The Blade of Shattered Hope

Chapter
49

Sato had wanted to climb the wall himself, but Mothball made it clear that wasn’t an option. She said they couldn’t risk having their leader shot in the eyeball with an arrow to start things off. Sato grumbled, of course, but in the end he sent up a crew of six Fifths to peek over the top edge. He got back at Mothball by not letting her go, telling her she had to stay by his side as his second in command. When she grumbled as well, he had to hold in a laugh.

“Ready the Ragers and Squeezers!” he yelled when the six tall soldiers-Sato had decided to start calling them that-reached the point where all they had to do was pop their heads up to see the other side.

“Gotcha, Boss,” Tollaseat said, his hands full of Ragers. His wife, Windasill, stood next to him, her hands full of the black, wire-filled grenades called Squeezers. Sato had told Mothball’s parents they were supposed to stay near him as well, to be used for long-range action like this.

“You guys ready up there?” Sato called out.

Instead of speaking, the three men and three women above simply gave him the thumbs-up, a sign that was evidently universal.

“Okay. Tollaseat and Windasill will throw the cover weapons on my count of three. As soon as you hear the first round of explosions, pop over and climb down as quickly as possible. Start firing those Shurrics, and the rest of us will be right behind you.”

Another round of thumbs-up.

“One. Two. Three!”

Mothball’s parents brought their hands low then flung them toward the sky, letting go at the right moment to send the weapons flying up and well over the top of the wooden fence and the waiting Fifths. A few seconds later, the clatter of the weapons raining down on the other side was immediately followed by the ripping static thumps of the Ragers exploding. Then came the Squeezers’ metallic clanging and sounds of wires whizzing through the air. All muted and distant, but loud enough to be heard clearly.

“Go!” Sato yelled. “Go now!”

The six soldiers were already on the move. They grabbed the very top of the fence and swung their legs over, the bulky Shurrics already gripped in one of their hands, ready to start firing. They disappeared from sight.

Sato started climbing the wall after them. “Go! Go! Come on!” He didn’t need to say it-every last Fifth was already scaling the clunky wood face of the fence.

Just before Sato reached the top, a soldier’s head suddenly popped back over, looking straight down at him. It was a woman, and she had a puzzled look creasing her skinny face.

“What’s the matter?” Sato asked.

“You need to see this,” was her response. She disappeared once again.

Sato clambered up the last few feet to look over the edge. He’d had ideas of what to expect inside-barracks, groups of creatures, large weapons ready to fire, a creepy hospital-looking thing that was the Factory. But he froze in confusion at what he saw below him.

Other than the grove of trees that grew close to the iron gate, there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

From where he perched on the fence, looking left and right and forward all the way to the other side of the fence-barely visible in the distance-he saw nothing but dirt and mud and a few trees. Not one building, not one creature, not one person other than the soldiers he’d sent over.

Dirt and mud and trees.

Sato turned to Mothball, who was right next to him and looking as bewildered as he felt. “Are we sure we came to the right place?”

Tick wanted to look away. Every single cell in his body wanted him to look away. Every notion of normalcy and human decency and right-and-wrong screamed at him to look away-that this wasn’t something a boy like him should witness.

But he stared through the window in disbelief that Jane could really be this evil.

The room was identical to the first one-three beds lined up in a triangle, the odd, skin-like bio-tube, and a creepy man in the middle, his back turned, typing away at a computer. As before, the closest bed was empty and the left and right beds had occupants. But that’s where the similarities ended and the true horrors began.

Another raven lay on the bed to the left-or what used to be a raven. The poor thing that lay there now barely resembled a living being. It looked like a corpse, its emaciated body sucked dry of fat and water, the feathers gone, yellowed skin clinging to its bones. The bio-tube still grew out of its dead chest toward the ceiling.

Tick turned his attention to the right bed, where a panting wolf lay clinging to life, the other end of the tube shaking with each desperate breath. Most of its black-gray fur had fallen out, littering the bed and the surrounding floor like some kind of haunted barber shop. Diseased skin stretched taut over the dying thing’s bones.

And then there was that third bed. Empty. Waiting. For what?

When Jane spoke, Tick flinched, startled. “The needed materials have been fully exhumed from the subjects at this stage. They’ve been collected, filtered, sorted out, and reconfigured. All done with an intense heightening of the scientific process made possible by our special version of Chi’karda. The sweet sacrifice of these two noble creatures is about to conclude in an even greater achievement than their separate lives could ever have accomplished. And one day we’ll be ready to use human subjects. I’ve already gathered many worthy candidates-children with the spark of Chi’karda strongly within them. Soon the possibilities will be endless.”

Tick’s hands compacted into tight fists. He felt like the skin might burst, he squeezed them so tightly. Trickles of Chi’karda burned within him. It took every bit of his willpower not to explode, do whatever it took to kill this insane, evil woman.

“Ah,” she said with an intake of breath, a sick burst full of joy. “It’s just about to happen. Keep watching, keep watching!”

Tick didn’t want to. He wanted to run and hide. But some sense of duty made him stay where he stood, eyes focused, ready. He needed to know the truth-all of it-if he was ever going to stop Jane.

Movement at the top of the room caught his attention. He looked up to see a huge growth blossoming out of what he’d thought was a normal ceiling, but could now see was made up of the same material as the bio-tube. Bulky and bulbous, an orb grew out and downward, swelling until it was only a few feet above the tables, centered around the empty bed closest to Tick. Another growth shot out of the first one, a thick, squat tube that pulsed with life.

This second growth lowered down until it was directly above the empty mattress, then its end split open, pieces of material curling out and away like the petals of a flower. Gooey slime dripped out and sloshed across the white sheet, followed by a dark lump of a thing, squirming and kicking out its long legs. Before Tick could get a good look, the monster bounded off the bed and skittered across the floor, disappearing behind a large, boxy computer in the corner.

The man monitoring the situation from the middle of the room moved to chase the creature down, a nasty-looking instrument in his hands with metal rods and sparks of electricity shooting into the air.

Tick couldn’t take it anymore. He turned around and leaned his back against the warm glass window, folding his arms. He pushed away the bubbling flames of Chi’karda in his chest.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Jane said, her mask set to something that looked like a teacher speaking to a student. “That I’m horrible. That I’m evil. That I’m a monster myself.”

“Yeah, you witch,” Paul said. “That’s exactly what we’re thinking.”

Tick tensed, worried Jane would retaliate. But she kept talking. “However, you aren’t blessed with the same perspective that I am blessed with. You don’t share the vision of what the Realities will become. I need these creatures to carry out my orders, to help me defeat my enemies, to help me achieve my purposes. In the end, no one will disagree that it was worth the bumps along the road. That, as they say, the ends justify the means.”

“Bumps along the road?” Tick asked, surprised at how tight his throat felt, how hard it was to get the words out. For now, he had to put aside the shock and disgust of what he’d just seen. “You’re not even worth arguing with anymore. But you promised to hear me out about something. We need to talk, and we need to talk now. Things are gonna get really bad any second.”

“Yes, I know,” Jane said back in a whisper. “I’ve started to sense it. Something is wrong-”

She didn’t finish because the entire tunnel seemed to jump three feet into the air then drop again, throwing the four of them to the ground. The whole place continued to shake, the groans and cracks of shifting rock thundering in the air. The glass of the window shattered, raining pieces down upon Tick, who knew in his gut what was happening.

The Haunce had predicted it: the final devastation and destruction before the Realities ripped apart and ceased to exist forever.

The end had begun.