Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Librarian

They stored the anti-magnetic scooters at a parking lot outside the city.Such scooters are rare in the city, and Terrence doesn't want to attract unnecessary attention.He thought angrily of the residents of Uptown, and their anti-magnetic ground vehicles and anti-gravity gyro machines.But that was uptown and everything was different. Yuke waited for Terrence to lock and fingerprint the garage.He felt a little out of place in a new one-piece suit.Then, reluctantly, he followed the mayor forward, across the first tall bridge-like structure supporting the upper town. In Florence, every city has a name, but this city is called "city".In the minds of other urban residents, workers and farmers living in the "city" and the suburbs are the lucky ones.There are better doctors and hospitals in the city, more factories and liquor stores, and even more common luxuries.But the residents themselves don't think much of it, because they live in the shadow of the upper city.

The name "Upper City" can be said to be worthy of the name, because the city has two floors, which are divided into two by a horizontal structure.The fifty-square-mile structure is made of mountain cement alloy and rests on some 20,000 steel girders.The locals live in the shadows, and the tycoons live in the sun above.When you're in Upper City, it's hard to believe it's on the planet Florina.The population of the upper town is almost all authentic Saks, and there are also a few patrolmen, who are all upper class. Terrence knew the way, and he walked quickly, avoiding the eyes of passers-by.Those people all looked at his mayor's uniform with mixed feelings of envy and hatred.Yuke's legs are relatively short, and he only cares not to lag behind, so his steps are not so majestic.He'd been in town once before, but couldn't remember much.Things seem quite different now, last time it was cloudy, this time there is sunshine.Sunlight shoots down from the interval holes of the cement alloy above, forming strips of bright bands below, making the space between them appear darker.At a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pace, they move from bright zone to bright zone.

Many elderly people sit in wheelchairs, enjoy the warm sunshine in the bright belt, and gradually move with the bright belt.Sometimes they would fall into a deep sleep and stay in the shadows, dozing in their wheelchair until the noise of the wheelchair sliding woke them up.Some mothers push their babies out in the sun, and their strollers occasionally nearly block the light strips. Terrence said, "Listen, Yuke, stand still, we're going up." They stood in front of a square building surrounded by four pillars that stretched up to the upper city. Yu Ke said, "I'm afraid."

He guessed what the building was, a lift to the upper floors. Of course, these lifts are necessary equipment.Production takes place below and consumption above.Basic chemical raw materials and food ingredients are transported to the lower city, and the finished products and exquisite meals are enjoyed in the upper city.The population of the lower class was allowed to increase and births were not restricted, and only maids, gardeners, drivers, and construction workers who served the upper city were allowed to enter the upper city. Terrence was not surprised by Yu Ke's fear, he was surprised that his heart was beating so hard.It wasn't fear, of course, but a strong sense of satisfaction that he was about to go up.He'd walk all over the hallowed cement alloy, stomping on it, leaving the dirt from the soles of his shoes on it:, as a mayor, he could do that.Of course, in the eyes of the tycoon, he was still just a Florentine.But he's the mayor, and he can step on that piece of cement alloy at any time.

Galaxy, he hates those guys to death! Terrence stopped, took a firm breath, and pressed the button to summon the elevator.Hatred didn't help—he had been in Sack for many years; in Sack itself, the center and birthplace of tycoons, he had learned to swallow his anger, a lesson that should not be forgotten now.You can forget at any time, but never forget this moment. He heard the hum of the elevator reaching the lower level, and the entire wall before him sank into a groove in the ground. The local man who operated the lift had a disgusted expression: "Just the two of you?" "There are only two." Terrence said as he walked in, Yu Ke followed behind him.

The operator wasn't about to raise the wall to its original position: "I see you can wait for the two o'clock cargo and go up with it. I shouldn't have this thing up and down just for two people." He spat out carefully. Swallowing a mouthful of phlegm, he aimed carefully at the concrete below, avoiding the floor of the lift. "Where's your work permit?" the operator continued. Terrence replied, "I'm a mayor, can't you tell from my uniform?" "Uniforms don't mean anything. If you picked up this uniform, wouldn't I be in trouble? Do you think I'd risk losing my work for you? ID card!"

Without further ado, Terrence showed the ID folder that all locals must carry at all times, which contained registration numbers, work certificates, tax receipts, and so on.He turned to the page of the crimson mayor's license, and the operator took a quick glance. "Well, maybe you picked it up too, but it's none of my business. If you have proof, I'll let you pass. Anyway, in my opinion, it doesn't matter if you're called the mayor or not. You're still a local. In addition, Who is the guy?" "I'm in charge of him," said Terrence. "He can follow me. Shall I send a patrolman to look up the regulations?"

In fact, Terrence never wanted to actually call for the patrolman, but he suggested it with the right amount of arrogance. "Okay! You don't have to get angry." The operator raised the hatch, and after the elevator shook up and down a few times, it began to rush upwards.The operator also cursed incessantly under his breath. Terrence grinned stiffly.It is almost inevitable that those who work directly under the tycoons are very fond of thinking of themselves as rulers.The way they compensate for the inferiority complex in their bones is to adhere to the segregation regulations more than their masters, and to treat their compatriots with a strict and arrogant attitude.These people were the so-called "ten-layer people", and the general Florenians had a special hatred for these people, and this had nothing to do with the reverence they were trained to feel for the tycoons.

The vertical distance between the two floors was only thirty feet, but when the elevator doors opened again, there was a new world in front of them.Uptown, like Sark's native city, was designed with a particular emphasis on color.Every building, whether residential or public, is inlaid with different colors on its exterior, making the whole city look like a colorful mosaic.These patches of color look fuzzy and chaotic up close, but from a hundred yards away there are many subdued tonal combinations that change with the viewing angle. "Come on, Yuke," Terrence said. Yuke opened his eyes and looked around, but he couldn't see anything alive, only a huge pile of giant stones and colors. He never knew that a house could be so big.Yu Ke's heart suddenly twitched, and for a second or so, these behemoths were no longer so strange... Then the memory was closed again.

A ground vehicle sped by. "Are those tycoons?" Yu Ke whispered. They only had time to catch a glimpse.The hair of those people was trimmed very short; the clothes were blue or purple, all of uniform and bright color, with exaggerated bell sleeves were wide and big; the material of the knickerbockers seemed to be velvet; Made of fine copper wire.They didn't even bother to look at Yu Ke and Terrence. "Young little tycoon," Terrence replied.He hadn't had the chance to be so close to them since leaving Sack.These people were bad enough in Sack, but they couldn't be as lawless as they were here.It's only thirty feet above hell, not a place for angels.He squirmed again, trying to suppress the shiver of hatred.

A tandem scooter came behind them with a hiss.It was a new flatbed with built-in airflow controls.At the moment, it's passing smoothly two inches off the ground, its shiny flat bottom edge rolled all the way up to reduce air drag. Even so, its underside cuts through the air with a characteristic hiss, representing Sitting above are patrolmen. Like all patrolmen, they were large, with broad faces, flat cheeks, long straight black hair, and hazel complexion.To locals, every patrolman looks the same.Their uniforms were glossy black, set off by the dazzling silver of belt loops and studs here and there, their facial features dwarfed and accentuated by a molded impression. A patrolman sat on the bridge, and another jumped lightly from the shallow edge of the car. "The document folder!" He looked at it quickly with a mechanical movement, and immediately handed it back to Terrence, "What business are you here for?" "I'm going to the library, sir. I have the privilege." The patrolman turned to Yu Ke: "Then what about you?" "I..." Yu Ketun Qiao spat. "He's my assistant." Terrence rushed to answer. "He doesn't have the privileges of a mayor," said the patrolman. "I will take responsibility for him." The patrolman shrugged. "That's your responsibility. The mayor has privileges, but he's not a tycoon. Don't forget that, boy." "Yes, sir. By the way, can you point me to the location of the library?" The patrolman pointed him in the direction with the long, ghastly needle-gun barrel.From where they stood now, the library was a glowing vermilion spot, darker and redder on the higher floors.As they gradually approached, the crimson color gradually decreased. Yu Ke suddenly said excitedly: "I think it's ugly." Terrence gave him a quick, surprised look: although he had been used to all this in Sack, he also found the bright colors of Uptown a bit vulgar.Uptown actually looks more like Sack than Sack.In Sark not all are nobles, there are even poor Sarks, and some are hardly better than the average Florentine.The people living in the upper city are all masters, and the library shows this clearly. It's even bigger than most libraries in Sack, far more than Uptown actually needs, showing the benefits of cheap labor.Terrence stopped before the curved ramp leading to the main entrance.The colorful composition of the ramp gives people the illusion of a staircase, which confuses Yuke and almost falls him.But it brings a classical flavor to the library, and academic buildings are traditionally antique. The main hall was a large, austere building, almost deserted.There was only one desk, and the librarian sitting in the back looked like a small, wrinkled pea in a bulging pod.She looked up, ready to get up. Terrence immediately said: "I am the mayor, I have privileges, and I am responsible to this local." He had already prepared his documents and put them in front of him one by one. The librarian sat down again with a serious expression on his face.She took a piece of metal from the slot and handed it to Terrence.Terrence pressed hard with his right thumb, and the librarian retracted the metal plate into another slot, emitting a brief burst of dim purple light. "Room 242," she said. "Thank you." The entire row of cubicles on the second floor looked cold and monotonous, like an endless chain.Some of the cubicles had been occupied and the glass doors turned to opaque frosted glass, but most were empty. "Two, four, two." Yu Ke's voice was a little high-pitched. "What's going on, Yuke?" "I don't know, I feel very happy." "Ever been to the library?" "I have no idea." Terrence pressed his thumb to an aluminum disc that had received his fingerprints five minutes earlier.The crystal glass door turned open immediately, and after they walked in, the door closed quietly again, and as if a curtain was drawn, the whole piece of glass immediately became opaque. The room, six feet long and wide, had no windows or trim of any kind, and was lighted only by diffuse roof lights and ventilated by ventilation.A desk stands in the corner, and in front of the desk is a bench with a cloth cover but no back.There are two "reading machines" on the desk. The front is a piece of frosted glass, all of which are tilted backward at 30 degrees.There are control panels of different styles in front of each reader. "Do you know what this is?" Terrence sat down and placed his soft, thick hand on one of the reading machines. Yu Ke also sat down: "Book?" he asked eagerly. "Well," Terrence didn't answer him clearly, "this is a library, so your guess doesn't make much sense. Do you know how to operate a reading machine?" "No, I don't think so, Mayor." "Are you sure? Think again." Yu Ke thought about it seriously: "I'm sorry, mayor." "Then I'll teach you. Listen! First, look, there's a knob that says 'Contents', with letters printed on it. We're going to look up the encyclopedia first, so turn the knob to E, and Press down." He pressed the knob, and the frosted glass of the reading machine lit up, and writing appeared on it.As the roof lights gradually dimmed, the handwriting became black letters on a yellow background.Each reading machine sticks out a smooth plate like a tongue, with a beam of light in the center of the plate. Terrence flicked a switch, and the plates retracted into their original grooves. "We don't take notes." Then he went on to say: "Now we can turn this button and browse through the list of all books with the prefix E." A long list of alphabetical information, including title, author, and catalog number, began to move upwards and finally stopped at the section listing many volumes of encyclopedias. Yu Ke said suddenly: "Which book you want, just use these small buttons to press the number and letter, and it will appear on the screen." Terrence turned to him: "How do you know? Do you remember?" "I might remember, but I'm not sure, it just seems like the right thing to do." "Well, it's a smart guess." Terrence typed a combination of letters and numbers.The light on the glass then dimmed, then brightened again, and it read: "Zack's Encyclopedia, Volume Fifty-Four." "Now listen, fool," said Terrence, "I don't want to give you any ideas, so I won't tell you what I'm thinking. I just want you to go through this book and come across something familiar Just stop. Do you understand?" "learn." "Very well, take your time." A few minutes later, Yu Ke suddenly took a breath and turned the control wheel backwards at the same time. When he stopped, Terrence looked at the headline and looked very excited: "Now you remember? This is not a guess, right? Do you remember?" Yu Ke nodded vigorously: "I suddenly thought of it, mayor, very suddenly." That was the article discussing "Space Analysis". "I know what it says," Yu Ke said, "you wait and see, you wait and see..." He was so excited that he couldn't breathe normally, and Terrence was almost as excited. "Look," Yuke said again, "there is always such a paragraph." He read it aloud, hesitantly, but still quite skillfully.Judging from the rough reading that Varona taught him, it is absolutely impossible to reach this level.That article says: "It is not difficult to understand that, in terms of temperament, space analysts are quite introverted and often maladaptive. The loneliness of a person who spends most of his life documenting the terrible nothingness among the stars is not a completely normal person. Tolerable. Perhaps because of some recognition of this point, the Academy of Space Analysis adopted a slightly sarcastic sentence - 'We analyze a space' as its official slogan." After Yu Ke finished reading, he almost let out a scream. "Do you understand what you just read?" Terrence asked him. The little Yuke raised his head, his eyes shot a blazing light: "It mentioned 'we analyze a void', that's exactly what I remember, I used to be a member of them." "You used to be a space analyst?" "Yes." Yu Ke cried, and then whispered, "I have a headache." "Because you've been remembering?" "I suppose so." He looked up, brow wrinkled. "I must remember more. There's a crisis, a big crisis! I don't know what to do." "The library is at our disposal, stupid." Terrence looked around carefully, while weighing what to say, "Use the catalog yourself, look up articles about space analysis, and see what can lead you to think of." Yu Ke rushed to the front of the reader, visibly shaking.Terrence stood up quickly to make room for him. "How about Riggett's "Space Analytical Instruments Monograph"?" Yu Ke asked, "Does it sound appropriate?" "It's all up to you, Yu Ke." Yu Ke typed the catalog number, and a line of steady handwriting immediately lit up on the screen: "Please ask the librarian for this book." Terrence quickly erased the writing on the screen: "Better try another one, stupid." "But..." Yu Ke hesitated and obeyed the order.He searched the catalog again and settled on Enning's Composition of Space. The screen lights up again asking for a query from the librarian.Terrence cursed: "Damn it!" and erased the writing on the screen. "What's going on?" Yu Ke asked. Terrence said, "It's nothing, it's nothing. Don't panic, fool. I just don't quite understand..." The thin, indifferent voice of the librarian came from a small speaker with a grill on the side of the reading machine, startling them both. "Room 242! Is there anyone in Room 242?" Terrence replied harshly, "What's the matter?" The voice said, "Which book do you want?" "No, thank you, we are just testing the reading machine." A short silence followed, as if an invisible negotiation was taking place.Then the voice said in a sharper tone: "Records show Riggett's Analytical Apparatus for Space being requested, and Enning's Composition of Space. Is that correct?" "We just typed a few catalog numbers at random," Terrence said. "May I ask your reasons for asking for these books?" The voice was aggressive. "I told you we don't want...you don't do this..." The latter sentence was said to Yuke angrily, because Yuke had already started to sob in a low voice. After another pause, the voice said again: "You can pick up these two books from the counter downstairs. They are on the restricted list and you will need to fill out a form." Terrence reached out and grabbed Yu Ke: "Let's go." "Maybe we violated some regulations." Yu Ke tremblingly said. "Nonsense, Yu Ke, let's go." "Aren't we going to fill out the form?" "No, we'll get those books another day." Terrence left in a hurry, escorting Yu Ke to go with him.The librarian looked up as he strode into the main hall. "Hello, hello," she called, getting up and walking around the desk, "wait a minute, wait a minute!" They didn't stop. Unexpectedly, a patrolman suddenly stopped their way: "You are in such a hurry, young man." The librarian caught up with them and almost couldn't catch up: "You are two four two, right?" "Let me ask you," Terrence said in a firm tone, "why did you stop us?" "Didn't you ask for some books? We want to give them to you." "It's getting late, try another day. Don't you understand that I don't want those books? I'll come back tomorrow." "This library," the female librarian said solemnly, "does its best to meet the needs of users at any time, and those two books will be ready for you immediately." At this point, two blushes appeared on her cheeks, and she turned to look at the library. A small door ran to it, and the door opened in vain. Terrence said, "Sir, would you please..." The patrolman held up a moderately long but deliberately heavy nerve whip.It's a great baton and a mid-range paralyzing weapon: "Okay, boy, why don't you just sit still and wait for the lady to come back? That's the way to be polite." The patrolman was no longer young or strong.He seemed to be approaching retirement age, perhaps to spend his final years as a relaxed library guard.But he still had his arms, and the kindness on his dark face was obviously fake. Terrence's brow was wet, and he felt the sweat roll down his back.It seemed that he had underestimated the situation—he had been so sure of his analysis of it all, and now he was in this situation.He shouldn't have been so reckless; the bad thing was that damned desire to invade the Upper City, to walk the corridors of the library like a sack... Desperate, he prepares to attack the patrol.Then, completely unexpectedly, he no longer had to do that. It was just a fleeting moment, and the patrolman turned his head a bit late; because of his age, his reaction was no longer so quick.The nerve whip he was holding was taken away, and it hit him hard on the temple.He only had time to let out a hoarse scream before falling to the ground immediately. Yu Ke let out a scream of joy, while Terrence exclaimed: "Varona! Sack's devil has a spirit, it's actually Varona!"