[A]nother Lonesome Few
"I just checked. She's really gone." Lucoah reported shakily, leaving Reisse and Aya frozen. The words seemed to echo unnaturally across the night-black shelves and steps that made up this particular alcove in the Pale Library. This did not bode well.
"Gone?" Nameless echoed mechanically. "Where?"
"Nowhere. I've looked around, but it looks like the most likely answer is that she left the City altogether. Lots of lingering dimensional instability. She wasn't even trying to hide it."
Nameless went quiet, and Reisse let out a shaky, quiet breath.
"This course will have consequences, certainly. The director's disappearance will make us appear more vulnerable. Outside forces will exploit this moment of weakness." Aya stated. Internally, Reisse scoffed at Aya's insistence on the idea of "us". There was no real connective tissue between any two Bookhunters or them and the Pale Librarian, no matter how Aya and Nameless acted. They were opportunists, vultures, people who saw an opportunity to claim what they needed and took it. Lucoah got this at the very least, which would've been enough for Reisse to like him were he now also a spineless coward who folded at the first sign of conflict with anything that vaguely resembled a threat to him.
Of course, the rest of the City seemed to lack Reisse's wisdom. The Library definitely felt monolithic, so he couldn't blame them too much for thinking the people who used it were all birds of a feather, but they were still wrong. Nameless had made it much worse by starting this little club between the elites. Then she dyed her hair blue and started wearing that black coat to look more like the Director, and Aya had done the same. Then Lucoah had copied them to try and stay in their good graces, and soon enough every high-ranking Bookhunter did the same thing. Now that they all looked like the Director, convincing anyone there was no relation between them was impossible. Never mind the fact that Bookhunters were as likely to get killed by one another or the Library as anybody else.
"That's their loss, though." Reisse pointed out, trying to be the voice of reason. "The Library is no weaker today than it was yesterday, is it?"
"Reisse is right." Lucoah chimed in, ever eager to throw himself behind somebody. "Not that I'm not grateful for everything Our Director has provided us, but she's always been more… hands-off in ruling the Pale Library. Her not being here doesn't make us any less secure, you know?"
"It removes the strength inherent in her reputation, Qilin." Aya responded. "The true might of the Pale Library is not merely the dangers that roam its halls, but the fear that the name instills. Few in the City who are wise enough to pose a true threat are also foolish enough to believe that Our Director cannot crush them. With her absent, we are no longer untouchable."
"So who do we have to worry about?" Reisse asked, trying to move the conversation towards practical matters. Surprisingly, Lucoah was the first to answer.
"Otherworks should be all good. The contract with Helsinki is between him and the Library as a whole, not just the Director. Plus, he's actually grateful about the whole situation with that other Head Doctor. The Bookhunters will keep our deal with their workshops. Of course, if you need me to check, I could-"
"Such an action is unnecessary. We must first secure those that we know to be enemies before considering possible foes." Aya interrupted, cutting of Lucoah's simpering. "What of the major players? Their positions are more significant."
"We have no reason to expect a response from the Wings. They don't gain anything by attacking us. The only exceptions I can think of are T Corp and R Corp, and that's only if the former chooses to hire the latter." Reisse explained. The Library had consumed some important parts of several Wings, but after the first few years people figured out that it was never going to let people borrow that information. At least, not unless you offered it something really amazing in exchange. Reisse had a few ideas on how to make it cough of a Singularity, but those were currently shelved for a better time. T Corp had some kind of personal rivalry with the Director, though, so they might actually try something. She did quite the number on them, though, so they might just keep their distance.
"What about opportunists, though? You know there are rumors about the Pale Library and the old L Corp. People are still going after whatever its Singularity was. There's not a lot of information about those groups." Lucoah proposed, and Reisse actually had to admit he had a point. Funny, that didn't usually happen when the man wasn't just repeating things he heard or saw.
"Maybe," Reisse said, "but they're not gonna be a real issue. The Library will flush them out. Those aspirant groups don't have enough resources to survive in here."
"Our comrades will slay them as a matter of course, even without recognizing the presence of the Abnormalities." Aya confirmed. Scientists and researchers always had to be careful around the Library. They can get up there in terms of the value of the information they hold without necessarily having the equivalent levels of protection. It makes them easy targets for opportunistic people. Anyone still scrounging for details about the old L Corp would make themselves targets just by being here.
"The Fingers are those we must concern ourselves most with. Hana has not lifted its ruling, so no official Association members shall be arriving to exploit this time of perceived vulnerability. But those who lurk in the Backstreets have no such ruling. They will be eager to reclaim their lost territory." Aya concluded.
"We can expect the Index to remain uninvolved, they've never shown any conflict with the Library before. It hardly took anything from them. The Thumb and Ring might be larger issues, though. The Thumb is taking their whole 'rivalry' with the Library seriously, so they'll be making some sort of move. The Ring are just weird, though." Reisse said. The Fingers really got on his nerves like not many other things did. They were just criminals or cultists or creepy art fetishists, but they'd survived long enough to trick everybody into thinking that they were more than that, themselves included. The idea that they had some special place in the world carved out just for them really rubbed him the wrong way.
"The Ring will be worse. The Thumb might want to make a statement, but the Ring creeps in here way too easily. They've got a better chance surviving here than any of the other Fingers, so that means if they can secure space in the Library none of the other Fingers will be able to take it back effectively." Lucoah added in. Reisse grunted in acknowledgment. Saying something useful twice in one day was a pleasant surprise, to be sure.
"Well, I should probably tell the others. I'll just be in my way now, unless you've got anything else really important?" Lucoah said, standing up and riding to his relatively unimpressive full height. He wasn't short, he was actually taller than Reisse or Nameless, but the way he held himself put him below either one of them.
"Nameless?" Reisse asked, ignoring the diminutive Bookhunter for now. The conversation wasn't over, and he wouldn't leave without explicit permission. "You've been rather quiet. Do you not have anything to say?"
This wasn't usually behavior for the strongest of the Bookhunters. Nameless wasn't as prone to babbling as Lucoah or pontificating like Aya, but they were still a bit chatty. Usually, anyways. Since the conversation begun, they'd been staring up into nowhere.
"You said she didn't try to hide it." Nameless said finally, a pleasant smile on their face. Despite himself, Reisse shivered. The look on his superior's face was a totally mundane one. The simple expression a person takes when they see are enjoying whatever's happening to them.
"Do you think somebody could follow her?"
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Today's Books
Robin Soldier's Page
Attributes
- R Corp First Pack Robin Soldier Physical Modifications
- Triple-R Armaments
- Charge-Looped Supernova Core
- Robin Treatment
- Evade Mastery
Techniques
- Perpetual Force
- Dark Energy Focus
- FTL Drive
- Phoenix Coil
- Split The Horizon
![[Z]ero To One Hundred](/data/threadmark-index-icons/l/70/70740.jpg?1688609762){kind=icon}
: ...Ah, this timeline.
: ...
: Do you think she'll find what she looks for?
: ...I'm quite sure...The question should be whether she can keep it or not.
