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Mirage seldom got to explore the city, but today he'd managed to slip free of his home Tower and not only do so but do so alone. It gave the adventure a little extra thrill, even though he knew that if he got caught, he'd pay for it later. Until then, Mirage was going to enjoy this for as long as he could. That would be longer if he went to a section of the city where he wasn't as well known. Not too far downmarket, of course, but certainly enough to be interesting. Mirage wandered the streets, looking into shops, treating himself to goodies sold by street vendors that he bought with real, physical (untraceable) shanix. When it came close to the time he had to go back, he decided to weave through the back streets, just to see what was there. That turned out to be smaller shops, crowded closer together, and even though the buildings were more than one storey, the stores only took up one floor. The upper levels, he realized, must be apartments, almost like inverted Towers. Not that the Towers had shops, though some had offices to allow executives to work from home, but the residences were in the higher levels, right below the ones meant for entertaining.
Mirage wandered through décor shops, antique shops, and a cooking store and, finally, ducking down a street that was almost an alley, a tiny bookstore. The shelves were full of not only datapads, but with actual books, with pages you had to turn by hand. Mirage was instantly fascinated and spent nearly a breem just wandering up and down their shelves just looking.
"You're allowed to touch."
Mirage nearly jumped at the sound of the soft, calm voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. Stellar-cycles of strict decorum lessons stopped him, and he turned more sedately than he felt to see the speaker. He'd been addressed by a mech, taller and broader than himself, who somehow managed to move in the cramped space without striking anything with the cape-like components sweeping out on either side of him.
"The books," the mech added. "You're allowed to touch them. You should, in fact."
Mirage found himself asking, "why?"
"How else will you know if which one is yours or not?"
"But, none of them are mine…" Nothing in Mirage's training had prepared him for an encounter like this, and he just trailed off.
"One of them is, or you wouldn't be here," the mech said, sounding as if he were pointing out an obvious truth. It certainly wasn't obvious to Mirage. The mech turned his attention to the shelves, clearly studying the available options. "Ah," he said, at last, sounding pleased, and picked a book up. "I think this one. Here." He held it out to Mirage, who stood uncomprehending for several embarrassing nano-kliks. "Go on, take it," the mech encouraged, and Mirage reached out and –
"Oh," Mirage breathed. The book, holding it, felt absolutely right. "I understand. I - how much do I owe you?"
The mech named a price. It wouldn't occur to Mirage until much later that it was precisely the amount of loose shanix he had with him. He thanked the mech – someone being strange was no excuse to be rude – and left. He didn't browse the store any further; he didn't feel there was a need.
He did try to go back again, later, the next time he was able to get away but he didn't seem to have recorded the coordinates of the street, as should have happened automatically. Mirage never found the store again.
The book he'd purchased was a curious thing, and he kept it hidden in his subspace. Mirage wasn't sure why. It wasn't anything any of his family, caretakers, or servants would have picked up and they generally didn't go through his things. It just seemed to private to risk anyone else seeing it. The book was written like fiction, one of the old wonder-tales, but Mirage soon realized it was also instructions on making holograms and making the most of electro-disruption. It could have been written just for him. Remembering what the old mech had said, Mirage sometimes wondered in his more fanciful moments if it had been.
Much, much later, after the Towers had fallen and there were no more shops to explore on a carefree afternoon, Mirage saw the mech again. He didn't get a chance to talk to Alpha Trion, though, and so he never got an answer.
But still, he wondered.