Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens Read online

  "Here," I said, picking up a backpack. "I made one of these for each of us too. There are two of each kind of bear in there. I figured we should all have some, just in case."

  Kaz nodded, throwing on his backpack. I shrugged mine on as well.

  "You realize,” Kaz said softly, "that the soldiers you send out to stop those robots won't be coming back."

  "What? They could run back in the tunnel, and . . ."

  And I trailed off, realizing how stoopid it sounded. The Librarians might get surprised by my tricky plan - might - but they'd never let the Mokian soldiers escape back into the tunnel after destroying the robots. Even if all of this worked out exactly as I wanted, those six men and women weren't returning. At best, they'd get captured. Maybe knocked out by Librarian coma-bullets.

  I hadn't even considered this. Perhaps because I didn’t want to. Go back and read the beginning of this chapter. Maybe now you'll start to understand what I was saying.

  I glanced at the six soldiers. Their faces were grim but determined. They carried their backpacks over their shoulders, and each held a spear. They were younger soldiers, four men and two women, who Aluki had said were their fastest runners. I could see from their eyes that they understood. As I regarded them, they nodded to me one at a time. They were ready to sacrifice for Mokia.

  They had seen what my request would demand of them, even if I hadn't. Suddenly, I felt very stoopiderlifluous.

  "I should cancel the plan," I said suddenly. “We can think of something else.”

  "Something that doesn't risk the lives of your soldiers?” Kaz said. "Kid, we're at war.”

  "I just . . ." I didn't want to be the one responsible for them going into danger. But there was nothing to be done about it. I sighed, sitting down.

  Kaz joined me. "So now . . ." he said.

  "Now we wait, I guess." I glanced upward nervously. The rocks continued to fall; the glass's cracks glowed faintly, making the dark night sky look like it was alight with lightning. Fifteen minutes. If the Librarians didn’t burrow in during the next fifteen minutes, the dome would shatter and the Librarian armies would rush in. Most of the Mokians - the ones I didn't have watching for tunnels - were already gathered on the wall, anticipating the attack.

  I blinked, realizing for the first time how tired I was. It was well after eleven at this point, and the excitement of everything had kept me going. Now I just had to wait. In many ways, that seemed like the worst thing imaginable. Waiting, thinking, worrying.

  Isn't it odd, how waiting can be both boring and nerve-wracking at the same time? Must have something to do with quantum physics.

  A question occurred to me, something I'd been wondering for a while. Kaz seemed the perfect person to ask. I shook off some of my tiredness. "Kaz,” I said, "has any of the research you've done indicated that the Talents might be . . . alive?"

  "What?" Kaz said, surprised.

  I wasn't sure how to explain. Back in Nalhalla – when we'd been in the Royal Archives (not a library) - my Talent had done some odd things. At one point, it had seemed to reach out of me. Like it was alive. It had stopped my cousin Folsom from accidentally using his own Talent against me.

  "I'm not sure what I mean,” I said lamely.

  "We've done a lot of research on Talents,” Kaz said, drawing his little circle diagram in the dirt, the one that divided up different Talents into types and power ranges. "But we don't really know much.”

  "The Smedry line is the royal line of Incarna,” I said. “An ancient race of people who mysteriously vanished.”

  "They didn't vanish,” Kaz said. “They destroyed themselves, somehow, until only our line remained. We lost the ability to read their language.”

  "The Forgotten Language," I said. “We didn’t forget it. Alcatraz the First broke it. The entire language. So that people couldn't read it. Why?”

  "I don't know," Kaz said. "The Incarna were the first to get Talents."

  "They brought them down into themselves, somehow," I said, thinking back to the words of Alcatraz the First, which I'd discovered in his tomb in the Library of Alexandria. "It was like . . . Kaz, I think what they were trying to do was create people who could mimic the power of Oculatory Lenses. Only without having to use the Lenses."

  Kaz frowned. "What makes you say that?"

  "My tongue moving while breath moves out of my lungs and through my throat, vibrating my vocal cords and -"

  "I meant,” Kaz said. "Why do you think that the Talents are like Lenses?"

  “Oh. Right. Well, a lot of the Talents do similar things to Lenses. Like Australia's Talent and Disguiser's Lenses. I did some reading on it while I was in Nalhalla. There are a lot of similarities. Shatterer's Lenses can break other glass if you look at it; that's kind of like my Talent. And then there are Traveler's Lenses, which can push a person from one point to another and ignore obstructions in between. That's kind of like what you do. I wonder if there are Lenses that work like Grandpa's power, slowing things or making them late."

  "There are,” Kaz said thoughtfully. "Educator's Lenses. When you put them on, it slows time."

  "That's an odd name."

  "Not really. Have you ever known anything that can slow down time like a boring class at school?"

  "Good point," I said.

  All in all, there were thousands of different kinds of glass that had been identified. A lot of them - like the Traveler's Lenses - were impractical to use. They were either too dangerous, took too much energy to work, or were so rare that complete Lenses of them were nearly impossible to forge.

  "Some glass is called technology,” I said, "but that's just because it can be powered by brightsand. But all glass can be powered by Oculators. I've done it before."

  "I know," Kaz said. "The boots. You said you were able to give them an extra jolt of power."

  “I did it again," I said. "With Transporter's Glass in Nalhalla."

  "Curious," Kaz said. "But Al, nobody else can do that. What makes you think this involves the Incarna?"

  “Well, neurons in my brain transmit an electrochemical signal to one another and -"

  "I mean,” Kaz interrupted. "Why do you think this has something to do with the Incarna?"

  "Because," I said. "I just have a feeling about it. Partially Alcatraz the First's writings, partially instinct. The Incarna knew about all these kinds of glass, but they wanted more. They wanted to have these powers innate inside of people. And so somehow, they made it happen - they gave us Talents. They turned us into Lenses, kind of."

  I frowned. "Maybe it's not the fact that I'm an Oculator that lets me power glass. Maybe it's the fact that I'm an Oculator and a Smedry. That's much rarer, isn't it?"

  "I only know of four who are both,” Kaz said. "You, Pop, your father, and Australia."

  "Has any research been done into people like us powering glass?"

  "Not that I know of," he confessed.

  "I'm right, Kaz,” I said. "I can feel it. The Incarna did something to themselves, something that ended with the creation of the Smedry Talents."

  Kaz nodded slowly.

  "Aren't you going to ask what makes me feel this way?"

  "Wasn't planning on it."

  "’Cuz I've got this really great comment prepared on unconscious mind interacting with the conscious mind and releasing chemical indicators in the form of hormones that influence an emotional response."

  "Glad I didn't ask, then," Kaz noted.

  "Ah well."

  Now, it may seem odd to you that I - a boy of merely thirteen years - figured out all that stuff about the Incarna, when scholars had been trying for centuries to discover it. I had some advantages, though. First, I had the unusual position of being a Smedry, an Oculator, and a holder of the Breaking Talent. From what I can determine, there hadn’t been someone who had possessed all three for thousands of years. I might have been the only one other than Alcatraz the First.

  Because of that unusual combination, I’d done some strange thi
ngs. (You've seen me do some of them in these books.) I'd seen things others hadn't, and that had led me to conclusions they couldn't have made. Beyond that, Id read what many of the other scholars - like Kaz – had written. That's part of what I'd spent my time doing in Nalhalla while I waited for the fourth book to start.

  There's a saying in the Hushlands: “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton said it first. I'm not sure how he got hit on the head with an apple while standing up so high in the air but the quote is quite good.

  I had all of their research. I had my own knowledge. Between it all, I happened to figure out the right answer.

  Kaz nodded to himself, slowly. "I think you might be on to something, kid. Some scholars have noticed the connection between types of Smedry Talents and types of glass. They've even tried to put the glasses onto the Incarnate Wheel. But your explanation goes a step further."

  He tapped the diagram he'd drawn on the floor. “I like it. Things tend to make sense once you figure out all of the pieces. We call Smedry Talents 'magic.' But I've never liked that word. They work according to their own rules. Take Aydee's power, for instance."

  "It seems pretty magical," I admitted. "Creating five thousand bears out of thin air?"

  "She didn't create them out of nothing,” Kaz said. "She's got a spatial Talent, one that changes how things are in space with relation to other things. Like my Talent. I get lost. This moves me from one place to another. Your father loses things, not himself. He can tuck something into his pocket, and it will be gone the next moment. But when he really needs it, he'll 'find' it in the pocket of a completely different outfit.

  “Aydee's Talent is actually very similar to these. Those bears, they didn't come from nowhere. She moved them from someplace. Out of a storehouse or factory; perhaps she drained the armory back in Nalhalla. That's how it always works. She's not magically making them appear; she's moving them here, and she's putting something back in their place - usually just empty air."

  "Like Transporter's Glass," I said.

  "Yes, actually," Kaz said. "Now that you mention it, that is very similar." He tapped the ground again. “So, if I get you right, you're saying that the Incarna turned people into Lenses. But something went wrong."

  "Right," I said. "That's why the Talents are hard to control, why they do such odd things some of the time."

  "And that's what your father is chasing, I warrant," Kaz said. "Didn't he say he wanted to give every person Smedry Talents?"

  "Yeah," I said. "He announced it in a big press conference, to all of Nalhalla."

  "He wants the secret,” Kaz said.

  "And my mother does too," I guessed. "It's hidden in the Forgotten Language. The trick, the method the Incarna used to turn people into Lenses. Kind of."

  "And this whole issue with the Translator's Glass was based on that," Kaz said, growing excited. "Your mother and he were searching for this same secret, and they knew they needed to be able to read the Forgotten Language to find it. So they searched out the Sands of Rashid . . ."

  "And broke up because of differences in how they'd use the abilities once they found them," I said, glancing toward the university building proper. Where my mother was locked up. "I have to talk to her, interrogate her. Maybe I can figure out if this is all correct."

  Above us, Bastille began to swear.

  I looked up; Bastille was pointing urgently. "Alcatraz! The earth is moving in a yard three streets over! I think Librarians are tunneling in over there!"

  Kaz leaped to his feet, and the six Mokian runners came alert. I glanced at the university, the place of my mother's impromptu prison. An interrogation would have to wait.

  "Let's go!" I said, dashing in the direction Bastille had pointed.

  CHAPTER 8675309

  By now, you're probably confused at what chapter this is. Some people I let read the book early were a little confused by the chapter numbers. (Wimps.)

  I did this intentionally. See, I knew it would drive Librarians crazy. Despite our many efforts to hide these books as innocent "fantasy" novels in the bookstores and libraries, the Librarians have proven too clever (or at least too meticulous) for us. They are reading my biographies, and perhaps learning too much about me. So it was time to employ some careful misdirection.

  I considered writing the whole book in l33t, but felt that would give me too much m4d ski1 1z. So it came to the chapter numbers. As you have probably noticed, Librarians don't conform to most people's stereotypes. Most of them don't even have stereos. Beyond that, they're not sweet, book-loving scholars; they're maniacal cultists bent on ruling the world. They don't like to shush people. (Unless it means quieting them permanently by sinking them in the bay with their feet tied to an iron shelving cart.) In fact, most Librarians I've seen are quite fond of loud explosions, particularly the types that involve a Smedry at the center.

  People don't become Librarians because they want to force people to be quiet, or because they love books, or because they want to help people. No, people become Librarians for only one reason: They like to put things in order. Librarians are always organizing stuff. They can't help it. You'll see them for hours and hours sitting on little stools in libraries, going over each and every book on their shelf, trying to decide if it should be moved over one or two slots. It drives them crazy when we normal people wander into their libraries and mess stuff up.

  And so, I present to you the perfect Librarian trap. They'll come along, pick up this book, and start to read it, thinking they're so smart for discovering my autobiography. The chapter titles will be completely messed up. That, of course, will make their brains explode. So if you have to wipe some gray stuff off the book, you know who read it before you.

  Sorry about that.

  Once again, I charged through the city, small retinue in tow. Being king sure seemed to involve running around in the dark a lot.

  “Kid," Kaz said, jogging beside me, "I should be on the strike team to attack the robots."

  "What?" I exclaimed. "No, Kaz. I need you here.”

  "No, you don't. You're doing just fine on your own."

  “But –”

  “Kid, with these Warrior's Lenses on, I can run faster than any of those Mokian soldiers."

  That was true; Warrior's Lenses augmented a person's physical abilities. Kaz had no trouble keeping up with the rest of us, despite his shorter legs.

  Warrior's Lenses were one of the few types that could be used by anyone, not just Oculators. It's proof that the world is so unfair that I, to this day, have never had a chance to use Warrior's Lenses. (Well, except that once, but we won't talk about that.) They're supposedly beneath Oculators, or something like that.

  "So give the Lenses to someone else," I said stubbornly.

  "Wouldn't work," he replied. "They take a lot of training to learn to use. I'll bet there aren't more than a few dozen Mokian soldiers who can use them. Otherwise, the entire army would be wearing them."

  Oh. Well, that made sense. Unfortunately.

  "Besides, kid," Kaz said, "I can use my Talent to escape from behind the Librarian lines. I might even be able to pull a few of the other runners with me. If you send me, it'll save lives."

  Now that was a good argument. If Kaz could get some of the runners out, then that would alleviate my conscience big time.

  “Are you sure you can get out?" I said softly as we ran. "Your Talent has been unpredictable lately. . . ."

  "Oh, I'll be able to get out," Kaz said. "I just can't promise when I'll get back. The Talents . . . seem like they've all been acting up lately. Aydee's goes off at the mere mention of a number, and from what Bastille tells me, your father is losing things more and more often. Something's up."

  I nodded, thinking again of how my Talent had seemed to snap out of my body at Folsom.

  "All right, you're on the team," I said. Something occurred to me at that moment. "But after you get lost, don't try to come back here. Go to Grandpa Smedry inste
ad. I want you to deliver a message for me."

  "Sure thing," Kaz said.

  “Tell him that we really, really need him here by midnight. If he doesn't arrive by then, we're doomed."

  "Midnight?" Kaz said. "That's only a few minutes away.”

  "Just do it."

  Kaz shrugged. "Okay."

  We reached an intersection between two rows of pastoral homes and hesitated. Which way to go? Only Bastille knew. A second later, she raced by, leading the way to the right. We followed her; it certainly hadn't taken her long to get down from the stilts and catch up.

  At the end of a row of houses, she slowed and raised a hand. We bunched up behind her, and Kaz quietly informed the youngest - and most nervous-looking – of the Mokian runners that he'd been booted from the strike team. The youth looked very relieved.

  "There," Bastille hissed, pointing at a section of ground several houses down. We peeked around the corner, watching as some shovels broke up out of the ground. The grass lowered, and a few moments later, a few Librarians' heads peeked out.

  "Go get Aluki and his soldiers," I whispered to the young runner that Kaz had relieved. "Warn him about these infiltrators; he'll need to take care of them once the strike team has sneaked into the tunnel."

  The runner nodded, dashing off. I peeked back around the corner. The Librarians were timidly glancing about, as if surprised to find no resistance. Several of them climbed out of the hole, slinking to the wall of the nearest hutlike house. They waved for the others, and soon the entire group had exited the hole. They ran off down a side street, carrying their rifles and looking for mayhem. In a lot of ways, these Librarian infiltration groups were suicide missions, just like my strike team. The difference being that the Librarians anticipated taking the city very soon, and finding the Mokian coma antidote.

  "All right," I said, waving. "Go!"

  Kaz and the five runners charged around the side of the building, running toward the hole. I waited anxiously. Were the Librarians far enough away? Would they notice what we were doing?