Bookburners

by Max Gladstone

  Menchú looked down at Grace’s unmoving body.

  He reached forward, and touched the shell.

  The world cracked open, and Father Arturo Menchú dove through.

  • • •

  Even before the world resolved around him, Menchú knew what he would see.

  He was standing on the steps of a church in a tiny village in Guatemala. At his feet lay the oracle bone. Before him, he could see Sal and Liam in the crowd of residents gathering in the town square amid the remains of a massacre between government and rebel forces.

  He caught a movement in the corner of his eye and saw Grace climbing to her feet, alive and whole. His chest flooded with relief, and Menchú nearly choked on the sense memory that came with it.

  It was what he had felt at this moment when he had lived it. When it seemed as though he had done a good thing. When he thought that he had at least managed to save the innocent from senseless slaughter. In those few heartbeats before …

  Menchú forced himself to look away from Grace. To look in front of him, and slightly down, because the boy had been so small.

  There he was, his eyes shining silver-white, and smiling.

  “Hello, Arturo,” the boy said.

  And then he changed. In a burst of light and the sound of wings, the boy vanished, replaced by Hannah, with her same pale eyes, just as she had looked when she posed as a real-estate agent in San Lupino. The smile was as chilling on her as it had been on the boy.

  Grace drew a sharp breath. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Hannah’s smile morphed into a pout. “Arturo, I’m hurt,” she said. “Didn’t you tell the others about me?”

  4.

  When Asanti landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Perry was waiting at baggage claim with a limo sign reading Gale and a crook-handled black umbrella hanging over one arm.

  “Gale?” asked Asanti as she allowed Perry to take her bag and escort her to the parking garage where she trusted something less obtrusive than a limo would be waiting. “And how did you get here so quickly?”

  “Gale is an excellent name for women of power,” said Perry, “and magic.”

  Asanti sighed. “One of the many reasons the Society’s rejection of magic is so short-sighted: Time is of the essence and I just got off a fourteen-hour flight.” She decided it was probably safe to ignore his answer to her first question. Asanti wasn’t sure whether this was an instance of Aaron’s sometimes idiosyncratic understanding of humanity or Perry’s even more eclectic personal suite of references leaking through, but as intriguing as untangling the two usually was, they were on a clock. Fortunately, both halves of Perry’s mind were proficient drivers.

  As they headed into the city, he gave Asanti the brief. “I’ve been at the hotel where the accelerator is sited since I got here. No sign of Sal or the rest of Team Three, or this Tom person, or the oracle bones, but there’s definitely something mystical happening on the eighth floor.”

  “Have you seen Team One?”

  “Shah’s on the ground, along with a couple of her people.”

  “Have they seen you?”

  “I don’t think so.” When Asanti did not immediately respond to this, he added, “So what do we do now?”

  Asanti frowned. There was plenty she would like to do. Unfortunately, Team One sniffing around made the situation more complex. The last thing she needed was to have Shah come bashing down her door because she thought Asanti was in league with Tom and his people. At last Asanti said, “Fox was very explicit that I am still not cleared for fieldwork. I am here to observe and report only.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Perry.

  “It means I will observe,” said Asanti. And then, she would consider making a report.

  • • •

  Neither Mark nor Amber paid the slightest attention to the African woman and her younger companion sitting on one of the lobby sofas, engrossed in The New York Times crossword. After all, they were on the other side of a row of potted ficus plants. Mark and Amber were also distracted by the fact that they had a meeting with a VC in less than an hour, their app was crashing, and one of their team members had gone missing.

  “I’m telling you,” hissed Amber, “the problem isn’t the code. It’s never been the code. It’s whatever Tom did when he locked himself in his room after he got back from that trip to China.”

  Mark made a dismissive noise. “Tom is the one who fixed it. The code wouldn’t even run before that. Did you fuck with something that he did? I keep telling you, we don’t need the code pretty, we just need it to work well enough to get our seed funding. Make it look like it’s working and then make it actually work later.”

  “You are such a slimeball.”

  “It’s what Steve Jobs would do.”

  “Proving my point.” Amber tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I didn’t touch what Tom did. I couldn’t if I tried.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t know what he did. He didn’t change my code.”

  “What? But the app wasn’t working, and then it was.”

  “I know. And I wanted to know why, so I checked. He didn’t do anything to my work. What did he tell you he was doing?”

  “He said it was technical. That he had been through all the details with you and that I didn’t need to worry about it.”

  “And pressing for more details would have cut in on your time with the press, so you let it go at that.”

  “I am the CEO and face of this company. Talking to the press is my job—”

  “Running this company is your job. And you let Tom do something to our core product that you don’t even understand. And now the app isn’t working, Tom is missing, and we’re left holding the bag.”

  “Tom’s not missing,” said Mark, sounding only a little defensive.

  “He’s been locked in the suite for more than twenty-four hours. He won’t come out; he’s not online; he’s not answering his phone or texts, and I checked the room charges—he hasn’t ordered room service. Are you sure he’s even in there?”

  There was a pause. “Shit,” said Mark, so far under his breath it was barely there.

  “No kidding. I told you—”

  “No, our meeting just walked in.”

  “Shit.”

  “Go back to the suite. Either get Tom out of there, or get the demo mode working again. I’ve got to be able to show her something.”

  “I’m supposed to be in this meeting. You keep cutting me out—”

  “This meeting is supposed to have a working product. Do you want to explain in person why your beautiful code randomly stops running for reasons you don’t understand?” A pause. “I didn’t think so. Now go on, I’m not going to throw you under the bus, I promise.”

  A scoff from Amber. “I’ll stay for the introductions, then excuse myself. Maybe she’ll think we have another investor.”

  “Fine. Am I too shiny?”

  “You can’t borrow my powder again. She’s spotted us.”

  “Never should have let you talk me into shaving my head.”

  “You could always go back to the toupee.”

  “Shut up.”

  There was a rustling as Mark stood and waved to the woman approaching them from the hotel elevators. “Ms. Shahzad,” he called. “So glad you could take the time to meet with us.”

  Unnoticed by Mark, Amber, or their new companion—a slender Persian woman with hard eyes and strong handshake—the pair on the other side of the ficus screen quietly abandoned their crossword and slipped away.

  • • •

  Amber approached the door that led to the two-bedroom suite that Mark had managed to procure using a combination of AmEx points, flattery, and possibly sexual favors to the girl behind the desk. She had assumed that as the only woman on the team, at least she could get the perk of a room to herself, but Mark had decided that one bedroom would be for work, the other w
ould be for meetings, and that they “weren’t at an accelerator to sleep.” It was the kind of bullshit unilateral decision that Mark tended to bust out with, which was both his most endearing and most annoying quality. In the last twenty-four hours, however, the split had become: one room for Tom to mysteriously blockade himself into … and the other room for Tom to mysteriously blockade himself into.

  Amber tried her key first. It hadn’t worked before, but she’d feel really stupid if she made a scene banging on the door and it turned out not to be locked.

  Nothing.

  Amber put her mouth next to the jamb. “Tom. It’s Amber. Open the door. Right now.” No response. Amber tried pounding again. Nothing. “Tom. I mean it. If you think I won’t get a SWAT team to take down this door for me, you are so wrong.”

  Nothing.

  God, she really didn’t want a SWAT team breaking down the door to a hotel room where she still had her computer, even if it was just her backup. On the other hand, she also didn’t want to have to move in with her sister, her brother-in-law, and their four children under the age of five. Ever again.

  “Excuse me,” said a low voice behind her. Amber jumped. The voice belonged to a black woman, her dreadlocks flecked with gray. Tucked under one arm, she carried a copy of The New York Times crossword. “Are these your rooms?”

  “What?”

  “I just wanted to confirm. This is the suite where the team for Polly Mnemonic is staying?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Thank you. And I apologize.”

  “For what?” asked Amber, but the question had hardly left her throat when she felt a light touch at the back of her neck, a surge of warmth, and everything went abruptly very light and cozy.

  • • •

  Perry caught Amber’s unconscious body and eased her to the floor. “I told you these were their rooms,” he said. “And now she’s seen your face.”

  Asanti gave Perry a look. “Is she going to remember any of this when she wakes up?”

  If an angel could be said to pout, Perry pouted.

  “Not impressive,” said Asanti. “I have grandchildren. Now let’s get through this door while the other one is so conveniently keeping Shah distracted.”

  • • •

  In the central square of a Guatemalan village, Grace stepped forward and very calmly socked Hannah in the face. Not the reaction Liam had been expecting. Okay, the reaction wasn’t surprising, but he had expected Menchú to throw the first punch.

  Instead, Menchú grabbed Grace’s trailing arm and yanked her away from the demon, placing himself between them before Grace could follow up her attack or Hannah could retaliate.

  Hannah dabbed one hand at her lip, wiped a drop of blood that welled there, and examined her fingers with amusement. “No one’s ever done that before,” she said. “Interesting.” Grace, for her part, had turned her anger toward Menchú.

  “You know her?!”

  “She is the thing that destroyed this place. She had a different form then.”

  “I’m also the one who helped you with your little werewolf problem in Spain.”

  “Be quiet!” Menchú hissed.

  Grace was uncowed. “She is also the one I encountered inside the hydra. You read my report. Why didn’t you tell me it was her?”

  “You weren’t on the team,” Menchú said.

  “I was.” Sal’s voice was very low, almost too quiet to hear, but each word struck home. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or Liam? Did you even let Asanti know?”

  Menchú shook his head, mute.

  “The thing that caused the greatest trauma of your life is back and you never mentioned it to the rest of us? What the hell?!”

  “You never told us about the shootout in the warehouse,” said Menchú.

  “It never came up. If I were being stalked by Russian mobsters, you better believe I would have said something.”

  “I wanted to protect you,” Menchú said.

  “By keeping secrets? Forget the threat that she represents to the world,” said Sal, gesturing to Hannah. “How can we support you if we don’t know what’s wrong?”

  “It’s my job to take care of you. I’m the leader of this team. It’s my responsibility—”

  Liam was about to interrupt, to tell Menchú the truth, that it wasn’t his responsibility. But Hannah beat him to it.

  “Spare me. I did not compromise the experiment so that you could spend decades wallowing in self-pity and despair. If you’re still not over this”—Hannah gestured to the bodies lying in the streets around them and the villagers, standing as if frozen in time—“how are you going to handle what’s coming next? Surrender? Capitulation? Prayer?” The disdain on the last word was palpable. “You have a job to do. Now get your head out of your ass and do it. All of you.”

  Menchú growled. “And what exactly is our job? Jumping at your beck and call? Serving your agenda?”

  Hannah laughed. “You don’t understand anything.”

  “Why don’t you explain it, then?” said Sal. “Starting with what the hell you mean by ‘experiment.’”

  “Ask me a question that matters and perhaps I will.”

  Liam stepped forward. Because he needed to know. “Is this all you? Did you make this trap for us?”

  Hannah turned to Liam, smirk back in place. “Better. And no. This little maze is the work of your old friend. But his choice of … milieu … gave me a way to slip inside and see how you were doing.”

  “Can you get us out?”

  “No.”

  Liam put his hand forward. “Then give it over.”

  Hannah bristled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The oracle bone. There’s only one place in this memory that it can possibly be, and that’s with you, or the boy, or whatever you are. So stop fucking around and give it to me.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want to stay here and see what happens next? It’s impressive. Might help you all get your heads on straight for once.”

  “We know Menchú’s story. What you show us can’t be worse that what he’s described or we’ve imagined.”

  “You really think that’s the way this works?”

  Menchú reached out to touch Liam’s shoulder. “Liam, don’t let her goad you into this.”

  Liam sighed. Gestured to his wounded leg, now accompanied by wax burns in the shape of claw marks along one arm. “I don’t know if you noticed, but everyone’s worst memories seem to have it out for me. This is Tom’s trap and we’re not getting out of it without going into my head.” He turned to Hannah. “Now give me the damned thing so we can get this over with and keep a bunch of tech idiots from destroying a lot of people’s minds.”

  Hannah quirked a smile.

  The woman was a small boy again, the oracle bone in his hand. The expression hadn’t changed. Neither had the voice. “As you wish.”

  Liam took the bone.

  The world cracked open.

  5.

  Liam was falling, spinning …

  No, he wasn’t. He was in the center of the dance floor of a Swedish discotheque. The lights spun; the room throbbed. Bodies surged, ebbed and flowed around him. But Liam was completely still.

  He knew the faces in the crowd.

  He could see Menchú, Sal, and Grace. They were already threading through the packed floor, trying to reach him.

  He knew without looking that Imogen was in the booth, fucking the DJ and not missing a beat. Stuart and Clive were at the bar, doing body shots off each other and drawing a crowd. Christina was in the VIP section, every man and woman in the place already wrapped around her slender fingers.

  Sal fought her way to Liam’s side. She had to nearly scream in his ear to be heard over the pounding music. “What is this place? What’s going to happen?” she asked.

  “It already has,” he shouted back. “This was the first consilience.”

  Sal’s face went pale. “Why the hell do I know what that word means?”

  “Becaus
e it’s working.”

  Everything had come to a climax in Prague, but before that had been Sweden: the test run to combine minds and machines. They had chosen the discotheque specifically. The music had a side effect of tending to synchronize the brainwaves of everyone listening. That most of those people were high on mind-altering and -opening substances was another plus. When the goal was to test technology that would meld a human mind with the sum of all human knowledge, to erase the boundaries between self and other, a few hits of LSD wasn’t a bad place to start.

  But also, and mostly, the location had been selected because the club was a death trap, an underground gathering with too many people and too few exits. If it all went horribly wrong, no one would ask many questions about a disaster that happened in a place that was a disaster waiting to happen.

  Of course, what went horribly wrong was that everything had worked perfectly.

  The test had been a flaming success. For a night, an entire crowd of people had moved, breathed, and thought as one. It had been everything Liam could have hoped for. Less than a month later, he’d been on a train to Prague, where Menchú had eventually found him slaved to a computer and half dead from exposure to more than the human mind was meant to encompass.

  Liam waited for the shock and horror to register as the others realized the depths of his shame. For them to know that the worst moments of their lives had involved the death of friends, coworkers, an entire village. His lowest point had been a fucking party. Sure, half of the people in this room were going to be dead or insane within a year. But they were most of them strangers. Liam had been unscathed by his reckless experimentation. Even nearly dying at the hands of a demon he had willingly allowed himself to be possessed by had ended in nothing worse than a few years of amnesia and a new job. Why the fuck was he allowed to roam free? What made him any more worthy than Stu and Clive, who had electrocuted themselves trying to recapture the high of this night on a rooftop in a lightning storm?

  The room throbbed. Liam was shaking. No, someone was shaking him. Sal.