“Master George!” he yelled, knowing the man was listening in somehow. “Get them out! Get them all out!”
Chapter 60
Ten Kids
Tick wants us to wink them out!” Rutger yelled.
Sofia watched as Master George’s hands flew furiously to turn dials and flip switches, type on the keyboard, adjust his Barrier Wand. “How much time until the wave hits us?” he asked in a tight voice.
“Three minutes!”
“We’ll hold out until the last second. We must save every child we can!”
Sofia looked down to see that Paul had grabbed her hand. She squeezed back, terrified and hating how helpless she felt.
“Winking away the Fifth Army now,” Master George said, sweat flying off his ruddy, bald head as he worked. “But not Sato and Mothball. Not yet.”
“Two and half minutes,” Rutger said, his voice loud but sad.
Tick saw the tall people of the Fifth Reality suddenly disappear, winked away. The creatures they’d been fighting looked around in shock, growling and spitting.
Thankful that Master George had heard him, Tick had to assume that everyone was gone now. He hoped that George had also saved the kids Jane planned to use in her horrific experiments. He had to destroy the Factory now, before any of those monsters escaped. Then he’d finish off Jane and end this nightmare forever.
He closed his eyes for a brief moment, mentally gathering the streams and coils of Chi’karda, pulling it all in.
Then he fell to his knees with a scream, throwing his arms forward as if he were flinging his powers at the scene below him. His Chi’karda unleashed itself on the Factory, destroying everything in its fiery, angry path.
Sato’s entire body ached like never before. Worse than when he’d gone through the agony of having Chu’s Dark Infinity plague and being bound with ropes by Master George. His arms and legs screamed with weariness and hurt, begging him to stop.
But he didn’t. He kept jumping from compartment to compartment, slapping the nanolocator patches on kid after kid, moving on before he even saw them be winked away. All the while, he’d fought off the relentless fangen with punches and kicks. He’d even poked one in the eyeball and sent it screeching away.
Mothball did her part on the other side of the vast, round chamber, leaping with more ease than Sato because of her height advantage. They were almost done. Sato could see the last row of inset rectangles just below him.
He landed in the latest cubbyhole, pulling out a patch before he even settled. A pretty girl with red hair lay curled in a ball, eyes lit with fear. He stuck the patch on her and turned to move on. Just as he did, a great explosion sounded from above, and the entire chamber started shaking again. Huge chunks of rock and metal fell through the air, cracking and clinging as they hit the sides along the way.
It had all started again. What went wrong! He dared not pause to think about it.
He punched a fangen just as it appeared, kicking it and punching again. The hideous thing backed off.
Sato jumped, ignoring the increased danger of debris and quaking. He landed in the next compartment and reached for a nanolocator patch.
The Bermuda Triangle headquarters building trembled and groaned.
“Thirty seconds!” Rutger yelled. Despite the terror and worry she felt herself, Sofia couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor little man. With his face flushed and sweat pouring off his skin, he looked like he might drop dead any second. “It’s already straining the cables to the max—they’re going to snap! We have to go! We have to go!”
Master George continued his frantic, feverish work. “Blasted! They’re still working hard. It must mean they haven’t reached everyone yet.”
“Time’s up!” Rutger said, pounding his fist on the desk. “Or we’ll all die with them!”
Sofia felt a storm of different feelings and emotions rip through her heart: fear for her life, fear for Sato’s life, sorrow for the kids. She squeezed Paul’s hand even tighter and waited, holding her breath. The building shook even harder now, groans of twisting metal hurting her ears.
Master George swore, something Sofia never thought she’d hear him do. Then, “Fine. Let’s finish this thing.”
He started tapping buttons.
The entire chamber was about to fall down around Sato. The shattering cracks and thunderous rumbles of crumbling stone had risen to a deafening roar. Just after placing a patch on the latest kid, he looked across the way at Mothball and saw her staring back at him through the rain of debris. Her eyes said it all.
They could die here if they didn’t get winked out immediately—who knew when the shaking would stop, when things would settle. But then, almost at the exact same time, they both slowly nodded. They wouldn’t leave—not until they’d saved every last prisoner.
Sato broke eye contact first and scooted to the edge of his current cubbyhole. He did a quick scan and counted. Ten kids. There were ten kids left. Five for him, five for Mothball.
He coiled for the jump, but just as he pushed off, he felt a quick and cold tingle shoot across his neck and down his spine.
“No!” he screamed. But it was too late. The chamber vanished around him.
Sofia barely had time to notice they’d winked into the Grand Canyon sitting room, barely had time to feel the relief of solid ground under her feet, when Sato and Mothball appeared right in front of her. The two of them looked like zombies, filthy and scratched and worn.
“No!” Sato yelled, twisting around on his feet, as if looking for something. “Send me back! There were ten more! Ten more!”
Master George appeared through a doorway, his face cramped with a tight smile. “The children should be down in the valley. Ah, Sato, Mothball, thank goodness you’re—”
Sato ran to the man and grabbed him by the shirt. “Send me back! The whole place is falling down—they could die! There were ten more of them!”
Master George shook his head back and forth. “I’m . . . I’m terribly sorry, Sato. It’s far too late—everything was set up back in the Bermuda Triangle station. I simply can’t send you back from here. I’m very sorry.”
“You have to!” Sato’s arms shook with fury or exhaustion. Probably both. “You have to send me back! We didn’t get them all!”
“It’s impossible,” Master George whispered sadly. “Quite impossible.”
Sato slumped to the floor. Sofia looked over and saw Mothball had collapsed on a couch, her eyes closed, tears leaking out from beneath their lids. Paul moved to crouch beside Sato and put a hand on his back.