The Library

Ninth Story

Gwen dragged her feet through the desert, walking behind No. 5 to the tequila barrel, when she noticed what looked like the corner of a trap door barely covered by dirt.

She stopped to get a closer look and by the time No. 5 noticed her absence; he was too far to stop her from sweeping off the dust to uncover it.

"Hey," she waved at him. "Hey! Over here! I found something."

"Leave it alone, Gwen, it's getting late, we need to get back."

"It's a door!" She said emphatically.

"We don't have time for that now, come here."

"Might be important! What are you talking about? What if it's provisions, or tools, a clean change of clothes? Help me open this," she started pulling at the handle in vain, because the solid metal door was very heavy.

"You won't be able to open that. It has an electronic lock and you don't have the code. Leave it alone," No. 5 engaged in a failed attempt at persuasion.

"You know what's inside?"

"We're not supposed to talk about it."

"Is it a secret government facility?"

"No."

"An alien artifact warehouse?"

"No."

"A nuclear bunker?"

"No."

"A..."

"Would you give it a rest, Gwen? It's a seed vault."

"In the middle of the desert?"

"There was enough land to build it here, it's very large."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. See all this?" He gestured with his arms wide to cover the surrounding land, all the way to the horizon. "That's how large it is. And on several levels."

"So you're not really lost," Gwen ventured a guess.

"No." He replied. "But we can't leave either, we signed a lifetime contract."

"What in creation would determine any sane person to do such a thing?" She asked, flabbergasted.

"Life is a lot more complicated than you think," he looked at her, discomforted by her exhausting enthusiasm and her unrealistic expectation, so characteristic of youth, that things will turn out well if one just worked hard enough at them.

"We all had our reasons."

"Why didn't you tell me? I didn't sign up to be there. I have the right to leave!"

"You have the right, but not the means. We didn't want to upset you. There is no way in or out of here. Whatever gap in the enclosure allowed you to accidentally walk in is probably patched by now."

"What do you mean patched?"

"We don't exist, not for the real world. That is the agreement we made. And this place doesn't exist either."

"Why?"

"To protect it."

"Yeah, that's crazy!" She blurted. "So you threw your life away to, what, guard seed packets?"

"We're the last hope of humankind should anything catastrophic happen."

"What makes you think you'd be alive to care?"

"Just in case we are," he wrapped up the explanation and turned around. "Come on, let's go."

"No! I want to see!" Gwen insisted. "You can't spring a secret storage vault on me and not let me have a look," she continued, giving him the evil eye. "Especially since I'm trapped here because of it."