The Void of Mist and Thunder (The 13th Reality #4) Read Online Free

squeezed his shoulder.
    “Master Paul,” George began, but he found himself empty of words. He suddenly lost every ounce of leadership he’d ever had in his bones. Despair threatened to swallow him whole.
    Sato—who was usually rather quiet—suddenly shot to his feet and slammed a fist down on the table. “Snap out of it!” he yelled. “We all need to snap out of it! Quit moping around like babies and start acting like Realitants. If Tick were here, he’d be ashamed of us.” He sat down, but his eyes burned as he gazed at each Realitant around him in turn. “I’ve got an army. The Fifth will do whatever they’re asked. Just say the word, and we can get started.”
    George realized he was staring at the boy, transfixed. A spring of encouragement welled up inside him. “Thank you, Master Sato. I think we’d all agree that we needed that.”
    “Just make a decision. Do something. Or we’ll go crazy.”
    George nodded then straightened his posture, his strength returning. “You’re quite right, Sato. Quite right. Enough of our talk. Let’s go around the room and make assignments. It is indeed time to get to work. If something comes up that seems more important, then we’ll change those plans, but getting to work is our number one priority. Mothball, you first.”
    The giant of a lady looked as if a little bit of life had been breathed back into her as well. “Alright, then. I’ll start winkin’ me way from one end to the other—not just in Reality Prime but all of ’em. Start makin’ reports and such. We don’t know much, now do we? Not with the communications so bloomin’ shot.”
    “Excellent idea,” George said. “We need to determine exactly what’s happening or we’ll never know what direction to take in the long run.”
    “Your middle name Danger all a sudden?” Sally cut in with his booming voice. “You plan to hightail it this way and that all by your lonesome, do ya? Not on my tickety-tock watch, you ain’t. I’ll go with Mothball.”
    George loved the idea. “Perfect. Plans settled for two of us. Rutger, I think we both know what you need to do.”
    The fat little ball of a man shifted in his seat. “Um, well, I’d be happy to go on an adventure with my fine two friends, but . . . I seemed to have sprained my . . . elbow. Yes, yes, it’s giving me quite the fits lately . . .”
    “Master Rutger, please.” George struggled to keep from laughing. “We all know very well that we need you here. Our instruments that survived the disasters have been reporting strange anomalies across the Realities. We need your keen researching mind devoted to solving that puzzle.”
    Visible relief washed over Rutger’s features, but he tried to hide it with his words. “Oh, well, I guess you’re right, then. Pity. I would’ve gladly risked further injury to my elbow to help Mothball and Sally.”
    “I have no doubt of it.”
    “Didn’t know you could even see your elbow,” Mothball muttered. “What with all that natural padding.”
    “Well, at least mine don’t jut out like pelican beaks!” Rutger countered. “Try gaining a pound or two so we quit thinking a skeleton rose up from the dead to scare the willies out of us.”
    “Well, I would, now wouldn’t I, if you bloody let us have a bite or two at supper before you gobbled it all down that fat neck of yours.”
    “Ah,” George said through a sigh. “This is more like it. If you two are going at it with each other, then at least something is right in the world.”
    “What about us?” Sofia asked. It was the first time she’d spoken since the meeting began, and her soft voice was sad but strong. These new Realitants had life in them yet. “Our families are fine—we’ve checked on them, visited them—so we can do whatever you need us to do now.”
    “Yeah,” Paul added, a little more spirit in his face too. “I can’t sit around this place one more second, listening to Rutger brag about his cooking and telling