“With pleasure,” said Daphne. She unhooked the painting. On the wall behind it, built into the stone, was a lever. “What in the hell,” she said almost reverently.
“What do we—” Zada started. Daphne was already pulling the lever.
A door-sized section of wall swung open. The cracks had been absolutely imperceptible before.
Zada and Daphne exchanged a look. For once, Daphne had no clever remark. Neither did Zada. Again, she felt a powerful sense of gratitude that Daphne was here with her, that Zada had a witness to the moment, that whatever they were about to see, they would see it together.
Zada swallowed and stepped inside.
The ceiling was lower in here, the light dimmer. Still, it looked almost precisely like the room they had come from—bookshelves packed close together, crammed haphazardly with volumes of all shapes, sizes, and conditions. The far wall, which must have marked the exterior of the basement, was strangely colored in mottled splotches of green, blue, and brown. But besides the hidden nature of the room itself, at a glance there was no clear sign of illegality.
What had Zada been expecting, secret messages inked on the walls in blood?
“More books,” said Daphne, eyeing the shelves. “Where do you think they’re getting all these? And why keep them hidden away?”
Zada tilted her head, reading the titles on the book spines closest to her.
“The collected works of—” Zada stepped back as realization dawned on her in a cold wash.
“Hm?” Daphne came over to join Zada. “Shakespeare? That was curated ages ago.”
“Yes, that would make perfect sense, wouldn’t it?” Zada said, scanning the shelves around her.Hamlet.The Tale of Genji.The Bluest Eye. “I thinkeverythinghere has been curated.”
Daphne let out a low whistle. “A library full of curated books, all in paper. These nuns know how to have a good time.”
Aside from the lights, there was no sign of anything electronic here. Even the dividers were handwritten. No wonder this room was deep underground and tucked away behind a false wall. The shelves here were packed with curated reading materials that were no doubt unregistered and entirely illegal. If the city council got wind of this, anyone linked to the library would be Extricated.
This was dangerous, more dangerous than Zada had imagined. The Sisters of Perpetual Reflection had seemed so unassuming, but all along, they’d been keeping a secret.
“Who do you think Sappho was?” Daphne was reaching for a volume in the poetry section.
“Daphne, focus!” Zada snapped. With only the slightest beat of hesitation, Zada pressed her hands against Daphne’s back and gently steered her away from the distractions of forbidden poetry.
They made their way deeper into the library, passing throughGENERALITIES,PHILOSOPHY & PSYCHOLOGY,RELIGION, andSOCIAL SCIENCES, thenWORLD LANGUAGES,NATURAL SCIENCES & MATHEMATICS, and finallyMUSIC. The last one madeher fingertips itch with want. In another life, she would have given everything to sit down on the floor of this strange, hidden library and spend an eternity paging through these books.
“Ah, here we go,” Daphne breathed. They’d arrived at theGEOGRAPHY & HISTORYsection.
“Keep an eye out for anything relating to Heartsong or—”
“Found it.” Daphne darted forward to pose beside a small divider.NEW IONIAwas written on the divider in a cramped cursive. The section spanned several shelves. Unlike the yellowed and carefully preserved tomes elsewhere in the library, these books seemed relatively new.
Zada pulled a volume off the shelf at random. The cover was blank, perhaps to obscure what lay within. There was only one way to find out. She opened the book.
The title page claimed that it had been published by the University of Chicago, which was absurd. The city of Chicago was underwater, everyone knew that. Zada flipped through a couple of pages. This book was a first edition, crisp enough to be new—and there it was again. Published in Chicago. What a strange error to make twice.
She returned to the title page.A City Asleep, or the History of New Ionia.
“Did you find anything good?” Daphne called. She’d pulled several books off the shelf and was rapidly paging through them. “These are just stories about people’s lives here. A bit like the interviews Sister Patience and Sister Justice were gathering.”
The first several pages meant nothing to Zada. There was a lengthy introduction with a lot of precise and obtuse wording, peppered with references and thank-yous to various scholars.She flipped forward and felt her blood freeze.
“Daphne,” Zada called back, her eyes riveted to the page in front of her. “Daphne, come here.”
Daphne reshelved her books and came to hover by Zada’s shoulder.
“Look at this,” Zada said.
The mystery is not what is happening in New Ionia. The few who have managed to escape or were forcibly removed have maintained remarkably similar stories of heavy social coercion and even outright brainwashing, with only the occasional underground “grotto rock” concert for release (and all of the risk that entails). Neither is the mystery how this state of affairs came to pass. Primary source documents have painted a clear picture of a utopian society that found its home within a biosphere built and backed by billionaires, which quickly transformed into a corporate-fascist oligarchy within less than two generations.
