by Matt London
Rick realized that twice in the past year his father had offered to take him bird-watching, but the first time he had needed to study for a test, and the second he had been competing in a video game tournament at the mall. Suddenly, he felt like more of a monster than that caretaker.
“The birds were what inspired your father to invent the hover engine. He wanted to fly. And my, how he has flown. He researched terraforming with me because he had seen children all over the world living in filth, in squalor. No one deserved what he had suffered, he thought, and so he found his purpose.”
Still trying to grapple with what Doctor Grant was saying, Rick stuttered, “So, we’re not really Lanes?”
Doctor Grant reached out, grabbing Rick by either side of the head, and pulled him close. “You are your father’s son. Do not forget it. I may be blind, but I see it in your intelligence, in your curiosity, in your stubbornness.”
“Me?! Evie is the stubborn one.”
“Listen to yourself. See? Stubborn.”
Rick pulled away and ran out of the lab as fast as he could. He gasped for breath, each footfall a deafening echo in the hollow submarine.
How could his parents have never told him any of this? He was eleven years old. He deserved to know the truth. Dad was adopted. All Rick had ever wanted was to guide the future of Lane Industries, and he wasn’t even a Lane. Meanwhile, he always accused his father of not having purpose, when the opposite was true. Now Rick was the one who was confused, without any direction, and his father, with all his noble goals, was the one to follow and admire.
“I’ve been so stupid!” Rick wept as he ran through the Cichlid. It was the hardest thing he’d ever admitted to himself.
When he ran out of breath, Rick collapsed on the floor. Eventually he pulled himself to his feet and realized that he was totally lost. He began to retrace his steps, hoping to find his way back to Doctor Grant and his sister.
The other laboratories were in such disrepair that it was hard to tell what kind of work they’d been doing there. There was a lab where big craters had been smashed into the metal floor, and broken machinery lay scattered everywhere.
Another lab contained an empty weapons rack and plastic things that shouldn’t have been plastic. Fruit, teddy bears, guacamole. Target practice? Some kind of plastic- making gun?
Twice Rick passed by a door without noticing it, until finally the black painted door on the black wall caught his eye. To most, the concealed door, the heavy lock (which had long fallen off), and the general spookiness of the secret lab would have meant “Keep Out,” but to Rick it meant “Hidden Area. Sweet.”
Sometimes his desire to explore 100 percent of the map overpowered even his fear of the unknown.
Rick opened the black door.
What he saw inside the room made the tuna in his stomach creep up his throat and try to escape out of his mouth. White broken bones lay scattered on the floor. The skulls of bulls and tigers and hammerhead sharks were among the morbid clutter, along with dozens of cracked rib cages and leg bones, like the remains of a discarded chicken dinner.
Everything in Rick’s mind was telling him to run—to get away from there as fast as possible—but he held his ground. The only way not to fear this place was to know it.
Littered among the bones were the battered exo-hulls of old robots. An arm here, a torso there. It almost looked like the animal bones and the robot bodies . . . belonged together.
On a table, a stack of damp papers had spread and soaked, leaving a thick patina of gray mush. On the top sheet, Rick could make out a single word.
ANIARMAMENT.
A cold hand clamped down on Rick’s shoulder. This proved to be a bit too much unknowingness. Rick screamed like his server was down for maintenance.
“Rick!” a startled Doctor Grant exclaimed, squeezing him a little tighter. “You scared me.”
“Look who’s talking!” Rick gasped.
“I’ve been trying to find you. I was worried.”
“I got lost,” he admitted. “What is this place?”
“I don’t know,” Doctor Grant said stiffly. “They never let me in here.”
“I wonder what these experiments were for. What was Mastercorp up to?”
“Come on,” Doctor Grant said. “We can’t worry about that now. The formula is done. It’s time to test the Eden Compound.”
When they returned to Doctor Grant’s lab, Evie was awake and standing near the center testing table with Niels Bohr. She rubbed her eyes like she was kneading raw dough.
“I was dreaming about chocolate,” she said. “Do we have any chocolate?”
“No,” Doctor Grant said plainly. “But we have some Eden Compound. Why don’t we try that out?”
“Way better than chocolate!” Evie beamed, the tiredness promptly disappearing from her eyes.
Doctor Grant was obviously unmoved on the subject of chocolate because he continued issuing directions. “Evie, grab that bag of trash over by the door and put it in the dispersal zone. Rick, please join me by the main console.”
The kids did as they were ordered. Evie picked up the bag of trash, which was mostly crumpled printer paper and empty tuna fish cans, and placed it on the table in the main testing area. There was a bull’s-eye painted on the surface where she set it down, under a dry sprinkler nozzle.
Doctor Grant slumped into his chair in front of the computer terminal, Rick standing beside him. The doctor’s fingers tap-danced on the keyboard, booting up a custom computer program. “After reassembling the formula, I fabricated a small test batch of Eden Compound. Just a few milliliters, but it should be enough to terraform this garbage bag into living, organic matter, as our early tests predicted. If this test is successful, we will produce a big batch, and then it’s off to the Pacific Ocean to make your continent. Saving the environment before breakfast. That’s my kind of work!”
Evie obviously agreed. “I can’t wait!” she said. “Let’s go!!!!”
Rick could barely believe it. After all the work they had done to get to this moment, to the Eden Compound, it was finally happening. They had found Doctor Grant. They were really going to make the eighth continent. Rick tried to imagine what it would be like: his own world to run and organize. He would be such a better arbiter than Winterpole ever was. He would create a peaceful, intelligent society, one where people would be free to pursue scientific endeavors and play all the video games they wanted.
And he would make his father proud.
Evie was so excited she was bouncing up and down like one of Dad’s self-piloting pogo sticks. Rick was glad to see her smile. He had meant what he’d said to her. He wanted her crazy plan to work, for her. He wanted her to be happy.
Doctor Grant threw the switch, and the pipes thrummed, and the liquefied Eden Compound surged toward the sprinkler. Rick could feel the dream of the eighth continent becoming real.
The sprinkler opened up, and thin green liquid shot out in a cone. It ran over the outside of the garbage bag in sheets, coating it like a candied apple. The cool smell of ozone filled Rick’s nose.
He watched carefully, waiting for the trash bag to change.
He kept watching.
The sprinkler dribbled to a stop. The green liquid pooled underneath the bag of garbage. The bag hadn’t changed. None of the garbage had.
The Eden Compound didn’t work.
EVIE BACKED AWAY FROM THE DISPERSAL DEVICE. “WHAT? NO! HOW CAN IT NOT WORK?”
“Evie, calm down!” Rick begged.
She turned on Doctor Grant. “You said it would work! Why won’t it work?”
Doctor Grant looked like he had caught a skunk by surprise. “Go stick your head in an igloo and cool it, you spicy potato chip. All I know is that I reassembled the formula and produced a sample of the compound based on our designs.”
“I’m sorry.” She
hung her head. “I didn’t mean to shout. It’s just that we are so close, and now I don’t know what to do. How can it not work?”
Evie felt like she had gone to the coolest amusement park in the world, waited for hours in the line for the biggest roller coaster, and gotten all the way up to the front, only to have the sunburned guy operating the ride tell her that it was out of order, and she couldn’t get on. It wasn’t fair. They had come so far, only to have the eighth continent taken away from them at the last second.
“There is only one explanation,” Doctor Grant said. “Something was missing from the compound.”
“But how can that be?” Evie asked. “You reassembled the formula. We brought you the other half.”
“Most of the work we did years ago was theoretical,” Doctor Grant said, pulling a pair of gloves and an empty vial from a drawer under the computer terminal. “The formula was exactly as your father and I had left it when we disbanded the project, but we didn’t do extensive testing. Something must be missing.” The doctor touched the container to the pool of liquid on the ground, wrinkling his brow as he scooped some up. Suddenly, his expression shifted. “Wait a minute! I’ve got it. There was an ingredient we talked about incorporating into the formula—a rare fungus called the fecundite mushroom, which grows only in a small island prefecture in Japan.”
Evie slapped Rick in the arm. “You hear that? We’re going to Japan. We’ll be able to get the last component and samurai sword souvenirs.”
Doctor Grant placed the now-lidded vial by the computer and pulled off his gloves. “Niels Bohr and I will stay here and work on producing a large quantity of the Eden Compound. When you return with the mushrooms, I’ll”—he began to singsong—“add it to the batch, and then we will be off to the garbage patch.”
“A scientist and a poet!” Rick grinned.
Evie shook with excitement. That old feeling of adventure was coming back to her. They were going on another journey.
Rick ran to get their stuff. Evie started to follow, but Doctor Grant added, “Evie, wait. Come here.”
“What is it, Doctor Grant?”
He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We will make it work. I promise. You’ll get your continent. I believe in you.”
“You do?”
“There’s something about you—it reminds me of your father.”
She scratched the back of her head, embarrassed. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“You are going to need his tenacity, and his creative spirit, to accomplish your mission. Never forget that.”
They parked the Roost in a forest on the outskirts of town and ventured into Oshiaka Village. Boxy apartment buildings lined both sides of the street like oversized LEGO structures.
Knowing they were close to their goal, Evie and Rick raced through the town, forcing 2-Tor to hop after them, flapping his metal wings. If only his robot body could have moved as fast as his robot mouth. “First you leave me alone in the Roost for over a day. I did not know if you had drowned or abandoned me or what. Now you are leaving me behind! This is highly irregular.”
Rick looked around the village suspiciously. “It’s weird that there aren’t any people out on the street.”
“Overzealous construction companies,” 2-Tor explained. “They build whole towns prefabricated, but there is no demand, so the completed neighborhoods remain vacant.”
“Do you think Condo Corp was behind this place?” Rick asked.
Evie snatched the smartphone from Rick’s hand. “Maybe it’s a bank holiday. The GPS says we’re close. The field where the fecundite mushrooms grow should be just beyond this intersection.” She didn’t want to think about Vesuvia and her company, not when she could feel their moment of triumph fast approaching. Her sweaty palms tightly gripped the sterile bag they would use to gather the mushrooms. She used to pick dandelions when she went hiking with her dad. This would be no different. The fecundite mushrooms were a bright emerald color—easy to spot.
The Lane siblings rounded the corner and found themselves on the edge of a strip mall. Two lines of storefronts—plastic wig shops, gumdrop emporiums, poodle dry cleaners—surrounded a wide, flat asphalt parking lot. There was not a car in sight.
“Oh, dear,” Evie groaned. She ran out into the middle of the lot, which the GPS said was the center of the mushroom field. “This is bad. This is worse than very bad.”
“What’s wrong?” Rick asked, running over to her.
“Where’s the field? Where are the mushrooms?”
A banner hung over one of the store marquees. 2-Tor translated the Japanese characters. “Grand opening! Now with double car capacity.”
“Oh no!” Evie wailed. “When they built this shopping mall they must have paved over the field.”
“You mean the fecundite mushrooms are under the blacktop?” Rick asked, scraping the asphalt with the toe of his shoe. “How are we going to get to them?”
“I don’t know,” Evie replied. “Maybe we can find a backhoe or a jackhammer and break up the rock. There must be something we can do. Rick, can you think of anything on the Roost that could help us?”
But Rick wasn’t listening. His gaze was directed across the parking lot at a stoplight hanging from a wire over the entrance to the mall. A small bird, made of pink plastic, was using it as its perch. It cocked its head to the side and stared at the children.
Then another bird, identical, came out of the sky and landed beside its twin. Then another, and another. A whole flock of the plastic birds landed on the stoplight and its support wire. Their eyes were fixed on Rick and Evie.
“What do they want?” Evie crossed her arms defiantly.
Rick swallowed hard. “I think they want us. Run!”
The birds flapped their wings in computerized unison, rising into the air in a swarm and diving at Rick and Evie.
There was no chance of escape. Sharp plastic beaks pecked at them and pinched their skin. As the birds struck 2-Tor’s shell, it sounded like a hailstorm at a car dealership.
The flying pink robots grabbed Rick and Evie by their clothes and hoisted them into the air. The siblings dangled helplessly, kicking their legs. They cried out, but they could not be heard over the noises of the birds, which sounded like a swarm of locusts.
But one sound could be discerned over the cacophonous flapping. A giant pink truck rumbled down the street toward them. Its wheels were cylinders, like a steamroller, but a long metal tube came down the front, like the snout of an anteater. As the vehicle came closer, powerful suction snorted the concrete street into its nozzle. The road broke apart in huge chunks, leaving behind dirt and rubble.
Worst of all was who was at the helm. On first look, Evie thought she was seeing things, but a second glance told her that her eyes were indeed telling the truth: Vesuvia Piffle was driving the vehicle. Diana sat behind her, clinging to her seat, looking worried, as usual. They both wore pink hard hats.
The vehicle swerved as Vesuvia stood to wave at them smugly. She cackled like the witch she was. “Thanks for leading me to where the mushrooms grow, Evie LAME. Now I have the last component I need to complete the Eden Compound and make the eighth continent my own!”
THE LANE GIRL STRUGGLED AGAINST THE PLASTIC BIRDS AS DIANA CHECKED TO MAKE SURE THEY had her locked down tight. The birds had formed chains connecting beak to tail, holding Rick, Evie, and their robot escort fast against the ground. Evie squirmed like an earthworm that had fallen in a can of soda and had to sip her way out. “Let us go!” she screamed.
Vesuvia twirled across the vacant parking lot, sucking on a strawberry-pink lollipop. She struck a ballerina pose and imitated Evie’s pleas. “‘Let us go! Let us go!’ I’ll let you go off a cliff if you don’t shut up.”
Diana was glad their mission was almost over. All this flying around the world gave her a tummy ache. “They’re all tied up,” she told V
esuvia.
Her friend purred. “Oh, Diana. Doesn’t it feel good to have everything go pinkly perfect for you? Doesn’t it feel grand? Imagine how terrible it would feel to be failures, like these two losers and their robot sparrow.”
2-Tor squawked. “I am a crow, young lady.”
Vesuvia sneered. “Oh, really? I couldn’t tell. You must have been built by a failure.”
“Why are you doing this?” Rick struggled against the bird chains.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Vesuvia slithered over to Rick, Evie, and 2-Tor.
Diana stepped aside and watched. She felt bad leaving the Lanes helpless like this, but it was the only way to make sure Vesuvia accomplished her goals. Besides, what was the alternative? Overnight Vesuvia had changed Evie into a poisonous toad, to be avoided at school at all costs. Things were worse now. Vesuvia had gone from crazy-sticks-trash-in-your-locker to crazy-ties-you-up-and-leaves-you-to-die. If Diana disobeyed the super-secret CEO of Condo Corp, she would be pinned down just as fast as the Lanes.
She quieted her thoughts and listened to Vesuvia’s triumphant monologue. She had rehearsed it all the way from Geneva.
“There was no place on the seven continents where Winterpole and the local authorities would let me build New Miami, my perfect plastic city. But there was another way. An eighth continent—one I could form in my own image.”
Evie struggled against her bonds. “The eighth continent is ours! You can’t have it.”
“Shh . . . shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shhhh . . .” Vesuvia removed her lollipop and stuck it in Evie’s mouth to silence her. Evie gagged and spat out the saliva-covered candy.
“You really are the stupid one, Peevey Evie. If the eighth continent is yours, why are you tied up in a Japanese parking lot, while I have every last fuddy-duddy mushroom in existence?”
