Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

Here in the store, Mat packs the lights back into their gray foam sarcophagus. Neel takes the bent-up white poster board out to the trash can. I coil up the orange cables and straighten the front desk. Everything looks the same; nothing has moved. And yet, something is different. We took photos of every surface: the shelves, the desk, the door, the floor. We took photos of the books, all of them, the ones in the front and the Waybacklist, too. We didn’t capture the pages inside, of course—that would be a project of a different scale. If you’re ever playing Super Bookstore Brothers, navigating a 3-D simulacrum of Penumbra’s bookstore with pink-yellow light coming in the front windows and a foggy particle effect rising in the back, and you decide you want to actually read one of the beautifully textured books: too bad. Neel’s model might match the store’s volume but never its density.

“Breakfast?” Neel asks.

“Breakfast!” Mat agrees.

So we leave. That’s it. I turn off the lights and pull the door tight behind me. The bell makes its bright tinkle. I never did get a key.

“Let me see the photos,” Neel says, grabbing at Mat’s camera.

“Not yet, not yet,” Mat says, tucking it under his arm. “I need to grade them. This is just raw material.”

“Grade them? Like A-B-C?”

“Color grading—color correction. Translation: I need to make them look awesome.” He raises an eyebrow. “I thought you worked with movie studios, Shah.”

“He told you?” Neel spins to look at me with wide eyes: “You told him? There are documents!”

“You should stop by ILM next week,” Mat says calmly. “I’ll show you some stuff.”

They’re both far up the sidewalk now, halfway to Neel’s car, but I’m still standing at the wide front windows with their big gold type: MR. PENUMBRA’S in beautiful Gerritszoon. It’s dark inside. I press my hand onto the fellowship’s symbol—two hands, open like a book—and when I take it away, there’s an oily, five-fingered print left behind.

A REALLY BIG GUN

IT’S FINALLY TIME to break a code that has waited five hundred years.

Kat has requisitioned Google’s data visualization amphitheater with its massive screens. She’s moved tables from the lunch tent into position down in front; it looks like mission control, picnic-style.

The day is beautiful; a sharp blue sky is dotted with wispy white clouds, all commas and curlicues. Hummingbirds hover down to investigate the screens, then zip back out across the bright open lawns. There’s music in the distance; the Google brass band is practicing an algorithmically generated waltz.

Down below, Kat’s handpicked code-breaking squad is setting up. Laptops are coming out, each one encrusted with a different collection of colorful stickers and holograms, and the Googlers are plugging into power and fiber optics, flexing their fingers.

Igor is among them. His brilliance at the bookstore earned him a special invitation: today, he’s allowed to play in the Big Box. He’s leaning in to his laptop, his skinny hands a bluish blur, and two Googlers are watching wide-eyed over his shoulder.

Kat is making the rounds, conferring with Googlers one by one. She smiles and nods and pats them on the back. Today, she’s a general, and these are her troops.

*   *   *

Tyndall, Lapin, Imbert, and Fedorov are all here, along with the rest of the local novices. They’re sitting up on the lip of the amphitheater, all in a row along the highest stone step. More are arriving. Silver-haired Muriel is here, and so is Greg the ponytailed Googler. He’s standing with the fellowship today.

Most of the fellowship’s members are in late middle age. Some, like Lapin, look pretty old, and a few are older still. There’s an ancient man in a wheelchair, eyes lost in shadowed sockets, his cheeks pale and wrinkled like tissue paper, pushed by a young attendant in a neat suit. The man croaks a faint greeting to Fedorov, who clasps him by the hand.

Finally, there’s Penumbra. He’s holding court at the amphitheater’s edge, explaining what’s about to happen. He’s smiling and waving his arms, pointing down at the Googlers at their tables, pointing over to Kat, over to me.

I haven’t told him about the call from Corvina, and I don’t plan to. The First Reader doesn’t matter anymore. What matters are the people here in this amphitheater and the puzzle up on those screens.

“Come over here, my boy, come over here,” he says. “Meet Muriel properly.” I smile and shake her hand. She’s beautiful. Her hair is silver, almost white, but her skin is smooth, with just the lightest lace of microwrinkles around her eyes.

“Muriel runs a goat farm,” Penumbra says. “You should take your, ah, friend, you know”—he tilts his head down toward Kat—“you should take her down. The tour is wonderful.”

Muriel smiles lightly. “The spring is the best time,” she says. “That’s when we have baby goats.” To Penumbra she says, mock-scoldingly, “You’re a good ambassador, Ajax, but I wish I could get you down there more often.” She winks at him.