To begin, I had to copy the database from Penumbra’s old Mac Plus onto my laptop, which was actually not a trivial task, since the Mac Plus uses plastic floppy disks and there’s no way to get one of those into a MacBook. I had to buy an old USB floppy drive on eBay. It cost three dollars, plus five for shipping, and it felt strange to plug it into my laptop.
But now, with the data in hand, I’m building my model of the store. It’s crude — just a bunch of gray blocks slotted together like virtual LEGOs — but it’s starting to look familiar. The space is appropriately shoe-boxy and all the shelves are there. I’ve set them up with a coordinate system, so my program can find aisle 3, shelf 13 all by itself. Simulated light from the simulated windows casts sharp-edged shadows through the simulated store. If this sounds impressive to you, you’re over thirty.
It’s taken three nights of trial and error, but now I’m stringing out long lines of code, learning as I go. It feels good to be making something: a fairly persuasive polygonal approximation of Penumbra’s store is spinning slowly on my screen, and I’m happier than I’ve been since the fall of NewBagel. I’ve got the new album from a peppy local band called Moon Suicide piping through my laptop speakers, and I’m just about to load the database into—
The bell tinkles and I clack the mute key on my laptop. Moon Suicide goes silent, and when I look up, I see an unfamiliar face. Usually I can detect instantly whether I’m dealing with a member of the world’s weirdest book club or a normal late-night browser. But now my spider-sense is jammed.
The customer is short but sturdy, in some thickening limbo of middle age. He’s wearing a slate-gray suit with a white button-down open at the collar. All of that would signal normality if it weren’t for his face: he has a ghostly pallor, a stubbly black beard, and eyes like dark pencil-points. Also, there’s a parcel under his arm, neatly wrapped in brown paper.
His eyes go immediately to the short shelves up front, not the Waybacklist, so maybe he’s a normal customer. Maybe he’s coming from Booty’s next door. I ask, “Can I help you?”
“What is all this? What is the meaning of this?” he sputters, glaring at the short shelves.
“Yeah, I know it doesn’t look like much,” I say. In the next breath, I intend to point out a few of the surprising highlights of Penumbra’s tiny inventory, but he cuts me off:
“Are you joking? Not much?” He throws his parcel down on the desk—whap—and stalks over to the SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY shelf. “What is this doing here?” He holds up Penumbra’s single copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “And this? Are you kidding me?” He holds up Stranger in a Strange Land.
I’m not sure what to say, because I’m not sure what’s going on.
He stalks back up to the front desk, still holding both books. He slaps them down on the wood. “Who are you, anyway?” His dark eyes are flashing, challenging.
“I’m the guy who runs the store,” I say, as evenly as I can muster. “Do you want to buy those or what?”
His nostrils flare. “You don’t run this store. You’re not even a novice.”
Ouch. Sure, I’ve only been working here a little over a month, but still, there’s not much to it—
“And you don’t have any idea who really does run this store, do you?” he continues. “Has Penumbra told you?”
I’m silent. This is definitely not a normal customer.
“No.” He sniffs. “I guess he hasn’t. Well, more than a year ago, we told your boss to get rid of this junk.” He taps the Hitchhiker’s Guide with each word for emphasis. The cuffs of his suit jacket are open at the last button. “And not for the first time.”
“Listen, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” I will remain calm. I will remain civil. “So, seriously, do you want to buy those?”
He surprises me by digging a crumpled twenty-dollar bill out of his pants pocket. “Oh, absolutely,” he says, and tosses the money onto the desk. I hate it when people do that. “I want evidence of Penumbra’s disobedience.” Pause. His dark eyes glitter. “Your boss is in trouble.”
What, for peddling science fiction? Why does this guy hate Douglas Adams so much?
“And what’s that?” he says sharply, pointing to the MacBook. The model of the store is stretched across the screen, rotating slowly.
“None of your business,” I say, tilting it away.
“None of my business?” he sputters. “Do you even know— You don’t.” He rolls his eyes as if he is suffering through the worst customer service experience in the history of the universe. Then he shakes his head and composes himself. “Listen carefully. This is important.” He pushes the parcel across the desk with two fingers. It’s wide and flat and familiar. His eyes level on me and he says, “This place is a shit show, but I need to know I can trust you to give this to Penumbra. Put it in his hands. Don’t put it on a shelf. Don’t leave it for him. Put it in his hands.”
“Okay,” I say. “Fine. No problem.”
He nods. “Good. Thank you.” He scoops up his purchases and pushes the front door open. Then, on his way out, he turns. “And tell your boss that Corvina sends his regards.”
In the morning, Penumbra has barely made it through the front door before I am recounting what happened, saying it too fast and out of order, I mean, what was that guy’s problem, and who is Corvina, and what’s this package, and seriously, what was his problem—
“Calm yourself, my boy,” Penumbra says, lifting his voice and his long hands to quiet me. “Calm yourself. Slow down.”
“There,” I say. I point at the parcel like it’s a dead animal. For all I know, it is a dead animal, or maybe just the bones of one, laid out in a neat pentagram.
“Ahhh,” Penumbra breathes. He wraps his long fingers around the parcel and lifts it lightly from the desk. “How wonderful.”
But of course it’s not a box of bones. I know exactly what it is, and I’ve known since the pale-faced visitor stepped into the store, and somehow the truth of it is freaking me out even more, because it means that whatever’s happening here is more than just one old man’s eccentricity.
Penumbra peels back the brown paper. Inside, there’s a book.
“A new addition to the shelves,” he says. “Festina lente.”
The book is very slim but very beautiful. It’s bound in brilliant gray, some kind of mottled material that shimmers silver in the light. The spine is black, and in pearly letters it says ERDOS. So the Waybacklist grows by one.
“It has been quite some time since one of these arrived,” Penumbra says. “This requires a celebration. Wait here, my boy, wait here.”
He retreats through the shelves into the back room. I hear his shoes on the steps that lead up to his office, on the other side of the door marked PRIVATE through which I have never ventured. When he returns, he carries two foam cups stacked one inside the other and a bottle of scotch, half-empty. The label says FITZGERALD’S and it looks about as old as Penumbra. He pours a half inch of gold into each cup and hands one to me.
“Now,” he says, “describe him. The visitor. Read it from your logbook.”
“I didn’t write anything down,” I confess. In fact, I haven’t done anything at all. I’ve just been pacing the store all night, keeping my distance from the front desk, afraid to touch the parcel or look at it or even think about it too hard.