“This is great,” Sato said, ignoring that small part in his brain that said it all seemed too easy. Meeting whatever waited inside the Factory would probably cure him of that, and quickly. “You guys wink back to headquarters now. We’ll take it from here.”

George handed him the envelope. “Best of luck, then. There are plenty of those patches, so be sure to put them on everyone here first—except you and Mothball, of course. We already have you pegged. We’ll have all the information we need back in the Control Room, and we’ll be watching closely, I assure you. Sally will be at the Grand Canyon HQ with Priscilla Persephone from the Seventh to help with the children—we’ll send them directly there.”

“Just call me Papa Sally,” the big man said. “Might even read dem squirts a story or two ’bout the old days on the chicken farm.”

“Sounds good,” Sato said. “Now you guys get out of here—time’s wasting. I mean . . . please, whatever.”

George hardly seemed to notice. He made a few adjustments to the Barrier Wand, had Rutger and Sally put their hands on it, and then the three of them disappeared. A few oohs and ahs escaped the Fifths.

Sato handed the envelope of nanolocator patches to Mothball. “Pass those out. We climb the wall in five minutes.”

After sending Sally off to the Grand Canyon, Master George got straight to work at the Bermuda Triangle headquarters, walking around the mesh metal walkways of the confined and claustrophobic structure, pointing left and right.

“Rutger, I want every computer in this building set up in the Control Room. I want the Big Board lined up and ready to go with monitoring all those nanolocators. Put a call out to all Realitants—if they can make it here to help, so be it. With all the destruction, they may be needed elsewhere, but make them aware of our plans, anyway.”

Rutger waddled to keep up, saying, “Okay,” after every instruction.

“We need to help Sally and Priscilla set up a refugee camp at the Grand Canyon. They’ll need beds and clothes and doctors and who knows what else! We also need to come up with a contingency plan—so many things could go wrong. And we—”

“Master George?” Rutger asked.

“Yes?”

“I got it.”

“Good, then. Let’s get moving!”

Rutger cleared his throat. “Could you, um, at least make me a sandwich while I’m doing all this work? I’m starving.”

Chapter 48

The Factory

The dark and smelly hallway, its walls made of black stone, wet and slimy, went about fifty feet before it came to its first window. Tick could see it just ahead of Mistress Jane when she stopped and turned to face them, but he couldn’t tell what was behind the window. A sick anticipation poisoned his veins. The firekelt was behind them now, throwing their giant shadows along the floor like flat creatures of the night.

“What we do here,” Jane began, “is the coordination of my lifetime’s work in the fields of science with the special characteristics of the mutated Chi’karda in the Thirteenth Reality. We use bio-engineering, genetic restructuring and manipulation, and chemistry. But without the special touch of . . . shall we say magic? No, that’s such a dirty word. It’s all semantics, I guess. But without the special power of the Thirteenth’s Chi’karda, all of this would suffer from a missing link.”

She raised her arms, the robe fanning out like a fallen angel’s wings. “But here, where I’ve put it all together to showcase the greatest scientific achievements of all human history—here is where the revolution of the Realities has begun. Here is where we begin our journey to a perfect place for all mankind. In a thousand years, they will look back and say it began with me. Now, watch and learn. Watch and let yourself feel wonder.”

The mask on her face showed something like ecstasy, the black holes of her eyes actually widening for the first time Tick could remember seeing. She looked completely crazy.

“Amazing how humble you are,” Sofia said. Tick was glad she spoke and not Paul, because he might not have survived the punishment a second time around. “If your intentions are so pure, then why do you care so much about taking all the credit? Sounds like a power trip to me.”

Jane lowered her arms, her look of rapture melting into a glare. “Don’t judge me, you spoiled, rich brat. Always had everything you wanted, always pampered, always safe. Always judging those less fortunate than you. Don’t . . . judge . . . me.” These last three words came out so enflamed that Sofia took a step backward and didn’t respond.

“Now,” Jane said in a much nicer voice, though laced with an icy insincerity. “The three of you will step up and look through the first observation window. You will say nothing, and you will not look away. You will not close your eyes. I, also, will remain silent, letting you get a good look before I explain what it is you’re witnessing.” She stepped to the far side, opposite the window, and gestured toward it with her Staff. “Now come.”

Tick and his friends exchanged quick glances, then stepped forward until they stood together in front of the large glass square. Tick felt the struggle of each and every breath as he leaned forward, the window mere inches from his nose.

He looked. His mind jumped to full capacity trying to take in and understand all that he saw.

The room he observed was about forty feet square and dimly lit, mainly from four pale yellow panels on the ceiling. Three beds occupied the middle of the floor, lined up to form the edges of a triangle, the closest bed empty and parallel to the window. In the center of the triangle stood a hunched over monster of a man at least eight feet tall with his back to them. He wore black clothes and had no hair on his head. His massive back was covered in a tattered shirt, and the skin beneath the ripped clothing was wet with bloody gashes. The man didn’t move anything but his arms, typing away at what Tick assumed was a computer on the other side of his gigantic body.

Tick turned his attention to the very different occupants of the other two beds, which lay at angles to either side of the workman. A large, odd-shaped tube, maybe ten inches in diameter, snaked from rafters in the ceiling and connected to the two bodies at the chest—right over the heart—linking them together. The left bed contained a large raven—black as oil and two feet tall. The bird barely moved; every few seconds its wings twitched, making Tick think it must be awake on some level and suffering horribly.