Chapter 49 - Encyclopedia

They woke up at various times during the morning. Because they were not worried about getting back to the motel, they did not bother waking the others, and instead went to explore the building that they were in. Jude was among the first to wake.

He had slept next to Tyra for the night, and rolled over to give her a kiss.

“Whu....?” she moaned, her mind not coming to quite yet.

“Shh...” whispered Jude. “Go back to sleep.”

Tyra rolled back over and did so.

Jude got up to wander the abandoned halls of the building. He climbed up to the fifth floor, the topmost floor, to see what was up there.

He entered into a small office and looked at the bookshelves. Most of the shelves were devoted to books about weaponry, as this was the headquarters for a weapon-making company. However, one shelf was devoted to a number of similar-looking books, each labeled with letters, such as “M”, “N”, or “U-Z”.

Jude took off one of the books, labeled “A”, and opened it. It appeared to be full of information about Earth topics that began with the letter “A”. Jude realized that these books were a source of knowledge and information for whoever had formerly owned the office.

He decided to see whether or not the island city that he was from was indeed New York City as he had suspected. He took off the “N” book, and opened to “New York City”. It was indeed a real city.

The map of the city did look like Jude remembered it, however it had information about regions not just on the island, but surrounding regions. It appeared that the island part of the city was referred to as “Manhattan”, so he looked that up in the “M” book.

He read about the island that he was born on, for that was clearly where he had been. The river that he had crossed despite the pirate’s attempts to kill him was apparently called the Hudson River. But one place marked on the map proved its identity to Jude.

It was a place in Manhattan called “Time’s Square”, or as Jude had known it, the Square of Time. He looked it up in the “T” book, which of course described it before it was destroyed, but the description was the same.

Jude now knew approximately where they were in relation to the world. He made a mental note of where this room was, and headed to the room where the post map was. He looked for New York City again, and then traced down to the nearest starred city, the nearest capital. It was labeled as Washington D.C. on the map.

He went back to the room with the books in it (the books had apparently been called “encyclopedias”) to look up this city, and sure enough, it was the capital city of the country in which he lived.

The pictures of the city were of the city before it was destroyed, so no tower was visible. Jude could not prove to himself that it was where the tower would be, however it seemed unlikely that The Messenger would have said what he did unless it was the closest capital city.

Jude walked back to the main room in which the people were sleeping. Tyra had woken up, so they cuddled in the corner. Jude told her that he knew which direction they should go in, perpendicular to the directions in which the sun rises and sets, with the sun rising on the left side.

He did not know exactly how they would be able to find the city that they sought for, but sooner or later the tower would become clearer visible in the distance. Nor did he know what sort of troubles might befall them on the journey, but he certainly hoped that the land was less dangerous traveling away from New York than traveling towards it or in it.

Slowly the people awoke, and Jude knew that he had to tell them what he had learned so that they could return to the motel. So he called out to them to hold a meeting in the building.

They gathered around him, and suddenly an explosion sounded below them.