THE DEWEY DECIMAL System never looked so good.

The main branch of the Universe City Municipal Library was situated in Midtown, at the center of the metropolis' collegiate sprawl. Prior to the occupation, it was one of the city's most prestigious institutions, a symbol of dedication to higher learning through the ages, and it hadn't relinquished the title. Through the worst battles of the war it stood firm, barely suffering a scratch and for a time denizens of the city literally took refuge within its granite walls. This gave new life and meaning to the belief that knowledge was power; in Universe City, that was truer than ever before.

On Saturdays the main Library opened its doors at 8:30AM during the regular school semesters. Already there were students dotting the tables and petitioning the staff to go trolling through the scaffolds for books. Some tried to artfully dodge late fees with timeworn excuses that had been passed down from preceding graduates like bogus term papers. Others merely sought refuge from the onslaught of jocks and losers burning through their parents' savings.

And then there was the Head Librarian.

She was undeniably in a class all to herself, far beyond any form of categorization. But for now, the Dewey Decimal System would suffice. It was tidy and efficient, but also large and encompassing. A cursory study of the breakdown of subjects revealed they covered pretty much the total of the human experience, plus some. There were allowances for change, empty numbers left vacant for future definitions like apartments waiting for tenants. She liked this aspect of the system, that it wasn't so airtight it didn't allow subjects to breathe. There was actually life to be found in the digits.

And she loved books. Her job hadn't dulled her enthusiasm for them at all. If anything, it had inflamed it. She didn't keep a tally, but the number of books present that she herself had read was nothing short of astonishing. If they'd been flagged for others to see, no one would have thought it possible. And she retained large portions of the knowledge she gathered. This made her smarter than the professors who sent befuddled students to her hourly. It was common for her to correct their choices of reading material to help some poor misguided souls smooth out the bumps in their GPA.

She wasn't just book smart though. This lady knew how to read between the lines. The books were her totems; their readers were her bookmarks.

She sat at the hub of the main floor of the library, dutifully directing the staff beneath her (and really, most of them were beneath her, regardless of their titles), and watching over the patrons who paid her tribute. Just being in this lady's presence, it was clear as Plexiglas that she excelled at her job. No inquiry was left unanswered, and she was never at a loss for words. A casual gesture or glance to the side sent most patrons careening off into the subject of their choice, usually with a smile plastered across their faces.

And woe to the poor soul who dared to match wits with her. Most were lucky to emerge from such an exchange with a tail to drag between their legs. She was sharp, and if you said the wrong thing she would cut you down to size and ship you home wrapped in a dust-jacket.

She was also hot. If Bradbury wrote a book about her, it would have been titled FAHRENHEIT 450. One degree higher and she'd have been out of a job.

Her self-bestowed title was V2thaG, and she was not one to be trifled with.

As she now scanned the lines of the morning paper, she knew exactly who was waiting to talk to her on the other side of the newsprint. She didn't look up and didn't need to glance at the surveillance monitors. She could feel the power radiating from the quartet standing at the station in front of her. It was the same power that coursed through her veins, and it resonated with unspoken notes.

"May I help you?" she asked the man facing the headlines.

"Yes ma'am, I'm looking for a specific book," he said as politely as could be. "Maybe you can help me." She dipped the top of her newspaper to peer at him through her glasses. He had long hair and was dressed in black and silver. And he thought the glasses made her look sexy.

"You're in the right place. What are you looking for?" she said without smiling. She had his number - actually, she had all of his numbers. 135 - Dreams & Mysteries... 536 - Heat... 538 - Magnetism... The prefixes he brought to mind were plentiful. But she wasn't making anything easy for him.

Undeterred, he smiled and said, "It's rare, one-of-a-kind. Only one is in print that I know of."

She lowered her paper to size him up in full. Standing just behind him, the three companions rolled their eyes at his approach.

"I think I know what book you're talking about," she said. "Are you sure you can handle it though? It's a pretty involved read."

"Oh I know. It's thick...and got a spine that a bindery would be proud of."

She allowed herself a slight grin. He was funny. "I'm sorry sir, but you can't check out that book. Your card has expired and you have some outstanding charges. Renewal applications are at the table to your left and we'll accept all payment types for your past-due balances. Have a nice day." Then she ruffled her paper and brought it up again, as though laying the bricks of the Berlin Wall back into place.

It was his turn to grin. She was funny.

"Then maybe I can offer you a little sumpin'-sumpin' to change your mind, doll," he said and hoisted a duffle-bag up to the counter top. At this, the others stepped up to block the contents of the bag from view of any other patrons, causing the librarian to put her paper down and lean in, her curiosity piqued.

BulletBoy unzipped the bag for just two seconds, and V2thaG's jaw dropped when she saw the blue glare from the infocomm. She recognized what it was instantly.

"Where did you get that?" she asked in a forceful whisper.

"Sneaked it right out from underneath the occupants' noses at the Way Station," said fscked. "But we can't read a damn thing on it."

"That's where you come in," said Ven. "We have to get the information on here decrypted as fast as possible so the Lords can figure out what's going on."

"We need you Vee," chimed in BulletBoy, all pretenses abandoned.

In the catalogue of her mind, V2thaG scrolled through the 400s for related topics that would be useful. This wasn't the first time she'd been called upon to help decipher some ancient or foreign tome, but the circumstances here were unusual. She knew from previous discussions with the Children that the situation with the occupants was growing tenser. She had no problem with making herself available for the task at hand, but some skillful cross-referencing would be in order.

"Give me about two hours," she said, pushing her glasses back up on her nose. "I go on break then and we can take this to my study hall. In the meantime..." She spread her arms out, gesturing at the treasure trove of reading material encircling them. "...feel free to browse."

The quartet nodded and dispersed, each quickly losing themselves in the furrows of the cataloguing queue. tripsy got caught up in 580 and 581 (botanical sciences and botany, respectively) before making her way to 571 and 572 (interplanetary and human races, respectively), then settling in to the biographies, which were splintered off of 973 by assorted cutter numbers and the motorist's varied interests.

BulletBoy, who carried the infocomm with him, spent most of his time in the 700s (the arts), amusing himself by comparing what was on the shelves with what was in his own private collection. There were certain works he couldn't believe they didn't have, even with their considerable post-occupation expansion. The same was not true of their fiction (813), which was vast. The gunslinger would have to make a return trip here when there was more time.

Ven and fscked traipsed through the 600's (technology) before it occurred to either of them to look for information on the Perdendosi. When they did arrive at the spot designated for reference works on extraterrestrial worlds (999) they found nothing there pertaining to the occupants. V2thaG was actually ahead of them, combing through dusty hardcovers and softcovers. She knew she wouldn't find anything, but it was worth a chance.

"They've never allowed any works to be made available on their culture or history," said the librarian. "If there was anything here that they knew of, we'd probably be under lockdown."

"Touchy," said the intermediary.

"That doesn't sound good," said the bodyguard. "So how are you going to be able to help us?"

Vee looked at them over the top of her glasses. Silly Children, she thought. "I said 'if there was anything here they knew of ', the operative words being 'here' and 'knew'." She straightened a couple of the books in front of her and turned to walk away. "Like I said before, you're in the right place." She pointed to her watch. "Meet me at the main doors in about half an hour."

Ven and fscked watched her leave, looked at each other and shrugged, then turned their attentions back to the books. This momentary bout of interpersonal communicative disassociation would be over soon enough.

As per her direction, a human subject had indeed been removed from one of the pods on Level One, a hasty move that utterly confounded every tech present. She had told them her plan while her carrier raced back to the station, and it was crude and simple. They were going to place Prefect Sinclair in a pod, where he would remain in stasis long enough for them to direct a singular charge of collected energy through that chamber. Rather than push the evolutionary process, as it was designed to do with the humans, it would hopefully stimulate Sinclair's own life-energies, giving him a "jump start" back to life.

The scientists, doctors and technicians were all highly skeptical about this course of action. They never had such an opportunity to try an experiment so radical, but felt the risks were enormous. They reminded the Overguard that the pods had been specifically designed for human anatomy, which was an eon behind their own in development on all but the most superficial levels. Her proposed solution required modifications that could take weeks, perhaps even months to complete.

She gave them two hours, maximum. And as far as risks went...the Prefect was already dead. It didn't matter if this worked or not. At worst, she stood to receive admonishments from administrative superiors, possibly a reduction in rank (which was unlikely, considering Brittlesmith was still missing) which she'd earn back in time; at best, she'd be hailed as a hero. And they would have one of their most vocal dignitaries alive to tell the tale.

Within two hours, the body of Sinclair was strapped into the pod on Level One, which was isolated from the operating systems of the other pods in case of malfunction. The charge that was filtered through its circuitry was far smaller than what they'd used for the full tests - it wouldn't cause so much as a glimmer in the city - but it was still massive. From behind goggles, the attending Perdendosi watched the Prefect's body twitch and spasm through the duration of the test, then the energy was halted and the main lights came back up.

Still the body convulsed. But there was something else taking place, Farewayth was sure: the involuntary contracting of muscles was displaced by the pained struggle of consciousness fighting its way back to the fore. It was a battle that could not be confined to the pod, which cracked at the seams, causing emergency alarms to blare. Several techs stepped forward to asses the situation, but were kept at bay by the violent thrashing from within. All at once the pod was broken in half, and smoke clouded all eyes from immediately seeing what emerged.

It was Sinclair, naked and trembling with the disorienting force of rebirth. His completely hairless skin glistened, and there was something freakishly primal in his stance that continued to hold the surrounding technicians back. Everyone present stood in silence, no one quite sure of what to do.

The Prefect took halting steps forward and looked around. His reintegrated consciousness was still reeling from the sudden shock of being pulled back to tangibility. His senses had for a time extended beyond Perdendosi perceptions, putting him in touch with everything that existed beyond their now obvious limits. But the remembrance of this dimmed almost instantly, leaving him with only a sliver of larger awareness. It would be enough however to haunt him through the long day ahead.

There was now only the dizzying mental and physical void of incompletion, ended only when the floor of the pod level flew up to meet his face. Attendants who were astounded that he was alive at all seized advantage of the situation and subjected the Prefect to every test imaginable, down to a sub-molecular level. While they weren't able to find anything overtly wrong with him, there was something not quite right either.

A peculiar interruption was present in the bases of his DNA and RNA (as well as PNA), which still held together but now seemed to be more "elastic". Also, the cytoplasm of his cells was ever so minutely displaced by new freeforming genetic material that by all definition was struggling to replicate itself. This cellular disruption seemed locked in a relative holding pattern, and Sinclair's metabolism stabilized within seven hours. There was no way to predict however whether the new matter would be overpowered by his natural biological defenses or would evolve like a cancer. That would have to be proven by time.

Farewayth undertook dual monitoring of Sinclair's exhaustive rehabilitation, which progressed rapidly over the seven hours, and the activities of the field troops. Witnesses along Perseverance Way had eventually yielded recordings of the battle between Sinclair and the human female, which had also captured glimpses of her companion. Once they had this information, the occupants would piece together a physical composition of the two renegades which would hopefully lead to their eventual capture. This would be their only real chance of recovering Brittlesmith, whose trail had otherwise evaporated.

Amidst the whirlwind of demands on her, Farewayth also found the time to respond to preliminary inquisitions from members of the High Counsel, most of which came from offworld. News of the heated exchanges between Perdendosi military forces and Terrans as well as alleged breeches in their security network had officials nervous. Dealing with the upper levels of their technocracy was the most repetitious of her duties, something Sinclair himself had warned her of in earlier days. If her luck held, she'd have him back to his position of doing this instead of her soon.

Around the noon hour, Farewayth was summoned to the infirmary on Substation Six. The Prefect had awakened and requested to speak with her.

Even Ven, silent in full-out business mode, could understand BB's distraction though. A high number of the Children had a heightened sexual voracity that clung to them like a static charge. For some this was their main power, and it was a potent one. V2thaG claimed this as a secondary ability, and it was one she rarely had to actively use to get attention. If she had, the results might have been devastating. Even now it wafted in the air behind her like a perfume, turning heads from every vantage point.

She was clad in a white jacket that marked her as a doctor of the librarian arts, and the clack-clack of her heels sharply annotated her advance through the corridors to the private study hall. A large oaken double-door was unlocked by an entry card to reveal a cavernous domain full to near-bursting with a collection of secret works. Scalloped windows at the top of the walls revealed ever-slate-gray skies.

The doors sealed shut behind them solidly, and the librarian gave the barest of looks back at her visitors. "Be careful what you touch; this is where we keep the dangerous stuff," she said matter-of-factly. "Bring the infocomm to the back." She plucked a couple of volumes from their resting places as she went, perfectly assured they would yield what she needed.

There was a fairly large computer at the middle of the main floor which she walked past with indifference. It was plugged solely into the library's mainframe, and as such was far too limiting to be of any use. Toward the back all but camouflaged by a cluster of papers and reference works was nestled a cabinet that housed V2thaG's true instrument of digital mastery.

She swung panels out to reveal a computer far less flashy than its counterpart on the main floor, but extremely more potent. It had three monitors hooked up to it, connections in the back for an array of alien peripherals, and even boasted an independent power source. Ven looked at it with instant approval. The most loyal and trustworthy Children seemed to intuitively make provisions for such set-ups. It was like a homing instinct, pushing them to stay connected and jacked-in no matter where they went.

V2thaG took a seat in front of the main screen and placed her books to the side. The others followed suit, except for BulletBoy who held the infocomm. "Bring that over," she instructed him. She had him stand near her while she turned it in his hands, then she opened the first book and started perusing the pages.

"You turn it on by pushing the side -" began Ven. She cut him off by reaching up and expertly pushing on part of the side panel in a specific sequence, all without turning from her book. The recessed screen lit up and began scrolling alien text which resembled bar codes. "You've handled one of these before?" asked the intermediary.

"First time," she said. "But I'm familiar with the technology." She continued flipping through her book at an ever faster pace. She needed barely a second to assimilate each page. "For all their vaunted superiority, the Perdendosi aren't the only advanced race in the cosmos. And some of the others aren't nearly as stingy with their information."

She finished with the first book and took the infocomm out of the gunslinger's hands, propping it on her crossed legs made visible through the slit in her skirt. This allowed BulletBoy to also take a seat. He studied her much as she did the occupants' tool, and it was hard to say who was a more attentive viewer. He liked what he saw. V2thaG was petite, but not a single line or curve of her form was wasted. She was hot and she was smart, which made her even more hot. It was a Mobius strip of attraction he gladly traversed like a hamster on a wheel.

Vee looked up at BB and their eyes locked. He laughed that evil (although he preferred to think of it as merely menacing) laugh of his, and she pursed her lips and shoved the infocomm back into his hands, freeing hers up to grab the second book. She flicked through a few pages at a time, intermittently jabbing at the keyboard of her computer and bringing up virtual reference pages one by one. All three screens were alive with information. Then she spun and touched the screens themselves which responded by revealing more privileged info.

All at once she halted and let out a "Huh," void of definition. She again took the infocomm away from her admirer and swiped her hand back and forth across its face. Then she nodded to herself with obvious satisfaction. She had figured something out.

"So what is it?" asked Ven.

"Simple. It's a cookbook," she answered completely deadpan.

The room fell even more silent and the four visitors literally froze in place.

"Just kidding," she said. "But I had you going."

She tapped a few apparently random areas on the screen of the infocomm and the display changed radically. All at once the information revealed was now in American English. If she wanted, Vee could have made it display in French, German, Dutch, Swahili or any number of other tongues. She had it thoroughly figured out.

"It's just a relay device for system-wide information dispersal. Every qualified person there probably has one. The infocomm itself has all the information available to anyone working at the Way-Station, but you need the right access codes to get at it."

"Let me guess," said Ven, "a scientist would have access to the scientific data stored on here. A guard would have access to military information, and so on."

"Exactly," said Vee. "It has everything. More than can be downloaded or transcribed right now, that's for sure." She powered down the device and handed it back to BulletBoy who looked at it with even greater appreciation. "Even with my system working at full capacity, it would take days to go through the data on there. The memory reserves are phenomenal."

"So where does that put us?" said Ven. "Near as I can tell, we may not have days to wait."

"You don't have to," said Vee. She reached over just as a tray ejected itself from the body of the computer and birthed a small cylinder. It was metallic and glistened and fit easily between the librarian's thumb and forefingers. She grabbed a clear plastic case and snapped the cylinder inside. "This is your booster program that will let you read the infocomm. It's got every crackcode to let you access whatever you want." She went to hand it to Ven then stopped just shy of his hand. "You do have a Maltix drive hooked up to your system, right?"

Ven smiled his easygoing business smile. Silly Child, he thought. At the Lords' Chamber there was every type of input and output device conceivable. He had a Maltix drive as soon as SupraDyne made them commercially available. "Yeah, we're good. Thanks."

They all stood now and headed for the door. V2thaG had a few more words of admonition for them. "What I said before about that being a cookbook? That wasn't entirely a joke."

"Well that sounds scary," said tripsy, breaking her silence.

"There was plenty of stuff on there about human evolution, and finding ways to accelerate the process at hyper-fast degrees. I've never come across anything like it in all my reading, so I don't know what the Perdendosi agenda is. But they've absolutely got one. And it's massive."

"Hopefully we'll be able to figure that out now," said Ven. He looked over at tripsy as the quartet stepped out into the hallway. "Can you get us back to the Chamber Hall undetected?"

"You got it," said the motorist. In her mind she'd been laying out their detour route around William Penn Highway since that morning. She had it all figured out. Each of the Children present understood the enormity of their situation, the stakes involved, and the danger present.

V2thaG stood just inside the doorway of her study hall as the group prepared to leave. They exchanged goodbyes and departed...all except BulletBoy. He stood in the frame of the doors, rock-solid still, smiling with arms folded. The gunslinger stared at the librarian and shot all manner of wicked imaginings at her. She wasn't a mentalist but she picked-up on his every thought just the same. He found this little game especially amusing and grinned wider as she slowly relented and grinned back at him. She wasn't one for letting the world see her as anything less than controlled and together - but BulletBoy was the exception that proved the rule. He saw her clearly, and vice-versa.

But beneath the glitter he was still a goofball. She rolled her eyes and shook her head and watched as fscked and tripsy both came back and pulled him along so they could get going. As he was tugged out of sight, BulletBoy raised his free hand to his face, thumb and pinky extended to ear and mouth respectively, and mouthed "Call me...!" to the librarian. Then he was gone, leaving nothing but the trail of sinister laughter behind him as his calling card.

V2thaG allowed herself a chuckle in response. She removed her glasses for a second - something she waited to do since it might have encouraged the gunslinger even more - and rubbed her eyes. The information on the infocomm left her with a sense of foreboding that BB's silliness had only partially offset. But these Children were walking into danger, no mistake about that. She just hoped she'd armed them with enough information to combat whatever waited.

And then the Acid-appointed guardian of knowledge headed back to her central post and resumed her duties, distributing literary power to the masses a few volumes at a time. She absently continued reading her newspaper when she had a moment, even as a deliveryman replaced the regular Saturday edition in vending machines surrounding the building with a special Extra edition.

Emblazoned across the front page was a grainy color enlargement taken from confiscated camcorder footage, showing a scene from the previous night's battle on Perseverance Way. Two photos subset into the article showed the composite likenesses of Ven and fscked, accompanied by text encouraging those with knowledge of their whereabouts to contact the proper authorities.

"The answer is 'no', Prefect," she said matter-of-factly. She didn't bat an eyelash in answering his so far unspoken question. "You're not coming back to duty until you've been cleared by the examiners. And that's probably going to be a while."

"There's no reason for me to be here..." and he trilled her first name. She realized how rare it was she heard it spoken aloud anymore. "I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me that they can pinpoint."

She smiled at his wordplay. She wasn't allowing him to misdirect her from the issue. "Do you think I'm not fully aware of your status? It can't be pinpointed because they've never seen anything like it."

Sinclair folded his arms and looked down in silence. He was used to pushing boundaries because he was usually right and with enough insistence would get his way. Even those trained by him still fell victim to his powers of persuasion more often than not. But Farewayth had a line that she wouldn't yield past, and he had yet to test its measure. Instinct said he was getting close now though. He had trained a good student and was proud of that. Mildly irritated, but proud.

"You're a walking, talking casebook study of Perdendosi biological tenacity Sinclair. By rights, we shouldn't even be having this conversation. I've risked my status, rank, and possibly freedom by sanctioning the tests that revived you. I'll probably still have off-world pundits debating my sanity for years to come, despite the outcome. I'm not about to risk either of our positions any farther by letting you resume duties one second before they say you're ready."

Sinclair gestured to respond but was cut off before he could utter a syllable. He rolled his eyes almost imperceptibly in resignation.

"You have a disruptive pattern manifesting itself at the sub-molecular level. The biologists are terming it 'self-sustaining entropic dividence' for now, although once it becomes quantifiable they're likely to rename it in your honor. 'Sinclair's Dividence'. Has a rather profound ring to it, wouldn't you say."

"Hardly what I'd care to be remembered for," said the Prefect. He ran a hand over the slickness of his bald pate and grinned ruefully. "I'd prefer to be discussed as the Prefect with the thick silver mane."

"Oh I hardly think there's any danger of that not being the case. There's a lot you're going to be associated with before your lifespan is complete - not the least of which being a full and total recovery."

"Your final word then?" said Sinclair with a tired smile, already knowing the answer. This was a goal not worth pursuing, and they both knew it.

The Overguard then answered her superior's questions regarding the search for Brittlesmith and the renegades. To Farewayth's surprise, Sinclair accepted the news with relative calm. He even seemed somewhat hopeful that the public releasing of composites of his two adversaries from the night before would yield positive results. After a few more minutes of briefing and debriefing, and a final reassurance that Sinclair would be returned to his duties upon clearance by the medical staff, Farewayth took her leave of the infirmary, leaving the Prefect once more alone with his thoughts.

What swirled within was further testament to Sinclair's Dividence.

He had never been dead. The thing that others addressed as Sinclair, the armor of tissue and marrow and corpuscles may have been dead, be he had not. The link between his consciousness and this armor had been temporarily severed, but he had not died. Instead he had been put in touch with something that was infinite and indescribable. It was vast and pure and full of light. Light, yes, that was the thing. It had been a flash of emerald light that sent him spiraling off into the great beyond, which now lingered at the tip of remembrance. The loss of this universal unification left Sinclair with a tremendous void, and there was no direction for him to know how to fill it.

There had been answers to everything in that light. Every possible question he'd ever had, and innumerable others he'd have never conceived were all laid bare and resolved. He had seen the reality of what it was that had actually brought his people to this planet, a thing so simple it was beyond his grasping now. The failure of the Placation Ray and the mystery of the green dots that hovered across the face of Universe City and their connection to the green-eyed creatures that ended his previous existence...these questions had also been answered. And the answers were also lost upon his reawakening.

There had even been momentary companionship within the light, he was sure of this. A younger yet familiar presence, floating adrift in a similar state of disembodiment. But this presence was lost to him as suddenly as he/she/it had been introduced, leaving both sadder and lonelier in the parting.

He had to find these jade-eyed creatures. They presented him with a need even more immediate than that of the other humans they had spent so much time and effort to find and cultivate. He could never explain it to the others, not the scientists or soldiers or politicians - where would he begin? How could they hope to grasp the magnitude of what he needed to regain when he couldn't even put it into words?

The face of the one who'd actually killed Sinclair was also burned into the deepest recesses of his brain, just beyond recollection but it was there. He knew there was a third who had to pay and he wanted this information back as well.

For now he was confined to an observation room, with windows above where doctors and medics watched every fluctuation of his stats and studied them for meaning. But it was a far more encompassing meaning that Sinclair craved to rediscover. For now he would bide his time and be a guinea pig, ironically much like the target hosts on Level One of the Main Battery Building. But soon enough...soon enough...

...He would rend those creatures far past the point of resurrection. And he would squeeze their throats again, this time until he'd recaptured the brilliance of their glowing green eyes and the simple pieces of complex knowledge that burned behind them.

Sinclair would be made whole again and end the gnawing of his incompletion.