The roughly carved walls of the tunnel were dark and shiny, wet with rivulets and flat streams of water sluicing down its sides, disappearing into cracks on the floor. Odd lamps were set into the stone about every thirty feet, filthy glass surrounding a milky light that seemed a mix of old-fashioned wicks and electric sparks. Sato fully expected to see rats scurrying about, but thus far had seen no sign of life.
Just the sounds. The terrible, terrible sounds.
Up ahead, the tunnel made a turn to the right, a somewhat brighter light glowing from that direction. Huddled on the floor was a woman, her face draped in shadow, clutching her legs to her chest, shivering and mumbling the same phrase over and over. Sato couldn’t quite make out the words.
His heart pounded as he walked toward the woman, sweat making the syringe clasped in his right hand slippery; he hid it behind his back. Was she infected? Could it be this easy? He stopped a few feet in front of her, thinking about each breath, trying to slow his heart down.
“Excuse me,” he said, his voice breaking on the second word. He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I’m looking for someone.”
The woman looked up; Sato took a step backward. He didn’t know what he’d expected to see—someone hideous, scarred, a wart-infested witch, maybe—but the lady sitting in front of him was very pretty. She had perfect skin, and blue eyes that shone like crystals in the pale light. Her dark hair sprawled across her shoulders. White teeth flashed behind her still-moving lips, uttering the indecipherable words repeatedly.
Despite her pleasant looks, she looked sad, tear streaks lining both cheeks.
“Can you help me?” Sato said, fingering the syringe hidden from her sight. He took a step closer.
The woman finally fell silent, pressing her lips together. Then she spoke, her voice soft but firm. “We’re only crazy when he’s not in our heads.”
Sato reached for words to reply. The lady’s eyes showed no lunacy, no fear, no confusion. She seemed perfectly sane.
“What do you mean?” he finally asked.
“My name is Renee,” she replied, ignoring his question. “But right now he is in my head, and I will do whatever he says.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Sato said, taking a step back.
Renee stood up. Her beauty shined despite tattered, dirty garments. She was short and thin, but held herself with confidence—back straight, shoulders square, chin up.
“Why has George sent you here?” she asked.
Sato took another step backward, this time bumping into the stone wall across from the woman. “How . . . how do you know—”
“Stop acting the fool, young man. I know everything. I’m Reginald Chu, and I find it very interesting that you’ve come here, to this strange place, with a syringe in your hand. Why?”
Sato pulled his right hand from behind his back, looking down at it as if ashamed. He didn’t know which felt worse right then—his head or his stomach. “I don’t understand. What do you mean you’re Reginald Chu?”
“I think I’m the one who doesn’t understand,” Renee replied. “George seems to know so much about my project, yet here you stand, without the slightest clue of the danger you are in. How can you trust such a leader?”
“Nothing you say makes sense.”
“Everything I say makes sense.” Renee crossed the short span of the tunnel, stopping directly in front of Sato. “Once I have my partner, once Dark Infinity is fully functional, you’ll understand. The Realities are about to have a great change, my friend.”
Sato swallowed, trying to build his courage. “You’re crazy, lady. You think Reginald Chu is controlling you somehow. Don’t you see how crazy that is? You need help.”
“I told you,” Renee said with a sneer. “We’re not crazy until he leaves our heads.”
“My boss—he thinks he can find a cure for you. If you’ll just let me . . .” He held the syringe up, raising his eyebrows in question.
“A cure?” Renee backed off two steps, shaking her head. “A cure? Does that man think I’m a toady research assistant at some under-funded university? He thinks he’s going to stop me with a cure? He’ll sooner cure cancer, Parkinson’s, diabetes, and regenerate amputated limbs before he’ll stop Dark Infinity.”
Confusion swarmed like a pack of bees inside Sato’s head. The lady really and truly thought she was Reginald Chu. And it worried Sato that he was sliding toward that same belief as well. “What is Dark Infinity?”
Renee folded her arms. “As they say in your Reality, that’s on a need-to-know basis and you don’t need to know. A cure. Ha.” She barked a laugh.
“If you’re so confident, why not give me a blood sample? And then I’ll leave.”
Renee held out her hand to him. “Come with me,” she said. “I want to give you a taste of what Dark Infinity will become. And then I want you to go back and report it to your buffoon of a leader. All the Realitant do-gooders can then have fun dreading the day I take over their lives.”
Sato shook his head. “Give me a sample first. Then I’ll go.”
Renee stared at him for a long minute, her blue eyes seeming to glow. “You’re brave for someone so young. Maybe you should have been included in my special trials. Of course, I need a lot more than bravery—too bad you’re not more like your friend Atticus Higginbottom.”
Sato almost fell to the ground at the mention of Tick. This lady had no way, absolutely no way of knowing anything about Tick or the strange ability he’d displayed in the Thirteenth Reality. “How do you know about him?”
“Come with me.” She beckoned again with her hand.
“The sample first.” Sato wiped sweat from his brow, thinking too late how much weakness the action probably showed. “You said yourself there’s no way George can find a cure.”
“Yes, I did say that. But I’m not an idiot—I won’t take chances. This isn’t some lame movie from your Hollywood.”
Sato steeled his nerves. “I’m not going anywhere until you give me a blood sample. You may think you have Reginald Chu inside your head, but I bet he won’t be much help in a wrestling match between us.”
Renee laughed, such a pleasant sound in the otherwise dreary place that it disturbed Sato.