The Blade of Shattered Hope

Chapter 47

Sato kept trying to dampen his emotions, stay levelheaded, but a new surge of confidence swelled inside him. For the first time, he felt like they were a real army with a real chance.

Now they had weapons.

The reunion with Master George and Sally had been thrilling but brief, exchanging barely a dozen words before they turned their full attention to the large wooden boxes. The Fifths looked like their eyes might pop, they were so excited and intrigued by what Mothball and Sally started pulling out of the crates, George explaining their uses in his very sophisticated voice, Rutger butting in now and then to say how cool this or that was.

The usual: boxes of Ragers-those little balls of compacted static electricity that exploded on impact in a display of destructive lightning. Some Shurrics-large guns of sonic power that devastated with sound waves.

A couple of new things as well: Squeezers, which were grenades full of tiny but extremely strong wires. When it exploded, the wires shot out and latched onto whatever was closest, then immediately retracted and curled up, no matter what the material. Very nasty results.

Finally, there was the Halter. A thin but sturdy plastic tube that ended in a cone, with a simple trigger on one end of the tube and a small cartridge on the other. Each cartridge equaled one shot: a spray of tiny darts spread out and injected its victims-potentially dozens if it hit a group-with a serum that immediately paralyzed them for hours. It was a variation of what Master George had created for Sofia to stop Tick’s madness at Chu’s headquarters. Very effective.

Ragers, Shurrics, Squeezers, Halters. Plenty to go around.

This could be fun.

The other group that had gone exploring returned about a half-hour after Master George’s arrival, saying they found nothing but a very long, encircling wooden fence, with only one exception-a gate of iron bars. The only thing they could see through it was a small grove of trees and nothing they did would open up the gate or make someone appear. So they’d come back, relieved to see why they hadn’t met up with the others on the far side.

Once the weapons had been passed out and the wooden boxes thrown into the forest to hide them-though they were probably being spied on anyway-the entire Fifth Army gathered around Sato. Time for business.

“Okay,” Sato began, his voice raised. “Seems like we’ve got no choice but to climb over that stupid fence. It’s probably about thirty feet high, but there are plenty of handholds and footholds, so it shouldn’t be too hard. I’m just worried about what might be waiting for us when we pop our heads over the edge. Once we have a good, solid group of twenty or so right at the top, we’ll throw volleys of Ragers and Squeezers to clear the way, and then we’ll send the first group over to cover with Shurric fire while the rest of us enter. Sound good?”

Rutger tapped Sato on the arm. “What about me? Don’t see myself rolling up the side of that fence very easily.”

Sato had to hold in a laugh-he didn’t want to embarrass his friend. “I think you, Sally, and Master George should use the Wand to go back to headquarters, monitor us, and wink us out when we’re ready.”

The look of relief that washed over Rutger before he quickly wiped it away made Sato like him more than ever. George stepped closer, pulling a yellow envelope from the inner pocket of his suit coat.

“Goodness gracious me,” he said, ripping the envelope open. “I almost forgot the most important part.” He pulled out a handful of square pieces of paper-no more than an inch on each side-then shook them on his flat palm for everyone to get a look.

“What are those?” Sato asked.

“Nanolocator patches.” George poured the square pieces back into the envelope, then pulled a single one out and held it between his thumb and forefinger. “There are hundreds here, and all you need to do is slap this against the skin of any person. The microscopic nanolocator will immediately slide off the patch and onto the subject, at which point we can wink them away. If we’re looking to rescue children from this miserable place, these patches will be our best shot.”

Sato was amazed and thrilled. Solutions to his two biggest concerns had been opened up for him-how they’d fight without weapons, and how they’d herd a bunch of potentially injured, suffering children safely away while fighting Jane’s monsters. Everything was in place.

“This is great,” Sato said, ignoring that small part in his brain that said it all seemed too easy. Meeting whatever waited inside the Factory would probably cure him of that, and quickly. “You guys wink back to headquarters now. We’ll take it from here.”

George handed him the envelope. “Best of luck, then. There are plenty of those patches, so be sure to put them on everyone here first-except you and Mothball, of course. We already have you pegged. We’ll have all the information we need back in the Control Room, and we’ll be watching closely, I assure you. Sally will be at the Grand Canyon HQ with Priscilla Persephone from the Seventh to help with the children-we’ll send them directly there.”

“Just call me Papa Sally,” the big man said. “Might even read dem squirts a story or two ’bout the old days on the chicken farm.”

“Sounds good,” Sato said. “Now you guys get out of here-time’s wasting. I mean… please, whatever.”

George hardly seemed to notice. He made a few adjustments to the Barrier Wand, had Rutger and Sally put their hands on it, and then the three of them disappeared. A few oohs and ahs escaped the Fifths.

Sato handed the envelope of nanolocator patches to Mothball. “Pass those out. We climb the wall in five minutes.”

After sending Sally off to the Grand Canyon, Master George got straight to work at the Bermuda Triangle headquarters, walking around the mesh metal walkways of the confined and claustrophobic structure, pointing left and right.

“Rutger, I want every computer in this building set up in the Control Room. I want the Big Board lined up and ready to go with monitoring all those nanolocators. Put a call out to all Realitants-if they can make it here to help, so be it. With all the destruction, they may be needed elsewhere, but make them aware of our plans, anyway.”

Rutger waddled to keep up, saying, “Okay,” after every instruction.

“We need to help Sally and Priscilla set up a refugee camp at the Grand Canyon. They’ll need beds and clothes and doctors and who knows what else! We also need to come up with a contingency plan-so many things could go wrong. And we-”

“Master George?” Rutger asked.

“Yes?”

“I got it.”

“Good, then. Let’s get moving!”

Rutger cleared his throat. “Could you, um, at least make me a sandwich while I’m doing all this work? I’m starving.”