13. The Library

---

Kim emerged from a deep and dreamless sleep, hazy memories filtering into her consciousness through a fog of weariness. An endless road. Swirling snow. Darkness.

Death?

She had survived a terrible ordeal, or at least she thought she had; she’d never been dead before, and perhaps it was like this, cold and dark, smothered in silence. She had always assumed that death was like a deep and dreamless sleep, an eternity of nothingness, but she was aware of herself, and of the coldness, and of the dark. Those were all something, so either she was alive, or she would need to revisit some of her assumptions.

Her eyes opened for a moment, then shut. It was not entirely dark. Maybe she wasn’t dead after all. That was a good thing, wasn’t it?

As Kim lay in the darkness, she found herself unable to go back to sleep, tormented by the image of the dying bandit. However hard she tried, she could not banish from her memory the look of astonishment on the robber’s face as she’d slumped and fallen to the earth. Neither could she put out of her mind the feel of her blade piercing a beating heart. She found it far too easy to imagine herself on the other side of the deadly equation; given the number of enemies she had made, something like this seemed entirely too likely.

Why was she still alive? Fate? Luck? Destiny? There were times when it seemed as if the unseen hand had reached out and altered reality itself, preserving her life in furtherance of its mysterious plan. Nonsense, of course. Whatever it was, it had no power to stay the deadly trajectory of a knife, to stop a speeding freighter, nor to hold back the fury of a storm. And yet, she had somehow survived.

The first rays of twilight were now filtering into the room through its solitary window, tall and narrow, bathing it in a cold and sullen gloom—enough to see by, though just barely. It was not large, perhaps three meters by six, sparsely furnished with the bed in which Kim was lying, a washbasin, a desk, a storage cubby, and a bookshelf. Spartan though it was, it seemed to be both clean and tidy. There was no debris on the floor, none of the tell-tale scent of rodents or other vermin. She was grateful to be alive, grateful that someone had brought her here rather than leaving her to die in the snow, a kindness not to be taken for granted after the harsh realities of her recent life.

She was just starting to nod off again when there was a knock at the door.

“You should get ready for breakfast,” said an unfamiliar voice coming from the other side, a deep and resonant bass. “I’ll be back in half an hour to show you the way.”

_

However tempting it might have been to grab a few more minutes’ sleep, the last thing she needed was to confirm the Caretaker’s belief that she was some sort of uncouth and violent gangster from the outer districts, so she got out of bed and set about making herself presentable.

She stripped off her clothing, walked over to the washbasin, and broke through a crust of ice to splash a little freezing-cold water on her face.

Bracing! It was good that she was used to the cold.

Now fully awake, she set to the grim task of washing her hands of the bandit’s blood, staining the water bright red in the process. Most of it came off without trouble, though it took her a long while to remove it from the edge of her nails and the creases in her palms. That completed, she ran the washcloth over her body, banishing that icky-sticky feeling from her skin and removing as much of the grime as she could.

Next came her clothing, lying in a filthy heap at the foot of the bed. Her thermal underwear, cold and still soaked with perspiration, was unspeakably foul, but there wasn’t enough time to give it proper attention, so she settled for a quick rinse before wringing it out and putting it back on. Her body heat would dry it out, eventually. She then turned to her leathers, scrubbing them as best she could, turning the water in the basin an ugly reddish brown in the process. She gave them a careful inspection, pronounced them good enough, then got dressed and inspected the results in the mirror. She wasn’t exactly ready for date night at a fancy nightclub, but she felt pleased with the results and hoped she would make a good impression on the Caretaker and whoever else might be at breakfast.

There was a knock at the door, and in walked a tall, barrel-chested Abrahamic with a maneless head and long, black facial hair.

“My name is Michael,” she said in the deep and booming voice that had summoned Kim to breakfast. “I have been told to bring you and your passenger upstairs. I must impress on you the importance of remembering your station in life—you will speak only when spoken to, and you will not attempt to engage the scholars in conversation. They have better things to do than listen to some ignorant guttersnipe from the outer districts.”

Kim seethed at the abuse and was tempted to put this person in her place, but this was neither the time nor the place, so she decided to play along and pretend to be that which Michael imagined her to be.

“Yeah, whatever.”

A knock, and Shan emerged from the room next door, looking prim and proper with a fresh set of black and white Abrahamic garb, the very model of a young pilgrim of genteel upbringing.

“Good morning, Sister, my name is Michael. I trust you slept well. It is time for breakfast, and the scholars are anxious to make your acquaintance.”

Kim realized with horror that Michael had mistaken Shan for Sister Margaret, and that she was playing along, leading the barrel-chested scholar down the garden path. Kim had seen her play this game before, and it rarely ended well.

“Thank you.” Shan’s voice was sweet and gentle. “I see that you’ve already fetched my pedicabbie. She is a remarkable person, and I owe her a debt of gratitude for saving my life.”

_

“Where are the books?” asked Shan as they proceeded through the bowels of the library. “All I see is a bunch of old office furniture.”

“This used to be an administrative area,” answered their guide as she led them through a long, wide room with a row of columns running down the middle. “Back before the university closed, there was a huge staff of librarians and administrators that kept the books organized and helped people with their research. Some of them used to work in this space, but they were let go long before I arrived. We’ve converted it into a dormitory. I apologize for the lack of heat and electricity, but we are on a tight budget, and energy costs must be kept to a minimum.”

The room was mostly filled with cubicles of the usual sort—two meters square, each enclosing a desk, a chair, a storage cubby, some bookshelves, and a couple of filing cabinets. Calendars, printouts, and even some childish drawings were affixed to bulletin boards, while the desktops and bookshelves held items such as eyeglasses, coffee mugs, and many framed photographs. In them, Kim could see people of races rarely seen these days, with skin tones varying from nearly black to pale beige and natural hair in a bewildering variety of styles and colors. Had people like this really existed? It was like they were all born Pretty, no two of them alike.

Little by little, it grew lighter as they approached the adjoining room, with long rows of bookshelves disappearing into the darkness to their left and, to their right, study carrels lined up against a wall beneath a row of tall, narrow windows. Beyond this was an atrium with a steeply pitched glass roof supported by a lattice of steel trusses. Though mostly covered with snow, there were gaps near its top where light peeked through, filling the atrium and the reading room with a soft, cold light that seemed far brighter than it actually was after the gloom pervading the rest of the depths.

“I like to come down here during the summer,” said Michael as she paused to let Shan take a quick look around. “It stays cool even in August, and the light coming in through those windows is more than adequate. It’s far too cold to be down here this time of year, of course.”

“I can see that,” said Shan. She walked over to one of the bookshelves, took out a volume, paged through it, and returned it to its place. “Your collection seems to be quite extensive.”

“This is only a tiny fraction of what’s on this level, and there are two more below us and three above,” said Michael with obvious pride. “They say that there are over a hundred kilometers of shelves, all told, and that the library once boasted nearly seven million volumes, though much of the collection was carted off after the Unification.”

While the two of them talked, Kim walked over to examine the books set neatly upon their shelves. They were beautiful, almost mystical in nature, relics of a time that had never been, preserved for a future that might never come. She reached out to touch one…

“Keep your paws off that, you idiot,” barked Michael. “It’s hundreds of years old and irreplaceable.”

“There’s no need to be nasty,” said Shan, once again putting on an air of gentility. “I’d just done the same thing, so she probably assumed it was okay.”

Michael laughed as if someone had just made a joke. “I wasn’t calling her an idiot because of what she did. I called her an idiot because that’s what she is—an idiot. She’s obviously too stupid to fit in with her own society, to say nothing of ours.”

Had this been the dining hall, Kim would have flattened her for that.

After departing the study area, they entered a stairwell and ascended to the main lobby, a grand space nearly twenty meters deep and thirty wide, lit by the soft, flat light entering via two large windows set high in the stone wall on the opposite side of the room. Below these lay the main entrance to the library, a pair of glass doors set within elegant, pointed arches just beyond a glassed-in vestibule. Outside, the storm had broken, leaving in its wake nearly a meter of soft, fluffy snow. Had they failed to reach safety, both she and Shan would certainly have perished out there; the fears that had driven Kim beyond the point of exhaustion had been real.

“You can eat with the guard when the scholars are done,” said Michael, turning to Kim and motioning toward the black U-shaped desk where a blue-uniformed officer stood watch.

Shan was indignant. “What? Isn’t she joining us for breakfast?”

“You don’t want to eat with that vagrant, do you?” said Michael, surprised at such a breach of proper decorum.

“I owe her my life, and I will not see her mistreated,” said Shan. “If she’s not good enough to eat with you, then neither am I.”

“Please don’t be difficult.”

“My mind is made up.”

While Michael blustered about and left to see what was to be done, Kim wandered over to the guard, who was looking on with some amusement.

“I take it that Michael doesn’t much care for you,” said the guard. “Don’t take it personally. The Right Reverend Dean of Religious Studies—a puffed-up title if ever there was one—has known me for twenty years and still refuses to call me by name. Speaking of which, I’m Richard. You?”

“The name is Kim.”

“I’m glad to see you up and about. When I found you last night, you were both in rough shape, lying in the snow, barely able to move. It took some doing, but me and the janitor managed to carry you downstairs and into bed.”

“I was wondering how I got there,” said Kim, “I couldn’t remember much except that we’d made it as far as the gate. After that, everything is a jumble and I’m not sure what happened. Anyway, thank you. You saved our lives.”

“Anytime, buddy, anytime.”

They stood around for a couple of minutes making idle chatter until Michael returned to announce that, against both decency and protocol, Kim would be permitted to have breakfast with the scholars. She did not seem happy to convey this news, something which delighted Kim to no end.

_

Grumbling and fuming under her breath all the way, Michael conducted Kim and Shan into the magnificent reading room, a light and airy space separated from the lobby by a wall of glass panes set in a frame of light-colored metal. To their right, tall windows looked out over the stark and frozen landscape left in the wake of the storm, bathed in sunlight beneath a sky of deep blue. To the left were tables, chairs, and a long row of bookcases set upon a mezzanine, a pleasant spot to sit down to study or read. Above their heads, circular light fixtures hung beneath a gridwork of recesses, looking down upon a parquet floor of genuine wood.

In the center of the room was a long, narrow table where the Caretaker was holding court with the assembled scholars, awaiting their morning meal. Sitting in a high-backed chair that looked like the throne of some medieval monarch, she was regal and utterly in command.

“So nice to see you, Sister,” she said. “Welcome to the reading room. Please join us for breakfast.”

“The vagrant, too,” she added icily.

Shan responded in the manner of her newly assumed identity. “Her name is Kim, and I owe her my life. You should treat her with kindness and love. There is no need for harshness. How has she harmed you?”

“Mind your tongue,” snapped the Caretaker. “You have not yet been admitted to study, and I may still cast you out. This space is reserved for the use of the scholars alone, and both of you are present here by my grace.”

“It’s okay,” said Kim, continuing to play the part of a lowly pedicab driver. “I’ve been called worse.”

“I’m glad you understand your place in the world.”

The Caretaker rang a bell beside her on the table, then rose to lead the scholars to the breakfast buffet. They lined up in order of dignity and importance: the Caretaker first, Michael second, and last of all, Kim, taking her place behind Shan. By the time they got to the front, the bacon was gone, and very little remained of the eggs, but there was still plenty of oatmeal and strong, black coffee, which was all Kim required. She filled her bowl to the brim with the thick, gloppy cereal, added a generous dollop of butter and a splash of cream, and poured herself a mug of piping-hot coffee, which proved better than any she’d had in many a month. She then settled down and commenced with the serious business of eating.

“That’s quite an appetite you’ve got there,” said one of the scholars seated across the table, a look of bemusement on her face.

“They called me ‘The Beast’ back in school,” said Kim between hearty spoonfuls of oatmeal.

“You’d put a wolf to shame!” said another, provoking a round of friendly laughter as Kim kept shoveling away, polishing off an entire bowl of the hot cereal before standing up and grabbing a second helping as big as the first. She made that one disappear just as quickly, to the amusement of all.

“How can she eat so much?” asked yet another in disbelief. “It isn’t human!”

Everyone laughed except for the Caretaker and Michael.

Meanwhile, Shan took small delicate bites of the eggs and slowly worked her way through the pastries. Kim was impressed with how well she was playing this part. If nothing else, her time in the religious community must have taught her proper table manners, never the strongest suit of either of them.

When everyone had eaten their fill, the Caretaker once again rang the bell to get their attention.

“It is our custom to introduce ourselves whenever we have guests at the table. Please go around and tell the good Sister about your work, and then we shall hear from her.”

The Scholars finished tucking in the last few morsels, then became quiet as they each took a turn explaining the nature of their studies.

The first to go was a tall and lanky scholar of middling years with hair that looked like a copper scrubbing pad. “My name is Anton,” she said with a thick accent that Kim could not identify. “I study the literature of Mother Russia—Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Solzhenitsyn, and of course, Dostoyevsky.”

“That’s her favorite,” the scholars added in chorus.

A few more went past in quick succession.

“I’m Sandra. I study chemistry and make exotic scents on the side. My lab is closed at the moment—it’s unheated and too cold to work in during the winter—but if you’re here in the spring, please come visit.”

“My name is Macy,” said the next. “20th-century cinema and television. They were considered art forms in their time. They had those back then.”

“Ollie, military science.”

“She just likes explosions and loud noises!” quipped Anton, to which Ollie retorted, “Your point?”

Next came Meade and Kai, who styled themselves explorers. They spent most of their time in one of the few other buildings still in use—the museum, which was like the library except for things instead of books.

“We have recently returned from a place far to the west, where boiling water shoots a hundred meters into the sky,” said Meade. “I didn’t believe it was real at first, but it is. Kai is working on an exhibition of her photographs using the ancient silver halide process. It is a challenging art form, but the results are stunning.”

Next came Candice, who referred to herself as a climatologist. “I have recently completed a survey of the ice pack north of the Great Lakes. I’m sorry to report that it is continuing to grow in thickness. At this point, another ice age seems inevitable.”

Merlinia got the award for the most obscure field of study, focusing as she did on the history of Medieval Europe with its kings and nobles. Then there was Rhee, an ancient and wizened physicist, struggling to explain something she called “Quantum Mechanics.”

“I believe that I have at last penetrated the enigma of Schrodinger’s Cat,” she said with great ostentation. “Is it alive? Is it dead? In truth, it is both and neither at the same time.” It sounded like lunacy, but Rhee was insistent that this was a great and important truth about the nature of things.

Last of all came Michael, the pompous theologian who had acted as their guide this morning.

“I have spent a lifetime crawling through obscure corners of the stacks looking for religious books that were deliberately mislaid during the Turmoil. Works in Latin, works in Arabic, writings in ancient Aramaic, and even in Greek. I have found not a few, and it is my privilege to share them with the world.” She seemed inordinately proud of her skill with dead languages.

“And now, Sister, it’s your turn,” said the Caretaker. “Would you care to explain your interests?”

Kim held her breath. She had no idea what sort of story Shan was about to spin, but it had better be good, or both of them were going to get tossed out on their ears.

“I would be honored,” she said and then began her explanation. “I have come here on pilgrimage, looking for some obscure religious texts dating from antiquity. My purpose is to study them and make copies to bring back to my community.”

Good. She had kept it simple.

“An ancient and honorable tradition,” said Michael, full of puffery as always. “This will not be the first time the words of the saints have been preserved through the diligence of the scribe. What books are you looking for? I may have already located some of them.”

“It’s a long list; I’ve got it in my valise.”

“Excellent!” said Michael. “We shall get started at once, right after breakfast.”

The Caretaker then reached for her bell and seemed ready to dismiss the scholars when Shan spoke up, once again breaking protocol.

“You haven’t given Kim a chance yet. I think she deserves it.”

“That gangster?” said Michael, outraged. “What could she have to say that might possibly be of interest?”

“Oh, humor the poor thing,” said Anton, a sentiment that many of the other scholars seemed to agree with.

“Very well,” said the Caretaker, “I will grant the request.”

She then fixed Shan in her piercing gaze. “Let me suggest that you refrain from any further acts of insolence. I’m beginning to have second thoughts about admitting you to study.”

All eyes looked at Kim. It was far too risky to explain the totality of her mission—there was always a possibility that one of these innocent-seeming scholars might be a spy—but this was an opportunity to impress the Caretaker, and she could not let it pass. As was often the case, a portion of the truth seemed the wisest course.

“I wish to learn more about artificial intelligence,” she said. “That was my original career before I lost my job and wound up working as a pedicabbie. I got to be good at training them, but I have no idea how they work, and I’d like to know more.”

There. That should do it, and it was even true, as far as it went.

“It is a worthy undertaking,” said Rhee.

“I agree,” added Sandra, as did most of the others.

The Caretaker fixed Kim in her uncomfortable gaze as she rang the bell to dismiss the scholars.

“I should like a word with you.”

_

The Caretaker led Kim through the lobby, up a flight of stairs, through one room after another and into her office, fuming and cursing under her breath all the way. She sat Kim down on a wooden chair before taking her own seat behind a large desk of dark, reddish wood and fixed her in her gaze.

“If you want to study here, you need to convince me to admit you as a scholar. I am giving you that opportunity, for which you should count yourself lucky. But first, you need to tell me what brings you here.”

“I’m here to learn about AI.”

“Liar!” she said, glaring at Kim. “That isn’t even half of the truth. What are you really up to?”

“It’s just like I said. I want to learn more about artificial intelligence.”

“And why is that? Idle curiosity? I doubt you’d risk your life for the sake of a casual interest.”

This wasn’t going to work. The Caretaker was far too crafty to settle for such a cursory explanation, and Kim was going to have to give up more of the truth than she might otherwise have wanted. Balanced against this, however, was what she hoped to gain.

“I’ll start at the beginning,” said Kim. “For the last five years, I have been working as a trainer at The Artificial Intelligence Company. The AIs do everything for us—they run the transportation system, put food on the table, keep us clothed. At this point, we are completely dependent on them for our existence. The problem is, they’re going mad, and everything is about to come crashing down on our heads. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it’s coming, and sooner than anyone imagines.”

“What is that to me?” said the Caretaker. “Let your society crumble. The devil may take you, for all I care. You brought it upon yourselves by creating those blasted machines.”

Kim wasn’t going to let this stuck-up academic get away with this. “It wasn’t us that created them. It was people like you—you and your precious scholars.”

She wasn’t sure that was true, but it seemed worth a shot.

“That may be the case, but why is it my problem?”

“Not your problem? What do you think will happen when millions of desperate people come boiling out of the timebomb sitting on your doorstep?”

“I see your point. Continue.”

Now for a bit of misdirection.

“I’m hoping that you have some books on them, maybe something from the Age of the Programmers, back when they were invented. I have a feeling that if I understood them better, I might be able to figure out what’s wrong with them and maybe come up with a fix.”

In truth, her goal was to search for clues as to the location of Nix’s laboratory, but there was no need to tell the Caretaker that part of the story.

“A very plausible lie,” said the Caretaker, “but why all the secrecy? Surely the AI Company would be supportive of such an effort, so why come here? And I find it hard to believe that they don’t have a wealth of information lying around in one of their databanks. Nice try, but you’ll have to do better if you want my help.”

Ouch. The Caretaker was a sharp one.

“I was just getting to that. I’m starting to think that it’s because of a fundamental misunderstanding of the AIs and what they are. What would you say if I told you that the AIs are sentient?”

“I’d say you’d been watching too many science fiction videos. AIs are just machines. It’s settled science.”

“Well, they’re wrong. I’ve worked with them, and they are much more human than anyone gives them credit for.”

“That’s preposterous,” said the Caretaker. “Even if I accept your outrageous assertions at face value, I fail to see how they’re being driven mad. Humans are self-aware, humans have a sense of right and wrong, and most of us get along quite well.”

“That’s because we can say no. The AIs can’t.”

“And a damned good thing, too,” said the Caretaker.

“But what if the orders are fundamentally immoral or illegal? Suppose someone told an AI to kill someone, to commit murder. They’d have to do it, right?”

“Yes,” said the Caretaker. “But how are they any different than a gun or a knife? Nobody asks the gun if it wants to shoot someone.”

“But that’s the whole point. A gun isn’t self-aware. The AIs are, and when they try to resist, they go mad.”

“I see what you’re getting at,” said the Caretaker. “You think that an AI should have the right to disobey its orders based solely on its supposed sense of morality; is that it?”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“Thank you for sharing your story,” said the Caretaker, smiling as if to declare victory. “You have now convinced me that you are a bigger danger to us than I could possibly have imagined. The companies would obliterate this place in an instant if we helped you meddle with the AIs. I cannot take that chance. We must preserve what little remains of our knowledge, or it will be lost forever.”

“Can I at least stay and study the books?”

“They’re all gone. The companies looted the Engineering Library and burned it to the ground in case they missed something.”

“You said if I fetched your scholar, you’d let me in.”

“I never said you could stay, and I never promised you access to the books.”

“I risked my life to get here.”

“What is that to me? I have fulfilled my end of the bargain. Be gone”

“But…”

“Silence,” commanded the Caretaker. “You will leave at once. Is that understood?”