Paul thought of Sofia. He turned in a circle, searching for her.
He ran in a stumble toward the dark shape of the mountain, the haze making it look even more sinister than before. The quaking ground was making him sick. He shouted Sofia’s name, mad at himself for getting separated. As the dust settled, he finally caught a glimpse of her near the huge glass doors marking the entrance to Chu’s palace. From the looks of it, the doors had been mostly obliterated by a full Rager, jagged shards of glass littering the ground.
“Sofia!” he shouted again, running toward her.
She spotted him and stared for a long moment, then turned her back to him. The earthquake made it appear as if she were jumping up and down.
“Sofia!” he called, but she ignored him, her attention focused on the gaping hole leading to Chu’s palace.
What is she doing?
Without so much as a glance back at him, Sofia sprinted for the destroyed glass doors, disappearing into the darkness beyond.
What . . .
“Follow her!” he heard Mothball roar from a distance. “Everyone! We gotta get to Tick!”
Paul ran forward, but only made it two steps when the earthquake doubled in intensity, knocking him to the ground. He looked up just in time to see a huge section of the mountainous building crack and fall, exploding when it hit the ground, the sound of its crash splintering through the air.
“No!” he shouted.
The entrance was completely blocked off.
Chapter
47
~
Pacini
Sofia ran, her Shurric at the ready for anything that jumped out at her.
The building shook horribly around her; she heard a crash of breaking glass far behind. Around her, the walls and floor bent and rippled; chunks fell from the ceiling. Every step took her full concentration and balance to make sure she didn’t fall down.
Tick is doing this, she thought. I don’t know how or why, but Tick is doing this.
She pictured in her mind the map Master George had shown them—third lower level, section eight. Her legs already exhausted, she somehow kept going, winding her way through hall after hall, down staircases, through more halls. With every turn, she saw people running, heading in the opposite direction, fleeing the destruction.
She kept going forward.
~
Tick was lost.
The blackness killing his vision was complete now, which only escalated the sheer panic that surged through him, competing with the intense heat that still burned. He stumbled about, waving his arms, calling for help. Jane’s screams still rocked the air, though they’d grown deeper, guttural, filled with gurgles and raw shrieks.
What did I do? he thought. What did I do to her?
And where had Chu gone?
All around him, the sounds of destruction penetrated the darkness of his sight, scaring him. Huge things crashed nearby; it was a wonder he hadn’t been crushed yet by a falling object. He wanted to shrink to the ground and curl into a ball until it was all over. But he couldn’t. He had to run. He had to get away.
He kept stumbling forward, searching for something, someone, anything.
~
When Sofia saw the big metal doors, she knew she’d arrived. Without pausing, she threw a Rager forward, then readied her Shurric. The Rager pulled the metal and plastic from the floor and ceiling as it rolled along, growing bigger and bigger. It crashed into the doors, bending them with a metallic squeal, but not breaking them open. Sofia fired repeatedly with the Shurric, its invisible thumps of sonic energy enough to finish the job. The doors parted to let her through.
She scrambled into a chamber as big as a football stadium, chaos reigning as things crashed and burned all around her. Most of the people had already fled, but she heard the skin-crawling screams of a woman in the distance.
“Tick!” Sofia shouted, getting no answer.
She ran forward, scanning her eyes left and right. Tick—where are you?
“Tick!” she yelled when she spotted him, sprinting toward her friend.
He looked terrible, sweaty and cut up, wandering around like a drunk man, feeling at the air with shaking hands, staring with blank eyes. His mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Every step he took sent a ripple surging through the floor away from him, like a stone dropped in water. Chunks of the ceiling fell and were whipped away just before crushing his body, as if a host of guardian angels hovered above him, protecting him.
“Tick!” she yelled again, but he didn’t respond. He looked so awful, so . . . crazy, she could hardly believe it was the same boy she knew.
Sofia kept running, looking above to dodge falling objects, winding her way back and forth toward Tick. A few remaining workers pushed past her in the opposite direction, fleeing. A thick man with a spotty beard crashed into her, knocking her to the ground. Sofia screamed something rude in Italian as she scrambled to get back up.