Gamers - Amazon Read Free Page B

naked.
    Inside, Gabby took a long, deep breath, inhaling the delicious scents of real paper and ink.
    "What are you smelling? It smells all musty in here," said Zaela.
    Gabby ignored her friend and went in past the entryway. The Library Museum wasn't much of a museum as museums go. It was more of a storage facility for books, paid for by some long dead rich person. Blair the librarian had never told her who.
    The massive space that disappeared into the gloom was filled from floor to ceiling with books. Even the spaces on top of the shelves were cluttered with books, that looked like at one time had been stacked neatly, but with time slowly slumped to the edge.
    Even on the shelves, books were double and triple stacked. Blair utilized every available space within the facility to store books, barely keeping a wide enough aisle for her chair to fit.
    Gabby cupped her hands around her mouth. "Blair! It's me, Gabriella!"
    The words were absorbed by the endless rows, crammed with books.
    "Why can't Blair the Chair mind-text like a normal human?" muttered Zaela.
    "Why do that when I have great hearing?" asked a mechanical voice from a nearby alcove.
    Zaela squeaked and put both hands across her mouth. Her eyes were wide and her face wilted in embarrassment.
    A woman in a motorized chair, covered in tubes and wires, wheeled into view. Her skin was a rich chocolate, much darker than Zaela's, but she had kinky hair where Zaela's was straight. The hair was tangled and held back with a bit of twine.
    Her head tilted awkwardly to the side, held up by a padded catch. One tube went into her nose, while another disappeared into her half-open mouth. Her body was frail and sunken like a deflated tire, but her eyes burned with the intensity of a whirling galaxy.
    The voice, coming from a speaker box built into her wheelchair, crackled with sarcasm. "Seems you should be taking your own advice."
    Blair ran her motorized chair past Zaela, who had tears forming in her eyes. The chair-bound woman rotated around until she was facing Zaela.
    "Oh, get over it. We all say stupid things sometimes. Though you look like you say more than your fair share," said Blair's mechanical voice, which Gabby always thought was strangely expressive.
    Gabby stifled a laugh, catching a nasty glare from Zaela.
    "Well you did deserve that," said Gabby.
    "Anyway," said Blair. "I don't mind-text usually because I'm busy sending commands to my chair or to Frank, my robot-helper. It's bad enough I get the two of them confused sometimes and walk Frank into a wall."
    As if he'd been called, a silvery bipedal robot lurched out from between two rows. The robot was an older model, built like a linebacker and with unresponsive servos that made his movements sluggish. Two plastic caps had been crudely glued to his neck and squiggly lines covered his arms as if they'd been drawn by a four-year-old.
    Frank picked up a stack of books near the entryway and wandered back into the rows.
    "So how can I help you, Gabriella?" asked Blair.
    Besides the enjoyment of smelling and reading old books, Gabby often came to the Library Museum because Blair was the smartest person she knew. But when Gabby opened her mouth, she realized she didn't have a question to ask.
    "You're not still worried about getting into University are you?" Blair asked. "And while I don't agree with what they have to teach, you've got their shtick down cold."
    Gabby shook her head. "It's not that." She paused and quickly glanced at Zaela. "It's the LGIE. Some group called the Frags have been messing around with my personal reality files and the LGIE wants to take a peek to see if they've changed anything."
    "The LGIE? The Frags? Is there something I should know about?" asked Zaela.
    Gabby had promised Zaela last year that she wouldn't try to "fix" her LifeScore anymore.
    "It's not what you think," said Gabby.
    Zaela crossed her arms. "Then what is it?"
    "I don't know. That's the thing." Gabby hesitated talking about the boy