Welcome to the Jungle (5 page)

THE
ROOST
SWEPT OVER THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY. RICK AND EVIE PRESSED THEIR NOSES AGAINST A
window, watching from their perch on the bridge as cedar forests and herds of longhorn cattle scrolled past.

“It's so green,” Evie remarked in surprise. “And look at the cute cities! I always thought Texas would be brown and desolate, like something out of an old western movie.”

“Nonsense,” Rick said, admiring the scenery. “If Texas was its own country, it would have the fourteenth largest economy in the world. It has almost twice the gross domestic product of Switzerland.”

“What's so gross about Switzerland's domestic product?”

Rick sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if you ask such silly questions on purpose. Not that kind of gross. It means the total value of everything the country produces; and although Texas is just a state, it produces a lot. Did you know that back a couple hundred years ago, Texas
was
its own country, called The Republic of Texas? They had a President and everything.”

“Heh!” Evie snorted. “You sound like 2-Tor. Is it time for a quiz?”

Rick tried to smile. “You wanna know the honest truth? I miss 2-Tor. Even with all our wild adventures, we've never been totally on our own before, without the supervision of 2-Tor or Mom or Dad. It doesn't feel safe.”

“I know!” Evie chirped. “Isn't it great?”

Before Rick could answer, music started playing from the command console, indicating that they were coming up on their destination.

Ahead they could see the snaking water of the Rio Grande, the river that divided the southern border of the United States from its neighbor Mexico. At a bend in the river, a patchwork of multicolored squares stretched northward like a quilt: farmland. From this distance, Evie couldn't identify the various crops, but the sheer diversity of them astounded her, especially in this environment. Sure, Texas wasn't a desert like she had expected, but still! They must have been using some seriously high-tech watering cans to get such plants to grow here.

Rick aimed the
Roost
at a small compound of portable buildings on the eastern side of the farm. Together, he and Evie braced themselves as their hovership landed on its shock-absorbent roots in front of the compound's gated entrance. Their stomachs flipped as the bridge realigned with the ship's new orientation.

Evie and Rick emerged from the
Roost
and were struck by the midday heat. Evie took off her blue hoodie and tied it around her waist, then rolled up her gray pants above her skinny knees. A Geneva Genomes baseball cap kept the sun out of her eyes. Rick's hair was damp with sweat, and although he had rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt, the under-parts of his elbows were soaked with perspiration.

“Ugh!” Evie squinted in the bright sunlight. “It's like getting hit in the face with a hair dryer.”

“This heat is oppressive, but we gotta keep going.”

Beyond the fence, worker robots carried heavy loads of fertilizer, seeds, and farming equipment across the compound. The robots were orange, but their color wasn't the strangest thing about them.

“They look like carrots,” said Evie.

“Yeah,” Rick replied. “Eight-foot-tall carrots.”

Evie was about to call out to the robo-carrots and ask them to open the gate, when she heard some rustling of plants in the cornfield to her right. She exchanged a glance with her brother. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

“It sounded like—” Rick paused.

This time Evie could clearly make out the sound of a person grunting. “There's definitely someone there,” she said. She pulled apart the thick green cornstalks and entered the field before her brother could tell her to stop.

They followed the sound through the dense thicket, emerging after a short walk in a clearing. A boy about Rick's age stood in the middle of the circle. He wore leather chaps over his denim jeans, and a frilled shirt adorned with a bolo tie. The gold slide on the tie was shaped like a chili pepper. A thick fibrous belt hung low on his hips, and a scabbard dangled from it. Fitted in the scabbard was an old machete, a kind of macho knife. A wide-brimmed cowboy hat ten sizes too big was perched atop the boy's head. He had dark copper-colored skin and keen eyes, and beside him there was a pile of corn half as tall as he was.

Evie and Rick watched silently as the boy raised a lasso above his head, swinging it in a circle a few times before grunting loudly and flinging the ring of rope. He snagged a cornstalk and pulled the lasso tight, stripping the ears of corn off the plant. The corn landed in the pile beside him, and with a proud look of accomplishment, the boy recoiled his lasso.

“Wow!” Evie exclaimed, unable to stop herself from applauding. “That was amazing!”

The boy leaped into the air and spun around, startled. “Screaming scorpions! Where did y'all come from?”

Rick held up his hands defensively. “Don't shoot! Or, don't lasso, or whatever.”

“We're trying to find Professor Doran,” Evie said. “It's important.”

The boy's eyes darted between the siblings. “I don't reckon the Prof's expecting visitors. Who's we, exactly?”

“Professor Doran is an old friend of our parents,” Evie explained. “My name is Evie Lane, and this is my brother, Rick. Our business with the professor is really urgent.” She glanced in the direction of the compound.

The boy tipped back his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “The Prof is conducting a mighty important experiment right now. He'd be madder than a mango in mustard if I interrupted.”

Evie whispered to Rick. “Do something! We have to talk to Professor Doran right now.”

Rick whispered back, “What can I do? If we make him mad he might not help us.”

The boy folded his arms over his puffed out chest. “While y'all're whispering like a Fort Worth wind, I can hear y'all clear as cooked onion.”

Rick's cheeks turned the color of his hair. “Sorry. It's just that we're here on an important mission for our parents.”

“Your parents?” The boy's eyes lit up like the headlights of a pickup truck. “Wait a gosh darn minute. Did y'all say your name was Lane? As in, Lane Industries?”

“That's right,” Evie said. “What's it to ya?”

“Well, shoot, ma'am. Lane Industries. Hoverships! Robo-intelligence. Without your family, I wouldn't have my carrying carrots, my hover horse, or all sorts a things.”

“That's Lane Industries,” Rick said with a proud smile.

“Well, by rhubarb I oughtta take y'all to the Prof right away. Just let me finish up my chores.”

Grabbing his lasso, the boy whirled like a tornado. He threw out the rope and reeled it back with a snap. Each pull brought in a wheelbarrow's worth of corn.

The boy called over his shoulder. “When I do it like this, it always makes me feel like I'm playing
Lasso Lunatic
on my Game Zinger.”

Rick gasped like he'd uncovered buried treasure. “You've played
Lasso Lunatic
? That's, like, one of the rarest video games of all time!”

“Play it? Hooo-eee! I got a copy signed by the whole development team. I'll let you borrow it if you want.”

Rick's mouth hung open. Evie waved a hand in front of his face to make sure he hadn't slipped into a video-game-induced coma.

The boy with the lasso finished roping corn and started walking toward the compound.

“What about the corn?” Rick asked, indicating the huge pile of yellow ears in the middle of the clearing.

“Aw, the carrying carrots will pick that up when they come through these parts. So follow me! Don't want this opportunity to go bad on the vine.”

“Hey wait a minute,” Evie said as they started to follow. “You never told us your name, Mister Cowboy.”

“The name's Sprout Sanchez, ma'am.” He flashed a ten-gallon grin. “Now follow me. We've gotta get y'all to the Prof right away.”

RICK, EVIE, AND THEIR NEW GUIDE SPROUT CUT A QUICK PATH THROUGH THE COMPOUND. RICK
tried not to get distracted by the incredible sights. Professor Doran's farm was the coolest science lab Rick had ever seen. It felt so . . . organic. And not like overpriced-fruit-at-the-grocery-store organic. There was something about the way the crops and the buildings all fit together. Everything felt natural, like all the pieces were in their proper place, which was funny because the space felt messy too. It was all just . . . right.

When he asked Sprout about this, the boy kicked a pebble down the dirt path. “Well, shoot, Rick, that's just the Prof's way of working. He lets everything grow the way it wants—even me. The Prof says that's why I grew so wild, because no one tended to me.”

“You don't have any parents?” Evie looked concerned.

“No, ma'am. Just the Prof, and the robots on the farm. But they're more like pets than parents, if y'all know what I mean.”

Rick couldn't imagine what life would be like without any parents. He depended on his mom and dad for everything. His mom encouraged him and praised him, and his father challenged him and piqued his curiosity.

Rick took a closer look at Sprout—at the way he stood straight as a celery stalk and rarely let that big smile leave his face. Only recently had Rick found out that his dad had been an orphan himself. It was something Doctor Grant had told him in the Arctic, back on the Mastercorp research submarine. Rick had no idea who his biological grandfather was, but he knew his dad had been lucky to have Jonas Lane adopt him. It appeared that Sprout had been lucky too, having found his own brilliant scientist to mentor and care for him. It made sense that Professor Doran would be friends with Rick's parents.

Sprout pointed over the ridge in front of them. “The Prof's lab is just past here. Try not to look if you can help it.”

The kids crested the ridge and beheld a startling sight. The beautiful patchwork of farmland ended abruptly, at the edge of a barren waste. Beyond the ridge, the land was dark and cracked, the terrain pockmarked with huge craters. Every few moments, a smoking light would cut through the sky and smash the ground with a loud explosion.

KRA-BOOM!

Rick covered his ears. “What are they doing?”

“Bomb testing,” Sprout muttered. “Sometimes missiles. Sometimes firearms. Some days they send armies of robots out there to pummel each other.”

The vein in Rick's forehead throbbed in anger and disgust. What a terrible contradiction, this vast absence of life so close to all that Professor Doran had created.

“Who is ‘they'?” Rick asked finally, his craving for justice bubbling in his throat.

“Weapons manufacturer. Goes by the name of Mastercorp.”

Rick knew Mastercorp all too well. They were the corporation that had originally funded his father's development of the Eden Compound. When his dad discovered that Mastercorp wanted to use the Eden Compound as a weapon, he gave up on his trash-conversion research for years. It wasn't until Rick and Evie discovered what their father had been up to so long ago that he finally allowed the compound to be used. And even then he'd warned them to be careful about attracting Mastercorp's attention.

Everything Rick had seen of Mastercorp freaked him out. The corporation was dangerous. It had pressured his father. It had imprisoned his dad's thesis advisor, Doctor Grant. It had chewed up the earth here in Texas and countless other places. What a waste. The farther he could keep his family from Mastercorp, the better.

Sprout hocked a big loogie off the ridge, interrupting Rick's thoughts. Rick watched the spit descend until it spattered on the dirt below. Sprout tipped his hat to Evie. “Sorry, ma'am. That was mighty inconsiderate of me. I just can't abide them Mastercorp folk. It makes me right angry.”

Evie stared at Sprout for a moment, letting a wry smile creep up on her face. Then she turned and spat. The slick glob of spit was the size of a Ping-Pong ball, and it soared over the ridge in a smooth arc.

“Yuck.” Rick scrunched up his nose.

“Hee hee hoo!” Sprout slapped his thighs excitedly. “That's my kind of spitting, ma'am.”

Evie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, blushing. “You can call me Evie, Sprout. ‘Ma'am' makes me sound like an old lady.”

Sprout nodded. He stepped aside to make room for Rick at the edge of the ridge. “C'mon, Rick. Give it a try.”

Rick thought spitting was gross and undignified, but if Sprout thought that it was cool, he didn't want to disappoint the young cowboy. After all, it was rare that kids his age invited him to do anything at all.

Rick shuffled between Evie and Sprout, staring at the shrapnel and missile silos in the distance. Summoning all his anger and frustration—at the devastation Mastercorp had wrought upon the earth, at the rules Winterpole had used to torment his family for so long, at Vesuvia and her nasty pink robots—Rick summoned a huge loogie and spat.

“Agh! Gross!” Evie squealed. Spitting, apparently, wasn't one of Rick's strong suits. A little white froth dribbled out of his mouth and onto his chin.

“Ha ha hee hoo hoo!” Sprout slapped his thighs again. “That's showing them, Rick!”

“This is a big waste of time,” Rick roared. “We have to get back to the mission. The eighth continent is in danger!” He stomped away, looking for Professor Doran's lab.

Evie chased after him. “Aw, Rick! Come back. We didn't mean it.”

Sprout caught up and guided them to the largest building on the site, a three-story barn made of sheet metal. The top floor was a greenhouse, encased in glass, where Rick imagined Professor Doran conducted his coolest botanical experiments.

“Mind where y'all step,” Sprout cautioned, pushing open the barn's sliding doors. “It's a jungle in here.”

He meant it literally. Rick and Evie followed him into the barn, eyes wide in amazement. Prehistoric-looking vines and plants hung from a leafy canopy that covered the ceiling. Butterflies fluttered from flower to flower.

“Uh, how are we supposed to get through?” Rick asked.

“Follow me!” Sprout replied. He drew his old machete from its scabbard and hacked away at the vines.

Evie grinned. “Cool! Can I try?”

Sprout handed her the sword. “Sure, go ahead.”

Evie chopped the plants with gusto, cutting a path through the barn jungle. Rick winced. “Aren't these Professor Doran's plants?”

“Oh sure,” Sprout said, tipping back his hat. “The Prof uses his super fertilizer on everything in the barn, so it doesn't matter if you chop things down. It all just grows back. He thinks it's funny. See?” Sprout pointed back the way they had come. The entrance to the barn was hidden by the vines they had slashed a minute earlier.

“Incredible!” Rick exclaimed.

Sprout clapped Rick heartily on the back. “Well, shoot! I reckoned someone as smart as you would appreciate the Prof's genius.”

Rick smiled. He had only known Sprout an hour, but he already cared very much about what the boy thought of him. Rick would not have been able to explain it if someone asked him, but he didn't think he had ever met someone as nice or as cool as Sprout Sanchez.

Grunting with exertion, Evie continued to hack away at the plants in front of her. “These vines are growing back almost as fast as I can cut through them!”

Sprout laughed. “The Prof says if you ain't willing to put in the effort to talk to him, then whatever you had to say wasn't important enough. Here, let me.” He took the machete from Evie and started swinging wildly at the plants, chopping his way to the far side of the barn. Rick and Evie joined him at the wall, where a staircase of yellow dandelions as wide as Hula-Hoops led to the upper floors of the barn.

Minding where they stepped, the kids followed Sprout up the organic stairs. As they reached the ceiling on the second floor, Rick saw that a five-foot hole had been cut out to accommodate the dandelion staircase. The kids climbed through the opening, emerging into bright sunlight.

From the outside, this floor had looked like a greenhouse—given the way that it was covered with glass—but strangely, there were no plants here, just big gray machines with tanks and conveyor belts, chugging away.

At the far end of the room, a man stood at a worktable with his back to the children. His long white lab coat flowed about his ankles. He swirled a large beaker of colorful chemicals, then added the solution to a metal vat in front of him.

“Hey, Prof!” Sprout called out. “Look at what I got here! Visitors!”

Professor Nathaniel Doran turned to face the newcomers. Under his lab coat he wore dress slacks and a polka-dotted sweater. A surgical mask covered his mouth, its white color contrasting against his rich dark skin and close-cut black hair. He pulled off the mask and scrutinized the children with wise, cautious eyes. “Yes? And who might you—” the professor stopped as he studied Evie's face.

She raised an eyebrow at his gaze. “What?”

“You're . . . You're Melinda Washer's daughter.”

“Who?” Evie asked.

“Your mother is—sorry. When I knew her, she wasn't married. Melinda Lane. You're George and Melinda's children.” He pointed a finger at Rick. “I see him in you, son.”

Rick felt his cheeks grow warm. Maybe getting Professor Doran's help rooting the continent would be easier than Rick thought. “That's right, sir. We're Rick and Evelyn—Evie—Lane. Our dad sent us here to meet with you. Our mom was going to join us, but things came up.”

“That is unfortunate.” Professor Doran bowed his head. “I'm sorry to hear that. I have not had old friends visit in quite some time. Did Sanchez show you around?”

“Sure did, Prof!” Sprout said. “They're smart, tough, everything you like, sir.”

Professor Doran nodded. “I'd expect nothing less from the children of a scientist as brilliant and strong as Melinda Washer.”

Rick stepped forward. “Professor, we have urgent business to discuss with you.”

“Ah, yes,” the professor said. “I don't suppose you would have come all this way for a social call. Let's step into my office. If your parents sent you to me, I'd imagine that there can only be one reason.”

“Is that right?” Sprout looked at Rick and Evie with new eyes. “What's the reason?”

Professor Doran raised an eyebrow. “Why, isn't it obvious? The whole world is in danger.”