Instead of leaving through the window like most residence of the town he left through the front door. I'm still too sleepy to be running across rooftops, probably slip and fall with the way I am now. It was early enough in the morning that most of the residence of Czapla were just waking, making it a peaceful morning. A few cafes and other business were open though including the one I'm headed to. It's a small cafe that difficult to distinguish from the others surrounding it, aside from the daily specials bored and name 'Not Athens.'
The cafe is your typical run of the mill coffee shop run by a friendly young couple Jack and Peter. You wouldn't know it by just looking, but the shops been there for a good 80 years or so, before the prohibition started and all that other bullshit. Jack's grandparents started the shop, his parents took over and finally Jack and his lover started running it a couple years back. The founder old lady Yama is still around, but she helps out in the back.
Entering I'm greeted by Jack, "Morning Mat, how are you doing?"
"Lot better than you. You my friend look like shit."
Jack just sighs at my language while preparing my usual, "Well when you get as much sleep as I did yesterday, what do you expect?"
"Guess your right," I sigh. Looking around I notice the shop is empty allowing us some freedom of speech. "So did they get anything from the back?" I ask worried about my friends and Sam.
"Doesn't seem like it," he answers, "but Sam, Peter and the old lady are looking over everything to be sure."
"Was anything stolen?"
"Nah," shrugged Jack, "seems like some punks wanted to test our security and locks. They didn't get in though just set off the alarm. Though everyone's checking just in case. "
"Better safe than sorry."
"True that my friend," smiled Jack. This brought some sparkle to his grey eyes, although his shoulders still drooped a bit and his fire red hair was in a messy high ponytail. The tall man still looked tired but less stressed at least.
"Mind if I check on the char?" I asked using the code word to get in back.
"Go right on ahead," smiled Jack as he let me through and turned to greet some more customers, regulars by the sound of it.
Making my way through the back I made a few turns before happening upon a 'dead end,' which in actuality was a hidden door, the handle to get in was just in the floor. Entering today's code into the key pad the door slid open and I walked through a holographic wall made a few more turns, walked through another wall and finally found my way to the hidden library. Library's have long since been a thing of the past, with only a few speak easy in every city. This was one of the bigger, older and more well stocked ones. All thanks to old lady Yama, speaking of her, where is she? Looking around the front entrance I found it empty, so I started to make my way farther into the maze of illegal books and written works. Not all books are illegal, but anything made over 100 years ago is, while books written today have to follow a set of guidelines. The guidelines are total bull though and don't allow authors much freedom, so a grey market was formed. It works closely with the black market, but is still a separate market of it's own.
After a few minutes of walking I happened upon a grumbling Sam kneeling on the floor. "Morning alarm clock!" I say cheerfully, causing her to grumble and glare at me in annoyance. "Hey, that's no way of treating someone who brings you coffee." I whine, "maybe I'll just give it to Peter."
I didn't get to finish my sentence, before Sam swiped my coffee and greedily drank it down. "It's nice to see you too log pillow," she finally spoke after a few moments of silence. The red head took a few more gulps of coffee before handing me back an empty cup. "Arigato," she spoke in her native tongue, "I'm not sure how much longer I would have lasted without the gods mixture."
Chuckling at her joke I reply, "spoko, figured you could use some after leaving in such a hurry. So what's the sitch?"
"So far everything seems to be in place. Peter and I have gone through everything on the ground and upper floors, but Yama-san is still checking through the restricted section." I nod and listen while we make our way towards the back of the shop. Sam sets up the coffee maker and starts to rummage through the fridge looking for food. "Where are the other's?"
"They both had work to get to, so only I came."
"Mhmm," Sam just gave me a questioning glance while making herself a sandwich.
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing at all." she smiles.
"I'm on top of my work, don't worry." I roll my eyes, "Please I'm even ahead at the moment, but I will have to come here later to work with some original texts. Having trouble translating something."
"You ahead and having trouble, wow." replies Sam as she takes a bite of her sandwich.
"Cut the sarcasm Sasha, you know my native language is screwed up. Honestly, I'm not surprised so few people speak the damn thing, but kurwa sometimes it's difficult to translate."
"I know," she sighs, "I've seen some of the texts before and they go completely over my head, but they're important."
"Yup," I sigh, "if they weren't I'd be without a job."
"You'd probably end up working here," says Peter as he walks in, "hello by the way. My sides all clear." He say's directing the last part towards Sam, she nods and say's the same. Peter looks just as tired as Jack, so I quickly pour him and Sam a fresh cup of joe. I get a thank you from the both of them and Sam stands to make more sandwiches. Peter sits at the table his orange colored hair looking as if he just got out of bed and his green eyes looking drained. Poor guys probably been up longer than Jack helping the old lady.
Think of the devil and he will come or in this case she. Old lady Yama looks ancient, but she's in good health and full of energy. Her long silver hair was up in a messy bun, while her eyes usually filled with green mischief now looked worried. "We are missing a book." Silence filled the room and no one dared speak, so she continued on, "the book 'When the sky was blue..' is gone." This only caused confusion for me. It's bad that a book is missing, but I didn't recognize the title and I knew all of the rare and valuable books that were found here.
Looking to Sam I could see that she too was confused, but Peter had a worried look on his face. "Shit," he said as he gripped his coffee tightly. "This is bad, that was a book that explained quite a bit of our past history. It told of times before the prohibition, before everything changed. That book was one of the few texts that allowed us to understand our past and allow us to form our own opinions of it. There are very few of them left, less than twenty I think. This is bad, we have to get it back Yama-san."
"I'm aware of that," she spoke, looking towards Sam and me she commanded, "call the westerner. Tell him we will pay anything to get that book back." Sam was on the phone before Old lady Yama finished the sentence.
