by Lisa Fiedler
When all the caught rodents had been freed, Hopper guided the blind rat to the gate and deposited him into Ketchum’s care.
“He’s a hero,” Hopper declared. “Treat him as such.”
“Yes, Chosen One.”
When Hopper turned to reenter the city, Garfield was right on his heels.
“I’m coming with you this time!” Garfield insisted.
“So am I,” cried Polhemus.
“No,” said Hopper. “It’s a minefield of traps in there. You could get hurt. I’ll need you to be safe and ready when I bring Zucker and Firren back.”
If I bring them back.
With that thought and no other in mind, Hopper bolted back through the gate.
Hopper sped through the crumbling city and finally found the prince in what had once been the children’s playground. His heart lurched as he knelt beside his friend.
“Zucker! Answer me! Can you hear me?”
No word came from the prince’s lips. Hopper saw no flicker of his eyelids, no movement from his body.
“Zucker, please! You have to be all right! You have to!”
The prince did not respond. Hopper didn’t realize he was crying until he saw the teardrops falling on Zucker’s purple tunic. It was filthy and torn from his struggle with the cage door.
The cage . . .
Firren!
Only now did Hopper become aware of the cage. It was quite a ways off from where Zucker lay, which was strange, since Driggs had said Zucker had fallen right beside it. Could the prince have awoken briefly and crawled the distance to where he was now sprawled? And had that effort been his last?
Hopper pushed the dread aside and ran to the cage.
The door was open. But Firren wasn’t inside.
What could that possibly mean? Had she come to and broken out? Had the exterminators done something even more horrific with her after she collapsed?
Hopper did know that if Firren had been able to free herself, there was no doubt as to where she would be—right here beside Zucker, with whatever strength she had left, doing whatever needed to be done to help him.
But she wasn’t here. And that could only mean something terrible had happened to her.
The pain filled him, rising and swirling like the tornado of dust the humans had brought forth. Without thinking, Hopper reached for the shred of purple fabric that still dangled from the cage’s metal lock and gently slipped it into his pocket.
Then he let out a wail, a bellow from deep in his soul.
They were gone. He had lost them both. His two brave friends . . . gone.
And around him so many others lay dead, or nearly thus. The city was in ruins. The tunnels were a death trap. The future held no promise, and the past was tainted with disappointment and shame. Hopper’s heart felt as if it were splintering into pieces inside his chest.
He really had failed. Again. And again. And again.
With a writhing sickness in his belly and a pounding in his skull, he began the long, slow walk back to the gate.
And then he heard the meows.
Hopper’s nose twitched of its own accord; he could smell the felines approaching. He imagined their stomachs rumbling eagerly in anticipation of such an abundant and easy meal.
It must have been the scent of widespread rodent fear—now mingling with the sickening aroma of death—that had alerted the ferals.
And now they were coming to feast!
Hopper knew he should hide, but the city offered no shelter; it was all but flattened. His eyes scanned the area until he spotted a giant heap of shiny dark-green fabric. He didn’t recall ever seeing such a large pile of material left about in Atlantia before the attack. Perhaps then it had been hidden by the buildings, which had since collapsed. To Hopper it appeared to be some sort of lightweight tent that had caved in on itself.
The cats were closer now, so close that he could hear them purring. And rising above this terrifying noise was another sound . . . voices. Human voices!
The exterminators were returning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ONE CALLED ERIK was still teasing his partner, Buddy, about his fantastic story of a rat-run city, and Buddy was grumbling his displeasure.
Cats! Humans! It was all Hopper could do to keep from freezing in his tracks.
But as the footsteps of the exterminators drew nearer, Hopper sprang into action. He needed to conceal himself, or else he’d be risking the wrath of not only the ferals but that infernal shovel as well. Having no other option, he ran for cover under the fallen green tent, jerking his tail beneath it just as the exterminators pounded back toward the city.
It was dark beneath the fabric, but Hopper was able to make out a narrow, slashlike opening cut into it. It led to a blousy pouch sewn into the folds. The opening was trimmed on both sides with strips of jagged metal teeth.
Hopper dove for it, scrambling through the slash and grimacing as the metal points pinched at the delicate skin of his ears and tail. He bit back his gasps of pain and slipped inside, forcing himself to go still just as the exterminators arrived—and right along with them, the slinking ferals.
“Get a load of all these mangy cats,” the one called Erik snickered.
“They look awful mean,” Buddy noted nervously.
That’s because they are, thought Hopper.
“Hey, Erik, did you know that a group of cats is called a glaring?”
“No, Bud. I didn’t know that.”
“Well, that’s what it’s called. And now I can see why. That white cat over there with the two different-colored eyes . . . I think she’s actually staring me down!”
“Now the cats are givin’ you dirty looks?” Erik hooted. “Oh brother!”
“I ain’t kidding!”
“Oh, I know, Bud. I know. Hey, you think maybe they’ve got their own little cat kingdom over on the other side of the tracks, with catnip farms and hot and cold running litter boxes?” Erik erupted in laughter.
“Look, now she’s takin’ one of the dead rats and runnin’ off with it. Just one! That’s strange, ain’t it? Why would she do that when there’s such easy pickin’s?”
“Maybe she’s watchin’ her waistline. Or maybe she thought you were givin’ her dirty looks.”
“Aw, knock it off already,” Buddy shot back. “Let’s just find my darn jacket and get out of here.”
“That’s an official company Windbreaker, ya know. If you’d have lost it, the boss would’ve made you pay.”
“Believe me, Erik, every day I get stuck being your partner . . . I pay! Boy, do I pay.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Buddy didn’t bother to answer. The next thing Hopper knew, the green tent was being lifted off the ground. It only took him a second to understand that the heap of cloth he thought was a tent was actually Buddy’s misplaced jacket. Hopper had hidden himself under the Windbreaker. And he’d made it even worse by trapping himself inside the enemy’s pocket!
“So, Erik . . . ,” Buddy began. (He was brushing off the jacket now, shaking it, so that Hopper nearly bounced right out of the pocket. A few coins that were in there with him jangled around and almost clonked him on the head.) “Whaddya figure we should do about the cats?”
“Just leave ’em be. The boss don’t pay us enough to start killin’ house pets. That’s the animal shelter’s job.” Erik let out another cackle. “Besides, these cats are about to have themselves a nice dinner. Rat carcass à la carte.”
“That’s disgusting.” The Windbreaker swung sideways, jostling Hopper, as Buddy stuck one arm, then the other, into the sleeves and began to walk away.
“The best part is, after these cats eat their fill, there’ll be a lot fewer rodent corpses for us to cart out of here tonight.”
Deep in Buddy’s pocket, Hopper bit his tongue to keep from crying out in horror.
“Come ’n’ get it,” sang Erik. “The rat buffet is now open.”
“Yuucchhkk,” said Buddy, walki
ng faster. “You’re makin’ me sick!”
Hopper heard the meows grow louder as Felina’s glaring descended upon the wreckage. The arrival of more hungry cats caused Buddy to double his pace; the Windbreaker made a swishing sound as the frightened exterminator hurried to exit Atlantia.
Hopper clung to the slippery material, and his thoughts whirled. He had to get out. Maybe he could escape through the same opening he’d come in by. He could claw his way to the toothy gap and jump! It would be a long way down, but he’d fallen from greater heights than this.
But surviving that dive meant he’d literally be throwing himself at the feet of the exterminators; he would be trampled beneath their enormous boots. Worse yet, his escape might somehow alert Erik and Buddy to the presence of the soldiers and refugees who (Hopper sincerely hoped) were still waiting safely outside the gate. The soldiers might have a chance to escape if they scattered, but Driggs was probably too woozy from his head injury to run fast enough, and Beverley could barely hobble, let alone sprint.
“Better zip up your pockets, Bud,” Erik was advising. “You don’t wanna drop any of that loose change. You’re gonna need it to pay for your pizza.”
“What? I thought you said you were buying.”
Buddy reached for his pocket; his fingers gripped the zipper and tugged. Hopper burrowed into the lowest corner of the pocket, but the noise of the metal teeth locking together was deafening to his tiny ears. Swallowed in darkness, he could feel the steady beat of the exterminator’s step as he traveled farther and farther from the city.
Suddenly the trajectory of the motion changed; Buddy was still walking, but instead of propelling himself forward, he seemed to be going up. Rising somehow—ascending . . . slowly, steadily, higher and higher.
Stairs!
Hopper’s blood went cold. Buddy the exterminator, in his zip-pocket Windbreaker, was climbing a set of stairs. And stairs could lead to only one place . . . a place above and beyond the subway.
Buddy was heading out of the tunnel.
And Hopper was going with him.
Hopper chewed.
He nipped and he bit and he scratched at the silky green material of the Windbreaker pocket, tearing it, shredding it, piercing it with his incisors. Snatches of fabric snagged on his teeth, and once he nearly choked on a knotted clump of string. Fraying threads wrapped around his tongue; he spit them out and kept chewing.
And as he gnawed and gnashed and nibbled, Hopper had only one goal: to create a hole big enough to slip himself through.
He knew, because he sensed light filtering through the Windbreaker, that Buddy had already transported him out of the tunnel. He was above, upland, in the daylight world.
Sunshine . . . he remembered seeing it through the window of Keep’s shop, wondering what it would feel like on his fur, how warm it would be. He had longed for it his whole caged life. But now it terrified him. He would be separated from Ketchum and the others, and he would be alone in the human world.
He chewed.
Then Buddy stopped moving and bent himself into a sitting position. Hopper heard a grinding sound, a mechanical growl, and felt movement again. But this time it wasn’t Buddy’s body that was creating the motion. He’d placed himself inside something, and that something was moving. That something was carrying Buddy, just as Buddy was carrying Hopper.
A train perhaps? As far as Hopper knew, trains only lived and moved and carried humans down below in the tunnels.
He thought back to the rainy night he’d escaped the pet shop. There had been rolling machines with lighted eyes and round feet. They had sped past him with humans inside. Buddy had to be sitting in one of these upland vehicles. Hopper realized that, as with the trains, the whole purpose of these round-footed creatures was to allow humans to travel great distances in short periods. That meant that the longer he and Buddy stayed inside this rolling monstrosity, the farther away from Atlantia they would get.
Hopper chewed harder and faster, fighting the green fabric of Buddy’s pocket as though it had attacked him first. Finally the fibers gave way and split open into a hole just large enough for Hopper to wriggle through.
He tumbled out of the pocket and onto Buddy’s lap beneath the billowing tent of the Windbreaker; Buddy twitched.
It was considerably brighter outside the pocket. Hopper could see through the green curtain of the jacket that Erik was seated to Buddy’s left, gripping a large circle, which he rotated from side to side. The vehicle swerved in keeping with the motion of Erik’s hands.
Quivering with fear, Hopper inched his way to where the edge of the jacket met the coarse white material that made up the leg of Buddy’s coveralls.
Buddy flinched.
“Whatsa matter with you?” snapped Erik. “I can’t concentrate on the road with you doing the passenger-seat mambo over there! Now sit still! We’re almost to the bridge.”
“But there’s something crawling on me!” Buddy protested, and he began to wiggle.
“Crawlin’ on you? What could be crawlin’ on you?”
It was at this moment that Hopper poked his nose out from under the hem of the Windbreaker.
Buddy squealed as if he were a giant rodent himself.
“MOUSE!” he screamed, bouncing up and down hysterically in his seat. “Erik, there’s a mouse on my lap!”
“So maybe he wants to tell you what he wants for Christmas.”
“Erik! Help!”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!”
Hopper made a mad dash toward Buddy’s knee, but Erik was quick. He let go of the circular thing and reached out, pinching Hopper’s tail and plucking him off Buddy’s leg and dangling him in midair. Now it was Hopper who squirmed and wiggled.
The sensation was almost like riding the train—but with no sturdy hitch beneath his paws to anchor him. Hopper flew sideways toward the cold, spinning over himself, soaring out of the vehicle and plunging through the atmosphere.
Wooommppffff.
It was a punishing landing, but it didn’t end there. Hopper’s momentum bowled him onward, somersaulting his bruised little body across a rough black surface and directly into a speeding parade of roaring, round-footed monsters. How he avoided being squashed by one of them, he would never know; he could feel their powerful, whirring whoosh as they zoomed over his head, but somehow he managed to evade their heavy rubber feet and roll out the other side . . . tumbling still, but to where . . . toward what?
The world was a revolving blur. Overhead Hopper caught glimpses of blue—a bright, endless expanse. Rising into this he saw two stony towers. Radiating out from these was an intricate, crisscrossed web of steel.
Then the solid surface ceased to be, and Hopper felt nothing but a cold rush of . . . nothing. All around him—air and more air, above, beneath. Cool emptiness, everywhere. His stomach sprang into his mouth; he was falling again.
“Cute little guy,” Erik observed. “Don’t usually see markings like that.”
“J-just get r-rid of him, will ya?”
Erik let out one of his rollicking chuckles. “Ya know, Bud, for a professional exterminator, you sure ain’t too good around rodents. Now open your window.”
Hopper watched with wide eyes as the square of glass to Buddy’s right magically slid downward. A gust of cold air blew in; its icy bite stood his fur on end.
“Lean back so’s I can fling him out.”
Fling him out? Hopper did not like the sound of that.
Buddy pressed himself backward against the seat, and Erik gave a good flick of his wrist, releasing Hopper’s tail and sending him sailing past Buddy’s terrified face.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LA ROCHA’S JOURNAL—FROM the Sacred Book of the Mūs:
I have been hiding forever, it seems. And of late I do so with the aid of a hooded cloak I fashioned from a piece of blue cloth I found during the mad exodus from the city. I believe it may have held significance once. In any case, it makes a warm garment. And a good disguise.
La Rocha must always be unseen. That is the first rule.
And unseen I was when I slipped into the palace to listen to the elder Sage give his report to Zucker and the Chosen One. Pinkie of the Mūs, it seems, is causing an entirely new brand of trouble. She is single-minded, that one, and not inclined to compromise. There is steel in her soul, and I can’t help but admire that. She is proud and smart—two characteristics I very much respect, although she is far too stubborn and selfish to rule; one must have compassion to lead. But Pinkie has no talent for the softer emotions, and for that I cannot blame her. Deep hurt often results in this sort of temperament, and I alone shoulder the responsibility for that. Pinkie is Pinkie and I am to blame. This is another of my secrets. And so I remain hidden.
Hours have passed since the Chosen One, the prince, and the elder boarded their train to the Mūs village. I wait on the outskirts of Atlantia for their return. I want to learn whatever I can of their meeting with Pinkie.
But a commotion begins, and I see the humans making their approach.
It has been so long since I’ve seen any of their kind—I last encountered the hulking beasts on my one and only upland journey. Such height, such power, and so clearly bent on destruction.
On the backs of their uniforms is an insignia, which brands itself on my memory.
As expected, they rain doom, thrashing and crushing what is left of the city, taking as many prisoners as they can. And all I can do is sit and watch, which shames me to the depths of my soul. I was a warrior once! I knew how to fight! But on this day I must keep still, stay back, and watch the chaos erupt.
Now I see Firren entering the fray. She brings courage and might enough for the both of us, storming in with her sword swinging. But she is small and they are large, and she is soon taken captive. Secrecy be damned! I prepare to risk all by running in to aid her. But now Zucker arrives . . . and I have to smile. How could I have doubted that he would come? He would do anything to aid the girl rebel.
