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it to help us.”
    â€œDon’t interrupt me. I’m savoring my victory.” Mister Snow smirked and hummed a triumphant ditty.
    Diana watched, frozen, as the agents began unloading the supplies to set up their base of operations on the eighth continent. Everything was going right. So why did it all feel so wrong?

THE
ROOST
SWEPT OVER THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY. RICK AND EVIE PRESSED THEIR NOSES AGAINST A window, watching from their perch on the bridge as cedar forests and herds of longhorn cattle scrolled past.
    â€œIt’s so green,” Evie remarked in surprise. “And look at the cute cities! I always thought Texas would be brown and desolate, like something out of an old western movie.”
    â€œNonsense,” Rick said, admiring the scenery. “If Texas was its own country, it would have the fourteenth largest economy in the world. It has almost twice the gross domestic product of Switzerland.”
    â€œWhat’s so gross about Switzerland’s domestic product?”
    Rick sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if you ask such silly questions on purpose. Not that kind of gross. It means the total value of everything the country produces; and although Texas is just a state, it produces a lot. Did you know that back a couple hundred years ago, Texas
was
its own country, called The Republic of Texas? They had a President and everything.”
    â€œHeh!” Evie snorted. “You sound like 2-Tor. Is it time for a quiz?”
    Rick tried to smile. “You wanna know the honest truth? I miss 2-Tor. Even with all our wild adventures, we’ve never been totally on our own before, without the supervision of 2-Tor or Mom or Dad. It doesn’t feel safe.”
    â€œI know!” Evie chirped. “Isn’t it great?”
    Before Rick could answer, music started playing from the command console, indicating that they were coming up on their destination.
    Ahead they could see the snaking water of the Rio Grande, the river that divided the southern border of the United States from its neighbor Mexico. At a bend in the river, a patchwork of multicolored squares stretched northward like a quilt: farmland. From this distance, Evie couldn’t identify the various crops, but the sheer diversity of them astounded her, especially in this environment. Sure, Texas wasn’t a desert like she had expected, but still! They must have been using some seriously high-tech watering cans to get such plants to grow here.
    Rick aimed the
Roost
at a small compound of portable buildings on the eastern side of the farm. Together, he and Evie braced themselves as their hovership landed on its shock-absorbent roots in front of the compound’s gated entrance. Their stomachs flipped as the bridge realigned with the ship’s new orientation.
    Evie and Rick emerged from the
Roost
and were struck by the midday heat. Evie took off her blue hoodie and tied it around her waist, then rolled up her gray pants above her skinny knees. A Geneva Genomes baseball cap kept the sun out of her eyes. Rick’s hair was damp with sweat, and although he had rolled up the sleeves of his button-down shirt, the under-parts of his elbows were soaked with perspiration.
    â€œUgh!” Evie squinted in the bright sunlight. “It’s like getting hit in the face with a hair dryer.”
    â€œThis heat is oppressive, but we gotta keep going.”
    Beyond the fence, worker robots carried heavy loads of fertilizer, seeds, and farming equipment across the compound. The robots were orange, but their color wasn’t the strangest thing about them.
    â€œThey look like carrots,” said Evie.
    â€œYeah,” Rick replied. “Eight-foot-tall carrots.”
    Evie was about to call out to the robo-carrots and ask them to open the gate, when she heard some rustling of plants in the cornfield to her right. She exchanged a glance with her brother. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.
    â€œIt sounded