Chapter 11
The Librarian
A bit of drama greeted End in the morning like a sunray spraying into your room, when your intentions were to wake up late that morning. It was the final chance for End to pass the F.A.Ts test, and if not, he would be sent straight to the Sphere of Influence. He had passed almost all the stations thanks to Quentin, but for every soldier, there will always be that one station where they tend to falter. His was the standing Light Jump. End had made a previous attempt and failed. He had one more try. He readied himself.
“Fear. I need fear.” The Standing Light Jump could appear so easy at times, but the truth is, how was one ever to summon the fear in himself? End focused his mind. Try as he might, he could not draw the fear out of himself. As nasty as Quentin’s words were, they were true, and the truth was that he thought he could just run away from life altogether, and not face up to any consequence or responsibility. This was the core foundation of his failure at this obstacle. What then?
“If you are not jumping, we are finishing up the test.” Said the invigilator. His invigilator for that station was none other than Benjamin Navajo.
“Hold on. Give me a second.” End held his breath. He focused his mind and jumped.
He failed.
“Alright. Packing up. Thank you for your participation.”
The panic came.
“Please, sir, just one more try.”
“No.”
“You have to understand. I don’t want to face the Sphere of Influence.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I fail, I face the Sphere.”
“Nonsense.”
“It’s true. Check my VF.”
Navajo checked his VF for his bio data. He was shocked to find that End was telling the truth.
“So, sir, please. One last try.”
Navajo looked around to make sure no one was looking. He checked his own VF. He had an appointment with Amon Goth in thirty minutes time.
“No. I am sorry boy. You failed.”
End looked on in despair as Navajo refused to save his life. Navajo walked away, leaving End stranded there in fear.
Just then, Arnold walked past Navajo.
“Hey man!”
“Hey muscle man, what’s up?” Navajo always wanted to make friends with Arnold, but Arnold had always behaved like a cactus plant to a cowboy. Arnold smiled.
“Heard you got a meeting with Amon!”
“Yeah man, yeah, it’s cool man!”
“You rush along for your meeting, I’ll hand in your papers.”
“Wow! Hey thanks Arnold!” said Navajo.
Arnold saw Navajo disappear into the distance and finally stopped smiling. He hated smiling, he never understood why smiling was even invented on this earth in the first place. He marched back to End.
“Do it.”
End wasn’t prepared.
“Now!”
End made the jump and passed by a centimeter. Arnold nodded and ticked the box on End’s score sheet and went to hand in the papers to some officials nearby. After that, Arnold just disappeared. End felt a heart attack leave his chest. He lived to fight another day, after all and End was very thankful to Arnold and of course Quentin.
Back in the bunk, he wanted to find Quentin to celebrate. But he knew that was impossible. As much as the company of Quentin had saved End for most of his days, this was a particular day that Quentin would not be by his side. End stood by his window in his bunk on a Saturday morning, staring at the ferry terminal with gloom. By now, he knew that the island on which the ILC was built was known as “Obstacle Island”. It was written at the signboard at the ferry terminal where the boats known as “fast crafts” were. How fitting, he thought, as the island did give him his fair share of obstacles. He sighed, a nasty habit for a person as young as he, as he looked back at the ferry terminal of the island.
It was the end of the first three weeks of training. On this particular Saturday morning, trainers were busy escorting all the recruits off the island as it was compulsory for everyone to go home and spend the weekends with their family or loved ones after the three weeks of confinement in the camp. End however, was still serving out his military sentence and was hence not permitted to leave the island. He saw good spirited recruits smiling, chatting, and marching to the jetty where they would be ferried back by a boat to the main island of the City of Lions. To say he was jealous would be a massive understatement. From a distance he could see Quentin going home as well. Then he saw Beef waving goodbye to him, and he decided it best to step away from the window before lonely thoughts came back to haunt him once more.
End walked back to the long table in his empty bunk and sat down. The bunk felt empty and for a moment even the harrowing he received from Beef would have been most welcomed on this lonely day. Now, he sat alone, as he heard the sound of the fast craft boat speed and skip and bump away on the waves of freedom. End pondered where his own parents went. Were they alright? Why have they not even tried to contact him?
Finally End was bored to the limit where he even gave up on the concept of giving up. He decided to adopt a new attitude to everything. He wanted to throw his moodiness out the window, so he sought to do something more constructive.
He took out his boots to polish them.
For the rest of the morning, he was actually so bored that he mastered the craft of polishing his boots. They were now so shiny, that they outshone the fancy sports car that the Dr Lecter drove. And where was ? now, End thought, has she found a job? There was just no solution of how to contact her. Everything happened so fast. Will they ever see each other again?
End walked out to the corridor just outside his bunk. From the fifth floor, he peered down. There were some guards walking around, patrolling the ground. They looked up and saw End.
“What are you doing? Get back inside, you are only allowed to go to the cookhouse at meal times. Move!” End returned to his bunk. It was going to be a long weekend, thought End, as he slumped back in his bed.
At noontime, he marched to the cookhouse, where the same unhappy chef gave him his lunch. The chef saw him and threw his hands up in disbelief.
“So you are the reason I have to stay back, Unbelievable!” said the chef.
End sat in the hollow hallways of the cookhouse, eating alone in a place that used to be filled with thousands of recruits at a time. In the distance, he saw someone familiar. He wasn’t sure at first, but then it really was him.
It was Amadeus.
Amadeus was cleaning the tables. As Amadeus came straight up to End, End waved at him but Amadeus’s response was a frightful one. He had no response at all. Much like a zombie, he took the plates and walked away to place them in the big dish-washing machine. End felt the fear of what the Sphere of Influence had done to Amadeus. Watching him served to remind End of the terrible fate that awaited him should he fail his course. End also felt sorry for him. So what if a person did not possess a talent, he thought, why must everyone have a talent to be accepted in this world? What about all the people who were not born with some tremendous talent, and just want to chill out in the world?
Just then, End observed a patrolman coming up to Amadeus. End seemed to recognize the guard, it was the same young guard who had guarded him in his cell in the Institute of Salvation. End, tried not to face that direction, as he really did not like that man.
The young guard seemed disgusted to see that Amadeus, a cleaner, was still clinging on to his beloved violin.
“Still holding on I see? You have to let things go. I let my old job go and got promoted to this beautiful ILC!”
Then the young guard’s face went sour.
“And all of that ruined because I have to see you here again! What a turnoff!”
Out of a pure sense of joy, the young guard made it his personal mission to try and pry the violin away from the hands of Amadeus.
“Come on now Amadeus, give that violin up. I think such a handcrafted violin must fetch q
uite a sum of money.”
But Amadeus’s hand held the violin firm. When the guard began to use excessive force, Amadeus shoved the guard across the cookhouse floor with his newfound mighty strength. The guard, not too dandy after crashing into seven bowls of noodles, was so enraged that he took out a stick and began beating Amadeus up. Amadeus curled up like an attacked millipede on the floor. He endured the beating just so he could hang on to his beloved violin. End could not stand that. He stood up and was about to intervene when the young guard used a kind of Taser round from his weapon to stun Amadeus. Amadeus struggled with agony on the floor, convulsing numerous times before becoming motionless. He was still breathing but he was out cold. The young guard walked over to grab his violin and to his surprise, still could not pry it from Amadeus. He gave up.
Just then, the young guard thought he heard a sound as he looked into the direction of End. But End was already gone.
That image haunted End for the rest of the afternoon as he curled up in bed. Was what the guard did fair? Would he ever be punished? Was the ILC meant to house such cruelty? Or was it a place that was meant to aspire something greater? End began to ponder about everything that Quentin had said. Clues like the ISO, shutter and aperture settings from the viewfinder, all seemed to suggest that Quentin was right. Putting two and two together, End remembered Eleven. Even though he hoped never to see him again, he remembered what Mahatma and Eleven said about the theatre in Charlie Charlie Company. Deeper thoughts penetrated End’s mind. What did Quentin mean when he said film school? Too many questions puzzled him, and being a natural born daydreamer End allowed himself to go swimming in his own imagination.
Towards the late afternoon, as the crazy questions accumulated to a boiling point, he could take it no more. “The old library” were the words from Quentin that echoed in his head. He had to do something but there was nothing he could do. He decided to polish Quentin’s boots. He thought that would have been a nice surprise for him when he returned.
As End walked over to Quentin’s boots, something caught his eye. There was a map underneath Quentin’s bed. He pulled it out and found that it was a map of the ILC. There was a man-made pencil mark that circled the “Old library” on the map, and a little writing from Quentin that wrote, “Happy Treasure hunting buddy.” End decided that he was going to find this Old Library.
And so as evening time came, End used the minimal stealth abilities that he had to slip past some lazy guards as he followed the map deep into unexplored areas of the ILC. After having to duck and dive into bushes each time some guards came his way, he finally made his way to a grand old Victorian styled library as indicated on the map.
End pushed open the large wooden, six feet high doors of the library. He entered the library with slow cautious steps. It was a huge library, with endless rows of books, with each row at least five times his height. He saw a huge gramophone sitting by itself and playing some jazz music. As he passed by corridor after corridor of books, he saw that they were mostly books on the different styles of military training. Just then, a dancing candlelight caught his eye. He looked forward and saw a table with a single candlelight. There was a large opened book on the table, and some half-finished instant noodles in a cup beside it as well as some notes on the table.
End came straight up to the book to take a look. He looked at the notes. There were some very advanced theories on the Viewfinder that talked about how the Viewfinder could be used to magnify low frequencies of sound into light. Another note talked about how the viewfinder was able to record video footages by means of the user’s memory, much like a video camera. End read through the step by step process of how this could be achieved. Then, he turned his head to face the large book on the table. The book was entitled “Three Laws of Light Catching. Written by The Diecreation.” End read out the first law.
“First law of LightCatching, Emotion Light (EmoLight) does not have to travel in a straight line.”
“The second law of Light Catching, e=mc2. Light Energy is equal to mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light.”
“The third law of Light Catching is, Emo-Light cannot be created or destroyed.”
End closed the book and saw another book. This one was entitled “Light Catching 101, written by The Diecreation.” He opened the book again, and the book had many pages on how the viewfinder could be used to create films. This was exactly what Quentin had said before, that the viewfinder’s original purpose was for film-making. End was getting more excited by the minute as he flipped through the pages and tried to learn everything from the book as quickly as he could.
“Who are you?”
End jumped. He saw an old man with white hair. He was an old man, a little cowardly in outlook, but seeming to possess a great amount of determination. He looked sad, and haggard, and had such wrinkled eye bags that you would have thought he had a serious case of sleep disorder. The old man was sweeping the floor, but from the amount of dust gathered beneath him, you would say he was doing a terrible job.
“What do you think you are doing? Get out now!” the old man’s voice was a little too soft for someone trying to sound harsh.
“I was just…”
“Get out now!”
“I am assigned to help you with the cleaning of the library.”
The old man looked at him for a moment. End stood very still. Now the old man looked as if it was his own fault that he forgot.
“Oh. Well in that case get on with it. I must have forgotten. Sorry.”
End looked at the man with long white hair. Perhaps he knew he had bad memory, and was afraid that he would offend others by forgetting things.
“Well, go on, how are you proposing to clean the library? I don’t see any brooms or mops in your hand.”
End was caught off guard for moment. But his quick mind found an instant answer for him.
“With this.”
End walked over to a rather dirty and dusty section of the library. He took out The Scandust, given to him by Quentin. As he operated the Scandust, the old man looked at him with a little laugh. The old man picked up the Scandust. He must have been a scientist, for he began to show tremendous interest in the mechanism found inside the device.
“That is interesting. Come back tomorrow, I will be pre-occupied today.” Said the old man as he took the device away for further analysis.
End was forced to leave the library. But his discovery excited him. He went back to his bunk, unable to contain the joy inside him. Wait till he told Quentin what he had just discovered. There were still so many questions in his head. Like, “Who was The Diecreation?”
“Now what was in that book again?” End said. He concentrated and his memory began to recall what he had previously read. It was actually an amazing feat as End was a person with one of the worst memories in the world. But sometimes, a keen interest or emotional memories are always the ones that register in our heads without any push whatsoever.
End seemed to remember the details written on one of the pages of the book he saw earlier. It said that the viewfinder was able to record video footages by means of the user’s memory. End raised his palm to face the ceiling, unsure of what was to come. He really hoped that this would work. It was something he really wanted to do.
He squinted his eyes, trying his best to recall the pages of the book. There was nothing but emptiness in his mind. He tried harder. He really wanted to remember it. He searched high and low through the shelves of his memory. Sometimes a person can recall something through sheer determination. Slowly, a page began to appear as a hologram hovering above his palm.
“Record” said End.
A blinking red dot appeared on his viewfinder as the footage was saved into his device. End felt a surge of ecstasy flow through his veins.
Wow.
He tried again. With time, he managed to reproduce all the pages that he had seen. He never knew he had photographic memory, but most neural scientist would have you know that a
human being never actually forgets anything, they simply miss-file it in their heads. Soon, End reproduced an entire the holographic book, but with many missing pages of course. He needed more visits to the Library.
Just then an idea struck him. Perhaps he could do the one thing, he had wanted to do for so long. He took out his dog tag and opened it. He focused hard and a video memory of ? when he first met her in the chamber was projected. End smiled as he saved that footage. He transferred that footage into his ID tag, so that he could cherish it forever.