James Dashner - The Hunt for Dark Infinity

She turned her neck, looking once again at Frazier, her eyes narrowed. “But we will take over the Realities. We will spread the goodness and power of the Chi’karda from the Thirteenth Reality to the others. And in the end, we will make the universe a better place for all. This, I promise you.”

Frazier nodded again, throwing all the sincerity he could into his expression. Jane’s words, filled with passion, had moved him greatly. He remembered why he had followed this woman for so many years, despite the constant danger. He remembered… and felt ashamed of the many times he’d hoped to topple her and take over.

“Mistress Jane,” he said. “I… I… I don’t know what to-”

“Say nothing,” she snapped, a sudden thunderclap shaking the room. It was a trick she performed often. “You’ve earned yourself back into my full graces. You’re my most loyal servant. You will be beside me, always. Nothing else needs to be said.”

A long pause followed, thoughts churning inside Frazier’s mind. How do I act now? What do I say? His fear of Jane hadn’t diminished in the least-if anything, it had grown stronger.

Thankfully, Jane got back to business. “You said you had an update on the Barrier Wand and some interesting news. Well, get on with-” She paused, forcing a smile. “Please, report.”

Frazier leaned forward, grunting as he pulled himself out of the soft cushions, and put his elbows on his knees. “They’ve found a place in a small mountain range about five hundred miles away-they’ve spotted signs of ore. It looks encouraging. The Diggers are hunting as we speak. As soon as they find a deposit, I’ll let you know.”

“Once they do,” Jane said, “we should need only two or three more weeks.”

“That’s right. The metal is the last thing we need to reconstruct the Wand.”

Something floated up from a shelf near the bed, flying through the air and landing with a thump in Jane’s outreached palm. She held it out for Frazier to see-a complex bundle of wires, pipework, gears, and nanochips-the Chi’karda Drive she’d removed from her previous Barrier Wand. The one Atticus Higginbottom had stolen.

“What’s the other news?” Jane asked.

Frazier shifted uncomfortably. His news was very strange, and he worried about her reaction. “Well, some of our hunters discovered an interesting… thing.” He paused, unsure how to proceed.

“A thing? ” Jane repeated. “Your descriptive skills are less than apt, Frazier.”

“Sorry.” He rubbed his hands together. “I guess I’ll just say it how it is.”

“Brilliant idea.”

Frazier tried to laugh, but it came out as a snort. “Way out in the Forest of Plague, near the spot of the old battleground, they found a place where hundreds of trees have been cut down. Each stump is perfectly flat, as if the trees had been cut with a laser or something.”

Jane tilted her head, obviously intrigued. “Interesting. I can’t think of anyone…”

When she trailed off, looking at the fire, Frazier continued. “Right, no one in our Reality has that kind of technology. But, um, that’s not the weird part. Not even close.”

That caught Jane’s attention; her eyebrows rose.

“The trees…” Frazier said.

“Did someone take them? Did they burn them? That area has enormous trees-some taller than the fortress.”

Frazier shook his head. “I know, which makes the next part really bizarre. I couldn’t tell what had happened until I flew on the back of a fangen and looked down from above.”

“What do you mean?” Jane asked.

“Somehow, whoever cut those trees down… arranged them on the ground so they spelled out words.”

“Spelled out words?” Jane repeated. “With trees? ”

“Yes. They formed letters out of the tree trunks. Really big trees that made really big words.” He laughed at himself but stopped abruptly.

“What did they say?” Jane asked, not smiling.

Frazier braced himself, knowing he had no choice but to repeat the mysterious message word for word.

“It said, ‘Mistress Jane, you are a coward. Come and find me.’”

Tick slid his hand along the warm, hard glass of the big tube as he walked beside it in disbelief at the sheer height of the structure. It rose at least twenty feet above him, maybe more, and appeared to be a perfect cylinder. The bottom third was buried underneath the shifting sands of the desert. The glass was clear, but so thick he couldn’t tell what lay inside the big pipe; he could only see distorted images of varying color.

“Okay,” Paul said. “I’ve seen some strange stuff since hanging out with you two, but this might beat all.” He stepped back and spread his arms wide, looking up at the curved glass. “What could this thing possibly be?”

Sofia squatted on the ground, digging through the sand to see if the structure changed at all underneath. “Looks like it just keeps curving in a perfect circle. Maybe if we dug all the way to the bottom we’d figure something out.”

“Do I look like a shovel to you?” Paul asked.

“Well… actually, you kind of do,” Sofia said. “You look like a shovel with crooked ears.”

Tick ignored them, walking along with his hand pressed against the glass, hoping for some change or sign of what they were supposed to do next. Sweat soaked his clothes, the sun beating down on them as if trying to cook them for dinner. He could feel his skin beginning to burn-especially his neck. In all the chaos with the giant spider robot monster, he’d lost his scarf.

What is this thing? he thought as he studied the glass structure. Master George-if it really had been him-must have sent them here for a reason, and a clue or riddle must be hidden somewhere. He kept walking.

“Yo, where you going?” Paul called out.

Tick turned to look, surprised at how far he’d walked-at least a hundred feet. “I don’t know!” he yelled. “Trying to find a clue!”

He stopped, squinting to examine the endless tube as it stretched into the horizon, diminishing in a shimmering haze of heat in the distance. Nothing appeared to break the consistency of the smooth glass-no ladders, no doors, no connected buildings. He finally gave up and walked back to his friends, both of whom were digging in the sand.

“See anything?” he asked.

“No,” Sofia answered. She sat back on her heels, letting out a big sigh. “Seems like a perfect cylinder. A really big one.”

Before he could reply, a deep humming sound filled the air, a short burst lasting only a few seconds, but so loud it made the glass vibrate. Or maybe it was the other way around, Tick thought. Maybe the glass had shaken and made the sound.

Sofia and Paul jumped to their feet and moved next to Tick.

“Please tell me you guys heard that,” Paul said.

“Yeah,” Tick said, almost in a whisper. He thought he might’ve seen something from the corner of his eye-a slight movement in the glass to their left. “Something happened when it made that sound-I didn’t really get a good look.” He pointed to where he thought he’d seen the anomaly and walked closer; the others joined him.

“What do you mean?” Sofia asked.

“I don’t know. I thought I saw something move across the glass, a shadow inside or water pouring down it.”

Paul reached out and ran his hand along the curved wall. “Serious?”

“Yeah, positive.”

“Let’s wait to see if it happens again,” Sofia said.

Tick folded his arms, staring at the tube. No one said a word, silently hoping for a clue as to what they should do next.

A minute went by. Then another. Then several. A half-hour passed and nothing happened. Tick felt so uncomfortable from the sweat drenching his clothes and the sticky salt on his face