“What’s going on?” Tick asked them. “How did you know I was here? Why are you guys here?”

“No time to explain,” Sofia responded, shouting into the wind, leaning close to his ear. “We finally connected with your nanolocator, and . . . we figured some things out. Karma, Tick. There’s a thing called Karma that’s going to help you. It’s made things happen so that we’d all end up here. Right here, right now.”

Tick squinted his eyes in confusion. “Karma?”

Sofia put a small bag with a hard, boxy thing inside it into his hands. Paul had tied a string to Tick’s wrist before he could even vocalize the questions in his mind. He felt a buzz inside of him, a surge of feeling that gave him goose bumps.

“There are things we don’t totally comprehend yet,” Sofia said, smiling. Actually smiling. “Take this with you for whatever it is you . . . and she have to do. It’s going to work out, Tick. Paul and I know it. Sato knows it. We all know it!”

“But . . .” Tick was speechless.

“We’ve trusted you a billion times,” Paul added. “Trust us now. See you when all this is over!”

He swatted Tick on the back, and then the two of them ran back toward the other Realitants and Sato’s army.

Chapter 64

The Magic Silver Cube

It was almost impossible not to stare at it. The massively huge storm of the Void, roiling in a giant circle as lightning cracked and whipped through its fog and mist. A gray, monstrous thing that was growing by the minute. Master George thought he was being more than careful when he’d winked them several miles away from the spot of the once-great castle of Mistress Jane, but they had still ended up way too close for comfort.

At least they had no excuses, now. No time to look and wait and grow more fearful. The nearest wall of the Void was close, and they’d have to start fighting soon. Though how, exactly, you fought a storm was anyone’s guess. What could they do but try? Follow the path of Karma and buy time for Master Atticus to do what he must and meet his own destiny with the Void. Paul and Sofia had given him the Karma Drive and returned safely.

They were all together now—Sally and Mothball. Paul and Sofia. Sato and his Fifth Army. Only Rutger was missing, having stayed in the command center in order to gather in the other Realitants. It was a ragtag group, but the best hope the Realities had at the moment.

Sato stepped up to him. “No time like the present.”

Master George could tell that the boy wanted to show him some respect, allow the leader of the Realitants to issue the first command. But George was no fool. He was here to fight, as old and frail as he may be, not command. He wouldn’t send all these people to their most dangerous task yet without being by their side. Not this time.

“You’re in charge now,” he told Sato. “Especially since you’ve fought this . . . thing before.”

Sato was trying to hide a look of disappointment on his face. “We only fought the things that came out of the Void. Not the Void itself.”

George shrugged his shoulders. “Well, they’re bound to be related, connected. I know of nothing else we can do but to take our weapons and attack it as you did the monsters it unleashed. If nothing else, perhaps we can at least stop it from growing. We need to buy time until Atticus can do what he has planned.”

“We’ll do it,” Sato said. “We’ll beat it, or we’ll die trying.”

“Oh, goodness gracious me. Don’t talk like that.” He patted the boy on the shoulder. “All right, then. Take charge, my good man. I’ll be right here fighting with you—though I may linger in the back.” He gave him a smile. “And we’ll hope that others come to help soon enough.”

Sato nodded, a different countenance spreading across his face and demeanor. He suddenly looked like a cold, hard leader. He gave a long, lingering glance at the nearby wall of churning fog then turned to his army and the other Realitants.

“Line up!” he shouted. “Rows of twenty, staggered by four soldiers on the ends!”

The orders were followed, and soon the formation was complete, each person facing the Void. Paul and Sofia, and Mothball and Sally, were mixed into the group, new members along with Master George.

Sato shouted a command that was lost in the wind, but his hand signals were clear enough.

The Fifth Army started marching toward the Void of Mist and Thunder.

Tick refused to tell Jane anything, saying simply that his friends had given him a good-luck charm. He felt the string tightly wound against his wrist, felt the bulk of the box inside the bag. He was doing exactly what Paul had asked him to. Trusting them. He could use all the help he could get anyway.

His eyes stung from the ripping winds that tore across the fields away from the Void, picking up dust and rock and debris along the way. All of it pelted him from head to toe. He wiped at his face and kept going, determined to stay by Jane’s side as she marched toward the towering wall of spinning gray fog, leaning into the stiff wind. They were almost there, and the sight of the Void up close was frightening, all lightning and thunder and swelling power.

Jane didn’t slow. And neither did Tick. He did look back every once in a while, and it seemed as if Sato’s army was massing for an attack on the Void itself, which seemed ridiculous.

Just let me handle this, guys, he thought. I can do it.

They were a few hundred feet away, Tick’s entire vision filled with nothing but gray mist and flashes of light, his ears numb from the pounding noise, when Chu abruptly appeared right in front of them. Winked in, flashing into existence. He held a large, silver cube about the size of a microwave oven in his hands. The wind pushed his black hair all over the place in a frenzy and riffled his clothes, but Tick noticed his eyes. They were sane and clear, which, for some reason, scared Tick.

Chu held the metallic box out in front of him. “This is it!” Even though he was obviously screaming, his words were barely audible over the deafening roar of the Void. “The work of more than a hundred scientists! It will change the Realities forever, and I plan to be the guinea pig this time!”

“Get out of our way!” Tick yelled back at him.

“Atticus,” Jane said. “We need him, remember?”

“No!” Tick was done being told how things would be done. “Chu, we don’t need you; I don’t care what Jane says. Get out of my way.”

“I have an entire army about to wink in!” Chu responded, shouting his every word. “With all my greatest creations at their disposal! They have orders to annihilate anyone and everyone in the fields behind us unless you do as I say! Don’t let their deaths, and the end of the Realities as we know it, be on your shoulders! My plan is the only way!”

“What is that thing?” Tick yelled, nodding toward the silver cube.

Jane didn’t let Chu answer. “It doesn’t matter!”

“It does! I want to know!” Tick replied. And he did. He wanted to know. Something told him it was important.

Chu lifted the cube up a couple of feet, and then he screamed out his words to be heard over the storm of the Void. “It’s made of the same matter that binds the universe together. A science that only a precious few understand. We need simply to utilize the almost infinite energy of the Void to break it apart, dissolve it—and me—into trillions of atoms. Then, with the power of your Chi’karda—both of yours—we can meld and bind myself to the very fabric of Reality. And Jane, too, if she still wishes. We can do this!”

Tick had been leaning forward, focusing with all his concentration to hear and compute every sentence as it came out of Chu’s mouth. It sounded like the ranting of a mad scientist, but Tick knew better. He couldn’t underestimate Reginald Chu. There was something here, something unprecedented in human history. And it scared Tick.

He’d have none of it. “Get out of my way!”

“Please, boy!” Chu shouted, sincere pleading in his eyes. “I swear to you, this is real. This can work. My intentions are noble! I can make the Realities better with a human side! We can finally create Jane’s Utopia!”

Tick thought the man had gone too far—losing every ounce of the scant credibility he was shooting for—when he claimed he was trying to be noble. Did Chu really expect him to believe that?

Tick looked over at Jane, and he saw the most human expression he’d ever seen on her mask. She was torn, through and through. He felt pity for her, then, shocking himself. He could see that the promise of her elusive Utopia had gotten to her.

“Mistress Jane,” Tick said, but not too loudly. Working with Chu was the worst idea possible. And yet he had no doubt the threat that the man had made was real. And something—some feeling deep within him—told him what to do.

He lurched forward and grabbed Jane by the arm, pulling her along as he walked toward Chu. Tick grabbed him by the arm with his other hand, letting Sofia’s bag dangle from his wrist. Then he broke into a run, dragging the other two along with him, fighting the monstrous winds.

A few seconds later, they slipped through the outer wall of the Void, swallowed by the gray, angry mist.

Chapter 65

Enlisted in the Army

The noise was unreal. A level that Tick had never experienced before. Loud, pounding, relentless. Gray darkness surrounded the three of them as they walked through the outskirts of the Void. Each flash of lightning was followed immediately by a brutal crack of thunder. Tick figured he’d be deaf within a half hour, if not dead.

At least the wind had stopped. Jane had used her Chi’karda to put a bubble of protection around them, more to prevent being struck by lightning than anything else. It was invisible, but had an orange sheen to it that mixed oddly with the gray, boiling mist that seethed along its edges. It was all so strange, so surreal. But Tick knew they probably hadn’t seen anything yet; it was about to get a lot weirder and a lot scarier.

Chu walked alongside him, hefting that large silver cube. Tick wanted to ask him more questions but didn’t have the heart to attempt it. He’d have to scream at the top of his lungs, and who knew if even that would work.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Chu balance the cube in one arm and reach his other hand into his pocket. He opened his mouth to say something—exactly what he’d done earlier when he’d communicated with someone in his own Reality—but an odd expression came over his face, and he seemed to reconsider his decision. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and gripped the cube firmly once again. Was it because of the noise? Or had he changed his mind on something? Decided not to do what he’d planned after all? Maybe the device didn’t work in the middle of the storm.

The three of them kept moving, protected by a bubble of clear orange, going deeper into the depths of the gray storm.

The heart of the Void waited.

Master George had emptied the last of the Realitants’ arsenal to arm Sato’s army for one last battle.

Paul held his Shurric steady, its butt end pressed against his chest, handle gripped firmly, his finger ready at the trigger. He had Ragers and Slicers in both of his pockets and another Shurric strapped across his back in case the first one ran out of juice. He was ready for battle as they marched toward the wall of the Void. Streams of mist jumped out and swirled back, and plumes erupted from the surface then were sucked in again; the entire storm boiled and fumed. All while lightning danced and crackled within and without.