Greg Van Eekhout - The Boy at the End of the World

Contents

Kid vs. Squid

T H E B O Y A T

T H E E N D O F T H E

W O R L D

G r e g v a n E e k h o u t

Copyright 2011 by Greg van Eekhout

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published in the United States of America in June 2011
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in June 2011
www.bloomsburykids.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Van Eekhout, Greg.
The boy at the end of the world / by Greg van Eekhout. 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Born half-grown in a world that is being destroyed, Fisher has instinctive
knowledge of many things, including that he must avoid the robot that knows his name.
ISBN 978-1-59990-524-2 (hardcover)
[1. Science fiction. 2. SurvivalFiction. 3. RobotsFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.V2744Boy 2011 [Fic]dc22 2010035741

ISBN 978-1-59990-710-9 (e-book)

To Mike and Todd

(companions on early misadventures)

This is what he knew:

His name was Fisher.

The world was dangerous.

He was alone.

And that was all.

Fisher became born in a pod filled with bubbling gel. A plastic umbilical cord snaked from his belly. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw through the clear lid of the pod was destruction. Slabs of concrete and twisted steel fell to the floor amid clouds of dust. Severed wires spit sparks into the air. The world was coming apart.

Something told Fisher to get up, get out, run away while he still could.

The word instinct came to mind.

He pushed against the pod lid and it came open with a hiss. The gel stopped bubbling and drained away through holes at the bottom of the pod. Cold air struck Fishers wet skin when he sat up. It was the first time hed ever been cold, and he hated it.

Hed made a mistake. He never should have opened the lid. He never should have made himself become born. Maybe if he just lay back down and closed the lid the gel would return and he could go back to sleep and hed be warm and everything would be all right.

A huge, explosive thud hammered Fishers ears. The ground shook and the dim lights in the ceiling wavered and died. It was some kind of disaster. Or an attack. Fisher didnt know anything about attacks, except that they were dangerous and should be avoided.

Pipes clanged against the floor and more debris rained down. More sparks, more dust. Bitter air stung his nostrils. Fisher had never smelled this smell before. In fact, it was pretty much the first thing hed ever smelled. He was only a few moments old, after all, and hadnt had time to smell much. Somehow, though, he knew the smell meant things were burning around him.

There was no choice now. He had to make himself all the way born and get out of whatever this place was before everything burned and crashed around him. He swung his legs over the side of the pod and set his bare feet down on the cold floor. He took a step, and then another, and that was as far as he got. The umbilical tugged him back. It was still attached to his belly. He would have to yank it out if he was going to become all the way born. But there was just no way he could do that. He knew this wasnt how things were supposed to be. His birth was supposed to be soft. He was supposed to be soothed and bathed in light. He wasnt supposed to be alone.

Another shuddering whomp , and Fishers ears popped. It felt like something massive had struck the building. Debris clattered down. A big chunk of ceiling fell right in front of him, and Fisher discovered another thing he knew: profanity. Profanity was a collection of words that helped express strong feelings.

Fisher uttered a word from his profanity collection now.

It was the first word he ever spoke.

If the ceiling chunk had struck his head, Fisher would have been dead. Over and done with. He couldnt accept the idea of dying before hed even become fully born, so he wrapped his fingers around his plastic umbilical and gave it a mighty yank. The cord came out, spraying milky fluid and a little bit of blood, and Fisher bawled because now he was completely born and he knew thered be no going back.

But he didnt bawl standing still.

He bawled while running and shouting profanity.

Fisher found more pods lining the walls of vast, caved-in rooms. The pods contained all kinds of animals.

In one room, the pods held dogs. In another, pigs. In yet another, goats.

One room was full of pods the size of his hand, thousands of them, and inside were bees and worms and butterflies.

Another room held only four pods, each many times the size of Fishers own. Inside were elephants, their eyes shut, their curving tusks tinted blue through the gel.

All the pods were broken. The lights were out. The gel didnt bubble. Many were cracked, their gel oozing to the ground. And many more were completely crushed by fallen debris.

Fisher knew what death was. He had become born knowing. Death was failure. All the creatures in these pods had failed to survive.

He came to one last chamber, stretching into the smoky distance, where the pods were smashed and buried. From a mound of rubble emerged a slender brown arm. A human arm.

Fisher silently approached it. He brushed pebbles and dust from the damp fingers and touched the wrist.

Cold and still.

Another failure.

A noise drew Fishers attention away from the dead human. Down the corridor, through a haze of powdery light, a creature was bent over another pod. The creature was a little larger than Fisher and roughly shaped like him: two arms and two legs, a torso, an oval head. It was shaped like a human, but clearly not a human. A machine of some kind. The word robot came to Fishers mind.

The pod had been knocked partway off its support platform, and the dead human inside dangled out of it. The robot was doing something with the dead humans umbilical cord.

Fishers breath quickened with fear. He pressed his lips together to keep from making a noise and took a slow step back, then another. His heel struck a fallen pipe, and, losing his balance, he went down hard.

The human-but-not-human creatures head snapped around, turning its human-but-not-human face to Fisher.

It moved toward him.

Fisher, it said. I have found you.

Fisher ran. He scrambled over shattered puzzle pieces of concrete, through lung-choking smoke, through rooms where flames licked at pods of dead fish. He found a shaft of chalky light from above and began climbing up a steep slope of debris. Loose bits of concrete slid away beneath his hands and feet, and he struggled not to go sliding down with them.

Behind him, he could hear the screechy movements of the robot creature that knew his name, but the sounds grew fainter the higher up he climbed. He kept going until, at last, he stumbled out into moonlight.

He took a moment to understand his surroundings. Robot creatures could kill him, but so could his environment. He knew this in the same way he knew his name and knew profanity and knew what kinds of animals lay dead in their pods.

He was on the summit of a mountain formed from colossal slabs of granite. There were no buildings in sight. Scant patches of trees smoldered and smoked. Soil and rocks tumbled from collapsing ledges. He couldnt tell exactly what had just happened here, but he had a strong sense that the place of his birth had just been attacked from above. How, or by what, he couldnt say.