With that, we made our way deeper into the library, passing through rows of towering shelves. Further in, most of the volumes were 'Practical' books—manuals on various forms of craftsmanship like glassblowing, sculpting, and more. There were hundreds of them, each with different titles and covers.
If I glanced at the aisles quickly enough, it really felt like a regular Old World library.
"So, like, is there literally no romance in these stories?" I asked.
Diana tilted her head. "What's 'romance'?"
"Oh, you know, boy meets girl and..." I paused and rubbed my chin. "Is there ever a story about a 'Circle of Two'? A story where two people decide that the two of them are enough, and they stay exclusive to each other? Where they feel this ugly emotion called jealousy if they see the other with someone else for too long?"
"Oh. Oh." Diana suddenly froze, her face flushing crimson. "Well, I... uhh... I don't want to jump to conclusions, but... just to be sure... in this story you want to read—the one with zero percent Record Coherence—the boy and the girl, they... they go through this whole... thing to win the other's heart?"
"Yeah, that's the point. The buildup."
Diana's cheeks turned even redder. "Ahh, I see... well, you can find that in the, umm... the Taboo section. I... I don't actually know where that is. We can go look for it if you really want to, but we need to find Leo! Yes! But of course, if you want to read something, umm... uhh, 'stimulating' first, I don't mind! I'm not judging! Really!"
I froze. "Huh? The Taboo section?"
Diana looked at me. "W-well, we aren't exactly putting that in the General section, are we? Ahaha..." she forced a laugh, still looking flustered.
"No, we put romance in the regular fiction section," I said.
Diana stopped in her tracks, her eyes wide. "Eh?"
"Yeah, romance. It was a staple of relationships in the Old World. Ideally, everyone experienced it."
"EH!?" Diana took a step back, shocked. "That's, uhh! UM!" She scrambled toward me, grabbed my hand, and led me to a secluded reading area tucked behind a pillar. "For the sake of curiosity and wonder, you must tell me! I mean, please, tell me in detail!"
I sat on a sofa next to her. "Uhh, what part? The romance?"
"Y-yes. That."
I blinked slowly. The look on her face wasn't one of scientific curiosity or childlike wonder. It was something else entirely.
"Well, romance is like... look, you need to understand the context. Back in the Old World, there were no fertility pills or state caretakers. Anyone could have children; no permits required," I began.
"Okay, okay, that's... oh wow... and?"
"And you got to... raise your children together."
"However you liked???"
"Yeah!" I grinned. "Exactly! You got to raise your own kid however you wanted." My grin faltered when I saw Diana's face. She looked like she was fantasizing about something, but it didn't look like a happy daydream. "So... uhh... what are you thinking about?"
Diana looked at me, her face turning even redder, and she quickly shook her head. "Oh no! Nothing! I'm just uhh... I was thinking about, umm... my caretaker—I mean, NO! Not about my caretaker! I mean, about caretakers in general!"
I squinted at her. "Okay, I'm sorry to say this, but you're sweating and restless. You've got to tell me what the fuck is on your mind, because this is getting hella creepy."
"Oh god, I'm so sorry!" Diana raised her hands and looked down. "I'm just... look... the pairing, the romance... how long do they keep this 'exclusive' arrangement?"
"Well, it's called marriage, and it's usually for life. You don't... you don't 'cheat' on your partner. That's the whole arrangement. You stay exclusive to each other."
Diana gulped. "And... and if one of them, like... disobeys? And has sex with someone else... what's the punishment like?"
I blinked slowly. "Okay, before we continue, what specific fetish do you have in mind right now?"
Diana reeled back, curling herself into a ball. "Aaaah! You don't have to bring up the 'F' word!" she screamed behind her hands.
I folded my arms. "Look, I've seen worse in my training data. You can tell me."
"It's... umm..." She shook her head, her voice reduced to a whisper. "Ownership."
"What?"
"You know... the fantasy of... being owned by someone. Of living entirely under someone else's terms," she muttered. "Or... the feeling of being able to shape another person's life like a child, however you like... or to have your caretaker raise you however they want, to their own ideals..." She gulped. "Please don't judge me. This is just a terrible, terrible fantasy. It's just something you roleplay in a very dark, very private room, with a very, very drunk friend."
I blinked, finally wrapping my head around it. In a world of total communal freedom and state-raised children, romance, marriage, and parenting weren't wholesome ideals—they were seen as twisted power fantasies based on possession.
"You wanna get out of here and forget about this conversation?" I asked.
"YEAH!" Diana stood up immediately. "Let's pretend this never happened!"
We practically ran out of the inner section toward the library's main lobby. "So, any idea where we should look for Leo next?" I asked Diana.
"Well, we could check the Gallery Section," Diana suggested.
We walked through the library's corridors until we found ourselves surrounded by all sorts of strange, ancient trinkets. It honestly reminded me of a museum exhibit hall; all sorts of unusual items and devices were on display inside glass cases. Each had a description at the bottom explaining its purpose. I half-expected to see cars or old iPhones on display, but I suppose those objects were far too ancient by now.
"Do you recognize any of these, Diana?" I asked, pointing toward the artifacts.
Diana nodded. "Sort of. Some of these are similar to the ones in the City of Love." She walked toward a strange, cane-like object with a blue crystal on top. "See? This is a prototype hand-held reality anchor used during the Fae War," she explained. She continued, "And this one is..."
"Wait..." I froze when I saw it. It was a map—a world map. And it looked exactly like the world map.
"Oh, that's just the world map," Diana said. "A map is like a picture of—"
"I know what a map is." I walked closer to the display. "But that's the Old World map, right?" I squinted. It looked like the world map at a glance, but the political lines were gone. There were no borders, names, or labels. It was just continents on a piece of paper.
Diana shook her head. "No, that's our world map. See?" She pointed at a dot located in what was once North America. "This is where we are: Ingenuity." She then pointed at the ocean between Indonesia and Australia. "The Grand Fleet of Love is here, cruising through this area." She pointed toward the Himalayas. "The City of Determination is over here." She gestured toward Africa. "Somewhere here is the City of Myth." Finally, she pointed to a spot in Europe, bordering Russia. "And this is the City of Humanity."
I looked at the parchment; the entirety of human civilization was now reduced to mere dots on the globe.
"Wow..." I looked closer at Ingenuity's location. "North America. That makes sense, since I'm from there. That's why I'm here."
"North America?"
I pointed at the continent. "Yes, this is the continent of America. And up here, North America..." I pointed at what was once a global superpower. "There were three hundred million people living here once."
"Whoa..." Diana's eyes widened. "On the surface?"
"Yeah." I pointed toward Love. "This is the Pacific Ocean, and these islands make up a place called Indonesia." I indicated the archipelago. "And down here is Australia."
"And people used to live there, too?" Diana asked.
"Yeah! Why don't you live there now?"
Diana tilted her head. "Mm, well, it's difficult—because of all the dinosaurs."
"The what now?"
"Dinosaurs are these giant, scaly, feathered beasts," Diana explained.
"Yeah, I know what they are. It's just..." I blinked slowly. Did Mother Nature really bring dinosaurs back from extinction just to fuck with humanity?
After nearly an hour of exploring the library, we concluded that Leo probably wasn't there.
"Hmm." Diana looked up, rubbing her chin. "Should we check the place where we first met him?"
"Huh? You mean the Welcome Plaza?"
"Exactly. It's narratively consistent, isn't it?"
I blinked. I mean, it couldn't hurt to try.