by Matt London
Evie held out her hand to grab her friend.
A slithery pink tentacle wrapped around Evie’s neck. It pulled her backward and down. Then she fell.
In the sky above her head, the Roost was suspended. In a flash, the hovership exploded into as many splinters as there were stars.
With a gasp, she woke up.
Sprout held her hand gently. “Evie. Evie! Look at me.”
Evie opened her eyes. The sky above her head was dark with rain clouds. A cold wind had picked up. She was on her back in the dirt, surrounded by trees on all sides. 2-Tor still had his metal wings wrapped around her. A big dent had formed in his bird head, and his eyes were dim. It was coming back to her now. He’d saved their lives by shielding them from the brunt of the crash. But at what cost?
“2-Tor!” Evie cried, shaking him. He didn’t move. She crawled out of his grip and shook him again. “2-Tor!”
“He’ll be fine,” Sprout assured her. “We just need to reboot him. But we have to hurry. They’ll be looking for us.”
The Brat Brigade. Of course. Benjamin and his minions would be after them, to make sure they finished the job. Evie looked around. The shattered remains of the Roost were strewn across the jungle floor. There was nothing to salvage. Broken scrap metal and wooden splinters, half the smoldering carcass of her beloved Roost. Evie felt like her heart had dropped out of her chest.
“Where’s Rick?” Evie asked worriedly.
“He ain’t here,” Sprout said. “Let’s hope he’s safe.”
Evie flipped 2-Tor onto his back and opened his access panel. She reset his power switch and pushed.
With a hum and a roar the metal bird jolted awake. “I say! Is everyone all right?”
Evie exhaled a sigh of relief. “I don’t think any of us are all right. But you’re alive, and that’s good.”
“I am an artificial organism and not alive in the slightest. Evelyn Lane, I have taught you better!”
Evie smiled, but before she could reply she heard the sound of snapping twigs in the distance. Shadows moved among the trees.
“That’s them,” Sprout said. “We have to go.”
Evie helped 2-Tor to his feet, and the trio retreated into the jungle. They found a large fallen tree and ducked behind it. This was as good a place as any to hide and plan their next move. Rick was missing. They had to find him. He’d know how to get out of this mess. They were stranded in the middle of the continent, surrounded by enemies.
“Hey, look at this!” called a raspy voice from the other side of the tree. Evie flung her body to the ground and looked under the tree trunk, back at the wreckage. The little boy with the hermit crab shell and the skinny buzzard were studying the area where Evie, Sprout, and 2-Tor had fallen.
“Look at this divot,” Gregory said. “And these footprints. They were here.”
Buzz nodded in agreement.
“Spread out. They can’t have gotten far.”
Evie swallowed hard. Their hiding place wasn’t going to last for long.
WHY DID EVERYTHING FEEL . . . PURPLE? RICK OPENED HIS EYES. THE WORLD HAD turned upside down. The earth was above his head, and a forest of inverted trees spread outward.
Then he realized his error. He looked down, er . . . up, and saw that the pilot’s chair of the Roost had become wedged between the branches of a jungle tree. Rick dangled helplessly in his restraints. Any sudden movement would dislodge the chair and send Rick to the ground far below.
Carefully, Rick reached out and grabbed one of the branches. Holding on tight, he used his other hand to unclip the restraints. He popped free and dropped from the chair. Clinging desperately to the branch, Rick swung a hundred eighty degrees. The blood rushed out of his head, making him feel dizzier. The tree branch groaned and the chair broke free, falling to the earth with a loud crash.
Rick winced at the sound. He had to be careful. Benjamin would be looking for survivors of the crash. Silently, Rick hooked his leg over the branch and pulled himself up to a sitting position, where he had a decent vantage point of the jungle. Broken pieces of the Roost’s port side littered the ground. The wreckage would draw the attention of the Brat Brigade, but the dense thicket of trees would hopefully keep Rick concealed. Evie, Sprout, and 2-Tor were nowhere to be seen.
A soft sound on the branch beside Rick caught his attention. A leaf wiggled. Reaching out, Rick brushed the leaf to the side. A thin white worm inched across the green leaf. But it was no ordinary worm. Rick adjusted his glasses and studied the creature. It appeared to be made out of the paper wrapper of a drinking straw. Crumpled and bleach white, the only way he could tell the worm wasn’t a piece of trash was that it had eyes, antennae, and a little mouth that was nibbling on the leaf.
Fascinating. Rick puzzled over the little creature. How was such a thing possible? Some side effect of the Eden Compound, or a mixture of it with the Anti-Eden Compound? The Eden Compound transformed garbage, inanimate and artificial materials, into dirt, water, and grass. Grass. Grass was a plant, a living thing. If it was possible to transform trash into a living plant, why not a living animal, too?
Cluf, cluf! The sound came from the branch to Rick’s right. He turned and saw the most fantastic creature. Its head was bright white, shaped like a Styrofoam hamburger carton, and it stood on legs of empty rolls of bathroom tissue. It looked a little like a frog.
The creature snapped its “mouth.” Cluf, cluf! It hopped to another branch, and then another, and then leaped to the next tree.
“Hey, wait!” Rick called out. He looked for some way to chase after the animal, but the branches weren’t thick enough to support his weight. Then he spotted the vines tangled among the treetops. Brilliant! Professor Doran had genetically engineered these trees to have thick vines to swing on. He knew how much Evie and Sprout liked climbing trees.
Rick reached up and grabbed a heavy vine. He untangled the end of it and held on tight with both hands. He took a deep breath. If the Rick from a year ago could somehow time travel and see himself now, he wouldn’t have believed his bespectacled eyes. Because now, Rick didn’t worry that swinging from jungle vines was dangerous. He thought it was fun.
Leaping from his perch in the tree, Rick swung in a broad arc, pursuing the trash frog. At the far end of the swing, Rick grabbed another vine and held on. The vine tore free and his swing through the jungle continued. Wind whipped his hair. His heart beat excitedly in his chest. He felt so alive!
The vine snapped halfway through his swing.
“Waaaah!” Rick screamed as he fell to the jungle floor. He landed facedown on the spongy earth in a pile of dead leaves. He chuckled to himself. His hovership had been blown out of the sky. Against all odds he had survived the fall, only to immediately push his luck by swinging on vines. At least no one was around to see him fall.
He rose to his knees, and froze. A foot away was a pair of cheetah legs. Robotic cheetah legs. His gaze moved up the legs to where they attached to the body of a very human girl. Her wide brown eyes looked as surprised to see Rick as he was to see her.
“Oh, hi,” Rick said and gave her a little wave.
WHAT WOULD RICK DO? EVIE PONDERED THIS QUESTION WHILE TRYING NOT TO BREATHE, OR move, or even think too loudly. Shell-boy and Punk Buzzard were still after them, scouring the dense jungle for traces of her, Sprout, and 2-Tor.
“We gotta take them varmints out,” Sprout whispered.
“To dinner?” 2-Tor asked, sounding confused. “But they want to kill us!”
“Shh!” Evie hissed. “Quiet. Let me think.”
The footsteps of their enemies grew louder.
“We can make a run for it,” Evie said.
Sprout shook his head. “They’ll catch us.”
“Do you hear that? Voices!” Gregory was onto them.
“I will create a diversion!” 2-Tor sat up straight.
“But how will you escape?” Evie asked.
“You forget,” 2-Tor waved a few feathers at her. “I have wings.”
With a great crash, Gregory’s enormous shell burst through the fallen tree they had been hiding behind. Evie and Sprout dove out of the way.
Buzz leaped onto Gregory’s shoulder and laughed. “Haha! That’s two trees we’ve smashed today, Gregory.”
“I say, run, children!” 2-Tor flew straight into Gregory’s face, blocking his vision with a flurry silver wings. Buzz screamed in surprise, falling off his companion and landing hard on his back.
“Run!” Evie shouted, grabbing Sprout by the hand and sprinting through the jungle.
Her mouth went dry. She was sprinting so fast she was running out of breath. She glanced behind her and saw Buzz flying low to the ground, glaring at Evie hatefully as he narrowed the distance between them.
“Try to lose him in the trees!” Sprout urged. They dashed between two large trees and then wove between more densely packed trunks.
Evie gulped for air. “Sprout, do you still have your lasso?”
“Yeah, why?” He unclipped the coil of rope from his belt.
“Give me one end. I have an idea.”
He grinned. “Oh, I reckon I get what you’re doing. Hoo-wee!” He tossed her one end of his lasso and picked up speed. They ran as fast as they could, gaining a few feet on Buzz, who flapped his shining wings to accelerate.
“Now!” Evie shouted. She stopped short, dropped to the left, and pulled the lasso tight. Sprout dove right and did the same.
“What, no!” Buzz raised his arms to shield his face as he slammed full speed into the rope, which had become an effective trip wire. He did a somersault and landed facedown in the dirt.
“Hoo-wee!” Sprout cheered. “Look at us using our noggins. I bet a billion broccoli Rick would be mighty proud of our smart thinking.”
“Yeah,” Evie gasped, trying to catch her breath. “I bet you’re right.”
“Oh dear me, please help! Look out!”
Evie turned to see Gregory barreling toward them. A hatch had opened in his shell and a robotic propeller with a chainsaw on either end spun above his head, slicing through trees on either side of him. 2-Tor clung to the boy’s head with his wings, flapping like a caffeinated pennant.
Sprout gawked at the charging shell-armored body. “I say, this looks dreadful.”
“Hoo-wee,” Evie said. “I reckon y’all are right about that.”
THE CHEETAH GIRL WAS AN INCH TALLER THAN RICK, WEARING A TRIM BLACK JUMPSUIT AND A high bun of dark hair. Her pants were rolled above her knees to show off the agile metal legs, which were decorated with cheetah spots. She bounced back at the sight of Rick and crouched close to the ground, placing her palms on the earth for balance. She glared at him, although Rick saw something else besides anger behind her eyes. It wasn’t fear. No, it was compassion.
“Hi, I’m Rick,” he said hesitantly.
“I know who you are,” she said. “And I know I’m not supposed to listen to a word you say.”
“Well, you work for Mastercorp under Benjamin Robot-Face, so excuse me if I don’t think you’re the best judge of character,” Rick said.
“Mastercorp gave me more than you ever could.”
“What do you mean?” Rick asked. He sat down and crossed his legs. For some reason, he felt like he could trust this girl and he knew that she wouldn’t hurt him.
“My parents were marathon runners. They trained all the time and traveled the world, competing in races. I would go with them. As soon as I could walk, I ran. And then . . .” She reached down and touched her thigh where the prosthetic met her flesh. “After I lost my legs, I thought I would never run again. But Mastercorp offered me a place in their experimental program. They built these prostheses for me. Now I’m the fastest kid on earth.”
She hopped up and down, demonstrating the springiness of her step with each jump. “We all have stories like that. Buzz and Gregory grew up as orphans. There were a bunch of others in the program too, but . . . they didn’t survive the testing process.”
Rick said, “Mastercorp’s experiments killed them, you mean. I’m glad Mastercorp gave you back your legs, but you must see all the other wicked things that company has done.”
The girl frowned. “When I was offered a place in Mastercorp’s experimental cyborg program, my family left our home in Kenya and moved to New Miami so they could be close to me during the program. But then Mastercorp destroyed New Miami with Anti-Eden Compound, and my parents . . .” She looked away as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I know Mastercorp is evil, but now that my parents are gone, I have nowhere else to go.”
“I’m sorry,” Rick said, feeling his own eyes well up.
She nodded sadly.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“I’m Kitty,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Sorry.”
Rick wiped his eyes as well. “Don’t apologize. I know how much it hurts to lose someone you care about.”
They were quiet for a while, listening to the sounds of the jungle.
“Your legs are super cool,” Rick said. “What do they feel like?”
Kitty shrugged, beginning to look and sound relaxed. “Oh, I don’t know. Like standing on bicycle pedals, kinda. Each joint has a little cushion of air inside, which makes them move smoothly. Each one has a little computer in it too, which analyzes impact data, stride consistency, and other stuff to help me increase speed and improve balance.”
“Fascinating,” Rick said. If only his father could hear this! He thought his dad’s work in robotics could contribute a lot to biomechatronic advances like Kitty and her friends.
“You know, you don’t seem like a tyrannical monster,” Kitty admitted.
Rick snorted. “Is that what Benjamin said? Oh boy. Listen to your gut. Just look at the way Benjamin treats you guys. He’s the tyrannical monster. We’re the good guys, Kitty.”
Kitty sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”
A burst of static came from the communicator on Kitty’s hip. Benjamin’s voice emerged. “Kitty! Have you found that walking redheaded corpse yet?”
Kitty gasped and took off running through the jungle.
Rick scrambled to his feet. “Wait! Come back! I need your help to find my sister and my friends!”
Thanks to her cheetah legs, Kitty was so fast Rick knew he couldn’t hope to catch up. But he had to talk to her. He felt like he had almost convinced Kitty to leave Mastercorp behind. If only he could talk to her for just another second. Rick ran as fast as he could, gasping for breath, until a dagger of pain filled his stomach and his legs burned, but still he kept running.
He could see Kitty up ahead, and so he put on a burst of speed, only to realize too late that Kitty had stopped running and was now standing still. Rick tried to skid to a stop but tumbled forward and landed in a heap in the middle of a clearing.
Kitty stared at Rick in surprise.
The mechanical face of Benjamin Nagg was less surprised and very far from amused.
“LOOK OUT!” EVIE SCREAMED AS CRAB BOY CHARGED. SHE SIDESTEPPED, POSITIONING HERSELF in front of a large tree.
Sprout grabbed the captive Buzz and dragged him out of the other boy’s path. “Evie! What are you doing? He’s going to hit you.”
Gregory’s chainsaws spun wildly. 2-Tor kept his head low and held on to the boy’s shell as hard as he could.
Evie watched carefully as they got closer. Closer.
“Evie!” Sprout shouted. “You gotta git!”
“Not yet,” she replied. She tensed, waiting. Waiting.
Gregory dove at Evie. 2-Tor couldn’t hold on any longer and fell off. He hit the ground and rolled away.
At the last second, Evie jumped out of the way. Gregory smashed into the big tree at full speed, bur
ying the chainsaws in the bark. The boy slumped and hung, dangling from the metal arm in his shell, unconscious.
“Hoo-wee! There you go again!” Sprout grinned as he used his lasso to tie Buzz’s hands behind his back.
Evie grinned. She had used her brain and her speed to bring down an opponent much bigger than herself. Rick would be proud. “Thanks, Sprout.”
Buzz struggled against the lasso. “What are you going to do with us?”
Evie looked over at him. “What do you mean do with you? All we wanted was for you to stop trying to kill us.”
“Well, then I guess you should let us go,” Buzz suggested.
“Nice try!” Evie grinned. “I think you should tell me where my brother is.”
Buzz shrugged. “No clue.”
“Then why don’t you take us to your boss? I’m sure he has an idea.”
Buzz glared at Evie for what felt like a million years, but finally agreed to lead the group through the jungle. They roused Gregory, extracted him from the tree, and they were on their way.
After a short walk through the dense jungle, they emerged into an open area the size of a decent campsite. Rick sat on the ground by a fire, tied to a wooden post. The cheetah girl, Kitty, and Benjamin stood nearby.
Buzz nodded to them. “Hey, boss, hey, Kitty, guess what, Gregory and I got captured by these losers.”
Their mechanical leader shoved Kitty out of the way and stomped to the center of the clearing. Benjamin’s scarlet eyes burned into Evie. “You,” he growled. “Why are you still alive?”
Evie shrugged. “Because you are the one who’s trying to kill me, and not someone—you know—competent.”
He squeezed his clawed hand into a fist. “I will crush your bones to dust, Evie Lane.”
“I say, that’s not a sporting thing to say,” 2-Tor commented.
“And you I’ll use for scrap!” Benjamin snapped at him.
“Uh, Evie?” Sprout sounded worried. “Do you have a plan, or are you just going to taunt the murderous robot boy?”
