Alcatraz (17 page)

‘Bastille!’
I shouted.

She did not move.
The creature loomed over her.

Now, as I’ve tried to explain, I wasn’t a particularly brave boy.
But it has been my experience that doing something brave is much like saying something stupid.

You rarely plan on it happening.

I charged the Alivened monster.
It turned toward me, stepping away from Bastille, and raised its arm to swing.
I somehow managed to duck the blow.
Stumbling, I reached up and grabbed the sword in the creature’s chest.
I pulled it free.

Or, rather, I pulled the hilt free.

I stumbled back, raising the hilt to swing before I realized that the crystal blade was still sticking in the monster’s chest.

Behind me, Sing’s shotgun began to click, out of ammunition.

I lowered my hand, staring at the hilt.
My Talent, unpredictable as always, had broken the sword.
I stood for a long moment – far longer, undoubtedly, that I should have in those circumstances.
I gripped the broken hilt.

And began to grow angry.

All my life, my Talent had ruled me.
I’d pretended to go along with it, pretended that I was the one in control, but that had been a sham.
I’d purposely driven my foster families away because I’d known that sooner or later, the Talent would do it for me – no matter what I wanted.

It was my master.
It defined who I was.
I couldn’t be myself – whoever that was – because I was too busy getting into trouble for breaking things.

Grandpa Smedry and the others called my Talent a blessing.
Yet I had trouble seeing that.
Even during the infiltration, it seemed like the Talent had been only accidentally useful.
Power was nothing without control.

The Alivened stepped forward, and I looked up, teeth clenched in frustration.
I gripped the sword hilt tightly.

I don’t want this
, I thought.
I never wanted any of this!
Bastille wanted to be an Oculator .
.
.
well, I just wanted one thing
.

To be normal!

The hilt began to break in my hand, the carefully welded bits of steel falling free and clinking to the ground.
‘You want breaking?’
I yelled at the Alivened.
‘You want
destruction
?’

The creature swung at me, and I screamed, slamming my hand palm-forward to the floor.
A surge of Talent electrified my body, focusing through my chest and then down my arm.
It was a jolt of power like I’d never summoned before.

The floor broke.
Or perhaps
shattered
would be a more appropriate word.
Exploded
would have worked, except that I just used that one a bit earlier.

The stone blocks shook violently.
The Alivened stumbled, the floor beneath it surging like waves on an ocean.
Then the blocks dropped.
They fell away before me, tumbling toward the level beneath.
Bookshelves in the massive library room below were smashed as blocks of stone rained down, accompanied by an enormous paper monster.

The Alivened hit the ground, and there was a distinct shattering noise.
It did not rise.

I spun wildly, dropping the last bits of the sword hilt.
Sing was furiously reloading the shotgun.
I brushed by him, charging the second Alivened.
I reached to touch the ground, but the massive beast jumped, moving quickly out of the way.
It was obviously smart enough to see what I had just done to its companion.

I raised a hand, slamming it into the jumping creature’s chest.
Then I released my Talent.

There was a strange, instant backlash – like hitting something solid with a baseball bat.
I was thrown backward, my arm blazing with sudden pain.

The Alivened landed in a stumble.
It stood for a moment, teetering.
Then it exploded with a whooshing sound, a thousand crumpled sheets of paper erupting in an enormous, confetti-like burst.

I sat for a moment, staring.
I blinked a few times, then lifted my hurt arm, wincing.
Paper filled the corridor, bits fluttering around us.

‘Wow,’ Sing said, standing up.
He turned around, looking at the massive pit I had created.
‘Wow.’

‘I .
.
.
didn’t really do that intentionally,’ I said.
‘I just kind of let my power go, and that’s what happened.’

‘I’ll take it, either way,’ Sing said, resting the shotgun on his shoulder.

I climbed to my feet, shaking my arm.
It didn’t seem broken.
‘Bastille,’ I said, stumbling over to her.
She was moving, fortunately, and as I arrived she groaned, then managed to sit up.
Her jacket looked .
.
.
shattered.
Like the windshield of a car after it collides with a giant penguin.

Blasted giant penguins.

I tried to help Bastille to her feet, but she shook off my hands with annoyance.
She stumbled a bit as she stood, then pulled off her jacket, looking at the spiderweb of lines.
‘Well, I guess that’s useless now.’

‘Probably saved your life, Bastille,’ Sing said.

She shrugged, dropping it to the floor.
It crackled like glass as it hit the stones.

‘Your jacket was made of glass?’
I asked, frowning.

‘Of course,’ Bastille said.
‘Defender’s Glass.
Yours isn’t?’

‘Uh .
.
.
no,’ I said.

‘Then why wear something so atrocious?’
she said, stumbling over to the hole in the floor.
‘You did this?’
she asked, looking over at me.

I nodded.

‘And .
.
.
is that my sword down there, broken and shattered in a pile of books?’

‘Afraid so,’ I said.

‘Lovely,’ she grumbled.

‘I was trying to save your life, Bastille,’ I said.
‘Which, I might point out, I
succeeded
in doing.’

‘Yeah, well, next time try not to bring down half the building when you do.’

But I detected the barest hint of a smile on her lips when she said it.

15

M
oron.

It has been my experience that most problems in life are caused by a lack of information.
Many people just don’t know the things they need to know.

Some ignore the truth; others never understand it.

When two friends get mad at each other, they usually do it because they lack information about each other’s feelings.
Americans lack information about Librarian control of their government.
The people who pass this book on the shelf and don’t buy it lack information about how wonderful, exciting, and useful it is.

Take, for instance, the word that started this chapter.
You lacked information when you read it.
You likely assumed that I was calling you an insulting name.
You assumed wrong.
Moron
is actually a village in Switzerland located near the Jura mountain range.
It’s a nice place to live if you hate Librarians, for there is a well-hidden underground rebellion there.

Information.
Perhaps you Hushlanders have read about Bastille and the others referring to guns as ‘primitive,’ and have been offended.
Or, perhaps, you simply thought the text was being silly.
In either case, maybe you should re-evaluate.

The Free Kingdoms moved beyond the use of guns many centuries ago.
The weapons became impractical for several reasons – some of which should be growing apparent from this narrative.
Smedry Talents and Oculator abilities are not the only strange powers in the Free Kingdoms – and most of these abilities work better on items with large numbers of moving parts or breakable circuits.
Using a gun against a Smedry, or one similarly talented, is usually a bad idea.

(This comes down to simple probability.
The more that can go wrong with an item, the more that will.
My computer – when I used to use one – was always about one click away from serious meltdown.
My pencil, however, remains to this day remarkably virus-free.)

And so, many of the world’s soldiers and warriors have moved on from guns, instead choosing weapons and armors created from Oculatory sands or silimatic technology.
They don’t often associate these items with their ancient counterparts – the people of the Free Kingdoms never got much beyond muskets before they moved on to using sand-based weapons – and so they think that guns are the primitive weapons.
It makes sense, if you look at it from their perspective.

And anyone who’s not willing to do that .
.
.
well, they might just be a moron.
Whether or not they live there.

‘Sing, put those primitive guns away!’
Bastille snapped, stepping away from the hole in the floor.
‘Those shattering things are so loud that half the library must have heard your racket!’

‘They’re effective, though,’ Sing said happily, changing the clips in a pair of his pistols.
‘They stopped that Alivened long enough for Alcatraz to take it down.
I didn’t see your sword doing half as well.’

Bastille grumbled something, then paused, frowning.
‘Why is it so hot in here?’

I cursed, turning toward the glowing, smoking stones around the Firebringer’s Lens.
The floor looked dangerously close to becoming molten.

‘I still can’t believe old Smedry gave you a Firebringer’s Lens,’ Bastille said.
‘That’s like .
.
.’

‘Giving a bazooka to a four-year-old?’
I asked.
I edged as close to the heated stones as I could stand.
‘That’s kind of what I feel like when I pick the thing up.’

‘Well, turn it off!’
Bastille said.
‘Quickly!
You think Sing’s guns were loud – using an Oculatory Lens that powerful will draw Blackburn’s attention for certain.
The longer you leave it on, the more loud it will seem!’

The reference to loudness probably doesn’t make much sense to non-Oculators.
After all, the Lens didn’t make any noise.
However, as I tried to figure out a way to turn off the Firebringer’s Lens, I realized that I could
feel
it.
Even though I’d only been aware of my Oculatory abilities for a short time, I was already getting in synch with them enough to sense when a powerful Lens was being used nearby.

The point is, I knew Bastille was right.
I needed to turn that Lens off quickly.
If Blackburn hadn’t heard the gunfire, then he’d certainly notice the Lens ‘noise’.

‘Sing, loan me that shotgun,’ I said urgently, waving with my hand.

Sing reluctantly relinquished the weapon.
As soon as I touched it, the barrel fell off – but I was ready for that.
I grabbed the tube of steel and used it to flip the Firebringer’s Lens over.
The Lens was convex, meaning it bulged out on one side, and now that it was flipped over it looked like a translucent eyeball staring up out of the ground.
It continued to fire its superhot ray of light, which was now directed at the ceiling.

I used the barrel of the gun to scoot the Lens away from the heated section of the floor, then carefully reached out.
I gritted my teeth – expecting to get burned – and touched the side of the Lens.

Remarkably (as I’ve mentioned before) the glass wasn’t even hot.
As soon as I touched it, the Lens shut off, the ray of light dwindling.
I stepped back, surprised at how cold and dark the corridor now seemed by comparison.

‘My shotgun,’ Sing said despondently as I handed back the barrel.
‘This was an antique!’

That’s what happens when you stay around me, Sing
, I thought with a sigh.
Things you love get broken.
Even when I don’t do it on purpose
.

‘Oh, get off it, Sing,’ Bastille said.
‘I lost my sword – you can’t even
understand
how much trouble I’ll be in for that.
I was already bonded to the shattering thing; now I’ll have to start the process all over, if they even let me.
Next to that, your gun is nothing.’

Sing sighed but nodded as Bastille reached into her handbag and pulled out a large, crystalline knife.
You may, by the way, have noticed the connection between the word Crystin and the weapons made of crystal that Bastille uses.
This is actually just a coincidence.
Crystin is the Vendardi word for ‘grumpy,’ which all Crystins tend to be.
And I think .
.
.

Nah, I’m just kidding.
They got the name because they use crystal swords.
Plus, they live in a big castle (dubbed Crystallia) made of – you guessed it – crystals.
That clear enough?
Crystal clear?

Ahem.

‘I’m out of bullets for the Uzis too,’ Sing said, looking in his bag.
‘Small weapons for us both, I guess.’

I knelt down and tentatively poked the Firebringer’s Lens, still trying to pick it up off the floor.
It began to glow.
Blast
!
I thought and touched it again.
The glow dissipated.

‘Try being dumb,’ Bastille suggested.

‘Excuse me?’
I asked, frowning.

‘Think dumb thoughts,’ Bastille said.
‘Or try not to think very much at all.
The Lenses react to information and intelligence.
So, it’s easiest to handle them when there isn’t much of either one around.’

I paused.
Then I frowned and looked at the Lens trying my best to be .
.
.
well, stupid.
I would like to note that this is quite a bit more difficult that it might sound.
Particularly for a person like me, who can be (has this been mentioned?) rather clever.

Not only is it against a rashional purson’s nature to try and convince himself that he is more stoopid than he thinks he is, it is quite dificult to not think about
anything
when one has been told not to.
Only the trooly most briliant of peeple can purrtend stoopidity so sucessfuly.

Butt eet kan bee dun.

I closed my eyes and tried to empty my mind.
Then I reached for the Lens.
It started to glow.
I frowned, then tapped it before it could go off.

‘Maybe we should just leave it,’ Sing said nervously.
‘Before someone sees us.’

‘Too late,’ Bastille said, nodding down the hallway, to where a group of robed Librarians had just appeared around a corner.
They looked quite anxious, and I suspected that Bastille had been right in her earlier comment.
The gunfire had been heard.

Bastille glanced at them through her sunglasses, then flipped her knife in her hand, raising it to throw.

‘No!’
I said.
‘Wait!’

Dutifully, she paused.
The Librarians scattered, several racing back the way they had come.

‘Why did you stop me?’
Bastille asked testily.

‘Those aren’t paper monsters, Bastille,’ I said.
‘Those are unarmed people.
We can’t just kill them.’

‘We’re at war, Alcatraz.
Those people are the enemy.
Plus, they’re going to alert Blackburn!’

I shrugged.
‘It just didn’t feel right.
Besides, there were too many for you to kill them all.
We can’t keep our escape secret any longer.’

Bastille snorted but otherwise fell silent.
Either way, I didn’t have any more time for acting stupid.
I grabbed the Lens – it began to glow – and quickly shoved it back inside its velvet pouch.
Then I reached in and tapped it off with a finger.
I pulled the bag shut, then stuffed it in my pocket.

‘Let’s go, then,’ I said.

Bastille nodded.
Sing, however, had moved over to the pile of ripped, shredded papers that were the remnants of the Alivened.
‘Alcatraz,’ he said.
‘There’s something here you should see.’

‘What?’
I asked, hurrying over.
As I approached, I could see that in the center of the pile, Sing had found what appeared to be a portion of the Alivened that was still .
.
.
well,
alive
ned.

It sat up as I arrived, causing Sing to point a pistol at it.
The creature was smaller now, and it was much more human-shaped.
However, it was still made of crumpled-up paper, and now that I was close, I could see that it had two beady, glasslike eyes.

I frowned, looking at Sing.
‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sing said.
‘Of course, I don’t know a lot about Alivening.
It’s Dark Oculary.’

‘Why?’
I asked, watching the three-foot-tall paper man with suspicious eyes.

‘Bringing an inanimate thing to life this way is evil,’ Bastille said.
‘To do it, the Oculator has to give up a bit of his own humanity and store it in Glass of Alivening.
That’s what those eyes are made of.
Shoot it, Sing.
If you hit it in the eye, you may be able to kill it.’

The little paper creature cocked its head, quizzically staring down the barrel of the gun.

I looked back at Bastille.
‘They give up a bit of their own humanity?
What does that mean?’

‘They let the glass drain them of things,’ Bastille explained.

‘Things?
That’s specific.’

From the side, I could see Bastille narrow her eyes behind her sunglasses, staring at the little creature with suspicion.
‘Human things, Alcatraz.
Things like the capacity to love, protect others, and have mercy.
Each time an Oculator creates an Alivened, he makes himself a little less human.
Or, at least, he makes himself a little less like the kind of human the rest of us would want to associate with.’

Sing nodded.
‘Most Dark Oculators think the transformation is an advantage.’
He reached down with his free hand, still keeping his gun leveled at the small Alivened.
He held up a ripped bit of paper.

‘You’d think that by giving up part of his humanity,’ the anthropologist said, ‘the Dark Oculator would create a creature that possessed good emotions.
But that’s not the way it works.
The process twists the emotions, creating a creature that has just enough humanity to live, but not enough of it to really function.’