[text] - [001]

[bloominghistorian]

[She keeps it short, mostly because there's really only one important question she has for the moment.]

Where is the library?

And if there is not a library, who has books and would like to share and perhaps trade them?

[She'll ask more if and when anyone answers, and depending on how they answer. If there is anything she's learned in her life, it's that knowledge can be deemed dangerous by people, and there was no way of knowing which those people were.]

Comments

[bloominghistorian]

I have mostly historical books. Are you a scientist, then?

[trustycrowbar]

Yes, I am. Theoretical physics, MIT, if that means anything here... Books on history were actually going to be the object of my next trawl. Since we're fighting in the reaches of time now, those are more than just academic fodder; they give us a sense of the battlefield ahead.

[bloominghistorian]

I'm an archaeologist, a historian by trade. Can you tell me more about that?

[trustycrowbar]

I don't know much beyond that. They're seeking to rewrite the present by changing the past, tipping the balance in old battles, taking over supply chains and holds that won wars, pretty much everything a historian would spend their afternoons thinking about.

By all rights it goes against everything I learned about classical causality, but the bumblebee flies anyway. We haven't disassociated into a probabilistic mess of quarks and gluons yet, as far as I can tell. They must be doing SOMETHING right.

[bloominghistorian]

[There's a longer pause before this response]

Very interesting.

[trustycrowbar]

My name is Gordon, by the way. If you're interested I'd be willing to swap books, though I don't know how much of an interest you have in science.

[bloominghistorian]

All knowledge is worth examining, just as in the end, all disciplines involve each other.

My name is Robin.

[trustycrowbar]

I like the way you think, Robin. I'll drop in a list of what I'm willing to swap.

[And true to his word, about fourty-five minutes later there's a small-but-significant list of book titles. The more technobabble-laden works carry brief three-word qualifications like "action at a distance" and "brane mechanics" and "new particle discovery," and even at the end of one particularly brain-twisting five line title a simple, honest "no damn clue."]

[bloominghistorian]

[She sends back the small list of books she'd had in her bag and the ones she'd managed to purchase.]

That's what I have.