The Hunt for Dark Infinity (The 13th Reality #2)
Text © 2009 James Dashner
Illustrations © 2009 Bryan Beus
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain
¨
. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.
All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dashner, James, 1972-
The hunt for dark infinity / James Dashner.
p. cm. — (The 13th reality ; bk. 2)
Summary: After being kidnapped by Mr. Chu, Atticus "Tick" Higginbottom and his friends Paul and Sofia must survive a series of tests in several different Realities.
ISBN 978-1-60641-034-9 (hardbound : alk. paper)
eISBN 1-60641-616-2 (eletronic)
[1. Space and time—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.
3. Science fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D2587Hu 2009
[Fic]—dc22
2008032394
Printed in the United States of America
R. R. Donnelley, Crawfordsville, IN
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This book is dedicated to my siblings:
Michael, Lisa, David, Paul, and Sarah
Thanks for making life fun and adventurous.
I just wish you had shared more of the Dashner
good-looking genes. I love you guys.
~
Contents
Chapter 1: The Two Faces of Reginald Chu
Chapter 3: Something Odd Is Happening
Chapter 5: The Entropy of Fragmentation
Chapter 7: Master George’s Interview Room
Chapter 9: A Major Rule Violation
Chapter 10: A Very Strange Place
Chapter 12: Long, Spindly Legs
Chapter 14: The Council on Things That Matter
Part 2: The Beast in the Glass
Chapter 15: Nice Mistress Jane
Chapter 18: A Very Scary Proposition
Chapter 21: An Elevator in Stone
Chapter 22: Lots of Left Turns
Chapter 29: Tickets to Fourth City
Chapter 31: The Sickness of Sato
Chapter 35: Beautiful Black Hair
Chapter 36: The Tale of Mistress Jane
Chapter 37: Tick’s Dark Secret
Chapter 38: A Time for Slumber
Chapter 40: A Thin Sheet of Plastic
Chapter 43: The Dilemma of the Doors
Chapter 45: The Shower of Gold
Chapter 49: An Unfortunate Meeting
A –Glossary of People, Places, and All
Things Important
Prologue
~
The Illness
T
he boy stared at his world gone mad.
The wintry, white face of the mountain housing the End of the Road Insane Asylum towered behind him, its forever-frozen peak lost in the gray clouds blanketing the sky. Before him, the boy saw the last person of his village succumb to the claws of insanity.
The man was filthy, barely clothed, scraped from head to toe. He thrashed about in the muddy grass of what used to be the village commons, clutching at things above him that were not there. The man’s eyes flared, wide and white, as if he saw ghosts swarming in for the haunt. He screamed now and then, a raw rasp that revealed the condition of his ruined throat. Then, spurred by something unseen, the man got up and sprinted away, stumbling and getting back up again, running wildly, arms flailing.
The boy finally tore his eyes away, tears streaming as he looked back toward the icy mountain. A lot of the crazies were already there, filling the asylum to capacity—prospective inmates had been turned away for a week now, left to wander the streets and fight others who were as mad as they were.
The boy had not eaten in two days. He’d not slept in three, at least not peacefully. He’d stopped grieving for his parents and brother and started worrying about how to survive, how to live. He tried not to think—
You are mine, now.
The boy jumped, looking around for the source of the voice. Someone had spoken to him, as clear a sound as he’d ever heard. But no one was there.
There’s no need to be alarmed. The Darkin Project will be fully functional soon. Until then, survive. This is an automatic recording. Good-bye for now.
The boy spun in a tight circle, searching his surroundings. He saw only the burnt ruins of his village—weeds, dust, trash. A rat skittered across the ruined road. Someone was screaming, but it was very far away.
The boy was alone.
The voice was in his head.
It had begun.
Part
1
~
The Unwanted Wink
Chapter
1
~
The Two Faces of
Reginald Chu
M
r. Chu hated his first name. It was evil.
Crazy, perhaps, for an adult to think such a thing—especially a science teacher—but as he walked down the dark, deserted street, he felt the truth of it like a forty-pound weight in his gut. He’d felt it since childhood—an odd uneasiness every time someone called his name. A black pit in his belly, like rotting food that wouldn’t digest.
“Mr. Chu!”
The sharp ring of the woman’s voice slicing through the air startled him out of his thoughts. His breath froze somewhere inside his lungs, sticking to the surface, making him cough until he could breathe again. He looked up, relieved to see it was only Mrs. Tennison poking her frilly head out a high window, no doubt spying on her neighbors. Her hair was pulled into dozens of tight curlers, her face covered in a disgusting paste that looked like green frosting.
Mr. Chu drew another deep, calming breath, embarrassed he’d been jolted so easily. “Hi, Mrs. Tennison,” he called up to her. “Nice night, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said in an unsure voice, as if suspecting him of trouble. “Why, uh, why are you out so late? And so far away from your house? Maybe you’d like to, uh, come up for a cup of tea?” She did something with her face that Mr. Chu suspected was supposed to be a tempting smile, but looked more like a demented clown with bad gas.
Mr. Chu shuddered. He’d rather share a cup of oil sludge with Jack the Ripper than spend one minute in Mrs. Tennison’s home, listening to her incessant jabbering about town gossip. “Oh, better not—just walking off some stress,” he finally said. “Enjoying the night air.” He turned to walk away, glad to have his back to her.
“Well, be careful!” she yelled after him. “Been reports of thugs in the town square, mobbin’ and stealin’ and such.”
“Don’t worry,” he replied without looking back. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
He quickened his step, turned a corner, and relaxed into a nice and easy gait. His thoughts settled back to the strange fear he had of his own first name. The name he avoided whenever possible. The reason he always introduced himself as “Mr. Chu” to everyone he met.
Having taught science at Jackson Middle School in Deer Park, Washington, for more than twenty years, he’d hardly ever been called anything
but
Mr. Chu. Single and childless, his parents long dead, and separated from his brothers and sisters by thousands of miles, he had no one to call him anything more intimate than those two lonely, icy words. Even the other teachers mostly hailed him by his formal title, as if they dared not befriend him. As if they were afraid of him.