Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

“We gotta figure this out,” he says. “How much?”

I explain how it works, how the members all have cards—but now it’s not just idle talk. Whatever the cost to join Penumbra’s lending club, Neel can pay it.

“Find out how much it costs,” Neel says. “You’re sitting on a Rockets & Warlocks scenario here, I swear.” He’s grinning. He switches to his low dungeon-master voice: “Do not wuss out now, Claymore Redhands.”

Oof. He’s deployed my Rockets & Warlocks name against me. It is a spell with ancient power. I concede. I’ll ask Penumbra.

We return to the short shelves and the airbrushed covers. Neel flips through another of our old favorites, a story about a huge cylindrical spaceship slowly approaching the earth. I tell him about Mat’s plan to woo Ashley. Then I ask him how his company is doing. He unzips his track jacket and points proudly to the gunmetal-gray T-shirt underneath.

“We made these,” he says. “Rented a 3-D body scanner, custom-tailored each shirt. They fit perfectly. Like, perfectly.”

Neel is in amazing shape. Every time I see him, I cannot help but superimpose my memory of the chubby sixth-grader, because he has now somehow attained the preposterous V-shape of a comic book superhero.

“It’s good branding, you know?” he says.

The snug T-shirt has the logo of Neel’s company printed across the chest. In tall electric-blue letters it says: ANATOMIX.

*   *   *

In the morning, when Penumbra arrives, I broach the subject of a friend buying entry into the Waybacklist. He shrugs out of his peacoat—it is an epic peacoat, finely made, with wool from the blackest of sheep—and sets himself up on the chair behind the front desk.

“Oh, it is not a matter of purchase,” he says, steepling his fingers, “but rather of intention.”

“Well, my friend is just curious,” I say. “He’s a total bibliophile.” This is not actually true. Neel prefers the movie adaptations of books. He is continuously indignant that no one has ever made movies out of The Dragon-Song Chronicles.

“Well,” Penumbra says, considering, “he will find the contents of these books … challenging. And to gain access to them, he must agree to a contract.”

“So, wait—it does cost money?”

“No, no. Your friend must simply promise to read deeply. These are special books”—he waves a long hand at the Waybacklist—“with special contents that reward close attention. Your friend will find that they lead him to something remarkable, but only if he is willing to work very hard indeed.”

“Like philosophy?” I say. “Math?”

“Nothing so abstract,” Penumbra says, shaking his head. “The books present a puzzle”—he cocks his head at me—“but you know this, my boy, do you not?”

I grimace and admit it: “Yeah. I’ve looked.”

“Good.” Penumbra nods sharply. “There is nothing worse than an incurious clerk.” His eyes twinkle at that. “The puzzle can be solved with time and care. I cannot speak of what waits with the solution, but suffice it to say, many have devoted their lives to it. Now, whether it is something your … friend will find rewarding, I cannot say. But I suspect he might.”

He smiles a crooked smile. I realize that Penumbra thinks we’re using the friend-hypothetical here; that is, he thinks we’re talking about me. Well, maybe we are, at least a little bit.

“Of course, the relationship between book and reader is private,” he says, “so we go on trust. If you tell me that your friend will read these books deeply, in a way that honors their authors, I will believe you.”

I know that Neel definitely will not read them that way, and I’m not sure this is something I want to sign up for, either. Not yet. I am intrigued and creeped out in equal measure. So I simply say: “Okay. I’ll tell him.”

Penumbra nods. “There is no shame in it if your friend is not yet ready for the task. Perhaps it will grow more interesting to him with time.”

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

THE NIGHTS FALL one into the other, and the bookstore grows quieter and quieter. A week goes by without a single customer. On my laptop, I summon up the dashboard for my hyper-targeted ad campaign, and discover that it has delivered, so far, exactly zero impressions. There’s a bright yellow message from Google in the corner of the screen suggesting that my criteria might be too narrow and I might have specified a customer base that does not exist.

I wonder what it’s like in here during the day, during Penumbra’s sun-dappled shift. I wonder if Oliver gets a rush of customers in the evening, after everybody leaves work. I wonder if this silence and solitude might actually be damaging my brain. Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful to have a job, to sit in this chair, to quietly accrue dollars (not that many) that I can use to pay my rent, to buy pizza slices and iPhone apps. But I used to work in an office; I used to work on a team. Here it’s just me and bats. (Oh, I know there are bats up there.)