Tick could sense that something smart was about to fly out of Sofia’s mouth, so he kicked her gently on the calf.
“Please just give us our options,” she said instead.
“From this station, you can go to Martyrtown, Cook Reef, Falcon Bay, or Fourth City. Now choose and be done with it.”
“Okay, please give me just one second, sir,” Sofia said, so gushy polite that Tick was sure the man would kick them out for being smart alecks.
“Did you hear that?” Paul whispered. “He said Fourth City.”
“That’s the number of Chu’s Reality!” Tick said.
“Bingo,” Paul said.
“You really think that’s it?” Sofia asked, staring at the floor as if deep in thought. She finally nodded to herself and turned toward the old man. “Three tickets to Fourth City, please.”
“Well, congratulations on making a decision. I hope you have a swell time. That’ll be thirty-four yecterns.”
“Oh,” Paul said to the man as Sofia handed over the money. “Make sure we’ll be there by five o’clock.”
The ticket master printed out three tickets from a rickety metallic machine and handed them over the counter. “Boy, say one more snide remark and I’ll have the police boot you out of here. Now go.”
“Sir,” Paul replied, sounding more sincere than Tick had ever heard him before. “I promise I’m not trying to be difficult—we just don’t understand how the trains work here. And we need to be there by five o’clock.”
The man frowned deeper than ever, then looked at each of them in turn. “You three are just about the strangest kids I’ve ever seen. You go over to the portal that matches the number on your ticket”—he pointed at a series of large white cubicles—“step inside, and it’ll take you from there.”
“But—” Paul started.
“Go!” The ticket master’s face reddened as he pointed toward the booths.
Like three startled mice, they scuttled away. Tick hoped he never had to talk to the man again.
When they were sufficiently far enough away from the old buzzard, Sofia handed out the tickets.
Tick took his ticket. Printed in faded black letters as if the ink were running out in the old guy’s machine were the words, “Portal Number Seven. Fourth City. Round Trip.”
“Well, let’s go,” Paul said. “Hopefully we’ll get there in time to search around.”
The portals—tall, rectangular cubicles, white and shiny—were lined up in order along the sunken line of what Tick had thought were train tracks. He peeked into the ten-foot-deep trench and saw a series of long, metal rods stretching into a dark tunnel at the end of the station.
“Come on,” Paul said, holding open the door. It was made out of the same material as the rest of the small building and fitted to match its shape.
Sofia went in first, then Tick, then Paul, who closed the door behind him.
The inside was a perfect cylinder, completely covered in thick, rubbery padding that was a burnt-orange color. Along the bottom, a bench protruded from the walls—also covered in soft padding—making a circle for the passengers to sit and stare at each other.
“This is a train?” Tick asked no one in particular. An uneasy feeling crept into his bones.
“What do we—” Paul began, but was cut off by an electronic woman’s voice coming from unseen speakers.
“Please present your tickets,” it said, a soft monotonous tone that made Tick feel sleepy. He clasped his ticket between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up into the air; the others did the same.
“Cleared. State your desired time of departure.”
“As soon as possible,” Sofia said in a loud voice.
“It’s not deaf,” Paul whispered, getting an elbow in the gut from Sofia in return.
“Checking departures. One moment, please.” A pause, then: “Six Forty-Four is acceptable. Please stand on the foot rest, backs against the wall.”
“Huh?” Paul asked.
“Just do it,” Sofia said, climbing on to the bench.
“Three minutes to departure.”
Tick stepped onto the padded bench, surprised at how firmly it held him. He rested his back against the soft wall; Paul and Sofia had done the same, the three of them spaced evenly apart, exchanging worried glances.
“This is weird,” Paul said.
“That about sums it up,” Tick agreed.
“It’s obviously okay. All those other people are doing it,” Sofia said. “We can’t expect every Reality to be just like ours.”
“One minute to departure.”
“What do we do—just stand here?” Paul asked.
Sofia rolled her eyes. “You can do jumping jacks if you want.”
“You’re telling me you’re not a little scared?”
“I am,” Tick said.
“Maybe a little,” Sofia said.
“Thirty seconds to departure.”
No one said a word after that; Tick counted down inside his head.
“Ten seconds.” A pause. “Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Departure initiated.”
The room began to rotate clockwise, slowly at first, but then it picked up speed.
“Oh, no,” Tick said. “I can’t do this—I’ll throw up all over you guys.”
They spun faster and faster. Tick felt a pressure on his skin, squeezing his limbs and his torso, like an invisible force pushing him against the curved wall at his back. In a matter of seconds, he’d lost track of their rotation speed, his mind and stomach disoriented, his body sinking into the padding. His thoughts whirled as fast as his body, spinning clockwise in a tight circle.
Something clicked in Tick’s mind.
He envisioned the city they’d just left, the layout, the circular road—and the solution to Chu’s riddle crystallized in his head, as clear as anything he’d ever known. In that moment, he knew they shouldn’t be on the train.
They had to stop. They had to go back!
He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. He felt like the world was crushing him. Grunting, he tried to push his arms up into the air. It felt like he had fifty-pound dumbbells in his hands. The second he relaxed, his arms slammed back onto the wall.
Then it got worse.
A horn sounded, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once, and then the room shifted. With the spinning and the pressure, it was hard to tell which direction the room was moving, but it seemed to have dropped into a black hole, catapulting forward at a speed that was too much for Tick’s mind and body to handle.
He passed out.
Chapter
30
Forest Exit
Tick.”
He heard someone say his name, but it sounded hollow, like an echo coming down a long tunnel.
“Tick!”
There it was again. Louder this time. A sharp pain splintered across his mind, and that seemed to do the trick. Groaning, blinking through squinting eyes, he woke up.
“Dude, are you all right?”
Paul. It was Paul.
“Come on. Help him up.”
Sofia.
Tick felt hands grip him by the arms and haul him off the floor, setting him down on a soft bench. Every time he opened his eyes, all he could see were things spinning and rocking back and forth. His mind felt like a pack of termites had been set loose inside for lunch. And the nausea . . .
“I gotta throw up,” he whispered.
“Not on me, you don’t,” Paul said. “Hurry, let’s get him out of here.”
They grabbed him by the arms again. He heard a door open, felt refreshing cool air wash over him as they helped him stumble outside the portal.
“There’s a garbage can,” he heard Sofia say; they changed directions.
“Hurry,” Tick groaned, trying his best to get his feet under him. A cold line of metal pressed against his neck.
“Go for it,” Paul muttered.
Tick let it all out, then slid to the ground and leaned back against the garbage can. “Ah, that feels much better.” He opened his eyes fully and got his first good look at where they’d arrived.
The station looked much like the one they’d left earlier—maybe a little dirtier, less well-kept. Just as many people milled about, though, some leaving portals, some entering them.
“What happened?” he asked.
“You passed out,” Sofia said. “I think I might have, too, just for a few seconds. When we finally stopped, Paul and I slid down onto the bench, but you crashed straight to the floor.”
“Yeah, man,” Paul said. “You were out like a light.”
“How long were we in that thing?” Tick asked.
Sofia looked at her watch. “Only a half-hour or so.”
“Worst half-hour of my life,” Paul said.
Tick rubbed his face with both hands, then stood up, wobbling for a second before he felt his legs strengthen and solidify beneath him. “We have to go back. Now.”
“Go back?” Paul asked. “Are you crazy?”
“We need to look around,” Sofia said. “Figure out what Chu wants us to do.”
Tick shook his head, which sent another wave of nausea through his gut. “No, we got it wrong. We weren’t supposed to come here. The trains have nothing to do with the riddle.”
“How do you know?” Paul asked. “Fourth City—it’s the closest we’ve gotten to anything that makes sense.”
Tick started walking toward the ticket counter. Paul and Sofia followed, but they didn’t look happy. “Our tickets are round trip—does that mean we just get back on Portal Number Seven?”
“Whoa, man,” Paul said, grabbing Tick by the arm. “Tell us what you’re thinking. If we’re getting back in that death machine, we need to at least let our brains unscramble for a minute.”
Tick nodded, anxious to leave but knowing Paul was right. He found a bench and they sat down, Tick in the middle.
“All right,” he said. “Think about everything. The town Chu sent us to is a perfect circle. We counted twelve main roads that are basically spokes in the huge wheel of how the place is organized. Even the hotel he set us up in—it’s called The Stroke of Midnight Inn. You gettin’ it yet?”
“Holy toothpick on a hand grenade,” Paul whispered.
“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as stupid as I feel right now,” Sofia said.
“It never had anything to do with an actual time,” Tick continued. “It was such an easy riddle because he wanted to throw us off track. We were so sure something had to happen at five o’clock today, we never considered that he might be describing a place.”
Paul finished for him. “If we look at the town from a bird’s-eye view, it’s a big clock. Our hotel is midnight—twelve o’clock. We need to go to the road that represents five o’clock.”
“But we already looked there,” Sofia said. “We scoured that whole town.”
Tick stretched his arms, feeling better already. “Yeah, but we had so much area to cover, we didn’t really have time to study anything in detail. I bet we find something where the five o’clock road hits the outer circle.”