A good-sized black bear occupied the bed on the right side. It was bigger than the bed and looked underfed and abused, lying there as if asleep, its big paws occasionally twitching. The bear was also strapped down, that tube arching out of its chest to the rafter above before continuing across the ceiling and then back down to the bird.
Tick focused on that tube. It didn’t seem to be made out of artificial material-it looked… alive. Like skin. Blue veins ran throughout the long object, just underneath the pale, translucent material, pulsing and changing shades from dark to light to dark again. The ends connected to the raven and the bear looked as if they had grown there like a natural extension. There was no sign of stitches or staples.
Two beds with two bodies. A bird and a bear. Connected by some kind of bio-engineered, monstrous-looking tube. The third bed was empty.
What did it all mean? What horrific thing was Jane doing to these poor creatures? Tick’s hands shook; he reached out and pressed his fingers against the lower sill of the window to steady them. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Paul and Sofia had actually clasped their hands together.
The third bed. What was the third bed for?
Jane spoke from behind them, her voice soft and low. Never before had it sounded so evil as it did then.
“What you see here-and more important, what you are about to see-is a miracle of science and technology that today’s doctors and scientists can’t even imagine, or wish for, or dream about. It’s simply beyond their wildest spheres of possibility, beyond their capacity to comprehend. And even if they could, they’d never be able to make it happen. Not unless they were here and had a hundred years to figure it out.”
“I think what you really mean,” Tick said, throwing all the hatred he could into his voice, “is that they wouldn’t be evil enough to do something like this. You’re sick, Jane. Totally psycho. I don’t feel bad for what I did to you anymore.” He shouldn’t have said it; he knew that. Not yet. Not until things with the Haunce were worked out. But he couldn’t stop himself.
“I told you not to speak,” Jane said in a completely calm voice, as if she hadn’t heard his actual words. “Say one more word before I allow it, and I will hurt Paul. I promise.”
Tick looked back at her. She stared at him, waiting for his response, practically begging him to call her bluff. He fumed, his breathing stilted. Luckily Paul didn’t say anything. Finally, using all of his willpower to show restraint, Tick simply nodded. No more words. No more apologies.
“This first observation room is relatively early in the process,” Jane said, in her tour guide voice, as if she hadn’t just threatened bodily harm to Paul. “The genes and blood and cells haven’t been consumed yet, haven’t been… processed. The next room down the hall will show you what these two subjects will look like in about twenty-four hours. On we go.”
She set off walking, her Staff tap-tap-tapping on the stone floor.
Tick followed, hating how she’d called the animals “subjects.” Hating every single thing about this horrible woman.
When the next window came into view up ahead, Jane spoke again, over her shoulder. “I hope you haven’t eaten in awhile. What you’re about to see is amazing and wonderful, but might be a bit disturbing.”
Chapter
49
The Miracle of Birth
Sato had wanted to climb the wall himself, but Mothball made it clear that wasn’t an option. She said they couldn’t risk having their leader shot in the eyeball with an arrow to start things off. Sato grumbled, of course, but in the end he sent up a crew of six Fifths to peek over the top edge. He got back at Mothball by not letting her go, telling her she had to stay by his side as his second in command. When she grumbled as well, he had to hold in a laugh.
“Ready the Ragers and Squeezers!” he yelled when the six tall soldiers-Sato had decided to start calling them that-reached the point where all they had to do was pop their heads up to see the other side.
“Gotcha, Boss,” Tollaseat said, his hands full of Ragers. His wife, Windasill, stood next to him, her hands full of the black, wire-filled grenades called Squeezers. Sato had told Mothball’s parents they were supposed to stay near him as well, to be used for long-range action like this.
“You guys ready up there?” Sato called out.
Instead of speaking, the three men and three women above simply gave him the thumbs-up, a sign that was evidently universal.
“Okay. Tollaseat and Windasill will throw the cover weapons on my count of three. As soon as you hear the first round of explosions, pop over and climb down as quickly as possible. Start firing those Shurrics, and the rest of us will be right behind you.”
Another round of thumbs-up.
“One. Two. Three!”
Mothball’s parents brought their hands low then flung them toward the sky, letting go at the right moment to send the weapons flying up and well over the top of the wooden fence and the waiting Fifths. A few seconds later, the clatter of the weapons raining down on the other side was immediately followed by the ripping static thumps of the Ragers exploding. Then came the Squeezers’ metallic clanging and sounds of wires whizzing through the air. All muted and distant, but loud enough to be heard clearly.
“Go!” Sato yelled. “Go now!”
The six soldiers were already on the move. They grabbed the very top of the fence and swung their legs over, the bulky Shurrics already gripped in one of their hands, ready to start firing. They disappeared from sight.
Sato started climbing the wall after them. “Go! Go! Come on!” He didn’t need to say it-every last Fifth was already scaling the clunky wood face of the fence.
Just before Sato reached the top, a soldier’s head suddenly popped back over, looking straight down at him. It was a woman, and she had a puzzled look creasing her skinny face.
“What’s the matter?” Sato asked.
“You need to see this,” was her response. She disappeared once again.
Sato clambered up the last few feet to look over the edge. He’d had ideas of what to expect inside-barracks, groups of creatures, large weapons ready to fire, a creepy hospital-looking thing that was the Factory. But he froze in confusion at what he saw below him.
Other than the grove of trees that grew close to the iron gate, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
From where he perched on the fence, looking left and right and forward all the way to the other side of the fence-barely visible in the distance-he saw nothing but dirt and mud and a few trees. Not one building, not one creature, not one person other than the soldiers he’d sent over.
Dirt and mud and trees.
Sato turned to Mothball, who was right next to him and looking as bewildered as he felt. “Are we sure we came to the right place?”
Tick wanted to look away. Every single cell in his body wanted him to look away. Every notion of normalcy and human decency and right-and-wrong screamed at him to look away-that this wasn’t something a boy like him should witness.
But he stared through the window in disbelief that Jane could really be this evil.
The room was identical to the first one-three beds lined up in a triangle, the odd, skin-like bio-tube, and a creepy man in the middle, his back turned, typing away at a computer. As before, the closest bed was empty and the left and right beds had occupants. But that’s where the similarities ended and the true horrors began.
Another raven lay on the bed to the left-or what used to be a raven. The poor thing that lay there now barely resembled a living being. It looked like a corpse, its emaciated body sucked dry of fat and water, the feathers gone, yellowed skin clinging to its bones. The bio-tube still grew out of its dead chest toward the ceiling.
Tick turned his attention to the right bed, where a panting wolf lay clinging to life, the other end of the tube shaking with each desperate breath. Most of its black-gray fur had fallen out, littering the bed and the surrounding floor like some kind of haunted barber shop. Diseased skin s
tretched taut over the dying thing’s bones.
And then there was that third bed. Empty. Waiting. For what?
When Jane spoke, Tick flinched, startled. “The needed materials have been fully exhumed from the subjects at this stage. They’ve been collected, filtered, sorted out, and reconfigured. All done with an intense heightening of the scientific process made possible by our special version of Chi’karda. The sweet sacrifice of these two noble creatures is about to conclude in an even greater achievement than their separate lives could ever have accomplished. And one day we’ll be ready to use human subjects. I’ve already gathered many worthy candidates-children with the spark of Chi’karda strongly within them. Soon the possibilities will be endless.”
Tick’s hands compacted into tight fists. He felt like the skin might burst, he squeezed them so tightly. Trickles of Chi’karda burned within him. It took every bit of his willpower not to explode, do whatever it took to kill this insane, evil woman.
“Ah,” she said with an intake of breath, a sick burst full of joy. “It’s just about to happen. Keep watching, keep watching!”
Tick didn’t want to. He wanted to run and hide. But some sense of duty made him stay where he stood, eyes focused, ready. He needed to know the truth-all of it-if he was ever going to stop Jane.
Movement at the top of the room caught his attention. He looked up to see a huge growth blossoming out of what he’d thought was a normal ceiling, but could now see was made up of the same material as the bio-tube. Bulky and bulbous, an orb grew out and downward, swelling until it was only a few feet above the tables, centered around the empty bed closest to Tick. Another growth shot out of the first one, a thick, squat tube that pulsed with life.
This second growth lowered down until it was directly above the empty mattress, then its end split open, pieces of material curling out and away like the petals of a flower. Gooey slime dripped out and sloshed across the white sheet, followed by a dark lump of a thing, squirming and kicking out its long legs. Before Tick could get a good look, the monster bounded off the bed and skittered across the floor, disappearing behind a large, boxy computer in the corner.
The man monitoring the situation from the middle of the room moved to chase the creature down, a nasty-looking instrument in his hands with metal rods and sparks of electricity shooting into the air.
Tick couldn’t take it anymore. He turned around and leaned his back against the warm glass window, folding his arms. He pushed away the bubbling flames of Chi’karda in his chest.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jane said, her mask set to something that looked like a teacher speaking to a student. “That I’m horrible. That I’m evil. That I’m a monster myself.”
“Yeah, you witch,” Paul said. “That’s exactly what we’re thinking.”
Tick tensed, worried Jane would retaliate. But she kept talking. “However, you aren’t blessed with the same perspective that I am blessed with. You don’t share the vision of what the Realities will become. I need these creatures to carry out my orders, to help me defeat my enemies, to help me achieve my purposes. In the end, no one will disagree that it was worth the bumps along the road. That, as they say, the ends justify the means.”
“Bumps along the road?” Tick asked, surprised at how tight his throat felt, how hard it was to get the words out. For now, he had to put aside the shock and disgust of what he’d just seen. “You’re not even worth arguing with anymore. But you promised to hear me out about something. We need to talk, and we need to talk now. Things are gonna get really bad any second.”
“Yes, I know,” Jane said back in a whisper. “I’ve started to sense it. Something is wrong-”
She didn’t finish because the entire tunnel seemed to jump three feet into the air then drop again, throwing the four of them to the ground. The whole place continued to shake, the groans and cracks of shifting rock thundering in the air. The glass of the window shattered, raining pieces down upon Tick, who knew in his gut what was happening.
The Haunce had predicted it: the final devastation and destruction before the Realities ripped apart and ceased to exist forever.
The end had begun.
Chapter 50
Holes in the Ground
Sato and the Fifths walked around the flat, muddy ground of the wooden fence’s interior, kicking at occasional rocks and looking for anything that might give them a clue as to the purpose of the place.
“Why would they build a huge fence around dirt fields?” Sato asked Mothball, who walked beside him, mumbling about how time was a-wasting.
“Has to be a reason,” she answered. “Whoever it is been winkin’ us ’round like pinballs must know what they’re doin’. We’re in the right place, we are. I feel it in me bones. Just need to use them brains of ours.”
Sato knelt down and dug in the mud, throwing handfuls to the side. “Maybe your dad was right. Maybe it’s all underground, and there’s an entrance somewhere in here.”
“Can’t imagine they’d have to dig their way in every ruddy time,” Mothball said, but squatted down to help him. Soon they were a good two feet into the soft earth.
“I know a door wouldn’t be under here,” Sato said. “But if we hit a hard surface, at least we’ll know there’s a building underneath.”
He glanced up to wipe the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve and stopped. The Fifth Army soldiers had spread out all over the place, following his example by digging in the ground. Sato rolled his eyes and got back to work. These people had gotten a little fanatical in their loyalty to him.
He was all the way to his elbows in greasy mud when the tips of his fingers finally brushed against a rough, hard surface. Spurred by adrenaline, he dug faster, throwing out huge chunks until he had cleared away several square inches of his discovery-a dark stone. Disappointed, he pulled out of the hole and sat back on his haunches.
“What’s bitten your buns?” Mothball asked, looking up from her own pathetic excavation.
“I thought I’d found something,” he muttered. “Something man-made. But it’s just a big, buried rock.”
“Must be a mighty big-un then. Looks like I’ve found me own slice of it.” She pointed toward the bottom of her hole.
Sato crawled over to her and looked down at the swath of bumpy, dark rock. His heartbeat picked up its pace. “You think maybe Jane’s built something down there made out of this stone? Wouldn’t surprise me, now that I think about it-her castle looks like it was made a thousand years ago. Why would her factory be any different?”
“Want us to keep diggin’ around, do ya?” Mothball asked, eyebrows raised.
Sato got to his feet and cupped his hands around his mouth to shout the order, even though his people were already doing it. His first word didn’t make it out of his mouth before the ground beneath him lurched, throwing him on his back. As he scrambled to regain his feet, the earth continued to shake, knocking him down again. Then again.
“Earthquake!” Mothball roared.
The ground moved and jostled and jumped. The world around Sato looked as if he was viewing it from a shaking camera, his vision blurry and bouncy. He concentrated on the ground directly below him, settling his feet into the mud so he could stand up and figure out what they should do. He balanced himself, holding his hands out as he slowly stood, swaying back and forth to avoid falling.
The soldiers of the Fifth appeared as if they were dancing, leaning to and fro, stumbling this way and that, falling into each other then away again. The quake increased in intensity, shaking everything. Sato couldn’t think of one reasonable order or command to shout. What did you do against Mother Nature?
An earsplitting crack fractured the air, like the sound of an entire mountain shattering. A jagged piece of dark stone erupted from the mud about forty feet in front of Sato, thrusting up from the ground like a primitive knife. One of the Fifths had been standing on the spot, and he rose twice his height into the air before tumbling off, a bloody gash on his left leg
.
To Sato’s right, a huge gap in the ground opened up like the yawn of a sleeping giant; several soldiers screamed as they plummeted into the darkness below. More rocky pillars jutted up from the dirt, and more holes appeared out of nowhere, the crack of splitting stone like hammers on nails. All the while, the world shook and trembled. Still, Sato didn’t know what to do. Everything had gone to complete chaos, and he had no idea how to gain back control.
He’d barely noticed Mothball sliding away from him when he felt the ground disappear beneath his own feet. He fell into an abyss, an embarrassing squeal escaping his throat when he landed on top of his tall friend ten feet below. He heard her grunt as she pushed him off. He rolled across dark, wet stone, barely lit by the sky peeking through the long, jagged hole in the roof above them.
Something furry and strong grabbed both of his arms.
He shrieked again as it dragged him into the deeper darkness until he could see no more.
The tunnel was breaking apart, splits and cracks and rocks falling. Everything shook.
Tick had fallen on top of Paul, who grunted and squirmed to push him off. Sofia lay just a few feet from them, not moving. Somehow Jane still stood upright, using her Staff as a brace in one hand. She had her other hand raised, fingers outspread, and Tick realized she was using her powers to create a shield around them, the larger pieces of debris disintegrating before they hit anyone.
“Sofia!” Tick yelled over the sounds of splintering stone. “Are you okay?”
She moved, filling him with relief. When she turned to look at him, trying to smile to show she was okay, he noticed she had a long gash on her forehead-the guilty rock lay right next to her. She must’ve been hit before Jane had created the shield.
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