The Book (31 page)

All the buildings were white?

Holden tripped over a task chair and lurched toward the window, amazed at what he was really looking at. In the distance he could see pillars and columns of bleached white, domed rooftops that peaked over one another and hid behind trees, and an obelisk of colorless stone rising tall above the skyline. He was in Washington DC The Agents had taken him from his ex-wife’s home in the suburbs of Chicago and had brought him to the nation’s capital.

Martin rolled out the ninth chair at the head of the table and beckoned for Holden to sit. The director stood beside the onyx wall and slipped his hands delicately into the pockets of his slacks, gazing with admiration on the capital buildings. A full minute later, he released a gentle sound of elation before inhaling a long sip of air through his nose. Pleased with the moment, he removed his left hand from his pocket and pointed at the remarkably immaculate city.

“Holden, have you ever just stood and looked at it all? Sure, there are a lot of decisions made here. Elected officials shaping our world. People we trust and place our hope in, all out and about fixing things we could never understand. But have you ever just looked at the city itself? How it’s so clean and safe. It invites trust. No, that’s not what it does. It
commands
trust.” A grin of honest respect glazed over the man’s face. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Holden remained seated and remained silent. He was unable to formulate any response at the moment and felt that quiet and reserved was the only option available for someone in his situation and possibly the only thing he could still control.

“Did you know,” the director mused, “that when The Book was first published, the digital copies were much like this scene? The Book was released in only three colors: the purest white, a lofty sky blue and green, like the trustworthy grass below our feet. Commanded respect through color. How ingenious is that?” With no response, the director continued with an unforeseen question. “Holden, have you heard of a story called
The Thirteenth Tale
by Diane Setterfield? It’s pre-digital and we had it destroyed, so I’m assuming you haven’t. But have you?” Holden kept silent. “Before I became the director of a new division of Homeland Security, I had an…interesting job here at the Publishing House. I often quoted two passages from this story to people in your similar situation.” He cleared his throat and began.

Again, he cleared his throat before quoting a passage of that banned book from memory.

“Unedited, those quotes,” Trust remarked with pride. He exhaled a deep breath of tranquility. “The first provides a truth of who we are and what we are capable of and then its supporting quote reveals the importance of listening to lies. Don’t you see, Mister Clifford? This is actually what people want. What
man
wants. Maybe what you are fighting against isn’t really all that bad.”

Holden was minutes, maybe seconds from his certain recyclement, and yet here this man stood, praising a system that his group had developed a hatred for. A system that robbed his daughter of her beauty and Marion of her heritage and reputation and Moby from his uncle. He wanted to speak out and tell the director that he wasn’t buying the garbage he was selling, but it wasn’t worth it. Holden was conserving his energy by keeping the lights off. Something told him that he would need it later. When he could find a way out of there.

In the immobility of those few seconds, when only the breeze of cool air being exhaled through the mahogany vents could be heard, Holden was thinking. There were two possible reasons why he had been allowed to stroll about the building without a leash and he was determined to figure out which one was right. Martin Trust had either been too confident in Holden’s inability to escape or, as he had felt in the room when he found peace in the arrangement of sprinkler heads, they had underestimated him.

So, what could he do? If Holden was right and they had misjudged him to some degree, he needed to set aside his thoughts of guilt and remorse to make room for something he wasn’t accustomed to – strategy. Trust was clearly trying to sway him into viewing The Book as a gift to society and Holden still didn’t understand why. Regardless, he needed to respond. It was all Holden could do at that moment. And if he needed to say something, why not tell the man what he wanted to hear. Against the natural tendencies of every cell in his body, Holden did the opposite of what was expected. He stood from his seat, approached the window and copied the director’s gestures by placing a hand in his pocket. Beside one of the more powerful leaders in the free world, Holden stood at the glass and looked out admiringly on the nation’s capital. Trust had been right. The buildings were exquisite. And clean. And they commanded a certain respect from him. But standing in the truth of it didn’t change a thing. Holden needed to buy some time before the gavel came swinging down.

“So,” he began, trying to keep his eyes from the director so they wouldn’t give him away, “What is it you want me to do? I’m a man of little talent, but I mean, I’m not dumb…you guys could have taken care of me by now, so I figure…you obviously chose me for a reason. You stand here, acting like you’re just a regular guy, but I know how this works. You took me against my will in front of my kid, and she got hurt in the process. I’ll do whatever I gotta do, just as long as you leave her out of it. Capiche? We both know you had my number in the park and decided to let me go. So, let’s get on with the show and you tell me what role I’m playing.”

Holden surprised himself. Although he could see that the director was staring at him, he wouldn’t allow himself to turn. Trust was smart and Holden couldn’t let any part of his face give him away. Problem was, he hadn’t expected the Director’s response and could’ve never expected what would be asked of him.

“Well, Mister Clifford,” he repeated again, reminding Holden that, at one point, there had been hostility between them, “we at the Publishing House work on a hundred year plan. You have arrived serendipitously at the culmination of one plan and the beginning of another. We see quite a purpose for you. Plain and simple, we have a need. And I see in you a way to fill that need.” Trust began to grin sharply. It left an odd anticipation between words, hanging like dust on a shaft of sunlight. “You are going to be known by everyone in the entire world.”

“What?” Holden questioned without thinking. He nearly had to force his head from spinning, so his eyes would remain looking out the window. “Why would people know me?”

Martin Trust pointed to the building on their right, the one closest to the window. It was wide and white, long and short, and topped with a green roof along the edge and a squat dome at the center. Holden had recognized it, but didn’t know the building’s name. “What you see there is the last library in existence. The Library of Congress. And you, Mister Clifford, will demolish that building and every last book within its walls.”

Holden swallowed and raised a hand to rub an itch that didn’t exist from his nose. Nervous ticks in the midst of unimaginable horror. He contemplated smashing out the window and leaping from the building to get away, but the fall would break his legs. “Why are you telling me this? Why not just force me to do it?”

“Because we know it’s the right thing to do and we want to give you the option of going out for the right reasons.”

“But it won’t work. People need to know that originals exist somewhere.”

“You’re precisely right, Holden,” Trust agreed, expecting a more explosive reaction. “There are thousands of books left unchecked in the world, mind you that number dwindles by the day, and even when we come and take them from the house next door, watchful neighbors accept it because they know there are still books out there. They accept the depravity of a world without paper because there is one copy of every book that has ever been written in that building. Right there. Seven hundred feet away. And…how horrible that you, the leader of
The Free Thinkers
, chose to destroy the only ones that we were keeping safe.”

Holden broke eye contact with the window and faced him, unable to withhold himself in such delirium. “
The Free Thinkers
? Why are you associating me with them? Those guys don’t care about The Book.”

The director grinned and tapped Holden on the shoulder. “Oh, we’re well aware. We’ve been watching them for a while now. Yes, we know you went to the meeting. See, that’s why we chose you, Holden. Why I chose you. I know you have passion. You aren’t a lemming like all the others, following blindly into a mine field.
The Free Thinkers
are helpless drones. Everything they have done we have allowed. And when we want to orchestrate a move of our own,” he pointed to the Library of Congress, “we simply blame it on them. Which, in the end, they take credit for. Happily.”

“Like Marion and the bar,” Holden added, finally understanding.

“Ah,
The Library
.” Trust breathed a laugh. “Clever name.”

Holden was still unsure about how to escape, so he stole more time with a notion that seemed obvious. “Can you give me a second to process this? I mean, this is huge. And I get it. If I’m not with ya’, I’m against ya’. I guess I just feel like something still isn’t making sense. There has to be more to this than just getting rid of a few nail-biting thrillers.”

Martin Trust chewed on the thought for a bit as Holden punctuated his control of the conversation by taking a seat at the other end of the table, the one furthest from the door.

“After the Library is gone? Sure. Our next move is to destroy a building that we say is the Publishing House. Then we take The Book offline for a few weeks. When it comes back, there’s a whole new format. And whoopsie…there are things missing. We make some swift cuts and then blame it on the terrorists…err…you. Entire books can finally be destroyed. Partials corrupted. Normally, in this instance we would go to our store of originals…”

“But I’ve destroyed them all,” Holden concluded, kicking up his legs and resting them on the slick green surface of the table so he could appear relaxed as he continued to formulate his escape between words. His peek-a-boo toes hurt the illustration. “Sounds like you’ve really thought this through. But I think you’re lying.”

“I’m sorry?”

Holden couldn’t tell if the director was offended when he tilted his head and smirked, or if he was amused that the lowly sprinkler fitter from the west side of Chicago had figured out their plan.

“That’s not why you’re doing this. I mean, don’t get me wrong…makes sense why you would, but I think there’s an even bigger purpose.” It came to him as he said it and he couldn’t believe his own voice. “You want to destroy other documents. The important ones. Government stuff.”

A grin formed on the face of Martin Trust as wide as a Zebra’s stripes are long. “Well, I would be lying if I didn’t say that would be a pleasant fallout. And Martin Trust doesn’t lie. Yes, we mourn our literature. Our historic accounts of war and glory. But when we replace this country’s most cherished documents and records, declarations and proclamations with holographic images…well, it gives mourning a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?”

Holden looked at the keypad on the door. He scanned for anything of interest on Trust’s belt. Anything that could help him escape. He had to keep the conversation going. “Nothing could stop you from creating an entirely new government.”

“Not next year, no. Not even thirty years from now,” Trust admitted, throwing up his hands with a smile that still eked toward his ears. “But, remember, we follow a hundred year plan.” He approached Holden’s chair and ushered him back to the window. “We were hoping you would want to be a part of this on your own after learning how important it is to the survival of our country. And yet, Mister Clifford…I know what you’re thinking…” Nearly to the window, Holden froze, his muscles clenched in the fright of Martin’s words. “And you’re wrong. It isn’t about control. It’s about peace. Holden, you would be playing one of the largest roles in reestablishing peace in our world. I know…I know…
But-at-what-cost?
” He shrugged off the sentiment. “Think of how sustainable our world is today. Waking up in this veneer of environmentalism is like sitting down for a good meal where every day is a delicious bite. But you can’t make a great steak without killing the cow, Holden. There have always been side-effects and negative repercussions to the recycling movement, but wasn’t a utopia worth it? With this, destroying that building, we would have peace. For the first time ever…a world without war and tragedy. Isn’t such a thing worth a little freedom being stripped away?”

Holden tried to get his mind back on task, to try and escape the man’s mental clutches, but he was stuck in the mud of it. He couldn’t move past what Trust had been saying. It made sense, all of a sudden. Wars have been raging throughout history and shouldn’t he do anything in his power to stop the killing? To stop the unlawfulness? Shouldn’t he care more about that than about some make-believe girl named Lucy who got lost in a wardrobe?