Then he fell to his knees with a scream, throwing his arms forward as if he were flinging his powers at the scene below him. His Chi’karda unleashed itself on the Factory, destroying everything in its fiery, angry path.
~
Sato’s entire body ached like never before. Worse than when he’d gone through the agony of having Chu’s Dark Infinity plague and being bound with ropes by Master George. His arms and legs screamed with weariness and hurt, begging him to stop.
But he didn’t. He kept jumping from compartment to compartment, slapping the nanolocator patches on kid after kid, moving on before he even saw them be winked away. All the while, he’d fought off the relentless fangen with punches and kicks. He’d even poked one in the eyeball and sent it screeching away.
Mothball did her part on the other side of the vast, round chamber, leaping with more ease than Sato because of her height advantage. They were almost done. Sato could see the last row of inset rectangles just below him.
He landed in the latest cubbyhole, pulling out a patch before he even settled. A pretty girl with red hair lay curled in a ball, eyes lit with fear. He stuck the patch on her and turned to move on. Just as he did, a great explosion sounded from above, and the entire chamber started shaking again. Huge chunks of rock and metal fell through the air, cracking and clinging as they hit the sides along the way.
It had all started again. What went wrong! He dared not pause to think about it.
He punched a fangen just as it appeared, kicking it and punching again. The hideous thing backed off.
Sato jumped, ignoring the increased danger of debris and quaking. He landed in the next compartment and reached for a nanolocator patch.
~
The Bermuda Triangle headquarters building trembled and groaned.
“Thirty seconds!” Rutger yelled. Despite the terror and worry she felt herself, Sofia couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor little man. With his face flushed and sweat pouring off his skin, he looked like he might drop dead any second. “It’s already straining the cables to the max—they’re going to snap! We have to go! We have to go!”
Master George continued his frantic, feverish work. “Blasted! They’re still working hard. It must mean they haven’t reached everyone yet.”
“Time’s up!” Rutger said, pounding his fist on the desk. “Or we’ll all die with them!”
Sofia felt a storm of different feelings and emotions rip through her heart: fear for her life, fear for Sato’s life, sorrow for the kids. She squeezed Paul’s hand even tighter and waited, holding her breath. The building shook even harder now, groans of twisting metal hurting her ears.
Master George swore, something Sofia never thought she’d hear him do. Then, “Fine. Let’s finish this thing.”
He started tapping buttons.
~
The entire chamber was about to fall down around Sato. The shattering cracks and thunderous rumbles of crumbling stone had risen to a deafening roar. Just after placing a patch on the latest kid, he looked across the way at Mothball and saw her staring back at him through the rain of debris. Her eyes said it all.
They could die here if they didn’t get winked out immediately—who knew when the shaking would stop, when things would settle. But then, almost at the exact same time, they both slowly nodded. They wouldn’t leave—not until they’d saved every last prisoner.
Sato broke eye contact first and scooted to the edge of his current cubbyhole. He did a quick scan and counted. Ten kids. There were ten kids left. Five for him, five for Mothball.
He coiled for the jump, but just as he pushed off, he felt a quick and cold tingle shoot across his neck and down his spine.
“No!” he screamed. But it was too late. The chamber vanished around him.
~
Sofia barely had time to notice they’d winked into the Grand Canyon sitting room, barely had time to feel the relief of solid ground under her feet, when Sato and Mothball appeared right in front of her. The two of them looked like zombies, filthy and scratched and worn.
“No!” Sato yelled, twisting around on his feet, as if looking for something. “Send me back! There were ten more! Ten more!”
Master George appeared through a doorway, his face cramped with a tight smile. “The children should be down in the valley. Ah, Sato, Mothball, thank goodness you’re—”
Sato ran to the man and grabbed him by the shirt. “Send me back! The whole place is falling down—they could die! There were ten more of them!”
Master George shook his head back and forth. “I’m . . . I’m terribly sorry, Sato. It’s far too late—everything was set up back in the Bermuda Triangle station. I simply can’t send you back from here. I’m very sorry.”
“You have to!” Sato’s arms shook with fury or exhaustion. Probably both. “You have to send me back! We didn’t get them all!”
“It’s impossible,” Master George whispered sadly. “Quite impossible.”
Sato slumped to the floor. Sofia looked over and saw Mothball had collapsed on a couch, her eyes closed, tears leaking out from beneath their lids. Paul moved to crouch beside Sato and put a hand on his back.
Sato shook it off. “We left ten kids! Ten!”
Sofia joined them, sitting on the other side of Sato. “But think of how many you saved. And the others might escape in all the chaos.”
She and Paul pulled Sato into an awkward three-
person hug. He resisted at first, but then finally collapsed into Sofia’s arms, sobbing.
“Think of how many you saved,” she repeated.
Chapter
61
~
Collision
Tick stumbled away from the collapsing Factory, sucking the power of Chi’karda back inside him. He felt the flaming heat of it burn his insides. It had taken only three waves of it to destroy the complex. The sounds of crunching and cracking and splintering filled the air as the ground sank, swirling like a whirlpool of mud. He’d begun the chain reactions of destructive entropy that would leave the place as nothing but sand within minutes.
The earth began to give beneath Tick. There was no way he could outrun the collapse. With a thought, he quickly winked back to the forest where he’d thrown Jane’s body just minutes ago.
She still lay in a heap at the bottom of the oak tree, but her arms were moving, and Tick heard her groan. His heart sank. He’d hoped she would be dead from the collision, because he dreaded the prospect of having to do anything more to her. His initial anger and adrenaline had subsided, and the reality of the situation was hitting home. If he finished what he’d set out to do, it meant he would have to end it, right here, right now.
He had to do it, no matter what. Unchecked, she could and would murder millions and billions of people. She’d already proven that. Tick had to finish it.
He stepped toward her.
The ground exploded under Tick, a wave of invisible force lifting him off his feet and throwing him backward. Before he could gather his wits, his back slammed into the soft ground, knocking the air out of him. He pushed himself up onto his knees, gasping for breath. If the mud had been dried and hard, he could very well have broken his spine.
When a rush of air finally filled his lungs, he jumped to his feet. Jane stood a few yards away, both of her hands outstretched, palms facing him. Tick reached for the Chi’karda that still churned within him.
“Wait,” she said. “Wait. If we keep at this something really bad will happen.”
Tick didn’t waste time with words. He pushed a surge of Chi’karda straight at her, hurling it like a volley of sun flares. The power hit her, twisting her body up into the air and back down to the mud where she slid thirty feet and smacked into the base of a tall pine.
Tick switched gears, concentrating on the trees around her. Using his mind as commander, willing what he wanted to happen, he made a dozen trees around her dissolve, the wood bursting into a swirl of tiny particles. They flew around her in a brown tornado, enc
ircling her like a swarm of muddy bees. Then he made them collapse, sealing the wood back together like he’d done before several times now, though unconsciously.
With a loud smacking sound, followed by cracks and groans, a large mass of twisted wood formed around Jane, trapping her inside. Crushing her.
Tick doubled over, his hands on his knees, pulling in rapid breaths. The mental effort of doing such a thing made him feel as though he’d run ten miles in a sprint. He glanced back up at the hideous structure of coiled tree parts. No way she survived that. No way.
The thought had barely formed when the entire formation exploded, chunks and chips of wood flying out in all directions. Tick fell to the ground and covered his head with both arms. He felt the prick of splinters, the whoosh of bigger pieces flying right over him. When it seemed as though the worst had passed, he looked up and saw Jane standing there, her arms once again outstretched.
“Atticus, we have to stop this!” she yelled.
Tick jumped to his feet. She was trying to trick him; he knew it. He threw another blast of Chi’karda at her; she blocked it with a visible bubble of solid air tinted orange. The concussion wave bounced back and knocked him to the ground, jolting the breath out of him once again. As he struggled for air, he clawed to gather another pool of his power, knowing she’d probably finish him off while he was down.
But when he staggered to his feet, she only stood there, her mask surprisingly showing concern, not anger.
“Atticus, stop,” she said in her scratchy, painful voice. “Give me five minutes to explain!”
Tick felt a rush of anger just as he pulled in a long, blissful breath. “It’s too late, Jane! I can’t let you go one more day killing and hurting!”
A ball of power filled him, almost bursting his chest. He unleashed it, threw it all at Jane.
Her shield formed again, resisting his attack. Tick was ready for the rebound of force this time, and he leaned into it, fighting it with his own strength. He let all his fears and inhibitions fall away, all his caution. She seemed to be getting stronger, and he knew he had to go for it. Screaming, he searched and probed his inner mind and body for every last trickle of Chi’karda, channeling it and throwing it at Jane.
She fought back. A wind tore through the air as the crackle of electricity and booms of thunder filled the world around them. Streaks of orange swirled and kicked; bursts of fire ignited here and there like ribbons of flame; the trees in the forest bent unnaturally away from them; mud and chunks of wood took flight, swirling like loose paper in a tornado. As Tick and Jane fought, their battling powers looked like two stars colliding, white and brilliant and blinding.
Tick hadn’t stopped screaming. The world rushed and burned around him. He couldn’t see. Life seemed to be draining out of his body. He didn’t know how much longer he could last. A trickle of despair dented his heart. He pushed harder.
Somehow he heard Jane yell the words, “We have to stop!”
“No!” Tick shouted back in a ripped shriek that tore through his burning throat. He pushed harder, flinging his whole life at her.
A sound like the world splitting in two pierced his ears, his brain, his every nerve.
And then, in a sudden instant, everything stopped.
All light disappeared. Tick felt himself flying through a dark and silent wind.
Time stretched on, blank and quiet. Eventually, he felt nothing.
Chapter
62
~
The Detour
I can’t believe my own eyes.”
Tick barely heard the words. A man. His voice was soft, but slightly . . . menacing, like small, sharp-nosed worms, slowly working their way into Tick’s brain, needling and hurting. The world around Tick was still dark.
The stranger spoke again. “Atticus Higginbottom and Mistress Jane. Together, with me, at last.”
Tick felt himself blinking, felt tears in his eyes, felt pain coursing through every inch of his body. But still nothing—blackness.
The man wouldn’t be quiet, and his every word throbbed in Tick’s skull. “I have no idea how it happened, but I can’t say I’m not pleased. It’ll be nice to have some help. I’m sure between the three of us, we can get out of here.”
Tick kept blinking and finally saw a faint smudge of light against the darkness.
“Where . . . where are we?”
Jane. It was Jane. She sounded even worse than usual.
The man chuckled, a horribly unpleasant sound. “You’re safe and sound, Mistress. No worries. Plenty to eat around here. Plenty of everything.”
The light grew in Tick’s vision. Increased its pace of brightening. Shapes began to form.
“I . . . warned him,” Jane said, her voice filled with resignation, as if she’d just accepted a horrible truth. “I . . .” She didn’t finish.
Something clicked, and suddenly Tick could see everything. Gasping, he sat up, ignoring the bolts of pain that shot through his body. He sat on a beach with a perfect blue sky hanging overhead and crystal-clear water lapping against the white sand. An enormous and endless ocean stretched to his right, a forest of palm trees to his left. Mistress Jane lay flat on the ground, several feet away, her mask cracked and tilted.
And sitting cross-legged next to Tick was Reginald Chu. The man who’d once ruled the Fourth Reality. The man who’d tried to rule all Thirteen with his Dark Infinity. The man who’d been sent to—
“Welcome to the Nonex, Atticus,” Chu said. “I hope you’re ready to help me get the heck out of here.”
Epilogue
~
The Mission
Sofia sat between Paul and Sato on the couch, her arms folded, her foot tapping. Sally and Priscilla, both of whom had been in charge of collecting and helping the children rescued from the Factory, sat across from them, both looking down and as quiet as everyone else. Mothball was on the floor, leaning back against the bricks of the fireplace.
Master George and Rutger finally entered the room, their faces grave.
“I believe we finally have our report,” Master George announced, looking down at a stack of papers clasped in his hands. “The members of Sato’s Fifth Army are mostly safe and accounted for, having lost only”—he cleared his throat—“seventeen lives in battle. It looks like Sato and Mothball rescued ninety-seven children in all, and they are currently receiving the very best in treatment from Realitant doctors.”
“We lost ten of them,” Sato mumbled under his breath. It was the first thing he’d said since winking away from the Thirteenth.
“Why . . . yes, Sato. Yes, we did.” Master George paused, his eyes showing so much love for Sato that Sofia felt tears moisten her eyes. “The damage from our latest affairs is quite catastrophic. Every single Reality has suffered, and the recovery will take years. The worst by far is the Thirteenth, where . . . the final conflict inflicted utter devastation. It will take some time to discover just how much.”
Sofia spoke up. “What happened to Tick?”
“Yeah,” Paul said. “Out with it.”
Master George nodded uncomfortably. “Yes, yes, we’re all very concerned about Master Atticus and what has become of him.” His voice squeaked on the last three words; a tear spilled down his cheek. “I’m afraid we have quite troubling—and confusing—news.”
Sofia’s heart froze; her breath stopped.
“I can’t say I understand it,” he continued, fidgeting with his papers. “His nanolocator started working again once his business with the Haunce was complete. But then . . . it just . . . well, it reported back something we’ve never seen before. Rutger, you tell them. I can’t bear to say another bloody word.” He threw the papers on the floor and stomped out of the room.
Rutger took a moment before finally speaking.
“According to our system, Atticus Higginbottom has ceased to exist.”
~
Lisa had just fallen asleep—after a long time of trying to do so—when she felt someone shaking her
by the shoulders, gently. She opened her eyes, ready to scream out in panic, when the sight of her mom silenced it. The glow of the moon shining through the window lit up Lorena Higginbottom’s face, making it look somehow kind and fiercely determined at the same time.
Lisa knew she was up to something. “What’s going on?”
“Keep quiet and follow me,” her mom whispered. “Don’t make a peep—you know your dad will wake up at the sneeze of a mouse.”
Confused but intrigued, Lisa shook her grogginess away and got up from bed. Then the two of them tiptoed out of her room, down the hall, then down the stairs, both keeping to the silent spots as best they could. Before long, Lisa’s mom had led her all the way down to the basement.
After flicking on the light, Lisa repeated her earlier question. “What’s going on?”
Her mom walked over to a dusty corner of the large room and dragged a couple of boxes away from the wall, then crouched down. “I know both you and I have been feeling like we want to help. To finally do our part in this whole mess. Especially now that my son”—she faltered, choked back the usual cry that had come so often since Master George had sent word that Tick was missing—“is nowhere to be found. I think it’s time we took a little of our own action.”
Lisa nodded, feeling the same swell of emotion, knowing she couldn’t speak without cracking. But she agreed. Agreed wholeheartedly. She wanted to do something. She wanted to act.
Her mom gripped a panel of the unpainted wall, and to Lisa’s surprise it came loose. She lifted out a large square and placed it on the ground. Swirls of dust puffed through the air. In the dark recess behind her, an object glinted.
“You’ve been hiding something down here?” Lisa asked.
“Yes. Though I never, never, never thought I’d have to use it again.” She leaned over and reached into the secret compartment.
The Blade of Shattered Hope Page 30