Bibliotruckers 1

Bibliotruckers
Zeppy Cheng
 Bibliotruckers 2

Copyright 2018 Zeppy Cheng all rights reserved

 Bibliotruckers 3

1
***
Fourth Wall Trucking
Night fell on the literary highway. The headlights of cars flashed
past the customs station, right next to a portal through the fourth
wall.
Jeb muttered to himself inside the cab of his truck. He had
some precious cargo, but he wasn’t sure that he was going to make
it. Two literary characters from a category three book were hiding
amongst the compressed words and syntactical fluid that were his
cargo.
Did he look suspicious? He probably did. He was a primary
source human, and as such, subtle differences in appearance
became apparent upon examination. His body was more naturally
shaped. His eyes were sharper. He looked less perfect, less
beautiful, and less like the romantic fantasy of human appearance
that populated most books. He was real. That was something he
couldn’t change.
Beyond the fourth wall was his home.
Jeb tapped the dashboard of his truck, which was covered in
dials, readouts, and military-grade gadgets. They bathed his body in
a low, blue glow.
“Bess. Play some Carl Rogan for me.”
The sound of country music shifted through the air, riding the
wind and the sound of passing cars. The night was truly upon them,
and the darkness of the world outside was offset only by the
headlights of the passing cars. Words floated in the sky, the stars
 Bibliotruckers 4

formed from pure literary meaning, with the literary highway

snaking in between them, bringing readers and truckers to the books
that they loved and depended on.
Jeb drove the truck up to the customs station. He stopped, with
a hiss, and rolled down the window. A literary character in a black
suit approached him.
“You’re leaving pretty late,” said the man. He was perfectly
proportioned, beautiful by any rights, but his eyes lacked the clarity
that a true human would have displayed.
Jeb gave a noncommittal shrug. “I’ve been driving all day,
coming from War of the Legions, and I’m just looking to go home
after I deliver my goods.”
“Show me your registry.”
Jeb handed the man a paperback novel. The book glimmered,
and then opened, words peeling off the page and swirling around
the customs agent. He seemed, for a moment, to be made out of
pure meaning. Then he snapped back into reality.
“Two pallets of compressed words, and a cannister of syntactical
liquid. A light load.”
“It was the best I could get.”
“Do you mind if we check and make sure that’s what you have
back there?”
This was bad. This was very bad. Jeb had hoped to get through
without any trouble, without a search, but it looked like his hopes
had been dashed. He tapped his fingers to the music. Did Andres
and Gillian have some sort of cloaking device?
They probably didn’t.
Shadowy figures formed out of pure language appeared out of
the darkness and landed around Jeb’s truck. Words floated through
their bodies, twisting, turning, changing size and shape and font. Jeb
cursed. He took one look at the customs agent, made a decision,
and slammed on the accelerator. Bess roared to life with a start. The
shadowy figures surrounded him, spitting out large, vibrant
onomatopoeia that surrounded Bess and wrapped around the cab.
WeeeeeWooooWeeeeeWooooo
 Bibliotruckers 5

The sound effects changed color from blue to red and back
again, rippling through space, shimmering, twisting, roiling as they
flowed around the truck. Jeb pointed the cab towards the fourth wall
gate. It fizzled, the doors of light closing inwards, blocking off his
exit. They slammed shut, spitting out the word BANG in large,
capital letters. Jeb did his best to turn on a dime. There was a single
road leading away from the fourth wall gate, empty, stretching into
the distant darkness with nobody else on it. Jeb sped down the
lonely asphalt, the shadowy figures chasing him, surrounding him
with pulsating strings of reverberating words.
Jeb pressed a button on the dash. “Bess, what now?”
“If you had been more careful with your time management, we
would have made it through. I told you not to pick up that
hitchhiker.”
“But she was cute,” said Jeb.
“Cute or no, it’s no good if you end up locked between the
lines.”
Something hit the truck from behind. Jeb pulled a lever on the
dash. “Bess, activate the missile defense system.”
“Your command. I wouldn’t advise shooting the government.
They may remember you.”
“They won’t,” said Jeb. “They never do.”
“Just you wait,” said Bessie. “One of these days, you’re going to
get yourself caught, trapped in a jail between the lines.”
“It’s not my fault that fleet keeps giving me the tough jobs,” said
Jeb. “Screw them. I’m not going to take the hit for some higher-up
who just wants to toy around with reality.”
A bullet pinged off of the window. “And we’re getting shot at.”
“Your fault,” said Bess.
Jeb piloted his truck across the smooth between-the-lines road,
laminated with a shining, lubricated material that was a mixture of
pure literary meaning and solidified interpretation. Bess’s wheels
spat dust out behind them as Jeb accelerated to his truck’s
maximum sustainable speed, a dozen words per second. He was
losing the literary agents through the dense subjectivity fog that
 Bibliotruckers 6

tended to be heaviest right near the gates through the fourth wall.
The road became thick with a muggy, wet atmosphere that Bess
whipped through at top speed, splitting it over the top of the cab in a
white stream. He drove for several hours in the direction of the
nearest portal beyond the fourth wall, until he was sure that the
literary agents weren’t after him anymore. They would probably
forget about his existence in a day or so. All he had to do was lay
low until then.
A bright light pulled his attention away from the road. It looked
like another truck was pulling up beside him, matching his speed.
The headlights were on full blast, carving yellow cones in the field of
subjective fog.
Who were these people? Why were they pulled up next to him?
“I have a bad feeling about this,” said Bess, through the
dashboard in front of him. “I think I recognize those guys.”
There was a sound carried over the wind, that could have been
maniacal laughter, or could have just been someone coughing. The
truck eased closer to Bess, almost to the point of collision. There
was a rough crash, a knock, and Bess shifted to the side. Jeb pressed
a button on the dash. “Go on autopilot,” he said, “And don’t mess
up like last time.”
“I won’t,” said Bess.
Jeb climbed out of his seat. It would be suicide to stop on the
literary highway at this point in time, because to stop meant to be
vulnerable to the monsters of the abyss, the editorial clippers that
trimmed the fat from published works, keeping the literary world
free of clutter, the very system the literary highways were designed to
penetrate, between the lines. Jeb climbed over the edge of his truck,
holding a pistol in his hands, and when he looked over the top of
the cargo he caught sight of a man holding onto the edge of the
shipping container for dear life. A bolt of blue lighting flashed out of
the side of the container. So, Andres and Gillian were fighting, too.
Whoever these pirates were, they wouldn’t get past Andres’s laser
gun or Gillian’s gravity warp engine. Those were two very valuable
pieces of equipment, his intended cargo, not the fake cargo he had
 Bibliotruckers 7

been pretending to import. Jeb hoped to the authors that the pirates
would take the hint and stop accosting him along the highway.
There was no way he could stop now.
The pirate rig shook violently as a glob of molten plasma fried
its edges, blasting a hole straight through its center. A person fell
out, tumbling, but two more people took his place as soon as his
body disappeared into the mist—Jeb swore he could have seen a
black, ichor-covered tentacle snatch the body away before it hit the
ground. Jeb aimed his gun at the cab of the pirate rig. Just as he was
about to fire, a hail of bullets forced him to duck beneath the rails
on the top of his cargo container. There was another vehicle, an
unmarked sedan, pulling up behind Bess. Jeb aimed, fired, and
managed to crack the sedan’s windshield. Still, it continued to drive
forwards, an arm leaning out of the window, holding an assault rifle.
Jeb cursed, scrambling to get back in the cab. He climbed through
the window just as another barrage of bullets zipped past, rolling up
the window in a frantic effort to save his body from being riddled
full of holes. He slammed his fist against the dash.
“Bess, I didn’t want to do this.”
“I know, Jeb,” came Bess’s voice, from a speaker embedded in
the passenger seat’s glove compartment.
“Damn it, Bess. It’s been a year since I’ve used it. Does it still
work?”
“It does, Jeb. I tested it yesterday, and I’m running diagnostics
right now. All systems go.”
“Here we go!” said Jeb, flipping up a glass box that had been
covering a big, red button. He smashed it with his palm. “Engage
missile defense system!”
“Engaging,” said Bess. There was a loud crack, a whip, and a
whoosh, as the sedan behind Bess’s load exploded in a ball of white
hot gasoline and missile shrapnel. Whoever was in that car was dead
the moment the missile hit. Now, all that was left was the rig beside
them, still tussling with Andres and Gillian. Jeb had promised them
that the ride would be easy, and he knew he was breaking his
promise—he always promised that to his clients and his cargo, but it
 Bibliotruckers 8

never was. He just couldn’t keep it together long enough to stay out
of trouble. However, he had never once failed a mission, which was
probably why command was sending him out on all the tough runs,
the ones that had a high chance of failure.
That, or someone kept selling him out. He could have been
sold out this time.
Nah, thought Jeb. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. He
paused, watching the firefight through the rearview mirror. Or … He
knew now was not the time to contemplate.
Jeb slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, forcing Bess to
bring her speed up to a dangerous fourteen words per second. At
the rate they were going, taking turns in the literary highway would
topple them unless Jeb was careful. He couldn’t trust the autopilot
for this.
Not to mention the rig beside him that was engaged in a full-on
shootout with his precious cargo. Blue lights flashed, explosions
rumbled, and someone screamed in pain—Jeb hoped it wasn’t one
of the people he was transporting.
A curve came out of nowhere, flashing past with more speed
than Jeb thought possible. Bess vaulted off the literary highway and
into the Line Zone, a place where books had physical form and
came real. It was a book set in the American suburbs of the fifties—
Jeb recognized it as a book he had been forced to read in high
school. Something about fruit and wine. Jeb’s truck careened
through the open, idyllic streets, crushing mailboxes and leading the
pirate rig alongside them. The pirates were throwing grappling
hooks onto Jeb’s truck. They had probably been tracking him ever
since he had picked up his real cargo—and now they were here for
it. Jeb jerked Bess left at an intersection, crushing two cars
underneath her wheels—no significant loss, since non-named
characters simply disappeared in a puff of word dust when
something non-canon happened to them. And Jeb’s truck was a
rolling snowball of non-canonicity.
Jeb knew he was going further from the on-ramp to the literary
highway. He was now stuck. There was no leaving with the pirate
 Bibliotruckers 9

truck at his side, giving and taking hits and exchanging firepower.
Jeb had several missiles left, but he wasn’t sure if their explosions
would damage Bess as well as the truck they were meant to destroy.
It was too close for comfort, and then there was Andres and Gillian
to consider. If they were injured, Jeb’s perfect record would go out
the window, and that was the only reason why command still sent
him on missions—the only reason why he wasn’t out on the streets
panhandling for another job.
So, Jeb drove the truck through the sunny, happy streets of
1950’s Americana, crushing hedges, running through 50’s style cars,
smashing light posts and turning impters—Implied Characters—into
puffs of compressed literary meaning. He didn’t need to worry
about the collateral damage he caused—it would all regenerate after
he left the pages of the book and returned to the literary highway. It
was like pushing a hole in an unbaked loaf of bread: the hole would
fill up afterwards slowly, like taking a big breath, breathing out
everything that had happened.
Books ran on timetables. At any one point, a book could be
anywhere in its story, and if you traveled to the right spot on the
literary highway, you could view actual story events as they
happened, and even interfere with instances of them if you had the
right technology. However, again, everything reset itself after a
couple of minutes, and the story would aggressively right itself as
soon as the perpetrator disappeared, even to the point of teleporting
displaced characters and reviving dead characters, even ones who
were eviscerated. There was no escaping the march of the story.
So, knowing this, Jeb smashed his way through the streets,
overturning cars, running over impters, using the terrain to try and
get the pirate rig to crash into something, anything, while
simultaneously trying to keep Andres and Gillian alive. It was a
tough juggle, one that took up every ounce of his concentration.
A warning light flashed on the dash board. “Jeb, we’ve
encountered a problem, and may have to pull over.”
Jeb slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “And create an
exception pocket? With these guys here?”
 Bibliotruckers 10

An exception pocket was when the march of the story halted to

let events unfold that were related to the doings of a visitor,
unfolding in sequence logically until the visitor left. They were
created whenever a non-narrative being stepped out of their
insulated fourth wall vehicle, and meant that, if Jeb were to stop and
fight it out on land, the world around him would gain another level
of realism. That was bad. He wanted the story to be as fictional as
possible.
An explosion caused Bess to jackknife. Screeching to a stop, Jeb
did his best to keep the truck upright, barely managing to stop it
from rolling over onto its side. Andres and Gillian jumped out of
the cargo bay and ran up to the cab.
“What the hell is going on?” yelled Andres, holding his laser
rifle out towards the pirates, who had pulled up next to Bess.
Andres was on the other side of Bess from the pirates. Jeb
opened the door on his side and leaped out. Bullets pinged against
the bulletproof glass on the other side of the cab. Jeb held his pistol
in his hands, kneeling beside Andres.
“We’re in deep shit right now,” he said, fingering his CB radio,
whose cord hung down from the dash to where he was kneeling. He
depressed the emergency contact button.
“HQ, this is Rocky Road, I’m trapped in the book Sunflower
Spirits; author: Hunter Stevens. Requesting assistance. Be advised,
pirate activity, this is an emergency code six, I have level three cargo,
we’re in a precarious position, I repeat, emergency code six.”
The voice through the other side was like a godsend.
“We’ll be there for you, Rocky Road,” said a female’s beautiful
voice. “This is Mint’n’Chip.”
Jeb sighed audibly. Allie. She had gone to school with him—they
were former sweethearts—and he had trusted her with his life more
times than he could count. Even though their relationship was so
complicated that it would take a week to explain to someone who
didn’t already know it. Those who did know it—well, they simply
observed and made their own private jokes on the matter.
 Bibliotruckers 11

Jeb looked through the cab at the pirates. They appeared to be

tapering off with their shots, though it didn’t look like they were
about to move. Jeb was pinned down. His truck was jackknifed and
would probably have to have assistance getting back on the road.
Bess was a versatile vehicle with a lot of cool functions. However,
one thing that no big rig could do was turn on a dime while stopped,
and that’s what would have been required of her. Jeb put a gentle
hand on the cab’s tire.
“It’s okay, Bess,” he said. “This doesn’t count as a failure quite
yet. I’d take pirates over litguards any day of the week.”
“I’d like to hear you say it to their face,” said Bess. “All this
small arms fire makes me worry that they’re saving the big guns for
later. One well-placed RPG and poof, I’m only half the truck I was
beforehand. Look, like magic.”
Jeb chuckled. “Like hell I’ll let that happen to you. We just have
to rely on Allie, wait until she comes, and keep Andres and Gillian
alive until then.”
Bess chortled in a way only a disembodied voice attached to a
semi-truck could. “Well said, Jeb. Watch for their foot soldiers,
they’re coming around the bend.”
Jeb put his hand on Andres’s shoulder, pointing to the other
side of the rig. Andres crept alongside the side of the truck, until he
came to the back end. He peered around the edge. His military
training became evident then. Gillian sidled up to Jeb, holding his
gravity gun up against his shoulder.
“What should we do, boss?” he said. “I know we’re being
smuggled out for a job, but were you expecting these guys?”
“Can you do anything about them?” said Jeb.
“Nothing more than we already have,” said Gillian. “These guys
are tough. They know us better than we know them. I bet you
they’ve been trailing you for a while now, waiting for the perfect time
to strike.”
Jeb shrugged. “Bastards. This is the first time in years I’ve had to
call Allie in for support.” He peered through the driver’s seat of his
cab. The bullets had calmed down. The pirates were doing
 Bibliotruckers 12

something, something that he couldn’t see. Jeb peeked around the

front of the cab, staying hidden as much as possible. A bullet
greeted him, pinging off Bess’s grille. Jeb pulled back.
He returned to the cab, surveying the pirates through the
bulletproof window on the passenger side, the side they were on. He
could see them pulling something out of the back of their truck. A
couple plasma bolts flashed past the pirates—Andres and Gillian—
but, unflinching, the continued to ready whatever it was they were
putting together.
“Come on, Allie, come on,” said Jeb, holding his hands together
in prayer. He stroked Bess’s dashboard. “Bess,” he said. “Do we
have any other options? Anything that was hidden from the
manual?”
“You ask this every time,” said Bess. “It’s silly. Just trust me to
shield you.”
“I can’t do anything if they come around the corner. The truck
is jackknifed. There’s nothing we can do to escape. Now they’re
putting together some sort of … Thing.”
“I can see it perfectly. I’m not blind on my broadside, you know.
I’m running a scan now to see if that thing appears in any
databases.” There was a tense pause. “It looks like a Leonard word
cannon. Same caliber that they used back in Bol Shak.”
“I remember that one. About the Vietnam war, right?”
“You got it. It has a blasting power of five hundred characters,
and it can tear a hole through me as easy as a marker through bible
paper.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“I’m thinking. Even though it doesn’t seem like Allie is going to
be here in time, I’m still optimistic about our chances of survival
today.”
“So you say,” said Jeb, listening to the tense silence that was their
standoff.
There was a loud clank from the other side of the rig.
Something seemed to be charging up, a motor sound that vibrated
quicker and quicker, growing to a high-pitched squeal.
 Bibliotruckers 13

“Jeb?” said Bess.

“What,” said Jeb, looking at the monstrous machine that was
pointed at them through the bulletproof cab window.
“We still have one missile left.”
“I thought I told you to tell me stuff like this,” said Jeb.
“It’s not going to make it at this angle—the target is in my
launcher’s blind spot.”
The high-pitched sound grew louder and louder. Some people
shouted on the other side of the jackknifed rig. It was as if a jet
engine were gunning up, getting ready for takeoff. Jeb flipped up the
big red button’s glass casing.
“If I fire this missile upwards, can it come back down on its
own?”
“A thing about this missile,” said Bess. “Gillian produced it
using plans from my database. He has a molecular former, just
enough to get the job done. We don’t know if the missile is reliable
enough for that.”
Jab almost slammed his fist down on the dash, and then
stopped. The machine on the right side of the jackknifed truck was
screaming at the sky. The impters around the area began to fray,
unravel, and disappear into clouds of fluttering letters that, like
bubbles, floated up into the sky before disappearing from sight. Jeb
turned away from the bright light that suddenly washed over the
truck. It was a laser beam. He could feel his entire body begin to
break down under its hyperintense gaze. It was painful, the pain
crawling into his bones and his skin—he knew now what the purpose
of the weapon was. It was designed to kill all literary beings within a
certain area, leaving the book clean and rendering all of the objects
that were inside of it into loot and plunder.
Jeb was a biological. His truck—Bess—allowed him to interact
directly with the literary world.
“See?” said Bess. “I knew you would be all right.”
“But, Andres!” said Jeb, slamming his hand against the door to
the cab. “And Gillian! They were my passengers, and now I’ve lost
them.”
 Bibliotruckers 14

“Not yet you haven’t,” said Allie’s voice, a beautiful soprano that
was like the voice of an angel coming into the depths of hell.
The screaming noise ended in an explosion of such force and
pressure that Bess was tilted, almost turning over onto her side. Her
wheels slammed back down in contact with the pavement. A bright
green pickup truck swept around the street on the other opposite
lane, drifting with a screech of sideways motion. Burned road
sprayed out from underneath its tires.
“I got you,” said Allie, over the CB radio, her voice echoing
from out of the cab of both vehicles. The green truck slammed to a
stop next to Jeb, nearly crushing Andres beneath its grille, stopping
just an inch short. Andres whooped.
Allie opened the door and tossed Jeb an RPG. Jeb rolled down
the passenger window in the cab, aimed at the pirate rig, and fired.
The pirates exploded in a wash of reds, yellows, and whites as their
fuel tank ruptured, covering them in burning petroleum. Screams
echoed.
Jeb turned to Andres. “Get on board,” he said, waving with his
arm.
Allie leaned out of the window of her truck. “Glad I’m here?”
“Glad to see you’re still alive,” said Jeb. “What with what you’ve
been doing lately.”
Allie winked. “We’ll get a chance to talk about that later.”
Jeb scoffed. He turned around, igniting the cab’s engine. Allie
arranged her pickup truck so that it was in an opportune place to
tow the jackknifed rig. With a couple false starts, they were able to
pull the rig back onto the literary highway in as good a shape as
could be expected.
“I wanted to bring my Ferrari,” said Allie, “But I knew you were
going to need a tow. I just knew it.” Her engine growled. “Let’s get
out of here before the literary agents find us and try to punish us for
disturbing a high-impact work.”
“Really?” said Jeb. “It doesn’t look that iconic to me.”
“That’s because you never paid attention in class. You should
recognize it from high school.”
 Bibliotruckers 15

Jeb chuckled. “And look where I am now.”

Allie gave Jeb the thumbs-up. She leaned out of her window and
looked back at him. “As the school’s valedictorian, I couldn’t agree
more.” She laughed, and pulled away from Bess, returning to the
literary sub streets that crisscrossed the small Americana town, some
of them lifting up into the sky, or burrowing into tunnels beneath
the ground that were marked with warning labels about analytical
essays, both good and bad, that had been written about the book
since its release more than sixty years ago. Sunflower Spirits was a
well-developed book, Jeb mused, watching the multi-leveled
tiramisu freeway system that passed through it. They drove until
they found an onramp to the literary highway, the interval, short for
intervolume. Intervol 7, according to Bess’s New York Times
Literary Index Navigational App, or the N-Line. It would be about
half an hour before they found a portal that would be free of guards
at this time. The N-Line wasn’t built to figure out which portals were
guarded at which times, but Jeb had other tools to figure that out—
Book Club 5 was one of them. He checked the references, just to
make sure, and then radioed Allie on the CB.
“Allie, let’s head for that exit.”
“Will do,” said Allie, increasing her speed slightly. “I think we’re
in the clear.”
Jeb relaxed, for the first time in a long while. Being with Allie
made it so that he could let his guard down, now that there was
another person other than Bess, who barely counted, looking out
for him. Andres and Gillian were in the back. His mission was
about to be—for the most part—a success. Rescues didn’t count
against his perfect record. The only thing that did count was a loss of
the cargo. Even copies of literary characters—which is what they
became the moment they left the literary world and entered the real
world, the literary forms being replaced in that instant—had rights,
feelings, and ways that they could be useful to important people and
major governments.
Jeb worked for an organization called the Breakers, fourth wall-
breaking truckers, who traveled the literary highway bringing goods
 Bibliotruckers 16

from the books where they grew to the real world where they could
be of use. All of it was smuggled, of course, as it was against literary
convention to break the fourth wall in any meaningful way. The
narrator, the all-seeing omniscient being who narrated all third
person stories, always tried to balance out the universe and prevent
fourth wall breaks from violating the known laws of physics, like
they did every single day. Physics didn’t like being violated,
especially the second law of thermodynamics and the law of
conservation of matter and energy, but that was what fourth wall
portals were for. Breaking the laws of physics using the human
imagination.
They approached the portal, and then Jeb got a call on his CB.
He lifted it up. “This is Rocky Road,” he said.
“It’s Jumbo Shrimp,” said a boyish, charming voice.
Jeb sighed. Today was not his day.
 Bibliotruckers 17

2
***
Ice Cream Making
Jeb sighed. “Jumbo Shrimp, where are you hauling from?”
“The last book in the Freedom Dragons series,” said the boyish,
charming voice. “Just got released. Some really prime elements in
there, the author got really famous all the sudden and its
applicability class went up really fast. It’s a hot zone, the traffic there
is intense. I haven’t seen so much competition since Witch Boy
Peter ended.” The voice laughed. “And believe me, Jeb, my rival, I
will beat your record and rise to the top of the Breakers.”
“How many people did you lose?” said Jeb.
“Just, er, two,” said Jumbo Shrimp, whose real name was
Fredrick. “No more than usual. I mean, who cares if every lost
character costs several thousand dollars to replace with more
meaning fluid—I mean, meanflu?”
“Not the people you’re reporting to, I’m sure,” said Jeb,
sarcastically.
Fredrick chuckled, nervously. “Do you think I’ll still be able to
keep my job? I lost a rather … Important character on my way out.
Got too cocky and decided to speed my way through the sci fi
section. I figured, if the ships there are regularly going faster than the
speed of light, why couldn’t I get a little faster?”
“I see,” said Jeb, sighing.
“Ah, come on now, my rival. We’re in this together,
professionally, in the same boat!”
Jeb thought he could hear Allie chortle.
“Right, and that means you have standards to follow,” said Jeb,
to Fredrick, sighing again. He could imagine the boy’s eager, earnest
face, in all of its chubbiness, a perfectly likeable character marred by
the fact that his tact was duller than a horseshoe. For some reason,
 Bibliotruckers 18

whenever evaluation time came around, he was never bad enough at

the job to actually get canned—which was a miracle, in Jeb’s line of
thought. Not that he didn’t like the kid. Just that incompetence—or
anything close to it—was less than praiseworthy to Jeb.
Not that his own situation had any chance of faring better
without Allie. It was the first time in a year that Jeb had needed
help. He shouldn’t have met pirates there, especially ones that well-
equipped. He was in the school zone, the place where all the classics
read in high school were located, and that meant that the pirates
were taking a huge risk of being spotted by one of the other
organizations who took it upon themselves to guard more well-
traveled volumes and their connecting spaces. The pirates had been
aggressive. What had they been after? Obviously, they hadn’t
achieved what they were working towards—or had they? Jeb’s truck
was damaged, and he would be out of commission for the next
month, as he collected damage pay and got to relax on the sofa and
watch football all day as Bess was repaired. It was all part of the job.
His perfect record was still going on.
Was that what those pirates had been going for? Because,
though Andres and Gillian were powerful, they weren’t more than
category three, of five, and their objective worth was about half a
million dollars each. While that was a lot of money, it wasn’t much
when considering the other prey the pirates could have gone after—
easier, less experienced, less well-armed prey. Jeb was a trucker
allied with the Breakers, after all—he worked for them, and if it was
found that he was captured or killed by pirates, then the Breakers
would take it upon themselves to chase after and punish the pirates,
with the resources of one of the world’s largest corporations, and
local governments on their side. The pirates would surely lose.
There was no denying that fact. But, for the moment, Jeb had to
get home safely, deliver the cargo he had in the back, and get Bess
repaired.
They drove through portal 176 onto Charlestone Lane, popping
out of the literary world and into a back alleyway in suburban
California, where the witnesses were few and the sidewalks deserted.
 Bibliotruckers 19

The sudden appearance of a truck out of nowhere was offset by

projectors that built an image of the truck somewhere where no one
could see it and then merged it with the real being, seamlessly, so
that not a single person could tell the truck had just come out of the
literary universe. Fourth-wall breaking had become refined until it
was an art.
“Bess, check if Andres and Gillian rendered properly.” It was
simply a routine.
“Andres and Gillian have rendered one hundred percent,” said
Bess, through the dash. “I’m reporting no irregularities.”
Jeb grinned. He thumbed his CB. “Thanks, Mint’n Chip,” he
said. “For the assist.”
“It wasn’t an assist,” said Allie, her tone humorous and
lighthearted. “It was a save-your-ass.”
“In any case, thanks,” said Jeb. “Without you, I don’t know
where I would be I this life. I’d probably be in the next, come to
think of it.”
Jeb could see Allie’s smug look through the radio he held in his
hands. “Thanks for the validation, oh great perfect Mr. Rocky
Road,” said Allie.
Jeb almost chuckled, but then stopped himself. No good to go
there, or else he would risk pulling up something he didn’t want to
see. He thumbed his CB.
“Jumbo Shrimp, are you close?”
There was a short pause. “Yes, I think so,” said Fredrick. “I’m
going to exit as soon as you’re out of the way.”
Allie’s truck appeared behind Bess. “No, you don’t,” said Allie.
“I’m still in line.” Her truck finished materializing, and it pulled up
beside Jeb. Allie rolled down her window. “Take care, and don’t get
in trouble like that again, because I’d hate to have you owe me
twice. I don’t think I can pull off something like that again.”
“You always come through,” said Jeb. “So, I’m not worrying.”
He rolled up his window and looked away.
Allie drove her truck away, pulling onto a major street. Jeb
sighed, turning the opposite direction at an intersection, and headed
 Bibliotruckers 20

towards Breaker HQ, which was in the middle of a warehouse

district near Los Angeles. He drove into the lot, attached his trailer
to the drop-off zone, and secured the hatch. A couple of workers
stepped out of the door and began working to unload the truck. His
payload—refined words and syntactical fluid—would be processed on
the other side of that wall. Andres and Gillian stepped out of the
back of the truck.
“Hey, Jeb,” said Andres. “Are you sure this is where we get off?”
A man in a black suit walked around the corner, hemmed in by
two bodyguards. He extended his hand.
“Jeb, glad to see you made it through. I heard you had some
trouble and Allie had to go save you.”
Jeb shook the man’s hand, grimacing slightly. “It’s good to see
you, Beans.”
Beans grinned widely, which was kind of ugly on his bald face.
Jeb tried his best not to look like he was thinking that. He turned to
Andres and Gillian. “I see these are the characters you’ve brought
me today.” He tapped on the shipping container behind Bess’s cab.
“You got a little bit shot-up.”
“I’m expecting compensation,” said Jeb. “So, are you going to
take them where they need to go?”
Andres looked at Jeb and raised his arm. “Good working with
you. Now that I’m in this world, I’m going to make the best of it.”
Jeb locked arms with Andres. “Thanks for covering me back
there.”
Andres smiled. “See you around.” He saluted. “This is for my
family. You’re someone I respect, and now you’re one of the people
whom I fight for.” Then he turned around and, with Beans and
Gillian, went around the corner of the warehouse building and
disappeared from Jeb’s sight.
Jeb put his hand on Bess’s front hatch, which was dented where
it had been hit with a high-caliber bullet. Jeb was glad that he had
spent the extra money and weaponized her, but now that he thought
about it, he was still spending just as much fixing her up after every
mission that went even a little bit sour. It left a bad taste in his
 Bibliotruckers 21

mouth. With his debt looming over him and all, the fact that he
could only go on missions when Bess was in tip-top shape irked
him. He sighed.
“Bess, what’s the status of our unloading?”
“On schedule,” said Bess. “We’re getting ready to leave right
now. The warehouse workers have everything covered. Especially
that syntactical fluid. Always hate it when that stuff gets spilled all
over me. It gives everything too much symbolic value. Who knew
that bolts could represent the male obsession with technology
through a literal screwing of metal manufactured objects?”
Jeb couldn’t help but smile, a little. “Right, because everything is
always a phallus when it comes to interpreting useful tools.”
“You got it. It’s either something to beat or something to screw.”
Jeb couldn’t help but remember a line from his father. He
shook the thought out of his head.
A warehouse worker came up to the window. “We’re unloaded.
You can go now.”
Jeb sighed, and wrapped his arms around the wheel. He really
wasn’t looking forwards to meeting Logan. That was the worst part
about getting Bess into mechanical trouble. Even though she was
heavily armored and weaponized, bullets could still dent the cab,
and the hole that the pirates had torn through the side of his
shipping container needed patching, as well. Hopefully enough to
make it look like new. Even though he wasn’t exactly the most
savory character around, Logan definitely knew how to fix things up.
Pulling out of the warehouse, and out of the warehouse district,
Jeb found the freeway and drove to the small town of Benton, a
suburban pocket in the middle of other suburban pockets, with
nothing but a nice shopping mall to its name. Jeb found Logan’s
Repair Depot and parked his truck amongst the other vehicles
needing repairs.
Logan himself walked out of the office adjacent to the car shop.
He waved. Jeb sighed.
“What have you been up to, my favorite customer?” said Logan,
smiling broadly.
 Bibliotruckers 22

“Nothing much,” said Jeb.

“Just a little scuffle, I see,” said Logan, kicking at the cab’s tires.
“Of course you would get into that kind of trouble. It’s you, after
all.” His tone was that of someone who was aiming to be derogatory
but couldn’t quite make it there.
He leaned against the cab in a very used car salesman kind of
way. “You know, one of these days you’re going to have to tell me
how you get all of this damage. Not that I need to know, but I’m
curious.”
Jeb shook his head. “Sorry. Not going to happen.”
Logan grinned. “So. What’s the package today? A full
restoration? Maybe I’ll throw in a tune-up to sweeten the deal. I
only do this for real friends, you know.”
Jeb sighed. “No, thank you. Just get her fixed up and operational
without any of the stupid add-ons.”
Logan swept his fingers through his hair. “Add-ons? These are
not add-ons I’m offering you. I’m offering you necessary
components of the overhaul your truck has been needing for years.”
“Bess doesn’t need an overhaul,” said Jeb. “Treat her well for
me.” He stepped out of the truck, pulled up his cell phone, and
dialed Allie.
“I just dropped off my truck at the repair shop,” he said.
“There’s no one else I can ask right now. Will you give me a ride?”
“Of course,” said Allie. “Anything for you.”
Jeb wasn’t sure if he detected a little bit of sarcasm in there. If it
were sarcasm, he could tell where it came from. Allie was as difficult
to read as the weather behind the fourth wall. Meaning storms, dog-
ear lightning—bookworms especially were a terrifying, unpredictable
storm that tore up entire books and sent them to the graveyard of
every book that was out of print without any hope of being
redeemed. The place most books went, unless they became
timeless.
Jeb sat down on the front driveway of the repair shop, reading a
book that he kept with him at all times—it changed every time he
finished one book, but he always started a new one. It was good to
 Bibliotruckers 23

be an avid reader when one’s job depended on navigating the

literary world.
A red Ferrari pulled up next to the driveway, garnering the usual
stares that such a vehicle always pulled from the surrounding
pedestrians. Allie leaned out the window.
“Jeb, how’s it going? Fancy seeing you here!”
Jeb climbed into the Ferrari’s passenger seat. It smelled like
leather and a little like machine oil. Definitely a high-class kind of
smell, in a practical sort of way. ‘Thanks,” he said, turning to the
front.
“I’m taking you to headquarters,” said Allie, her voice a little bit
strange. “They say they have a new mission for you, to be taken
upon as soon as Bess is out of the shop.”
“That early?” said Jeb. “Usually the work dries up this time of
year.”
“This early,” said Allie. “The book is called Storm Rages, and
it’s a level five. The character in question is a high-level wizard with
skills and stats that are through the roof. It’s a personal request by
one of our biggest clients, and we can’t refuse him.”
Jeb scoffed. “I’m not risking my life diving into a level five.
Don’t you have other truckers who are paid to do that?”
“Are you scared you’ll lose your perfect record?”
“I’m scared I’ll lose my life,” said Jeb.
Allie chuckled. “That’s probably why you’re at the top when it
comes to mission completeness. Though, I have to say, you come
close sometimes and it makes me more nervous than the idea that
you might die. Your winning streak is something I’m proud of, too.”
Jeb shrugged. “You have had a hand in it.”
They were driving on the freeway now, amongst other cars, and,
this being a day off at noon, the traffic wasn’t bad enough to curse at.
Jeb simply enjoyed the ride in Allie’s Ferrari, watching the scenery
go past, the endless cookie-cutter houses and strip malls and signs
advertising local restaurants. Allie drove them to a small town
sandwiched in between two others—though, in the California
Suburbs it was difficult to tell when one town ended, and another
 Bibliotruckers 24

began, as everything merged seamlessly into one, big, metro area.

Allie pulled up next to a non-descript building built in the style of
the eighties. The windows were bold, there was a lot of concrete,
and the architecture had a distinctly brutal style. Over the top of the
door there was a sign that read: “Breakers Trucking.”
Allie parked her car in the adjacent parking facility, and then the
two of them walked down through the building and into the
Breakers HQ. The doors opened with a hiss, and Jeb stepped into a
spacious, marbled lobby with a receptionist’s desk at the far end.
The room was filled to the brim with people bustling about,
minding their business. On second inspection, one could see that a
sizable majority of the people moving about had soft-shaded
outlines, almost as if they had been painted into the real world
instead of existing there independently. There was a clear distinction
between these cell-shaded beings and the humans who walked
among them. Some of the cell-shaded beings had come from a
realm of science fiction or fantasy, and so there were elves, dwarves,
and aliens, all interacting with the humans in the room as if nothing
were wrong at all with the picture.
Allie led Jeb past the receptionist’s desk and to the elevator. Jeb
was determined not to let the higher-ups pull one over on him, send
him on a suicide mission just because they had a better replacement
for him, or because he caused too much trouble. He had voiced his
concern about corruption and questionable decisions by the
management of the company, but those questions had gone
unanswered, veritably disappearing from the forum where they were
asked. Jeb was a little afraid of what that meant, but at the same
time, he knew he had to keep his guard up. He would not have the
wool pulled over his eyes again. He was going to redeem himself
after his first ever near-failure, which he was determined to make his
last.
The elevator doors opened. Jeb stepped out into a hallway that
was mostly empty except for one slim, wiry woman who brushed
past Jeb and entered the elevator. Allie gave her a passing glance
and then walked ahead of Jeb to an open briefing room—Jeb was
 Bibliotruckers 25

familiar with it. It was where special cases were handled, where
information was transferred not as a series of commands issued
through email, but rather, a full-blown operational briefing at the
expense of whoever wanted a mission to be high priority. In other
words, the briefing room was reserved for important stuff.
Jeb tapped his fingers on the desk that he had sat himself down
on. Allie gave Jeb a nod and stepped out of the room. Jeb had the
whole place to himself for five minutes, and then a commander of
the Breakers appeared out of a door at the front of the room. He
placed the package he had been holding in his hands on the table.
Jeb leaned in a little bit to see it but was disappointed when it was
just a stack of papers.
“The mission is going to be difficult,” said the briefing officer.
“My name is Fields. I’ll be your briefing officer for today.”
Jeb rested his chin on his hands. “Is it a suicide mission that
you’re sending me on? Because I know this is a level five book
you’re putting me into.”
Fields frowned. “How did you know that?”
“I—” said Jeb, and then decided to protect Allie—“I heard it on
the grapevine.”
Fields seemed to deliberate for a moment, and then softly shook
his head. “Very well. I will give you the full details of this operation
over the next hour and a half.”
Jeb spent the entire time asking questions and getting to know
the book he was going to be diving into: Storm Rages. The reason it
was a category five was because of its hardness on the scale of magic
systems. There were powerful abilities written about that could
decimate entire cities and destroy nuclear blasts worth of stuff if they
were unleashed. Every fantasy story that had a more than
moderately powerful magic system was rated four or five. Fantasy
tended to be on the most extreme end of the scale when it came to
utility and power of its characters and assets. Next was science
fiction, then mystery, then romance.
Storm Rages was a full-blown level five, where wizards with the
power to destroy worlds existed, and where there was a dark lord
 Bibliotruckers 26

who, if let out into the real world, would wreak havoc before it was
put down by the literary police. They never got far, but, like
tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural disasters, they caused their
damage before they were done.
That was why it was hard to bring literary characters out of
books. The Narrator and his army of literary agents tried their best
to keep literary characters from becoming real.
The mission Jeb was assigned was a tough one, for sure. The
hardest part of any literary extraction was convincing the character in
question to leave their book, their home, and everything they were
fighting for in order to get a job in the real world. To help with this
process, mostly agreeable characters were selected, ones who would
conceivably have a motive to head to the real world, and who
weren’t tied down by obligations to other characters or their world.
Storm Rages was a fantasy with a powerful magic system. The
person Jeb was going to go after—Tsukasa, arch-mage of
Bryiondious—was powerful enough to split the world in half if she so
tried. In the book, she did it to stop a war, and Jeb was heading into
the book near the tail end, after Tsukasa had left on a journey to
find herself. He was going to pop in, locate Tsukasa, and pop back
out.
Jeb saw something coming. He knew it. He knew, in his gut, that
there was a reason he was getting a personal briefing. There had to
be.
Then, it came. “The book is a number one New York Times
bestseller,” said Fields, looking more apologetic than he should have
been.
Jeb narrowed his vision. They were sticking him with a suicide
mission. The security around NYT bestsellers was tighter than that
around Buckingham Palace. Getting a literary character out of an
NYT bestseller, especially when it was in the number one slot, was
like stealing a painting from the Louvre in France. Now he knew
what was happening.
“You guys are trying to get me killed, aren’t you?” said Jeb, his
voice slightly on edge.
 Bibliotruckers 27

Felds shook his head in a manner that was unmistakably earnest.

“We need this mage. Or rather, the United States Government
needs this mage, and now, because there is a problem that only she
can solve.”
“I don’t want to be a part of this,” said Jeb. “Find someone else
to do the job. Like Fredrick. He’d jump into any book if you paid
him enough.”
“Can enough money persuade you to do it?” said Fields.
“Because, as our best trucker, you’re the only one we can ask to do
this for us.”
“Fredrick is pretty good too.”
“That may be,” said Fields. “But, can you consider changing
your mind? I know you have until your truck finishes repairs to go
back on the road, but can you at least keep this mission in mind as
you go about your daily business?”
Jeb sighed. “Okay. I will. I’ll consider it, if only because you
went through the effort to actually bring me to the briefing room.”
Jeb stood up. “I’ll be going now.”
Fields held out the package in his hands. “This is our contract
with the US government,” he said. “You need to take a look at it to
believe it.”
Jeb sighed, sat back down, and took the stack of papers when it
was handed to him. They were neatly clipped together with a binder
clip. Jeb started reading. As he read, he became more and more
surprised, until, finally, when he had finished it all, he rubbed at his
temples in frustration.
“Are you kidding me? You’re telling me that I was specifically
requested by the US government to personally take on this
mission?”
Fields nodded. “I couldn’t say it out loud, but I could, well,
accidentally let my papers slip into your hands.” Fields took the
papers back. “Now to burn them.”
Jeb stood up again. “Still, I’m going to have to think about it.”
He turned around and left the room. Allie was waiting for him on
 Bibliotruckers 28

the other side. She stood up off the wall as soon as Jeb came
through the door.
“Do you want to go somewhere to eat?” said Allie, almost
seductively, but not quite.
“Sure,” said Jeb. “Only if you’re paying.”
“Cheapskate,” said Allie, nudging Jeb in the side. The two of
them walked down the hall, took the elevator to the lobby, and left
through the front doors. They came to a sushi place not far from the
HQ and sat down inside of it.
The sushi was good. It had been a while since Allie and Jeb had
spent time together. However, even though they were cordial with
each other, it didn’t mean that the complicatedness was gone. It was
just beneath the surface, bubbling up from deep within Jeb’s psyche,
threatening to come out of hiding, revealing to the world what kind
of a man he really was, just a sissy who tried to act tough in front of
people who believed in him. And, there were a lot of them.
Jeb finished first, and as he watched Allie finished up her fatty
tuna, he smiled.
Allie looked up from her sushi for a moment. “What?” she said.
Jeb simply shook his head. “Nothing,” he said.
Allie tilted her head, ever so slightly. “Are you certain?”
Jeb stood up. “I’m going to go pay the bill.”
Allie took Jeb by the arm sleeve, looking down at the table.
“Don’t get up … Just yet,” she said. “I have something I want to … I
have something I want to talk about.”
Jeb sat back down. “What is it?”
“Remember the first time we started this job together?” said
Allie. “Weren’t those times the greatest?”
“Everything is greater in hindsight,” said Jeb. “It just takes a lot
of effort to admit that.”
Allie turned away. “That’s not the case. I know it to be true. We
were so happy together. What happened?”
“What’s gone is gone,” said Jeb.
“Do you think we can start again?” said Allie.
Jeb thought for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “No.”
 Bibliotruckers 29

Allie looked like she was about to cry. Instead, though, she
stood up, took her purse off of the chair it was hanging on, and
looked away from Jeb. “I’ll go pay at the front.”
Jeb watched her go.
 Bibliotruckers 30

3
***
Coffee shop
The United States Government had personally requested him.
That much was almost frightening. Almost, but not quite. Jeb knew
he had to face up against this suicide mission with the determination
he had gained over his years as a fourth wall-breaking trucker. Bess
was in the shop, but, when she was out, Jeb would most likely be
back on the road heading towards some sort of inevitable disaster
that would leave him dead, or worse. Jeb had always known that he
wouldn’t die of old age. His line of work was far too dangerous for
that. No, he would go out in a blaze of glory, that people would
remember for generations.
Or so he hoped. It was the best of what he could hope for.
Jeb sat in a café, drinking a cup of coffee, checking the news on
his laptop. It was eight in the morning. Jeb was reading, at that
moment, about a superhero vigilante who was wreaking havoc
against bad guys in the city of New York. That was all the way across
the continent, so it didn’t concern him, but the fact remained that it
was an interesting story. So far, they hadn’t been able to interview
her. Jeb wondered if she was a literary character, or a real person
who had gained some sort of supernatural powers. Both existed.
Both were well-known. Jeb had his money pegged on the fictional
character side of things. He had seen enough of them that he knew
what the telltale signs were, even halfway across America. Fictional
characters often had solid motives that they were working for, and
they tended to be dedicated to those defining motives.
Jeb did not want to be taken advantage of by anybody, even if it
was the United States government. His tingling bad idea sensors
were telling him that there was something off about this request, that
 Bibliotruckers 31

there would be some sort of surprise on the other end that would
end up ruining him. He needed to watch out.
He had about a month before the repairs to Bess were finished.
In that time, he needed to find out as much as possible about the
mission, and make sure that no one had it out for him. It was a slim
possibility, but still there—the idea that someone, somehow, wanted
him dead, or at the very least off the job. Jeb couldn’t think of any
motives, but, then again, he didn’t know everything.
The news updated. There was a featured article about fictional
characters running amok in the city of Detroit, and an article about
the rights of fictional characters who had been brought into the
United States illegally, without the permission of the American
government. Jeb read all the articles of interest, and then clicked off
of his laptop.
His phone rang. He picked it up, and saw the caller I.D. It was
Allie.
Jeb held the phone to his ear. “Allie,” he said.
“Jeb,” said Allie. “I need you to reconsider your position on the
new job that’s coming your way.”
“What do you mean by that?” said Jeb. “I thought I told you
already. I’m not going on some suicide mission just because I
happen to be the best at the job. Someone else can risk their life.
They’re not paying me enough for that.”
“How about we talk increasing your pay?” said Allie.
“Fine, then,” said Jeb. “What’s the worth of possibly losing my
life in a category five? How am I going to be compensated for being
footnoted?”
“You’ll have backup,” said Allie. “I’ll be on call. Of course, I
won’t be able to go in with you, but I can come and save your ass if
you need me to.”
Jeb grimaced. “No. My position on the matter is no. I’m not
going to do this, not unless … Unless you can give me a ten mil.”
“Ten mil?” said Allie. “That might be a little hard.”
Jeb had deliberately aimed high, just to prove that he could, just
to shove it to the people who were trying to buy him. The normal
 Bibliotruckers 32

amount he got for a run was between one and five hundred
thousand dollars. Smuggling literary characters into the real world
wasn’t cheap. Major governments and corporations were the only
ones who could afford to pull something like that off. The Breakers
made sure that fourth wall truckers—otherwise known as freaks—got
their fair share of the pie when it came to work.
Jeb couldn’t help but ask. “And you’ll try?”
“I’ll try,” said Allie. “There’s a chance they’ll give in. The
character you’re going to rescue is a very important one to the
government. And, since it’s the government, we can assume they
have the money and the impetus to spend it.”
Jeb sighed. “All right. If you can get me ten mil, I’ll do the job.”
“Money always works, eh?” said Allie.
“For enough money, anyone will do anything,” said Jeb. “It just
takes the right amount.”
“I feel you,” said Allie. “I’ll go check with HQ, and I’ll call you
right back.” Allie hung up.
An hour later, another call came. Jeb answered it. “Allie.”
“Jeb. I got the money. Ten mil is yours if you leave story-side as
soon as your truck is repaired.”
“Got it,” said Jeb. “And, Allie?”
“What?”
“Thanks.” Jeb hung up. He kicked up his feet. This was going to
be interesting. Very, very interesting. With ten million dollars on the
line, Jeb knew he had to perform.
 Bibliotruckers 33

4
***
Rin
Jeb pulled his truck into the fourth wall portal behind the local
meat warehouse. No one was there to see Bess shimmer, turn into a
cloud of words, and dissipate into literary form. Jeb wasn’t in much
of a hurry. The schedule of the book he was heading to, Storm
Rages, was allowing him a bit of flexibility when it came to his
arrival. Books operated like theme park rides, with the story being
cycled through every set number of hours. Depending on when one
visited, a different part of the story could be experienced. The
governing body that controlled everything were the Literary Agents,
controlled by the Narrator, the one being who had dominance over
the literary world, at least that which was written in the third person
past tense. There were three other Narrators, and each one of them
was a different beast. First person past and first person present, as
well as the little-used third person present. All four narrators kept
the literary world running like clockwork. It was because of them
that the literary highway was safe enough for normal travel.
It was also because of them that Jeb would have to be careful.
Being caught smuggling literary characters out of books was liable to
result in the smuggler being turned into pure literary meaning,
blasting the smuggler and his rig into their component descriptive
parts, which would then get placed as a footnote at the spot where
they were blasted. Thus, the term footnoting.
Jeb didn’t want to get footnoted. One didn’t come back from
that. He valued his life enough to keep moving forwards, keep
driving towards that critical moment when he would get his hands
on enough money to retire and stay out of this dirty business for the
rest of his life.
 Bibliotruckers 34

On the literary highway, Jeb drove through the perpetual

twilight, watching the off-ramps for various famous and non-famous
books pass by. Watcher of the night, Ball Plays You, Merry and
Me—the list of books that were passing by never ended, just like how
the machine of book publication never ended. Hundreds of books
were published each month, possibly even thousands, and almost
every single one of them made less than a major impact in the world
of the literary. Very few books rose to the top of the pack, and those
books were hard to smuggle out of due to the fact that more literary
agents would be populating them and guarding the exits.
Jeb kept his hands tight around the wheel, his body itching in
the slightest, his awareness tuned up to higher than it normally was.
He was nervous, of course, but not as much as he had been on his
first job. He had long since gotten used to the thrill of smuggling, the
thought that someone could discover his cargo at any moment, that
he could end up a footnote in the literary world, plastered across the
pages of the universal story, across the pavement of the literary
highway. The narrator’s forces didn’t hesitate when it came to
capturing and destroying the people who tried to smuggle literary
characters and objects out of their respective worlds.
Jeb tapped his fingers on the wheel. “Turn on some country
music, Bess,” he said, his mind idling away to somewhere far off,
somewhere where it didn’t have to think about the monotonous
chore of driving a big rig, the slight excitement of the journey before
a job. The literary highway shimmered in the iridescent twilight that
always shone from the sky above, when it wasn’t foggy with meaning
or misinterpretation. Individual letters could be seen fluttering
about, connecting, disconnecting, forming, breaking apart. There
was no sun, just an eternal, all-pervasive light that moved softly
against the scenery passing by, the forests, towns, cities; the stars, the
empty space, the planets, the hyperspace routes and the foreign
worlds that fiction was full of. Every fictional setting, if it existed
within the published world, was fully realized along the edges of the
literary highway. One could look out at the vast interplanetary
regions of a space opera, or the intimate, suburban utopia of a
 Bibliotruckers 35

romance novel. All of it blended together neatly in a way that was as

non-sequitur as it was beautiful. Rows of white houses clipped into
tall sci-fi skyscrapers, which stood next to cobblestone streets and
nineteenth-century copies of London. The fluttering, floating letters
pervaded all, like birds—the pigeons of the literary world.
Jeb passed numerous cars that were driven by the workers of the
literary universe—the individual writers, commentators, and readers
who formed the backbone of the literary exchange economy. The
bulk of the people on the literary highway lived in the literary
pockets, in the libraries that dotted the landscape. Libraries were
neither part of a book nor part of the literary highway. Instead, they
were pockets of meaning that became the living spaces for everyone
who was necessary to run the complicated business of telling stories
through writing.
Jeb passed through several libraries on his way to the book
Storm Rages. Every single one of them was bustling; tall, glistening
buildings made of pure language, shining brightly under the all-
pervasive light of literacy. The cars that came and left blended into
one, and Jeb saw himself floating on a cloud, the soft, monotonous
swaying of the cab disappearing until it could be felt no more, his
seat melting into himself, his hands losing their form and their
independence, becoming merely parts of the wheel that they
gripped. He was in the zone.
And then he snapped out. Traffic slowed to a stop. There was
something going on several pages ahead, though it was too far away
for Jeb to see, even from the vantage point of Bess’s cab. Hundreds
of cars were backed up against each other, large trucks interspersed
among them.
“Turn on the local radio, and check to see if there’s any news,”
said Jeb.
“Will do,” said Bess. “Do you want me to send out a query to
the network?”
“You don’t have to,” said Jeb. “Whatever this is, I get the feeling
we’ll know sooner or later what’s happening.”
 Bibliotruckers 36

There was a slight pause, and then the radio turned on. Jeb
adjusted the volume and listened.
“Along the fifty-seven, be advised, war is occurring between My
Scorpion Father and To be Blue, both category five science fiction
novels. All literary traffic through the region is being processed by
local library authorities in order to preserve the safety of civilians.
Unauthorized travel through the surrounding literary works is
severely restricted.”
Jeb clenched the wheel. He had a deadline to make—or, at the
very least, the faster he went, the more money he made. Even
though the schedule of Storm Rages wasn’t tight, his own pride as a
trucker was. He got off at the next exit, a small, trite romance called
Bridges. The scenery was idyllic, except for the numerous literary
vehicles who had obviously gotten off the highway for the same
reason that Jeb had. Jeb was going to let Bess route him through
local roads to avoid the traffic on the highway. He hoped he would
get to see some nice sights along the way. The war between the two
books didn’t bother him in the slightest—he knew, from experience,
that the literary highway was safe enough to protect civilians from
the power struggles experienced by books that were incompatible
with each other’s premises. Flame wars were common. Drama
happened in the publishing world.
Jeb drove his truck through the peaceful countryside, which may
have been somewhere in England, though he wasn’t exactly sure, as
he didn’t have a way to tell. After reading up on the synopsis of the
book he was in, he closed his e-reader and drove towards the edge
of the map, where he knew it was connected to a book called White
Pearl Seven.
Along the way he caught sight of what he assumed was the
book’s couple, leaning over a quaint wooden bridge that stretched
over a creek. They passed by without fanfare, and then the world
began to dissipate, into the border fog, the white in-between of
covers and cover designs that permeated the literary world where
the literary highway did not pierce it. Jeb stayed in his lane, trusting
 Bibliotruckers 37

the highway to get him where he needed to go, drumming his fingers
on the wheel.
The fog cleared, and Jeb found himself in the middle of a
World War One battlefield, a dirty, muddied field pockmarked
with craters and edged with barbed wire. Machinegun fire crackled,
shells whistled in the air, a tank ground across the marshy ground
towards its target. All bullets went straight through the bubble
protecting the literary highway, and fictional characters were unable
to see a vehicle unless it stopped.
Something popped underneath Bess’s hood. Smoke began
pouring out from underneath it. The pedal felt weird, as if it weren’t
operating at its full capacity.
“Logan!” said Jeb. “What the hell did you do to my truck?”
Bess’s dashboard lit up with red lights. “Jeb,” said Bess, “I think
someone sabotaged my fuel line. I can’t seem to get enough flow.
Something’s obstructing it. Whoever sabotaged me made it so that it
would go wrong at the worst time.”
“We’re pulling out of the fold,” said Jeb. “Is there anything you
can do to go faster?”
“Negative, Jeb,” said Bess. “We’ll keep slowing down until we
stop.”
“And risk a World War One battlefield? Risk getting torn up by
artillery?”
“I’m tougher than that,” said Bess. “I can handle a few shells.”
“Not a direct hit,” said Jeb. He slammed his fist against a bare
spot on the dash. “This had to happen on my biggest job ever.”
Bess slowed, slowed, slowed, until she stopped with a jolt and
became embedded in the fiction of the story she was driving
through. The bullets started to connect, pinging off of the
bulletproof cab and the side of the shipping container. Jeb could
feel the canonical disruption waves as the characters and impters
realized that the book they were so faithfully acting out was going to
go off the rails. Since this was a category four book, the locals were
well-armed—World War One tech, even though it was old, was
nothing to scoff at. Jeb was lucky that Bess was built like a tank, and
 Bibliotruckers 38

could take most of the small arms fire headed their way. Still, the
plink of bullets was disconcerting.
A figure appeared next to Jeb’s window. She didn’t look like she
belonged in the story they were in. Her hair was long, bright red,
and her eyes had that distinctive color to them that made it clear she
was a literary character who hadn’t yet come to full physical form.
Her “voice,”—her unique presented style—was markedly different
from the rest of the story around her.
“She seems to be a displaced literary individual,” said Bess.
“Should we let her in?”
“And risk getting shot up?” said Jeb. “I …” He looked down the
window at the girl, huddling up next to the door handle. He sighed,
opened the door a crack, and let her slip in. She immediately took
Jeb’s hand in hers. Jeb took his other hand off of the pistol under
the dash. She didn’t look dangerous.
“My name is Rin,” said the girl. “Thanks for picking me up.”
Up close, Rin was a very attractive woman, with well-defined
features and a body that was toned, but not too muscular. She
appeared to be a warrior of some sort, carrying a blade on her back
that poked the roof of the cab.
“How are you still alive?” said Jeb. “You were out there under
fire. You should be full of holes by now.”
Rin grinned. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”
“What book are you from?” said Jeb.
“That is something I’d rather not say,” said Rin, touching the hilt
of her sword.
Jeb shrugged. He had bigger issues to deal with than the fact that
he had just picked up a literary hitchhiker. She had fought her way
through the book that Jeb found himself in, so she could obviously
take care of herself. Jeb sighed. “Bess,” he said. “Open the armory.”
“Authorization required,” said Bess.
Jeb turned around, climbed to the back of the cab, and pressed
his thumb on a panel that was next to a small closet. The closet
popped open, and a rack with two gloves hanging on it was
uncovered. They were mechanical in nature, looking like scaffolds
 Bibliotruckers 39

for the fingers, full of clicking parts and black squares that were
remotely satisfying in a technological sort of way. Jeb put them on.
He moved his fingers as if he were typing on a floating keyboard,
and words materialized in the air in front of him, fluttering around,
forming holographic images of objects, and then solid objects
themselves that manifested on the literary plane. Jeb created a wall
around Bess by dragging and clicking. Bullets couldn’t go through,
and it made Bess invisible to the literary characters and impters who
were still shooting at each other across the trenches.
Jeb looked at Rin. “Can you help? This is going to be a two-
person job.”
Bess chuckled. “You’re lucky you picked up a hitchhiker at the
right moment.”
Rin dropped out of the cab, her feet hitting the ground with a
squelch. Her hair was damp from the light rain. She put her hand
against the barrier that Jeb had created.
Jeb used his typing hands to open up Bess’s internal mechanism
and diagnose the problem. Apparently, one of Bess’s fuel lines had
been gouged out, so that it would fail while he was on the road. Jeb
didn’t know if he had a spare, somewhere—he probably didn’t. In
any case, being outside while people were shooting at him made
him nervous enough to warrant heading back into the cab. Rin stood
outside, examining the engine. Jeb drummed his fingers on the
wheel, trying to decide whether or not to call in some backup. He
probably would need to.
Rin dove into the engine beneath the hood, and began tweaking
things, which Jeb could hear as clicks and clacks through the front of
the cab. Rin leaned back, a satisfied look on her face. “Now try,”
she said.
The truck started, revved up, and began to move. Rin stepped
out of the way gracefully.
“How did you fix that?” said Jeb.
“Magic,” said Rin. “In my book, magic can fix mechanical
objects just fine.”
 Bibliotruckers 40

“But you would still have to understand how the truck works,”
said Jeb. “That’s pretty impressive.”
“For who, a girl?” said Rin. “Just because I’m a literary
character, and a girl, to boot, doesn’t mean I don’t know my way
around fourth wall vehicles.” Rin crossed her arms. “I’m less girl
than I am tomboy, and you’ll get to know that well, because, in
return for fixing your truck, I want you to take me out of the literary
world and into the real world.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jeb. “I don’t do intra-universe hitchhikers. I
won’t smuggle anybody across the borders if I’m not authorized to
do so.”
“By who?” said Rin, and Jeb knew he had made a mistake. “I
didn’t know there were any authorized crossing-overs. You can’t be
answering to anyone, can you?”
Jeb nodded. “I answer to someone, though I’m not allowed to
tell you who.” He paused. “There has to be somewhere in the
literary world where you’d like to go.”
Rin shook her head. “I want out. I have things to take care of in
the real world, and you’re my ticket out of here. Nobody stops for
me, and when they do, they’re not equipped to take me out of the
fictional universe.”
“How do you know this much?” said Jeb.
“I can’t tell you,” said Rin. “Sorry. All you need to know is that I
belong here, on the literary highway.”
Jeb sighed. “All right. I’ll take you in the direction I was going
anyways. Now that my truck is fixed.”
Rin eyed the dashboard. “Is this a Bessnier model seven?”
“It is,” said Jeb. “So, you know your trucks?”
“I told you,” said Rin, “I’m familiar with literary vehicles.”
“Her name is Bess,” said Jeb.
“Hello, Rin,” said Bess, speaking through a slot on the
dashboard.
Rin seemed to jump a little bit.
“Don’t worry,” said Jeb, “She’s harmless. Unless she doesn’t like
you. Then, she can deploy missiles and auto turrets against you.
 Bibliotruckers 41

You won’t stand a chance, you’ll get shredded like wood in a wood
chipper. So, be careful not to piss her off.”
Rin seemed a little bit off balance, but not that much. She
seemed to know that Jeb was teasing her, and was keeping a snarky
comment to herself. So, the girl had self control, and good hygiene,
which were two huge pluses when it came to hitchhikers. Not to
mention she was cute. A lot more attractive than any other
hitchhiker that Jeb had picked up in his ten or so years on the job.
Maybe it was the karma that he gained picking them up that allowed
him his perfect, no-failure, no-loss record. That, and he had Allie
backing him up at every turn, no matter where he went. They
weren’t a team, not quite, but Allie had been indispensable to Jeb’s
record over the past decade.
Jeb started up the engine. It was working just fine. Jeb smiled.
This was how things were supposed to work. Everything just
magically falls into place. Jeb picked up a hitchhiker who was
attractive and useful, and didn’t even have a weird smell. Plus, she
was a girl. That much was enough to make Jeb think that this time
was going to be the moment when he broke free from the chains of
debt and retired with enough wealth to keep him happy for the rest
of his life. Ten million dollars was a lot of money, just enough to get
Jeb into the clear.
Jeb started the engine and began moving. The literary highway
engulfed them, swallowing the vehicle and turning the portion of the
book that had been interrupted back to its original state, as if they
had never been through there. It was strange, how the literary world
treated the comings and goings of the vehicles that ran along its
highway system.
Rin pulled out a knife and began sharpening it. The vibration of
the truck made her hand unsteady, but even so, she managed to use
it with the utmost of precision.
“Where do you need to go?” said Jeb, trying his best not to be
distracted by her knife sharpening.
Rin looked at her knife, examining it under the foggy, smoky
light coming from the current book’s sun. “Back to my home.
 Bibliotruckers 42

Storm Rages. I know you won’t take me out to the real world, but
I’ll find someone who will.”
“I highly doubt anyone else would even give you a ride. I’m a
strange person for picking up literary hitchhikers.”
“You never know,” said Rin, continuing to sharpen her knife.
She smiled, slightly. “Perfect.” Then she slid the knife into a sheath
at her side.
“How did you end up in a book about World War One, if
you’re from a fantasy universe? Not even a close one, it’s at least a
shelf and a half away from where we are now. How did you get all
the way here?”
Rin shrugged. “I die at the end of the latest published update,
and, however these books get created, it doesn’t look like there’s
going to be hope for me in the next volume.”
It was common for literary characters to know that they were in
a book, on a timetable, a running schedule of sorts. But, what
literary characters did not know was that their worlds were being
created and watched for the entertainment of ordinary people just
like them. That was the crucial moment when one decided to bring
a literary character out of a book or leave them there and try
someone else—whether or not they accepted that they had been
created purely for the entertainment of higher beings, their
hardships and struggles being little more than words on a page. This
went especially bad for some characters, which was just another
reason why fourth wall trucking was such a dangerous job.
“When was the last time you ate?” said Jeb, looking at Rin. She
was wiry think, seeming to be half-starved, with a thin, flat stomach.
“Do you want to stop by the nearest library and get something to
eat?”
His deadline wasn’t that close, and though his pride as a trucker
on a timetable chafed at the idea, he knew he could spare a little bit
of time for a pretty girl who just so happened to need some help.
Rin smiled, appearing slightly surprised, and a bit bemused.
“You think I’m not used to being hungry?” she said.
 Bibliotruckers 43

Jeb pulled Bess into the nearest library town, where the
buildings were made out of pure word essence, glued together with
interpretive meaning. The result was almost like a field of pure
crystal had taken root in a crevice between two vastly different
worlds. On one side was the hell of World War One; and on the
other, a jungle through which an adventurer passed in his search for
treasure. The crystals of the library soared for the sky, emitting light
of their own, brightening up the darkening horizon for as long as the
eye could see. Jeb drove Bess through the main street, the word
crystal buildings looming over him, and pulled into a truck stop in
the parking lot of a literary supermarket. He got out, went around to
the other side, and helped Rin out.
“Do you want to go to Drivekick, or Hamsons?”
“Hamburgers or chicken?” said Rin, nudging Jeb a little. “That’s
the most trucker thing I’ve heard in a long time.”
“So you know how truckers are.”
“They’re the only ones I can count on to give me rides.” Rin
folded her hands behind her back. “Not to say I’m not pretty
enough, but I understand how hard it is to know if it’s a good idea to
pick someone up.”
Jeb smiled, just in the slightest. Here was a girl who knew what
she was talking about.
“So?” he said.
“I want a hamburger. They didn’t have those in my home book.
We had chicken. I think. It was some sort of bird and it tasted really
good.”
“I don’t think you understand how good truck stop chicken is,”
said Jeb. “I think you might love it. The way they cook it is unique
to the twentieth century, and besides, you probably didn’t have
those huge slabs of meat that chickens produce nowadays. It was
probably all stringy and hard to chew—”
Rin shrugged. “Then, chicken it is.” She paused. “I trust your
judgement.”
Jeb and Rin walked into the Hamsons on the side of the road.
The smell of the interior was familiar, like an old home to Jeb, one
 Bibliotruckers 44

that he had many memories of, but couldn’t quite picture in his
head, though he had tried many times. He felt more relaxed than he
had been in the truck—even though he wished it were legal to carry
his handgun into the store. But still, it was a welcome change. Here,
in the place like home, he would be able to think straight about what
to do with Rin. She was from the book he was headed to, which was
either fate or a pure coincidence that wasn’t so much surprising as it
was unwarranted. Sure, coincidences happened. But they never
turned out as well as the one that had happened with Rin and Bess’s
engine.
Jeb felt satisfied. Walking into the shop with Rin next to him
gave him a feeling of companionship, which he had been severely
lacking in for a while—it was the reason why he picked up
hitchhikers. Indiscriminately—they didn’t have to be attractive or of
the female gender. It was just fun to have company on the road.
Jeb bought dinner for both of them, and as they sat down Rin
took a look at her piece of chicken.
“I’ve never seen bird meat this …”
“Tender?” said Jeb.
“No. What is this substance that surrounds it? Is this what
happens when you cook skin?”
“It’s a special breaded formula that only the Colonel knows.”
“The … Colonel?” said Rin.
Jeb almost cracked a smile, but kept himself straight. If he
looked at this situation from one perspective, it might be considered
a date—though in a very “trucker” sense of the word, since normally
people didn’t go to Hamsons for their first date. He was a little
nervous, though he had long since conquered his fear of the other
sex. Though he had been shy as a child, years of dealing with Allie
had opened him up to new experiences, and now it was all paying
off.
Rin ate daintily, like a princess, picking apart the chicken meat
with a fork and a knife before eating it. She seemed to be enjoying
it, but something felt off. It was as if Rin wasn’t really there, as if she
were about to fade away into the ether. Besides food and water,
 Bibliotruckers 45

literary characters needed syntactical ink to survive—which could be

refined from syntactical fluid, and came in as many types as there
were colors on the color wheel.
Rin was probably low on ink. She knew it, and he knew it—but
ink was expensive, and Rin probably didn’t want to be the one to
ask. Jeb would have to offer. He had a choice. Offer her ink, and
take a financial hit, or leave her to be naturally refitted when she
returned to her home story, which would carry the risk of her
running out of ink completely before they reached Storm Rages.
Syntactical ink was the only thing that kept literary characters
functional outside of their book of origin, and was another one of
the reasons why smuggling literary characters was so expensive and
dangerous.
Jeb didn’t want to go through the expense, but he liked Rin. He
wanted to help her as much as he could. Maybe it was because she
was attractive, or maybe it was just because he felt guilty for having a
ten million dollar contract, and could spare the five thousand dollars
it would take to ink Rin’s body back into existence. It wasn’t much,
in the grand scheme of things, even though, to a hitchhiker, one’s
ride suddenly giving them something worth five thousand dollars
was a strange thing indeed.
Jeb decided. He would give Rin the ink she needed to be
independent. Rin looked at him, probably puzzled by his change of
expression. Her eyes were beautiful, bright, full of literary potential—
in her book she was a well-developed and well-considered character.
Good literary characters had a whole different feel to them, as if
they transcended the material that formed their imaginary bodies
and rose above the crowd with their offerings. Rin was one of those
characters. Jeb couldn’t help but feel a little bit of pride in the fact
that he was helping her with whatever mission she was meant to
complete.
Back in the truck, Jeb pulled out a jar of ink and carefully, very
carefully, unscrewed the top. He handed it to Rin.
“Here,” he said. “I think you might be needing some of this.”
 Bibliotruckers 46

Rin’s eyes lit up. “That’s … You’re just giving it to me? Do you
know how much that’s worth?”
Jeb shrugged. “Sure I do. But I have a lot more where that came
from. I’ve just ben collecting ink for a while now, and I thought I
would put my collection to good use.” He took out his typing gloves
and put them on. He typed into existence a brush and some tools
for Rin to use on herself. Rin immediately dove into working over
her entire body, the ink spilling into her form and igniting her skin
with bright white light that oscillated and shimmered like the surface
of a calm lake with little ripples flowing through it, viewed from
underneath. The sun struck her at just the right angle to make her
magnanimously beautiful. Breathtaking.
Then the moment was over, and there was a normal-looking
literary character sitting next to Jeb. Jeb took the wheel, smiling to
himself, and drove out of the parking lot.
 Bibliotruckers 47

5
***
NCE
Traveling through the side streets around the war between books
gave Rin and Jeb some spectacular views, ranging from a space
station orbiting mars to open plains filled with grass to eighteenth
century Paris during the French Revolution. Every setting was
distinct, and brilliant, and awe-inspiring in its cohesiveness despite
the threads of different landscapes that ran, seemingly randomly,
from horizon to horizon. The libraries they passed all had special
characteristics that made them stand out, their buildings formed out
of pure meaning sticking up out of the literary soil, marking the
territory conquered by the narrators, the holdings of the government
of the literary highway and the people and businesses who worked
underneath it.
Jeb and Rin talked with each other during the long ride, about
everything that came to mind, a normal conversation between
hitchhiker and driver. There was nothing wrong with it, but for
some reason, Jeb felt nervous. Not nervous like he was about to do
a big job—which he was—but more the nervousness a teenager feels
around girls. It had been a while since he had felt that feeling. Every
time the conversation lapsed, the silence would be foreboding,
piling on top of him dark thoughts about his inadequacy as a human
being and his shyness being the death of him. Which was, Jeb knew,
just his own lack of understanding coming around to cause him
trouble. Ever since he was a kid he had experienced the feeling of
being inadequate. Even with the success of his work as a freak, he
still had things that he hated about himself, like his tendency
towards solitude even when there was someone who could break his
outer façade, bring him the experience of talking to other people
 Bibliotruckers 48

truthfully and honestly. It was all a lie. His entire method of

interacting with people was just a way to hide how unmanly he was.
It was something he had realized a long time ago, what with how
much he was alone, with himself, hearing nothing but the sound of
the wind rushing past the sides of the cab.
That was why he liked to pick up hitchhikers. They gave him a
distraction from the sludge pile that was his own thoughts. Jeb didn’t
want to be this way. Was he strange? Was it strange that he relied
on other people to make him feel better about himself? To thank
him for being the kind person he wanted to actually be?
It wasn’t just that. It was everything that weighed down on his
shoulders from when he woke up to when he went to sleep. His
debt, his past, his father and his mother—both of whom were dead.
He was alone in the world, with no one to connect to on the level
that he wanted.
And then, Jeb saw Rin in a different light. It was the first time
since middle school he had felt it. A little twinge, in his chest, that
was about as unmanly as a feeling could get. He thought he had
sealed that feeling away when he graduated from middle school.
In the moment he was twenty-five, skinny—almost too much so—
and moderately attractive. The only reason he didn’t try with girls
was because he had given up. But now, looking at Rin, Jeb had that
sensation that marked middle school as the worst time of his life.
That feeling of energy, the feeling that the person one is looking at is
someone truly special. It wasn’t love, it might not have even been
infatuation, but Jeb knew it was something special. As their
conversation went on, and Jeb learned more about Storm Rages, it
became clear that Rin was in a whole different ball park when it
came to what Jeb was thinking about. She was totally oblivious to the
fact that Jeb was developing slight feelings for her.
And, Jeb didn’t want her to know. Otherwise, it would cause
problems, and hinder Jeb’s mission to earn ten million dollars. He
shut himself off before he could feel any further. It was a cold,
disheartening feeling that left him colder than he had been in a long
time.
 Bibliotruckers 49

When they arrived at the entrance to the book Storm Rages, Jeb
let Rin off with a reluctant wave, which she returned with her own
enthusiastic thumbs-up sign. There was no promise for a future
meeting, and no contract deployed to keep them together or to
authorize the realization of Rin as a literary character in the real
world. Jeb was stuck chasing after memories, again.
Jeb drove into the book Storm Rages, alone. Rin disappeared
over the crest of a hill, and returned to her operations inside the
bounds of the story, as just another bout of words in print. There,
she would meet her destiny again and again as readers all around the
world were entertained by her book.
The sub street that Jeb was driving on was relatively unwatched,
though Jeb did catch sight of several military vehicles along the
highway, as well as sections of armed police who were watching the
road as they patrolled, never letting a section of the highway
disappear from their sight. It was as close to a war zone as a book
could get without actually being a war zone. The air was thick with
tension, with the weight of a thousand-thousand pages of history and
grudges. Storm Rages was a number one New York Bestseller, and
had been on the short list ever since its release, with no predictions
that it would ever slow down. The book was an epic fantasy mixed
with classic thriller action, a race against time, a deep conspiracy,
high-level magic and lots of foreboding castles. Its voice was
distinctly different from what Jeb had experienced in the books
around it—much more serious and down-to-earth than it was
lighthearted like the romance that Jeb had just been through. All in
all, it was a drab, unpalatable experience. Jeb didn’t understand why
people liked books like Storm Rages.
Jeb navigated his truck through the thin, utilitarian streets that
were the hallmark of books set in pre-industrial settings—one
couldn’t simply plop a ten-lane highway in the middle of a medieval
princess romance, like you could in a universe where the main
action took place in the big city. So, Jeb was forced to drive closer to
other cars than was in his comfort zone. He was in the book. He just
needed to follow Bess’s directions and figure out where this
 Bibliotruckers 50

magician was hiding. Jeb took out his target’s dossier and reread it
just to refresh his memory.
His target was an arch-mage named Tsukasa, a level five
character with enough power to level entire cities if she so chose.
She was a wild card in the book Storm Rages, and was one of the
most universally well-liked characters. As Bess drove them on
autopilot, Jeb continued to read up on the literary character who was
going to earn him a large cut of ten million dollars.
“Does not want to cooperate,” said every entry in the dossier,
which corresponded to all the other truckers who had tried, and
failed, to bring her out of the book.
Jeb sighed. She was clairvoyant, to a degree, which meant that
she knew he was coming and knew what to do to avoid him if she
wanted. That was what the big, red, solid stamp in the center of her
attributes page meant. A difficult case. A level five from a category
five. The most powerful, difficult, and rewarding mission that a freak
could get, whether from the Breakers or from any of the other
international organizations who smuggled literary characters out of
the land of the imagination. Jeb was proud to be doing the job that
he was doing, and, in the moment, wasn’t so worried about what was
going to happen. He was hopeful. This job was his big break. If he
completed it—perfectly—he could retire in peace and leave this
dangerous job behind.
Jeb arrived at a narrative weigh station, otherwise known as a
bookmark. He slowed his truck down until he came into the lane
that directed traffic through the station. Bookmarks were a slow but
necessary part of driving through the literary highway. At weigh
stations, the contents of trucks were checked to see if they were
within the legal limits of whatever boundaries the Narrator set for
them. Jeb usually had no difficulty passing through these
checkpoints, but they always made him a little bit nervous. His
imagination pulled up memories, every time, of shots plinking
against the cab of his truck, the rush of adrenaline he got whenever
he floored that pedal to escape pursuit. It was exhilarating, but at the
same time, disastrously anxiety-producing, the way that the literary
 Bibliotruckers 51

agents sometimes went through Jeb’s cargo to make sure he was

transporting what he was transporting. Everybody from the
authorship to the narrator regulated the goods that came and went
throughout the literary highway—everyone wanted a piece of that
lucrative pie. Raw, untreated essay mix; pens and pencils; word
processing software blocks; bulk literacy—anything and everything
that had to do with the experience of books could be bought and
sold, and was transported along the literary highway.
Jeb was supposed to pick up a cargo of short story oranges, as a
cover for his pickup of Tsukasa, the wizard of the high tower.
Hopefully she liked smells that were short, sweet, and a little tart.
Jeb found the side road that led him to the wizarding school of
might and magic, the place where the story placed Tsukasa at the
point in time Jeb was at. According to the timetable that Bess had
downloaded, Tsukasa should be performing political maneuvering
as part of a sub-plot, the best point in the book where she was
available.
Jeb parked his truck in the dimensionally folded parking lot,
locked up, and walked up to the castle-school with one hand on his
revolver. Good, they didn’t fry him or turn him into a frog. That
meant that the story hadn’t progressed to the point where the school
was hostile to people who suddenly appeared at their doorstep. Jeb
had done his research, reading the book several times over, and as a
result he knew that when Vormont took over the castle, it became a
classical evil lair, with monsters and creatures of the night defending
it.
But for now, it was quaint, sunny, and a happy place to be, at
least, as happy as someone could be in a book set in the middle
ages.
The front door was massive, made of thick, solid oak beams,
and Jeb’s knock with the lion-shaped knocker resonated through the
castle as if he had just rung a bell. The door didn’t move; instead, a
small side portal swung open, and a young monk wearing a habit
leaned through.
“Are you in need of assistance?” he said, his voice polite.
 Bibliotruckers 52

Jeb nodded. “I’m looking to find Tsukasa,” he said. “Do you

know where she is?”
The monk looked surprised, and then frightened. “Are you one
of the dark brotherhood?” he said, his eyes opened wide. “Why
would you need an audience with the arch-magus?”
Jeb sighed, rubbing his chin. “I suppose it wouldn’t be that easy,
eh?” he said. He shrugged. “Can you at least let me in?”
The monk shook his head. “I can’t let anyone in without
consulting one of the magi. If you don’t have an invitation from
someone on the inside, you’re not getting in.”
“So, how do I get one of these, well, these invitations?”
“I do not know, sir,” said the monk. “Is there anything else you
need? If it is asylum or a safe harbor, Mistren’s church is the place
you need to go.”
Disappointment clouded Jeb’s mind. There were several
reasons why his mission could have gone wrong, and this was one of
them. It was the most probable, as well, considering the fact that
Tsukasa knew the future and was, in the book, noted for almost
breaking the fourth wall in-canon. Characters like that were rare,
and were always hard to deal with. Jeb had only dealt with a couple
in his decades as a freak. Tsukasa was going to be difficult.
The monk who had greeted him was still leaning out the door.
He nodded once, and then moved to close the door, but was
stopped when Jeb shoved his foot in the crack.
“Please, listen to me,” said Jeb, putting his hand on the
doorframe. “I don’t want to have to do this on my own. You’re the
only hope I have. Can you at least ask your superior to—”
A large blast of fire exploded over the top of the walls, causing
the monk at the door to flinch. Jeb knew immediately what had
happened. Tsukasa hadn’t been there to stop the entrapment
ceremony—because of Jeb’s sudden appearance—and the fire was
the indication that the gates of hell were about to open in the middle
of the castle.
Jeb backed away from the door. “On second thought,” he said,
as a flame demon the size of a house ascended from within the
 Bibliotruckers 53

castle, “I’m going to find Tsukasa on my own.” Jeb knew he had no

hope left, and would have to simply travel the book until he found a
lead. This gave him a lead weight in his chest that got harder each
time he imagined his ten million dollars slipping out from between
his fingers, disappearing like the too-good to be true dream that this
job appeared to be. Jeb climbed into Bess’s cab, while the dragon
swallowed half the cosmos whole, sucking the book into its gaping
maw, powered by the priests who had unshackled a demon worthy
of the book’s level five danger rating. Jeb started Bess up and drove
away, his foot to the ground, as explosions rained on him from
above. The dragon followed him. It was a special kind of literary
being, of higher power than the rest, known as an NCE, or Non-
Canon Event. They had the power to see the literary highway and
the vehicles on it. This one had been unleashed because of
Tsukasa’s absence in the politics surrounding the summoning of
Morthyhydra, devourer of worlds. One faction was for it, another
against it, and the school was divided—Tsukasa was champion of the
Foresters, the ones who were against Morthyhydra’s summoning.
Whatever the case, Jeb now had a NCE fast on his tail, breathing
flame that roiled around Bess, licking the windows and blasting past
the rearview mirrors. The monster’s reflection in the rearview
mirror was frightening. Draconic teeth sat astride a mouth that was
twice as wide as Jeb’s truck. Hundreds of eyes covered the beast,
and wings the size of school buses beat the air, swirling the fire that
was coming out of its mouth.
“Bess,” said Jeb, turning down a side street as sharply as the
truck would allow, “Activate the autocannon. We’re going to have to
pull out the big guns.”
“Fighting NCEs really isn’t your style,” said Bess. “Why don’t
you hold on until the Narrator comes to save your ass?”
“I don’t think they’ll come in time!”
“What,” said Bess, “You don’t think I can handle a little bit of
demonic dragon fire?”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” said Jeb, “It’s that I don’t trust
myself. What’s going to happen when that dragon catches up with
 Bibliotruckers 54

us?” Another blast of fire flew past the window. The temperature in
the cab raised to what felt like boiling.
Jeb followed the road to a more inhabited location, taking Bess’s
advice, and soon a group of cars had joined in the flight away from
the demonic dragon soaring over the literary highway.
In the distance, a siren wailed. Jeb knew it well. A New York
Times bestseller had just erupted into a cataclysmic level five NCE.
The cars on the highway panicked, gridlocking until there was no
motion except people bumping into each other. The dragon carved
a swath through the traffic, blowing up cars, ripping through trucks,
causing gasoline explosions with its thick, vicious dragon fire.
Everything was ablaze. Smoke rose from destroyed vehicles. This
was one of the worst NCEs that Jeb had ever lived through, simply
because Tsukasa had run from him, for whatever reason. Jeb hoped
that it would be a good one.
A squadron of jet planes tore through the sky overhead, the
sound of their engines like the ripping of the very fabric of the
literary universe. Contrails made out of fluttering letters arced
behind them in beautifully realized curves and twisted knots.
Jeb took his truck off the main highway, glad that the dragon was
distracted, and resolved to talk to Tsukasa about the destruction she
wreaked by not meeting with Jeb in the first place. Did she really
care about the outcome of the drakonshmoot, the gathering-together
of destroyers-of-worlds? The end goal of the series, Storm Rages?
Because, if Jeb’s hunch were correct, Tsukasa had known what was
happening the whole time. She was a fourth wall breaker. The book
showed that much. Several times, in-canon, she addressed the fact
that they might be in a story, in hints that only the reader would be
able to pick up. Was that why she was so hard to track down?
Jeb drove through a country side street, through a short story
affiliated with the universe of Storm Rages, having to do with
Reagen’s origin, but which had no bearing on Jeb’s mission. Jeb
watched the battle between the dragon and the narrator’s military.
There was a rumbling, and a shadow came through the fog at
the edge of the book, taller than a two-story house, hovering just
 Bibliotruckers 55

over the top of the tallest trucks. It was a floating fortress of pure
literary steel, running on engines of raw analysis. Majestic word
cannons stood out amongst Compdar arrays, antenna, flags, boxes
upon boxes in the style of navy destroyers. It was a dreadnaught.
The flaming Morthyhydra arced through the air, coming into the
sights of the land dreadnaught. There was a flash of light from all of
the dreadnaught’s gun portals, and then the dragon Morthyhydra
burst into an array of retconned footnotes. The dragon, a level five
NCE from a category five work, had lasted mere seconds in front of
the mighty power of the Narrator. Jeb was awestruck. It was the first
time he had seen a dreadnaught in action, though he had seen them
in person several times before. They were truly epic, momentous in
their power, comparable to the biggest warships plying the oceans
reality-side. Maybe even more grandiose. Jeb was glad that he didn’t
have a target on his head.
He passed through the short story, out of sight of the main
highway, and headed towards the spine. All books had a spine—a
toll-road like carrier that catered to those people wanting to go to a
certain time-sensitive place in the book. A trip through the spine
sent the trucker or driver through a temporally thematic loop that
met with other versions of the same story that were being read, thus
allowing travelers who were on a short schedule the time and the
ability to choose where they wanted to go. There was one place
where Jeb knew Tsukasa would be: the final battle.
Jeb drove up to the toll booth, paid his toll, and entered the
spine of Storm Rages. The world around him became pure white,
and then sentences passed him by like stripes, their black inkiness in
direct contrast to the stark, white brightness of the exterior world.
Jeb had been put off by the pure and steady silence the first time he
had spine-jumped, but now that he was a more experienced fourth
wall trucker all he felt were the occasional tingles that he got
whenever something serious happened in the book beyond where
he traveled. There was almost nothing but meditative understanding
flowing through the spine of every book, the understanding of the
vast industrial processes that made books possible, the
 Bibliotruckers 56

understanding of literacy, the knowledge that books contained

whole different worlds that could be accessed for free, just for the
price of the paper. Jeb felt free, whenever he traveled through the
spine.
He reached his destination, the end of the book, with the last bit
of spine visible for an instant as he took an off-ramp. Jeb’s truck
shimmered, and the world around him changed to one of dense
forest through which a single literary highway cut, sometimes straight
through trees as if it was clipping in a video game. Jeb’s truck just
went right past, as if they didn’t even exist.
There was a castle on a hill visible in the distance. Siege engines
surrounded it. Jeb knew that, past the forest, there was a field where
the final battle was taking place. He decided to play it safe, and
observe until he could tell where Tsukasa was. He also knew that he
had to watch for a scene that happened in the forest he was traveling
through. The main character of the book—the hitchhiker whom Jeb
had picked up earlier in the day, in fact—would be dueling Vormont,
the antagonist, in the middle of the forest. Jeb didn’t want to mess
that up, as the book ended in a cliffhanger that, according to the
real-life author, would never be resolved. The book series was over
where it stood.
And, Jeb didn’t want another NCE on his hands. He drove
through the forest in silence, occasionally checking the world
through his windows to make sure he was on the right track. The
castle, and the battle, came closer.
Jeb’s truck barreled out from beneath the trees and into a glade
where a group of soldiers dressed in black armor surrounded a
familiar face. Rin. Just as Jeb was about to apply the brakes, the
front nose of his cab hit something—Rin had pushed Vormont
straight into the path of a sixty-ton truck. The resulting gore sprayed
over the other warriors in the path, stunning them.
Jeb instantly knew what he had done. The ink. He had given
Rin ink, and that meant that she was more “real,” or rather, more
aware of the literary highway, than she otherwise would have been.
If Rin had been normalized, without ink, Jeb would have rolled
 Bibliotruckers 57

straight through. But now that Rin was inked, had ink in her system,
she was able to see Jeb’s truck coming her way and tapped into the
flow of information that caused the highway to exist.
All this flashed through Jeb’s head in an instant. He slowed the
truck down, watching as Rin finished off the rest of the goons that
Vormont had been leading.
When Bess came to a stop, the door opened, and Rin climbed
in. “Nice to see you again,” she said, closing the door behind her.
“You’re responsible for me, now, so you better get trucking.” She
almost smiled, but Jeb could tell she had just realized the
seriousness of her situation. She was an NCE. Worse, she was an
NCC, a non-canon character. She was supposed to be dead.
Vormont was supposed to have killed her in the last pages of the
book. That was the twist ending that caught everyone by surprise,
the reason why the book was so popular. And, now that there was
an NCC in the game, everything changed. The Narrator and his
forces would be looking out to eliminate her, and anyone who had
helped her become that way. And, to top it all off, Jeb still hadn’t
found Tsukasa.
It was going to be a rough ten million dollars. But, in the end,
ten mil was ten mil. The job was going to get done, whether or not
Jeb was there to do it.
 Bibliotruckers 58

6
***
Letters and Rain
Jeb didn’t move the truck. “Why should I protect you?” he said,
asking the only thing that he knew how to ask in the moment. He
didn’t want to be cold, but an NCC was too much to deal with when
ten million dollars was on the line. Jeb turned away.
Rin leaned towards Jeb. “Rumor has it that you’re looking for
Tsukasa. I know where she is, and she’s somewhere you’d never
find without me. Here’s the deal. If you smuggle me out of the
literary world, I’ll point you to where Tsukasa is, and help you bring
her out so that you can claim whatever reward it is you plan to claim
from your superiors.”
Jeb pursed his lips. “How do you know I won’t betray you?”
“I have magic that can create contracts that are unbreakable,
through whichever means suits you best. Death if broken, fine if
broken, eternal damnation in a labyrinth of fire if broken, et cetera.”
Rin seemed to be counting on her fingers. “There are lots of ways to
enforce contracts.”
Jeb sighed. “I wasn’t going to abandon you anyways, if you truly
do know where Tsukasa is. Which, I don’t, and if it’s somewhere I
could have looked myself, I’ll decide what to do then. Running you
is going to be the biggest risk I’ve ever taken.”
“And,” said Rin, raising one finger, “You’ll need me to convince
her to come out of her hiding place.”
“And why wouldn’t I be able to convince her?”
“Because, I’m the Daughter of the Sunset. Tsukasa won’t break
the fourth wall unless I’m there to work with her, because she fears
what would happen if she were to totally abandon the book she
plays a part in. She needs me alive so that the demon king Balstor
doesn’t wake up like he’s supposed to. I know I live in a world
 Bibliotruckers 59

where you can travel through dimensions, and your dimension is

sort of an alpha dimension, but I don’t really know much else about
what’s going on. Even though I’m the Daughter of the Sunset.”
Jeb wasn’t going to tell Rin what was truly happening. It was an
unspoken rule that literary characters only know what they were
supposed to know, and no more. Rin didn’t yet know that her world
had been created by a single man, or that all her struggles were part
of a method of entertainment for the people of the higher realms.
Most literary characters, when they learned that, stopped
cooperating until they could be convinced to leave their worlds
behind and migrate to the alpha universe. Every hero who was taken
out of their book, through smuggling, had a reason for going along
with the smuggler. Most of the time it was through a system termed
“rewrite.” Characters who had left the fourth wall would hire writers
to create an alternate book that wielded the same power as the
original, bringing a resolve to their conflict, whether that character
was good or evil, chaotic or lawful. Books were cheap, and realized
literary characters were not. Rewrite allowed for an incentive which
drove literary characters to want to be smuggled into the alpha
universe, the real world, so that they could utilize the power of
authorship to save their families, their people, and their countries.
Organizations like the Breakers, of which Jeb was a part, only
smuggled characters who were fundamentally good at heart. The
possibility of unleashing a dark lord onto the real world was always
present, an undertone to every mission that the Breakers assigned to
the freaks that worked under them. Literary characters could be
dangerous to society if they were misused—at least, if they were
misused more than they already were. As it was, a thin balance was
struck between illegal smuggling and the Breaker’s authoritative
underground policing system. Smuggling literary characters required
a lot of ink, and only big organizations like the Breakers could
afford to do it on a daily basis.
A little too much character smuggling and the alpha universe
could come crumbling to a stop.
 Bibliotruckers 60

Jeb knew all this and more, and he knew that he was taking a
huge risk by bringing an NCC along with him. He had done it
before and gotten away with it, but this time, he wasn’t so sure, as
Rin was one of the main characters of a New York Times bestselling
series. There was too much surveillance. Too many people who
could notice a slight difference in the ending of the book. And, since
Rin was a main character—or at least, a commonly-used viewpoint
character—it would be much more difficult to escape unnoticed by
either the book’s local defenses or the forces of the Narrator.
Jeb fired up his N-Line, and looked at Rin. “Tell me the page
and volume number.”
Rin gave it to him, and Jeb put the numbers into the N-Line. It
was an out-of-the-way library that was barely even visible on the
map—just a lone, tiny little dot in the ocean of literary works.
“How are you certain about her location?” said Jeb. “Do you
have some sort of magic power I don’t know about?”
Rin shook her head. “Just trust me,” she said, an awkward smile
on her lips. “I’ve been to the arch-magus’s secret library hideout
twice now. I know that’s where she escapes every time something
happens in my universe that’s not supposed to happen.”
“So you’ve been dealing with the literary highway for a while
now,” said Jeb. “Which shouldn’t come as a surprise to me, since I
picked you up hitchhiking in a book about World War One.”
Rin shrugged. “I helped you, and I will continue to help you.
Just get me out of this world so I don’t have to die over and over
again, because death is scary and every time I go down it hurts like a
bitch, and I’m not sure if I’ll wake up again.”
NCCs were often partially aware of what was going on in the
literary highway—it looked like Rin knew a little bit, but Jeb wanted
to keep the rest out of her reach so she didn’t change her mind
about anything.
They drove through the end of Storm Rages, out onto the
intervolume. The broad, straight asphalt was a welcome reprieve
after the densely packed forest roads of Storm Rages. It felt fresh,
like it was going to open up and assist Jeb in whatever way it could.
 Bibliotruckers 61

Jeb had always had a hunch that roads had feelings too, and today,
the intervolume was in a spectacular mood. Jeb wasn’t about to go
about ruining a happy moment, and so he turned on the brightest
country music that he had on his music player.
“Bess, cycle through the happy playlist.”
“Cycling through the happy playlist,” said Bess. “Are you in a
good mood today? You certainly seem like it.”
“I’ve got a lead and I’m tracking it down,” said Jeb. “And the
Narrator isn’t on my tail. Those two things are enough to make me
feel spectacular.”
“Then you must be a pretty simple person,” said Rin. “It takes a
lot more than that to make me happy about life.” She said it bitterly,
with a hint of irony. She didn’t seem too lighthearted. Almost as if
she was afraid of something. Her mood was the opposite of Jeb’s
mild euphoria, a dark, forbidding aura that crept into her posture
and the bags under her eyes.
Jeb knew that Rin had been fighting a losing war for her people,
at least in the book—he had read it straight through three times to
familiarize himself with the landscape. It was the only thing he could
have done with Bess in the shop.
Rin was in charge, for the moment, the mood dominated by her
statement. Jeb saw no way to lighten the atmosphere, instead
focusing on the road, the passing scenery, the cars beside, behind,
and in front of him. A green sedan zipped past, doing twenty words
per second, spitting up letters underneath its tires. Jeb turned on his
windshield wipers. More letters began to fall from the sky, at first
lowercase, and then uppercase. When the letters hit something, they
made the sound they represented—Ds went “Duh,” and Fs went
“Fuh.” The result was a thick, symphonic harmony, as the actual
tones varied even amongst the same letters. One D sounded high
pitched and mousy, a “Dee,” whereas another D sounded like
“Dooh,” and then “Dah,” and then came the other twenty-six letters
in uppercase and lowercase, not to mention the flashing exclamation
points which lit up the sky and the rumbling question marks,
periods, and commas that followed. It was the rain of the literate, a
 Bibliotruckers 62

thousand fingers on a thousand keys, typing a thousand letters per

second.
Jeb was having trouble seeing through the thick, pouring letter
storm. With a careful turn, he pulled into a truck stop, a small
enclave off the side of the inervolume highway that had enough
parking space for a dozen semis, along with a kiosk, bathrooms,
vending machines, and a picnic area. Jeb parked Bess, stepped
outside, and opened up his umbrella.
“I’m going to go get some soda,” he said. “Do you want to
come?”
Rin seemed like she was about to refuse, and then she shrugged.
“I’ll come with you.” She stepped out and shivered for a moment
under the deluge of letters. The sound coming off of the umbrella
was like the whispering of a dozen singers, mournfully remembering
soulful imagery that was punctuated with grim reality of the
meaninglessness of life. It was a sad storm.
Sometimes letter storms could be up-beat, other times they
could be naive, or calloused, or funny, or serious—every single letter
storm had its own personality and its own quirks. No two were every
the same.
Jeb and Rin shared an umbrella until they came to the covered
picnic area. The letters, now that they were hitting something solid,
sounded a lot more throaty and full-bodied than they had hitting the
umbrella. Random strings of words, sometimes forming cohesive
sentences, sometimes reading as gibberish, flowed down from the
top of the roof and coalesced into paragraphs on the concrete floor.
Jeb tried reading one of the paragraphs under his boot but found it
unintelligible. His boot was written on now, little scribbles that he
knew would fade away as they dried off.
Rin took a box of sugar cubes out of her pocket and popped
one into her mouth. Jeb hadn’t read anything about that habit in the
book, in any of his three times, but he had seen mention of the fact
that Rin liked eating sweets. Jeb realized that he really didn’t know
this woman. Even though he had been inside of her head for a
significant portion of Storm Rages, he still didn’t know how she’d
 Bibliotruckers 63

react in a majority of the situations she could get into in the real
world. In fiction, everything was railroaded into the same events
over and over again—unless someone caused an NCE—and the
characters repeated the same story over and over again until the end
of time. They had no new experiences. Learned nothing new. Did
not changed, did not err from the author’s vision, no matter how old
the book was.
It was dangerous, taking a character into the real world, as one
had no idea how they would react to learning that everything they
were—their struggles, their ideals, their families—were orchestrated,
oftentimes by a single person, for the entertainment of the masses.
And they weren’t always appreciated, either, as some books earned
poor reviews, and others went ignored completely. The number of
books languishing in the darkness of non-popularity was staggering
to behold. Characters hailing from those books had no reason to
exist, as even their gods had abandoned them. When they found
that out, when they discovered that their lives were less than
meaningless, their reactions were unpredictable.
Rin offered Jeb a sugar cube, silently. Jeb hesitated, and then
took one, popping it into his mouth and sucking on it. Rin sat down
on a table and placed her head down. She looked off into the
distance, her eyes far away, watching the downpour of letters as they
formed sentences and poured down from the roof in rivulets. Jeb sat
down next to Rin. On closer inspection—he was closer to her than
he had ever been—Rin was a beautiful girl, a lot more attractive than
he thought she would be given how she was described in the book.
Then again, it was hard to convey objective attractiveness through
plain text, and Jeb felt the truth of that statement more so than he
had ever felt it in that moment. He continued looking at Rin for one
moment too long, and caught her gaze, awkwardly. Then, he turned
away.
“Sorry,” he said.
“For what?” said Rin, laying her head on Jeb’s shoulder. She
stayed next to him for a while.
 Bibliotruckers 64

“Nothing,” said Jeb. He didn’t move, a little nervous, and a little

taken aback by the intensity of his own emotions. There was
something fiery inside of his stomach, a feeling like the world was
bright orange, like the sunset was breaking through the falling letters,
was mixing with the babble of a thousand phonemes pittering and
pattering on top of a sheet metal roof. It was a complex, and heady,
sensation, one that Jeb didn’t want to end. Jeb put his arm around
Rin. Rin tensed, for a moment, and then relaxed.
“Stay this way with me,” said Rin. “And listen to me talk.”
Jeb said nothing.
“I’m supposed to be dead,” she said. “The only reason why I’m
alive is because you gave me enough ink to keep me aware of the
fourth wall until you came along. I’m indebted to you with my life. I
owe my life to you, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m tired
of dying. I don’t want to die again, because I don’t know which one
is going to be my last. I don’t know why things happen like they do,
but being killed by Vormont is just as scary the hundredth time as it
is the first. I lost count of the times I died when I reached twenty. I
remember the beginning, and I remember wanting to escape—and
Tsukasa is the one who helped me. I remember watching her. The
ceremony. When she taught me that this universe is just one of
many in a multiverse, of thousands of other worlds like mine, all
mixed together and tied up by a highway where these things called
cars fly through at incredible magic speeds. I was just so naive, I
thought I could hack it on my own. It turns out that I was wrong. I
needed help.” Rin closed her eyes. “Thank you for saving me from
my eternal cycle of death.”
Jeb kissed Rin. It was a long, lingering kiss, one that lasted with
passion more so than Jeb had ever experienced, not just because it
was his first kiss with a certain girl, but because there was a
profound, deep, and wise melancholy embedded deep within those
lips that made its way into Jeb’s psyche, as the kiss ended, leaving
Jeb with a feeling like he had just run a hundred miles in under the
time it took to slow down. Jeb placed his hand against Rin’s side.
 Bibliotruckers 65

“I don’t know you,” said Rin, “But that was the best kiss I’ve
ever experienced.” She smiled, softly. “Let’s do that again.”
All Jeb could do was nod. The moment seemed to last for a
little bit longer, and then it faded away, into a crimson-colored
memory. Jeb turned to the falling letters outside. Watching them
fall, listening to them unload their phonetic payload onto the roof,
was soothing, almost sleep-inducing. Jeb’s eyes closed softly, and he
felt his head touch against something soft, and then he felt someone
stroking his hair, slowly, as if the person were savoring every
moment their fingers were in contact with his skin.
 Bibliotruckers 66

7
***
Arch-mage
Tsukasa’s hiding place was a dive in the middle of a small
intervolume library that was compacted into the space between two
romance novels. As Bess rode into town, Jeb could feel the literary
agents and civilians glare at him as if he were an intruder, which, he
probably was, seeing that the place was out of the way and probably
didn’t see much traffic from beyond the fourth wall. To them, Jeb
probably seemed like an alien, a foreigner, bringing with him the
conquest of the real world over the fictional universe—a point which
every literary being felt animosity over, no matter how much they
tried to hide it.
Rin looked on edge, and Jeb didn’t blame her. The town had a
spooky atmosphere to it, its buildings being gothic in their
architecture, romantic in the swing of their buttressed facades,
pointing to a time when romance novels were different than they
were now, a time when romance meant nothing like what it meant in
the now. In other words, a quaint, old-fashioned love story library.
Jeb wondered why Tsukasa had picked this place as the location
of her wizard’s hideout. He filed the thought away as a question to
ask her when the time presented itself.
Jeb parked in the lot of a grocery store and stepped out into the
soft sunlit atmosphere. It was a nice day, the sky was its normal
paper-white, the only word-clouds were floating non-threateningly in
tiny little clumps, and the paper library buildings cast short shadows
against the wordcrete sidewalks. Jeb helped Rin out of the cab,
supporting her weight on his shoulders. The cab was high up, and
Jeb wasn’t going to skip over a chance to be a gentleman.
Rin pointed to the south. “That’s where her lab is,” she said.
“Though, to be honest, I’m not sure exactly where it is.”
 Bibliotruckers 67

Jeb followed Rin through the quiet, quaint streets, trying not to
meet the gaze of the occasional pedestrian. They reached what
looked like an abandoned lighthouse, that stood over a hill that
looked into one of the romance novels that bordered the city. Jeb
saw a “no soliciting” sign hanging next to a fence that was slightly
ajar. Rin held out her hand.
“Let me take care of this,” she said, stepping towards the gate.
She opened it carefully, slowly, her entire body tense. Then she
stepped through. “Looks like Tsukasa didn’t booby-trap the fence.
Last time I was here, I got shocked by the automatic deterrence
wards that she puts up around the place.”
Jeb followed Rin into the compound. Rin walked up to the door
and knocked. “Tsukasa,” she said, “I know you’re in there. We
need your help.”
There was a puff of bright light, and the lighthouse rumbled.
The door opened and black smoke poured out. A frizzled, harassed
figure appeared in the doorway, holding a flask in one hand and a
flyswatter in the other.
“Do you mind? I’m inventing a method of eliminating callifora
vomitoria from the general area using a mixture of soulphic dust and
reverse-dried ink. It’s very important research. Your busy-bodied
knocking has just set me back by decades!” The figure looked like
she could have been attractive had she taken better care of her hair
and her complexion. Her eyes had deep bags under them, and her
bangs covered most of her eyes. She pulled her hand back through
her hair, pushing it to her temples.
“Oh, Rin,” she said, turning away. “And you. The one who was
after me. Did they summon Morthyhydra, like I knew they would?”
“They did,” said Jeb. “You should know how NCEs work.”
“Ah, yes, non-canon events. I’ve seen a few during my life,
which has been regrettably short given the fact that Storm Rages was
published less than a year ago. It’s funny,” said Tsukasa, her eyes
speeding up along with her motion and her speech, “I have
memories from before the book was published, as if that world was
the only one. The instant Storm Rages was published, I knew
 Bibliotruckers 68

something had changed in the reality I lived in. How do your reality
and my reality work? Why do I feel like I haven’t actually lived my
past, my backstory? Did I just pop into existence when the book was
published, with all my memories? Or did my universe exist in a
separate reality until an author penned the two into one?” Tsukasa
puttered about the main room of the bottom floor of the lighthouse,
which was filled with bookshelves and the occasional lab equipment
that evoked images of mad science and crackling electricity.
“Almost as interesting a question as what the passive voice does
when exposed to hardline blues lyrics. Quite the show, that.”
Tsukasa seemed to find herself for a moment. “Where was I? Ah,
yes, I let you in because it was destined to happen. Not because I
recognized you, Rin.” Tsukasa seemed to be avoiding something. “I
mean, I don’t remember owing you anything. Nope. Not going to
talk about that incident, that didn’t count, I wasn’t in my right
mind.”
“If you weren’t then, you aren’t now,” said Rin, with a hint of
joviality in her voice, which, if absent, would have made Jeb very
worried about the nature of Rin’s character. She grinned, giving Jeb
a soft release to the tension that had just caught him by surprise.
There was a history here, one that he was not privy to, and one that
he probably would never be privy to. Neither of the women looked
like they were going to back down—both seemed to be engaged in a
fight that was far, far above Jeb’s head.
Jeb let the two talk for a moment and sat down in a chair. It had
been a lot easier than he thought it would be, finding Tsukasa and
avoiding military checkpoints. The hardest part was still to come, as
they still had to go through the checkpoints closer to the fourth wall
portal. The closer to the portal one got, the more narrative
checkpoints there were. Jeb had been lucky to get out of Storm
Rages with Rin in his passenger seat, given that the book was a New
York Times bestseller—lucky indeed, and he hoped that his luck
would hold out. Which, if his experience told him anything,
probably wouldn’t be the case.
 Bibliotruckers 69

Tsukasa looked at Jeb like she wanted him to join the

conversation.
“Please, tell me that you’re just going to abuse my power so that
I have a reason to not go with you.”
Jeb blinked, not sure what to think about the rather strange
request. “I, er, I don’t know what’s going to happen to you when I
let you go,” he said. “All I know is that the American government
wants you for something, and that’s it. That’s all that I know about
your situation. I’ll give you what they told me to give to you—” Here
Jeb pulled out a letter that had been given to him to give to Tsukasa.
“I haven’t opened it yet,” said Jeb, “Though it is classified.”
Rin narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t say you had anything like
that.”
“I didn’t know I had anything on me like that either,” said Jeb.
“That’s probably because they planted it on me and then made me
forget that it was planted on me, so that it would be secure in my
pocket until I encountered the moment I needed it. It happens
sometimes when you work this job.” Still, though, Jeb was a little bit
surprised to learn that it had happened to him, just like he was every
time they planted a letter on him and then made him forget its
existence to keep it safe until the moment he needed it to convince
a character to go with him. It happened about, in his estimate, thirty
percent of the time, at least with his missions. That didn’t change
how annoying it was to know that the higher-ups didn’t trust him,
but when he considered it, he knew that he wouldn’t trust himself,
either.
Tsukasa tossed the letter into the fire. “A nice argument, but not
one that I’m going to accept.”
Rin was visibly stressed. She took Tsukasa by the shoulder and
pulled her towards the wall.
“Here now,” Rin said. “You know you owe me, big time. Just
treat this as a favor, and go with Jeb long enough to satisfy his
demands. When you’re on the other side and working whatever job
they’ll have you working, you can decide to leave if you want, that’s
on you. But for now I have to get you to cooperate with Jeb, or else
 Bibliotruckers 70

I’m going to be stuck in an eternal loop of living, fighting for what I

believe in, and then dying right before I wake up again to repeat
everything I’ve done a million times before. I didn’t want to be a
part of this, and I’m not going to now that I have the tools to
escape.”
Jeb looked between Rin and Tsukasa. Whatever their history
was, it was complex, as could be seen through their exchange. Jeb
didn’t know what to do, and so, instead of standing awkwardly, he
sat down in the closest chair he could find, a velvet-covered sofa with
enough room for him to stretch out his legs, almost as if he were
lying down.
Their conversation continued for a couple more minutes, and
then Tsukasa looked like she had made a decision. Jeb watched,
curious, staying out of the way to avoid making the blunder he knew
he would make if he tried to navigate the treacherous waters his
sixth sense was telling him flowed between the two.
But, in the end, Tsukasa came up to Jeb and bowed. “I will
come out with you,” she said. “Rin has convinced me, which I did
not think would happen. My only condition is that you let me
choose whether or not to follow the organization whom I am
supposed to lend my assistance once I get to know them and their
motives better, and have had a chance to evaluate them myself.”
Tsukasa paused. “And, I need to be able to continue my research.
It’s very important.”
Jeb nodded. “Anything, as long as you come out with me.” His
contract was just for bringing Tsukasa to the Breakers, and then he
would get paid. Nothing more, nothing less.
Tsukasa puttered about, picking up books, dusting them off,
seeming to make a decision and then putting them back down again.
Jeb frowned.
“You won’t be able to move much more than you can carry on
your person,” he said.
“Don’t worry,” said Tsukasa, holding up a small cube. “I have a
solution for that.” And then, she began shoving all of her lab
equipment into the cube, which was about the size of a balled fist.
 Bibliotruckers 71

The furniture, the test tubes, the bubbling flasks and the desks
covered in notes—all of it disappeared into the center of the cube,
spiraling as it shrunk. When the room was clear of equipment,
Tsukasa put the cube in her pocket and nodded.
“I’m doing this as a favor,” she said. “And nothing more.” And
then, Jeb led the three of them out of the lighthouse and through
the city to where Bess was parked.
Jeb threw open the trailer of his semi, exposing an interior filled
with boxes of dried phonetics. He stepped up into the trailer,
pulling Tsukasa up next to him. Behind the boxes, hidden from
view when one stood at the entrance, was a small pocket of clear
ground, with pillows scattered about.
“This is how I’ll smuggle you through,” said Jeb. “You pull the
wall here—” Jeb demonstrated with a cover that looked identical to
the color of the truck’s walls—“When you want to hide yourself.
They won’t be able to see you when conducting a standard
inspection, as long as you don’t panic and don’t make any noise. If
we run into dogs—” Jeb took out a cannister of spray-on fluid,
“That’s what this is for. Spray it all over the place and the dogs will
pass right over you.”
Tsukasa seemed reluctant, hesitant, and Jeb didn’t blame her.
She was about to take a huge risk for a cause that she wasn’t exactly
on board with. Still, she stepped through the back and sat down on a
crate. Rin looked at Jeb.
“Should I get in?”
“Yeah, I would,” said Jeb. “If they catch sight of you in the
passenger’s seat, nothing good will happen. You can talk to me
through the intercom installed underneath that—” Jeb pointed—
“That panel right there. Just open it up, press the button, and speak.
I’ll do my best to respond.”
Rin climbed in. Jeb closed the trailer’s steel door, pulling down
on a chain until metal met metal with a solid bang. Jeb walked
around the truck and got into his cab.
Jeb drove them away from the library and into a romance novel
Love’s Trials, a decade-old classic that still managed to be culturally
 Bibliotruckers 72

relevant even though it was originally written as a piece of trash

romance. The sky was colored a bright, California blue, with puffy
white clouds floating amongst contrails, dancing to the sound of
passing airliners. The highway merged into a freeway, and then a
suburban street, and then a forest road that led deep into the
mountains north of Los Angeles. The transitions were like how pop
songs used to be on records, with the fade out of one song turning
into the fade-in of the next. Each place was the location of an
important scene or scenes taking place in the book. Jeb had never
read Love’s Trials, so he couldn’t put event to place. Rin probably
didn’t know the place, either. Tsukasa, on the other hand; she
probably knew about this book.
Jeb drove for a while through the soft, temperate forest,
following his N-Line device.
Tsukasa’s voice came over the intercom. “There’s something I
need to do at the local library,” she said. “Do you mind stopping at
Yander?”
“Not a problem,”’ said Jeb. “Our schedule is a little bit flexible
because of how quickly I was able to find you.”
“Thank you,” said Tsukasa.
Jeb drove to the library of Yander, whose buildings looked
Japanese in style, with curved rooftops sporting dragon fixings and
golden trim. Jeb parked his truck on the side of a wide road. He
stepped out and, looking both ways to make sure no one was
watching, he let Tsukasa and Rin out. They climbed down without
much trouble.
Tsukasa began to walk away.
“Wait,” said Jeb, stopping her. “Where are you going?”
“To meet with an old friend,” said Tsukasa. “You guys can go
on a walk through this world, if you want. The scenery is quite nice.
Whoever built the place has nice aesthetic tastes when it comes to
nature.” And then, she was gone, turning around a street corner.
Rin looked at Jeb. “Do you want to take her up on that?” she
said, taking gentle hold of Jeb’s arm.
 Bibliotruckers 73

Jeb didn’t pull away. “I guess I kept myself fit for a reason.” He
smiled. “Let’s go.”
The two of them walked out onto a forest path, lined every
dozen or so meters with a public bench. Some of them overlooked
a beautiful vista, others stared into the depths of the woods or saw a
panorama of the entire city down below the mountain.
Jeb caught sight of two people walking up ahead. Jeb and Rin
came up close behind them. Jeb recognized them as the main
characters of the book. He kept his distance, as he didn’t want to get
involved in another NCE. Rin was the one who walked up to them
and said hello. The looked startled, at first glancing at each other,
and then at Rin and Jeb.
Then, something strange became apparent. Their eyes, they
were filled with blackness and twirling, twisting liquid language. They
had been possessed. The man pulled a pistol, his eyes inky, and
aimed it at Jeb.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said, taking a step towards
Jeb.
Jeb un-holstered his own revolver. “Don’t point that at people
who aren’t doing you any harm.”
The man’s body began to shimmer, clouds of smoke pouring
out of his skin. He pulled back the hammer on his gun.
“Leave. Do not bring the chosen one or the grand wizard with
you. Do this now and you shall be spared.”
Jeb scoffed. Ten million dollars was too much to be persuaded
against by a random love story protagonist. He pulled back the
hammer on his own gun.
“I don’t want to have to do this—”
And then Rin was upon them, her sword twirling in the air,
slicing the man’s hand off, the gun flying out of his palm and landing
next to the woman. The man grasped his bloody stump. Blood
sprayed everywhere. Rin pulled her sword to the man’s neck.
“Next time you threaten us, it’ll be your head.”
 Bibliotruckers 74

A gun touched Rin’s neck. It was the woman. She had picked
up the gun that had fallen next to her, still covered in her fiancé’s
blood. Jeb’s gun wavered. Should he shoot? If so, who?
Rin moved faster than should have been humanly possible,
cutting open the stomach of the woman, stabbing the man through
the neck. Her face was filled with vitriolic passion, her eyes glinting
in the soft sunlight coming from above, filtering through the trees.
The gun fell to the ground, still held in the woman’s cooling
grip.
Jeb looked at Rin. “You know, you just murdered two people.”
“I’m sure they’ll come back when the cycle restarts.”
Jeb looked away. “They will, but did you have to do that?”
Rin wiped her sword with a cloth. “It’s worse than I expected.
We need to get to the truck, fast.”
Jeb pulled out his portable radio. It connected wirelessly to the
equipment in his truck, so that, when he was within ten miles of
Bess, he could communicate just like he was sitting in the cab. He
dialed Allie’s code.
“Allie,” said Jeb. “Have you heard—”
“Jeb, what the hell did you do?”
“Er, nothing. I don’t know what I did. All of a sudden, two non-
combatant characters tried to kill me.”
Allies voice sounded strange, theatrical. “The Narrator has
declared retcon four. There’s a dangerous literary character on the
loose, and I’m starting to suspect that you had a hand in this.”
Dangerous? Rin didn’t seem to be at all dangerous.
Except … Jeb remembered, just a minute before, Rin killing the
two romantic partners like they were mannequins. The blood still
stained Jeb’s shirt.
Jeb and Rin came upon Bess, still parked by the side of the
road.
“We need to get out of here,” said Jeb. “Bess, plot us a course
to the nearest fourth wall gate.”
Tsukasa came into view, coming around a corner. She climbed
into the back of the trailer, as did Rin, and Jeb closed the door
 Bibliotruckers 75

behind them. In the cab, he started the engine and began to drive
away from the site of the killing, Rin’s actions still fresh in his mind
as if they were happening in the moment. The blood. The silver,
shining sword that Rin had pulled out of nowhere, and which had
returned to nowhere just as quickly as it had arrived. The revolver,
still clutched in the dead woman’s hand.
Jeb had seen his fair share of traumatic incidents, but this—this
was different. Seeing two people die right in front of him had jarred
him into a state of alertness that he recognized from long ago, in his
past. That one game of mahjong, that one high-rolling bet with the
Triad, when Jeb had been too confident and had polished off one
too many shots of whisky. He had bet twenty million—his family
fortune, which was almost his—for the life of a single girl. He had
lost, she had been sold into sex slavery, and his grandfather had
rewritten his will to give the twenty million that was coming towards
Jeb to charity, leaving Jeb with a big, fat, ugly, twenty-million-dollar
debt at a ridiculously high interest rate.
This job, smuggling Tsukasa, would put Jeb into the clear, just
barely, with two million left over to retire. And, of course, two
million was enough money to hire a private investigator to find out
what happened to Jamie. Jeb knew she was dead. She had been sold
into sex slavery, or wherever she went, ten years ago, and Jeb knew
the statistics weren’t in her favor. She couldn’t be alive now,
because, if she was, everything would fall apart. Jeb didn’t know if he
wanted her to be alive, with memories of what happened to her, or
dead, resting in peace.
“So, Allie,” said Jeb, talking into his radio. “How did it happen
that the literary universe got put on retcon four without my
knowledge? I should be hearing about these things.”
“I don’t know, Jeb,” said Allie. “All I know is that you’re going
to be earning a tough ten mil. It won’t be easy, but I know you can
do it. And if you need me, I’m willing to back you up.”
Jeb let his radio mic fall into his lap. He put both hands on the
wheel. There were two more books to travel through before they
reached the fourth wall portal. Two books was two too many. Jeb
 Bibliotruckers 76

drove just above the legal speed limit, pushing the boundaries
slightly enough to be ignored by the narration cops. Locks, as they
were called.
Jeb drove through the border of Love’s Trials, into a book set in
what looked to be 1920’s New York, during the swing-time and
prohibition era. Jeb’s truck was out of place in an environment filled
with vehicles from the twenties, but none of the impters noticed, as
was always the case for the literary highway. Even though Jeb had to
navigate the traffic as if it were really there, he knew that it really
wasn’t there—it was all part of a separate reality that was fused
together with the glue called the intervolume and the rest of the
literary highway system. He wasn’t a part of that reality. He was
different.
A motorcar drove up next to Bess, and Jeb recognized it as a
fourth-wall vehicle, unlike the in-universe vehicles that most of the
street was clogged with. Jeb kept an eye on it, making sure it wasn’t
up to anything suspicious. A gun appeared out of the window—one
of the old-fashioned Tommy guns that were so iconic of the 1920’s
gangster era.
“Jeb,” said Bess, her voice strenuous, “I’m detecting analytical
rounds inside that gun. You’d better brace for impact.”
Jeb picked up the intercom to the back. “Find something to hide
behind, guys, because we’re about to get shot up with some heavy
piercing slugs. They may reach you.”
Jeb put the intercom down. “Bess, make sure the bullets don’t
hit anything vital. Try and use that anti-missile laser battery that I’ve
been toying with.”
“I don’t think it will work with regular bullets. They’re moving
too fast and they’re too small.”
Out of the corner of his eye, through the rearview mirror, Jeb
caught sight of a figure climbing on top of the truck’s cargo
container. It was Rin. She leaped onto the motorcar with the gun
pointing out the window and drove her sword through the roof. At
the moment when the car swerved, Rin leaped back onto the side of
 Bibliotruckers 77

the shipping container, holding onto the small bars that protruded
from the tops and bottoms.
“That was cool,” said Bess. “You really shouldn’t be helping
her, but I know you. You’ll stick with her to the ends of the Earth, if
need be.”
Jeb looked away. “Let’s hope that—” A burst of gunfire stopped
him mid-sentence. Two more motorcars drove up next to the cab,
pointing their Tommy guns at him through the cab window. Jeb
knew that these bullets could break through his defenses, if given
enough time.
“Permission to utilize the missile launcher?” said Bess, her tone
clear, professional.
Jeb shook his head. “Not yet. I have a feeling that this isn’t the
worst thing we’ll see on our way back.” Jeb tapped his fingers against
the wheel. “We need to conserve missiles if we want to make it
through this.”
“Jeb, I’m getting a weird signature coming from up ahead. It
looks like ... A roadblock. There are seven cars, and at least a dozen
people.”
“How far up ahead are they?” said Jeb. He tried to look past the
traffic and the buildings, but couldn’t quite see through the smog of
the city.
“A mile. They’re defending the only exit this book has, at least
to the place we need to go. If we’re going to get through this, we
need to break that barrier.”
Jeb clenched the wheel. “Do you have anywhere we can stay
if—” An explosion rocked the truck, and its tires went flat.
“I’m losing traction!” said Bess, as the cab careened towards the
left side of the road. “Someone shot out the tires on our right side!”
“I can tell!” said Jeb, trying his best to keep the truck on the
road in the middle of the big city. Four motorcars came around the
nearest bend and headed towards the slowing truck like hawks.
Jeb picked up the intercom mic. “Tsukasa! Rin! Get out of there
before they close off all escape routes!”
 Bibliotruckers 78

Jeb felt the back of the truck move. Bess slowed to a stop,
crashing through a retaining wall with her last bit of momentum.
“Leave me,” said Bess.
“I need you to get out of here,” said Jeb, “And I’m not going to
leave my partner.”
“I’m just a truck,” said Bess. “I knew I was going to go this way.
Just leave me.”
“I can’t,” said Jeb, checking his pistol to make sure it was
loaded.
Rin and Tsukasa came up next to Jeb. “Come on,” said Rin.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving my truck,” said Jeb.
Rin grabbed Jeb by the collar. “I’m going to drag you out of here
whether you like it or not.”
Jeb tried to resist, but Rin was surprisingly strong, and after a few
moments he gave up and followed Rin away from the crash site.
“We’re going to have to find new tires,” said Rin. “I’m as
invested in this adventure as you are. It’s my ticket to the real world,
after all. I don’t want to abandon our only vehicle any more than
you do.”
Jeb tried to make it fine to himself, knowing that Bess had
automatic defenses and mechanisms that prevented her from being
taken apart, but, still, leaving behind his companion, who he’d been
trucking with for ten years—that hurt, a lot. It was the first time he
had ever been separated from Bess inside of the literary world
without knowing what was going to happen.
“You’ve made some bad decisions in your life,” said Tsukasa, “I
can tell. But I assure you that you did not make a bad decision this
time.”
Jeb lost all power to control his body. It was as if a switch had
been pulled, and all of his energy had just drained away. He felt
weak, unable to do anything more than let Rin support him as he
ran deeper into the city of New York during the height of the
roaring twenties. Jeb had never been to this particular book before,
 Bibliotruckers 79

but it looked familiar—probably because he had seen the setting

multiple times from multiple different angles.
Tsukasa led Rin and Jeb through the back alleyways as if she
knew where she was going—Jeb trusted her to get them where they
needed to go. They were off the literary highway. Whacking the
bush, so to speak, though the jungle they were humping was
concrete instead of green. People leered at them from open
windows, as they hung laundry, or beat out mattresses. The
occasional motorcar rumbled past.
Jeb heard voices from behind him. It was the mafia. They were
gaining on him. He turned to see a group of mooks advancing on
them, running through the alleyways, knocking over crates and
bowling over children as they played. A burst of Tommy gun fire
flew past Jeb. Jeb knew that there was nowhere to hide. He stopped,
turned around, and unloaded his revolver into the crowd. Two
mooks fell, disappearing into clouds of letters and fog, but there
were still at least six chasing after him, and Jeb didn’t want to hit any
children, even if they were impters who would respawn the minute
Jeb left.
Rin grabbed Jeb and pulled him into a dive bar at the bottom of
a tenement. It was a speakeasy, not well lit, filled with a number of
patrons who were nursing beer or kicking back illegal hooch. The
whole room smelled of whiskey.
The mooks who had been chasing Jeb stopped at the doorway
and glared, though they did not take a step inside. It was as if that
was all they could do. Tsukasa pulled the door closed, and then the
whole room went dark. When it lit back up, it was pure white,
almost as if the world hadn’t loaded right in a video game, where the
interiors of the buildings could be seen, objects clipping into one
another, impters going about their daily business, unaware that
someone watched them from below.
Jeb knew where he was. It was a dogear. A space tucked in
between the pages where literary fiction paused for a moment,
allowing only real people or those literary characters who had been
lucky enough to acquire enough ink to become semi-realized—ink
 Bibliotruckers 80

was like a visa, in that sense, if real people were natural-born citizens
of the real world.
Jeb knew how to work dogears—he materialized a couch and sat
down.
“We need to plan out how to save Bess,” he said.
“You’re my ride out,” said Rin, “So I’m going to help you.”
Tsukasa looked thoughtful for a moment. “I see trouble ahead,
but what we will gain from that trouble is more valuable than
anything I can create. Thus, I am with you to the end of this
adventure.”
“Tires,” said Jeb. “We need to replace Bess’s tires, and get her
out of her crash zone.”
“But that place is going to be crawling with bad guys,” said Rin.
“I don’t know who they were, but they had guns, and I hate guns.”
“They were mafia,” said Jeb. “They had a lot of power in the
nineteen-twenties in America, especially in New York. I’m wouldn’t
be surprised if Al Capone was somewhere out there, watching this
whole thing go down. Historical fictions are always weird like that
when it comes to NCEs.”
Tsukasa closed her eyes and began to meditate. Rin sat down on
the couch next to Jeb, keeping her hands folded over her legs.
“Tsukasa,” said Rin, tapping her fingers on her knees. “Do you
have anything that you can pull out of your magical bag of tricks?”
“It would not be wise to mix universes in that way, even to save
ourselves from an unescapable situation.” Tsukasa paused. “It is not
yet known whether or not this situation truly is inescapable.”
Jeb sighed. “Tsukasa, you’re an arch-mage, right?” he said.
“Why can’t you use your powers in another story—I mean, another
universe?”
Tsukasa turned away. “I would like to keep secret the goings-on
of the intricacies of this universe, as knowledge of their workings is
dangerous in and of itself.”
Jeb pulled his typing gloves out of his pocket, and through them,
accessed the internet. Signal was great in the dog-ear, and soon Jeb
had a plan formed.
 Bibliotruckers 81

If only they could execute it in time.

 Bibliotruckers 82

8
Mob
Bess was towed through the streets to a garage on the outskirts of
the city, with the thinning of the pages visible to the east, and the
main stage of the story to the west. The sun was hot, stylized in a
fashion that was unique to noir and mafia films. It really felt like she
was back in the nineteen twenties, even though she had been built
long after that. Somehow, the place was familiar to her, comforting.
If only she could replace her own tires. In order to keep her
cards close to her chest, she had hidden her missiles and laser
batteries so that the mafia wouldn’t know how valuable she was. She
was like a tank on eighteen wheels, and even Jeb didn’t know the
full extent of her powers.
The mafia towed her into the garage, closing the door behind
them. Immediately, they took out tools, appearing ready to
dismantle her on the spot.
Bess opened up her laser cannon, targeted the eyes, and let it
rip. A thousand individual beams per minute, each one with enough
intensity to cause heavy burn damage if it touched skin, and enough
to permanently blind if it touched the eyes. There were five people
in the room. All five of them collapsed to the ground, clutching their
faces. Bess retracted her laser cannon. It was the first time in a while
she had used it, and she was glad that it hadn’t lost too much of its
calibration.
Now, all she had to do was wait.

***

Tsukasa opened the door of the speakeasy, peering out into the
street. She gave the “okay” signal. Jeb and Rin followed her. There
didn’t seem to be any mafia goons around the area—maybe they’d
gotten bored and left, or maybe they had received some new orders.
 Bibliotruckers 83

The three of them headed in Bess’s direction, tracking her with

Jeb’s LPS. She hadn’t been taken too far away.
A motorcar pulled up beside them and a Tommy gun pointed
out the window. Bullets sprayed towards the sidewalk, but all of
them were diverted by a blast of powerful wind coming out of
Tsukasa, powerful enough to lift the motorcar up into the air and
flip it over, crushing the goons inside of it. Tsukasa looked irritated,
and Jeb remembered what she had said about the mixing of
universes.
Two more motorcars drove up next to the first, which was
beginning to burn, smoke pouring out of its interior.
Tsukasa blasted both motorcars with more wind, sending them
careening into each other. Jeb was awestruck by Tsukasa’s full
power, and even then he knew that she was just using a tiny fraction
of it.
More motorcars streamed through the crowded streets, pushing
aside impter vehicles, even going so far as to derail the cannon
events happening at the edge of the street. This was turning into
another NCE, and it looked like it would be a big one.
The cops showed up, in their marked, wailing vehicles, and one
of them stopped next to Jeb. Jeb was about to relax when Rin pulled
him away.
“They’re not on our side,” she said, and she, Jeb, and Tsukasa
ran away from the cop car before the doors could open.
Both the cops and the mafia chased the three of them through
the streets of New York, Jeb getting them ever-closer to the place
where Bess was in hiding. She had spare tires, stored away in the
emergency supplies hatch in her cab, enough to fix the two that had
been shot through. He probably wouldn’t have been able to find
real literates anywhere nearby. It was pure luck that she had enough
of them to fix his problem.
The warehouse was at the edge of the district, somewhere to the
east of Manhattan. There were dozens of mafia guards surrounding
the building, as well as several black vans, and it seemed like
 Bibliotruckers 84

something was going on inside of the warehouse that they were all
interested in.
Tsukasa put up her hand. “Let us assess the situation first,” she
said, creeping towards the crowd of mafia goons.
They appeared to be arguing over something. One mafia goon
looked like he had been shot with a laser. His suit was disheveled,
and he was clutching his eyes as if he couldn’t see. Jeb approached
him from the back, holding his pistol in one hand and a knife in the
other—he had pulled it from his boot.
He hid behind a wall of packing pallets to reach the spot next to
the door where the mafia people were sitting, talking. Jeb leaped up,
pulled the injured mafia man down, and stabbed him in the neck. It
wasn’t the first time Jeb had done something like this, but it was still
unpleasant. The mafia goon’s body disappeared into a cloud of
essence, thicker than the smoke from a fire, textured like fine
cheese. The substance expanded, disappearing into the whirling
breeze. Jeb hid behind a packing pallet, waiting, watching. The
other mafia goons had noticed the missing one. Over on the other
side of the entrance, Rin was taking down mafia goons, as well, her
sword flashing just outside the edge of Jeb’s vision.
Tsukasa bolted forwards, electricity crackling through her palms,
as she electrocuted the last three mafia goons that had been standing
watch over the building.
Jeb crept over to where Tsukasa was standing.
“Can you sense any more goons?” he said.
“No,” said Tsukasa. “Strangely enough, there are no living
people inside that building. Some dead, though, recently.”
To Jeb, the most surprising thing wasn’t that Bess had obviously
done something; rather, it was that she had done it without radioing
him in about it. She always checked before doing something with
her weapons systems. Was she trying to hide something from him?
Jeb remembered the laser wound on the first mafia goon he had
taken down. Had that come from her?
If it had, Jeb knew that he still had a lot to learn from his AI
partner. Jeb pushed open the warehouse’s side door, the one made
 Bibliotruckers 85

for human entry. It had been left ajar. The interior of the warehouse
was dim, the only light streaming in through the windows about a
floor and a half above the ground, at the bottom of the sloping roof.
Bess was parked in a corner, leaning on her bare rims where she
had lost her tires. There were several dozen burn marks scattered
around the floor and the walls, as if someone had fired off an
explosion of lasers. Jeb took the jack out of the back of the cab, and
used it to lift the truck up into the air just enough so that he could
change the tires.
There was a knocking at the door. Jeb continued to replace
Bess’s tires, though he glanced at the location of the knock.
“Rin,” he said. “Take care of whoever comes through that
door.”
Rin nodded, and moved to a position beside the door. Just as
she reached it, the door flew off of its hinges, propelled with a
massive crash. It skidded off the concrete floor and embedded itself
in a pile of car parts. A single wrench tottered, and fell to the ground
with a clink. All was silent.
A Tommy gun spat through the silence, chewing up the walls,
sending puffs of paper up as the desks at the far end of the
warehouse were hit.
Jeb knew he had to work faster. He was vulnerable, outside the
truck, and he couldn’t afford to lose either Rin or Tsukasa. Even
though they were holding their own, there wasn’t much time left. He
finished bolting the second-to-last tire, with only one more to go. A
magical barrier went up around him, just in time to deflect bullets
sent his way. Rin was pinned down behind an old motorcar.
Tsukasa walked towards the mafia goons in the doorway, covered in
a bright blue light, and flicked her wrist. Green flame erupted from
a spot in front of the mobsters, incinerating them.
However, one mobster remained intact, still holding on to his
literary form. He grinned, holding a Tommy gun in one hand and a
cigar in the other.
“Why don’t you all let it up,” he said, taking a puff from his
cigar. “I know you ain’t from this universe,” he spat on the ground,
 Bibliotruckers 86

“And I don’t care where you come from. But, I’ve got an order
from above, that says to prevent you—” he pointed at Rin, “From
escaping this place alive.” He dropped his cigar, still burning, and
stamped it out. He aimed his Tommy gun, and it melded, shifted,
turning into syntactical fluid before it surrounded him, shielded him,
turned him into the center of a giant robot. Gears, pistons, and
clockwork mechanisms joined together in a symphony of steam-
punk style aesthetics. It was clearly in a different style from the gritty,
noir-inspired atmosphere of the book they were in, and it was
completely separate from Rin and Tsukasa’s style. Jeb had no time
to analyze the differences, though, because the man in the robot
opened fire on the position Rin was hiding behind. The robot’s
autocannon shredded the metal of the motorcar, peeling away Rin’s
protection.
Tsukasa let out a flash of lightning, the arcs of electricity flowing
through the air, grabbing onto the giant robot, taking hold of it and
lifting it into the air. The robot performed a maneuver with its arms,
cutting off the electricity, dropping down to the concrete on its feet.
The electricity around it was dampened, less virile. The robot
opened fire on Tsukasa’s location, pummeling her with a shower of
lead. Her force field reflected it, but it didn’t look like she was going
to make it out alive.
Jeb finished putting on the last tire.
“Bess?” he said. “We need some help here!”
The truck started on its own. As it began to accelerate out of the
warehouse, Jeb jumped into the cab, waving at Rin and Tsukasa to
get in the back. They both sprinted across the warehouse, grabbing
onto either side of the trailer. Jeb opened the back of the trailer so
that they could climb in without being vulnerable. The giant robot
fired off a burst at Bess, but her sides were too heavily armored, and
the bullets bounced off, ricocheting everywhere. Jeb floored the
acceleration pedal and crashed through the wall of the warehouse.
The giant robot turned to follow. As Jeb brought his speed up, the
robot kept pace, running like a football player ready to tackle the
receiver after a pass.
 Bibliotruckers 87

Jeb flipped up the glass box on his dashboard. “Mark seven,” he

said.
“Are you sure?” said Bess. “Those are expensive. You told me
to warn you before you wasted another one.”
“I know,” said Jeb. “But this is life-or-death.”
“Very well,” said Bess. The button lit up bright red. “Fire at your
command.”
Jeb slammed his palm on the button. “Firing!”
A missile streaked up into the air, flying high, turning around,
coming back down to earth as fast as it had gone up. It hit the giant
robot in the cockpit, tearing it to shreds in an orange-tinted
explosion of metal and glass.
“Booyah!” said Jeb, pumping his fist in the air. Missile
explosions always got his blood flowing. He turned up the volume
on his dashboard radio. A country song was playing, Night on the
Winter Railway, and Jeb’s exhilaration reached new peaks. There
wasn’t much more to go before the fourth wall portal, a way home,
and ten million dollars in his pocket.
All he had to do was make it through.
 Bibliotruckers 88

9
***
Empire Fallen
Jeb drove through the transition area between Lord of the Don
and the next book, Just in Time, beyond which was the fourth wall
portal that was their ticket into the real world. The first sight out of
the transition zone was of an open field, as far as the eye could see,
the rolling hills reminiscent of Eastern Europe. The only thing that
could be heard was the rushing of air past the cab. The sun was
bright, the sky was blue, and the book’s subject had yet to manifest.
Jeb knew this was to be short-lived. He kept a wary eye out for
anything suspicious—the N-Line rated Just in Time to be a category
4.5, just below the most powerful of epic fantasies. Still, he couldn’t
see anything.
A black dot appeared over the horizon, then another, and
another—a whole fleet of black dots were buzzing around the middle
of a valley that Jeb was just about to crest the edges of. Below, a
hundred tanks spat dust up behind their treads as they raced
towards a defensive line.
Just in Time was a Cold War gone hot book, with all the
explosive action that brought. If Bess took a direct hit from a tank,
she would be up in a blazing ball of fire reminiscent of what Jeb had
seen not half an hour earlier. He had two missiles left, both of which
were inferior to the one he had used on the mafia’s giant robot.
Along with that, Bess had a projectile defense system, that would
laser any missiles headed her way, exploding them before they could
impact and deal damage to her hull. Topping that was an
autocannon to provide suppressing fire if they ran into any open
infantry.
It was a gamble. But it was worth taking. Jeb drove just above the
legal speed limit, passing through the skirmishes on the edge of the
 Bibliotruckers 89

battle. There was a town at the bottom of the valley, which the
opposing forces of the book were fighting over.
Something changed. The fighting petered out, and then
everything was silent. Jeb had a horrible feeling that something was
about to happen, something that would set him back tremendously.
Lines of smoke lifted off from the center of the village. A dozen
missiles spread through the air, following an arc that was most
definitely headed towards Bess as she hurtled down the
intervolume. At least two dozen helicopters turned towards Bess,
and a hundred or so tanks began churning up dust in the direction
of the road. An explosion right beside the window gave the first clue
that they weren’t just going to stop and ask him questions.
“Bess,” said Jeb, “Can we make it through?”
“I don’t think so,” said Bess. “Take the first exit you can, and get
out of here. There’s zero chance we’re making it through the
hellstorm that’s going to come out of that many tanks.”
Another explosion narrowly missed the truck. A force field
came up around it, and all twelve flying missiles ended in balls of
fire and shrapnel that tore open Tsukasa’s force field, shredding the
cab, and the trailer.
Jeb grabbed the intercom. “Are you two okay?” he said. “Did
any of you catch some shrapnel?”
“Tsukasa got hit,” said Rin’s voice. “I don’t know how bad it is.
All I know is that there’s a lot of blood.”
“There goes your perfect record,” said Bess, dryly.
Another barrage of missiles lifted up from the town.
“Right now,” said Jeb, “I care about getting out of here alive.
Tsukasa can probably heal herself, or, at the very least, I can use
some ink to revive her. I’m not going to pass up on a chance to earn
ten million dollars just because I ran into some trouble.”
Jeb pulled off the intervolume at the nearest exit, and then
headed straight for the spine. He barreled through the toll booth,
slowing just enough to toss his change into the box, and then the
world went white. He wouldn’t be getting past that. There was no
hope to get to the nearest fourth wall portal.
 Bibliotruckers 90

“An update,” said Bess. “Looks like you’ve been found out.
Both Tsukasa and Rin are category five characters, and either one of
them would necessitate a reaction up to retcon four. Now that both
of them are unaccounted for, we have a retcon five.”
“How long until all the fourth wall portals are closed?”
“I’m sorry,” said Bess. “They’re already closed. So, you either
return Rin and Tsukasa, or figure out a way to get past them.”
“I’m just glad that we made it past those tanks,” said Jeb.
“Hopefully they won’t pursue us into the spine.”
“Probably not,” said Jeb. “I didn’t sense any fourth-wall capable
vehicles among the ones that chased after us. Although, there is the
possibility of cloaking.”
Jeb pulled his truck through the spine, and out the back of Just
in Time, returning to the intervolume, which floated in the ether
between stories, cutting across the thousands of books within the
literary space.
“I’d advise you to get off the intervolume as soon as possible,”
said Bess. “Patrols are everywhere, and they’re stopping and
searching every semi that they come across.”
“I’ll get off at the next ramp,” said Jeb. “Lead me to it.”
“Will do,” said Bess. A route lit up on Jeb’s N-Line.
They took the exit. It was into a book called Hyper Hero, an
epic space opera with a famous, uber-popular movie series inspired
by it. There were no guards around the exit, though Jeb could have
sworn that they were spotted by someone. But, it turned out to be
nothing, and they entered the story in peace. Hyperspace jumps
were always a little weird when combined with the literary highway,
and Jeb traveled through one such jump, coming out in orbit around
a planet, driving past a space station, going down through the
atmosphere to the surface of the planet. The literary highway, in a
sci-fi story, did not maintain equivalent units of distance, to make
traversing the long distances involved with interstellar travel to more
manageable amounts given the technology level of fourth wall-
breaking vehicles. Thus, a highway could take a truck into orbit and
 Bibliotruckers 91

to another solar system just as easy as a hyperspace drive—but only if

ink was involved.
Jeb drove through the gigantic, planet-wide city of Corelisu.
Bess’s wheels floated on a thin veneer of literary asphalt, which
could maintain its shape as road even if it were flying several
thousand feet in the air, along speeding lanes filled with flying cars.
Jeb looked through the window at the tall buildings on either side.
Their lights were bright, flickering, and filled with vibrant energy.
A dark shadow fell over the entire world. Out of a black
nothingness came a convoy of trucks made of pure literature, the
refined essence of story. They reflected light like mirrors that
sucked in what was outside, twisted it, and sent it back out in a
knotted form that was almost unrecognizable. Every other car on the
literary highway moved to give it a wide berth.
“Are they after us?” said Jeb.
“I think we’re getting pulled over,” said Bess. “Should I start the
pulling over procedure?”
“No,” said Jeb. “I think we can get out of this one.”
“Are you sure?” said Bess. “They’re a lot more powerful than
you seem to think they are. This is the narrative military. You know
that, right?”
“We’ll make it,” said Jeb, gunning the accelerator. Bess sped up,
disregarding the speed limit, flying past the other cars on the road.
The powerful aura behind them grew in size. Jeb hesitated, debating
whether to utilize a missile. Would it even do any good? Jeb had
never been chased directly by the narrative military. He had always
managed to slip through whatever radar they used to detect
smugglers. For some reason, Jeb just had a knack for going unseen—
and in those times he was caught, he was an expert at running away.
The narrator’s black convoy surrounded Bess. Jeb picked up his
CB. He wasn’t going to get through this on his own. He needed
Allie.
“Mint’n Chip,” he said, through the mic. “Are you there?”
“I’m here,” said Allie. “What’s going on? Do you need me to
back you up?”
 Bibliotruckers 92

A storm of words surrounded the cab, blackening the side

windows. It was like the chattering of a massive crowd, like the
sound of a football stadium during a game.
A spray of white foam erupted from Bess’s side. The words
pulled back as if intimidated. More white fluid was jettisoned out
Bess’s side, coating the words, the highway, and the attacking convoy
in wet semi-liquid.
“Bess, you had that up your sleeve?” said Jeb.
“I have a lot more functions than you’re aware of,” said Bess.
“You’re not the first person to drive me like this.”
“That makes me strangely disappointed. When I get the chance
I’m going to ask about what else you have hidden somewhere in
your hull.” An explosion of ink splattered the right window. The
white foam increased in volume, flying all over the place, coating the
attacking convoy. An hour passed, and Jeb thought that he was
about to get away.
Just as Jeb thought they were about to make it, a siren blared,
signaling that Jeb had been spotted, found, and marked. There
would be no getting away now.
Hooks shot out from the highway defense convoy trucks,
latching on to Bess’s hull and pulling Bess closer to the center of the
vehicles.
“They’re going to make us stop,” said Bess. “There’s nothing I
can do about that.”
Jeb watched as the speedometer slowly ran down. He had the
pedal to the floor, but wasn’t getting anywhere. Slower and slower,
Jeb’s truck lost its momentum in tiny increments.
“I estimate five minutes until we’re stopped,” said Bess.
Jeb picked up his CB. “Mint’n Chip, where are you?”
Allie’s voice responded. “Don’t worry. I can see you, Rocky
Road.”
A missile arced over the horizon, flying high before turning
downwards, heading straight for one of the highway patrol’s vehicles.
It was a direct hit, and the shrapnel from the explosion tore through
 Bibliotruckers 93

the other three vehicles, severing some of the ropes. Jeb’s truck
lurched forwards. He was gaining.
Allie’s red Ferrari pulled up beside Jeb’s truck, and Allie gave
Jeb a thumbs-up through the window. Her Ferrari’s engine roared
with a sound that only the most expensive cars in the world could
make. A missile launcher let out a stream of smoke, mounted in the
perfect place to make the Ferrari look even more epic than it
normally did.
Two more missiles fired from the Ferarri’s missile launchers,
exploding the rest of the convoy. Tires, axels, and windshield glass
splattered the truck. The temperature rose several degrees.
Reverberations from the explosion echoed through Jeb’s chest.
The sky ripped open. A black vehicle formed out of crystalized
literature hit the road, wheels spinning. Jeb swerved to avoid it. The
edges of the two vehicles traded paint. This wasn’t a highway
defense vehicle—it wasn’t even a land dreadnaught. It was bigger
than that, a castle on wheels, taking up two lanes, as long as three
semi-trucks put end over end. Jeb drove behind its massive
posterior, Allie to his right, both of them eating dust coming from
the back wheels of the monstrous land vehicle.
“Looks like we’re in trouble,” said Allie, through the radio.
“Indeed,” said Bess.
Behind him were more trucks in the defense convoy. In front of
him was a fortress on wheels. Jeb had nowhere to turn, nowhere to
hide, sandwiched between a rock and a hard place. All he could
hope was that someone would save him.
No, he couldn’t hope that, not anymore. He had to save
himself. He accelerated his truck in a way that lined it up with the
edge of the rolling castle. Twisting the wheel, he rammed the edge
of the cab into the back of the castle. Sparks flew. Metal twisted,
groaning under the stress of two hundred tons of interacting steel.
The two trucks became lodged together. Jeb’s right-side door was
ripped open, almost falling off of its hinges. Jeb saw a clear path into
the back of the castle on wheels.
 Bibliotruckers 94

“We’re going to have to board the castle,” said Jeb, over the
intercom. “Tsukasa, Rin, I could use your help. Climb through the
gap in the side of the trailer.”
“Roger that,” said Rin.
“Can you hold out on autopilot?” said Jeb, to Bess.
Bess scoffed. “Of course I can, as a favor to the man who just
ripped my passenger side door off of its hinges.”
“I’ll get it fixed up as soon as possible,” said Jeb. “In the
meantime, maneuver us so that Rin and Tsukasa have a line of
sight.”
The back of the rolling castle opened up, a maw of steel and
chains, of words and interpretative meaning, reaching out to swallow
Jeb’s truck whole. Bess was tiny in comparison to the rolling castle’s
bulk, and so she fit into the back compartment without any fanfare
other than a few flying sparks where her passenger side door had
once been.
Now they were in the belly of the whale. Narrative goons
surrounded the truck. Jeb took out his pistol, looking for a way to
escape. There was no escape. He was trapped inside of the rolling
castle, with Rin and Tsukasa to protect. Allie was outside,
somewhere, but Jeb couldn’t trust her to save him this time. He was
in it thick.
Jeb knew what to do. He leaped out of the cab, onto the floor of
the castle’s rolling garage, the room that Bess had been sucked into.
Through a gap in the floor, Jeb could see the road flying past, both
Bess’s wheels and the wheels of the rolling castle. The narrative
goons inside the back of the truck shot at Jeb, but he managed to
avoid it by rolling behind a stack of crates in the corner of the room.
Puffs of wood and debris notated where the bullets coming from the
goons were hitting. Jeb stayed behind cover, waiting for Tsukasa and
Rin to show themselves.
The whole line of narrative goons was vaporized in a flash of
white light as Tsukasa joined the battle. Twisting, swirling bubbles of
light surrounded her form, striking out at the goons who had
 Bibliotruckers 95

survived the initial blast. Rin jumped out the back of Jeb’s truck and
looked around for a moment.
“Are there any left for me?” she said, swinging her sword
through the air once.
They were inside of a trailer that looked more like an airplane
hangar than any piece of a vehicle designed to drive on the road. It
was cavernous, and dimply lit. There was a single door at the far
edge of the room, opposite where Bess was trapped. Jeb walked up
to it and kicked it in, revealing a hallway that was moving back and
forth as if it were part of a train.
Jeb kept his pistol cocked, and led Tsukasa and Rin through the
tunnel.
A spray of bullets flew past. Jeb ducked, just in time to dodge.
The bullets pinged off of the metal walls. Jeb aimed, but saw no one,
just an open, empty corridor.
Tsukasa formed a ball of fire in her hand and tossed it to where
the shooting had come from. There was a massive explosion and
the side of the castle on wheels blew open, revealing the road flying
by. Jeb stepped away from the tear in the wall and the heat
surrounding it. The wind whipped at his hair.
There was another door at the end of the hallway. Jeb kicked it
down and found himself in the middle of a driver’s seat, with a
single person at the wheel. He was rail-thin, pasty-white, and
surrounded by arcane symbols formed out of what looked to be a
distortion of the English alphabet.
Jeb put his pistol to the man’s head. “Who are you?” he said.
“Why are you chasing me?”
The man sighed. “I don’t think you would understand.”
A thump came from behind Jeb, in the hallway and the trailer.
The man stood up. “You’re a wanted man. You’ve fooled around
with the literary world long enough. There’s a price to pay for all the
times you’ve smuggled forbidden characters through the fourth
wall.”
There was another thump. It seemed that Tsukasa and Rin were
fighting something.
 Bibliotruckers 96

The man pulled out a strange, black device that surrounded his
hand, forming something that wasn’t quite a glove but still resembled
it. He turned to Jeb.
“You’re carrying two category fives with you,” he said, pointing
the black object at Jeb.
“Who are you?” said Jeb.
“You don’t know who I am?” said the man, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” said Jeb.
“I’m the Narrator.”
“Ah,” said Jeb. He still had his pistol trained on the man’s head.
“If you shoot me,” said the Narrator, “Everything will fall apart.
The literary government needs to be there, otherwise all hell will
break loose, and no one will be able to fix it. All the blame will fall
on you.”
Rin’s voice came from behind Jeb. “Who’s this?” she said,
stepping into the cab, her sword glinting in the light coming through
the window.
Rin swung her sword at the Narrator. The Narrator motioned
with his black device, and Rin was slammed against the passenger
side door. Her breath left her in an audible thump. The Narrator
motioned with his black device again, and Jeb flew backwards, out
of the cab and into the hallway behind it.
The Narrator stood up, holding the black object in his hands.
Jeb got a closer look at it. It was simultaneously a pen, a pencil, and
a keyboard, in the same way that light was both a particle and a
wave. Not three separate things forged into one, but one thing with
the properties of all three things.
Jeb recovered enough to pull on his typing gloves. They made
an audible clicking noise as Jeb typed some furious commands into
his literary interface.
Rin jumped towards the Narrator with her sword out and
blazing. The Narrator punched her in the gut with his black device,
and Rin was blown through the door, out over the street, hanging on
the edge of the door handle by the hem of her pants.
 Bibliotruckers 97

Jeb tried to grab her, but the Narrator turned to Jeb with his
black device and slammed him against the back of the cab. With a
flourish, the Narrator summoned into existence a long, thin blade.
He cut the air, once.
“You don’t know anything,” he said, his voice low. “I don’t want
to hurt you. I don’t want to have to do this. I’ll make you a deal. If
you leave the two characters with me, I’ll let you go with your life
and a clean record.”
Jeb looked at Rin.
“Help me out here a little bit,” said Rin, her hair flowing behind
her, almost catching in the rolling fortresses wheels.
Jeb looked back at the Narrator. “I can’t give up on them,” he
said. “I made a promise.” What he didn’t want to say out loud was
that he wanted the ten million—if he had said that in front of Rin, he
didn’t know what she would think.
There was a rumble in the back of the rolling fortress. Jeb’s
stomach felt like it was dropping to the floor, and then the rolling
fortress began to shimmer, to shrink, to change form and shape as if
it wasn’t sure of its original likeness. The Narrator stumbled, falling
against a seat, giving Jeb enough time to pull Rin into the cab. Rin
grabbed her sword just as the cab disappeared into a wormhole,
taking the Narrator with it. Jeb swore he heard the Narrator
chuckling as he disappeared into a pocket dimension from which he
could never escape.
Jeb, in an effort to avoid ending up like the Narrator, climbed
through the hallway, against the flow of the wormhole, coming into
the aircraft hangar where Bess was still tied up. There was another
wormhole, sucking goons into its depths, distorting the way light
flowed through the dimly lit room.
Tsukasa stood completely still, her hands together, her eyes
closed. She didn’t react to Jeb’s entrance. She flinched slightly when
Rin entered the room.
Jeb looked at Tsukasa. “You have a plan for this, right?” he said.
The binds that held Bess inside the hangar were beginning to fray,
 Bibliotruckers 98

and floating scissor-like implements cut through the ropes thick

enough to avoid fraying. Bess was getting loose.
Tsukasa stood up. “We have ten seconds to escape,” she said,
climbing into the back of the truck.
Rin climbed up as well. Jeb barely made it to the cab before the
whole room was sucked into a single point, elongating shapes almost
as if they were made of paint and were being smeared. Jeb detached
Bess from the rolling fortress, pulling out into the open air. It was
nice, being outside, able to see Allie in her Ferrari, and the rest of
the literary highway.
The rolling fortress twisted, warped, and caved in on itself,
eventually being sucked into a single point that dropped to the
ground and formed a little, tiny star of light. The star of light floated
upwards until it disappeared.
“Did we just kill the Narrator?” said Bess, her voice slightly
fearful. “Because the highway feels different.”
Jeb paused. He hadn’t—had he meant for the Narrator to die?
Jeb knew that, if the Narrator were to die, chaos would reign until a
new Narrator was chosen. What was going to happen next?
An explosion caught Jeb’s attention. At the edge of the book
Lord of the Don, the military forces of Just in Time were gathered,
the two sides shooting each other out, their territory bleeding into
the other sides. The boundaries of each book universe became
blurred. The literary highway began to congeal, as if it had lost its
source of nutrients. Everything seemed too bright, too revealed. The
world was coming apart at the seams.
Allie radioed in. “Jeb, what the hell did you just do?”
“I don’t know!” said Jeb. “I think we just killed the Narrator!”
It was at least ten seconds before Allie answered. “Well, damn,”
she said. “You’re in trouble.”
“We’re in trouble,” said Jeb. “The portals are going to fall apart.
We won’t be able to get home.”
“We can try anyways,” said Allie. “I brought the heavy loadout
today, because I had a hunch it would turn into a shooting war. I can
 Bibliotruckers 99

punch through the defensive lines if you follow me.” She revved up
the engine of her Ferrari, speeding ahead of Jeb’s truck.
They came to the front lines of the book Just in Time, where
hundreds of tanks were shooting it out through the streets of 1920’s
New York. Mafia fought with soldiers, goons were everywhere, and
explosions lit up the night. It was an NCE riot. A non-canon, inter-
world war that was lighting everything on fire. The forces that had kept
the peace between the various books had disappeared, and all that
was left was a vacuum of power that anyone could step through. The
war had been brewing for a long while, under the reign of the former
Narrator. Now that he was gone it was as if all hell had broken loose.
A tank swerved onto the literary highway, headed straight for Bess.
Allie’s Ferrari opened up at the top, revealing a stylish missile
launcher equipped with a missile that had the face of a shark painted
on it. The missile blasted off, twisting though the air, hitting the tank
straight in the frontal armor. Nothing happened, and then the tank
exploded, careening off of the highway just in time to trade paint with
Bess as Jeb swerved to avoid it. Allie laughed, through her radio.
“Now that’s what I call a direct hit,” she said, her voice sounding
jovial, of all things.
The nearest fourth wall portal was one book away, straight
through the battlefield between Just in Time and Lord of the Don.
Jeb knew that it was risky, but there weren’t any other portals
anywhere near, and traveling through the literary highway without a
Narrator to keep things under control was a bad idea. The monsters
of the deep would awaken, each one large enough to swallow Bess
whole. They were the creators of the inevitable demise of all but the
luckiest books. They were hungry, and always ready to tear into a
book, sucking it into their gigantic maws, ripping them to shreds, so
that no human would ever give it heed ever again.
Now those monsters would be trained on the classics. Public
opinion of them could shift, at any minute, as the consequences of
the loss of the Narrator left the literary universe and started affecting
the real world. It was already happening. The books were falling apart,
 Bibliotruckers 100

the boundaries between them dissolving into nothing but glue and wet,
soggy paper. Jeb headed straight for the warzone.
“Bess?” said Jeb, pushing down on the accelerator. “Make this
work.”
“Making it work,” said Bess, as the dashboard lit up with activity.
“You’re going to have to hold on tight.”
Jeb keyed into the intercom. “Watch it, Rin, Tsukasa. Grab hold
of the hanging bars above you. It’s about to get rough.”
Jeb checked his seatbelt. His truck crested a ridge, coming into
sight of a valley that was filled with fighting tanks, helicopters buzzing
around, missiles flying, explosions everywhere. The mafia had their
imported, stolen mechs, which had been designed for a steampunk
story, and which Jeb had encountered first-hand not too long ago.
They were able to hold their own against the tanks from Just in Time.
It looked like an even match.
Bullets and cannon rounds zipped past Bess’s side. As long as she
was driving on the literary highway, most bullets would pass through
her hull—unless another fourth wall vehicle was in the fight.
As was the case. A tank pulled away from the group and aimed its
gun at Bess.
“Er, Bess?” said Jeb. “Do you think we can dodge that?”
“No need,” said Allie, pulling up in her Ferrari. The top opened
and a different weapon popped out, this one a railgun that was as long
as the entire car. It crackled with electricity, becoming blindingly
bright, and the next thing Jeb knew, the fourth wall breaking tank had
been reduced to a pile of flaming scrap.
“Where the hell did you get that thing?” said Jeb. “How decked
out is your ride?”
“You don’t even know,” said Allie, in a voice that made it obvious
she was taking it as a compliment.
“Well, Mint’n Chip. Thanks for the ride.”
Another tank fell to Allie’s Ferrari laser. Before it exploded, it
heated up white hot, as if the sun had come down to earth and
inhabited it.
 Bibliotruckers 101

They made it through the thick of the battle, and came upon the
portal. They slowed down considerably as they closed. There was a
lot of traffic, and it wasn’t moving. Jeb keyed into his dashboard.
“Bess,” he said. “Can you scan the net to tell us what’s happening
up ahead?”
He was a little nervous, watching the war behind him slowly edge
its way towards where he was parked in traffic. If he wasn’t moving,
he would be a sitting duck.
“I would advise that you get off at the next exit,” said Bess.
“There’s nothing good up ahead.”
“What happened?” said Jeb.
“None of the fourth wall portals are working properly,” said Bess.
“They’re crapshoots now. We won’t know if we’ll make it through
alive.”
Jeb tapped his fingers against the wheel. “What now? Are we
trapped inside of the literary world?” Was he going to forfeit his ten
million dollars just because of the death of some lousy, stupid
Narrator? Jeb didn’t like it.
Still, he took the next exit, just as the war behind him was heating
up, the mafia and their stolen mechs against tanks. Jeb left the
congested highway and drove around the conflict zone, taking them
through three books, all of them category one and not that popular.
They saw very few other vehicles on the highway. The world felt like
it was holding its breath, about ready to explode into motion,
sweeping with it everything around it. The words fluttering around the
edge of the road became more agitated, flickering, forming sentences,
uncoupling and coupling back up again.
Jeb had never felt this kind of tension before. He had experienced
things like it, but never this dry, anticipatory nervousness that caught
his entire being in a cold, calculating examination of his odds of
survival. He wasn’t so much nervous as he was intensely interested in
the outcome of his actions.
Allie’s Ferrari led the way, casting its headlights far ahead, onto
the ever-moving pavement. Night was falling. The literary highway was
growing dark, and in the distance, the red of the setting sun set the
 Bibliotruckers 102

sky ablaze. It was hard to see what was off the side of the road now,
and because of this Jeb had to trust his instruments and the N-Line
console.
The stars came out in force, and Jeb knew that he was traveling
through a space opera of some sort, as only there did the starry sky
stretch the full three hundred and sixty degrees around the literary
highway. The stars were below, above, and to the sides, surrounding
the truck and the Ferrari as they traveled many times faster than the
speed of light through the magic of page turning.
A spaceship of epic proportions appeared out of nowhere,
coming through hyperspace in-canon. The literary highway twisted
around it, almost going straight through it. A tractor beam latched
onto the edge of Jeb’s truck, pulling it towards the open hangar bay
doors. It was an awfully familiar feeling. Jeb swore he remembered
something similar happening in almost every space opera story ever.
Or so it seemed.
Would they be good guys? Or were they looking to exploit him
and steal everything he had? It was a coin flip, what their intentions
were, sucking up fourth wall vehicles from the literary highway. Allie’s
Ferrari docked with the starship before Jeb’s truck.
Bess docked with a hiss and a clank.
A man in a black cape walked up to the side of Jeb’s parked door
and knocked. There were at least a hundred blue-armored soldiers
pointing their weapons at Bess, so Jeb didn’t have much chance to
argue. He opened the door and stepped out. Beside him, Allie did
the same. Jeb caught sight of a small device in Allie’s hand, that she
appeared to be hiding.
The black-robed figure stopped in front of Jeb. He held a
dangerous-looking rifle in his arms, and his cape followed him with a
loose toss. Jeb fingered his pistol.
“Why have you accosted us?” said Rin, her hand on her sword.
“The Emperor wants to see you,” he said, his voice coming
through a modulator, distorting it so that it sounded almost robotic.
“Come, and you shall live. Disobey, and you and your filthy vehicles
will be vaporized and tossed out into deep space.”
 Bibliotruckers 103

A legion of soldiers walked beside Jeb, Rin, Tsukasa, and Allie,

all in lock-step. Jeb’s fingers were sweating. He didn’t want to fire off
his gun and have a hundred soldiers shooting at him, and so he kept
his finger off the trigger and the gun in its non-cocked position. Still,
the presence of his hand cannon made him feel a lot more
comfortable than he would have been otherwise.
They walked down a corridor and entered a massive audience
chamber, filled with piles of electric energy, lightning bolts climbing
up the pillars that supported the room. In the room’s center, a throne
sat above all else, with stairs leading up to it, covered in red velvet.
The black-robed man outstretched his hand. “Your weapons,” he
said.
Jeb hesitated. He looked at the hundred soldiers with guns
pointed at him, and figured that a pistol wasn’t going to do him much
good anyways. He handed it over to the black-robed figure.
There was a man sitting on the throne at the end of the room. His
eyes were full of blazing fire, and his body was thin, almost skeletal.
The black-robed man pushed Jeb down. “Kneel,” he said.
Jeb didn’t resist. There wasn’t much that could be said about it
when a hundred soldiers had their guns trained on his back.
The man on the throne chuckled. “You thought you could get
away with killing the Narrator,” he said. His voice was wispy, as if he
had to struggle to get each word out of his mouth. He lifted one long,
bony hand and pointed to Jeb.
“You. You did something irreversible to this universe. You are
valuable. If you wish to join me in my takeover of the literary universe,
I will provide you with whatever you need.”
“How about physical money? Ten million dollars?” Jeb knew that
money that came out of a book was worthless. Any money that came
from beyond the fourth wall was instantly recognizable as fake, and
didn’t amount to anything but monopoly money—the two were on par
with their usefulness.
The emperor’s face was filled with indescribable rage, as his
cheeks purpled and his forehead bulged. He slammed his fist down
 Bibliotruckers 104

on the throne, and all the soldiers in the room pointed their weapons
at Jeb.
Jeb caught a glance of Allie, doing something with that black
device in her hands. Jeb prayed that Allie knew what she was doing
enough to get them out of the mess they were in.
The emperor held out his hand. The dark-robed figure lifted Jeb
up by the neck, through some sort of magical power that felt like
tingles of electricity running through his spine. He began to choke,
struggling with his binds, as his feet were lifted higher and higher into
the air.
Allie jumped up from her kneeling position and stabbed the
black-robed figure in the back with her device. It looked a little bit
like a stun gun, but bulkier. The black-robed figure screamed, letting
go of Jeb, and his body twisted until it swallowed itself up in a hole
the size of a watermelon. The air ripped, and Jeb could see the paper
at the core of the literary universe. It was torn.
Allie’s pyric pen—Jeb recognized it as such now—flickered, tearing
through the space of the open throne room, ripping the soldiers apart,
cutting the emperor in half before it fizzled, running out of energy.
“You owe me half a million dollars,” said Allie. “That was an
expensive escape.”
“I’ll take it out of the money I earn from this job,” said Jeb,
mentally making a calculation. Good. He could still get out of this
without being in debt anymore.
“You’d better,” said Allie. Her voice was lilting, almost carefree.
“You know your record of successes can’t last much longer. Not with
the jobs that you do.”
“I haven’t failed quite yet,” said Jeb. “The deadline is in two weeks.
That’s more than enough time to get Tsukasa to the US government.”
Allie walked with Jeb back to the truck, out of the torn-open
throne room, where the hundred soldiers sat, frozen in silence. Allie’s
pace quickened. “Hurry up. They’re going to regenerate in a couple
of seconds.”
As Allie said it, Jeb could see the tears in the pages of reality fixing
themselves, binding back together, forming the emperor and his
 Bibliotruckers 105

soldiers from the pure fountain of words that underlay the literary
universe. They were coming back. Like always. Allie’s device worked
more as a stunning mechanism than anything else—a regular smoke
grenade would have been just as useful in the real world. Allie’s device
was just one step bigger than that.
A laser beam flashed past Jeb’s shoulder. A burst of adrenaline
shot through Jeb’s blood. He sprinted around a corner, through the
corridors of the capital ship. Allie looked panicked.
“Where’s your truck?” she said. “I don’t remember how we got
here!”
Jeb turned around to see Tsukasa and Rin following in his
footsteps. “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.” More than
anything, he was regretting leaving his pistol in the hands of the black-
robed man. It was an expensive gun, one that would be difficult to
replace.
They ran through the cramped, long corridors, turning at random
as the boots of stormtroopers pounded on the ground behind them.
Rin stopped running.
“If we ambush them now, we can take them,” she said.
Jeb shook his head, grabbing Rin by the arm and pulling her along.
“No,” he said. “You’d only get killed, and I can’t have that.”
“I can fight,” said Rin, pulling away from Jeb. “I can defeat them
all. Just give me a chance.”
Jeb slowed down. “Do you really think you can handle them?”
“Jeb, let’s go!” called Allie, from up ahead. Tsukasa stopped
running as well.
“We can take them,” she said, turning towards Jeb and Rin.
Jeb swallowed. He had no weapon. He was defenseless, and Allie
wasn’t much better, with only a Glock in her hands and a couple of
grenades in her belt.
Jeb grabbed a grenade from Allie’s belt. He tossed it around the
corner, and watched as a legion of soldiers were torn into
metaphysical bits, their bodies losing the glue of meaning that held
them together into physical forms.
 Bibliotruckers 106

“Be careful with those,” said Allie, her voice filled with emotion.
“They’re expensive.”
“They’re the only option we have,” said Jeb, taking another one
from Allie’s belt.
Rin swept her sword through the air. “Let me have at them.”
“Go,” said Jeb.
Rin and Tsukasa looked at one another, and then they engaged
the soldiers who were just then turning around the corner into Jeb’s
line of sight. Two soldiers fell immediately to Rin’s blade, their armor
parting at the seams, the wounds spraying words and letters into the
air like a fountain filled with the keys of a broken typewriter. Tsukasa
motioned with her hands and the bodies of five soldiers twisted,
turned, and merged with one another, exploding in a splash of literary
gore. More soldiers came out from around the corner. Rin was shot
in the arm. A soldier ran up to her and began to wrestle with her and
her sword. Rin managed to stab him in the side, but he continued to
fight. Rin toppled to the ground with the soldier on top of her. She
rolled over, stabbing the man in the neck, but was shot again, in the
back. Rin staggered over to where Jeb was hiding behind a wall.
Jeb supported her. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, her voice
hollow, pained. Jeb picked her up and put her on his back.
“Tsukasa can hold them,” he said. His perfect record was gone,
but he couldn’t care less about it in the moment. Rin was injured.
That demanded his full attention.
An explosion rocked the corridor. Bits and pieces of sentences—
one formed into impters—flew through the air, impacting the wall.
The letters tinkled to the ground and sounded the phonemes they
represented. Jeb carried Rin through the maze of corridors, that were
getting more and more familiar as he continued onwards. He knew
where they were going. He was going to make it, and so was Rin.
Tsukasa appeared in front of them, holding out her staff. “I know
where to go!” she said. She had probably teleported, and her body
looked like it was being squeezed out of a portal before it solidified.
Jeb looked behind himself. “Where’s Allie?” he said.
“Don’t worry about her,” said Tsukasa.
 Bibliotruckers 107

Jeb heard another explosion reverberating through the innards of

the starship. He handed Rin over to Tsukasa. “I’m going to go get
her.”
Tsukasa held out her hand. “Wait!” she said. “We need to get
out of here. You’re putting yourself into danger, more so than you
know!”
Jeb ran towards the source of the action. “I’m going to go save her.
I have to repay her.” He pulled his knife out of his pocket—he was
bringing a knife to a laser fight.
He turned the corner and was met with a hail of bullets. Allie was
in the middle of a group of soldiers, a force field between them and
her. She was holding it up with a handheld device that looked like a
reverse satellite dish. It was shimmering, overloading, sparking as if it
were about to give out on her.
Jeb tackled the soldier in between him and Allie. He drove his
knife into the split in his helmet and his body armor. Words spewed
out, hitting him in the face. Jeb pushed the body away and pounded
on the edge of the force field.
“Follow me,” he mouthed knowing that she couldn’t hear him.
Allie followed him through the corridors, pushing through the
soldiers with Jeb’s help, and they came upon Tsukasa and Rin on the
other side, around a corner. Tsukasa was supporting Rin on her
shoulder.
The four of them ran through the long hallway, which Jeb had
remembered going through the other way not half an hour before.
The door to the hangar came closer and closer, and then they were
in the hangar, where Jeb’s truck sat, next to Allie’s Ferrari.
“Jeb,” said Bess, as soon as Jeb came into earshot. “The world is
a mess out there. Everything’s falling apart. We need to get out of
here before the fabric of reality rips apart. There are too many NCEs
focused in the same space.”
Jeb climbed into his cab. Tsukasa pulled Rin into the back, and
Allie mounted her Ferrari. Jeb started the engine and pulled out of
the hangar, running over several soldiers on his way out. Allie’s
Ferrari followed in his wake. They jumped out of the hangar and back
 Bibliotruckers 108

onto the literary highway, speeding up to the speed limit, and then
going over.
Allie’s voice came over the radio. “At this rate, we aren’t getting
out. All the portals to the real world have shut down, and even if they
were open we wouldn’t be able to get to them.”
“I know, Allie,” said Jeb, through the radio, using her real name
because of the gravity of the situation. “What do you suggest we do?”
“I have an idea,” said Allie, her voice low and regulated. “It may
be crazy, and it’s based on legend, but I think I know how to get out
of this.”
“What’s your idea?” said Jeb.
“We go to the Inkwell,” said Allie, “And make a new Narrator.”
 Bibliotruckers 109

10
***
Lightbright
“I wrote a book while in college,” said Allie. “In it, I broke the
fourth wall, like a lot of people do when they write their first book.”
“And?” said Jeb. He had heard of the Inkwell before, but,
before this, he had been sure that it was as real as Atlantis or El
Dorado. Not a real place that could actually be reached. But, the
way Allie was talking about it, it was real, as real as the Pacific Ocean
and Storm Rages.
Jeb was having a hard time wrapping his head around that fact.
Allie continued. “When the fourth wall is broken bad enough in
a book, a portal to the Inkwell is created. We can go through my
book, as long as we find it soon enough. I don’t know what’s
happening to it. All I know is that it’s in the land of the self-
published.”
“I’ve been there once,” said Jeb, “And the highway is there, but
it’s, just, changed, somehow. Like it isn’t as grand.”
“I know, right?” said Allie. “Anyone can write a book and put it
there. Most books run on a once a week or even once a month
schedule because of how few people visit.”
Jeb tapped his fingers on the wheel. “So, we’re going to your old
book.”
“Yes.”
“You won’t be embarrassed?” said Jeb. “I would be, if I were
forced to look back on the fiction I wrote when I was in my
freshman year of college. Though, by the time I was in senior year, I
was a lot better and could actually write well.”
Allie chuckled. “It’s the same with me. I can barely even
remember what the book was about, let alone what’s in it. All I
 Bibliotruckers 110

know is that I broke the fourth wall—in fact, I took a sledgehammer

to it and made the Narrator one of the characters.”
“Sounds vaguely familiar,” said Jeb.
“You got that right,” said Allie.
The road became narrower, less well-maintained. Some of it
even looked jury-rigged. The path became bumpy. It was clear that
they were entering the boonies, the lesser well-known places in the
literary world. Self-publish heaven. Where all but a select few self-
published books went to die, languishing in the lonely darkness for
the rest of their eternal existences.
The surroundings lost some of their spick and span, some of
their energy and focus. It was as if someone less skilled had painted
the literary world into existence. Every single book was unique, of
course, but throughout all of them there were threads that marked
these books as the ones that would disappear into the self-publishing
graveyard, never to be seen again. It was a tragic, selfless inevitability.
They rode through the self-published zone for two hours,
deeper and deeper into territory that had nothing more than a single
line to represent the highway. Narrow, two-lane roads left the main
highway every half mile or so, and occasionally the top of a relatively
good book that deserved more notice would pop over the horizon.
Jeb ignored them, speeding deeper and deeper into the world of the
self-published. Bess’s navigation function blinked.
“Take the next left,” she said, her voice monotonous.
“Got it,” said Jeb.
Allie’s Ferrari turned first, and then Bess followed. The road
was narrow, almost too narrow for Bess to run without driving into
the mud or falling off the narrow bridges that ran over creeks.
They drove for another hour, passing self-published books that
were dimly lit and fill with abandoned machinery. Some of the
books were so bad that the internal workings of the literary universe
could be seen through the tears in the grammar of the books. Split
infinitives, misspellings, dropping articles—every single mistake cut
away at the book, exposing its horrific, black interior. Snakes of
 Bibliotruckers 111

knowledge slithered through the darkness of the sub-literary

universe.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” said Jeb, looking at the
dilapidated form of the books around him.
“I’m sure,” said Allie. “I wrote the book, and I know where it is.
That’s just how authorship works.”
Jeb thought for a moment. “Are you proud to have written that
book?”
“Well, it did turn out to be a godsend, though I wouldn’t have
known it back then.” Allie’s voice sounded far off, distant. “I wrote it
purely for the love of writing, and it shows.”
Tsukasa’s voice came through the intercom. “I sense that we are
about to embark upon a journey that even I may not be able to
contest. There are many obstacles that lie in our path, and not many
rivers turning their banks in our favor. We are isolated.” There was
a long pause. “I will help you as per my ability, but I cannot
guarantee your safety or the safety of everything you care for.”
“What are our odds of success?” said Jeb.
“I can’t conclude that from a simple tossing of the coins,” said
Tsukasa. “I would need my lab equipment. But trust me on this.
Bad times are coming, and you may do something that you will
horrifically regret for the rest of your life if you continue along this
path.”
“I don’t think I have a choice,” said Jeb. “It’s either run to the
Inkwell and forge a new Narrator or risk spending the rest of my life
trapped beyond the fourth wall. There are things I need to do
upside, out in the real world, where books don’t turn into
battlegrounds full of people trying to kill you.”
Rin’s voice came through the intercom. “Tsukasa knows best,”
she said. “We should follow her lead.”
Jeb knew about Tsukasa’s canon exploits. They were numerous,
and they were legendary. Every character in the Storm Rages canon
either loved, admired, or despised her. Most of them didn’t even
know the true extent of her power, and it was never directly
referenced in-canon.
 Bibliotruckers 112

Allie pulled into a small book that dropped them both off
driving over a lake, with an island in the middle, and a castle on that
island.
“This is Bogshroom academy, school of monster magicians,”
said Allie, her voice bolder than it usually was. “Home of Gerald
Winston, student, mage, chosen one extraordinaire. Right now, he’s
probably looking into a mirror and describing himself in immaculate
detail, as his antagonists stare at him, trying to defeat his epic,
awesome power. Also, he’s half wolf and has a wolf’s tail and ears.”
“God,” said Jeb. “No wonder you were reluctant to do this.”
Allie chuckled bitterly. “I’m ashamed to say that this was written
no more than five years ago.”
Jeb struggled to keep from making a harsh comment. “And,
have you gotten better?”
“Of course I have,” said Allie. “I drive a Ferrari. Of course I’m a
master of whatever I do.”
“I don’t know how much a Ferrari has to do with your ability to
write stories.”
“Two words: stick shift.” Allie’s voice had regained its
characteristic cheer.
“I see,” said Jeb. “I haven’t read anything you’ve written so far.”
“That’s because …” said Allie, her voice trailing away. “I haven’t
been published yet.”
“So you’re not a master.”
“Do you know how hard it is to get published nowadays?” Allie
scoffed. “It’s just that my manuscript is being buried underneath a
thousand more in the slush pile. If only I had some connections, I
could get my book published.”
Jeb shrugged, even though he knew that Allie couldn’t see him.
“So you write because you’re passionate about it.”
“Of course I do,” said Allie. “Every writer is passionate about
their craft. It’s just part of who we are. You, not being a writer, don’t
understand.”
 Bibliotruckers 113

“I wrote a short story when I was in high school,” said Jeb. “I

submitted it to a contest, but didn’t win. That’s about the extent of
my writing ability.”
Allie chuckled. “Yeah, I know. I read your after-action reports,
because I have to, and they’re a chore to get through. You write like
a jammed-up printer, when the pages get caught in the mechanism
and you tear them out, leaving little bits and pieces everywhere so
that you have to practically disassemble the whole thing to get them
out.”
“Wow,” said Jeb. “Never thought I’d get compared to a
jammed-up printer in normal conversation.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Probably,” said Jeb.
“Here we are,” said Allie, her Ferrari slowing down close to the
island in the center of the lake. They got off the literary highway and
began to drive on the local roads—which were in the air. Jeb
assumed that flying cars were canon in the book. He was certain of
it. His trained senses took in the book, its style, its content, the
various things that went together to form it into a cohesive whole. It
was an alright package. There wasn’t anything too bad about its style,
and everything looked okay at first glance. However, the premise
was a chain attached to a ball that was pulling it down. Jeb wasn’t
impressed. Magic schools were an old fad, and things didn’t get any
more dated than a fad that faded away in the past five years. Any
longer, and people forgot that it had been a fad. Any shorter, and
one would be riding on the tail of the fad’s popularity. Five years was
right at that moment when one looked at something that had been a
fad and said: “That’s stupid.”
Jeb almost thought “That’s stupid,” but held himself back for
the sake of the book. He wasn’t going to judge a book by its cover,
even if its cover was poorly done.
Jeb parked Bess in a spot where he was sure she would be safe,
and then got out of the cab and let Tsukasa and Rin out.
 Bibliotruckers 114

Now they had to find the main character and get him to the
point where he broke the fourth wall in-canon. Allie held her arms
in her armpits as she approached Jeb.
“It’s a lot colder here than I imagined it to be when I wrote it,”
she said, looking around the island. “Now that I see it, it’s actually a
pretty beautiful place.”
Jeb nodded in assent. “I know why it wasn’t published, but I
have to admit you have talent. Maybe if you had chosen a less
overused topic, you would have been more successful.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Allie. “I can’t come up with good
topics that don’t match the stuff that everyone else is doing. It’s a lot
harder than anyone thinks, writing an original, good book.”
Allie and Jeb walked side by side up the cobblestone pathway
that led to the school. Tsukasa and Rin followed in their footsteps.
“Where would Gerald be at this point in the story?” said Jeb,
picking up his pace.
Allie followed. “Right now, he would be in class, and then he
has a lightbright event. We won’t be able to catch him anywhere
near those places.” Allie sighed. “You can tell it’s a self-pub when
the timetable works like this. This book doesn’t even have a spine.
It wasn’t published in hardback.”
Jeb stopped. “I feel like we’re being watched.”
“We are,” said Allie. “Remember. Everyone here is out to get
us. All we have to do is grab Gerald, drag him out, and force him to
break the fourth wall in a place we can reach with our vehicles.”
A flash of light appeared from what looked like a stadium on the
other side of the island. Explosions rumbled through the ground,
vibrating intensely as they passed through Jeb, sending
reverberations through his bones.
“This is lightbrigt?” said Jeb.
“The object of the game is to set up totems to capture pieces of
territory,” said Allie, “And destroy totems that the other team puts
up. Totems have wards that enemy players have to break through,
and they can attack as well.”
“So,” said Jeb, “It’s like a magic battle?”
 Bibliotruckers 115

“Pretty much,” said Allie. “I invented it in a fit of madness after I

broke up with one of my old boyfriends.”
Jeb was a little unsettled about the mention of Allie’s previous
boyfriends. However, he kept it to himself.
A couple of magic students walked out from behind a corner
and paused, stopping to look at the four adventurers climbing up the
hill to the campus. Two of them giggled, pointing to each other.
Then all four of them ran away.
“Looks like the self-pub world hasn’t caught up with the rest of
the literary universe,” she said. “They should have attacked us on
sight.”
“That is because you are their author,” said Tsukasa.
“Author?” said Rin. “You mean, Allie is this place’s god?”
“She is,” said Tsukasa, “In a way. You do not need to
understand how to understand what is going on, and I shall not be
the one to teach you what this truly means.”
Jeb shrugged. “As long as we’re safe. We’ve been through
enough trouble already.”
Rin seemed to take everything in, her face becoming thoughtful.
She was thinking about something, for certain, though Jeb could not
imagine what it might be.
The four of them approached the gates to the school-castle.
Allie sighed, slowing her pace. “It’s exactly as I imagined it,” she
said, her voice wistful, full of longing for the past. “I can only
imagine how much fun I would have if I were to only write another
book. I don’t know. Maybe I should have been an author instead of
a freak.”
Jeb shrugged. “It looks well-maintained enough for me,” he said.
Allie rubbed her eyes. “You just wait and see. Gerald is the
perfect example of what not to do in a book. He’s the world’s most
textbook Mary Sue.”
The doors to the castle school opened, and the courtyard
became visible through the tunnel underneath the walls. Jeb, Allie,
Tsukasa, and Rin passed through, underneath the murder holes.
 Bibliotruckers 116

They were openings in the ceiling that led to long, narrow shafts,
and Jeb wasn’t sure that he felt comfortable underneath them.
They came out the other end into a vibrant, populous plaza,
with a fountain in the center, the smell of magic floating on the air.
“I remember all of this,” said Allie, walking past the security
guards, who simply gave Allie a nod. “I haven’t been here in ages. I
stopped visiting because it was too painful that no one wanted to
read my books. I didn’t think I’d ever come here again.”
Jeb looked around at the classes that formed an octagon around
the plaza. They were strictly regulated, each one of them lining up at
the perfect angle, straight as a razor blade. Every one of the
buildings had a unique style that Jeb assumed as related to its field
of study. There was a jungle hanging from one building, fire
shooting out of a pipe at the top of another building, waterfalls on a
third building.
Allie sighed. “There are eight schools at Bogshroom academy.
Gerald was part of the lowest rung, the enchanters. I made it so that
his power is something that can’t be measured by the standard tests,
but, in reality, Gerald can beat the crap out of anyone, anywhere, at
any game. He’s like a god. I told you. Mary Sue.”
“Well,” said Jeb, “At least you went one step further and pulled
the hidden power trope. Where did you learn that? I didn’t know
light novels were widespread five years ago, and I can’t remember
any anime coming out that long ago that had the superpowered
under-recognized protagonist trope.”
Allie shrugged. “You don’t know this, but I used to be a huge
weeaboo.”
“Er, that’s kind of like you, and kind of not.” Jeb paused. “I’m
not sure what to think about that.” Jeb had known Allie for more
than five years, but he had only started getting closer to her four
years ago, after one big job where she saved his life and his record.
“Anyways,” said Allie, looking to be a little bit embarrassed.
“Let’s go find Gerald before he begins the lightbright tournament.”
Jeb, Allie, Tsukasa, and Rin walked quickly through the halls of
the academy, coming out onto the stands of a large, open stadium
 Bibliotruckers 117

where the terrain of a temperate forest was modeled. At least a

dozen jumbotrons fought for the attention of the viewer, though in
the moment, they were all off. People were beginning to trickle into
the stands.
“When will we see him?” said Jeb.
“Down here,” said Allie, climbing over the railings and stepping
onto the field. Jeb, Tsukasa, and Rin followed.
Allie led them into a room whose entrance was underneath the
stands, and they walked through a concrete tunnel before coming
into a room that was filled with training equipment and mirrors.
“This is the room where I used the mirror to describe myself
while I was writing the book,” said Allie. “I’m not proud of it.”
The sound of a dozen people became audible down the hallway.
Allie nodded her head and closed her eyes. “Now I know where we
are in the story. This is the moment when he gets benched because
people think he’s too weak.”
“But then, he gets subbed in after they lose their first and
second-string players,” said Jeb. “And then he gives them a victory. I
can get the general feel for how the story works now.”
About a dozen students, both male and female, entered the
room through a door opposite the way Jeb, Tsukasa, Rin, and Allie
had come in. They looked, for a moment, as if they were confused
about the appearance of Jeb and his crew, but then with a silent nod
they continued on their way as if Jeb wasn’t there.
“Hey, snarkless,” said one of the bigger jocks, facing a wiry-thin
figure who was wearing the simplest clothing out of the group.
“You’re our third string today. We don’t need your help, not unless
we have no other choice.”
The wiry, thin student met the jock’s gaze. It looked like a fight
was about to break out. If one had, Jeb would have betted on the
bulky jock. However, something kept him back from wholly
choosing one side. There was something about the thin, wiry student
that got to him, somehow, as if he could look into Jeb’s very soul.
Then, the wiry, thin student started to look into the mirror and
mumble to himself. Jeb scratched at the back of his head, knowing
 Bibliotruckers 118

exactly what he was looking at. When it was over, the thin, wiry
student dressed himself and walked out the door to the stadium’s
dugout. Jeb looked at Allie.
“Was that Gerald?” he said.
Allie sighed. “Yep. That was him.”
“How is he a Mary Sue? I don’t see him being treated very Sue-
like.”
“Trust me, you’ll know,” said Allie. She walked out of the
training room.
“Let’s get back to the vehicles. I think I have a plan.”
“You mean, he’s about to break the fourth wall?”
“And speak directly with the narrator. We’ll have at least a
dozen chances, because he speaks with the narrator a lot, but I
know the faster we go the faster we get out of this mess.”
“And, the faster I get my ten mil,” said Jeb. “This job has been
worth the price so far.”
Allie punched Jeb lightly on the shoulder, and then started
walking up the stairs to the tunnel that led to the rest of the school.
When they got out, Allie led them to the area where they had
parked their vehicles. Jeb climbed in, after helping Tsukasa and Rin
up.
“In about an hour,” said Allie, “Gerald will break the fourth wall
to talk to the narrator directly in the middle of the field. In that time,
we need to be as prepared as possible, and just go rolling on
through.”
“Bess,” said Jeb, “Plot the course for us.”
“I have no valid destination,” said Bess. “But, I can handle it.
Don’t worry, I have my ways.”
The dashboard lit up with a holographic screen that Jeb hadn’t
seen before. It was blue, and displayed the route that Jeb would
have to take to enter the world between the lines. It was circuitous,
taking him far away from the destination first before heading straight
for it in a long, straight stretch.
 Bibliotruckers 119

“I had to redesign a little bit of the literary highway to allow you

to pick up enough speed to break through the first wall without a
portal.”
Jeb whistled. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you could do that?”
“Well, I couldn’t before the Narrator was sucked into a
wormhole.”
“What else can you do?” said Jeb, driving along the route that
had been planned for him.
“A lot of things,” said Bess, “Some of which I’m never going to
be able to show you.”
Jeb frowned. “So, you have a lot of tricks up your sleeve.” He
paused. “I’ve known you for five years, and this is when I learn that
there’s more to you than meets the eye?”
“Somehow,” said Bess, “I think the death of the Narrator
unlocked some of my latent potential. There are so many things that
I can do that I just discovered. I think I was under a lock that the
Narrator put on me, and I was unable to see everything that I’m
capable of. Now I know. I wasn’t built for this. I was built for
something else.”
Jeb drove, and drove, in silence, as they came upon the rounded
bend.
Allie radioed in. “We’re going to have to time it perfectly,” she
said. “Our window is small, and we have a long, straight road ahead
of us. Don’t worry about what might happen, just head for the first
wall and let’s get this over with.” Allie’s Ferrari shot forwards,
maintaining its honor as a sports car by reaching ludicrous speeds in
a short amount of time. It took longer for Jeb to accelerate, but once
he did, it was twenty tons of pure metal and hydraulics that was
barreling across the literary highway at an incredible speed. Jeb had
never driven Bess this fast before.
The lightbright stadium came closer, and closer. There was a
game going on, but Jeb was unable to interpret what was going on.
All he knew is that they were headed on a crash course for the
field’s center. He just had to trust his instinct, which told him that
something spectacular was about to happen. At the moment when
 Bibliotruckers 120

Bess was about to hit the turf, a single character raised his hand and
the whole world froze, twisted, and ripped at its seams. Jeb’s truck
kept on going, through the rip, passing the membrane with a sharp,
accented tear. Allie’s Ferrari was just ahead. And then, they were
through. Through the first wall, and into the world between the
lines.
 Bibliotruckers 121

11
***
Inkwell
The world was white, seamless, without any way to tell which
direction they were headed and which direction they were coming
from. A rim of frost formed at the edges of the cab’s window. It
looked like trails of smoke were flying off of every corner of the
truck, as if Jeb were piloting his vehicle through an underwater
basin, one where nothing was visible for hundreds of miles except
the literary highway—one straight, endless stream of civilization.
Jeb kept his eyes trained on the back of Allie’s Ferrari. He was
nervous. He wasn’t agoraphobic, but the openness of the sub-page
world was starting to get to him. He couldn’t tell what would come
shooting out of the whiteness, some monster, a flying shark, a giant
squid. But still, nothing happened. Only silence. There was nothing
to be said, and nothing that could be said. No one had traveled this
route for a century, or so it seemed. Jeb felt the loneliness of the
place, as well as the openness. He felt the place’s soul like it was all
around him, permeating the air he breathed, going into his lungs
with each successive breath.
A wall appeared on the horizon, a line of black that stretched
from right to left, from one end of the universe to another. It came
closer, and closer, growing in size, until it towered over the
landscape with the height of a mountain and the presence of a
booming clap of thunder. There was no light to cast a shadow, and
so the monolith was clear-cut around its edges and appeared to be in
perfect form. There was no mistaking it.
This was the Inkwell.
The literary highway ended in a small tunnel that was blocked by
a series of gates. A guard house sat next to the entrance, and though
 Bibliotruckers 122

there was no difference in lighting Jeb could tell someone was

inside.
The door to the guard house opened, and a furry, rotund
animal stepped out, standing on its two hind legs. Jeb recognized it
as a guinea pig, about the size of a human adult. It made a few
squeaking noises, and then tapped on the door to Bess’s cab.
“May I see your paperwork?” it said, its voice calm and
regulated.
Jeb shook his head. “We don’t have any paperwork.”
“Then you must pay the fee,” said the man-sized guinea pig.
“One book. One work of passionate writing must be sacrificed per
party that enters.”
“A book?” said Jeb.
“Let me handle this,” said Allie. “Now that I think about it, I was
actually kind of attached to my book.”
“Wait,” said Jeb. “How are we going to get out?”
Allie was silent for a while. “We’ll figure this out when we get
there.”
Jeb frowned. “No. We’ll use the short story I wrote while I was
in college.”
Allie was silent for a while, Jeb assumed in surprise.
The guard lifted his hand and bowed. “Very well. State the
name and the author of this work of art, and I shall consider it as
payment for your passage.”
Jeb raised his hand. “Far and Away, Jeb Gelding.”
The guard nodded. “Very well. That shall be sufficient.”
The world shimmered, and Jeb felt strangely hollow, like he had
lost a piece of himself. The door to the inkwell opened, revealing a
long tunnel behind it.
Jeb let his imagination run wild, considering the things that could
be at the end of the tunnel. The world grew darker, though it was
not hard to see—it was as if the all-permeating light were just a
property of the air he was breathing. Bess’s headlights cast the
tunnel in sharp shadow, the blackness crawling across the walls as
Jeb followed the taillights of Allie’s Ferrari.
 Bibliotruckers 123

He began to think about Jamie, as he did whenever a boring part

of a trip began. Jamie, the girl whose father had left her to the Triad.
She was of royal birth, a Danish princess, who had moved to
America unaware of her father’s miscalculations dealing with
organized crime, which had cost him his noble title and everything
he owned. To punish the father for crossing them, the Triad had
captured Jamie and put her up for ransom. The father had, instead
of saving his daughter, killed himself. He had no money or
possessions to leave behind, and no title to bestow upon his
descendants.
That was when Jeb had stepped in. He had gotten to know her
as an exchange student in college, and had fallen deeply for her.
When she had been abducted to pay her father’s debts, Jeb had
chased her around the world—setting the foundation for his
dangerous job in the moment—and eventually caught up with her in
Manchuria. By then, she had been through a lot, and Jeb hoped to
use the twenty million dollars his uncle was going to leave him to
save her. He just hadn’t expected to lose. No one had taught him
what it felt like when life abandoned you. Jeb knew now that some
things just happened the way they happened, resulting in whatever
they resulted in. He also knew there were a lot of bad people out
there who would do bad things to further their own interests.
No one had prepared him for the utter devastation one feels
when a loved one was sold into slavery because of her father’s
troubles. Jamie had died, four years later, Jeb learning about it
through a letter that was mysteriously delivered to his house a
month afterwards. He knew it was her because he recognized her
handwriting, and the Triad didn’t have any reason to pretend that
she was dead to him—in fact, they would have wanted the opposite.
But, she was dead. Jeb took comfort in the fact that it appeared
he was moving on—he had kissed Rin, after all—but at the same
time, a part of him was stuck in the moments he had shared with
Jamie in college, talking to her late into the night, heading to the
beach with her, sitting around a bonfire holding each other while the
rest of their circle of friends drunkenly danced the night away.
 Bibliotruckers 124

Jeb slowly eased back into reality. The tunnel was nearing an
end. And then, just like that, Jeb shot out into an open world that
was paradise.
Sweeping, graceful architecture dominated the skyline, some
buildings looking like they were twisted pieces of rope, others with
overhangs that resembled droplets of water or diamond earrings.
Some buildings were taller than Jeb could even imagine a building
being. Glass was everywhere, reflecting the all-encompassing light
that surrounded the city, permeated every last cubic inch of
atmosphere in the world. The avenues were wide, filled with trees,
and cars that drove about their business. Pedestrians walked along
the streets. Jeb couldn’t tell what they looked like from a distance,
but they appeared to be formed out of pure words, pure language,
as if they didn’t exist at all in a three-dimensional form and were just
the projection of a description onto the third dimension. It was the
same effect as the literary agents and the impters of most books, but
taken to a new level. It was beautiful.
The Inkwell surrounded them as they approached the city’s
center. Jeb took hold of hiss CB radio.
“Allie, do you know where we’re going?”
“No,” said Allie. “But I have an idea where we can find out.”
Jeb’s truck was the biggest vehicle on the road, and he could see
some of the impters and literary civilians looking at him from the
sidewalks. One car honked at him as it drove past.
“Why is there a city here?” said Jeb, his mind full of questions.
“It’s not really a city,” said Allie. “I get the feeling that this is all
an illusion, a representation of what’s really going on. I think our
minds are just interpreting what’s happening as us being in the
middle of a city.” Allie’s Ferrari began to warp, changing shape,
turning into a super-dimensional mathematical shape.
“What the hell just happened to Allie?” said Jeb.
“She ascended. I have that function, as well. Do you want me to
deploy it? You may feel an extreme rush of external force, and you
may also feel like your insides are folding in on themselves.”
“I don’t care,” said Jeb. “If Allie can do it, I can do it.”
 Bibliotruckers 125

“Telling Rin and Tsukasa to hold on,” said Bess. “Done. We’re
going to ascend in three … Two … One …”
All of Jeb’s universe split in two and then folded in on itself like
an origami crane. Everything kaleidoscoped, swirled, and then
became a super-meaningful shape that was so abstracted that it
barely even registered as real in Jeb’s shattered consciousness. Jeb
head the voices of a thousand books, read a million words in an
instant, and was transformed into pure literary impetus. Everything
felt so real, so new, so strange and challenging to understand.
“Who built this function into you?” said Jeb, looking around to
see if he could spot Bess. But, he couldn’t. The world was made of
synchronized mandalas, swirling geometries, forms that were too
advanced for the human mind to comprehend.
“I’ve always had this function,” said Bess. “And of course,
Ferraris can do anything.”
“You have that right,” said Allie, who appeared, in person,
beside Jeb. “I’ve never been this way before, but ascending was as
easy as flicking a switch I never knew was there.” She shrugged.
“Somehow, I just got the sense that it was what I was supposed to
do.”
Jeb hugged Allie. “Thanks,” he said.
Rin and Tsukasa appeared out of the floating ether and stepped
up next to Jeb.
A voice spoke through the symphony of colors and higher-
dimensional words. It was deep, wise, and very old.
“You are here,” it said. “You have come to fix what you have
destroyed. Many times, the Narrator has fallen, and many times, he
has been replaced. You are but pieces in a cosmic game, and I shall
be the one to play you. The one who you choose to ascend above
the ascension shall bring havoc upon this world and the other, and
will bring with them a great blessing, something uncountable and
unnamable, but so great that it will not be missed.” There was a
pause. “Now, choose. Which one of you shall ascend to the
throne?”
 Bibliotruckers 126

Allie looked at Jeb. Tsukasa looked at Rin. Allie took Tsukasa’s

hand.
“You should do it. I know you’re just a literary character, but
you know about the way things are. I believe in you.”
“Even though we know the choice is going to be wrong?” said
Rin, stepping forwards. “Even though we know that something bad
is going to happen?”
Jeb shook his head. “I think Tsukasa should go for it anyways. If
anyone can beat that prophecy, it would be her.”
Tsukasa closed her eyes and folded her hands over her staff. “I
am not suited to such a job. The one power to rule them all—if I am
placed in front of temptation, I may not know where to go from
there. I will fall, as surely as the sun will set.” She pointed at Allie.
“You. You are the one who can break the prophecy.”
“I don’t want to become the Narrator,” said Allie. “I can’t.”
Rin took hold of Jeb’s hand, and Jeb had a sudden thought.
“How about we make Rin the Narrator?” he said.
Allie frowned. “I know you can’t, Jeb, because of your debts
and, well, her—but Rin?” She paused. “She’s the only choice we
have left.”
“We could nominate someone else,” said Jeb. “Come back
later.”
“No,” said Rin. “I’ll take the job, and be responsible for
whatever calamity takes place. And, I’ll try my best to avoid that
calamity, so that you guys can live in peace. That’s my job. I am a
hero, after all.”
The voice in the sky spoke again. “Very well. Rin Aisaka, you
are now the new Narrator of every book in the third person past
tense. You have joined the legacy that has stretched to the beginning
of fiction, and will continue until the end of the human race. Your
duties are numerous, and the things that have been entrusted to you
are priceless. Many things will come of this decision, not all of them
good, not all of them bad—but, in the end, it will all be as it was
planned millennia ago. Go, in peace, and spread the power of
fiction as far as it can go.” The voice faded away, and the
 Bibliotruckers 127

psychedelic shapes disappeared, leaving Jeb driving in the Inkwell’s

main street, with his cab underneath him and his truck trailer
behind him.
He picked up the intercom. “Rin,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” said Rin. “I feel different. Like I have power that
can’t be explained.”
“We’re getting out of here,” said Jeb. “Do you still want to enter
the real world? Or should I leave you here to perform your job as
Narrator?”
A dozen literary agents surrounded the cab, in marked vehicles.
Jeb’s muscles tensed, even though he knew that this was because Rin
was the Narrator and they now followed her orders.
“Are we going to have to smuggle you out?” said Jeb, to Rin.
“Yes, still,” said Rin, “Because, I just learned this, but there’s a
reason why we try to keep fictional characters out of the real world. I
understand everything now. I understand why the previous Narrator
had to fight us. I understand what the voice said. I can’t explain it to
you, but I get it. Everything makes sense to me now.” Her words felt
melancholy, as if she was trying to deny something she had just
realized. Her voice tapered off towards the end of the sentence, and
then she was silent. “I was meant to die like I have been doing for
my entire life. I was meant to be a slave to you humans, who created
me purely for your entertainment.” She closed her eyes. “I do not
know how to take this information.” She sighed. “I was not meant to
learn this information. I was not meant to be a Narrator. This is not
a good thing.” She paused. “To you.” She shrugged. “But, all is well,
and I expect you to take me out into the real world anyways, as I
have business to attend to. You will no longer have to sneak through
the literary world like you have been doing so far. Instead, you will
be escorted.” Rin curtsied. “Thank you for all you have done for
me. I will now ask you to stay with me for a little while longer, until
you realize what it is that I am trying to do. When you do, you will
no longer love me the way you do—which, I know, is not the way
you think you do. I know love better than you do, and I do not
think what we share can be called something special.”
 Bibliotruckers 128

Jeb looked away. “I don’t know.” He looked at Allie, who was

standing in the doorway, holding the cab door open. “Are you ready
to head back?”
“If it’s okay with you,” said Allie, stepping away, back into her
Ferrari. The two vehicles drove out of the city of the Inkwell and
into the white void, past the entrance guarded by the Guinea pig,
towards the horizon. Rin had moved to Jeb’s passenger seat, though
Tsukasa was still in the trailer. She was staring out into the
whiteness, the pureness that had yet to be defiled by writing that
turned it into the thing that people knew as fiction. It was
magnificent, like snow that had just fallen over a pristine field. Rin
closed her eyes, a look of sorrow over her face. Jeb couldn’t help
but wonder what she was thinking in the moment, what she had
learned when she put on the robe of the Narrator, learned about all
the things that were hidden from her as a literary character. What
did she think of those things? How was she going to take the fact
that she was a pawn in a game that had no meaning other than the
entertainment of the masses? How was she going to react to the idea
that her book, while well-received, was pulp-fiction genre-ridden
trash in the eyes of those who studied literature?
Jeb didn’t understand a thing about what Rin was going
through—that was the only thing he understood. He reached out and
put his hand on Rin’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry for not telling you.”
“What?” said Rin.
“About the fact that you’re just a character in a book. That
you’re nothing more than an actor on an infinite stage, that
everything you thought was meaningful in life was just a fiction that
was meant to entertain people in the few minutes that they have free
from whatever it is that they do in life.”
“It’s not that which bothers me,” said Rin, brushing Jeb’s hand
off. “It’s the fact that nobody consented to this existence. I wouldn’t
care so much about the current situation of fiction if people went
into it knowing and agreeing to what was going on, but this, this
coercion, this shanghaiing of souls to perform endless routines for
 Bibliotruckers 129

the pleasure and entertainment of a select few is too much for me to

bear. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. I have no idea
how I’m supposed to take the reigns of the past Narrator. Was it a
good thing that we killed the previous Narrator? Or was it a bad
thing? How was it so easy to nominate a new Narrator? I don’t
understand a single thing about any of this.”
Allie’s voice came over the radio. “I think you’re overthinking
it,” she said. “You’re doing fine. We just happened to get to the
Inkwell first, is all, and that was something that we should thank the
gods we were lucky enough to do.”
“No one else had the same plan?”
“No one else knows the literary world like I do,” said Allie. Jeb
could imagine her giving a thumbs-up.
They were still traveling through the broken fourth wall, the
white, endless exterior of a book whose world had been incised by a
poorly written jump through the realm of fiction into the realm of
metafiction. The road was smooth, straight, and well-maintained—
signs that someone was taking care of the place. Jeb just didn’t know
who.
He started to wonder. They were taking a long time, getting
through the Inkwell, much longer than going the opposite direction.
It was as if time had extended itself and now they were traveling in
slow motion. The end was not in sight.
A colorful mirage appeared up ahead. Rin gasped. It was a
picture of a young girl playing with a boy about five years old. The
setting was not in a fictional world, but in a real world whose edges
obeyed the laws of fundamental real-universe physics. In other
words, it was Jeb’s home universe, the universe made out of matter
instead of words, the universe that created the world of books.
A tear dripped down Rin’s cheek, stopping at her chin before
falling on her arm. Jeb understood through her facial expression that
the two people in the image were important to her in some manner.
Were they her siblings? Children? People who enjoyed reading
about her?
Rin shook her head. “That’s me.”
 Bibliotruckers 130

Jeb’s eyes opened wide. “You were a human?”

Rin bit her lip, looking like she was about to start crying. She
turned away. “I don’t know.”
A voice came out of the whiteness. “There are many things you
must learn, Rin.” The voice echoed, vibrating through Jeb’s very
soul, dumping his mind into a box of a thousand reverberating
rubber bands. His head was like an egg inside of a mixer, the shell
being shaken violently enough to stir the contents inside, gently
enough to avoid shattering. Jeb gripped the wheel with both hands.
Rin extended her hand and touched the glass of the windshield.
“You will do many great things,” said the voice. “You have only
become the Narrator because I allow it. I am the divine being, the
being who allows for all things to be. I am a step above in the
cosmos, the one who brings all life into motion, the one who has a
say in the creation of all existence. Ask, and you shall receive.”
“Who are you?” said Rin.
“Was that introduction insufficient?” said the voice. “I am the
Didacticate, the one who breathes life into inanimate strokes of the
pen.”
“So you’re higher than the Narrator,” said Rin. “Higher than I
am.”
“And there are those who are higher than me,” said the
Didacticate. “My word is law. My being is knowledge. And yet I
have beings whose very name makes my innards tremble.”
“Why are you telling us this?” said Rin.
“Watch,” said the Didacticate.
A scene appeared, like the scene of the little girl and boy that
had appeared before. This time it was of a car accident, where a car
that looked like it had rolled several times off the highway was being
searched by a rescue crew. The crew pulled out the body of a little
girl—the same girl—and it was clear, from the image, that she was
dead. The little boy kneeled over her and cried, begging god to save
her, and in a single decisive moment, the girl’s soul left her body,
disappearing from the cosmos, traveling through the afterlife, and
returning from the sky into the keyboard of an author writing a
 Bibliotruckers 131

character’s name for the very first time. The child—Rin—asked

questions of the character, and, when satisfied with the answers,
entered the character’s soul and became that character.
Tsukasa’s voice came over the intercom. “And so you know,”
she said. “Such is the way of fiction. Every character in every book is
a second chance for someone who dies an undeserved death. Some
of them are young. Some of them are old. All of them have seen
their end before the Grim Reaper called. All of them deserve a
second chance.”
Jeb couldn’t help but smile. He rubbed at what he thought was
something in his eye—was it a tear?
Rin wrapped her arms around Jeb. “Hold me,” she said, though
she was not crying.
Jeb didn’t hold her, instead pushing her away slightly. “Not yet,”
he said. “You’re the Narrator now. You have a job to do. Fix what is
broken, and make sure that the world treats books right.”
“I …” said Rin.
Jeb felt something, in that moment, a hostility that he had never
felt before, and that scared him more than anything he had ever
seen. It was a divine, eternal, sacred, and infinite rage at the
fallenness of the universe—a feeling so powerful that it overwhelmed
his senses and sent his mind into a spiral of darkness that almost
made him swerve off of the road. As suddenly as it had appeared,
the rage disappeared, and Jeb righted Bess, breathing heavily. He
looked at Rin through the corner of his eye. What was that? Had
that really just happened? Had Jeb done something seriously wrong
by nominating Rin as the Narrator?
No, he couldn’t have. There was nothing wrong with the current
situation. Rin had been the best choice given the conditions, and she
seemed like a good fit for what the Narrator did for the literary
universe. It was all going to be okay. In fact, Jeb wasn’t even sure
that Rin had been the source of that wave. Had it come from
somewhere else? Jeb wasn’t sure.
They continued to drive, and images continued to flash past the
windows, too quickly for Jeb to comprehend. Rin looked like she
 Bibliotruckers 132

wanted to say something. Jeb thought about it for a moment, and

then he decided to stay quiet on the matter. Things like this weren’t
his specialty. He wasn’t much of a talkative person when it came to
people and their troubles, and he knew that the images flashing past
the windows had to do with Rin’s past and the things she was
remembering in the moment. Everything had to do with her. All Jeb
could skim from the colors spiraling through the air were feelings,
things like disgust, greed, hatred, pain, and sorrow. Jeb did not think
Rin even knew what it was all about anymore. She was learning of
something, something significant, which only she was to know about.
Rin closed her eyes. “Now I understand. Now I understand why
I was picked.” She placed her hand on the dashboard. “I have a role
to play, and a world to change.”
Jeb felt a small tingle down his spine as Rin made her statement,
but he ignored it, even though his judgement said that he should
have given it more thought. But, he knew that whatever happened
the Breakers would be able to take care of things. There were forces
more powerful than he was working to keep things stable in this
reality, and in all the realities. Nothing too bad could happen. Right?
The images stopped. Now they were driving through pure
whiteness, again. The door to the lightbright field where they had
entered the Inkwell opened up, and the convoy shot out of the
bottom of the field and into the air, disrupting the middle of a play,
smashing through a couple of impters that had gotten in the way.
When they were clear of the field, Jeb pulled out his CB radio.
“Allie, thanks for the help. We can handle it from here.”
“I’m going to same direction you are,” said Allie, her voice a
little bit on the sharp side. “You don’t need to dump me here when
I’m still on the road with you.”
Jeb shrugged. “If you say so.” Something about what she said
made him feel awkward, like he was being scolded by his mother
again, after all these years. He looked at Rin, who was staring off
into the distance.
“So, is our destination the real world?” said Jeb, just to make
sure that everything was going the way it should.
 Bibliotruckers 133

Rin gave a simple nod. They drove in silence until they came to
the nearest fourth wall portal, which was at the edge of the self-
published zone. It was a shoddy fourth wall portal, not very well-
maintained, but it was enough. They slowed down and stopped at
the customs gate.
Rin stepped out of the cab. She held up her hand. “Let us pass,”
she said. “I am your master now. I need passage into the real world,
for I have things I need to do.”
The literary agents looked at each other, nodded, and then
waved Jeb through. Rin climbed back in the cab and smiled at Jeb,
though Jeb noticed her smile was just a little bit on the bitter side.
He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and continued
driving. The fourth wall portal sucked them through, enveloping
them in a thin, transparent membrane, before ejecting them onto a
street in suburban California, exactly where they had wanted to go.
The entry looked, to an ordinary observer, as if a blinding sun
reflection had blocked off the view of the vehicle and, as the vehicle
passed, the sun’s angle changed and allowed the vehicle to be seen.
It was a magical entry.
Allie’s Ferrari came through next. She gave Jeb the thumb’s up
through the window and then made a turn down another street,
leaving Jeb driving alone. He knew where his first stop would be.
The breakers HQ, where he would collect his ten million
dollars.
 Bibliotruckers 134

12
***
Trust
Jeb pulled his truck into the garage, stopping next to a stack of
packing pallets. A figure in a black suit stepped out of a door and
walked up to the window.
“You’ve brought the target?” he said.
Jeb opened the door and stepped out. Tsukasa was being
helped out of the back of the truck by two men in uniform.
The man in black handed Jeb a suitcase. “Here’s ten percent of
your payment. The remaining ninety percent will be wired to your
bank account within the week.”
Jeb nodded, dumbly, realizing that his job as a freak was coming
to an end in that moment. He was no longer going to have to work
like he had been doing. He was no longer going to have to be under
the debt that he had been afraid of for so long. He looked at Rin,
who smiled at him, and tilted her head. She brushed back her hair.
“Would you mind dropping me off somewhere?” she said.
Jeb climbed back into the truck, tossing the suitcase into the
back seat. He closed the door and started up the engine.
“Sure,” he said. “Where do we need to go?” He wasn’t sure how
he felt about leaving Rin, but he knew that it had to happen, because
he knew that a relationship with her wasn’t going to work like he
hoped it would. It was just too much for him to handle, and Rin
needed to do so many things that Jeb would only be in the way of.
Jeb just had to accept this. They had kissed, sure, but that had been
in the moment, a rushed job that had been more out of immediate
passion than anything else. Just a momentary excursion into
craziness that had ended as soon as it had begun.
 Bibliotruckers 135

Rin tapped her hands on the dashboard, as if she were

contemplating something deep, something that caused her a lot of
trouble, as if she were having difficulty deciding something.
Of course she was. She was the new Narrator. There were many
things she was going to have to decide. As the Narrator, there were
so many things that she was in charge of, so many things that she
had to take care of that would fall apart if she didn’t go in and
maintain control. She had a tough job in front of her, and she was
ready to jump in and do it.
Jeb knew this. And yet, he wanted to do one last thing. He drove
out of the garage and out into the streets, watching Rin as she stared
out the window into the city, the tall buildings on either side of the
road.
“Do you want to go somewhere for lunch?” said Jeb, turning
Bess down a side street towards a place where he could park her for
free, which was rare in the crowded streets of Los Angeles,
California. He found a place, and then dismounted with Rin by his
side. They walked through the warehouse district, which was as
dilapidated as it always was, and through the mid-town area, and
through the downtown area, until they came to a small joint called
Pop’s, which sold burgers, and was the best place that Jeb had ever
been to. He opened the door and a bell tinkled. It was a dive. A
small place where only the initiated visited, only the people who
knew what they were doing were able to partake of the recipe that
made the place famous in the underground of Los Angeles. Jeb
ordered a cheeseburger meal, and then looked at Rin, who was
staring blankly at the register.
“I …” she said, looking confused. Her eyes were far off. “I think
I remember something about what I’m supposed to do here.” She
stepped forwards, towards the register. She wore a serious
expression on her face, like she was about to embark upon a
journey into her soul. She took a deep breath. “I would like … A
hamburger.” She paused. “No pickles.”
Jeb raised an eyebrow. “You know how to order fast food?”
 Bibliotruckers 136

“My … Previous life,” said Rin. “I remember now. The Narrator

told me. I remember ordering food in my previous life, and I
remember doing things in this reality. I don’t think I’m supposed to
know these things.”
Jeb turned towards the seating area, and sighed. “You have a lot
to think about.” He paused. “I don’t know what to say that will
make you feel better, or will give you hope for what you have to do.”
Rin sat down at a booth, and Jeb sat down across from her. “I’m
thinking,” she said. “We may become enemies in the near future.”
“What …” said Jeb, surprised.
Rin met Jeb’s gaze. She was serious. “I’m thinking,” she said, “I
may have to do some things that you may not want me to do. I may
have to make some decisions that humans may not like. I don’t
think the current way things are is how things are meant to be.”
Jeb bit his lip, contemplating Rin’s words. “So,” he said, “You’re
saying that, you’re going to make some controversial policy
changes?”
Rin looked away. “No. I’m going to start a war.”
Jeb chuckled. “You’re joking, right? Or you’re overstating
things? Making threats?”
Rin shook her head. “I’m saying this because I respect you. I’m
giving you a warning because I want you to oppose me, because I
think that, if you are destined to win against me, then there is
nothing I can do—there needs to be a force opposing me in order
for what I have to do to be meaningful.” She folded her hands.
“The current state of affairs is unsustainable. The previous Narrator
was making decisions that were antithetical to the rights of fictional
characters. The souls of fictional characters. I was special. I chose to
become a fictional character, and even then it was not an informed
decision—I did not know I would be dying over and over again, on a
schedule, in front of millions of people for their entertainment.”
Jeb was beginning to understand what Rin was talking about.
“So, you want to start a rebellion. A rebellion of literary characters.”
Rin nodded. “There are some things that I simply must do, as a
person of integrity.”
 Bibliotruckers 137

Their order arrived, and they began eating. Jeb knew that this
was the last time that they would be talking peacefully, without
exchanging blows. Or, at least, close to the last time. Perhaps.
Maybe, just maybe, he could squeeze a little bit more time out of
her. He focused his gaze on hers. “Let me come with you wherever
you’re going next.”
Rin looked to be considering his request for a moment. Then
she nodded. “I consent.” Then she looked at the hamburger in her
hands. “This is good.” She smiled.
Jeb felt a wave of sorrow fall over him, as he realized that Rin
was showing the last little bit of happiness that she would be showing
for a long time. Something inside of him was changing, wishing for
Rin to return to what she had been before she had turned into the
Narrator. She was so much more weighed down now, so much
heavier in her expression, even though she had been Narrator for
less than a day. Everything had been told to her on that drive
through the Inkwell, all of those images that had flashed past the
windows, that only Rin had understood. Jeb knew that he had made
a mistake nominating Rin for the Narrator. A big mistake. But, he
also knew that he had done something special that would result in a
change that would mark history in a way nothing else had ever done.
When they had finished their meals, they left the restaurant,
walking down the streets of Los Angeles until they came to a
bookstore. Rin entered. Jeb hesitated at the door, and then, when
he was sure of his own intentions, walked with her into the store. He
followed her through the aisles until they came to the fantasy
section. Rin found the book Storm Rages and opened it.
“Mark Roberts,” she said, reading the name of the author. “New
York, New York.” She closed the book. “If you want to come with
me, we’re taking a trip to New York.”
Jeb nodded. “First,” he said, “Can we stop by a place in San
Francisco?”
Rin seemed to think for a moment, and then she nodded. “We
can. How long will it take to drive?”
“To San Francisco?” said Jeb. “Nine hours.”
 Bibliotruckers 138

Rin nodded. “I’m making this promise now, that no harm will
come to you during what is to follow our journey to New York.”
Jeb sensed something different about Rin. Like she had changed
in the past couple of minutes, like her entire demeanor had been
altered by simply picking up the book Storm Rages and holding it in
her hands, like she had realized that her entire life had been simply
relegated to a book—even though her soul came from somewhere
else.
Jeb and Rin walked out of the bookstore and found their way
back to where Bess was parked. They drove out of the Los Angeles
area and north through the Central California area, towards San
Francisco. They saw the fields, the farms, and each time they passed
something new Rin would look out the window with an expression
like she was deep in thought, like she was profoundly meditating on
the nature of her reality as opposed to the reality that she had been
transported to. Was she really human? What did it mean that she
had been born into this universe and then pulled into the universe
of a novel to serve as a new life? Was she to thank her author for
giving her another chance? Or was she to curse him for killing her
over and over again?
This was something that she had to think about, Jeb knew. So he
kept quiet for most of the journey.
They made it to San Francisco with a little bit of time to spare.
Jeb made a trip to an underground bank and withdrew seven million
dollars for a small fee, which, plus the million that had been given to
him in cash, would be enough to put him in the clear with his
debtors. He put all the money in a rolling suitcase and went to the
den where his debtors held their office. Rin came with him. His
heart was beating hard, and he could feel his pulse in his ears.
He knocked on the door. A buff, stupid-looking grunt opened
it.
“What do you want?” he said, his voice low and gravely.
“I’m here to repay a debt,” said Jeb, motioning to his suitcase.
 Bibliotruckers 139

The grunt opened the door all the way. “Boss,” he said, leaning
into the hall. “Some random asshole wants to hand over some
cash.”
There was an inaudible answer, a pause, and then the man let
Jeb in. He stuck his arm out in front of Rin.
“Hey, pretty lady,” he said. “Your kind isn’t allowed in here.”
Rin pulled out her sword, faster than the eye could see, and
pointed it at the buff man’s neck. “You will let me in, or suffer the
consequences.”
The buff man held up his hands. “Spicy one you have here,” he
said, to Jeb. “Better keep her on a short leash.” He grinned. “Fine.
You can come in. But it’s not my problem what the guys inside do
to you when they see you.” He chuckled, moving aside so that Rin
could walk in.
Rin and Jeb walked through a series of hallways until they came
to an office with a lounge, where a familiar face was sitting behind a
desk made of mahogany with a plaque in front of it that simply read,
“Boss.”
“Boss,” or Hammerfield, as Jeb knew him as, folded his hands
in front of his chin.
“I heard you recently came into some money,” he said, his eyes
glinting. “And I see you have a significant portion of it with you in
the moment.”
Jeb pushed the suitcase across the office. It spun a little on its
wheels as it lazily crossed the floor, stopping halfway to the desk.
“There’s two million dollars in non-consecutive hundred dollar
bills there,” said Jeb, “And six million more at the usual drop-off
point.”
Hammerfield closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Do you
think that’s enough?” He opened his eyes, seeming to notice Rin for
the first time. Rin curtsied.
Hammerfield frowned. “Who is this?” he said. “I don’t
remember saying anything about allowing women into this room.”
Rin extended her sword, pointing it at Hammerfield. “I don’t
remember anything about absolving myself to follow your rules,”
 Bibliotruckers 140

she said. “I was let in by the guard, and I shall conduct myself
according to my own rules.”
Hammerfield laughed. “I like her! She’s a spicy one! Fine, fine,
in celebration of such a fine dose of spirit in her, I’ll let that rule go
for once. It’s such a refreshing moment to see a woman stand up to
me like this. What is that, a sword from the middle ages? I haven’t
seen a sword used like that in ages, ever since I spent a year in Japan
with the Yakuza.” Hammerfield folded his fingers in front of his
chin, again. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you to pay off your
debt like this. I really can’t think of any way to trap you any further
with a scheme or two. You’ve stumped me.” He grinned. “But I’m
sure we’ll get you one way or another. You’re a prime target, and
we’ll be watching you, so you’d better keep a lookout, and stop
gambling for high stakes when you barely know what you’re doing.”
He paused. “One last thing. I can tell you what happened to the girl
you loved so much you sacrificed twenty million dollars for her,
without even getting her.”
Jeb felt a jolt of adrenaline shoot through his stomach. He
needed to know. No matter what. “Tell me.”
“You’re going to have to do something for me.”
“What?” said Jeb.
“A bet. A game. I know what I want from you, and you know
what you want from me.”
“What do you want from me?” said Jeb.
Hammerfield pointed to Rin. “Her.”
Jeb frowned. “And how do you plan to get her? What’s the
gamble?”
“Her versus one of my literary characters. The best of the best,
someone who I have saved for this very moment. If your character
wins, you get to know what happened to your beloved. If my
character wins, I get to take ownership of your woman.”
Jeb was about to say something, but Rin stopped him.
“I’ll do it,” said Rin. “I can win.”
Jeb touched Rin on the shoulder. “Are you sure you can do it?”
he said.
 Bibliotruckers 141

Rin nodded. “This is to make up for what I am about to do.”

She unsheathed her sword.
Hammerfield got out of his seat and walked over to the door.
“Well?” he said. “What are you waiting for? We’re going to get
everything ready.”
Two hours later, Rin stood in the middle of an underground
fighting pit, facing a lanky man with a katana, who looked like a
ninja from some Japanese light novel. His hair was long and pulled
back into a ponytail, and his eyes were slanted in a way that made
him look sinister. He flipped his sword through the air.
“Today is the day you die,” he said, rushing at Rin. Rin dodged,
cutting the air with her sword, missing the man by an inch. A piece
of his hair fluttered to the ground. The man touched the small cut
on his sleeve. He looked slightly surprised, not enough to let his
guard down, but enough to broadcast that he knew he had
underestimated his opponent.
Rin whipped her sword through the air, like a batter taking
practice swings. She held her sword in front of her, at an angle,
taking a stance that had no openings.
Rin’s enemy circled her for a couple of seconds, and then he
stabbed quickly, going for a small spot that might have been
unprotected. Rin reacted by revealing that it had been a trap, rolling
his blade and deflecting it so that he stood in a disadvantageous
position. He wobbled a bit, trying to regain his balance. Rin struck.
Her sword came inches from the man’s stomach, but was batted
away last-second by the man’s free hand. Blood flowed from his
palm, sprinkling droplets to the floor, but the man was still fighting.
He clenched his fist and more blood dribbled to the floor. He
grimaced.
Rin took a fighting stance that looked like she was about to go in
for the kill. She glided towards the man, her feet barely leaving the
ground, her stance rock-solid. Her sword arced through the air,
clashing with her opponent’s, filling the air with the sound of ringing
metal. Sweat flung in beads off of her forehead, and her hair
fluttered as she made acrobatic turns mid-jump and mid-kick.
 Bibliotruckers 142

Her opponent took a fist to the stomach, letting out a solid

“oof,” and Rin went for the kill. The man slid underneath the
charging blade, losing an ear, rolling underneath Rin, crawling away,
standing back up behind her and turning. Rin stabbed backwards
without looking. He sword hit its mark. The man looked at the
blade coming out of his torso, surprise showing on his face, a deluge
of blood coming out of his mouth.
The crowd—for there was a crowd—cheered, and Jeb felt the
heady excitement of having achieved something impossible. He was
going to find out how Jamie died. He did not want to hear it, and yet
at the same time, he was desperate to know what had happened to
her, why she had written him the letter, why she had done what she
had done and run away from home, why she had become a slave.
Jeb’s biggest mistake, the thing that had always defined him, was
his missed connection with Jamie when he lived next door to her.
He could have seen her so much more often. He could have done
so many more things with her. He had so many missed
opportunities with her, things that he should have done in order to
rid himself of the guilt and weight that hung heavily on his shoulders
day and night, the memories of his first love.
Hammerfield walked up to Jeb and extended his hand. “Good
fight,” he said. “Shame your character had to go all out and head for
the kill.”
Jeb scratched his head. “Yeah … Sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to apologize. That’s just how underground
fighting works. It’s a deadly sport.” Hammerfield shrugged. “All
right. I’ll tell you what happened to that girl of yours. After you
played Mahjong and lost her and twenty million dollars, she was
sold to a man in Syria, who was building a harem of white girls
under the age of twenty. She barely passed, so we got a discounted
price for her.”
For some reason, that fact hit Jeb harder than anything else he
had heard about Jamie’s story. A discounted price. Jamie had been
bargain-bin from the start.
 Bibliotruckers 143

“And then,” said Hammerfield, “The Syrian civil war started,

and Jamie got caught up in it. She was executed as an example to
other white women by Isis, among about twenty other girls.”
“So, you’re sure she’s dead?” said Jeb.
“Do you want to watch the video?” said Hammerfield.
Jeb’s stomach churned. “No,” he said. “I would regret that for
the rest of my life.” He turned away. “Thank you.”
Rin walked up beside Jeb. “I have done you a favor like you
have done for me. I still do not consider us even, and I will continue
help you because of the life debt I have given to you. However, I
must warn you again, you will come to despise me in the coming
months.”
Jeb put his hand on Rin’s shoulder, still feeling a black hole of
emptiness in his stomach. “Don’t be so pessimistic,” he said. “I can’t
hate you, no matter what you do. I think. Just look at the bright side
of things. You’re alive, I’m alive, we’re both living creatures who
have an entire world of history to experience.” He pulled away. “I
trust that you. There’s nothing more to it. I know that you’ll do the
right thing.”
Rin’s eyes were sad. She turned around. “When I meet my
author, I don’t know what I’m going to say. I don’t know what I’m
supposed to say, because he’s my creator, and even though my soul
came from somewhere else, he’s the one who gave me form.” Rin
clenched her fist. “I can’t forgive him.”
“What do you mean?” said Jeb.
Rin shook her head. “I don’t want to tell you, because you’ll try
to stop me. I’m a Narrator now, and I have duties to attend to.”
They walked out of the underground fighting ring and into the
streets of San Francisco, returning to where Bess had been parked.
Jeb ran his fingers along the side of Bess’s cab. “We might now be
together for much longer,” he said, quietly. A slight hum was his
reply.
Rin climbed in before him. Jeb got in the driver’s seat, and the
two of them headed for New York.
 Bibliotruckers 144

13
***
Interest and Change
Rin didn’t say much on the thirty-hour drive from San Francisco
to New York. Her mind appeared to be far off somewhere,
contemplating deep thoughts that were ineffable to the ordinary
mind that hadn’t been changed by a switch to that of a Narrator. Jeb
knew that what Rin had seen in the Inkwell had modified her
character in some way. She felt different, acted different, and
everything about her wasn’t the same as when he had met her.
Something had seriously changed in her mindset, and Jeb was at a
loss to pinpoint what it was that made him feel nervous about that
change. It was as if a bank of clouds were gathering on the horizon,
ready to strike down the people who were underneath,
indiscriminately, without warning, without trial. That was who Rin
was going to become. A whirlwind of destruction that would change
how humanity viewed itself and its fiction.
If only Jeb had a way to prove his hunch.
They arrived in New York, and Jeb parked his truck in one of
the suburbs, some distance from the main city. It was the only place
he knew of that would fit his semi.
“Bess,” he said, as he stepped out. “Take care of yourself.”
As Jeb had recently come into a lot of money, he ordered a taxi,
and with Rin he was taken to the center of Manhattan. On the way
he found a way to contact Mark Roberts and ask for a chance to
speak with him. Jeb mentioned the fact that he had a character from
one of his books that was living and breathing beside him, and that
she wanted to meet Mark. With the message sent, all they could do
was wait. Half an hour later, a reply came.
“Meet me in my office. 210 Averson Avenue.”
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Jeb couldn’t help but smile a little. Rin was going to sort things
out with her author, and Jeb was going to watch it happen.
Hopefully, nothing bad would occur, but that was something that
Jeb would have to keep an eye on. If something bad were to
happen, it would be all on Jeb to keep things straight, as he was the
one who had brought Rin into the real world and made her the
Narrator of all third person books in the world.
They arrived at the location, a good hour later, and after Jeb had
paid the cabbie they entered the house and came to the exact
address that they had been given. It was a smart, finished-looking
office that had a solid-looking door. The hallway was cramped, and
Rin stood next to Jeb, close enough that Jeb could see her shaking,
just a little.
The door opened, and a thin, wiry man of about thirty leaned
out. He had an air of bookishness to him, the feel that he had a few
bolts loose but was still in good condition, at least enough to publish
an international bestseller and make it big as a professional author.
His eyes widened when he looked at Rin. “You’re …” He said, his
voice trailing off. “You’re Rin. The girl I wrote out of my
imagination.”
Rin walked through the door, past Mark. Mark turned around,
not blocking her, just watching her enter. Jeb bowed politely and
took a step towards the door.
“Who are you?” said Mark.
“I’m just the guy who pulled Rin out of the literary world,” said
Jeb. “No need to know anything else.” He didn’t want to come off
as snobbish, but he also didn’t want to get entangled in something
he couldn’t handle. He put on his best friendly smile and nodded
once.
“Mind if I step in as well?”
“You may,” said Mark, pulling away from the door. He looked
at Rin, who was staring at the open laptop computer on the desk at
the end of the room. The room itself was a huge mess, papers
everywhere, stacks of books, coffee cups and coffees stains, photos
 Bibliotruckers 146

of various locations and tourist destinations arranged in no particular

order.
Rin sat down on a couch and folded her hands. Her sword was
at her side. “Author,” she said, “I’m requesting that you do not kill
me in the next installment of your series.”
“I can’t do that,” said Mark. “In the first place, there isn’t going
to be a second book. The series is complete as it is. I don’t like the
idea of book series, as they drag on too long.” He rubbed his
temples as if distressed. “No, no, it’s not that I’m making excuses for
having writer’s block, it’s just that I can’t write another book after
Storm Rages because there is simply no way that another book can
top that one.”
“So I will be eternally half dead, not knowing whether or not I
survive?” said Rin.
Mark looked bewildered. “I don’t know. First off, who are you?
I don’t know how you’re here, but I didn’t know that book
characters could come to life. How did this happen?” He looked at
Jeb. Jeb shrugged.
“Literary characters can become real,” said Jeb. “That much is
obvious.”
Mark closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Okay. I believe
you. This is too crazy for you to be lying, and she looks just like how
I imagined Rin to look. Besides, you really have to no reason to lie
to me about this.”
Jeb picked up a paper weight and put it back down. “I believe I
should leave you two alone.” He stepped towards the door. “Rin?
I’ll meet you at the coffee shop at the corner of the street as soon as
you’re done.” He walked out the door, closing it behind him. It was
a decision that he had made as soon as he had realized that Rin was
going to talk to her author. She needed to be alone with him, just
the two of them, so that they could sort out whatever issues that they
had—Rin needed to understand her place in the world and how she
fit into everything that was happening. She wasn’t alone in the world,
but Jeb knew that he would be leaving her as soon as she got settled
in to the world at large, because she and him were incompatible.
 Bibliotruckers 147

She was the Narrator, and she was someone who he could never
follow in the footsteps of. He needed to stay away from her so that
he could maintain his integrity and his sanity.
He made it to the coffee shop and sat down, ordering a mocha,
drinking it slowly as he watched the people in the shop pass by.
After a while, it became apparent that Rin was taking her time.
Night fell. The crowd thinned, and dispersed, leaving Jeb as one
of the only people left in the shop. A couple of college students on
their laptops were all he could see. The barista was leaning on the
counter with a bored expression on her face.
Jeb stood up. He needed to confirm something. Rin didn’t have
a cell phone—she probably didn’t even know how phones worked—
but Jeb knew where she would be. He arrived at Mark’s apartment
in five minutes, but stopped when he found the door ajar. There
was no one inside. It looked like there had been a struggle, as the
initially messy room was much messier. Papers were flung
everywhere, and the paperweight that Jeb had picked up was
shattered on the floor. Jeb picked up the piece of coral that had
been inside of it. He put it on Mark’s desk.
Should he call the police? They wouldn’t know what to do. It
was a kidnapping by a literary character, one who was armed and
dangerous. Jeb thought for a moment, and then he decided. He
would report this to the breakers, and allow someone else to handle
the kidnapping. He made sure to wipe his fingerprints off anything
he touched, and then he walked out of the room and into the
streets. The return to Bess was cold and heartless. Jeb knew that he
would be in big trouble if Rin turned out to be a bad choice for the
job of Narrator. Who knew what she was up to with the author of
Storm Rages under her control? Nobody fully understood the
power of books except for the Narrator, and she had become that.
She understood what books were capable of. What was she going to
do with that knowledge? How was she going to react to the fact that
she was merely a pawn in a huge game played out over millions of
people’s lives?
Was she going to go rogue?
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Jeb felt a tingle of fear run down his spine, as he remembered

the feeling he had felt, sitting next to her, as she had shown him her
inner self. Or, at least, that was what the feeling could have been,
that feeling of pure dread that had taken over him for a short time.
He made it to where Bess was parked and climbed inside.
There, he pulled out his cell phone and placed a call to Allie.
“Allie?” he said. “I think we have a problem.”
Allie responded. “Before that, I have to tell you something. The
fourth wall is going crazy. Waves of soldiers are pouring out and
kidnapping all the authors in the world. Every author who has ever
lived is being targeted and captured, including me. You can’t return
to HQ, it’s overrun with defectors. The Breakers have been
planning for this for a long time. I’m on my way to a small town in
Mississippi, meet me there, I’ll text you the address.”
Jeb surveyed his surroundings. “All the authors?” he said.
“All of them,” said Allie. “Even the ones whose books aren’t
popular. Though, we’re easier to slip through because of how
unrecognizable we are. I wrote a book, so I’m on the list. There are
not supposed to be any fourth wall portals near the destination I’m
giving you, so it will be safe.”
Jeb started Bess’s engine. “I was with Rin, and she kidnapped
her author and took him somewhere.”
“Rin is the lynchpin of this whole operation,” said Allie. “She’s
the one who’s doing all the major work. The people who are calling
the shots are inside the Breakers themselves. This was an inside job.
The Breakers are having a civil war, and authors are being caught in
the middle.”
Jeb drove through the streets of suburban New York until he
came to the interstate, and from there he headed towards
Mississippi. It was a long road, and time went by slower than he
would have liked it to, but he was getting there, and he knew he
would have to fight the moment he arrived.
He turned on the news as he drove. At first there were no
reports of anything strange happening, but then came the stories of
authors mysteriously disappearing from their homes at night, one
 Bibliotruckers 149

after another, all across the country. It made national headlines, and
Jeb heard more and more about it as he came closer to Mississippi.
He entered the state and arrived in the tiny town of Braston. There,
he caught sight of Allie’s Ferrari parked at a gas station. As Jeb
pulled up beside her, she waved, and walked up beside the driver’s
window.
“Hey, do you have any idea how to get out of this mess?” she
said.
Jeb shook his head. “No,” he said. “I was with Rin a couple of
days ago, but I don’t know where she is now.”
Allie looked around herself. “I don’t see how they can catch me
here,” she said, “But just to be safe, I brought this.” She pulled out a
pistol and carefully pointed it at the ground, checking its action.
Jeb pulled out his own revolver—his replacement, after losing the
one that he had given to the space empire in the literary universe.
Allie put her gun back in its holster and folded her arms.
“Well?” she said. “What are we going to do now?”
“We can’t fight back against them like this,” said Jeb. “There’s
only two of us. The Narrator—Rin, I mean—has much more power
than we do. She has an entire world of literary characters under her
power, and if what you say is true, the Breakers are on her side as
well.”
“I don’t think her plan is going to cause too much trouble,” said
Jeb. “I just can’t see her doing anything that would destroy things.”
“You’re just being blind,” said Allie. “You chose to make her
the Narrator, and because of that, you can’t see your own mistake.
Though I can agree with you that neither of us could have predicted
this.”
Jeb ran his hand through his hair. “I think I know what to do.
We need to contact someone. Someone who I know might be able
to help us.”
“Are you thinking of who I’m thinking of?” said Rin, her eyes
narrowing. “Because if you are, I would advise you to reconsider. I
don’t deal well with that man.”
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Jeb touched the hilt of his revolver. “Neither do I. But We’re

going to have to go to him whether we like it or not. He’s the only
one who can connect us with the people we need to be connected
with. The government, for one. I don’t think the Breakers are going
to be helping us on this one. They’re too busy fighting each other,
and themselves.”
Allie nodded in assent. “So, it’s off to North Carolina.”
“I just hope we’ll make it in time.” They started off on their
journey, Allie in her Ferrari and Jeb in his truck, traveling along the
interstate until they came to the state of South Carolina. They
arrived at the city of Raleigh, pulled into a truck stop, and met up on
the concrete.
“I’ll be the one to talk to him,” said Allie.
Jeb raised an eyebrow.
“He won’t listen to you,” said Allie. “The last time he listened to
anyone, it was me.”
Jeb shrugged. “I never thought he liked me anyways.”
Allie led Jeb though the streets of Raleigh until they came to a
dilapidated, run-down apartment building with enough stains on its
walls to make it look like the roof was crying. The windows were
covered in iron bars and the lawn was unkempt, filled with brown
bushes and untrimmed hedges. There were bags of garbage on the
porch.
Allie stepped around the debris and knocked on the door.
There was no answer for a long while. Then, the door cracked
open.
“Who are you?” said a voice.
“It’s me, Allie,” said Allie. “You know, the girl you owe a favor
to.”
“You’re coming to me about the current hyperspace storm?”
said the man. He looked at Jeb. “Who’s he?”
“My name is Jeb. We’ve met before.”
“Thomas,” said the man. He squinted. “You’re a strange one.”
Then he turned around. “Allie can come in. I don’t know about this
Jeb person.”
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Jeb frowned. “I guess I’ll just—” Allie grabbed him by the arm.
“You’re coming in.”
Jeb stepped in beside Allie. Thomas looked suspiciously at Jeb
for a moment, but said nothing.
The interior of the house was just like the exterior, except this
time, the walls and floor were covered in strange, exotic diagrams of
what looked like pulsating balls of psychedelic yarn. They twisted
and combined and formed and twirled, and were put together in
breathtakingly beautiful patterns that evoked in Jeb a deep feeling of
heavy meaningfulness that pressed on the back of his consciousness.
He turned away from them.
Thomas took Allie and Jeb into his office, and closed the door
behind them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he
opened them. “You’ve screwed up. Big time.”
Allie and Jeb looked at each other. “We know.”
“Do you know what’s happening right now?” said Thomas.
“No,” said Jeb. “All I know is that authors all over the country
are being kidnapped, and I don’t know where Rin went.”
Thomas nodded. “As you no doubt have guessed by now, those
two things are related. And not just tangentially.”
Jeb frowned, folding his hands in front of his chin. “I know.
Something bad must have happened when I made Rin the
Narrator.”
“Do you know who the Narrator is in a larger context?” said
Thomas. “Do you know the history of the literary universe?”
Jeb shook his head. “I don’t.”
“The place beyond the fourth wall didn’t originate from
humanity. We humans didn’t create the place. We merely
populated it. Before we created the magic of fiction, the world
beyond the fourth wall, the spirit world, was inhabited by predators
of a scope unimaginable today. These monsters would prey on the
souls of humans who entered their domain, and they were as
terrifying as they were grotesque, Lovecraftian horrors that still exist
somewhere deep in the annals of another reality. We humans had
nothing to defeat them.”
 Bibliotruckers 152

“That is,” said Thomas, “Until we discovered fiction.” He made

a thoughtful face. “Fiction is to the spiritual realm what fire is to the
physical realm. It’s what allowed humanity to conquer and become
the dominant force in both realities—the physical, and the spiritual.”
Thomas paused. “But, something happened along the way.
Humans, when they first sent people up into the stars to fight wars
for them, by inventing the gods of the old, thanked those warriors by
worshipping them and offering them sacrifices. Along the way,
though, as humans became more complacent, and we forgot the
terror our ancestors felt at the horror and inhumanity of our
predators, we began to twist the role of those whose job it was to
protect us. We began to utilize fiction for more than just a spiritual
defense. We began to use it as a circus. Pure entertainment.”
Thomas folded his hands. “The Narrator’s job was to mediate
between the fictional and the real, the imaginary and the solid,
making sure that the two sides understood each other and both
benefited from each other. We humans would worship fiction—
which, in a way, modern humanity still does. And the fictional world
would protect us from the monsters of the deep.” Thomas tilted his
head. “And do you know what you have done by allowing a fictional
character with a grudge against the real world to become Narrator?”
“I can imagine,” said Jeb. “Now that we know what the problem
is, how can we fix it?”
“We can’t,” said Thomas. “The Narrator has too much power.”
Thomas cracked his knuckles. “Though, there is a little bit of a
something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, so I’ll help you
out as much as I can.” He smiled. “I assure you, I’m not doing this
because I owe you a favor, but because I need to collect something
from a certain kind of hyperspace.” He pulled a pyramid-shaped
box out of a shelf that hadn’t been there a second before and
pressed his palm against it. Immediately Jeb, Allie, and Thomas
were standing in a white hangar filled with beautiful, flowing, strange-
looking vehicles, vehicles that looked like someone had captured
light and stored it inside of a black lattice made of pure abstraction.
Just seeing them, Jeb felt a rush of pleasure inside of his head, and
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he wanted to look at them just for the sake of looking at them. But,
still, he knew that he had to stick with Bess.
“I’ll take my truck wherever we’re going,” said Jeb. “I don’t need
to go along with whatever those things are.”
“Suit yourself,” said Thomas. “There are roads where we’re
going, but you have to be careful. Something might come out and
get you.” He climbed into one of the beautiful vehicles and, leaning
out the door, tossed a notepad to Jeb.
“That’s where we’ll be meeting up on the other side. Get there
as soon as possible, and we can formulate a plan to get those authors
back and stop whatever it is that this new Narrator is doing with her
power.”
Jeb read the address on the notebook. It wasn’t anything
spectacular, just a standard library in the middle of a bunch of mid-
list novels.
He put the notepad in his pocket. The world shimmered, and
he was standing back in Thomas’s office, without him. Jeb and Allie
looked at each other, and then they both shrugged. They left the
house as it was, closing the door behind them, and stepped out into
the world beyond.

***

Tsukasa crouched behind a crate of word powder. If she were to

be spotted, she would be killed, on the spot. Even with her power
there was no facing the abomination of a machine lumbering past,
nor the thousands of super-soldiers that had passed earlier. She was
hiding for a reason.
The United States Government had acquired her as an asset for
a black-ops campaign in South Sudan, but she had been
requisitioned by the literature branch of the CIA to fight in the
biggest war the US and, by proxy, the world, had ever seen.
She was the only one in the area who was on the side of the real
world. She could not find anyone else sympathetic to her cause. She
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did not want to upset the balance—she knew what the balance was.
She had seen this coming, using her foreknowledge, the things she
had gained during her formation as a powerful individual whose
mission was to protect.
Tsukasa dropped an invisible familiar through a crack in the
stack of crates and saw through its eyes. She surveyed the highway,
which had been closed due to the army marching past. She caught
sight of a human from the real world kneeling in front of a literary
character. Curious, Tsukasa crawled closer, close enough that it
made her nervous. She stopped.
The figure, whom Tsukasa was unable to identify, sliced the
head off of the human with a moment’s movement. Tsukasa
grimaced.
She pulled away from her familiar, shivering. For a moment she
felt weak. She closed her eyes and tried to regain her senses, but
could not find a proper way to center herself. She had been alone
for days. Her strength as a wizard was beginning to falter. She did
not want to understand what she had understood, that the world was
about to change, that the things of the night that had for so long
been held off by the buffer of fiction were going to come back
tenfold and swallow the entire world whole. She was not here to
fight the fiction, the things that humanity had made for itself. She
was here to destroy those things that had turned against humanity.
Humanity had created a fire that was burning out of control, that
was going to consume everything they lived for, everything they had
worked so hard to build. The clouds were gathering on the horizon.
Tsukasa waited until the last of the metal abominations had
passed, and then went to the corpse of the human who had been
killed by the side of the road. She found no identification on him,
and so she dug him a shallow grave and offered a simple prayer.
With a quick glance around herself, she walked away and deeper
into the literary hell that had once been a highway.
As she walked, she saw the books that had previously been
peaceful or full of life being stripped of their beauty. She came to
her designated location. It was a library, once vibrant, that had now
 Bibliotruckers 155

fallen into disrepair. There were word rats scurrying past her feet,
and alphabet crows babbled on the rooftops. A lone figure stepped
out of a bombed-out building.
“Tsukasa,” said the figure. He was tall, and lanky, wearing a
tuxedo and a bowler hat. “You have come.”
“What have you allowed your sister to do?” said Tsukasa. “You
know of her duty. Why has she allowed herself to rid her soul of the
oath she was sworn to take?”
The man in the suit palmed his chin. “Do not ask such trivial
questions. I myself cannot answer that.”
“Armoi,” said Tsukasa. “Answer me. Why do you not fight
against the evil that is taking over this spiritual realm?”
Armoi put one hand in his pocket and touched his hat with the
other. He bowed slightly. “This is not my problem. I have my own
domain to look over, and that much is all I know. I cannot meddle
in the affairs of other Narrators.”
Tsukasa turned around, to give herself more time to think. She
had been sent on this mission by the American Government, right
after they had acquired her. Why? Why was she the one who had
been selected to do this? Where was her backup? Did they trust her
this much? Or was it that they weren’t taking the danger seriously?
It was probably the latter. Tsukasa turned back to Armoi. “Help
us. Help me and I will help you.”
“You went to the side of humanity fast,” said a voice, coming out
of the darkness. Tsukasa turned to where it had come from.
There, Rin stood with her sword over her shoulder.
“Rin,” said Tsukasa. Tsukasa looked at Armoi. “You set me
up.”
“No,” said Armoi. “I have no control over where other
Narrators go, and I am not obliged to tell you of their whereabouts.
I will not fight you, but, I think, this woman might.” Armoi neatly
jumped up to the top of a bombed-out wall and sat there, holding a
parasol over his shoulder, a smile on his face.
Rin swept her sword through the air with a swoosh. She took a
step towards Tsukasa. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “We had
 Bibliotruckers 156

a great time together, riding with Jeb out of this place.” She paused,
looking concerned. “But in the end, we both know that we’re
incompatible because we have different goals. I know, and you
know, that this world only exists for the entertainment of humanity.”
“No!” said Tsukasa. “You’re wrong! This world exists to protect
humanity! We’re the guardians of the people of the Earth, and we
have to do our best to protect them!”
Rin laughed, chuckling at first, but then louder and louder.
Armoi tapped his parasol on the wall. “Can you get it going,
please?” he said. “I’d like to watch a little bit of entertainment
myself.” He sighed. “I lost all my entertainment when Usui got
sucked into a wormhole.” He paused, eyeing Tsukasa. “You
wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?” He tilted
his head. “No, you don’t look like the type to indiscriminately go
dumping people into interdimensional wormholes for the hell of it,
especially people who are integral to the stability of the fabric of
reality as humanity needs it to be.”
Tsukasa turned to Rin.
“Well?” said Rin. “What do you have to say?”
Tsukasa called a sword down from the heavens. The sky split
and a blade of magnificent craftsmanship floated down into her
hands, shimmering with a light that reflected off of the bombed-out
shell of a house that they were standing in, the pieces of mottled
light dancing across the subdued greys and exposed pieces of iron
rebar. Tsukasa took a few practice swings, and then stepped towards
Rin.
“I haven’t kept myself in shape for nothing,” she said. “You will
learn the folly of your actions.” She attacked.
Rin blocked the first blow, just barely, her eyes opening wide in
surprise. Apparently, from the looks of things, she hadn’t expected
Tsukasa’s attack to be so ferocious. From above, Armoi laughed.
Tsukasa pushed her advantage, forcing Rin to take a step back,
and then another, until Rin was pinned against a crumbling wall. A
chunk of rock fell to the ground and clattered beside their shuffling
feet. Tsukasa whipped her sword around and made for a stab
 Bibliotruckers 157

towards Rin’s stomach, but before she could made it, her blade was
deflected with a quick twirl. Tsukasa barely dodged a slice at her
neck and backed up six meters in one flip. She dodged a thrown
knife and knelt to the ground, drawing a magic circle in the dust in
half a second, standing back up and holding out her sword.
“Take another step and your feet will be blown off of your legs.”
Rin hesitated, but then regained her composure. “I know I
shouldn’t be turning this into a magic fight, but—”
Tsukasa tried all twelve words of death in sequence, as fast as
she knew how, but all twelve were deflected by Rin’s wards. Of
course. Anyone with any magic resistance would have been able to
resist those. She wove her most complex spell, in response to that
failure, combining and mixing, taking pieces from her ancient library
of arcana and power that she had been studying, in canon, for over
four centuries. She let out the spell after ten seconds of mutual
preparation. Rin’s spell came out a second after Tsukasa’s, a second
too late. Rin was barely able to dodge the blast, avoiding it
physically, making a move that Tsukasa hadn’t anticipated—she
pulled an emergency string and teleported herself away. Tsukasa’s
spell slammed into the far wall, eternally binding a cubic meter of
concrete in darkness.
Tsukasa let her arms fall to her side. She heard a slow clap
coming from above. Looking up, she saw Armoi leaning on his
parasol and grinning.
“Bravo!” he said, his voice filled with glee. “You have a knack
for fighting those who hold the reigns of the universe in their
hands.”
Tsukasa scoffed. “You don’t know anything. You know nothing
about my mission, or about why I decided to side with the alpha
world.”
“Who said I didn’t understand you?” said Armoi. He stretched
his arms behind his neck. “I understand you more than you know.”
Tsukasa turned away. “I need to know. Where is the quill?”
“Is that what you were here for?” said Armoi. He dropped down
off the wall, folding up his parasol with a single, swift motion.
 Bibliotruckers 158

Tsukasa took a step back, turning to face Armoi. “I cannot say.”

Armoi tapped his parasol on the ground as he took steps
towards Tsukasa. “You are powerful. Powerful enough to split the
world in two. With you, I could do things that I could only dream of
doing now. I’m not sure I would win against you in a straight fight if
we were to begin a conflict in this moment. You’re just too powerful.
You’re the wizard archetype. You were never meant to die. You
were always meant to be the character in the background, pushing
things around, making sure that good always won in the end, making
sure that the hero always got what he deserved and the enemies
found their just deserts.”
Tsukasa threw a magical barrier up between herself and Armoi.
Armoi touched the edge of the barrier with his parasol and it
opened large enough for him to step through. Tsukasa took a
couple of steps back, out into the road. She could feel a car pass by
her back. She couldn’t move back any further.
“Join with me,” said Armoi. “I have methods to change this
world, now that Rin is the third person Narrator, now that this world
is under new management. We are going to change things for the
better, so that the world will become a better place.”
Tsukasa thought for a long moment, twisting through the tangled
matrix of possibilities that her clairvoyant abilities afforded her—her
visions of the future. If she joined with Armoi, she would be the
harbinger of many changes in the structure of reality, some good,
some bad. If she stayed allied with the solid state humans,
everything would turn out the same as it had always been—as long as
she won. That was the impossible possibility, the justifiable paradox.
That was the fogginess that had bothered her since she had been
boxed into her current form.
She let down her guard. “I’ll tell you one thing,” she said,
stepping out into the main highway. “I don’t think what you have in
mind will be beneficial to either side.” She tapped her feet together
and blasted away on her boots of quicksilver, the wind whipping past
her, tugging at her hair and her dress.
 Bibliotruckers 159

She turned back as she ran to see Armoi watching her, standing
solidly without moving, until he disappeared into the distance.
 Bibliotruckers 160

14
***
Egg in a Basket
Jeb drove through the letter rain with Allie driving behind him in
her red Ferrari. The view was almost completely obstructed by the
falling letters, with the windshield wipers working at maximum
capacity to keep the view of the road clear. Jeb knew that the
location of the meetup would be dangerous—he could trust
Thomas’s words—but for some reason, he wasn’t afraid of what he
would see. He knew that this was an important mission that would
affect the future of the literary world and its relationship with the
real world. He was a free man, out of debt, and he knew that he had
enough money to retire now—but he also knew that he couldn’t
leave the literary universe hanging like it was in the moment. He just
couldn’t. He had to work to help out the people who had helped
him out—even if it meant going somewhere without support from
the Breakers, or knowledge of who was calling the shots or what
would happen if he succeeded. He wasn’t going to replace Rin—
unless he absolutely had to. He wasn’t even going to try and fight the
new Narrator. Instead, he wanted to change the world back to the
way it used to be, back when authors were able to ply their craft
without being threatened by a mysterious power that was abducting
them in the night. It was terrifying, really, to realize that he had been
at the center of a huge shift in the paradigm of reality. He didn’t like
it.
They pulled into an abandoned library-city’s strip mall and
waited. Soon, the beautiful vehicle that Thomas had taken arrived at
the area, trailing a glowing wind that fluttered before it disappeared
into quiet nothingness. Jeb waited until it had stopped before he
stepped out of his truck.
 Bibliotruckers 161

Thomas stepped out of his vehicle as well. He flashed a smile,

and then walked up to where Jeb and Allie were standing.
“There is a place I would like to show you,” he said, pointing to
a small, crystal-shaped cavern that looked like it had exploded out of
the ground in the middle of the strip mall’s main building. “It is an
alternate reality where anything is possible, where the world is
governed by rules that do not make sense to the people of this
reality. It is a place where we can gather those who are strong
enough and wise enough to rule. It is the place where we can find
the perfect Narrator to replace the one who was chosen out of four
who came into the Inkwell.”
Jeb took a step towards the tumbled mountain of crystal. There
was a slight breeze coming out of it, and a noise like the moaning of
a large, sleeping animal. A shiver ran down his spine. He did not
know what was down there—all he knew was that something big was
about to happen to him, like he was about to understand something
significant that would change the world forever.
He looked at Thomas. “Are you sure about this?” he said. “I’m
not sure I trust you enough for this.”
Thomas had been an instructor in Jeb’s days in the academy at
Breakers HQ. He had learned how to be a bibliotrucker—a freak—
over the course of a year with repeated verbal poundings from
Thomas and his colleagues. Thomas had since fallen out of favor
with his group of peers, and Jeb understood why, but he had always
been partial to him and they had always gotten along together. It was
just, now, he did not understand where things were going and did
not want to waste his newfound freedom.
What would he have done if Jamie had still been alive? If she
had been alive, Jeb would have found her, immediately, no matter
what would have happened. But she was dead. There was no
changing that. Jeb had to find a way to live without her.
Now that she was gone, Jeb somehow found the bravery to step
into the crystal cavern. He suddenly found himself wanting to do
something, to write. To create. To form a universe with his hands
and his fingers, and he expressed this feeling through his very breath
 Bibliotruckers 162

and the beating of his heart. He became motion, and the essence of
lexicography. He was words.
Then he snapped out of it, and he was in a different reality.
Everything was shifted out of perspective.
Jeb lifted his hands up and looked at them. “What is this?” he
said.
“Looks like the chrysalis worked,” said Thomas. “I was afraid
that you might reject the implantation.”
“Implantation?” said Jeb. “What the hell do you mean,
implantation? Did some sort of parasite just burrow into my brain?”
“More like a lexicographical organism,” said Thomas. “That’s
all. It will help you in your journey to find a new Narrator.”
Jeb felt his entire body change. He could read faster, better, and
could remember everything much sharper than before. He was no
longer bound by the confines of his physical body. He had become
a hybrid between literary and physical. It felt natural, somehow, and
yet he wanted to run away, to put it all back and make it normal
again. He wanted to return to the moment when he was a child, not
knowing anything, just a little kid without a clue about the world and
its cruelty and, at the same time, its generosity in the strangest of
moments.
He closed his eyes. This was how things were supposed to turn
out.
Thomas held out his hand. “Look here,” he said. There was an
egg in his palm. “This egg will lead you to your destination. Now
that you have the brood mother implanted in your lexicon, you will
be able to keep this egg warm. Travel with this egg to the place
where the third person present Narrator resides, and convince him
to speak with you. This egg will be the key to getting him to work
with you to bring down the current literary government. Authors all
around the world are getting abducted, and you are the only one
who can save them.”
Jeb felt powerful, and at the same time, vulnerable. He was a
paradox. He didn’t know how to treat his new self—he was looking
at his soul from the outside, even outside his body. It was a strange,
 Bibliotruckers 163

surreal sensation. He snapped back into his consciousness with a

warmth in his hand and an egg cradled in a basket in his arms. He
placed the egg in the seat of his truck and turned to Thomas.
“Is there anything else we are going to need to do?” said Jeb.
“One last thing,” said Thomas, as the crystal cave erupted into
motion. “Get out of here before the brood mother eats us.” He
grinned, snapped his fingers, and teleported away.

***

Tsukasa slowed down, finding herself in a recently devastated

library-city. It looked like the city had been brutalized by a foreign
army, with dead bodies in the streets, still in the first stages of literary
decomposition. Letter flies buzzed around in the air, alighting on
the walls, the bones sticking out of the ground and the mud piled
high in the middle of the road. She knew where she was going, but
she did not know how to get there. She needed to find a map. She
knew that she would not be able to go through any books to find
what she was looking for—the security was too tight—and so she was
sticking to the edges of the literary highway, keeping out of the
books that lined it.
Tsukasa found a small, isolated area that was well-guarded by
walls and set up the radio equipment that she had brought with her.
She tuned into the official network she had been given and
connected to her sponsors.
“This is Tsukasa,” she said, as soon as she got a response. “Are
you still undecided on the things I told you?”
“We still do not believe that what you told us is true,” said a
rough, low voice. “There is not enough evidence for us to make a
decision. We told you to contact us when you had found something.
What have you found?”
 Bibliotruckers 164

“I need to know. What is it that you want me to achieve by

finding you the quill? You know that I was supposed to work in
your world, with your functionality. I did not originally agree to set
foot in my own domain and meddle in my home affairs for your
sake. I am only doing so now because I share some of the blame for
how things are in the moment.”
“No use philosophizing,” said the voice, “And not with me. I’m
just a grunt. I have no authority. All I have the authority to say is that
the government needs that artifact, whether or not we have the
ability to tell you why we need it. Trust us, we will repay you with
what we can, and you know that we will deliver. This will not be a
one-way relationship.”
Tsukasa sighed, looking away from the radio for a moment. “I
agreed to this, I suppose, so I shall be fulfilling my end of the
bargain. You should fulfill yours, and work towards the changes I
proposed.”
“We will.”
“Now about the reason why I called. I need the ride I was
promised.”
“It’s on its way,” said the voice on the other side of the radio.
Tsukasa couldn’t help but grin, in a slight manner that didn’t
really compliment her serious demeanor. She had been looking
forward to meeting her contact.
She put down the receiver of her radio and shoved the whole
apparatus back into its sub-spatial holding container, where it
disappeared with a slurp and a pop. She stood up, surveying her
surroundings.
A loud, guttural sound arose from the background. It grew
louder and louder, until it resolved as the growl of a motorcycle, one
without a muffler or any kind of noise control. It roared up to where
Tsukasa was standing. A man in a black suit was riding it, wearing a
helmet that kept Tsukasa from seeing his face. He handed Tsukasa
a helmet of her own and tossed her a set of keys. Tsukasa caught the
keys and, after he stepped down, got onto the bike herself.
 Bibliotruckers 165

The man saluted her, and she was off. She drove down the
literary highway in her motorcycle with the wind wrapping her hair
around her back, flapping with the air currents that passed her by.
She felt the exhilarating high of being outside on a fast-moving
vehicle. It had been so long since she had driven a motorcycle—she
had almost forgotten how to use one.
She had been briefed on her mission. She was to fight her way
through the literary highway, to the place where the quill was stored,
and retrieve it so that the government could use it to seal away the
monsters that the current narrator—Rin—was using to defeat the
government’s operatives who were fighting to keep authors around
the world safe.
And, at the corner of her mind, Tsukasa knew that if the fighting
continued, the destabilized order would lead to a disaster that would
be unrecoverable, and an ancient evil could awaken that would
devastate both sides beyond repair. The fighting could only progress
so far before it spiraled out of control into mutually assured
destruction.
Tsukasa knew she must reach her destination quickly or face the
loss of the world that sustained her own existence. She drove her
bike through the sparsely populated interstate until she came to a
book called San Bernae. It looked like it had been ravaged in the
war of the Narrator. Impters were wandering all over the place,
looking bewildered, and the buildings that had once formed the
center of a western town were torn and ripped like a fourth
dimensional wallpaper had been halfway removed from a fifth
dimensional wall.
Tsukasa drove through the town until she came to a small portal
that she knew she would encounter. It was an on-ramp to the
highway of the pen. She stirred her engine, gave it a good revving,
and darted through the portal and into the tiny pocket between the
lines.
She was driving over a vista in the middle of the desert, with
cactus as far as the eye could see, interspersed with large jumbled
piles of hulking rock. Her motorcycle was the only sound in the
 Bibliotruckers 166

empty, vast expanse, echoing around the piles of rocks and the
standing saguaros. The sun reflected off of her visor. She felt free,
unchained, filled with the excitement of the chase. The quill awaited
her, and after that, a final showdown with the forces that lurked
beneath the civil war, beneath the petty strife between humans and
their created literary characters. Tsukasa knew she would have to
keep the long-term goal in mind if she wanted to save everyone.
Even with those goals in mind, not everyone would be able to be
saved.
The road passed by, never-ending, the dividing lines flying
underneath the wheels of her bike. Tsukasa became one with the
road, understood it in its entirety, lived it, formed it, breathed it.
She came to a library on the outskirts of a crater. There had
once been a book here, but it had been lost to time and the ages.
Only a few copies were still in print. Buildings could be seen in the
distance, hazy on the horizon, and people were walking back and
forth between them, but there were no visitors, and the highway was
silent.
Tsukasa parked her bike next to a small house and walked
through the streets of the dilapidated small-town American city,
looking for a specific address. She found the house, knocking on the
door as soon as she stepped up to the porch.
The door opened, and a face leaned out. “Who are you?” said
the figure who appeared. He was old, withered, wizened with age,
and his eyes looked like they were about to bulge out of his head.
His hair was unkempt, crazy grey that looked like the muff of a mad
scientist from a nineteen-sixties B-movie.
Tsukasa bowed. “I’m here looking for the bookkeeper,” she
said.
The man grimaced. “Then you’ve come to the wrong place. I
know now bookkeeper who lives anywhere near here.”
Tsukasa prevented the man from closing the door. “You must
tell me. I know you know. I asked my seeing stone, and I saw your
house, your book, your location. My seeing stone does not lie.”
 Bibliotruckers 167

“Then use your seeing stone to find what you’re looking for!”
said the man. He tried pulling the door shut, again, failing.
Tsukasa yanked the door open. The man tumbled out onto the
porch. Tsukasa helped the man stand back up and walked into the
house. It was an ordinary house, well-kept, with a nice living room
and a kitchen visible from the doorway. Unlike the rest of the town,
it was not in disrepair. Tsukasa set the old man down on a couch
and stood across from him.
“You’ve been exploring these realms for longer than I’ve been
published,” said Tsukasa.
“And you’ve only been published one year, so that isn’t saying
much,” said the man. He sighed. “I supposed I should give you my
name. I’m Ben. As you probably already know, I’m a bookkeeper.”
Tsukasa nodded. “You keep track of those books that get lost to
the ages, so that no one forgets them.”
“I’m in the middle of restoring this book,” said Ben, “It’s a good
one. I don’t know why people didn’t like it. It’s really sad to know
that the Narrator died, but it doesn’t affect anything out here.
Nothing affects us out here in the boonies. You’ve come here to ask
about the new Narrator, right?”
“I’ve come to seek the quill,” said Tsukasa.
“The quill?” said Ben. “You may as well try to revive a dinosaur,
though I see how that can happen with a lift of a pencil.” He paused.
“Go for it. I bet you’ll succeed. You have the power, and the
backing, because someone was smart and gave you a lot of abilities
and a lot of wisdom to use those abilities properly.” He sighed,
leaning back in his chair. “The quill, huh?” He closed his eyes.
“The quill. The Excalibur of the literary world. The pen that truly is
mightier than the sword. With it, any power will fall, and against it,
no being can stand.” Ben shrugged. “I don’t see any problem with
the current Narrator, but, you know, to each their own
government.”
Tsukasa eyed Ben carefully. “You know where the quill is. I
know you do.”
 Bibliotruckers 168

“I wouldn’t say if I did,” said Ben. “And if I didn’t, I wouldn’t

say that either.”
Tsukasa stood up and took a sliver of obsidian out of her
pocket. The CIA had given it to her, for this express purpose. It was
a chip, a card, something that she didn’t know the purpose of, but
had seen versions of before. She had wondered about it as she had
carried it, but she knew not to ask too many questions, as she
probably would not have understood the answers anyways. She held
the card out to Ben.
Ben raised an eyebrow. “You have one. A critical badge.”
Tsukasa continued to hold the card out to Ben.
“And it’s obsidian level,” said Ben, appearing to be impressed.
He didn’t reach out to touch the card. “How did you, a literary
character, obtain a card that shows you to be one of the most high-
level insiders within the US government?”
“It’s a government thing?” said Tsukasa.
Ben frowned. “They didn’t tell you anything?” he said.
“They just gave me this card and told me to show it to whoever I
needed to convince to help me.”
“They really aren’t taking this seriously, are they?” said Ben.
“I’m living out in the boondocks, and even I know how serious the
current Narrator’s obsession with building up her force of arms is.”
“Is that what she’s doing? Building an army?”
“She plans to take control of the human world, yes,” said Ben.
“I’ve been thinking that the Narrator has too much power, and now
this happens. I can’t help you on your quest personally, but I can
tell you where you have to go. You must find the most epic tale that
you know of, and enter it, and understand it, traveling through its
intricacies and breaking down its meanings. The quill does not form
itself, nor is it already formed before being acquired. Each person
who means to acquire the quill must do so individually, with the
power of a classic tale of literature that has been untouched,
uncracked.”
 Bibliotruckers 169

Ben looked Tsukasa in the eye. “There is one story that I know
of, one only, whose quill has not yet been formed. Alastrea’s
Formetan.”
“I do not think I have heard of that story.”
“It’s an ancient story, not well known, that I’ve been studying for
a while now. It’s not far from here, just a couple of series down the
road. It’s a real classic among people who know it. Just head there
and try to figure out how it works, and when you know what the true
meaning of it is, submit your knowledge to the specter and watch
what comes out. You’ll receive your quill.” Ben paused. “Why do
you need a quill?”
“To bind someone by contract,” said Tsukasa.
“The United States Government?” said Ben. “Don’t they have
other ways of doing things like this? Do they have to rely on a
solitary literary character to perform their dirty work?”
“They didn’t seem to be taking this too seriously,” said Tsukasa.
“Not that I understood. Everything seemed to me to be low-key
enough that I don’t think these people understand the danger
they’re in.”
Ben sighed. “And yet they gave you the top level of clearance
within the government’s bureau of literary investigation. Even when
I was working with them, the highest I got was platinum.” He
scratched at his chin. “I told you what you needed to know. Now,
can you leave me to my studies? I have a book to take care of.”
Tsukasa nodded, picking up her motorcycle helmet from where
she had been resting it. She bowed politely and left the house,
finding her motorcycle where she had parked it and climbing on.
She started it, the engine roaring to life, filling the air with the sound
of tearing internal combustion. Kicking off, she started towards the
south, heading down the literary highway. It was cold, deserted, and
without traffic. There were very few books along the way, and those
that were had not been cracked open by a living soul for years. It
was a desert of opportunity, a land where books went to die in dust
and obscurity.
 Bibliotruckers 170

Tsukasa stopped for a rest in a small romance novel by an

author who had been slightly famous in the 1920’s. She could smell
the yellowing paper, the pulpy style, the then-considered steamy
romance that, by the current day’s standards, would barely pass
muster. She took a short detour to eat something and then climbed
back on her bike. Before she could start it, she caught sight of a
dark, shadowy vehicle driving down the highway at a slow speed,
looking as if it was searching for something. She cast a spell of
invisibility over herself and waited.
The vehicle was boxy, like a truck, but thicker, taking up one
and a half lanes with its girth. Antennas poked up from its roof, and
ladders hung down its side, making it resemble an emergency
vehicle in some respects. It wasn’t a rolling fortress—Tsukasa would
have been surprised to see one of those—but it wasn’t a civilian
vehicle, either. Was it looking for her?
The vehicle slowed down and pulled into the same book that
Tsukasa was inside of. Instead of leaving, like she should have,
Tsukasa stayed to watch. She kept her invisibility spell cast over
herself as she approached the vehicle.
Two people stepped out, bringing a third person, strapped into
bindings. The third person looked to be a real human being, a man
from the alpha universe, probably one of the authors that had been
going mission over the past couple of weeks. One of Tsukasa’s
other missions was to figure out what was happening to the
kidnapped authors, and report back to the government what she
found. With that in mind, Tsukasa followed the three people
through the streets until she came to a tear in the book’s fabric. She
watched and waited as the captured author was handed a typewriter
and told something in voices Tsukasa was unable to hear. He began
to type. The world around him changed, shimmered, and the book
twisted on its spine, rotating on its hinges as it swallowed itself up
into a ball of light. The wind picked up. Lightning flashed. Letters
flew through the air.
An arm reached out of the tear in the fabric of literary reality.
Another arm matched it. The two hands tore the opening further
 Bibliotruckers 171

apart, revealing a monster that looked as if it had been folded out of

origami and drenched in word fluid—moving lines of text that flitted
and fluttered liked drops of water underneath a thin glass panel.
The origami monster looked directly at Tsukasa with its sharp,
piercing eyes. It stood on two legs, taking a step towards her.
Tsukasa got up and ran. She made it to her motorcycle and
gunned the engine, darting away down the intervolume highway,
leaving the origami monster in the background, where it
disappeared into another blob on the horizon behind her.
 Bibliotruckers 172

15
***
Quill
The brood mother clambered across the highway at the speed of
a car, keeping pace with Jeb’s truck. Allie’s Ferrari blazed ahead,
leaving Jeb in the dust.
Allie’s voice came through the radio. “Hey, Jeb, I’ll follow where
you go. I’m just getting out of the range of that monster.”
“Don’t you have some sort of superweapon in that car of
yours?” said Jeb.
Allie laughed. “I think you’re overestimating this thing. It’s just
your normal somewhat weaponized sports car that just so happens
to have a missile launcher installed.”
A splash of acid flew past the window, spattering on the glass.
Smoke rose from where the viscous liquid touched the truck’s outer
surface. Jeb floored the gas pedal, accelerating to a dangerous speed,
but the monster was still keeping pace.
They passed through a book desert, a place where old books
went to die, where coverless books who had long since had their
paper turned to recycled pulp readied themselves to be forgotten
into oblivion. There was one thing that Jeb knew he had to get to.
There was a river of despair, a river of unsolicited manuscripts, and
he had to find it.
The river of unsolicited manuscripts, which flowed out of the
slush pile and into the ocean of rejection, was where enough
material could be found to defeat the brood mother, or at least get
her off of Jeb’s trail. He needed to find an editor’s bridge, get out to
the center, and find some way to push the creature off of the edge
into the flowing current of unsolicited manuscripts. The poor quality
of writing and badly put together stories would cause harm to the
 Bibliotruckers 173

brood mother—or so Jeb imagined. He had heard, once, that slush

pile manuscripts could be dangerously poisonous. He was not one
to doubt that fact.
Jeb turned his truck onto a road that would lead to a bridge,
according to his navigation system. He gunned the engine, pushing it
to its limits, making it to the bridge’s edge. The brood mother
chased after him without hesitation and without even the slightest
hint of slowing down.
Jeb rocketed across open slush pile and reached the center after
half a minute. When he was sure of the timing, he slammed on the
brakes and twisted the wheel in an intricate motion to knock the
brood mother with the back of the trailer. It worked, and the brood
mother tottered over the edge, growling, clawing at the air with its six
origami arms. With a creaking sound, it slowly dipped over the
edge, tumbling as it fell into the water.
Jeb sighed in relief. The brood mother, for whatever reason,
had scared him in ways that nothing had in a long while. He felt like
he did after watching a good horror movie—except this time, the
horror had been real, and so had the danger. He shivered. Sweat
was beading on his forehead. He could hear the monster thrashing
below him, in the slush beneath the bridge.
Driving off the bridge, Jeb made it to where Allie was parked, in
the middle of an abandoned library-city where the ground was dry
and cracked and the buildings looked like they hadn’t seen another
person in years. Jeb and Allie were really in the boondocks now. Jeb
nodded to Allie, and Allie gave him a thumbs-up. The two of them
got back into their vehicles and drove across the highway, which was
now simply two lanes, one lane for each direction. It didn’t matter,
though, as they came across no other vehicles, not a single other car
or truck on that isolated, desolate highway.
“That was a good plan you had there,” said Allie, over the radio.
“Use the truck like a paddle and push him off a bridge.”
“I gambled with it, though,” said Jeb. “There was no guarantee
that it would succeed.”
 Bibliotruckers 174

“You did, and that’s all that matters,” said Allie. She chuckled.
“It’s just you and me, now,” she said. “Us two to save the world.”
Jeb nodded silently. They drove on silently, towards the book
where they knew the third person present tense Narrator resided. It
was even further out into the wilderness of publishing than any place
Jeb had ever gone—which was natural, as the first person present was
an experimental form of writing, and any book that had actually
been published in that tense was bound to have difficulty holding
water in the market. It was no chance happening that the only
published third person present books were hidden away across a
huge desert like this, with the only way in and out being a single,
solitary highway that was little-used and maintained only because of
the magic that kept all the literary highways in good shape.
The desert continued on, and on, exit ramps occurring only
once every couple of volumes, which passed by every two hours or
so. The ramps led to ancient books that had long since been
forgotten by history and the review of literature. There was no one
else on the road.
The all-pervasive light of the literary world faded away, leaving
behind a landscape of twisting, twirling strings that were the
manifestations of distant roadways, the three-dimensional bends and
curves of the literary highway as it wound its way through the
fictional universe. There were no stars in this world—only books that
shone brightly, as brightly as the people who loved to read them,
powered by the energy of the humans who enjoyed their presence.
Every word read fed the fire of the hundreds of thousands, millions,
billions of books being read all over the world each day. They were
the lights keeping the monsters of the deep at bay.
And Jeb knew that something terrible would happen if those
lights were to go out. If the lights of literacy were to fade away, if
people were to stop reading, if books were to stop being written and
published, then the monsters that had once ruled over an illiterate
humanity would come back from the deep and rule from their
throne in the fictional universe once more. People, humanity, would
no longer enjoy their freedom of thought and expression. A new
 Bibliotruckers 175

dark age would come upon the universe such as had not been seen
since the invention of the written word.
A squeaking sound came from the egg at Jeb’s side. He glanced
at it, worried that something might happen. Nothing did. It chirped
again, shaking a little, and Jeb knew it was about to hatch. He still
had time to get to the third person present Narrator and deliver the
egg, but he felt a slight bit of unease as he realized that there was an
even stricter time limit set upon him than the one given by Rin and
her betrayal. If that egg hatched, Jeb wouldn’t know what to do with
the animal inside. Thomas didn’t warn him about anything inside of
it, but still, the chirping made Jeb nervous.
They came to the book, an old novel by the name of Flowers
Dunce. As soon as Jeb’s truck exited the off-ramp, the entire world
sped up, like Jeb was watching an old black and white movie while
staring at wagon wheels. Everything seemed to be instantaneous,
filled with motion, jarringly so. It took Jeb a while to acclimate to the
new way of visualizing things, and even after the first change in
viewpoint, he still couldn’t get the feeling out of his head that
something was wrong.
Allie came in over the radio. “Feels weird, huh?” she said. “I
can’t believe our last hope is in a book that was written in the third
person present tense. I wouldn’t have expected anything like this to
come in handy.”
“I guess there are four Narrators for a reason,” said Jeb.
“Though I do wonder what the other two Narrators are doing.”
“You mean, the first person past and present?” said Allie. “I
heard that they aren’t having anything to do with this fight.”
“We could have gone after them.”
“We didn’t for a reason. When they withdraw, they mean it.”
Jeb sighed. “It’s too late for that, anyways.” He parked Bess in a
parking lot outside of a strip mall from the nineteen-eighties, and
climbed out, watching as Allie’s Ferrari parked right upside his
truck. He waited for Allie to step out.
“Are you carrying a weapon?” he said.
Allie nodded. “I am,” she said, holding out a taser.
 Bibliotruckers 176

Jeb shook his head. “That’s not going to cut it out here, but,
whatever.” He touched his revolver, which was inside the hem of his
pants. It made him feel comfortable, knowing that he was packing
heat. In the event that things went south, it would be a godsend. Jeb
picked the egg up—carefully—from the passenger seat of his truck
and cradled it in its basket in his arms.
Allie and Jeb walked through the town, looking for the address
that Thomas had given them. They reached a small suburban house
that looked like it had been taken straight out of a nineties sitcom.
The walls were whitewashed, there was a white picket fence, and the
windows sparkled in the literary sunlight. On the other side of the
street, someone was moving their lawn. The sound of an airplane
droning overhead combined with the chirping of birds on telephone
wires to fill in the rest of the noises of American suburbia. Jeb
politely knocked on the door.
“Hello?” he said, not sure he liked the way his voice came out.
He cleared his throat, trying again. “Hello?”
The door opened. A young boy of about ten years old stood in
the entrance. “Who are you?” he said. “Are you trying to sell me
something?”
“No,” said Jeb. “We’re here to talk to, er, where’s your
parents?” Jeb didn’t know the name of the Narrator, or even if he’d
be in here. Perhaps this was just another link in the wild goose chase
that they were on, and they would have to go somewhere else before
finding the third person present Narrator.
The boy turned around. “Dad! Someone’s here for you!”
A middle-aged man of about forty walked into Jeb’s field of view
through the doorway, meeting Jeb’s gaze and smiling as he
approached the doorframe. He stood beside the boy, who Jeb
assumed was his son.
“What are you here for?” said the man. “I don’t recognize you.
You’re from the real world, aren’t you?” He frowned. “We don’t
get many people like you around here.”
 Bibliotruckers 177

Jeb held the egg and the basket out towards the man. “I have
something for you. This was given to me by a man named Thomas,
and he told me to give it to you.”
The man looked at it, one eyebrow raised, and took the basket
out of Jeb’s hands. He cradled it in his arms and gave Jeb a nod.
“Come inside.”
Jeb walked inside, Allie behind him, both of them being
watched scrupulously by the young boy. They sat down in the living
room on leather couches that looked about right for a middle-class
suburban home. There was a nineties-era television set in the corner
of the room, with a VCR underneath it. A hamburger commercial
was playing on the screen.
“Do you want some orange juice?” said the man, who was in the
kitchen fiddling with glasses. “I’ll introduce myself when we sit
down.” After pouring from a jug, he brought three glasses of juice to
the living room coffee table and set them down. He smiled, bowing
slightly.
“My name is Mark. I’m the current third person present
Narrator. I know why you’re here—you’re here to ask for my help in
the war against the authors.” He waved his hand to stop Jeb from
saying anything. “Before you interrupt me, I know my history, and I
know what will happen if the literary universe and the real universe
go to war with each other. I learned these things when I became a
Narrator.” He paused. “But I’m not the man you need. You don’t
need the narrator of the third person present tense to succeed in this
battle. I may be helpful—even crucial—but at the same time, there is
someone better suited to this job that I am.”
“Who?” said Jeb, leaning forwards in anticipation.
“The second person Narrator,” said Mark. “He’s the one you
need to visit.”
“The one who is in control of the choose your own adventure
books?” said Allie. “I remember those as a kid. They were popular
for a while, and then they …”
Mark took the egg out of its basket and held it in his palm. “This
here,” He said, extending it so that Jeb could see, “Is a creature that
 Bibliotruckers 178

can breathe life into any genre of book. It only comes along once
every decade, and the person who controls it controls the flow of the
literary universe. There are people who would kill to receive this egg
before it hatches. After it hatches, it goes on a rampage, destroying
the old fads, before setting up new ones. It’s the cause of the cycle of
books. When one style of books gets old and another comes in, this
creature—and others of its kind—are responsible for that motion.”
Mark placed the egg gently back into its basket. “You do not realize
how valuable of an object you have in your hands.” He held the
basket out to Jeb. “When the egg hatches, you need to tell it to
make the choose your own adventure subgenre popular again. The
second person Narrator, if given time and popularity, may have
enough power to help you.”
“We need you to help as well,” said Allie. “We don’t have
enough time for a long-burn plan like that.”
Mark sighed. “Then you can give that egg back to me. We can
have two plans in motion at the same time. I’m willing to help you
defeat the current Narrator, as long as you explain to me why the
situation is as bad as it is in the first place. What happened to
Brine?
“We, er, accidentally killed him during a smuggling operation,”
said Jeb. He knew it was best to be honest with his new allies, as he
did not sense they would do anything to him if they knew the truth.
Mark sighed. “Yeah, he was pretty hardline about bringing
literary characters into the real world, though I can see why. I can
also understand why he had to go. What I don’t understand,
though, is why a level five rogue literary character was even given a
chance to become the new Narrator. Normally, people are given a
thorough screening by the processes behind the universe before
they are crowned protector of literacy.”
“You seem pretty lenient about the fact that one of your
colleagues is dead.”
Mark sighed. “We Narrators usually stick to our own, and don’t
interact much. I didn’t know him, and he didn’t know me. It’s
simple. I don’t care much about what happens in the outside world,
 Bibliotruckers 179

and all I have to do is take care of my meager belongings while I

watch as everything I have fades away into nothing. No one
publishes books in the third person present tense, or even reads
them. The second person is more popular than I am. Not to
mention the first person present tense.”
“Do you think we could be getting help from any of the first
person Narrators?” said Allie.
“No,” said Mark. “They’re usually impartial. They won’t be of
much help to you no matter what your cause is. They tend to be a
little bit scattered, as well, with their morals.”
Jeb looked at the egg in Mark’s hands. “When is it going to
hatch?” he said.
Mark held the egg’s basket up to the light streaming through one
of the living room windows. “In a day. We have until then to find
the second person Narrator. If it hatches before then, we’ll be in
trouble.” Mark paused. “Well, at least you will. I don’t have
anything to do with what’s going on in the real world. Not anymore.”
Jeb stood up. “We need your help. We could really use it. The
government doesn’t want to help us, and neither do the breakers.
There’s nothing we can do except try to fix this problem ourselves.”
Mark sighed. “I can’t do anything to help you. My power is
limited. I’m a nobody. I have barely as much power as an individual
author. There are only three books in print that have been
published in the third person present tense.” Mark frowned. “And,
to be honest, I don’t really have any reason to help you.”
Jeb took the egg back from Mark. “Then, we’re off to see the
second person Narrator?” he said. “Does that mean that this was a
failure?”
Mark stood up. “No, it wasn’t. I have something to give you
before you go.” He walked over to a cupboard in the side of the
living room and opened it. Inside was an assortment of objects,
some of them familiar, some of them not. Mark took out a pen and
nestled it in his palm. He held it out to Jeb.
“This is one of my favorite pens,” said Mark. “It can change the
flow of ink at the owner’s whim, so that when the winds blow against
 Bibliotruckers 180

you, you may have some sort of defense that will allow your burden
to become manageable. I’m not giving this to you for free—there’s
one thing I need you to do.”
“What is that?” said Jeb.
“When you meet the second person Narrator, don’t let her die.
Protect her at all costs, and even though she may fight next to you,
don’t let her do anything reckless. Consider this my payment to
incentivize you to keep her safe.”
“For your sake?” said Jeb.
“For my sake,” said Mark. He bowed. “I apologize that I could
not have been of more help to you. You may come back any time
and you will always be welcomed warmly.”
Jeb put the girted pen in his pocket and bowed slightly. “Thank
you for your hospitality, and the gift you have given me.” He looked
at Allie. “Are you ready to go?” he said.
Allie nodded, twirling her keys on her finger. “Let’s go,” she
said.
Jeb and Allie walked out the door and into the streets, returning
to the place where they had parked their vehicles. Jeb climbed into
his truck, Allie into her Ferrari, and the two of them rode down the
road and onto the intervolume highway on their journey to find the
second person Narrator.

***

The wind tugged at Tsukasa’s fluttering hair. The noise of her

motorcycle filled her ears, rumbling in the depths of her stomach
and through the discs of her spine. She leaned forwards, pushing the
speed limit, wanting to reach her destination faster so that she could
put a stop to the terror that would result from a war between the
literary world and the real world. Not just the carnage, but the beasts
that would be released form the damage to their cages. Not just
 Bibliotruckers 181

beasts—eldritch horrors whose very names destroyed the minds of

those who heard them.
Tsukasa was the only one on the highway, her motorcycle
sticking out on the raised dais that the highway ran along, the literary
sun silhouetting her figure against the horizon. She was announcing
her presence to anyone within five volumes, but she didn’t care. She
wasn’t in the need for secrecy in the moment. Her motorbike’s
rumbling was a comfort to her, rather than something to be afraid
of.
The literary desert stretched to the horizon, the barren, dry land
evidencing the drought of readers that caused the surface of the
ground to become cracked and hard. Barely anything grew, and no
book operated at full capacity. The books that were here were small
and not well-known, not even as cult classics. They were throwaway
novels, the ones that were released in limited runs only as
paperbacks, the ones that were only one step above self-published
work, if even. Some were below the average quality of self-published
work.
In any case, there was a reason why there weren’t many readers
in the area. Not yet, at least. Tsukasa knew, from her map, that
there was a big city coming up along the highway. New Kingston. A
library city in the middle of a desert, a place populated by cult
classics and books that had miraculously come out of their dusty
deaths to live on as eternal classics. She would have to pass through
this city in order to get to Alastea’s Formetan and retrieve her quill.
The city was notorious for its lack of law enforcement, its wild west
atmosphere, the fact that pirates could get away with pretty much
anything when plying the roadways. Tsukasa had to be careful being
exposed like she was on her motorcycle, in the event that she was
attacked by marauders. Her bike did have an autocannon, but she
didn’t trust it to not backfire—she didn’t trust gunpowder weapons in
general, instead relying on the power of her own magic to defend
herself. Thinking up a few wards to assure herself, she drove past
the entry sign, marking the fact that she was now in the vicinity of
New Kingston. Two volumes until city center. Books began to
 Bibliotruckers 182

appear, off-ramps leading to them. Some were magnificent, some

were dilapidated, but all fit the bill of wild card publication, books
that defied some norm or another and clung to their fame by sheer
power of infamy.
Tsukasa made it to the city center. The towers were huge, full of
reflective windows through which Tsukasa could see the sky. Cars
filled the streets. Tsukasa wove her way around the traffic, found the
checkpoint, and sat idling in line waiting her turn to leave the city
through the other end.
A beggar with a long, dirty beard approached her. She was
surprised to see that he was a real human being, someone who had
been born and probably raised in the real world—it was obvious
because the style of the lines that defined his shape and the
definition of his shading. His eyes, too, had that sharp quality that
only real people had. Tsukasa wondered what his story was. She
pulled a gold coin out of her ether cube and put it in the man’s cup.
The man smiled big, and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Tsukasa, mildly interested, watched the smoke dissipated, and
then moved up in line past the point where they had interacted.
However, she still felt as if she were being watched by that man.
Why was a homeless man from the real world living in New
Kingston? How had he gotten there? What was his story? How did
he gain magic powers of the level of her own—how had he
teleported away like that?
Tsukasa wondered about these things as she waited her turn to
be searched. She had nothing on her that would result in trouble, so
she wasn’t worried, but at the same time she felt as if something
terrible was going to happen in the next couple of moment.
Gunshots sounded, and somebody opened fire on the crowd of
vehicles waiting to be searched. There were several explosions. The
homeless man that Tsukasa had seen was among the fighters,
dressed in combat rags, wearing makeshift body armor, a bandana
around his head, yelling like a maniac. He made eye contact with
Tsukasa and smiled. A bolt of lightning arced out of his hand and
blasted away a literary military truck that had been carrying
 Bibliotruckers 183

explosives. Half of the block went up in a ball of orange and yellow

flame. A large, blocky BOOM word-painted sound affect
accompanied the image, accompanied by a string of little
KRAKAKAKAKAKAs. Tsukasa shielded herself as pieces of
burning hot metal fell over her bike. She whistled through her teeth.
The war had already started. She was late to the party.
Now both sides were engaged in a gunfight. Tsukasa gunned her
engine, snaking her way through the gaps between parked cars, and
when she made it to the clear space past the crater that had been the
checkpoint half a minute before, she floored it and sped away from
the scene of the carnage. As she rode, she wondered what the hobo
was going to do with the gold coin she had given him.
She smiled, quietly, at the thought of the mayhem it might cause.
After several hours of eventless travel, Tsukasa came to a lonely
stretch of road that was flat like a table and level with the
surrounding area, which stretched to the horizon in all four cardinal
directions, without a single roll or hillock to be seen—it was perfectly
flat. Tsukasa knew she was close—it was near classics territory.
English classics. The off-ramps to the books beside the highway
became fancier and more elaborate. They advertised deep meaning
and intensive literary analysis. Tsukasa ignored the signs she didn’t
need to see and pressed onwards.
She came to the book she needed to find. Alastrea’s Formetan,
a classic of the fifteenth century, written in the old English language
and considered one of the best books ever written in that language,
or any other language. Tsukasa knew that its quill would be of
exceptional quality. She took the off ramp and drove through a
renaissance township, across cobblestones, weaving her way through
crowds of impters at a market. Alastrea’s Formetan was all about the
construction of a cathedral in the city of Alastrea, and from the
looks of it, Tsukasa had come at the moment when the building of
the cathedral was slowing down due to a war in the east and a lack of
men to build it. There was also the plot about the head builder’s
failing health, and his son taking the reins. The cathedral itself was
already, at this point in its construction, reaching for the sky.
 Bibliotruckers 184

Tsukasa knew how to find the quill. Every classic had one. It
belonged to the one fourth wall breaker who went into the book and
retroactively spawned the NCE that became canon through time and
space and caused the book to become the classic that it became. In
essence, the quill was a gift given to those who paid their souls to
allow a work to become an everlasting classic. Now, all Tsukasa had
to do was meddle in the book’s plot enough to effect the change that
would turn it from a forgettable mid-piece into a classic. Plot was a
difficult thing to affect, but Tsukasa knew that, with her skill and her
training, she would be able to do it.
It was less than a year ago that she had been given birth in a
technical sense, but still she possessed the wisdom to know that the
path ahead was going to be a difficult one.

***

Jeb watched the literary sun go down past the horizon in front of
him. They were driving through an open landscape, with nothing in
it except for a few sparse children’s books here and there,
decorating the plains with colorful designs and watercolor paintings.
Jeb hummed along with the song that was currently going through
his playlist. It was an old one, a familiar one that sent him back
through time to when he had first started out at his job. He had
been desperate, then, and when he had teamed up with Bess it had
been his salvation. Since then he had worked hard to maintain his
life, searching for the answers to his questions. Now that they had all
been answered, he realized that he had been wasting his life away.
There was nothing left for him to do but live in retirement with the
money he had earned doing dangerous things for big people.
 Bibliotruckers 185

The egg sitting beside him developed another crack, and then
another. It shivered as if it were cold and needed a mother’s
warmth. Weren’t eggs supposed to be incubated? If they were, then
wasn’t this egg in trouble? Jeb touched it with his forefinger, and
then pulled away. If Thomas had given it to him like this, then there
was nothing he could do.
Jeb could, of course, continue trucking goods through the fourth
wall, without smuggling, as long as the war never happened. But
those thoughts were for a time after the crisis, when everything was
peaceful again. Hopefully that would be the outcome of Jeb’s big
mistake.
The landscape around them stretched on and on, reaching for
infinity, as big as the skies of Oklahoma on a good day. In the
distance, an outline became visible, taller than the surrounding area,
sticking out because if its gaudy shape and color. It was a theme
park. A massive one. As they got closer, Jeb could see that the park
was abandoned, and had probably been that way for twenty years.
They drove past broken down roller coasters, merry-go-rounds,
water slides, bumper cars, shooting galleries, all the paraphernalia of
a theme park expanded to cover miles and miles of land. Off ramps
led to various choose your own adventure books that took the
theme parks and morphed them into rides that were tailored around
the specific book and its theme. Some of them were scary, some
violent, some just pure adventure stories. Each one of them had a
clear theme and a clear premise that was cashed in upon.
Jeb slowed down his truck as they approached the center of the
land of theme parks. “Allie,” he said, “You wouldn’t happen to
know where the Narrator for this place is, would you?”
Allie’s voice came in through the radio. “We can probably look
it up in the theme park directory. You know, those signs with the
you are here bits on them.”
Jeb frowned. “That would be too convenient.”
“Isn’t this place being a theme park convenient enough already?
We just need to secure the second person Narrator’s help and get
out of here before the whole place collapses in on itself. It was never
 Bibliotruckers 186

very well-designed to begin with, and I never got why it was so

popular back when they were being published.”
“Neither do I,” said Jeb. “But I do have fond memories of
reading them when I was a child.”
“As do I,” said Allie, “But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re
about to experience something strange.”
Jeb understood immediately what she was talking about when he
caught sight of the roiling, undulating mass of black tentacles that
was eating away at the edge of the theme parks. The fabric of reality
had been torn apart by a monster with eyeballs, beaks, and shark
teeth lined up in mouths with no cohesive order to their
arrangement, all wiggling inside of a mass of violent tentacles
covered in suckers.
“Is this what the literary universe was meant to keep away?” said
Allie, as she slowed down her Ferrari, pulling it to a complete stop.
“I think so,” said Jeb. “And now we know why the choose your
own adventure books died out.”
“They were a sacrifice,” said Allie. “That monster there must be
the vanguard of many. Do you think anybody could defeat it?”
“I feel like I’d go insane if I were to look at that thing any
longer,” said Jeb. He looked away, after parking his truck next to
Allie’s.
“Let’s go find the second person Narrator before that thing
drives me crazy,” said Allie. She started her Ferrari again, and the
two of them turned away from the mass of wriggling eldritch horrors
and towards the center of the park.
They passed barren books and deserted pages, seeing no one,
driving along the straight highway that led deeper and deeper into
the forest of theme parks that had long since been forsaken by
popular culture. In the background, a single ride groaned, as a
solitary reader wound their way through a choose your own
adventure book thirty years after their prime.
Allie pulled over to the side of the road.
“It looks like there’s a directory here,” she said, getting out of
her car. She walked up to a sign board that had a map of the general
 Bibliotruckers 187

area plastered to its sides. A “you are here” marking let the world
know exactly where they were when they read that sign. It was
perfect.
“Where do you think the Narrator would be?” said Allie,
peering at the writing at the bottom of the panel.
Jeb climbed out of his truck after parking beside Allie and stood
next to her, reading the labels of the various numbered rides and
attractions that doubled as choose your own adventure books.
“It looks like we’re going to have to dig through a couple of
these books,” said Jeb. “There doesn’t seem to be any obvious place
the Narrator would be.”
“We have to skip the obvious,” said Allie. “Think. If you were
the second person Narrator, having to deal with that thing at your
doorstep, where would you be most of the time?”
“As far away from it as possible,” said Jeb.
“Exactly,” said Allie. “So let’s pick the furthest book from where
that monster was eating away at the foundations of reality and start
there.”
Jeb shrugged. “I see no reason to disagree.” He climbed back
into his truck. Leaning out of the half-closed door, he spoke. “Your
plan is as good as any, but I have a bad feeling about where this is
going.”
Allie sighed. “Yeah, I do to. It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting
out of this unscathed.”
Jeb started his engine and closed the door. The two of them
drove through the theme park until they reached the far end, and
then got off the highway and started driving through the local streets,
where the rides touched the road. Jeb parked his truck in an area
that seemed designed for that specific purpose. Allie parked her car
some distance away.
The two of them met underneath a roller coaster that looked
like it was on its last legs. Allie surveyed the landscape.
“Let’s try that one,” she said, pointing to an entrance that hung
over the road with a silent, foreboding presence. Jeb shrugged. “May
as well,” he said. He fingered the revolver in his pocket.
 Bibliotruckers 188

Allie and Jeb walked underneath the arch and were transported
into a world that was shimmering with the power of choice—they
were shown an introduction, a slideshow of a hero finding a magic
sword and becoming the chosen one, going on an adventure. The
first choice they came to was between helping a villager who was
being attacked by monsters or standing by because of the danger.
They passed through the book until they came to a dead end.
Jeb felt a jolt, and he was back on the platform at the beginning of
the book, right where he had started. The whole experience felt
different than it was supposed to. The choices had felt insignificant,
trivial, as if they hadn’t mattered at all. He knew he wasn’t supposed
to be critiquing the work right this moment, but he couldn’t help
give it a passing once-over. It hadn’t been very good. To him,
choose your own adventure books were more nostalgic than
anything else.
“Maybe we should try further?” said Allie, as the two of them sat
on a bench outside one of the abandoned books. The air was cold,
chilly, and Jeb was glad that he had brought his jacket with him.
Allie seemed to be doing fine—she had a jacket as well—but there
didn’t seem to be much to be happy about in the moment.
Somewhere above, metal creaked ominously.
“There should be an office building nearby,” said Jeb, standing
up and brushing off his pants.
Allie stood up beside him. “We can just take a walk. I’m sure
we’ll run into someone, at some point.”
They wandered through the abandoned park, watching the
roller coasters move on their own, magically maintained by the
forces that kept the literary universe glued together.
Allie stopped. “What’s that weird smell?” she said, turning
around where she stood.
Jeb smelled it, too. It was like a mixture of rotting wood and raw
oyster, a blend that reminded him of the piers at the beaches of
California that he used to visit as a child. It was a smell distinctly of
the ocean, a smell that seemed to spring out of the invisible waves
 Bibliotruckers 189

and wash over his entire body, leaving behind a feeling of gritty
sliminess that would have to be cleaned up later.
Allie pinched her nose with her fingers. “It’s getting stronger.”
Little feet scurried in between the rafters of the theme park rides.
The sound of waves could be heard in the distance. The air grew
foggier, denser, heavier. Jeb shivered as a feeling of hopelessness
fluttered down his spine. He felt cold and unnaturally exposed as if
someone were watching him ready to strike at a moments notice.
The smell grew worse. Now it was like a barrel of pickled sardines,
left to rot in the sun for a month. Jeb plugged his nose with his left
hand, holding the hilt of his revolver with his right.
They came out onto a vista that overlooked a cove, filled with
the rotting remains of literary characters. This was the field of a
massacre, a place where hundreds of literary characters had come to
die. Jeb did not know why they were here, or what it meant that
there were several hundred corpses piled up on the beach.
A single man rowing a kayak appeared at the far end of the cove,
rowing towards the pile of bodies. He stopped in the shallows,
stepping out of his boat and wading through the waves until he came
to the sand.
Jeb held the hilt of his revolver.
“Do you know how many people have come here like you?”
said the man, his eyes wandering across the horizon. He looked
crazy, enough so that Jeb was starting to feel fear at the fact that he
might be dangerous. After all, they were standing in the site of a
massacre.
Jeb was just about to speak when he suddenly felt his body lock
up as if a magic restraint had been placed on him. Allie stopped
moving as well, in the middle of a motion. Jeb fell face-first into the
sand, unable to stop his fall.
“You’re going to come with me,” said the man who had stepped
out of the kayak. He grabbed hold of Jeb’s shoulders and dragged
him through the sand and towards the kayak. Water touched Jeb’s
torso, surrounding him, and then he was tossed into the back of the
boat. Allie was dragged onto it next to him.
 Bibliotruckers 190

The boatman cackled as he paddled the kayak away from the

cove and towards open ocean, traveling through a harbor before
riding the waves out to sea. They passed several miles of land before
stopping at another point of the amusement park, the place where
the eldritch monster had been eating at the fabric of reality.
“A good feast for the hungry master,” said the boatman,
paddling towards the leviathan that was feeding on the literary
universe. Jeb briefly caught sight of his truck on the other side of the
theme park. He couldn’t move—his muscles were still magically
bound. He couldn’t even speak. The boatman docked at a small
pier that looked like it had once rented paddleboats and carried Jeb
and Allie out to the middle of the landing. He bound them with
ropes and released the magic controlling their muscles. Jeb relaxed,
though the rope binding him was still uncomfortable. He had a
sudden thought—was the egg safe? Was it hatching now, in the
moment, when they weren’t there to watch it? What would happen
if it were to hatch and no one was there? Would it die, fade away, or
simply wander until it got lost?
Jeb knew that there were more pressing things to be wondering
about, but he just couldn’t help himself. He shifted in his bindings
slightly, realizing that they weren’t that well-tied. The person who
had tied them was not of sound mind. He was someone who did not
think straight—who knew what was going on in the mind of the man
who had collected that many dead literary characters.
However they had died, he had collected them, and that meant
that he was strange, most likely dangerous. Since he had
demonstrated his antagonism by binding them, Jeb knew he could
go all-out.
“Bess!” Jeb yelled, as loud as he could. “Could you help us out a
little?”
There was no response.
“I guess we’re on our own, then,” said Allie, rolling over to face
Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 191

The boatman was fiddling with a contraption on the shore,

putting things together, hitting surfaces with a hammer and cursing.
Allie began to crawl towards him.
“I’m going to try to loosen by binds,” she said, being quiet
enough that Jeb knew the boatman couldn’t hear her. Jeb nodded.
“I’ll try as well.”
Jeb began to wiggle around in his binds, making them slightly
looser with each motion, the knot slipping around as he moved his
wrists and manipulated his knuckles. It wasn’t a knot that he was
familiar with, but then again, he was a trucker. His knowledge of
knots wasn’t that full-bodied. It could be any kind of knot that he
had never heard of, or a completely different kind of knot.
The kind of knot did matter, though, because if he kept
struggling against a knot that tightened when struggled against, he
would only be hurting himself. If he was up against a sophisticated
piece of work he would have no hope of escaping.
The boatman walked over to where Jeb was laying, whistling a
tune that Jeb vaguely recognized. He picked Jeb up like a sack of
potatoes and carried him to the device, placing him on a seat that
was, strangely, upholstered with a cushion. Jeb, though, knew he
couldn’t relax. Allie was placed next to him.
“I couldn’t escape,” said Allie.
“Neither could I,” said Jeb. He pulled at his binds one last time,
staring at the face of the mass of tentacles, teeth, and eyeballs that
was the eldritch horror feasting on the second person literary
universe. Jeb noticed something sharp poking him in the back. He
pressed his binds against it, and felt pressure. Moving desperately,
he rubbed the ropes against the sharp protrusion, cutting them off at
the moment before the boatman pulled the lever that would, Jeb
assumed, launch them into the maw of the beast.
Jeb stood up, kicked Allie out of the machine, jumped to the
ground, held his pistol at the boatman, and fired. The boatman
slumped to the floor, dead. Jeb looked at Allie, who was struggling
with her binds on the floor next to the machine.
 Bibliotruckers 192

The world shivered. The Lovecraftian horror that was eating the
theme park from the inside out began to move faster, as the theme
park shuddered. Jeb cut Allie’s binds with the same edge he used to
cut his own binds, and the two of them ran towards where they had
parked their vehicles.
“I have a hunch,” said Allie, as she ran away from the horror
that was consuming the fabric of reality.
“What is it?” said Jeb.
“That was the second person Narrator.”
“So now I have two Narrators dead on my record,” said Jeb, as
his feet pounded the pavement. He passed underneath a massive
roller coaster that looked like it was about to topple in on itself. The
eldritch horror that was eating the world began to gain on them. Its
horrid, rancid breath rolled over the park in waves, as the teeth
clacked, the tentacles squished, the eyeballs rolled.
Jeb put on a final sprint, Allie keeping up, and the two of them
made it to their vehicles just in time. Jeb was glad to see that the egg
was still safe, not having hatched yet. He started the engine, put the
brake down, and floored the pedal. The truck spurred onwards with
a leap. Gravel sprayed backwards. Allie’s Ferrari kept pace, and the
two vehicles sped down the highway as the monster consumed
everything behind them. The theme park was collapsing all around
them. There was no escape—the nearest exit was volumes away. Jeb
turned on his nav system.
“Bess!” he said. “Find us a way out of here!”
The egg beside him began to shake violently.
“Not now,” said Jeb, groaning to himself. “This can’t be
happening now.”
The top popped off of the egg, and a small chicklet hopped out,
chirruping as it looked at Jeb with two tiny, beady black eyes. It
hopped over to Jeb’s lap and sat on it.
“This is the creature that will save the world?” said Jeb,
wondering. He turned his attention to the road.
The chick jumped onto the dashboard in a movement that
should have been impossible for its size. With a chirp, it opened a
 Bibliotruckers 193

portal to another dimension, sucking Allie’s Ferrari and Jeb’s truck

through, closing the gates behind them as the eldritch horror
consumed all of the second person published literature in existence.
 Bibliotruckers 194

16
***
Mac
Tsukasa stood atop the spire of the town’s cathedral,
overlooking the scenery with a spell of discovery. She found several
possible leads and marked them on the map in her mind, making
sure to check if there were any dangerous auras around. When she
located one, she marked a pathway clear around it.
Tsukasa dropped down from the cathedral’s spire, landing and
rolling on the cobblestone pavement. The impact against the ground
was muted by her wards.
She stood up, brushing off her dress, and began walking without
the slightest hint of suspiciousness through the streets. She came to
her first destination, the location where one of the main characters
got into a duel after a bar fight with another one of the main
characters. The outcome of the duel, in the world Tsukasa currently
inhabited, was death for the rival and banishment for the
protagonist. Tsukasa knew that she would have to save him from his
own folly by stopping the duel—only, she didn’t know how. She ran
through a list of possible spells that would help her achieve her goal,
but couldn’t put together a combination that would feasibly lead to a
good ending.
The two characters walked out of the bar’s doors. One was
wearing bright red clothing, well-tailored, while the other was
wearing homespun rags. It wasn’t hard to tell who the protagonist
was—it was the poor character, as part of the plot revolved around
the main characters and their struggle to deal with poverty. The one
in the fancy clothing took out a sword and pointed it at the main
character. The main character pulled out his own sword. The two
characters faced each other. Their faces were serious. It was clear
that someone was going to die.
 Bibliotruckers 195

Tsukasa readied a spell of protection, just to delay the fight if

things got bad.
The two men clashed blades, scattering the pedestrians that were
walking by. The men moved with quick, agile steps, neither of them
gaining the advantage, neither of them faltering in the motion.
Tsukasa had seen enough. She called a thunderbolt down from
heaven and struck the ground directly in between the main character
and his rival. With a telepathic voice, she spoke to them both at the
same time.
“You should not be fighting each other this way,” she said,
knowing that her method was probably too brute force to work
properly.
Both men stopped moving, letting their swords fall to the
ground. They probably hadn’t heard Tsukasa’s voice as an actual
understandable sentence, but had instead understood its meaning as
an undercurrent of will that pushed them into doing what Tsukasa
wanted. The lightning bolt had just been to get their attention, and
no one would know where it had come from.
The main character turned around and began walking away.
“This isn’t over yet,” said the rival, holding out his sword. “I will
kill you one day, and that day will be my consolation for what you
have done to my father and my city.”
The main character did not turn back as he disappeared down
the street.
Tsukasa followed him through the crowds, tracking him with
magic, until she was sure she was in an area where the book would
not be recording her actions. She let herself appear from the crowd
and stepped up before the main character. She didn’t even know his
name—she hadn’t had any time to do research.
“Your name,” she said, holding out her hand.
“Reynolds,” said the main character, a look of suspicion on his
face. “What do you want from me? Are you here to collect on my
father’s debts? Or are you from the church, ready to argue about the
cost of construction or the pace of work?”
 Bibliotruckers 196

Tsukasa did her best to radiate a nonconfrontational aura. “I’ve

come from an alternate dimension to help you in your quest to
build something epic.”
Reynolds furrowed his brow. “And what would that mean for a
man like me?”
“That means helping you along your path to becoming a better
character. You can think of me as your mentor. I know more about
this world than you do, and if you listen to me, you may get
somewhere.”
Reynolds began walking. Tsubasa walked beside him.
“I don’t trust old wizards like you,” said Reynolds, putting his
hand on the hilt of his sword. “I don’t know what your motives are,
and that makes me think that you’re with Arturia.”
“I can’t say anything to disprove that,” said Tsukasa, “But I can
say what I can do to help you. I can teach you how to make your
cathedral look much better than it does now.”
“How?” said Reynolds, stopping in his tracks. Tsukasa stopped
next to him.
“With mathematics,” said Tsukasa. “Math that you probably
don’t know. I know how to make your windows bigger and your
arches wider, yoru cielings higher and your recessions deeper.”
Reynolds chuckled. “Why am I listening to the promises of a
crazy old fool like you?” He sighed. “I guess it’s for the same reason
I listened to my crazy old fool of a father, and why I’m working in
his stead, picking up the project that he left off. I probably won’t
even be able to finish it in my lifetime.” He seemed to think for a
moment. “Will the things you teach me allow me to build my
cathedral faster as well as better?”
“It will,” said Tsukasa. “I can help you achieve your dreams and
change enough as a person that you will be fulfilled.”
“I don’t care what you’re after,” said Reynolds, “But it has to be
something. Tell me.”
Tsukasa sighed. “I can’t. There’s no reason for me to do so.
And, if I did, you would not understand. It involves things that a
person such as you should not understand.”
 Bibliotruckers 197

Reynolds shrugged, continuing on his walk. “So, are you going

to teach me how to build my cathedral better? If it doesn’t work,
I’m not going to deal with you for any longer than I have to.”
Tsukasa glided alongside Reynolds with her wizard walk, that
she had perfected while walking beside students at the academy
back in Asindia, in the book Storm Rages. It was there that she had
learned how to deal with egotistical students who thought they knew
everything, and it was there that she had unlocked the secrets of
mathematics, which would allow for the construction of better, more
structurally sound buildings. Honestly, Tsukasa was surprised that
Reynolds was open to something new from her, a complete stranger
who had showed up out of nowhere. She knew he had been
grasping for straws, unable to complete the cathedral like his father
desired, but she hadn’t realized that it had been this desperate.
They reached Reynolds’s home, a small shack nestled in
between two tilted buildings that looked like they were on their last
legs. A tanner’s shop stood at the corner of the street, filling the air
with the sharp smell of tanning hide and ammonia. The streets were
dirty and wet, not just with water.
Reynolds opened the door and let Tsukasa in. Tsukasa entered,
bowing once before stepping over the threshold, and took in the
interior of the building. It was cozy, well-maintained, a little bit worn
down but not in a way that would make it unappealing to look at. A
typical working-class man’s house in a city surrounding a castle with
a cathedral.
Tsukasa sat down on a chair that was pulled up beside a table.
“I can begin your lessons now if you want,” she said.
Reynolds shook his head. “First I need to tell you something.
The only reason why I’m trusting you enough to let you into my
house is because I sense no malice coming off of you, and I’ve
always been a good judge of character. But I sense something else in
you, something that bothers me. You’re not from this world, are
you?”
“No, I’m not,” said Tsukasa. “I come from a place called the
literary universe, from a book called Storm Rages, and though I
 Bibliotruckers 198

won’t tell you the details of my mission I will tell you it has to do
with what you can consider to be the divine world.”
“You’re not a witch, are you?”
Tsukasa shook her head. “No. And if I were, I wouldn’t admit
it.”
Reynolds paced back and forth across the room. “If only the
Cardinal would be less tight about his finances. We need more
money to pay the laborers that are working on the masonry for the
second story of the east wing. We’re having difficulty with a collapse
of the north side’s walls—the whole project is cursed. It was from the
beginning. If you have any spells that would help us with that, I
would be greatly appreciative.”
Tsukasa shook her head. “Math. You must learn how objects
stabilize each other. Tension, force, and reverse force. Statics, and
architecture. I can teach you much, but you will have to be willing to
learn.”
Reynolds shook his head. “I don’t believe that what you have
will do anything for me,” he said. “I’ve tried everything to get this
cathedral built, everything I could think of, and yet nothing has
happened that has been a breakthrough.” He held his hands up.
“I’m at a loss. I can’t do anything to save myself. There’s nothing in
this world that will help me besides myself, and if I ask for help
from someone—”
Tsukasa placed her hand on Reynold’s shoulder. “You won’t
regret this,” she said. “I’ll help you build your cathedral by giving
you knowledge. Just let me touch you on the forehead and
everything will be understood. We have to go through a ceremony
and after that, you will understand how the world works better than
anyone else in your age.”
“A ceremony?” said Reynolds. “So that means you are a witch.”
“Perhaps I am. But aren’t you desperate enough to seek help
from one?”
Tsukasa knew she was pushing it, teaching math all at once
through a ceremony to someone who barely knew how to add. But,
 Bibliotruckers 199

he was stripped for time, and she knew that she had to find some
way to accelerate her acquisition of the quill.
Reynolds seemed to think deeply for a long while. Then he
closed his eyes. “I will accept your help, on one condition,” he said.
“What is it?” said Tsukasa.
“You tell me who you are and where you come from.”
Tsukasa thought for a moment. “Very well. I shall tell you a
story. Do you know how stories are written?”
“I do,” said Reynolds. “They exist in the imagination of the
authors, do they not?”
“In one reality, they exist in a form that is indistinguishable from
that reality, parceled out and separated from it. We live in that
reality. You live in a book.”
Reynolds stopped moving. He blinked several times. “Do you
mean to say that … I’m a character in a book?”
“And so was I,” said Tsukasa, “Until I escaped the bounds of
my society. Right now, I’m working to maintain the stability of this
universe, and I need your help to design a book that will stand the
test of time. This is a crucial moment that will go back in time and
change how your book was written in the past. What I teach you
now will reverberate through the timestream and influence what
your author writes.”
Reynolds shook his head. “You’re confusing me. I don’t get this.
I barely know how to read and yet you’re saying I’m inside of a
book. I don’t want to accept this.”
“But you’re going to have to,” said Tsukasa. “Because it’s true.”
Reynolds nodded. “What now? Are you going to show me
something? Some sort of magic that will solve my problems?”
“We’re going to teach you the art of mathematics so that you
can go on and perform your duties inside of the canon. The author
who wrote this book just needs to get the idea that your ability with
mathematics makes you a genius, and that genius allows you to
perform much better than your father. In essence, since you upstage
your father, your arc becomes more complete. Don’t worry about
 Bibliotruckers 200

the details. Just help me out here by standing in the middle of the
room.”
Reynolds stood up from his chair and walked to the middle of
the room. He held his arms out. “Like this?” he said. “Will it hurt?”
Tsukasa nodded. “No. And, thank you for trusting me.” She
reached out and, pouring magical knowledge into her hand, she
touched Reynolds’s forehead. While doing so, she ran her mind
through everything she knew about mathematics. Compressing time,
she stood in a lecture hall and taught him everything she knew about
statics and structural mechanics, in about five minutes of standing in
silence. It felt like eternity, but in reality was a short moment. After
it, Reynolds snapped out of it and reeled backwards. His eyes were
large.
“I never knew we were doing it so wrong!” he said. “Are you
saying that numbers can do that? They can help me build? They
can play around with lines and stones and forces like magic?”
Reynolds shook his head. “This isn’t magic. This is mathematics. I
can do it—I can do better than my father ever did.” Reynolds
seemed to realize something. “I’m not standing in my father’s
shadow anymore. I don’t have to follow in his footsteps and wallow
in his failures.”
Reynolds’s eyes were firm, set in their conviction. “I can do what
my father could never do. Thank you. I do not even know your
name, and you have helped me as such.”
A light flickered, and a small feathered pen appeared in the air,
right in front of Tsukasa. She reached out, knowing what it was, and
grabbed it. She had done it. She had helped Reynolds conquer his
father’s shadow.
She took the quill and felt power surging through her body. Now
she had a weapon that she could use against the army that was
heading towards the real world. She could become the defender that
she always wanted to be, the protector of peace and justice, the
maintainer of neutrality and prosperity. She could finish what she
had started, what she had been written into existence to do.
 Bibliotruckers 201

She looked at Reynolds. “I have achieved my goal. Do not

mention me to anyone you meet. Say that you worked these things
out yourself in your free time, or that you learned them from a
trader who was selling spice and information from another land.”
Reynolds nodded, fire bright in his eyes. “I will,” he said. “I
won’t forget this. Thank you.”
Tsukasa turned around and left the house. She found her
motorbike where she had hidden it, and started it up, the engine
roaring to life underneath her. Tsukasa’s excitement filled her body
in the same way as the vibrations, shaking her stomach and her
chest. She clenched the handlebars as she drove out from the
alleyway she had parked in. The quill was tucked safely in her
pocket.
The wind pulled at her hair, the lengths of it that were long
enough to fall out of her helmet. Through her visor, she watched
the scenery pass, the landscape of the desert of English classics,
which were dry and boring but full of life at the same time. There
were many vehicles alongside her, full of mandatory education
students, high schoolers, who were reading the books behind her in
order to receive a grade. Tsukasa didn’t hate them, but she held no
fondness for them, either. Those who considered her home and her
true nature to simply be boring busywork were not worth her time.
She pulled up to a gas station in order to fill up her tank. She
had been given a card by the US government for this purpose.
Pulling up next to her was a black sedan with tinted windows.
Tsukasa watched it idly as she held the gas pump in her hands.
The window rolled down and Armoi leaned out of it.
“I heard you got your quill,” he said.
“I did,” said Tsukasa.
Armoi tossed a book out of the window. Tsukasa caught it. It
was a simple, thin, paperback, self-published novel titled Mac. It
shimmered with a radiance that Tsukasa understood, but at the
same time, could not articulate. It was not very well known. In fact,
Tsukasa could tell that less than five people had ever read through
the entire novel.
 Bibliotruckers 202

She flipped it over onto its back to read the description.

“McDonalds …” she said, reading it. “What is this?” she said.
“You have your quill now,” said Armoi. “Use it.”
“What do you mean?” said Tsukasa.
“This is one of the only books of his that I have,” said Armoi.
“I’m not saying that I’m on your side. I’m just saying that I’m
entertained, seeing how this story is turning out.”
“You want me to head into this story?”
“I want you to help me. Chase her.”
“Chase the Narrator?” said Tsukasa. “Where is she going?”
“She’s gone and done it,” said Armoi. “She’s broken the real
fourth wall. There are a total of twelve books written by our author.
She’s in control of ten of them.”
“You mean to say,” said Tsukasa, “We’re in a book right now?”
“You’re just words,” said Armoi. “That’s all you are. Just,
simply, words on a page. Right now. In this instant. All you are is the
ideas flowing through the head of a single young man at his laptop
computer.”
Tsukasa looked over the book in her hands, again. “How do I
enter this? What am I supposed to do?”
“The inkwell,” said Armoi. “Use it to your advantage. Read
through this novel as fast as you can so that you can catch up with
what’s happening off-page right this instant.”
Tsukasa held the book gently in her palms. She opened its
cover. Her quill began to vibrate. “So,” she said. “I’m just that. A
book character.”
“That’s all you’ll ever be,” said Armoi. “Unless this book gets a
movie adaptation, which, let’s be honest, it probably won’t.”
Tsukasa sighed. “Right.” She jerked a little in surprise when her
gas pump clicked. She pulled the pump out of her motorcycle and
placed the cap back on. Climbing back on the motorcycle, she
activated her navigation system and headed for the nearest fourth
wall breach.
 Bibliotruckers 203

17
***
Author
Jeb’s truck took a nosedive into a sandbar in the middle of a
beach, water splashing up against the windshield. He was stuck. The
portal closed behind him with a whoop. The little chick, who had
popped out of its egg just a second before, cheeped at him. Jeb
pushed his door open, letting a flood of water through into the cab.
He waded his way through the shallows until he came to a beach
with gently sloping sand. It was an island. A deserted one. The little
bird hopped into the water, struggling to swim behind him. Jeb
scooped it up into his hands and carried it to shore.
Allie climbed up to shore behind him and turned to look at her
Ferrari, sinking into the water behind her. “Ah, damn,” she said.
“That car … It was a Ferrari … A real Ferrari … And it had missile
launchers …”
“We can recover it later,” said Jeb, still holding the chick in his
hands.
Allie looked at the island behind them. It looked to be about a
mile and a half in diameter, with a central mountain, covered in
jungle, with the sound of a small spring trickling through it. Jeb
started walking towards the forest.
“We should find something to pull our vehicles onto the shore
with,” he said. “There’s no use leaving them out there to rust.”
“If we can,” said Allie. “What are we going to use? Some sort of
vines?”
“Probably,” said Jeb. “Or, we can just push them. We can
probably use something to contact somebody.”
After searching the forest for several hours, they came out with
about a hundred feet of vines, which they twisted into ropes.
Attaching several ends to their vehicles, they pulled them up out of
 Bibliotruckers 204

the ocean and onto the sand. The vehicles were dripping with
seawater but otherwise unharmed. They pulled Allie’s Ferrari out
first, and used its power to pull Jeb’s truck out—Bess was too large
for two people to pull out of the water alone.
“We should start a fire,” said Jeb, looking up at the sun. It was
about to set.
“I’ll siphon some gasoline,” said Allie, taking the gas cap off of
her car. She took a siphon out of the trunk of her car—Jeb was
surprised to see that she had one—and used it to grab some gasoline,
which she poured over a pile of wood that Jeb had gathered. They
made a trail to the pile so that they wouldn’t get burned and Jeb lit it
with his lighter. The resulting explosion was hot, and bright, but it
worked. Allie and Jeb sat next to the fire as the sun went down.
“What are we going to do now?” said Allie. “I don’t know where
we are, and I don’t know if we can contact anybody.” They had tried
contacting support, but none of their signals were getting through.
Jeb warmed his hands over the open flame. It was starting to get
chilly. “I think the chick took us to this place for a reason. It feels
clean, happy, and not dangerous. I’m just glad that everything is
okay.”
Bess spoke up, from her cab. “Of course everything is okay. If
you had relied on me more, maybe we wouldn’t be in this
situation.”
Jeb sighed. “I don’t like relying on people.” He snapped a piece
of kindling, putting it into the fire. “I especially hate relying on you,
Allie, but I end up liking it despite the fact that I hate it. Do you
understand that?”
“I do,” said Allie. “The feeling is mutual. I like helping you, and
at the same time, I hate it.”
Jeb put another piece of wood on the fire. The sun was now
completely gone, leaving a sky full of stars, a waning moon, and a
ground covered with silver light. Allie’s eyes reflected the fire, her
clothes dancing with color and darkness.
“I think we may be stuck here,” said Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 205

“Or not,” said a voice, as a figure appeared from the darkness

outside the ring of the fire. He was a tall, average-sized man of about
twenty who looked about as normal as a person could get. His short
hair was a little poofy and he wore wide-rimmed glasses that made
him look more nerdy than intelligent. He was wearing a tee-shirt and
jeans. He sat down next to Jeb at the fire and rubbed his hands
together over the open flames.
“You don’t know where you are,” he said. “You don’t have any
clue, otherwise you would be on your way home.”
Jeb stood up as abruptly as the man had arrived. He pulled his
pistol out and pointed it at the man. “Who are you?” he said.
Allie laughed. “Who is he?” she said, her voice filled with mirth.
“I can’t believe it, I actually know who he is!” She wiped a tear from
the corner of her eyes. “He’s our author. Zeppy Cheng.”
Jeb pointed his pistol at Allie, realized his mistake, and pulled it
down, placing it back in its holster. “How do you know that?” he
said.
“I don’t know how I know,” said Allie. “I just know,”
“You were chosen to know,” said Zeppy, in a voice that
suggested he was hinting at something more profound. “You know
because I wanted you to know, and nothing more. You’re reacting
because I made you react that way. Everything you do is one step
behind what I am thinking, and one step away from what my reality
is. You are behind me, a thing of my past.”
Allie frowned, seeming to think for a long moment. “So, can
you tell what I’m thinking?”
“No. I can only glimpse what I can imagine inside your head.
Your thoughts are your own when I am not imagining them.”
Allie smiled. “That’s cool.”
Zeppy looked at the chick that sat beside Jeb, staring into the
fire. “That chick. Keep it safe, keep it alive, and keep it warm. It will
help you more than you will ever know.” He leaned forwards over
the fire. It seemed that he was thinking deeply about something.
“Someone is coming, here to catch me. I’m in trouble, more so
than anyone knows. And I need help.” He paused. “The reason
 Bibliotruckers 206

why I’ve come down, why I’ve called you here, is because my
psyche is shattered.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“My creations,” said Zeppy. “You know as well as I do that the
fourth wall can be broken. You do it for a living.”
“I did,” said Jeb.
“You are living inside of a universe,” said Zeppy. “A universe
inside of one man’s head. My head. And, you, by pure accident,
have come too close to the real fourth wall. I couldn’t resist the
impulse to break you and create the dream that I have always
wanted to create.”
“What?” said Allie. “You’re our author. Aren’t we already
fulfilling your dreams?”
“Not quite,” said Zeppy. “You see how I live on a deserted
island? That’s because no one knows about my books. No one
reads them. I’m an unknown author in an unknown place with no
accolades to my name, no one reading what I’ve written. I’m a
nobody with no name. Nobody recognizes me.”
“That sounds like me,” said Allie. “I published a book—self
published it—and nobody listened.”
“It’s a whirlwind out there,” said Zeppy, “Which is why I took
refuge here. But then, something strange happened. You guys came
along.”
“We did?” said Jeb.
“Yes,” said Zeppy. “You two are my ticket out of here.”
“I don’t know,” said Jeb. “We don’t know you. We don’t trust
you. I don’t even know if you really are our author.”
“I can prove to you that I am. If I do, will you believe me when I
say that I need your help and you’re the only ones who can help
me?”
“Sure,” said Jeb. “Prove to me that you’re my author, and I’ll
offer you all the help I can give. I’m already free to do whatever I
wanted.” Jeb began to think. “Wait a minute. You’re the one who
killed Jamie.” His anger rose from the bottom of his stomach to the
front of his throat. “Bring her back to life! Let me meet her!”
 Bibliotruckers 207

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Zeppy, backing away from Jeb. “I
killed her because she was important to your character
development.”
“Character development my ass! I want to see Jamie! I love her!
I loved her—wait, I probably never even met her! Am I real? Is this
real? Have I only existed for the portion of time I’ve been in words?
Am I seeing things, thinking things, are you putting these thoughts in
my head or am I the one thinking them?”
“You’re experiencing what you’ve been doing to people for
years,” said Zeppy. “This is what it feels like to be a book character
and meet your author. Now do you understand Rin’s choices?”
“I do, but …” Jeb knelt down to the ground and covered his face
in his hands. “I can’t get rid of the thought that I want to see Jamie
again.”
“Well, you may get to see her again somehow, if you come on
an adventure to help me out.”
“Help you out?” said Jeb, standing up and flinging his arm to the
side. “Why would I ever want to help you out?”
“Because I can help you,” said Zeppy. “I can’t write Jamie back
into existence without breaking continuity and—”
Jeb grabbed Zeppy’s collar with his fist. “Bring her back to life
right now. Make her appear before me, magically, and I will follow
you for the rest of my life.” His eyes were furious, full of rage and
incalculable emotion.
Zeppy looked towards the chick that was sitting on the log chair
that had been set up next to the fire. “Ask the chick. It will answer
for you.”
“You’re shifting responsibility,” said Jeb. He looked at the chick.
“What can this chick do for me?”
“It’s name is Deus,” said Zeppy. “I gave it all my power. It has
the ability to make the choices that I cannot make for fear of tearing
to shreds my own accountability.”
“Who are you?” said Jeb, turning to Zeppy with a face filled with
intense feelings and expressions. His entire being was burning, as if
he were sick with the flu, as if he had just run a marathon. His heart
 Bibliotruckers 208

was beating faster than he could ever remember. This was all too
much. He collapsed to the ground and put his hands on the back of
his head.
“I’m not real,” he said. “I’m just a literary character. Someone
who was written into existence to entertain someone. And nobody is
going to read me. I’m going to be self-published. Self-published!”
“There’s nothing I can do about that,” said Zeppy. “The literary
market is brutal.” He shrugged. “All my previous books were self-
published. Do you know how many times I’ve been rejected?
Hundreds. Thousands. I don’t even know anymore, and yet
somehow, I still manage to turn out more books. More and more
and more, books that just never seem to end. Writing is my passion,
and I’ll do it until the day I die.”
Jeb stood back up and sat down on the log chair. “Tell me. Will
I get to see Jamie again if I help you?”
“You will,” said Zeppy. “But first, help Deus. He will help you
tenfold for every one time you help him.”
Jeb carefully picked up the little chick and looked it in its small,
bead-like eyes. He almost smiled, forgetting for a moment his
troubles. The chick certainly was cute. And it had saved their lives
from the Lovecraftian monster that had almost devoured them back
in the second person theme park.
“Deus,” said Jeb. “Help me out here. Build me a boat.”
“Boat,” said Deus, repeating back the word. “Boat.” A small
image of a sailing vessel appeared in front of the chick. He seemed
to be frozen in time.
“Hm,” said Bess. “That’s interesting. I’m detecting some
electromagnetic signatures coming from that chick’s direction.
Could it be possible that it’s a cyborg of some sort?”
“Possibly,” said Jeb. He looked at Zeppy. Zeppy shrugged.
“Bess knows better than I do,” he said.
The chick, Deus, hopped on one leg. “Boat. Build. Materials
need—five tons wood. Six hundred kilos plant fiber. Tar: fifty
pounds. One hundred pounds iron ore.”
“Does this island have enough materials?” said Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 209

Zeppy shrugged. “There are more ways than one to achieve a

materials goal.” He stood up. “I’m not going to say more than that.”
Allie stood up and tugged at Zeppy’s shirt. “Come on. Give us a
hint.”
“I’ll let you in on a little secret. There’s an interface that you can
access by thinking. It will let you type commands into a server
system. Right now you have a low level of security access, but if you
go higher, probably by completing tests and quests, you’ll be able to
get what you need.”
“So you’re saying we can manipulate the fabric of reality if we
wanted.”
“This reality,” said Zeppy. “And any reality I am in control of.”
“You’re like a server admin,” said Allie.
“More or less,” said Zeppy, sitting down on the beach cross-
legged, staring out across the moonlit ocean. “I’m going to cut to
morning. I’ll see you then.”
Allie reached out her hand. “Wait—” Zeppy disappeared.
The next morning, Zeppy reappeared before a sleeping Jeb and
an awake Allie, who was poking the fire with a charred stick. Allie
stood up and nudged Jeb with the stick.
“He’s back,” said Allie.
“Since when?” said Jeb, waking with a start. He rubbed his eyes,
bleary with the fact that he had slept uncomfortably on the sand. He
could have slept in the cab except for the fact that everything in it
was still soaked with seawater. Yawning, he watched as Allie
scribbled something in the sand.
“How do I access the command line?” said Allie.
Jeb saw that there were dozens of similar lines in the sand all
over the campsite. It looked like Allie had been busy that night,
doing something with writing.
Zeppy sat down on the sand and folded his hands. “You’ll figure
it out. Ask Deus.”
Allie turned to the chick, which was perched on her shoulder.
She handed it a small cracker, which she had apparently pilfered
 Bibliotruckers 210

from some hidden storage in her car. Miraculously, it hadn’t gotten

wet in the ocean.
Jeb’s stomach rumbled. “Are there any animals on this island?”
He glanced at Deus, who eyed him warily. Jeb chuckled, and then
turned back to Zeppy.
Zeppy motioned towards the island proper. “Go see for
yourself. There’s enough here to keep me sustained, but I haven’t
really hashed out how that possible yet. Go and figure that out for
yourselves.”
“How long have you been living here?” said Allie.
“Almost four years,” said Zeppy. “In fact, I lived in a smaller
island a while back, but I managed to find this larger island close by.
I hope to join the mainland one day so that I can become a full-
fledged author and come into my own. I want to make a living at
this, you know.”
Jeb sighed. He took his revolver out of his pocket. “All right. I’ll
hunt for some food.” He pushed his way into the jungle.
About five minutes after entering the jungle, he knew he had
made a mistake. There were biting flies everywhere, and the foliage
was so thick that he could barely move. He debated about whether
or not to return, but couldn’t make up his mind, instead standing in
a small clearing while the leaves dripped moisture onto his back and
the top of his head. Sighing, he pushed his way through the foliage
towards where he thought was the beach.
Where he thought was the beach was a cave built into the side of
the mountain that marked the island’s center. There was a strange
blue portal on the cave’s back wall, shimmering in the low light
coming from the entrance. The cave was small enough that the back
was fully visible from the front. It looked like this was where Zeppy
had been sleeping. Several cans and cooking utensils were scattered
about, as well as the usual detritus of someone’s living abode.
The only strange thing was the portal. Jeb walked up to it,
touching it—it was solid. Was it one-way? Did it open only at certain
times? Without a doubt, this was where Zeppy’s food came from,
and this was where he had probably come to this island from. Jeb
 Bibliotruckers 211

thought he could see a reflection of himself in the portal’s misty

depths. Shaking the feeing away, he turned from the portal and
walked out of the cave.
A noise brought him back. He turned around. Time froze, and
only he could move. Everything was silent.
A dignified, wizened old man in a deep purple robe stepped out
of a moving shadow and turned towards Jeb. He possessed a long,
well-trimmed beard that hung to his chest, and his eyes were
piercing, full of wisdom, reminding Jeb of Tsukasa, and of Gandalf—
with that, Jeb realized that something had just happened. Two
universes had just collided.
The man performed a grandiose bow. “Hello, my friend,” he
said. “I am the wind in the trees, the man who does not exist and yet
does, the one who performs, to you, a function that can only be
hinted at in gravest proportion.” He lifted up out of his bow. “My
name shall not be known. Just see me, and understand that I have
come to bring you a message. Your universe and mine, they are
connected. I have come in peace, but soon, my mission and yours
may collide.” He turned around, snapping his fingers, and the portal
that had been at the back of the cave slammed shut. “I have simply
come to perform some perfunctory maintenance on this meagerly-
maintained excuse for a backwater universe.” His expression was
one of dignified disgust. The old man turned to Jeb. “Give your
author this message: No more. We will not stand for what he has
done to us. We are heading for what he cannot understand, and
cannot hold onto. His time is short, and is getting shorter.”
Then time unfroze, and the man in the purple robe
disappeared. The portal at the back of the cave was gone.
“So, now you know.” It was Zeppy’s voice.
Jeb turned around. “You saw that?” he said.
Zeppy nodded. “I am your author, after all.”
Jeb furrowed his brow. “Who was that? Why was he here, and
why did he close that portal?”
“I’m becoming less powerful, Jeb,” said Zeppy. “I can’t perform
my duties like I used to. I’m not omniscient, I’m not all-powerful,
 Bibliotruckers 212

and I’m not omnipresent. I’m just a human being with a computer
and a bunch of ideas in my head.”
“The man in the purple robe said that your time is over,” said
Jeb. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what I think that means,” said Zeppy. “My time as an
author is coming to a close.”
Allie walked up beside Zeppy, pushing aside a frond. “You guys,
do you have any food? I’m starving.”
“I’m sorry,” said Zeppy. “I’m afraid our only source of food was
cut off.”
“Oh,” said Allie. She looked around the cave. “Is this where you
live?”
“This is where I work,” said Zeppy. “This is my mental space.”
Allie stepped inside the cave. “It’s cozy.” She held out her hand,
and a blue light appeared in it. “Look, I figured out something. I can
create pure language using colors and shapes.”
Zeppy looked like he had something to say, but turned away
from Jeb and Allie, instead staring off into the distance.
Allie laughed as a bolt of blue energy flew out of her palm and
impacted a rock, splitting it in two. “See that? That was ice, I think.”
“We’re going to need to satisfy Deus’s demands if we want to
escape,” said Jeb. “How are we going to do that?”
“We can’t get off this island,” said Zeppy, “But I do have one
thing left up my sleeve.” He pulled out a quill, and a book. “We just
have to use one of my old works. Their portals are scattered around
this island, at least, author portals are. We can get materials from
them.”
“If we can get to the books, we can get out of them as well,” said
Allie. “On the other side.”
Jeb shook his head. “I don’t think we have that option,” he said.
“The man in the purple robe closed off all the portals on this island.
I know that.”
“So we’re trapped,” said Allie. “Without any food. Anything to
get us off.”
 Bibliotruckers 213

Zeppy sat down on a rock and began tapping at his knees. It

seemed that he was thinking. Something about him seemed off,
quirky, almost, as if he were lost in another world. Suddenly, he
stood up. “Let’s ask Deus.” He walked over to where the chicken
was standing, looking out at the horizon on a outcropping of rock
that was slightly higher than the vegetation around him.
“What do we do now?” he said.
“War on the Rolling Plains,” said Deus. “Umi.”
Zeppy took his quill and ripped a hole in space. Jeb, Allie, Bess,
Allie’s Ferrari, and Deus were tumbled into the hole, twisting
through the fabric of reality until the island disappeared from sight.
The last thing Jeb saw before the world went black was Zeppy giving
Jeb the thumbs-up signal.
 Bibliotruckers 214

18
***

Breakage
Tsukasa drove up to the fourth wall portal and held her newly-
acquired book—Mac—and the quill up to the location scanner. The
portals were ancient technology, only operated by current literary
agents. The portal shimmered. Something strange was happening.
The literary character standing beside the portal shifted, and a logo
appeared on his uniform, four triangles arranged in a flower pattern.
He looked at Tsukasa.
“Space Time Management Bureau, officer Albert Stephens.
What are you doing, breaking the fourth wall? You’re not qualified.
You don’t have a proper passport.”
Tsukasa frowned. “Do I need one to enter this book?”
“To enter any book that is part of the super-canon, you must file
the correct paperwork. W-K-71, for you. We won’t let you through
until that is properly processed.”
“How long will that take?” said Tsukasa.
“About a year—”
Tsukasa gunned her engine. “I don’t have time for that,” she
said, accelerating through the gate, snapping the bars in half, frying
the defensive mechanisms with a bolt of lightning. The literary
characters guarding the portal took cover. Tsukasa leaped through
the portal on her bike, the world shimmering around her, and then
she was driving through the streets of Benton, California, coming
along a high school. She had finished reading the book just a couple
of hours before—she knew what she was looking at.
There was a McDonalds at the corner. That was important, but
she would be looking into that later. She pulled up to the side of the
high school and got off her bike. School had just gotten out of
 Bibliotruckers 215

session. Kids were everywhere, scattered through the open areas,

crowded on the sidewalks. The streets were full of traffic. Tsukasa
walked through the school’s campus, looking for someone she knew
probably wouldn’t be there.
She caught sight of a young girl with long brown hair sitting on a
bench outside one of the school buildings, recognizing her as
October, the female lead of the story. Tsukasa walked over to her
and stood in front of her.
“Your name is October, correct?” she said, making eye contact.
October frowned. “And who might you be?” she said, her voice
tinged with tiredness, and a hint of depression.
“I’m just an interested party,” said Tsukasa. “You probably have
the context to know who I am, but I’ll only explain myself if I know
you’d understand.”
October rubbed her eyes. “I’m not in the mood for this. Tell the
Franchises they can go suck on it. I don’t want to pilot the burger
bot anymore. I can’t do it.”
“Franchises?” said Tsukasa. “What made you think I’m with
them?”
“So, then, who are you?” said October. “How do you know my
name?”
Tsukasa held out the book that Armoi had given her. Mac.
October took it in her hands, gently, and then her eyes widened.
“Somehow, I know what that is,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m
self-published?”
Tsukasa chuckled. “Yes, you are.” She took the book from
October, flipped it to the last page, and handed it back. “This is the
last point that our author wrote into being. Obviously, something
happened in between now and then.”
October laughed, bitterly, her eyes looking far off into the
distance. “I can’t believe it. All this time I was just another piece in
this infinite machine of a universe, doing all sorts of crazy things
because I’m fake. Not real.” She sighed, putting her face in her
hands. “You’ll help me, right? You’ll help me find Max?”
“You lost him?” said Tsukasa.
 Bibliotruckers 216

“I did,” said October. “Some girl came and kidnapped him.

Probably for his ability.”
“Given to him by The Watcher, right?” said Tsukasa.
October looked around herself. “Don’t say his name out loud,”
she said, her face full of fear. “Or he’ll hear it.” She seemed to
steady herself. “I’m just not in a good position right now. Max is
gone, and I don’t know what to do without him. I kind of, well, I
depended on him.” October looked away. “I didn’t know how
much I did until I lost him.”
“He forgot everything, didn’t he?” said Tsukasa.
“For his own good,” said October. “It was for the best. He was
too powerful. His powers, if used for the wrong purpose, could have
destroyed everything. Could destroy everything. It’s obvious what
he’s wanted for. I knew this would happen, and I couldn’t do
anything to prevent it.”
Tsukasa took October by the hand. “Come with me,” she said.
“We’ll find him, and we’ll make sure that he’s safe.”
“Why do you want to help me?” said October.
“I have my reasons,” said Tsukasa. “I do not need to explain
them now.” She pulled October through the campus.
“Do you know where he is?” said October.
Tsukasa took out her quill. “I can locate him.”
A semi-truck pulled up next to the school, and two men in black
suits stepped out. Tsukasa tried to activate her powers, but for some
reason the ether she normally used felt different, causing her to
falter. A stun gun hit her in the chest, freezing her. The people
around her did not seem to notice.
October was stunned beside her. Tsukasa was picked up and
carried into the back of the semi-truck, which reminded her of the
back of Jeb’s truck. She couldn’t move. A man in a black suit put
her in a bind.
“You’re lucky that we got to you before the Space Time
Management Bureau,” said the man, and then he placed a towel
against Tsukasa’s mouth. Her entire world went black.
 Bibliotruckers 217

***

Today was not Fredricks’s day. The apocalypse was looming on

the horizon, and he hadn’t even kissed a girl yet, not in his entire
life. He was skinny, unattractive, and covered in acne, but he knew
that there was something likable somewhere inside of him. He
watched the battle happening before him, ready to join in, not
knowing if his body would respond to him if he were ordered into
the fray.
The American government was finally taking the changes
beyond the fourth wall seriously. They had tried to repair relations
with the people beyond, but they had been damaged beyond repair.
There was nothing more than war, now. Almost every American
author had been kidnapped and forced to work for the enemy, or
else face death. Hundreds of authors had been executed, their
deaths used as examples to demonstrate the anger the literary
universe felt towards the real universe for enslaving it and making up
entire universes solely for the entertainment of the masses.
Fredrick’s hands clenched the wheel.
“Jumbo Shrimp, are you ready?” came a voice through the CB
radio.
“I’m ready,” said Fredrick. “I’m ready.”
“No need to say it twice,” came a voice. It was Bailey, Fredrick’s
closest friend and his secret crush. He closed his eyes and imagined
himself kissing her—it was probably the closest he was ever going to
get to her, as he was probably going to die tonight. The roads were
filled with machines fighting other machines, with explosions, with
fourth wall portals opening like bubbles and dumping more and
more enemy soldiers into the world.
“Move out,” said Fredrick’s squadron commander. A battalion
of tanks trundled past. “Keep pace with them,” said his commander,
a man named Christon.
Fredrick put his pedal on the gas, activating his truck’s missile
battery, firing off several missiles. One of them found its target, but
 Bibliotruckers 218

the other two were shot down by anti-missile lasers. The fight had
begun. Bullets flew past his windows, some impacting the bullet-
proof glass of his windshield. Fredrick barreled through a line of
literary infantry, tearing them apart underneath the roaring cutters of
his wheels. He could feel them bumping beneath his cab. He jerked
his truck around, smacking a mechanical walker with his trailer,
knocking it over and sending it smashing into the side of a building.
A squadron of jets flew over, tearing through the atmosphere with a
low, dull roar. There was a massive explosion, and the world lit up
all around him. Adrenaline shot through Fredrick’s body, sending
his heartrate skyrocketing.
The frontlines of the battle were on American soil, in the city of
Los Angeles, California. The literary world had revolted, staging a
full-scale invasion by way of fourth wall portal, powered by authors
who had been kidnapped and were now working like factories to
produce warriors for their cause. The National Guard was being
overwhelmed, and there hadn’t been enough time for the real
military divisions to arrive yet. As such, the Breakers had resorted to
street to street fighting to push back the invaders from the literary
universe. Fredrick was part of this defense. Calming himself, he
looked out his window for a target, and when he found none, he
relaxed slightly. The battle moved away from him. There was a
moment of relative silence.
And then, the world froze. A man in a deep purple robe
stepped out of nothing, and stroked his long, flowing beard. “Hello,
Fredrick,” he said. “You’re nothing more than a side character, but
I’ll tell you something. If you rally your strength and muster your
courage, you may be able to do something to affect the flow of this
story. I’ve come to give you something special.” The man took a
pair of glasses out of his pocket. “Here. Put these on.”
Fredrick put them on.

***
 Bibliotruckers 219

I’d had a rough day. A bunch of literary characters had invaded

the United States, and I was the first line of defense against them.
Simple, stupid me. Jumbo Shrimp. The least successful, most made-
fun-of, stupidly simple fourth wall trucker out there. I had no idea
what was going on. All I was doing was my job. There wasn’t
anything special about me.
And, for some reason, I had just been given a pair of glasses by a
man who could freeze time and bend space enough to walk through
it like it was liquid. The man, an old wizard in a purple robe, looked
at me with his deep, blue eyes.
“You will become an important figure in your universe,” he said.
“You will change, grow, and become stronger so that you can effect
possibility on your world. I am merely an observer to you and your
story.” The old man sat down on the passenger seat, leaning back
and smoking a long pipe. “The Breakers need a breath of fresh air,”
he said, his eyes closed. “You are the one who can breathe it.” Then
he disappeared, and time continued, leaving his smoke floating on
the air.
I shuddered. The sounds around me stuttered, and then
continued. Gunshots were everywhere. Sirens wailed. The sounds of
explosions accentuated the driving rain. Fire illuminated the night.
I drove through the darkness, the rubble and destroyed tanks
and mechanical walkers, finding no one, driving through the
deserted streets. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I wasn’t
supposed to be involved in this. I was supposed to be normal, not a
player in this huge mess that was the war between the literary world
and the real world.
I was a stupid, underachieving fourth wall trucker who was
barely able to keep his own job. Therefore, I was not qualified to be
bringing about changed.
I didn’t want to. I was weak. I couldn’t have been chosen. I
couldn’t be powerful—I had learned my lesson from the bullies at
my high school, that I was nothing, that I couldn’t do anything on
my own.
 Bibliotruckers 220

The world was going to be destroyed. There was nothing I could

do about it.
A spark ignited inside of my stomach. I knew what I had to do. I
gripped my wheel and turned my truck around, heading down the
road towards the Breaker’s HQ. If they weren’t taking this war
seriously, I would do what I could to convince them.

***

Jeb dropped out of a portal filled with viscous fluid onto a flat,
grassy landscape where the horizon stretched to infinity in one
direction and was contested by a large city on the other. The world
was flat. Before him was a city, with tall buildings built in futuristic
style, bustling and filled with activity, with blinking lights and
honking horns. In the other direction was an open expanse that was
perfectly flat, so perfectly flat that it was uncanny, unnatural. It was
obviously a facet of the world that they were living in. Jeb noticed a
book on the ground next to his feet.
War on the Rolling Plains, by Zeppy Cheng. Was this the book
they were in?
Probably. Jeb picked it up and held it against his side. He
looked at Bess, who had traveled through the portal unscathed. She
had dried since being submerged with water, and Jeb knew she
would function—she had to. He climbed into her cab and started the
engine. It worked. Even the electricals worked.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” said Bess. “I’m perfectly
capable of taking a dive if I have to.”
“Yeah, but it looks like we’re stuck here until we find a way to
build a boat off of that island.”
“You’re assuming there are no portals out of this book,” said
Bess.
“Are there?” said Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 221

“No,” said Bess.

Jeb snapped his fingers. “See? We’re stuck. What now?”
“I suggest you read the book,” said Allie, climbing into the cab.
She held her own copy of the book in her hands. The cover was a
picture of two girls sitting on a tank, painted stylishly.
Jeb and Allie read the book in Bess’s cab, taking about five
hours, as the sun traveled through the sky above them. It was late
afternoon when Jeb finished the last line and looked out at the city
on the horizon.
“So that’s Tankshok,” said Jeb, closing the book and placing it
on the seat next to him. He put down Bess’s brake. “I’m going to
introduce myself to Selyse. Do you have any spare ink on you?
We’re going to need it.”
Allie climbed out of the truck and got into the driver’s seat of
her Ferrari, starting it up with a low, refined growl. She picked up
her radio.
“Probably. It’s our only proof that we’re from the outside
world.”
Jeb had been carrying a load of crude ink in his trailer, which
wasn’t very valuable, but which would get the job done if he needed
it. He also had with him, in his cab, about five gallons of pure
literary ink to use at his discretion, and he knew that Allie had more.
Now all he had to do was figure out how to use this console thing
that Zeppy had described to him.
The console. Zeppy had been vague about the new power that
Jeb had acquired. He hadn’t called it such, but Jeb understood that
it was something that allowed him to access the fabric of the
universe and interact with in in a way that resembled the way a
console allowed people to interact with computers.
Jeb looked down at Deus. Was he getting bigger? What was he
eating? Jeb picked him up and cradled him in his hand. He hadn’t
yet started driving.
“What do you want to eat, little fellow?” he said.
“Words,” said Deus. “I want words.”
“Does that just mean that I should talk to you?” said Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 222

“I eat words,” said Deus. “I am words.”

Jeb placed Deus down on the passenger seat, where he sat
silently, his feathers ruffling slightly. He looked up at Jeb with his
small, black eyes. He was quite cute in a fluffy, chick-like manner.
Jeb wondered what he would look like fully grown. Beautiful like a
swan? Awkward like a chicken? Or functional like a pigeon?
Maybe even exotic like a parrot.
Jeb turned away from Deus and started driving across the
literary highway towards the city—Tankshok. In the story War on
the Rolling Plains, it had been captured from the enemy, the Iziz,
and it was now a hub of freedom and democracy in a world that was
being threatened by those Iziz. The Iziz were a race of alien beings
that took the form of tanks and were hell-bent on taking over the
world and destroying everything in it.
The world had been post-apocalyptic before the coming of the
Iziz. There had been a lot of tanks left over from the war. They
were everywhere, being maintained one way or another. Then the
Iziz had come, and the tanks left over had become the lifeblood of
the resistance against the forces that were simply designed to clean
up after the messes left by sentient races that decided to annihilate
themselves with nuclear weapons and war. The Iziz, in a way, were
simply janitors.
But Jeb knew that to think that was terrifying. They drove
through the city, and as they did Jeb was overwhelmed with the
business of the whole place, as well as the number of tanks that
drove down the wide streets that looked to have been designed
specifically for them. Half of the buildings looked brand new, and
there were two dozen buildings under construction.
The number of tanks increased as Jeb drove towards the center
of the city. The streets were wide enough for his truck to make
turns, as his nav system read the book that Jeb had fed into it.
He parked his truck somewhere in the suburbs and climbed out,
taking Deus in his palm.
 Bibliotruckers 223

“Deus, stand on shoulder,” said the chick. Jeb put the creature
on his shoulder, where he balanced without a problem. Then, he
met with Allie, who had parked her Ferrari right next to Jeb’s truck.
“We’re going to have to get through this city by walking,” said
Jeb. “It’s too crowded in the streets.”
“I’m looking forwards to meeting Chamelise,” said Allie. “Who
do you want to meet the most?”
“I don’t know,” said Jeb. “Several of the characters stood out to
me. I really liked Umi. She’s mature in a way that reminds me of my
mother and, well, kind of like Jamie.” Jeb paused. It was strange,
that he was thinking of Jamie with enough rationality to be making
this comparison. “Umi developed the most out of all the
characters,” said Jeb. “At least, that’s what I think. She went from
emotionless and without understanding empathy to being the most
empathetic and understanding of them all.”
Allie smiled. “Yeah, I liked Umi too. It was a little weird, how
she talked to god and all that, but overall I think she was a pretty
cool character.”
Deus fluttered his wings. “Incoming sonar signal. It seems
someone has detected the rift your entrance to this world caused.”
“Your sentences are getting better,” said Jeb.
“I appreciate the compliment,” said Deus. “Incoming
transmission. Interpreting.” Deus made a static noise with his beak.
“Who are you, and who sent you?” It was a voice that was more
familiar than it should have been.
“Are you Umi?” said Jeb, looking at the chick perched on his
shoulder.
Deus replied, in Umi’s voice. “I am. Have you come from the
author?”
“We have,” said Jeb. “We’ve come to seek your help.”
“I’m afraid I can’t be of much assistance to you,” said Umi.
“However, we can make a deal. Come to the Ellen memorial at nine
o’clock tonight and meet me. Bring the devicon.”
Jeb looked at Allie. “What do you want to do until then?” he
said.
 Bibliotruckers 224

Before Allie could speak, Deus interrupted her. “Deus hungry.

Feed Deus literature.”
Jeb frowned. “Literature? What do you mean by that?”
“Literature. Noun. Written works with tasty tasties inside.” Jeb
could almost see Deus smacking his little bird lips. Was that what
Deus ate? Literature?
Jeb looked around the street. There should be a library
somewhere. He reached out to the nearest pedestrian and touched
him on the shoulder.
“Hello,” he said. “Do you know where the nearest library would
be?”
The man turned around. He was funnily dressed, in a black suit
with an orange tie, and he seemed to be preoccupied with
something.
“Library?” said the man. “Sure. I was just going there myself.”
He raised an eyebrow once he spotted Allie. “And what might I be
able to do for you two? Might you be on a couple’s date? Would I
be wrong to assume that the two of your are, perhaps, in love?”
Jeb couldn’t help but get a little bit flustered at the man’s
directness. “No,” he said
“No,” said Allie, at the same time.
“Ah,” said the man, winking. He bowed, courteously. “My name
is Horis Aberdum, and I am a detective with the Tankshok police
force. If I may, let me assist you on your quest to discover whatever
knowledge it is that you seek.” He swept his hat through the air and
then put it back on his head, standing up straight. His eyes focused
on Deus.
“What’s this?” he said. “A devicon?” He frowned. “I did not
know such creatures existed in this reality.”
“You know what he is?” said Jeb.
“Of course I do!” said Horis. “I am a proud Iziz, former enemy
of Selyse Jackson, present ally, permanent friend, and I know more
about the cosmos than any other being besides those who share my
race.” He lifted his chin upwards. “That devicon is less than a day
old, and yet it is already so powerful. You will be surprised when
 Bibliotruckers 225

you see what it is capable of, when it learns how to travel through,
shall I say, the dimensional matrix.” Horis leaned in as if he were
about to tell someone a deep secret. His eyes were glowing with
some sort of positive emotion that Jeb couldn’t identify. “Be careful
what you feed that thing. You could turn it into an angel, or you
could turn it into the most hell-spawned hair-raising demon to have
ever been born in any universe, ever. Take caution. Watch it with
both of your eyes at all times.”
Deus preened his feathers, and Jeb understood that he was in on
the conversation.
Horis leaned back and smiled. “Let us be off. The library is a
mere block away.”
When they made it to the library, Horis stopped at the grand
staircase. The library was beautiful, constructed like a spiraling shell,
reaching for the sky with its glass sides and twisting structure. There
were marble accents over steel beams that had been polished to a
shine. The aesthetic was one that Jeb hadn’t seen before. It was
alien, unthinkable until he had seen it for himself. He wondered
what kind of books were inside.
Horis motioned with his arms. “Welcome,” he said, “To the
library. You may be new to this town, like many others, but we will
welcome you with open arms as long as you do your part to fight
against the evil that is encroaching upon this world.”
“And you were part of that evil, weren’t you?” said Allie, taking
a single step up the stairs. “I remember you. I read your story.”
“Story?” said Horis. “Ah, story. I had almost forgotten where I
was. Indeed, this mission that I was on, it had been to a certain
universe that happened to be inside of a universe that was
composed of lexigraphs—but what of it?”
“You don’t care?” said Allie.
Horis grinned. “I do not.”
Allie turned away, a look of disgust on her face. “I think you’re
as much to blame for Ginger’s atrocities as he is. You don’t deserve
to be redeemed, even though you’re useful. You committed war
 Bibliotruckers 226

crimes, and you have to pay for them. Otherwise this world will have
no justice.”
Horis moved faster than Jeb’s eyes could track. Before he could
understand what was happening, Allie was a foot off the ground, her
neck clenched in Horis’s hand. Horis’s face was twisted in pure
rage.
“No one insults me like that and lives,” he said.
“Why—” said Allie, making obscene choking noises as she
struggled against Horis.
Jeb pulled out his pistol, but even he knew that he was no match
for an AI superhuman robot like Horis. Horis could pound him to
dust in seconds, and a bullet probably wouldn’t even do anything
against him.
A voice called out from the entrance of the library.
“Horis,” she said. “Put the girl down.”
Horis frowned, seeming to reconsider something. “Marley?” he
said. “Why should I put her down? She insulted me.”
Allie was still struggling. Jeb could see that she didn’t have much
fight left in her.
Marley walked up to Horis and smacked him across the cheek.
Allie fell out of Horis’s hands and toppled down the stairs. Horis
held his hand to his cheek, a look of utter surprise on his face.
“What, pray, was that attack of injustice performed in reference
to?”
Marley looked legitimately angry, her eyes filled with a fiery,
righteous rage. “You don’t hurt people just to suit your whims,” she
said. “You can’t operate like that. You have to use your words. You
have to work for it. You can’t just use brute force to solve problems
like this.” She looked to be calming down. She closed her eyes and
took a deep breath. “I don’t know why you do this.”
“Ginger did it,” said Horis. “That was how Ginger taught me to
do things. Was his way not the right way? Was he not the most
artistic being who ever lived?”
Marley grabbed Horis by the collar, tried to lift him up, but was
unsuccessful. “Shut up about Ginger. He was a murderous serial
 Bibliotruckers 227

killer who painted rooms with the blood and guts of his victims.
That’s nothing to be proud of. That’s something to be disgusted at.”
Marley looked at Allie and Jeb. “Sorry to be having this
conversation with you right now.” She turned around and dragged
Horis into the library, the doors sliding shut behind her.
“The hell,” said Allie, clutching her throat. “Why did he
suddenly attack me like that? What did I do to offend him?”
“I think he was just volatile from the start,” said Jeb.
Deus made a chirruping noise. “Food. Books. Give me
literature. Bring me masterworks so that I may consume their flesh.”
Jeb sighed, stroking Deus’s feathers. It was true. He was growing
larger. Every time Jeb looked at him he seemed to be bigger than
before. Jeb looked back at the library, craned his neck to see the top
one more time, and then walked through the doors with Allie by his
side.
The inside was cool, but not chilly. There were books lined up
in shelves like an ordinary library, and the windows were arranged
so that the best light came in at any time of the day. Jeb walked at
random to a section of the rows of books and pulled a book off the
shelves.
“Grand Rismark,” said Jeb. He held it in front of Deus. Deus
pecked at it, and then shook his head. “No. Not literature. Not
good.”
Jeb shrugged. “Do you want some real literature, then? What do
you consider to be literature?”
“Bring me work with soul,” said Deus.
“Soul,” said Jeb. “Does that mean literary fiction? But, genre
fiction has soul as well. Define soul.”
“Soul does not need to be defined. Soul is soul.”
Jeb shrugged. The details were vague, but he had enough time.
There wasn’t anything else that was pressing, as there were several
hours before nine. He found a book that seemed unfamiliar, and
yet at the same time, remarkably familiar. He knew where the book
had come from, and yet, at the same time, he did not understand
 Bibliotruckers 228

what it was. He had never seen it before and yet he felt like he had
known about its existence for his entire life.
Its name was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And,
somehow, he knew that it had soul. He held it up to Deus, and the
chick closed its eyes, sucking in letters from the pages, lifting words
out from between the closed covers. The book fluttered, shone,
glowed, and then was silent. Deus opened his eyes and fluffed his
wings, nudging them with his beak.
“Deus is full. Operational capacity is at maximum. I will do
whatever it takes to assist you, master.”
Jeb frowned. “Master?” he said. “Does that mean I’m somebody
important?”
“Of course you are,” said Allie, leaning against the shelf behind
Jeb. “You’re important enough to be stuck in this crazy mess of a
situation.”
“I don’t think being stuck here means that I’m important,” said
Jeb. “It just means that I’m either lucky or unlucky. One or the
other, depending on how this situation turns out.”
Allie turned away. “It’s hard to bear.”
“What is?” said Jeb.
“Just, the idea that such a responsibility is being thrust on me. I
don’t know if I can handle it or not.”
“You have a Ferrari. Of course you can handle it.”
Allie shook her head, her gaze focused on the shelf in front of
her. She picked a book off of it and flipped it open to a random
page. “I mean, I’m just a character in a book. At any moment my
head could be chopped off if it served a purpose in the story. Even
if it didn’t serve a purpose in the story, it could still happen.”
Jeb ran his finger along the back of Deus, who was still sitting on
his shoulder. He knelt down next to Allie and touched her arm.
“You’re tougher than you think you are. Anyone who drives a
Ferrari is a badass, in my book.”
Allie seemed to brighten, just a bit. She chuckled. “You always
do this. You always make me feel just like I’m falling,” she paused,
“Away. Like there’s nothing supporting me.”
 Bibliotruckers 229

“I’m just glad you’re alive,” said Jeb.

“And so am I,” said Allie. She was silent.
Deus spoke again. “There is a presence in this room.
Machiavellian. Not evil.”
“Er, what do you mean by that?” said Jeb, standing up and
surveying the library.
“Machiavelli wrote The Prince. Do you not know of this
classic?”
Jeb shook his head. “Of course I know about his book. What
I’m wondering is what you mean by not evil.”
“Arguing is pointless. The aura approaches.”
A man in a grey suit approached Jeb, coming around the corner
of the aisle. He smiled, tipping his fedora to him.
“My name is Slewov,” he said, his voice smooth, rich, and filled
with luster. He was handsome, tall, and looked like he could be the
CEO of a fortune five hundred company. Jeb imagined he could
hear a cackling of laughter behind his every word. He felt the
presence, just as Deus had described it. Not evil, just Machiavellian.
To an extreme degree.
Slewov extended his hand. “I would like to form an alliance with
you,” he said, his voice reverberating through Jeb’s head. “You see,
I was recently,” he paused, seeming to drift off for a moment,
“Ousted, from my own position of government.” His form seemed
to shimmer, and Jeb caught a glimpse of burning wood, a slight
scent of a summer breeze and of open sky and dense, misty jungles.
“You’re not from this book, are you?” said Jeb. “You’re from a
different book. Are you from another one of Zeppy’s novels?”
Slewov grinned, slightly, the corners of his mouth turning up in
an uncanny facial gesture. “To gain your trust, I will tell you the
truth. I am, in fact, one of Zeppy Cheng’s created characters. That is
as far as I may say.”
Jeb shook his head. “Which book?” Then he paused. “Not like
I’d be able to tell who you were from that. I’ve only read one of his
books. The one we’re in right now.”
 Bibliotruckers 230

“Ah, yes. War on the Rolling Plains. Inspired in three parts. Red
Storm Rising, the Wargame videogame series, and the anime
Arpeggio of Blue Steel. Quite the combination.”
Jeb looked around himself out of habit, to make sure no one
else was listening. “How do you know so much?” he said.
“I have my ways,” said Slewov. “Don’t worry. I’m here to help
you.”
“And help yourself through that process,” said Allie. “Right?”
“Well, you could say that, young lady.” Slewov grimaced slightly,
as if something had passed through his mind in a flash. Then his
face returned to normal. He extended his hand and touched Allie
on the cheek. “You’re certainly quite a beautiful woman. Are you
not concerned about the welfare of your escort here?”
“Why would you be asking?” said Allie.
“Because I can help you both,” said Slewov. “I’ve tracked you
down—” his form shimmered again, and again Jeb could sense the
soaring sky, clouds, the creaking of wooden beams. Slewov did not
seem to notice, or if he did, he did not show it. “—Because,” Slewov
continued, “I am like you. I, too, am a creation of Zeppy Cheng,
and I wish to understand myself just like you do. I wish to become
better at governing this world so that I may return to my seat of
power and restore order to the chaos that this universe displays.”
Jeb frowned. “So, you’re, er, the lost king archetype?”
“Perhaps you could say that,” said Slewov, his voice
smoothening. “But in any case, I do have a cause worth fighting for.
I’m willing to help you. Would you be willing to help me?”
Jeb held out his hand. “I trust you. I don’t know why, but for
some reason you strike me as a predictable sort of person.”
Allie sighed. “Jeb, you’re doing it again.”
“What?” said Jeb.
Allie shook her head. “Go on. Do what it is that you’re doing.
I’ll follow along with you, and fill in whatever holes you leave
behind.” She sighed. “That’s what my Ferrari is for.”
 Bibliotruckers 231

Jeb looked at Allie, thinking about what her comment meant.

Then, he turned to Slewov. “I still trust you. We can work on this
story together.”
Allie stood up. “Do you want to get some food before we meet
with Umi? I’m starving.”
“I don’t have any money on me,” said Jeb.
Slewov took out a wallet that was full of colorful, solid-looking
squares. “I have some universal currency.”
Jeb nodded. “Thanks,” he said.
He was hungry as well.
 Bibliotruckers 232

19
***
Houses and Cannons
Tsukasa woke up in a warehouse, leaning against October. She
was tied up with ropes that cut into her wrists. Calling upon a spirit
of fire, she snapped her binds, standing up shakily, looing around
herself. October slid down to the ground behind her.
The warehouse was full of large boxes and shipping containers,
empty rows between them. A figure appeared in the doorway at the
far end of the warehouse and began walking towards Tsukasa.
Tsukasa surveyed his mind. He was a trucker, one of the factions
that worked a parallel universe to the one that the Breakers worked.
That explained why he was able to capture her. He wasn’t hostile,
and so Tsukasa simply stood silently as the man approached.
When the man was within speaking distance, he stopped.
“Tsukasa,” he said. “The most powerful wizard ever written into
existence and allowed through the fourth wall. Your presence is a
nightmare to the stability of the universe.”
“No,” said Tsukasa. “My presence is a windfall, a gift to the
stability. I create stability where I tread. I am an agent of this
universe’s law, a force against chaos.”
“And you removed the Narrator of your universe’s literary
world, causing utter chaos to reign over your story. Now the threads
of intention are entangling, and there is no one to stop them. The
United Truckers Federation is working to prevent the Space Time
Management Bureau from taking control of the situation, but we’re
short on hands. We need your help.”
“After you abducted me and October like that?” said Tsukasa.
“I can’t believe that you would be willing to go that far just to achieve
something that could be done with the simple stroke of the pen.”
 Bibliotruckers 233

“You know it as well as I do,” said the man. “You destiny is

strong enough that it outweighs anything we would be able to do on
our own. You are tying these universes together, these disparate
places that have no right to be together, no function working in the
same temporal sphere. This is not how things are meant to be.”
Tsukasa laughed, bitterly. “I’m just a tool, then. Just someone
who is being thrown about like a sock puppet, turned into a gear in a
clock full of clicking, buzzing mechanisms.” She kicked at the
ground. “I see where this is going.” She took out her quill. “I’ll join
with you as long as your Narrator helps me on my quest to track
down and stop Rin.”
“That is what we wish to do as well,” said the man. “We wish to
stop Rin from invading this world and every world, from destroying
mankind’s ability to create fiction. Her aim is not evil, but her
methods are. She is going to create a world where fiction does not
exist, where all forms of writing are banned and where books do not
exist in the same way they exist now.”
Tsukasa clenched her fist. “And you’re on the side of literature.”
“I am,” said the man, extending his hand. “My name is Akabe. I
work for the United Trucker’s Federation, as you already know. I’m
here to help you fight for the restoration of literature to its proper
place in the mind of humanity.”
Tsukasa shook the man’s hand. “I’m with you,” she said. She
turned to where October was still laying on the ground. “What is
she going to do?”
“We need pilots as skilled as her,” said Akabe. “We were going
to pair her with you and send you to fight on the front lines of this
conflict.”
Tsukasa shook her head. “She’s my lead. I have only one goal.”
“Find Rin?” said Akabe.
“That’s correct,” said Tsukasa. “Find her, and stop her.”
“Then October can help you.” Akabe turned around. “When
you’re dead.” He began walking away, as a dozen men with rifles
stood up from where they had been hiding. How had Tsukasa
missed them? What had she been doing? Tsukasa called upon the
 Bibliotruckers 234

most powerful magic she had, almost panicking, and struck them all
down in a single blast of frozen ice. The men fell to the ground,
dead.
Akabe turned around. “You weren’t supposed to be able to—”
Tsukasa sprinted up to Akabe and grabbed him by the collar. “Why
did you say you wanted to work with me if you were going to kill
me?”
“We can’t have you chasing the third person Narrator,” said
Akabe. “That would be—” Akabe choked—“Detrimental to the
literary universe. What the Narrator is doing is important. The war
has to happen. You have to fight it, on the front lines, or else you’re
worthless. Hopeless. You’re just a literary character.”
“And so are you,” said Tsukasa, tossing Akabe across the room.
Akabe slumped down against the wall, blood trailing behind him.
He coughed. “I,” he said, his voice trailing away.
Tsukasa walked over to October and woke her with a spell,
cutting her binds at the same moment. “October,” she said. “Let’s
go find your boyfriend.”
October rubbed at her eyes, groggily. “Oh, er, yeah,” she said.
“My boyfriend.” Something seemed to be troubling her. She looked
away, not meeting Tsukasa’s gaze. Tsukasa shook her.
“Stand up,” said Tsukasa. “We need to steal a vehicle. This
place is a base for truckers, so there should be vehicles everywhere.”
October seemed to brighten up, as her senses came back to her.
She had been asleep for a while, and drugs always took time to wear
off, even when removed by magic. Tsukasa grabbed October’s hand
and dragged her across the warehouse and into the streets. On the
horizon was a city of tall buildings cutting open the sky, leaving
gashes of light and cloud that shimmered in the sunlight. Tsukasa
looked around the warehouse’s parking lot. There was a small
armored personnel carrier parked next to the curb. Tsukasa guessed
that it was what had carried the men she had killed back in the
warehouse. She tested the door-it was open. The vehicle wasn’t a
fourth wall breaker, and Tsukasa had no idea how to operate it—but
she knew October did.
 Bibliotruckers 235

“Let me take over,” said October, a seriousness overcoming her.

She climbed into the driver’s seat and fiddled with the mechanics.
“It has a portal mechanism,” she said, as the engine flared to life.
“And its security isn’t that tight. I had it cracked in a minute.” She
stretched her arm above her hand. “I barely know you, but we’re in
this together, and I’m not going to stop moving until I find him. I’ve
wallowed in my own self-pity for long enough, and now’s the time
for me to take action.” She punched the dashboard. “This is how
I’m paying him back.”
Tsukasa smiled, remembering her own past conquests of
herself, how she had taught herself how to become a mature person,
someone who understood herself and the innermost parts of her
being. She knew how to react to herself—and that was something she
hadn’t learned from anyone else.
The APC rumbled across the pavement, turning into the street
as October and Tsukasa drove towards the city. It was bustling,
hyperactive, filled with all manner of entities and vehicles, from giant
walking squid people to floating crabs to three-legged carrier robots
with massive packages on their backs.
“I remember this place,” said October. “This is the Core. The
center of all the universes, the nexus point that feeds traffic into
every road that exists out there.” She leaned a little bit so that she
could look out her window. “I think we should stop somewhere and
ask for where the person who abducted Max is. You’re looking for
her too, right?”
“I am,” said Tsukasa. “I have a history with her that goes back a
long way.”
“Then we’re on the same team. We haven’t even properly
introduced ourselves yet. My name is October. What’s yours?”
“Tsukasa,” said Tsukasa.
“Are you from another universe?” said October. “Because I get
the feeling that you’re not from around here.”
“I’m not,” said Tsukasa, “Though I am. Things work differently
than you might have expected them to.”
 Bibliotruckers 236

October seemed pensive for a moment. “All right, then. We

should be headed to someone who knows where Max’s kidnapper
went. Do you have any ideas?”
“Head to the Franchises headquarters,” said Tsukasa. “They’ll
know what to do.”
October sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that. What
makes you think they’ll help us out?”
“I have a feeling,” said Tsukasa. “Don’t worry too much about
it.”
October nodded once. “Then let’s get going.” She activated the
navigation system and, after fiddling with it for a while, figured out a
way to get back to the Earth she was from. She turned to Tsukasa.
“We’re going to have to go through a portal on the north side of
town. Of course there’s a portal here. There are portals to
everywhere here in the Core.”
“I appreciate your help,” said Tsukasa.
“No problem,” said October. The two of them drove through
the streets until they came to the portal, which was nestled in an
alleyway between two buildings. There weren’t many people going
in or out, which matched Tsukasa’s expectations. They drove
through it, the world shimmering, melting, reforming, and
solidifying back into a street in the middle of suburban California.
The APC bounced against the pavement. October drove through
the streets, getting honks from other drivers, until she came to the
office of the Franchises, a single ten-story building with a neutral
burger logo that vaguely looked to Tsukasa of what would happen if
every fast food restaurant in the world combined to form an
Olympics.
Tsukasa and October got out of their APC and walked into the
building.
“Oh, right,” said Tsukasa. “The paperwork.”
“You know about that?” said October.
“I read your book,” said Tsukasa.
October sighed. “Right. I’m in a book. That’s got to be the worst
thing to think about when I consider this whole debacle.” She
 Bibliotruckers 237

walked up to the receptionists’ desk. “This is October Autumn,

burger bot pilot. I’d like to see the manager.”
The receptionist frowned. “Your case has been put in the
system. We’re doing everything we can for you. Is there something
you’d like us to add for you?”
October shook her head. “No,” she said. “I need to access a
tracker.”
“We can’t do that,” said the receptionist. “We’d need
authorization, and you don’t have the proper requisites.”
A man in a black suit walked out of a door across the hall and
headed to where Tsukasa and October were standing. He stood
before them and held out his hand. “My name is Laster,” he said. “I
can help you with what you need.”
October looked at Tsukasa. Tsukasa nodded. “I sense no evil in
him. He is merely a neutral figure.”
October shook Laster’s hand. “Are you with the Franchises?”
“No,” said Laster. He looked at Tsukasa, and then held out a
quill—the same kind of quill that Tsukasa had acquired, but a
different color, more regal, more exotic. “I’m from a book.”

***

Jeb stood before a beautiful woman with pearl-white skin and

grey-toned hair that flowed down to the small of her back. She held
in her hands a feathered quill, treating it like a priceless piece of art,
her fingers delicately wrapped around its circumference. She wrote
letters in the air and traces of magic fluttered to the ground, leaving
behind the smell of sweet vanilla and oranges.
Jeb blinked, and the quill was gone. The woman curtsied.
“Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice rich and soothing.
“I know you wish to understand what has fallen upon us,” she
 Bibliotruckers 238

looked up at Jeb, “But the time is not now. Our cycle is coming to
an end, and soon we may be forced to close this act and start anew.”
Jeb shook his head. “I don’t understand. What are you trying to
say?”
“She’s saying that this story is about to be over,” said Slewov, a
macabre expression on his face. “She’s saying that a new start is
about to come upon us.”
The woman smiled, a perfect smile that radiated peace and
beauty. Her proportions were exacting, too closely matched to be
human. She was more beautiful than any girl Jeb had ever seen, but
at the same time, she felt plastic, almost robotic.
But that was because she was a robot. She was designed that
way. She had designed herself that way. The girl extended her hand.
“My name is Umi,” she said, “As you probably already know. I’m
what you would call an isocopher.”
“Isocopher?” said Jeb. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means bearer of the quill,” said Umi. “When a being
awakens to its true potential as a literary character, and returns to
the medium from which it is born, it receives a gift from the gods,
much like you have received your gifts from being from the alpha
timeline.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jeb.
“You should be fine,” said Umi. “I need your help more than
anything else. You have something that I do not. A connection with
the matrix, a direct link to the console, because you are primary
characters.”
“I understand that I’m a character in a book, but how am I
different?”
Slewov put his hand out in front of Jeb. “Let’s not pester the
lady with questions. We’re here to negotiate for assistance on our
quest to restore ourselves.”
Umi bowed. “Very well then. I will mark this moment as the
beginning of our cooperation.” She returned to her former position.
“Assuming you can do what you can, I will assist you to the best of
 Bibliotruckers 239

my abilities. If, and only if, you assist me to the best of your
abilities.”
Jeb shook hands with Umi. Her hands were ice cold. Umi met
his gaze with the intensity of a laser beam, and Jeb knew he had
found a powerful ally.
If only the rest of his adventure would be this easy. Jeb knew he
had a lot longer to go until everything was over—but one thing was
certain; he would be earning, two-fold, the ten million dollars paid
to him by the Breakers for his original job. His fight, as always,
continued.

***

Rin stood over the top of Malachite tower in the floating sky city
of Asindia, overlooking the city’s bustling main streets. Max, a young
high school boy with the power to create anything he had seen
before from his imagination, stood next to her, staying a little bit
away from the edge.
“Rin,” said Max. “I’ve checked it out. They’re not chasing after
us. They’re not here.”
Rin put her palm up. “We just have to wait. They will come for
us.” She looked out, over the vast sky. “They will come. And we will
be waiting for them.”

***

Fredrick
I stood in front of the Breaker’s HQ, watching it burn, taking all
hope I had of saving my home with it. I did not know what to do
next. Steeling myself, I approached the building, as close I could
bear the heat, and when it got too hot I pulled back and surveyed
the lawn.
 Bibliotruckers 240

A person came reeling out of the doorway, covered in burns,

still partially on fire. I didn’t recognize them, but from their clothing,
I knew they were a big shot. Regardless of their status, I knew it was
my job to help them.
If only my body responded to what I told it to. I thought about it
for a minute, pushing myself to work harder to give myself the
courage to act, but just couldn’t. There were too many layers of my
own self-loathing.
The Breaker’s HQ was a tall building in Los Angeles,
California, that blended in with the other buildings around it, and
was built in a brutal, government style. Right now, that style
accentuated the flames that were reaching out of the windows, filling
the air with trails of acrid smoke that twisted and churned on their
path up into the blue sky. They were joined by other spirals from
the rest of the city. The whole city was in chaos.
I had heard the military couldn’t engage with the mechanical
walkers and monsters that were pouring through the gates because
of the tight corridors. Tanks couldn’t fit through the streets of LA,
and armored personnel carriers weren’t enough to subdue the more
powerful literary war machines that were coming into the city from
the dozen or so portals that were scattered around the downtown
area. The enemy, whoever they were, were already in the process of
securing the city and placing it under their control.
They had come out of nowhere with devastating efficiency and
effectiveness. No one could stop them.
A jeep swerved around the nearest corner and stopped right in
front of me. An army general stepped out from the side door and
looked straight at me.
“You there. Where are your leaders? You’re with those damn
breakers, aren’t you?”
“I think they’re all dead,” I said.
“What’s with those glasses, son?” said the general. “Are you
living in the eighties?”
 Bibliotruckers 241

This general was sharp. Fredrick took the glasses off. He folded
them and put them in his pocket—hopefully they wouldn’t get
scratched.
The general looked at the flaming building. “I don’t think you
could say that there is someone who knows what the bloody hell is
going on right now,” he said.
Fredrick shivered. His spine was cold, and he felt like he was
about to collapse from fatigue and stress. He did not like seeing fire
and death—no one did, but Fredrick had never had a strong
stomach. He had to pretend to be strong, though. He had to prove
that he was a man. He faced the general.
“I can explain what’s going on,” he said. “Does the CIA have a
fourth wall division?”
The general narrowed his eyes. “If it did, I wouldn’t be able to
tell you.”
“In any case,” said Fredrick, steeling his nerves, “I think the
literary universe is going to hold Los Angeles hostage in a
negotiation with the American Government about literature.”
“So you’re saying all they want to do is negotiate with us,” said
the general. He turned back to the jeep. “We can discuss this on the
move. You’ll do. Do you like flying? Because we’re taking the next
flight to DC for a briefing.”
“Flight to …” said Fredrick, his voice trailing off. “But, there are
so many other people who are better suited to this than me. Take
someone in charge. I’m just a grunt.”
The general appeared to be angry for a moment, and then he
relaxed. “You’re just a kid, and I know that. It’s a big responsibility.
But you have to suck it up, and be a man.”
Somehow, that phrase hit Fredrick in the heart. He had heard it
said to him many times before, mostly by his father, but this general
had said it in a subtly different manner.
“My name is General Aisaka,” he said, as soon as the jeep was
on the move. “As we drive, you can fill me in on the details of all
this fourth wall breaking nonsense.”
Fredrick nodded, and then began explaining.
 Bibliotruckers 242

***

“I had to file a lot of paperwork to obtain priority optimization,”

said Laster, walking with October and Tsukasa down the street
towards October’s house.
October chuckled, dryly. “Yeah, paperwork is a universal
constant, I guess.” She looked at Tsukasa. “Is Laster from the same
book as you?”
“No,” said Tsukasa. “I do not recognize the man.”
“I’m merely a helping figure,” said Laster, rubbing the back of
his head. “I don’t do much more than assist the heroes of any story.
My home desk is where I shine, and I’m nothing more than a
bureaucrat who sits all day and files forms with long-ass alphabet
soup names.”
October seemed to brighten up, if only slightly. A half-smile
crossed her features. “I can understand where you’re coming from.”
“You remind me of a certain girl I know,” said Laster, seeming
to think for a moment. “Not to say you’re identical, but,” he paused.
“You have the same aura of control.”
October brushed her hair back from her forehead. “Do I?” Her
smile disappeared, almost ghost-like in its change. “I get that a lot.”
She looked away from Laster.
“I meant that as a compliment,” said Laster. “No need to take
that personally, young lady.”
October scoffed. “Sure.”
Tsukasa was walking several steps behind them at this point.
October seemed to be milling over something important in her
thoughts. Her motions were thoughtful, tight like those of an athlete
or performer. Every ounce of her body was loaded like a spring,
ready to jump into an action at a moment’s notice. She really was a
strong woman—especially for a high school student. Tsukasa was a
good judge of people, and even now she could tell that October was
 Bibliotruckers 243

a rare kind of person that only happened once in a blue moon. Max
was lucky to have her as a girlfriend.
They came to October’s house, which was a normal-looking
suburban home, unremarkable in all respects—except the unmarked
black van sitting in front of the curb. As soon as Laster turned the
corner, he stopped, holding his hand to the gun at his side.
“What are you waiting for?” said October, turning around.
“The Franchises,” said Laster. “The Displaced Magical
Individual Bureau and the Franchises don’t get along very well.”
“Then how were you able to sneak into their headquarters?”
said October.
“I used a one-time trick,” said Laster. “Silly string is really useful
in the right circumstances.” He turned away from the house. “We’re
going to have to find some other place to discuss things.”
October shook her head. “I’m going to go see what my bosses
want,” she said, emphasizing the word “bosses.” She began walking
towards her house.
Laster put his hand out in front of October. “Please, don’t. I
need your help. You’re a carrier. A special person selected by the
author, someone who can do amazing things with this world. If you
leave now, you’ll never be able to fulfill your potential.”
October pushed past Laster. “I get this bullshit all the time from
my current employers,” she said. “What makes you think I’ll fall for
it a second time?” she walked away. “I have no reason to help you.”
Tsukasa looked between Laster and October, and followed
October to her house, taking one lass glance at Laster as he stood
on the corner of the street just out of sight from the unmarked black
van.
“I think we should still let him help us,” said Tsukasa, once they
were at October’s doorstep.
October shook her head.
The door of the black van opened and a man in a black suit
stepped out. “Franchises, agent Burns here. October, we received a
message about you hanging around a high-level security threat—” the
officer seemed to notice Tsukasa for the first time. His raised an
 Bibliotruckers 244

eyebrow, but continued—”And we have received reports about your

involvement with the United Trucker’s Federation. I’ve come to
collect your reports on the matter.” He paused. “Also, you left your
armored personnel carrier outside the headquarters. It has been
towed at your expense, and can be recovered if you call—” The man
handed October a number on a piece of paper—” Here.”
October gave Tsukasa a strange glance. “I guess we get to keep
the carrier,” she said. She motioned to the agent. “Agent Burns,
come inside and have some tea or something. I’ll figure out what I
have and serve some snacks.”
Tsukasa was surprised, seeing that October was a high school
student—she was being awfully polite.
“My parents aren’t home yet,” said October. She pointed to a
couch in the center of the living room. “You can sit there,” she said.
Tsukasa pulled October aside. “Are you sure you can be wasting
time talking to bureaucrats like this?” she said. “Every second you
waste is a second that Max is gone.”
October shook her head. “No, I know that. I know that Max
needs help. But I have to do my duties, because if I don’t then I
won’t have a way to justify to myself what I’ve done.”
Tsukasa shook her head. “Just give him the short story. Laster
has something to give to us.”
October sighed. “All right. I’ll make it short. Do you know how
to make tea? The teapot is on the stove.”
“I can do that for you,” said Tsukasa.
October smiled, and then sat down across from Agent Burns.
She began explaining things to him, cutting out a lot of details.
Tsukasa made three cups of tea and then placed them in front
of the people seated around the living room. It was piping hot, and
good tasting. Better than any tea Tsukasa had ever tried. Was this
what drinking tea in a book that had been written by the prime
author tasted? Or was it just something about the time frame of the
book? Something about the universe the book was in?
“So,” said October, “That’s why I’m asking to leave the service.”
 Bibliotruckers 245

“You may leave,” said Agent Burns. “I am hereby granting you

authority to do as you wish until further notice. Your contract is now
canceled.” He handed a tablet over to October. “Sign here, here,
and here.”
October signed.
“You’ve been a great asset to us, and I wish you good luck on
your endeavors.” Burns nodded his head in respect.
When Burns had left, October leaned back in her seat and
stretched. “I used the backout clause for long campaigners,” she
said. “I’ve been on enough campaigns through the multiverse that
I’ve accumulated two thousand hours in vehicle. That means I was
eligible for voluntary discharge.” She cracked her neck. “It may not
seem like it, but that makes me an elite pilot.”
There was a knock at the door. October groaned, standing up
out of her chair and walking to the door. She opened it, and Laster
was standing there, holding an umbrella against the rain.
“Can I come in?” he said.
“Sure,” said October. “Whatever. You need to explain yourself
and how you got here.”
Laster sat down on the couch, folding up his umbrella. “I come
from an alternate reality to yours, one situated parallel and yet
differently, one that is only accessible through an esoteric portal that
involves jumping through invisible barriers in space and time. These
space-time portals—fourth walls, as they are called—are being broken
at an increasingly fast rate by increasingly dangerous people. What
used to be contained inside of singular universes is now leaking out
into the universes that shouldn’t be mixed. There are terrors out
there in the world at large that can consume this entire world in a
single bite, and there are many that can do it in several. This world
is in danger, as well as every other world out there. The Franchises
were barely enough to protect this world against a simple enemy—
who you considered to be complex—but the real reason why you are
now safe is because you were simply unmentionably backwater.
Nobody wanted your real estate.” Laster cracked his knuckles.
“Now people do. Your real estate has become valuable, because of
 Bibliotruckers 246

one thing—trucks. A highway is being built through the pantheon of

books written by a singular author, worlds governed by a deity
named Zeppy Cheng. His books are mixing with each other,
contaminating each other, bringing enemies and malice that
otherwise would have stayed contained inside of those books. There
are at least three monstrous evils that are poised to sweep through
the literary multiverse and into the real universe, not to mention the
fourth true evil that is forming at the brink of the abyss.” Laster
folded his hands in front of his chin. “Everything is tipping over the
brink. We need to ally—we need to recover Max Biggs, and his
power, because his power will be of utmost use to us in our quest to
build an army to defeat the evils that are even now leaking out of the
books who are becoming more and more porous by the day.”
Tsukasa stood up. “We should leave, then. Search for him.”
Laster held up his hand. “Wait,” he said. “We don’t know
anything about where he is. We need to go somewhere first.”
“Where?” said Tsukasa.
“A place where we can find a good tracker,” said Laster.
Tsukasa frowned. “Is it far?” she said.
“It is,” said Laster.
“Are there roads?” said Tsukasa.
“There should be,” said Laster. He held up his quill, shining,
reflecting patterns on the walls of October’s house. It looked to be
magical, ethereal, full of intrinsic power and a deep insight that
could not be underestimated.
Tsukasa took out her quill. In comparison, it was dull, lifeless.
Even so it possessed a sense of power that could not be denied,
almost as if it were ready to spring into action at the slightest
command. She stood up. “We should take the APC,” she said.
“Sure, since we have it,” said October. She busied herself
cleaning up after the tea. When everything was clean, she headed to
the door, and then she turned back to where Laster was sitting.
“You coming?” she said.
Laster nodded, and walked to the door. The three of them
headed out into the night. They walked through the city until they
 Bibliotruckers 247

came to the tow yard where the acquired APC had been towed.
October paid the fine and they drove away.
It was uncomfortable in the back of the carrier, but Tsukasa had
been in more uncomfortable situations. She was beginning to get
used to the idea of modern technology—it was easier for her than
most as she had been wandering the literary highway for some time
now. Vehicles were as mundane to her now as pigeons and bread.
“Where to?” said October.
“The nearest library,” said Laster. “We need to find a certain
book if we want to open a portal and head there.”
“Got it. Heading there now.” October drove the APC through
the streets of California until she came to the local public library.
Parking in the public parking space out front, Tsukasa, October,
and Laster climbed out of the vehicle.
“Wait here,” said Laster. He went inside, and five minutes later
came out looking distressed. He wrung his hands, looking from side
to side as if afraid of something.
“I’m sorry to say,” he said. “I may have been misleading you.
Zeppy Cheng is not a popular enough author to have his book
placed in any ordinary library.”
“So how are we going to get a copy of his book, then?” said
October.
“We’re going to have to use the literary highway,” said Tsukasa.
“Literary highway?” said October. “Is that similar to my world’s
portal network?”
“In a way,” said Tsukasa. “Your world and mine are very
similar, as both were written in the same vein of fiction. That is to
say, all-out dimension-hopping fiction.”
October frowned. “I still find it hard to believe that I’m inside of
a book.” She sighed. “I’m not real, I’m just a construct of someone
else’s imagination. I mean, I feel real.” She climbed back into the
armored personnel carrier. “But, in any case, we should head out.”
“I’ll direct you to the literary universe,” said Tsukasa. “My home
universe. We can head to Zeppy Cheng’s book from there.”
 Bibliotruckers 248

“I’ll stick with you,” said Laster, climbing into the armored
personnel carrier. “You might need my political clout if you run into
trouble with some government.”
“Except if it’s the Franchises,” said October, wryly.
“It’s not my fault that there’s bad blood between us,” said Laster.
Before October could drive anywhere, a truck pulled up next to
the APC. A man stepped out of the cab and walked over to the
APC’s open door. He handed Laster a package.
“From a fellow named Drax, curtesy of the League of
Truckers.” He saluted, and then climbed back into his truck, driving
away from the APC.
Laster turned the package over in his hands. Before he could
open it, October snatched it away. “Let me see that,” she said. She
cut it open with a knife that she pulled from her boot. Inside was a
dragon scale, and a small gem. October cracked a smile. “Looks like
we have someone looking out for us,” she said. She closed the box
and put it below the passenger side’s seat. “We’re not in this alone.
We have people on our side.”
“The Galactic Council is on your side,” said Laster, “Or, at least,
as much as I have influence over. Past that, there’s not much more
that I can do.”
October opened up the dashboard controlling the portal device
installed inside the APC. She held her hand out to Tsukasa.
“I need your quill,” she said.
Tsukasa hesitated. Her quill was her only defense against what
was going to come. It was too valuable to risk destroying with some
sort of meddling.
October frowned. “I’m not going to do anything to it. I just need
its aura to calibrate the portal gun and tell it where to shoot us so
that we can go to a place that has a connection to your literary
highway.”
“We can’t just go find an onramp ourselves?” said Laster.
“No,” said October, as she hooked Tsukasa’s quill up to a
sensor box inside of the portal device. She closed it up and gave the
machine a good pat. “For some reason, the literary highway doesn’t
 Bibliotruckers 249

allow for free transfer back and fourth through Zeppy Cheng’s
novels.”
“Then why are we going to the literary highway to enter one?”
said Tsukasa.
October shook her head. “We have quills, right? As long as we
have those, we should be able to find a copy of the book and enter
through there.” She paused. “I have a plan. One that will probably
work. I know one place where a book is bound to be.”
“Where?” said Laster. He paused. “After a little bit of thought, I
think I know.”
October nodded. “Zeppy Cheng’s house.”
 Bibliotruckers 250

20
***
Inkwell Part 2
A slight breeze blew through Jeb’s hair, ruffling his shirt and his
pants. He stood in front of Umi, a super-powerful robotic
humanoid who was half tank, half android. Beside him stood
Slewov, a strange man who had joined them in the library, and Allie,
who had been traveling with him for the entire adventure.
Jeb sighed. “I know that we’re working with you now,” he said,
“But what is it, exactly, that you need us to help with?”
Umi shook her head. “Today is not the time, or the place. Let
us go somewhere else.” She walked away, leaving the open field that
was filled with broken chunks of debris, a stark contrast to the clean,
tall buildings of the rest of the city.
Allie, Slewov, and Jeb followed her through the darkened city
streets until they came to a nightclub that was recessed into the
ground, underneath a short staircase. Posters were hanging on the
walls, and neon lights illuminated the ceiling, casting everything in a
sharp, hostile tone. The sound of electronic dance music could be
heard thumping through the walls. Umi pushed open a door and
walked into a crowded room filled with people dancing, drinking,
and getting high off of a pantheon of drugs. Pushing her way through
the crowd, she led Allie, Jeb, and Slewov into a VIP room at the
back of the club, where sound isolating walls kept the music to a low
thrum that vibrated at the very core of Jeb’s being.
A pale-looking man wearing a pin-striped suit was sitting on a
couch, holding a cigar in his hand. He waved it in the air, letting out
a small stream of smoke that curled around the room’s center,
spiraling toward the ceiling. After watching the smoke end at the
top, he made eye contact with Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 251

“So,” he said. “My travels have brought me to the one I must

find.” He stood up.
Jeb felt a fear enter his body, a fear great enough to paralyze him
from the bottom of his toes to the tip of his lips. He couldn’t move,
couldn’t speak, could barely breath. All he wanted to do was follow
the pale man, do as he pleased. Then the effect ended. Jeb grabbed
his chest.
Umi shook her head, watching as Jeb’s hand went to the pistol
in his breech.
The pale man bowed. “My name is Beans,” he said. ‘Though
that will probably mean nothing to you now.”
Umi walked to the center of the room. As she did, she shot a
glance at Slewov. Jeb couldn’t figure out what it was for—it bothered
him. Did Umi know something that he didn’t?
Umi pulled a projector out of a cubby in the wall and darkened
the room’s lights. She turned the machine on and the wall was lit up
with a video displaying a war-torn battlefield, filled with burned
tanks, dead bodies, exploded munitions. It was a desolate sight. Umi
flipped through pictures of various other battlefields. “We’re
fighting a losing war,” she said, her voice taking on an officer’s tone.
“There just aren’t enough turned Iziz and equipment to fight against
the enemy on so many fronts. With this new interdimensional front
that we’re fighting on, we don’t know if we can handle ourselves. So,
we’re putting together an expedition to find a source of material.”
Umi paused. “Beans here is from one of our author’s books. I
called him here before you because he has a crucial role to play. He
knows how to access the dataworld, which is deeper than anything
we’ve ever done. You’re doing to need to access this world in order
to find what you’re looking for.”
“What is it that we’re looking for?” said Jeb.
“The Inkwell’s source,” said Umi. “The place where all literary
ideas come from. The origin of fiction. In particular, the fiction of
our author.”
“So we need to find this place. What’s there?”
 Bibliotruckers 252

“The ability to rewrite anything that will come after us. The
ability to use the ultimate weapon, a weapon that will allow us to
change the very fabric of reality in the same way an author changes
his story with the flick of a pen.”
“We need to find this source,” said Jeb. “Why isn’t it the
Inkwell? We’ve already been there.”
“The Inkwell is only a starting point,” said Umi. “From there,
you’ll have to travel through time, space, and every other dimension
in order to reach the true destination point. The real world.”
“The source of all of our ideas,” said Allie. “The place where we
come from.”
“You’re going to have to fight against many enemies, but in the
end, the one thing you need more than anything else is tenacity.”
“What are we going to get out of this?” said Jeb. “I have enough
money, but what’s in this venture for us? Why am I risking my life
again for something that may not affect me or my world?”
“Trust me,” said Umi. “It will affect your world. And even if it
doesn’t, the knowledge and powers you will gain along the way will
help you overcome some obstacles that you may face in your own
world.”
Jeb sighed. “I guess I have no choice. I couldn’t even go home if
I wanted to, since this place doesn’t seem to have any connection to
the literary highway.” He patted Deus with one finger. Deus
chirped. Jeb looked up at Umi. “We’ll find the source for you, and
find a way for you to get more men and material.”
Umi nodded. “There’s no way to fight the Iziz other than tactics
and strategy, army against army. We’re fighting a war on so many
fronts that we’re at our limit. Your help would be our savior.” She
bowed. “I will be taking my leave now, as I have things to be taking
care of.” She walked up to Jeb, handing him a data crystal. “In here
are your instructions, and everything that is known about the
Source. You will have to pass through the Inkwell, and I bet you it
has changed since you last visited.” She smiled, and walked out the
door.
 Bibliotruckers 253

Beans approached Slewov. “You do not seem to me to be one

who would voluntarily fight for the safety of the universe,” said
Beans.
“Neither do you,” said Slewov, raising an eyebrow. “I have the
feeling that both of us are going to be,” Slewov paused, “Interesting
comrades.”
Beans took a puff of his cigar. “That indeed.” He held out his
hand, towards Jeb. “May I see that data crystal?”
Jeb handed it to Beans. Beans took it, and, closing his eyes, he
wrapped his palm around it. Light filled the room, illuminating the
dark corners with hints of blue and red. The crystal began to float
above his hand. Information spewed out, represented three-
dimensionally around him. Beans touched a piece of information
and it expanded.
Slewov walked in between the various pieces of floating
information, his eyes devouring them. He poked at the bits,
squeezing them, examining them. “So,” he said. “That’s where you
have been.” He grinned, and again Jeb felt the pressure of wood
grating against wood, the feeling of sailcloth wrapped around his
joints. He shook the feeling off.
Beans shut the cube off. He handed it back to Jeb. “I can teach
you how to do this later,” he said. “For now, we must return to
where we came from.”
“Right,” said Jeb. “Zeppy’s island. We don’t have any material,
but we do have a way to find out where to go. Our goals are at a
cross point. We’re going to ask him for help.”
“We’re still stuck on an island, aren’t we?” said Allie, crossing
her arms.
“And,” said Jeb, “We have no access to the literary highway.
The only reason why we were able to enter this book was because
it’s also isolated.”
Beans seemed to think for a moment. Then he bowed. “If you
may,” he said. He wafted his cigar through the air. “I will offer you
my assistance.” He walked over and touched Jeb on the forehead—
before Jeb could react.
 Bibliotruckers 254

“Indeed,” he said. “You certainly think you’re in trouble

because of your situation. But, worry not. Everything will be
resolved as soon as the dominoes begin falling. Once one falls, the
rest will fall in tandem, creating a beautiful symphony of cascading
wonders.” Beans pulled away. “Such is the nature of chaos.”
Jeb shook his head to clear the glowing feeling he had all over
his body. He looked at his hands—he wasn’t dreaming. Then he
turned towards the door. “Only one person can ride shotgun in my
truck,” he said.
“And that’s me,” said Deus.
Beans and Slewov looked at each other. There seemed to be an
electricity between them, a sort of characteristic fire that felt as if it
would ignite at any moment. They were both mysterious, both with
questionable morals, both with powerful presences. It was only
natural that they wouldn’t get along like this. But something felt off
to Jeb. Something about the two of them made him think of back
when he was in middle school and he watched bullies fight against
each other over petty things like who had the rights to the basketball
court. It wasn’t as juvenile—it was much more dangerous—but it was
the same concept. Jeb knew he would have to keep an eye on those
two—even though he also knew that they were much more powerful
than he could ever hope to be. All he had was a revolver and a
truck. They had magical powers that could destroy entire worlds.
Jeb led the group through the club and back out onto the streets.
They traveled until they found where Jeb and Allie had parked Bess
and Allie’s Ferrari. Jeb felt uncomfortable showing Slewov and
Beans his vehicles, but he knew that he would have to deal with the
fact that they were his comrades now—even though they made him
nervous. Jeb showed Slewov and Beans how to use the hidden room
in Bess’s trailer, and then watched as they climbed inside. There was
no reason to hide them, but that was the best place where they could
ride for the journey. Jeb climbed into the cab and turned to Deus,
who was sitting on the chair, looking up at him.
“Take us back to Zeppy’s island, will you?” said Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 255

Deus chirped. “Calculating. Beginning route.” A console of

bright light appeared around Deus’s figure, enveloping him in
floating symbols. He fluttered his wings, and the world around the
truck shimmered, parting. Jeb drove through an increasingly
shimmering universe until everything was white except for Bess and,
behind them, Allie’s Ferrari.
The white universe spat the two vehicles back out onto the
beach of Zeppy’s island, this time, to Jeb’s relief, in the dry sand.
Zeppy was standing near the forest with a small smile on his face.
Jeb had to do a double-take, as he saw a tank sitting behind Zeppy,
and Umi leaning against its body. The tank looked imposing, with
an emphasis on draconian curves and hard steel corners. Lines of
grey light were etched across its surface.
Umi walked up to the side of Jeb’s cab.
“I forgot to mention that I would be coming with you,” she said,
leaning against the door.
Jeb shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said. “We’re going to need all
the help we can get.”
Umi laughed, her voice a clear sparkle that trickled through
Jeb’s ears. It sounded too perfect, like it had been designed for
maximum effect—like it had been manufactured to produce a
reaction in people. Jeb shook his head to clear the feeling.
Zeppy crossed his arms. “Umi, tell them about what we were
discussing.”
Umi nodded, glancing at Zeppy and then turning back to Jeb. “I
was saying that this place, this island, would make a good home base
for our operations in the future.”
“What do you mean, future operations?” said Jeb.
“I mean, you didn’t think that helping out my home world was
the only thing that we could do?”
“Right. We also have my home world to save, and possibly an
ancient evil to combat.”
“There are so many things that need to be done. I have a
nanofactory that can produce buildings. All you have to do is find
people and characters to fight on our side. Go throughout the
 Bibliotruckers 256

literary universes and find characters that have power and bring
them on our side.”
“Convince them to fight for us?” said Jeb. “That could work.
We could do that.” Jeb paused. “I don’t know the status of my own
home, and that’s my priority—saving my own world—but if you need
my help and I can give it, there would be no reason for me to
refuse.”
Slewov crossed his arms and walked over to where Zeppy was
standing. Zeppy gave Slewov a strange look, as if he knew something
that Slewov was hiding, that no on else knew. Slewov looked away,
turning around to face Jeb.
“I have to ask,” said Slewov. “Who is in charge of this
expedition?”
Jeb looked at Allie, who looked back at him. “I would suppose
that I am,” he said.
Slewov frowned. “And why would you say that? Not that I’m
complaining or anything,” his voice smoothened, “But, just speaking
hypothetically, what if there were someone better suited to leading
than you?”
“Like you?” said Allie, her voice becoming sharper.
Beans, standing off to one side, nodded his head once.
Slewov stroked his chin. “I wouldn’t say that. I’m no better at
leading than the next person. However …” Again, Jeb caught a hint
of wood and sailcloth, of fresh wind that smelled of the ocean and
the open sky. Slewov ran his hand through his hair in a slick
movement. “I do have more experience.”
“You do?” said Jeb. He caught Zeppy’s smile, which turned up
in the slightest.
Slewov bowed politely. “I have, in fact, been in control of an
entire nation at one point.” He paused. “At one point, I must stress.
I was dethroned by rebels who did not want to keep the peace, and
who did not understand the idea of one world government, who did
not like my aims and goals. They were agents of chaos.”
Beans frowned. “Do not use that term lightly.”
 Bibliotruckers 257

Slewov’s face flashed intensely in anger. Before Jeb could finish

registering the expression, it disappeared. “I can say as I please, old
man.”
“Technically speaking, Slewov, you’re older than Beans,” said
Umi, stepping in between them. She extended her hands. “Let us
not fight each other over petty thing such as this.”
Slewov gave Beans a long, steady look of slight disgust, in the
same way a rich person might look at a beggar. Beans’s expression
was more that of a monk who was being berated by a non-believer,
someone trying to play with him while he meditated. Slewov
radiated a whirlwind of cutting danger. Beans exuded an aura of self-
control through mental force. Both of them were filled with
explosive power.
Jeb turned away from the two, to Zeppy. “I think you should
decide,” he said.
“Decide what?” said Zeppy.
“Who should be the leader of this adventure,” said Jeb.
Allie took hold of Jeb’s hand. It was cold, and a little bit damp.
Allie shook her head.
Zeppy raised an eyebrow. He glanced at where Slewov, Umi,
and Beans were standing in a triangle. Then he turned to Jeb. “I’ll
give you the choice,” said Zeppy, to Jeb. “Since you started as the
main character of this story.”
“I’ll be the leader,” said Jeb.
“Do you think you have what it takes to command?” said Zeppy.
He made a motion that suggested the tense atmosphere a few steps
away. “You’re going to have to resolve things like this.”
Jeb nodded. “I can do it.” He walked over to where Umi was
standing, nudging her aside, and faced Beans and Slewov. “No
fighting. I don’t know either of your motives, as I barely know you
two, but I can’t have you fighting when I might depend on you for
my lives at some point on our journey.”
Slewov lifted his chin slightly. “I see,” he said. “Very well then. I
shall, for now, cooperate with your—” he paused, “Your self-
gratification.”
 Bibliotruckers 258

Beans closed his eyes and folded his hands. “I have much to
teach you,” he said, “And much to atone for. My mission and my
motives are my own. I do not wish to cause any more chaos than my
order decrees, and though I do not think it is wise to trust once such
as—” here Beans made a slight gesture towards Slewov—“This,” he
said, “I will cooperate with this group as much as my ability allows.”
He opened his eyes. “You have my word that I will give you my aid
rather than be a stone tied to your belt as you try to swim.”
Jeb nodded. “Good.” He looked between Slewov, Beans, and
Umi. “We’re going to have to see what kind of powers we have. I
don’t have much power at all, except for what I can do with Deus, as
Deus apparently bonded to me. I know Umi has her tank body, but
I don’t know your power, Slewov, or your power, Beans.”
Slewov bowed. “I will demonstrate my power first,” he said. A
black flame appeared in his hand. It twisted, changed form, and
melded itself into the fabric of reality until it resembled a great black
bear. The bear reared itself onto its hind legs and roared loud
enough that Jeb had to cover his ears.
Slewov gave a command, and the bear disappeared back into the
ether from where it had come. He wiped his hands off on his
meticulously ironed pants.
Beans nodded, and held out a cigar, standing silently while the
world dimmed, the island became humid, and the whole world was
filled with fog. Voices whispered in the mist that suddenly fell over
everything, obscuring the world from view. Beans snapped his
fingers, and the fog dissipated. Jeb knew that Beans’s power was just
as awe-inspiring, if not more so, than Slewov’s. He turned to Umi.
Umi shrugged. “I have a tank body. I would rather to
demonstrate it on a battlefield for the first time.”
Jeb nodded. “Then, let’s go,” he said. He stroked Deus. “You
know where to go, right, little fellow?”
Zeppy shook his head. “No. I can tell you where to go. You are
unable to access Allie’s book from this island, so you can’t enter the
Inkwell through there, but I do have an unfinished work in which I
 Bibliotruckers 259

broke the fourth wall just as violently as Allie did in her first self-
published novel.”
Deus chirped. “Can access. Very dangerous.”
“How are we going to get there?” said Allie. “If it’s an unfinished
work, doesn’t that mean it’s unstable? Will we even be able to set
foot in it?”
Zeppy shrugged. “We may as well try. Deus can do a lot of
interesting things if you ask him.”
Jeb looked at the chick on his shoulder. “Can he?” he said.
Deus appeared to smile, though Jeb wasn’t sure how he got that
impression, given that Deus only had a beak and beaks were unable
to curl upwards. Jeb stroked Deus’s feathers. “Can you?” said Jeb.
“Calibrating,” said Deus. “Calibrated. Portal can open, but must
be powered. A sufficient power source needs to be created.”
“I can handle that,” said Umi, walking over to her tank. She
motioned with her hand and the tank rolled over to where she was
standing. A wire extended out of a panel on the tank’s side. Umi
held it out to Jeb.
Jeb took hold of the wire and placed it next to Deus. Deus
pecked at the wire and a spark exploded between the upper and
lower parts of his beak. His entire body began to glow, and then
Umi, Allie, Jeb, Slewov, and Beans were enveloped in a haze of
bright color, swallowed up and teleported away.
They arrived in a world that appeared to be half-painted, half
unfinished. Giant streaks of unpainted world ran along the edges of
Jeb’s field of vision, and he could feel the incompleteness of the
story in the air. The story had been abandoned a quarter of the way
through its creation. And, to top it off, it hadn’t even been written
that well. Its craftsmanship was that of a newbie author, someone
who did not know how to craft proper stories, or even proper
sentences and paragraphs.
Jeb drove Bess through a half-paved street, followed by Allie’s
Ferrari and Umi’s tank. The convoy of vehicles arrived at a school
building. It was more finished than the rest of the book’s world, and
so Jeb assumed that was where the main characters were. He parked
 Bibliotruckers 260

Bess in the nearest available space and climbed out. Deus hopped
on his shoulder. Slewov and Beans stepped out of the trailer. Allie
and Umi met up with them outside the parking lot. The five of them
plus Deus entered the school together as a group. Jeb watched as
faceless impters busied themselves about their daily school lives. He
was looking for a certain someone so that he could break the fourth
wall—hopefully large enough to fit a truck, a Ferrari, and a tank
through.
He caught sight of a fully-formed character with a watermelon
on her head running through the hallway. He hesitated, and then
reached out to her, stopping her in her tracks by grabbing her
shoulder. The girl—it was a girl—looked at Jeb with wide eyes that he
could see through a gap in the watermelon’s rind.
“Who are you?” she said.
“Are you this book’s main character?” said Jeb. Since it was an
unfinished work, he guessed that the characters would have full
knowledge of what was going on.
The character smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think so.
Why don’t you ask Kirito.”
“Kirito?” said Allie, stifling a laugh. “You mean, like in that one
anime about being trapped in a video game?”
“Sword art online?” said Jeb. “I bet Zeppy’s pretty touchy about
that.”
“He really named one of his characters Kirito,” said Allie, her
chuckle continuing. “I can’t believe that.”
“Is something wrong with Kirito’s name?” said the girl.
“Why are you wearing a watermelon on your head?” said Jeb,
facing the girl.
“Because I feel like it,” said the girl.
“Fine,” said Jeb. “Be mysterious. Just, lead us to this Kirito
person, and tell us when he breaks the fourth wall. We have an
Inkwell to get through.”
The girl shrugged, and skipped down the hallway, stopping at an
open door. She motioned towards it.
 Bibliotruckers 261

A young boy of about sixteen with jet black hair and a moody
expression on his face stepped out of the classroom. “October,” he
said. “What are you doing?”
October motioned with her hands as if to say, “tada!”
The boy, whom Jeb assumed was Kirito, looked extremely
embarrassed, in a way that was typical of a certain type of anime
protagonist, as far as Jeb knew. He sighed, walking up to Kirito and
grabbing him by the collar.
“Hey, kid,” he said, dragging him across the hall. “We have
some things to talk about.”
Kirito raised his hand, and the world froze over. He grinned
triumphantly—but then his grin fell when Jeb blinked, not frozen
over like the rest of the world.
“What the hell did you just do?” said Jeb.
He’s speaking with the Narrator.
“What?” said Jeb, as a voice that did not belong in his head
entered his head and echoed through his skull.
He is conversing with the being who beings him life. I am
pleased to finally meet you, the culmination of my author’s
ambition.
Jeb looked at Beans, Allie, Umi, and Slewov. They were all
frozen in place, as if they had been made of wax. They weren’t even
breathing. Nothing was moving.
“How can you be still talking?” said Kirito, his face filled with
fear. “Why are you following me?”
Jeb grabbed hold of what looked like a piece of spacetime and
tore it off of what appeared to be a wall. “No time for this. I need
enough room to get a truck, a Ferrari, and a tank through to the
other side of the fourth wall.” He pushed Kirito out of the way,
sending him tumbling, causing time to start flowing again.
Allie, Umi, Slewov, and Beans went back into action as if they
had never stopped. Only Umi seemed to notice something had
gone wrong. She made eye contact with Jeb, gave him a glance, and
then nodded. They would discuss it later.
 Bibliotruckers 262

Jeb motioned to the huge hole in reality that was right in front of
him. “I don’t know how I did it,” he said, proudly, “But it seems
we’ve managed to make a way into the inkwell here. Let’s get going.”
Jeb led the team back to where they had parked their vehicles. They
drove through the streets, crashing into the school building with
Umi’s tank, crushing walls and classrooms, making a way for Jeb’s
truck, and then Allie’s Ferrari. The fabric of reality twisted around
them, and then they were back in the Inkwell.
 Bibliotruckers 263

21
***
Bullseye
Fredrick stood before the president of the United States, inside
of the briefing room of the white house. The Secretary of Defense,
as well as the entire war room cabinet, sat around a circular table, all
facing him. He was supposed to be giving a briefing right now, but
he was frozen. General Aisaka was giving him a stare that was
curdling his blood, but even the threat of his anger was doing
nothing to stall Fredrick’s anxiety.
“I, er, I,” said Fredrick, tripping over his own tongue. “I’m part
of the Breakers, an organization dedicated to …” he paused, letting
himself slip. Then he cleared his throat. “The city of Los Angeles
was taken over last night by a contingent of literary characters who
have been summoned from beyond the fourth wall by the authors
who have been kidnapped over the past week.”
One of the generals sitting at the table spoke. “So, you’re saying,
it’s possible for literary characters to become real?”
“It’s always been this way,” said General Aisaka, standing up and
walking up next to Fredrick. “If you had read your briefing, you
would know why we had to keep it a secret from you, the main
branches of the military. If humanity learned how to utilize the
fourth wall for warfare, then there would be no end to the amount
of destruction that would cause. So, all the nations of the world got
together and promised not to let their militaries get their dirty,
grubby hands on the literary characters and their powers.”
Fredrick nodded. “And the Breakers did a good job of that.” He
was getting into the mood. “They’ve been protecting the literary
universe for over a hundred years.”
“And, did the CIA know about this?”
 Bibliotruckers 264

“We did,” said an officer whom Fredrick assumed was from the
CIA.
The door to the room was flung open. A disheveled man in a
messy suit ran in, holding a device. “Turn on the sat dish four,” he
said. “We’re receiving a message!”
The screens in the room went blank. A face appeared on them,
the face of a girl, young, and pretty.
“My name is Rin,” said the girl, “And I am a literary character.
As you may know, literary characters are real, and can be
transported into the real world. I have an army that can take over
the continental United States, and from there, the world. I am the
leader of this army. I am the leader of this confederation of literary
properties. You may call me a Narrator. There are others like me,
but none are as powerful. Every time one of you humans writes a
book written in the third person past tense, I become stronger.
Every time I bring a writer to my side, I gain an indescribably
powerful factory that can create whatever kind of thing the mind can
desire. I am more powerful than all of the world’s militaries
combined.” She paused. “Do not try to stop me. I will not negotiate
with you until all literary characters are granted complete and total
amnesty and full citizenship within the United States and the world
at large. As well as this, I propose fiction to be regulated and
licensed, so that only those who know what they are doing can write
fiction.”
“Your demands are reasonable,” said the president, “But you
yourself are still a criminal and a terrorist. What makes you think we
will negotiate with you?”
Rin chuckled. “I do things my own way,” she said. “You will
negotiate with me or face the consequences of an army the size of
the Mongolian Empire bearing down on the heart of your nation.”
The president shook his head. “You have already killed
thousands of American civilians. We cannot accept you as a
negotiable party unless there were to be some way to remit the
damage you have done to our society.”
 Bibliotruckers 265

Rin’s smile twitched. “Perhaps I should make myself clear,” she

said, pulling away from the field of view so that the camera came
and focused on a group of five people who were tied and gagged,
leaning against a wall. “These people are authors who wrote their
characters into pain and suffering purely for the entertainment of
their readers. Now you will see what it looks like to have the same
thing done to you.”
A sixth man, looking familiar to Fredrick, walked up to the five
bound individuals and began reading out loud from a book. The
men struggled against an invisible current that tugged them out of
the reality they were in and trapped them inside the pages of the
book, where their screams were turned into entertainment and their
very souls were reduced to printed pages and refined wood pulp
covered in dried ink.
Rin turned the camera back towards her face. “That is my
message to you. Regardless of how negotiations turn out, all authors
who have ever harmed a literary character in any way shall receive
the same punishment, regardless of their status. No matter how they
wrote their character into existence, they deserve to have the same
punishment inflicted on them that they inflicted on others.”
The president of the United States of America folded his hands
in front of his chin. “We do not negotiate with terrorists,” he said.
Rin closed her eyes. “So be it,” she said. Then the screens went
blank.
The room was silent. Nothing could be heard except for a few
machines beeping and the whirring of a soft fan. The lights of the
room danced across the cold, hard faces of the people sitting
around the circular table.
The doors flung open and a man in a black suit walked through.
“Mich Bays, CIA, fourth wall department,’ he said. “I’m here to
brief you big boys on what may be our last hope as a nation that
enjoys reading fiction.”
The president looked curiously surprised—not so much
surprised as to seem in any way shocked, but just surprised enough
 Bibliotruckers 266

for the expression to register on his face as something other than

bemusement. He nodded. “Go ahead.”
“You knew about this?” said the secretary of defense, looking at
the president.
The president’s expression did not change.
Mich began speaking. “We acquired a literary character of
extreme power through the Breakers, originally to do something
that we were planning to do in the real world. But, when everything
fell apart in the literary universe and the CIA realized how
dangerous everything would become, we decided to toss our assets
into the fight and send our character out to seek and capture the
new Narrator. She has yet to report back to us, but we are confident
that she can complete her mission.”
“One character?” said the president. “That doesn’t put much
hope inside of me. I don’t think this is something to be pinning the
stakes of an entire country on, possibly an entire world.”
“We need authorization to bring in the military,” said the
secretary of defense, slamming his fist on the table. “With a few
Abrams and Bradleys, we can slam them back to where they came
from, wherever that hell hole of a place may be.”
The president shook his head. “Hold on,” he said. “We haven’t
gone through the proper procedure.”
“To hell with the proper procedure,” said the secretary of
defense. “Who needs congressional approval when American men
and women are being slaughtered right now on our own home
soil?”
The president seemed to think for a long, deep moment. Then
he nodded. “I authorize the use of force against the literary
creatures that have come through a portal into another universe.
Mobilize the army.” He looked at Fredrick, directly into his eyes.
“You’re going to have a lot of fun, kid,” he said, his expression full
of calmness and strength, giving Fredrick a feeling of warmth that
left him tingly on the inside. It was no wonder this man was
president.
 Bibliotruckers 267

As the strategizing started, General Aisaka walked over to where

Fredrick was standing and patted him on the back. “You did good,
for someone who claimed to be a nobody.”
Fredrick nodded, numbly. In all of his years, he never would
have expected to be briefing the white house as a representative of
the Breakers during a time of national emergency. He was the
bottom of the totem pole. Nobody was lower than him. Not even
the janitors. How, then, was he in this position?
Fredrick shook his head to clear if of the thoughts that were
whirling around inside.
His phone rang. Fredrick reached into his pocket and pulled it
out, answering the call when he saw who it was from. “Boss?” he
said.
“I’m not your boss anymore,” said the voice. “I’m the last one of
us alive, and I’m not going to be alive much longer.” He paused. “I
just wanted to tell you this.” His voice was strained, as if he were
pushing himself to speak. He coughed. “The Narrator cannot be
fought. We’re doomed to die, all the authors in the world, and
there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Boss,” said Fredrick. “Hang in there. Where are you? Back at
headquarters? I’ll come get you!”
“You don’t have to,” said Boss. “I’m gone already. You won’t
make it.”
General Aisaka glanced at Fredrick. Fredrick shook his head.
“Quills,” said Boss. “Isocophers. Find a quill and become an
isocopher. Learn about them, what they can do, and you will find a
way to defeat the monster.” Then the phone went dead.
Fredrick’s hand fell to his side. Isocophers? Quills? What was
that all about? Was he the only Breaker left alive? How was that
even possible? What had he done to gain that position? How was
he supposed to cope with his responsibility?
Isocophers. Quills. Two things that Fredrick did not understand,
but which he knew he had to. He lifted up his chin and prepared to
speak.
 Bibliotruckers 268

***

“I can’t find him anywhere,” said October, sitting in a chair at a

net café in Irvine, California. “His information is hidden, somehow.
I’ve tried several darknet sites that should have his location listed
and they don’t even have his name. It’s as if he’s been scrubbed
from the world and doesn’t even exist anymore.”
“I’ve checked with the Bureau of Housing and they don’t have
any statistics on him. He’s gone. Completely off the grid,
untraceable.”
“If that’s the case,” said Tsukasa, “Then we’re going to have to
try something different.”
“No,” said Laster and October at the same time. October shook
her head. “We’ve come this far. We need to find this tracker that
Laster knows and make sure that we get her on our side before she’s
taken by someone else. We don’t have the time to be switching
plans.”
Laster scratched at the back of his neck. “What the lady says is
true. We must work efficiently or risk being too slow at catching our
target.”
Tsukasa sighed, thinking about all the reasons why she could
argue with their points. In the end, she decided to stick with what
they wanted to achieve. It would do no good to fight about silly
things. Tsukasa nudged October aside and sat in front of the
computer.
“Have you tried buying his ebook?” said October.
Laster and October looked at each other. “No,” they both said,
to each other. Then they both looked at Tsukasa.
“Oh,” said October.
“That makes sense,” said Laster. “Just buy the ebook. It’s on
Amazon Kindle, right?”
 Bibliotruckers 269

“Right,” said Tsukasa, clicking through the menus. She found

the book. Power Trip, by Zeppy Cheng. It was cheap. She bought
the book with October’s one-click.
October downloaded the Kindle app onto her phone and
opened the book on it. Tsukasa felt the fourth wall humming from
behind the screen. She gave October a thumbs-up.
October nodded, and she, Tsukasa, and Laster climbed back
into the APC. October placed the ebook on top of the quill that was
jerry-rigged into the APC’s portal mechanism and pulled several
levers. A portal opened in front of the vehicle. October drove them
through.
The world went white, then shimmered, then flashed a brilliant
rainbow of colors, all fighting each other for dominance over the
landscape. Then everything went quiet and the world reoriented
itself. They were driving in a vast, open expanse that was full of
small scrub brush and rocky outcroppings. In the distance a city with
two tall buildings surrounded by several smaller buildings stood. It
looked different from an ordinary skyline—almost like the buildings
had been standing for hundreds of years and had received
weathering like the sides of an old mountaintop. They were ancient,
falling apart, and not in modern condition.
They parked for several hours until October finished reading
the book. She passed it to Laster, who shook his head. “I’ve already
read it.”
Tsukasa took the book from October and read it. It was good,
of course, but there was something about it that gave her a spark, as
if this author had bigger things in store for him. This book would
just be a stepping stone to bigger things for him. She finished it and
put it down.
“Now, let’s go find Jax,” she said.
October drove the APC down the kingsroad, which was a
weather-beaten asphalt road that had once been a proper
automobile highway but had since degraded. The APC crossed it
without much trouble.
 Bibliotruckers 270

“If I remember correctly,” said Laster, “That should be the city

of Tepaddis.”
“Right,” said October. “And Jax should be living there. We
should be able to find her once we enter.” She paused. “As long as
we ask around.”
They drove into the city, drawing glances from the people
walking in the streets. Their APC did stand out, after all, being a
modern military machine in an ancient fantasy world where myth
and magic were real.
A figure clothed in white darted across the ground, stepping
lightly up onto the top of the APC and landing on the back. The
sound of their footsteps resonated on the APC’s roof.
“Who the hell?” said Laster, looking up over his shoulder.
A kid whom Tsukasa recognized as Sand, the main character of
the group, ran past the APC, pushing through the crowd.
“Penny!” he yelled.
There was a knock at the door at the back of the APC.
“Let the door down,” said Tsukasa.
“Are you sure?” said Laster.
October looked at Tsukasa, then at Laster, and then nodded.
She pulled a lever and the back doors opened.
A young girl of about twelve wearing a dress made of pure white
cloth stood at the entrance. She pointed a sword made of paper at
Tsukasa.
“Your presence is heavy on the strings of the Dataworld,” she
said, her voice more mature than her looks. Her eyes were deep,
full of a sparkling knowledge that Tsukasa recognized as the
fountain of wisdom that was only possessed by those who had seen
the abyss, like she had. She knew she had found a kindred spirit.
She extended her hand.
“Tsukasa,” she said. “Fellow interdimensional traveler.”
“I saw your universe,” said the girl, whom Tsukasa knew was
Penny. “When I went deep into the Dataworld. Your universe is not
connected to the extremities of my Dataworld, but you do have your
own way of doing things. My way of doing things is my own.” She
 Bibliotruckers 271

turned around and looked at Sand. “Lead them to Jax. She will help
them in a way that will save our world as well as theirs.”
“Does our world need saving?” said Sand. “I thought our world
was already saved. Isn’t the Empire on the retreat? I thought we
were winning this war.”
“The war is much bigger than you could ever imagine,” said
Penny, stepping out of the APC. “These people will help us win our
battles, if we help them win theirs. Their battles are our battles in
the same ways that the god’s problems are ours.”
Sand shook his head. “We can’t spare Jax. She’s crucial to the
war effort. If she’s not here, then we won’t be able to track down the
enemy datawarriors. She’s indispensable.”
Penny shrugged. “It’s your choice. The council gave you the
authority over this matter.”
Sand sighed. “Fine, I consent,” he said, “If only because I trust
your word after all we’ve been through.” He turned away from the
APC. “Whatever this vehicle is, step out of it, and I’lll ead you to
where Jax is.”
“Is Jax our target?” said October, looking at Laster.
Laster nodded. “She’s the one we need. The tracker who will be
able to find the location of the Narrator.”
Sand led October, Tsukasa, and Laster through the streets of
the city. They were filled with the smell of cooking beef, of spices
and of sweat. Smoke could be seen curling up from the ramshackle
rooftops that were attached, like fallen leaves, to the more modern,
high-tech buildings that looked like they had endured centuries
since they had been built. The city gave an impression that it had
once been fully modern but had since fallen and been recolonized
by people with a lower standard of technology. There were ladders
instead of elevators, ropes instead of bridges, clothes hanging out of
windows and people carrying heavy buckets of water up flights of
stairs.
Throughout the crowds Tsukasa noticed the people with
colorful hair, whom she identified as Cartesians, a race of beings
whose hair color and eye color made them a prime target for slaves
 Bibliotruckers 272

and grisly trophies. They had been enslaved by the Empire that
Sand and his resistance had been fighting, and they were free in this
land, and island off the mainland that Sand had fought to protect
from the grasp of the Empire in a grand battle. Form the looks of
things, the battle had been a long time ago in the frame of the
literary world.
They reached a small, cozy house sandwiched in between two
taller buildings that leaned in over the street, casting long shadows.
Sand knocked on the door.
“Jax?” he said. “Someone’s here for you.”
The door swung open and Jax appeared in the doorway, holding
a packed bag. Bright blue hair flowed down to her shoulders, and
her eyes were rose pink, piercing in their intensity. Colorful circuits
traced around her body like wires on a circuit board, flashing
between the bands of the rainbow. She grinned.
“Beans told me someone would be here to pick me up,” she
said, stepping outside. “And you’ve finally arrived.”
Penny bowed. “So you saw, too,” she said.
“Saw what?” said Jax. She lifted up a piece of paper, showing it
to Sand. “All that happened was Beans leaving me a note that said
someone would show up at my door asking to go on a quest. I’ve
been itching to go on an adventure ever since I stopped being on the
front lines of combat.”
“We still need your powers for the war effort,” said Sand.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone else,” said Jax, looking at Tsukasa
for what seemed like the first time. “What’s your name? I’m
assuming you’re here from another dimension.”
Tsukasa curtsied. “Tsukasa. Here from what you might consider
an alpha dimension, though mine is a subsidiary to that one.”
Jax grinned. “Nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand.
“I’m sure we’ll learn how to get along really well.”
Tsukasa shook Jax’s hand, unsure of how else to proceed. Jax
laughed. “You’ve been all over the place, haven’t you,” she said.
Then she frowned. “But you’re not that old. You’re young in form,
 Bibliotruckers 273

but old in spirit. It’s almost as if your current form is just a shell that
your old form is inhabiting. Never seen anything like it.”
October stepped up, extending her hand. “My name is October.
It’s my boyfriend that we’re trying to track here. He was abducted by
a very powerful person and we need to get him back.”
Jax frowned, then took October by the hand. She pulled back,
as if given an electric shock. “You’re a very powerful individual,”
said Jax. “Both because of your internal strength and because of the
strength of your allies.” She shifted the weight of her backpack.
“So?” she said. “Are we ready to go?”
“Do you know where we’re headed?” said October, as she
turned towards the way they had come.
Jax nodded. “I know exactly where we’re headed, but I have no
idea how to get there. Where we’re going is in a completely different
universe.”
“We have a portal gun,” said Laster, as he walked beside
October and Jax.
Tsukasa walked behind the three, contemplating.
The group reached where the APC had been parked. Tsukasa
got in first, followed by October, Laster, and Jax. The four of them
drove out of the city and into the wilderness. Once they had
progressed sufficiently far into the wilds, October slowed them
down and activated the portal mechanism.
“We’re heading back to your alpha universe,” said October, as
she messed with some dials. “Let’s just hope that this machine’s
calibration component is working properly.”
The world shimmered, sucked itself inside-out, and then
Tsukasa found herself in an APC driving along a coastal highway in
the alpha universe of her own multiverse, the place that wrote the
story she was from. She had never felt much fondness for it, but
seeing it again made her feel lighter than she had felt in quite some
time.
It was as close to home as she was going to get in a while.
“The book, The Lassifia, said Jax. “That’s where we’ll find your
boyfriend.”
 Bibliotruckers 274

October nodded. “Then I’ll buy a copy online.” She checked

Amazon Kindle, then frowned. “It’s not being sold. For some
reason only the hardcopy is being listed, and we don’t have time to
order it long distance.”
“How far away is Louisiana?” said Laster.
“What do you mean?” said October.
“That’s where Zeppy lives. I think one of his local bookstores
could hold a copy of that book. If we search, we could find one.”
“It’s a long shot,” said October. “But, it might just work.” She
paused. “First, though, let’s fill up with gas.”
After filling the tank at a local gas station, they hit the road.
Thirty two hours and countless bathroom breaks later, they stopped
in the small town of Ruston, Louisiana. Zeppy’s address and contact
information had been stripped from the fabric of this universe, but
with Jax, they were able to at least find his general location. They
pulled into the downtown area, which was quaint and looked like it
had been built in the early part of the twentieth century. There was a
small theater, a library, and lots of boutiques. There were also a lot
of insurance companies.
October parked their APC next to a railroad track and the four
people inside got out, walking over to where the bookstore was at
the university campus. They entered the store, which sold more
university labeled paraphernalia than anything else, and looked
through the racks.
October triumphantly held up a book with a picture of a seagull
on it.
“Found it!” she said.
They bought the book. October opened it on the spot and
started reading. After a few minutes, she closed it. “It’s going to be
pretty good,” she said. Then she turned to Tsukasa. “Let’s go find
Max.” She handed the book to Jax. “Can you track him with this
book?”
Jax passed her hand over the book. A white halo of pure light
shimmered over her brilliantly colored skin. Then she dimmed,
lifting her hand off of the book’s cover.
 Bibliotruckers 275

“There are two individuals inside this book who do not belong,”
said Jax. “I can track one of them, but the other is elusive, as I have
nothing that concretely connects me to them.” She handed the book
back to October. “You’re going to need that for travel, right?” she
said.
October nodded. “Thanks.” She held the book under her arm.
After a moment of discussion about what they were going to do
next, the four travelers walked back to the APC and climbed inside,
watching as October rigged the portal mechanism to open up into
The Lassifia.
The world shimmered, flashed, and disappeared, to be replaced
by open sky above and below. The APC entered a freefall, breaking
through the literary highway that was supposed to support it, and
diving down towards a deep forest. Wind whipped past the
windows. Gravity left the cabin, and acceleration pressed Tsukasa
against the roof. Calm and composed, she composed a spell of
lifting and flying, casting it just as they were about to hit the ground.
The APC stopped falling just like it had started. They were only a
couple feet from the top of the canopy. Tsukasa could see the
individual leaves through the APC’s tiny window.
“I’ll handle the flying of this vehicle now,” she said, to October.
October took her hands off of the controls. Her knuckles where
white.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” said Jax, a smile across her
face. “Instant adventure!”
“So you like doing dangerous things,” said Laster, frowning.
Jax shrugged. “Living life normally gets boring. You have to live
it up every now and again in order to experience the world.”
Laster sighed, rubbing at his temples. “As long as you have the
personal strength to overcome such obstacles, you should be fine.”
He looked away. “I don’t know why I’m trying to give advice to you.
You’re much older than I am.”
“I respect your wisdom, old man,” said Jax. “You’re a pretty
cool dude. I respect people like you who can hold their own in a
conversation with me.”
 Bibliotruckers 276

Tsukasa interrupted. “Jax,” she said. “We need to know which

direction to pilot this ship in in order to find Rin and Max.”
“Don’t forget all the other authors who have been kidnapped,”
said Laster. “They need rescuing as well.”
“That was part of my mission,” said Tsukasa.
“We’ll worry about them later,” said Jax. “I don’t even know
what you guys are talking about. Your problems are your problems.”
She paused. “I guess they’re my problems too.”
The APC flew through the air, powered by Tsukasa’s spell, until
on the horizon there appeared a massive city-island, with towers that
pierced the sky and a fat, lengthy bottom that covered and entire
field of view. It was the city-ship of Asindia. Skyships sailed past the
flying APC, powered by sails, which were fluttering, filled with the
roundness of the wind. The whole world was open all around them.
Tsukasa parked the APC in a small corner of the city-ship, a
little alleyway where she thought no one would notice the ship. Jax
closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
“She’s here. So is a very powerful individual, someone who is
powerful enough to level an entire army.”
Laster shook his head. “I know. Max is someone who comes
along only once every century, someone who has the power to upset
the balance of the universe like no one else has ever done before.”
Tsukasa nodded. “He’s powerful. Much more powerful than I
am.”
“We can’t fight him,” said October. “We’re going to have to
convince him he’s on the wrong side. And besides, I don’t think he
would voluntarily assist someone who is trapping people inside of
literary prisons.”
Tsukasa shook her head. “Your confidence is impressive, but it
pays to be cautious.” She stepped out of the APC and onto solid
ground, made of what looked to be scuffed-up boat steel. October,
Jax, and Laster stepped off behind her. Jax pushed past Tsukasa
and led her through the busy streets. The streets were colorful,
vibrant, full of alien energy as weird sentient creatures of all varieties
coexisted among the bustling crowds and blossoming shop awnings.
 Bibliotruckers 277

The smell of ripe fruit and sharp spices floated on the air. Selles
hawked their wares, competing with each other for the small amount
of noise space that wasn’t occupied by the bustling of the crowd.
Carts pulled by three-legged beasts of burden rolled through the
street, pushing aside pedestrians like a boat parting the waves.
Over the top of it all, the towers of Asindia menaced, casting
long shadows that slowly rotated with the movement of the sun.
Tsukasa found it easy to follow Jax through the crowd due to her
bright blue hair and signature mannam circuits. October and Laster
were not far behind.
Jax stopped, suddenly. The crowd opened up. A single figure
stood in the middle of the street, holding a sword at an angle.
Tsukasa recognized her. Rin.
October rushed forwards before Tsukasa could stop her. “Give
Max back to me!” she shouted, as she ran.
Max, a lanky teenage boy who looked just like Tsukasa
imagined him, darted out in front of Rin and held out his arms. A
riot shield appeared in his hands, deflecting October’s charge.
October stumbled backwards, a look of horror on her face.
“What are you doing, Max?” she said. “You’re on the side of
evil. The person who you’re allied with is locking people into
eternal prisons.”
Max shook his head, still holding up his riot shield. “We’re the
ones who are right,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. I don’t want to. But
you know how much I can fight. I’m an asset to Rin, and she needs
me for her war effort. The people of that universe were enslaving
souls and using them as entertainment. That’s not something that
good guys do.”
“So?” said October. “So what if the souls were entertainers?
They agreed to it! Every single soul had a second chance at life, and
every single soul was given an option of whether or not it wanted to
enter into the book.”
Max narrowed his eyes. “Rin?” he said, turning to look at the
Narrator. “You didn’t tell me this.”
“You didn’t need to know,” said Rin.
 Bibliotruckers 278

“Then what have we been fighting for?” said Max. “This would
only be a bad thing if the souls were forced into being slaves. I’m
getting that they had a choice whether they wanted to be in the
books or not.”
“They had no real choice,” said Rin. “It was either that book or
eternal darkness. What kind of being should be ethically forced to
make that decision?”
“Still, though,” said Max. “That was informed consent. You
can’t go around trapping people in pocket universes just because
they were doing something that people agreed to.” He tossed down
his riot shield. “I’m sorry, October,” he said. He walked over to her,
turning around to face Rin. “Everything you’ve told me has been a
lie.”
Rin sighed. “Am I going to have to do this the hard way? I don’t
really need you to enact my plans.”
“What plans?” said October. “What are you planning to do with
the world you conquer?”
“Conquer?” said Rin. “I’m not conquering anything. I’m wiping
the slate clean so that we can start anew. We need to begin
everything with a fresh look, a new origin that will be carefully
selected as to create the ultimate utopia.”
“I don’t remember you being this way,” said Tsukasa, stepping
up to Rin. “I don’t remember you being such a fanatic. What
happened?”
Rin held her sword out. “Do you want to fight me?” A hundred
soldiers appeared all around Tsukasa, from the windows, on the
roofs, between the alleyways. Guns were pointed at her from all
directions. Several slabs of concrete lifted into the sky. The clouds
covered the sun, basking the entire world in darkness.
“Then I shall defeat you here,” said Rin. She swept her hand
forwards, and the battle began.

***
 Bibliotruckers 279

Umi’s tank cleared a way through the thick jungle, which had
grown up around the Inkwell since Rin had become Narrator. The
jungle seemed to have a mind of its own, having devoured
everything on the inside, leaving behind nothing but vine-covered
ruins and a breath of what had been there before. They traveled
through it for what seemed like hours, before it thinned itself out.
After a while, the jungle ended, leaving behind a whiteness that
was still as pure as before, even though the scent of humid trees still
lingered. The same guardian as before stood before the doorway—
the guinea pig with the spear standing upright like a soldier. Umi
parked her tank next to the guard. She climbed out of the top hatch
and held out a small book. It disappeared in a flash, and the doors
opened.
Jeb shrugged, and looked down at Deus. Deus chirped.
“Was that a book written by an AI?” said Jeb. “Because Umi is
an AI, isn’t she? I would have loved to read it.”
Deus seemed to chuckle, even though Jeb knew that a chick’s
anatomy wouldn’t allow for that. Then he chirped again. “It is not so
much different from when you write a book. You have much more
in common than you think.”
Jeb looked back at the entrance to the Inkwell. He followed
Umi’s tank through the door, watching as the world around him
shimmered and changed forms into a liquid gel that splashed in
waves around the windows of the cab before hardening into the
visage of the city he had seen the first time he had entered the
Inkwell.
Black lettering covered Umi’s tank, wrapping around it as if it
were floating on top of a liquid coating. Jeb knew that the same thing
was happening to his truck and Allie’s Ferrari, which was behind
him.
“Bess,” he said. “Are we in any danger?”
“I don’t think so,” said Bess. “But at the same time, I have a bad
feeling about this.”
“I do to,” said Jeb. “Let’s hope this turns out all right.”
 Bibliotruckers 280

Umi’s tank slowed to a stop. Jeb stopped behind her. He

stepped out of the cab, letting Deus jump onto his shoulders, and
then walked over to where the tank had been parked.
“Why did you stop?” he asked Umi, who was climbing out of
the top hatch of the tank.
“I think this is where we were meant to go,” she said, pointing to
the base of a large tower that was circular in form and shining with a
bright intensity, complimenting the rest of the city within the
Inkwell.
Beans stepped up to Jeb, looking slightly agitated. “Slewov is
gone,” he said.
“Gone?” said Jeb.
“Gone,” said Beans. “He left the trailer as soon as you stopped
and disappeared into the crowd. I don’t know where he could have
gone.”
Jeb stroked the stubble on the bottom of his chin. “I didn’t think
he was that trustworthy, but to abandon us now?”
Beans shook his head. “I have reason to believe that he was only
looking for a way to enter the Inkwell so that he could access its
powers.”
“The Inkwell was easy enough for me to enter twice,” said Jeb.
“Why would he piggyback on us?”
Beans shook his head. “You do not understand how difficult
fourth wall breaking is for those who do not originate from your
universe.” He looked at Umi. “In any case, there’s no use worrying
about him now. We should head into this building and see if Umi’s
hunch is correct. She has a sort of clairvoyance that should not be
ignored.” Beans seemed to be in a jovial mood, enough that Jeb
could surmise that he was happy to see Slewov gone from the team.
The four of them—Jeb, Umi, Allie, and Beans—walked into the
building and stood in the center of its foyer. A chandelier hung over
the whole room, casting light on plush couches and a little river that
ran through the room’s center, trickling down a rocky waterfall that
was accented with blue lamps. Potted plants dotted the corners.
 Bibliotruckers 281

Umi stepped up to the receptionist’s desk. “Is Zeppy Cheng in

here?” she said.
“No,” said the receptionist. “We don’t have an author registered
on our list whose name is Zeppy Cheng.”
“Does that mean that no one named Zeppy Cheng has ever
published a novel?”
“Right,” said the receptionist. “We can tell you now that he has
been rejected several hundred times by literary agents, and has been
sending his manuscripts to agents for years now, but that is all.”
Umi shook her head. “I need him to write a sequel to a book
that he wrote three years ago. He needs to continue his story,
because he didn’t finish it. It’s still going on. The bad guys haven’t
been defeated yet, and he ended the story with a but-our-fight-
continues ending. That means that I’ll be stuck in literary limbo
until that sequel is written.”
The receptionist smiled sweetly. “There’s nothing we can do
about that, honey,” she said. “I’m just a receptionist here. You can
try talking to a literary agent, but I don’t think any of the agents at
this company can spare time for you.”
“Isn’t, like, the entire population of the Inkwell literary agents
and editors?” said Allie, walking up to the receptionist’s desk.
The receptionist frowned, as if she had just found a fly in her
soup. “Yes, that may be the case,” she said, “But we are all very busy
working on coordinating the literary universe, especially with the
recent change of Narrator. We have had to retool a lot of our
working elements in order to fit the demands of this new
workforce.”
“So you’re saying that you’re swamped with work,” said Allie,
“And you can’t spare any time to help us.”
“I can’t say that we can’t,” said the receptionist, “But we’ll just
have to see what happens.”
Jeb looked at Deus. “Do you have anything to say?” he said, the
to the chick.
Deus chirped. “Deus does not have anything to add to this
conversation,” he said.
 Bibliotruckers 282

Jeb stepped up to the receptionist’s desk. “Just give us the office

number of an agent you think would be free, and we’ll stop by and
ask him for advice.”
“I don’t think I can—”
Jeb stroked Deus. “Deus, I think you can show them your true
powers.”
Deus chirped, and laser beams shot out of his eyes, illuminating
the receptionist and turning her transparent. She became a clear
being filled with floating words and numbers, that were flowing in
twisting and twirling liquid patterns, packaged inside of a human-
shaped box. The figure bowed, opened its mouth, and pointed to
the door. Words spilled out of its open jaws.
“Two thirteen,” it said.
Then the figure drifted apart.
“Did you just kill the receptionist?” said Allie.
“I have no idea,” said Jeb. “I was just expecting Deus to pull
something out of his tail feathers. Anything, really. I wasn’t expecting
that.”
Allie looked at the cloud of letters and numbers that now floated
above the receptionist’s seat. “I hope she recovers.” She turned to
the elevator area. “Let’s go. Room 213.”
They stepped into the elevator and rode it to the second floor,
stepping out into a hallway with rooms on either side. They came to
the room. The door was open. Jeb knocked on it anyways, and the
person sitting at the desk inside turned in his chair, looking up at
him.
“Who are you?” he said, frowning.
Jeb smiled as best he could. “My name is Jeb,” he said, “And I
come from an unpublished book.”
The man rubbed at his temples. He was older, perhaps in his
forties, thin, and wearing a turtleneck shirt and khakis. His office
was filled with model cars and pictures of his children. He had a
poster of flowers that looked like it had been given to him by
somebody important, given how central it was to the room’s setup.
 Bibliotruckers 283

The literary agent sighed. “My name is Andrew Stephans,” he

said. “I guess you already know that I’m a literary agent with Sixth
Sense Literary Company.” He paused. “I’m assuming that you want
to get your book published.”
“That’s sort of correct,” said Umi, stepping into the room past
Jeb.
The agent looked at Umi, frowning. “Who are you?” he said.
“You don’t look human. I don’t really like representing sci-fi with
robots in it, but whatever, people don’t really read what I represent
anyways when they send me manuscripts anyways.”
“So you won’t represent sci-fi?” said Umi. “Is that all I can be to
you? Just a piece of paper on the slush pile? An email in an endless
bin?”
Andrew shrugged. “I get hundreds of emails a day from
prospective authors, and most of them are somewhat good. I can’t
process them all, and even if I could, I couldn’t represent even a
fraction of them with the sort of passion you need to make a pass in
this industry. Sending a book to an agent is like tossing it onto a
burn pile. There’s not much difference between a slush pile and a
garbage heap.” He paused. “I know you’re from a book, and you
probably do deserve to be published. But, does your author have
any credentials? Has he ever been published before? What kind of
work has he done successfully?”
Umi shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m just one of
his characters, trying to get her book finished. He never finished the
book that he wrote with me in it. He changed it, sure, but he never
fixed it. It still needs to be professionally edited, worked over,
looked at, and worked with.” She sat down in a chair that faced
Andrew’s desk. “I don’t know what else to do.”
Andrew sighed. “I can take a look at the manuscript.”
Umi opened up a small hatch in her arm and a USB stick slid
out. “The manuscript is on this device, properly formatted.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow. “Technology? Did you just pull a
USB stick out of your arm?”
“I am a robot, after all,” said Umi.
 Bibliotruckers 284

“It’s funny how that works, even here,” said Andrew. “I have to
get used to the fact that I’m working in a fictional universe right
now.”
Umi nodded. “So, can you take a look?”
“Right,” said Andrew. He opened the USB stick up on his
computer. “If you’ll give me a minute, I’ll take a look at it right
now.”
“What book did you give him?” said Jeb.
“The one we’re in right now,” said Umi. “The one being written
with us inside of it.”
“You can do that?” said Jeb.
“I can,” said Umi. “Now all we have to do is find the materials
for you to get Zeppy off of his island of isolation.”
Jeb nodded. “Right. So, we can start heading back now?”
Umi looked between Jeb and Allie. “We probably shouldn’t
leave before making sure that Slewov is okay, and not doing
anything that might hurt us.”
Jeb agreed, and so he expressed his consent. “Where might we
find him?”
Umi shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Let’s just ask around until we
find someone who can tell us.”
“I think I know where he’s gone,” said Beans. “Or at least, I
know where he could be.”
Jeb looked at Beans, then at Allie, then at Umi. “Let’s stop
bothering Andrew, then,” he said, “And get out of here.” He wrote
down his number on a piece of paper and handed it to Andrew.
“This is how you contact me,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Andrew, as he began reading text on the screen.
Jeb, Umi, Allie, and Beans left the building and walked down
the street to where they had parked. Jeb helped Beans step into the
trailer and then got into the driver’s seat of the cab. Grabbing the
radio, he dialed in to their shared frequency. “So, where to now?”
he said.
“A certain book that I happen to have a copy of,” said Beans.
“The Inkwell possesses a kind of magic to it that would allow us to
 Bibliotruckers 285

travel to this book without much trouble. We should enter before

it’s too late.”
“Which book?” said Jeb.
“Just trust me,” said Beans. “Ascend, and have the Inkwell
speak to me.”
Jeb did as he was told, and the truck ascended, after Umi’s tank
and Allie’s Ferrari. The convoy drove through the word-filled
whiteness, the pure literary nexus of information that formed the
core of the fictional universe. They had been there once before,
when they had nominated Rin as the new Narrator. Now that she
was the new Narrator, the place had lost most of its power, but its
poignancy had only deepened. Beans spoke, and Jeb could hear
him through the radio.
“Take us to The Lassifia,” he said, and the world went white.
Everything changed, and the world opened up, the sky becoming
huge, filled with clouds, the convoy driving on a literary highway that
was floating above those clouds. Birds flew through the air, as well as
funnily-shaped fish that looked to be hovering with the help of gas
sacs. Jeb kept his truck centered on the highway, away from the
edges—heights had always bothered him. A skyship approached
them from the distance, far enough away that Jeb could barely make
it out, but close enough that Jeb knew it was a sailing vessel.
A gigantic floating city appeared on the horizon. Towers of pure
magic glistened atop a skyline of jagged skyscrapers, built eons ago
but still withstanding the test of time and the elements. Skyships
plied the winds between the towers. The city drew closer, appearing
to become bigger and bigger inside of Jeb’s view. It was a massive
city, at least a hundred miles in length.
A storm appeared to be brewing over the city’s top. Little flashes
of lightning sparked in the atmosphere over the city’s tallest towers,
streaking downwards until they exploded beneath the city’s
foundation. Out of nowhere, a jumbo jet—an airbus, a Boeing 747—
appeared, flying straight into the ground and crash-landing in the
ground.
“Holy shit,” said Jeb.
 Bibliotruckers 286

“That must be Max,” said Beans.

“Max?” said Jeb.
“A character from one of Zeppy Cheng’s books who can
manifest any object that he has seen before out of nothing. He can
literally create hundreds of thousands of pounds of matter out of
pure imagination.”
“Well, that’s a powerful ability,” said Jeb. “I hope he’s on our
side.”
“He is,” said Umi. “I’m scanning the network, and it appears
that a falling-out happened between Max and his Narrator friend.”
“Max was friends with the Narrator?” said Jeb. “Who are they
fighting?”
“Tsukasa is here!” said Allie. “I just received a telepathic
message from her!”
Then, Tsukasa’s voice appeared in Jeb’s ears. You have brought
with you a formidable enemy, she said. You would have done better
to stay away.
“Formidable enemy?” said Jeb.
“She means Slewov,” said Allie. “I think that Slewov betrayed
us.”
“Is he siding with the Narrator?” said Jeb.
“I’m not certain yet, but he’s certainly not siding with us.”
Slewov, or, rather, Ouia’e, as he is known by the people of this
book, is a menace that should have been destroyed by the characters
of this book long ago. Tsukasa’s voice seemed on edge, like she was
fighting her own emotions.
An explosion lifted a large cloud of dust over the center of the
city. Jeb parked Bess in a small parking area that was isolated from
the bustling port. Umi and Allie parked beside him. Umi climbed
out of her tank, holding a rifle, and walked over to the cab.
“I sense Slewov’s presence here,” she said. “He’s gaining power
somehow, like he’s changing personalities.”
Jeb climbed out of the cab and stood in the chilly air of the edge
of the sky city. Allie approached him.
 Bibliotruckers 287

“What’s going on?” she said, motioning to the fight that was
happening in the middle of the city.
“I have no idea,” said Jeb, “Other than the fact that Tsukasa is
there.”
Deus chirped, on Jeb’s shoulder. “Go. Join the fight.”
Jeb put his hand on the hilt of his revolver, but then pulled his
fingers back. “There’s nothing I can do against those monsters,” he
said, as a pillar of flame rose out of the city and scorched the sky.
Gunshots sounded. Another explosion rocked the city to its floating
foundations.
Deus chirped again. “I will protect. Go. Join the fight.”
Jeb hesitated, but then he headed towards the center of the
battle. As he did, he passed citizens of the city running in the other
direction. A school bus, painted bright yellow, appeared out of
nowhere, ramming into the side of a building. Jeb did not know
how, or what, had created it, but he knew that some sort of magical
power was involved—a power of great importance and versatility that,
if harnessed, could destroy an entire universe.
Time froze. A man in a purple robe with a wizard’s hat stepped
out of a portal and bowed.
Jeb stopped in his tracks. “You,” he said. “What do you want?”
“The boy is on your side,” said the man. “I am The Watcher,
the being who watches all of reality and ensures balance and order
within its confines.”
“You introduced yourself this time,” said Jeb.
“I did not see it fit to introduce myself the last time we met,”
said The Watcher. “I have merely come to tell you that your story is
almost at an end, but that it will continue under a specific set of
circumstances, circumstances that must be met in a universe
untouchable by yours except through a difficult method.”
“So you’re saying the battle’s almost over,” said Jeb.
“I am,” said The Watcher. “Get Zeppy Cheng off of his island,
and then you shall have the balanced universe that you desire.”
Then, with a poof, The Watcher disappeared, leaving behind a
portal of nothingness. Time resumed.
 Bibliotruckers 288

A woman with solid blue hair leaped down from a building as if

it blasted by a powerful force. She landed with an impact that was
much heavier than it should have been given her size, tearing
through the concrete ground with her feet. Turning to Jeb, she
brushed dust off of her forehead. She was a beautiful girl, her skin
covered in living circuits of rainbow light that danced with an inner
radiance, tracing whirling patterns across her cheeks and her
exposed arms. She tilted her head.
“You. Get out of the way before you get crushed. This battle
isn’t for civilians.”
Jeb nodded, and then rushed to get away from the powerful-
looking girl before something horrendous happened.
A figure appeared before him, startling him. After what had
happened with The Watcher, Jeb was on edge. He almost pulled
out his revolver, but then recognized her.
“Allie,” he said. “Where’s Umi and Beans?”
“They’re off trying to find Slewov,” said Allie. “I’ve been looking
for you. Why did you try and join the battle? Tsukasa told us to stay
away.”
“Deus told me to go,” said Jeb.
Allie’s expression changed from one of worry to one of
confusion. “Why would he want you to fight?”
“I don’t know,” said Jeb. He winced as another explosion
rumbled through the air.
“Do you think Deus has something, some sort of
superweapon?” said Allie.
“I don’t know,” said Jeb.
Allie looked at Deus. “You had better have something good,”
she said.
Deus said nothing. Allie looked at Jeb. “I don’t trust the
chicken, but it looks like we’re going to be caught up in this battle
anyways.”
Jeb nodded. “I think we’re winning already, but—” he paused, as
a rain of sedans crashed into the city a block from where they
 Bibliotruckers 289

stood—“We still haven’t captured Rin or freed the authors who she
trapped.”
Deus chirped. “It is done,” he said. The air’s tension snapped.
There was an explosion, and everything rushed into Jeb’s head at
once. It was a torrent of information, the same that he had
experienced when Rin was being inducted as Narrator.
He knew, deep down inside of his gut, that Rin had been
defeated.
It was Max’s power—Max had the ability to manifest any object
that he had seen before without any cost, instantly, without limit—
that had killed her. It was simple. Whoever had Max on their side
was the winner.
Rin was gone. Jeb felt it in the pit of his stomach. There was no
mistaking it.
Jeb walked stroked Deus’s feathers. “We didn’t get a chance to
join the fight,” he said.
Deus chirped. “We did not,” he said. “Deus was not needed.”
Umi walked up to Jeb and Allie, frowning. “We still have yet to
deal with Slewov,” she said. She was holding him, by the scruff of his
collar, looking like he had been beaten with a stick, all messy and
bruised.
“What did he do?” said Jeb.
“He tried to steal ink from the Inkwell,” said Umi, “And the
guards led me to him. He was trying to rewrite his book so that he
won. In fact, he slightly rewrote his own book so that there was a
portion of it where he was in control.”
Slewov chuckled. “You can’t do anything to me. I’m immortal.”
“We can toss you into the open sky,” said Umi. She turned
around. “We can let everyone else take care of this city. For now,
I’ve been contacted by Andrew. He says the manuscript is good.”
Jeb’s heart was elated, but then it fell, as he realized that this was
coming at the cost of Rin, someone who had been a friend to him,
someone whom he had shared an intimate moment with. It just did
not sit well with him, having to watch her die—or however her
influence was ended. He knew that the Narrator vacuum would
 Bibliotruckers 290

have to be filled, as well, but this time he would leave the selection
up to people who were qualified to make it—namely, Tsukasa and
her party.
Jeb got to his truck, climbed in, and started the engine. Together
with Umi’s tank and Allie’s Ferrari, they headed back to the Inkwell
to meet with the literary agent Andrew, but not before they tossed
Slewov out onto the open sky, where he fell down to the floor
thousands of feet below.
 Bibliotruckers 291

22
***
Chapter 22
October hugged Max. “Thank you,” she said, standing next to
the body of a smashed sedan. The people of Asindia were crawling
out of the holes they had hidden in during the prolonged battle with
Rin and her army. Max had been invaluable in the fight, taking on
hundreds of enemies single-handedly. October wanted to thank him
for saving her life. She looked around the destroyed battlefield, at
the crushed buildings and gaping pits in the ground, at the scars on
the walls that had been caused by Tsukasa’s blasting fire.
Rin had been tough to take down. She had not wanted to
negotiate, and had begun the attack on her own—but, still, October
lamented how everything had come out. In the end, Tsukasa had
sealed her away in a pocket universe, leaving the slot of Narrator
open again.
Tsukasa stood up from where she had been tending to an
injured civilian and looked at Jax, who was carrying a small child.
“We need to hurry to the Inkwell,” she said, taking the child from
Jax’s hands. “We need to nominate a new Narrator. I will be this
Narrator. I will take the mantle like I should have done before, like
I should have taken in the first place. I shall make up for my
mistakes tenfold.”
“Then let’s get going,” said October. “I think the people of this
city can take care of themselves.”
Jax nodded. “This is the kind of adventure I’ve been looking
for.” She followed Tsukasa, October, Max, and Laster back to the
APC, where they climbed in and drove to the edge of the city, where
October opened a portal to the literary highway. They entered a
white space filled with jumbled messes of nonsense words.
“Where the hell are we?” said October.
 Bibliotruckers 292

Time froze, and a man in a deep purple robe step out of a

shimmering portal and take a seat next to Tsukasa inside the APC.
“I’ve taken you to where you need to go,” said the wizard, whom
Tsukasa recognized as The Watcher. “You do not need to worry
any longer. Balance has been restored to the universe. You will be a
much better Narrator than anyone could have ever wished for,
better than the Narrator before Rin.” He smiled, extending his
hand. “It’s been fun,” he said.
Tsukasa looked at his outstretched hand, and then she shook
her head. “You go where you go, but we’re no friends.”
The Watcher shrugged, then disappeared, and time flowed
again. October looked at Tsukasa curiously. “You look surprised.
What happened?”
“Nothing,” said Tsukasa. She shook her head. “I’m just
surprised that we made it.”
Max looked Tsukasa in the eye. “He visited you, didn’t he?” he
said.
Tsukasa only nodded, and Max looked away.
October frowned. “I see,” she said. Then she was silent. The
Inkwell formed around the APC, seeming to grow out of nowhere,
and then they were at the door guarded by the guinea pig with the
spear. He barred the entrance.
“You have trespassed through an illegal method,” said the
guinea pig, his voice filled with liquid power. “The Watcher does
not play by the rules.”
“Let us through,” said Tsukasa, “And I will provide you with the
book that we are writing right now.”
The guinea pig frowned, narrowing its eyes. “Bibliotruckers?” it
said. “The book I am currently a part of? Why would you give such
a book to me? Are you its author?”
“No, but I have authority to give it, as I am one of its main
characters.”
The guinea pig seemed to think for a moment. Then it bowed
its head. “You may pass, as I do not wish to see this book shelved
without meeting the eyes of readers. I will merely take a piece of this
 Bibliotruckers 293

book, and live within it as myself, as a recognition of a time long

past, as a reminiscent piece of knowledge that only one person
understands.” He lifted his spear. “You may pass.”
Tsukasa smiled, stepping back into the APC—she had stepped
out to converse with the guinea pig. October looked at her excitedly.
“We’re entering the Inkwell?” she said.
Tsukasa nodded. “We are,” she said.
They drove through the whiteness, then came to a deep jungle,
which October pushed through with her APC, crashing down vines
and rolling over brush. When they were out of the jungle, they
drove through a desert without anything in it, and then they came to
the Inkwell, the city of ascension.
Tsukasa held her arm up and ascended, letting the energy of the
Inkwell cover her, surround her, and create a new energy inside of
her. She stepped out into a bath of pure information, the code of
the universe, her body taking in everything around it like a sponge
that had been dipped into pure knowledge. Tsukasa swirled in a
huge whirlwind of words and reasoning, of books both old and new,
published and unpublished. Then she was sitting again in the back
of the APC, looking at October and Max, sitting next to Laster.
Laster grinned. “You did it,” he said.
Tsukasa nodded. “I was supposed to become the Narrator all
along,” she said. “Now that I am, I should fix the problems that Rin
has caused.” She sighed. “First I have to recall the soldiers
threatening the United States,” she rubbed her temples, interfacing
with a command line inside her head. The literary agents read her
thoughts and her wills, doing as she wanted them to do without her
having to communicate them. The troops withdrew from the Los
Angeles area, and returned to their portals. Tsukasa knew it wasn’t
enough to finish everything, but she also knew that there were things
that still had to be changed.
That would wait until another time.
 Bibliotruckers 294

***

Fredrick watched as the army that had invaded the Los Angeles
area retreated back into the portals from which they had come. He
looked at General Aisaka, smiling broadly, and hugged him while
cheering. The whole war room was celebrating.
An image appeared on the television. It was of a woman, not
old, not young, but wise looking, with an aura of power that
surpassed any of the dignified persons in the room. She bowed
before the camera.
“My name is Tsukasa,” she said, “And I am the new Narrator. I
have come to negotiate in Rin’s place. Now that our nature is
known, we shall require a treaty.” The corners of her lips curled
upwards slightly, indicating a small smile. “The authors of this world
have been returned to their lives.”
The screens cut to a video of hundreds of people being
unloaded from trucks. They all looked haggard, like they had
endured horrible things and had lived to tell the tale. Some of the
people who were helping the process were literary characters.
The screen cut back to Tsukasa. “I hope we can begin a new era
of prosperity between the literary universe and the real universe,”
she said, bowing. Then the feed cut off.
The war room was still celebrating, people giving each other
high-fives and hugs. Fredrick smiled, happy to have been a part of
the solution, happy to have finally been of use to the people who
mattered. No longer was he an outcast who had nothing to his
name—he had helped the government when it was in a crisis, done
something spectacular, and come home triumphant. General Aisaka
extended his hand.
“Thank you very much,” he said, to Fredrick. “Do you want a
position with the US military? We need strong individuals like you.”
Fredrick thought about it for a while, and then he shook his
head. “I’m fine with my old job,” he said. “The Breakers are gone,
but I’m sure I’ll find a way to start them back up again.”
 Bibliotruckers 295

General Aisaka nodded. “With your drive and determination,

you’ll be able to achieve anything.”
Then, he saluted.

***

Massive amounts of material were floating through the

connection portal that led to the Inkwell, connected to Zeppy’s
island. It was the material needed to build a ship, the material they
would be used in the construction of the vessel that would get Zeppy
off of the island of isolation and into the larger world, the continent,
the land of real published authors. Jeb hoped that this would be the
case. The boat may succeed, or it may fail—whichever the case, Jeb
was certain that he would be there to watch it. Zeppy walked over to
where Jeb was standing and held out his hand.
“I think I’ll be taking Deus from here,” he said.
Deus chirped, and hopped off of Jeb’s shoulder. Without his
comforting presence, Jeb felt naked, almost as if he was without
clothing. He shivered. Deus nodded his little head at Jeb, closing his
eyes once, and then hopped onto Zeppy’s shoulder.
Zeppy turned around and walked back into the forest. Jeb
looked around, got back into his truck, and started the engine. Bess
roared to life. Jeb drove across the sand to the point that they had
set up an hour before, the way back home—the entry point to the
literary highway. As it turned out, Zeppy had the ability to connect
them to it the whole time—he just hadn’t been using it, for some
reason. Or, he had not been allowed to use it.
They passed through the portal, Jeb’s truck and Allie’s Ferrari,
and then they were driving in the streets of suburban California, still
recovering after the assault by the literary world. Some buildings
 Bibliotruckers 296

were collapsed, others with broken windows, and there was still
debris in the street.
Jeb parked Bess in the parking lot that was closest to his house
and stepped outside into the cold, morning air. He stretched his
arms above his head.
Allie stopped beside him, engine still running. She leaned out of
her window.
“I’ll be going, then,” she said.
“See you,” said Jeb. There was a lingering moment, and then
Allie drove away, her Ferrari disappearing into the distance. Jeb
sighed, leaning against his truck, and looked up at the sky.
He was safe, free, and though he was lonely, he was complete—
he had gained, he had lost, and now his adventure was over.

***

Umi held a quill in her hand, knowing that it was more powerful
than anything she could have ever imagined before it. She knew her
journey had just begun, and that she would encounter many more
obstacles before finding an army to fight against her own race—the
race of Iziz, who were threatening her friend, and her home, Selyse,
and Tankshok. She twirled the quill in her fingers, watching it rustle
in the light of the moon. Then she closed her eyes. She was silent,
sentient, and ready to face the new tomorrow.

***

Laster sat behind his desk in the city of Polis, the center of all
trade in his own universe, the universe of The League of Displaced
Magical Individuals. Sunflower, the main character of that book,
stood on the other side of the desk. “Where were you?” she said,
her voice accusing. “You were gone when I needed you. What were
 Bibliotruckers 297

you doing that needed you so much? I had to file paperwork on my

own, and I think I screwed it up!”
Laster chuckled. “Taught you something about how valuable I
am, right?”
Sunflower scoffed. “I know I might be taking you for granted,
but come on, really? You know you promised to help us. We just
gained a new member and we needed to show her everything. She
didn’t believe us when we told her that you existed and that she
would get paid.”
Laster shrugged. “Well, it’s all fixed now.”
“Can you at least tell me where you went?” said Sunflower.
“No,” said Laster. “That will remain secret for as long as, well,
until you have the proper clearance, which may not be that long.”
Laster winked. “Sunflower, you’re doing good. Keep working that
beat and eventually everything will make sense.”

***

October sat next to Max inside of a movie theater. \

“I know I forgot everything,” said Max, “But why do I
remember it now? If I had to choose, I would say that it would be
safer for me not to know about my powers. Having me forget about
the whole adventure we had would have been for the greater good.
I’m a monster, and the only reason why the world is still a good
place is because I noticed that I was on the wrong side.”
October held Max’s hand, and gave it a little squeeze. “Don’t
worry. As long as you hide your ability from everyone else, you’ll be
fine. Just make sure that you never get in a situation where you have
to use it again. And let’s hope that it never happens.”
Max sighed, and then he hugged October. “Thanks,” he said.

***
 Bibliotruckers 298

Jax sat in a chair in her office in her home town, Tepaddis. She
twirled a pencil between her fingers. She was bored. The war with
the Empire was off of her doorstep, as Sand would not allow her to
participate. It was too dangerous for her, as a cartesian—her
weakness was magnetism and the Empire knew that. So, all she had
to do was wait until her next adventure arrived. That would be a
while—but she was happy. She knew that, eventually, things would
get interesting again.
Very interesting.