"I don't know your neighborhood," she says, shaking her head. "If you want to be a librarian, try the library. Won't help you at home, though."

"So people only don't fuck with librarians in the library?"

"That's about the size of it," she agrees.

"Why, what happens if someone does?"

"People just... don't," she says, shrugging.

"...Because mind control? Because cultural taboo? Because the librarians all back each other up and several of them know martial arts? Because magical impossibility?"

"Cultural taboo's probably closest."

"Okay." She closes her eyes. "What else don't I know that I'll need to find out to get along here? You're being so helpful - immensely helpful - and of course my natural response is to get as much information out of you as I can."

"How long?"

"Coming up on fifteen thousand years."

"That is a very long time," says Shell Bell.

"Yep," says Eights.

"Do you even remember anything about being alive?"

"I know I had a boyfriend and I cheated on him," she says, "'cause that's what I was sentenced for."

"...What all's in my file besides putting people on the moon?"

"Uh..." She thinks back. "Did you fake your death? I think I remember something about that."

"Yeah, I couldn't otherwise get out of my home district safely. I stole a canoe and left a note telling my parents I was attempting to go someplace nobody could actually get to and actually walked to the next town and stowed away on a train."

"That must've sucked," she says sympathetically.

"As soon as it was safe I told them I was alive," she says. "They were upset, but they're okay now. Or at least they are if my guess about why my apartment looks the way it does is correct."

"...Okay," says Eights.

"Sorry, I can't always tell the difference between people being interested in what I have to say and just being polite."

"Oh. I have a very small and very nicely decorated apartment. I think my girlfriend brought me back to life after I died and it worked, sort of, just - forked me, one there and one here, instead of getting me out of here. I'm going to check for her in the library directory, though, in case it's what the guide said it looked like, a suicide. But if I'm right my parents are never going to know that I died, because there'll be a live one of me, and I sure wouldn't tell them."

"...Sure sucks for you," she says reflectively.