“Really?” Tick asked, his hope rising. “What did it say?”
Sofia let out a discouraged sigh. “Two words: Push me.”
Sato lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He’d focused so long on a bear-shaped shadow caused by the pale moonlight seeping through his window that it seemed to be moving, growing smaller and larger as if breathing. He knew it was only a trick of his eyes, but it still gave him the creeps.
He’d dreaded going to sleep lately because of an old dream that had come back to haunt him. He had no idea why it had returned in recent days, causing him to jerk awake every night, a sheen of sweat covering his whole body. Actually, it wasn’t a dream at all—it was a memory.
The memory of his parents’ murder.
What a day that had been, almost eight years ago. A terrible, frightening, horrible, horrible day. Master George had been there. Mistress Jane had been there, too. Others as well, but for some reason he couldn’t remember their faces. But he’d never forget the way the old man had looked that day, or his closest ally—the woman dressed in yellow. He’d never forget. Sato would never, ever forget.
He closed his eyes, knowing the dream would come but giving in to exhaustion, hoping the memory might strengthen his hopes for revenge. Revenge on Mistress Jane.
Revenge . . .
“Yama Kun, come meet our guests!” his mother called from downstairs. She’d always called him that. It meant Little Mountain.
Six-year-old Sato stepped out of his room and slowly walked down the stairs, not wanting to meet a bunch of strangers. While preparing for the big dinner, his father had called them “Realitants” as if any person in the world should know what that meant.
Realitants. A strange word, especially for a six-year-old. But after witnessing what Sato saw that night, the word burned a place in his mind, never to be lost. Realitants. In years to come, he’d end up thinking the word every day, sometimes repeating it aloud as he looked in the mirror. Realitants. The word came to mean evil and death to him, and he made a pact to one day rid the world of them.
He’d known so little back then.
He entered the front room, where several people sat on the leather couches and fancy armchairs, sipping ocha tea and speaking with each other as if discussing the weather or the latest sumo tournament. Most of them were unrecognizable, their faces a blur. The only ones he saw clearly were the slightly chubby man in the suit—Master George—and the beautiful but chilling bald woman, Mistress Jane. They sat together on the couch, mumbling something he couldn’t quite hear.
It was the image of those two sitting side by side on the couch that stayed in his memory more than anything else. It was that image that many years later would make him distrust Master George with a passion. At least for a time.
Without warning, the room grew silent, and everyone turned to look at Sato.
“I’d like you all to meet my son,” his father said, gripping Sato’s shoulders from behind and squeezing. His mother joined them, pulling Sato’s hand into hers.
The dream froze for a moment, as if paused on television. It always did at this exact point, and Sato knew why. Although he was nervous at meeting strangers, uncomfortable in his nice clothes, perhaps even hungry at the time, it would be the last time Sato ever felt the comforting touch of his parents. The last time he ever felt safe and protected.
That moment with his parents would be the last time Sato ever felt happy.
The dream continued playing out.
Mistress Jane stood, then Master George and the rest. Each of them stepped forward around the great, round coffee table and shook Sato’s little hand. George knelt on the ground, a big smile creasing his face.
“Goodness gracious me,” the old man said. “I can see it in the boy’s eyes. The passion, the hunger, the intelligence. A splendid Realitant he’ll make, Master Sato”—he looked up at Sato’s father—“a splendid Realitant, indeed. We’ll begin the testing shortly.”
Mistress Jane was next, also kneeling before Yama Kun. Though her smile shone and her face was pretty, even then, Sato felt that something was wrong with her.
“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
A Very Scary Proposition
Okay, 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.