by Lucy Hawking
George knelt down beside him on the earthy forest floor, interrupting the trails of insects, which busied themselves finding new paths around him. Life, thought George, his mind wandering from the shock, was a mystery in Eden. Robots seemed alive; cities were dead. The only species that appeared to thrive were insects. Extinct beasts had returned, but anything normal seemed to have perished. And now his last link with the life he knew before was in terrible trouble.
“You mean much more to me than just a machine!” said George. “You’re my friend! You traveled through space with me!”
“Thank you,” said Boltzmann. “All I ever wanted was to make a friend who was human. It was my only aim. Happy now.” The robot closed his eyes.
“You’re such a good robot,” said George, who felt tears welling in his eyes again. Boltzmann had been with him through the whole extraordinary adventure of space; the surprise launch from Kosmodrome 2 to fly across the Universe and then back home again, only to find that it wasn’t home anymore. Without Boltzmann, George felt abandoned in this strange world of the future.
“I’ll mend you,” he said desperately, trying to gather up the pieces of Boltzmann. “I’ll carry you to a place where you can be fixed.”
“No,” ordered the “nice robot,” the only one of its kind ever built. Created by the insane megalomaniac Alioth Merak, Boltzmann had been a fluke, a robot that had gained sentience and been programmed to be as nice as possible. Even Alioth Merak had never quite understood how it was he came to create Boltzmann in this way. The other robots had been cruel and mean, happy to trample over any form of life to fulfill their master’s wishes. There had only ever been one Boltzmann, and now it looked like George was losing his unique automated friend when he needed him most.
“You can’t fix me,” said Boltzmann. “I’m ending. The tranquilizer dart is my last action—shooting it automatically causes my systems to start shutting down.”
“Why?” shouted George. “Why would that happen?”
“It’s how Mr. Merak made me,” said Boltzmann meekly. “It was to make sure I couldn’t fall into enemy hands. It was meant to be used only in the most dire circumstances, to give me time to clear my systems so that no information could be stolen . . . Take the device in my palm!” He held out a robot hand.
“What?” said George.
“Take it!” said Boltzmann. “Take the Digitizer! So you can contact Empyrean.”
George held the robot’s hand. In his palm was a small device that George would have to break off. He couldn’t bear to do it while his robot was still alive. It felt like ripping off a body part. He just couldn’t mutilate his poor old friend any further.
“Take it,” rasped the robot, opening his robot eyes again; but they were dim, no longer the fiery bright oculorum of the past. “The plan . . .”
“What is the plan?” said George frantically. Not only was he about to lose his friend, he was also going to lose every piece of information about this journey and what he was meant to do. “Where do I take Hero? What do I do?”
“Get to Edenopolis,” said the old robot. “There, you will find . . .”
“What?” said George desperately. “What will I find?” But there was no reply. It was already too late. Boltzmann—George’s friend and helper, his protector in this alien wilderness, the holder of the “plan”—was no more.
“Noooooo!” said George. He bent over the poor old battered body of his robot. He banged his forehead softly against Boltzmann’s chest. “No!” He laid his head down on the cool metal and wept. He cried, not just for Boltzmann but for everything he’d lost: his mom, his dad, his sisters, his best friend, Annie. And for his way of life—a way of life he had thought was so normal and so everyday—well, apart from the occasional journey into space through Cosmos’s incredible doorway portal.
George had never seriously considered that, if he went away, by the time he returned everything he loved would be overturned and destroyed. It wasn’t just his house, his street, his family that had disappeared. The Earth had changed beyond all recognition. Nothing was as he had left it. He lay there, head on Boltzmann’s chest, while his salty tears turned metallic as they ran down the nice robot’s chest. George was so exhausted now that he couldn’t even feel afraid.
He didn’t know how long he stayed there, but it was some time before he thought hazily that he should probably get up from his position half on Boltzmann, half on the fig forest floor. As he gazed blurrily upward, he could now make out shapes among the trees—shapes that looked like they had once been buildings. They were, he realized, lying in the middle of what could have been a main road. On either side were the half-shells of structures—here a doorway, there part of a window frame. There was even a streetlight tangled up in the fig forest. The light no longer shone—and it wouldn’t be long before the upright metal pole was overtaken entirely by the vegetation.
He was so tired. He knew he had to get up, rouse Hero, and carry on toward the city of Edenopolis, then to the floating island of na-h Alba. But he had no map in his pocket any longer, no idea which direction to take, or how to keep Hero safe in this weird, dangerous world.
George must have dropped off, for the next thing he knew, the light in the misty fig forest had changed color. It was now a dusty yellow, shining with a brightness that made it hard to see anything.
But it wasn’t the light that had woken George. Someone was nudging his leg with their foot. George looked up, shading his eyes with his hand. He thought it must be Hero, but then realized with a jolt that a strange, shaggy shape was leaning over him. George opened his mouth to yell, but the apparition was too quick for him. Just as George was about to set up a huge clamour, he found that his mouth was filled with something soft and fluffy that stopped him from speaking.
“Don’t shout,” said the new arrival, sounding as though it might burst into laughter at any time. “You’ll draw the Child Hunter.”
Whoever the shaggy shape was, it spoke with the clear voice of a human boy.
Chapter Thirteen
“Who are you?” George tried to say through a mouthful of what felt like fur. But all that came out was: “Oo ag u?” With the light streaming behind it, all he could see was the outline of something like a badger—it had a black-and-white striped fur pelt and small ears.
“Shh!” The figure reached up with a very human hand and pulled away the black-and-white hood. George could now see two very bright eyes twinkling in a round face.
“Hello! I’m Atticus. More to the point, who are you? And what are you doing in my forest?”
George pointed to the fur gag in his mouth and shook his head. He pulled a pleading face that made Atticus laugh.
“Okay, I’ll take it out,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “But don’t shout! I’m friendly—but not everyone in this forest is like me.”
George nodded, and Atticus undid the fur gag, pulled George to his feet, and brushed him down.
“Some of the others,” Atticus continued, grimacing, “they’re not so much fun. You’re lucky I found you.” He looked at the tiger down below and gave George a big grin. “You knocked that crazy old thing out! Good work.”
“It wasn’t me,” said George. “It was my friend!” He gulped.
“What, that small human,” said Atticus, looking in surprise at the still sleeping form of Hero, “took out that tiger?”
“No, the metal man, over there,” said George. Atticus was so bizarrely clad that George thought he might not have heard of robots.
“A metal man,” said Atticus reflectively. “Not much of him left, is there? The old tiger went to work on your metal friend.”
George’s heart gave a lurch as he realized that Boltzmann was little more than a pile of scrap now.
“And who is this?” Atticus poked Hero with his toe. She slept on, unmoving.
George had already decided he liked Atticus, and in this strange world the one thing he really needed was a new friend. “That is Hero. And I’m Geo
rge,” he said.
“Funny name,” said Atticus.
Perhaps Atticus is a totally normal name for a boy of the future, George thought. He coughed a few times.
“Here, drink this,” said Atticus, handing over what looked like a flask made of animal hide. “It’s okay, it’s just clean water.”
George took a grateful slurp.
“How did you . . . ?” Atticus seemed to be thinking. “How did you come to be in my forest with a hero and a metal man?”
“It’s a long story,” said George. Truthfully.
“Great!” enthused Atticus. “You can tell it at the Gathering! They love long stories.” Even though George really didn’t know what Atticus was talking about, he couldn’t help grinning back. But, just as he did, Atticus ducked down, put his ear to the ground, and then jumped up again.
“We have to go!” he declared. “News of the tiger has spread. And there’s a rumor the Child Hunter is in the forest, out looking . . . Let’s not wait to find out! Come on!”
George pointed to Hero.
“Ah!” said Atticus. “We can’t leave the hero behind.”
“Actually, her name is Hero,” said George, who felt a bit silly trying to explain. “She isn’t really a hero.”
“Perhaps she will be one day,” said Atticus cheerfully. “But not if we leave her here in the forest.”
With no more effort than Boltzmann, the boy hitched Hero up over his shoulder, the wiry muscles in his arms flexing only slightly.
“Ready?”
George blinked. “You can carry her?” He had tried earlier and hadn’t been able to hoist her a centimeter off the ground.
“I could carry the tiger if I wanted,” boasted Atticus, puffing out his thin chest.
“No you couldn’t!” scoffed George, whose jumpsuit was now so covered in mud, leaves, and bits of debris that he looked pretty similar to Atticus, minus the fur hood.
Atticus grinned again. “Probably not a good idea anyway. The mad beast might wake up and bite my head off!” He sniffed the wind again and set off while chattering away, with Hero bobbing over his shoulder. “You’ve arrived on our auspicious day as well. My mom hasn’t promised anything but I really, really want to move up to the next level at the Gathering tonight . . .”
“Wait!” said George, running back to the inert figure of Boltzmann. Atticus clearly didn’t have an iPhone in his jacket pocket, and George realized that if he didn’t brace himself to do it now, he would walk away without what was possibly the only communication device in the whole forest. “Sorry, Boltz,” he said as he snapped the Digitizer out of the remains of the robot’s hand and stuffed it into his pocket. “What’s a level?” he said, catching up with Atticus.
“Of the Warrior Kingdom!” said Atticus in surprise. “Don’t they have a Warrior Kingdom where you come from? Wherever that is?”
“Not really,” said George. Only in computer games, he thought, but he didn’t know how to explain that to Atticus. They were still clambering through undergrowth, but this time following a path. Atticus stopped suddenly and seemed to examine the air itself. As the light had gotten brighter and more yellow, the forest was coming to life—George could hear birds calling to each other, monkeys chattering, insects whirring and, below all the other noises, a lower-pitched, more frightening distant burr, as though something menacing was on the move once more.
“We need to go up,” Atticus said quietly. “We’re not safe down here. I think I can smell Child Hunter on the wind.”
“What’s a Child Hunter?” asked George. Whoever or whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.
“No one we want to meet,” said Atticus. “He’d try to stuff us in a sack and drag us out of the forest.”
“But why?” said George.
“Because it’s the way Eden works,” said Atticus, all traces of merriment wiped off his face, his eyes hard. “You know how they say it’s the best of all possible worlds? It isn’t. It’s the worst.” He lowered Hero gently onto the forest floor. “Come on, little hero!” He shook her firmly with both hands. Hero stirred. Atticus bent down and pinched the fleshy part of her earlobes. “Up!” he said cheerfully when Hero opened her eyes. “Come along! Time to move!”
Hero opened her mouth wide to protest, but Atticus was too quick for her. He clapped a dirty hand across her face, and with the other hand pulled her to her feet.
George intervened. “Be careful with her,” he said. “She’s not used to the forest.”
“She’s going to slow us down,” said Atticus warily. “We need to get up top fast.” As if to underline his words, a louder rumbling roar filtered through the forest.
“She’ll manage,” said George, hoping that Hero would.
Atticus took his hand away from Hero’s mouth. She looked furious.
“Slow you down!” she said in high dudgeon. “As if! People”—she glared at Atticus—“should stop carrying me! I’m not a baby and I don’t like it!”
“Okay!” said Atticus, laughing and grabbing onto a low branch of a gnarled fig tree. “You’re on! Last one to the top is a rotten apple!” He swung himself up, followed nimbly by George, who had always loved climbing trees.
George followed Atticus up and up—but, when he looked back, Hero was still standing on the ground, her mouth a perfect “O” of surprise.
“Hero!” hissed George. “Hurry!” From his tree vantage point, he could make out something large and heavy moving stealthily across the forest toward her. The tiger! It had woken up—and it was both hungry and angry now.
Hero didn’t move. Despite her brave words, she seemed stuck to the ground. “I can’t!” she whispered. “I just—can’t!”
“Hero!” Atticus said urgently from higher up. “Jump! Jump up! George—do not go back down!”
“I have to,” said George. He couldn’t abandon her now. He scrambled back down onto the forest floor and grabbed Hero by the shoulders. “Climb the tree,” he said. “Just get off the ground.”
“I can’t!” she said. “I’ve never climbed a tree!”
George thought of the trees in the Bubble. Of course she’d never climbed one. An alarm would probably have gone off if she’d tried, and she would have had marks docked from her overall score! Hero had done so little in the real world, and yet now she had to learn everything all at once in order to survive. But George had seen a flash of another Hero in the way she had tried to protect Boltzmann from the tiger—and he knew she could do this too.
“And you’d never left the Bubble, flown into a lightning storm, eaten a fig, walked through the Swamp, or fought a tiger!” said George. “But you did all those things, Hero. You can do this! Just pretend it’s your virtual gymnastics class!”
Atticus had climbed back down and was leaning out of the tree, holding out his arm. “Grab my hand,” he urged.
Hero looked dubiously at his filthy hand, and George could almost read the thoughts going through her mind about bad bacteria and germs. But then she looked at her own hand, and saw that it was every bit as grubby as his. The tiger behind them gave a fearsome growl, at which point Hero grabbed Atticus’s hand and pulled herself into the tree. Immediately George swung himself up after her, shoving her into the higher branches as he clambered up.
But this time the delay had worked in the tiger’s favor and not George’s. The furious animal was now right underneath the tree and was determined not to let George get away twice. Desperate to secure its tasty catch, the tiger threw itself after them into the tree. To George’s horror, he realized that the tiger knew how to climb! It inched itself up the trunk, using its huge claws and the strength in its mighty legs to move way too fast for George’s liking.
Above George, Hero frantically scrambled upward, following Atticus. Below him, the tiger pawed at the branches, trying to dislodge its prey. But George was already out of reach—except for his left leg, which the tiger sliced into with its sharp claws, making a nasty cut through his jumpsuit into the flesh below.
“Ouch!” George cried, as quietly as he could. The tiger’s cut stung, but he had to keep moving up into the tree. Underneath him, the tiger was desperately trying to hoist itself higher.
“The tiger’s coming up!” shrieked Hero from above him as she clambered into the branches. George could hear the panting breath of the animal as he scaled higher himself.
“This way!” Atticus had reached the highest stable branch, from where he jumped into the next tree, flying like a bird into the higher canopy. To George’s amazement, Hero followed him. George, his leg throbbing, had to struggle to throw himself after them, only just catching onto a light branch. The others had already moved into the thick greenery. George, tired and injured, pushed himself into the canopy after them. He could hear the tiger roaring in fury that its prey had finally escaped—the beast was too heavy for the small branches higher up.
Inside the shaded, leafy dome of the next tree, George saw the others disappearing onto what looked like a slim, concealed walkway stretching between the treetops.
“Follow me,” said Atticus, stepping onto the suspended bridge. It was made of dense forest materials, bound and woven into thick ropes.
“What is this?” said George in amazement.
“It’s how we get around,” said Atticus proudly. “Our people built these all over the forest so that we could move about without being attacked. It’s too light to support a beast like the tiger.” The walkway swayed as he stood on it, waiting for the other two to follow him.
“Is it safe?” said Hero doubtfully.
“Safer than spending time with a saber-toothed tiger!” sang Atticus. “Or the Child Hunter.”
“The who?” said Hero.
“A bad man,” said Atticus, “who we’re going to outwit.”
“Oh goody!” said Hero in delight. Unexpectedly she seemed to be enjoying herself! George felt a pang as he remembered Boltzmann, his other friend, who also had enjoyed unlikely situations. He would not lose Hero, he told himself. He would get her to her destination. But something was really bothering him.