“Clark Moffat figured this out,” I tell him. “I have no idea how, but he did. And then I guess he just … decided to play along. Keep the puzzle going.” Until someone found it all waiting in his books.
Penumbra nods. “Clark was brilliant. He was always off on his own, following his intuition wherever it led him.” He pauses, cocks his head, then smiles. “You would have liked him.”
“So you’re not disappointed?”
Penumbra’s eyes go wide. “Disappointed? Impossible. It is not what I expected, but what did I expect? What did any of us expect? I will tell you that I did not expect to know the truth in my lifetime. It is a gift beyond measure, and I am grateful to Griffo Gerritszoon, and to you, my boy.”
Now Deckle approaches. He’s beaming, almost bouncing. “You did it!” he says, clapping me on the shoulders. “You found them! I knew you could — I knew it — but I had no idea how far it would go.” Behind him, the black-robes are all chattering to one another. They look excited. Deckle glances around. “Can I touch them?”
“They’re all yours,” I tell him. I haul the Gerritszoon punches in their cardboard ark out from under a chair in the front row. “You’ll have to officially buy them from Con-U, but I have the forms, and I don’t think—”
Deckle holds up a hand. “Not a problem. Trust me — not a problem.” One of the New York black-robes comes over and the rest all follow. They bend over the box, oohing and aahing like there’s an infant inside.
“So it was you who set him on this path, Edgar?” Penumbra says, arching an eyebrow.
“It occurred to me, sir,” Deckle says, “that I had at my disposal a rare talent.” A pause, a smile, and then: “You do know how to pick the right clerks.” Penumbra snorts and grins at that. Deckle says, “This is a triumph. We’ll make fresh type, reprint some of the old books. Corvina can’t argue with that.”
Penumbra darkens at the mention of the First Reader — his old friend.
“What about him?” I ask. “He — uh. He seemed upset.”
Penumbra’s face is serious. “You must look after him, Edgar. As old as he is, Marcus has little experience with disappointment. For as firm as he seems, he is fragile. I worry about him, Edgar. Truly.”
Deckle nods. “We’ll take care of him. We have to figure out what’s next.”
“Well,” I say, “I’ve got something for you to start with.” I bend down and lift a second cardboard box out from under the chairs. This one is brand-new, and it has fresh plastic tape in a wide X across the top. I tear the tape and fold back the flaps, and inside, the box is full of books: shrink-wrapped bundles of paperbacks packed tight. I poke a hole in the plastic and slide one out. It’s just plain blue and on the front it says MANVTIVS in tall white capitals.
“This is for you,” I say, handing it to Deckle. “A hundred copies of the decoded book. Original Latin. I figured you guys would want to translate it yourselves.”
Penumbra laughs and says to me, “And now you are a publisher as well, my boy?”
“Print on demand, Mr. Penumbra,” I say. “Two bucks each.”
Deckle and his black-robes ferry their treasures — one old box, one new — to their rented van outside. Pygmalion’s gray-haired manager watches cautiously from the café as they sweep out of the store, singing a happy carol in Greek.
Penumbra has a contemplative look on his face. “My only regret,” he says, “is that Marcus will certainly burn my codex vitae. Like the Founder’s, it was a kind of history, and I am sad to see it go.”
Now I get to blow his mind a second time. “When I was down in the library,” I say, “I scanned more than Manutius.” I dig into my pocket, pull out a blue USB drive, and press it into his long fingers. “It’s not as nice as the real thing, but the words are all here.”
Penumbra holds it up high. The plastic glints in the bookstore’s light, and there’s a wondering half smile playing on his lips. “My boy,” he breathes, “you are full of surprises.” Then he arches an eyebrow. “And I could print this for just two dollars?”
“Absolutely.”
Penumbra wraps a thin arm around my shoulders, leans in close, and says quietly, “This city of ours — it has taken me too long to realize it, but we are in the Venice of this world. The Venice.” His eyes widen, then press shut, and he shakes his head. “Just like the Founder himself.”
I’m not sure where he’s going with this.
“What I have finally come to understand,” Penumbra says, “is that we must think like Manutius. Fedorov has money, and so does your friend — the funny one.” We’re looking out across the bookstore together now. “So what do you say we find a patron or two … and start again?”
I can’t believe it.
“I must admit,” Penumbra says, shaking his head, “I am in awe of Griffo Gerritszoon. His achievement is inimitable. But I have more than a little time left, my boy”—he winks—“and there are still so many mysteries to solve. Are you with me?”
Mr. Penumbra. You have no idea.
EPILOGUE
SO WHAT’S GOING to happen after that?
Neel Shah, dungeon master, will succeed in his quest to sell his company to Google. Kat will make a pitch to the PM, and they’ll go for it. They will acquire Anatomix, rebrand it Google Body, and release a new version of the software that anybody can download for free. The boobs will still be the best part.
After that, Neel will finally be rich beyond measure, and he will come into the fullness of his patronage. First, the Neel Shah Foundation for Women in the Arts will get an endowment, an office, and an executive director: Tabitha Trudeau. She will fill the firehouse floor with drawings, paintings, textiles, and tapestries, all the work of female artists, all scavenged from Con-U, and then she will begin to give out grants. Big ones.
Next, Neel will lure Mat Mittelbrand away from ILM, and together they will start a production company that uses pixels, polygons, knives, and glue. Neel will buy the movie rights to The Dragon-Song Chronicles. After the Anatomix acquisition, he will immediately hire Igor back from Google and install him as lead programmer at Half-Blood Studios. He will be planning a trilogy in 3-D. Mat will direct.
Kat will climb the ranks of the PM. First she’ll bring Google the decoded memoir of Aldus Manutius, which will become the cornerstone of a new Lost Books project. The New York Times will blog about it. Next, the acquisition of Anatomix and the popularity of Google Body will give her even more momentum. She’ll have her picture printed in Wired, a whole glossy half page, standing under the huge data visualization screens, hands on her hips, blazer hanging loosely over her bright red BAM! T-shirt.
I will realize then that she never stopped wearing it after all.
Oliver Grone will complete his doctorate in archaeology. He will find a job immediately, and not with a museum, but with the company that operates the Accession Table. He will be given the task of recategorizing every marble artifact made before 200 B.C., and he will be in heaven.
I’ll ask Kat out on a date, and she will accept. We’ll go see Moon Suicide play live, and instead of talking about frozen heads, we’ll just dance. I will discover that Kat is a terrible dancer. On the steps in front of her apartment, she’ll kiss me once, light on the lips, and then disappear into the dark doorway. I’ll walk home and send her a text message along the way. The message will consist of a single value, one that I have deduced on my own after a long struggle with a geometry textbook: 25,000 miles.