Witch and Wizard - James Patterson [46]
“This here is the Prophecy Wall. Sometimes messages appear on it. Usually it’s just store stuff, like Huge white sale in January. But sometimes it’s Go to Fifth Street. Rescue an orphan kid from house number twenty-four, things like that. A while ago, it predicted two Liberators who possessed magic would come to help overthrow the New Order. So, my friends, you must be the real deal, you know what I’m saying?”
She turned to the group of people who had followed us to the wall. “Does anyone here think this is just a coincidence? Anyone? Anyone?”
Suddenly everybody started clapping and cheering wildly.
Everybody but Wisty and me, that is.
“Huh,” I said. It was just a wall, a blank wall. Was that the latest and greatest prophecy? Nada? Nothing? Meaning either we were about to slip into a void or, almost as grim, nothing was going to change?
“No, really, the message was there,” said Jamilla. “Wait a few seconds. It doesn’t always do it.”
We stared at the plain wall, a slice of textured wallpaper curling down from one corner. Very unremarkable…
Wisty looked at me, and I shrugged big-time.
“Well, it comes and goes,” said Janine, pushing back her hair. “But we’ve all seen it.” Various heads in the crowd nodded.
Okeydoke. Maybe the wall was just out of prophecies today.
“Even if you’re right,” I said, “how are we supposed to overthrow a government powerful enough to destroy entire cities and build new ones? Besides, we’re still going to look for our mother and father.”
“We told you that from the beginning,” said Wisty.
“Look!” someone said, and I turned to the Prophecy Wall again. This time I saw letters forming. What the…?
ONE DAY SOON, KIDS WILL RUN THE WORLD…
A shiver ran through me. I had heard similar words before—from Celia. The message continued:
… AND DO A BETTER JOB THAN THE GROWN-UPS EVER DID.
“Whoa,” Wisty murmured. “Heavy.”
Suddenly Sasha came running up to Janine and whispered something in her ear. Janine listened, nodded, and seemed to get flustered—especially for her.
She looked at Wisty and me. “Sasha, tell them,” she said. “Go ahead.”
“We’ve just gotten a message from our spies monitoring the Overworld Prison. More exterminations are scheduled for tomorrow morning. Vaporization.”
There were gasps and horrified murmurs around the room, and after hearing Michael Clancy’s story, I had the same reaction. So did Wisty.
“But there’s something else,” Sasha said, and he looked directly at the two of us. “Your parents have been captured again.”
“What?” Wisty and I shouted.
“Where are they?” Wisty demanded to know.
“Wherever they are, we’re there,” I announced, “effective immediately. Sorry we can’t help you guys, Sasha.”
“No need to apologize,” he reassured me confidently. “In fact, your parents are being held at Overworld.”
I didn’t even need to look at Wisty to know what she was thinking. The word “vaporization” was pounding in our brains.
“That being the case—,” I began.
“We’re in,” Wisty said without missing a beat.
Chapter 75
Wisty
THE TEAM LEADER for the break-in at the Overworld Prison was a girl, which I loved. Her name was Margo, and although she was about my size, she was as tough as razor blades. She had to be—she’d already escaped from Over-world, and lost a couple of fingers. She was also homicidal when it came to The One Who Is The One.
And I have to admit I was starting to be too. He intended to vaporize my parents tomorrow, after all. We wouldn’t let that happen.
Margo led the way through an abandoned subway station that was dank and dark, but we had flashlights from the hardware section at Garfunkel’s.
“Once we get inside, we should let the kids out first, since we know where they are. Then we can go looking for your parents,” said Margo.
“Let’s wait and see, okay?” recommended Whit. “Once we get inside, we’ll make a final plan. But that raises the big question,