“What’s going on here?” he asked to no one in particular. He felt like he was on one of those hidden-camera TV shows where they play pranks on people. He half-expected a cameraman to step out of the shadows any second.
“Ask her,” Sofia said almost viciously as she pointed at Jane.
“Yes, my good friend,” Master George added. “Ask our host.”
Tick looked at Jane, surprised. She’d
arranged
this?
Jane didn’t move as silence settled in the room, anticipation palpable in the air. Tick stared at the shiny surface of her red mask, trying to understand what was happening. He stood huddled with his parents in his basement, next to his two best friends and the leader of the Realitants, staring at a woman in a robe and mask, who could probably kill them all without breaking a sweat.
Time stretched as they waited for Jane to speak, to give an explanation. Tick wanted to scream, wanted to—
“I sent my waterkelts as a little opening exercise to our meeting,” Jane finally said, her voice scratchy but calm and cool. “Though I’m very disappointed they didn’t kill at least
one
of your parents, Atticus.”
Tick said nothing, fighting the urge to run at her.
“Anyway,” Jane said, “you’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you all here.”
No one replied, but Tick’s thoughts ran wild. She’d brought them all to his
basement?
The face of Jane’s mask remained expressionless. “I knew Atticus would have the hardest time getting permission to leave due to his . . . unusual gift. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I sent you the note this morning, George. I’m glad to see you’re still capable of performing simple tasks. Though I wanted the boy Sato here as well.”
Tick glanced at Master George, who was visibly struggling to contain his contempt for this woman. “The boy is on a mission at the moment,” the old man spurted, unable to sound composed. “Be glad we came at all. I’ll have you speak your mind and be done with it. Remember, you’ve given your word this will be a diplomatic meeting. A peaceful meeting.”
Jane’s mask grinned, though the lips never parted. “Frightened, George? Scared of what your old pupil may do? You can thank the boy”—she nodded at Tick—“for making your fears relevant. You should definitely
be
afraid.”
“What is this nonsense?” Master George demanded.
“How did you get here?” Jane asked him.
Master George shifted on his feet. “What do you mean?”
Jane’s smile vanished almost instantly, the mask frowning. “George, don’t make me repeat questions a child could understand. How did you
get
here?”
“What does it matter? I fetched Paul and Sofia, then we winked to the forest a mile or so from here and walked the rest of the way.
Why?
”
“The forest?” Jane repeated. “Ah, yes, the forest. I sensed a pool of Chi’karda there. Perhaps an old cemetery, its wooden grave markers long turned to dust. I hope you walked briskly—good exercise I’m sure. Looks like you need it.”
“What is your
point?
” Master George snapped.
For the first time, Jane pulled her hands from out of the folds of the robe where she’d had them hidden. No one in the room could hold back a small gasp at the sight of them, especially Tick. He felt his mom’s arm tighten around his shoulders.
Jane’s hands were hideously red and flaky, covered with scars. Small shards and slivers of golden metal seemed fused to her skin. She folded her fingers together delicately, then rested her hands on her midsection. When Tick finally tore his eyes away from the terrible sight and looked at her face, he saw a horrific grimace of pain. Intense, aching pain. But then it was gone, replaced once again by the expressionless mask.
Jane must have noticed Tick’s own look of horror. “See something disturbing, Atticus? What, you don’t like my hands? You don’t think they’re pretty? Wouldn’t like to hold them, go for a stroll?”
Tick felt as though his insides were melting. He’d spent the last few months wondering what had happened to her, wondering if she was dead. He’d been consumed by guilt for what he’d done. Seeing Jane’s hands for himself now, he made the only logical conclusion he could. She wore the robe and mask because the rest of her body looked the same as her ruined hands.
He wanted to run. He wanted to sprint up those stairs and run away forever.
Jane seemed to sense his thoughts. “No, Atticus. For what you’ve done to me, you will be by my side. You’ll make restitution, and you’ll help me accomplish what I set out so long ago to do. That’s the only way I’ll forgive you.”
Tick felt his mom tense again, and he couldn’t stop her before she spoke.
“Now listen to me, Jane,” she said. “My son isn’t responsible for what happened to you any more than my left foot is. We’ve heard every detail of that day a million times over. He can’t control what’s inside him. You tried to
kill
him. What did you expect!”
Jane’s mask moved fiercely to rage. “I did
not
try to kill him! He knew I was trying to release his Chi’karda. I wanted to stop Chu from driving every last person in the Realities insane. I told him that—he knew it!”
“That’s a load of horse poop!” Tick’s dad suddenly yelled, making Tick jump.
“You’re an adult, Jane,” his mom continued, surprisingly calm and collected. “You should’ve known what his reaction would be. Everything that happened to you was your own fault. You—”
“Shut up!”
Jane screamed, her whole body trembling from the effort, the mask full of hate and anger.
Tick felt his mom and dad take a step backward. He went with them. The other Realitants did the same. A storm of emotions raced through Tick. He wanted to cheer for his dad yelling at Jane; he loved his mom more than at any other moment in his life for standing up for him, for acting so brave and leader-like. And he hated Jane. Hated her.
But laced through all the other emotions was fear. Pure, unsettling fear. Something terrible was going to happen. He knew it. And deep down within him, he felt the stirrings of his power, massing like a storm. Scared of what might happen, he forced the power away as he’d done earlier in the garage. If only he could learn how to use it . . .
After a long moment, the echo of Jane’s command faded away, and silence clouded the room. When she spoke again, it was very quiet. “You’ll all be coming with me. I want you to witness something.”
“Coming with—?” Master George began, but when Jane’s arm shot out and one of her hideous fingers pointed at his face, he shut his mouth.
Jane lowered her arm and folded her hands once again. “I remember in old movies, how the villain always said, through mad laughter, that he had a diabolical plan. As if anyone actually
used
such a word as diabolical.”
She stepped forward, the face of her mask smoothing back to normalcy, though Tick didn’t feel the tension in the room lessen, not one bit.
“But,” she continued, her voice icy and soft, “it’s the only word I can think of for what I have planned. My plan is, indeed, diabolical. For you, Edgar, slow-witted as you seem to be, that means terrible, horrible, awful, treacherous, and unspeakably nasty. Understand?” Her eyebrows arched.
Tick wanted to punch her for being so cruel to his dad, but did nothing. Next to him, his dad merely nodded. Tick hoped it was out of fear and not shame or embarrassment at her accusation.
“Yes,” Jane said, with a slow smile. “A diabolical plan. And every one of you is going to witness it.”
~
This was the eighth time Sato’d seen it now. A tomb for Tick.
Every place was unique. The wording was a little different every time, and the dates varied, but they all meant the same thing.
Tick’s Alterants were dead. All of them, by the looks of it.
Sato hoped this latest discovery would finally be enough to satisfy George and let him end gallivanting all across the Realities. Tick was alive in Reality Prime, but Sato had personally witnessed his friend’s grave in eight of the remaining twelve. Did George really need him to go through with making sure the other four were the same? Knowing George, Sato thought with a sigh, probably yes. Just to make sure.
Sato stood in a vast field in the Fifth Reality, dawn still a couple of hours away. He’d woken up in the middle of the night back at newly repaired Realitant headquarters in the Bermuda Triangle—Sato still missed going for walks in the Grand Canyon—and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.
So he’d made Rutger roll his round body out of bed and wink him here to the Fifth Reality. He wanted to get the trip over with and be done. He was looking forward to getting back earlier than usual and having plenty of time to rest and relax. Maybe play cards with Mothball and Sally, though those two turned vicious when the stakes got high. Especially if the pot reached a whole bag of M&Ms.
The air had winter’s bite of cold—the place was far in the north with a high altitude—but he’d worn his thick coat and gloves, so he actually felt great, refreshed and full of life. Beaming his big flashlight this way and that, he’d slowly made his way across the huge cemetery, checking each and every tombstone.
It was easy to tell this was Mothball’s world. Each grave was a good couple of feet longer and wider than he was used to, and the markers had an almost disturbingly humorous edge to them: “Plank, please don’t come back and haunt us—you have stinky feet.” “Toolbelt, you were a wonder in life, despite your gigantic nose.” “Snowdrift, who died with a smile on her face, even after falling off that cliff.”
The strangeness didn’t completely surprise him, knowing Mothball. She had a very unusual sense of humor. But there was just something wrong about giggling out loud like a little kid, over and over, in the middle of a dark graveyard.
He finally found Tick’s marker after almost two hours of searching. Standing before it, he focused his flashlight on the large, rounded tombstone:
Here lies Atticus Higginbottom
Dead at the sad age of seven.
Atticus, you had more gas than
any normal child should,
but we still miss you terribly.
Rest in peace, our sweet, sweet son.
Sato clicked off the flashlight and stood in the dark for several minutes, surprisingly touched by the eulogy. It was impossible to separate these Alterants from the people you knew—hard not to imagine that lying beneath you was the person you’d grown to care for. In many ways, it was the same person. Although he didn’t quite understand how it worked yet, this boy who’d died of who-knew-what was just Tick along a different path. He’d probably been similar in personality, looked the same though much taller, had the same drive to help others—just like Tick had saved Sato’s life twice now.
And even though Sato had been grumpy with George more than once about this mission, in some ways it had helped him appreciate the fact that his friends—who were few in number—were alive and well, not dead like this poor kid. But it also made him sad, imagining another version of Tick dying so young. George said they didn’t quite know why these major Realities still followed the same general pedigrees and lineages despite having such vastly different histories, but there had to be a big reason for it.
It worked geographically, too. Tick’s Alterants had all been born in the same place and buried in the same vicinity. And, as far as Sato knew, Tick’s parents were always named Edgar and Lorena and he always had two sisters, Lisa and Kayla. Strange stuff. Interesting how it all worked. Lately George thought he was on the verge of a breakthrough.
It had something to do with soulikens, a phenomenon the old man was trying desperately to figure out. He rarely talked about it, claiming all his information would get jumbled up and confused if he tried to explain it. Once he could lay it before them piece by piece, in a rational and comprehensible discussion, he’d immediately gather the Realitants to do so—something he’d been promising for months.
Soulikens. All Sato knew was that it had something to do with the electricity that existed within the human body. Actual and real electricity. Words like
signals
and
impulses
and
imprints
were thrown around, but never enough at once to make any sense of it. The Realitants would just have to be patient and wait for George to get it all together inside his thick skull.
But Sato had learned some things on his own, and as he stood in the darkness, enjoying the cool air, the quiet, the peace he always felt in a cemetery, he thought about one of them. Electricity was an essential physical element in making the heart pump. It seemed impossible that the human body could create electricity, but it was true. And the fact that the heart—the most important organ and the symbol of so many things in life—depended so greatly on it meant . . .
Well, he didn’t know what it meant. But it had something to do with soulikens, and something to do with his mission to find dead Alterants of Tick. Except every time Sato tried to put the pieces together, it got jumbled and
confusing. No wonder George was so insistent that he couldn’t talk about it yet.
Sato felt a headache coming on. He reached into his pocket and pushed the little button that signaled he was ready to wink back to HQ.
A nice, long morning nap. That’s exactly what he needed. Folding his arms and shivering at the cold that had seeped through his thick coat and chilled his skin, he waited for Rutger to bring him home.
A minute passed, then two. To his surprise, two people appeared in front of him—one short and fat, the other tall and skinny. He didn’t need to shine the light on them to know who they were, but he did anyway.
Rutger threw up one of his pudgy arms to block the brightness. He held a Barrier Wand in the other. “Point that back at your feet, Sato! I’d like my eyes to last another decade or two!”
Sato didn’t budge, hoping they couldn’t see the big smile that flashed across his face.