Alcatraz (81 page)
Authors: Brandon Sanderson
‘Never get involved in a land war in Asia,’ Wink added.
‘Great,’ I said.
‘So you think there’s no way out of this?’
‘The dome is going to crack soon,’ Dink said, shaking his head.
‘These burrows are coming more frequently,’ Mink said.
‘They’ll keep digging into our city, knocking more and more people into comas until there’s nobody left to fight back.’
‘Always wear a hat when feeding pigeons,’ Wink added.
All three of us looked at him.
Wink shrugged.
‘Think about it for a moment.
You’ll figure out why.’
‘So,’ Bastille said, walking up, arms folded, ‘you’re saying that if we can keep the dome from falling and protect against the people digging in, we can hold out.’
The three advisers looked at one another.
‘I guess,’ Mink said.
‘But how are you going to do
that
?’
‘Alcatraz will figure something out,’ Bastille said.
‘I will?’
‘You’d better.’
‘Never trust a three-fingered lion tamer.’
‘Why are you so sure I’ll figure something out?’
‘Because that’s what you
do
.’
‘And if I can’t this time?’
‘If you run out of toothpaste, you can make your own by mixing two parts baking soda with one part salt and some water.’
‘I just said that you would.’
‘Well, I’ll bet it would help if we could destroy those robots.’
‘How?’
‘An onion a day keeps
everyone
away.’
‘Teddy bears!
We could use those purple bear grenades, the type that destroy nonliving things.’
‘We don’t have enough of them.’
‘Don’t the Mokians have any?’
‘I checked.
They used all of theirs.’
‘Always throw paper first.’
‘Hey, guys!
What are you doing?’
‘Aydee, Alcatraz is going to come up with a brilliant plan to stop the robots.’
‘Cool!’
‘You’re always so bubbly.’
‘Kind of like soda pop.’
‘Someone needs to get you a drink, Alcatraz.’
‘I know.’
‘Boom!’
‘Did you just say, “Boom”, Alcatraz?’
‘No, that was the rock hitting the ceiling.
We
really
need to stop those!’
‘Arr!’
‘Wait, what?’
‘It’s me, Kaz.
I was going to say, “Are you guys done jabbering yet?”
But I stubbed my toe.’
‘Arr!’
‘Kaz!’
‘That time it wasn’t me.
It was Sexybeard the pirate.’
‘Hey, guys.
Arr.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Fool me three times, and I’ll hire you as my lawyer.’
‘Wait, I’m lost.’
‘That’s not surprising for you, Kaz.’
‘Who’s talking?’
‘I am.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Aluki.’
‘When did
you
get here?’
‘Oh, a page back or so.
Looked like a real dangerous conversation to get into.’
‘Alcatraz, the rocks!
We have to stop them.’
‘We need more teddy bears.
Wow.
Never thought I’d ever use
that
sentence.’
‘Nobody
has
more bears.’
‘Yes .
.
.
but I just thought of something to fix that.’
‘Should I be scared?’
‘Probably.’
‘Always remember, foursight is what Oculators have when wearing their Lenses.’
‘Shiver me timbers!’
‘All right, Aydee.
I’ve got a question for you.
It’s going to be a hard one.
The hardest math problem you’ve ever seen.’
‘Er .
.
.
I don’t know .
.
.’
‘Alcatraz, are you sure you want to do this?’
‘No.’
‘Great.
That’s comforting.’
‘It’s the best thing I’ve got right now.
Aydee, I’m going to ask you a math question, and I want you to keep the number in your head.
Only spit it out when we get done, all right?’
‘Okay .
.
.’
‘Take one and add fourteen.’
‘Er .
.
.’
‘Then take away nine.’
‘Right.’
‘Then multiply by seventy-four.’
‘Um .
.
.’
‘Then subtract three.’
‘Well .
.
.’
‘Then take the square root of that.’
‘What’s a square root?’
‘Then take one third of that.’
‘Got it.’
‘Then multiply by negative one.’
‘Okay.’
‘
What?
’
‘Hush, Bastille.
Then add the number of inches in a foot.’
‘That’s easy.’
‘It is?
I’m lost.’
‘Quiet, Kaz.
Then add eleven billion.’
‘Okay .
.
.’
‘Then subtract eleven and one billion.’
‘This is getting hard.’
‘Then take the square root of that.’
‘Oh, I remember!
A square root is a carrot that doesn’t know how to dance, right?’
‘Batten down the hatches!’
‘Then subtract one.
That’s
exactly
the number of purple bear grenades we have left.
How many have we got, Aydee?’
‘Uh .
.
.
er .
.
.
um .
.
.’
‘I think her brain is going to explode, Al.’
‘Hush.
You can do it, Aydee.
I know you can.’
‘I .
.
.
carry the one .
.
.
multiply by
i
.
Take the complex derivative of Avogadro’s number .
.
.
I’ve got it, Alcatraz!
Five thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven.
Wow!
I didn’t know we had that many bears!’
Kaz, Bastille, and I glanced at one another.
Then we looked at Kaz’s pack, which held the bears.
He took it off in a flash, throwing it away.
He was just fast enough.
The pack ripped apart and a mountain of teddy bears burst free – 5,357 of them, to be precise.
They flooded out, piling on top of one another, making a mountain of purple exploding teddy bears as large as a building.
‘Aydee, you’re amazing,’ I said.
‘Thanks!
I think I’m getting better at math.
I hope it doesn’t ruin my Talent.’
‘I think you’re fine,’ Bastille said dryly, picking herself up off the ground from where she’d ducked, anticipating the explosion of teddy bears.
‘That’s a big ol’ mound of bears,’ Kaz said, folding his arms.
‘I think it’s time to hunt us some robots.’
‘Be careful, Your Majesty,’ Wink warned.
‘Some robots are unbearable.’
‘Your Majesty,’ Mink said, brushing off her wrap.
‘Perhaps you should decide what to do with the prisoners first.’
I glanced to the side.
The guards were still standing there, watching over the group of suit-, skirt-, and bow-tie-wearing Librarians.
The Mokians looked very anxious.
The Librarians seemed bored.
‘Do we have a dungeon or something?’
I asked.
‘We should .
.
.’
I trailed off, noticing something odd.
Frowning, I stepped forward.
One of the captive Librarians, huddled near the middle, was hiding her face, looking pointedly away from me.
She had blond hair and an angular face.
As she tried to keep hidden, I caught her eyes and recognized them for certain.
‘
Mother?
’ I asked, shocked.
A
re you surprised?
My mother showed up completely unexpectedly in Tuki Tuki when I just happened to be there fighting?
How unforeseeable!
What?
You’re not surprised?
Why not?
Is it because my mother has unexpectedly shown up in
every single one of these books so far
?
(It’s a mathematical law: One point is a point, two points a line, three points a plane, four points a cliché.
I think Archimedes discovered it first.)
This plays into one of the big problems for writers.
You see, we tend to skip the boring parts.
If we didn’t, our novels would be filled of sections like this one:
I got up in the morning and brushed my teeth, then went to the bathroom and took a shower.
Nothing exciting happened.
I ate breakfast.
Nothing exciting happened.
I went out to get the newspaper.
I saw a squirrel.
It wasn’t very exciting.
Then I came in and watched cartoons.
They were boring.
I scratched my armpit.
Then I went to the bathroom again.
Then I took a nap.
My evil Librarian mot×her did not show up and harass me.
That evening, I clipped my toenails.
Yippee.
See?
You’re asleep now, aren’t you?
That was mind-numbingly, excruciatingly boring.
In fact, you’re not even reading this, are you?
You’re dozing.
I could make fun of your stoopid ears and you would never know.
HEY, YOU!
WAKE UP!
There.
You back?
Good.
Anyway, we don’t include all of that stuff because it tends to put people to sleep.
I spent months in between books two and three doing pretty much nothing other than going to the bathroom and scratching my armpits.
I tend to write about the exciting stuff.
(This introduction excepted.
Sorry.) And that’s the stuff that my mother tends to be part of.
So it’s hard to keep it surprising when she shows up, since every section I write about tends to be one where she gets involved.
So let’s start this again.
This time, do me the favor of at least
pretending
to be surprised.
Maybe hit yourself on the head with the book a few times to daze yourself.
That’ll make it easier for you to exclaim in surprise when she shows up.
(Remember, you should be acting this all out.)
Ahem.
‘
Mother?
’ I asked, shocked.
‘Hello, Alcatraz,’ the woman said, sighing.
Shasta Smedry – also known as ‘Ms.
Fletcher’ or many other aliases – wore a sharp black business suit and had her hair in a bun.
She wore thin, horn-rimmed spectacles, though she wasn’t an Oculator.
Her face had a kind of pinched look to it, as if she were perpetually smelling something unpleasant.
‘What are you
doing
here?’
I demanded, stepping up to the Mokian guards, who stood in a ring around the Librarians.
I didn’t get too close.
My mother isn’t the safest person to be around.
‘Really, Alcatraz, I would have thought you’d be more observant.
What am I doing?
Obviously, I’m helping to conquer this meaningless, insignificant city.’
I eyed her, and her image
wavered
slightly.
I was shocked by that, but I was currently wearing my Oculator’s Lenses.
They read auras of things with Oculatory power, but they could do other, strange things.
Things like give me a nudge to notice something I should have seen.
In this case, I realized what I should do.
I took the Oculator’s Lenses off and tucked them away.
Then I got out my single Truthfinder’s Lens, which was suspended in a set of spectacles that was missing the other Lens.
I slipped this on, smiling at my mother.
She shut her mouth, looking dissatisfied.
She knew what that Lens was.
She wouldn’t be able to lie, at least not without me spotting it.
‘Let me repeat the question,’ I said.
‘What are you doing here?’
My mother folded her arms.
Unfortunately, there was an easy way to defeat the Truthfinder’s Lens: by not talking.
But fortunately, keeping my mother from saying snide remarks is like keeping me from saying stoopid ones: theoretically possible, but never observed in the wild.
‘You’re a fool,’ Shasta finally said.
Puffs of white smoke came from her mouth, visible only to my single Truthfinder-covered eye.
She was telling the truth – or, at least, what she saw as the truth.
‘This city is doomed.’
More white.
‘Why did you come here, Alcatraz?
You should have stayed safe in Nalhalla.’
‘Safe?
In a city where you kidnapped me and nearly let your Librarian allies slaughter my friends?’
‘That was unfortunate,’ Shasta said.
‘I didn’t wish for it to happen.’
All true, surprisingly.
‘You let it happen anyway.
And now you’ve followed me here.
Why?’
‘I didn’t follow you here,’ she snapped.
‘I—’ She cut off, as if realizing she’d said too much.
She stopped as I smiled.
The first statement had been true.
She
wasn’t
there because of me.
She’d come for other reasons.
But why?
I doubted it was because she simply wanted to see Tuki Tuki captured.
When my mother was involved, things were always a whole lot deeper than they seemed.
‘Have you seen my father?’
I asked.
She looked away, obviously determined not to say anything.
Above, the rocks kept beating against the dome.
A chunk of glass broke free, tumbling down to the city a short distance away.
I could hear it shatter, like a thousand icicles falling off a rooftop at once.
There wasn’t time to chat with my mother right now.
‘Throw them in my dungeons,’ I said to Aluki.
‘I .
.
.
er, I do have dungeons, don’t I?’
‘Not really,’ Aluki said.
‘We’ve been keeping prisoners in the university catacombs.
They have Expander’s Glass reinforcing the walls, which would make it almost impossible for the Librarians to tunnel in and rescue them.’
‘Very well.
Throw them in the university basement and lock them away,’ I said.
I pointed at my mother.
‘Except her.
Lock her someplace
extra
safe.
And search her.
She stole a book from Nalhalla that we will want to recover.’
‘I don’t have that anymore,’ Shasta said.
Unfortunately, the Lens said she was telling the truth.
She was also smiling slyly, as if she knew something important.
She couldn’t have read it
, I thought.
Not without a pair of Translator’s Lenses.
And she didn’t come here to get my pair; she didn’t know I would be here
.
The soldiers led Shasta and the other Librarians away.
As they did, I noticed one of them watching me.
He was an older man and didn’t look anything like a soldier.
He wore a tuxedolike suit with a cravat at the neck, and he had a short, graying beard flecked with black.
He had keen, sagacious eyes.
‘Search that one too,’ I said, grabbing Aluki’s arm and pointing the man out.
‘I don’t like how he looks at me.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Aluki said.
‘You don’t like how he “looked” at you?’
Bastille asked, walking up to me.
‘There’s something about him,’ I said.
‘He’s odd.
I mean, the only reason to wear a cravat is to look distinguished and intriguing.
It’s kind of like using
sagacious
in a sentence; it’s less about what it actually means, and more about making you look smart.’
Bastille frowned, but Kaz nodded, as if understanding.
Aydee had run over to the bears and was gleefully counting them out into piles of ten.
She gave each one a hug and a name before setting it aside.
It was kind of cute, if you ignored the fact that each and every one of those bears was a live grenade.
My three counselors stood, speaking quietly next to the large pile of bears.
Bastille followed my gaze.
‘That was dangerous, what you did, Smedry.’
‘What?
Multiplying the bears?’
I shrugged.
‘It could have gone the other direction, I suppose, and Aydee’s Talent could have made our stock vanish.
But I figured that we only had a few bears left, and that wasn’t enough to do what we needed to.
So what did we have to lose?’
‘I’m not worried about what we could have lost,’ Bastille said.
‘I’m worried about what we could have
gained
.’
‘Wait?
Huh?’
(You say stuff like that a lot when you’re as dumb as I am.)
‘Shattering Glass, Smedry!
What would have happened if Aydee had said we had fifty thousand bears?
What if she’d said four or five
million
bears!
We’d have been buried in them.
You could have destroyed the city, smothering everyone inside of it.’
I cringed, an image popping into my head of purple teddy bears washing over the city.
Of the Mokians being crushed beneath the weight of a sea of pleasant plushness.
A tsunami of teddies doing the Librarians’ work for them.
A blitzkrieg of bears, a torrent of toys, an .
.
.
um .
.
.
upheaval of ursines.
Or, in simpler terms, a
shattering
lot of bears.
‘Gak!’
I said.
‘That’s right,’ Bastille said.
She wagged a finger at me.
‘Smedry Talents are dangerous, particularly in the young.
I’d have thought that you – of all people – would realize this.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a bubble in the glass, Bastille,’ Kaz said, smacking me on the arm.
‘You did great, kid.
That kind of bear firepower is
just
the kind of thing Tuki Tuki needed.’
‘It was risky,’ Bastille said, folding her arms.
‘Yeah, but I don’t think it was as dangerous as you say.
Aydee’s got one of the most powerful Prime Talents around, but I doubt she’d have been able to make
millions
of bears.
Likely, she couldn’t have destroyed the city – at best, she’d have just crushed those of us here in this field.’
‘Very comforting,’ Bastille said dryly.
‘Well, you know what my pop says.
“Danger, risks, and lots of fun.
The Smedry way!”’
Kaz, as I’ve mentioned, is a scholar of magical forces.
He knew more about Talents than anyone else alive.
In fact, that’s probably what he’d been doing here when he’d visited Tuki Tuki originally – studying at the university.
‘My lord,’ Mink – the soda-can counselor – said, approaching.
‘This boon of bears is quite timely, but how are we going to use it to destroy those robots?
They’re protected by the Librarian army!’
‘And don’t forget the tunnels,’ Dink said.
‘And always wash behind your ears,’ Wink added.
‘I need three things from you,’ I said, thinking quickly.
‘Some backpacks that will hold several of those bears, six of your fastest warriors, and some really long stilts.’
The counselors looked at one another.
‘Go!’
I said, waving.
‘That dome is about to fall!’
The three scattered, scrambling to do as I asked.
Bastille suddenly turned eastward, toward the ocean.
Toward Nalhalla.
Her eyes opened.
‘Alcatraz, I think the knights are actually coming.’
‘What?
You can see them?’
I looked eagerly.
‘I can’t see them,’ Bastille said.
‘I can
feel
them.’
She tapped the back of her neck, where the Fleshstone was set into her skin, hidden by her silvery hair.
It connected her to the Crystin Mindstone, which then connected her to all of the other Knights of Crystallia.