Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)

by Robin Sloan

“Hello?” a voice pipes out of my laptop. Kat. I slide back into place behind the desk. “Hi.” Trevor is gone. Kat is alone. In fact, she’s somewhere completely different now. “This is my room,” she says softly. “Like it?” It’s spartan, not much more than a bed and a desk and a heavy black trunk. It looks like a cabin on an ocean liner. No: a pod on a spaceship. In the corner of the room, there’s a white plastic laundry basket, and scattered around it—near-misses—I see a dozen identical red T-shirts. “That was my theory,” I say. “Yeah,” Kat says, “I decided I didn’t want to waste brain cycles”— she yawns—“figuring out what to wear every morning.” The laptop rocks and there’s a blur and then we are on her bed, and her head is propped up on her hand, and I can see the curve of her chest. My heart is suddenly beating very fast, as if I’m there with her, stretched out and expectant—as if I am not sitting here alone in the dim light of this bookstore, still wearing paisley pants. “This was pretty fun,” she says quietly, “but I wish you could have come for real.” She stretches and presses her eyes shut like a cat. I can’t think of a single thing to say, so I just put my chin on my palm and look into the camera. “It would be nice if you were here,” she murmurs. Then she falls asleep. I am alone in the bookstore, looking across the city at her sleeping form, lit only by the gray light of her laptop. In time it, too, falls asleep, and the screen goes dark.