Chapter 7 - Questions with Nana from Mecchen House (cont.)

He neglected the time-passed issues which loomed at the back of all this but I was impressed by his determination and more than a bit surprised by his resolve. I mentioned it to him.

“Sure, I may not get motivated over much. But I have a real vested interest in this. Wouldn’t you? I don’t want to be a girl like Katsumi wants! I just want to be me! Is that too much to ask?”

I nodded to Jamie. Still, I wished I had something like Sumi’s camera. I reminded myself to get one before we left and take a few photos, if possible. Maybe I could also ask Sumi for duplicates of the ones she took.

We climbed up the twirling metal ramp to the train station. Business ads cluttered the walls. Jamie used the electronic console to select tickets for us. Nathan and I looked at the assortment of people waiting by the tracks for the train. Some sat further back on benches. This stop was pretty full. I tried to pick distinctive faces out of the crowd. A girl with short, teal hair rising like dragon claws from her head spoke into a phone and glanced over at us. She wore the same uniform as the Mecchen House girls. The quality of her form and face was such that, in any anime, you’d expect her to be the main character or close to it. But in this world, she was just another of the vividly-drawn people inhabiting this space.

A man with skin and hair like Nathan’s stood against the wall. He smoked lightly with pure-white puffs. He wore a gray jumpsuit and had a heavy, irregularly-shaped bag over his shoulder. His neck was furrowed and seemed barely thick enough to support his tall, barrel-shaped head. I watched him until he noticed me, then I looked away.

Jamie came over with our train passes. “I bought a one-day pass. You owe me five-hundred of this money each. I’m still owed thirteen-hundred for Mami’s little rip-off last night.”

I stretched and told Jamie, “Take it up with Mami then…”

He looked at the rail. “No way. I know she’ll just wind up charging me more. Why did we ever bother trying to buy her vote? I mean Nana just cleared it up anyway. Not as though I wanted to stay…”

Nathan did some stretching as well. “That’s why I like her. She really stood up for us, and she really wanted to help us. I think she’s a good person.”

Jamie rubbed his shut eye-lines. “Who don’t you think is a good person there?”

Nathan twisted his mouth around in thought. “Well. Sumi is kinda weird but I think she’s not so bad. Ami is cool. Reiko was kinda mean though. Katsumi is scary, but I think the others were right about her being a good person. So yeah, just Reiko, maybe.”

Jamie’s reply was cut off by the arrival of the train. People began to stir as it crawled into position. Small beeps and alarms went off as it stopped, and the doors opened. Our fellow travelers hustled on and off the train. We were lucky to get a nice spot to sit together near the middle of the second car. Some people stood, gripping handholds.

The interior was silvery with green seats. Most people were subdued or talking on phones. I took a deep breath. Another schoolgirl sat across from us. She had to be from a different school. Her blazer was pink with a tiny, red bow. She read a manga.

I couldn’t help giggling to myself. It was a surprisingly-high, small giggle. Here I was in an anime world with an actual living, breathing anime girl sitting across from me and she was reading manga. Jamie rolled his eyes. She looked up from her book with a massive, tan gaze. I smiled and gave her a polite nod. She nodded and smiled back, but quickly returned to her book.

I looked out the window at this strange world passing by. Sure, in a few minutes I might be stressed. There were plenty of reasons to be dour and fretful. But, right then, I was happy.

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The sensation flourished with me, at least, until Jamie opened his mouth to gripe about the crowds. I felt myself awash in human color, moving and changing. But part of me felt the same as Jamie. My feet were beginning to protest, and while these people looked amazing, the smell of them was densely-stagnant, even at this early hour. Although, if the digital clock at the new train stop was right, it was getting closer to noon than morning.

A random breeze worked its way between us, alleviating the smell somewhat. Jamie took the steps down two at a time and pointed out, “I think I can see the library from here!”

Sure enough, it was just a street corner away. The area was filled with hotels and small parks brushing up against one another. I saw an old, traditional Japanese structure just beyond a few buildings. Also, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a girl dressed in the Azako High uniform, staring right at me. I looked again and it was just a building painted brown and red. I was sure I’d seen eyes looking back though. Before I could ponder this moment further, Jamie tugged on my arm, and we crossed the street with the light.

The library looked like a finely-honed blade laid down by some massive beast. The interior appeared remarkably like the library in my hometown, with high walls and natural light filtering in from all sides. Jamie darted right for the stick figure of the man and woman. He seized up when he reached for the door to the ladies' room by accident. He grumbled and turned around. I shared a smile with myself.

Fortunately, the men’s room was empty, except for a middle-aged man finishing up at the urinals. When he was gone, Jamie locked the door and lifted up his shirt in front of the mirror. He yanked his shirt down but not before I saw what bothered him.

His nipples looked a good deal larger and brighter than they appeared last night. With how I’d been scratching at my chest before, I had a feeling that my situation wasn’t much different. I pulled my shirt up. Sure enough, bright and large. I tucked my shirt back in.  

Nathan had the same, although a little darker due to his skin-tone. His hair still had that near-purple tint. I checked mine. Seemed fine. I took off my glasses and pulled down a lock. Squinting at it, I almost thought it had a darkly-reddish tint to it but I couldn’t tell. Still, it made me worry.

I took a deep breath and said what I figured Jamie and Nathan were both thinking, “Guys…I think we might be turning into girls.”

Jamie smacked his fists together. “I’m not gonna let that happen. We’re getting out of here. We’re gonna find those books, then we’re gonna make one of those passageways between worlds and get ourselves home. Then all this will wear off and we’ll go back to being ourselves again.” He pulled his pants down a little and peeked, followed by a sigh of relief. “And hopefully we can do it without any critical losses.”

Nathan looked too, but I noticed he wasn’t quite as relieved as Jamie, although he assured me that things were fine down there. I looked as well. Same as last night in the tub. With that addressed, we each attended to our restroom needs before we unlocked the door.

The information desk was conveniently-placed at the center of the library. A girl sat at the desk with towers of books covering all of the available space and her nose wedged in one specific tome. Her brown hair flowed in polished, shimmering spokes of pigment. It was tied into a ponytail arching near the highest point on her head like a crown. Her lips were accented by blood-red lipstick and bisected by a curling mouth-line tainted by dark bits of crimson. She wore a shiny, dazzling gray top that clung close to her form. Leaning over the desk, I could just see she was wearing faded, camouflage-colored pants held up by a black belt lined with spiky, silver adornments. The clasp on the belt looked like a backwards letter “E”.

Her eyes didn’t even leave the book as she said, “Don’t lean on the desk…” I gave the desk plenty of space. Jamie cleared his throat. “We’re searching for some books.”

Her eyes still didn’t move. “Please use quiet voices in the library…”

Jamie let out a harsh breath through his nose and said, quieter, “We are looking for some specific books we need.”

She turned the page. “Do you have a library card?”

Jamie tightened his mouth-line. “We don’t.”

She traced a line in the book with her finger. “You need a library card.”

Jamie almost rapped his fingers on the desk but restrained himself. “How do we get a library card?”

Her eyes darted to the left before returning to the book. “Take that paper. Fill it out. Take it to the front. Show them a photo ID.” I saw a pile of white forms in a paper tray. Jamie grabbed the pen on a chain and filled out the paper before I could blink twice. The front desk had some trouble with his ID because ‘Brookville’ wasn’t in their files. After two calls, they finally approved the library card provisionally.

We rushed back to the information desk and laid the card down in front of the still-reading girl. She turned the page, but didn’t do anything else ‘till I gave a quick cough and said, “We have a library card.”

She reached up, picked up the card, and ran it through a machine. The machine beeped twice. She asked, “What do you need?”

“We’re looking for some books.”

“What kind of books?”

“Books about… umm… travel between universes, wormholes, bridging worlds. How to do it. Whatever you’ve got on that subject.”

She looked right at us, with interest. Her eyes were a brilliant lime-green. “Research books?”

“Something like that.”

Jamie chimed in with, “We’re open to anything you’ve got. Please. This is urgent.”

She closed her book carefully. “Really…?”

We all nodded. She set the book at the top of one of the tenuous towers and scooted slowly over to a computer. “Doing a search for ‘travel between universes’.”

Her first result was a paranormal book about ghostly worlds and research into co-existing spirit realms.

It wasn’t much but we figured it was something. “Okay. Tell us where that is.”

She looked at us with a flat mouth-line. “Sorry, boys. Checked out.”

Well, at least she’d called us boys. The next couple of results were actually cookbooks. How those came up truly mystified me. We tried wormholes. The first result was, Travel Between Universes via Wormhole.

Jamie jumped on that. “Yes. That one. Show us that one!”

She made a slow ‘shh’ motion with her finger ‘till Jamie lowered his voice again. She clicked a few more keys. “Also checked out.” And that was the only item of promise with that search. Before we went back and tried variations on searches, she searched for ‘bridging worlds’.

Three results came up. She read them off, “Connections Between Worlds: Unseen Paths, Out of the World, Out of the Mind, and The Will of the One: Potential for Crossing Between Worlds.”

That last one had us pounding on the table for results. She made another slow ‘shh’ with her finger and clicked at the keyboard. We waited several quiet moments before she said, “Checked out…”

“Which?” Jamie grimaced.

She looked right at us. “All of them.”

Jamie made a frustrated noise. “All of them?! How? Who?”

A faint grin escaped her lips. “Good question. All checked out a few days ago… by the same person.”

“Who?” All three of us seemed to ask the question at the same time.

She shrugged and moved her hands a bit. “I’m not supposed to say. Confidential information.”

Jamie pleaded with her, “We need these books desperately. Please. Tell us who and where we can find them.”

The girl leaned back. “I really can’t tell you who borrowed those books. Now, if there isn’t anything else, I’d like to get back to reading.” As she pushed away from the computer, she turned the screen a little. The borrowing information was still on the page.

Jamie caught on to what she was doing at the same time and darted closer to the monitor. Even with the screen turned, it was hard to see anything from this far away. It just looked like someone’s muddled charcoal sketch of a computer screen. Jamie squinted, muttered to himself, then gasped.

I pushed past him to look at the screen with Nathan right behind me. I glanced around, hunting for the information. When I found it, I let out a little gasp as well. Nathan had a similar reaction.

Under ‘lender’s information’, the screen read, “Ishida Aneko, 3287 Rock Lane.”