The Hunt for Dark Infinity

Chapter 30

"Tick.”

He heard someone say his name, but it sounded hollow, like an echo coming down a long tunnel.

“Tick!”

There it was again. Louder this time. A sharp pain splintered across his mind, and that seemed to do the trick. Groaning, blinking through squinting eyes, he woke up.

“Dude, are you all right?”

Paul. It was Paul.

“Come on. Help him up.”

Sofia.

Tick felt hands grip him by the arms and haul him off the floor, setting him down on a soft bench. Every time he opened his eyes, all he could see were things spinning and rocking back and forth. His mind felt like a pack of termites had been set loose inside for lunch. And the nausea…

“I gotta throw up,” he whispered.

“Not on me, you don’t,” Paul said. “Hurry, let’s get him out of here.”

They grabbed him by the arms again. He heard a door open, felt refreshing cool air wash over him as they helped him stumble outside the portal.

“There’s a garbage can,” he heard Sofia say; they changed directions.

“Hurry,” Tick groaned, trying his best to get his feet under him. A cold line of metal pressed against his neck.

“Go for it,” Paul muttered.

Tick let it all out, then slid to the ground and leaned back against the garbage can. “Ah, that feels much better.” He opened his eyes fully and got his first good look at where they’d arrived.

The station looked much like the one they’d left earlier-maybe a little dirtier, less well-kept. Just as many people milled about, though, some leaving portals, some entering them.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You passed out,” Sofia said. “I think I might have, too, just for a few seconds. When we finally stopped, Paul and I slid down onto the bench, but you crashed straight to the floor.”

“Yeah, man,” Paul said. “You were out like a light.”

“How long were we in that thing?” Tick asked.

Sofia looked at her watch. “Only a half-hour or so.”

“Worst half-hour of my life,” Paul said.

Tick rubbed his face with both hands, then stood up, wobbling for a second before he felt his legs strengthen and solidify beneath him. “We have to go back. Now.”

“Go back?” Paul asked. “Are you crazy?”

“We need to look around,” Sofia said. “Figure out what Chu wants us to do.”

Tick shook his head, which sent another wave of nausea through his gut. “No, we got it wrong. We weren’t supposed to come here. The trains have nothing to do with the riddle.”

“How do you know?” Paul asked. “Fourth City-it’s the closest we’ve gotten to anything that makes sense.”

Tick started walking toward the ticket counter. Paul and Sofia followed, but they didn’t look happy. “Our tickets are round trip-does that mean we just get back on Portal Number Seven?”

“Whoa, man,” Paul said, grabbing Tick by the arm. “Tell us what you’re thinking. If we’re getting back in that death machine, we need to at least let our brains unscramble for a minute.”

Tick nodded, anxious to leave but knowing Paul was right. He found a bench and they sat down, Tick in the middle.

“All right,” he said. “Think about everything. The town Chu sent us to is a perfect circle. We counted twelve main roads that are basically spokes in the huge wheel of how the place is organized. Even the hotel he set us up in-it’s called The Stroke of Midnight Inn. You gettin’ it yet?”

“Holy toothpick on a hand grenade,” Paul whispered.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt as stupid as I feel right now,” Sofia said.

“It never had anything to do with an actual time, ” Tick continued. “It was such an easy riddle because he wanted to throw us off track. We were so sure something had to happen at five o’clock today, we never considered that he might be describing a place. ”

Paul finished for him. “If we look at the town from a bird’s-eye view, it’s a big clock. Our hotel is midnight-twelve o’clock. We need to go to the road that represents five o’clock.”

“But we already looked there,” Sofia said. “We scoured that whole town.”

Tick stretched his arms, feeling better already. “Yeah, but we had so much area to cover, we didn’t really have time to study anything in detail. I bet we find something where the five o’clock road hits the outer circle.”

“Ah, man, what if we’re too late?” Paul asked. “If you’re right, maybe we didn’t have to wait a week. Maybe we should’ve gone to the place a lot sooner.”

Sofia stood up. “Maybe it’s a double riddle.”

“You’re right,” Tick said. “I bet we have to be at the five o’clock road by five o’clock today.”

“Well, then,” Paul said, “we have plenty of time. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“No way,” Tick said. “You really think it’s going to be that easy? Something will try to stop us, I guarantee it.”

“Well, we have to eat, ” Paul insisted.

“Yeah, but we should get back to Circle City first,” Sofia said. “The sooner the better.”

All of them slowly turned their heads to look at the spinning nightmare train from which they’d just exited. Tick couldn’t think of anything he’d rather not do than get back on that thing.

“We have to do it,” Sofia said, as if reading Tick’s thoughts.

“I know,” Tick replied.

“Yeah, eating right now would be really stupid,” Paul said. “I don’t want Tick’s bacon and eggs on my lap when we get there.”

“Come on,” Sofia said. “Let’s figure out how to get back.”

They had to wait only twenty minutes for Portal Number Seven to open up for the return trip to Circle City. Tick had never felt so nervous about a trip before; butterflies swarmed in his chest like it was mating season. He remembered his mom lecturing him at the amusement park: “Now, Atticus, you know what the Spinning Dragon does to your poor tummy.”

“One minute to departure,” the nice electronic lady said.

Tick squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his back against the soft padding. Thirty-minute trip, he told himself. It’s only thirty minutes.

The warning for thirty seconds sounded, then ten, then the five-second countdown. When the room started spinning, Tick opened his eyes to look at Paul and Sofia, both of whom were trying to look very calm but failing miserably. This made Tick feel better, and he closed his eyes again.

The portal spun faster and faster, twisting like a tornado, throwing all of his senses into chaos as the invisible force once again pushed him into the padding, pressing against his body. He held his breath, anticipating the explosion of speed-reminding him of how he felt that split-second before the free-fall ride at the Seattle amusement park dropped fifteen stories to the ground far below. But this was far worse.

The horn sounded.

Tick tried to scream as the train exploded into instant acceleration, shocking his mind as it bulleted away from Fourth City. He didn’t know if any noise escaped his throat. Nothing seemed to be working inside his brain, all of his nerves dead to the world, confused and compressed.

He felt himself sliding away again, moving toward the bliss of unconsciousness. Do it, he thought. Pass out. Anything is better than this. He faded in and out, feeling like every second lasted an hour. He had no idea how much time had passed when everything suddenly went wrong.

The train jerked, a quick and loud jolt as if they’d hit a cow on the tracks like the steamers in the old days. Then the room shook, rattling up and down, creaks and groans ripping through the air, as if the whole vehicle were about to fall apart. Tick would’ve thought it impossible, but everything had just gotten much, much worse. His stomach twisted into a knot of panicked nausea.

His eyes snapped open, but they didn’t seem to work. Everything was a blur of color, images and streaks, flashing and tilting- vibrating. He couldn’t even make out Paul or Sofia; everything was messed up.

What’s happening? he thought. Maybe it’s okay. I passed out last time-maybe this is totally normal.

But the train shook again, twisted, bounced and rattled. Pain seared through Tick’s head like someone had driven a crowbar into the top of his skull and worked it open, wedging the long piece of steel against his brain.

A booming crash sounded through the room, a horrible crunch of metal. The train jolted, and the pressure forcing Tick against the wall abruptly vanished. He fell forward and crashed into Paul. They both fell to the floor, landing on top of a crumpled Sofia.

The next few seconds were complete insanity. The vehicle bounced and twisted and shook, throwing Tick and the others in every direction, slamming them against the curved walls, the floor, into each other. Tick tried to ball up, squeezing his knees against his chest and covering his head with his arms, but it proved impossible. Like a giant gorilla shaking a can of peanuts, the three of them were tossed and jostled about until Tick thought for sure their lives were over.

And then, with one final crash that slammed them all into one padded side of the curved structure, it ended.

Everything stopped, grew still, silent.

The only sounds were the moans coming from the battered humans inside.

“My arm!” Paul screamed out. “I think I broke my stinking arm!”

“What happened?” Sofia asked, her voice strained and tight.

Portal Number Seven lay on its side. Tick and the others were in a crumpled heap on top of each other, resting on one of the curved, padded sections that used to be vertical. With more groans and moans, they crawled away from each other. A hissing sound came from outside, followed by something that sounded like electric sparks.

Tick sat up, every inch of his body in pain. He looked over at Paul, who cradled his left arm with his right.

“You okay?” Tick said.

Paul looked up, a tear streaking out of his right eye. “Dude, it hurts, it really, really hurts.”

“You think you broke it?” Sofia asked, rubbing one of her ankles.

“Yeah,” Paul said, his face squeezed into a grimace of pain. “Ah, man, it kills!” Another tear slid down his cheek. Tick looked away, worried Paul would be embarrassed at being seen crying.

Sofia stood up, wobbling a second before she caught her balance. “We must have crashed or something. We’ve gotta get out of here, get Paul to a hospital.”

Tick joined her and together they walked across the curved wall to the door, which was about four feet in the air, sideways. It was twisted slightly, and it took both of them ramming it with their shoulders before it finally popped open and slammed against the crumpled white wall of the portal.

Tick and Sofia made surprised grunts at the same time when they saw where they were.

“What’s… out there?” Paul asked through clenched teeth.

Tick couldn’t answer, his eyes glued to the wall of thick, enormous trees beyond the doorway.

“We’re in a forest,” Sofia said.

As if the pain had finally sent him over the edge, Paul started laughing.