“I can’t believe it,” Beata grumbled, pacing in angry circles in front of the TV. “I change my appearance, and the first waitress I meet instantly knows I did it. But when I show up looking as usual, every old fart stares like I’m some kind of attraction. What the hell is wrong with them?!”

  “Maybe because there aren’t many twelve-year-olds there?” Noah guessed, curiously examining the “Nostalgia” pillow. “If I remember right, aside from you, I only saw a couple of teenagers, and they were probably way older than you.”

  “I’m definitely not going back to that creep nest,” the girl shook her head, “until we figure out what’s really going on there. I bet those two agents hid more places like that from us.”

  Noah barely held back a smile. He summoned the tablet into his palm and handed it to Beata.

  “Here. You’ll probably need it more than I do.”

  “Whoa! Where’d you get this?” Beata stepped closer and snatched the device immediately, forgetting all her grievances.

  “The ‘Sages of Ages’ gave it to me. Though I’m not sure they’ll hand out another one.”

  “Some people have all the luck…” Beata muttered jealously. “Where’d they even get it?”

  “No idea,” Noah admitted. “Everyone keeps saying money doesn’t exist in Regia, so it probably didn’t come from a store. Could be their own guild makes them.”

  Beata let out a heavy sigh.

  “I’m so sick of all these guesses. One mystery after another, and not a single clear answer. Maybe we really should spend a month in a library, learn the basics. So we don’t get duped again by some Audrie Number Two…”

  “You want to go now?” Noah offered.

  Outside the window, the sun was still shining brightly, even though the phone clock read three in the morning.

  “I’ll recover from Nostalgia first,” Beata shook her head. “Then I’ll dig through the internet again. Maybe I’ll find a logical explanation for why everyone’s so obsessed with me.”

  “Then I’ll head to my place and find the number of the nearest library,” Noah stood up. “Meet up in a couple of hours?”

  “In four,” Beata was already deeply focused on the tablet screen.

  Noah doubted the girl would remember to check the clock now and then. As far as he remembered, children and tablets had a special bond in the world of the living.

  ***

  Stepping into the corridor, Noah looked around. Just like on the fourth floor, it was deathly quiet here. Not a single person wandered through the brightly lit hallway, which was starting to resemble a scene from The Shining. All that was missing were two identical little girls staring at him with blank expressions.

  Could there be more residents like Beata in this building? Kids die often enough, for all sorts of reasons.

  Noah shook his head, forcing those thoughts away. Even if they did die, few twelve-year-olds would have the experience and intelligence to pass Gaudemunda’s test. Beata’s case in Regia really might have been rare.

  On his way to the elevator, he suddenly stopped short.

  The door he was about to pass had been left half open. Right there in the entryway stood a thin woman with long black hair. Without moving or blinking, she stared at Noah in silence.

  At first, Noah stayed silent too, trying to process what he was seeing. Only when the strange woman remained quiet for far too long did he finally decide to break the silence himself.

  “Hello?.. Are you alright?”

  The woman blinked, and the awkward tension dissolved. She looked lost and slightly melancholic, as if she still missed the world of the living.

  “Have you… seen my husband?” she asked quietly.

  “Your husband,” Noah repeated. “Wait—are you Kamilla? Your neighbor said she’d met you earlier, when you came back home.”

  The woman blinked.

  “Has your husband been gone long?” Noah asked, still not getting an answer.

  “I… don’t know,” she whispered.

  They both turned as the elevator buzzed. The doors slid open, and a man in his early thirties stepped into the corridor—short blond hair, a strikingly narrow face. When he saw Noah and the woman standing there, he paused for a moment. Clear confusion flickered across his face. Then he hurried forward, reaching for the woman.

  “Darling, did something happen?”

  “I…I just…”

  “It’s alright, I’m here. I’m home,” the blond man gently took her hand and led her back toward the apartment. “They kept me at work longer than I expected. I’m sorry.”

  He glanced back at Noah and looked him up and down with a grimace.

  “Sorry. My wife… she isn’t well,” he explained. “Turns out even death doesn’t fix everything. You must be one of our neighbors?”

  “Oh, no,” Noah shook his head. “I was just visiting my sister,” he gestured vaguely. “I ran into your wife on the way. I thought something had happened.”

  “Yeah. She does that sometimes,” the man sighed. “She starts wandering wherever her mind leads. Excuse me, but I need to take care of her before it gets worse.”

  “Of course,” Noah nodded, not intending to waste the worried man’s time.

  The apartment door closed and locked automatically, drowning the corridor in absolute silence again. Noah mentally shrugged, then headed toward the elevator, still thinking about the strange woman.

  What could death fail to fix? Alzheimer’s? Dementia? Noah himself had died from a blow to the head, so clearly a concussion wasn’t a culprit.

  One mystery after another.

  It really was time to visit a library and learn the basics.

  ***

  He spent the next few hours on the couch, exploring Regia’s internet on his phone. At first glance, the internet itself was no different from the usual global one—but there was an extra menu bar pinned to the side of the browser, filled with links leading to websites available only in Regia. Local social platforms, guild sites, all sorts of things.

  Two separate search engines stood out—and one of them made Noah raise an eyebrow.

  If the internet only worked one way, how were Google’s servers receiving search requests?

  Another mystery for later.

  By now, Noah had accumulated quite a list of mysteries. Luckily, he had an eternity or two to find the answers…

  His phone alarm chirped, announcing the agreed time. Beata should have torn herself away from the tablet and come down by elevator. It was seven in the morning. Of course, the sun still stubbornly shone from the exact same spot, not moving even a millimeter.

  Half an hour passed, and the little gremlin still failed to materialize. Noah sighed deeply, stretched out his hand, and snapped his fingers. The tablet jumped into his palm, still showing a social platform on the screen, with dozens of private messages.

  It seemed Beata had registered on several sites at once, chatting with a dozen people simultaneously.

  Noah managed to read part of one conversation before his doorbell began ringing nonstop. A moment later, the door shook under the impatient pounding of someone who wasn’t sparing their newly boosted strength.

  “Give it baaaack!” Beata shrieked in panic the moment he cracked the door open. Red as a tomato, she lunged for the tablet and started furiously tapping the screen.

  “It’s already seven in the morning,” said Noah.

  “Fine, I’m just answering a couple of messages,” Beata muttered impatiently. Then she whipped her head up and glared at him. “Never do that again!”

  “My tablet, my rules,” Noah smirked. “By the way, when I left your apartment, I ran into Marek and Kamilla.”

  “Uh-huh,” Beata barely heard him. “Wonderful.”

  “It really is wonderful. A wife dies with some kind of mental illness. Her husband finds her after their death and keeps taking care of her despite everything. I wonder how many people could do that.”

  Beata typed out a message and sent it. Then she looked up from the screen briefly.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Marek and Kamilla, obviously. Can we go to the library now? I found one nearby.”

  “Something’s wrong with Kamilla?” Beata frowned. “I didn’t notice.”

  “You probably met her when her mind wasn’t wandering,” Noah shrugged. “She scared the hell out of me on the way to the elevator.”

  “Really? What was she doing?”

  “Nothing. She just stood in the doorway, waiting for her husband. Like a statue.”

  Beata’s fingers froze. She looked up at Noah.

  “Then that wasn’t Kamilla. She and Marek live on the other side. You couldn’t have met her on the way to the elevator.”

  “But she clearly said—”

  Noah bit his tongue, replaying the last few hours in his head.

  No, the woman had never confirmed she was Kamilla. Neither she nor her husband had mentioned any names. Noah himself had decided they were the same people Beata had met.

  “My mistake,” he muttered. “I assumed they were the neighbors you met, because you said they were the only couple on your floor.”

  Beata thought for a moment, then pointed her phone at the TV and opened the menu. She found the city map, zoomed in on Bruno Tower, then opened the building’s floor plan. She stopped on the seventh floor and zoomed in on the apartments until names lit up above them.

  Above her own apartment glowed a single name: Beata. The nearest apartments also showed only one name each. Beata dragged the view toward the center of the building.

  “Here. That’s where they live,” she pointed.

  Sure enough—two names hovered above the apartment: Marek and Kamilla.

  “Move the map up,” Noah said. Then, mentally counting the doors he’d seen last night, he tapped the apartment closer to the elevator. “The sick woman lives here.”

  But above apartment 705, only one name glowed.

  Oliver.

  “Maybe she isn’t registered,” Beata shrugged. “Or she’s visiting. Whatever. I’ll just remember to stay away from that door. So—library, or what?”

  ***

  According to the city map, the nearest library was at the edge of their block. Noah and Beata decided not to use the teleportation booth and simply walk.

  The weather was good, with an unlimited good-weather forecast. As always, only a few dozen people could be seen in the streets. None of them looked like they were in a hurry. No cars, no buses either. A perfect picture. Utopia. The lack of people was so unnatural it felt like the sun had only just risen, and everyone else was still dead asleep.

  They reached the library building soon enough. It was a massive neo-Gothic skyscraper with a bright red pointed roof. The tall double doors were closed, but opened easily when pushed.

  For a moment, Noah felt like he was stepping into a church. Lots of gleaming marble, even more black stone trim. And carpets everywhere—soft, swallowing the echo of footsteps.

  He instinctively checked whether his sneakers were clean enough.

  The wide foyer was wrapped in cozy dimness. At the far end of the room, brightly lit elevator doors were visible. Beside them, several stairways rose upward, with intricately carved railings.

  In the center of the foyer, between the entrance and the elevators, stood a wide reception desk. Loud music, dying screams, and gunshots came from behind it, accompanied by an excited female voice:

  “I’m on the second floor, reloading! Lizzie, they’re all running toward you! Jesus, if you’ve got a grenade, now’s the time… Has anyone seen Gregosh? Hey, where the hell is Gregosh?!”

  More gunfire. An explosion thundered. The reception desk flickered briefly, lit by a weak flash.

  “Two dead, the rest spotted Jesus! Jesus, get out of your hiding spot before—damn it, Jesus is down! Repeat—Jesus is dead! Lizzie, cover me from your position!”

  Noah and Beata silently approached the desk. Behind it, slumped in a deep armchair, sat a teenage girl wearing light-blue pajamas. A laptop rested on her knees. She played a combat game, guiding a wireless mouse across a thick book placed beside her. Noah couldn’t recognize the game.

  Beata, curiously inspecting the laptop and its user, coughed politely. The teenager tilted her head toward them, only now noticing they were there.

  “One sec,” she said, staring back at the screen while hammering the keyboard. “Wait until I get shot. Won’t take long.”

  “I’m afraid we need you alive,” Beata quipped.

  “Too late,” the girl grumbled. “I’ve been dead for five years.”

  “Who are you talking to, Zeta?” a voice came from the laptop speakers.

  “Don’t worry about it, Lizzie. Everything’s fine.”

  “Wait… aren’t you supposed to be at work? There are customers at your desk!”

  “Customers come and go, Lizzie! You better watch my back, or we—”

  A burst of gunfire rattled, and the screen turned red. The girl in the pajamas almost threw the laptop to the floor.

  “Lizzie!” she screeched across the whole foyer. “You—you—you shot me?! You... effing traitor!”

  “Customers, Zeta,” a stern voice answered. “Be polite, or I come down to the first floor.”

  The girl called Zeta gave Noah and Beata a scalding look. Then she rose from her chair and placed the laptop on the desk. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then the most artificial smile in the world lit up her face.

  “Welcome to the Antisthenes Public Library! How may I assist you?”

  Noah and Beata exchanged a glance.

  “We’re complete newcomers. Recently from the Dream Sphere,” Noah said.

  “Obviously,” the girl said, still smiling stiffly. “Regular visitors usually walk around me in a wide circle.”

  “We need information,” Beata said.

  “Oh yes, of course,” Zeta pulled the laptop closer and switched the game to another program. “I have good news. You’ll find information on any other floor. Any floor—just not this one. Now, if you’d like fewer interruptions, I recommend the ninth, eleventh, or seventeenth floors. There aren’t many people there right now.”

  Her smile vanished as if blown away.

  “And now, excuse me. I need to shoot one good friend. Preferably several times.”

  ***

  “What a strange girl,” Noah commented as the elevator doors closed.

  “I like her,” Beata shrugged. “She has a personal computer. And she’s only been dead five years. And she doesn’t stare at me like those old farts in Nostalgia. I wonder if she died wearing pajamas, or if she forgot to change before coming to work…”

  “I think she lives there,” Noah smiled. “Behind that desk, in the chair.”

  “I could invite her to live in my apartment,” Beata said dreamily.

  “Because she has a computer?”

  “Please. I’m sure she’d be a great roommate even without that stupid computer.”

  The elevator stopped at the ninth floor, and the doors opened. This time, they stepped into an even larger, darker hall with suspiciously high ceilings. Countless dark wooden bookcases stood in long rows, dimly lit at intervals. Noah’s attention was immediately drawn to a lone table that was far more brightly lit, currently empty. Beside it stood an old-fashioned card catalog. Next to a dead computer monitor sat a potted fern-like plant that shouldn’t have been able to survive in such dim lighting.

  Noah looked around. He didn’t see a single person, but he could clearly hear muffled voices somewhere deeper inside. Approaching the table, he carefully checked whether another combat-game fan was hiding behind it. Finding no living soul, Noah pulled a silver bell closer and lightly struck it with his fist.

  About a minute later, hurried footsteps echoed, and the area was lit by the yellow glow of a handheld lantern.

  This time it was a man in his forties, with a fashionably trimmed beard and mustache. Instead of pajamas, he wore a stylish vest and black dress pants. His white shirt looked freshly ironed, and a watch chain hung from his vest pocket. He looked like he’d stepped straight out of the mid-nineteenth century.

  “Welcome,” he greeted politely, noticing the visitors. “First time here, I presume? My name is Hermes. I’m the librarian of this floor.”

  Noah and Beata introduced themselves and shook his outstretched hand.

  “This way, please,” Hermes gestured toward the table. “Something tells me you’ve just arrived from the Dream Sphere and have already sensed that Regia is quite different from old Earth.”

  “Can you tell from our clothes?” Beata asked.

  “More from your behavior,” Hermes smiled. “Many residents of Regia don’t bother changing the outfit they arrive in.”

  “Even if they die completely naked?”

  “In that case, the Dream Sphere assigns them standard clothing.” Hermes sat down across the table and turned on the monitor. “Now then, let’s begin with a short registration. Here’s the scanner. Please place your phones against it. Not both at once, of course.”

  “And if I, for example, died wearing ridiculous pajamas?” Beata wouldn’t let go. “Then what?”

  Hermes chuckled briefly.

  “Like Zeta on the first floor? Well, in that case, there are three options. Ignore it and leave everything as it is. Everyone here is used to such things—you won’t shock anyone.

  The second option is to visit the Crafts Guild and register with a tailor. A tailor, much like the Dream Sphere, would assign you standard clothing—white pants, a white shirt, and of course, white sandals. And if you wanted something more original, then the third option would be to obtain ‘raw material’ and turn it into the clothing you desire.”

  “I’m guessing nobody hands out that ‘raw material’ for money?” Noah asked, placing his phone against the scanner. It blinked with green lights.

  “Raw material comes from the Dream Sphere and is distributed automatically,” Hermes explained in a lecturer’s tone. “Only Regia’s institutions and guilds receive it. If you want to obtain it yourself, there are two options. You can join a guild and prove that you can create something more useful than, say, a plastic spoon. In that case, as a guild member, you’d receive a fixed monthly quota for personal needs. Of course, there are additional restrictions. As with any limited resource.”

  “And what’s the other option?” Noah asked. “You said there were two.”

  “You can attempt to cannibalize another resident of Regia,” Hermes said lightly. “In that case, all that remains is to learn how to extract part of the cannibalized information into usable raw material. The process is dangerous. You might lose part of your memory—or worse, certain skills. That’s why, before attempting this method, you’d need to cannibalize at least four or five people, so the negative effect is as small as possible.”

  “What?” Beata gaped. She looked at Noah almost pleadingly, as if asking whether she’d misheard.

  “You can’t be serious,” Noah asked, no less stunned. “That’s… that’s illegal! Right?”

  “Of course,” the librarian nodded calmly. “Illegal, immoral, and punishable by death if you are caught. Personally, I do not advise you to do it.”

  “Then why would you—”

  “Because it is my job to provide information,” Hermes smiled. “Let me emphasize again: I truly do not recommend the last option. I’m simply informing you that it exists. Nothing more.”

  He finished on the computer and rose from the table. Taking the lantern, he gestured with it toward one side.

  “This way, please. I’ll find you an empty room, and then we’ll determine what information will be most useful to you first.”

  Recovering from the shock, Noah followed Hermes, troubled by a growing suspicion.

  Could it be that the librarian had mentioned cannibalism because he’d noticed something no one else had?