“Yes. And I’ve also heard that you’re going for it.”

“Absolutely!”

I smiled at his wild enthusiasm, knowing that it was a bubble I was about to burst.

“You’ll remember, though…” I paused to allow him to connect the dots.

“No!” he exclaimed, his hopes crushed.

“It’s what we agreed. You’d get the Dickens and I’d get … whatever this one is.”

“But maybe–” he began. I cut him off.

“A deal’s a deal, Harris.”

His shoulders sagged visibly.

“All right, I’ll withdraw,” he mumbled.

Pausing only to tell the robo-sec to cancel all my appointments, I packed up my compu and rushed out of the office, making the biblioteque in record time, despite the midday congestion in the corridors. For me, lunch would have to wait.

I caught the Director just as she was leaving. She kindly agreed to a brief meeting, in which I laid out my credentials – not for the first time. She must have been convinced by them and my earnestness because she signed there and then the access digi-form. I made a point of thanking her profusely (you never know when being on good terms with the high-ups might come in useful). Then I made straight for the biblioteque lab.

Barber842 was on duty. We get on well together, so he smiled when he saw me.

“Word gets round quick!” he joked.

“It does! So tell me – what have we got?”

He led me through to the inner room, bathed as usual in filtered light. And there it was, lying in the middle of the steel table.

“The robo-scavs found it yesterday,” he whispered; this particular room always engenders hush. “It was concealed under rubble and a reinforced-concrete beam – on its own, I’m afraid. Whoever left it had the presence of mind to place it in a vac-pac.”

I nodded, disappointed at there being only one, but eager to get on with the job.

“You’ve geigered it, I suppose?”

“Of course! The box was saturated, but the artefact’s clean.”

“No radiation at all?”

“Tiny traces, but harmless.”

I rubbed my hands together.

“So, can I get started?”

“You’re keen, aren’t you?! I’ll get you a kit.”

I sat down at the table and looked longingly at the orange and cream object of … yes, my desire.

Barber842 returned with the treatment kit.

“It’s all yours,” he said, patting me on the shoulder and retiring.

…

And so here I am.

I boot up my compu and take some bio-plas gloves from the kit, along with a pair of fine tweezers. This moment is delicious: observing and wondering where to begin.

“From the beginning, I suppose,” I giggle; I feel like a young child.

My first move is to smell it. There’s nothing that quite matches this sensation. I don’t have references to liken it to other smells, but it’s unique … or rather, it’s similar to the other three I’ve had the privilege to handle, but unlike anything else in this confined world.

I spend several minutes on this act, such is the pleasure I derive from it. While I inhale the intoxicating scent, I register the seemingly incompatible sadness I feel: that this would have been one of millions – no, billions – incinerated in no time at all. I bemoan the simultaneous frying of systems, destroying digital copies. And I rage silently at the lack of foresight of engineers, who had designed and produced back-up systems for functional operations – we wouldn’t be here otherwise – but had failed to provide protection for cultural heritage.

The scent pulls me out of the bitterness and returns me to the task at hand. I sit up straight and regard the cover: that orange and cream – which was probably once white – and a word that stands out: Lover.

Love. A thing I’ve heard of, naturally, but have never experienced – as far as I know. I’m sure, though, that it’s a positive thing. I follow some simple logic: if a person who teaches is a teacher, and a person who writes is a writer, then a ‘lover’ must be a person who loves. For some reason, this little exercise warms my inside and I feel myself smiling.

The Director has entrusted me with an important task, though, and I force myself to concentrate. I have to read, analyse, and rate, then recommend – or not – that this artefact be placed in the biblioteque itself, along with the almost one hundred companions which have gone through the same process. Others have been destroyed after analysis – a fact which pains me – because of their apparently subversive nature. ‘Subversive’ is a subjective notion, I’d say … though never aloud.

I take the tweezers, pinch the side of the cover, lift it. And here again I spend several minutes inhaling the scent of the inside, which is even more exhilarating than before.

The first few pages I turn very gingerly – they’re extremely frail and flake a little under the pressure of the tweezers. Later, if recommended, it’ll be treated to make it more resilient. There’s important information on these pages, most notably the date: 1960. I shake my head in wonder at the vastness of time between then and now, and if anything, I proceed with even more reverential care.

Then I get to the first page proper, and I have to sit back and pause; I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I can see the block of text waiting for me to consume it, but it’s out of focus for the moment. I must be ready. This is a momentous occasion, and I cannot rush into it, however much I’d like to.

…

I’ve relaxed enough. I’m breathing relatively normally. I lean forward.

Parts of the first paragraph hit me like a hammer:

The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes.

It appears to be speaking of these times. How can it be? It feels like magic. And then:

We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

I feel dizzy with the striking voice speaking to me from distant times. And my heart races as I read on, impatient now to find out who the person of the title is.

This Lady Chatterley, who has a lover.

Russia Retaliates. Russian Warships heading to south of Florida, move into the Caribbean