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 thin
k 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.
He kept running.
He turned a corner and saw the elevator up ahead, its steel cage open and ready for him. He could see the lever mechanism inside the sliding mesh door. He was almost safe.
The hollow echoes of his pursuers bounced through the tunnel like thunder crackling along open plains. Sato heard noises of feet stomping on stone, kicked rocks, heavy breathing, grunts. He heard Renee shout something; he couldn’t make out the words, but the intensity of the screams jumped a notch.
Sato looked over his shoulder and saw the pack of crazies only thirty feet behind him and gaining ground. Renee led them, her eyes focused, her hoard of followers on her tail, waving their arms, shaking their fists. It was like the villagers chasing Frankenstein’s monster-the only things missing were pitchforks and torches.
Sato faced forward again; so close, the elevator was only a few feet away. He reached up, slipped the backpack off his left shoulder, then his right, still running, still holding tight to the blood sample.
He windmilled his left arm and threw the backpack forward. It landed with a thud in the back corner of the elevator just as he crossed the threshold of the cage. He reached out with his free hand and slid the door shut with a squeal and a clank as it landed home. The latch to close it was small and weak-Sato knew it wouldn’t last long. He closed it anyway then knelt on the floor and pushed up on the lever with his shoulder, screaming with the effort until the thing finally snapped into position.
With a lurch, the elevator started moving upward just as Renee and dozens of the screaming mob slammed into the cage, clawing at the steel, screaming and spitting. Hundreds of scabby fingers squirmed through the small openings, some of the crazies climbing onto the elevator, others violently pulling and pushing on the door. Sato scrambled to the far corner, staring at the sickening sight.
The elevator had only gone up a few feet when dozens more of his pursuers crawled beneath it and gripped the floor through the checkered holes, hanging on, pulling toward the ground. The cage slowed to a stop, the weight of the people too great. Sato knew if he could make it to the narrow shaft cut into the stone above, then the psychos clinging to the side would have no choice but to let go or be crushed to death. He jumped to his feet, kicking at the fingers below him, stomping repeatedly in a ridiculous dance, watching in triumph as those he smashed let go and fell to the floor.
The elevator stuttered and paused, screams coming from above as the topmost section entered the main elevator shaft and crushed several of the inmates who still clung to the side. The cage slowed again, and Sato closed his eyes before he could see the gruesome results. He heard the thumps of bodies on the stone below, and the elevator lurched upward again, regaining its normal speed.
Please, he thought. Please be over, please let me go home.
A wrenching click of steel made his eyes pop open just as the door to the cage slid open with a screech. Renee had somehow broken the latch, squeezing her body against the elevator until she could get it open. She and Sato were alone, having left everyone else below, their wails and cries already dying out with the distance.
“Almost made it, didn’t you?” Renee said, her chest heaving with her deep breaths.
Sato reached down and pulled the plastic cover off the blood-filled syringe, then held it out like a knife. “Stay back,” he said, bending his knees in a crouch. “There’s no way you can win a fight with me.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” she replied. They circled, each staying as far apart from the other as possible in the small cage. “He’s in my head. I’ll do whatever he asks.”
“Why are you doing this?” Sato asked.
“I told you, he’s in my-”
“Not you!” Sato screamed. “Reginald Chu! Why are you doing this!”
“If you have to ask, then you’ll never understand why.”
Renee lunged forward, surprising Sato despite his stance. She crashed into him, slamming his back against the side of the cage. On instinct, Sato stuck the needle into her back. She cried out in pain then lashed out at his face, scraping her nails across his right cheek. Sato pulled out the needle and bent his knees, letting his body fall to the floor, Renee landing on top of him.
They rolled and wrestled, Renee punching and clawing like a panicked bear. Sato had the syringe under her, pointed it at her face, trying to threaten her because he didn’t know what else to do. She grabbed his hand, thrusting the needle away, twisting his wrist so the syringe was heading toward his own skin. He couldn’t believe her strength. He groaned with effort, but she kept winning, pushing the needle closer and closer to the soft skin of his lower neck.
He pushed her away with a final burst of exertion; she surprised him by pulling back instead of fighting it. Caught off guard, his grip on the syringe slipped and Renee yanked it free. She twisted backward and pressed the point of the needle against his leg.
“You… had… your… chance,” she spit out, her face red with exertion and anger as she drove the needle into Sato’s skin. He felt the prick, the achy slide of the sharp sliver of metal. Then Renee slammed downward on the plunger of the syringe.
Pain exploded through Sato’s body as the needle dug in deeper, as the blood sample rushed into him. He cried out as the syringe emptied, its infected contents now swimming inside his tissue and veins. It felt like millions of tiny bugs squirmed underneath his skin.
“No!” he screamed, a surge of adrenaline giving him the strength to throw Renee off his body completely. “NO!”
He scrambled to his feet, unable to stop the tears from flowing as pain racked his body. “What… what… have you done to me?”
“You’ll be one of us now,” Renee said, crouched in the corner with a smile on her face.
“No, I won’t. Never.”
The elevator slammed to a stop.
“What the devil’s goin’ on here?”
Sato looked over to see Klink, his eyes moving back and forth between Sato and Renee, surprise and concern on his face.
Sato didn’t hesitate. He grabbed his backpack, ran from the lift cage, down the tunnel, and toward the steel door that led outside. He ran.
“Go, then!” Renee called out from behi
nd him. “It won’t matter-you’ll be mine anyway. Run and take me to Master George. It’ll be fun to have a spy-”
Sato didn’t hear the rest. He was through the door, squinting his eyes against the blinding snow, scrambling down the stone stairway, slipping and falling and not caring.
Down the mountain he went.
“I’ve got him!” Rutger yelled.
He pushed the golden button on top of the Barrier Wand, and Sato appeared in front of them. The boy collapsed to the ground, a terrible mess of blood and dirt and torn clothing, sweat-ice crusted all over him.
“Goodness gracious me!” Master George yelled as he and Mothball reached forward to help Sato. They grabbed him by the arms and pulled him over to a leather chair, plopping his exhausted body onto the cushions.
“What happened?” Mothball asked.
Sato answered, his voice shaky and barely audible. “Lock… me
… up. Chain me. Then… I’ll explain.”
“Lock you-” Rutger began.
“Just do it!” Sato snapped, his hand pressed to a wound on his leg. “Just do it before Chu can control me!”
“What happened?” Master George asked, leaning over to look at the boy. “Did you get the sample?”
“Yes,” Sato said through a moan of pain. His eyes narrowed, like a wolf on the hunt. “It’s… inside me.”
“Oh, lad. Oh, you poor, poor lad.” Master George paused. Then he straightened, his shoulders square. “Ready the holding cell, Rutger. And get me some rope.”
Part 3
The Circle Of Time
Chapter 29
Tickets to Fourth City
I ’m really getting sick of this place,” Paul said.
Tick couldn’t have agreed more as he scanned the walls and ceiling of the small restaurant where they had stopped to eat something that was a cross between pizza and toast. Five days had passed since Sally winked back to Master George, and they’d spent every waking hour investigating the town for signs of where they were supposed to be at five o’clock the next afternoon. Though they didn’t know what they were looking for, they looked nonetheless.
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