Atherton #3: The Dark Planet (No. 3) (23 page)

slide his feet into.

"Here they come again!" yelled Landon. "Grab another vine and

head for the wall!"

Edgar moved as quickly as he could in the direction of Landon's

voice.

"This way, Edgar!" he cried, and then right after,
"Ooommmph!"

He'd been tagged again and spun aimlessly below.

"Keep going for the wall! They can't get you there."

Edgar sensed something was heading toward him and he sped

up, leaping from vine to vine and feeling the sting at every point

on his back and legs where he'd been beaten by Red Eye and

Socket.

Someone swished past, barely missing Edgar as they went.

Whoever it was called out with a hooting sound.
Whoo! Whoo!

The hooting was returned from Edgar's left, and he barely had

time to brace himself before someone flew overhead, grabbed

the vine he was on from above, and plucked it like a guitar

string. The vine wobbled violently and Edgar held on for dear

life.

Just when he felt under control a second attack occurred, and

this one did him in. The assailant flew past, chopping at Edgar's

arms as they went. Edgar let go and free-fell backward,

dangling from the loop that held one foot.

"Don't feel too bad," said Landon from below. Edgar couldn't

see him, but if he had been able to, he would have seen that

Landon was also hanging upside down. "They're really good

and you're new at this."

Edgar was completely confused. What had just happened?

"Do you want some help getting out of that loop?"

The voice came from somewhere above Edgar. Craning his

neck to see, he realized who it was.

"Aggie?"

"And Teagan," said her friend, hanging nearby.

Aggie looked better than when he'd seen her before. Her face

actually had some color in it and her eyes seemed brighter and

less hollow.

"Vash hasn't been showing up lately. It's nice to have a team of

boys to beat again," said Aggie.

"Woooohoooo!"

Edgar heard the sound below him and wondered what Landon

was doing down there.

"The best way down," said Teagan, "is to let go and fly." And

just like that Teagan let go of her vine and dropped like a rock

toward the bottom.

"But you'll get hurt!" said Edgar, grabbing a vine and swinging

himself back up again.

Aggie pulled back and forth on two vines until she was

swinging in a wide arc.

"Don't want to land on top of her," she said. And then Aggie

dove free of the vine and howled all the way to the bottom.

"Come on, Edgar!" yelled Landon. "It's not that far! You can do

it!"

Edgar couldn't see the bottom, but the voice didn't sound so

very far away. Shadows danced every where, like he was in a

thick jungle with a full moon above.

"We're clear of you, it's safe to drop."

Edgar took a deep breath and let go, falling fast through leaves

and knocking countless flowers that would never bloom free

from their vines. It snowed buds all around him, and below they

formed a thick carpet.

Edgar tucked into a ball as he hit and it was pure magic. Soft

golden buds exploded every where and broke his fall. He never

did hit the very bottom, but the layers grew denser the deeper

they went.

Edgar popped up on his feet and saw Aggie, Teagan, and

Landon lying on the top of the sea of gold. Edgar's entire body

except for his head was submerged in the deep golden sea.

"Happens every time," said Aggie. "Next time lie out flat and

you'll stay on top."

She rolled along the top layer, light as a feather, until she

reached the wall. Then she climbed up onto a vine, swung

across until she hovered above Edgar, and told him to grab her

feet. He did as he was told and pulled himself up. When the four

of them all hung together again, pushing idly against the wall

and laughing softly, the real talking began.

"They have to leave the lights on in this room or the vines will

die," Aggie explained. "And Red Eye and Socket never come

down here at night. Once they're locked away in the machine

room they hardly ever stir. I'm not sure who discovered the

ducts first, but kids have known about them for a long time. Most

of them are too afraid to leave the barracks, but we come here

and play when we're not too tired."

Edgar knew then he could trust them, that children on the Dark

Planet were the same as children on Atherton.

"When we were in the drying room, you said something to me,"

said Aggie. Her eyes sparkled in the golden light of the room,

and even with the close-cropped hair and slightly sunken eyes

she was very pretty. "You said Atherton was real. How do you

know that?"

"What do you know about Atherton?" asked Edgar.

"Everyone's heard of Atherton, especially around here," said

Landon. "It's our favorite story."

"How does it go?" asked Edgar, amazed that the truth might

have passed into the things of legend and fairy tales.

"It begins with a boy named Max who lived here a long time

ago," said Landon.

Teagan jumped in. She absolutely loved telling the story and

couldn't help herself.

"Max was very small and super smart. No one could say where

he'd come from, only that he wandered into the forsaken wood

one day like so many others. Back in those days there was a

place called the yards where they let the children out to play.

That was before the Cleaners and the Spikers came, before the

air got harder to breathe and everyone who stayed out too long

got the sockets and the jitters."

There was some collective nervous laughter and Aggie looked

down, rubbing her temple and closing her eyes. She didn't want

Edgar to notice that she had been out a little too long, that it

showed in her eyes. But Edgar couldn't have minded less.

"It was a sort of playground," said Landon. "There was an old

merry-go-round and a slide with some steps missing, and there

were neat statues of things that the kids would climb on. Plus a

lot of dirt and sand from the sea."

Teagan jumped in. "Anyway, Max was small and the older boys

picked on him. So he made all sorts of gadgets out of parts he

found in the Silo. He would collect old motors and bolts and

pieces of metal from the engine room. Back then you could do

that, and you could get old chargers, too. And he would sneak

away from the yards over by Station Seven and look through all

the junk. There were tubes of this and that and wires and bottles

of potion and lots of strange things! He would take them and

make amazing inventions. The older boys stopped tormenting

Max when a metal spider crawled on their legs at night and

clamped down on their toes!"

"I love this part," said Landon. He was still young enough to

hear the same story for the twentieth time and like it just as

much.

"Max was more than just smart, he was different. He saw things

no one else saw, had ideas no one else had. Under his bed

was like a tiny laboratory filled with every kind of trapped bug

and seed he could find from the outside. There were

concoctions and witches' brews and tubes of glowing green. He

made small bugs bigger and stranger and let them loose on the

bigger boys. They were so afraid of Max!"

"He sounds like a little mad scientist," said Edgar, unable to

keep his mouth shut as he heard of his maker's early exploits.

But they didn't like that description and scowled at him,

especially Landon.

"Then one day a very famous scientist--the most famous ever,

in fact--saw Max in the yards and talked with him. He thought

this small boy from the Silo might be a help to the people who

were trying to fix the broken world. And so Max went to Station

Seven, but he never forgot about the Silo.
Never!
"

"How do you know he never forgot?" asked Edgar.

"Because he kept coming back. All the time after that he would

come back. He invented these vines and the seeds that never

flower and the powder blocking and--wel , he invented
every

thing.
At least that's what he did in the story I'm telling you. It

was a long time ago, way before we showed up here, and no

one seems to know what really happened."

"What then?" said Edgar.

"They say he invented the best thing there ever was," said

Aggie. She was watching Edgar to see how he would react.

"He made Atherton. And he put all sorts of creatures there,

including Gossamer, the black dragon."

"The what?" said Edgar, finally finding something in the story

that even he couldn't believe.

"The black dragon!" said Landon. "The one that has more

power than any other dragon! Its only job is to protect children,

and it lives on Atherton. But one day it will come back here and

kill all the bad beasts in the forsaken wood."

"Oh," said Edgar, not sure how or when he would break the

news to Landon that no such creature existed.

"And then Max went to Atherton and never came back," said

Aggie, picking up where Landon had left off. She sounded a bit

sad as she went on. "It's the only fairy tale we've got about the

Silo, and it ends rather badly. Max Harding became Dr. Harding

and made a new world for all the children. But then he

disappeared and forgot about us. Some say he's coming back,

but I mostly think that's just so they have some thing to believe

in. I think it's just a story that gives some of us hope."

"Is the story true?" asked Edgar, turning to Teagan and Landon

for help.

"I hope it's true," said Teagan. "I want to know what if feels like

to breathe clean air and take a long walk outside under the

stars at night. I haven't seen a star in a long time."

"Atherton's real," said Landon. "I know it's real, and I think Dr.

Harding's coming back soon. I'm just about sure of it, actually."

"Really?" said Edgar, inspired by Landon's enduring spirit

despite the fact that Edgar knew that Dr. Harding could never

come back.

Landon nodded. He looked at Aggie for approval but Aggie

wouldn't look back. Her gaze was fixed on Edgar.

"Do you think the story is true?" she asked hesitantly.

Edgar looked at all three of them. The green team. How quickly

he had come to admire and love them. They were so much

stronger and more full of courage than he was. They'd lost

every thing and been left for dead, but they still hoped for the

best.

"You're not going to believe me when I tell you this," said

Edgar. "You really won't, but I promise from the bottom of my

heart that Atherton is real. And the story gets a lot better."

And then Edgar told them every thing. He told them about the

making of Atherton, about Dr. Kincaid and Vincent, about

Cleaners and a collapsing world. He told them all about Dr.

Harding and what had really happened to him, how he had

transformed into Lord Phineus and back again, how all that he

had made was part of a grand and wonderful story that had led

Edgar back to the Dark Planet. He told them who he was--made

by Max Harding and hidden away in the grove on Atherton. He

told them every thing and they hung on every word.

"After I landed here in the Raven I didn't know what to do. I only

wanted to find the Silo, to see where my father--well, my maker,

I suppose--to see where he had grown up. And now I've found

you all and I couldn't possibly leave you here in a million

years."

"Wow!" said Landon. "Wow! Wow! Wow! This is, like, the best

day ever!"

"Calm down, Landon," said Teagan. But she was just as

excited on the inside as he was. And Aggie was, too.

Something good was happening to her and her friends, and her

heart felt alive with excitement as it never had before.

"What about Gossamer? Did you see the black dragon on

Atherton?" asked Landon, wide-eyed.

"I don't know about any black dragon," said Edgar. He wasn't

even sure what a dragon looked like. "But one thing you said

makes me wonder if there really is a dragon. Dr. Harding didn't

like anything that could fly, so if he were to make a dragon, I'm

not sure it would fly like you say."

Landon beamed. "Well, sure, he'd fly! Every dragon flies. He's

there, I know he is. We need to get to Atherton so I can find him.

I'm going to find the black dragon!"

Aggie started to cry, then she started to laugh. Pretty soon she

was doing both at once and she couldn't for the life of her get

any words out. Before long the laughter was gone and it was

only tears and quiet sobbing. She slouched along the green

leaves.

"What is it, Aggie?" said Teagan. "Why so sad?"

Aggie wiped the last of her tears away. "I wish you could have

come sooner."

Aggie wouldn't say why, but it was obvious to everyone that she

had lost her family along the way and it had left her filled with

grief, until now.

"I'm sorry," said Edgar, feeling the weight of the world on his

small shoulders. "But I'm here now--and Aggie, the story is true.