“So you actually went into space!” Atticus whispered, pointing at the stars above, just visible through the treetops. “You were up there! Mom says her mother told her about space travel and how spaceships used to fly to space stations in the sky. But then everyone was told that space travel was a big lie and that, from now on, no one would leave the Earth. Mom said they told those lies to stop people thinking they could go to another planet and start again if they didn’t like Eden.”
They’d been walking through the forest for what felt like hours, the darkness settling around them, broken only by occasional shafts of moonlight as the clouds shifted overhead. At first, George hadn’t been able to see anything, but now his eyes had adjusted to night in the forest. Even the sounds, at first deeply creepy and alarming, had become less scary. The chirps, whirrs, and rustles of the fig forest no longer made him jump out of his skin as they had when they first descended to the forest floor after reaching the end of the suspended walkways.
They were out of colony territory by now, Atticus had told him, farther than he had ever been before. Even Atticus didn’t know the way and was having to spot, in the darkness, minute signs that showed a human being had recently traveled in this direction. It wasn’t easy and they had a few false leads, finding themselves in dead ends or face-to-face with old concrete walls.
At the start of their journey, Atticus had solemnly asked George to follow him in absolute silence. But he’d been unable to stick to that himself. They hadn’t gone far before he started asking George all kinds of questions. Where was he from? How did he get to the Swamp? This led George to try to explain the history of space travel to Atticus. It wasn’t easy to explain the mechanics of a spaceship to someone who had so little experience of technology!
But Atticus caught on surprisingly quickly.
“I’d like to go into space one day,” he had said quietly.
“I think there’s something up there already,” said George. “Something made by humans.”
“When Eden is over,” said Atticus cheerily, “I’ll go and find out!”
“Will that ever happen?” said George.
“It has to!” said Atticus.
“And then what?” said George. “Who will be in charge once you get rid of Trellis Dump?”
“My mom?” said Atticus. “She’s a great leader. Or,” he added excitedly, “you! That would be awesome! I could be your head warrior! Do you promise?”
“Sure!” said George as they crept forward toward what looked like a clearing ahead. If, by some unlikely twist of fate, he did become leader of Eden, then having Atticus by his side sounded pretty cool to him.
Crouching, Atticus motioned to George to do the same. George obeyed and crept forward until he was right next to Atticus. If they peered ahead, they could just see into the clearing, where a strange, cold blue light indicated to them that they were no longer alone.
George’s heart was banging so loudly in his chest that he was sure whoever was in front of them must be able to hear it. Above the sounds of the night, they could hear footsteps—but this time not those of the large padding cat. More like the noise of a human being pacing around the forest floor.
Edging forward on his stomach like a snake, George followed Atticus. They stopped, just as they reached the edge of the clearing. They could see, illuminated in a spooky glow, the figure of a human being dressed in a long coat and topped with a dome-shaped white hat.
Atticus put his mouth right next to George’s ear. “Child Hunter,” he breathed almost silently.
“What is he doing?” George said in the same voiceless breath. But Atticus just shook his head very slightly.
The Child Hunter was standing by a stake in the ground, staring up at the skies. “C’mon, c’mon . . .” he said. “C’mon! Where are you?”
Looking up, George again saw the fast-moving pinpricks of bright light in the dark sky above. And so did the Child Hunter.
“Catch!” he muttered again. “Catch! Where is the signal? Blast this wretched Eden—why does nothing work anymore?”
George gave a start, making the dry leaves underneath rustle. Atticus, whose eyes were very bright, put a warning hand on George’s arm.
“He’s trying to contact someone, pick up a signal,” George whispered.
“From what?” Atticus mouthed back.
“Some kind of projection?” guessed George. “Laser? I don’t know.”
The Child Hunter in his strange hat finally got his connection, but instead of receiving a message or instructions, as George expected, something quite different happened. Under the astonished gaze of Atticus and George, another person started to materialize in the middle of the forest clearing. It looked as if the newcomer was made of orange light. He was much taller than the man in the hat, looming over him, leering.
The Child Hunter seemed quite overcome. He took off his hat and bowed so low his nose almost touched the ground.
“Master,” he rasped in a gritty yet oily voice.
“Why have you summoned me?” demanded the figure, still shining with an eerie tangerine glow.
“Master,” said the figure, who was now prostrate on the ground, bowing his head to the muddy floor. “I have news!”
“News of what, imbecile?” barked the figure. “Why could you not send this news through the usual channels?”
“Master,” said the figure, a note of great cunning sneaking into his voice, “I do not think your communications are secure. I believe you have a spy, a traitor, in your midst.”
George went cold. Nimu, he thought, with her mysterious plan for the machines and her plot to smuggle Hero and George out of Eden, while working as a government minister. And Empyrean was certainly not working for the regime. Had they both been busted already? George had told Atticus and his mom about them! Was it his fault? He held his breath.
“Who is this traitor?” said the figure.
“O Excellency, your most high Dump, may you live forever,” said the man.
Dump! thought George to himself. Was this Trellis Dump himself?
“Get on with it!” replied the figure. “What do you know about it?”
“There are children,” said the Child Hunter mysteriously. “On the run. But they keep disappearing!”
“What,” said Dump crossly, “are you talking about, man?”
“Slimicus,” said the man with as much dignity as a person who is prostrate on the ground while talking to a laser projection can muster. “My name is Slimicus Slimovich, Premier Child Hunter to the Kingdom-Corporation of Eden.”
“Get on with it,” repeated Dump. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“Children!” said Slimicus triumphantly. “Two of them. Traveling across Eden—by themselves! But no one can find them! What does that mean?”
“What are children doing by themselves?” said Dump with distaste. “Do they think they are free?”
“No, Master, of course not,” said Slimicus. “Freedom is only for the few enlightened adults who can be trusted with it. Not for children, certainly not. And not for most of the population of Eden! People were free once upon a time and look what a mess they made of everything . . .”
“Well, quite,” said Dump, sounding pleased. “Until my clone father, Trellis Dump, and I came along.”
“And made the world great again,” said Slimicus.
“Okay, I’m bored with you now,” said Dump abruptly. “It’s your job to catch children, so why don’t you just get on with it? Stop bothering me with trivial problems!”
“It isn’t trivial,” said Slimicus hurriedly.
“You have thirty Dumplets to explain,” said Trellis. “Starting now.”
“We can’t catch the children—because they are invisible!” said Slimicus.
“Invisible?” snorted Dump. “What are you talking about, you loser?”
“Someone or something is removing data about these children, but they’re working very fast and they’re not managing to erase everything. The two children are showing up as shadows or reflections.”
George’s heart sank. He realized that Empy-rean, in removing the images of him and Hero, must have forgotten to clean up the area around them!
“What does this mean?” said Dump. Slimicus finally seemed to have caught his attention.
“It means there are two children on the run across Eden—and someone inside the regime is helping them.”
“Who are these kids?”
“We’re checking across Eden to see if any child is out of place,” said Slimicus. “We will soon know who is missing.”
Which meant, thought George grimly, that Slimicus was bound to find out that Hero hadn’t arrived at Wonder Academy. What the Child Hunter said next was even worse.
“When we discover which kids are missing,” he said slyly, “we can find out who has been tampering with the systems in order to help them. My guess is that you’ve got someone or something on the inside working against you.”
“Caramba!” cried Dump. “So true! I have traitors on the inside working against me all the time!”
“When I capture these runaways, I will interrogate them,” said Slimicus. “They will tell me all they know—and they will lead you back to any traitors you have within.”
“Good, good,” said Trellis. “Good work, whatever your name is . . .”
“Slimicus Slimovich,” murmured the Child Hunter.
“Could they be spies?” pondered Dump. “Could these kids have come over from Other Side?”
“Maybe,” said Slimicus doubtfully. “I’m just a humble Child Hunter, wanting to pass on information to the very—”
Dump interrupted him. “I’ll bring forward the so-called peace treaty with Other Side,” he mused, as if to himself. “Distract them. I just need long enough to—” He suddenly seemed to remember that he was broadcasting, and not just following, his private thoughts. “Get them both,” he commanded the Child Hunter. “And anyone who has harbored or helped these kids, any followers of the movement—any movement, anything that isn’t completely and totally loyal to me. Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”
“Master,” said Slimicus, bowing low again. Without seeing his face, George knew he was smiling.
“What are you waiting for!” ordered Dump. “Get on with it!”
With that, Dump vanished, his weak, sickly laser light looking as if it were feeding itself back into the end of Slimicus’s illuminated stick once more.
Once Dump had dematerialized, leaving the forest to its dark whispers, Slimicus pulled his stick out of the ground, retracted it like a tele-scope, and put it back in his pocket. Whistling to himself, he sauntered away, taking a route out of the other side of the clearing.
George dared breathe again. “What was that all about!” he squeaked into Atticus’s ear.
“Trouble,” replied Atticus. “It means big trouble.”
“What do we do now?” said George.
“On the bright side,” said Atticus, checking the forest around him for clues, “if we’ve run into old Slimicus and he’s on Hero’s trail, it means we’re going the right way.”