Chapter Fifteen
The Canteen
“The best way to hold a robot is with lubrication.”—The Mae West robot
The Librarian entered the canteen, his squeaky wheelchair silencing the chatter like the entrance of a naked woman.
No one had seen a wheelchair in the workers’ quarters apart from the Librarian. Disabled people were kept out of sight, behind desks, making toys for children—a business that had seriously dried up.
The cleaners eyed him.
A footman sniggered.
“Didn’t know the Librarian had a sister,” said a cleaner.
“He doesn’t,” said the sniggering footman.
The Librarian adjusted his wig, ran his tongue along his red lips, and surveyed the canteen—a place as new to him as the queue about the counter, as foreign as a footman not standing to attention.
He stared at one lounging by the w
