The Young World Page 8

  Me (on the walkie): “Jefferson?” Maybe he followed us down. There’s no reply.

  My heart breaks into a sprint. I taste copper.

  Something black flashes in front of me, between two stacks. It’s moving too quickly to tell what it is.

  Me: “Who are you? Next thing I see, I shoot it!”

  Something metallic clatters to the ground in front of us. A cylinder that gives off a little pop.

  We’re backing away when it blows up—and my goggles go off the chart, flooding my eyes with light.

  I tear them off, but it’s too late—my whole field of vision is one big green afterimage. I shout to Peter, but I can’t hear anything; I can only feel the cold rasp of the air running over my vocal cords.

  I’m deaf and blind.

  Something grabs my carbine, and I kick and hit flesh and bone. Someone else has an arm around my neck. I’m hit in the back of the knee and bent to the ground. It feels like five, maybe six, hands on me, pressing my face into the floor, bending my arms behind my back. I scream and bite until a musty cloth sack is pulled over my head. And then I’m raised off the floor. When I struggle, I’m hit in the stomach with something hard. It hurts like hell, and I stop kicking.

  I can’t hear anything but a buzzing in my ears, I can’t see anything, and I don’t know which way is up or where I am as I’m carried along.

  Okay. Be rational. It was probably an M84 stun grenade. I’ve got some kind of zip tie around my wrists—I felt the plastic teeth gritting when they tightened it. It’s strong as hell. Trying to break it only makes it cut into my skin.

  Maybe the Uptowners followed us in—but it doesn’t make sense. The place was pitch-dark, and we were completely surprised. No, it was somebody prepared and well stocked. That probably means they knew the terrain, which means…

  Somebody lives here.

  The library is haunted.

  That’s why the place is so clean. It’s inhabited.

  I’m carried up the stairs—I count by the turning, eight landings or four floors—then some jogs right and left, then a long corridor, then another left. Then I feel a thin breeze, and I think I am outside.

  I’m lowered into a wooden chair.

  My hood is whipped off—and I can see again.

  We’re back in the reading room. Peter is sitting on my left, trussed up like me.

  I read his lips as he shouts, “Can you hear?” I shake my head.

  On my right—thank God—is Jefferson, also bound up to a chair with yellow nylon ropes. Our weapons and our packs are nowhere to be seen.

  We’re being observed—that’s the word for it—by twenty or so pasty-faced types in bulky clothing. It makes me realize that the library, with all its big rooms and passageways, is actually kind of chilly compared with the outside. Their heads must be cold, though, because each of them has shaved his or her hair off. Not a very appealing look. In fact, I’d say it’s downright creepy. The home-brew facial tattoos don’t help much, either.

  Jefferson is talking to them, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. My ears are still screwed up.

  Whatever he’s saying, it had better be good.

  CHAPTER 15

  “HI,” I SAY. “My name’s Jefferson. What’s yours?”

  That’s the best that I can think of at the moment. The way I see it, there’s no point being aggressive, given that I’m tied to a chair.

  Peter and Donna seem to be deaf, which would explain the thumping we heard around fifteen minutes ago. Stun grenade.

  Looks like we all got some knocks in. One of the Ghosts is hunched over, nursing his kicked crotch. The guy I hit in the face with my rifle isn’t around as far as I can tell.

  They just stare at us as dusk falls and the light in the high windows turns blue. I’ve asked them who they are, and I’ve asked them what they want, but there’s nothing doing. They just sit there in their rags and wait.

  The markings on their foreheads must mean something. I recognize that they’re Greek letters. I’m trying to remember what they mean. I seek out the guy with the A-shaped mark.

  “Alpha?” I say.

  There’s a silence.

  Finally, “Yes,” he says. It’s the first word any of them has spoken. The others look to him.

  “That’s your name?” I ask.

  “It’s my new name, yes.”

  “What happened to your old name?”

  “Same thing that happened to everything else,” he says. “It’s gone.”

  “Okay… my name is Jefferson. Would I be right in guessing you live here?”

  He nods.

  “So that means we broke into your place. I’m sorry about that. We didn’t know.” I try to sound as sympathetic and reasonable as I can.

  “Now you do,” he says.

  “Yeah. Look,” I say, “we’d be happy to just get on our way. Just give us our stuff back, and we’ll go. We won’t tell anybody about you.”

  Nothing.

  “Why did you come here?” says Alpha.

  “We were looking for some information,” I say.

  At the word information, all of them kind of nod and hum, like it was a magic word.

  “What information?” says Alpha.

  “A medical journal,” I say. “My friend thought it had something to do with What Happened.”

  A girl with a kind of funky-shaped b painted on her forehead—a beta—turns to Alpha and whispers something in his ear. He nods.

  “But didn’t you know the library is haunted?” says Alpha.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I can see what people meant. You guys scared the crap out of us.”

  “In a way,” says Alpha, “it is haunted. You see, this is all that’s left of civilization. This is the biggest repository of information—of wisdom—anywhere in the world. And it’s our job to protect it.”

  “I get it,” I say.

  “I don’t think so,” he says. “What happens if we let you go and you tell everybody that the library is just waiting here for somebody to take it over?”

  I don’t want to know where this train of thought is going. So I just say, “We won’t tell anybody. All we want to do is leave.”

  Beta looks at Alpha, who nods, and then she says, “Was there anyone else with you?” It’s the first time any of them except for Alpha has spoken aloud.

  “Yes,” I say, hoping I’ve made the right decision. “There’s a guy called Brainbox. He’s missing.”

  Alpha nods.

  Now he walks toward me, taking a thin knife from a sheath on his hip.

  He slips behind me.

  “There is one God, and he is Information,” he says.

  I can feel the edge of his knife in my mind. He is going to cut my throat. I can feel the blood soaking my shirt, the air whistling into my neck.…

  He saws away the plastic zip-tie handcuffs, and with a pop, my hands are free.

  CHAPTER 16

  FINALLY MY HEARING COMES BACK, and hoo boy.

  To simplify: The library has been taken over by a bunch of psychos. They’ve started, like, their own religion, because, hey! That’d be fun!

  It seems to have something to do with information, which is their favorite word ever. It’s all information this and information that. Once you get them started, they can’t shut up. They say that even atoms and genes and stuff are information, the way that bits are for a computer. The universe is like a big computer programmed with atoms.

  The further away things get from information, the worse it gets, according to them. Stuff, like bodies and chairs and tables and whatnot, is a big drag to them. Bodies especially. I think they’d rather be ideas floating around like they’re in some kind of sci-fi movie. Creatures of pure energy.

  According to them, the Sickness was some kind of punishment from God because information was being locked up or something.

  It’s a little fuzzy.

  The library is kind of like their holy place, and we’ve violated some taboo by breaking in. Which would
be a bummer, except that somehow Jefferson has managed to convince them that we’re okay. The fact that these nutburgers like him may be the only thing keeping us alive.

  That’s the thing about Jefferson—he doesn’t like confrontation, so he’s really good at getting along. He always wants to seem like a nice guy, with the result that, actually, he does seem like a nice guy.

  Which he is. He is a nice guy. Which is part of the problem.

  I remember once before It Happened, we were doing a little strategy session re: his love life.

  There was this girl Chloe, of the Blond Angelic brand that he always fell for. Blue eyes, wavy hair, nice rack, the works. This kind of chick always made Jefferson all deer-in-the-headlights. He was utterly incapable of discerning any flaws in them.

  The main flaw, in this case, was that she was an idiot.

  We had known her since kindergarten. She was always kind of a priss. Like, she would cry if some dirt got on her patent-leather shoes. Once in first grade we were walking to the park in an orderly line and I kicked a puddle, and she said, “Don’t! The poor people need to drink from that!”

  So, not the brightest bulb.

  Worst of all—big-time princess fixation.

  I have a theory about the Princess Thing. Basically, my theory is that it doesn’t just go away when you realize it’s not cool. Since it can’t stay outside—like, you can’t be thirteen and walk around wearing pink acrylic tutus and carrying a wand anymore (and by the way, I would have no objection to that; if that’s your thing, knock yourself out)—it goes inside.

  It’s not a choice; it’s a syndrome. All that mental energy that went into dressing up like Cinderella at the ball actually takes over some part of your brain. And then, for the rest of your life, you just figure some dude is going to put a crown on your head and sweep you onto a white charger or whatever. All the haters are gonna grovel in the dust and maybe have their eyes pecked out by birds, like in the Grimms’ fairy tales.

  If you’re not all hot and popular, this leads to misery and depression and a sense of how cruel the world is. If you are hot and popular, well—watch out. Trouble ahead.

  Because there is no dude in the world with a Prince Complex. Nobody to fit together all the jigsaw pieces of your weird conception of the world.

  I mean, guys do okay at the beginning. They can, like, take you out somewhere nice, give you flowers, tell you how beautiful you are, blah blah blah. Which—what is that all about? Why do guys have to go through all those hoops? Whatever happened to just getting to know somebody and liking them?

  Anyway, at some point, the act drops. Which is either (a) when they run out of interest, (b) when they get in your pants, or (c) when they realize they’re supposed to keep this up, like, full-time (which often strikes them just after condition (b) has been satisfied).

  Did I say that no guy ever has a Prince Complex? Let me modify that. If there ever was a guy with a Prince Complex, it was Jefferson. I don’t mean that he geeked out on Sleeping Beauty or anything. Just that, unlike anybody else I ever knew, he was totally obsessed with goodness. Like, being honorable, protecting the weak, doing the right thing, etc., etc. Or maybe it’d be better to say he had a Jedi Complex. Like, he saw Star Wars when he was seven years old, and it was all, That’s me. He even has a lightsaber. Well, an ancestral samurai sword. Whatever.

  The problem with all this, the Princess Thing and the Jedi Thing, is that—and I can’t put too fine a point on this—they are fictional. They don’t exist. In real life, there are no evil witches, no wise mentors, no fairy godmothers, no evil empires. Everything is shades of gray.

  Ugh, I can’t believe such a useful phrase got hijacked by those fricking books.

  Anyway, Jefferson, my Friend Who Is a Boy, had already crushed on everything that looked remotely like a Disney heroine all the way through ninth grade. Finally he turned his attention to the big prize, Princess Chloe.

  One day we’re hanging out at Café Orlin, which I loved because the coffee was only meh, so it wasn’t overrun with hipsters.

  Jefferson is all revved up because he took Chloe on a date to the Metropolitan Museum.

  Where to begin? First of all, as previously mentioned, Chloe is a nitwit. I can just imagine her clocking all the art. Like a chicken looking at a newspaper. And you can bet Jefferson was dragging her around to his favorites, blathering on about what they meant to him, how they affected him, working the romantic angle. Like, trying to sex her up with Georgia O’Keeffe paintings. Ugh.

  Jeff wasn’t faking it, either, the classy artsy bit. This kid would actually go to the museum on weekends, on his own. Catch the number six from Astor Place, hoof it to the Met, pay one penny because he objected to the “suggested donation” being so high, and cruise around looking at all the art. I went with him once, but that was enough. It was all so fricking worthy. Like, I get it. The cultural legacy of man and stuff. But I’d just as soon get all hopped up on caffeine and check out the freaks in the East Village.

  “So what happened?” I asked him after the museum date.

  Jefferson: “What do you mean, what happened?”

  Me: “Like, what did you do? How far did you get?”

  Jefferson: “Donna!”

  And he gives me this look. As if to say, How could you possibly think my intentions were carnal!

  Jefferson: “We talked for hours, and there was really a connection.”

  Me: “Okay, give me some notable quotables.”

  Jefferson: “Well, she told me I was the nicest guy she knows.”

  Me: “Oh, boy.”

  Jefferson: “What?”

  Me: “Was that the exact word? Nicest?”

  Jefferson: “I think so.”

  Me: “You’re screwed. By which I mean, you are not getting screwed.”

  Jefferson (annoyed): “What do you mean?”

  Me: “For a girl like Chloe, saying you’re ‘nice’ is code for ‘I will never, ever get it on with you.’ ”

  Jefferson: “Nice is positive.” But he’s already looking a little thrown.

  Me: “Look, you’ve got only one option here, which is the Hail Mary play. You’ve gotta be all, ‘I am not nice. You think I am, but I am definitely not. I am a stealth badass.’ And then you just totally mack out on her. Like, kiss her. And not all gently, either. Grab her.”

  Jefferson: “Uh, I think that’s called assault.”

  Me: “Suit yourself. Probably wouldn’t work anyway. Nice is like a death sentence.”

  Jefferson looked crestfallen.

  Me: “Look. If it’s any consolation, it was all over when you took her to the museum. When you took her on a date. That’s not how people get together. Not since the nineteen fifties or something. You want to get together with somebody, you make sure you’re going to a party they’re going to, get sloppy, and freak on her.”

  Jefferson: “Thanks for the advice.”

  Me: “She’s a moron anyway. You think just because she’s pretty she’s worth the time of day. She isn’t.”

  Jefferson: “She’s more than pretty.”

  Me: “Okay, fine. I would just—direct my attention elsewhere, if I were you.”

  Jefferson: “Like where?” As if there weren’t any other girls in the world.

  And for a moment, I thought of just leaning over the table and kissing him. Like me, you moron. That’s how it would happen if we were in a romantic comedy. Except I’d known him too long. I wasn’t thinking, Kiss me, you fool! I was thinking, Get your head out of your ass!

  He was too… nice for me. Which maybe said something about me. Like, I had my own problems.

  Like, a guy has never told me he loved me before. So maybe I can’t believe it. Jeff kind of threw me with that one. Weirdly, though I should have been all gooey, or at least all sentimental, like, Oh, how sweet, I acted defensive. Like somebody was trying to tell me what to do. I suppose he kind of was. He was trying to tell me to feel the way he did.

  How can I even trust wha
t he’s saying? I mean, he wouldn’t be trying to trick me, but he might trick himself. Kid is a basket case.

  Says the basket case.

  Anyhooters, turns out Jefferson got his big chance with Chloe, after It Happened. She joined our tribe and sort of attached herself to him. I don’t know if she was still the girl he liked. She’d kind of lost it. Wore too much makeup, dressed like a stripper, spoke in this screechy little-girl voice. But Jeff didn’t cut her loose. He was nice. He wanted to protect her, I guess.

  Then, one day, she stole Jefferson’s handgun. Went to the Sephora down on Broadway, what was left of it. Picked out her favorite cosmetics. Gave herself a full-on makeover.

  And blew her brains out.

  Nice.

  This is what I think about while the librarian freaks are taking us back down into the stacks. Weird to be taking a trip down memory lane at that moment, but maybe my mind is protecting itself, cushioning itself in cottony memories.

  Meanwhile, Jeff is being all solicitous, asking questions, acting interested in their effed-up cult. You can tell that they’re feeling kind of flattered. Like, they think they have a potential convert or something. Any moment now, they’re going to give him a free personality test.

  It helps that we’re actually looking for some of their precious information. Like, we didn’t come here to steal their food; we came here In Search of Knowledge. That really floats their boat. So they take us down to a special section in the stacks where the periodicals are kept. Because they may be deranged, but they know their Dewey decimal system.

  When we find Brainbox, he’s just chillin’ with a couple of the Info Loonies. They seem to look up to him, like he’s dazzled them with his Beautiful Mind. There’s a couple of bald girls (I think they’re girls—their freaky costumes don’t exactly flatter them) bringing him boxes of medical journals. While we were getting handcuffed, beaten to the ground, and generally terrorized, Brainbox was being led through the stacks and assisted in his search for Disease Weekly, or whatever it is.

  He looks up, and he’s all, like, “Hey, where have you guys been?”

  By the light of solar-powered lamps, we hunt the information.