All righty den,” Sally said after taking a long swallow from his water glass. He set it down on the nightstand, then turned his eyes toward Tick. “Your turn.”

Sally had made Paul and Sofia summarize in their own words what he’d come to tell them. He said it was to make sure the gist of it got “nailed up in dem there noggins
a’yorn.” As the weight of Sally’s information settled on their shoulders, Tick at least felt some ease in knowing more about what lay behind the craziness of the last few days.

He put his right foot up on his left knee. “Well, we were supposed to be winked to the Realitant Headquarters at the Grand Canyon for a meeting about the weird stuff Reginald Chu is up to. But before that could happen, Chu tricked us and put a device on our arms that hijacked our nanolocators.”

“Which means what, now?” Sally asked, his eyebrows raised.

“That Reginald Chu controls us now. He can track us and wink us wherever he wants to. And there’s not a thing anyone can do about it.”

Sally shook his head in disgust. “Purtin’ near one of da worst things I reckon a man can do. Matter-fact, breakin’ Rule Number 462 bans you from dem there Realitants ’til the day you is deader than a squirrel on a tire’s underbelly.”

“Hey, let Tick finish,” Sofia said. “We need to make sure we all understand everything you told us.”

“Fair ’nuff,” Sally said.

“Anyway,” Tick continued, “you said it looks like Chu is testing us and some other people to see who’s most worthy to help him in a secret project he’s working on. And the project has something to do with a disease or plague that’s making people go crazy in some of the Realities.”

Tick paused, not really wanting to say the next part.

“Get on wid it,” Sally prodded.

“Master George wants us to keep going. He wants us to be the ones who make it. He wants us to win Chu’s contest. It’s the only way we can make sure the Realitants get there to stop it—whatever it is.”

After a long pause, Paul said, “You’re the man, Tick. Took Sofia about three hours to say what you just said.”

“Well,” Tick said, “that’s pretty much it, isn’t it? We have to keep going, even though it seems like Chu doesn’t care if we make it or die trying. Not that much fun to think about, let alone talk about.”

Sofia stood from her chair and walked to the window, where she parted the curtain just enough to peek out. “This is so creepy. It was bad enough knowing Master George tracked us last year. Now we’ve got some power-hungry mad scientist controlling our lives. There has to be a way to get rid of those nanolocators, right?”