Robert stood for a few moments, watching the action. The naked-eye view was like nothing in his experience. When the student that's what she was without her "Librarian Militant" cover turned the book in her hands, the haptics flipped in coordination, never losing contact or slipping in a way different from the vision it was supporting. When she set it on a table, the haptics moved instantly to another task this supporting some Scoochi client in even more unintelligible maneuvering.
He noticed that the girl was staring at him. "Sorry, sorry! I just haven't seen all this before."
"Tragic, not?" and she gave him a wide grin.
"Yes, uh, tragic." Somewhere on a high protocol layer, all this involved books and the contents of books. At the physical layer it was even more fascinating. He wandered along, his mind far away, trying to imagine how the intricate dance of the haptics could be replicated on robots that were at some distance on the network. If both sides had human players it would be infernally hard. But if it was an asymmetric service, maybe
"Hey, Professor Gu! Look up here."
Robert looked in the direction of the voice. The ceiling above him had become transparent, as had the one above that. His view had tunneled through to the sixth floor. Carlos Rivera was looking back down at him, a happy smile on his face. "Long time no see, Professor. Come on up, why don't you?"
"Sure." Robert found his way back to the stairwell. The stairs were free of haptic diversions
as was the sixth floor. But there were no more books either. Someone had set up some offices.
Rivera gave him a tour. He seemed to be just about the only one on the floor. "Right now, the team is spread all over. Some of them are working on the new extensions underground."
"So what's your job now? Still library staff, I assume?"
Carlos hesitated. "Well, I have several titles now. It's a long story. Hey, come into my office."
His office was on the southeast corner, with windows overlooking the Snake Path and the esplanades. In fact, this was just where the cabal had held its meetings. Carlos waved him to a seat, and sat behind a wide desk. Carlos himself he was still overweight, still wore the bottle-glass spectacles and the old-fashioned T-shirt. But there was a difference. This Carlos seemed relaxed, energetic happy with whatever he was doing. "I was hoping we could talk, but things have just been so busy since you know, since we almost fucked things up beyond all recognition."
"Yes, I know what you mean. We were very lucky, Carlos." He glanced around the office. Nowadays, rank could be hard to see in visible things, but much of the furniture and plants were really what they seemed. "You were going to tell me about your job."
"Yes! It's a little embarrassing. I'm the new Director of Library Support. That's the title the university recognizes. In some circles that's not the important title. Downstairs and across the world, you'll find that I'm other things like Dangerous Knowledge and the Greatest Lesser Scooch-a-mout."
"But those are two different belief circles. I thought "
"You read that the Scoochis won it all, right? Not quite. When the dust settled, there was a very bizarre well, 'compromise' isn't quite the right word. 'Alliance' or 'distanced merger' might be better." He leaned back in his chair. "It's scary how close we came to blowing up this end of San Diego. But we stopped just short. And that crazy riot made more money than a new cinema release. More important, it sucked money and creativity from all over, and the school administration was smart enough to take advantage." He hesitated, a little sadness creeping into his voice. "So we failed in everything we told each other we were trying to do. The books are gone. Physically gone. But the Geisel Library lives, and these two crazy belief circles are driving its content all over the world. But you've seen that, right? That's why you came down here?"
"I came down to study your haptics, actually." Robert explained his interest in distanced interactive touch.
"Hey, that's great! Both groups have been beating on me to extend our reach. But at a higher level, what did you think of what they're doing to the library experience?"
"um, the Librarian Militants look the same as before, I guess. It's an amusing interface, if you like that sort of thing. The Scoochis I tried to see what they're doing, but it doesn't make sense. It's so scattered, almost as if each individual book is its own consensual reality."
"Almost. The Scoochis have always been eclectic. Now that they have a librareome, they're building game consensus down to fine-grained topic levels, often down to individual paragraphs. It's much more subtle than the Hacek stuff, though children pick up on it very quickly. Their real power is that Scoochis can blend realities. That's what's happened with them and the Hacekeans. The Scoochis come from all over, even from the failed states. Now they're feeding the digitizations back outwards. Wherever it fits, the Hacek people are running things. Other places, other visions but all with access to the entire body of the library. If you can crack the problem of remote interactive touch, it should make their attraction even greater." Carlos looked around his office, where the cabal had plotted for such very different ends. "An awful lot has changed in just two months."
"What do you think really happened that night, Carlos? Was the riot intended to distract from what we four were doing or was it the other way around?"
"I've thought about that a lot. I think the riot was a diversion, but one that got way out of hand and ended up causing immense what's the opposite of collateral damage? Collateral benefit? Sharif-whoever he was more often a rabbit to me was a merry madman."
Rabbit. That was what his interrogators had called the Mysterious Stranger. It was also what the Stranger had called itself there at the end. "Well, our part of the business was darker. Rabbit manipulated all of us, each according to our own weaknesses."
Carlos nodded. "Yes."
"Rabbit promised each of us our secret wish, then defaulted after we had committed the necessary treachery." Though to be honest, Robert was pretty sure the critter was kaput. Maybe things would have been different if it had survived. His burning hope in the Stranger's promise had powered Robert's treason. That was cold ashes now. Thank God.
Carlos leaned forward. Behind the bottle-glass specs, his eyes looked skeptical.
"Okay," said Robert, "maybe Rabbit didn't promise everyone something. I think the power-assisted scheming was its own reward for Tommie."
"That's probably so." But the librarian did not look convinced.
"Look, we'd know if any of the promises came true. It would be spectacular. I'll bet Winston wanted to Where is Winnie these days?" He was looking up the answer, but Carlos already had it:
"Dean Blount was hired by the university last month, in the Division of Arts and Letters."
Robert's gaze skittered across his search result. "But as an entry-level administrative assistant!"
"Yes, it's bizarre. The current Dean of A and L is Jessica Laskowicz. She's another medical retread. Back in the oughts, she was a secretary in the division. Nowadays, the career track for admin assistants doesn't have any ceiling, but Winston is starting awfully far down and the best gossip is that he and Laskowicz never got along."
Oh my . "I guess maybe Winston finally made peace with his dreams." Like me . In any case, it meant the Mysterious Stranger was really gone, his extravagant promises dead. He looked up at Carlos Rivera. And felt the stirring of a vast surprise. Robert had very little of his old people-sense; nowadays, the obvious had to beat him over the head with a club. "What what about you? ."
"Do you notice anything different about me, Professor?"