Instead he forced himself to look ahead, to keep walking and dodging his way through the tightly packed trees until the attack came. He held onto the fact that they wouldn’t have to fight or run this time—they just had to give up and be taken prisoner.
“Tick,” came a soft whisper from behind him. Sofia. “Have you seen or heard anything weird yet?”
Tick turned to look at her quickly before facing forward again, not missing a step. “We don’t really need to whisper,” he called out, louder than he needed to. “It kind of defeats the purpose of what we’re doing. And no, I haven’t really noticed anything too weird yet.”
“Nothing too weird?” Paul repeated. “Some demon cat is being eaten by Satan out in the woods, screaming its fool head off. I’d call that weird.”
Tick had to suppress a snicker, a fleeting break from the fear that had been suffocating him. “It’s probably just a deer or something that broke a leg.”
“A deer? Never heard anything sound like that on Bambi.”
Master George spoke up. “My guess would be that we’re getting quite close to the area where these guardian creatures roam and hunt. Based on what I’ve learned from Mothball’s, er, reports.”
George cleared his throat in an embarrassed sort of way, and Tick’s suspicions shot up enough to make him stop walking. He turned to face him. “You just said ‘er’ and cleared your throat. What aren’t you telling us?”
Paul and Sofia stopped as well and faced Master George. Tick held the flashlight so that the beam pointed at the ground, but the glow was enough to show a tight look of worry on the man’s face.
“Really should keep walking, don’t you think?” he said, trying to smile but somehow making himself look even more uneasy. He feebly pointed toward the direction they were heading.
“What’s wrong?” Sofia asked.
“Yeah,” Paul added. “You look constipated all of a sudden.”
Master George folded his hands together—they’d been twitching slightly at his sides. “Our Realitant spies have recently been providing Mothball with information on the Factory.”
“And you didn’t say anything?” Sofia shouted. The echo of her voice seemed to hang in the tops of the trees for a full five seconds.
“Calm yourself, goodness gracious me,” Master George snapped back, Sofia’s outburst having brought back some dignity to his face. “We need to go there no matter what I know, and I was merely waiting for the right time to speak on it. But, if you must hear it now, what I have to say will only make our reasons for going forward even stronger.”
“What?” Tick asked, not bothering to hide the impatience that came out in his voice.
Master George kicked a bush near his feet. “Oh, how it angers me. This, more than anything she’s ever done. Jane is stealing children from towns and cities across the Thirteenth Reality and keeping them in the Factory. We suspect she is planning to use them somehow to create her abominations at the Factory. She’s currently using her powers of Chi’karda to deconstruct various animals on a quantum level and put them back together again to serve whatever purposes she’s dreamed up with her evil mind. Horror is the only word I can think of to describe such a thing.”
The Haunce had told Tick about this when discussing the overall plan, but the reality of it hadn’t hit until he heard his boss explain it in such stark terms. An emptiness expanded inside Tick, a void that should’ve been filled with a long list of terrible emotions but instead felt numb.
“She can’t be that sick,” Paul said. “She can’t be.”
“I’m afraid our sources are very reliable,” Master George said. “I believe what happened to Jane in the Fourth Reality”—he shot a nervous and quick glance at Tick—“has driven her past a point from which I can’t imagine anyone could ever return. Her life has been consumed by hatred and evil, encompassed by a delusion that she can still find her utopian reality and bring an endless peace to the universe. Bah! She’ll have every last one of us dead. The woman’s insane, I tell you. Insane!”
Tick had a disturbing thought pop into his head. “Well, I guess if we can’t stop the Realities from going kaboom, at least Jane won’t be able to steal any more kids.”
“Don’t let your mind wander down that path,” Master George said, stepping closer to Tick. He put a hand on his shoulder. “Instead, let’s focus on accomplishing what the Haunce has sent you to do. Once done, we’ll stop Jane’s madness and free the children.”
Tick looked at Sofia, then Paul. Both of them had stern faces, made all the harsher by the sharp shadows from the flashlight. “What do you guys think?”
“What do you mean?” Sofia asked, an edge to her voice. “What do you think we think?”
“No,” Tick said. “I just . . . does this change anything? We knew we had to get in there and convince Jane to help us. After we do what the Haunce wants . . .” He didn’t know how to finish. Despite what George had said, every potential pathway that flickered inside Tick’s mind seemed to head for disaster.
“Dude,” Paul said in his gimme-a-break tone. “This only makes it clearer. Crazy Jane can do all the hokey-pokey stuff she wants, but if she’s messing with little kids now . . . we gotta get in there and stop it. Simple as that.”
Sofia was breathing as if this latest news had pumped up her adrenaline. “And Sato will come—just like you asked him to in your note. We can do it, Tick. You’ll save the universe with your fancy powers, then we’ll get the kids out, then we’ll burn the whole place to the ground. Let’s go!”
She didn’t wait for a response but marched off into the dark woods, toward the east. Paul stepped in line right behind her.
Tick looked at Master George. “Guess I’m not in the lead anymore.”
“Well, I think they could use your flashlight. Let’s go, Atticus. Lots to do.”
Tick nodded and started walking, shining his light up ahead so his friends could see. As they made their way forward for the next few minutes, the shadows leaping with every movement and the eerie sounds of the forest haunting the cool air, Tick realized his earlier choking fear had disappeared. It had transformed into impatience, an eagerness, even.
Sofia stopped, holding her hand up to signal them to do the same. Paul almost bumped into her, letting a branch loose as he caught his balance. It hit Tick square in the nose, but Sofia cut off his cry of complaint before it got started.