text: PROLOGUE “He’s getting out of control. He needs to be stopped.” said the voice in the shadows. “He’s only fourteen.” “That’s old enough. I mean he fooled the machine, he has to be dangerous.” There it was again, the man’s sickly machine that kept all mankind “in line” or so he said. Just yesterday a boy was found in the warehouse where the machines were made. This is the most unsuspected thing. That is saying a lot considering we have a machine that knows what everybody in this state is going to do, has done or even might do. This machine had too much power. The man in the shadows had too much power. Chapter one I am Tylar Sumar and I’m fourteen years old. How many of you think that fourteen is too young to be in a prison in the middle of a boiling lake where you constantly have to be making things? Not whole things mind you parts of things. They tell you to make a shape or something sharp like the tip of a sword and then they throw it into the boiling lake. I’m okay with this, well not the prison thing but the building and tinkering I love. Now I’m not Hephaestus’ son or anything but I could be. Just yesterday I heard some of the guards talking about how they'd never seen a prisoner my age with the skill of making a little robotic mouse in just under five minutes. I’m not trying to brag but I mean that's pretty cool you gotta admit. Anyways they threw me in here for trying to get into this warehouse. I never found out what was in the warehouse because I was walking around the side when sirens started blaring and searchlights turned on. They might have been looking for someone else but they found me instead. “ ALRIGHTY LUNCH TIME!” the guard next to me yelled. Yeesh why couldn't he go off to the side somewhere so I didn’t go deaf before I hit thirty. Even though my ears were still ringing I went to lunch. Today we got sandwiches with ham and cheese. Then once we were done eating we got ten minutes of free time before we had to go back to making things. I took out my dirty rag that contained my tinkering scrap that I stole. Hey I’m in prison for a reason. Anyways, I started to work on the scrap trying to find a way to make a bird for my mouse when a girl walked up to me. She watched me as I worked on my bird which was coming along nicely for once. After a minute or so she said, “nice bird.” “Thanks.” I had never seen this girl before which was weird because I had learned all of the prisoners' names and what they looked like. It wasn’t hard because there were about ten of us on the island. I began to wonder whether she was a new prisoner, but then I realized we would have heard if someone new came here. “My name’s Ava.” she said “Mine’s Tylar.” “You ready to leave.” “To where.” “To the unknown.” Suddenly she disappeared. I was pretty sure the heat had made me hallucinate the whole encounter, I also hoped that everyone else at the prison wouldn't think I was crazy. Then I disappeared too. I mean I literally fell into the ground and was gone. I couldn't see anything. I was freaking out. It must have been hours later when I finally woke up. I looked around and what I saw around me was definitely not a prison surrounded in a boiling lake. It looked like a jungle with trees as tall as the empire state and about as wide as a sycamore. It was humid and I could hear all sorts of sounds like frogs croaking and bugs chirping. I even heard a roar in the distance. I looked around for the girl but saw no one. Then I saw pairs of yellow eyes looking at me from the dark jungle. They all walked out of the forest in unison and I saw that they were tigers. Listen I had nothing. I was just dropped here by some random girl from a prison, I didn’t have bubble gum like the guy from My Father’s Dragon. What I did have was a half made metal bird. Wow big help. I was beginning to freak out because these tigers were coming at me in such unison. Then I heard the slight buzzing, not the bugs or birds that were making so much noise but the tiger things. I realized they must be machines. That was a huge surge of relief. I don’t know why because if they were machines then they still probably had metal teeth. Watched as they came closer. Machine or not I would be dead within a couple of seconds. Then they stopped abruptly and I looked at them wondering what. Suddenly one of the tigers opened its mouth and a voice came from inside the tiger. It said “I don’t know where you are or how you left the prison but I can tell you something that no prisoner has escaped the prison alive. Now I want you to tell me where you are so we can have a friendly little chat.” It waited as if I was going to give a response then said, “I suppose not then.” And the tigers lunged. Just as suddenly as they lunged arrows flew from the surrounding trees. And just like that the tigers fell smoking and sparking. Each one with several arrows in its chest or side. I looked around hoping that the archers wouldn't shoot me. I waited five minutes before I went to check the surrounding area for people. There were none. However I did find a golden medallion hanging on a tree branch with a moon engraved on its surface. I grabbed it and put it in my pocket. Then I heard footsteps. Running towards where the lions were still lying smoking and sparking. I saw the girl from before what was her name? Oh yeah Ava, I saw Ava run into the clearing see the lions and immediately look towards the trees. I hid behind one of the trees and stood silent unsure of whether Ava really wanted to help me or if she had brought me here to be eaten by the lions. I waited for her to turn her back to me or leave but she looked in my direction the whole time. Then she turned into a bird and flew away. I kid you not. Then something told me to follow the bird so I did. Walking in the direction of the bird then running then full on sprinting after the bird. I looked down and realized that I was close to the ground running faster than I ever had before with black fur on my legs. I’ll tell you that this freaked me out. I had paws. I stopped running and looked at myself in a pool of water. I was a fox! That's what I saw at least. Shaggy brown-orange fur with a long pointed muzzle and black fur on my paws and tips of my ears. Chapter two “What of the boy?” “I don’t know how sir but all of our lions were destroyed.” The man in shadow sighed deeply and sat up. “Please tell me that you got some of his voice.” “No sir he...” “WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE DIDN’T SPEAK.” “He didn’t answer and we were going to plan B when we lost connection.” “Did you find the hardware of the lion.” “No..... sir.” His yell of outrage could be heard all the way to the prison. Why was I a fox. That’s all I could think for the next hour. I was well aware when the bird landed across the pool of water but I made no move to try to catch it. When I fell asleep I had a weird dream, it was about two men. One of them always kept in shadow and the second man was the voice of the lion. They were talking about a boy. It took me a while to realize that they were talking about me. Something about the man in the shadow was creepy, even evil. The other man seemed scared about something. “How many do we have.” said the man in the shadows “Around twenty sir.” the other man said “And what of the girl.” “She was last seen flying southwest.” “Did he follow.” “Yes.” “Do you know their location?” “Right at the banks of Wasasomin lake.” “Perfect.” I woke to the sound of frogs croaking and bugs chirping. What I immediately noticed was I was human again. Also Ava was standing over me. “AHHH.” I said “Finally you’re awake I thought you'd died in your sleep.” she said. I sat up looking around, then I remembered my dream. “We have to leave.” “Why?” “The man with the lions knows where we are and is coming.” “How do you know that.” “It was my dream.” We got up and began to run towards the trees when I heard the sound of a helicopter. I looked up and there it was hovering over the lake. I saw what looked like people jumping from the helicopter into the lake. They landed with a ginormous splash and started to walk towards us. They were robots I was sure of it. The helicopter was fifty or so feet in the air when they jumped. Each one had old spartan armour on with rusty old spear and a scabbard at their side. Five of them were different. They had black armour and a long range rifle and a pistol at their side. And no arrows flew to meet them. Ok I thought we’ll have to get out of this without some archer to take out our enemies for us. Dang it. “Come on.” Ava yelled. We ran through the jungle for quite a while before we stopped at a river that ran across our path. I ran to the edge of the river and realized there would be no getting out of this. The robots pulled out their weapons. TO BE CONTINUED