The Void of Mist and Thunder (The 13th Reality #4) (24 page)

“What’s going on?” Tick asked him. “I need to get them back safely before I can do anything else.”

The Realitant leader’s voice dropped to a whisper. “There are urgent matters at stake here, Master Atticus. Quite honestly, we don’t have the time for you to go home right now. I need you, and I need you immediately.”

“Just let me get them—”

“No.” His face was tight, his voice curt. Tick had never seen him so insistent. “There are times when you must remember that your power doesn’t put you in charge. Do you understand? You’ve sworn your services to the Realitants, and I’m giving you an order.”

Tick sighed, feeling lower than low. “Okay, then. Yes, sir.”

He turned away from his boss and looked squarely at his mom and sister, both of whom stared right back. Tick’s mind spun, calculating. He felt the gathering force within his chest.

“I’m really sorry, Mom,” he said.

Then he winked her and Lisa back to Reality Prime.

Chapter 34

Diabolical Plans Again

Reginald Chu sat in a chair, looking out a window that had no glass.

The chair was inside a structure that could barely be called that—it was nothing more than a few panels of wood nailed together with a makeshift roof of plastic thrown on top. The floor was nothing but the sodden rot of an old forest floor. And the single window existed because one of the stray pieces of wood used for the hut just so happened to have a hole in it. The air was hot and steamy, seeming to rise from the moist earth as if a pool of ancient lava rested somewhere beneath the ground.

It was a far cry from the offices he had enjoyed the last time he’d been to the Fourth Reality. This had been his home, the world he had ruled singlehandedly. Until the Realitants came. Until Mistress Jane betrayed him and helped push the Higginbottom boy to the madness that had demolished his entire headquarters, which had been shaped by the most advanced technology possible into a literal mountain of glass and steel. But Chu Industries was like the great phoenix of legend. Its shell had been destroyed, but the spirit was about to rise again from the ashes.

A surprisingly low number of people had been killed that day. Many of his top executives survived. And since that fateful day when he was catapulted to the Nonex by the unfortunate meeting with his Alterant—that slimy, weakling of a science teacher—the cogs and wheels of his great empire had been turning. Planning for his return. Putting the pieces of the puzzle back into place. Watching for the first sign of his nanolocator.

And now he was back.

But he didn’t want anyone besides his closest staff to know about it. Not yet. That was the reason he was in the middle of a forest, miles from the temporary location of Chu Industries, in a hut cobbled together by two idiots on the bottom of the payroll. Two idiots who had been taken care of as soon as their work was done. He relished the discomfort of the pitiful makeshift office they’d created for him. He needed the shack. It reminded him of how great his power had once been, and it motivated him to find that power once again.

There was a tapping—three hits—at the ugly slab of wood that served as his door. Reginald waited. Another three. Then two. Ten seconds passed. Five taps. Chu reached below his chair and pushed the button on the tiny device that had been taped there. The shack may have looked harmless, but if anyone tried to enter without his permission, they would’ve been completely incinerated by the automated lazbots hidden in the trees.

“Come in, Benson.” He knew who it was because only one person had been taught the code that had been used on the door. There was something incredibly dopey about the man, but Benson was faithful beyond anything Chu had ever witnessed. So faithful he’d almost died on several occasions.

Just as he’d been instructed, he waited until Chu repeated the command—“Come in, Benson”—before finally slipping inside the small hut of discarded wood.

“I’m ready to give you a full report,” the man said nervously, which pleased Chu. At Chu Industries, there was no room for error.

“What did you find out.” Reginald always spoke his questions as statements. They were commands for information, not requests.

“I spoke with every department head,” Benson began, his eyes cast to the floor and his hands folded before him. A servant, through and through. “In almost every way, we’re back to full strength. Everything from personnel levels to supplies to research and development. Most importantly, the underground facility is only a few weeks from completion. This time your mountain will be a real one, boss.”

“Benson.”

“Yes, boss?”

“Don’t ever call me ‘boss’ again.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I just wanted to show some respect—show who’s the, um, boss.”

Reginald stood up. He figured there was time for one more lesson before the real data started pouring out. “Benson. I think you would agree with me that neither I, nor you, need any reminder whatsoever that I am your boss.”

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Chu sat back down. “Good. I won’t interrupt you again. Tell me everything. Especially about the findings concerning the Fourth Dimension.”

Benson started talking, and as more time went by, the more quickly he spoke.

True to his word, Chu didn’t say one thing or present one inquiry. A half hour later, he knew exactly what he needed to do and how to do it.

Within six months, Chu Industries would no longer be a company. Or an empire.

It would be Reality itself.

Chapter 35

A Sight of Gray

We should never have let her go,” Rutger said. “Someone a lot bigger than me and a lot stronger should have stopped her.”

“Maybe someone a little less roly-poly, I’d say,” Mothball quipped.

They all stood on the hill that led to the forest, looking down in the early-morning light upon the ruins of the castle and the great, slowly churning mass of gray air that still raged in the middle of it all. Sato’s army was assembled nearby, observing as well. The invading, mysterious entity below hummed and buzzed and growled as it spun, crackling when tendrils of bright lightning shot through its surface. Tick watched in awe, knowing the thing had almost doubled in size since he last looked at it from a safe distance.

The Void of Mist and Thunder. Pure power, according to Mistress Jane. How could they rely on her information about what was happening? Well, that was an easy answer—they
couldn’t.
They needed to get back to headquarters and begin their own research.

“I’m just saying,” Rutger continued, “never in a billion years should we have trusted that woman. Not in a trillion.”

No one really argued with the butterball of a man because what he kept insisting was so obviously true. Soon after Tick had used his own hold on Chi’karda to wink away his mom and Lisa—something he’d hear about for sure in the future—Jane had used hers to wink the rest of them to this spot of temporary safety. The rumbling, machinery-like noises of the Void had grown louder and louder; the ground had begun to shake as its mass crept closer to the Great Hall. They’d needed to get away.

But then she’d gone on about how she needed to do her own part in all of this, and that she’d meet up with them soon enough, when both sides had made some progress. Master George had been furious, his usually red face growing closer to pure scarlet as he lectured her on how this problem needed all of their heads together, and then . . . she was gone. Without a word, she winked away, one second there—disheveled and scarred and exhausted—the next second, gone.

And so, a smaller group of Realitants stood in the chilly air of dawn, watching with empty bellies as an unknown force of gray fog began devouring the universe.

Typical stuff for people like us,
Tick thought. Simple job. Hopefully they’d be done in time to beat rush hour tonight and get home for an early supper.

He snickered at his own lame joke.

“Telling jokes in your head over there, sport?” Paul asked him. He stood next to Sofia, and neither one of them seemed to think anything was even remotely funny about their current situation.

“No. It wasn’t that kind of laugh. It was more like the we’re-definitely-going-to-die-so-why-even-bother laugh. You know.”

Paul actually broke a smile, a genuine one, even. “Oh, yeah. Like in the movies. The bad guy always giggles before he gets pushed out a plane or something. Or right as the axe starts swinging down.”

“Uh . . . yeah,” Tick said with a sarcastic nod. “Something like that.”

“Rutger’s right,” Sato cut in, curt and abrupt. “Every single one of us was stupid to let Jane leave. We should’ve shackled her to a tree—something. Now we have three enemies to worry about—Jane, Chu, and that . . . thing down there.”

Master George sighed, looking about as weary as Tick had ever seen him. “Sato. Rutger. My good men. I understand your concern, but I assure you, there’s no way we could have stopped her. Like Master Atticus, she has herself become a Barrier Wand and has power beyond what we even think. I believe there was honor in her once, and I know she couldn’t possibly want the end of her own world—as she puts it—to come about. We’ll have to trust that she is off doing something that will truly help the cause.”

Sally suddenly spoke up. He’d been so quiet, it seemed as if he wasn’t even around, despite his huge stature and ridiculous clothes. “I trust that snicker doodle of a woman ’bout as much as a hen can toss a rooster barn. Cain’t believe she was ever one a-yorn, ole George. Just cain’t believe it nohow.”

“She was,” their leader said through another heavy sigh. “She most definitely was. And, sadly, one of the best we ever had. Who knows what might have been if she hadn’t been assigned to the Thirteenth Reality? Power corrupted her like mold condemns a building. Slowly, but certainly. As it grew inside of her.”

“So?” Sofia asked. “What do we do now? What’s first?”

Master George pulled in a deep breath, sticking his chest way out and adjusting his filthy suit. “Some of us are going back to the Grand Canyon in Prime. We need to put our thoughts together and make sure we understand everything we can. We need to
understand
before we can do anything to stop this madness.”

“Some of us?” Tick asked. “Who
isn’t
going, and what are they doing instead?”

George gave a tired look to Sato, and Tick knew he was about to ask his friend to do something dangerous. “Sato, my good man. I want you and your army to stay here. I need you to research this business about the creatures of Mistress Jane being transformed by the Void somehow. I believe there may be something extremely important to learn there. We also need someone close by to observe this . . . monstrosity and report back regularly on its progress.”

Tick expected to see a flash of disappointment in Sato’s features—he was missing out on a chance to go back to safety, shower and eat, rest up—but instead, he stood a little straighter and gave a stiff nod.

“Okay,” he said simply. “That’s what the Fifth and I will do, then.”

Tick was filled with an unexpected sadness. They’d all
just been
reunited. He walked over to Sato and held out a hand, fighting to make sure he didn’t let a stray tear leak out somehow.

Sato took his hand and shook it, squeezing it hard. “Glad to have you back, Tick.”

“Yeah. Good to be back. Glad to see you alive. I know you saved a lot of kids that day at the Factory.”

Sato’s hand dropped to his side; Tick felt the blood rush back in his own. “We had to leave a few behind.”

Tick didn’t know what to say to that.

“But . . . it’s good we could save the ones we did,” Sato added. He looked at Master George knowingly, as if they’d had a conversation about it countless times.

“Yeah,” Tick responded lamely. “Well, looks like there’s gonna be a lot more to save. You think we’re up for it?”

Sato smiled, something so rare that Tick almost took a step backward. “My Fifth Army will save so many people that the Realities will get sick of us. Jealous they couldn’t have done it themselves.”

Tick forced out a laugh. “I doubt that. Well, good luck, man. I’m sure we’ll all be back together soon enough, fighting this Void thing somehow. Sound good?”