Welcome to the Jungle (19 page)

THOSE UGLY, STUPID LANES
,
VESUVIA THOUGHT, AS SHE FLOATED ALONE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE
ocean.
This is all their fault
.

She clung to a floating lump of vine that had broken off when Evie cut the root. Vesuvia had hung on for dear, sweet, precious life, but when the
Big Whale
's engines blew out, she rode that puppy straight into the sea.

How had she ended up here,
again
?

A short way off from her flotation plant, a pink dorsal fin emerged from the water. It moved toward her, cutting a narrow wake.

Chompedo splashed out of the water and reared up in front of her.

“Chompedo! Thank goodness. Get me out of this cold, wet whatever-it-is.”

The hatch on top of Chompedo opened and Granny stuck her head out. “Ocean. It's called the ocean, Susu.”

Vesuvia growled. “Shut up, Granny! I know what it's called.”

A minute later, Vesuvia slumped into a chair at the front of the compartment inside Chompedo. The industrial-strength hair dryer she had installed blasted her dry and fluffy again. “UGGGGH. I wanna go
home
, Granny.”

“Not yet,” Granny said, inputting some new coordinates into Chompedo's computer. “We still have work to do.”

“Work? UGGGGH.”

Granny ignored Vesuvia's articulate protests and watched through the front portholes as Chompedo sank beneath the waves. They cruised through the deep waters of the ocean. Vesuvia was fuming. Granny Venoma was hissing. Those cursed Lanes. They ruined everything.

Then, out of the darkness, a black robo-shark appeared. Vesuvia couldn't see all of it in the murky depths, but it was so big it made Chompedo look like a guppy. It made the
Big Whale
look like a small whale. It was larger than any robot she had ever seen.

“Granny . . . Granny! We're heading right for that thing. Change course!”

The old woman faced Vesuvia and gave her a quiet look, then returned her gaze to the front portholes. The black shark's jaws unhinged. Chompedo swam into its gullet.

Vesuvia's pink shark surfaced at a steel dock in a cybernetically enhanced cavern. Blinking lights on the gnarled machines were the only illumination in the dim space. Robotic grabbing arms locked Chompedo in a berth, extended an exit ramp, and twisted the access hatch open.

Vesuvia and her grandmother emerged to find a very unpleasant-looking welcoming committee.

Twelve guards stood like toy soldiers in a row. They carried huge assault rifles in their arms and wore military uniforms as black as the stain on the Pacific had been. Stylish and deadly, just the way Vesuvia liked. It was clear these were not the bumbling agents of Winterpole. These were deadly, terrifying men.

Standing in front of the guards was a man in a suit. It was strange, but that was the only thing she could really identify about him. Sure, when she stared at him closely she could tell that he had ghost-pale skin and craggy cheeks, but as soon as she looked away, those features faded, like details from a dream, and she was left with a single image. The suit.

“Ah, Mister Dark, hello again. Ooh, my back.” Granny stepped down the exit ramp and approached the man.

Vesuvia followed her. “You know this department-store mannequin?”

“Quiet, Susu!” Granny snapped.

Mister Dark gave Granny a look that matched his name. “You have disappointed us, Madame Condolini. You were supposed to extract the Eden Compound from the continent and bring it to us.”

“Did you
see
what we had to put up with? Antagonists at every turn!” Granny showed her best annoyed-with-you face, but there was something about her tone and the look in her eyes that told Vesuvia something was wrong. She was frightened.

Mister Dark saw it too. “We created the stain on the Pacific as a diversion, and still you failed. A handful of children and Winterpole proved to be too much for you. How disappointing.”

Granny's panic grew. “Mister Dark, please. You don't understand. There was this bird, and—”

Pulling out his pocket tablet, Mister Dark tapped on it, examining a digital control panel.

“Hey!” Granny said. “Look at me when I'm talking to you. Don't play with your phone.”

Mister Dark didn't look up. “I'm not playing.” He tapped a button on the screen.

A hole opened in floor under Granny's feet and she fell. “Susu!!!” she screamed, but Vesuvia didn't even have time to reach for her. Granny was gone faster than a limited release of designer shoes. The hole in the floor closed again.

The footsteps of Mister Dark echoed loudly as he approached Vesuvia. She held her ground. “We've been watching you, Vesuvia Piffle. For a long time.”

“Shocker,” she said with a snort. “No one can take their eyes off of me.”

He leaned over her. She flinched. “Aw. Are you afraid of me, little lady?”

Vesuvia glared. “I'm afraid of what I might do to you if you don't back off.”

Mister Dark stared at her, unsmiling. “I'm not here to hurt you, Vesuvia Piffle. I'm here to offer you a job.”

“Oh yeah? Working for you?”

“No,” Mister Dark said. “Working for Mastercorp.”

Vesuvia stared, positively vexed. “Mastercorp?”

“Who do you think owns all this? Who do you think
allowed
you to torment the Lanes and pursue the eighth continent? It was us, all along.”

“Why would I want to work for you? I already own a billion-dollar company.”

“Mastercorp is a trillion-dollar company. We make Condo Corp look like a used-sock emporium. Bargain basement. With us, think of all the marvelous things you could do, Vesuvia. Devastate landscapes. Destroy the lives of anyone who dares question you or looks at you funny. Suck every last drop of blood from the earth.”

“So what?” she asked, but she found herself falling into Mister Dark's hypnotic stare.

“With our help, you could obliterate those pathetic Lanes once and for all.”

Vesuvia's eyes widened. “Where do I sign?”

“Excellent!” A woman's voice said. Vesuvia had not known she was there. “I knew you would see it our way.”

A shadowy figure stepped out of the darkness and into the light. She wore the same black uniform as the soldiers. Her perfect blond hair was smoothed flat against her head.

Vesuvia's mouth hung open wider than Chompedo's. “Mom?”

MATT LONDON
(http://themattlondon.com) is a writer, video game designer, and avid recycler who has published short fiction and articles about movies, TV, video games, and other nerdy stuff. Matt is a graduate of the Clarion Writers' Workshop, and studied computers, cameras, rockets, and robots at New York University. When not investigating lost civilizations, Matt explores the mysterious island where he lives—Manhattan.

 

Find out more at
8THCONTINENTBOOKS.COM

Looking for more?
Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their books.
Discover your next great read!