Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

hand, slamming it into the jumping creature’s chest. Then I released my Talent.
    There was a strange, instant backlash – like hitting something solid with a baseball bat. I was thrown backward, my arm blazing with sudden pain.
    The Alivened landed in a stumble. It stood for a moment, teetering. Then it exploded with a whooshing sound, a thousand crumpled sheets of paper erupting in an enormous, confetti-like burst.
    I sat for a moment, staring. I blinked a few times, then lifted my arm, wincing. Paper filled the corridor, bits fluttering around us.
    “Wow,” Sing said, standing up. He turned around, looking at the massive pit I had created. “Wow.”
    “I… didn’t really do that intentionally,” I said. “I just kind of let my power go, and that’s what happened.”
    “I’ll take it, either way,” Sing said, resting the shotgun on his shoulder.
    I climbed to my feet, shaking my arm. It didn’t seem broken. “Bastille,” I said, stumbling over to her. She was moving, fortunately, and as I arrived she groaned, then managed to sit up. Her jacket looked… shattered. Like the windshield of a car after it collides with a giant penguin.
    Blasted giant penguins.
    I tried to help Bastille to her feet, but she shook off my hands with annoyance. She stumbled a bit as she stood, then pulled off her jacket, looking at the spiderweb of lines. “Well, I guess that’s useless now.
    “Probably saved your life, Bastille,” Sing said.
    She shrugged, dropping it to the floor. It crackled like glass as it hit the stones.
    “Your jacket was made of glass?” I asked, frowning.
    “Of course,” Bastille said. “Defender’s Glass. Yours isn’t?”
    “Uh… no,” I said.
    “Then why wear something so atrocious?” she said, stumbling over to the hole in the floor. “You did this?” she asked, looking over at me.
    I nodded.
    “And… is that my sword down there, broken and shattered in a pile of books?”
    “Afraid so,” I said.
    “Lovely,” she grumbled.
    “I was trying to save your life, Bastille,” I said. “Which, I might point out, I succeeded in doing.”
    “Yeah, well, next time try not to bring down half the building when you do.”
    But I detected the barest hint of a smile on her lips when she said it.

Chapter 15
    Moron.
    It has been my experience that most problems in life are caused by a lack of information. Many people just don’t know the things they need to know. Some ignore the truth; others never understand it.
    When two friends get mad at each other, they usually do it because they lack information about each other’s feelings. Americans lack information about Librarian control of their government. The people who pass this book on the shelf and don’t buy it lack information about how wonderful, exciting, and useful it is.
    Take, for instance, the word that started this chapter. You lacked information when you read it. You likely assumed that I was calling you an insulting name. You assumed wrong. Moron is actually a village in Switzerland located near the Jura mountain range. It’s a nice place to live if you hate Librarians, for there is a well-hidden underground rebellion there.
    Information. Perhaps you Hushlanders have read about Bastille and the others referring to guns as “primitive,” and have been offended. Or, perhaps, you simply thought the text was being silly. In either case, maybe you should reevaluate.
    The Free Kingdoms moved beyond the use of guns many centuries ago. The weapons became impractical for several reasons – some of which should be growing apparent from this narrative. Smedry Talents and Oculator abilities are not the only strange powers in the Free Kingdoms – and most of these abilities work better on items with large numbers of moving parts or breakable circuits. Using a gun against a Smedry, or one similarly talented, is usually a bad idea.
    (This comes down to simply probability. The more that can go wrong with an item, the more that will. My computer – when I used to use one – was always about one click away from serious meltdown. My pencil, however, remains to this day remarkable virus-free.)
    And so, many of the world’s soldiers and warriors have moved on from guns, instead choosing weapons and armors created from Oculatory sands or silimatic technology. They don’t often associate these items with their ancient counterparts – the people of the Free Kingdoms never got much beyond muskets before they moved on to using