Welcome to the Jungle

“SOMETHING TELLS ME THEY’RE NOT HERE TO WELCOME US TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD.”

Evie Lane squinted, trying to count the number of robots racing through the ocean toward her family’s new home, the eighth continent. There were hundreds of them, row after row of birds and beasts and sea monsters that stretched back to the horizon. It looked like the whole zoo had attended swimming lessons, then escaped, taken a detour through a pink-paint factory, then another detour through a turn-you-into-a-robot factory, and now were after revenge.

“Something tells me they’re not here to help us build, either.”

That was Rick, Evie’s older brother by one year, who was a total nerd, but a cool nerd. Evie had decided this because when she and Rick were racing all over the world trying to create the eighth continent, they saved each other’s lives five or six times, and now they were a pretty good team. Like when Evie said something like, “Holy smoked salmon! That’s a lot of robots!” Rick would say something like, “According to my calculations they’ll be here in six seconds.” And then at the exact same moment they would realize these hot-pink robots weren’t just something conceptual to discuss and analyze, but were actively trying to mangle, maul, and masticate the duo. And then they’d leap, often literally, into action.

“Something tells me we should run! Quick children, to the Roost!”

That was Dad—more famously known as George Lane, the President of Lane Industries, and the super-genius inventor of the hover engine, the Eden Compound, talking robots, and the turkey caramel sandwich (don’t ask).

Prior to the arrival of the unwanted robot intruders, the Lane family had been sitting around a campfire on the shore of the eighth continent, debating what to name their new home. It was hard to believe that what was now a fertile landmass larger than Madagascar had been a reeking pile of floating garbage in the Pacific Ocean just six weeks earlier. Thanks, however, to Dad’s trash-transformation formula—the Eden Compound—the Lane siblings had successfully converted the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as the pile of floating garbage had been called, into a beautiful paradise, the first new continent in fifty million years.

But now there was no time for toasting marshmallows and reminiscing. Still clutching their barbeque skewers, the Lanes turned and ran, desperate to escape from the oncoming pink army. Following closely behind was Mom Lane, given name Melinda, known at Cleanaspot, the global soap manufacturing company she managed, as “Boss Lady.” And known in the Lane household as “Boss Lady.” (There were few places where she wasn’t known as Boss Lady.) At Mom’s side was the Lanes’ formerly robotic seven-foot-tall crow instructor, 2-Tor—named as such for reasons Evie could never really remember, though she suspected it had something to do with her dad just throwing random words together until he found an acronym that sounded like tutor.

“I say, go away!” 2-Tor flapped his sleek black wings at the approaching robot army, his spindly talons digging into the spongy terrain as he made his way across the continent.

Unfortunately, this did nothing to deter the hundreds of oncoming robots. Mechanical bears surged from the water. Tigers and other sharp-toothed predators flooded the shore. The animals charged onto the beach, red robo-eyes burning furiously. As Evie sprinted, keeping pace with the rest of her family, she noticed each of these vicious machines had a television in its stomach, just like 2-Tor. On each fluorescent screen was the wicked, cackling face of Evie’s schoolmate/personal nightmare, Vesuvia Piffle. Vesuvia was the super-secret CEO of the voracious real-estate development group Condo Corp, a company whose shady business practices made everyone wonder if they were just regular evil, or the kind of evil that only comes from being run by a self-obsessed eleven-year-old.

Or was it former CEO? Evie wasn’t sure. After the Battle of the Garbage Patch, when Evie and Rick had used the Eden Compound to create the eighth continent, Vesuvia had been arrested by Winterpole and sent to the Prison at the Pole. But if Vesuvia was locked up, then who was controlling the robot army?

From the screens, Vesuvia screeched, “I’ve got you now, Lane-sers. That’s like ‘Losers,’ but with your name! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

A flock of robo-birds roared overhead. Their beaks opened and big globs of a chunky white substance shot out. Evie skipped over a glob that splatted at her feet. “Cottage cheese?”

“Who knows?” Rick said, taking her hand. “Run!”

At the base of a nearby hill, they reached the Roost. The hovership was standing upright on its roots, its engines gray and cold. It was the closest the Lanes’ flying machine ever came to looking like the giant sequoia tree it had been before being knocked down by a lightning strike and turning into Rick and Evie’s primary means of transportation.

An entry tube emerged from under the roots of the hovership, and the four Lanes and 2-Tor were slurped inside like action figures into a power-vacuum. They scrambled through the narrow corridors and into their seats on the bridge. Without warning, Dad kicked the throttle up to full and rocketed the ship into the air.

The little pink birds collided with the Roost’s windshield like hailstones as Dad tried to gain height. One broke clean through the glass and embedded itself in the command console, sending up a shower of sparks. Evie recoiled in surprise, stumbling into her mother, who held her tight.

“Oh no!” Rick pointed out the window. “Dad, look out!”

A trio of robo-vultures were clutching an enormous pink giraffe in their talons, and they were getting ready to fling it at the Roost. The vultures let go and Dad yanked the Roost sideways, narrowly missing the long-necked machine flying at them like a tomahawk.

“We can’t keep this up forever!” Dad mourned. The vultures were already hoisting a robo-hippopotamus into the air. It was hard to tell who looked less pleased, the birds or the hippo.

Evie rubbed her temples, trying to think of ideas, but she only came up with one. “Rick!” she shouted across the roaring cockpit. “Got any ideas?”

“Maybe! Dad, where’d you put that old squid-cuff Winterpole used to lock you up?”

“Squid-cuff . . .” Mom repeated, sounding confused. “This is hardly the time!”

“Trust me!” Rick insisted.

Dad barked quick directions to the squid-cuff’s location in the storage hold.

“Got it!” Rick yelled, dashing out the door faster than if he’d heard the electronics store was giving away free video games. Evie followed, cheering, “Plan! Plan! We have a plan!”

As his sister reached the storage hold, Rick dropped to his knees and skidded halfway across the varnished wood floor. He slid to a stop in front of a large plastic bucket surrounded by old rags. Rolling up his sleeves, Rick jammed his hands into the bucket, sloshing neon-blue fluid over the rim. He carefully pulled out a limp cybernetic tentacle. LEDs blinked underneath its translucent skin.

Rick hurried past Evie, squid-cuff in hand. “Quick, we gotta get to the balcony.”

They ran across the catwalk over the engine room, but as they reached the door to the balcony, something vast struck the side of the Roost. The hovership spiraled on its central axis, spinning over and over like a barrel rolling down a hill. Evie and Rick grabbed the catwalk railing, their insides doing somersaults as the ship attempted to regain equilibrium.

At last the hovership righted itself and the kids burst onto the balcony. Wind rushed past Evie’s ears and blew her hair wild. The squid-cuff flapped in Rick’s hands, its tentacles wriggling.

The sky was filled with flying robots. Robo-birds carpet bombed the continent with spoiled foodstuffs until the land’s surface looked like a forgotten casserole in the back of a refrigerator. Some of the more colossal machines took to the air on spinning propellers, slamming into the hull of the Roost in an effort to bring it down.

“Okay, Rick, we’re here,” Evie said. “Now what do we do?”

“Right!” Rick grinned, holding the squid-cuff away from his face. “Remember what happened when 2-Tor got too close to this thing?”

“How could I forget? He set off the EMP inside the squid-cuff. His malfunctioning almost crashed the Roost!”

“Exactly.” Rick nodded. “2-Tor was a robot at the time, and the electromagnetic pulse inside this squid-cuff seriously damaged his vital systems on contact. Soooo . . .”

Evie perked up. “Soooo . . . if we hit a robot with the squid-cuff now, it’ll short it out.”

“Correct! Assuming all these robots are network-linked, this should shut the whole thing down. Now stand back, I’m going to throw it.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Evie held his arm. “You are going to throw it?”

Both kids ducked as a fanged robo-bunny whizzed over their heads. “Of course I’m going to throw it,” Rick said, rising to his feet. “It was my idea.”

“Oh, right.” Evie rolled her eyes. “I forgot you have a gold medal in Olympic squid throwing.”

“You don’t think I can do it?” Rick sounded offended.

“That’s not true!” Evie smirked playfully. “I know you can’t do it.”

While Rick and Evie bickered, an enormous robo-shark rose to eye level. Its metal exoskeleton was hot pink. A wide hover engine had been grafted to the robot’s belly, allowing it to keep pace with the Roost. Its hinged jaw opened wide, revealing several rows of whirring chainsaw teeth.

It was at that moment that Evie noticed the shark. “It’s Chompedo! Look out!” she cried, grabbing the squid-cuff from Rick. She threw it at Vesuvia Piffle’s most beloved robot. The robo-shark swallowed the squid-cuff whole.

Nothing happened. Evie and Rick held their breath.

Suddenly, currents of electricity surged over Chompedo like a tiny dancing lightning storm. His eyes sparked. His teeth stopped whirring. His entire body reeled.

Rick smacked the call button on the comm box next to the door leading back into the Roost. “Dad! Hard right! Now!”

The Roost lurched, pulling away from Chompedo. The lightbulbs behind the shark’s red eyes popped. A tremendous shockwave flew from its body.

Rick and Evie stared in stone silence. Then the shockwave overtook the other robots. The Lanes watched in amazement as members of the Piffle fleet started shaking, their charred pink exoskeletons breaking open.

“It worked! I was right!” Rick pumped his fists and shook his hips. Evie tried not to giggle.

But then the shockwave reversed, and Evie felt the Roost being pulled toward Chompedo.

“What’s going on?” Her voice quaked with fear.

Rick grabbed on to the communicator box to anchor himself. He pushed the talk button to send a message to his parents on the bridge. “Dad! Dad! The interaction between the shark and the squid-cuff must have created a powerful electromagnet. It’s going to pull us in!”

“Roger that!” Dad’s voice chirped over the communicator. The Roost shook as he kicked in the afterburners, moving them away from the shark magnet.

The other robots’ engines weren’t strong enough to fight the draw of the magnet. The robo-vultures, giraffes, and other animals were being yanked toward the shark, forming a huge ball of mangled pink metal around Chompedo. They held there for a second and Evie felt her breath catch in her throat. “Did we do it?” she whispered.

The lump of magnetized robots plummeting to the ground answered her question a moment later.

“Wahoo!” Evie cheered. “We disabled their engines. Smart thinking, Rick. That’ll teach those pink pests.”

Rick leaned over the side of the balcony to keep the robots in sight. “Thanks, but this is nothing to wahoo about. According to my calculations, the robots’ current speed and trajectory will make them crash into—oh no!”

“‘Oh no!?’” Evie wailed. “‘Oh no’ is a terrible place to crash!”

The words were barely out of her mouth before the robots struck the edge of the eighth continent.

The shockwave from the impact was so intense it nearly rattled the Roost apart. Evie gripped the balcony railing to hold it and herself steady. She looked over the edge, prepared for the sight of a big crater in her beloved homeland. What she saw, however, was even worse:

The continent moved.

Evie wiped her eyes, sure that they were deceiving her. But, no, there was the continent, skipping across the ocean like a stone across a pond. Then it started to drift south, caught in a powerful ocean current.

“Uh, did you just see that?” Evie asked, her face ashen.

Rick just stood there speechless. Then finally he said, “So that’s what ‘oh no’ looks like.”

A few minutes later Rick and Evie finished recounting this latest development to their parents up on the bridge. “How could this even happen?” Evie fumed. “It’s a continent! It’s not like Europe goes for a swim every now and then.”

Dad tried to explain. “Honey, the eighth continent isn’t like earth’s other landmasses. It’s made of converted trash, which was floating on the surface of the water.”

“That means that the continent we created also floats on the water, all loosey-goosey,” Rick clarified.

“But a floating continent isn’t our problem,” Dad added. “It’s the fact that since it’s been set adrift, it could hit other landmasses and completely disrupt oceanographic stability.”

“That sounds bad,” Evie said.

“Very bad.” Rick nodded, examining the Roost’s global positioning system. “Based on the eighth continent’s current trajectory, it will collide with Australia in two days.”

Mom turned white. “What kind of mess will that make?”

Rick looked at her, his eyes filled with fear. “I can’t predict the extent of the damage, but ‘catastrophic’ is a word that comes to mind.”

“Will the eighth continent be okay?” Evie asked worriedly.

Rick shook his head. “We wanted there to be eight continents, but if we can’t stop ours from crashing into Australia, there will only be six.”

DIANA MAPLE’S FOOTSTEPS FELL LIKE RAINDROPS AS SHE RACED THROUGH THE FRIGID HALLWAYS of Winterpole Headquarters. She still felt uncomfortable in her new junior-agent uniform. The waist was sewn so tight she could barely breathe, and the black collar constricted her throat. But she would never admit any of this to her mother.

Mrs. Maple walked a few steps ahead of Diana. Her chic black hair remained frozen in a perfect bob despite the speediness of her stride. As usual, Diana found it hard to keep up. It had been her mother’s idea to enroll Diana in Winterpole’s junior-agent program, an internship that let kids prepare for an exciting career in eco-protection enforcement. Except exciting meant mind-numbing, and career meant paperwork.

Despite her misgivings, Diana was not about to refuse an offer of employment at Winterpole. Her former boss and best friend, Vesuvia Piffle, had been locked up by the international rule-makers; and Diana’s mother, a high-ranking Winterpole agent, had barely looked at her daughter since Vesuvia’s incarceration.

Diana’s lungs seized up whenever she thought about her mother’s diamond-hard glare. That judgmental shake of her head. Diana didn’t want to give her mom or anyone else reason to suspect she was still on Vesuvia’s side.

As they reached the end of a long corridor, Diana’s mother opened a set of heavy steel doors and the two Maple women stepped through. The room beyond was vast and rectangular with a high arched roof. Every surface—walls, ceiling, and floor—was covered with blocks of icy-blue metal. In the center of the room was a desk made of deep blue stone, and on it was an enormous flatscreen monitor, which displayed the bald head of an older gentleman. But the face wasn’t a video as much a representation, lines of code that bent and danced as the visage moved. This indirect and unsettling method of communication was the Director of Winterpole’s preferred way of dictating instructions to his employees. Diana had never seen the Director in person, and neither had any of the other junior agents.

Both side walls of the Director’s office were lined with risers, formed of smooth-cut blocks of honest-to-goodness ice. “Sit,” Diana’s mother hissed, pulling her to a spot where they had a good view of the Director.

Diana winced as she sat down. The icy seat chilled her to the marrow.

Before the desk stood a man wearing the standard three-piece suit of a Winterpole agent. He had trim hair, dark except for streaks of white on both sideburns, and was in the middle of a presentation to the Director and the assembled audience. Diana knew him to be one of Winterpole’s top operatives—and also the man who had made it his mission to arrest George Lane.

Mister Snow cleared his throat and continued speaking.

“Approximately two hours ago, at oh-six-hundred Greenwich mean time, our aerial scanners detected an intercontinental collision. A pink UPO, or unidentified plummeting object, made impact on the surface of the landmass dubbed by the outlaw George Lane as ‘the eighth continent.’ This collision knocked the former garbage patch into a southern-trending ocean current, and now the continent is on a doomsday course for Australia. Estimated time of impact is in just under forty-six hours. We must intercept the eighth continent and arrest George Lane before it’s too late.”

When the Director replied, his voice was a dark and menacing mix of static and subwoofer. “Winterpole lacks jurisdiction beyond the seven continents. You know that, Snow. Every good agent knows that. Why would you bring me this information?”

“Yes, Director,” Mister Snow bowed his head, “but do not forget Statute 76A-501—”

“I never forget a statute!” the Director snapped. “76A-501: when one landmass threatens another, Winterpole may intervene, regardless of jurisdiction. Agents! Activate the Winterpole Crisis Clause.”

A high-pitched honking noise filled the air. Diana and some of the other junior agents covered their ears. Panels opened along the walls, and a gaggle of white geese spilled out like rats escaping a flooded subway tunnel. “HONK! HONK! HOOOOOOONK!” they screeched. The stampede of geese flooded into the halls, filling all of Winterpole Headquarters with noise.

Wincing, Diana looked at her mother. “Couldn’t we come up with a more efficient alarm system?”

Diana’s mother hushed her impatiently.

Straightening to his full height, Mister Snow smiled like he’d just won the world’s creepiest lottery. “Mister Director, agents of Winterpole, now that the Crisis Clause has been activated, I must report a disturbing fact. George Lane has threatened the sovereign continent of Australia. We must intervene and legislate his illegal continent. George Lane must be taken into custody. He must be brought to the Prison at the Pole.”

“You will assemble a team, Mister Snow.” The Director sounded equally pleased. His digitized face grinned with satisfaction. “And good work.”

Mister Snow bowed his head more deeply this time. Were those tears in his eyes? “Thank you, Director. I live to please you.”

THE EIGHTH CONTINENT MOVED SOUTHWEST THROUGH THE PACIFIC OCEAN LIKE A TURTLE OF unimaginable size. Frothing white wake churned behind the former garbage patch in the shape of a V. Despite its great mass, the continent showed no sign of slowing down.

Neither did the Lane family. They had worked straight through until morning to come up with a way to stop the eighth continent from crashing into Australia.

Rick checked the Continent Collision Counter application he’d programmed on his family’s pocket tablets to keep track of how much time they had left. Just two days were remaining. Their predicament irritated Rick so much he almost couldn’t breathe. He had big plans for the eighth continent, plans he had spent the past six weeks preparing to execute. His frequent disagreements with Evie about what to do with their new homeland had set him back enough already. And a crisis like this didn’t just mean more delays; it meant that he might never see his dream of a thoughtful and unencumbered civilization realized. But this wasn’t even Rick’s focus at the moment. He had only one clear thing driving him: he had to find a solution, or else they’d be saying g’night to the people who say g’day.

Rick’s mind sparked and skittered with ideas as dawn rose over the Pacific horizon, casting bright sunlight across the gentle hills of the eighth continent. Standing outside his father’s hastily constructed laboratory, he looked at the landscape he’d helped create. Dirt and rocks and grass stretched as far as the eye could see. A mountain range stood tall in the distance.

Those were the things the eighth continent had. What it didn’t have yet were trees or leafy plants of any kind, and the only buildings were the small cluster of temporary wooden shelters his family had erected north of the beach.

“Koo ka-koo ka-KOO!!!” From the open front door of the lab, Dad called like a bird. It was a cry the family used at times when it was urgent to have everyone rally to the same location. “Rick! Come here. I think I have something.”

Rick hurried inside, where his father was standing next to 2-Tor. The bird held a quilt-sized sheet of white paper in his beak and the tips of his outstretched wings.

Rick’s dad scribbled something furiously, then stepped back to show Rick the plan. “If we construct a giant desk fan and mount it on the continent, we may be able to blow our runaway home off-course.”

Rick glanced across the room where Mom and Evie were considering an idea of their own. Mom was drawing on a chalkboard while thinking out loud. “The continent is like a dog off its leash. Maybe we could order a fleet of my Cleanaspot mega-vacuums to rendezvous with it. If they were all sucking water at full power, they might be able to slurp us off-course.”

“I don’t know, Melinda. . . .” Dad piped up, looking over from the mess of scribbles on his paper. “Not a bad idea, but hmm . . . we need to get to the root of the problem.”

It suddenly dawned on Rick that his father was right. “That’s . . . that’s it!” he exclaimed.

His family turned to him in confusion. “What’s it?” Evie said.

“What Dad just said. We have to get to the root of the problem. By rooting the eighth continent!”

“Richard,” 2-Tor interrupted, “I’m not sure what you took your father’s meaning to be, but all he was suggesting was that—”

Rick cut his tutor off. “Mom hit on it too when she said the continent was like a dog off its leash.” He looked at his mother in expectation but she just stared back at him blankly. Rick searched for a way to explain himself. “You guys all know that even if we could build a fan or a vacuum big enough to push us away from Australia, we’d still run the risk of getting stuck in another ocean current. We’re floating ducks out here unless we stop the eighth continent from moving permanently, and the only way to do that is by rooting the continent to the ocean floor.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Dad. “That’s genius, son!”

Mom’s eyes widened. “Brilliant! That’ll be the perfect way to avoid dirtying the oceans.”

Evie raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Am I the only one here who still doesn’t know what he’s talking about?”

“Yes,” said her parents in unison.

Rick snatched Dad’s pen from his hand and started sketching his vision. “Think of the continent as a lily pad. We need to create a tether to connect it to the bottom of the ocean.”

Rick’s parents nodded in agreement as he spoke, making Rick swell with pride.

“The only issue will be finding a strong anchor that’s long enough to hold a whole continent in place.” He turned to his favorite crow. “2-Tor, how long will the root need to be?”

“The ocean floor at our current location is fourteen thousand feet below sea level.”

“Well, that’s not too far at all then, is it?” Dad exclaimed. “I think Rick may be on to something. Honey, what do you think? Is this a project Professor Doran could help us with?”

Rick’s mother nodded. “Professor Doran! Now there’s a fine idea.”

Dad nodded in satisfaction. “Good. Kids, listen up. Professor Doran is an old friend of your mother’s and mine. He’s a prize-winning botanist who specializes in super plants. If anyone knows how to grow a root big enough to anchor the eighth continent, it’s him. I’ll take you to his lab in Texas, down on the Mexican border.”

“Yee-haw!” Evie hooted. “We’re going on another adventure.”

“But Dad,” Rick interjected. “You can’t leave the eighth continent, or Winterpole will arrest you.”

“Oh yeah, he’s right,” Evie agreed. “You can’t go with us.”

Rick’s father seemed quite flustered by this inconvenience. “Hmm. Okay. Well then your mother will go with you. 2-Tor and I will stay here to keep an eye on the continent and try to come up with alternative solutions, in case something goes wrong down by the border.”

Taking a deep breath, Rick steeled himself for the challenges that lay ahead.

“Wark!” 2-Tor squawked. “Pop Quiz! What river serves as a natural aquatic border between Mexico and the US state of Texas?”

“The Rio Grande!” Evie cheered, tugging on her mother’s arm. “Mom, can we leave right now?”

“We better!” Mom said. “I pride myself on Cleanaspot’s efficiency. Why not our family’s, too?”

IN A CROWDED, DARKENED CLASSROOM IN WINTER- POLE HEADQUARTERS, DIANA FOUGHT TO KEEP her eyelids from collapsing. The daily marathon lectures she endured in the junior-agent training program were so dull, she had already counted every tile on the ceiling (there were 256 of them). She had also named all 256. Her favorite tile was Fred, the faded white one over the boy who sat two desks in front of her. She didn’t remember the boy’s name, but she remembered Fred, because the tile had a blotchy brown stain of mysterious origin.

Put simply, Diana would have rather been anywhere other than Winterpole Headquarters. She never should have listened to her mother when she’d sweetly suggested, “Why don’t you take some time off of school, honey?” It had sounded great at first—skipping a few classes at the International School for Exceptional Students, getting a chance to impress her mother with her commitment to Winterpole’s mission, finding a distraction from the recent debacle with Vesuvia—but the reality was that Diana still had to complete most of her regular schoolwork; and the more she learned about her mother’s employers, the more she felt just as baffled by their methods as she did by her ex-best friend’s.

She tried to force herself to find the lessons interesting, but she just couldn’t do it. Even if she did agree with Winterpole’s primary objectives to protect the environment and regulate world matters, she could not stand their antiquated methods and ancient technology. Recently Winterpole had turned its focus to hunting down “problem people,” an assortment of rule breakers who ignored the bylaws.

Winterpole’s internship coordinator and junior-agent instructor, Mister Skole, was leading this morning’s lecture. To help with his presentation, he enlisted the aid of a slide projector so ancient that it belonged in a museum, or perhaps a mummy’s tomb.