CHAPTER 104

"Wow," he whispered. Up above, he could hear the rustling of pages and slamming of shelves as these objects shifted onto the new pillars. "What genre is this?"

"This pillar is romance." She pointed her staff toward one of the landing zones. "These off-shoots will eventually have some category of their own, and then break away from here to become their own columns, or maybe merge with another category into a bigger column. You don't often see this at the entrance, because those books are the more popular ones that used to get borrowed all the time." She appraised the enormous column. "I'm rather impressed at how many books seem to be written in this category, but there seems to be a quality issue."

"Quality? Like, the stories suck?"

"Oh, I have no idea. It would be nice to sit around all day and read them. I'll show you what I mean." They had landed, and she led the way to the nearest bookshelf. Several of the books on it looked normal, but she eventually picked one up that was blank except for a title and an author. "I've seen a bunch like these over the last few years, but have no idea why. No cover art, no synopsis on the back. I've looked inside some of them and they might not even be formatted correctly."

"Let me see." He took the book from her and read the title. "Um...this one is called My Sister the Cuck Queen part seven by..." He laughed when he saw the author's name. "Okay, I think I know what's going on."

"Well?"

He held the book up for her. "We can verify when we get home, but I sincerely doubt that somebody actually named their child QueefEater42. This is just some random person's story, probably on the internet somewhere."

"I don't understand." She looked up at the row of books above her. "The Library is only supposed to get in copies of books that exist, not internet dribble."

"I wouldn't automatically assign anything you find on the internet as dribble." He set the book down and looked through the shelves and found another one. This one had a picture of a pair of abnormally big breasted women hugging each other, but the picture and title were stretched dramatically across the cover. "Interesting. This one looks like they didn't load the correct image size."

"You still haven't explained why I am seeing these."

"Well..." He turned the book over. There was no explanation on the back, but when he opened the first page, he saw that the information page just had a web address. "How does the Library categorize what's an actual book?"

She crossed her arms. "Anything that gets bound professionally?"

"Yeah, well, that's not how things work in the real world anymore." He put the book back and looked some more. After digging through a couple and opening several to look inside, he chuckled. "You see, there's been a huge digital revolution recently. People started selling books that you could read on their devices, and I can tell you for a fact that there are a ton of authors who don't even bother publishing their stories on paper."

"Preposterous. Those wouldn't count as books, then."

"Why not?" He held up a book with a pair of anthropomorphic animals on the front. "How does the Library differentiate between what constitutes a book-worthy story? I can guarantee you have published books here that almost nobody has read, but some of these digital ones? Tons of people enjoy them."

She took the book from him and flipped through its pages. "So you're saying this book might not exist in your world?"

"Not on paper. Did you know that people can just pay to have a book published for them? You could write a book of poems and have it printed and mailed to your doorstep in days. Does the Library know that you will only make one copy? Does that book count, or is there some other guideline? Does it have to sell first, or maybe a certain number of people need to read it?"

Sofia pulled a couple more books off the shelf and flipped through them. "I suppose I don't really know. This place was built a long time ago, and the builders would not have foreseen such a thing. I must admit that my role here is largely ceremonial, other than chasing down potential intruders. Metaphorically, the place has a mind of its own."

"You told me once that the Library brings you copies of books once they are finished. Maybe it can no longer tell the difference, and is bringing these here." He took a step back and looked along the shelves. Where he stood, he could see dozens of shelves, and each one was nearly ten feet high. They were all packed full with books of varying quality. "By the way, we seem to be in a very weird crossover of genres here."

"Mmmhmm." Sofia put her book back on the shelf and scowled. "Do many people write these books? The digital ones?"

"Thousands. Millions. I don't know for sure, but it's a lot." He walked back toward the carpet. "Now I kind of wonder what the cutoff is. I imagine that the story has to be complete, right? So you wouldn't have a column of half finished books or something."

"No, unless someone published it. I've seen posthumous works like that." She stepped onto the carpet next to him. "This explains the exponential growth in some of these areas though. Obviously I don't have time to oversee all of the Library's new entries, but this explains several things I have noticed of late."

"Hey, cool. A mystery that was solvable in under ten minutes. And!" He pointed a finger at himself. "I didn't have to fuck my way out of it."

Sofia's cheeks turned bright red and she broke, letting out a laugh. "I mean, we're still in the romance section. I'm sure you could find something to get you off."

It was his turn to laugh. "It would have to be a softcover. The edges on the hard ones are far too dangerous. Hey, I just remembered something. Isn't it your job to read everything and catalogue it properly? That's what you told me when we first met."