Rebel in the Library of Ever

by Zeno Alexander

  “Uh-oh,” said Lenora to Rosa. “I think we might have changed history.” She was worried now, for in books, changing history was almost never good.

  “Do not fear,” replied Rosa. “We all change history with everything we do. This is why we should consider our actions carefully, as each one will affect the future to come. Should we join Lucy?”

  For Lucy had gone straight to the table, next to a puzzled-looking librarian who was peering down at the assorted fragments, his chin in his hand, deep in thought. So deep that he had completely failed to notice two girls and an alien who had popped out of nowhere—or had they? Lenora was not sure how history changes worked exactly. But she was sure now that the objects on the table had been in the same box that Lucy had lost in the sea.

  Giving up (for the moment) on figuring out how history changing worked, Lenora went over to the table, Rosa beside her. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said to Cosmo (for that was the name on the librarian’s badge).

  Cosmo flinched and, looking up, suddenly noticed Lenora and the others. “Oh!” he said. “My apologies. I have been studying the Antikythera mechanism so intently that I frequently fail to notice things around me.”

  “That’s all right,” said Lenora. “So what exactly is this … Anti-kith-uh…”

  “An-tee-KITH-ur-uh,” said Cosmo. “It is a small Greek island, near which this ancient mechanism was discovered, all broken up into pieces at the bottom of the Aegean Sea. It is estimated to have been lost to the waters around 100 BC.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Lucy.

  “So what does it do?” asked Lenora hurriedly.

  Giving Lucy a strange look, Cosmo continued, “Well, if it were ever to be assembled, one could use it to predict the movements of many astronomical objects and events, such as the sun, and phases of the moon, and perhaps even the locations of planets.”

  “Perhaps?” said Lenora.

  “Yes,” sighed Cosmo. “You see, we’ve never been quite sure, because we’d never found all the pieces. As the world’s first known mechanical computer, however, the mechanism is of great interest. Knowledge of how to create such an intricate machine was lost in antiquity and not rediscovered until the fourteenth century. And so I was sent on a Library expedition to find the missing bits, like the crank that operates the entire thing. The expedition was successful, but now that I’ve got all the pieces collected and cleaned and patched up, I have no idea how they all fit together. It’s a mystery that I fear we may never—”

  “Like this,” said Lucy.

  Everyone turned toward the girl. Everyone, even Rosa, gasped in astonishment.

  For sitting in front of Lucy was the reassembled mechanism, gears whirling and dials spinning as Lucy turned its crank.

  “Lucy!” Lenora cheered.

  “What?” yelped Cosmo. “But … you … how?!”

  Lucy shrugged. “It’s no big deal. It’s not like I haven’t seen it befo—”

  “Still,” interrupted Lenora. “I can’t believe you just put it all together like that!”

  “Amazing indeed,” said Rosa.

  Lucy shrugged again. “Nah. I like taking stuff apart and putting it back together. That’s how I fixed my toaster. And once I took Daddy’s watch apart and put it back together. It didn’t work after that, though. I guess it was pretty expensive, because he—”

  “Marvelous!” cried Cosmo. “Simply incredible. You are a regular Ada L—”

  Lucy stopped cranking. And she gave Cosmo a look as cold as the waters of the ancient Aegean Sea, freezing him mid-word. “What. Did. You. Say?”

  Cosmo faltered. “I … I was only going to say you remind me of Ada—”

  “HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?” shouted Lucy.

  Everything went silent as Lucy’s shout echoed around the room.

  Finally, Lenora spoke. “That’s your real name?” she asked gently. “Why do you hate it? I think it’s beautiful.”

  Lucy softened. “I’m sorry,” she said to Cosmo. “I just really hate that name. It’s boring and dull and I don’t want to be boring and dull. I want to be special and amazing, like Lenora.”

  “Oh dear,” said Lenora.

  “But it’s not boring and dull at all,” said Rosa. “I believe Cosmo meant to compare you to Ada Lovelace.”

  Cosmo nodded.

  “Who’s that?” asked Lucy skeptically.

  “She was a young human who is quite the legend on my planet and yours,” replied Rosa. “She wrote humanity’s first published computer program in Earth year 1843, before a computer that could run it had even been created. And she was the first human to recognize all the things computers might someday do besides just calculating numbers. As you just reassembled your world’s oldest computer at not much more than a glance, I can see why Cosmo might think of her.”

  Lucy looked around at all of them. “Really?” she said softly, her voice breaking. “I make you think of someone like that?”

  “Quite,” said Rosa.

  “Certainly,” said Cosmo.

  “Why not?” asked Lenora with a smile.

  Lucy sniffled and wiped her arm across her nose. “Thanks. It’s just—I mean, Daddy tells me how great I am all the time, but I don’t think he really pays much attention to anything I actually do. And I’ve never had any real friends. Just the people Daddy calls our servants.”

  “Well,” said Lenora, “you have lots of friends now. And now that you know how cool your name is … do you still want us to call you Lucy?”

  Now it was Lucy/Ada’s turn to put her chin on her hand and think. She thought and thought, and then she spoke. “I want to be Ada,” she said, her voice full of wonder. “I’m Ada!”

  Cosmo and Rosa cheered as Lenora patted her friend on the arm. “Ada it is,” she said. “Now, we must continue on. Rosa, I don’t suppose our history change … changed anything else, did it?”

  Rosa was silent for a moment, lights flashing on and off all over its helmet. “No,” it said at last. “The Library at large is just as it was.”

  Lenora sighed and beckoned Cosmo down so she could whisper. “Do you have any idea where we can find Zenodotus?”

  Cosmo, seeming to understand, whispered back. “No. I have only heard stories about him. He is described as a powerhouse of courage, with green eyes and a pair of old spectacles, always fighting for the Library against its enemies. Which is quite extraordinary, considering how the Library of Alexandria was ruined when Marc Antony gave away all its manuscripts to Cleopatra. Or so I’ve heard.”

  Lenora sighed again. She did not even bother writing this latest tale down in her notebook. “Now that the Antikythera mechanism has been assembled,” she whispered, “I suggest you find Milton Sirotta in Googology. He’ll tell you more when you get there.”

  Cosmo straightened and nodded. “Thank you, Lenora,” he said, and rushed out of the room.

  And then it hit her. Something Rosa had said earlier … Hoping against hope, Lenora asked with a tremor, “Rosa—you said you can locate anyone once you have their image. Can you find a man named Zenodotus?” Quickly, she described what she knew about him to Rosa, about his distinctive mustache and blue robe, and his energy and vigor and strength and green eyes and old spectacles.

  Rosa touched device to helmet, which lit up instantly. “Yes. I have located him.”

  Lenora almost fell to the floor. “Where is he? Can you send us to him?”

  “Yes. Though…” Rosa hesitated. “He has changed somehow. He is not quite as he was described. I’m unable to tell you more.”

  Lenora nodded. “We’ll figure it out when we get there. Let’s go!”

  “I will teleport you there,” replied Rosa. “But I am afraid I cannot come with you. For now that I have my notes, I must meet my ship. It is time for me to go home.”

  Lenora nodded again. “I understand,” she said. “But just in case anything goes wrong…” And she whispered to Rosa about Milton Sirotta and Googology.

&nbs
p; “Thank you,” said Rosa. “I will remember.”

  “Thank you!” said Lenora. “Good luck with your book, and do send me a copy!”

  “I will,” said Rosa. And the alien pointed yet another device at Lenora and Lucy, or rather Ada.

  The girls vanished.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Lenora’s Light

  Something was wrong. Rosa had said it would teleport Lenora and Ada to meet Zenodotus at last. But instead of standing before the dashing and courageous librarian, they were standing in one of the offices Lenora had seen when she’d first arrived. And it was completely empty, with no desk, shelves, or windows. Lenora immediately tried the door.

  It was locked.

  From behind them came a popping sound, and a cough. The girls whipped around.

  A startling sight met them. It was a young girl, younger than Ada even, and she was dressed in a long purple raincoat. In her hand she held a device with a single button, which she was pressing firmly. Lenora’s arms prickled with goose bumps, as had happened with the woman in the red raincoat and the man in the green. She knew it could be no coincidence, but she hadn’t time to think on it further, as the girl crept closer and spoke.

  “Little Lenora,” the girl chuckled, in a voice that suggested a much older being. “I sensed some sort of teleportation involving you, and I have interrupted it in order to bring you wonderful news.”

  Lenora’s heart began to pound. Whatever this news was, she was certain it was anything but wonderful.

  “Now wait just a minute,” announced Ada. “What are you, seven years old? We need to find your parents!”

  The girl ignored her, staring directly at Lenora. “The resistance of the Assistant Answerer—that Malachi woman—has been discovered. And so—we ate her. The soul of such a being was most delicious.”

  “No,” whispered Lenora in horror. This couldn’t be. Malachi devoured? Then everything was lost.

  “Malachi?” said Ada skeptically. “That ten-foot-tall woman? No way you could devour her, whatever that means.”

  “No, it’s true,” Lenora continued in a whisper. “I can feel it. She’s gone.”

  The girl in the raincoat continued, “And the Director has finally fired the last of the librarians, including you.”

  “What?!” shouted Ada. “Daddy wouldn’t fire Lenora!”

  The girl ignored her.

  Lenora knew it was true. She could feel it. She was no longer a librarian. She had no right to be here any longer.

  The girl reached out her hand. “Now, come with me. You must be … escorted … from the premises.”

  “Don’t do it!” seethed Ada. “I’ll talk to Daddy. None of this is true!”

  Lenora reached out to take the girl’s hand. It was time, she knew, to leave.

  “No!” shouted Ada, and swatted the girl’s hand away. The girl dropped the device, which went clattering across the floor, and she leapt after it with a scream, and—

  The girl and the office and everything else vanished.

  Now Ada and Lenora were no longer standing in an ugly, neon-lit office. Instead, they found themselves in a vast and dimly lit room. The only light came from torches flickering weakly along the walls. The tall double doors behind them were padlocked, and the view down the length of the room was obscured by the darkness and by the many tall columns holding up the ceiling high above. Along the walls were alcoves stuffed with scrolls, and around the floor were scattered many old, dusty objects, like shields and small carved animals and old paintings. The whole place felt like an abandoned museum, but of course Lenora knew it was not abandoned. Someone must be keeping the torches lit.

  “What happened back there?” whispered Ada. This felt like a place where one must whisper.

  “I don’t know,” said Lenora quietly. “But thank you. I can see now that those were lies. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell at the time.”

  Ada nodded. “I’m just glad we’re out of there. That kid gave me the creeps. So where do we go now?”

  “Forward,” Lenora whispered. “There’s nowhere else to go.”

  The two girls walked, their footsteps echoing around and around. Soon they could make out a little bubble of light at the far end of the room, and as they drew closer they saw a man sitting at a desk piled with papers that seemed dangerously close to several lit candles. He was wearing a blue robe and was slumped forward with his face in his hands. Beside him was an inkpot with a feathery quill dipped inside.

  “Zenodotus?” said Lenora cautiously.

  The man threw himself back in his chair, wide-eyed with alarm, and the girls recoiled.

  “What?” he cried. “How? How did you get in here?” Then he collapsed back in his chair, one hand over his heart.

  Lenora looked him over. He had a shock of brown hair that curled into a sharp tip, ancient spectacles on the end of his nose, and, of course, an elaborate mustache that curled at both ends.

  “We were transferred here,” Lenora explained, “by an alien archeologist from Zarmina’s World in the Gliese 581 star system.”

  “Of course,” mused the man, who seemed to be recovering. “I should have thought of that. But how do you know who I am? And why did you come here?”

  Lenora hesitated, looking all around.

  “Do not worry,” said Zenodotus. “There are no listening devices here. The Forces of Darkness do not know of this place, and even if they did, they stopped bothering with me some time ago.”

  “Malachi told me to find you,” said Lenora. “I don’t know why. But it must have something to do with the Library being taken over by the Forces.”

  “Malachi,” sighed Zenodotus. “I told her I did not wish to be found ever again.”

  “But why? Don’t you want to help take the Library back?”

  “Lenora, the Library is being lost because of me. For thousands of years, the Library has been overseen by the Board, a body of three of the wisest and most honorable of all librarians. The membership changed from time to time, and it was my job to ensure the Board’s sanctity as it changed. But I failed.”

  “Something happened?” ventured Lenora.

  “Yes. I was not able to see through the deceptions of the newest members. They appeared to me as clever, and cautious, and strong, and I was easily fooled. And so it is I who have brought us nearly to destruction.”

  “But how?” asked Lenora. “What changed for you?”

  Ada leaned toward Lenora, whispering with the side of her hand covering her mouth. “He said he’s, like, thousands of years old. Maybe he’s, y’know, losing it.”

  “Shush!” said Lenora.

  Ada shushed.

  “I have suffered many defeats, children,” Zenodotus replied, his voice shaking. “Too many to count. I lost at the great Library of Alexandria, and I lost at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. And so many more—the Library of Banu Ammar, and Madrassah, and the Maya codices, and the libraries of the Kings of Burma…” He faltered, placing his hand over his face. “For a long time I was able to maintain the same spirit Malachi still possesses, a spirit that I see you possess as well. But then the defeats overwhelmed me, and I lost that most precious and wonderful thing. I lost it so gradually I did not realize it was leaving me. And during this time, this distracted and heart-wrenching time, the Board was infiltrated by the Forces, and I did not see it. And thus my defeat was final.”

  Lenora and Ada were silent for a long moment.

  “Maybe if you cleaned up around here,” started Ada, until Lenora silenced her with a venomous look.

  Then Lenora spoke. “Knowledge Is a Light. Don’t you remember this?”

  Zenodotus nodded. “I do. But the light is no longer within me.”

  “How can that be?” Lenora cried. The light was in her, she knew, and she could not imagine the horror of losing it. Surely such a thing was impossible. “You must have it, somewhere. Something must be left!”

  Zenodotus shook his head. “I wish it were. But I am lost, yo
ung ones. Lost to time, lost to the fight.”

  Lenora closed her eyes. She thought back to the battle she and Malachi had fought against the hideous monstrosity in the History of Science section. The battle during which she had glowed. She thought of her terror in the face of the woman in the red raincoat, and how she herself had glowed (she was sure of it now) when she had remembered Malachi’s words. When she opened her eyes again, she was indeed glowing once more, and more strongly than before.

  Ada spoke up. “Lenora, I hate to tell you, but you’re uh … glowing. Is that bad, or…?”

  Lenora smiled at Ada. “No, it is not bad at all. Quite the opposite.” She reached out her hands to Zenodotus. “Take some of mine, Zenodotus. I will give you strength.”

  Zenodotus’s eyes began to water. “I don’t know if I can.”

  Lenora leaned over his desk, reaching for his hands. “Try.”

  Zenodotus closed his eyes and took Lenora’s hands.

  “Knowledge Is a Light, Zenodotus,” whispered Lenora, her glow brightening. “Throughout history, that light has at times burned very dimly, and nearly even gone out, as it has for you, while in other times it has blazed up gloriously, as it will for you once more.”

  Her words echoed, again and again, growing stronger with each bounce off every wall and ceiling, until it was Lenora’s voice, repeating again and again, with the commanding force of a thousand Lenoras, the words: KNOWLEDGE IS A LIGHT!

  Zenodotus leapt from his seat, releasing Lenora’s hands, gazing at her in amazement as tears streamed down his cheeks. And she could see, coming from him, the faintest glow.

  The man looked at his hands. “How?” he asked. “I didn’t think … I never knew…”

  Ada, backed up against a nearby column, yelped. “Wow. Lenora, you’ve got, like, magic powers and stuff! Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Lenora stumbled back, suddenly weary, and plopped down onto the floor. She was no longer glowing, but she could still feel that strength inside her. She locked eyes with Zenodotus. “Can you help us now?”