It felt right. Serene.
That, of course, meant it was time for something to explode.
Chapter
2
I hate explosions. Not only are they generally bad for one’s health, but they’re just so demanding. Whenever one comes along, you have to pay attention to it instead of whatever else you were doing. In fact, explosions are suspiciously like baby sisters in that regard.
Fortunately, I’m not going to talk about Hawkwind exploding right now. Instead I’m going to talk about something completely unrelated: fish sticks. (Get used to it. I do this sort of thing all the time.)
Fish sticks are without a doubt the most disgusting things ever created. Regular fish is bad enough, but fish sticks … well, they raise disgustingness to an entirely new level. It’s like they exist just to make us writers come up with new words to describe them, since the old words just aren’t horrible enough. I’m thinking of using crapaflapnasti.
Definition of “crapaflapnasti”: “Adj. Used to describe an item that is as disgusting as fish sticks.” (Note: This word can only be used to describe fish sticks themselves, as nothing has yet been found that is equally crapaflapnasti. Though the unclean, moldy, cluttered space under Brandon Sanderson’s bed comes close.)
Why am I telling you about fish sticks? Well, because in addition to being an unwholesome blight upon the land, they’re all pretty much the same. If you don’t like one brand, chances are very good you won’t like any of them.
The thing is, I’ve noticed that people tend to treat books like fish sticks. People try one, and they figure they’ve tried them all.
Books are not fish sticks. While they’re not all as awesome as the one you are now holding, there’s so much variety to them that it can be unsettling. Even within the same genre, two books can be totally different.
We’ll talk more about this later. For now, just try not to treat books like fish sticks. (And if you are forced to eat one of the two, go with the books. Trust me.)
The right side of Hawkwind exploded.
The vehicle pitched in the air, chunks of glass sparkling as they blew free. To my side, the glass bird’s leg broke off and the world lurched, spun, and distorted—like I was riding a madman’s version of a merry-go-round.
At that moment, my panicked mind realized that the section of glass under my feet—the one my boots were still stuck to—had broken away from Hawkwind. The vehicle was still managing to fly. I, however, was not. Unless you count plummeting to your doom at a hundred miles an hour as “flying.”
Everything was a blur. The large piece of glass I was stuck to was flipping end over end, the wind tossing it about like a sheet of paper. I didn’t have much time.
Break! I thought, sending a shock of my Talent through my legs, shattering my boots and the sheet beneath them. Shards of glass exploded around me, but I stopped spinning. I twisted, looking down at the waves. I didn’t have any Lenses that could save me—all I was carrying were the Translator’s Lenses and my Oculator’s Lenses. All my other pairs had been broken, given away, or returned to Grandpa Smedry.
That only left my Talent. The wind whistled past me, and I extended my arms. I always wondered just what my Talent could break, if given the chance. Could I perhaps … I closed my eyes, gathering my power.
BREAK! I thought, shooting the power out of my arms and into the air.
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes, terrified, as the waves rushed up at me. And rushed up at me. And rushed up at me. And … rushed up at me some more.
It sure is taking a long time for me to plunge to my death, I thought. I felt as if I were falling, yet the nearby waves didn’t seem to be getting any closer.
I turned, looking upward. There, falling toward me, was Grandpa Smedry, his tuxedo jacket flapping, a look of intense concentration on his face as he held his hand toward me, fingers extended.
He’s making me arrive late to my fall! I thought. On occasion I’d been able to make my Talent work at a distance, but it was difficult and unpredictable.
“Grandpa!” I yelled in excitement.
Right about that moment, he plowed into me face-first and both of us crashed into the ocean. The water was cold, and my exclamation of surprise quickly turned into a gurgle.
I burst from the water, sputtering. Fortunately the water was calm—if frigid—and the waves weren’t bad. I straightened my Lenses—which remarkably had remained on my face—and looked around for my grandfather, who came up a few seconds later, his mustache drooping and his wisps of white hair plastered to his otherwise bald head.
“Wasted Westerfelds!” he exclaimed. “That was exciting, eh, lad?”
I shivered in response.
“All right, prepare yourself,” Grandpa Smedry said. He looked surprisingly fatigued.
“For what?” I asked.
“I’m letting us arrive late to some of that fall, lad,” Grandpa Smedry said. “But I can’t make it go away entirely. And I don’t think I can bear it for long!”
“So, you mean that—” I cut off as it hit me. It was as if I’d landed in the ocean again, the air getting knocked out of my lungs. I slipped beneath the waters, disoriented and freezing, then forced myself to struggle back up toward the sparkling light. I burst into the air and took a gasping breath.
Then it hit me again. Grandpa Smedry had broken our plummet into small steps, but even those small steps were dangerous. As I sank again, I barely caught sight of my grandfather trying to stay afloat. He wasn’t doing any better than I was.
I felt useless—I should have been able to do something with my Talent. Everyone always told me that my ability to break things was powerful—and indeed I’d done some amazing things with it. But I still didn’t have the control that I envied in Grandpa Smedry or my cousins.
True, I’d only even been aware of my place as a Smedry for about four months. But it’s hard to not be down on yourself when you’re in the middle of drowning. So I did the sensible thing and went ahead and passed out.
When I awoke, I was—fortunately—not dead, though part of me wished I was. I hurt pretty much all over, as if I’d been stuffed inside a punching bag, which had then been put through a blender. I groaned, opening my eyes. A slender young woman knelt beside me. She had long silver hair and wore a militaristic uniform.
She looked angry. In other words, she looked just about like she always did. “You did that on purpose,” Bastille accused me.
I sat up, raising a hand to my head. “Yes, Bastille. I keep trying to get killed because it’s inconvenient for you.”
She eyed me. I could tell that a little piece of her did believe that we Smedrys got ourselves into trouble just to make her life difficult.
My jeans and shirt were still wet, and I lay in a puddle of salty seawater, so it probably hadn’t been very long since the fall. The sky was open above me, and to my right, Hawkwind stood on its one remaining leg, perched on a wall. I blinked, realizing that I was atop some kind of castle tower.
“Australia managed to get the Hawkwind down to grab you two out of the water,” Bastille said, answering my unasked question as she stood up. “We aren’t sure what caused the explosion. It came from one of the rooms—that’s all we know.”