Stacks Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
The first fire could have been an accident. There were no obvious signs of arson. There were no police reports filed. Or at least none that Andrian could
find. Fires happen. Wires can go bad. Electricity can spark and dry paper is always
highly combustible. It did not mean a
thing. Still, Andrian took note. How could he not? The Stacks weren’t exactly famous, but if you
were part of the right community, everyone knew about the Stacks. It wasn’t Andrian’s job, but he took a
personal interest. After the second
fire, Andrian knew it was no coincidence.
This was targeted.
The Stacks were a series of storage centers across the world. They were mostly rumor. Everyone knew someone
who had seen the Stacks or read from the Stacks or stolen from the Stacks, but
no one who somehow always knew someone, had ever themselves seen the
Stacks. Andrian knew five people who
could honestly say they knew anything about the Stacks. He knew they knew because he was one of the
five and he had been there with the other four.
The idea went something like this:
There is power in a secret. There
is power that comes from writing it down.
Write enough things down, you end up with the Stacks.
Who created the Stacks? That’s a
secret. A very old and well guarded
secret. Andrian didn’t know. He didn’t know anyone who had anything close
to a guess that seemed at all plausible.
There had been discussions before about what, if anything, needed doing
with the Stacks. There were those that
saw the potential benefits. Others only
saw the danger. Andrian tended to side
with caution. There was a real potential
for danger in lost information – untracked secrets out in the world with the
power to irrevocably alter everything there was to know about life, history and
reality. He didn’t think the Stacks
needed burning or anything like that, but he believed they required a careful,
watchful eye. If a librarian could be
found and trusted that was one thing.
But how do you vet a librarian to run a library full of the world’s most
powerful secrets?
Andrian was not the librarian of the Stacks. He was not its guardian. He had no official roll with the Stacks, but
then again, no one did. There was no
staff. No founder. No rules.
No one really knew the locations and most people hardly believed they
were anything more than a myth. Outside of
Andrian and his four friends, Andrian knew of no one that could attest to
having seen or been in even one of the various branches. Just how many branches were there really,
Andrian did not know. He had taken it upon
himself to act as a sort of unofficial secret custodian for the Stacks. He thought that maybe that secret would give
him some power in and of itself. He
wrote down the job title and printed a business card. ‘Write it down and it will become true,’ or so
the stories went. He could not prove
that act actually did anything, but he had found a second branch on his
own. Eventually he found seven, and
those were all in North America. If the
legends were true there could be hundreds more, all around the globe.
Andrian didn’t contact the other four.
He wasn’t about to reveal what he suspected or what he knew of the other
locations. He just set out on his own to
try to solve the mystery of the fires and see what could be done
Andrian was in the wrong city when the third fire occurred At least now he knew someone was
systematically setting fires and if they knew about this location, they would
eventually find Andrian and save him from chasing around the continent in hopes
of guessing the right place to be.
* *
*
“How many fires are you going to set?”
The arsonist didn’t act surprised when Andrian approached him. Andrian assumed it was safe to assume that
anyone who knew enough to know multiple Stacks locations would also have to
know that there were others who knew a thing or two and might take an interest
in a man burning them to the ground.
“Enough to get the job done.”
“Do you know what’s in there?”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know why I have to burn it.”
“You don’t know a thing. You think
you do, but you don’t. Trust me.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“Have you stopped and read anything.”
“People shouldn’t have that sort of knowledge.”
“That is not an answer. You were
curious, right? I mean, who wouldn’t
be? How could you not be?”
“Yeah, okay, I’ve read a couple.”
“A couple. Wow. More than I thought you would. I’m a little impressed. And a little disappointed at your
hypocrisy. I thought this was too
dangerous and no one should possess such knowledge and you were on a holy
crusade to protect mankind.”
The arsonist glared. He didn’t
like Andrian’s flippant attitude.
“It’s okay,” Andrian continued. “I
don’t care. Don’t justify yourself to me.
“Personally I’ve read a lot. As
much as I could stand each time I found a new branch. Probably read more than I ever should have. But secrets can be addictive that way. Probably would have read more, but a man’s
got to go make a living, right? Can’t
just sit around and read all day.
“You taking a peek and still wanting to burn it all to the ground doesn’t
really bother me. The world is full of
contradiction. I’m not going to hold
your mixed desires against you.”
“Thanks? I guess.”
“Look, did anything happen when you read them? I’m guessing no.”
The arsonist was silent.
“Has anything happened since?
Again, no? Security system.”
“That doesn’t mean that it’s secure.
Just because right now they don’t do anything doesn’t mean they won’t or
that someone won’t figure it out.
Security fails all the time.”
Andrian didn’t have a quick comeback to that.
“Now who’s out of answers?”
Through the window of the coffee shop Andrian could watch the flames and
sip his coffee at the same time. The
arsonist was long gone. Andrian waited
on the fire department to arrive; wanting to make sure the fire didn’t get too
out of hand and engulf any of the surrounding buildings.
There was no good answer, he thought.
He wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t
going to win in a fist fight. He had
lost the battle of logic. What was he
supposed to do? It wasn’t like the owner
or originator had done anything to prevent this from happening. Why should Andrian care? That didn’t mean he didn’t take a few volumes
with him before the flames grew too intense.
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