So Corvina has a first name, too.
A shadow moves against the frosted glass, and I realize he’s in there. What’s he doing? Negotiating with a publisher on the phone, demanding exorbitant sums for the use of grand old Gerritszoon? Offering up the names and addresses of some pesky e-book pirates? Closing down another wonderful bookstore? Talking to his bank, canceling a certain recurring payment?
This isn’t just a cult. It’s also a corporation, and Corvina is in charge, above and below.
THE REBEL ALLIANCE
IT’S RAINING HARD in Manhattan now—a dark, noisy deluge. We have taken refuge in the hyper-boutique hotel owned by Neel’s friend Andrei, another startup CEO. It is called the Northbridge, and it’s the ultimate hacker hideout: power outlets every three feet, air so thick with Wi-Fi you can almost see it, and in the basement, a direct connection to the internet trunk line that runs beneath Wall Street. If the Dolphin and Anchor was Penumbra’s place, this is Neel’s. The concierge knows him. The valet gives him a high five.
The Northbridge lobby is the hub of the New York startup scene: anywhere two or more people are sitting together, Neel says, it’s probably a new company proofreading its articles of incorporation. Huddled together around a low table made from old magnetic-tape canisters, I guess we might qualify—not as a company, but at least as something newly incorporated. We’re a little Rebel Alliance, and Penumbra is our Obi-Wan. We all know who Corvina is.
Neel hasn’t let up on the First Reader since we emerged:
“And I don’t know what’s going on with that mustache,” he continues.
“He has worn it since the day I met him,” Penumbra says, mustering a smile. “But he was not so rigid then.”
“What was he like?” I ask.
“Like the rest of us—like me. He was curious. Uncertain. Why, I am still uncertain!—about a great many things.”
“Well, now he seems pretty … self-confident.”
Penumbra frowns. “And why not? He is the First Reader, and he likes our fellowship exactly as it is.” He bats a thin fist into the soft mass of the couch. “He will not bend. He will not experiment. He will not even let us try.”
“But they had computers at the Festina Lente Company,” I point out. In fact, they were running a whole digital counterinsurgency.
Kat nods. “Yeah, they actually sound pretty sophisticated.”
“Ah, but only above,” Penumbra says, wagging a finger. “Computers are fine for the worldly work of the Festina Lente Company—but not for the Unbroken Spine. No, never.”
“No phones,” Kat says.
“No phones. No computers. Nothing,” Penumbra says, shaking his head, “that Aldus Manutius himself would not have used. The electric lights—you would not believe the arguments we had over those lights. It took twenty years.” He harrumphs. “I am quite sure Manutius would have been delighted to possess a lightbulb or two.”
Everyone is silent.
Finally, Neel speaks: “Mr. P, you don’t have to give up. I could fund your store.”
“Let us be done with the store,” Penumbra says, waving a hand. “I love our customers, but there is a better way to serve them. I will not cling to familiar things as Corvina does. If we can carry Manutius back to California … if you, dear girl, can do what you promise … none of us will need that place.”
We sit and we scheme. In a perfect world, we agree, we would take the codex vitae to Google’s scanner and let those spider-legs walk all over it. But we can’t get the book out of the Reading Room.
“Bolt cutters,” Neel says. “We need bolt cutters.”
Penumbra shakes his head. “We must do this in secrecy. If Corvina becomes aware of it, he will pursue us, and the Festina Lente Company has tremendous resources.”
They know a lot of lawyers, too. Besides, to put Manutius at Google’s mercy, we don’t need the book in our hands. We need it on a disk. So I ask, “What if we took the scanner to the book instead?”
“It’s not portable,” Kat says, shaking her head. “I mean, you can move it around, but it’s a whole process. It took them a week to get it up and running at the Library of Congress.”
So we need something or someone else. We need a scanner custom-built for stealth. We need James Bond with a library science degree. We need— Wait. I know exactly who we need.
I grab Kat’s laptop and click over to Grumble’s book-hacking hub. I dig back through the archives—back, back, back—back to his earliest projects, the ones that kicked it all off … There it is.
I swivel the screen around for everyone to see. It shows a sharp photo of the GrumbleGear 3000: a book scanner made out of cardboard. Its pieces can be harvested from old boxes; you run them through a laser cutter to carve slots and tabs at all the right angles. You lock the pieces together to make a frame, then break them down flat when you’re done. There are two slots for cameras. It all fits into a messenger bag.
The cameras are just crappy tourist point-and-shoots, the kind you can get anywhere. It’s the frame that makes the scanner special. With one camera alone, you’d be stretching to hold the book at the right angle, fumbling with every page-turn. It would take days. But with two cameras mounted side by side on the GrumbleGear 3000, controlled by Grumble’s software, you get a two-page spread in one snap, perfectly focused, perfectly aligned. It’s high-speed but low-profile.
“It’s made from paper,” I explain, “so you can get it through a metal detector.”
“What, so you can sneak it onto a plane?” Kat asks.
“No, so you can sneak it into a library,” I say. Penumbra’s eyes widen. “Anyway, he posted the schematics. We can download them. We just need to round up the materials and find a laser cutter.”
Neel nods and waves a finger in a circle, circumscribing the lobby. “This is the nerdiest place in New York. I think we can get our hands on a laser cutter.”
Assuming we can get a GrumbleGear 3000 assembled and working, we’ll need time undisturbed in the Reading Room. Manutius’s codex vitae is huge, and scanning it will take hours.
Who will do the deed? Penumbra is too wobbly for stealth. Kat and Neel are credible accomplices, but I have other plans. As soon as the possibility of a book-scanning mission arose, I made a decision: I would do it alone.
“I want to come with you,” Neel insists. “This is the exciting part!”
“Don’t make me use your Rockets & Warlocks name,” I say, holding up a finger, “not with a girl in the room.” I make my face serious. “Neel, you have a company, with employees and customers. You have responsibilities. If you get caught, or jeez, I don’t know, arrested, that’s a problem.”
“And you don’t think getting arrested is a problem for you, Claymore Red—”
“Ah!” I cut him off. “First: I have no actual responsibilities. Second: I’m basically already a novice of the Unbroken Spine.”
“You did solve the Founder’s Puzzle.” Penumbra nods. “Edgar would vouch for you.”
“Besides,” I say, “I’m the rogue in this scenario.”
Kat raises an eyebrow and I explain quietly, “He’s the warrior, you’re the wizard, I’m the rogue. This conversation never happened.”
Neel nods once, slowly. His face is scrunched up but he’s no longer protesting. Good. I’ll go in alone, and I’ll leave not with one book, but two.
There’s a whip of cold wind from the Northbridge’s front doors and Edgar Deckle comes bounding in out of the rain, his round face framed by the hood of a plasticky purple jacket pulled tight. Penumbra waves him over. Kat’s gaze meets mine; she looks nervous. This will be a crucial meeting. If we want access to the Reading Room and to MANVTIVS, Deckle is the key, because Deckle has the key.
“Sir, I heard about the store,” he says, panting and setting himself down on the couch next to Kat. He gingerly peels back his hood. “I don’t know what to say. It’s terrible. I’ll talk to Corvina. I can convince him—”
Penumbra holds up a hand, an
d then he tells Deckle everything. He tells him about my logbook, about Google and the Founder’s Puzzle. He tells him about his pitch to Corvina, about the First Reader’s rejection.
“We’ll work on him,” Deckle says. “I’ll mention it from time to time, to see if—”
“No,” Penumbra cuts in. “He is beyond reason, Edgar, and I do not have the patience. I am quite a bit older than you, my boy. I believe the codex vitae can be decoded today—not in a decade, not in a hundred years, but today!”
It occurs to me that Corvina isn’t the only one with outsized confidence. Penumbra really does believe that computers can deliver the goods. Is it strange that I, the person who rekindled this project, don’t feel so sure?
Deckle’s eyes go wide. He glances around as if there might be a black-robe lurking here in the Northbridge. Not likely; I doubt anyone in this lobby has touched a physical book in years.
“You’re not serious, sir,” he whispers. “I mean, I remember, when you made me type all the titles into the Mac, you were so excited—but I never thought …” He takes a breath. “Sir, this is not how the fellowship works.”
So it was Edgar Deckle who built the bookstore’s database. I feel a surge of clerkly affection. We’ve both laid our fingers on the same short, clackety keyboard.
Penumbra shakes his head. “It only seems strange because we are stuck, my boy,” he says. “Corvina has held us frozen. The First Reader has not been true to the spirit of Manutius.” His eyes are like blue laser beams and he jabs a long finger down into the magnetic-tape table. “He was an entrepreneur, Edgar!”
Deckle is nodding, but he still looks nervous. His cheeks are pink and he’s running his knuckles through his hair. Is this how all schisms start? Huddled circles, whispered sales pitches?
“Edgar,” Penumbra says evenly, “of all my students, you are the dearest to me. We spent many years together in San Francisco, working side by side. You possess the true spirit of the Unbroken Spine, my boy.” He pauses. “Lend us the key to the Reading Room for one night. That is all I ask. Clay will not leave a trace. I promise you.”
Deckle’s expression is blank. His hair is damp and disheveled. He searches for words: “Sir. I didn’t think you—I never imagined—sir.” He is quiet. The Northbridge lobby doesn’t exist. The whole universe is Edgar Deckle’s face, and the thoughtful turn of his lips, and the signs that he might say no, or—
“Yes.” He draws himself taller. He takes a deep breath, and he says again, “Yes. Of course I’ll help you, sir.” He nods sharply, and smiles. “Of course.”
Penumbra grins. “I do know how to pick the right clerks,” he says, reaching across to slap Deckle’s shoulder. He barks a laugh. “I do know how to pick them!”
The scheme is set.
Tomorrow, Deckle will bring a spare key sealed in an envelope addressed to me and deliver it to the Northbridge concierge. Neel and I will find a way to manufacture the GrumbleGear, Kat will make her appearance at Google’s New York office, and Penumbra will meet with a handful of black-robes who are sympathetic to his cause. When night falls, I will take scanner and key and make my way to the secret library of the Unbroken Spine, where I will liberate MANVTIVS—along with one other.
But that’s all tomorrow. Right now Kat has retired to our room. Neel has docked with a group of New York startup dudes. Penumbra is sitting at the hotel bar alone, nursing a heavy tumbler of something golden, lost in thought. He cuts a strange figure in this place: older than everyone else in the lobby by several decades, the top of his head a pale beacon in the calibrated gloom.
I’m sitting alone on one of the low couches, staring at my laptop, wondering how we can get ourselves in front of a laser cutter. Neel’s friend Andrei gave us leads on two different Manhattan hacker spaces, but only one had a laser cutter, and it’s booked solid for weeks. Everybody’s making something.
It occurs to me that Mat Mittelbrand might know someone, somewhere. There’s got to be a special-effects shop in this city that possesses the tool we need. I tap out a distress signal on my phone:
Need a laser cutter ASAP in new york. Any ideas?
Thirty-seven seconds elapse, and Mat texts back:
Ask grumble.
Of course. I’ve spent months browsing the pirate library, but never posted anything. Grumble’s site features a bustling forum where people request particular e-books and then complain about the quality of what they receive. There’s also a technical subforum where people talk about the nuts and bolts of book digitization; this is where Grumble himself appears, answering questions with brevity, precision, and all-lowercase letters. This subforum is where I’ll ask for help:
Hi everybody. I’m a silent member of the Grumblematrix, speaking up for the first time. Tonight I find myself in New York City, in need of an Epilog laser cutter (or similar) as required by the instructions for the GrumbleGear 3000. I intend to carry out a clandestine scan ASAP, and the target is one of the most important books in the history of printing. In other words: this might be bigger than Potter. Any help?
I take a breath, check three times for typos, then submit the post. I hope the Festina Lente Company’s pirate patrol isn’t reading this.
Rooms at the Northbridge are a lot like the white shipping containers on Google’s campus: long and boxy, with hookups for water, power, and internet. There are narrow beds, too, but those are clearly a reluctant concession to the frailties of wetware.
Kat is sitting cross-legged on the floor in her underwear and red T-shirt, leaning in to her laptop. I’m on the lip of the bed above her with my Kindle drawing power from her USB port—um, not a euphemism—reading The Dragon-Song Chronicles for the fourth time. She’s finally perking up again after the disappointment of the PM, and, twisted around to look at me, she says, “This is really exciting. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of Aldus Manutius.” His Wikipedia entry is open on her screen. I recognize the look on her face—it’s the same one that shows up when she talks about the Singularity. “I always thought the key to immortality would be, like, tiny robots fixing things in your brain,” she says. “Not books.”
I have to be honest: “I’m not sure books are the key to anything. I mean, come on. This is a cult. It really is.” She frowns at that. “But a lost book written by Aldus Manutius himself is still pretty important, no matter what. After this, we can get Mr. Penumbra back to California. We’ll run the store on our own. I’ve got a marketing plan.”
None of that registers with Kat. She says, “There’s a team in Mountain View—we should tell them about this. It’s called Google Forever. They work on life extension. Cancer treatment, organ regeneration, DNA repair.”
This is getting silly. “Maybe a little cryogenics on the side?”
She glances up at me defensively. “They’re taking a portfolio approach.” I run my fingers through her hair, which is still damp from the shower. She smells like citrus.
“I just don’t get it,” she says, twisting back around to look up at me. “How can you stand it that our lives are so short? They’re so short, Clay.”
To be honest, my life has exhibited many strange and sometimes troubling characteristics, but shortness is not one of them. It feels like an eternity since I started school and a techno-social epoch since I moved to San Francisco. My phone couldn’t even connect to the internet back then.
“Every day you learn something amazing,” Kat says, “like, there’s a secret underground library in New York City”—she pauses and gapes for effect, and it makes me laugh—”and you realize there’s so much more that’s waiting. Eighty years isn’t enough. Or a hundred. Whatever. It’s just not.” Her voice goes a little ragged, and I realize how deep this current runs within Kat Potente.
I lean down, kiss her above the ear, and whisper: “Would you really freeze your head?”
“I would absolutely, positively freeze my head.” She looks up at me and her face is serious. “I’d freeze yours, too. And in a thousand years, you’d thank
me.”
POP, UP
WHEN I WAKE UP in the morning, Kat is gone, already headed for Google’s New York office. On my laptop, there’s an email waiting—a message relayed from Grumble’s forum. The timestamp says 3:05 a.m., and it’s from—holy shit. It’s from Grumble himself. The message says simply:
bigger than potter huh? tell me what you need.
My pulse pounds in my ears. This is awesome.
Grumble lives in Berlin, but he seems to spend most of his time traveling, doing special scanning ops in London or Paris or Cairo. Maybe sometimes New York. Nobody knows his real name; nobody knows what he looks like. He might be a she, or even a collective. In my imagination, though, Grumble is a he, not much older than me. In my imagination, he works solo—shuffling into the British Library in a puffy gray parka, wearing the cardboard components of his book scanner like a bulletproof vest under his clothes—but he has allies everywhere.
Maybe we’ll meet up. Maybe we’ll become friends. Maybe I’ll become his hacker apprentice. But I have to play it cool, or he’ll probably think I’m from the FBI or, worse, the Festina Lente Company. So I write:
Hey Grumble! Thanks for replying, man. Big fan of your
Okay, no. I lean on the delete key and start again:
Hey. We can get the cameras and the cardboard, but we can’t find a laser. Can you help? P.S. Okay admittedly J. K. Rowling is a pretty big deal … but so was Aldus Manutius.
I hit send, smack my MacBook shut, and retreat into the bathroom. I think about hacker heroes and frozen heads while I scrub shampoo into my hair under the hot industrial blast of the Northbridge’s shower, obviously designed for robots, not for men.
Neel is waiting for me in the lobby, finishing a bowl of plain oatmeal and slurping a shake made from blended kale.
“Hey,” he says, “does your room have a biometric lock?”