“You okay?”
She shook herself back to attention. “Oh, sorry. Yes, of course.”
Lydia filled in her name under the column marked “Visitor.” Then did the same where you were supposed to put the date and time. Under “Reason For Visit,” she put “Library.”
“Okay,” the receptionist said, “you want to go out of here and take a …”
The woman was very animated, all smiles and hand motions, as if she enjoyed telling people where to go in the school. Absently, Lydia noted that she was just on the cusp of middle-aged, youth still glowing in her face and in her eyes, even though her clothes were a little old-looking for her.
“Great, thank you,” Lydia murmured.
As she stepped back out into the lobby, she had no idea where to go. Hadn’t the receptionist told her to take a left?
Fortunately, there were signs mounted at all the corners and intersections of the halls, and there were even arrows that led to where she needed to go. And what do you know, the library was just what she expected: Glass-fronted, with rows of stacks and a sitting area with magazines and periodicals, it was another throwback to an earlier time, before iEverything and computers made life virtual, even if people were face to face.
Ahhh, the dry, inky smell of books.
The checkout desk was over to the right, and as she stepped up to the counter, a man in a navy-blue button-down and a bow tie with gold stars on it smiled at her.
“Are you the lady looking for the old computers?”
“Word travels fast.” She smiled back to be pleasant. “And I really appreciate this.”
“We get the odd request from time to time and we’re happy to be a resource. Come with me.” The man walked off into the stacks, striding faster than she’d expected or his belly seemed to suggest he’d be capable of sustaining. “The students only use the new PCs, of course. But you never know, and that’s why we keep everything.”
There was a set of stairs by an elevator, and the man took the former, traveling down the shallow, rubber-treaded steps at a good clip and whipping around a single landing. Down below, in the basement, there were more stacks, as well as an old-fashioned micro-fiche machine and—
“Here she is.” He patted a smudged, cream-bodied monitor that was the size of a small stove. “She still works. Of course, it’ll depend on what kind of program your files require.”
Lydia inspected the tower that was under the wooden desk. “I, ah … I don’t really know a lot about computers. I just have these old floppies and I’d like to see if I can still print out my fifth-grade book reports.”
“So you think it’s Word files?”
“Is this hooked up to the Internet?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Remember dial-up? Well, this thing used cable even back then. It was state of the art when it was gifted by one of our alums—so you can hop on the web if you need to. Here, I’ll get you started.”
He leaned over and hit a button and there was a whirring sound. “We’re open access, so you don’t need a password to sign on or access the Internet. There are age-restricted sites, though.”
“You don’t need to worry about that with me.”
“I didn’t think so.” He smiled again. “I’m upstairs if you need help. I’m no Bill Gates, but I know my way around this machine a little. Just holler up and I’ll hear you.”
Lydia smiled back at him and sat down. And then she waited until he was gone before she got one of the floppies out of her purse.
Her heart skipped a beat as she leaned down to the tower and put the disk into the slot. Before she pushed it home, she reached around and found the cable wire that was plugged into the back, the one that, just as the man had said, connected the computer to the Internet. After she unclipped and pulled it out, she finished the job with the floppy, the insertion smooth, a little click locking it in place.
The monitor was ancient, the graphics rudimentary. But the rounded screen delivered information to her eyes just fine: The disk was not password protected. And the file directory was … full.
The listings were just numbers and letters, no words that made any sense. And the dates were from twenty-five years ago, assuming she was reading them correctly.
She opened the first in the list—
Lydia jerked her head back. Then she leaned forward, so far forward, she knocked into the keyboard.
It was … a page from a document. Not the first page, but something in the middle, going by the number in the lower corner, and the footnote that had some kind of code on it. Plus the paragraphs were referring to a “subject” which was not defined. And the “subject’s” response to …