The Hunt for Dark Infinity (The 13th Reality #2) (17 page)

“The Chi’karda there,” Jane said, ignoring the interruption, “is different. More powerful. More potent. It’s mutated into something quite extraordinary. We may finally have the secret to finding our Utopian Reality. If this place isn’t it, the power in the Thirteenth will help us make it ourselves.”

No one spoke for a long time; a few people exchanged nervous glances.

“Why all the sad faces?” Jane asked. “Haven’t you trusted me all these years? Don’t you still trust me?”

“Not if you break the rules,” Sato’s mother said. “How can we trust you if you break the rules and hide things from us?”

“This calls for an immediate Discretionary Council,” Sato’s father said. “George, you know it does. I demand you call in the Haunce, this instant.”

George stood. “Now, Master Sato, let’s not be hasty—”

That was the line. Those seven words would stick in young Sato’s mind, making it even harder for him to trust the man in the future, when his own recruiting call came. That was the line, because after George said it, not another word was spoken by him before Sato’s parents were dead.

“I don’t have time for this,” Jane said. “I thought this might be the reaction, so I brought along something to show you all how important this discovery is. For all of us. For the Realities. For humanity.”

“Stop,” Sato’s father said. “Stop this instant. I demand it.”

“You . . .
demand
it?” she replied, her lip curled ever so slightly. “You demand it?”

“Yes,” Sato’s mother answered for her husband. “You’re scaring us. This doesn’t feel right.”

Mistress Jane smiled then, an image Sato would never forget. The smile held no humor, no joy, no kindness. It was an evil smile.

The next moment, the windows erupted, blowing inward with a shower of tinkling glass shards. Shouts of pain surrounded him as streams of fire poured in from outside, streaking spurts of lava that whisked around the room like flying eels of flame.

The dream always grew dim at that moment, the memory fading into horror. He remembered his father’s comforting grip on his shoulders disappearing, his mother’s hand
letting go of his own. He remembered intense heat. He remembered people running around, their clothes on fire. He remembered Jane vanishing into thin air. He remembered crying, turning to find his parents, wanting to run away.

But then, like always, he saw one last thing in the dream before it ended. One last image that would haunt him forever. His mother and father, lying on the ground, side by side.

Screaming. Burning.

Dying.

Sato woke up.

~

A Very Scary Proposition

O
kay, it’s my turn,” Sofia said as she took off her right tennis shoe. “You guys couldn’t poke yourselves in your own eyeball.”

Tick wanted to argue, but didn’t have much evidence to the contrary. He and Paul had been trying to hit the button with a shoe for at least ten minutes, their only reward being smacked in the head a couple of times as the shoes fell back down.

“‘Poke yourselves in your own eyeball?’” Paul said. “Never heard that one before.”

Sofia ignored him, planting her feet and staring up at the button with intense concentration, swinging the shoe up and down with both hands as she readied herself. Finally, she swung hard upward and let the shoe fly. It missed by three feet.

Paul snickered. “Ooh, so close. Hate to break it to you, but you throw like a girl.”

Uh-oh,
Tick thought.

Sofia bent down to pick up her shoe, then bounced it up and down in her right hand like a baseball. “What did you say?”

Paul folded his arms. “I said, you throw like a girl.”

“Huh,” Sofia grunted, staring down at her shoe. Then she reared back and threw it straight for Paul’s face, smacking him square on the nose.

He grabbed his face with both hands, jumping up and down. “That hurt, man!” he shouted. But a second later, he started laughing. “Ah, Tick, it was worth it to see Miss Italy mad. Her face looks like her daddy’s spaghetti sauce.”

This time Sofia punched Paul in the arm with a loud thump. “You want some more?” she asked.

Paul rubbed the spot. “Dang, woman, I give up. How’d you get so mean, anyway?”

Tick was loving every minute of the exchange, but he knew they had to push that button. He felt something—a pressure in his chest—that told him they’d better get serious quick.

“You lovebirds cut it out,” he said. “Start throwing.”

They tried for another five minutes, dodging each other’s shoes and scrambling around to pick up their own. Sofia finally hit the bull’s-eye.

When her shoe connected, a quiet click echoed off the round glass of the tunnel and the blinking light stopped, turning off completely. All three of them stared, waiting for something amazing to happen. Nothing did. Tick rubbed his sunburned neck, sore from craning it upward for so long.

“Great,” he said. “Just great.”

Sofia huffed and looked down; Tick noticed her body tense, her eyes widen. She stared at the floor, transfixed, as if hypnotized. Tick quickly followed her gaze. He couldn’t stop the gasp before it escaped his mouth.

On the very bottom of the tunnel, at their feet, a perfect red square had formed on the glass, about five feet on each side, as if a neon light were glowing right beneath them. In the middle of that square, several lines of words appeared like text on a computer screen, black on white.

“Guess we
were
supposed to push the button,” Paul said.

Tick fell to his knees and scooted around until the words were right side up. It was another poem—a pretty long one. He started reading.

You pushed the button; it called the beast.

It moves real fast; it likes to feast.

You can stop it once, but cannot twice,

It’s the only way to save your life.

How to do it, you may ask;

This will not be an easy task.

Your mind will beg of you to quit,

But if you do, your mind will split.

On this very spot you’ll stand;

You will die if I see you’ve ran.

I’m testing strength and will and trust.

Move one inch, and die you must.

Do not step outside the square.

No matter what—don’t you dare.

When this is over, you will see

A grand reward for trusting me.

“Dude,” Paul breathed. “There’s no way Master George is behind all this.”

Sofia sat down next to the poem. “For the first time in my life, I think I agree with you. He said in the letter we were going to a gathering, not do more tests.”

Tick read through the poem again, feeling very uneasy. Paul and Sofia were right—this was getting weird. Even though Master George had sent the Gnat Rat and the Tingle Wraith after them during their initial recruiting test, this seemed too sinister for the jolly old man. It felt dark and threatening.

“This isn’t even a riddle,” Tick said, standing up.

“What do you mean?” Sofia asked.

Tick pointed down the long tunnel in the direction from which he thought the train thing had come the first time they’d seen it blur past. “There’s nothing to solve. We have to stand inside this square no matter what happens. No matter what . . .
comes.
”

He couldn’t get over the sick feeling in his gut. Something felt wrong, like he’d left a fat wallet full of money on a city park bench. Or probably how his mom would feel if she realized she’d left the oven on, right after taking off in the airplane to go visit Grandma. The world seemed twisted, off balance.

After a long pause, Sofia spoke up in a confident voice. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter?” Tick and Paul said at the same time.

Sofia shrugged. “If it’s Master George—which I doubt—we need to do what the poem says. If it’s not him, we
still
need to do what it says. We’ll be really tempted to leave the square, but we can’t. Then, at the last second, whoever it is will wink us away. Poof, nice and easy—just like the chair thing.”

“How do we know for sure we’ll get winked?” Tick asked, even though the answer had just clicked in his head.

“If somebody else is doing this,” Sofia said, “they could obviously just kill us if they wanted to. Why would they go through this whole ordeal to get rid of us? If anything, now we have even more pressure to pass these tests.” She shook her fists and screamed in frustration. “This is so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

“Way to sum it up intelligently,” Paul muttered. When she gave him a cold stare, he threw his hands up. “Hey, I agree with you!”

“Wait,” Tick said, shushing them, holding a hand out. He felt a slight tremor beneath his feet, a small vibration with no sound.

“It’s coming, dude,” Paul said. “It’s coming!”

The shaking grew stronger, almost visible now; Paul and Sofia seemed to jiggle up and down. Tick had never been in an earthquake, but he knew this must be what it felt like.

“What do we do, man, what do we do?” Paul was looking left and right as if trying to decide which direction to run.

Sofia reached out and grabbed Paul by the shirt, jerking him toward her until their faces were only inches apart. “We stand in this square, Rogers, you hear me? We stand in this square!”

At once, they all looked down at their feet. Tick had to shuffle a foot closer to the others to be inside the red-lined boundary.

“She’s right,” he said as Sofia let go of Paul. “No matter what, we have to stay in the square.”

The tunnel trembled violently; Tick had to spread his feet a little and hold out his arms to maintain his balance. A sound grew in the distance, a low rumble of thunder. Whatever it was—the poem had called it a beast—was coming from the direction Tick had thought it would. He narrowed his eyes and stared that way, though nothing had appeared yet in the distance.

“This is crazy, man,” Paul said. “Are you guys
sure
about this?”

“Yes,” Tick said, not breaking his concentration. He thought he could see something dark, far down the tunnel.

“My brain wants me to run,” Paul insisted.

This time, Tick did turn, pointing at the poem still printed on the ground. “The message said we’d think that. Don’t move.” He looked back down the tunnel. There was definitely something dark way down there, growing larger, bit by bit.

“I’m watching you, Rogers,” Sofia said, almost shouting as the rumbling and shaking increased. “We’re going to wink away. No one’s going to kill us!”

“Fine! Quit treating me like a baby.”

Tick strained his eyes as the dark shape grew bigger. Something about its movement made him think it was
twisting
—corkscrewing through the tunnel like a roller coaster.

“What
is
that thing?” he said, though the roar had grown so loud he knew no one could hear him. He braced himself, knowing it would be easier if he didn’t look, didn’t see it coming. But his curiosity was too strong.

Then the air around them suddenly brightened, flashing a blinding white.

“Look!” Paul shouted from behind him.

Tick turned to see sand dunes and sunlight through a gaping hole in the side of the tunnel.

The door had opened.

~

The Train Thing

A
shot of elation and relief surged through Tick’s nerves, like he’d been rescued from a burning building. There it was, their escape! He even took a step toward it before reason pulled his thoughts back to reality. Sofia grabbed his arm.

“No!” she screamed.

“I know!” he answered, looking down at his feet. His toes were within inches of the red line. The world around them shook and roared, as if they were in a small building pummeled by a tornado. The wind had picked up, rustling their hair and clothes.