Item Designation: E-083
Item Description: A bookcase made out of an amalgam of wood, stone, steel, and paper from an unpublished novel by Jackson Sloth. Literature cannot be placed in the bookcase, and will phase through the object and land on the opposite side.
Date of Recovery: 12/24/2011
Location of Recovery: Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Current Status: In Site-87's library
Calling it a library was being both hyperbolic and charitable.
Site-87's collection of literature consisted of various scientific and literary journals, editions of the Sloth's Pit Tourism Guide, every book ever written by Phillip Verhoten, and a few dozen non-fiction books. The majority of the shelves made the Sahara look like fertile ground— empty and covered in enough dust that the few pitiful silverworms who had attempted to make their homes here left footprints in their wake.
Still, it was a library, and 'be quiet in the library' was a universal, invioable law. Quiet is what Cassandra Pike wanted. The junior researcher had had enough of the Halloween bash upstairs, and all the noise, dancing, and bad techno music that came with it. She still couldn't believe actual professionals listened to some of that, well, screeching. Her wig from a cheap Cheetara costume was on the table, pushed to the side as she looked on her phone.
She'd been at Site-87 for less than a year, and hadn't gotten used to it. It was baffling. She was used to doom and gloom throughout the Foundation, with a counselor ready at a moment's notice, containment breaches imminent, and the world about to end in a million different ways in a given moment. Instead, Site-87 was in the middle of a bucolic Wisconsin town where the worst thing that had happened in the last decade was a deranged man believing that human meat qualified as vegan, and barely being arrested for his cannibalistic crime spree.
She considered getting up and reading the same issue of the Foundation's parazoology journal for a third time, when she noticed she wasn't alone in the library. Dr. Claude Mattings— her boss— had entered, one hand in his pocket, the other holding an apple that he was in the midst of eating. She wanted to mention that eating in the library wasn't allowed, but from the dour look he gave her from behind his coke-bottle glasses, he didn't seem like he would care.
He looked over at Cassandra. "Pike, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Expected you to be at the party." Mattings himself was uncostumed. "Can't stand them, myself. Would rather be out on the town. Maybe getting some food."
"Then why aren't you?"
Mattings shrugged. "Have you seen the quality of food in this town? Only place other than a fast food restaurant that serves anything edible is the Black Garden, and that can get pricey quick."
"Hmm." Cassandra looked over the empty shelves, her eyes almost passing over E-083. Her eyes snapped back to it when she realized the very corner of the top shelf was occupied. She could clearly read in friendly white letters against a blue background, The Sloth's Pit Tourism Guide, 2012 Edition. "…what the hell?"
"What?" Mattings's gaze followed hers. If he was surprised, he hid it well. "That's… not possible. The shelf rejects all literature."
Cassandra picked up a scientific journal that had been haphazardly laid on the table, and placed it on E-083. It fell through the shelf, while the guide remained.
Claude stood and looked at her, then at the book. "…we should report this. That could be an anomalous piece of literature. Cognitohazardous, even."
As if in response, the book fell off of the front of the shelf, landing open at the feet of the researchers. Claude, ever cautious, turned his gaze away and covered his eyes. "Don't look at it!"
Cassandra, ever curious, crouched and squinted her eyes, reading about the Bray Road Time Slip of 1962. "…well it's not killed me yet." She flipped to the next page, which talked about the Haunted "Iced-SCREAM!" Parlor that still operated on Wilson Street. "There's something in here. It's…" She frowned. "What the hell?
"Not looking until you close it." Claude spoke through gritted teeth, impatient.
Cassandra sighed and shut the book, making a note in her mind to find a non-anomalous copy. Unlike other pieces of literature, it remained there. She turned to face him, holding up a piece of black paper with golden lettering on it. "It's… a coupon for the Black Garden. Good until the end of the week. 25% off of a meal for two." She looked up at her superior. "…I mean, it bears testing."
"Let's report this after the party. Weiss should still be awake, and we can request some time to test it. Say, seven o'clock on Saturday?"
Cassandra chuckled. "You say it like that, and it almost sounds like a date."
"I suppose it does." Claude shrugged. "But this is purely for work-related purposes. Nothing more."
One night of some of the best beer, breadsticks and burgers in town led to another, and then three more. Eventually, a bed was shared, and a relationship declaration form was signed.
Item Designation: E-083
Item Description: A bookcase made out of an amalgam of wood, stone, steel, and paper from an unpublished novel by Jackson Sloth. Literature cannot be placed in the bookcase, and will phase through the object and land on the opposite side. At irregular intervals, books will appear on the shelf that retain tangability. To date, six volumes have appeared on the shelves.
Dr. Kathrine Sinclair, her hands stiff and burned like firewood, tried to turn the page for a third time. The optimistic prognosis was that she would be able to make a fist by next June, maybe operate a computer before the end of 2015. Until then, she was on paid medical leave, and unable to do what she loved— researching the world of the esoteric, the arcane, the occultic, the magical.
The page slipped from her grasp again, and she rested her head on the table, eyes squeezed shut in frustration, tears at the corners of them. It was a miracle her hands weren't necrotic yet. Sometimes, if she concentrated, she could operate a pair of chopsticks. The nerve damage was incredible.
She tried flexing her fingers, only to be met with a jolt of pain. With that jolt came a burst of scarlet energy that sent the book flying across the room, into E-083. It flew through the shelf in silence and hit the back wall with a thump, and then the floor with an equally disruptive thud.
"Fucking hell!" Sinclair put her head on the table, shaking, her throat sore from the tears she was holding back.
"…Katherine?"
A familiar voice stood over her. Lifting the red hair from her face, Sinclair composed herself and looked up to see the portly form of her partner, Montgomery Reynolds, standing over her with a brown bag branded with a new burger place that had opened up in the city somewhere. "I… figured I'd find you here. Got you something to eat."
"Put it down." Katherine rubbed her eyes with the back of her sleeve.. "Not supposed to have food in here, you know."
"I'll clean up." Reynolds sat down and produced a box of chicken tenders, the contents still steaming. "I… assumed that these would be easier for you to eat than a burger."
"Thanks." Hands shaking, Katherine reached into the box. She flexed a pair of fingers, and managed to get them around a smaller piece of meat, which she then brought to her mouth with a satisfying crunch. "…this is good."
"Black Garden might have some competition, finally." Montgomery nodded, trying to ignore the tears in her eyes. "How's therapy?"
"You know damn well how that's going." Sinclair bent her wrist, afraid that it would creak if she rotated it the wrong way. "I'm scared, Monty. I… I don't know who I am without magic."
"An intelligent researcher who Sigma-3 is constantly trying to snipe from this site?"
Sinclair rolled her eyes, almost drying them in the process. "Please. They tried twice. I said no because I…" She turned away, not wanting to look her partner in the face as she said her next sentence. "I like it here." The first bit tender polished off, she bit into a second one. "Seriously, this is good."
"I have some dipping sauce in here. Barbecue or Honey Mustard?" Reynolds reached into the bag.
"Honey Mustard." Sinclair's eyes wandered towards E-083. "That's odd."
"What?" Reynolds followed her gaze. Seven books sat on the shelf, and the newest one looked precarious and bloated.
"There were only six when I came in here." She squinted, trying to read the title, but the text on the spine proved too small.
"I'll pull it off the shelf and we can document it." Reynolds stood and crossed to the shelf, pulling the new book off and using a clipboard that had been affixed to the side of the shelf to note its title, date of manifestation, and circumstances of its appearance.
He brought it over to the table placing it in front of Sinclair. It was a thick volume, with its cover depicting children shuffling a deck of cards, juggling individual jokers, and even managing to make the cards look like they were levitating. The title was 1001 Amazing Card Tricks, and it advertised that it was for Ages 5 and Up, and had been written by— "Fuck you." Sinclair frowned.
"Liang-Shun Lim?" Reynolds read the author. "Isn't he that illusionist that blows smoke from his mouth when he performs card tricks?"
"Saw his act last December— he was performing at a venue in Chicago near where I was staying for…"
"Fursonal reasons?" Reynolds teased.
"Shut up," Sinclair laughed. "God, I never should have told you I was a furry. But yeah, I saw him, and it made me wonder if he had the gift."
Reynolds opened the book. It was the thickest volume on the shelf by far, but only took up about 300 pages of material. Half of the book was occupied by a hollow, plastic compartment. Within it sat a fresh deck of playing cards, still in shrinkwrap, marked with the image of an Eastern dragon embossed on the box. "…curious." Reynolds removed the deck and placed it on the table.
Katherine leafed to one of the first pages of the book. 'Basic Shuffling Techniques'. "Hmm."
"What?"
"Dr. Oleander said that a good way for me to regain dexterity would be trying to fidget with something. Exercise my muscles, get my fingers to flex." She looked at the deck. "It's been a while since I've tried just mundane card tricks. Mind unwrapping that for me?"
Reynolds chewed the inside of his cheek, digging his fingernails into the wrap and peeling it off, before opening the box and upending the cards onto it, showing the smiling face of the red joker leering up at the pair of them. "Are you sure about this?"
"I need some way to pass the time." Sinclair looked at the book. "Turn the pages for me? I'll tell you when I'm done with them."
"Of course."
Sinclair picked up the deck, card by card, and started throwing them into five distinct piles. Pile shuffling, this was called. She remembered this from back when her cousin had tried to teach her to play some inane card game.
By the time she had started the second chapter, she could crook her index finger.
Item Designation: E-083
Item Description: A bookcase made out of an amalgam of wood, stone, steel, and paper from an unpublished novel by Jackson Sloth. Literature cannot be placed in the bookcase, and will phase through the object and land on the opposite side. At irregular intervals, books will appear on the shelf that retain tangability. To date, twenty volumes have appeared on the shelves.
Date of Recovery: 12/24/2011
Location of Recovery: Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Current Status: On loan to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia for demonstrative purposes. Has retained its anomalous properties despite being removed from the Nexus.
"I'm sorry, but…" Special Agent Raymond Keys looked at his new trainee like she had her head on fire. "You said you want to be assigned to Unusual Incidents?"
Harley Sterling, newly minted student at Quantico, scratched her scalp. She was looking at her superior like he had asked her if gravity was real. "Is that strange?"
"Counting you? I've had two people request to be put in UIU. That other agent—"
"Is Special Agent Quinn MacAllister, Cincinnati Division." Harely Sterling held up her right hand, displaying her wedding band— plain gold, with an inscription on it in Irish, from Quinn's side of the family. "My wife. She recommended I talk to you about this."
"Son of a bitch." Keys laughed, the look of disbelief disappearing and being replaced with one of triumph. "Sorry, just. Unexpected. MacAllister's a good agent. I take it you signed the marital gag order?"
"If I didn't, I couldn't talk to you about this. Still don't entirely get what a 'memetic geas' is." She counted off on her fingers. "The Foundation, Grassroots, Chicago Spirit, GOC, MC&D. It's… pretty heavy." Harley sucked in air through her teeth. "Kind of overwhelming, to be honest. I'm not sure I understand half of it." She lifted her right sleeve, revealing a distinct series of needle scars trailing up it.
"Right." Keys winced. "Read the report about that."
"I don't remember much. One second I was in Iowa, with Quinn, the next I was strapped to a table getting needles pulled out of me by her partner while she was resuscitating me." Harley played with her hair. "Though part of me thinks she was looking for an excuse to give me a proper kiss."
"And the amnestics you were administered?"
"Wiped out a good few weeks. I remember hitting a 'cryokinetic entity' over the skull, but after that, nothing." She looked down. "I… want to do this because I feel like I don't know her. I love her, but I need to figure out who she is."
"Well, Carts, cans, all that shit, they can be dangerous, but there are some more benign things— some of them are even kind of cool." Keys stood and made his way to the ugliest bookcase Harley had ever seen. He took a trashy James Patterson off of his desk and placed it on the first vacant spot on the shelf shelf, grimacing as it fell through all of the lower ones and hit the floor with a thud, before sliding out and impacting the leg of his desk as the universe remembered two things could not take up the same space. "This is a demonstrative tool, to introduce people to the weird shit we do. Books that appear on the shelf are just fine. But try to place anything on it, and it just goes through. Only twenty books—"
"I count twenty-one." Harley leaned in to look at the shelf.
Keys turned to face the shelf, and sighed. His thunder had been stolen by a fugly piece of furniture. "It sometimes does that." He picked up the new book, ready to record it, and nearly dropped it in shock. "What the fuck?"
Harley stood and looked at the book with him. She read the title twice before she comprehended it, and had to read it one more time before her jaw fell open. "The Case With No Name: My Time In The Unusual Incidents Unit by Quinn MacAllister?"
"And sometimes it makes books that are utterly impossible." Keys handed the book to Harley. "Amnestics are a bitch, but this might jog your memory. At the very least, it could fill you in on the events that occurred? Assuming it's not all bullshit."
Harley took the book. "Should I just leave it by your door?"
"Just leave it unattended in a trash can somewhere. They re-appear on the shelf after about ten minutes of being looked away from."
That night, Harley Sterling read, and was reminded that all was right in the world, and that her life was made better by Quinn's existence, and vice-versa.
Item Designation: E-083
Item Description: A bookcase made out of an amalgam of wood, stone, steel, and paper from an unpublished novel by Jackson Sloth. Literature cannot be placed in the bookcase, and will phase through the object and land on the opposite side. At irregular intervals, books will appear on the shelf that retain tangability. To date, thirty-five volumes have appeared on the shelves.
Date of Recovery: 12/24/2011
Location of Recovery: Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Current Status: Unknown, presumably destroyed following a large wreck while en route back to Site-87
The library felt like a tundra without the bookcase.
It had been absent for the better part of a year. The library had grown around it; the shelves were full of actual literature, an entire forest's worth of paper, from scientific literature to sci-fi. A section for DVDs had opened up, and by the door, a red kiosk had been installed to check out books, instead of having researchers steal material willy-nilly. But it all felt colder without the bookcase.
Before the place where it should have been, Cassandra Pike stood, alongside her ex. She was freezing— whether due to malfunctioning air conditioning, his icy demeanor, or the sense of absence, she didn't know.
Claude Mattings had taken off his glasses. He was rubbing them to the point that the frame was creaking and the lenses was on the verge of popping out. "What happened to us?"
"We… used to be friends, then we weren't." Cassie scooted away from him, trying to find a corner of the library where warmth existed. "I don't even remember what the argument was about."
"I don't either. We just… started yelling, in front of everyone." Claude looked at the vacancy of the bookcase. He swore he could make an outline of dust on the wall from where it used to be. "Kind of symbolic, isn't it?"
"It's Sloth's Pit. I'm surprised the symbolism isn't more on the nose." Cassie scratched the back of her head, her breath hitching in her throat. "Are you… sure you want to try again?"
"…I don't know." Claude looked down, squeezing the frames of his glasses. "It's been months since we talked without you breaking down or me sniping at you. That's not exactly the basis for a healthy relationship." He squeezed hard enough that the right lens of his glasses popped out and bounced onto the carpeted floor, landing at Cassandra's feet. "Son of a—"
"I got it." Instead of bending down to pick up the lens like Claude expected, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a familiar black glasses case. "You… left them in my quarters after the fight. Your spare pair."
Claude opened the case and found a pair of glasses with lenses as thick as the bottom of a glass soda bottle. He placed them on his face, squinting— it was an old prescription, much more powerful, and it made the entire room look bigger. It made the tear stains at the edge of Cassandra's eyes more obvious. He let out a sad laugh. "Christ. I'm blind as a fucking bat."
Wind stirred the shelves of the library. They felt the impact coming before they heard it, Cassandra tackling Claude to the floor as a massive something hit the back wall of the library with a loud, rattling thud. She'd thrown herself on to him in such a way that they had landed face-to-face, despite Cassandra being six inches shorter than him.
They quickly stood, correcting their awkward position. Then, Claude saw what had caused the rush of wind. "How in the holy—" Claude began.
The bookcase sat there, with thirty-six books on its shelf. The newest volume had a cheap sheen on its cover that made it clear it belonged alongside exciting volumes such as Chicken Soup for the Prisoner's Soul or The Secret. Still, Cassandra Pike picked it up, frowning as she read its title.
"Mending a Relationship: Ten Steps To Fall In Love Again." She chewed her lip, her snaggleteeth digging in and threatening to draw blood. "Let it never be said that this bookshelf publishes things that are irrelevant."
"Well?" Claude rolled his shoulders, taking a seat at a table. "We have to document its contents anyway."
Cassandra sat by him, and opened the book to the first page. By the end of the second chapter, they were hugging and crying.
Item Designation: E-083
Item Description: A bookcase made out of an amalgam of wood, stone, steel, and paper from an unpublished novel by Jackson Sloth. Literature cannot be placed in the bookcase, and will phase through the object and land on the opposite side. At irregular intervals, books will appear on the shelf that retain tangability. To date, forty-nine volumes have appeared on the shelves.
Date of Recovery: 12/24/2011
Location of Recovery: Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Current Status: In Site-87's Library.
Site-87's library was a buzz of activity. Over the last two weeks of October, the E-083 had gone through some kind of bizarre rush of activity— over a dozen books had appeared on the shelf. Several of them were already removed and being passed around researchers in the room. Unsurprisingly, the majority of them were from the horror genre.
In one corner of the room, Cassandra Pike sat in an electric wheelchair, her leg still in a cast. Several people had written their names on it, wishing them well. Someone had managed to sneak in the pawprint of a cat onto the cast— that had made her smile. Still, it would be a miracle if she didn't limp for the rest of her life— her femur had pins in it from being shattered by a malevolent supernatural entity.
The horror novels that had appeared varied in quality. Several of them read like Stephen King, if King actually knew how to be concise and never went through his cokehead "let's write a prepubescent orgy" phase in the 1980s. The exception was the one that Pike held in her hands— it was untitled and unlabeled.
Pike's nose was scrunched up in sheer disbelief of the book's contents. It seemed to be a journal, and she recognized the handwriting— it was the late archivist Isaiah Pickman. She'd helped him organize the archives a few times during her downer episodes.
The contents were a chaotic scribble of notes about the town of Sloth's Pit and anomaly occurrence patterns therein. Pasted in were newspaper articles detailing events from a successful bake sale at a high school to a ceiling fan flying off of the ceiling of a living room and ping-ponging itself around an empty house, causing massive damage to the interior decoration, to mysterious lights in the sky. There were references to a Union of workers who were the best at what they did, dozens of quasi-fictional beings living in the woods, and desperate attempts to draw connections between all of it.
Eventually, almost in the exact middle of the book, there were three words, circled several times: "WE ARE REAL"
"The hell does that mean?" Cassandra frowned. Above it was what seemed to be an attempt at half-heartedly writing a logical proof.
The SCP Foundation protects the world from anomalous items, persons, creatures and phenomena.
Items rarely breach containment on a large scale. Large-scale breaches are easily recontained. Too easily.
Sloth's Pit is known to follow narrative patterns. These patterns are visible on a grander scale throughout the world/multiverse (see: Hy-Brasil, Boring, Three Portlands, Massachusetts)
The SCP Foundation therefore follows narrative patterns. A. S. Swann Proposal states that we may be fictional. Fiction works to our benefit. Two possibilities:
1) Hypothesized "Horror-author" figures are more benevolent than once believed
2) There is a fundamental force of the universe which works outside of the influence of the "Horror-author" figures in order to preserve humanity.
We exist when they look away. I think therefore I am, even when I am not involved in the goings-on. We write our own stories. We are human. WE ARE REAL.
Pike's eyebrows shot into her hair. She'd heard of the Andrew S. Swann proposal before. It filled her with dread every time she thought about it, that her life could be snuffed out by the typing of some words on an impossible-to-comprehend keyboard that was dictating her life. But at the same time…
She should be dead. She had a bone spur that had traveled through her heart that should have killed her. She was getting married in February, and her fiance, grieving and alone, would make for a poor story.
Christopher Hastings should be dead. Dragged miles underground by some bizarre pumpkin creature, he came out unconscious and with a leg that was almost dislocated, but largely unscathed. He had more stories to tell, still.
Blake and Ruby Williams, a pair of agents on Mobile Task Force Sigma-10, should be dead. Transported back in time by some bizarre psychic link they shared interacting with a temporal anomaly, they ended up in the clutches of a Sarkic cultist who had preserved them in amber, to be discovered when they were found by their teammates in the basement of an abandoned house almost fifty years later. It wasn't good literary form to kill one twin or the other— it had to be both, or neither. Seriously, fuck you, Rowling.
Something was wrong. Reality wasn't this benevolent.
Pike shook and took the journal to the door. She'd document it later. For now, she needed to get to the archives— but she couldn't get in on her own. She pulled out her phone, and dialed the first qualified number she saw.
"Dr. West?" Pike wheeled her way to the elevator, her electric chair whirring down the hall. "Can you meet me near Archivist Pickman's old office? There's… something I think may be important."
Item Designation: E-083
Item Description: A bookcase made out of an amalgam of wood, stone, steel, and paper from an unpublished novel by Jackson Sloth. Literature cannot be placed in the bookcase, and will phase through the object and land on the opposite side. At irregular intervals, books will appear on the shelf that retain tangability. To date, ninety-nine volumes have appeared on the shelves.
Date of Recovery: 12/24/2011
Location of Recovery: Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin
Current Status: In Site-87's Library.
October 2019
In the Site-87's library, a group of researchers waited with baited breath. Katherine Sinclair paced back and forth, nervously fidgeting with a deck of cards. Dr. West was taking photographs, documenting the inevitable event. There were ninety-nine books on the shelf, and for the last two Octobers, there had been an influx of new reading material appearing on the apparatus. This had been no different, but it had ground to a halt of late.
Claude Mattings sat by Cassandra Pike, a hand on her knee. "West, for the love of god!" Claude barked. "Books don't manifest if it's observed, put the camera away!"
West apologized and pointedly looked away from the shelf. He was anxious to see what would next appear.
In her chair, Cassandra Pike shook, afraid to look at it. Bile rose in her throat.
"You all right?" Claude looked her over. "You look pale."
"I'm nervous. Only one space left— what happens if the shelf gets full?" She looked over her shoulder. Still one space left. "We're quasi-fictional, and pretty much every book that's appeared on the shelf is relevant to us in some way. When the last one fills up…"
"It's not always relevant." Sinclair stood by Pike, riffling her cards with a satisfying sound, like a zipper smoothly joining itself. "Remember that one weird period where it was putting out Elizabethan tragedies and Greek history plays." Sinclair glanced back at the shelves. "I swear to god it put out a couple of westerns too."
Cassandra nodded. "Then there was the time it put out World War II stories. I kind of wish there were more of those— interesting perspectives." Cassandra shook her head. "Point stands. I'm scared. What if—" She looked back at the shelf, as if willing the 100th story to not appear. "What if we vanish when it gets full? We're… not real, not completely. What if we… what if we just stop? The town goes poof, and us with it?"
Claude shook his head, and did the most passionate thing he had done in months: turn her head gently to kiss her on the lips. "We're together. If the world goes poof, we'll have done it hand-in-hand."
She joined hands with him in a vice grip as she turned back to the shelf. It was full. A single, red book laid in the bottom corner of it.
"Well?" Dr. Sinclair motioned at Cassandra. "You were the first to find the book on it, you should open the last one."
Trembling, Cassandra Pike stood. She crossed to the shelf and knelt, removing the last volume from the shelf. It was entitled How to Build a Bookcase.
"…bit of an anti-climax, that." Claude scratched his head. "Odd."
Cassandra cracked open the pages of the book. Sensing something was wrong, she threw it onto the floor and scampered back to the safety of the researchers.
"Cassie!" Claude caught his wife, shielding her from the book. There were many confusing noises and scents— hammers and saws against wood, the odd curse at the impact of metal against a thumbnail, the scent of sawdust and finisher and paint. Then, it was over. "Are… are you all right?" He was holding her hard enough that she had trouble breathing.
"I-I think so." She looked past her husband's shoulder. It took her three tries to comprehend what was standing before her, and even then, she could only manage: "What the fuck?"
All those assembled looked at where the 100th book had been thrown. In its place, a bookcase sat. Unlike the bizarre amalgamation that was the original bookshelf, this one gleamed under the soft light, composed of some form of ornate hardwood. One side was carved with a scene depicting a massive tower on top of a wooded hill, shining a beacon onto the dark forest and revealing a face within. The other side showed a group of over a dozen hands uniting, clutching a staff with an opened book at the top. Sinclair swore that she could make out one hand, badly burned, clutching the staff towards the middle.
At the top, the ornamentation continued, interrupted by a bronze plaque:
This shelf was made in honor of the hundred tales that had appeared before it, in the hope that more will be written.
Thank you to all who have read and experienced them.
The second shelf already had a new book on it.
"What do we do?" Sinclair asked.
"It's a book." Cassandra Pike removed it from its resting place. "You read it."
