fandomhigh | Library [01/20]

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library

Library [01/20]

Once the library was set up for the day, Sam sat down with a copy of Richard III to re-acquaintance himself with the play and to figure out how many lines he was going to have to learn. His excitement about the play was currently being balanced out by not having anyone outside of Fandom to share the news with; sure, he could tell Dean, but he'd probably just laugh and call Sam a geek. Not that that would be wrong, of course, but it just wasn't the kind of conversation he wanted to have right now.

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Sam glanced up when he heard the door open, and smiled at the girl in return. "Hi," he said, going into helpful library worker mode. "Can I help you find something?"

"Man, I hope so. I'm looking for, like, anything you might have on or by Georg Joachim Rheticus. He's a sixteenth century mathematician, only student of Copernicus."

That was a kind of request Sam didn't get very often and it left him momentarily lost for a response. "Uh, wow," he said. "Finding books about him might not be a problem but...actually, I wouldn't be surprised if we had writings that were that old, but they'd probably be in Special Collections. Is this for a project or personal interest?"

Claudia's metaphorical ears pricked up at the mention of a "special collections". That was sure to have works she hadn't managed to pick up, yet. "It's not for class, if that's what you mean. It's, uh. Something I've been working on for awhile."

"Cool," Sam said genuinely, always glad to find another avid learner. "Well, you're going to need a note from a teacher to get into Special Collections. It's...kind of unsafe to just wander in there. Assuming what you're looking for is in there, of course. We don't get a lot of people interested in mathematicians."

"That's 'cause people are scared of math," Claudia said. "It can be used to describe anything, but one little mistake can throw you completely off course."

"And it's not always something concrete," Sam agreed. "Once you introduce imaginary numbers, people get all kinds of freaked out."

"See, that's just 'cause they don't know what they're for," Claudia said. "And, y'know, 'cause they don't apply that much to the average person's daily life."

The average person in this case being one who wasn't obsessed with experiments involving quantum mechanics.

"Or, at least, the average person doesn't have to use that kind of math themselves," Sam said, going to the computer and hoping he was spelling "Rheticus" right. "But they do use things made by what the unaverage person uses math for, so...I get that it's important."

"Yes, exactly!" Claudia grinned at him. "See, no one at my old schools ever realized that. Not even in the library."

"I guess you just didn't have enough geeks around," Sam said with a small smirk. He turned the screen so she could see the ~~moddable~~ results of his search. "Here's what I found in the main library. I'll have to look elsewhere for what's in Special Collections, but I can let you know if I find anything you might be looking for."

"That'd be sweet." Claudia grinned, then tilted her head, unable to hold back her curiosity. "What's so special about Special Collections?"

"Well, it's Fandom-special," Sam said. "Some of the books are in there 'cause they're old and need to be handled carefully and some are in there because they're sentient and like to bite people." Hopefully she'd been in Fandom long enough to know that he wasn't trying to fake her out or anything. "There's also stuff in there that's not books and kind of dangerous to be around. If people need something, they can go in, but we don't want anyone just waltzing in unaware."

"There are books that bite people." There was just a hint of skepticism in Claudia's voice, a holdover from, well, a few weeks ago, really. "Do they, like, break the skin?"

"I think they might," Sam said. "Honestly, I've only been in a few times. But it's always been an adventure."

"I like adventures." Claudia's previous experience with 'adventure' was along the lines of sneaking into her foster parents' house after curfew. "And it sounds like that might be the place to look for original texts."

"It's definitely the place," Sam said with a nod. "If you can get a teacher to sign off on letting you in, you can check it out for yourself."

Claudia nodded, already making mental notes on what teacher to approach. "Thanks. You've been a big help."

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Library [01/20]

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