“Excuse me, good sir,” a soft female voice said close to his ear. Closer than he felt comfortable allowing—he wasn’t ready yet!
He looked up, ready to snap at whoever had invaded his space. But it was an old woman, as tall as Mothball and just as gangly, leaning over him like a wind-broken tree. She had a gentle, pretty face, and Sato’s anger quickly slipped away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You all keep asking me the same thing, and I can’t answer it any differently. I’m not the guy you think I am.” He returned his chin to his fists, his eyes to the floor. How was he going to do this?
“We don’t rightly think that anymore,” the woman answered. “We’re not a bunch of dumb lugs, ya know. But there’s somethin’ right special about you, there is. And we want to ’ear from ya, that’s all. Not too much to be askin’, now is it?”
Sato took a long, deep breath. He had to do something, get the ball rolling. Sitting there with all of them gawking like kids at a zoo would drive him crazy if it went on for another minute.
“Fine,” he said, sighing as he forced himself to stand. The old woman smiled, her grin revealing that she only had about half her teeth, and those remaining were dark yellow. But still, she had a pretty face, despite its age and wear and tear. Somehow, she was keeping him polite and level-headed.
“Give us a speech,” she whispered to him, still leaning down considerably. “We could all use a bit of uppity-up, no matter the source. You’ve got the looks of one who can do that right nicely. You do, really.” She winked at him then stood straight, a good foot taller than Sato.
Sato looked away from her and around at the crowd. Many had taken a seat—especially the ones closest to him. Those farther back stood, arms folded, staring at him expectantly. There had to be at least three or four hundred people packed all around him. He slowly turned in a circle, taking it all in as he tried to think of something to say. The whole lot of them grew quiet.
You can do this, he thought to himself.
“I know why you guys are so fascinated by me,” he said, wondering if he could’ve possibly started his speech with anything more stupid. He doubted it. “I know I look a lot like the kid who was your ruler until those crazy Bug soldiers assassinated him.”
This caused an uproar, people shouting and yelling things all at once, many of them throwing their arms up and shaking their clenched fists in anger.
“Boo to the Bugaboos!”
“Death for the Bugs!”
“Drown the clowns!”
“No rest till the pests’ death!”
Sato didn’t think it was possible, but he felt even more uncomfortable. He held his hands up, palms out, trying to shush them. Finally, they quieted. And he started talking; where the words came from, he had no idea.
“I’m not the same person as your leader who was killed. It’s really hard to explain, but I’m from a different world—one that’s a lot like yours but . . . different. Maybe it’s not so hard to believe if you just look around at this weird place. But none of that matters. I know why you want me to be your Grand Minister. Everyone wants a leader, someone to look up to. But I don’t know if I could ever really be that person.”
A surge of complaints started to explode from the crowd, but Sato cut the noise off by swiping his hands back and forth. “Just listen to me! We all need something here, and I think we can help each other.”
“What’s that then?” the old woman asked, her right eyebrow cocked high. “What can we do for ya, lad?”
Sato was thinking on the fly, caught up in the moment. He was feeling it. “I know Mothball. I know her family. I know that the people of your world are fighters. You’re warriors. Am I right?”
A hearty shout of cheers rang through the air, fists pumping toward the endless gray sky of nothingness above. A surge of heat and electric energy filled Sato’s veins.
“The first thing we have to do is get out of this place. I have a very good friend who’s in a lot of trouble, and if he dies, we all might die. I need your help to go after him, to help him, save him. We also need to stop something that a very evil person named Mistress Jane is doing—the sickest, most horrific thing I’ve ever heard of. We’ll give you all the details soon enough—I think we have a little time yet. But if you do this—if you’ll help me and . . . fight for me—I’ll make a promise to each and every one of you.”
Sato paused, scanning the crowd, in awe at how every eye was trained on him. Complete silence settled across the strange place. Even Mothball and Rutger stood rigid, mouths slightly agape, probably wondering who’d possessed Sato’s body.
“If you’ll go with me,” Sato said, the rush of adrenaline inside sounding like an ocean’s roar in his ears, “and fight to help my friend and stop Jane, then I promise to go back to your world with you and lead the war against the Bugs. The endgame of all endgames. We won’t stop until we wipe them from existence. All of them! We will fight. And I swear, we will win!”
The roar that filled that impossible place made Sato want to take a step backward and cover his ears. He did neither.
He stood tall and yelled right along with the warriors from the Fifth Reality.
Chapter 37
Shivers
The sounds of the night-darkened forest were starting to get to Tick as he and his friends slowly made their way eastward.
Besides the normal buzz of insects going about their business, a wind had picked up, something that seemed impossible based on how many trees crowded their pathway. Limbs and branches swayed and scratched against each other; leaves rustled; small animals jumped and ran through the bushy ground cover. Eerie mating calls moaned through the air, and every once in a while a cat-like thing screamed far in the distance. It all added up to give Tick a major case of the shivers.
He’d tried his best to show a brave face when telling the others about how the Haunce wanted them to be caught by the Sleeks. It had seemed a practical matter—the best way they could get into the Factory and possibly face-to-face with Jane. And the others had reluctantly agreed to the plan after wasting five minutes arguing about it. Master George had proven to be the voice of reason that cut through the obvious hesitancy to do something so scary.
But now, trampling their way through the spooky woods, his flashlight beam stabbing the darkness ahead, getting closer and closer to something that was created by and for evil, Tick felt a different kind of fear than he’d ever experienced before. A thick terror sprinkled his skin with chills and surged in his throat, like a balloon had been shoved down there. With every crick and crash of broken twigs and crushed leaves as his companions and he walked forward, he had to fight the urge to look around, searching for an enemy he knew was coming for him.