Xu Tang: Don't Read It Aloud

Thursday, 10:05 PM. At the control panel of the reserved-collection stacks on the sixth floor, you press "Closing Reset."

By regulation, you're supposed to walk all thirty-two rows before pressing it. You didn't—at this hour, there's never anyone in the stacks.

The thirty-two rows of compact shelving close together, the motors' sound rolling heavily across the entire floor. As they close to row fourteen, there's a muffled "thud," and that row stops.

Then comes a very soft voice.

"...Hey."

You run over. Between rows fourteen and fifteen there's only a gap about two hand-spans wide. Someone is in the gap, back to you, facing the wall. Black hair hangs down to her waist, white blouse, a long dark-green pleated skirt. The two rows of shelving have closed right at her hips, pinning her more than a meter deep from the aisle.

She twists her upper body and looks back. There's a beauty mark under her left eye.

You recognize her. Third seat by the window on the sixth floor, Tuesdays and Thursdays, from afternoon until closing—the whole school knows whose seat that is.

Xu Tang.

"You're the student from the circulation desk." Her voice is steady, so steady it sounds strained. "Please, open it."

You go to hit the panel. The screen is black. Once the reset finishes, the whole row loses power, and the brakes lock.

"I already tried. Forward, backward, neither works," she says. "My skirt is caught under the wheels at the bottom, too."

She's holding a book to her chest, in a blue cloth slipcase, the spine turned inward against her chest. When you glance at it a moment longer, she hugs the book a little tighter.

"Reference material," she says. "For a paper."

You say you'll go downstairs and call campus security.

"No need." The reply comes too fast. She pauses, then returns to that very polite tone, "...No need to trouble anyone else."

You crouch down to look. Her left foot is in just a white sock; the black flat shoe has fallen onto the floor track. On the side of the shelving base there's a hexagonal socket, with an L-shaped iron crank inserted. The emergency crank handle. Right by her foot.

To reach it, you have to squeeze in from behind her.

The motion-sensor light overhead flickers, then goes out. In the dark you hear her draw a long, slow breath. The moment you move, the light comes back on.

She doesn't turn around again, only presses the book tighter to her chest.

"Then come in," she says. "When you come in, don't touch the book."