“I think you’re wrong, Tick,” Paul said, ignoring Sally. “I don’t think Chu gives one flip about what we know. He seems like a ruthless dude who doesn’t care jack-squat about rules or whatever. All he cares about is who’s standing at the end. It doesn’t matter how we get there.”
“Maybe,” Tick said. “But it still seems smarter to play along as much as we can.”
“Say we do make it,” Sofia asked, sitting on the corner of the bed, addressing Sally. “What are we supposed to do once we get there?”
Sally nodded, pausing a long time before he answered. “Dat there’s a dang ol’ good question, miss. I reckon George is tryin’ to figger dat one out as we sit here talkin’.”
“What are you going to do?” Paul asked.
“I’ll be gettin’ on back to the homestead,” Sally said, rubbing his hands together. “Ya’ll keep mosin’ along on dis here joyride, and I’ll come find ya when we’s got further word.”
“How are you going to find us? How did you find us?” Tick asked.
“I’d reckoned you woulda done asked me dat. Took me forever to find ya the first time ’cuz the signal was weak. But don’t you remember me shovin’ my finger in ya ear?”
Tick couldn’t have forgotten. “Yeah, what was that for?”
“I put one of dem fancy Earwig Transponder thingamajigs in there. Now George can track ya better and stifle some of dem spyin’ devices inside ya.”
Tick reached up and rubbed his ear, then poked his index finger in as deep as it would go. “You put what in my ear?”
“Doncha fret, now,” Sally said. “Ain’t like it’s gonna eat your dang ol’ brain or nuttin’.”
Tick was about to protest further when someone rapped on the door with a hard and urgent knock. Sofia and Paul jumped to their feet; Sally moved faster than Tick would have believed—running to the door and yanking it open in a matter of two seconds.
No one stood there, but a note had been stuck to the door with a piece of clear tape. Sally ripped it off, read through the words, then walked over and handed it to Tick.
“Read it,” Sally said. “I’m goin’ to look for the rat who left it.” He left the room, marching like he was going off to war.
Tick shot a glance at Paul and Sofia, then read the note to them. “‘You people must think I’m an idiot. But I know everything. Everything. The sooner you accept that, the better. The game is on. Win or die.’” Tick paused, swallowed. “‘Sincerely, Reginald Chu.’”
No one said a word for the longest time. Finally, Sofia spoke: “Looks like you were right, Paul.”
Win or die, Tick thought. Win or die.
~
The sounds grew louder—and more haunting—as Sato made his way down the long tunnel. A man screaming as if going through a horrible surgery without anesthetic. People arguing, their words impossible to make out. Someone crying. Lots of people crying. Mumbling, moaning, retching. Sato couldn’t imagine anything worse than being in this place.
The roughly carved walls of the tunnel were dark and shiny, wet with rivulets and flat streams of water sluicing down its sides, disappearing into cracks on the floor. Odd lamps were set into the stone about every thirty feet, filthy glass surrounding a milky light that seemed a mix of old-fashioned wicks and electric sparks. Sato fully expected to see rats scurrying about, but thus far had seen no sign of life.
Just the sounds. The terrible, terrible sounds.
Up ahead, the tunnel made a turn to the right, a somewhat brighter light glowing from that direction. Huddled on the floor was a woman, her face draped in shadow, clutching her legs to her chest, shivering and mumbling the same phrase over and over. Sato couldn’t quite make out the words.
His heart pounded as he walked toward the woman, sweat making the syringe clasped in his right hand slippery; he hid it behind his back. Was she infected? Could it be this easy? He stopped a few feet in front of her, thinking about each breath, trying to slow his heart down.
“Excuse me,” he said, his voice breaking on the second word. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I’m looking for someone.”
The woman looked up; Sato took a step backward. He didn’t know what he’d expected to see—someone hideous, scarred, a wart-infested witch, maybe—but the lady sitting in front of him was very pretty. She had perfect skin, and blue eyes that shone like crystals in the pale light. Her dark hair sprawled across her shoulders. White teeth flashed behind her still-moving lips, uttering the indecipherable words repeatedly.
Despite her pleasant looks, she looked sad, tear streaks lining both cheeks.
“Can you help me?” Sato said, fingering the syringe hidden from her sight. He took a step closer.
The woman finally fell silent, pressing her lips together. Then she spoke, her voice soft but firm. “We’re only crazy when he’s not in our heads.”
Sato reached for words to reply. The lady’s eyes showed no lunacy, no fear, no confusion. She seemed perfectly sane.
“What do you mean?” he finally asked.
“My name is Renee,” she replied, ignoring his question. “But right now he is in my head, and I will do whatever he says.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sato said, taking a step back.
Renee stood up. Her beauty shined despite tattered, dirty garments. She was short and thin, but held herself with confidence—back straight, shoulders square, chin up.
“Why has George sent you here?” she asked.
Sato took another step backward, this time bumping into the stone wall across from the woman. “How . . . how do you know—”
“Stop acting the fool, young man. I know everything. I’m Reginald Chu, and I find it very interesting that you’ve come here, to this strange place, with a syringe in your hand. Why?”
Sato pulled his right hand from behind his back, looking down at it as if ashamed. He didn’t know which felt worse right then—his head or his stomach. “I don’t understand. What do you mean you’re Reginald Chu?”
“I think I’m the one who doesn’t understand,” Renee replied. “George seems to know so much about my project, yet here you stand, without the slightest clue of the danger you are in. How can you trust such a leader?”
“Nothing you say makes sense.”
“Everything I say makes sense.” Renee crossed the short span of the tunnel, stopping directly in front of Sato. “Once I have my partner, once Dark Infinity is fully functional, you’ll understand. The Realities are about to have a great change, my friend.”
Sato swallowed, trying to build his courage. “You’re crazy, lady. You think Reginald Chu is controlling you somehow. Don’t you see how crazy that is? You need help.”
“I told you,” Renee said with a sneer. “We’re not crazy until he leaves our heads.”
“My boss—he thinks he can find a cure for you. If you’ll just let me . . .” He held the syringe up, raising his eyebrows in question.
“A cure?” Renee backed off two steps, shaking her head. “A cure? Does that man think I’m a toady research assistant at some under-funded university? He thinks he’s going to stop me with a cure? He’ll sooner cure cancer, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and regenerate amputated limbs before he’ll stop Dark Infinity.”
Confusion swarmed like a pack of bees inside Sato’s head. The lady really and truly thought she was Reginald Chu. And it worried Sato that he was sliding toward that same belief as well. “What is Dark Infinity?”
Renee folded her arms. “As they say in your Reality, that’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know. A cure. Ha.” She barked a laugh.
“If you’re so confident, why not give me a blood sample? And then I’ll leave.”
Renee held out her hand to him. “Come with me,” she said. “I want to give you a taste of what Dark Infinity will become. And then I want you to go back and report it to your buffoon of a leader. All the Realitant do-gooders can then have fun dreading the day I take over their lives.”
Sato sho
ok his head. “Give me a sample first. Then I’ll go.”
Renee stared at him for a long minute, her blue eyes seeming to glow. “You’re brave for someone so young. Maybe you should have been included in my special trials. Of course, I need a lot more than bravery—too bad you’re not more like your friend Atticus Higginbottom.”
Sato almost fell to the ground at the mention of Tick. This lady had no way, absolutely no way of knowing anything about Tick or the strange ability he’d displayed in the Thirteenth Reality. “How do you know about him?”
“Come with me.” She beckoned again with her hand.
“The sample first.” Sato wiped sweat from his brow, thinking too late how much weakness the action probably showed. “You said yourself there’s no way George can find a cure.”
“Yes, I did say that. But I’m not an idiot—I won’t take chances. This isn’t some lame movie from your Hollywood.”
Sato steeled his nerves. “I’m not going anywhere until you give me a blood sample. You may think you have Reginald Chu inside your head, but I bet he won’t be much help in a wrestling match between us.”
Renee laughed, such a pleasant sound in the otherwise dreary place that it disturbed Sato.
“A compromise, then,” she said. Or Chu said. “I’ll give you your sample, but you let me carry the vial until we’re done. I want—no, I need you to report back to George what you see here today.”
“No way,” Sato said. “I’m not giving you the vial.”
Renee’s face creased into a scowl so frightening that Sato would have melted into the stone at his back if he could have. “You tire me, boy. Do you really think I’m going to let you leave here alive with a sample of my blood? You’ll be signing your own death warrant.”
Sato felt his own blood chill. George will get me out, he thought. George will get me out.
“I’ll take my chances,” he said. “Give me your blood and I’ll go with you.”
Renee stuck her arm out. “Do it, then.”
Sato stepped forward and grabbed her thin arm, leaning over to look at the soft skin in the bend of her elbow. A big vein pulsed, purple in the faint light.
“This might hurt,” he said, not sure why he showed any compassion. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Just do it. Nothing you do to me will be worse than when he leaves my head.”
As Sato readied the syringe, the needle only an inch from the vein, he looked up at Renee’s face. “Sometimes you talk like you’re this Chu guy, and sometimes like yourself. You really are crazy.”
“You wouldn’t understand unless you were infected. Stick me.”
Sato held his breath, then jammed the needle into Renee’s vein. He quickly pulled back on the syringe pump, relieved to see dark red fluid fill the plastic vial. He finished, pulled out the needle, then replaced the plastic cover. He put the whole thing into his right pocket. He put a bandage on her arm to stop the bleeding.
“Done,” he said, finally taking in a huge breath like he’d just surfaced after diving for oysters.
“That blood will never see the light of day; you understand that, right? The only way you will leave this mountain is by giving it up.”
“Just show me what you wanted to show me.” Half of him wanted to push her down and run for the elevator, but he knew he couldn’t. George would desperately need any information he could gather in his quest to find a cure or antidote.
“This way.” She walked toward a branch of the tunnel leading to the right, but paused after a couple of steps and turned toward Sato, her face devoid of expression. “What you’re about to see, you’ll never forget. Never. I promise you.”
Chapter
28
~
Trapped
With each step down the wet and musty passage of stone, the noises around Sato grew in volume. The screams and wails and shouts and piercing cries for help made him feel as if invisible bugs were crawling across his skin, trying to find a place to burrow toward his heart. His stomach clenched into a tight wad of tissue. He braced himself for the sight ahead, wondering if he’d ever see George or Mothball or Rutger or his other friends again.
They reached a place where a dirty curtain was stretched across the entire width of the hallway, swaying slightly from a breeze behind it. The awful sounds became ear-piercing, no longer muffled by distance. Sato was now only a few feet away from discovering whatever was wrong with these people.
“Prepare yourself,” Renee said. Then she reached out and yanked the curtain to the side.
For the second time in the last hour, Sato’s knees buckled. He fell to the ground, his shins slamming onto the hard stone as he stared at the chaos in front of him.
The passageway opened into a large chamber, tables and chairs scattered about the raggedy carpet, most of them broken or turned upside down. Hundreds of people—horrible, terrified, creepy-looking people—filled the room in a state of utter madness.
Their clothes were torn; bloody scrapes and gashes covered their bodies; big splotches of hair had been ripped from their heads. They attacked each other at random, moving from one to the other without warning. They coughed and spit and snarled and bit anything in sight. They cried one second, laughed the next, then screamed as if their very throats would burst. They climbed the walls until they fell crashing to the floor. They jumped and huddled and kicked and flailed their arms.
It was, without any doubt, the most horrific thing Sato had ever witnessed, and he knew he would spend the rest of his life trying to purge it from his memory.
“What is this?” He had to force the words out, rage clogging his throat. “What’s wrong with them? How could you do this to them!”
Renee knelt on the floor next to him, not taking her eyes off the mayhem before them. “So you believe me now, do you? You believe that he’s inside my head, controlling me, talking to you? That I am Reginald Chu at this moment?”
“I don’t care who you are,” Sato said. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making you pay for it.”
Renee tsk-tsked as she shook her head. “Hard to believe you’re only a young man—you speak more like an adult than most men I know.” She shifted until she was sitting comfortably with her legs crossed beneath her. “But this isn’t what I really wanted to show you. Let me show you the future.”
Sato finally tore his eyes from the sickening display and looked at Renee. “What?” he said, throwing all the hatred he could into the word.
Renee didn’t return his stare, looking instead at the people around them. “They’re like this because I underestimated the power of Dark Infinity. I can’t control it on my own—I need help. I need a partner.”
She pushed herself to her feet and walked forward, seemingly oblivious to the danger she entered. But then, as if spurred by the flip of a switch, every person in the vast room grew silent, freezing in place. After a few seconds, the people—every single one of them—calmly gained their composure and joined Renee in the middle of the chamber, lining up in perfectly straight rows. The formation filled the floor, as ordered and organized as any military group in the world. Not a sound could be heard as they all stood still, each one staring at Sato.
“He is in all of our heads, now,” Renee called out, standing rigid as she spoke. “We will do his bidding, whatever he asks, until that time he must leave us, and then we will return to the horror that is life without him. The day comes when he will never leave us again.”
Sato slowly got to his feet, nausea and despair threatening to consume him. In the understatement of his young life, he told himself he had seen enough.
“I’m sorry he’s doing this to you,” he half-whispered. “Fight it if you can. I promise we’ll try to save you.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He turned and ran.
Behind him, he heard the piercing cry of Renee’s voice, echoing up and through the air as if she’d used a bullhorn. “He has my blood in his right pocket! Don’t let him leave with it!”
/> And then came the sound of hundreds of people running and screaming in a synchronized cry of pursuit.
~
“Can you pull him out yet?” Master George asked for the twentieth time in the last ten minutes, pacing the floor of the command room.
“No,” Rutger replied, his eyes riveted to the nanolocator monitor. “But his heart rate is spiking again—I didn’t think it could possibly get higher, but now it’s in the danger zone.” In his hands, Rutger held the Barrier Wand, programmed to wink Sato back from the mountaintop.
“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” Master George whispered under his breath.
“Should’ve gone with ’im, I should,” Mothball said from her chair in the corner. “Bugger, I should’ve ruddy gone with ’im.”
Master George stopped, turning toward his tall friend. “Perhaps, my good Mothball, perhaps. However, we all agreed that this was the perfect opportunity for Sato to snap out of the haze of his past and find himself. If you were there to save him, he might never truly join us.”
“He needs to make it back to the execution cliff,” Rutger said. “Until then, there’s nothing I can do.”
“He’ll make it,” Master George said. “I know it. And when he returns, he’ll truly be a Realitant, the shade of his parents’ death no longer a crutch to bind him in shadow.”
“Very poetic,” Rutger muttered. “But the way his heart’s racing, we’ll need to give him a transplant as soon as he gets back.”
“Just keep that Wand ready, Rutger. Keep it ready.”
~
Sato gasped for breath as he ran through the dimly lit tunnel; it hadn’t seemed so long the first time he’d walked through its winding path. The escalating screams behind him brought horrible images to his mind of what would happen if he were caught. Every muscle in his body begged him to stop, but he kept running, limping slightly from the pain in his shins, especially on his right leg.
Worried the blood-filled syringe in his right pocket might break, he reached in and pulled it out, gripping the plastic cylinder once again like a dagger in his hand. It almost slipped from the sweat on his palm—he shifted it to his left hand while he wiped his fingers dry, then switched back.