 --> 00:56:16,960
a notification, not a ring, just a slow, low memmour,

1199
00:56:17,039 --> 00:56:19,119
as if some call were attempting to complete itself on

1200
00:56:19,199 --> 00:56:23,000
the line. I unlocked it slowly. The screen flashed white

1201
00:56:23,639 --> 00:56:26,559
for half a second. A wallpaper background washed out, replaced

1202
00:56:26,559 --> 00:56:29,760
by a series of numbers, call numbers, session times, sequences

1203
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:33,000
of digits I recognized from the stafflock. My thumb hovered.

1204
00:56:33,559 --> 00:56:35,639
I moved to power off the device, but formbidden, found

1205
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:38,280
myself tracing the pad over the microphone, as if compelled

1206
00:56:38,320 --> 00:56:41,039
to speak into the hush. Finally, in a voice that

1207
00:56:41,119 --> 00:56:43,480
sounded more bored than owned, I said, I'm not yours.

1208
00:56:43,519 --> 00:56:47,440
The pattern's broken. The screen went black, the phone powered down.

1209
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:50,400
I sat for a long time, waiting for more. In

1210
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:53,159
the days that followed, a library shadow receded but its

1211
00:56:53,239 --> 00:56:55,639
logic held the wariness, a caution about what routine can

1212
00:56:55,719 --> 00:56:58,159
due to memory to people. I kept the stack of

1213
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:00,159
cars locked in a desk drawer, refusing to think throw

1214
00:57:00,199 --> 00:57:01,840
them away, as if it would grant them new power.

1215
00:57:02,400 --> 00:57:05,159
But sometimes in dreams were before sleep, the pattern resumed

1216
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:09,000
the same shoving rituals, the closed loop's shelve, return listen,

1217
00:57:09,079 --> 00:57:12,119
Mapping out each day, I clung to the presence of friends,

1218
00:57:12,199 --> 00:57:14,440
to the gentle insistence of the city outside my window,

1219
00:57:14,559 --> 00:57:16,760
determined how was more than just another name rotated in

1220
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:19,400
and out of silent ledgers, Yet I knew some threads

1221
00:57:19,480 --> 00:57:22,599
remained loose. One evening, after the city is half had

1222
00:57:22,639 --> 00:57:25,079
a check in and promises of resolution, I found myself

1223
00:57:25,159 --> 00:57:27,800
hunched over my laptop, qued through old security recordings i'd

1224
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:31,320
uploaded for evidence. The library's droning silence seemed to thicken

1225
00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:33,719
through my speakers. The hum and click and occasional rolling

1226
00:57:33,760 --> 00:57:37,719
thunder of carts fold a familiar soundtrack. And that is

1227
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,239
the end. Thank you for listening, and I will see

1228
00:57:40,280 --> 00:57:40,960
you in the next one.