And the intruder is . . .

OK! So I said I was going to post yesterday. Or the day before. But I didn't. SUE ME. Ooops, you can't, because the evil robot monkeys said first, let's kill the lawyers. They are not stupid, you know. bwah ha ha!

Anyway.

After setting up the surveillance cameras, DAISI and I spotted someone coming out of the microfiche room. I kind of freaked out - microfiche? who the hell goes to the microfiche room these days? plus, well, it's creepy that someone else has been living in the library with us for all these weeks, sneaking around and stealing my Philip K. Dick books, etc.

but microfiche? WTF?

DAISI and I had a brief consultation, and decided to go down there and apprehend our visitor. We couldn't tell much about him from our little cameras - we were pretty sure he was a guy from the way he moved, and from his general body shape - but we couldn't tell for sure.

We each picked up a laser rifle. "Maybe not bad human is," DAISI said. I'm used oto the way she talks now, mostly.

"Maybe not," I said, "but he has no business sneaking around like that, does he? He's up to no good." DAISI was skeptical but I convinced her. She seemed to think that he was just as afraid of us as we were of him.

But we're not afraid of him. We have laser rifles.

So we headed up to the little microfiche room on the third floor. I'd noticed the room earlier, when I was exploring the library, but I never bothered to go in there. I mean, seriously, microfiche? I'd jiggled the handle on the door but it was locked, and I was positive that there was nothing in that room that I wanted.

DAISI and I crept up on the room silently. You should have seen us - it was beautiful. It was like something out of a ninja movie. We were shadows - shadows with laser rifles.

On the count of three, DAISI crashed the door open. The room was occupied - a young man blinked up at us.

"Whoa," he said.

I aimed my rifle at him. "Who the fuck are you?" I shouted.

"Dude. My name is Miles," he said. He was wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and his hair was this monstrous mess of dreadlocks and braids. "Miles. . . " he hesitated. "Miles Long!" he said, triumphantly, and then he started to laugh.

DAISI just looked at me. But I'd seen his type before. Fucking hippies. Smoking their pot and listening to their Grateful Dead records and having premarital sex. God damn. I couldn't believe that one of them had been smart enough to escape the monkeys.

I guestured to DAISI to lower her rifle. "He's no harm to us," I told her. She looked skeptical but obeyed.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

"Dude," he said, and he was still giggling a little, this annoying girlish giggle. "I was just here looking up some information on organic farming, you know? When the monkeys attacked." He looked sober for an instant, then his eyes glazed over again. I forced myself to lower my laser rifle. I could smell the pot in the air - why on earth hadn't I noticed it before? This loser probably smoked enough to fill the entire library with pot.

Maybe that's why I'd been struggling with the subjunctive in Anglo Saxon.

And then he started to cry. I patted him on the shoulder while he told his story. It's a common story: he was minding his own business, and then the monkeys came. He hid while other people died.

I don't blame him; there is nothing he could have done, any more than I could have done anything that first night. But that won't stop him from feeling guilty. It's human to think you could have done something more.

After he told his story, he pulled a packet of greenery out of his pocket and rolled a little cigarette. God damn potheads. I left him to his addiction and went back to the Young Adult section where I was camped out. I poured myself a nice glass of gin and thought about everything he'd told me.

By the time my glass was empty, it was clear. Human beings are pretty scarce these days, so we need to stick together - regardless of our differences.

I would have to befriend Mr. Miles Long.