Back in her apartment, the iris slid shut and Saki stood panting in the half light. She could hear the pounding pulse of blood throbbing so hard in her head it hurt. Her hand flailed out to lean on the wall. Running was a concept completely foreign to her and now she knew why.

After a while, she regained her breath and hung her shoulder bag back on the hook on the wall. She removed the book and set it gently on its shelf. She sat on her chair, the device that would connect her mind to the Environment.

The large chair dominated the dingy, grey box apartment. It sat in the middle of the small room next to the large spencer, her source of food and drink. On the other side of the chair was the cylindrical hygiene routine, an automaton responsible for toiletries.

She sat, lifted her feet up onto their rests and leaned back. Users spend their lives in the chair, so the act of getting comfortable and hooking in on the soft brown recliner was as natural for Saki as walking or eating. But, now she hesitated, wondering if the old man would be waiting for her ingee. Perhaps he was authorised to force himself into her Environment. What if he was waiting there to continue his interrogation?

She couldn't help think about it; now that they knew about her and her book, nothing would be the same again. A flash of reason told her that she was being paranoid and that the man was just a nosey old bastard with nothing better to do than bug people. But that thought was quickly overwhelmed by strong feelings of what-the-hell-have-you-done-bitch and you-really-are-fucked-this-time.

Saki's mouth was dry. She swallowed and the strain from the over-exertion of her adventure burned her throat. It was time to hook in. She initiated a thread. The google-pax streamed from the Environment through the chair and into her brain, hooking up machine-paired ontologies with specifically trained neural patterns inside her brain. Unlike the discomfort from leaving the Environment, entering the virtual world released a rush of endorphins.

Ingee:

Like all users, I spawn in my space, in my case the library. Even though natural senses are dampened ingee, I still feel discomfort from the run and I'm incredibly thirsty. I order a cold drink and specify no flavour. Floating around, I look at the thousands of books on the shelves and wonder how anyone could have been so stupid. The loading zone is supposed to be a private area that no other user can access, but, of course, that doesn't stop the daily flow of utility routines entering and leaving the zone. Their role is to run updates and process transaction pax, but any one of those routines could be an agent reporting back to the user authority, perhaps even the old man in black. Reporting that I, Saki the reader, live in a virtual library, one of the last illegally copied from an open-source that had been otherwise deleted long ago—another gift from my uncle. I check the status on my drink order and am relieved that it's not too late to update my request to include doses of relax and painkill.

My order arrives, materialising from the air to hover on a plate next to me within convenient reach. I lift the tall blue glass and drink deeply. The liquid is cool and soothing.

The drugs take effect instantly and a flush of calm flowers through my body. The tightness in my throat relaxes and my head stops pounding, but I still feel the ache of loss inflicted by my breakup with Mont. Anxiety lurks too, as I'm unable to get that crazy meeting at the river out of my head.

I weigh up my options; they are pretty much black and white. Plan 'A' I consider my world-back-to-normal plan and involves forgetting about the encounter with the old man and making up with Mont, promising to be the model user that he wants. Then there's the other option, Plan 'B', that involves embracing the lost art of reading and dedicating my life to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. I know that both plans lead to suffering, but for me, the reading path would be much better than suffocating in a life of being just another ordinary user, a life of normality. The thought of role-playing the normal life of the little miss happy-pants makes me want to puke.

So where does a bibliophile go to pursue happiness? Reading is a skill after all, so there might be a job out there for me. I call Rue and send the bot out to scan the market listings for any job that has a skill requirement of reading. I don't know why I hadn't thought of this possibility before, but I can't wait for the results. This could change my life!

Rue appears and throws the glyph that means empty result set.

I ask the sentient floating globe, "Not even anything that lists reading even as a desirable skill?"

The bot highlights the glyph for empty result set and follows up with a new glyph that represents what don't you understand about the previous glyph?, and another, pax audit failure imminent.

"No need to be smart, you program shit!" I know it's just pressing my buttons to get a reaction, but I throw a rude glyph at it and another to show I mean business.

I'm resigned to the fact that there's no such thing as a career in reading. I had a hunch that would be the case, but there was no harm in trying.

Then I have another thought, a long shot: Perhaps there is work at the book museum. Actual physical work outside of the Environment, looking after the library's books—real books? Dusting or stacking books or something like that. I ask the bot and the empty result set is returned once again. "Okay," I say, "let's visit the museum."

Rue throws a thread to the book museum. Its glyph holds sub icons indicating closed and until further notice. "What does that mean, Rue?"

Rue elaborates using its factory default monotone voice. It obviously can't pick up on the fact that I'm not in the mood for games—or maybe it does know. "All user traffic to the City Book Museum is suspended until further notice."

"Since when?"

"A notice was attached to the thread five years, two months, seventeen days, two hours and—"

I cut in. "What about outside access? It's a user utility, right? Isn't there a rule to ensure that there's an outside visitation area?"

The bot returned a map destination with meta glyphs indicating times of operation from nine AM to five-thirty PM, Monday to Friday inclusive.

"Cool."

I drop out of the Environment.