by Matt London
Now Vesuvia would know they had been to Winterpole Headquarters.
Evie was sure nothing good would come of that.
THE OFFICE OF VESUVIA PIFFLE, SUPER-SECRET CEO OF THE MULTINATIONAL CONDO CORPORATION, was on the forty-seventh floor of Condoco Tower, in the heart of Geneva’s Rive Droite.
Everything in Vesuvia’s office was plastic. Plastic chairs, plastic desk. The carpet was made of plastic fibers, and the pink robot cat rolling on the carpet was plastic. Even the windows, with their spectacular view of the city, were—you guessed it—plastic as a movie star’s smile.
And why not? According to Vesuvia, plastic was the world’s greatest material, derived from petrol, the world’s greatest fuel. A diabolical sixth grader would be crazy not to drape herself in plastic and other unnatural materials. Vesuvia did. Her black dress pants were plastic. Her beloved pink jacket was squeaky plastic. Plastic clothes were great. She never got wet, and she loved how they caught the light.
She used a special hairspray of liquid plastic, which never failed to hold its shape and which made her blond curls shimmer. Sure, she got headaches sometimes, and the fumes made her quite dizzy, but that was a small price to pay for sublime hair.
“Hey, you, pipe down!” Vesuvia shrieked into the phone. Her father might be the public face of the company, but there was no doubt she was the one in charge. After all, the Condo Corporation board of directors hadn’t made Vesuvia super-secret CEO for nothing. “Bradley, you listen to me, you bloated iguana. If I don’t get a detailed report of what happened to the missing gallon of plasti-pulp on my desk by five p.m., I’m going to dunk you in plastic and use you as a coatrack!”
“But, Miss Piffle,” her terrified assistant said over the phone. “The shipment was for over one million gallons of PP. Surely one missing gallon isn’t worth a whole report.”
“Did I ask for your life story?! Five p.m. The report, or a resignation letter. Your choice. Now, where are we on the New Miami Project?”
Quiet as a stealth robot, Diana Maple crept into Vesuvia’s office. Diana was the only person allowed to enter Piffle’s Pink Power Center without permission. Vesuvia said that this was because Diana was her best friend. But by “friend,” she meant “employee,” and by “employee,” she meant someone who did lots of work for Vesuvia but did not collect a salary or benefits.
It was worth it, though. Vesuvia had made Diana popular—something no other homely girl at ISES could claim. And it made her mother so proud to know that she was one of the cool kids. The happiness she felt knowing her mom didn’t think Diana was an embarrassment was worth all the times Vesuvia made her ransom less socially endowed kids’ bookbags for an extra dish of cafeteria panna cotta, or torment grown Condo Corp employees until they cried for their security blankets.
“Vesuvia! Hey, Vesuvia!” Diana whispered, wanting to get her “friend’s” attention without disrupting her important business call.
Vesuvia didn’t stop frothing at the mouth long enough to even look at Diana. “What do you mean, they rejected the proposal? New Miami is going to be the greatest city since Renaissance Venice. It’ll be ten times better than the real Miami. A million times! There will be sea urchin kebabs for sale in the streets, and a floating arena where you can watch scuba gladiators battle sharks to the death! Juice bars where you can get a hundred-twenty-eight-ounce pink grapefruit spinach smoothie with a vitamin blast, and a double-decker ocean. Do you know what that means, Bradley? I’m going to build a platform over the ocean . . . and put an ocean on it! How freaking awesome is that? Double ocean all the way across the sky!”
Diana piped in again. “Vesuvia! There is something really important I have to tell you. It’s about Rick and Evie Lane, and—”
“Local character?” Vesuvia snapped at the phone. “You keep saying those words, but what do they mean? You’re telling me that the people of Nice, France, don’t want me to bulldoze their boring town and put New Miami in its place? Why not? New Miami is so much cooler than that stinky town. They have a cheese shop. It’s a shop where they sell cheese. You can buy that anywhere. Who would want to spread Gruyère on a cracker when they could be harpooning a shark while surfing on a double-decker ocean and drinking a smoothie?”
Vesuvia listened to Bradley’s reply, then hurled her phone across the room. Diana ducked, and the phone struck the wall with a plastic thump. “Uh . . . Vesuvia . . .” Diana picked up the phone and scurried back to her. “I think I know how to solve your problem with New Miami.”
Vesuvia snatched the phone and shouted into it. “That may have been a good excuse for my feckless father, the quote-unquote ‘public’ CEO of Condo Corp, but it won’t work for me. That’s why my grandmother ordered the board to appoint me as the real CEO, because she knows that I have the strength and the guts to keep all you necktie-wearing wimps from taking no for an answer.”
Diana had lost her patience. All Vesuvia had to do was pay attention, and her problems would be solved. “Vesuvia! Listen to me. It’s important!”
Despite her shouts, Vesuvia either didn’t see her standing there or had decided to totally ignore her. “Humph,” Diana sighed. She left the inner office and spoke to Vesuvia’s secretary, Mrs. Lemone, a sweet old lady with colorful sweaters, whose desk was just outside the door. “Mrs. Lemone, I’m going to need the horn.”
“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Lemone said. “I know how she gets. Here you go.”
Diana reentered the inner office wielding an enormous megaphone. She switched it on and spoke into it so loudly the entire plastic room thrummed. “VESUVIA! HANG UP THE PHONE. I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.”
Normally the horn would get Vesuvia’s attention, but today she was in an especially foul mood.
“VESUVIA! I BROUGHT THE SWISS ARMY DRUM BAND. THEY’RE RIGHT OUTSIDE. THEY WANT YOUR AUTOGRAPH.”
“I said pink Skittles! My private jet will only have pink Skittles. They need to be the tropical kind, too. Blech. I hate this stupid mountain town I’m stuck going to school in. I miss the beach.”
Diana sighed. This called for desperate measures. “VESUVIA! THERE’S A SPIDER ON YOUR SHOULDER!”
Vesuvia screamed so loudly it knocked the megaphone out of Diana’s hands. Vesuvia dropped to the ground, clawing at her shoulder and shouting, “Get it off, get it off, get it off me! I hate spiders!”
Diana ran to her friend’s side to calm her down. “Hey! Hey, it’s okay. It’s gone. The spider is gone. Calm down.”
Vesuvia gulped lungfuls of frightened air. “I hate spiders.”
“I know you do,” Diana said. “Now, listen, I saw something when I was visiting my mom at work.”
“Yuck! You went to Winterpole? Do you realize how many of my incredible condo construction projects they have vetoed with their stupid bylaws? Those bureaucrats are useless.”
Diana’s mom always said that Winterpole kept the world clean and organized, but it was not worth arguing with Vesuvia. It would just send her off on another tangent, after Diana had finally gotten her attention. “Earlier today, Rick and Evie Lane snuck into Winterpole Headquarters.”
“You mean I haven’t gotten those nerds to flee the country yet? Yuckfest.”
“They tried to erase all the terrible crimes their father has committed from Winterpole records. And then I found this on the security cameras.”
Diana pulled out her phone and played the video she’d downloaded from Winterpole’s security camera archive. It showed a grainy image of Rick and Evie racing down a hallway in Winterpole Headquarters. The audio was scratchy, but they clearly heard Rick say, “And that’s why I want to terraform the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and make the eighth continent, just like you.”
“Terra-what the who now?” Vesuvia asked.
“That’s what I said!” Diana replied. “So I did some research. Apparently, there’s this giant island of trash in the middle of the Pacific Oc
ean.”
“Yeah, so?” Vesuvia shrugged.
Diana continued, “I think Rick and Evie are trying to turn that garbage into a new landmass, a whole continent, like Australia, but without the kangaroos.”
“Sounds like a waste of perfectly good plastic,” Vesuvia said.
“Don’t you get it? If they build a continent, they’ll own it. No one will be able to tell them what to do.”
Vesuvia growled, “Ooh, I want to decapitate teddy bears when people tell me what to do.”
“Exactly! And with all that extra land, you could finally build New Miami—and you could do it without having to kick people out of their homes or needing to tear up existing environments or being forced to—” Diana stopped herself. She saw that Vesuvia’s eyes had glazed over. “You could even build a triple-decker ocean.”
Vesuvia bubbled with excitement. “I could create the most prettiest, perfect plastic place on the planet, and I would be that place’s princess. Diana, alert the Piffle Pink Patrol and tell Daddy I won’t be coming to dinner. I want that continent!”
THE WINTERPOLE SANITATION TRUCK PULLED INTO A MASSIVE GARBAGE DUMP OUTSIDE GENEVA. It had a full load of office waste, broken computer punchcards, and cafeteria leftovers, so even the security guard at the front of the dump, who must have been accustomed to mysterious odors, held his nose and waved it inside.
Upon reaching the designated dump point, the truck backed up, tilted the container, and let the refuse fall.
The old diesel truck shifted gears, coughed smoke, and sputtered away.
A moment passed.
Evie burst out of the pile of steaming garbage, gasping for breath. “Bleeeeeyagh! My nose will never forgive me.”
Beside her, Rick’s head emerged like a gopher from a hole. He gagged, wiping brown ketchup from his eyes. “I will never forgive you. That was your worst idea since . . . well, not that long ago, actually.” He removed the banana peel he had been wearing as a hat.
Evie ran her fingers through her hair, straining out eggshells and yolk. As usual, Rick failed to appreciate her brilliance. They were lucky she had spotted the garbage chute while they were on Mister Punchcard’s Wild Ride—it was the only way they could sneak out of Winterpole Headquarters without getting caught. “I got us out of there, didn’t I?” she said.
Rick extracted himself from the pile, looking quite green. “We could have just walked out like normal people if you hadn’t felt the urge to hack us into that mess.”
“Aww, come on, Rick. Can’t you admit that our high-speed chase was just a little fun?”
“No.” Rick activated the homing beacon he had programmed into his phone so that 2-Tor could find them. “I can’t admit that.”
Evie crossed her arms, showing off her confidence. “You’re just jealous because I’m so cool-tastic.”
“False. But Templeton thinks you’re cool-tastic.”
“Who’s Templeton?” Evie asked, then turned her head to see a rat six inches away, staring her in the face.
“Squeak!” said the rat.
“Yipes!” Evie jumped out of the trash and ran to Rick. “Where’d he come from?”
The roar of hover engines drew their attention skyward. The Roost emerged from a cloud and circled the dump. Evie never tired of watching the Roost fly. It looked so impossible, with its broad trunk, long branches, and canopy of leaves blowing in the jet stream.
The tree lowered a long tube, which slurped Rick and Evie up inside. They landed in the storage hold, where 2-Tor was waiting for them.
“By my bolts, children!” He flapped his metal wings. “My olfactory sensors must be going haywire.”
“Nah,” Evie said. “We just smell like garbage.”
“It’s Evie’s fault, 2-Tor. For a bunch of reasons.” He took a step away from his sister.
“My fault? If it weren’t for me, you’d still be hanging from that punchcard like a crying monkey. ‘Oh, boo-hoo-hoo. I don’t think this was a good idea.’”
“It wasn’t a good idea. None of this has been.”
“I am most displeased with both of you,” 2-Tor scolded. “Most displeased. You are behind on your studies. You each have five more hours of homework, and you are overdue for a pop quiz.”
Evie stuck out her tongue. “A quiz? Is this really a good time?”
“It’s always a good time for a quiz!” 2-Tor said cheerily. “Anatomy. The olfactory glands are used as detectors for which of the five senses?”
Rick adjusted his glasses with a flash of confidence. “2-Tor, this is totally unnecessary. You know that my vast intellect would ace any quiz you put before me. The answer is your sense of smell, by the way.”
“We have more important things to deal with right now.” Evie left the storage hold and headed for the sanitation room. “Like finding Doctor Grant and building the eighth continent.”
Rick followed her. “Evie’s right. We have absolutely no time for further quiz questions.”
2-Tor beeped in protest. Evie smiled at her brother. “Aw, thanks, Rick. I’m sorry I yelled at you before.”
“That’s okay,” Rick replied. “I may have gone a little overboard on the whole ‘it was Evie’s fault’ thing.”
They reached out to hug but quickly recoiled.
“Yeaaugh!” Rick retched. “You smell terrible! Like a wet sneaker filled with moldy turnips.”
Evie laughed. “So do you!”
After hot, soapy showers that left the kids feeling clean and refreshed, the Lane children reunited in the Roost’s lounge to discuss the next phase of their plan.
“Here’s what I found in the database,” Rick said, sharing with his sister the notes he’d taken on his phone. “After Dad and Doctor Grant canceled the Eden Compound project, Dad took over as the head of Lane Industries and started a family. Mastercorp assumed that because Doctor Grant was older and the project leader, he must have been the mastermind behind the compound. A big weapons manufacturer like Mastercorp was not about to let all the money they’d spent go to waste, so they pressured Doctor Grant into producing weapons for them.”
Evie interrupted, “That’s so unfair. How could Mastercorp force Doctor Grant to make weapons?”
“From what I’ve read, you do not want to cross a company like Mastercorp,” Rick said. “Anyway, Winterpole’s reports showed that Doctor Grant worked for Mastercorp for a while but hated it and fled the facility at the first opportunity. After that, Winterpole tracked him for several years as he worked on various projects independently. One of the last projects listed in Winterpole’s records was an artificial island Doctor Grant was designing. Imagine, a raft the size of an island, with houses and a park and a virtual reality arcade right on top of it! They call it a seastead, like a homestead, but on the sea. I’ve read about them online.”
“It sounds like Dad’s teacher was also trying to make an eighth continent. Cool!”
“I even found the coordinates of where Doctor Grant wanted to begin construction in the North Atlantic.”
“You know what we need to do?” Evie asked, bouncing like a puppy ready for a walk.
2-Tor snapped his metal beak. “Go home and study and not fall into any danger?”
Evie laughed out loud. “Oh, 2-Tor. You’re so cute when you’re overprotective.”
2-Tor’s robotic voice grew quite agitated. “Little Miss, it would betray my programming to behave any other way. It is a wonder you haven’t short-circuited me by now.”
Evie didn’t have the heart to tell 2-Tor that she had tried to do just that many times. “Rick, chart a course for home.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you have finally seen reason!” 2-Tor’s servos hummed with relief.
Evie giggled. “We’re just refueling the Roost and then hurrying to the North Atlantic. We’ve got a scientist to find! Right, Rick?”
Rick gave no reply. His eyes were fixed on the view window on the port side of the Roost, a look of befuddlement on his flushed face.
Running to the window, Evie followed Rick’s gaze. Flapping its little mechanical wings, just outside the window, was a pink robo-bird. It was the size of a pigeon, but plated with a hard plastic exoskeleton. The bird wore a gold tiara encrusted with rubies. Its eyes flashed. They were obviously cameras. As Evie reached the window, the camera eyes flashed again, and the bird dove out of view.
The kids ran to the cockpit to check their scanners for signs of the bird, but it was gone. Evie couldn’t figure out where the bird had come from. She’d never seen a model like it before. It could have been one of her father’s, but if that was the case, why wouldn’t the bird have said hello? Why wouldn’t Dad have told them he was sending a robo-bird to check on them?
Even if it was possible that her dad had sent the bird, something told Evie it wasn’t a Lane design. She could feel it. Someone else had sent the bird, but who, Evie wasn’t sure.
Less than a minute later, the Roost landed in the front yard of Lane Mansion. Rick and Evie ran up to the entrance, eager to get started on the next part of their adventure and forget about the mysterious bird.
“It’s good to have some order for a change,” Rick said. “After all the chaos, it looks like we know where we’re going next.”
Evie opened the front door, revealing the shadowy face of Mister Snow.
“Correct,” he said in a dark voice. “You are going to the Prison at the Pole.”
THE LANE MANSION LIVING ROOM HAD SHRUNK SINCE THE LAST TIME RICK HAD BEEN HOME. In fact, it had shrunk so much it felt like the walls were closing in on him, tightening like some sort of ancient torture device.
He had never gotten in trouble before. It was always Evie and their dad who got punished for shirking responsibilities and breaking the rules. Rick was all milk and cookies after dinner and an extra hour of TV before bed. What was his mother going to say now? A whole family of delinquents under one roof.
