Thursday morning had started the same as the others; coffee from the cart on the corner, the familiar purgatory of the mirrored lift, the tenth floor opening up around him like an exhale. He'd settled at his desk, arranged his notes, opened his manuscript, and spent approximately eleven minutes reading the same paragraph before Landen's door opened and the man himself crossed the floor to speak to someone at the far end of the pod.
Adriel had stared at the paragraph. The paragraph stared back.
This was the state Miriam found him in when she stopped at his desk at half past ten, brisk as ever, and set a reference slip beside his keyboard.
"Archive retrieval." Her finger tapped the slip once. "Harmon manuscript, bound copy, referenceGH-1184. Two floors down. The lift takes you directly. The room is coded; your key card will work." Already turning away. "Priority, please."
"Of course. I'll go now."
She was gone before he finished the sentence.
He looked at the slip. Then at his monitor, where the paragraph he'd read a hundred times glowed patiently. Then at the slip again.
He reached for his lanyard.
The relief that moved through him was immediate and slightly shameful. A concrete task. Something with a clear objective and a clear end point, requiring him to go somewhere that was not here, not this floor, not within auditory range of that particular voice. He was almost grateful to Miriam, which said something about the state he was in.
He gathered the slip, straightened his sweater out of habit, he was beginning to suspect he'd be doing it on his deathbed, and stood.
The lift took him down two floors to a corridor noticeably different from the tenth floor. Narrower here, the ceiling lower, the lighting cooler. The air changed too; expensive perfume and new print giving way to something older and stiller. Paper that had been sitting in the same place for years. Dust and ink and the faint, not unpleasant ghost of stories shelved and waiting.
Adriel breathed it in. Felt his shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
The archive door was the third on the left. He held his key card to the reader, heard the soft click, saw the green light blink on, and pushed the door inward.
The room was exactly what the corridor had promised. Tall, metal shelving units ran in close parallel rows from floor to ceiling, packed with bound manuscripts, boxed documents, labelled spines in varying states of legibility.
The overhead lights were fluorescent, but only two of the three panels were working, giving the space a low, uneven quality; pools of yellow-white light and soft shadow in the gaps between. The shelves were close together. Narrow enough that two people passing would have to turn sideways.
Quiet. The only sound was the faint hum of ventilation and Adriel's own footsteps against bare concrete.
He exhaled. Properly, this time.
The tight vigilance of the morning loosened its grip on him by small degrees as he moved into the rows, reference slip in hand, trailing his fingers lightly along the spines. The familiar comfort of books worked on him the way it always had; the way it had since he was a child pressed into library corners with a story that didn't ask anything of him. Cloth binding, cracked leather, smooth laminate.
GH-1155. GH-1170.
GH-1181. GH-1182. GH-1183.
There.
GH-1184. The Harmon manuscript. Bound in faded burgundy cloth, thick, shelved spine-out on the second shelf from the top.
The second shelf from the top, which was, he registered with a sinking feeling, approximately eight inches above his comfortable reach.
He rose onto his toes. His fingertips brushed the spine. Not enough purchase. He strained higher, the shelf edge pressing into his palm, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the binding. Dropped back down. Looked around for something to stand on. Found nothing.
Looked up at the manuscript with the particular expression of a man who has just realized the universe is mildly but specifically against him.
He tried again. Higher this time, the effort pulling a soft, frustrated sound from him, fingers catching the very edge of the spine…
He didn't hear the door. He didn't hear the footsteps either.
What he heard was a voice. Close and deep, from somewhere behind him.
"Which one?"
He spun around, his shoulder catching the edge of the shelf with a dull rattling sound, heart slamming so hard against his ribs that for a disoriented moment he couldn't locate any other sensation. His hand flew out and gripped the shelf, steadying himself, and he stood there breathing too fast, staring at the end of the row.
