Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel by Robin Sloan

Author:Robin Sloan [Sloan, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012-10-01T23:00:00+00:00

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.

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