فصل پنجاه و دوم

chapter-52

Every one of the other holographic characters froze where they stood when the secret panel in the fiction wall swung open.

Kyle, Abia, and Miguel ducked behind the reference desk.

“I’ll be right back, gentlemen,” they heard Mr. Raymo say. “Slight malfunction in our Abraham Lincoln. We’ll want him fully operational for the gala.” “You’d better fix him, Raymo!” shouted the grumpier of the brothers from deep inside Mr. Lemoncello’s office. “We need Honest Abe to give us a resounding public endorsement tomorrow night!” “And then,” cried the other brother, “we want Emily Dickinson to play Whoop Dee Doodle Thirteen with all the kids. She’s good with words.” “No problem,” muttered Mr. Raymo, waiting for the door to the secret passageway to glide shut.

When Kyle was absolutely certain that the Krinkle brothers wouldn’t follow Mr. Raymo into the Rotunda Reading Room, he popped up and waved.

“Mr. Keeley!” whispered Mr. Raymo. “Did you create the error code in Abraham Lincoln’s software?” “It was a group effort,” Kyle answered modestly. “But, yeah, that was us. We need to ask you a question.” “Please hurry,” said Mr. Raymo, looking over his shoulder. “If the brothers catch you kids…” “Mr. Raymo,” said Kyle, “can you use your Nonfictionator to replicate anybody saying anything?” “Yes. But I prefer to have the characters generated by the device speak with historical accuracy. That is why those of us on the Nonfictionator team have put such a high premium on proper research.” “But,” said Kyle, “if we did the research and gave you the audio and visual data you needed to create a truthful, honest representation of someone, or two someones…” “Then I can easily re-create that person or persons in holographic form,” said Mr. Raymo. “It’s also extremely helpful if an audio recording exists of the subject. For instance, I am quite confident that we have correctly captured Michael Jordan’s authentic voice, since we had primary source material to work with. Abraham Lincoln, on the other hand, sounds like Daniel Day-Lewis from the movie.” “One last thing,” Kyle continued. “Can you put these historically accurate characters anywhere in the library? Say, up in the statue nooks?” “Certainly. Those nooks each have their own holographic projectors, making them one of the easier locations to position a laser-generated character.” “Perfect,” said Kyle. “So, um, could you sneak into the control room and fire up your digital recorder? We’re about to send you some excellent visuals and audio to work with.” Mr. Raymo looked confused. “I don’t fully understand.”

“Well, sir, it’s like a great American once said: I can accept failure; everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying!” “And what exactly are you trying to do?”

“Save Mr. Lemoncello and our library!”