KC Jones #2 — Tales from the Rails
I had never been a fan of science fiction, but I knew exactly where you could find the most popular sci-fi books in the library. And now I wished I’d gotten around to reading some of them.
Maybe Asimov? Or Philip K. Dick?
Or something about simulations and self-aware super computers. Maybe then, I would’ve been prepared for the news that I’d been trapped in a computer embedded in someone else’s brain for nearly a decade.
“KC? Are you okay?” asked Janelle, her voice filtering to me from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
“I, uh…” I didn’t know if I was okay. “I have questions,” I finally said.
“I’m sure you do,” she said. “But we need to act fast and find a way to get you out of here before they realize I’ve taken over the simulation. Can you walk and talk?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
“Good,” she responded. “I think the first thing we should do is search the library.”
“Got it,” I said, leaving the circulation desk and the paused Margie Rockport behind. I walked to the popular fiction section and stopped. “Hey, um… What am I looking for?” I asked Janelle.
The silence in the library felt like a long sigh.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” she admitted.
“You don’t know,” I repeated slowly.
“Hey, man, this is a new experience for me, too,” she replied. “I’ve been trying to break into this part of my mind for years, now. I knew you were in here, and I knew they had you in some kind of simulation, but this is my first time actually seeing it. Or experiencing it, I guess…”
I started removing books from the shelves as she explained, opening their covers, rifling their pages, examining their shelf spaces for secret buttons, then carefully returning them.
“They think you have top-secret information locked away in your brain, and they’ve been using this simulation to try to break down your mental barriers and get it out of you,” she continued. “But apparently you were too stubborn to give it up.”
I snorted a laugh. “Or too stupid,” I said. “If there’s any top-secret info in here,” I knocked on my skull, “then this is the first I’m hearing about it.” I finished searching the shelves in front of me and moved on to the children’s reading room.
“Well,” she said, “Do you have any idea of what they could’ve been looking for?”
“I got nothing.” I felt under child-height tables for hidden keys and shook a stuffed bear, hoping to hear a metallic rattling that would give away some kind of clue.
“Come on,” Janelle said impatiently. “It’s probably not in the kids’ section. Let’s keep looking.” I was flipping through one of those “find the hidden object” puzzle books as she said it.
Find the snowflake.
Find the bird.
Find the book.
“KC?” Janelle said. “We don’t have time for this! They could shut down the simulation at any second!”
“Hang on,” I said. “I’ve got an idea.” Find the book, I thought. “Margie Rockport came in here every day to ask for a particular book. You don’t think…?”
“Woman seeks book in library,” she said like she was reading a news headline. “Groundbreaking.”
“No, really,” I insisted, turning to walk back to my desk. “She was here every day, asking me to look up the same bizarre keywords. That has to be — ” A sudden angry squealing interrupted my thought as I tripped over a rather large pig.
Why was there a pig in the library?
I caught myself before faceplanting on the carpeted floor. “What the?” The pig trotted off a toward the display of newspapers at the front of the library and returned with one it its snout. The pig dropped the paper in front of me then ran off.
“Kidnapped software developer rescued by giant and his farmer companion,” I read out loud.
“What is that?” Janelle asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “This pig tripped me and then brought me a newspaper. This isn’t even today’s headline — the news from this morning was about the annual hot wing eating competition…”
Just then, Janelle gasped, and the lights in the library flickered out. A massive trembling shook the foundation of the building, and then the lights returned.
“Janelle?” I asked frantically. “What’s happening?”
She didn’t respond.
“Janelle!” I shouted.
I began to panic, when finally, she returned. “KC,” she panted. “We have less time than I thought.”
“What do you mean?” I scrambled off the floor and ran toward my computer at the circulation desk. The paused Margie Rockport was no longer there.
“I can feel my conscious mind waking up,” she said. “I think I’m being disconnected from the network. We’re running out of time.”
“Can’t you buy us more time?” I asked, waking my computer. As if in response to my question, the power surged once again. “Right,” I said. “Speeding things up!”
I typed in the search terms that Margie always gave to me.
Stranger, time travel, static, anomalous matter, revolution.
No results. Duh. I tried combinations of those terms with new ones I thought might yield results.
Stranger, time travel, secret, KC Jones.
No results. The floor began shaking again, and I heard the ghostly sound of thousands of pages of books rattling in place on their shelves. Somewhere in the distance, I heard glass shattering.
Anomalous matter, static, KC Jones, top-secret.
“Hurry, KC!” Janelle urged. “If the simulation shuts down before you can get into safe mode, you’ll be erased! I won’t be able to bring you back!”
“WHAT?” I shouted, looking up from the screen. Of course, I didn’t have anyone to look at, so I just stared at the swaying chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. “You didn’t mention that I could be ERASED,” I said.
“I was hoping we’d be able to find the information and get you out before it came to that!” she said.
“That’s a lot of optimism for a woman whose been sleeping for nine years!”
“It’s only been three years,” she retorted.
“But Margie Rockport said she’s been at this for nine?”
“Oh my GOD, KC! Now is not the time!”
I shook my head. She was right.
“Ok, I’m sorry,” I said. “But I really have no idea where to find this book, if it even exists.” A howling wind picked up outside the library, and through the front windows I saw the sky had turned black.
“Can’t you look in, like… The restricted section?” Janelle asked.
I shook my head. “The computer would’ve found it, even in the restricted section.”
“Well, isn’t there an Extremely Restricted Section you can check?”
“That’s not a thing!” I yelled over the noise. I heard a crack and a surge of electricity, and looked up just in time to see the chandelier overhead falling toward me. I managed to dive out of the way just in time. The light fixture crashed into the circulation desk, destroying the computers in a shower of sparks. The lights went out, and this time they did not return.
“Janelle?” I yelled. I could barely hear my own voice. “Janelle!”
No response.
I turned in circles, unsure what to do. She’d tried to help me, but I wasn’t able to act in time to save myself. Bookshelves collapsed on all sides. More windows shattered. Foam ceiling panels fell down and exploded into hundreds of pieces on the floor. And then I saw it. A door I’d never seen before, standing freely in the middle of the library foyer. The gold and black plaque on it read:
EXTREMELY RESTRICTED SECTION.
It had to be Janelle.
There was no handle on the door, and when I touched the surface of it, the wood felt like ice. I watched as the door melted away from top to bottom, revealing an empty black space beyond it. I leaned my head through the frame and squinted, letting my eyes adjust. And interestingly, letting my ears adjust. The Extremely Restricted Section was absolutely silent.
In the distance, I saw what appeared to be a podium illuminated by a lone spotlight. There was no other light to be seen: I couldn’t even tell if there was solid ground to walk on. I gingerly stepped over the threshold and found solid ground.
“Sweet,” I said and set off sprinting toward the light. When I reached it, I found that what I’d seen was, in fact, a podium. Resting on the podium were two books. On the cover of one of them were the initials K.J.
Kenneth Jones.
And on the other book…
“A.P.” I said under my breath, taking the book.
The light above me flickered out, and when it returned, I was once again standing in the darkened library. The ceiling had caved in during my absence and the walls had all but crumbled. From where I stood in the ruined library foyer, I could see the town square of Darlinville falling to similar destruction.
The crashing simulation seemed to disregard the laws of physics. Buildings exploded into clean-cut cubes, some floating in the air, some crashing to the ground. The light from street lamps oozed out of their bulbs like syrup. And a dark mist billowed out of the fountain in the center of the square. I watched as the mist covered the fragmented Town Hall. Each piece of the building vanished as it was covered by the miasma.
This is what Janelle was trying to protect me from.
This was the end.
What had she said about safe mode? I didn’t know much about computers, but safe mode sounded simple. Make sure you save your data before turning off the machine, and all that. And then, when you turn the computer back on, all your data is present and accounted for. It made sense that going into safe mode would give Janelle a chance to try to reboot me at some point in the future… But when? And how?
Furthermore, how was I supposed to go into safe mode?
I looked at the book in my hand.
They’d kept me here — whoever they are — because they needed this book. And they’d captured and used Janelle like a piece of software to get to it. I didn’t like the sound of being “switched off” for an indefinite length of time, but if it meant the bad guys didn’t get what they were after… I had to do it.
The mist continued its march across the town square, swallowing everything it touched. The void was spreading and I was out of time.
I took off running.
What makes me feel safe?
The ground beneath me began to ripple and crack. I leapt over a fissure as a parked car slid backwards into it.
The library used to make me feel safe. But the library was gone. I used to feel safe in Darlinville, but seeing it dark and twisted set my stomach churning.
I looked behind me and saw the mist was closing in on me.
My home makes me feel safe.
Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe it was always just lines of code. But it was real to me.
My morning routine was real to me. Making coffee. Watching my dog chase the birds.
Those things were my safe mode.
I changed course and tore through pristine suburban yards until I saw my house across the street. I braced myself and threw my body at the front door at full speed, crashing through it.
“Bear!” I shouted, looking for my dog. “Bear, where are you boy? Come here, boy!”
I held my breath, unable to look behind me to face the encroaching darkness.
And then I heard a familiar then I heard a familiar yip. Ever the loveable dummy, I saw my dog push his way through the doggy door leading to the yard.
“Come here, buddy!” I knelt down and spread my arms wide. With the mysterious book in one hand, I wrapped my arms around my silly dog in the place I felt safest.
Then the mist swallowed us whole.
