“Yes,” she said. Sato almost expected her to cackle like an evil old witch. “A smart child by the looks of it.” She leaned forward to whisper in Sato’s ear, so quiet only he could hear her. “But whose side will you fight for? Everything is about to change, little boy.”
Mistress Jane stood. “This is as good a time as any,” she announced, turning slowly as she spoke so everyone could see her face. “My team has discovered a new Reality-a stable one. It’s solid enough to officially call it a branch.”
“Really?” George shouted. “That’s delightful, simply delightful!”
Jane looked down at Sato, who returned her glare. She rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue, as if disgusted by George’s enthusiasm.
“The Thirteenth Reality,” she continued, not taking her eyes off Sato, “has… unusual qualities. We’ve explored it extensively, realized its potential.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Sato’s father asked, his voice laced with anger. “If you’ve been exploring it this long-”
“The Chi’karda there,” Jane said, ignoring the interruption, “is different. More powerful. More potent. It’s mutated into something quite extraordinary. We may finally have the secret to finding our Utopian Reality. If this place isn’t it, the power in the Thirteenth will help us make it ourselves.”
No one spoke for a long time; a few people exchanged nervous glances.
“Why all the sad faces?” Jane asked. “Haven’t you trusted me all these years? Don’t you still trust me?”
“Not if you break the rules,” Sato’s mother said. “How can we trust you if you break the rules and hide things from us?”
“This calls for an immediate Discretionary Council,” Sato’s father said. “George, you know it does. I demand you call in the Haunce, this instant.”
George stood. “Now, Master Sato, let’s not be hasty-”
That was the line. Those seven words would stick in young Sato’s mind, making it even harder for him to trust the man in the future, when his own recruiting call came. That was the line, because after George said it, not another word was spoken by him before Sato’s parents were dead.
“I don’t have time for this,” Jane said. “I thought this might be the reaction, so I brought along something to show you all how important this discovery is. For all of us. For the Realities. For humanity.”
“Stop,” Sato’s father said. “Stop this instant. I demand it.”
“You… demand it?” she replied, her lip curled ever so slightly. “You demand it?”
“Yes,” Sato’s mother answered for her husband. “You’re scaring us. This doesn’t feel right.”
Mistress Jane smiled then, an image Sato would never forget. The smile held no humor, no joy, no kindness. It was an evil smile.
The next moment, the windows erupted, blowing inward with a shower of tinkling glass shards. Shouts of pain surrounded him as streams of fire poured in from outside, streaking spurts of lava that whisked around the room like flying eels of flame.
The dream always grew dim at that moment, the memory fading into horror. He remembered his father’s comforting grip on his shoulders disappearing, his mother’s hand letting go of his own. He remembered intense heat. He remembered people running around, their clothes on fire. He remembered Jane vanishing into thin air. He remembered crying, turning to find his parents, wanting to run away.
But then, like always, he saw one last thing in the dream before it ended. One last image that would haunt him forever. His mother and father, lying on the ground, side by side.
Screaming. Burning.
Dying.
Sato woke up.
Chapter 18
O kay, it’s my turn,” Sofia said as she took off her right tennis shoe. “You guys couldn’t poke yourselves in your own eyeball.”
Tick wanted to argue, but didn’t have much evidence to the contrary. He and Paul had been trying to hit the button with a shoe for at least ten minutes, their only reward being smacked in the head a couple of times as the shoes fell back down.
“‘Poke yourselves in your own eyeball?’” Paul said. “Never heard that one before.”
Sofia ignored him, planting her feet and staring up at the button with intense concentration, swinging the shoe up and down with both hands as she readied herself. Finally, she swung hard upward and let the shoe fly. It missed by three feet.
Paul snickered. “Ooh, so close. Hate to break it to you, but you throw like a girl.”
Uh-oh, Tick thought.
Sofia bent down to pick up her shoe, then bounced it up and down in her right hand like a baseball. “What did you say?”
Paul folded his arms. “I said, you throw like a girl.”
“Huh,” Sofia grunted, staring down at her shoe. Then she reared back and threw it straight for Paul’s face, smacking him square on the nose.
He grabbed his face with both hands, jumping up and down. “That hurt, man!” he shouted. But a second later, he started laughing. “Ah, Tick, it was worth it to see Miss Italy mad. Her face looks like her daddy’s spaghetti sauce.”
This time Sofia punched Paul in the arm with a loud thump. “You want some more?” she asked.
Paul rubbed the spot. “Dang, woman, I give up. How’d you get so mean, anyway?”
Tick was loving every minute of the exchange, but he knew they had to push that button. He felt something-a pressure in his chest-that told him they’d better get serious quick.
“You lovebirds cut it out,” he said. “Start throwing.”
They tried for another five minutes, dodging each other’s shoes and scrambling around to pick up their own. Sofia finally hit the bull’s-eye.
When her shoe connected, a quiet click echoed off the round glass of the tunnel and the blinking light stopped, turning off completely. All three of them stared, waiting for something amazing to happen. Nothing did. Tick rubbed his sunburned neck, sore from craning it upward for so long.
“Great,” he said. “Just great.”
Sofia huffed and looked down; Tick noticed her body tense, her eyes widen. She stared at the floor, transfixed, as if hypnotized. Tick quickly followed her gaze. He couldn’t stop the gasp before it escaped his mouth.
On the very bottom of the tunnel, at their feet, a perfect red square had formed on the glass, about five feet on each side, as if a neon light were glowing right beneath them. In the middle of that square, several lines of words appeared like text on a computer screen, black on white.
“Guess we were supposed to push the button,” Paul said.
Tick fell to his knees and scooted around until the words were right side up. It was another poem-a pretty long one. He started reading.
You pushed the button; it called the beast.
It moves real fast; it likes to feast.
You can stop it once, but cannot twice,
It’s the only way to save your life.
How to do it, you may ask;
This will not be an easy task.
Your mind will beg of you to quit,
But if you do, your mind will split.
On this very spot you’ll stand;
You will die if I see you’ve ran.
I’m testing strength and will and trust.
Move one inch, and die you must.
Do not step outside the square.
No matter what-don’t you dare.
When this is over, you will see
A grand reward for trusting me.
“Dude,” Paul breathed. “There’s no way Master George is behind all this.”
Sofia sat down next to the poem. “For the first time in my life, I think I agree with you. He said in the letter we were going to a gathering, not do more tests.”
Tick read through the poem again, feeling very uneasy. Paul and Sofia were right-this was getting weird. Even though Master George had sent the Gnat Rat and the Tingle Wraith after them during their initial recruiting test, this seemed too sinister for the jolly old man. It felt dark and threatening.