Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians (20 page)

The main lobby of the library was unusually busy for a weekday evening. People milled about, perusing stacks of books, completely unaware – of course – that everything they saw was filled with Librarian fabrications.

They knew nothing of Alivened, of Librarian cults, of Smedrys, or of Lenses. They just wanted a good book to read. (None of them were, unfortunately, able to check out this volume. Not because it was banned – which it is – but because it simply hadn’t been written yet. Those poor people may never know the joy they missed out on.)

Small children looked through the fantasy section.
Parents checked out the latest thrillers. The rebellious, trouble-making types looked through the fantasy section. A few unfortunate kids ended up with meaningful books about dysfunctional families.

Few of the people noticed the large number of Librarians gathering behind the front desk. Fewer still noticed that these Librarians were oddly muscular. What
nobody
noticed, however, were the weapons carefully stashed behind the counter. Ms. Fletcher stood at the front of the group. She wished to avoid making an incident – but when incidents
were
necessary, they could be contained. Smedrys were far more difficult.

Despite buildup of Librarian troops, most of the people in the room went about their libraryish activities. All in all, there was a sense of peace about the room. It was the joy and simple contentment that comes from being around books, Librarian sanctioned or not.

That peace ended
abruptly
as a door at the back of the room burst open, and a group of dinosaurs rushed in.

It didn’t matter that the dinosaurs carried books. It didn’t matter that they were smaller than one might expect. It didn’t matter that most of them wore clothing. They were dinosaurs – and they were very,
very
realistic.

The screaming started a second later.

Mothers grabbed children. Men cursed, demanding to know if this was “some kind of a joke!” Librarians stood, shocked. Their hesitation cost them greatly, for within seconds there was an air of general chaos in the room.

That was when I burst through the door, carrying a sword (something I still figured I should have had all along). I was followed by Bastille Crystin, dressed in her stylish silver clothing. Quentin followed in his tuxedo, carrying Sing’s gym bag, now filled with Oculator’s Lenses. Sing came last, wearing his blue kimono and carrying Grandpa Smedry.

The dinosaurs dashed ahead of us, inadvertently crowding the people against the checkout counters. A few librarian thugs broke through, but the others got trapped behind the desk, blocked by a horde of frightened people and excited dinosaurs.

Bastille met the first Librarian thug. She ducked his sword swing, then shoved him aside. He
fell as she hopped over him, waving her sword toward the crowd. The people shied back in confused fear.

A Librarian behind the counter raised a crossbow.

That’s new
, I thought, moving between the man and Bastille. I stared down the crossbow bolt, thinking about just how dangerous it was. This last bit was, of course, to convince myself. I was beginning to get the hang of my Talent. It only worked at a distance when –

The crossbow’s bowstring snapped free, flipping the crossbow bolt uselessly into the air. The Librarian watched it, dumbfounded, and I smiled, leaving Bastille to intimidate the people – and there
fore
keep the Librarians trapped. I rushed over to pull open the front library door.

I held it for Sing and Quentin. Bastille left next, and I paused, turning and smiling at the packed room. One of the dinosaurs – the T. Rex – finally reached the checkout desk. He slammed down his pile of books, then placed the library card on top of it.

“I’d like to check these out!” he said eagerly.

Ms. Fletcher stood, arms folded as her soldiers tried to push through the crowd. She met my eyes, and I could see from her expression that she knew she was beaten.

I raised my sword to her in a gesture of farewell. The blade immediately fell free and dropped to the ground.

I stared at it for a moment.
What? I thought I was finally figuring out how to control my Talent!

Ms. Fletcher gave me a curious expression, as if confused by my gesture, and I sighed, flipping the broken
b
it into the room. Then I stepped out onto the sidewalk. Sing (still carrying my grandfather) and Quentin ran ahead, moving toward Grandpa Smedry’s little black car, which still waited where it had been parked.

Bastille still stood by the door. She met my eyes. “All right, all right,” she said. “You were right about the dinosaurs. This time.”

I stepped aside as some brave library patrons finally pushed past me out onto the street.

“Your dinosaur friends are just going to get caught again,” Bastille said.

“Charles said he’d try to get them to leave in the confusion,” I said, joining her as we ran across the street. “It’s the best we can do.”

And it really was. Honestly, you have no idea how hard it is to work with dinosaurs. It’s no wonder the Librarians made up the myth about them going extinct – pretty much everyone in the Free Kingdoms wishes that one were true.

Sing set Grandpa Smedry in the passenger seat of the car, and Quentin squeezed into the backseat. Then Sing took the driver’s seat – holding the useless steering wheel as the car took off.
Bastille’s silver sports car pulled up just a second later. She climbed in, but I paused. My door had no handle. Finally, Bastille opened the door by rapping on the inside dash. “The inner door handle is gone,” she said, frowning.

“That’s very strange,” I said sliding into the car. “Now, can we get going?”

She smiled, throwing the car into gear, then she slammed down on the pedal. I turned, watching out the back window. Behind us, a bunch of Librarians had finally managed to push their way out of the building. They watched in dismay as Bastille’s car squealed away.

I smiled, turning back around. “I assume you have ways of making sure that the Librarians don’t just have some of their police pick us up?”

“They don’t work that way,” Bastille said. “The Librarians keep as few people as possible informed about the true nature of the world. Most governments don’t know that they’re being manipulated. Now that we’re outside of the Librarian central base, we should have a little breathing room. Especially since we neutralized their Oculator.”

I nodded, resting back in my chair. “That’s good to hear. I think I’ve had enough sneaking, chasing, and other ridiculousness for one day.”

Bastille smiled, taking a sharp corner. “You know, Alcatraz, you’re a bit less annoying than most Smedrys.”

I smiled. “Guess I’ll just have to practice some more, then.”

All right. It’s true. I lied to you.

You have undoubtedly figured out that there is no altar made of outdated encyclopedias in this book. There is no harrowing situation where I lay, strapped to said altar, about to be sacrificed. There is no dagger-wielding Librarian about to slice me open and spill my blood into the void to complete a dark ritual. No sharks, no pit of acidic magma.

That’s all in the sequel. You didn’t really think I’d be able to tell my entire story in one book, did you?

Grandpa Smedry’s car puttered along the street. It was dark out – after escaping the library, we had evacuated the gas station, the
n
spent the night and entire next
day
recovering in the team’s safe house (a mock hamburger stand called Sand-burgers).

“Grandfather?” I asked as we drove.

“Yes, lad?”

“What do we do now?”

Grandpa Smedry sat for a moment, turning the wheel in random directions. He looked far better after a night’s rest – he had gained back enough strength to begin arriving late to his pain again, and now he was doling it out in very small amounts. He looked almost like his chipper old self.

“Well,” he finally said, “there is a great deal to be done. The Free Kingdoms are losing the battle against the Librarians. Most of the outright fighting is happ
en
ing in Mokia right now, though the work behind the scenes in other kingdoms is just as dangerous.”

“What will happen if Mokia does fall?” I asked.

“The Librarians will fold it into their empire,” Grandpa Smedry said. “It will take a decade or two before it’s fully integrated – the Librarians will have to begin changing the history books across the entire world, making up a new history for the region.”

I nodded. “And… my parents are part of this war?”

“Very big parts,” Grandpa Smedry said. “They’re very important people.”

“So important,” I asked quietly, “that they couldn’t be bothered to raise me?”

Grandpa Smedry shook his head. “No, lad.
That’s not it at all.”

“Then why?” I asked, frustrated. “What was this all about? Why leave me to the Librarians all these years?”

“It will make sense if you think about it, lad.”

“I don’t really want to think about it at the moment,” I snapped.

Grandpa Smedry smiled. “Information, Alcatraz. It was all about information. Perhaps you’ve noticed, but the rest of us don’t quite fit into your world.”

I nodded.

“You have information, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Important information. You understand the lies the Librarians are teaching – and you understand their culture. That makes you important. Very important.”

“So, my parents gave me up so that they could make a
spy
out of me?” I asked.

“It was a very hard decision, my boy,” Grandpa Smedry said quietly. “And they did not make it lightly. But even when you were a baby, they knew you would rise to the challenge. You are a Smedry.”

“And there was no other way?” I demanded.

“I know it’s hard to understand, lad. And, truth be told, I often questioned their decision. But… well, how many people from other countries have you known who could speak your language perfectly?”

“Not many.”

“The more different a language is from your own,” Grandpa Smedry said, “the more difficult it is to sound like a native. For some languages, I’m convinced it’s impossible. The difference between our world and yours isn’t as much a matter of language as it is a matter of understanding. I can see that I don’t quite fit in here, but I can’t see
why.
It’s been the same for all of our operatives. We needed someone on the inside – someone who understood the way Librarians think, the way they live.”

I sat quietly for a long moment. “So,” I finally said, “why aren’t my parents here? Why did you have to come get me?”

“I can’t really answer that, Alcatraz. You know we lost track of your father some years ago, just after you were born. I kind of hoped I’d find him here, on your thirteenth birthday, come to deliver the sands himself. That obviously didn’t happen.”

“You have no idea where he is, then?”

Grandpa Smedry shook his head. “He is a good man – and a good Oculator. My instincts tell me that he’s alive, though I have no real proof of that. He must be about something important, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is!”

“And my mother?” I asked.

Grandpa Smedry didn’t reply immediately. So, I turned to a light tangent – something that had been bothering me for some time. “When I wore the Tracker’s Lenses back in the library, I was able to see your footprints for a long, long time.”

“That’s not surprising,” Grandpa Smedry said.

“And,” I said, “when you came into my house, you identified my room with the Tracker’s Lenses because you
saw
so many footprints leading into it. But I’d only walked out there once that day. So, the other sets of footprints must have been hours – or even days – old.”

“True,” Grandpa Smedry said.

“So,” I said, “the Tracker’s Lenses work differently for family.”

“Not differently, lad.” Grandpa Smedry said. “Family members are part of you, and so they’re a part of what you know best. Their tracks tend to hang around for a long time, no matter how little you think you know them.”

I sat quietly in my seat. “I saw Ms. Fletcher’s footprints hours after she’d made them.” I finally said.

“Not surprising.”

I closed my eyes. “Why did she and my father break up?”

“He fell in love with a Librarian, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Marrying her wasn’t the wisest decision he ever made. They thought they could make it work.”

“And they were wrong?”

“Apparently,” Grandpa Smedry said. “Your father saw something in her – something that I’ve never been able to see. She isn’t exactly the most loyal of Librarians, and your father thought that would make her more lenient to our side. But… I think she’s only interested in herself. She married your father for his Talent, I’m convinced. Either way, I think that she was another reason that your father agreed to let you be raised in Librarian lands. That way, your mother could see you. He still loved her, I’m afraid. Probably still does, poor fool.”

I closed my eyes.
She sold the Sands of Rashid to Blackburn. My father’s life’s work, my inheritance. And… Blac
k
burn implied that she would sell me too.
I didn’t know how to think about what I felt. For some reason, all the danger – all the threats – I’d been through during the last few days hadn’t felt as disturbing to me as the knowledge that my mother lived.

And that she was on the wrong side.

Grandpa Smedry’s car puttered to a stop. I opened my eyes, looking out the window with a frown
. I recognized the street we were on. Joan and Roy Sheldon – my latest foster family, the one whose kitchen I had burned – lived just a few houses down.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“You remember when I first gave you your Oculator’s Lenses, lad?”

“Sure.”

“I asked you a question then,” Grandpa Smedry said. “I asked you why you had burned down your family’s kitchen. You didn’t answer.”

“I thought about it, though,” I said. “I’m figuring things out. I’m getting better with my Talent.”

“Alcatraz, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “That question wasn’t just about your Talent. You keep asking about your parents, keep wondering why they were so willing to abandon you. Well, did you ever think to wonder why
you
abandoned so many families?”

“I have thought about it,” I said. “Or, at least, I have recently. And perhaps I was a little hard on them. But it wasn’t
only
my fault. They couldn’t handle it when I broke things.’

“Maybe some of them,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But how many of them did you really give a chance?”

I knew he was right, of course. And yet, knowing something is very different from feeling it. And at that moment, I was feeling all the same emotions I felt every time parents gave me away.

I felt a twist in my gut. It was happening again, and this time it wasn’t my fault. I’d tried. I’d tried not to push Grandpa Smedry away. And now it was happening anyway.

“You’re trying to get rid of me,” I whispered.

Grandpa Smedry shook his head. “Information, lad! It’s all about
information.
You thought those families were going to give you up, so you acted first. You
made
them get rid of you. But you had bad information.

“I’m not trying to abandon you. We have a lot of work to do, you and I. However, you need to go back and spend some time with those who have loved you. You need to make your peace with them if you’re ever going to understand yourself well enough to help us win this war.”

“Blackburn didn’t think information was all that important,” I snapped.

“And how’d he end up?” Grandpa Smedry said, smiling.

“But he beat you,” I said. “In the Oculator’s Duel. He was stronger.”

“Yes, he was,” Grandpa Smedry said. “He worked very hard to be able to beat a person like me in a contest like that. He put out his eye so that he would be stronger with offensive Lenses, and he collected other Lenses that would let him fight effectively.

“But, in doing so, he gave up the ability to see as well. Alcatraz, everything we do is about seeing! If he’
d
seen
just a little better, he would have noticed your trick. If he’d
seen
a little better, he’d have realized that by putting out his eye and focusing on the powers that let him win battles, he handicapped himself in larger, far more important ways. Perhaps
if he’d
seen
a little more, he’d have realized that those Translator’s Lenses you have are far more powerful that any Firebringer’s Lens.”

I sat back, trying to sort out my thoughts – and my emotions. It was hard to focus on any one feeling – regret, anxiety, anger, confusion. I still couldn’t believe that Grandpa wanted me to stay with Joan and Roy. I glanced at the house. “Hey, there’s no hole in the side of it!”

“The Librarians would have fixed that before your foster parents got home,” Grandpa Smedry said. “They try to keep things quiet, work on the underground – something like that hole would have attracted too much attention to this house, and therefore to you.”

“Won’t it be dangerous for me to be here?” I asked.

“Probably,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But it will be dangerous for
you
everywhere. And, we have some… means of keeping you safe here, for a little while, at least.”

I nodded slowly.

“They’ll be happy to see you, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said.

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I burned down their kitchen.”

“Try them.”

I shook my head. “I still can’t control it, Grandfather,” I said quietly. “My Talent. I thought I was getting the hang of it, but I still break things all the time – things I don’t wasn’t to.”

Grandpa Smedry smiled. “Perhaps. But when it counted, you broke that Firebringer’s Lens in
exactly
the right way. You didn’t just shatter it or make it stop working. You
made
it work wrong, but made it work right for you. That shows real promise, lad.”

I looked over at the Sheldons’ house again. “You’ll… come for me, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, lad!”

I took a deep breath. “All right, then. Do you want to take the Translator’s Lenses with you?”

“They’re your inheritance, lad. It wouldn’t be right. You keep them.”

I nodded. Grandpa Smedry smiled, then reached over to give me a hug. I held on tight – tighter than I’d probably intended.

Grandfather, cousins, perhaps even my father,
I thought.
I have family.

Finally, I let go, then got out of the car. I looked up at the house again.
I’ve always had family,
I thought.
Not always the Sheldons, but someone. People willing to give me a home. I guess it’s about time I admitted that.

I closed the door, then looked in through the window.

“Don’t break anything!” Grandpa Smedry said.

“Just come for me,” I said. “Don’t be late.”

“Me?” Grandpa Smedry asked. “Late?”

Then he rapped on the dash of the car, and it began to hum. I watched it pull away, watched it until it was gone. Then I walked up the street to the house. I paused on the doorstep. I could still faintly smell smoke.

I knocked on the door. Roy opened it. He stood, stupefied, for a moment. Then he yelled in surprise, grabbing me in a hug. “Joan!” he cried.

She rushed around the corner. “Alcatraz?”