She didn’t shout the words, and Tick barely heard them, but Chu looked at her as if she’d gone crazy.
“You can’t be serious!” the man yelled. “You’ve seen what he can do! He’ll escape before we can count to three! You know that we need this boy’s power for our plans! He has to be contained until we’re ready!”
“And then?” Tick asked. “You think at the very end I’m just going to agree to do whatever you want?”
The disturbing sounds of people in pain and dying and suffering swirled through the room, joined by the creaks and groans of the building that shook around them. Everything in sight was twisted and bent, moving in impossible ways. Nothing made sense.
Jane’s mask remained expressionless as she stood there, trying to keep her balance. She looked back and forth between Tick and Chu. Back and forth, as if pondering some monumental decision.
Tick kept his eyes on her, feeling so helpless he thought his chest might implode from the rage and panic trapped inside him.
“Reginald,” she finally said, her raspy voice somehow cutting through the cacophony of haunts that floated in the air. “We need to leave for a few minutes to talk privately. We’ll come back and get him when we’re ready for his contribution.”
Chu nodded absently, his eyes showing that his mind was lost in deep thought.
“What?” Tick yelled. “What are you talking about? This is crazy! You guys have to let me go!”
Jane held out a scarred hand to Chu, and he took it. Both of them were still fighting to maintain their balance amidst the quaking, but managing well enough. Hand in hand, swaying, they walked to the door of the room, opened it, then exited into the hallway. Chu swung it closed behind them.
Leaving Tick all alone.
Paul was shocked he hadn’t fallen down yet, or tripped over Rutger. The entire headquarters shook like a baby’s rattle, and Paul’s brain was feeling like the stuff on the inside of the rattle. He stumbled left and right as he tried his best to move forward at a sharp clip. The three of them reached the data center, where Rutger was king. The short man pushed his way past Paul and Sofia and entered the room first, turning on lights and flipping the switches on monitors and machines.
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Rutger said, all business now that he could actually contribute again. “It’s always in the numbers. Always.”
He climbed up onto his specially-made raised chair and focused on the largest screen in the room, which was several feet wide and already filled with flashing data and colors. Sofia stood right behind him, Paul at her shoulder.
“O . . . kay . . .” Rutger said slowly, drawing out the word as he quickly scanned the data splattered across the monitor. Paul did the same, but he knew the other two would come up with something interesting before he did.
Right on cue, Rutger started in with his findings. “Chi’karda levels are extremely low in a three-to four-mile radius around the canyon headquarters, and the pocket appears to stretch along the river in both directions—probably in line with that blue streak of . . . whatever we saw in the air. There’s also some kind of reading for a substance that our sensors can’t identify. It has mass, and it’s everywhere. My goodness, it’s everywhere. But . . .”
He spun around in his chair and looked up at the others. “I’m not sure I can . . . I mean . . . it’ll take me some time, but . . .”
Paul knew the man was probably ashamed that he didn’t immediately know the explanation for the foreign force that permeated the air around the Grand Canyon. But Sofia latched on to the answer right away, excitement shining in her eyes.
“It’s Karma, Rutger. It has to be!”
Chapter 52
Down Below
Going down the elevator had been just about the scariest thing Mothball had ever done. The long ride to the bottom of the canyon floor had been riddled with sudden jolts and constant shaking, and even an unexpected drop of twenty feet or so that made everyone scream. Sally may have been the loudest, as shrill as the youngest girl on a roller coaster.
And those sounds. Like a crowd of people with the plague, waiting on death. She wanted the sounds to end, no matter what. Being in the tight confines of the elevator car made it that much worse, the noise amplified and echoing off the walls, ceiling, and floor.