George’s hands squeezed together as his face reddened. “But the milk’s in the kitty litter, as my mum was fond of saying-no use weeping and wailing. With the transponder in Tick’s ear, we’ll have much more information.” He cleared his throat. “For example, we know they’ve just had a bizarre incident in the Tenth Reality, but we’re not quite sure what happened.”
Rutger slammed his hand on the table. “Don’t tell me that wretch stuck them in the Grinder Beast’s training tunnels?”
Sato leaned forward at this question-the words Grinder Beast would perk anyone’s attention.
George nodded. “Indeed. I must say, I was rather tempted to go rescue them, but I didn’t want to ruin our chances at getting on the inside of Chu’s plans. I believe we all agree that Chu would not put them in total danger-not yet, anyway. It appears he’s running them through some sort of test, and I can’t imagine he’d waste their potential by letting one of the Grinders kill them so easily. They serve us best as spies-albeit unknowing spies-at the moment.”
“That’s a big risk on your part, it is,” Mothball said, the most accusatory thing Sato had ever heard her say to George. The tall woman loved those kids like her own children. Sato felt a little jealous; she didn’t seem to care so much for him.
“That’s neither here nor there,” George responded. “I was right to wait. They’ve been winked to the Sixth by Chu, where they seem to be safe and sound for the time being.”
“What was that you said about a bizarre incident?” Sato asked.
“I can’t say for sure. There was a surge in Chi’karda in that area, some kind of great disturbance that caused a Ripple Quake in one of the fragmented Realities. If I had to guess, I’d say Chu destroyed one of the training tunnels in order to wink them out. That glass is particularly resistant to Barrier Wands.”
“But how would he do that?” Rutger asked.
“Well… that brings us to our next item of discussion.” George looked over at Sato. “Based on the information Sato has gathered, combined with the evidence of our spies and the disturbances we’ve seen this past summer, I believe Chu has built some sort of superweapon that contains more simulated Chi’karda power than anything ever built previously. I believe it’s responsible for some of the odd things happening to Tick and the others, as well as for spreading the plague of insanity.”
Everyone turned to look at Sato, as if he would follow this up with a brilliant statement supporting George’s theory.
“Everything points to that,” he said, unable to think of anything else. George had said it better than he ever could.
“We can dig more into the details later in the meeting,” George continued, “but I want to put something on the table now before we say another word. It’s rare that I must give an assignment as terribly important as the one I’m about to ask of Sato.”
Sato’s mind had been drifting, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “What was that? An assignment?”
“Yes, a mission of sorts.”
Sato swallowed. He felt as if the temperature in the room had risen twenty degrees. “You want me to…” He had mentioned the possibility of sending someone to gather samples, but he’d never guessed the old man would choose him.
“I can think of no better Realitant for this than you, Sato. You have stealth and wit about you. Plus, no one will suspect someone so young, and if you do get in a bind, I trust your ability to get out of it.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Rutger said, squirming on his booster seat. “What mission are you talking about?”
George paused before answering. “Sato and I are positive the explanation for people going crazy is some type of plague-literally. And we’re quite sure it’s linked to Chu’s superweapon. I want to send Sato into the area most infected with this plague and obtain a blood sample from one of the victims. Until we understand the disease, we won’t know how to fight it.”
Sato barely heard George’s words, as if they were coming down a long, dark tunnel. George wanted to send him. What if… what if he caught the plague? He was perfectly willing to face danger in his quest to avenge his parents’ death, but the prospect of a nasty disease that made you crazy sickened him. Frightened him.
“Are you up to it?” Mothball asked, reaching over and patting Sato’s arm.
“Huh? What?” he said.
“Are you up to it, I said.”
Sato looked around at the others in the room. Several beads of sweat finally let go and slid down his temples. He hadn’t expected this.
“I… uh…” In that moment, the image of his parents burning popped into his head, and his squishy fear hardened into concrete resolve.
“I’ll do it,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice firm. “I’ll be fine.”
Sally stood up, folding his arms across his broad chest. “I reckon I’ll go wid the young fella.”
George shook his head. “No, Sally. I have an entirely different mission for you.”
Chapter 22
They’d been walking for hours.
This new Reality seemed the most normal of any Tick had visited so far. Aside from a few oddities, it wasn’t much different from his hometown in Reality Prime. One of those differences was the style of the buildings and the clothes of the citizens. It was slight, but everything here seemed a little more elaborate, a little fancier. Many businesses had huge fountains in front, with complex displays of shooting water; the moldings on the houses had carved pictures of animals and trees. The men wore fancy dark suits and greased back their hair, and the women wore dresses with white gloves pulled clear past their elbows. Also, an eerie, operatic soprano voice sang from speakers throughout the town.
Another odd thing: the place appeared to only have left turns-at least off the road on which they currently walked.
“Dude, what’s up with this?” Paul said, pointing to his right, where a thick forest of tall trees loomed like an ominous wall. “Look at all that land out there. Why aren’t they building on it?”
“Who cares?” Sofia said, annoyance creeping back into her voice. “Maybe they’re a bunch of idiots.”
Tick understood her mood. Even though the weather was pleasant here-partly cloudy sky, soft breeze, warm but not hot-he felt like they were going nowhere fast. Not to mention the sick feeling he still had from almost being trampled by a raging monster inside a gigantic glass straw.
Paul yawned. “Just seems a little weird that there’s this huge town to our left, but nothing at all to our right. We should open a real estate office.”
Sofia ignored him. “Well, our plan to stay on this road isn’t working. I say we go into the city.”
“Me too,” Tick agreed. “Everything is starting to look the same-I swear I saw that exact building a couple of hours ago.” He pointed to a tall office complex made of dark granite with shiny, black windows that sparkled as if inlaid with gold.
“Whoa,” Paul said, stopping.
“What?” Tick and Sofia asked at the same time.
“That building doesn’t just look familiar-it is the same one we saw earlier. I’m positive. Man, this road is a ginormous circle that goes around the city. No wonder we’re not getting anywhere.”
“That explains all the left turns,” Tick added.
“I thought we were all supposed to be smart,” Sofia said. “It took us how long to figure this out?”
“Come on,” Paul said. “Let’s go into the town and find a sweet old lady who’s willing to feed some starving kids.”
Right on cue, Tick’s stomach rumbled with hunger. “Hope our money works here.”
“I doubt it, but we can try,” Paul said.
At the next road, they turned left, the wall of trees now at their backs.
Reginald looked down at the weaselly little hotel owner of Circle City, rocking between his two feet, fidgeting with the buttons on his fancy red vest. Chu was astonished that someone could show so much weakness in front of another grown man. His name was Phillip, and he couldn’t be more than five feet tall, fat, with streaks of black hair pasted in greasy lines across his obviously bald head.