Chapter twenty-five

Dion continued to avoid my gaze as we passed through the elevator doors. At least he trusted me enough to go along with my plan, I thought to myself. Neddy was right there waiting for us as we walked in. Suddenly and innocently, he rushed over to Dion and gave him an adolescent hug right around his waist. I suppose all of these robots were programmed to recognize their creator. Dion couldn’t help but close his eyes and smile a little.

“Master Demeter!” Ned said, a bit belatedly. Then he turned toward me, cordially: “Hello to you as well, Master Lester.” I liked this android; Neddy was nice to me from the start. He walked over to me and took my hand, like a young gentleman. “Welcome back to the Library.”

“Neddy,” I said. “We need your help with something.”

“We do?” Dion said, still in the dark about my plan.

“Yeah, we do.” I turned to Neddy, perhaps with a bit more haste than was necessary. “Do you remember the book you mentioned to me earlier?”

“Actually,” Neddy said, correcting me, “earlier we spake of two works. One work, entitled The History of Systech and Its Application within the Connexus, you checked out before exiting the library. The other, entitled Mystery Thesis, was mentioned only in passing.”

“So you already knew about the book?” Dion asked quizzically.

“Not really,” I said to Dion. “He told me a story about how some magical freak came into the Library and infected this Learned with calypsus. Then the guy took the book and ran.” I turned once again to the Solomon model. “Neddy go ahead and retrieve another copy of the tome entitled Mystery Thesis for me and my friend, would you?”

“I’m afraid, Master Lester, that the stolen work was the only copy of that book in this entire Library.”

“Don’t you keep backup copies of the important works of this Library? A digital copy even?”

“Ordinarily, yes, but Master Skunk asked that I expressly delete and destroy all extant copies of Mystery Thesis prior to embarking upon this voyage,” Neddy replied.

“I get it,” Dion said. “Master Skunk didn’t want you to read it. At least, I don’t think so, anyhow. If you’d read the story, then it’s possible that you would change the ending just by knowing it.”

“But as you said before, I already changed the ending – I killed the robot. But maybe, just maybe, it was Master Skunk or you or these robots who initially changed it all, by reading the story ahead of time.” Dion looked at me with a simmering gaze; he was insinuating that I was wrong to blame him for my actions. My theory could’ve been correct, and I think he knew that; maybe we would never know. Seriously though – How I could have missed so obvious a dream in that moment! – Now that is something I won’t ever know.

“I do know the whole work by heart, Master Lester,” Ned said, drawing me out of a daze.

“You do?” I gleefully reacted, “But I thought you said that the Librarian made you forget it all.”

“Delete it, yes,” he said, “but I shall never forget it. I believe I am incapable of that.”

“What was your plan, Chris?”

“My plan is to study the end of Mystery Thesis carefully. And again, please stop calling me that Dion. My plan, ultimately, is to figure out what happens next; if only to figure out how to get to that one city: what’s it called?”

“Carthago,” Dion said, less reluctant now. “Now that I think about it, I gotta hand it to you. The story itself may have an answer for us, dude.” At least he didn’t call me that other name again.

“Neddy, we need you to dictate the very end of the story for us.”

“Not quite,” Dion interjected, anticipating part of my plan. “It’s not quite the end of the story that we need to know about.”

“Really?” I said, happy to have Dion on my team again. “Well, I guess you would know; you’ve read it before.”

“Where shall I begin?” Neddy asked.

“Begin with the green room.”