"The Rime of the Ancient Librarian." Part 1 of 1

By Pellinor 
__

Classification: G

Rating: SH

Summary: Ever wondered how the Consortium train their little ones 
to grow up into cold-hearted killers? At last, one person is brave 
enough to tell the truth.
___

Disclaimer: The X-Files belongs to Chris Carter, 1013 and Fox. 

******

The voice is like dry paper. "When the time comes, who do you 
think will lead it?"

I don't look up from my shelving. The library always attracts 
strange people, and it's nearly closing time. I content myself 
with making a low, non-committal sound in my throat.

"Aliens?" A hand gestures at the green finger-painted alien that 
grinned from the wall. There is still green paint behind my nails. 
"Men in Black? Killer robots?"

I pretend immense interest in a book about a singing toadstool. "I 
hadn't thought about it," I mumble.

"Librarians." The hand closes round my wrist, squeezing tightly. 
"Librarians are the storm-troopers of the invasion - children's 
librarians most of all."

I turn round angrily, shaking my hand free. It is a careworn 
woman, her eyes hidden behind dark glasses, her skin pale. I stare 
at her coolly, trying to hide my disquiet, then walk over to my 
desk.

And she follows, her steps almost silent on the carpet. "Books are 
weapons," she says, scooping up a handful of newly returned 
picture books. A smiling teddy bear stands in stark contrast to 
her mask-like face. "They are the worst of all."

I shrug. The blood is nearly out of the carpet, now. The child's 
head has been stitched; her brother rebuked. I haven't withdrawn 
the offending book. It's cover was nicely plastic-covered, and 
easy to wipe clean.

Five minutes to closing time. I pick up the date stamp, preparing 
to turn it on to tomorrow's date. 

Her voice grows hollow and intense. It's the voice I use when 
reading scary stories. I only gave _one_ child a breakdown, and 
that was a long time ago. "Librarians control the date," she says, 
in that hollow voice, unnecessarily. 

I frown. The date inches round. "Yes." I don't mean for my voice 
to rise, questioning, but it does. Curiosity was always my 
weakness. Learning too much about hundreds of children's new shoes 
should have taught me by now not to question, not to respond.

"On that date, the human race will be...." She pauses, and lets 
the books fall with a crash. Impressive. "Due back."

I like her style. "Can you do animal noises too?" I ask, 
impressed, despite myself. I can do scary, but sheep have always 
eluded me. Barking, now.... I am a master at barking.

"You don't understand." She bends forward across the desk, and 
pulls off her glasses. Her eyes are red-rimmed and.... <ravaged> I 
think, suddenly, unexpectedly. "When the date comes, they will 
be.... overdue."

I swallow. "Will there be a fine?"

She flashes me a disparaging look. "I was like you, once - naive, 
ignorant." She reaches for a book on my trolley, holding it almost 
loving. "Bears," she murmurs, her eyes drifting away. "You have 
bears."

I nod. "Lots and lots of bears."

"We didn't." Her voice wanders away, as if she is losing herself 
in her own memories. "It was my first job after library school. I 
had such expectations."

"You're a librarian?" I wonder suddenly if I should rethink my 
choice of career. 

"Was." She leans forward suddenly, all steel. "I had one job - 
only one. It was in a school in some sort of military base, or 
something. Now I'm on the run. They're after me, but I'll never 
stop. I have to tell people - have to. In every town, I must go to 
the children's library and.... and teach."

I glance surreptitiously at her bag, but can't see a Bible. 

She smiles suddenly, and the smile is terrible. "This book." She 
thrusts the book forward. 'We're going on a bear hunt'. "I read 
this at my very first storytime."

I manage a forced smile. "So did I." I regret it was soon as I say 
it. I shouldn't want to have anything in common with this.... this 
madwoman.

"Not like I did." She holds my wrist, her eyes shining with the 
gleam of a true storyteller. For the first time, I realise why the 
children on the front row sometimes cry. "Not - like - I - did."

I won't ask. I won't.

"There were a dozen children - all under five, though strangely 
quiet. It was my first day on the job. I smiled, sat down, and 
started to read...."

******

"We're going on a...." I blinked. It was the same, but strangely 
different. I was always absent minded, but this.... "We're going 
on a fox hunt," I managed, hoping the children hadn't seen my 
hesitation. "We're going to catch a big one. It's a beautiful day. 
We're not scared."

Audience participation. I'd learnt about that one. I smiled, a 
picture of jollity. "We're not scared, are we, children?"

"No!" they chorused, but I saw that one child, one small girl, was 
sucking her thumb, her eyes wide. I knew the signs.

I bent forward, eyes kind, looking just at her. "Well, maybe we 
are, just a little," I whispered, confidingly.

She nodded, oh so slowly....

******

She raises her head, her eyes shining with tears. "I didn't know," 
she all but wails. "I thought they were her.... her father, and 
her uncle, or something. I thought they were taking her away 
because she was scared. I thought they'd cuddle her, and read her 
a story about a bunny rabbit. I thought...."

I drum my fingers on the desk. "Who?"

She sighs deeply, running her hands across her face, visibly 
trying to compose herself. "The men. They were stern-faced, and 
they had guns. As soon as she nodded, they took her away."

I laugh. This is surreal - like some crazy television show..

"I never saw her again," she says, barely above a whisper. "And I 
didn't even know anything was wrong, then. I just carried on 
reading...."

******

"We're not scared," I repeated, my voice shaking slightly. I like 
to think it was premonition, but maybe it was just plain nerves. 

They didn't smile, didn't respond. One was crying silent tears, 
looking at the empty space where the girl had been.

"Uh-oh," I said brightly. "Gr...."

Not uh-oh," one of the unsmiling childminders told me, sternly. I 
wondered why he needed to carry a gun, but decided it was probably 
a toy. Some beloved uncle, playing cowboys with the children, no 
doubt. "Expressions of dismay are not permitted."

"Oh." I swallowed, then repeated it, applying it to the story. 
Only one syllable different, after all. Oh. Gr...."

"Not oh." His voice was without inflexion. "We do not express 
surprise. We predict the future. We _make_ the future. We know 
everything that is to come, and, if we don't, we lie."

I shut my eyes for a moment, steadying myself. It was my first 
job, and I didn't want to disobey the rules of the place. "Grass," 
I said, my voice rising almost questioningly. He didn't interrupt. 
"Long, thick grass."

"We do not use unnecessary adjectives." Still that same dead tone 
of voice. "Adjectives and purple prose are the last resort of the 
man who has nothing to say. If we wish to heighten our meaning, we 
use...." He paused. "Pauses."

I was getting angry by now, even though it was my first day. 
"Gr...." I paused - one, two, three, four.... "Ass."

I child giggled and was.... removed.

"We can't go over it. We can't go under it...."

"Can't is not a word in our vocabulary, except when it is applied 
to other people. Even then, the passive voice is preferable." His 
voice lowered, as if reciting. "Entry is forbidden. The grass will 
be.... sanitised."

"Okay." It was war. I made my voice a monotone to match his. "We 
go through grass, and a river, and mud, and a forest and a 
snowstorm." I turned the pages fast, stressing my point. He 
smiled. It wasn't the reaction I'd had in mind. "Then we get to a 
cave." I glanced at the book, reminding myself. "A deserted 
warehouse?" I read, my voice high. "Not a cave? Not even a den?"

The children looked at me, their eyes wide, expectant.

I collected myself quickly. "A warehouse. Tiptoe, tiptoe, 
tiptoe.... What's that?" They gasped. I frowned. The words 
were.... odd. They made no sense. "One over-poetic voice-over. One 
implausibly expensive suit. Two foolishly dropped guns. It's 
a..... " I pause for effect. 

"FOX!" they chorused. It was the first sign of life I'd seen in 
them. 

I smiled, preparing to pound my feet in the mad run back through 
all the places we'd passed through. "And what do we do?"

"We kill him!"

"Oh."

*****

I clear my throat. "It's a good story. You tell stories well. Can 
you teach me how to do a sheep?"

"It's not a story." Her eyes flash angrily. "Look." She reaches 
into her bag and pulls out a book. 'Let's go home, little bear.' 
One of my favourites.

I barely glance at it. "I know it."

"Not like this." She opens it roughly, and not at all how a 
librarian should, even a desperate one in fear for her life. "Read 
it."

I read.

******

Once upon a time there were two bears: Spooky Bear, and Scully 
Bear. Spooky Bear is the spooky bear, and Scully Bear is the 
Scully bear, and they went for a walk in the woods.

They walked, and they walked, and they walked, until Scully bear 
rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips and said, "Let's go 
home, Spooky Bear."

So they set off back home on the path through the woods. Thud thud 
thud, went Spooky Bear's gun on the snow, and he dropped it, again 
and again, and then another time because it was great fun. Click 
click click went Scully Bear's heels, because Scully Bears, as we 
all know, always wear heels, even in the most unsuitable of 
terrains, and _never fall off!_

And then Spooky Bear stopped, and he turned around, and he 
listened, and he looked. "I thought I heard something," he said.

Scully Bear rolled her eyes back the other way, because they were 
getting stiff and sore. She put her hands on her hips, and sighed. 
"What do you hear, Spooky Bear?"

"Plop, Plop, Plop!" said Spooky Bear. "I think it's a Plopper. I 
read about it once, and once, as you know, is all it takes. It's 
written about in an obscure Native American text which is much 
stained by peyote, yet is, still, one of the most plausible 
documents that I have in my possession. It creeps up on its 
victims and eats them terribly, yet, I think, perhaps it knows 
_the truth_."

Scully Bear drew her gun, and rolled her eyes a little bit more, 
and put her hands on her hips, complete with gun, and sighed. As 
well as all that, _she_ turned round, and she listened, and she 
looked, but no Plopper was there, which she did not consider at 
all surprising.

"Spooky Bear," she said, through gritted teeth. "No Plopper is 
there. The 'plop' is just the noise of the snow as it falls off 
that branch, and, to be honest with you, I am completely and 
utterly fed up with you dragging me into the wilds on wild goose 
chases - and, no, Spooky Bear, I'm _not_ implying that wild geese 
know the 'truth' and need to be caught and interrogated. I'm cold 
and wet and hungry, and all I get to eat in honey, because that's 
what bears eat, and it wasn't even a full pot, and, even then, you 
wouldn't let me eat it because you think bees are in league with 
the enemy."

"They are," Spooky Bear whispered, his eyes looking more like 
puppies' eyes than a bear's eyes, which just wasn't _natural_.

"Now, for the last time - let's go home, Spooky Bear." 

Scully Bear was angry.

But then Spooky Bear stopped again, and he turned around, and he 
listened, and he looked. "I thought I heard something," he said.

Scully Bear shot him.
__

Parents and teachers may want to use this story to discuss issues 
such as:

Why did Scully Bear shoot Spooky Bear? Was it drugged water, or 
television signals? Do you think she was a spy all along? Did she 
do it because she loved him, in some strange way we don't 
understand?

Is it worth training teams of our operatives to perform plopping 
noises and hide behind trees in wild places to stir up trouble and 
distrust amongst our.... friends?

What happened next? Does the Plopper eat Scully Bear too?

******

"That's...." I cough. My voice is hoarse. "That's terrible."

"You haven't seen the half of it." She hands me a catalogue 
advertising books. "Look at the one called 'I can experiment.'"

"I've got that one," I manage, weakly, though I know what the 
answer will be.

Not like this.

"'I can experiment' is a valuable addition to any child's 
library," I read. "It outlines, in a clear and informative manner, 
simple experiments that can be performed with readily obtainable 
items: bored housewives, the smallpox virus and alien DNA. An 
introductory chapter tells children how to adopt the correct 
facial expressions and language, and how to say "tesssts" in a 
suitably menacing manner. It also urges them to ask their parents 
before getting blood on their clothes, but are, sensibly, advised 
to shoot any parent who objects. We _need_ books like this."

I smile weakly.

She is relentless.  Her finger moves down the page.

"'Thomas the Tank Engine's Proudest Day' tells how plucky Thomas 
saves the day when the engine pulling the boxcars for the secret 
autopsy project breaks down. The final image, of Thomas's smiling 
face superimposed on the face of a screaming piece of merchandise, 
is one to treasure."

"Merchandise?" I mouth, unable to make a sound. I wrench my head 
away.

"Mathematics for the Master-race," she reads aloud. "A sample 
question will demonstrate the quality of this book. If it takes 
3.6 hours to wipe the memory of one interfering FBI agent, what 
percentage of his memory can be erased in 40 minutes? Given that 
five percent of his brain cells control ninety-nine percent of his 
functioning, what is the probability that, working randomly, a 
doctor will reduce him to a drooling idiot in a, ten minutes, b, 
an hour, c, three hours."

I want to clap my hands over my ears. She has told me more - much 
more than I can ever repeat. This is just the evidence - proof 
that her tale is true.

She smiles, suddenly, and places the catalogue back in her bag. 
She gestures at the finger-painted alien on the wall. "Nice."

I swallow hard. "Thanks." It is a small thing, but important. For 
a second, it is a return to normality.

"We made aliens too, at our activity mornings," she says, 
ruefully. "Nothing but aliens. It was all we were allowed to do. 
We made them from flour, water and newspaper." She shrugged. "They 
weren't very good. You know what five-year-olds are like."

I nod. It is a small thing that I can understand, can comprehend. 

"We were never allowed to keep them to decorate the library," she 
continues. "They always took them away. I heard, once, that a few 
were going to the Arctic. 'He'll believe it's real,' I heard one 
of them say. 'He believes anything.' And they laughed."

I want to rip my alien of the wall and replace it with a rabbit. 
My fingers itch to do it.

"And their classification." She is relentless. "Do you know what 
they put at 666? Foxes."

It horrifies me most of all. "Foxes are 599.77," I gasp. "Glass is 
666. You can't.... The Dewey Decimal System is sacred. You can't 
just.... just _change_ it."

"They can do anything," she says, her sigh weary, now. "666 is the 
Number of the Beast. 666 is the number of foxes. It conditions the 
children. They learn to hate them. Remember what they did to the 
bear hunt story?"

I spread my hands wide, lost. "You can't condition children to 
hate something just by putting it at 666....."

There is a crash. A brick flies through the window, shattering it. 
Fifth one this week. Outside, a small girl is shaking with hatred 
and fear, another brick in her hand.

"Oh." I exhale, defeated. 

She smiles, but there is no victory in it - no relishing of her 
triumph.

******

It is long past closing time, and dark.

"What can we do?" I feel as if I have run a marathon. "I mean, 
that was there. We're okay, aren't we?" I don't mean it like it 
sounds - though maybe I do. It is always easier to hide, to 
pretend that it doesn't matter because we don't see it.

She raises her eyebrows. "Why do you have magnetic strips in the 
books? Why do you have animal-shaped bean bags in the library?"

I can't see it, and tell her so. "Why do I have animal shaped bean 
bags in the library?"

"Mind control gas, contained in the polystyrene beads." She looks 
with hatred at the tiger. "The pressure exerted by a small child 
is enough to release the gas in small doses. Repeated exposure to 
the gas...." She shrugged. "It will control the entire 
intellectual class of the future - every child who loves reading 
will be their slave."

"Oh." I want to burn my books. I've lost everything I believed in.

"Remember." She puts on her glasses, and picks up her bag. "I must 
go now. They are never far  behind me. Just remember...."

She steps are silent on the carpet. She voice echoes in the empty 
building, and, somewhere, I imagine I can hear booted feet and 
voices raised in the passive voice.

Her last words will haunt me for ever.

"The fine will be great indeed."

******

END

******

All true, you know. At least, every box that comes to my library 
is sealed with tape marked "The Consortium" - honestly. And I 
_really_ can't do sheep noises, or goats. And how do you do an 
elephant....?

Anyway, must go to work now, and then back to that Leviathan 
sequel....

Remember, FEEDBACK is like meat and drink to poor starving, 
overworked children's librarians, especially on Saturdays.