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Albert dropped his keys into his pocket and marched up the street with a determined stride that echoed off dark storefronts. The smart thing to do would be to head home, get a few hours of sleep. It would be dawn soon. But he wasn’t going to sleep, he knew that. Sam and Caine and Astrid and Computer Jack all had their things they did, their things they knew, but this was Albert’s.
“We can’t be rats,” he muttered to himself. “We have to be…” But even trying to explain it to himself, he didn’t know the right words.
The county library branch in Perdido Beach wasn’t an impressive place. It was a dusty, gloomy, low-ceilinged storefront that hit him with a whiff of mildew when he swung the door open. He had never entered the place before and was a little surprised to find it unlocked with the overhead fluorescent tubes still flickering and buzzing.
Albert looked around and laughed. “No one’s been here since the FAYZ,” he said to a rack of yellowed paperbacks.
He looked in the librarian’s old oaken desk. You never knew where a candy bar might be hiding. He found a can of peppermints. They looked like they’d been there quite a while, treats to be handed out to kids who never came.
He popped one in his mouth and began to walk the meager stacks. He knew he needed to know something, but he didn’t know what he needed to know. Most of the books looked like they’d been there, undisturbed, since before Albert was born.
He found a set of encyclopedias—like Wikipedia, but paper and very bulky. He plopped down on the ratty carpet and opened the first book. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he knew where to start. He slid out the volume for “W” and turned to the entry for “work.” There were two main entries. One had to do with work in terms of physics.
The other entry talked about work as the “activities necessary for the survival of society.”
“Yeah,” Albert said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”
He started reading. He jumped from volume to volume, understanding only part of what he was reading, but understanding enough to follow another lead and then another. It was exactly like following hyperlinks, only slower, and with more lifting.
“Work” led to “labor,” which led him to “productivity,” which led to someone named “Karl Marx,” which led to another old guy named “Adam Smith.”
Albert had never been much of a serious student. But what he had learned in school had never mattered much from his point of view. This mattered. Everything mattered now.
Albert drifted slowly off to sleep and woke up with a start feeling eyes watching him.
He spun around, jumped to his feet, and heaved a huge sigh of relief when he saw that it was just a cat. The cat was a yellow tabby, a little fat, probably old. It had a pink collar and heart-shaped brass tag. It stood with perfect confidence and self-possession in the middle of the aisle. The cat stared at him from green eyes. Its tail twitched.
“Hi, kitty,” Albert said.
The cat disappeared.
Gone.
Albert recoiled in shock, his face suddenly ablaze with pain. The cat was on him, on his face, digging razor-claws into his head. The cat hissed, needle-teeth exposed by a fierce scowl a millimeter from Albert’s eyes.
Albert yelled for help, yelled at the cat. The cat dug its claws deeper. Albert still had a volume of the encyclopedia in his right hand—the “S” book. He slammed it down on his own head.
The cat was gone. The book knocked Albert silly.
And now the cat was clear across the room, sitting calmly atop the librarian’s desk.
It was impossible. Nothing moved that fast. Nothing.
Albert drew a shaky breath and began backing toward the door to the street.
Without any movement that Albert’s eyes could detect, the cat went from the desk to the back of Albert’s neck. It was on him like a mad thing, clawing, scratching, tearing, hissing.
Again, Albert swung the heavy book and again the blow landed on his own flesh because now the cat was perched atop a stack, peering down at Albert, mocking him with cool, green-eyed contempt.
It was going to attack him again.
Instinct made Albert swing the book up to protect his face.
He felt the book jump violently in his hands.
The cat’s face, distorted by rage, was an inch from Albert’s own face.
But the book was still in place.
