Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

this book.)
    I crouched inside the Forgotten Language room with Bastille and Sing. I kept my Oculator’ Lenses off, hoping that without them I wouldn’t have as strong an aura. Sure enough, watching under the door, we saw a dark shadow pass by, and I felt a slight surge of power as an activated Oculatory Lens passed by. (Fortunately, Blackburn didn’t appear to have a Tracker’s Lens of his own.) His shadow didn’t stop to check the Forgotten Language room, but instead continued on toward the stairwell.
    “We have very little time,” I said, looking back at the other two.
    We burst from the room and ran back toward the torture chamber. By the time we arrived, I was feeling a little out of breath. Having never had to rescue anyone from torture before, I wasn’t accustomed to so much running. Fortunately, Sing wasn’t exactly in shape either, and so I didn’t feel too bad lagging behind Bastille.
    Once I reached the guard chamber, I noticed Bastille standing beside the door with the peephole. She gave the handle a good rattle. “Locked,” she said.
    “Move aside,” I said, walking up to the door. I rested a hand on the lock, jolting it with a bit of Breaking Talent. Nothing happened.
    “Glass lock,” I said. I moved my hand up to the door’s hinges, but they resisted too.
    Bastille cursed. “The whole door will be warded against your Talent. We’ll have to try to break it down manually.”
    I eyed the thick wooden door with a skeptical eye. Then, from behind me, there was a click. I turned to see Sing leveling one of the biggest, baddest handguns I’d ever seen. It was the kind of gun that took most men two hands to hold – the type of gun that used bullets so big that they could have doubled as paperweights.
    Sing pulled out another gun, identical to the first, in his other hand. Then he took aim at the door handle – which sat directly between Bastille and me.
    “Oh, put those antiques away,” Bastille said testily. “This isn’t the time for – Gak!”
    This last part came as I grabbed her by the shoulder, yanking her with me as I took cover behind a table.
    Sing pulled the triggers.
    Wood chips sprayed across the room, mixing with shards of dark black glass. The booming sound of gunshots echoed in the small chamber – or, at least, the booming sound of three gunshots echoed in the small chamber. By the time Sing fired the fourth shot, I’d been deafened and couldn’t tell whether or not the rest of the shots made any noise.
    I couldn’t hear any trees fall either.
    When it was over, I peeked out from behind my table. Bastille remained stunned on the floor beside me. The door stood shattered and splintered, the remnants of its handle and lock hanging pitifully, surrounded by bullet holes. As I watched, the broken, bullet-shattered lock finally dropped to the floor, and the door quietly swung open – as if in surrender.
    Now, after all our discussions of “advanced” weapons and the like, you probably weren’t expecting the guns to do much good. I certainly wasn’t. One thing to remember is this: Primitive doesn’t always mean useless. An old flintlock pistol may not be as advanced as a handgun, but both could kill you. Sitting there, I realized why Sing was insistent upon bringing the guns along, and why Grandpa Smedry had let him do so.
    It seems to me that some people underestimate good, old-fashioned Hushlander technology a little too much. It was good to see something from my world prove so effective. Locks made from Oculator’s Glass might be resistant to physical damage, but they certainly aren’t completely indestructible.
    “Nice shooting,” I said.
    Sing shrugged, then said something.
    “What?” I asked, still feeling a bit deaf.
    “I said,” Sing said, speaking louder, “even antiques have their uses every once in a while. Come on!” He waddled over to the door, pushing it open the rest of the way.
    Bastille stumbled to her feet. “I feel like a thunderstorm went off inside my head. Your people really use those things on the battlefield?”
    “Only when they have to,” I said.
    “How can you hear what your commanders are saying?” she asked.
    “Uh… helmets?” I said. The answer, of course, didn’t make any sense. But I didn’t care at the moment. I rose to my feet, rushing after Sing into the room. Inside, we found one guard on the ground, unconscious from Blackburn’s use of the Torture’s Lens. Grandpa Smedry still lay tied to the table, Quentin