Wonderscape

by Jennifer Bell

  “But if it’s off and cold, then the correct switch must be C!” Cecily’s eyes widened. “Arthur, you’re a genius!”

  Arthur felt his cheeks flush and his chest swell with pride. He hadn’t even needed Newton’s help.

  They followed the plan step by step. When they opened the door into the next carriage, they found a long dark space – furnished the same as before – with a podium in the middle. Screwed on top was a large light bulb, switched off. Arthur stepped closer and, covering his fingers with the end of his sleeve, touched the glass. “It’s warm,” he told the others, the heat making his fingertips tingle. “So the correct switch must be A.”

  As soon as he’d spoken, the floor started creaking like the train was laughing at his answer. Then, in quick succession, there followed a series of loud bangs.

  Cecily ran to the next door and tried the handle. “I think we did it,” she exclaimed, almost tripping backwards as it opened. “That sound must be the doors unbolting!”

  “Come on,” Arthur said, peering through into the shadows of the next carriage. “Milo’s got to be in here somewhere.”

  They raced along the central aisle of the next three carriages, passing several flashing neon vending machines on the way. As Cecily opened the door to the fourth, Cloud tore himself from her grip and went running ahead. Everyone else stepped over the threshold cautiously.

  They emerged into another windowless carriage with the same polished mahogany trim and thick burgundy carpet. It had a cosier feel than the rest of the train because it smelled overwhelmingly of candyfloss and was furnished with items collected from all over the fairground. There was a table fashioned from an upturned ghost-train wagon; a popcorn trolley converted into a bookcase; and a bed constructed from two halves of a giant teacup, with a straw-filled mattress between. A small desk in one corner was scattered with scavenged tools – a hammer from a high striker, brass pipes from a carousel organ that had been altered into spanners, and screwdrivers made from huge metal bolts.

  “Cloud!” A broad-shouldered man dropped to his knees in the middle of the floor. He was wearing a pair of magnifying goggles – which made his grey eyes look the size of planets – and dressed in a baggy T-shirt with trousers stitched from the same striped material as the T-classes’ fairground-staff uniform. Over his shoulders hung a long mantle of dry autumn leaves.

  Arthur’s lungs emptied with relief as Cloud shot over like a rocket, jumped into the man’s lap and started madly licking his face. Arthur recognized the man instantly, and there was only one person Cloud would be that happy to see: Milo Hertz.

  “I’ve missed you too!” Milo laughed, tickling Cloud’s tummy. He appeared unmistakably older and wearier than he had done in the recording; his cheeks were hollow and his neck gaunt.

  Arthur edged forwards. “Milo Hertz? I’m Arthur and these are my friends, Ren and Cecily.” He realized as he said “friends” that he’d never actually called them that before, but after everything they’d been through and all they’d shared, it just felt right. Cecily glanced over and flashed him a smile.

  Milo got to his feet, pulled off his goggles and squinted at them as if they weren’t real. “You’re … wanderers?”

  “Not exactly,” Ren replied. “We’re from the twenty-first century. That’s where we met Cloud.”

  Milo offered them a seat on his teacup-bed while they delivered their story, explaining they had only hours left to get home. When Ren told him about Valeria planting a bomb in his headquarters and Tiburon threatening to delete them, he lowered his head. “I know you must think my brother and sister are monsters, but I remember a time when they weren’t so obsessed with DIRT or making Hxperion powerful. When we first founded the company, they were just like me: excited about the possibility of creating a truly great I-RAG. I have to believe there’s still good in them.”

  Ren folded her arms, as if she’d be less forgiving.

  “But now you’re here,” Milo whispered, like he still couldn’t quite believe it, “which means I can escape and make things right. When I was first stranded here, I destroyed all the T-classes so Tiburon couldn’t spy on me, then I focused my efforts on transmitting a message to Cloud. After that, I had years to formulate my plans.” He drew his eyebrows together in a determined scowl. “First things first, I’ll send the three of you home, then I’ll destroy the time crystal Tiburon stole and free the heroes trapped in the Wonderscape.”

  Hope bloomed in Arthur’s chest. “Can you repair Cloud’s time crystal?” he asked, remembering that was the name Milo had also used in M-73’s recording. “Isaac Newton calls it a time-key.”

  Milo’s face brightened. “Newton’s been studying my inventions?” He shook his head in disbelief and took a seat at his desk. “Let’s take a look.” He whistled once and Cloud came scurrying over. Milo pulled down his magnifying goggles, unclipped the time-key from Cloud’s collar and held it up to the light. “The damage appears to be consistent with exposure to infrared radiation,” he concluded quickly. “No surprises there. This key, like the one Tiburon stole, was a prototype. They both react strongly to infrared. In tests, the radiation caused them to discharge varying waves of energy.”

  “That must have been what the explosion at Number Twenty-Seven was,” Arthur said, thinking carefully. He cast his mind back to when he, Ren and Cecily first walked onto the Principia. “Newton had some experiments set up in his cabin. Perhaps one of those was emitting infrared?”

  Milo shrugged. “All we know for sure is that the Wonderway Cloud used to get to Newton’s realm must have still been open when the time-key was exposed. The energy it discharged must have disrupted the open Wonderway in such a way that it shifted its centre of space–time and opened a portal to the twenty-first century.”

  So it was all just bad luck, Arthur thought. If the time-key hadn’t been exposed to this radiation, they would never have been cast into the future.

  “With the right tools I could repair this,” Milo said, rubbing his chin, “but it would take days, not hours.” He held his hands up before they could all panic. “Don’t worry. Inventors always build several prototypes before they make the final product. I made another time-key, one without the weakness of the first two. In order to return you home we just need to retrieve it.” He went over to the popcorn-cart-cum-bookcase and began tossing books out. “I hid it in another realm, somewhere I thought Tiburon would never, ever think to look.” He came across the volume he was hunting for and chucked it over.

  Arthur held it between them so they could all see the title: Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus.

  The cover showed a tall humanoid monster with yellow-green skin, holding his arms out like a zombie. Arthur hadn’t read the book, although his dad kept a copy on the shelf in their hallway, but he had watched an old movie adaptation. The story was about a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who created a monster out of old body parts.

  None of the characters in the story were based on real people, so Arthur knew they couldn’t be the heroes of a realm. “Is it Mary Shelley’s realm?” he suggested, reading the name of the author.

  “One of my absolute heroes,” Milo told them. “Tiburon was obsessed with Frankenstein when we were growing up. That’s why he built his headquarters in Mary Shelley’s realm, and that’s why it’s the last place he’d expect to find the third time-key – because it’s right under his nose.”

  “You hid it where Tiburon’s headquarters are?” Ren repeated, incredulous. “That’s…”

  “Ingenious,” Arthur finished, eyeing her to calm down. There was no way to change it now.

  Milo smiled. “It’s Realm Eighteen – the same age Mary Shelley was when she wrote the book.”

  “Eighteen?” Cecily said. “That’s not too much older than us.”

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Milo said, grabbing a couple of bags of candyfloss. “First, though, we need to complete the final part of the realm-challenge here, in order to win a realm-key and escape. The
hero is one of the greatest inventors of all time, and he was one of the first to apply teamwork to the process of invention – that’s why the task is impossible to complete on your own.” He raced towards the front of the train and pulled open a door into the next carriage. “Come on, we need to start the engine.”

  Arthur’s mind whirred as he and the others chased after Milo. A great inventor. He considered the light-bulb puzzle and the American flag they’d seen hanging at the entrance to the fairground, and abruptly remembered where he’d heard the name “Menlo” before.

  Menlo Park had been home to one of the most famous American men in history.

  Thomas Edison.

  23

  The small driver’s cab of the Menlo Express was unusual in that it contained no actual driving controls. As Arthur and the others huddled inside, he started to feel increasingly twitchy, wondering what lay in store in the next part of the realm-challenge.

  “The Menlo Express travels in one direction,” Milo said, lowering a window in a door on the left and pointing ahead of them. “Forwards.”

  A breeze blew in from outside, carrying the candyfloss scent of the fairground. On the opposite side of the cab was a door with another window, and at the front, a Hxperion-branded motorbike helmet hung from a hook on the wall. Other than that, the tiny space was empty. “The gears, acceleration and brakes are configured automatically,” Milo continued. “All we can do is start the engine.”

  “And how do we do that?” Ren asked, scanning the room. “There’s nothing here.”

  Arthur had already seen from the outside that the Menlo Express wasn’t a steam train. Knowing the locomotive was themed around Thomas Edison, he recalled what he knew of the inventor’s history. As luck would have it, they’d done a whole project on him in physics last term. Edison had been an important figure in the War of the Currents – a technological battle to see who could introduce electric power to America first. “The train could run on electricity,” he speculated. “Perhaps there’s another set of switches somewhere?”

  “Ah, she uses far more environmentally friendly fuel than that,” Milo said excitedly. He unhooked the motorcycle helmet from the wall. Its black shell was slightly transparent and Arthur could see lights glowing under the surface. “The Menlo Express is powered by ideas.”

  As Milo pulled on the helmet, Arthur found himself smiling at how apt that was. He remembered his physics teacher saying Edison had believed that ideas moved us forward. It made perfect sense, then, that a train named the Menlo Express would be powered by them.

  There was a low rumble as the floor vibrated and the train jerked. Arthur steadied himself against the wall as they started rolling forward. “That will only get us so far,” Milo said, pulling off the helmet and offering it to Arthur. “You try. The more original the idea, the more power it gives the train.”

  Arthur hesitated, realizing what must have just happened – the train’s engine had sparked to life because Milo had fed it an idea through the helmet, somehow. “Err…” He wiped his sweaty hands on the back of his jeans, before accepting the helmet from Milo. “Can it be any idea at all?”

  Milo nodded. “One from each of you should give us enough power to take us where we need to go.”

  Arthur glanced uncertainly at Ren and Cecily before wiggling the helmet over his head.

  Tiny lights flashed inside. The mix of colours – purple, yellow, green, red and blue – gave him the disorientating feeling of being inside a disco ball. He furrowed his brow and tried to think of something brilliant.

  Unfortunately, the first thing that popped into his mind was an idea for a garden gnome burglar defence system. As he considered how it might work (the gnomes would have cameras in their eyes and invisible laser beams shooting from the ends of their fishing rods), he felt the floor wobble and had to steady his legs as the train sped up.

  Ren slapped him on the back as he took the helmet off. “Good one,” she said. “What did you think of?” When he told her, she laughed. “I’ve got my idea already,” she said. “Spaghetti Bolognese toasties – best invention I’ve ever come up with.”

  Cecily crinkled her nose. “Yuck, they sound gross.”

  “Sound gross and look gross,” Ren agreed proudly. “But taste delicious.”

  The train sped up once Ren had the helmet on, and accelerated again when it was Cecily’s turn. “It’s difficult to think of something under pressure,” Cecily admitted, pulling the helmet off. “I thought about those awful make-up-themed weapons the V-classes use and imagined a shield to defend against them. You wear it as a necklace, and when you’re attacked it turns really big to save you. Oh, and it matches whatever outfit you’re wearing.”

  Arthur laughed and stuck his head out of the window as they left the fairground behind and ventured across the dusty, red land. Wind roared in his ears. “Where are we going?”

  “Can you see the mountains in the distance?” Milo asked.

  Arthur squinted. An outcrop of jagged orange rocks crowded the horizon.

  “There’s a train station on the other side. In order to get there, we have to switch to another set of tracks while the train is still in motion – that’s the challenge. If we don’t move onto the new tracks, these ones take the train all the way back to the fairground.”

  Arthur remembered the riddle scroll hanging in the first carriage. Only dreams and innovation will bring the train into the station. The clues had been there all along.

  Milo’s finger squeaked as he drew a traffic light in the condensation on the opposite, closed window. “The points are controlled by a mechanical lever that looks like this. It has three numbered paddles on it. We have to hit the correct one as we go past. Trouble is, the correct one changes every time.”

  “So how do we know which one to hit?” Ren asked. “Is it just down to luck?”

  Arthur could hear the worry in her voice. With all that was at stake, they couldn’t afford to rely on chance.

  “Right before the switch, the train passes through a tunnel,” Milo explained, cleaning a large circle in the condensation with his sleeve. “Three numbers appear on the walls of the tunnel at the exact same moment. Added together, they give you the number of the paddle we need to hit.”

  Arthur puzzled it through logically. “So one of us should remain here at the front of the train, ready to hit the paddle. The other three will need to be positioned along the train at different points in order to see the numbers.”

  “Then we just need to find a way to communicate the numbers to the person at the front,” Cecily said, following.

  Milo smiled at them. “Exactly.”

  “Ren, you should be at the head of the train,” Arthur decided. “You’ve got the best chance of hitting the correct paddle with an arrow.”

  Milo glanced at the huge bow slung over Ren’s shoulders. “What other Wonderskills have you three collected?”

  “Arthur has an encyclopaedia in his head and I’m a human compass,” Cecily answered. “If I remember correctly, I don’t think there was a Wonderskill mentioned in the loot for Wangari Maathai’s realm-challenge.”

  “Wangari Maathai?” Milo’s face brightened. “No, I designed that realm. Instead of a Wonderskill, every time a wanderer completes the challenge Hxperion donates DIRT to the Intergalactic Green Belt Movement.” He added with a huff, “Tiburon only allowed it because Valeria said it would be good for PR.”

  Arthur liked the idea. Wangari Maathai would certainly approve.

  The cab swayed as they ran over an uneven section of track, and the carriage behind rattled. “How are we going to communicate with Ren? It’s too noisy for us to shout out of the window at her,” Arthur noted.

  “I’ve had years to design a solution to that,” Milo said. “Come back inside, I’ll show you.”

  Arthur was expecting something high-tech, maybe involving holograms or nano-particles. What he got was rubber ducks.

  “As soon as you see your number appear on the tunnel w
all, you write it on a duck,” Milo explained, standing next to an inflatable pond full of the yellow plastic birds. He’d obviously gathered them from the hook-a-duck stand in the fairground. “Then you attach it to this,” he continued, signalling to a rope strung outside. “It’s connected to a system of pulleys and runs the entire length of the Menlo Express.”

  Arthur hadn’t noticed the rope before – perhaps because it was fixed to the opposite side of the train from where they’d boarded. “Pulling on the rope will carry your duck all the way to Ren,” Milo continued. “Then she just needs to add all three numbers together and shoot at the correct target.”

  Ren smiled nervously. Arthur figured this would probably be the most important calculation she ever did.

  With fifteen minutes to go before they reached the tunnel, they got into position. Milo handed them each a bag of candyfloss – the only food he had an unlimited supply of – and as Arthur waited alone, he devoured the entire portion. The instant sugar rush was just what he needed to keep focused.

  His nerves bubbled as he gripped his rubber duck in one trembling hand and a lidless marker pen in the other. Through the open window in front of him, the landscape of Naeres flashed past in an orange-red blur. Arthur hadn’t faced a Wonderscape challenge without Ren and Cecily by his side before, and he could feel the difference. His legs were more jelly-like, his belly somersaulting as if it were doing an Olympic display routine. When the three of them were together, he felt stronger. That was the power of friends. “See the number, write the number on the duck, send the duck to Ren,” he drilled to himself. He hoped the others were managing to keep their anxiety in check better than he was.

  Outside, it abruptly fell dark. Arthur tensed, knowing they must have entered the tunnel. He could hear the hiss and rattle of the train wheels echoing inside.

  Breathing deeply, he concentrated on the rocky wall, determined not to mess up.

  Seconds passed that felt like minutes.

  Then a number flashed in red light on the stone. 16.