Categories > Original > Fantasy > Tradewinds 04 - "Tranz-D"
XIV
According to the map, Max needed only to round another corner.
Bandit didn’t seem to sense any danger, so he felt they were doing well. Max wasn’t sure what to expect when he got to the library, but he hoped it wasn’t all computers; he needed more information if he was going to be able to find Justin at all here. What daunted him more, though, was the thought that it might be heavily guarded.
He told himself that there was no point in worrying about it until he got there.
Down the next hall he found a door completely different from any of the others he had seen. It was twice as wide as the others, green, and split down the middle. Above the door, a digital display read: 6-D LÏBRÄRË.
This appeared to be the place. Max tried to open the door, but the display above the door briefly flashed the message: ¥IS DÖR IZ LOKD. PLËZ KUM AGEN.
As he stood there looking at the keypad, he remembered the cards he had taken with him. A closer examination revealed that the cards were all the right size to fit in the mysterious slots he had noticed before. He stood there for a long moment, weighing the risks; he was sure that doing something wrong here would be a quick way to summon the guards, as he was beginning to suspect Justin had not too long ago. Resigning his fate to the unknown, he inserted the card.
And nothing happened.
To Max, this was both good and bad. Bad because he was still locked out. Good because at least he hadn’t set off any alarms. Deciding that he had already come this far, and he had no better plan, he pressed his luck and tried another card.
This time the door opened.
Beyond was a long, narrow room. Lights blinked on to reveal a desk on either side of the entrance, and a pair of metal poles at the other end. Seemingly standing guard over a door over there, which he believed would lead to the rest of the library.
Max walked past the desks, which were empty, crossing to the two poles. The doorway itself was so black it almost hurt his eyes to look at, in a way that was almost mesmerizing. He reached out and placed his hand on it, finding the blackness solid and immovable; his hand was numbed by the mere touch. Next to the “blank” door was another keypad.
Figuring that it had worked for him before, he inserted the card again.
The doorway flickered— didn’t open, but flickered— and a room appeared on the other side. Beyond were walls filled with more books than in all the Islands, more than he had ever dreamed he would see in his life. His fears about it being all computers evaporated at the mere sight of them.
As he walked through the doorway, he felt a tingling sensation, not unlike what he had felt when he passed through the opening in the cave earlier. When he looked back, he saw that the edges of the doorway also glowed that same shimmering, ghostly white.
It was only after he was through being overwhelmed by the spectacle and unique scent of so many books in one place that he was able to take in the rest of the place. Thick public carpet, cropped short for thousands of trampling feet. Like everything else in the room, rendered in dull institutional colors. Once his eyes moved past all those books, what halted him in his tracks was the window in the corner revealing an open sky.
“But… I thought we were underground…”
In that view Max discovered a whole new level of disorientation.
Fearing that he might lose his way back, as he had before, he looked back over his shoulder to see Bandit still standing in front of the other side of the door. He turned around and said, “Come on, Bandit. We have to find a way to help Justin…”
Indecision.
“Do you want to stay in that weird place?”
And again Bandit passed through, clearly not enjoying the experience any more than he had the first time around.
And so Max resumed his exploration of the 6-D Library, Bandit at his side. In the next room, Max found a lone book lying on a table. Idle curiosity drew him hither.
The Bermuda Triangle: Case by Case, the cover read. Now that he thought about it, why the language had switched back to something he could understand was beyond him. Not that he was complaining; the mysterious characters back there gave him a headache.
Unable to resist having a book in his hand again after more than five years, Max opened it and started leafing through it, wondering if this Bermuda Triangle had anything to do with the Triangle State.
According to the map, Max needed only to round another corner.
Bandit didn’t seem to sense any danger, so he felt they were doing well. Max wasn’t sure what to expect when he got to the library, but he hoped it wasn’t all computers; he needed more information if he was going to be able to find Justin at all here. What daunted him more, though, was the thought that it might be heavily guarded.
He told himself that there was no point in worrying about it until he got there.
Down the next hall he found a door completely different from any of the others he had seen. It was twice as wide as the others, green, and split down the middle. Above the door, a digital display read: 6-D LÏBRÄRË.
This appeared to be the place. Max tried to open the door, but the display above the door briefly flashed the message: ¥IS DÖR IZ LOKD. PLËZ KUM AGEN.
As he stood there looking at the keypad, he remembered the cards he had taken with him. A closer examination revealed that the cards were all the right size to fit in the mysterious slots he had noticed before. He stood there for a long moment, weighing the risks; he was sure that doing something wrong here would be a quick way to summon the guards, as he was beginning to suspect Justin had not too long ago. Resigning his fate to the unknown, he inserted the card.
And nothing happened.
To Max, this was both good and bad. Bad because he was still locked out. Good because at least he hadn’t set off any alarms. Deciding that he had already come this far, and he had no better plan, he pressed his luck and tried another card.
This time the door opened.
Beyond was a long, narrow room. Lights blinked on to reveal a desk on either side of the entrance, and a pair of metal poles at the other end. Seemingly standing guard over a door over there, which he believed would lead to the rest of the library.
Max walked past the desks, which were empty, crossing to the two poles. The doorway itself was so black it almost hurt his eyes to look at, in a way that was almost mesmerizing. He reached out and placed his hand on it, finding the blackness solid and immovable; his hand was numbed by the mere touch. Next to the “blank” door was another keypad.
Figuring that it had worked for him before, he inserted the card again.
The doorway flickered— didn’t open, but flickered— and a room appeared on the other side. Beyond were walls filled with more books than in all the Islands, more than he had ever dreamed he would see in his life. His fears about it being all computers evaporated at the mere sight of them.
As he walked through the doorway, he felt a tingling sensation, not unlike what he had felt when he passed through the opening in the cave earlier. When he looked back, he saw that the edges of the doorway also glowed that same shimmering, ghostly white.
It was only after he was through being overwhelmed by the spectacle and unique scent of so many books in one place that he was able to take in the rest of the place. Thick public carpet, cropped short for thousands of trampling feet. Like everything else in the room, rendered in dull institutional colors. Once his eyes moved past all those books, what halted him in his tracks was the window in the corner revealing an open sky.
“But… I thought we were underground…”
In that view Max discovered a whole new level of disorientation.
Fearing that he might lose his way back, as he had before, he looked back over his shoulder to see Bandit still standing in front of the other side of the door. He turned around and said, “Come on, Bandit. We have to find a way to help Justin…”
Indecision.
“Do you want to stay in that weird place?”
And again Bandit passed through, clearly not enjoying the experience any more than he had the first time around.
And so Max resumed his exploration of the 6-D Library, Bandit at his side. In the next room, Max found a lone book lying on a table. Idle curiosity drew him hither.
The Bermuda Triangle: Case by Case, the cover read. Now that he thought about it, why the language had switched back to something he could understand was beyond him. Not that he was complaining; the mysterious characters back there gave him a headache.
Unable to resist having a book in his hand again after more than five years, Max opened it and started leafing through it, wondering if this Bermuda Triangle had anything to do with the Triangle State.
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