The Librarian: A First Contact Story
Read The Librarian: A First Contact Story Online
Authors: M.N. Arzu
The Librarian
A First Contact Story
M.N. Arzú
And then, there was a
book...
To Erick, who keeps the
words alive.
And to the
other
Michelle, who keeps them straight.
Unexpected Call
1
General Ryan Mitchell rubbed the bridge of his nose,
waiting for his black coffee to kick in. On this sunny August morning, the pile
of reports on his desk was outstanding for the early hour, yet not unheard of.
Arlington Base was not big by any estimation, but one wouldn't know it by the
size of its paperwork.
The bitter taste barely registered in his mind as his
hazel eyes moved over budget cuts and graphs, the ticking office clock a
calming background sound. He kept reading even when the phone rang ten minutes
into his routine, answering the encoded telephone line without much concern.
"Yes?"
"General," a soldier spoke with enough fear
in his voice to make Mitchell's skin crawl, "We have a possible Fallen
Giant, sir."
Ice ran in his veins as his mind automatically decoded
the words:
we have a possible nuclear event.
By the time he found his
voice two seconds later, paperwork was utterly forgotten.
2
Jane Logan eyed her snack options in the cupboard with
a critical eye. With less than five minutes before the 10:00 p.m. TV movie
started, she debated the merits of dried fruit over microwave popcorn. On the
wall, the black cat clock moved its eyes side to side, silently telling her to
hurry it up.
She reached for the blue and white popcorn package,
calories be damned. Popping the bag into the microwave, she glanced at the
clock again.
Nick's awfully late,
the thought crossed her mind,
dismissing it a moment later as she pressed the start button.
Nick had insisted on hiking alone. Her husband wanted
to reconnect with nature before summer ended and college resumed, so she'd kept
her mouth shut and wished him a great day. Surely, he was driving around the
corner, with tales of bears and woodpeckers and other hikers.
She chuckled. If something defined her husband, it was
his willingness to mingle with people, to talk to strangers on the line, to
listen to the stories of his new friends. No wonder his students loved him so
much: he represented the essence of every good sociologist out there, always
wanting to know the whys and hows of what people did.
The smell of popcorn permeated the entire kitchen
while the microwave hummed. The digital display read 31 when her cellphone
rang. Frowning at the unknown number, she answered on the second ring.
"Hello?"
"Jane?" her neighbor asked, one very kind—if
very nosy—Mrs. McCormick. "Has Nick come back yet?"
"No. He should be home soon though… Why?"
"Turn on your TV. He was at Upper Lena Lake this
morning, right?" Mrs. McCormick's worry was contagious. Jane frowned
again, walking to the living room, searching for the elusive TV remote.
"What's going on?" Jane asked, glancing at
her watch to confirm it was really that late, a rock sitting in her stomach.
"They're doing some sort of search at the Olympic
National Park. They're not giving many details, but they've blocked the roads
and they're talking about some fugitive? And then I thought about Nick
and—"
Jane barely paid attention as her eyes zeroed in on
the remote, hanging up the phone without a second thought. Before she could
reach for it, the doorbell rang.
Nick!
She ran to the door, photographs of their wedding,
their first anniversary, and their last Valentine's Day becoming a blur. His
blue jacket hung on the wall, and she had the strange sudden thought that she
was never going to see him wearing it again.
Opening the door, her impulse to launch herself at
Nick died in a rather awkward instant.
In his late forties, a man in military uniform stood
in front of her. His eyes sized her up with one glance, and she had the
distinct notion that he saw her as an enemy, or at least, a very dangerous
individual. The feeling was strong enough that she took a step back. He looked
larger and more menacing than anyone she'd ever seen before, all 6 feet tall
and broad shoulders, and the almost certain bringer of bad news. She almost
slammed the door shut.
"Jane Logan?" he asked politely, his hazel
eyes looking straight at hers. "I'm General Mitchell, US Army. "
"Um… Yeah?"
"Is your husband with you?"
She froze, questions stuck in her throat.
"Nick? Why? What's going on? Who are you,
again?"
"General Mitchell. We believe that an impostor
has taken your husband's identity, but we've been unable to locate him for the
past twelve hours."
She frowned. It was better than
ma'am, there's been
an accident,
but it still made no sense.
"An impostor? Really? Nick's at Upper Lena Lake,
or coming back from there, actually. What are we talking about here? What did
this person do in Nick's name?"
"All I can tell you right now is that there's a
threat to
National Security. I need you to come with me."
"What? Like right now? I— I— I gotta wait for
Nick. At the very least get a hold of him. You can't just come to my doorstep,
tell me my husband is in some sort of national security trouble and expect
me—"
"Ma'am, you need to come now," the General
said, somehow making the threat sound courteous. "I assure you, at this
very moment, two hundred men are combing Upper Lena Lake and its surroundings.
We want to find your husband as much as you do, but we need you at Arlington
Base to identify his impostor."
Two guards stepped out of the black sedan parked in
front of her driveway. Two very armed, unhappy guards.
There's trouble,
Jane
thought, the rock in her stomach getting drastically bigger.
"I…" she tried to answer, her eyes drawn to
the inviting warm yellow light of her neighbor's living room. "Let me get
a sweater," she said with resignation. Before she could close the door,
Mitchell placed his hand on it, watching her get ready to leave.
She opened the hall closet and got a gray
wool
sweater out. The night wasn't chilly, but she was cold from the inside out. As
she closed the closet doors, she saw Mitchell pick up two photos of Nick.
"I hope you don't mind," he said, and put
them inside a plastic bag.
She shook her head, trying to understand how a silent
evening with plans for a movie and popcorn had turned into this circus. She
reached for her purse and her cell phone, took one last glimpse of Nick's blue
jacket, and went out of her house.
3
Bare gray walls met Jane's blue eyes as she walked
with General Mitchell down the hall. White light washed every color away,
giving the place a cold, unfriendly feel. Mitchell had not said much since they
got into the car and his earlier serious look had not improved.
"This is bigger than Nick and me, isn't it?"
she asked, as much to break the ice as to the fact that she wanted to know.
She'd always had a big imagination, and hers had been on overdrive since that
phone had rung half an hour ago.
"It is," the General said, his brisk walk
making it difficult for her to keep pace.
"What, is he like a spy or something?"
"'Or something' would be an appropriate way to
phrase it."
They passed another checkpoint. And another, each one
more heavily guarded than the last. She could feel the people around her
tensing, as if she might go crazy on them any moment now. Here she was, skinny,
unarmed, untrained Jane, terrifying the big military boys.
More than once she wondered if she was dreaming this
up. But if this impostor was a spy claiming to be Nick, wouldn't they assume
she was a spy as well?
As she passed the last checkpoint and was led into a
small room, it all boiled down to one simple question:
What do they think I
am?
By the looks the guards gave her as they closed the door behind her,
nothing good.
The Man in the Jar
1
She was in an honest-to-God interrogation room,
complete with the stainless steel table, the dark gray walls, and the
double-sided mirror. Gazing at her reflection as if she could see through it,
Jane blinked a couple of times before paying attention to the man sitting in
front of her.
Not much older than herself, one Captain Rice arranged
a few pages on the table between them, finally settling down, a silver pen in
his hand. She'd refused an assortment of beverages—the sole idea of food was
nauseating.
"Thank you for agreeing to answer these few
questions," the officer said politely. She nodded, imagining a dozen
people behind the mirror, staring at her slightly disheveled dark hair, her
fidgeting hands, and her restless foot. She felt like a butterfly in a jar just
about to get pinned to a display.
"Should I call a lawyer?" she asked first,
reining in her drumming foot.
"You're not arrested," the Captain answered.
"Once you identify the man in custody, we would be happy to drive you
home. Shall we start?" He smiled a perfect innocent smile. She nodded
again, resigned.
It started easy enough: How had they met, when had
they married? Why was Nick at Upper Lena Lake alone? It wasn't until question
number twelve—she counted them—that things started to sound a bit off.
"Did Mr. Logan ever exhibit any signs of
hallucinations?"
"No, but he does have a really vivid
imagination."
"Did he ever tell you if he heard voices?"
"Okay, you're starting to creep me out."
"Sorry, ma'am. Did he?"
"No. He's mentally sound, okay? There's no
history of mental illnesses in his family, either, if you'd like to know,"
she said, frowning.
"Why did you never have children?"
None of your business,
didn't seem to be appropriate. "We're not
interested in parenthood," she answered simply, waiting for the inevitable
follow up question:
why?
"Did he have any heart conditions? Medical
problems? Anything at all?"
She blinked. Everyone always wanted to know
why
.
It was just one more reminder of how
not
normal this whole thing was.
The door opened behind the Captain, saving her from
more questions. He immediately stood at attention as soon as people started to
fill in. One man and one woman wearing lab coats greeted her as they took seats
in front of her, both with varying degrees of thinly veiled curiosity and
caution. Entering last, General Mitchell dismissed the Captain and took a seat.
Both were older than her by a good thirty years, and they had that specialist
air about them, of someone who's been in their field for so long, they
considered everyone else beneath them.
Nick wouldn't like them. And neither did she.
"Do you have news about Nick?" she asked
Mitchell, ignoring the uneasy feeling the stares gave her.
"Mrs. Logan, these are Dr. Fox, our medical
chief, and Dr. Greenwood, our senior psychologist." She looked at them,
not really understanding why they were there. "Regarding your husband, the
search is still going on. We found his car, we found his phone," the
General answered. "Now, we're going to need you to identify this man we
have in custody. You'll talk to him, and you'll—"
"Wait, what? Why do I have to talk to him? Just
give me his picture and I'll gladly tell you that's not Nick."
The three of them glanced at each other in a tense
way. Jane frowned. What was so hard about it?
"Mrs. Logan," Dr. Fox started, his thin
glasses reflecting the light, "There are certain reasons we're not able to
show you his picture. We need you to see him, and then we can explain why we're
all here. We just need your confirmation first."
"What did this guy
do
? This is beyond
stealing Nick's credit card, isn't it? I mean, God! Nick has a lot of
controversial ideas, sure, but he's a law abiding citizen. And, you know, National
Security stuff sounds pretty scary from where I'm standing. Now Nick's missing,
I'm here, and—"
"We know you're upset," the woman said, the
psychologist, "We all want to find your husband. Trust me, we'll answer
all your questions after you ID this man."
They looked at her, willing her to yield. Angry, Jane
abruptly stood up, the chair screeching on the floor with menace. She winced
internally, not letting them see how rattled she was. "Lead the way,
then."
The sooner she went, the sooner this would be over.
That something weird was going on was not a question. That they wanted her to
see this man face to face, on the other hand, was absurd—yet she had no choice.
She didn't want to meet this guy, she didn't want to see his face in her dreams
from now on. Most of all, she had this nagging idea that she could very well be
meeting her husband's assassin.
God Nick, where are you?
2
The halls didn't get any brighter, much less cheerful.
Besides the woman, Mitchell and the other doctor, soldiers stood stationed
every six feet. She imagined herself walking into a maximum security facility
with a huge atomic bomb in the middle. If two hours ago someone had told her
she would see the interior of top security halls, she'd have laughed so hard it
wouldn't have been ladylike.
She wasn't laughing now.
No one so much as coughed. They walked briskly,
passing a dozen doors marked
Authorized Personnel Only
, the harsh white
lights leaving no shadow to hide in. She fleetingly pondered what secrets lay
concealed behind each door, and if knowing them would get her killed.
I'm getting paranoid,
she thought, swallowing,
but it's not like I don't
have good reason to be.
3
They asked her to wear one of those protective, white
hazmat suits that covered her from head to toe, helmet included—as if the whole
place was in quarantine. If the interrogation room had been a shock, being
asked to wear a hazmat suit was somewhere so far down on her list of things
she'd seen-on-TV-but-never-would-see-in-real-life, that for one second she
looked at the guy as if he were talking in a foreign language.
"Excuse me?" she asked, her hands
involuntarily going to her chest and stomach.
"There's no real danger now, but we like to be
cautious."
She turned to look at Mitchell. He nodded at her,
expecting her to agree.
"Is this guy sick?" she asked, images of
viruses and flesh eating bacteria jumping into her head, making her skin crawl.
The hazmat guy turned to look at Mitchell as well,
obviously waiting for confirmation that he could talk. Mitchell turned to her
instead, looking imposing as ever.
"The man was exposed to radioactive material,
Mrs. Logan. As the doctor says, we're just being cautious about it.
Please?"
Radioactive material? What the hell is going on here?
Jane imagined a mushroom cloud, black and yellow logo
warnings—and men on hazmat suits, of course. It was one thing to think the guy
was a spy, but to have one's identity stolen by a mass murderer terrorist was
just way too much. She had to sit down, but she also had to find Nick. That he
was dead in a ditch somewhere was now almost a certain thing. She looked at the
head to toe suit again and thought about Nick's blue jacket back at home.
"Ma'am, please?"
She put it on.
4
Inside the white suit, reality morphed into a terrifying
small world. Her heart pounded in her ears, her breathing sounded too loud. Her
hands felt useless, and her body became a hundred pounds heavier, moving in
slow motion.
A dozen men wore hazmat suits, walking back and forth
in the large room in front of her. They all stopped doing whatever they were
doing when she arrived, turning to look at her as one, seemingly unable to
breathe. The silence that came was the wrong kind of silence, too.
Behind them, she could see glass walls, some sort of
containment area. She turned to ask Mitchell but he was nowhere to be found,
one of her escorts in his place instead.
Guess Generals don't do hazmat
suits, huh?
One by one, the men moved to the side to let her pass, while
the soldier led her to the middle of the room. Or maybe he nudged her. Or maybe
he pulled her with a crane. She had no idea how she had arrived at her
destination by the time she reached it.
A man paced in the far side of the hexagonal glass
cell, wearing nothing but a hospital gown.
He even walks like Nick,
was
her last thought before he turned around to face her.
His hard eyes and anger melted as he focused on her,
recognition lighting his face. He ran, reaching the transparent wall in three
easy strides. She froze, unable to understand what she saw.
"Did they hurt you?" the man asked, his
palms pressing against the glass.
She could only stare, words trapped on her throat,
emotions colliding and collapsing in her heart. His voice, his face, his
eyes.
That was no terrorist in there. That was no identity thief. That was Nick,
all right. That was
definitely
Nick.