“He deserves every bad thing that could ever happen to him,” Tick said, defiant. “But I won’t do something like that again. I promise.”
“Yeah, right,” Chu responded, glaring at him. “You just wait, kid. Wait until you start to feel the joy of being stronger than someone else. You’ll be working beside me before you turn twenty years old. That’s a guarantee.”
Tick looked at him without answering.
“Let’s get to work,” Jane said. “Nothing matters if we can’t get back to the real world.”
Tick felt a little lost right then. A little confused. And scared at what might happen when they started messing with Reality on a big scale. He decided to set everything aside and quit thinking for a while. They had nothing to lose, and he could deal with his feelings about what Jane had said later.
“Okay.” Tick pointed down the beach at the campfire that had become their central meeting spot. “Let’s go sit down.”
“And we’re not standing up again until we’re in a differ- ent Reality,” Chu said as he started walking that way. “I can’t stand one more day in this place.”
Tick and Jane exchanged a glance. She said nothing, her mask melting into a blank expression, and Tick wondered what was going on inside her head. He shrugged, and then the two of them followed Chu to the campfire.
They sat on the stumpy logs they’d brought out on the first day, circling the small flames that spit and hissed as they burned. The fire smelled good, and Tick remembered campouts with his family. The memory hurt his heart, and he swore to do just as Chu had said. They needed to get out of the Nonex.
“We’ve talked for hours about every theory in the book,” Chu said. “Time to put up or shut up, as they say. What are we going to try?”
Tick had listened to every conversation they’d had in the Nonex, and he understood most of them. Master George had made him study pretty much every science book ever written. But none of it seemed to matter right then. The only thing he trusted was his instinct.
He realized Jane was talking, but he’d completely tuned out. Feeling a sudden boldness and certainty, he interrupted her.
“I know what we need to do.”
Chapter 8
One Question
Paul had been waiting for this day for a long time. A mission for the Realitants for which he was in charge. Of course, Sofia probably thought she was the boss, and he’d let her keep thinking that, but he knew the truth.
This was Paul’s time.
Master George had ushered them into his little office, where they sat on a small couch, and he was perched on a wooden chair with his Barrier Wand balanced on top of his lap. He had a grave look on his face, which was business as usual since the whole world had fallen into chaos.
“Are you both ready?” the old man asked.
Paul nodded.
Sofia cleared her throat. “Of course we are. But you haven’t really told us much about what we’re supposed to do.”
Their fearless leader pursed his lips, looking as if he had a whole bunch of nasty thoughts in his head that he didn’t want to share. “The Third Reality is one we haven’t charted very well, and, given recent events, we’ve lost all other means of communication with the Realitant we originally sent there. She can be quite . . . difficult, and she’s made it clear that supervising the Third Reality is her job and her job alone. I need you to find her and ask her a very important question.”
“You said something about her wanting to eat us,” Paul said. “This chick a wolverine or something?”
“No, no, no,” Master George grumbled. “And I highly suggest you not say such things to her when you meet. And most certainly, I recommend you not call her a . . . what did you say? A chick?”
Paul shrugged. He wasn’t worried—he’d have this lady cooling her jets with some of his simple charm and good looks. No biggie.
“I think I’ll do the talking,” Sofia muttered. “Don’t worry.”
“Her name is Gretel,” Master George continued. “The woman has a nasty temper, the worst I’ve ever seen. She makes Mistress Jane look like a princess on a pony. And she’s been a bit . . . at odds with me for some time now. But she’s brilliant, and I plan to send you with full means to communicate back to me through your nanolocators. Your first task is to reach her. Make sure she is calm. And then ask the question.”
Paul thought the whole mission seemed a little strange. “What’s this big question we’re supposed to ask?”
Their leader hefted the Barrier Wand in his hands and studied it, though his gaze was distant, as though he was trying to stall for time.
“Well?” Paul pushed.
“You may not understand it, but I need you to say these exact words to her. Are you ready? Though short, I’ve taken the liberty of writing it down on pieces of paper I’ve slipped into your packs.”
“Sheesh,” Paul said. “Just spill it already.”
“Here it is,” the man said, looking very serious indeed. “Six words: May I please use your bathroom?”
Paul was still snickering about the ridiculous question when the old man winked them to the Third Reality. Master George had refused to explain any further, saying that those six words were all they needed to know. They’d be sent to a place near a path. Follow the path. Find a house. Knock on the door. Ask the question: “May I please use your bathroom?”
Easy peasy.
Well, worst-case scenario, they’d be able to utilize the facilities before heading back.
Paul and Sofia stood on a soggy, muddy trail that cut ahead of them through marshland and swamp. The air was muggy and seemed to stick in Paul’s lungs when he breathed, and the heat made it worse. They’d only been there for half a minute, and he was already sweating head to toe.
Trees rose up out of the black waters of the swamp, moss and vines hanging from their branches. There were the sounds of frogs and crickets and a million other bugs and creatures, and a fragrance that was an inch short of disgusting. Rotten eggs and burnt toast.
“Let me get this straight,” Paul said. “This lady could live pretty much anywhere in the thirteen Realities, and she chose to live here?”
Sofia had her annoyed look set firmly on her face. “Do you even listen when Master George talks? He said that she was sent here to study this Reality. That’s why she lives here.”
“And this whole world is a swamp? I’m pretty sure they have a mountain or two somewhere. A sweet forest dig. A desert would be better than this.”
“I just hope Master George didn’t send us here so we’d be out of the way.”
Paul snorted. “You kidding? He probably figured we’d drunk a ton of water, so here we are—waiting to ask if we can use this lady’s bathroom.”
“I wonder who died here, or how many,” was Sofia’s reply.
Sometimes she chose to ignore his comments as her best line of defense. Paul didn’t mind. “Maybe there was a battle or something. It sure isn’t a graveyard.”
“It looks like the path starts here and goes in that direction.” She pointed down the long trail, which wound its way through the nasty, steaming marshland.
“I bet we get bitten by mosquitos the size of my dad’s truck.”
“Probably.”
“We’ll get malaria and die.”
“Probably.”
“Okay. Let’s go.”
They reached Gretel’s house about ten minutes later.
It was the exact kind of place Paul expected would be in the middle of a swamp. Old, moss-covered wood, the sideboards of the small cottage warped from too much moisture. Faded, worn paint that used to be white. A screen door that was half off its hinges. A porch that looked like it was about to collapse. The biggest trees they’d seen yet surrounded the place.
Paul had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t make any Hansel and Gretel jokes since he’d first heard the woman’s name from Master George, but he couldn’t resist.
“We forgot to drop pieces of bread on our way h
ere.”
Sofia gave him a fake courtesy laugh. “I was waiting for that.”
“Comedy never works when it’s obvious.”
Sofia flashed him a smile that wasn’t fake, and Paul broke out in goose bumps. He hoped she couldn’t tell. He started walking toward the porch to hide it.
When he reached the steps of the porch, he couldn’t help but hesitate. It seemed as if their feet would crash right through if they dared take one step on the old, rotten boards. But before he could take that first step, the front door tore open with a bang. The screen that had barely been hanging on fell off completely. It clanged against the porch, bent and torn.
An old, old woman stood in the doorway, a huge knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. Paul yelped and backed away. He ran into Sofia, and they both collapsed to the soggy ground.
Gretel moved forward, the boards creaking under her feet. She had gray hair springing in all directions, a face as wrinkled as a newborn pup, and a tattered dress that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in years. But her body seemed strong, solid. Especially the fingers gripped around those two weapons.
“How dare old Georgy Porgy send two rats here to nibble on my cheese,” she said, her voice low but somehow full of venom. “I told him what would happen if he did that. I sure did. Death, true and true.”
The old lady lifted her pistol and aimed it at Paul’s face.
Chapter 9
A Dusty Road
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Paul shouted, holding his hands up as he got to his feet. Sofia did the same next to him. “You haven’t heard why we came yet!”
Gretel cocked the old silver pistol and took a step forward. She kept the barrel pointed directly at Paul. “Don’t need hearing your nonsense, boy. I’m here for a reason, and that reason is more important than two pipsqueak babies begging for their lives on my lawn.”
Paul’s immediate instinct was to tell her she was crazy for calling the mud and weeds on which they stood a lawn. Luckily, Sofia spoke up before he could, as calm and collected as a sheriff in an old Western movie.
“You want to shoot us, Gretel? Go right ahead. But you’ll need to answer our question before you do.”
Her words took the lady aback a little, as it did Paul. Was this really the time to ask if they could use her bathroom? Then again, Paul thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard come out of George’s mouth anyway.
“A question, you say?” Gretel responded. “You say you have a question for me?”
“That’s right,” Sofia said. “Just one. May I please use your bathroom?”
The old woman swung her gun away from Paul and pointed it off somewhere in the distance. She pulled the trigger, and a boom rocked the air and smoke puffed up from the gun. Gretel spun the pistol on her finger like a cowboy and smiled, her teeth looking like they’d chewed one too many chicken bones throughout the years.
“Yes, you may, my darling,” she said. “Yes, you may. Do come in.”
Sofia glanced back at Paul, who shrugged. They both headed up the steps of the rickety old porch.
Mothball had always prided herself on being a nice, genuine person who could see the good in everyone. Yes, she loved to tease and rib, but deep down she had a heart of gold, soft and snuggly and warm. At least, that’s what she liked to think.
But Sally irritated the living jeepers out of her. How in the bloody tarnations had she ended up with him on this mission? The man was like a walking bullhorn, he was.
“So, Miss Purty Legs,” he said as they walked down a long country road in the Twelfth Reality. “Whatcha thinkin’ this old bag of cornfeed’s gonna help us with?”
“Don’t know as yet,” she replied. “Just hopin’ I can hear a bloody word that comes out of his mouth over your yappin’ tongue. No offense, of course.”
Sally bellowed his deep, booming laugh. “None taken, missy. None taken. You should be used to yappin’ after hanging out with that friend a’yorn. Rutger could talk the ear off an elephant.”
Mothball couldn’t help it—she laughed too. Sally always knew how to make her smile eventually. “The wee little fat man can talk, no doubt about it.”
“Anyhoo, why we startin’ with this farm boy again?”
Though she could swear she’d already explained this to him, Mothball did so again. “He’s not really a Realitant, but he’s a friend of ours. Lives out in the boonies so as he can keep tabs better without worryin’ over communications and such. Watches over the world, he does. Has every satellite and radio and cell service you can dream up in this quaint little Reality. We pay him right nicely, too. He’ll know what the goings-on are about.”
“Goings-on are about?” Sally repeated. “What the heckamajibber does that mean?”
“We need to find what’s the trouble here. We’re on a research mission, silly bones. Clean out them bloody ears, would ya? Master George explained it all right nicely. Gathering information, we are.”
“Well, I sho ’nuff knew that! I’m just tryin’ to figger out how you people speak in them fancy lands a’yorn.”
“I know the feeling,” Mothball muttered under her breath.
They reached a dusty old mailbox on the side of the road with the word “Tanner” printed on the side in faded black letters. A long, gravel driveway cut through a cornfield before disappearing into a grove of trees about a half a mile away.
“Here we are,” Mothball said. “He’s waiting for us I ’spect.”
Thankfully Sally didn’t say another word as they started walking down the long driveway.
Rutger sat in front of his huge screen, reviewing all the data he’d gathered from the instruments spread throughout the Realities. The ones that had survived the destruction, anyway.
He missed Mothball.
Yes, she was a tall sack of bones who took every chance she got to make fun of him. But she was also his best friend, and he hated thinking of her out there without him, especially considering how dangerous things had become. A world suffering from chaos that you can’t help breeds chaos that you can. The thieves and looters and murderers would be out in full force now that the police, firemen, and other authorities were occupied with search and rescue.
Of course, Mothball was a tough old bear. She’d be fine.
He began scrolling through the data—everything from weather reports to measurements of quantum anomalies in atmosphere particle waves. The data was haywire, still settling from the massive disruptions caused by that red-faced Mistress Jane and her attempt to sever the Fifth Reality from existence. What a disaster that had been, saved only by the inexplicable powers of Master Tick. However, it seemed as if saving the universe from one final and all-ending catastrophe had created lots of smaller ones.
Something caught his eye.
He zoomed in to take a look at one of the measuring stations located in an old forest in the Third Reality; a box of instruments had been left there almost a decade ago. There’d been an absolute flurry of activity there just a couple of days earlier, spiking the Chi’karda levels through the roof. And then it had ended abruptly, going from immeasurably high to zero in an instant. Rutger read through it all, trying his best to interpret what it could mean.
He noticed that the information had an attachment: a photograph. Many of the instrument boxes had cameras installed nearby, but Rutger was surprised to see that something had been taken and sent before whatever had happened to end the data flow. The box had to have been destroyed eventually.
He was so anxious that his fat fingers hit the wrong key twice, but he finally opened up the attached picture.
There were trees—lots of them. And down the middle of the photo, a gash, as if someone had painted over the forest scene with an image of a beach. And on that beach was Mistress Jane, looking toward the camera with her menacing red mask. Over her shoulder, standing a ways behind her in the sand, was another figure.
Rutger quickly zoomed in, leaning forward to get a better look. His gasp echoed throughout the
entire Realitant headquarters.
It was Tick.
Chapter 10
Probing
The air around Tick hummed.
He, Chu, and Mistress Jane had been holding hands for more than an hour, eyes closed, the campfire slowly dying. Tick could barely hear the last flickers of its flames over the thrumming sound that came from the Chi’karda that burned between the three linked humans. Anyone who might have observed the group from afar would have seen a massive cloud of tiny orange lights, a fiery mist that churned and boiled around them.
Chu, of course, had no power whatsoever over the realm of quantum physics. He had never known any kind of power unless it was manufactured with technology. But Tick and Jane were a different story. They both had control over the mysterious force that ruled all existence—Jane, because she’d been forever melded with the largest Barrier Wand ever created, and Tick, because of reasons no one had quite figured out yet. Master George had merely said he was on to something that might explain it and that it involved soulikens.
But they’d never really had a chance to talk about it, had they?
Tick couldn’t allow his mind to wander. He pushed away the thoughts trying to barrel their way in and focused on the task at hand. Escaping the Nonex.
Jane and Chu had agreed to his plan without argument. It seemed they both had grown desperate to get out and were willing to rely on Tick’s idea. He had, after all, worked directly with the Haunce and saved the entire universe.
And that’s what Tick was banking on. Mistress Jane had channeled her Chi’karda—every last drop that she could muster—into Tick for him to use as he needed. Tick had gathered it in, mixing it with his own until he had more of the natural force around him—and within him—than any human should be able to endure. A few weeks ago it would’ve killed him instantly.
But he had learned so much.