"Help!" "Somebody help me!" "Somebody help me!" "Help me!" "Help me!" "Help me!" "Please!" "You have to help me!" "Please!" "No!" "No!" "Help!" "No!" "No!" "Help me!" "Hey, what's that place with the great turkey panini?" "Mancolo's." "No." "No, the..." "Oh, um..." "Castellani's." "Mmm." "Order lunch from there for the department budget meeting." "I love that panini." "Go, go, go!" "Ohh!" "It took me two minutes to disable all three of you." "Stone, you've got an IQ of 190." "You should know you can't solve everything with brute force alone." "It's worked so far." "Fight smarter, not harder." "Still, at least you can fight." "Ezekiel bailed on his team." "These are the hands of a world-class thief." " I don't do punchy." " And Cassandra hid... badly." "I am here to do science and math and occasionally hallucinate." "You're just not being fair." "You think I'm not fair, wait until you meet the bad guys, which is why we'll run drills again tomorrow and every day until I'm sure I can take you out into the field with even a chance of you coming back in one piece." "Oh, how substandard were they?" "Good pep talk, Jenkins." "While you were out, a new page appeared in the clipping book." " Looks fascinating." " No!" "Not yet!" "Well, this is crazy." "Every day, a new page shows up of weird newspaper clippings in this book." "And every day, you tell us to ignore it." "We've hardly opened it since the day Flynn left." "Because you're not ready." "Flynn told us we were supposed to help people." "Yeah." "Ezekiel's right." "Flynn gave us a job." "We're supposed to be checking out the... weird..." "Not sit around here." "Ezekiel's right." "I said that." "Jenkins, stay out..." "Marvelous, isn't it?" "I told you, this is where I do my research." "Judson always insists that we just lock the artifacts away." "But I experiment on them, study them, improve them." "Ha." "It's hard enough to rein them in without you dangling that clippings book in front of them." "Why rein them?" "You've got to put them in the field sooner or later." "I've gone into the field with experienced soldiers with a good plan, good Intel, and still come home with nothing but dog tags." "I'm talking soldiers with training who've seen combat." "These three..." "I promised Flynn I'd keep them alive." "They're not even close to ready." "We're doing this, right?" "Hell yeah, we are." "Let's go." "I appreciate you wanting to keep them out of harm's way, but librarians exist to keep magic out of the wrong hands." "Their job is to be in harm's way." "I can't protect three of them at once and they can't take care of themselves, not without a lot more training." "We used to put librarians in the field" " with no training at all." " Oh, yeah?" "And how many came back?" "The best ones." " I said..." " Henry Birch, 21." "He was on a full scholarship in chemical engineering at Boston university." "He went missing two days ago." "Seven other clippings, all missing people disappeared this year." " That many, the police are on it." " Nope." "The victims are from all around the country." "The only reason to suspect they're connected is that" " they all showed up in our magic book." " That's eight people gone." "Maybe dead." "We don't..." "I mean, you know?" "And how many more are gonna go missing before we step in?" "What if he's still alive?" "What if we have a chance to save Henry Birch and we don't?" "And you're willing to risk your lives for him?" "I won't risk my life." "But..." "I assume I can outrun anything, so I'm in." "Fine." "But we're going in with a plan." "I want full breakdowns on the missing, backgrounds on their work places, magical and supernatural possibilities." "Oh, God." "What have I done?" "Even though the victims were from all over, they all disappeared in Boston." "Any connection beyond the city?" "Yes." "Golden Axe foods." "They all worked... and this was tricky... some of them under subsidiaries, some under shell companies," "Henry Birch was for his scholarship, but... in conclusion, they were all interns at Golden Axe foods." "Yeah." "I'm familiar with the logo." "They were all over the farms in my hometown." "And they sell, like, engineered seeds and stuff." "It's huge." "I've scouted the security." "Run-of-the-mill guards, boring alarms." "When do we break in?" "We don't break in." "We go in." "We ask questions." "No picking fights." "What... what... what are you doing?" "Sending you to Boston." "I present to you..." "The back door." "Yeah, that's the broom closet." "Ah, no... it is a door behind which presently exists the broom closet." "Mr. Stone, hook those up." "Put them here." "You see, magic works on similarities." "Uh, a symbolic resonance." "Yes." "Uh, a voodoo doll is symbolic of a person." "And lead can be transformed into gold because it is already similar." "So, with a little..." "Magic..." "That broom-closet door can become a symbolic representation of any other door." "Ohh!" "Ow." "Uh, s... uh, that first step might be just a little..." "Hey, yeah, thanks for the warning, Jenkins." "Th-this is Boston." "You moved the annex to Boston?" "No." "Just the door." "Does no one listen?" "It's an Einstein-Rosen bridge." "It's a wormhole." "The back door's on the east coast..." "And the front door..." "Is still on the west coast." "Wait, wait." "We can go anywhere we want in the world?" "Absolutely anywhere that has a door." "Still working out the kinks." "You know, it doesn't stay open very long and it's not the most accurate thing." "Well, frankly, getting the right city is a win." "Any door?" "Like, say..." "A bank-vault door?" "I'm asking for a mate." "We do this, you do what I say, when I say." "Clear?" " Good luck." " What?" "Nothing." "Go away." "I'm working." "Eight of our interns have gone missing." "Golden Axe foods is one of the oldest companies in the world." "Over the decades... the... centuries, no matter war, famine, plague," "Golden Axe always prevails." "And we've done so through integrity." "So the idea of any wrongdoing is..." "Well, I, for one, am shocked." "Franklin, did you know about this?" "I'm also shocked." "And your interest in this, Miss..." "Colonel Baird, NATO Counterterrorism." "I am less shocked." "You think our interns were terrorists?" "You're big agribusiness." "You have access to the food supply." "We prefer not to take any chances." "Miss Willis?" "The Tokyo office is on the line." "Not now, Jennie." "Well, as C.E.O. of Golden Axe," "I am, of course, deeply concerned about this chain of events." "But I don't know how much more I can tell you." "We throughput interns pretty quickly here." "Most don't have the skills to compete." "You know, why don't you speak to Human Resources?" "I'm sure they have the records of the people you're looking for." "Would you show them the way?" "Mr. Franklin, Tokyo really needs to confirm" " the shipping price." " Hai?" " They know something." " How do you know they know something?" "Eight missing interns, they should have buried us in lawyers, not danced us straight in to meet Karen Willis, the C.E.O." "She wanted to size us up, find out what we know." "So, they now know that we know something?" "But do we now know that they know something more" " than just knowing we know something?" " I'll bet you whatever they're about to show us in the H.R." "Is gonna be faked up, you know, just for show." "The originals might be on the main server if I can find the server room." "We just passed it back there." "Yeah, air seals for climate control, most security I've seen on this floor." "Good." "You three go to H.R." "If she wants to put on a show, you're the audience." "I'm gonna break into the server room." "Uh, Ezekiel Jones, world-class thief." "Why am I playing audience and you're burglar?" "Because I want the three of you together, safe, in a place that is very boring." "What I say, when I say it." "Excuse me?" "Restroom?" "Down the hall." "Go ahead." "I'll catch up." "Hai." "Domo." "Please." "I'll wait for your friend." "Room 014." "Go left, left, then right." "We should have warned Baird that guy was going back after her." "Hey, she's the one who sends us on a snipe hunt." "Let her sweat a little." "What did he say, a left, a left, and a right?" "You are not servers." "Look at this." "Looks like Greek frescos." "This is late Helladic, I think." "Now, why would these be down here in the basement?" "More like subbasement." "Did we go down a level and nobody noticed?" "Guys, could we just hurry up and find Human Resources?" "This lighting is giving me a headache." "Are you sure it's not your brain grape about to pop?" "Okay, new rule... how about we not refer to" " the tumor that will one day kill me as a "brain grape"?" " Ah." "Here we go." "And I was worried we were getting lost." "You are not Human Resources." "Go." "Go." "Baird!" "I'm texting you some pictures." "I found something real weird." "Oh, did you?" "We found something weird, too." "I found a room full of really old art." "That is weird." "We found a room full of human skulls!" "What do you mean, human skulls?" "How many ways can I mean "human skulls"?" "Left, then left, then right guys." " This doesn't make any sense." " Wait a minute." "This is not late Helladic." "This is Minoan." "There's barely any complete Minoan art known to exist." "Minoan." "Why do I know that name?" "Greek mythology." "Theseus and the Minotaur." "Big monster." "Head of a bull, inescapable labyrinth." "Theseus had a big ball of thread." "He used it so he wouldn't get lost." "This place is... kind of labyrinth-y." "And I'm looking at a really old ball of thread." "Well, that's clearly stupid." "There is no way, under a skyscraper, we're in a labyrinth." "Oh!" "Okay." "Maybe we are in a labyrinth." "Let's go." "Yes?" "Jenkins, quick question." "Any chance someone could have re-created the Minotaur's labyrinth in a skyscraper in Boston?" "Goodness, no." "Don't be absurd." "Even assuming you had enough power, you would need a magnificent collection of ancient Minoan artifacts to focus it." "The Librarians are in the labyrinth." "I sent them there alone." "Why?" "To keep them safe." "That was a very bad idea." "Uh, although I will say I'm impressed." "We've had guardians lose Librarians in the past, of course, but never three in one day." "It will be quite some time before anyone beats that." "So how do we get them out?" "You don't." "It's a labyrinth." "The whole point is you can't get out." "Well, what about your magic back door?" "Can't you open that inside the labyrinth?" "Colonel, I told you, I was lucky we found Boston." "I-I can't pinpoint them in the maze." "Okay, so what about that other thing you said, symbolic whosey-flopper whatchamacallit thingamajigy?" "The labyrinth isn't just a maze." "It's a magic maze, all right?" "It exists in more than three dimensions." "And you know what I seriously doubt?" "Putting an extra-dimensional hole in a multi-dimensional space is a very good idea." "That was not a request." "Guys, wait." "Something isn't..." "Mm." "Just give me a minute." "No, no, no, no, no, no." "This is not the time, kid, okay?" " We got to run because..." " No!" "No, no, no, no." "Do not say "because the Minotaur is coming."" "Because there is no Minotaur, and I'll tell you why." "In your myth, uh, what's-his-face?" "Theseus!" "Yeah, right." "He killed the Minotaur." "So the Minotaur is dead." "And if he's dead, he's not here." "Right?" "Right?" "Right?" "Ugh." "This is wrong." "The hallway we were in before should cut through here." "But it doesn't." "I-it's impossible." "Wait, guys." "I think we should go this way." "That's great." "I'm stuck in a magic maze with two of the least reliable people I know." "Wait." "Least reliable?" "You know what?" "You have been on my case nonstop." "Why am I unreliable?" "Not now, all right?" "We got to move." "I know." "I betrayed you that first time, so..." "Not now." "Hey." "I was scared." "I have a death sentence inside my head and they offered me a cure, so what was I supposed to do?" "Not sell us out." "So self-righteous." ""Look at me and all I've sacrificed." "I'm such a good boy."" "Well, I take my responsibilities seriously." " Shh!" " And you made your bed." "I didn't get a choice in mine." "So you don't get to judge me for..." "There's a pattern." "Pattern, pattern." "Pattern, pattern." "Circles insides of squares inside of triangles." "That's why I have the headache." "My brain knew that we were in a maze before we even realized it ourselves." "I can see it." "Kind of." "Can you kind of get us out of here?" "Oi!" "Whatever issues you two are having, save it." "I say we follow the brain grape." "We are not calling it a brain grape!" "Follow the brain grape." "This way." "Ha!" " Where next?" " Kind of more guessing than knowing, but..." "I guess this way." "One short, one long, two short." "What, Morse code?" "It's an "L" For "Librarians"?" "It's Baird." "Let's go." "Anyone else worried that the monster heard" " those gunshots, too?" " I'm hoping we find Baird first." "Human resources... so safe, so boring." "Go on." "Come on." "Do it, do it." "Ooh!" "We have to hold out as long as we can!" "Well, I'll be damned." "I did not think that would work with a cabinet door." "Go!" "Go!" "Uh, a symbolic representation of you in the labyrinth." "That's a trick I won't be trying anytime soon again." "So..." "First time out." "How did it go?" "As far as we can tell, ma'am, she doesn't seem" " to have disturbed anything." " Why was she in here?" "She can't know what we're doing unless..." "No, there's only one Librarian," " and he was just spotted in..." " Budapest, I think." "Expedite the time table just in case." "Start tomorrow with that blonde idiot at my desk." "Honestly, how hard is it to knock?" "And if these people come back?" "They won't." "Nobody escapes the labyrinth." "It's the thread." "The thread?" "There's all this other stuff." "Magic has three parts..." "power to change reality, focus to direct that change, and an effect, that change in the real world." "The effect would be the labyrinth, right?" "Mm-hmm." "Created by the focus of the Minoan artifacts." "Mr. Stone, you have a knack for this." "But the power that holds it all together, that's the original thread in the myth, millennia old." " Millennia means thousands of years." " Yes, thank you." "If you take the thread out, it would be like taking the battery out of a car." "Yes." "Crude analogy, but totally accurate." "We destroy the thread, and the entire multi-dimensional hoo-ha collapses in on itself with a whoosh." "All we have to do is get past that Minotaur." "Yeah." "Everything I have on minotaurs." "Nasty creatures, hold a grudge." "I put seven rounds into the thing, and it still got back up." "There are many immortal beings that can be injured but not killed." "Nicholas Flamel, the wandering Jew, the black mask." "Sources reported him killed many times, but he always seems to pop up when needed." "If I can't kill this thing, what am I supposed to do?" "Colonel, the library chose you for a reason." "And, trust me, it wasn't because of your ability to kill." "We're not gonna save Henry Birch." "Well, then, we get him justice." "We're here to protect innocent people from out-of-control magic." "I say this qualifies." "Golden Axe Foods has the labyrinth in its basement." "Tell me why." "Well, the myth is that the King imprisoned the Minotaur in the labyrinth." "Every 7 years, he sends down 14 virgins... seven men, seven women... for a sacrifice." "Good luck finding 14 virgins these days." "The Greek words for "virgin" are eitheos and parthenos." "They both literally mean unmarried man and woman." "It could mean youth, it could mean inexperience." "Interns." "Okay." "So, in the myth, what did the King get for his sacrifices?" "He gets power." "He gets prosperity and wealth." ""Through war, famine, plague, Golden Axe will always prevail."" "The myth calls for 14 sacrifices." "They're gonna kill six more people if we don't do anything about it." "Six more people are gonna be screaming, run down by that." "At least." "I mean, this has been going on for centuries." "Who's to say they're ever gonna stop?" "We have to get that thread." "Have I mentioned you know a world-class thief?" "Relentlessly." "So, the cases themselves have some heavy-duty security." "Paulco taser nets are built-in." "Touch one of the cases without deactivating the nets, and, zap, 50,000 volts." "But the trick is getting back into that building, past that monster." "And tunneling underground is obviously out of the question." "Guys." "That's impossible." "This is exactly like the frescos that were in the..." "We're back in the labyrinth." "Okay." "So, I've got a phone signal but no GPS." "How is this happening?" "Sorry." "Could you tell me where the nearest subway is?" "Sure... take a raft at Boybridge Street, go four blocks down, then go late at mart." "Oh, and here in Bossville, we call it the Q." "Thanks." "Yes?" "Jenkins, quick question." "We're on the street outside the annex but we seem to be back in the labyrinth." "Huh." "So..." "Annoying or cryptic, those are your two speeds, huh?" "It's possible the labyrinth isn't just a place." "It... is a lingering effect." " Like a curse?" " Yes." "The labyrinth won't let you out." "It's confusing your senses, warping space around you." "It doesn't matter where you go, you'll get lost, eventually wandering back into its clutches." "Fascinating." "So, how do we find the thread and shut down the maze if we're stuck in the maze?" "Huh." "If you say "huh" one more time, so help me..." "Colonel Baird." "Colonel Baird?" "!" "Run!" "Jenkins, the Minotaur's in the maze with us." " Get us out of here!" " I told you," "I cannot pull that trick off twice." "Um..." "But..." "Perhaps I could use the labyrinth itself to buy you some time." "He's right behind us!" "The labyrinth, well, it confuses senses, distorts space." "I can actually amplify that effect, create a-a dimensional bubble around you, so confusing even the Minotaur can't find you." "For how long?" "Uh, five minutes." "Maybe less." "Certainly not more." "Uh, good luck, Colonel." "Oh, and run." "Come on." "Okay." "Stay calm." "I've been in worse spots than this before." "Well, that strains credibility." " Stone, you take point." " All right." "Ezekiel, watch the rear." " And there's a high roof up there." " There isn't." "You heard what Jenkins said." "The labyrinth is just trying to confuse us." "Even if it was there, we couldn't reach it." "It's not a suggestion." "It's an order." "And I'm not a soldier." "You're right." "I am, but you're not." "You're librarians." "Librarians win because of what they know." "So, what do you know?" "Come on, guys." "What do you know?" "Uh, Theseus, bloke from the story, he went into the maze and killed the Minotaur." "A Minotaur can't be killed." "Well, then, how did he escape?" "You said the Minotaur was imprisoned inside the labyrinth." "Every prison I've ever seen had a control center inside the walls." "Your man Theseus, maybe he didn't go to the center to try and kill the Minotaur." "Maybe he went to the center to pull the plug on the maze," " same as us." " What do you want to bet that maze leads back to those artifacts?" "No, 'cause I was in that artifacts room and I wasn't... key card." "I used that stolen key card." "The executive key cards keep them from getting lost in the labyrinth." "We don't try to escape." "We go deeper in." "I can get us to the center." "My brain started trying to figure out the maze when I was in it before." "I've seen, experienced more of it now." "I bet I can get us through." "Okay." "Cassandra's our thread." "Follow her." "Outrun the Minotaur, steal the power source for the maze, shut it down." "Librarians, we have a plan." "The labyrinth." "Imagine a building where every floor has a different layout." "Sometimes, when you walk around, you move between floors without even knowing it." "So, from your perspective, the layout looks different." "But if you know what floor you're on," " it makes perfect sense." " Sure." "Duh." "Just need to know how many floors are in the building." "That number, all the core geometry's gonna be based on that." "Without it..." "It's gonna be seven." "Seven's the number." "The myth is built on seven." "Seven male victims, seven female, sacrificed every seven years." "Seven." "Seven is violet." "Three seven-dimensional polytypes." "Seven-simplex, seven-cube, seven-orthoplex." "There aren't enough vertices." "It's a demihepteract." "Gotcha." "Okay." "Is this the way in?" "It's the way back to the annex." "Probably." "Maybe." "Whoa!" "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!" "Where are you going?" "We have to split up, and you don't want to be" " in the labyrinth when it goes poof." " We're staying together." "I'm not letting you out of my sight again." "If we stick together, he's got us." "This doesn't work unless someone distracts Mr. Stompy." "Fine." "I'll distract him." "On your own, you don't stand a chance." "And if he kills you, then he's gonna chase us down." "So we send these two in alone?" "Oh, Cassandra to find the center, me to grab the thread." "It's the only way." "You can't protect us all." "How much time do you need?" "10 minutes to find the center." "Five to crack the case holding the thread." "15 minutes, check." " Don't jump the gun." " Don't lose the bull." "And don't stray off the path." "Good hunting." "Remember, we do this..." "I know." "Smarter, not harder." "I got it." "Yo!" "Come on, boy." "He's gaining on us." "7 times 7 is 49. 49 times 7 is 343." "Wait." "It's here." "It's right here." "Good for math." "This way!" "We're not gonna make it." "What are you doing?" "I'll buy you as much time as I can." " What?" " Go!" "No!" "Baird!" "Seven points on a heptagon." "Seven is a mersenne prime." "Two to the third minus one equals seven." "I..." "I can't do it." "No, I can't do it." "Seven dimensions." "It's... it's too much." "I can't." " Seven's nothing." " Mm-hmm." "Leaves you with, what, three fingers?" "I once stole a gun out of a cop's hand using three fingers." "Stone was right." "You can't trust me." "I let everyone down." "If I was in your shoes, with that thing growing in my head," "I'd have sold everybody out for a cure, too." "The only difference is, I would have stuck the landing, let Flynn die, let the Serpent Brotherhood win, let the world burn." "But you didn't." "Yeah, you screwed people over, but you didn't let them down." "I just can't hold it, though." "It's too much." "So, close your eyes." "Focus on your other senses." "My other senses and I don't get along so well." "Brain grape." "So I'll be your other senses." "Shut your eyes and see the map inside your head." "I'll lead you through." "You really trust me to do that?" "I'm the thief that bails on everybody." "Pretty sure you're the one trusting me." "Okay." "We need to go down and to the left." "That's good." "Good." "Good." "Ohh!" "Look at that... smarter and harder." "You did it." "We made it." "Oh." " You okay?" " Yeah." "Go." "I just need to count down from seven." "Seven is violet." "Six is indigo." "Five is blue." "Shut down the tasers, pop the case," " and grab the thread." " Four..." "Five minutes is all we need." "You don't have it." "Who are you?" "We're the Librarians." "We accept your surrender." "There's only one Librarian, and you are not him." "But something has changed." "There's more magic in the world, more power to our sacrifices." "Golden Axe, in one form or another, has been sacrificing innocents to the labyrinth for 3,000 years and we have never seen a stock bump like we got off our last offering." "We made it." "Is he still behind us?" "Assume yes." "You are the first modern people to reach the center." "No intern has ever managed that." "Kids today, there's no initiative." "You're a more old-fashioned, ritual-sacrifice kind of person." "I single-handedly modernized the process." "I said, "let's amortize."" "Spread the sacrifices out over the year instead of doing them all at once." "Increases the overhead, but the decrease in visibility means the return on investment is even higher on a per-intern basis." "Hey, you got to spend money to make money." "I get it." "Let's say we all part as friends." "You know, I'm not sure if shooting you here counts towards our 14 or if the Minotaur has to make the kill itself." "I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I see the market returns." "Oh!" "Huh." "Only two of you." "Frankly, I never thought that they were cut out for..." "That thing is trying to get into my annex?" "You led that back here?" "Not now!" "Aah!" "Oh!" "Hey!" "This is delicate." "That's good, too." "Come on, then." "Give me that thread." "If you drop it, we're all doomed." "Uh, any ideas?" "Jenkins." "He said that magic depends on symbols." "What better symbol of our labyrinth than a straight line wrapped around and around and around itself?" "Here, catch." "No!" "The labyrinth." "The labyrinth!" "I believe I said, "with a whoosh!"" "Cassandra." "Jones." "Got it." "Ha." "Whoa!" "Come on." "We made it." "Yeah." "You did." "This time, you did." "Okay." "Should have seen her." "No hiding, took the fight right to the big bad." "And Ezekiel, I mean, he did kind of save the day by bailing on me." "Told you." "I don't do punchy." "Well done." "May I?" "Now, without this to serve as a power source, the labyrinth should shrivel up and wink out of existence, eventually." "We ought to lock that up." "Yes, well, we don't have the facilities of the main library, but I'll think of something." "What about Willis?" "I mean, I know we stopped her, but shouldn't she go to jail or something for what she did to Henry Birch and the others?" "I wouldn't worry about Ms. Willis." "She imprisoned a Minotaur... nasty creatures." "Hold a grudge." "Those people do not know who they're messing with." "Librarians or not, we will find them, destroy them, and get back what we have..." "Hey." "Look, um, things got a little heated in there." "Don't worry about it." "I'm not." "I'm kind of worried about what you said to me." "You know, if we're gonna work together," " you're gonna need to trust..." " Nobody knows." "Nobody back home knows about this." "I have kept it a secret... for 20 years." "Why would you hide that?" "You're a genius." "You know about culture and art and beautiful things." "I told you before." "Family ain't ever easy." "You don't... no." "That's enough for now." "Look... the point is," "I'm used to keeping my life separated, all right?" "My family, my friends, I like 'em." "No problem." "Work right alongside 'em, any of 'em." "But I don't trust a single one of them..." "To tell m..." "I like you, Cassie." "There's no way around it." "I just do." "But I trusted you, and, uh..." "I learned my lesson." "Um, not... it's not..." "look." "It always ends bad." "So..." "Old way's best." "So, end of day, not too bad for a first time out, was it?" "You did okay." "I..." "I could do better." "I spent my entire adult life in the military." "Everybody fits into a box." "You don't." "You're not assets to be protected." "You're not soldiers I can order around." "I don't know what you are." "Well, maybe the term you're looking for is "partners."" "Fair enough." "Can you go back to the part where you said we were awesome?" "I said you did okay." "Yeah, but I'm gonna take that as we rule." "Mostly me." "You guys were... okay." " "Okay"?" "I did math." " True." " Points for math." " Thank you." "Stone, though, you mostly just got beat up." "I do rule."