Then the world went dark.
III
The Town
XVI
The office was utterly silent except for the occasional click of Felix’s mouse, and the quiet, electric hum of the gargantuan Haberson server housed in the cold room right on the other side of the wall. It had bothered him on his first day there, burrowing into his skull, that soft but relentless whining drone. But then on his lunch break, he’d gotten the engineer on shift to badge him into the room, a vast, cavernous cube that felt more like science fiction than reality, and he sat with the unfathomable beast for a whole hour in the dim light, staring at its myriad blinking lights and circulatory system of wires, listening to it breathe. It was where the mighty Haberson Map lived, he’d realized as he watched it think. His map.
After that, the sound didn’t bother Felix anymore. By the end of the next day, he could no longer even hear it, as if it had become a part of him. But he knew it was there, present and comforting, behind the scenes. The same way no one thought it was strange that they couldn’t hear their own heartbeat.
Tonight, though, he craved that conscious, inescapable sound again—if only to distract him. But in the late-night quiet, his mind kept drifting back to Nell, and what she was doing now. She was probably still at the library, the event winding down. Maybe in Swann’s office with him, sipping more of his very fine Scotch—the same one that Dr. Young also used to keep in the cupboard behind his desk. The first time Felix had tasted it had been the day Nell convinced her father and Swann to hire him with her as an intern at the NYPL. The second had been a few months after that, when he’d successfully defended his dissertation at the end of that final semester and received his Ph.D. in cartography. He had always imagined the third time would be when he and Nell showed the two old men the ring that he would have someday picked out with her, on her finger.
Well.
And despite not wanting to be, he was still curious about the Agloe map. Especially about what Francis’s outlandish claim, that the phantom settlement on it was real, actually meant.
Felix shook his head. It had been nonsense. He must have misunderstood what Nell had been trying to tell him. He had to admit, he’d been so upset in the moment, he’d hardly been listening.
But it didn’t matter. Tomorrow, he was sure Irene would call Nell to invite her back to the library and tell her she knew about the map—or what Felix had accidentally revealed before realizing Nell hadn’t kept her promise to him. Nell would have no choice but to admit it then and accept some much needed help and security.
She’d probably hate him forever, and he’d never see her again, but seven years ago, he’d already assumed that was how things would go. If it wasn’t meant to be between them, at least this way she’d finally be free of her father’s damned shadow and back at the library. And safe.
He had his own map to worry about, anyway. A far better one. A map that not even all the esteem and scholarly power of the NYPL’s preeminent Map Division could give him. This was the entire world, in one single map. It was going to revolutionize the field of cartography. Hell, it was going to revolutionize every field—shipping and logistics, tourism, weather, agriculture, location-based games people played on their phones, even crime. It was going to be perfect. That was the entire reason William had hired Felix and formed his team to develop the Haberson, after all.
“What makes a perfect map?” had been William’s first and only question to Felix during his interview.
“A perfect map?” Felix remembered repeating, a sense of dire panic setting in as he clutched the phone and paced his apartment in his pajamas while William Haberson, the William Haberson, CEO of the most incredible, pioneering company in the world, waited patiently for his answer. Such a thing wasn’t real—couldn’t be real—had been the only thought scrambling through his mind. “What do you mean, ‘a perfect map’？” he’d asked, frantic.
“What does the phrase mean to you?” William had replied impassively.