“That’s a load of horse poop!” Tick’s dad suddenly yelled, making Tick jump.
“You’re an adult, Jane,” his mom continued, surprisingly calm and collected. “You should’ve known what his reaction would be. Everything that happened to you was your own fault. You—”
“Shut up!” Jane screamed, her whole body trembling from the effort, the mask full of hate and anger.
Tick felt his mom and dad take a step backward. He went with them. The other Realitants did the same. A storm of emotions raced through Tick. He wanted to cheer for his dad yelling at Jane; he loved his mom more than at any other moment in his life for standing up for him, for acting so brave and leader-like. And he hated Jane. Hated her.
But laced through all the other emotions was fear. Pure, unsettling fear. Something terrible was going to happen. He knew it. And deep down within him, he felt the stirrings of his power, massing like a storm. Scared of what might happen, he forced the power away as he’d done earlier in the garage. If only he could learn how to use it . . .
After a long moment, the echo of Jane’s command faded away, and silence clouded the room. When she spoke again, it was very quiet. “You’ll all be coming with me. I want you to witness something.”
“Coming with—?” Master George began, but when Jane’s arm shot out and one of her hideous fingers pointed at his face, he shut his mouth.
Jane lowered her arm and folded her hands once again. “I remember in old movies, how the villain always said, through mad laughter, that he had a diabolical plan. As if anyone actually used such a word as diabolical.”
She stepped forward, the face of her mask smoothing back to normalcy, though Tick didn’t feel the tension in the room lessen, not one bit.
“But,” she continued, her voice icy and soft, “it’s the only word I can think of for what I have planned. My plan is, indeed, diabolical. For you, Edgar, slow-witted as you seem to be, that means terrible, horrible, awful, treacherous, and unspeakably nasty. Understand?” Her eyebrows arched.
Tick wanted to punch her for being so cruel to his dad, but did nothing. Next to him, his dad merely nodded. Tick hoped it was out of fear and not shame or embarrassment at her accusation.
“Yes,” Jane said, with a slow smile. “A diabolical plan. And every one of you is going to witness it.”
Chapter 9
Dead Ticks Everywhere
This was the eighth time Sato’d seen it now. A tomb for Tick.
Every place was unique. The wording was a little different every time, and the dates varied, but they all meant the same thing.
Tick’s Alterants were dead. All of them, by the looks of it.
Sato hoped this latest discovery would finally be enough to satisfy George and let him end gallivanting all across the Realities. Tick was alive in Reality Prime, but Sato had personally witnessed his friend’s grave in eight of the remaining twelve. Did George really need him to go through with making sure the other four were the same? Knowing George, Sato thought with a sigh, probably yes. Just to make sure.
Sato stood in a vast field in the Fifth Reality, dawn still a couple of hours away. He’d woken up in the middle of the night back at newly repaired Realitant headquarters in the Bermuda Triangle—Sato still missed going for walks in the Grand Canyon—and hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.
So he’d made Rutger roll his round body out of bed and wink him here to the Fifth Reality. He wanted to get the trip over with and be done. He was looking forward to getting back earlier than usual and having plenty of time to rest and relax. Maybe play cards with Mothball and Sally, though those two turned vicious when the stakes got high. Especially if the pot reached a whole bag of M&Ms.
The air had winter’s bite of cold—the place was far in the north with a high altitude—but he’d worn his thick coat and gloves, so he actually felt great, refreshed and full of life. Beaming his big flashlight this way and that, he’d slowly made his way across the huge cemetery, checking each and every tombstone.
It was easy to tell this was Mothball’s world. Each grave was a good couple of feet longer and wider than he was used to, and the markers had an almost disturbingly humorous edge to them: “Plank, please don’t come back and haunt us—you have stinky feet.” “Toolbelt, you were a wonder in life, despite your gigantic nose.” “Snowdrift, who died with a smile on her face, even after falling off that cliff.”
The strangeness didn’t completely surprise him, knowing Mothball. She had a very unusual sense of humor. But there was just something wrong about giggling out loud like a little kid, over and over, in the middle of a dark graveyard.
He finally found Tick’s marker after almost two hours of searching. Standing before it, he focused his flashlight on the large, rounded tombstone:
Here lies Atticus Higginbottom
Dead at the sad age of seven.
Atticus, you had more gas than
any normal child should,
but we still miss you terribly.
Rest in peace, our sweet, sweet son.
Sato clicked off the flashlight and stood in the dark for several minutes, surprisingly touched by the eulogy. It was impossible to separate these Alterants from the people you knew—hard not to imagine that lying beneath you was the person you’d grown to care for. In many ways, it was the same person. Although he didn’t quite understand how it worked yet, this boy who’d died of who-knew-what was just Tick along a different path. He’d probably been similar in personality, looked the same though much taller, had the same drive to help others—just like Tick had saved Sato’s life twice now.
And even though Sato had been grumpy with George more than once about this mission, in some ways it had helped him appreciate the fact that his friends—who were few in number—were alive and well, not dead like this poor kid. But it also made him sad, imagining another version of Tick dying so young. George said they didn’t quite know why these major Realities still followed the same general pedigrees and lineages despite having such vastly different histories, but there had to be a big reason for it.
It worked geographically, too. Tick’s Alterants had all been born in the same place and buried in the same vicinity. And, as far as Sato knew, Tick’s parents were always named Edgar and Lorena and he always had two sisters, Lisa and Kayla. Strange stuff. Interesting how it all worked. Lately George thought he was on the verge of a breakthrough.
It had something to do with soulikens, a phenomenon the old man was trying desperately to figure out. He rarely talked about it, claiming all his information would get jumbled up and confused if he tried to explain it. Once he could lay it before them piece by piece, in a rational and comprehensible discussion, he’d immediately gather the Realitants to do so—something he’d been promising for months.