Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End

"Yup. Unless you take off your contacts or declare a 911, you can't see what's really here. And that's another reason for not using Epiphany." Tom-mie waved his open laptop like some talisman. "I can see the illusions, but only when I want them." The little guy walked down another side path, here poking at a book that lay groaning on the floor, there stepping into an alcove to look at what the patrons were doing. "This place is so cool!"

When they reached the wooden stairs, Rivera said, "Be careful. These things are tricky." About halfway down, the steps tilted and the perspective was all askew. Winnie went first. He hesitated at the twist. "I've done this before," he grunted, almost to himself. "I can do it." He stepped forward, started to stumble, and then stood straight — but tilted compared with Robert and company.

When Robert reached the threshold, he closed his eyes. The Epiphany default was to drop all overlays on "eyes-closed," so he was briefly immune to the visual trickery. He stepped forward — and there was no real tilt, just a simple turn!

Tommie came right after him. There was a big grin on his face. "Welcome to the Escher Wing!" he said. "The kids just eat this up." At the bottom of the stairs there was another ninety-degree turn. Parker said, "Okay, now we're walking back toward the building's utility core, only we have the feeling that we're still wandering through unending books."

Books ahead and behind, and off to the side, hidden in alleys. Books above, like chimneys disappearing in purple light. He could even see books below them, where rickety ladders seemed to drop off into the depths. If Robert looked at them with slightly averted vision, the lettering on the spines and covers gave back a blacklight glow, violet almost too deep to see, but very clear, with the Library of Congress codes cryptic and runelike. The books were the ghosts — or maybe the avatars — of what had been destroyed.

They made sounds, groaning, hissing, whispering. Conspiring. Deep in the alleyways, some of the books were in chains.

"Gotta watch out for Das Kapital ," said Rivera.

Robert saw one of the tomes — the word fits for once ! — pulling at its chains, the links ringing loudly on massive eyebolts.

"Yup, Dangerous Knowledge yearns to be free."

Some of the books must be real, touchy-feely props. The students in one alley were piling books together. They stood back and the texts nuzzled into each other in an orgy of napping pages. "So that's bibliographical synthesis?"

Rivera followed his gaze. "Er, yes. This started out as the scam Dean Blount said, something to endear the shredding project to the public. We represent books as near-living things, creatures that serve and bewitch their readers. Terry Pratchett and then Jerzy Hacek have been playing on that theme for years. But we really didn't appreciate the power of it all. We have some of the best Hacek belief circles helping with this. Every database action has a physical representation here, just as in Hacek's Library Militant stories. Most of our users think this is better than standard reference software."

Winnie looked back at them. He had gotten far enough ahead that he seemed foreshortened, as if they were seeing him through a telescope at some great distance. He waved in disgust. "That's the betrayal, Carlos. You librarians don't approve of the shredding, but look what you've done. These kids will lose all respect for the permanent record of the human heritage."

Tommie Parker was standing behind Robert. He muttered gleefully, "Winnie, the kids had already lost all respect."

Rivera looked down. "I'm sorry, Dean Blount. It's the shredding that's evil, not the digitizing. For the first time in their lives, our students have modern access to premillennium knowledge." He waved at the students down in the alley. "And it's not just here. You can reach the library from the net, just minus the touchy-feely gimmicks. Huertas is allowing limited access without charge, even during his monopoly period. This is just the first-pass digitization, and only HB through HX, but we've had more hits on our premillennium holdings in the last week than we had in the last four years. And much of the new business is from faculty!"

"Hypocritical bastards," said Winnie.

Robert looked at the students in their alcove. The sex-between-books had ended, but now the books floated in the air over the students' heads and the pages sang out in tiny voices to volumes still unsearched. Metaphor incarnate .

They trooped back toward the utility core. It turned out to be several times farther than Robert remembered. The staggered aisles must take them around the center of the real fourth floor.

Finally they were in sight of the eight-foot-tall doors. After everything else, the carven wood was quotidian reality. Even the floor had flattened into something solid and normal-looking.

And then that floor shifted under his feet.

"Wha — " Robert flailed out, fell against the wall. Books shifted on their shelves, and he remembered that some of those were as real and heavy as they looked.

Lightning flashed in pulsing arcs.

Rivera was shouting in Mandarin, something about a fake earthquake.

Whatever it was, the swaying and shifting were real .

A groaning sound came from below, and bats rushed back and forth in the air above. The swaying diminished, cycled around like a dancer doing a little jig.

And then it was over. The floor and walls felt as steady as they had been in Robert's grad-school years.

Tommie climbed back to his feet and helped Winston Blount up. "All okay?" he said.

Blount nodded dumbly, too shaken for sarcasm.

"It's never done that before," said Tommie.

Carlos nodded. " Āiya, duibuqi, wó gāng xiäng qilái tāmen jīntiān shi xin dōngxi ," he said, something about trying something new today.

Tommie patted the librarian on the shoulder. "Hey man, you're talking Chinese."

Rivera stared for a moment and then responded, still in Mandarin, but faster and louder.

"It's okay, Carlos. Don't worry." Tommie guided the young man down the stairs. Rivera was still talking, but in bursts, repeating, " Wǒ zài shuō yīngyü ma? Shi yīngyǓ ma ?" Am I speaking English? Is it English?

"Just keep going, Carlos. You'll be okay."

Robert and Winnie brought up the rear. Blount was squinting his eyes in that exaggerated way of his, searching. "Ha!" he said. "The bastards were using the stability servos to shake the building. See."

And for a wonder, Robert did see; all the practice was paying off. "Yes!" The Geisel Library was one of the few buildings not replaced after the Rose Canyon quake. Instead, they built active stabilization into the old frame. "So the admin thought this would give a little extra realism…"

"We could have been killed," said Blount.

They were at the third floor. Coming up the other way was a group of students; at least, Robert assumed they were students, since they were laughing and most had chosen monstrous forms. The two groups slid past each other, the oldsters silent until the students had disappeared above them.

Tommie said, "What triggers the rock and roll, Carlos?"

Rivera weaved around an armoire that was built into the wall. Now he shouted, "Am I speaking English yet?… Yes ! Oh, thank God. Sometimes I dream I get stuck forever." He walked several paces, almost crying with relief. Then the words came streaming out of him. "Yes, yes. I understood your question: I'm not sure what triggers our fake earthquakes. I was at the meeting where we decided to use the stability system this way. The trigger was supposed to be any attempt to 'open' a book that contains knowledge 'Mankind was not meant to know.' Of course, that's a joke — except when it's so deadly serious that Homeland Security shows up. So I think we just trigger the shakes at random."