“Maybe,” Kaz said. “I’ll need some of you on the outside though, running defense. Here.” He tossed Grandpa a small device that looked like a headset with an earpiece that fit snugly into the ear.
“Communicator’s Glass?” Grandpa asked, holding it up.
“Nope. Bluetooth.” Kaz handed him a cell phone.
“Librarian technology,” Draulin said with a sniff. “Far less advanced than a good shout.”
“Yeah, well,” Kaz said, tossing me and Draulin a cell phone and headset each, “it works. That’s all I care about.”
Grandpa was all too eager to put on the headset, though he needed a little help, as he thought the strap that held it in place was an eye patch. (Free Kingdomers often have an … unusual perspective on Hushlander technology and customs.) We started up a phone call, all four of us on the line so we could talk easily.
From there, the three of us left Dif, Shasta, and Kaz to make for the exit bay—a room where the wall was retractable. There we equipped ourselves with boots that had Grappler’s Glass on the bottom—it would stick to any other kind of glass. I pulled a boot onto my foot.* Doing so gave me a sense of perspective. The last time I’d done something like this, I’d been escaping from the Hushlands. Now I was heading back, full throttle.
Before, the Librarians had been trying to prevent me from escaping. Now it seemed they would do practically anything they could to keep me out. I was no longer the one being chased. I’d beaten the Librarians in Mokia, and now I was the wolf and they were the sheep. (You know, if sheep had antiaircraft guns, bazookas, and high-tech jet planes.)
This reminds me of hornets.
What? It doesn’t remind you of hornets? You’re pretty strange. I mean this is obviously the exact place in a story where you’d expect a discussion of insect biology. It’s even listed as such in The Great Book of How to Write Awesome Books.*
You see, hornets and bees are natural enemies just like cats and dogs, disco and rock, or Bastille’s fist and your face. They fought back and forth until one day, the game changed. And that game-changer was the Japanese giant hornet. These monsters managed to get across the ocean (they probably bought a time-share and felt forced to use it) and invade North America.
This was a problem for the bees. You see, the Japanese giant hornet has tougher skin than any North American hornet. They’re more vicious, bigger, and almost impossible for your average honeybee to kill. A few Japanese giant hornets can take out an entire hive—tens of thousands of bees—all by themselves.
So am I the hornet or the bee? Well, it depends on whether Aesop is telling this story or not.
Draulin pulled open the side of Penguinator, exposing us to howling wind and a view that twisted my stomach. Grandpa put on a pair of green-tinted spectacles: Windstormer’s Lenses, which would let him control the wind and make it easier for us to walk on the outside of the missile-like penguin ship. We filed out, sticking our boots to the floor, then walking out onto a retractable planklike device that extended out the door. From it we could step onto the outside wall of Penguinator, relying on our boots to keep us from plummeting to an untimely death on the top of the local Safeway.
Once we were outside, Grandpa pointed. He’d take the central position, above the penguin’s head. Draulin—giant crystal sword hefted on her shoulder—marched up to the left side of the ship, and I claimed the right.
Dark clouds rumbled overhead. It might storm soon.
“Welcome to the drive-through,” Kaz’s voice said over my headset. “May I take your order?”
“Uh…” I said back. “What?”
“That’s how you start a conversation over radio in the Hushlands,” Kaz said. “I’ve seen it in movies.”
“It’s not—”
“I’ll have a large soda and fries,” Grandpa said.
“Do you even know what a large soda is?” I asked him.
“Code phrase,” Grandpa replied. “It means ‘I acknowledge you, and by the way, please give me some fried potatoes.’”
“I … You know what, never mind.”
“Anyway,” Kaz said over the line, “anyone got any brilliant ideas on how to sneak into the Highbrary?”
“Sneak?” Draulin said. “Might be a little late for that, Lord Smedry.”
“Nonsense!” Grandpa said. “We have a rousing battle, then when everyone is exhausted, we slip in.”
“Assuming that would somehow work,” Draulin said, “how are you planning to bypass the dome?”
“Hmm…” Grandpa said.
“How about this,” Shasta said loudly over Kaz’s line—was she listening in on his conversation? “I think of a plan and you all focus on keeping us from being blown up.”
That seemed like a fine idea to me, as the jets were almost upon us. In fact, a pair of them passed by in a scream of engines and a blur of black. I stumbled, then pulled out my Shamefiller’s Lens.
Another jet approached, and this one launched a rocket. I yelped, thrusting my Lens forward and sending a jolt of power into it. A wide maroon beam blasted from my hand and struck the missile.
A voice popped into my head.
“Oh, wow. Remember how I jostled the other missiles as I was being loaded? Particularly that cute one? How could I have been so clumsy? And that one time back in the factory? I totally made an inappropriate sound when my casing scraped on the floor. Everyone was looking. Ugh. I wish … I wish I could just vanish.…”
BOOM.
As the missile vaporized, I lowered the Lens, stunned and more than a little unsettled. From the front of the ship, Grandpa looked back and gave me a thumbs-up. He was still using his Lenses to keep us from getting buffeted by the wind, but enough got through that his wispy hair fluttered around his head.
I felt sick. Had I guilt-tripped that missile into self-destructing? It had sounded so pathetic.
It was an inanimate object, I thought. Why should I care?
Gritting my teeth, I pointed my Lens as something else shot toward us. The maroon floodlight burst out, and I caught an entire enemy jet in its glow.
“Oh, wow,” I heard in my mind—the voice of the plane’s pilot. “I can’t believe what I said to Jim two years ago. Everyone was having such a good time, and then I bring up his mother. I knew she’d died. I’d been at the funeral! But it just slipped out. ‘How’s your mom?’ Why, why did I say that? I could literally explode right—”
I pulled the Lens away, panting, a shock of fear running through me. I felt that if I had waited a moment longer, the pilot would have exploded from embarrassment.
Wasn’t that the point?
The jet wobbled, then spun out of control, even though my Lens was turned off. I think I saw someone eject. I pretend I did, at least.
Hadn’t I always wanted more destructive Lenses? Hadn’t I complained about being given “wimpy” Lenses instead? But this … this was hitting below the belt. Hearing those voices dredged up all the stupid things I’d done in my life, the little mistakes that everyone else has most likely forgotten about. They were the kinds of things you lie in bed thinking about, feeling foolish. Wishing you could simply vanish.
This was a very, very dangerous Lens. And yet Grandpa considered the other one—the Shaper’s Lens—even worse.
What had I gotten myself into?
The penguin dived suddenly; Kaz was taking evasive maneuvers. As we spun through the air, zipping one way and then another, I had to scramble to blow up the odd missile—though I stayed away from attacking the jets.
Fortunately for us, Grandpa and Draulin were far more competent than I was. As she had demonstrated during a previous trip, Draulin had this uncanny ability to jump in front of missiles and bat them away with her sword—like she was playing a very strange game of tennis.* And Grandpa …
Well, Grandpa Smedry was a master of Lenses. I found myself distracted, watching him control the wind to blow missiles off course and planes into one another, or nudge Penguinator out of the way of a strike. He didn�
�t move; he stood in place, a look of intense concentration on his face, and Lenses hovered in front of him. He was using some six or seven at once, sending out blasts of fire, controlling the wind, heightening his awareness of the enemy locations.
He was a ridiculous little man sometimes, but at the same time he was—and I don’t use this word lightly here—astounding.
He also wasn’t going to be enough. Our ship was better than the Librarian ones, our pilot was amazing, and my grandfather was fighting wonderfully—but we were barely staying ahead of the missiles and the machine guns and the gun emplacements. Kaz couldn’t keep us on a straight course; he had to twist us to the sides to avoid barrages.
After ten minutes of furious battle, we were no closer to breaking through than we had been.
“I can’t help thinking,” Draulin said as she sliced a missile in half, “that this assault wasn’t very well-thought-out.”
“How surprising,” my mother’s voice said in our ears.
“Do you have a plan for us?” I asked her, then spun toward a missile and focused my Lens on it. The poor thing thought about how its serial numbers were misprinted and blew up. Bits of shrapnel bounced off Penguinator around me.
“Yes,” Shasta said. “But it requires us to not be the center of attention for a few moments.”
“So, basically impossible,” I said. “I mean, we are Smedrys.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Shasta said. “For once it would be nice if you people didn’t hog all the attention.”
“My dear,” Grandfather said over the line, panting, sounding exhausted, “you must not have been paying attention. You see, this is what Smedrys do best.”
“Smell funny?” Kaz asked.
“Make my life difficult?” Draulin asked.
“Eat your chips when your back is turned?” I asked.
“No,” Grandpa said. “Draw fire.”
All was still for a moment.
“Pine nuts!” Kaz cursed. “Someone is calling us on the ship’s Communicator’s Glass.”
“Answer, and tell them you’ll hold the phone up to the glass, please,” Grandpa said.
Kaz did so, and an unfamiliar voice crackled in over the line. “Welcome to the drive-through. May I take your order please?”
“Large soda and whatnot,” I said back. “Who is this?”
“Lord Smedry! We saw your call to arms. It appeared in every window!”
“Uh, that’s great,” I said. Shattering Glass. How far had my little display gone? “But who are you?”
Shadows appeared in the clouds above us, and then at least fifty glass ships of a variety of shapes descended through them. “Unified Free Kingdoms Air Guard,” the voice said. “We had been dispatched to help clean up Tuki Tuki, but … well, we couldn’t do much there. So we figured we might as well see if you needed some air support. Unless you’d rather destroy them all on your own, my lord.”
“No, no,” I said. “I’m quite willing to share the destroying. This time. A guy needs to learn to share.”
“Very good, my lord.”
And with that, the real fighting began.
Chapter
Deckard
Ah, the wooly sea sloth, with its luscious fur and its body made of high-grade aluminum. It is a noble creature, and endangered; as of this writing there are precisely negative four of them remaining in the wild—as opposed to a hundred years ago, when there were none of them living off the coast of Newfoundland.
The wooly sea sloth is known for a steady diet of conservative talk show hosts and Twix bars with all the chocolate licked off. The peaceful animal is of no danger to anyone, since none of them exist or have ever existed, and yet their habitat is threatened by their only natural predator: Wikipedia.
Stop Wikipedia rampages now and support the wooly sea sloth reforestation project, led by six former presidents of the United States (one a zombie) and no conservative talk show hosts.*
“You knew those ships were coming,” I said, scrambling up to my grandfather, still on the top of Penguinator.
“I hoped,” he replied, taking down the Lenses that had been hovering in front of him, then tucking them away. “When the monarchs said they’d sent the air guard, and when your speech got broadcast through the whole city … well, I figured those soldiers would feel bad for having abandoned Mokia.”
“They’re disobeying orders,” Draulin said, clomping up to us.
“Thank goodness!” Grandpa said.
Draulin gave him a glare that could have bathed a hippopotamus.
“It’s not a total infraction, Draulin,” Grandpa said. “The monarchs sent the air guard to ‘help you Smedrys.’ Technically, my grandson outranks most people in the Free Kingdoms. Without a countermand, his invitation to join him in an assault was practically an executive order!”
“It’s not right. They’re not following protocol.”
“Can you just please be happy we’re not dead?” I said. “This once. I promise you we can die next time.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “As long as we do it by the book.”
“What book?” Grandpa asked as we crossed the back of Penguinator.
She hesitated. “You know, I’m not actually sure.”
“I’ll write one someday,” I said. “Then you can follow what I say to do in that one.”
“Oh. Joy.”
My grandfather climbed back into the vehicle first, Draulin following. I lingered on the roof.
Around me, missiles detonated. Jets whizzed past. Explosions, smoke, fire. Down below, innocent suburbs smoldered as the Librarian forces clashed with the Free Kingdomer flying machines. The sound was like fireworks popping all around me, and we flew through a wave of smoke pouring from a dying ship as it spiraled downward.
I had caused this. I had brought them. I was happy to not have to fight the Librarians on my own, but in that moment all of it was hard for me to take in. A lot of people were going to get hurt by this, and many of them wouldn’t deserve it.
I’d berated the monarchs for their unwillingness to commit to war, yet when I’d had the chance to bring down Librarian jet fighters, I’d pulled back, frightened of the damage I might do.
I was the worst kind of coward. The kind who would let others die, so long as he didn’t have to be involved.
I tromped down below, letting Grandpa close the door. The two of us made our way to the cockpit, though I left the Grappler’s Glass boots on. Kaz was doing a lot of swerving, and without the boots I’d have been thrown against the wall repeatedly.
In the cockpit, Cousin Dif gave a whoop of excitement. “That was amazing! You two are just the best. Nothing says ‘Smedry’ like a last-minute rescue!”
“Yes indeed,” Grandpa said.
“I mean, you could have warned us,” Dif said, “letting us prepare better and not making us feel like we were all going to die. But instead you left us in the dark so there could be a dramatic reveal! It was perfect.”
“Yeah,” Grandpa said, deflating. “I suppose. Heh. Well.”
Dif continued, “Someone else would have figured that in not telling everyone the dramatic plan, we might have accidentally done something to ruin it—like Kaz dodging up into the sky above the clouds and leading the Librarian ships directly to the unprepared Free Kingdom vessels, but you know that the true Smedry way is—”
“Ahem,” Grandfather said. “Shasta? You mentioned a plan?”
“Yes,” she said, rotating in her seat. “We need to get down there without the Librarians knowing we’ve landed. So, we have Kaz make a run at a Librarian antiaircraft turret, then swerve into the streets as it fires. In the smoke the blasts produce, he can drop us to the ground.”
We waited for more.
“Uh,” I said, “that’s it?”
“I didn’t have a lot of time to think,” she said with a huff. “But there is a little more. We record your grandfather saying some idiotically characteristic things, then play them at wide distribution. The Libr
arians will intercept our channels and think he’s still on the ship, so they won’t hunt for us as we’re breaking in.”
“Huh,” Kaz said. “So we use the attempt to break in as a cover for us attempting to break in?”
“Something like that.”
“I like it!” Grandpa said, pointing toward the air.
“Blast,” Shasta said. “You’re supposed to think it’s too boring.”
“What’s boring?” Grandpa said. “After all, we’ll need to hurl ourselves from a full-speed penguin!”
“Moving?” Shasta said. “I was thinking we’d land.”
“No time for that,” Grandpa said. “This is going to be fun! Kazan, let’s record some video of me taunting the Librarians. Then we’ll jump out!”
“Sure thing, Pop,” Kaz said. “But you realize I’ll have to stay behind and fly the ship.”
“Oh,” Grandpa said. “Couldn’t Dif—”
“Can’t fly!” Dif said happily. “And didn’t you want me along to give commentary on Hushlander culture?”
“I suppose I did.” Grandpa took a deep breath. “It is what must be. You’ll be our escape plan, Son.”
Kaz nodded.
“It’s settled then!” Dif said. “I’m going to go pack.”
“Pack?” I asked. “What is there to pack? We just picked you up.”
“I need to find some crazy things to bring along!” Dif said. “A sock or two, some string, a bug, anything wacky and crazy that nobody will expect! Then we can use them to save the day unexpectedly! Right guys? Huh?”
He scuttled from the room.
“I really hate that guy,” Kaz said under his breath.
“Kaz!” Grandpa said. “He’s merely trying to fit in.”
“I think he’s making fun of us,” Kaz said.
I shook my head. I didn’t think it was that; he was too earnest. He did want to be like the other Smedrys. But when he pointed things out as he did … well, that just made them sound dumb. Like how being forced to explain a joke ruins it.
As my grandfather went to his room to use the Communicator’s Glass there to record some properly Smedryesque messages, I stepped between Kaz and my mother, looking out the windshield eyes. We dodged through the middle of a battle, moving so quickly that it was hard to track what was happening. Kaz dived, and my stomach lurched. To the left, a giant glass bat had grabbed a jet plane in its feet. To the right, a horned owl had a gaping, jagged hole in one of its sides.
The Dark Talent Page 6