The Lexicon was the physical storehouse for all knowledge across the united worlds of The Collective. A massive mausoleum of information and books from before The Unification. Of course, anything the average citizen wanted to know was available through the Interlink with a simple request their AI for information. In fact, all information nowadays was ferried through machines and computers with little need for the written word.

For most, this was enough. Anything you could possibly want to know could be at your fingertips seconds after the request left your lips.

For Isaac, this was pathetic. It removed the discovery of it all. The “thrill of the hunt” as he had heard it called in the Sherlock Holmes books. It’s what led to places like the Lexicon becoming a mausoleum for the written word. It was just more convienient to go digital and budgets just couldn’t be spared for such an “archaic” medium.

The upside of this was that Isaac had the whole place to himself.

“Why are we doing this again? This whole place stinks like old socks” said Hector.

Hector evidently did not feel this “thrill” but was here because of his weakness for Hologames, a weakness Issac was more than happy to leverage in exchange for the use of Hector’s muscle.

Issac closed the current volume of “Twilight” and dropped it with a satisfying thud on top of the stack Hector was holding.

“Where is your sense of adventure?” Isaac gestured, arms wide. “Who knows what you’ll find within these hallowed halls. A plethora of unknown worlds to discover just waiting to picked up”

“Yea, it’s the unknown smells and disease that I’m more concerned about” said Hector. “I can feel my lifespan shorten as the seconds go by”.

“Audentes Fortuna Iuvat, my friend” said Isaac

“What does that mean?”

“No idea, but I’m excited to find out!” Isaac said dropping another ancient looking tome on top of the stack.

“How much longer is this going to be? I have a Blitz tournament I need to get back to.” Complained Hector with a groan.

“You should be thanking me!” exclaimed Issac, his voice reverberating across the high ceilings. “Without me you would never know what a cat is”.

“What in great Sol, is a cat?”

“Well it seems like they were kept as pets for the majority of the pre-unification period. It looks like once the the blight started they were one of the first to go.” Isaac said in a solemn tone. They had heard many stories about the days before the blight. Before The Unification. None of them good.

Isaac flipped the book over to present an image of an orange and white hairy creature sitting on its hind legs with a similarly hairy noodle poking up behind it.

Hector leaned in closer to get a better look, a cough escaping he caught a lungful of dust “What do you suppose that thing is for behind it?”

“Probably used as a weapon to fend off attackers. I once read about these things called ‘insects’.” Mused Isaac. “One of them had something like this coming out of it’s butt and it had poison on the end it used to stab you with”. He emphasized this by jabbing his index fingers rapidly into Hector in a stabbing motion.

“There is no way that’s real.” Said Hector.

“Well it says here that they also had nine lives.” Isaac retorted dropping the book onto the pile “So maybe you can ask them yourself when we meet one”.

“You can’t be serious.” groaned Hector “That one doesn’t even make sense. How does it come back to life? Does it just keep coming back until it hits the 10th time. We would have seen loads of cats by now. And why nine? Why not seven or twenty five?”

“Who knows if half this stuff is real” said Isaac as he dropped another tome entitled “Hiroshima” onto the pile and hopped down off the ladder. “They’re all just stories at the end of the day”.

Isaac began to run his fingers steadily along the rows of books leaving a trail of clarity in their wake as his fingers cleared away the dust in it’s path. He rubbed his fingers together for a moment looking at them distantly. Then he looked up at Hector. “What’s important is we’re talking about it. And in these shelves are a thousand questions just like that waiting to be asked. And the longer there are people like us willing to ask them, the more we grow. One day maybe we will have enough questions to to fill a book of our own”

Hector groaned as he struggled to pick up the pile of books, steadying himself. They started walking towards the exit, their feet beating a steady rhythm against the tile floor as they moved.

“It does make you wonder though.” Said Isaac as they reached the double doors leading into the Lexicon.

“Wonder what?”

“What would it be like if cats did have nine lives…” Isaac trailed off as he pushed through the doors with a wide smile on his face.