Tick glared at the massive double doors, the black square still blank. The world around him rocked back and forth, things breaking and crashing and melting. The heat within him intensified. He felt certain his organs were about to burn, fry to a crisp, leaving him dead.

Tick threw all of his anger and pain at the doors. At Chu.

With a terrible squeal, the doors wrenched to the sides, crunching into a mass of twisted steel, leaving a gaping, smoking hole behind. Tick caught movement out of the corner of his eye—Jane falling to the floor in a crumpled heap.

I can’t do this, Tick thought. I can’t do this!

Screaming, he got to his feet and ran through the twisted and broken doorway.

Chapter

45

~

The Shower of Gold

A sea of metaspides littered the park outside Chu’s artificial mountain, crawling along the ground with their creepy, jointed legs. Sofia found it hard to believe they were machines because they seemed so alive. They swarmed together in a tight pack, heading straight for the Realitants.

“Ready yourselves!” Mothball roared.

Sally stood a few people down from Sofia. He lifted his left hand into the air and shouted something completely unintelligible. But he looked ready to fight.

A small tremor abruptly shook the ground, making Sofia stumble backward a step. The Realitants looked around in confusion, Mothball in particular. Sofia looked up at the black mountain. It shook as well; in the distance, she heard the sounds of breaking glass and twisting metal.

“Need be keepin’ our focus!” Mothball shouted. “Master Tick must be goin’ about ’is business. On the count of three—we charge! One!”

Sofia nudged Paul in the arm with her elbow. “For Tick and Sato,” she said, not caring if her voice betrayed how scared she felt.

“Two!”

Paul nodded without breaking his focused stare. “For Tick and Sato.”

“Three!”

Sofia sprinted forward before anyone else, her body acting before her mind could talk her out of it. Pumping her fist in the air, she screamed out one word, louder than she’d ever shouted anything in her life, almost ripping her throat raw.

“REEEEAAAAALITAAAAAANTS!”

The thunder of footsteps and echoing calls of her rallying cry sounded from behind her.

Sofia ran straight for the closing pack of metaspides.

~

The world shook.

Tick felt as if his mind was detached from his body. He rotated in a circle, staring at the huge open chamber he’d run into. He saw a vast open space with an artificial sky above him, complete with stars and a moon. Half-completed machines and menacing structures covered the hundreds of square yards of floor space. Workers hung on for dear life as scaffolding fell apart beneath them. Large holograms of floor plans and complicated designs hung throughout the chamber like see-through kites, countless lifts constantly moving between them, hovering and flying as if by magic.