The Guardians of Zoone Read online

  “What was it like in TV Land?” Tug asked, looking at Ozzie earnestly.

  “Terrible,” Ozzie replied.

  “No purple hair?” Tug wondered.

  Ozzie laughed. “Not purple enough.”

  “Oz,” Fidget murmured, “how did you . . .”

  “You saved me,” Ozzie said. “All of you.”

  “Wh-what do you mean?” she stammered.

  “I heard you.”

  “We didn’t . . . we weren’t even talking.”

  “But you were calling to me,” Ozzie insisted. “You must have been. I . . . sensed you or something.”

  “I called you, Creator,” Scoot told him with a happy beep. “In my mindy-mind, that is. In my heart.”

  “Oh! So did I,” Tug added with a happy twitch of his tail. “Just to tell you, I think it mostly came out as purrs.”

  Fidget grabbed Ozzie’s hand, drew him close, and hugged him. “Yes,” she whispered into his ear. “What they said.”

  Ozzie hugged her back. He didn’t really understand what had happened, or how he had escaped. Maybe it was simply the power of having people on your side. Princess people. Skyger people. Even moto people. It didn’t matter what type of people exactly. As long as you had them, and they had you.

  Because everyone needs a crew. That’s what Captain Traxx had said. And you have to stick with them, Ozzie thought.

  Klaxon pivoted from his console. “I must run more diagnostics. The Machine must have a flaw.”

  “There is a flaw,” Ozzie agreed. “Your idea’s demented—that’s the flaw.”

  Klaxon glared at Ozzie with his goggle eyes. “No. The simulations are sound. I should have predicted that children would be more difficult. The results of the experiment are acceptable. My plan for the multiverse shall proceed.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Ozzie promised.

  “That is the arrogance of humanity,” Klaxon claimed. “You will not be able to prevent the plan. In fact, you will assist in it. Because you will be moto.”

  He pressed a button on his chest plate, and the ring of moto soldiers began to methodically close in, brandishing their saw blades and scalpels.

  “So much for choice,” Fidget muttered.

  “Give me the nectar,” Ozzie said to Scoot.

  She handed over the canteen, but as Ozzie went to raise it, Fidget held his arm. “I don’t think fighting’s going to work this time.”

  “Really?! You want to fight everyone. Always. And now you want to give up?”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to give up,” Fidget retorted as the motos continued to inch closer. “But we need a better plan! You must have learned something about tin-can man when you were in that infernal machine. Something we can use against him.”

  Ozzie scavenged his memory. “I learned that he used to be kind.”

  “Kind?”

  “Yeah. Gentle. Thoughtful. He even invented a machine to save the environment . . .”

  He trailed off. He suddenly understood.

  “What is it?” Fidget urged.

  “Not the environment of my world,” Ozzie said. “Klaxon’s world. This one. Creon.”

  Even over the buzz of the moto weapons, Klaxon heard him. The lights and antennae on his helmet began going berserk, flashing and twitching. He surged forward, thrust his way into the circle by hurling two motos out of the way, then paused, as if he had suddenly remembered he should be a machine, that he should control himself. He lingered there in the gap between his motos, his goggle eyes whirling round and round.

  Ozzie ignored him. “Take this,” he murmured to Fidget, thrusting the canteen into her hands. Then he slipped around to the backside of Scoot.

  “NO!” Klaxon screamed.

  Ozzie looked at the bank of switches on Scoot’s back. Five of them. They were all pointed in random directions. But they shouldn’t be, Ozzie understood. They needed to be in a specific order. Up-down-up-up-down.

  “Scoot’s the device,” Ozzie said. “That’s why he built her!”

  Klaxon tore forward, even as Ozzie began flicking the switches on the misfit moto’s back. Fidget opened the canteen and hurled it at the moto-man, whacking him right in the chest. The canteen didn’t break, but nectar spurted over him, leaking into the cracks and crevices of his metal body. Klaxon ground to a halt. One of the tubes on the side of his body burst away and began gushing smoke.

  “Get them!” he yelled at his moto soldiers, sparks flying from his metal teeth. “Destroy them!”

  The motos kept closing in—in fact, they had never stopped. But they didn’t speed up, either. Ozzie flicked the last switch on Scoot’s back to the down position and as soon as he did, the moto jerked. Her head began spinning, and her eyes lit up, so bright that Ozzie had to turn away.

  Scoot curled up one of her chunky hands, put it to her mouth, and began to bugle. “Shutdown sequence requested!” she announced triumphantly.

  She sped forward, past Klaxon, toward one of the control panels. The moto-man clutched at her with his metal claw as she zoomed past, but the artificial limb wasn’t working properly, and he missed.

  “Stop!” he commanded. “I am your creator! You must be loyal. TO ME!”

  “I am loyal,” Scoot warbled. “This is what Creator invented me to do!”

  The moto guards were almost upon Ozzie, Tug, and Fidget. It was hard to see beyond them, but Ozzie could just glimpse Scoot reaching the console. She plugged her chunky fingers into a port, and her head began spinning like a top.

  “Shutdown sequence initiated!”

  Ozzie tried to press closer to Tug and Fidget; he could feel the rush of air on his neck from the nearest moto saw blade.

  “Ouch!” he heard Fidget screech.

  Ozzie squeezed his eyes shut, then—

  Nothing.

  Ozzie opened his eyes. The motos had stopped dead in their tracks. Fidget shoved the one nearest to her and it toppled with a clang. They navigated past the deactivated robots, to where Klaxon was on his knees, clutching his chest, desperately trying to smear away the nectar. Fidget picked up the canteen and put the lid back on.

  “In case we need it again,” she said.

  Ozzie wasn’t really paying attention; he was looking at Scoot and the control panel. All the monitors had turned to static snow and the lights were flickering, as if in distress. Scoot’s head began to spin faster.

  “She’s in trouble,” Tug mewled anxiously.

  Ozzie hurried toward her, but the entire room suddenly lurched, as if struck by an earthquake.

  “No!” Klaxon gasped.

  An entire section of wall peeled away, revealing a panoramic view of Moton—and what it was becoming.

  The world was imploding. In one direction was the scrapyard, but in the other direction the factories were situated closer, and Ozzie could see the machines gyrating out of control. The conveyor belts were going backward, disgorging their payloads into the wrong end of the system. Grinders were spitting out rocks like bullets, peppering the control panels and obliterating them. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky.

  “What’s happening?” Fidget cried.

  “She’s shutting down the machines,” Ozzie realized. “I think she injected a virus into the system. To shut down the factories. And it’s causing a cataclysm.”

  The base quaked again, causing the floor to tilt, and Klaxon suddenly began to slide. Then, with a mechanical screech, he tumbled right through the exposed opening of the building and over the edge.

  “Ozzie!” Tug cried. “I think Scoot’s stuck!”

  Ozzie stumbled across the uneven floor toward the moto. Her hand was still plugged into the console, but her head was spinning so fast that it was just a blur. Before Ozzie could reach her, there was a thunderous boom. Scoot flew backward, across the room, and smashed into the opposite wall in an explosion of bright light and black fumes. Ozzie waved away the smoke to find the moto lying in a mangled heap. Her body had been split asunder, with g
ears and sprockets scattered in every direction. One arm was twitching on her body; the other was completely severed and lying on the floor. Her wheel had come loose and was rolling lazily in a circle.

  “Where’s her head?!” Ozzie screamed, only to spot it rattling across the floor—toward the gaping hole in the wall.

  He dove for it and missed, but Tug quickly leaped over him and snatched the moto’s head by an antenna.

  “Her—her battery,” Fidget said, her voice catching. “It must have exploded.”

  “Ozzie?”

  Dumbstruck, he slowly turned to see Aunt Temperance and Cho staggering through the door that led to the simulation chamber. Aunt Temperance pulled Ozzie into her arms, hugging him tightly against her body. She was still sticky with the goo from the stasis tank, but Ozzie didn’t care.

  “What happened?” he mumbled.

  “We could ask you the same thing,” Cho said as the floor beneath them continued to tremble. “Our tanks ruptured—what’s going on?”

  “Scoot shut down the Machine—and all the factories,” Ozzie explained, pulling away from his aunt to look mournfully at the smoldering wreckage that only moments ago had been his moto friend.

  “Oh . . . ,” Aunt Temperance moaned. “Scoot. Poor Scoot.”

  “And Klaxon?” Cho pressed.

  Ozzie numbly shook his head. “Gone.”

  “We have to get out of here,” the captain declared. He crossed the floor and braced himself against a girder to stare at the collapsing world. “The question is, how?”

  “The door to Zoone,” Aunt Temperance said. Ozzie turned to it, only to see that its arches were twisted and mangled. There was no more static; through it, he could see the factory city beyond.

  “We didn’t have the code anyway,” Cho said. “We need to return to the station house.”

  “We don’t have Scoot to lead us,” Ozzie said, taking the moto’s head from Tug and cradling it in his arms. “We have to fix her first.”

  “We will try,” Cho assured him. “But we can’t do that now.”

  He took off his coat and turned it into a makeshift sack. Then he began collecting bits of Scoot; her loose arm, her wheel, and the central mechanical core that lay exposed. He had to yank hard to pull it free. He put these bits in his coat, then slung it over his shoulder.

  Ozzie hovered around him, watching. “What are you doing?! We have to take all of her.”

  “I can’t, Ozzie,” Cho said. “She’s too heavy. This will be enough. And we have to leave.” Even as he spoke, another explosion rocked the factory, causing the building to violently shudder.

  “I’m not leaving without her,” Ozzie said. “All of her.” He held Scoot’s head tight to his side and used a free hand to tug at the arm that was still attached to her body. But even though Cho had taken her core, even though most of her body was now a hollow, ruptured shell, he could barely move her. Jagged pieces of metal, the edges of where her body had burst open, threatened to cut him.

  Cho placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Lad, we have to go. Give me her head.”

  “No!” Ozzie retorted.

  “We’ll get her fixed,” Fidget promised him.

  “Oh, sure!” Ozzie spat. “This is exactly what you wanted all along.”

  Fidget grabbed him by both shoulders and looked him intensely in the eyes. “Oz, listen to me. There’s nothing we can do for her, not right now. But there’s someone we can save.”

  Ozzie stared at her. “Huh?”

  “Lady Zoone.”

  “Fidget, what do you mean?” Aunt Temperance asked. “Do you know where she is?”

  “She’s the tree,” Ozzie said, still clutching Scoot’s head. “In the garden of rust.”

  Cho’s eyes flew wide open with understanding. “I’ll get us there. Come on.”

  They dashed down the corridors and ramps of the imploding base, and into the scrapyard beyond. Fires were blazing, the air was clogged with toxic smoke, and chemicals spewed from busted pipes. More than once, Ozzie was sure they were lost, but Cho had spent weeks in this wasteland. He knew the way. When they reached the river of sludge, they found that the crane had fallen across it, which meant they didn’t have to swing. They simply scrambled across the long mechanical arm to reach the other side.

  At last, they arrived at the edge of the scrapyard, where the remnants of the garden were located—and the lonely tree that was somehow Lady Zoone. She looked worse than before, leaning at a perilous angle with her branches drooping, some even snapped.

  Aunt Temperance gaped desperately at Ozzie and the others. “How do we help her?”

  “The nectar,” Ozzie said. “Fidget, didn’t you say it was the lifeblood of the Arborellia?”

  “Yes; that’s it!” The princess had carried the canteen all the way from the base and now she rushed to the trunk and began sloshing the never-ending flow of syrup around its roots.

  Ozzie watched in despair as the dead soil swallowed up the syrup, almost as quickly as Fidget poured it.

  “Zaria!” Aunt Temperance pleaded, wrapping her arms around the trunk. “We’re here! Come back to us!”

  “Listen!” Tug purred, his ears twitching intently.

  A groan emerged from somewhere within the deepest core of the tree. Ozzie looked up at its network of dry, brittle branches and was sure they twitched. Maybe it was the nectar, maybe it was Aunt Temperance’s embrace—the tree began to quiver, to morph, until, suddenly, there was Lady Zoone, collapsing into Aunt Temperance’s waiting arms. Her skin, normally so brown and warm, was leached of color and covered in angry blotches. Her arms were thin as twigs and her hair, usually alive with birds and rodents, was flat and empty.

  “Tempie?” she moaned, reaching up with a trembling hand to touch her cheek.

  “I’m here, Zaria.”

  “Oh. My dear, dear child,” she murmured. Then her eyes, so pale and gray, fluttered shut.

  Fidget gasped. “Is she . . .”

  “Just exhausted,” Aunt Temperance said, lifting her. “Oh! She’s so light.”

  “Keep that canteen close by,” Cho told Fidget, shifting the sack of Scoot’s parts on his back. “Come on—time to leave Moton again.”

  But before he could even turn, another thunderous convulsion rippled through the world. One of the garden walls toppled completely; luckily it fell away from them, revealing a view of the factory streets beyond. There was a new sound now, but it wasn’t mechanical.

  “Water!” Tug cried, his fur turning an optimistic purple.

  “The only water in Moton is toxic,” Cho said as the rumbling sound intensified. “The sludge river is overflowing. Some holding tank—maybe even a dam—has ruptured. We need higher ground—now!”

  Ozzie helped Aunt Temperance drape the limp body of Lady Zoone over Tug’s back and everyone began scrambling up the nearest mound of rusted metal. By the time they made it to the top, the entire garden was flooding with a roar of reeking toxic sludge.

  “We’re trapped,” Cho said grimly.

  The poisonous water continued to rise, sloshing through the heap of metal beneath them. The garbage hissed and steamed as it was slowly devoured by the caustic flow, causing their mound to constantly shift and sink. Tug began to retch in the smoke, and his fur turned to a green almost as ugly as the slew that was licking at their feet.

  “I wish my wing wasn’t broken,” the skyger said. “I could have flown us out of here.”

  Still clutching Scoot’s head against his side, Ozzie wrapped his free arm around the skyger’s massive neck. “At least we’re together.”

  “That’s true,” Tug said, licking him with a pale tongue.

  The fumes became overwhelming. Ozzie wondered what would get them first: the air or the sludge. Then he noticed that the clouds were growing darker, heavier; it was like a giant black monstrosity was looming over them, ready to finish them off once and for all.

  Wait a minute, he thought, squinting into the smog. Is that . . .


  “Well, well, well,” a voice called from the sky, “if it isn’t the guardians of Zoone.”

  32

  Back to Blue

  The Empyrean Thunder resolved through the fumes, hovering above them in all its squid-like glory. Captain Traxx was leaning over the railing, eyes blazing.

  “You took my words to heart, boy,” she shouted at Ozzie. “Your situation couldn’t be more desperate! Hold on. We’re throwing down ropes.”

  It took some work to hoist everyone up, especially Tug, but eventually they were all aboard and the ship began to plow through the smog, above the fracturing factory world. Cho carried Lady Zoone below deck, and Fidget and Tug went with him to escape the noxious fumes. Aunt Temperance disappeared to the bow of the ship. As for Ozzie, he felt too exhausted to do anything other than lean against one of the masts, cradling Scoot’s head as Captain Traxx strutted in front of him. Her monkey pounced from her shoulder and landed in Ozzie’s nest of hair, but he didn’t even protest.

  “You came,” he said to the pirate queen.

  “I keep my word,” she touted. “The signal flashed for only a moment, so I figured it really was an emergency. Hmm. Looks like your crew has expanded.”

  Ozzie stared down at Scoot’s lifeless head. “Yeah. Sort of.”

  A frantic scream came from across the deck, causing Meep to scamper away. Ozzie rounded the mast to see Aunt Temperance, silvery hair whipping in the wind, gesturing wildly overboard. Ozzie and Captain Traxx bolted to her.

  “He’s alive!” Aunt Temperance said, pointing at the river of poison below.

  It was Klaxon. The would-be moto was all alone on a makeshift raft, a collapsed portion of some wall. His mechanical arm hung limply by his side and smoke was still sputtering from his chest and helmet.

  “Mercurio!” Aunt Temperance screamed, clenching the railing so tightly that her knuckles were white.

  Klaxon slowly, mechanically, lifted his head. One of his goggles telescoped outward; the other stayed put, as if malfunctioning. Ozzie could just make out his face, but it betrayed nothing: not sadness, not relief, not even anger.