‘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 instead. 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?
Bastille waited beside me, though I could tell she itched to leap forward and join the strike team. Fortunately, her primary duty was to protect me, so she restrained herself.
The strike team reached the hole and Kaz waved the runners to jump in. Suddenly, something flashed in the hole.
‘Rifle fire!’ Bastille said.
She was moving a moment later, bolting down the hole. One of our runners collapsed backward, twitching. The others leaped for the ground, taking cover, and two Librarians peeked out of the hole, holding rifles.
Kaz whipped out a pistol and shot one in the face – it let out a blast of light, knocking the Librarian unconscious. Bastille – running inhumanly fast – arrived and kicked the other Librarian in the face.
I blinked. Things happened so quickly in battle. By the time I thought to jog out, the two Librarian guards had been disabled. Unfortunately, one of our runners was down.
‘Woodpeckers!’ Kaz cursed. ‘We should have known they’d be smart enough to leave a rear guard.’ He checked on the runner who’d been shot. He was unconscious. We’d need the antidote to awaken him.
‘There will probably be guards at the end of the tunnel as well,’ one of the Mokians said. ‘And while we’re fast, we’re not the best soldiers in the army.’
Kaz nodded. ‘If you fight and make a disturbance, the Librarians will cut off our exit out of the tunnel. Sparrows!’
‘Kaz, where did you pick up all that fowl language?’ Bastille asked.
‘Sorry. Spent two weeks trapped in an ornithologist’s convention during my last time lost.’
And that is a story all unto itself.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ll just have to hope that . . .’ I trailed off as I noticed Bastille and Kaz sharing a look. Then, shockingly, Bastille pulled the bear-containing backpack off of the unconscious runner. She slung it over her shoulder, then looked at me.
‘Stay here,’ she said.
‘Bastille, no! You can’t go.’
‘I have the best chance at knocking out guards at the exit of the tunnel quietly. My speed and strength will let me get to those robots faster than the others. I need to go.’
‘But you’re supposed to protect me!’
She pointed upward, at the glass dome. ‘It’s only minutes away from breaking. This is the best way to protect you.’
She secured her Warrior’s Lenses. ‘Take care of yourself,’ she said. ‘You’d better not die. I’m getting a little fond of you. Besides, if I fall, you’ll need to get me the antidote.’
With that, she jumped down into the hold. I scrambled up to the edge, looking down. The drop wasn’t a deep one; it quickly turned to the side as the tunnel pointed out toward the Librarian army. The runners jumped in after her. Kaz patted my arm. ‘I’ll try to get her out, kid,’ he said.
He followed the others down into the hole, backpack carried over one arm, a pistol carried warily in the other hand. He disappeared into the darkness.
I stared after them for several heartbeats, trying to sort through my emotions. I had sent a team out on a suicide mission. Me. They were following my orders. And Kaz and Bastille were with them.
Was this what it was to be a king? This terrible guilt?
It felt like someone had slathered all of my internal organs with honey, then let a jar full of ants loose inside there.
It felt like someone had shoved firecrackers up my nose, then set them off with a flamethrower.
It felt like being forced to eat a hundred rotting fish sticks.
In other words, it didn’t feel so good.
I turned and took off at a dash, running as quickly as I could. I passed Aluki and his soldiers fighting a pitched battle with the Librarians who’d left the tunnel. Running with all I had, I eventually reached the steps to the top of the wooden wall. I leaped up them. Then, out of breath, puffing, I slammed up against the front of the wall, looking out.
I arrived just in time to see the strike team erupt out of the other side of the tunnel. Bastille had dealt with the Librarian guards in her characteristically efficient way, and the soldiers outside of the tunnel didn’t hear anything. They stood by stoopidly as the team of six runners poured out of the tunnel and scattered in different directions.
A boulder crashed against the dome. Another chunk of glass broke free and fell inward, crushing a nearby home.
Come on, I thought anxiously, watching the runners. Mokians gathered around me, cheering on the runners. I noticed absently that my three ‘advisers’ were among them.
The six runners seemed so insignificant compared with the Librarian army. I found myself holding my breath, wishing there was something – anything – I could do to help. But I was inside the dome, and they far outside of it, an army between us. I could barely see them . . .
See them.
You’re an Oculator, stoopid! Bastille’s voice seemed to scream into my mind. I cursed to myself, fumbling in the pocket of my jacket, pulling out a set of glasses with a purple-and-green tint.
My Bestower’s Lenses. Hurriedly, I pulled off my Oculator’s Lenses and shoved on the Bestower’s Lenses instead. Bastille had said, ‘They let you give something of yourself to someone else.’
Let’s see what these babies can do, I thought with determination.
The strike team spread out, one heading for each of the robots. Those robots were distant enough from one another that each runner had to pick one robot and make for it. Fortunately, that put them running away from the bulk of the army, so they had to contend with only the small number of Librarians who were walking about near the back lines.
That was still a lot of Librarians. Hundreds. Bastille shoved one aside as he tried to attack her, then swung her sword into the stomach of a second.
The sword, it should be noted, did not have a magical ‘stunning’ setting like the spears did. Ew.
Bastille continued on, but one of the Mokian runners was quickly getting surrounded. He looked kind of like a running back from American football, galloping down the field with a group of Librarian thugs trying to tackle him, a teddy bear held protectively in the crook of his arm.
I focused on him, channeling strength through my Bestower’s Lenses. I suddenly felt weak, and my legs started quivering. But I remained focused, and the Mokian took off in a burst of speed, getting ahead of the Librarians, who stumbled and tripped into a mess of arms and legs.
I quickly sought out the other runners. Kaz dodged to the side of a group of Librarians, neatly using his pistol to pick off the one running at him from the front. But one of the other Mokians had gotten herself into a predicament. A crowd of Librarians was in front of her, shoulder to shoulder. They seemed intent on capturing her, rather than shooting her down, which was good.
She looked desperate, and she crouched down to try a final leap before crashing into the Librarians. I focused on her, then jumped into the air, channeling the leap through my Bestower’s Lenses into her. She jumped, and my jump added to hers. She bounded into the air, narrowly leaping over the shocked Librarians’ heads, while I jumped only an inch or so.
I hit the ground, smiling. Another of the runners was slamming into a group of Librarians blocking him; with my help, he pushed straight through, knocking them to the ground.
I’ve been told that I shouldn’t have been able to accomplish what I did with those Lenses. Theoretically, I would have added only a little bit of strength – as much as a thirteen-year-old boy could – to the Mokians. My strength added to that of the willowy runner shouldn’t have let him knock down three toughened Librarian thugs.
But it did. This time, for once in my narrative, I’m not lying. However, that bit about the giant, enchanted ninja wombat was totally made up.
My heart thumped; I felt like I was down there, running for my life. I jumped back and forth between the six runners, eyes flicking here, then there, granting them whatever I could. At one point, one of the runners was confronted by a group of Librarians leveling guns.
You can do it! I thought at the runner, sending all of the courage I could muster.
The runner suddenly looked ten times more confident. He stared down the guns and managed to dodge between them as I granted him extra dexterity, leeching it from myself. He got to the Librarian gunners and leaped over their heads as I enhanced his ability to jump.
The rest of the Librarian armies had noticed what was happening. Hundreds of soldiers charged away from the front lines, yelling. But most were too far away.