George and the Ship of Time

by Lucy Hawking

  “We need to find a hiding place,” said Boltz-mann. “We are in danger.”

  “Can you spot anywhere to go?” said George. All he could see was more empty ground stretching as far as the horizon.

  “Nope,” said Boltzmann, whose eyes were still on the patrol bots behind him. “They are getting closer.”

  George lifted his head and pointed. “But what’s that? Look! Over here!” A dust cloud was crossing the desert, indicating that something or someone was traveling at speed straight for them.

  “My head is stuck!” Boltzmann sounded as close to panic as a robot ever gets as he realized that he couldn’t wind his head back around to face forward. “I can’t see where you are pointing.”

  “Stop!” yelled George. “And put me down.”

  Boltzmann set George down on the ground and winched his head back around so it was facing the right way. As he did so, George peered at the oncoming cloud. He thought he could make out a shape inside it.

  I can’t be right, he thought to himself. I must be dreaming! The dust cloud continued toward them, and George, just as he would have done on his home street in the old Foxbridge, stuck out his hand to hail it. The dust cloud stopped and the object came into perfect focus.

  It was a school bus. Here, in the middle of the desert, under the blazing curdled sky, stood a very ordinary yellow school bus.

  The doors opened.

  “Come on,” said George, who was already halfway up the steps. Boltzmann was hesitating. “Get in.”

  “I don’t know,” fretted the robot. “Are you sure?”

  “Do you want to be caught by them?” said George, pointing at the patrol bots, which were close enough now for him to make out their many eyes on swivel stalks, their antennae, their curved carapaces and robotic limbs.

  “No thanks!” said Boltzmann, jumping into the bus behind George. The doors slammed shut behind them and the bus set off at great speed.

  George looked around him. To his surprise, he saw that the bus was full of small kids, all wearing large headsets, seemingly lost in their own worlds. None of them had noticed the stop or the new passengers. Next to each child sat a robot. But they weren’t like Boltzmann—a huge, hulking piece of robotic technology. These were of a very different type, each robot obviously customized to suit the personality of its owner.

  There was a cute, kitty-faced android sitting next to a small girl dressed in pink. A sporty-looking boy had a racer robot. At the back, an older girl with a long black ponytail sat with a serious-faced robot in heavy-framed glasses. To George’s surprise, no one paid him or Boltzmann any attention at all.

  Or so he thought, until he looked again and realized that the robot wearing glasses seemed to have fixated on him. Unnerved, George looked for an empty seat and motioned to Boltzmann to sit down beside him. He looked around at the other passengers on the bus.

  “They’re schoolkids!”

  “And they all seem to have a robot . . .” noted Boltzmann approvingly. “How sensible! Things are looking up! What’s our plan?”

  “This bus must be going somewhere,” improvised George. “And, as it’s full of kids, it’s got to be going somewhere kids are welcome, right?”

  “Right!” agreed Boltzmann absentmindedly, waving out of the window at the patrol bots, which were angrily tapping on the side of the bus.

  “They don’t look happy,” said George.

  “I don’t think happy is their primary purpose,” said Boltzmann smugly. “After all, not everyone can be a nice robot like me.”

  But, as the bus gained speed, the bots suddenly stopped in their tracks, as though they had hit an invisible wall. Wheeling around very slowly, they started to travel back in the direction they had come from, without a backward glance at the bus.

  “Why did they stop?” said George.

  “It looks as though they received a command,” said Boltzmann. They both turned around. The robot with the heavy-framed glasses seemed to be staring out of the window in the direction of the bots. “At least they’ve left us. What do we do now?”

  “If we tag along with this lot,” whispered George, “maybe we’ll find out how to get to Foxbridge, and then we can surprise my family and get things back to normal once more . . .” He trailed off. Something told him that “normal” was a very long way off.

  As the only passengers on the bus not wearing huge headsets, George and Boltzmann stared silently out the window at the view for the rest of the journey. They both seemed to have gone to a place beyond speech. The awful landscape, the silent children, the strange-looking robots and even the air itself felt so alien to George that he found himself fighting back tears.

  Was this really home? Was this really the place he had dreamed of during his space sleeps? At the same time, he was starting to feel afraid, really afraid, like never before. Fear seeped through his whole being the way an icy drink spreads coldness through a warm body. If the terror reached his heart, George wondered if it would just stop beating entirely, frozen through shock and disappointment.

  “Act normal,” he told himself. “Don’t give in to the fear! Just act normal. It’ll all be fine.”

  Outside the bus, the desert stretched away in all directions, with only scrubby little bushes and scraps of vegetation clinging to the barren surface. A few living things scurried about—a huge yellow snake uncoiled itself to try to catch a leather-winged flying frog while a group of rat-faced mini-pigs dashed alongside the bus.

  Finally something solid emerged from the dust in front of them and the bus came to a large, high fence and a set of gates. The gates opened automatically as the bus approached and George suddenly noticed something: the bus had no driver.

  “There’re no grown-ups on board,” he pointed out to Boltzmann. “Isn’t that kinda weird? All these really young kids on a bus with no one to look after them?”

  But Boltzmann wasn’t an expert on matters like childcare and didn’t seem bothered. Anyway, he had seen something far more interesting.

  “Look!” he said.

  Inside the desert compound stood a gleaming array of strangely shaped buildings, shining silver in the brilliant sunshine. At the entrance to what appeared to be the main building they saw a huge illuminated 3D sign, which seemed to hover, unsupported, above the doorway.

  WELCOME, it said, TO THE EDEN CORPORATION. And then, underneath, it proclaimed: THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS!

  Chapter Three

  “Eden?” said George, blinking in the bright light outside the bus. As soon as the Eden Corporation came into view, the kids on the bus had, in perfect synchronicity, taken off their headsets and lined up to get off. “That’s what the mini bots said. What does it mean?”

  “The Garden of,” said Boltzmann, standing beside him. “The origin of life, according to some sources.”

  “Why does it say ‘the best of all possible worlds’?” asked George. But at that moment the children and their robots formed a crocodile and docilely marched forward into the building. “Let’s follow,” he hissed.

  Boltzmann brought up the rear, towering above the tiny schoolchildren and their robots. George had no idea what to do except look for someone who might be able to help them—or at least explain where they were and what was going on.

  They followed the kids, still walking in double file with their robots, and walked behind, with the bigger pony-tailed girl and her robot at the back. They filed into the center of a beautiful domed building.

  “We must be blending in!” said Boltzmann happily. But in fact he and George, scruffy, travel-stained, battered, and weary-looking, couldn’t have looked less like the procession of tidy, clean, and beautifully behaved schoolchildren with their eccentric but neat-looking robots.

  “I don’t think we are,” said George, puzzled. “Though they don’t seem to notice what’s around them at all. It’s like we’re not even here.”

  But he had spoken too soon. Suddenly the bigger girl, with the sleek-looking robot in glasses s
tanding next to her, turned and spotted them. She stared in astonishment at George, looking him up and down as though he’d just fallen from the sky—which, of course, he had, only she didn’t know that.

  “Excuse me!” she exclaimed. “Who are you? And what are you doing on our school trip? Oh, best of all worlds!” She struck herself on the forehead with the flat of her hand. “That was two questions. I’ll be near my limit in just a couple of Dumps!”

  George had no idea what she was talking about. He tried to think of some excuse that would explain quite what he was doing in the middle of the desert wearing a spacesuit, in the company of an outsize, caramelized robot. But his brain was too foggy for him to invent something so he fell back on the truth.

  “I’m . . . I’m . . .” he replied.

  Just then, the girl’s robot moved forward and whispered something in her ear. Her expression changed. “Ohh!” she said, her dark eyes very round and shiny. She looked at George with sympathy now. “Oh, I see!”

  George felt even more confused. He glanced up and caught the eye of the girl’s robot. Did he imagine it or did the robot in glasses give him the ghost of a wink?

  “I’m so sorry,” said the girl sympathetically. “How awful for you! And you’ve lost everything! I’m so sorry. My robot says you’re a refugee.” She whispered the last word. “And that I can’t ask any more questions today because I’ve hit my question max.”

  George was lost for words, but fortunately Boltzmann was not. He used all his newfound human sensitivity to play along. “Yes,” said the giant, scruffy robot sadly. “It was so sad.” He sounded like he might burst into tears.

  “You crossed the Divide?” the girl whispered. “You come from Other Side?” She turned to her robot. “Those weren’t questions!” she said quickly. “They were statements!”

  Boltzmann nodded bravely. “I can’t talk about it.” He sighed, tapping his nose with one robot finger. “Too painful.”

  “Of course,” said the girl hurriedly. “I’ll never mention it again. Welcome! You’ll be safe now you’re in Eden.”

  “It’s the best of all possible worlds,” chimed in her robot smoothly, with what George faintly thought might have been a trace of sarcasm. “I think you’ll find.”

  “You must be so courageous,” said the girl. She turned to her robot. “Can I use some of tomorrow’s question allowance? Please? I’ll be really good and ask nothing tomorrow.”

  The robot nodded.

  “Were you in the desert at a secret quarantine facility?”

  “Yes,” said George, recovering his voice. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He’d been pretty well quarantined in space.

  “I see you’ve gone retro with your robotics,” said the girl. “What a museum piece!”

  Boltzmann grimaced but said nothing.

  “Wow, well, if you are the best Other Side have to offer, then there isn’t so much to be afraid of after all!” said the girl. “Mind you, since you blocked all our channels, we know very little about you. What’s your name?”

  “George,” said George. “What’s yours?”

  “Hero,” said the girl. “My name is Hero.”

  “My sister’s named Hera,” said George, wondering where his naughty twin siblings were now.

  Hero looked perplexed and echoed, “Sister?”

  But the smaller kids were getting restless. They milled around George and Hero, forming a circle. They had taken off their headsets and were clasping them to their chests as though they were their most precious possessions. Each of them had a small tank on their back, not that different from George’s. Now he was close to them, he could see they all had face masks with tubes attached to the tanks as well.

  “Hello!” said a small girl, smiling up at George. “Who are you?”

  George felt relieved to hear one of them speak. It made it all seem less strange. “I’m George,” he said. “We haven’t met before.”

  “Is that your robot?” she asked, pointing at Boltzmann, who towered over this perky little group of people. Next to her stood a tiny and incredibly cute-looking robot with huge eyes, soft hair, and an expressive face.

  “Yes,” said George. Boltzmann smiled with his best “nice” robot face.

  “He looks scary,” said the small girl, shivering. Her robot immediately burst into tears. Boltzmann turned away to hide his hurt feelings.

  “IS HE YOURS?!” A small hyperactive boy bounced over to George, pointing up at Boltzmann.

  “Yup,” said George, nodding.

  “WOW, HE’S HUGE!” said the boy. This boy also had a robot with him, but his robot didn’t seem to have a sense of humor.

  “Your voice volume is too high, Herbert,” the robot droned at the boy. “I will have to check your blood-sugar levels and inform your guardian.”

  “OH, SOR— Sorree . . .” whispered the boy, looking chastened.

  “Who is actually in charge here?” George asked Hero. “Is there a grown-up?”

  “In charge?” Hero looked surprised. “Why do we need an adult to be in charge?”

  “Where’s your teacher?” asked George.

  Hero looked baffled. “We all have our robots with us and the robots are in constant contact with our guardians and with our school. That’s all we need. I’m surprised it isn’t the same in Other Side!”

  “The same in Other Side,” echoed George, not knowing what else to say.

  Hero’s robot chipped in. “Other Side is remarkably similar to Eden, except that of course it is completely different at the same time,” he said unhelpfully.

  “Huh?” said George.

  “I mean, on the surface, Other Side appears to be an entirely different regime from Eden, and yet in all fundamental ways it is exactly the same. If one didn’t know better, one would think they were identical,” the robot finished firmly.

  “The people,” George whispered to the robot, “in Other Side?”

  “Same as here,” said Hero’s robot. “Complete freedom. Just like Eden.”

  “Oh,” said George. Now he knew he hadn’t imagined the sarcasm in the robot’s tone.

  That was when they heard the voice. The empty circular area they stood in darkened.

  “Welcome to Eden, Future Leaders from Inside the Bubble. You are here to complete an educational module on the great habitats of the Earth. Right now, you are about to enjoy a personalized educational experience of the rain forest, an ecosystem that used to cover one third of the Earth but is now extinct. We have recreated the rain forest for you here in all its biodiversity!”

  “What?” said George to Boltzmann. “Why is the rain forest extinct?”

  Boltzmann motioned for George to look up.

  Following Boltzmann’s finger, George saw that, where the ceiling had been only moments before, light now streamed through a canopy of tall tropical trees, swaying in the wind. Farther down, long-tailed monkeys cried to each other while jumping through the thick growth. When he looked down at the ground, he saw that it was covered with long roots, mossy plants, curly ferns, flytraps and strange-shaped fungi. George reached out a hand to one of the carnivorous-looking plants—and it snapped at his finger as though trying to eat it. As he did so, he saw a robotic hand tweak a strand of hair out of one of the kids’ heads. He whirled around but the slender robotic paw disappeared almost immediately.

  “Watch out!” said Boltzmann as a bird with a brightly colored beak swooped down toward them, flapping in their faces.

  “Over there!” said George, spotting a dark, cat-like face peering at them through a spaghetti tumble of tree roots.

  “No, there!” said Boltzmann, pointing to an enormous silver primate in the distance, cautiously eyeing them while scratching its ear.

  “What is this?!” said George. “Are these real?”

  “Not, is my guess. This must be immersive virtual reality,” said Boltzmann, but he and George shrank closer and closer together as the predators seemed to start to take an interest. They began to back away
when a puma slunk nearer, narrowing its eyes as though it was judging the distance for a killer leap. As Boltzmann and George took another step back, they ricocheted into something behind them, something that felt warm and alive to George, something that made them both let out a—

  SCREAM!

  “Do you mind,” said Hero, “letting go of me?”

  Boltzmann and George shuffled their feet in embarrassment and let Hero go as the scene around them turned blue instead of green.

  “And this,” said the voice, “is the Great Barrier Reef! One of the marvels of the Ancient World, once home to millions of species who lived among the coral structures of this magical place. Sadly, in the best of all possible worlds we had to close the reef to visitors after the oceans boiled. But we can show you the beauty of this marine environment without you even getting your toes wet! We know your guardian bots wouldn’t like that! Ho ho ho,” chortled the voice mirthlessly.

  “Oh!” Some of the kids made a longing noise, as if getting their feet wet was exactly what they would like best. But they were soon distracted as giant sharks drifted above their heads and darting, colorful fish wove around them in shoals.

  “Here in Eden,” the voice continued, “we’re often asked—how do you make the nutritional products we live on so very tasty?! Well, we can tell you our secrets now.”

  The scene changed to a beautiful valley with golden fields of wheat bordered by orchards heavy with ripe fruit, the ground bursting with healthy-looking vegetables. George was transported back to his father’s garden. That had been full of vegetables and fruit, but also weeds, insects, birds, a compost heap, children’s toys, George’s tree house, and the old sty where once his pet pig, Freddy, had lived. That garden had been real, buzzing with life and energy, not like this image, which resembled a child’s picturebook illustration of what a farm should be. He must find his parents and Annie as soon as possible, thought George. Get out of this bizarre setup and then things would start to seem okay.