“I’ve never seen such a thick forest before,” Sofia said as they picked their way slowly—very slowly—through the thickly clustered trees. Hoots and howls rang through the air, as if every zoo in the world had released their animals into the woods surrounding them. Pungent smells of rotting foliage, leaves, and bark mixed with the pleasant scents of pine and wildflowers. Tick felt as if all five of his senses were overloaded.
He and Sofia walked alongside Paul, helping him as best they could when he needed an extra hand. Both of his were occupied—one useless because of his broken arm, the other busy holding the bad limb against his body.
“Dude, I know I sound like a sissy,” Paul said through his pain. “But this is killing me, man. I want my mom.”
“Unless your mom is a doctor,” Sofia said, stooping under a massive, moss-covered limb, “I don’t think she’s the one you want right now.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Paul replied. He struggled, doubling over to go under the same branch, his rear end and skinny legs the only way to balance himself with no arms to use. “I want a doctor. Then I want my mom.”
“My mom would tell me to quit whining and put a bandage on it,” Sofia said. “Frupey’s the only one who’d care in my house.”
Tick faltered for a second, almost tripping Paul, then kept walking as if nothing had happened. Paul’s silence showed he must have felt the same way—awkward at yet another sad reference to Sofia’s home life.
Despite the approaching noon hour, the forest was dark from the tall canopy of limbs and leaves overhead, everything masked in shadow. As Tick pushed through a thick tangle of brush, scratching his arms and legs, he couldn’t help but feel a little desperation at their predicament. They had only a few hours to get back to Circle City, run to the intersection that represented five o’clock, and then find whatever talisman marked their way out of this Reality.
After exiting the crashed Portal Number Seven, they’d seen the huge swath of ruined forest they’d left behind them, a wide slice of knocked-down trees, many of them burning or smoking. Based on the direction of the fiery trail, they could only guess—and hope—that continuing in the direction the Portal should have been traveling would lead them to their destination. But with the towering trees and thick undergrowth, it was almost impossible to know if they were walking in a straight line or wandering in circles. Everything about the place looked the same.
“Any guesses on what happened?” Sofia said, practically pushing Paul over a boulder wedged between two trees. His only response was a grunt when he thudded back on the ground.
“A bomb or something,” Tick said. “It’s probably just another part of Chu’s game. To see if we’d give up or not make it back on time.”
Paul pushed past an outreaching limb with his shoulder, then let it fly backward to smack Sofia in the face.
“Hey!” she yelled.
“Sorry,” Paul said, his pain-racked face somehow showing the slightest hint of amusement to Tick. “No arms, ya know—not much control.”
“How’d you like to have two broken arms?” Sofia replied.
“Wouldn’t be much worse than now.”
They entered a short break in the trees and found a clearing about twenty feet across, covered in bright green ivy. Rays of sunlight broke through, glistening on the dew-blanketed leaves, still damp hours after dawn. Without discussion, all three of them sat down to take a short rest, each finding a fallen tree or rock on which to sit.
“This is kind of cool,” Paul said, looking around at the border of trees, the green ivy, the cascading sun.
“Looks like something out of a fantasy book,” Tick said.
Paul nodded, then winced as if the small movement had hurt his arm somehow. “Yeah,” he said through a tight grin. “Maybe we’ll see some elves.”
“Or vicious, man-eating monkeys that glow in the dark,” Sofia added.
Tick sniffed. “Way to look on the bright side of things.”
“I just thought of something,” Sofia said, ignoring his remark.
“What?” Tick asked.
“Chu wouldn’t have any way of knowing we’d take that train today. How could this be part of his plan?”
Tick shrugged. “We know he’s following us, spying on us. With all his freaky techno gadgets, I’m sure he could make a train crash whenever he wanted.”
“I guess.” She didn’t sound convinced at all.
Paul stood after a few minutes of silence, his face wrinkling up like an old man’s. “I can’t take this much longer. We need to get back.”
“Come on,” Tick said, standing and pointing across the clearing. “I’m pretty sure we need to go that way.” He walked in that direction, Paul and Sofia right behind him.
“We’re getting close on the antidote.” Master George leaned forward, resting his folded hands on the kitchen table. Mothball sat to his left, Rutger to his right, Sally across from him. Muffintops curled on his lap, sound asleep. “Rutger, why don’t you give us a full report?”
The robust little man sat back in his chair, somehow resting one pudgy foot on his other knee—a feat that seemed impossible at first glance. “This plague is just about as fascinating a thing as I’ve ever seen. It’s completely nanotechnology based, yet it shows qualities of an airborne virus, as well as some bacterial characteristics. It’s basically an unprecedented mixture of biological manipulation, microarchitectural nanotech computer processing, and cellular airwave transmissions the likes of which we’ve never seen.”
Sally slammed his thick-knuckled hands on the table. “George, what in tarnations is this fool-headed sack of pork-and-beans yappin’ about?”
“Fool-headed?” Rutger countered. “Sally, you couldn’t add five plus five using your fingers.”
“So ya admit it, then?” Mothball said.
“What?” Rutger asked.
“That yer a sack of pork-and-beans? Only complained about the fool part, ya did.”
“Ten!” Sally shouted out.
Everyone looked at Sally, who held up his hands, fingers outstretched. “Five plus five is ten.”
“Well, I do apologize,” Rutger said. “I’ve vastly under-estimated your abilities to perform mathematical functions.”
“Ain’t nothin’,” Sally replied. “I ain’t never been able to reckon how much food you can stuff down that there gully a’yorn.”
Mothball snorted a laugh, then covered her face as her shoulders shook.
“All right,” Master George said with a huff. “That’s quite enough of this silly bickering. Rutger, I can only speak for myself when I say I had a bit of trouble following your analysis as well, and I’ve been working with you from the beginning. Please, tell us again, but this time don’t try to sound so smart.”
“Try? Master George, I—”
“Please, Rutger.”
Rutger shot a nasty look at Sally, then composed himself, taking a deep breath, which resembled a beach ball inflating and deflating on the chair. “In simpler terms, so all of you can understand it—Sato has nanotechs inside his body that can take control of his brain functions—and therefore his whole body. It’s a technologically created disease, a virus made completely of artificial materials. However, it spreads just like an airborne virus, and once the plague is inside you, the virus can be controlled from a centrally located command center, which happens to be inside the Fourth Reality.”
Sally threw his arms up in the air. “Well, you done cleared it up, han’t ya!”
“’Tis a robot germ,” Mothball said. “A wee little robot that makes ya do whatever that ruddy Chu tells ya. Spreads just like the flu, it does.”
Sally looked over at Rutger, raising his eyebrows. “Now why on mama’s grave couldn’t you a-said it that simple-like?”
“Because I’m not used to speaking down to your level,” Rutger replied, folding his short, fat arms.
Sally turned to Master George. “Why ain’t we caught the sucker if it’s liken the flu?”
“Because we’ve been extra careful,” Master George replied. “We’ve worn gloves when we’ve had to handle Sato. We’ve fumigated his cell room on a regular basis. We’ve worn masks when necessary. It’s a dangerous disease, dear Sally, but it’s not invincible. Not yet, anyway.”
“What about the antidote?” Mothball asked. “Methinks you’ve got news, ya do, or we wouldn’t be sittin’ ’ere tryin’ to decide which of these two knuckleheads gots the smaller brain.”
“We’re very close to having it solved,” Rutger said. “Since the whole power of this plague lies in its ability to be controlled from Chu’s headquarters, we think we can kill it in one swift stroke. All we have to do is inject our antidote into the home source, whatever that may be.”
“That easy, is it?” Mothball asked.
Master George cleared his throat. “Easy, Mothball? I’m afraid not. This . . . device, this thing, that controls those infected with the nanoplague will be well-protected. Ironically, its vulnerability will be the very thing that ensures its invulnerability.”
Sally merely blinked, and Master George had to suppress a smile.
“We can only assume that the device is what Reginald has referred to as Dark Infinity, and there’s simply no hope or chance of us ever seeing it in person.”
“Then what you figger we’s gonna do?” Sally asked.
Master George paused, staring at Sally for a very long moment before finally speaking. “Our only hope is to get the antidote, once it’s completed, to Tick and the others. Then they must win Chu’s contest and get on the inside.”
Mothball sniffed. Rutger coughed. Sally scratched his ear.
“Our only hope is for Reginald Chu to summon the very thing that will destroy him.” Master George reached down and stroked the soft fur of his beloved cat, who was still snoozing. “But how we will do that without losing our dear young friends, I just don’t know.”
Chapter
32
Monkeying Around
Paul was getting steadily worse. His arm had ballooned to twice its normal size, blue-purple streaks scratched across the tight skin. As bad as it looked, his moans of pain were worse; he sounded as if he were minutes away from dying. Whatever the case, his condition rattled Sofia’s nerves.
“It can’t be much farther,” she said. “All that whining is only going to make it hurt more.”
“Thanks for your concern, as usual,” Paul replied, his voice strained. “Let me break your arm—see how you like it.”
Sofia huffed. “I was in the train too.” She held up her hands, shook them. “Don’t see anything wrong here, do you?”
“It’s gotta be up there somewhere,” Tick cut in, trying to prevent an all-out war between his two friends. “Just keep walking.”