The Last Library Above the Bones

You’d think after the world cracked open and spilled its secrets into the sea, people would be done chasing forbidden knowledge. Turns out, nothing tempts survivors like a locked door, or a file marked ‘do not open.’

I docked my battered skiff at what used to be Dock 17—a slab of corroded iron lashed to the edge of Necropolis Veritas, bobbing above a city that had drowned before I was born. Around me, neon sigils flickered across the mist. The only thing more restless than the dead here were the living, and both hungered for something they’d never quite get.

I unlatched my duffel, ran through my checklist: ration pack, old-world pistol, battered tablet. It was the last one that mattered tonight. Someone called themselves ‘Archivist’ wanted it delivered to Sublevel Gamma, payment in pre-Fall microchips. Which meant trouble, or at least someone who knew where to find it.

A kid with twitchy eyes waited by the cargo lift. He wore a rain-poncho patched with game logos older than he was and greeted me with an anxious grin. “You’re Eli?”

“Depends who’s asking.”

He shifted his weight. “Archivist said you’d know about games.”

I snorted. “Games? You want news, food, weapons—I’m your man. Games are for people with time to waste.”

He looked at me like I’d spat on his ancestors. “That’s all some of us have left.” He fished in his pocket and handed me a crumpled card—a month’s pass for some old-world gaming library. The logo was faded but familiar: hundreds of games, streaming from somewhere safe. Maybe even fun once upon a time.

He whispered, “It’s not just games down there. There’s stuff they won’t let us see.”

Of course there was.

I pocketed the pass and followed him into the bowels of the necropolis. Each level sank deeper into rot and memory—storage vaults now squatted by scavengers, echoing with distant gunfire or laughter from those who still remembered how.

We ducked past makeshift barricades and reached a sealed hatch pulsing faint blue in the gloom. "Archivist runs this node,” the kid said. “He lets us play—keeps us sharp. Sometimes he shows us stuff you can’t find topside." He eyed me sideways. "Ever played something new? Not just old echoes?"

I shrugged, but inside I envied him. After days ferrying corpses and trade goods between floating outposts, a brainteaser or two might've kept my hands from shaking at night.

Inside, the chamber glowed with screens patched together from scavenged tech—half consoles, half servers. A dozen kids sprawled across mattresses, hands curled around makeshift controllers or tablets rigged to pick up streams from somewhere far away—places with sunlit parks and clean streets their eyes had never seen.

"We pay in silence," said Archivist as he emerged from behind a rack of servers—face shadowed by an ancient headset. "No one talks about what they see here—not to their crews, not to traders, especially not to Watchers on patrol." His gaze lingered on my duffel.

"The tablet," I said.

He nodded. "And in return?"

I hesitated just long enough for him to know I was tempted by what was on offer—a month’s access to all this digital escape: endless worlds you could walk through without looking over your shoulder; puzzles smarter than any fence or lock; stories where sometimes good people won.

"How do you keep it running?" I asked.

Archivist smiled thinly. "Some clouds never went dark." He pressed something into my palm—the access code for a gaming pass that could be used anywhere there was still bandwidth or hope left in the ruins.

For an hour, while Archivist dug through my tablet for whatever forbidden files he sought (old blueprints? Lost government logs? Maps of safe water routes?), I joined the others in their stolen paradise. Through my own battered screen, I booted up a strategy game set in rolling fields of green—the kind travelers like me only saw in dreams these days—and for once forgot how much hurt lingered outside those iron walls.

But nothing lasts here—not joy nor secrets.

As I left with payment tucked deep in my coat (plus an extra code slipped by that twitchy kid), alarms began blaring up on Deck Fourteen: Watchers had gotten wind of something moving below—maybe Archivist's forbidden feed; maybe just another lost soul trying to remember what home felt like.

Back in my skiff as rain began again (relentless as guilt), I thumbed that membership card—a relic promising endless adventures on any device left breathing life into old code—and wondered what else we were willing to risk for forbidden knowledge…or just one more hour pretending we could win.