The 8th Continent (7 page)

THE WINTERPOLE SANITATION TRUCK PULLED INTO A MASSIVE GARBAGE DUMP OUTSIDE GENEVA.
It had a full load of office waste, broken computer punchcards, and cafeteria leftovers, so even the security guard at the front of the dump, who must have been accustomed to mysterious odors, held his nose and waved it inside.

Upon reaching the designated dump point, the truck backed up, tilted the container, and let the refuse fall.

The old diesel truck shifted gears, coughed smoke, and sputtered away.

A moment passed.

Evie burst out of the pile of steaming garbage, gasping for breath. “Bleeeeeyagh! My nose will never forgive me.”

Beside her, Rick's head emerged like a gopher from a hole. He gagged, wiping brown ketchup from his eyes. “
I
will never forgive you. That was your worst idea since . . . well, not that long ago, actually.” He removed the banana peel he had been wearing as a hat.

Evie ran her fingers through her hair, straining out eggshells and yolk. As usual, Rick failed to appreciate her brilliance. They were lucky she had spotted the garbage chute while they were on Mister Punchcard's Wild Ride—it was the only way they could sneak out of Winterpole Headquarters without getting caught. “I got us out of there, didn't I?” she said.

Rick extracted himself from the pile, looking quite green. “We could have just walked out like normal people if you hadn't felt the urge to hack us into that mess.”

“Aww, come on, Rick. Can't you admit that our high-speed chase was just a little fun?”

“No.” Rick activated the homing beacon he had programmed into his phone so that 2-Tor could find them. “I can't admit that.”

Evie crossed her arms, showing off her confidence. “You're just jealous because I'm so cool-tastic.”

“False. But Templeton thinks you're cool-tastic.”

“Who's Templeton?” Evie asked, then turned her head to see a rat six inches away, staring her in the face.

“Squeak!” said the rat.

“Yipes!” Evie jumped out of the trash and ran to Rick. “Where'd he come from?”

The roar of hover engines drew their attention skyward. The
Roost
emerged from a cloud and circled the dump. Evie never tired of watching the
Roost
fly. It looked so impossible, with its broad trunk, long branches, and canopy of leaves blowing in the jet stream.

The tree lowered a long tube, which slurped Rick and Evie up inside. They landed in the storage hold, where 2-Tor was waiting for them.

“By my bolts, children!” He flapped his metal wings. “My olfactory sensors must be going haywire.”

“Nah,” Evie said. “We just smell like garbage.”

“It's Evie's fault, 2-Tor. For a bunch of reasons.” He took a step away from his sister.

“My fault? If it weren't for me, you'd still be hanging from that punchcard like a crying monkey. ‘Oh, boo-hoo-hoo. I don't think this was a good idea.'”

“It wasn't a good idea. None of this has been.”

“I am most displeased with both of you,” 2-Tor scolded. “Most displeased. You are behind on your studies. You each have five more hours of homework, and you are overdue for a pop quiz.”

Evie stuck out her tongue. “A quiz? Is this really a good time?”

“It's always a good time for a quiz!” 2-Tor said cheerily. “Anatomy. The olfactory glands are used as detectors for which of the five senses?”

Rick adjusted his glasses with a flash of confidence. “2-Tor, this is totally unnecessary. You know that my vast intellect would ace any quiz you put before me. The answer is your sense of smell, by the way.”

“We have more important things to deal with right now.” Evie left the storage hold and headed for the sanitation room. “Like finding Doctor Grant and building the eighth continent.”

Rick followed her. “Evie's right. We have absolutely no time for further quiz questions.”

2-Tor beeped in protest. Evie smiled at her brother. “Aw, thanks, Rick. I'm sorry I yelled at you before.”

“That's okay,” Rick replied. “I may have gone a little overboard on the whole ‘it was Evie's fault' thing.”

They reached out to hug but quickly recoiled.

“Yeaaugh!” Rick retched. “You smell terrible! Like a wet sneaker filled with moldy turnips.”

Evie laughed. “So do you!”

After hot, soapy showers that left the kids feeling clean and refreshed, the Lane children reunited in the
Roost
's lounge to discuss the next phase of their plan.

“Here's what I found in the database,” Rick said, sharing with his sister the notes he'd taken on his phone. “After Dad and Doctor Grant canceled the Eden Compound project, Dad took over as the head of Lane Industries and started a family. Mastercorp assumed that because Doctor Grant was older and the project leader, he must have been the mastermind behind the compound. A big weapons manufacturer like Mastercorp was not about to let all the money they'd spent go to waste, so they pressured Doctor Grant into producing weapons for them.”

Evie interrupted, “That's so unfair. How could Mastercorp force Doctor Grant to make weapons?”

“From what I've read, you do not want to cross a company like Mastercorp,” Rick said. “Anyway, Winterpole's reports showed that Doctor Grant worked for Mastercorp for a while but hated it and fled the facility at the first opportunity. After that, Winterpole tracked him for several years as he worked on various projects independently. One of the last projects listed in Winterpole's records was an artificial island Doctor Grant was designing. Imagine, a raft the size of an island, with houses and a park and a virtual reality arcade right on top of it! They call it a seastead, like a homestead, but on the sea. I've read about them online.”

“It sounds like Dad's teacher was also trying to make an eighth continent. Cool!”

“I even found the coordinates of where Doctor Grant wanted to begin construction in the North Atlantic.”

“You know what we need to do?” Evie asked, bouncing like a puppy ready for a walk.

2-Tor snapped his metal beak. “Go home and study and not fall into any danger?”

Evie laughed out loud. “Oh, 2-Tor. You're so cute when you're overprotective.”

2-Tor's robotic voice grew quite agitated. “Little Miss, it would betray my programming to behave any other way. It is a wonder you haven't short-circuited me by now.”

Evie didn't have the heart to tell 2-Tor that she had tried to do just that many times. “Rick, chart a course for home.”

“Oh, I'm so glad you have finally seen reason!” 2-Tor's servos hummed with relief.

Evie giggled. “We're just refueling the
Roost
and then hurrying to the North Atlantic. We've got a scientist to find! Right, Rick?”

Rick gave no reply. His eyes were fixed on the view window on the port side of the
Roost
, a look of befuddlement on his flushed face.

Running to the window, Evie followed Rick's gaze. Flapping its little mechanical wings, just outside the window, was a pink robo-bird. It was the size of a pigeon, but plated with a hard plastic exoskeleton. The bird wore a gold tiara encrusted with rubies. Its eyes flashed. They were obviously cameras. As Evie reached the window, the camera eyes flashed again, and the bird dove out of view.

The kids ran to the cockpit to check their scanners for signs of the bird, but it was gone. Evie couldn't figure out where the bird had come from. She'd never seen a model like it before. It could have been one of her father's, but if that was the case, why wouldn't the bird have said hello? Why wouldn't Dad have told them he was sending a robo-bird to check on them?

Even if it was possible that her dad had sent the bird, something told Evie it wasn't a Lane design. She could feel it. Someone else had sent the bird, but who, Evie wasn't sure.

Less than a minute later, the
Roost
landed in the front yard of Lane Mansion. Rick and Evie ran up to the entrance, eager to get started on the next part of their adventure and forget about the mysterious bird.

“It's good to have some order for a change,” Rick said. “After all the chaos, it looks like we know where we're going next.”

Evie opened the front door, revealing the shadowy face of Mister Snow.

“Correct,” he said in a dark voice. “You are going to the Prison at the Pole.”

THE LANE MANSION LIVING ROOM HAD SHRUNK SINCE THE LAST TIME RICK HAD BEEN HOME.
In fact, it had shrunk so much it felt like the walls were closing in on him, tightening like some sort of ancient torture device.

He had never gotten in trouble before. It was always Evie and their dad who got punished for shirking responsibilities and breaking the rules. Rick was all milk and cookies after dinner and an extra hour of TV before bed. What was his mother going to say now? A whole family of delinquents under one roof.

Maybe Rick could pass off his involvement in Evie's scheme as an unwilling accomplice. Play dumb to the fact that she was waging a secret war against Winterpole, one of the most powerful institutions in the world.

But who would believe that lie? Kid genius Rick Lane, play dumb? Never.

As they sat on the sofa, it became clear that Evie had no clue how hot the water they were in was. While Dad struggled to scratch an itch under his squid-cuff, she was talking Mister Snow's ear off about injustice and the unassailable character of their bird-thief father.

“You have no right to punish us!” Evie shouted. “There's no crime in trying to free your father. We've done nothing wrong.”

Except the Winterpole inspector
did
have the right to penalize trespassers, hackers, and spies. All of which Rick and Evie were. So technically, according to Rick's calculations, they had done fourteen or fifteen things wrong.

Mister Snow took a sip of their mother's favorite tea. He had said, “Sorry, miss, just doing my job,” so many times he had given up on it, and now he pursed his lips and stared into his teacup without a sound.

For over an hour, that was how they sat, with Rick panicking about his fate, Evie protesting the system, and Mister Snow generating enough kinetic energy with his pursed lips to power a small battery.

The Winterpole officer jumped out of his chair when his pocket buzzed. He pulled out his flip phone and answered the call. “Agent Snow here. Yes. Yes. What?! But, Director, I—no! Hrrr . . . yes, Director. I understand.” He closed his phone with a defiant snap.

“You really don't need to punish my children,” Rick's father explained to the Winterpole agent. “I will make sure they are severely scolded.”

“I am afraid that will not suffice,” Mister Snow said. “However, Headquarters has just informed me that because your children are minors, we cannot penalize them as I would like. So, alas, Evelyn and Richard will not be visiting the prison at this time. Shame.” Mister Snow paused for a moment, as if taking in this devastating news once more. Then his face brightened. “But you are their guardian, and your crimes are already well documented, and you are not a minor—although your behavior sometimes leaves me wondering—so we will be adding to your punishments on behalf of your children.”

“What? No!” Evie exclaimed.

“You can't do that,” Rick said forcefully.

Mister Snow ignored them. “Consider this your final warning, Mister Lane. I have activated the electromagnetic-pulse function on your squid-cuff and set it to a two-foot radius. Like all EMPs, this one will fry any electronic devices it comes in contact with. No computers. No electricity. No outside communication.”

“No video games?” Rick asked, horrified.

Mister Snow's eyes narrowed as he regarded Rick's father. “If you or your children make any attempt to contact Doctor Evan Grant, we will not hesitate to send you to the Prison at the Pole.” The inspector finally glanced in Rick and Evie's direction. “This is for their own good. And besides, I don't even think that dangerous man is alive anymore.”

Rick abhorred violence, but he had half a mind to take a swing at Mister Snow. He stayed his hand, knowing it would only get his father in more trouble. “Now that you have ended our search and trapped my dad, are you going to call off that robo-bird you have following us around?”

“What are you talking about?” Mister Snow asked. “That big robot who flies your tree is
your
bird.”

“Not 2-Tor, the other one. The little pink one we saw spying on us.”

“I have never heard of such a device. Perhaps you imagined it, the way you imagined that I would not catch you. I always will, Richard Lane. Remember that.” The Lanes walked Mister Snow to the door as he continued to berate them. “Do as you're told, or you'll be out in the cold,” he snickered, amused with himself. “Hey! That kind of rhymed!”

They shut the front door behind Mister Snow as he hurried to his hovership, leaving Rick and Evie standing as close to their father as they could in a show of support. Unfortunately, “as close as they could” meant that they were actually more than two feet away. Any closer and his squid-cuff would destroy their cell phones.