And yet . . . for so many years, the man before him had represented all the terrible things in his life. George had been there that day. Why hadn’t he saved his parents?
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sato said, momentarily closing his eyes to squeeze away his ill thoughts.
“Splendid,” George said, taking a step back so he could look at the three of them. “Our dear friend Sally is off, too. He, er, didn’t want to say good-bye because of, er, well, you know—what we did to his hair to disguise him. The old chap’s surprisingly vain about his looks after all.”
“Well, I do know how he feels,” Rutger said, smoothing his black hair.
George turned to Sato, his face serious, squinting as if he couldn’t quite focus on Sato’s face. “Are you certain about this?”
“I’m doing this for my parents.”
George nodded absentmindedly. “Yes, yes, indeed. Your bravery would make them proud.”
Sato fumed inside. He wanted to scream at the old man, blame him for their deaths. But he stayed silent, channeling his thoughts into the task at hand.
“The needle and vials are in the outer pocket of your pack,” Rutger said. “They’re bubble-wrapped for protection, but please be careful. You have only a couple of extras.”
George grunted, but Sato wasn’t sure what that meant. “We want you to get in and get out. You’ll be winking to the original Reality, the . . . host Reality where all of this nonsense began. It’s not one of the major branches, and it’s fragmenting as we speak. Still not sure of the event that was so powerful as to make them completely unstable.” He shook his head. “I need not remind you of the necessity of caution.”
“In and out,” Sato said, staring at the wall in front of him. An old picture of Muffintops hung there, a close-up from when she was a kitten, licking something that looked suspiciously like George’s foot. “The first crazy person I meet. No problem.”
Rutger cleared his throat. “It might not be that easy. Most people won’t let you walk up and stick a needle in them.”
“’Specially the crazies,” Mothball added.
“Then I’ll use the . . . thing you gave me.” Sato jerked his head toward the top of his backpack.
“Only as a last resort,” George said, holding up a finger. “A last resort.”
Sato shrugged. “Last resort. What does it matter—they’re all crazy.”
“It matters because we’re trying to save them, find a cure,” George answered.
“But it’s a fragmented Reality,” Sato countered. “Again, what does it matter?”
George shook his head. “It’s not our place to determine the value of their lives, Master Sato. They’re people, just like you and me.”
“Chances are one of ’em is you, actually,” Mothball said with a quick snort of a laugh. When no one responded, she continued, “His Alterant. Get it?”
“Yes, Mothball, we got it,” Rutger muttered as he shot a look at Sato as if to say, just humor her. “Good one, very funny.”
As for Sato, his head spun; it was impossible to wrap his rational mind around the confusing facts of how the multiverse functioned. “I’m ready. Wink me away.”
George held up the Barrier Wand in both hands. “You’ll appear on the stone outcropping of a mountain; it’s soaked in Chi’karda, for reasons we don’t know. Return there when you’ve obtained the blood sample. Rutger will have his eyes glued to the command console and will wink you back the instant you’re ready. Your nanolocator is in good working condition.”
“Okay,” Sato said, taking a deep breath as he reached out and clasped his hands around the bottom of the golden cylinder. Just do it before I change my mind.
“Best of lu—” Mothball started to say, but she was cut off with the click of the Wand ignition button.
Sato winked away.
“Mmm, this rabbit food ain’t so bad,” Paul mumbled through a bite of fancy salad—walnuts and pears scattered over dark green leaves.
They sat at a table in the hotel restaurant, the last gloomy glow of sunset painting the large windows a sleepy amber. They’d spent most of the day walking, making three complete trips around the main road that circled the town—aptly named Circle City. They saw nothing new—more buildings, more nicely-dressed people, more glittering fountains, more eerie opera music—as they discussed the riddle and the possible hidden meaning behind it between long bouts of silence.
“This Reality must not have an Italy,” Sofia said. “Nothing on the menu even comes close to real food.”
Tick nodded, too busy eating to say anything. He’d ordered something he couldn’t pronounce but which looked and tasted like pork chops, and he was loving every bite. Sofia, stubborn as usual, hadn’t even ordered yet, still staring at the menu like an impossible homework problem.
“Just get the chicken stuff,” Paul said, wiping his mouth. “They eat chicken in Italy, don’t they?”
“Well . . .” Sofia said, her eyes focusing on one item. “This one does have some kind of cheese on it.”
“Really?” Paul said, leaning over to take a look at where her finger pointed. “Chicken and cheese. I’m getting that next time.”
Tick quit listening to them, having noticed a strange man enter the restaurant, looking about as if he was lost. He was heavily built, head shaved bald, and dressed in a suit as fancy as any Tick had ever seen worn by Master George. The man’s eyes finally fell on Tick and his friends, and he started walking directly for them, stumbling twice in his polished new shoes.
“Uh-oh,” Tick whispered. When Paul and Sofia looked at him, he nodded toward the stranger.
“Who’s that guy?” Paul asked.
Tick only shrugged.
When the man reached their table, he bowed awkwardly. “Good . . . day,” he said very slowly, taking time to carefully pronounce each word. “I . . . welcome . . . you . . . to . . . our . . . city.”
He bowed again, then turned to walk away. As he took his first step, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a slip of paper, and let it fall to the floor. It was such an obvious act that none of them called it to the man’s attention. He kept moving, continuing in his halting gait until he’d left the restaurant, never once turning around to look back.
Paul practically jumped onto the floor to pick up the paper, then unfolded it on the table. Tick and Sofia scooted their chairs around to see the message:
DO NOT READ THIS ALOUD!
I’m a friend of Master George.
Meet me in Tick’s room at 9:00.
Don’t say a word to me.
We must communicate in writing.
People are listening.
The first thing Sato felt was frigid air, gusting in short bursts of wind that bit through his clothes, pricking his skin like dagger points. Feeling as if he’d just plunged into an icy lake, he gasped for air as he swung off his backpack and searched for the thick down coat within. As he pulled it out and stuffed his arms inside the soft, warm lining, he gaped at the place George had decided to send him.
The highest reaches of an enormous mountain, blanketed in snow.
He stood near the edge of a rocky outcropping which overlooked an infinite expanse of clouds, thin peaks of smaller mountains thrusting through the cottony layer here and there, black stone frosted in white. Above him, the sky was deep and dark and blue, like an ocean hanging impos-sibly over him. Realizing how high up he was, Sato stumbled backward, falling into the soft snow. The world seemed to sway around him.
He scrambled up and turned his back to the cliff, brushing the snow off before the cold stuff melted and soaked through. To his left, a steep path led up the mountain, the barely visible steps of roughly cut stone glistening with ice. If that was the way he needed to go, it would be a treacherous journey. Other than a sparse bush and a few dead trees, he saw no sign of life anywhere—just endless rock and ice and snow.
Sato took a few steps to the right, hoping to see a more reasonable trail he could follow, but the jutting slice of rock ended in a sheer, knife-edge cliff, as if a recent earthquake had sent a huge chunk of the mountain falling to its splitting, crumpled death far below.
There was only one way to go.
Securing his pack, he started up the ancient stairway. He placed his feet very carefully, bracing them against the small vertical slab of stone marking the next step. Just when he thought he had the hang of it, his left foot slid backward, throwing his whole body forward; his chest slammed into a jutting edge of rock. Holding back a cry of pain, he chastised himself and took more care, leaning forward to grip the stairs above him with his hands, as if he were climbing a ladder.
The wind picked up, throwing spurts of snow into his face like cold, rough sand. The sun, though unhindered by clouds above him, failed to provide even a spark of warmth. He had to stop every few minutes to blow warm air into his cupped hands, rubbing them together to create friction. His ears and face grew numb. He looked up, hoping to see signs of life, a building, anything. Nothing.
He kept going, step by frigid step.
A half-hour went by. Sato started to worry that George had made a serious mistake, sent him to an abandoned nowhere by accident.
“George,” he spoke aloud, though the wind seemed to snap his words out of the air and whisk them away. “If you can hear me through the nanolocator—what’s going on? I’m freezing to death!”
Half-hoping he’d be winked away, Sato kept moving up the stairs.
Forty or fifty steps later, he finally saw the end of the staircase—a place where the stone stopped and all was white, a wall of snow and ice reaching for the sky. His heart sank at the thought that he might’ve reached a dead end.
Legs burning, limbs aching, skin frozen, he reached the uppermost step, which led out onto a small landing that faced a solid wall of dark granite, crystalline icicles hanging from the brief canopy of rock that protected it. In the middle of the wall was an iron door, ridges of rusty bolts lined around its outer edges. On the door was a sign, faded letters barely legible in the awful weather conditions.
Sato took a few steps forward to read the sign, his eyes squinted. They widened when he realized what it said:
End of the Road Insane Asylum
Mountaintop Exit
To Be Used for the Execution
of Inmates Only
Chapter
25
Cotton Ears
No one said a word, their eyes glancing at the clock every few seconds. In eight minutes, it would be nine o’clock—when they expected the visitor.
Tick sat on the bed, his back resting on a stack of pillows he’d pushed against the wall. In his mind, he’d been picturing the stranger who’d dropped off the note, trying to decide if they’d ever met. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but all Tick could remember was how strange the man acted, sounding out each word and looking about nervously.
Three minutes to go.
“What do you think—” Paul whispered, but Sofia punched him on the arm, then made a slashing gesture at her neck. Paul winced as he rubbed his shoulder.