The Hunt for Dark Infinity

Chapter 47

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.

She caught a flash out of the corner of her eye, looking up just in time to see a spinning rod of metal right before it slammed into her shoulder. She fell again, and a boxy contraption plummeted from the sky, landed on its corner, then fell over to pin her legs to the floor. She pushed at the smashed box with both hands, but couldn’t move it off her feet.

The sounds of destruction intensified-crashing, banging, exploding, breaking. Objects of all sizes fell from the false sky like the world’s worst hailstorm, smashing to pieces all around her. The volume of noise pierced her ears, threatening to break her ear drums.

Sofia saw the long rod of metal that had smacked her shoulder nearby. She squirmed awkwardly until she could reach it; she grabbed it, pulled it close. The rod was twisted and curved like a crowbar. Wedging one end under the clunky, destroyed box that used to be part of who-knew-what awful invention of Chu’s empire, she pushed on the other end of the lever with both arms, gathering every ounce of strength left inside her. At first nothing moved, but she let out a scream of effort, throwing every part of her into getting that stupid thing off-

The metal box toppled over with a sound lost in the symphony of destruction filling the gigantic chamber.

Sofia got to her feet, ignoring the throbs of pain lancing through her legs. Half-limping, half-running, she went after Tick. He was so close, still spinning in circles, stumbling, shouting things Sofia didn’t understand. He looked like a man who’d lost his mind. Falling objects from the ceiling were deflected at the last minute as though a shield protected him from harm. Sofia ran on, zigzagging and stumbling herself.

She reached Tick, tackling him to the ground. “Tick, what’s wrong with you?”

“It burns!” he screamed. “Someone help me! I can’t control it! Someone help me! ”

Sofia didn’t think he even knew she was there. She fumbled in her pocket, panic making her hands shake. She felt around, grasped the silver pen, pulled it out.

“My brain is splitting!” Tick screamed, thrashing around, hitting her.

Sofia didn’t know exactly what the pen would do to him, or if it would hurt, or how long it would affect him. She didn’t know anything for sure. But she had to do it.

“Tick, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She jabbed the end of the pen into Tick’s neck and pushed the button. A quick hiss sounded as Tick’s head jerked and hit the floor. His body went limp.

Everything went still-the shaking, the crashing, the ripping, the bending.

Everything stopped.

The only sound was a woman still screaming in the distance.