How to Find your Way in the Incomplete Archives

Nine

'And like that renowned detective, I favour the same opinion, Watson,'

The Librarian mulled over the idea, 'But it's not possible. How would they get inside without the key?'

'You think too much at once and your assumptions keep pushing away the facts,'

'When did I assume anything?'

'Assumption in point, getting in without 'the' key,'

'Meaning?'

'That's the easiest bit,' the Archivist wrapped a hand over the other's shoulder, 'I'll let you in on a secret. Superpowers are one of the commonest themes of stories out there. Unnatural strength, magic, shapeshifting, speed, you name it!'

A chord was struck somewhere, 'So, an external character with the ability to copy keys or bypass doors in some other way. It doesn't have to be the key but a good enough copy to trick the door.'

'Now you're making progress!'

'Supposing you're right, that it was a random pick and this story just happened to fall victim to the trickster, can you still figure out when this happened? We need to stop them from spreading chaos in the Library. What if there is a serial booknapper on the loose?'

'Must I do everything myself?'

'We are still in the shared cognition bubble, I can hear you,'

'I know!' They walked over to the reading table and tapped it in a specific pattern. A Tower of Hanoi setup materialised on the surface.

The Librarian was surprised to see the handy gadget.

Their subordinate moved the blocks into a seemingly random pattern, 'The jammer is in effect. From here on, our discussion will be indecipherable to outsiders. Now, to answer your question, we should start with how long ago this series was added to our collection. That'll narrow down the exact time of the crime. We also need to verify if this switching places is an isolated incident. In other words, I have to run a Library-wide scan for misplaced titles,'

'A manual sweep? But that could take decades to complete. And what if the booknapper strikes on an already scanned title? Do we have to re-initiate the whole process?'

'Seriously? You need to tone down your Ancient Guardian of the Knowledge House roleplay for a bit,' the Archivist was annoyed, 'This is a virtual space. Every node is indexed through and through. A full scan at our capacity takes a couple earth days at most. Once our latest scan results are in, we'll be able to pinpoint the exact location of every record in the Library and the times their position was updated.'

'Right! I knew that. Good work, Archivist,'

Perhaps the bookkeeper imagined the blush.

'I'm sure both of us had the same basics drilled into us at setup,' there was a touch of pride in their voice.

'But can our robust system tell us who updated the position?'

The proud glimmer diminished a bit, 'If it's you or me, yes. But for the characters, it just shows the 'literary_user' tag.'

An awkward silence followed, nothing too different from the usual silence but a bit louder than was the norm.

'Maybe it's time this Ancient Guardian of the Knowledge House took a page out of ye olde book of tricks,'

'What are you planning?'

'Start the scan. I'll show you in time,'

****

The Boglanders tried to keep a straight face.

The young man appeared to be no older than a teenager in his later years. To believe that he had lived for fifty years in the Shadow Castle, let alone anywhere, was a generous stretch of the imagination that neither Archaea nor Arlan had the capacity to stomach.