Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

“Yes, Corvina.” Penumbra nods. “Others, too.” He looks at the three of us together—Kat and Neel and me—and he says quietly, “But I am glad to have you as my allies. I do not know if you understand how historic this work is going to be. The techniques we have developed over centuries, aided by new tools … I believe we will succeed. I believe it in my bones.”

*   *   *

Together, with Neel reading the instructions from my laptop and Penumbra handing me the pieces, we assemble the GrumbleGear 3000 for the first time. The components are cut from corrugated cardboard and they make a satisfying thwack when you thump them with your finger. Slotted together, they achieve a preternatural structural integrity. There’s an angled bed for a book and two long arms above it, each with a cunning socket for a camera—one for each page in a two-page spread. The cameras connect to my laptop, which is now running a program called GrumbleScan. The program, in turn, hands the images off to a hard drive, a matte-black terabyte tucked into a slender box of Bicycle playing cards. The box is a nice roguish touch from Neel.

“Who designed this thing again?” he asks, scrolling through the instructions.

“A guy named Grumble. He’s a genius.”

“I should hire him,” Neel says. “Good programmer. Great sense of spatial relationships.”

I open my Guide to Central Park Birds and set it up on the scanner. Grumble’s design isn’t much like Google’s—it has no spidery page-turning appendages, so you have to do that part yourself, and trigger the cameras, too—but it works. Flip, flash, snap. The migratory pattern of the American robin spools onto the disguised hard drive. Then I break the scanner back down into flat pieces with Kat keeping time. It takes forty-one seconds.

With this contraption in tow, I’ll return to the Reading Room just a little past midnight tonight. I’ll have the place entirely to myself. With maximum speed and stealth, I will scan not one but two books, then flee the scene. Deckle has warned me to be done and departed, leaving no trace, by first light.

THE BLACK HOLE

IT’S JUST PAST MIDNIGHT. I walk quickly up Fifth Avenue, eyeing the dark mass of Central Park across the street. The trees are black silhouettes against a blotchy gray-purple sky. Yellow taxis are the only cars on the street, despondently circling for fares. One of them flashes its brights at me; I shake my head no.

Deckle’s key goes click in the dark doorway of the Festina Lente Company, and just like that, I am inside.

There’s a dot of light blinking red in the darkness, and thanks to Deckle’s intel, I know it’s a silent alarm that signals a very private security firm. My heart beats faster. Now I have thirty-one seconds to enter the code, which I do: 1-5-1-5. That’s the year Aldus Manutius died—or, if you subscribe to the stories of the Unbroken Spine: the year he didn’t.

The front room is dark. I pull a headlamp out of my bag and wind the strap around my forehead. It was Kat who suggested a headlamp instead of a flashlight. “So you can focus on flipping the pages,” she said. The light flashes across the FLC on the wall, casting sharp shadows behind the capitals. I briefly consider some extracurricular espionage here—could I delete their database of e-book pirates?—but decide my real mission is risky enough.

I stalk through the silent expanse of the outer office, sweeping the headlamp through cubicles on either side. The refrigerator rattles and hums; the multipurpose printer blinks forlornly; screen savers twist across monitors, casting weak blue light into the room. Otherwise, nothing moves or makes a sound.

In Deckle’s office, I skip the costume change and keep my phone securely in my pocket. I give the shelves a gentle push, and I’m surprised at how easily they split and swivel back, silent and weightless. This secret way is well oiled indeed.

Beyond, it is all blackness.

Suddenly this seems like a very different undertaking. Up until this moment, I’d still been imagining the Reading Room as it was yesterday afternoon: bright, bustling, and if not welcoming then at least well lit. Now I am basically looking into a black hole. This is a cosmic entity from which no matter or energy have ever escaped, and I am about to step straight into it.

I tilt my headlamp down. This is going to take a while.

*   *   *

I should have asked Deckle about the light switch. Why didn’t I ask Deckle about the light switch?

My footfalls make long echoes. I’ve stepped through the passageway into the Reading Room, and it is pure pitch-black, the blackest void I have ever encountered. It’s also freezing.

I take a step forward and decide to keep my head down, not up, because when I look down, the headlamp’s light reflects on smooth rock, and when I look up, it disappears into nothing.

I want to scan these books and get out of this place. First I need to find one of the tables. There are dozens. This isn’t going to be a problem.