Code Lightfall and the Robot King Read Free Page A

a strange place this is , Code thought. Everything was different here, from the leaves to the animals. Nothing was natural. Everything was made of metal or plastic or glass.
    Looking around in wonder, Code stepped over waist-high roots and ducked under low-hanging branches. He stopped and ran his fingers over an oddly solid tree trunk. The bark didn’t crumble at all. “Peep, is this whole place full of robots just like you? Even the trees are made of metal.”
    Peep winked a happy orange, then went back to curious green as she kept gliding forward through the gloom.
    A pang of fear ran through Code when he realized that he could no longer see the tunnel entrance. He didn’t know the way back to the tunnel. But come to think of it, he didn’t know the way back from the tunnel to the mound either. Not only do I not know the way back , he thought. I don’t know the way back from the way back . So Code decided to do the only rational thing: go forward.
    After a few more minutes of walking, Code stopped in his tracks. Before him was a thing that he absolutely could not make sense of. It was a shiny wall. No … it was a swiftly flowing silver creek. Wait—it was a blur of speeding sticks. Code squinted at the bizarre sight—it was like trying to focus on the spinning blades of a ceiling fan. No. It couldn’t be. Were those … legs? The more he looked, the more Code became sure: it was a thousand pairs of connected legs running almost but not quite faster than Code could see. The running wall was taller than Code and connected to a long, gray centipede-like body. It stretched through the woods in both directions as far as he could see.
    Peep kept going, flying right over the top.
    â€œWait!” shouted Code. He hopped up and down in vain, trying to see over the speeding wall. “Oh, Peep,” he muttered. For a few minutes, he searched for a way around but found nothing. Finally, Code sat down on a glinting rock and rested his chin in his hand.
    He was starting to feel really afraid. Alone in a strange, motionless forest filled with robotic animals—and now this, a metal wall of legs violently hurtling past. The shining barrier kicked up a breeze that ruffled his hair. I just need to get past this wall , he thought. Peep is the only one who seems to know the way. I’ll find her and then get out of here , he promised himself. Back to the mound and the school bus and home.
    Code picked up a stick and slowly held it out toward the silvery blur of motion. Crack! It was smashed to splinters the instant it made contact. Code dropped the broken stick and rubbed his bruised hand. Touching this thing would break his arm, he realized. And it was too high to jump over, even if he climbed a tree. Code looked to the left and right again. The wall didn’t seem to have a beginning or end. Feeling small and alone, Code turned away from the wall and looked back the way he had come, wishing desperately that Peep would return so he didn’t have to figure this out by himself.
    Then Code felt a tap on his shoulder.
    â€œThat was very rude,” said a broad, insectile face with quivering antennae. “Even for a brute living in the Odd Woods.”
    A jolt of fear and surprise raced through Code, but he couldn’t react. It was all he could do to keep breathing. A smooth metallic face with emerald green bug eyes loomed over him. When it spoke, two sharp mandibles clacked back and forth in its mouth, like serrated knives.
    â€œWell?” asked the creature. “Haven’t you got anything to say?”
    Code gasped in wonder as he realized the face was connected to the centipede-like body that curved off into the distance. This creature was the silver wall! The moving wall of legs slowed down and finally stopped. One slim leg reached up and scratched its belly, just like a cat.
    â€œI’m sorry,” said Code, studying the insect’s face. It seemed very odd that