Sayid slept on a lawn chair behind the Carver Mansion. The elderly caretaker rested his bones in the warm sun, and dreamed.

The twitching of his eyes sketched for him a woman, young and dark-haired; the portrait gained color, and he saw not the brown eyes he had expected, but eyes that reminded him of two dinar, being great golden circles.

She ran her fingers along his chest, and he had pleasant dreams.

Until, of course, his wife awoke him.

“Sayid,” Daphne said, “wake up!”

He came out of his dream with a start.

“What?” he asked, squeezing his eyes shut.

“There's a man here,” she said.

“Oh? What's he selling?”

“He claims to be a 'Victor Carver.' Say's he's Anastas's boy.”

“What?” he asked, again.

“Say's he's come home to reclaim the house.”

Sayid got up, realizing that he wouldn't get to dream of the golden-eyed woman again until that evening, at least.

LODGER, n. A less popular name for the Second Person of that delectable newspaper Trinity, the Roomer, the Bedder, and the Mealer.

Wade hung his sandy-haired head, and looked at the sleeping bags the store had for sale. An imprecise but wholly practical algebra of bedrolls unfolded in his head; judging which price was preferable, which thickness was comfortable, and which length was sufficient.

His height made the last one a very real concern.

“Can I help you?” a clerk asked, Wade turned and looked at the middle-aged black woman who had approached him.

She looked into his cart and saw the toothpaste, the brush, and the underwear.

“Going on a trip?” she asked, smiling. Her teeth were extremely white.

“Sort of. I'm...uh...going to be camping out for a bit,” he said, still not sure how to explain to anyone that he was living in a broom closet.

“Well, you're a big guy,” she pointed out, restating the obvious.

“Suppose I am,” he admitted.

“So you're going to need something a bit more like this,” she said, indicating one of the more expensive variants.

He examined the price tag, one hundred dollars.

“Is this the cheapest one you've got. Money is kind of an issue...”

She nodded.

“I got you, long-shanks. Why don't you look at this one,” she indicated another, with an eighty-dollar price tag.

“Looks like a good investment,” he said, “is it long enough?”

“It'll fit you,” she said.

He picked it up. The material was a little thin, but he wasn't too worried about the closet getting cold.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don't mention it.”

He paid for his things with four crinkled twenties and a crisp, new ten. Leaving the department store, he headed back to the bus line that Mari had instructed him to take, sketching out a map on a napkin.

She had told him he was going to a part of town called Sabbah Riding; on the map, it was written as “S.R.”

“Don't go east of the bus stop,” she had said.

“Right,” he had said.

“Don't go east of the bus stop,” was a warning. He learned this when he got off the bus and pulled out the napkin.

Palladion. Was written there, with a skull and crossbones to either side.

He waited for the bus; assuming a stooped posture and periodically glancing left, in the direction from which traffic came.

Reflecting, he looked at the crude map, with its crooked line representing the Giordano River—a ribbon of water he had never known existed—dividing Valley City into north-west and south-east halves.

In the middle, almost an island in the river, was University Hill; other than Palladion, Sabbah Riding, and Little Masyaf, it was the only district marked.

Briefly, Wade wandered how the culture of this city had come to be; why there was such a Middle Eastern influence on the city. Eventually, he decided that it was probably due to immigration, such as the Italian influence in New York and Chicago, the Irish influence in Boston, or the Cuban influence on southern Florida.

The bus arrived, pulling to a stop directly before him. With a protracted hiss, it lowered down, and he boarded it. He paid a dollar for the right to ride the vehicle; most cities cost more, and he could appreciate that public transport was cheap.

The caretakers sat at the kitchen table, as Victor slowly circled the room, examining the fixtures and drinking coffee. After a moment, he began to monologue.

“I appreciate that you've kept the house in good repair,” Victor said, adjusting his glasses and examining the ceiling, “it had taken on this whole 'Gothic Mansion' air around the time I left. My grandmother—and Samir after her, now that I think about it—were trying to handle all of the necessary repairs while living here. We would periodically move from suite to suite, as the rest of the house was torn apart and repaired.”

He took a long, slow sip of his coffee.

“Do you two live in the house?” he asked.

“No,” Daphne said, politely, “we live in the cottage behind the house. We come in to clean and repair it, but beyond that, we've left it as is.”

“Ah, I'm glad to hear that. I'd hate to kick you out of a place that's been your home for...”

“Eleven years. Ever since Mr. Samir died.”

“Eleven...has it been that long? I suppose it has. You have no idea how devastated I was when he died.”

Daphne and Sayid sat in silence, unwilling to press the issue further, and knowing that the loquacious young man would eventually continue of his own volition.

Sayid was the first to break the silence.

“Mr. Carver--” he began.

“Ah!” Victor started, and raised up his index finger, “Doctor. I'm a Doctor, you know. Been a polymath since fourteen, a doctorate was nothing.”

Sayid was not deterred from his questioning.

“Why did you decide to come back now?”

Victor smiled, revealing a perfect, even row of teeth slightly yellowed by the coffee.

“My father and I have our differences; he's very practical, interested in exploring—he and my mother in Papua New Guinea, at the moment—while I've been more interested in my grandfather's and great-grandfather's work.”

Victor smiled when he saw Sayid shift, knowing that the older man wanted him to get to the point, but enjoying the delay.

“Both my Grandfather and Great Grandfather were pack rats, and more than a little paranoid. They hid their machinery and notes in warehouses and closets, and in any hiding place they could find in Valley City. I'm hoping to find what they were dong, and possibly continue their work.”

“What sort of work?” Daphne asked, after a pause.

“Ah, Missus Sanchez. That's a difficult question to answer.”

The stairway up from the bar creaked beneath Wade's feet, and he carried his purchases in a plastic bag that swayed from side to side with each step. His sleeping bag was slung over his shoulder.

Above him, he could hear the 'ding' of the bell on Algernon's door. Someone had opened it up; looking, he could see a woman exiting the office.

She was shorter than he by a head and a half or so, and her black hair was cut short. Her shoulders were wide, and she moved with a certain muscular grace, a particular certainty of her motions.

Her clothing was dark, but her white-striped short-sleeved shirt made it clear she wasn't one of the Hashshishin.

“Excuse me,” she said with a smile as she squeezed past him, pressing her hip into his thigh and shoulder-blade into his side.

He glanced back at her as she moved away, waving at Mari down below.

When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw that Algernon's door was still open. The older detective was standing by his desk, reaching out for his crutch.

“Hi, Wade,” he said, “how's the apartment?”

“Thinking about getting a throw rug and some potted plants.”

Algernon chuckled, a dry, rattling noise.

“Why don't you put that stuff down and come on in here. I got some work for you.”

Wade unlocked his door, directly across from Algernon's office, and set his things down just inside.

He sat across from Algernon, who remained seated precariously on the side of his desk, his broken leg stretched out to the side.

“Who was that woman who just left?” Wade asked, leaning back, he patted his shirt, and retrieved a cigarette from the breast pocket.

“Ms. Marlowe comes here for tutoring. I've got a way with the written word, and she pays me the hourly equivalent of my rate.”

“Which is?” Wade asked.

“Two hundred bucks a day, but taking into account that at most ten hours a day will be spent on a case, and it's pretty cheap. Business was really starting to pick up when I broke my leg.”

He set the ashtray on the arm of the chair Wade occupied, and lit his own cigarette.

“There's been a theft down at VCU, the library. A few books have been stolen, and they're paying for me—us—to handle the situation.”

Wade nodded, and produced the map that Mari had drawn for him, uncrinkling it and examining the impressionist geography presented there.

Leaning over, Algernon grabbed a brown paper bag and handed it to him.

Wade set his napkin-map down, and took the bag.

“What is it?” he asked.

“The tools of the trade,” Algernon responded.

He removed the contents of the bag. A notepad, a cheap cell phone, a handful of pens, a map of the city, a switchblade, and a strange camera-like device.

“What is this?” Wade asked, indicating the last one.

“A wireless camera,” Algernon said, “Handy tool, don't know why they haven't caught on. It's like a camera-phone, but it's matched to a USB, which is attached to my laptop. No on-board memory in it; this is good, because it means I can see what you see, and it's a lot cheaper than a higher-end cellphone.”

Wade nodded.

“I understand. And the knife?”

Algernon quirked an eyebrow at him.

“It's a dangerous world out there, Wade. I can't get you a gun, but I can get you a knife. That's better, to tell you the truth. You can do one thing with a gun; you can do a lot of things with a knife.”

Wade nodded.

“When do I have to be at the university?” he asked.

“Anytime today. Go to the front desk, and ask for 'Cincinnatus.'”

“Okay, I'm going to grab a snack and a drink from downstairs, first, then head on over.”

Algernon nodded.

“Sounds good,” he said.

Wade got up to leave, before Algernon cleared his throat.

“Two...Three things. First, could you hand me my crutch?”

Wade walked over, and noticed that it was just out of the older man's reach, meaning he might lose his balance if he attempted to grab it.

“Second, could you give me a call when you get on the university campus? I'll guide you to the library and do some research on pawn-shops and used book stores around there.”

“Got it,” Wade said, nodding.

“And third...would you mind closing the door when you leave? Theia is a nice girl, but she can be thoughtless, at times.”

Wade deposited the goods contained in the bag about his person—the cellular phone, camera and knife in his pockets, and the rest into his backpack, along with On the Road and The Grapes of Wrath.

He walked down the stairs into the smoky bar.

Patrons had filed in and sat about the room. Some ate, a handful smoked hookah.

Approaching the bar, he hopped onto a stool, and waited until Mari was ready to take his order.

The tall woman approached him and leaned onto the bar.

“Algy putting you to work, yet?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “but I'm going to have a snack, first. Got anything?”

She opened up a small refrigerator, and produced an orange.

“I usually give this to people to put in their drinks,” she said, “but it'll serve you well. Need anything else?”

“Glass of water. This'll be good.”

He ate slowly and deliberately, watching the patrons.

Many were dressed as workmen, wearing jeans and button-up shirts; one of the hookah-smoking men was an older palestino with a beard down to the end of his sternum, and he wore a cotton robe and wool hood.

After finishing, he left and headed to the bus stop.

The university was a riot of conflicting architecture built onto the summit of a steep hill; there were as many stairways as there were sidewalks.

The older buildings were adobe, but there was a faux-classical liberal arts building and an ultra-modern science building.

At the top was a level field, the quad. A game of rugby was going on, between a group of athletic young men and an eclectic handful of others; men and women ranging from eighteen to thirty, most dressed in dark clothing, wearing white-striped shirts.

Wade didn't know much about the sport, but stopped to watch when he recognized that the girl Algernon had been tutoring had the ball, tucked into her side with her left arm.

A man came to tackle her and she reached out and touched his extended hand; there was a blur of motion, as she lowered her wider hips below his, and then took control of his motion. Without releasing the ball, she flipped him over the fulcrum she had created, causing him to land on his back without losing her own footing.

He remembered he had to call his employer, and produced the phone he had been given; there were a handful of numbers already set into it: “Algernon,” “Agent,” “Lawyer,” “Mari,” “Medical,” and “Police.”

“The library's near the top,” Algernon declared through the phone, “on the eastern side.”

Wade followed his instructions, and found his way into one of the adobe buildings--”Carver Library and Museum,” the sign read—and found his way to the front desk.

“I'm looking for Cincinnatus,” he said to the older man, who peered at him through owlish glasses.

“Second floor, Reference Desk,” the man said, “You the Detective?”

“His assistant, and thank you.”

The stairs were a free-standing structure, like a square spiral built around an empty space. Their shape was defined almost completely by their hand-rails. They swayed beneath his feet, and he felt an intense dislike for them after he had walked halfway to his destination.

The second floor was dim, with soft lighting and rows upon rows of books that absorbed all sound, rendering it silent.

He followed the signs, and approached the reference desk.

A well-dressed black man with his hair tied back into a ponytail sat there, reading a book titled The Complete Idiot's Guide to Calculus. The man had wire-frame glasses on, and a well-trimmed goatee. From what he could see, the man was wearing a vest of sorts and a white shirt beneath it.

“Are you Cincinnatus?” Wade asked.

“Yeah. Can I help you?” the other man responded, not looking up.

“I'm here about the stolen material?” he asked.

The librarian looked up, and blinked, adjusting to a sight other than print.

“You're a big one, aren't you?”

“And you're the type of person who reads 'Complete Idiot's Guides.' Now where were the books?” he replied with a smile.

Cincinnatus stood and stretched, popping his bones back into place after a long period of time behind the desk.

They began walking through

“They stole the other book I was reading. I was looking at a book on the Jungian symbolism of Alchemy--”

“The Complete Idiot's Guide to Alchemy?” Wade asked, pulling it off the shelf, and holding it up. The librarian turned to look at him.

“Will you get off that?” Cincinnatus asked, his face serious.

“Sorry, sorry,” Wade said, putting it back.

“As I was saying, Jungian book on Alchemy. Fascinating stuff; valuable monograph. Stolen.”

He pointed to three empty spots, two on one side of the aisle, one on the other. Wade snapped a photograph.

“They obviously knew which ones they wanted,” he said.

“Yeah, but that's the weird part,” Cincinnatus said, beckoning him back towards the desk, “I've got a list of books, but there's no unifying theme that I can see; as soon as I get an idea of what's going on, I have to include a book that doesn't fit: The Complete Essays of Jorge Luis Borges, or Thought Experiments in 19^th Century Physics.”

Wade massaged the bridge of his nose, for a moment, before asking:

“You all wouldn't happen to have security tapes, would you?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Cincinnatus said, “this library is a panopticon, but no one really bothers to go over the tapes. It would take way too long to go through them all.”

Wade shook his head.

“Just yesterday and today. Can I get a look at those?” he asked.

“I'll call security and get you access.”

He picked up the phone, and Wade picked up the list, and twenty-five titles stared back at him, including fiction, philosophy, and science. The way that they had been taken off the shelves meant one thing, the lack of a theme to this list meant another.

He stretched it out flat, and took a photograph of it.

“Alright, you're in. It'll be in the basement. Just go downstairs, and talk with the campus security officer; he'll let you in, and you can watch the tapes from last night.”

Going over the tapes was maddeningly boring, especially as he was attempting to find a book thief in a library, a place specifically for people to go and take books that aren't theirs.

After spending three hours fast-forwarding, slowing, stopping, writing, and continuing, he decided on a whim to put the tape of the librarian's break room on.

He stretched, took a long, hard blink, and returned to watching.

Stopping the tape, he printed the image, and ran out, up the shaking stairs, and slapped the image down on Cincinnatus' desk.

“Why is she microwaving the books?” he asked.

“she's what?” he asked, looking incredulously at the picture.

“Putting books in the microwave.”

The picture showed a young woman dressed in black jeans and a black shirt standing by the microwave, she looked back toward the door, revealing a black bandanna over her nose and mouth.

“Fucking hash-head,” Cincinnatus said, “she's cooking the arphid off!”

“Arphid?” Wade asked.

“R.F.I.D. Radio Frequency Identification.”

“That's how you track the books,” Wade deadpanned.

“Yeah. It's how we know if they're being taken out without permission. It sets off a klaxon.”

Wade paused for a moment.

“Do you have access to and know how to work photoshop?” he asked.

“Yeah, I've taken graphic design, why?”

“Can I ask you to clean up her face in this picture, so we've got a clear lead?” he asked, “it'll help us get the books back faster.”

Cincinnatus nodded.

“Sure. You want me to print it off, or...”

“Nah...send it to this e-mail address,” he said, writing down Algernon's contact information on the back of the sheet, “I'm going to see if she had any accomplices.”

He ran down the dancing stairs, and went back into the subterranean crow's nest. He went through the tapes, skipping over the lunch hour, and found two more people, both male, both dressed in the white-striped shirt he'd seen elsewhere.

“What's with this shirt?” he asked, delivering the last two to Cincinnatus, “I've seen it everywhere around here, but I don't know what it's all about.”

“Novs,” Cincinnatus said, “weird thing. Local subculture. Dress kinda like Goths and like graveyards, listen to jazz, got all these weird superstitions that they don't believe but follow anyway.”

Wade nodded.

“I'm not from around here; that sounds a bit more understandable than the whole Hashshishin thing.”

The librarian took the last two images, and scanned them in.

“They let me put photoshop on this computer while I was taking graphic design. Never bothered to take it off,” he said, weakly trying to make conversation.

“Interesting,” Wade said, stretching the cleaned image of the Hashshishin girl on the desk and taking a photograph of it.

“Not from around here?” Cincinnatus asked.

“No. I was born in St. Louis; moved around a lot, though.”

“I could tell; you pronounce more of your words than the locals do.”

Wade nodded.

Algernon had managed to dig up information with the photographs taken, getting into Facebook and discovering addresses and identities. He sent it all to Wade's phone, as well as information about where to look.

Two of them lived on University Hill, one lived in Soldier's Field, way out on the eastern edge of town.

He found the girl—Mia Fargo—first, and pressed her for information.

She answered her door with sleep in her eyes.

“Miss Fargo, I'm looking for some books from the VCU library, I was hoping you could help me.”

“I don't have your books, bes'd?”

“Bes'd?” he asked.

“Good,” she supplied, before attempting to slam the door in his face; unfortunately for her, his foot was in the way, and his shoe supplied enough protection to keep him from feeling pain.

He held up the picture for her inspection.

“I have a picture of you microwaving a book.”

“How do you know it's me?” she asked.

“Left ear gauged. Black scorpion designs on your black bandanna, which also shows up in your facebook picture. Also, you have a bleach stain on the toe of your right shoe that's shaped a bit like Abe Lincoln.”

“You got all that from this crummy picture?” she asked, equally confused and impressed.

“something like that, yes. Now do you have the books?” he asked.

“No. They've been dropped by now.”

He continued to the other spot on University Hill. A frat house. Knocking on the door, he waited for a long moment until a man wearing a hockey jersey opened the door.

“Hey, I'm looking for Terrence Hidalgo,” he said.

The man scratched his genitals.

“Derby!” he shouted, “some dude's looking for you.”

After a moment, the Nov came down the stairs, and pushed his glasses up onto his forehead.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Can I ask you a few questions?” Wade asked.

“About what?” Hidalgo asked, coming to the door.

“I need to know about the events of this photograph,” Wade declared.

“What...uh...what do you mean?” Hidalgo responded.

“I'm looking for the books.”

Hidalgo licked his lips.

“I don't know.”

“You sure?” Wade asked, his eyes hard.

“Yeah. Uh...Mo's house. I took them to Mo's.”

Sighing, Wade massaged the bridge of his nose, before pulling the third picture from his backpack.

“Is this Mo?” he asked.

“Yeah. That's him.”

Wade left without saying good-bye, and returned to the bus stop.

Soldier's field was a residential neighborhood built around an old graveyard, dating back from the Spanish-American war.

When Wade found the address, he knocked on the door and waited.

The peephole went dark, but no one answered the door; Wade stood waiting for the door to open.

When it didn't, he went over to the late-model sedan sitting in the driveway, and produced his switchblade. He knelt next to the right-front tire.

“Woah! Woah!” a voice shouted from the now-open door, “what are you doing?”

“Getting your attention,” Wade said, “are you Morris Guerro?”

The Nov standing in the doorway was tall and long, built much like Wade.

“That's right. Why are you looking for me?”

Wade produced the picture and handed it to him.

“I'm told that you're the one who was taking these books?” he asked, moving back to the stoop by the Nov.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because the library hired me to get them back.”

Morris's eyes darted back and forth, and he moved to slam the door, but Wade lunged forward, stomping his foot inside.

“Get your hoof out of my door!” the Nov yelled.

Wade pushed the door open, and Morris planted a right jab under his jaw. The world blinked out.

Morris watched as a circle of black, oily smoke gathered around Wade's head; the detective's eyes widened, and his mouth grinned.

He lunged again, planting a left hook took the Nov in the temple, causing him to stagger back.

Wade laughed; the circle of smoke around his skull thickened, becoming more like a halo made of smog than anything else.

Morris fell back, and Wade squatted down, pinning his arms down, and landed a solid blow right on Morris's nose, breaking it.

The world blinked back in.

“They're in the pantry,” Morris said, “just don't hit me again.”

Wade looked down, and wondered how he came to be sitting on the other man's chest, not to mention how the other man's face had become a mass of cuts and tears.

He stood on shaky legs, and headed for the kitchen; a smell of burning metal. He tore it apart until he found the pantry.

“There are only twenty-two here,” he said.

“It's all I've got, now,” Morris said.

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