The 8th Continent
Page 17
Rick took a break from video games. “The eighth continent is cooler than any game. Think of everything we can do! We have to start building. We need trees, and roads, and houses—tree houses, of course. We can build laboratories, and a school, a town hall, anything we want!”
But the truth was, Rick didn’t need all that. All he needed he already had: his parents, his sister, a new pet tiger cat, and the continent. From there he could start cleaning up the rest of the world. The Eden Compound was gone, but there was still a lot of garbage out there making the planet sick. He would need to come up with new ways to solve that problem. It was something to be proud of, a mission for Lane Industries, his father, and himself.
On a small hilltop on the south side of the continent, overlooking the ocean, they built a stone marker as a remembrance of their friend Doctor Evan Grant. Niels Bohr sunned himself on the hilltop every day, until the afternoon, when Rick and Evie would come with their parents to pay their respects, and the tiger cat would follow them back to the beach for supper.
At the edge of the continent, Rick sat around a fire with his family, the first settlers of this new world. There would be a lot of work, and many more adventures, but for the moment, Rick was happy to relax, enjoy his success, and imagine the possibilities.
“Hey, what’s that?” Evie asked as she blew on the flaming marshmallow she was holding on a stick.
Rick followed her gaze. Near the horizon, silhouetted by the setting sun behind them, a number of shadowy shapes moved across the water, toward the continent. “What is that?”
Dad put down his guitar and rose from his lawn chair. “I could fire up the Roost, check it out.”
“No . . .” Rick said. “I think I can see it. It’s . . . they’re . . . animals.”
Dozens of them moved across the water, birds and eels and ferrets and grizzly bears, flying and slithering and swimming toward the continent. And in the middle of the pack, a giant bullet-shaped shark. Rick could see that even though his family had just created the eighth continent, someone was already trying to take it away, and Rick knew who.
For the animals were made of plastic.
And they were pink.
MATT LONDON (http://themattlondon.com) is a writer, video game designer, and avid recycler who has published short fiction and articles about movies, TV, video games, and other nerdy stuff. Matt is a graduate of The Clarion Writers Workshop, and studied computers, cameras, rockets, and robots at New York University. When not investigating lost civilizations, Matt explores the mysterious island where he lives — Manhattan.
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