Plastic Girl: Evolution: Plastic Girl, #0

By Jessica Maison

Plastic Girl: Evolution is the prequel novella to the Plastic Girl Series. 

 

Set against the backdrop of a planet ravaged by acidic waters, toxic air and polluted lands, this sci-fi climate novella acts as a cautionary tale for adults and a hopeful one for youth, affirming that every end, even the darkest, makes room for new beginnings. 

Eva, one of Earth's last inhabitants, is a lonely girl searching for companionship and evidence that life might return to Earth. What time she doesn't use to survive her harsh environment, she spends searching for life, stewarding the lake around her cabin and making sculptures of extinct animals out of found materials. One day, while checking on her island, she discovers something alive that shouldn't be, something she can transform and that can also transform her. She embarks on a grand and dangerous scientific journey that ultimately will birth a new era and provide her with the companionship she so desperately needs. Through Eva's engagement with this new life, readers will discover that to save the world, humanity may have to become something else entirely or disappear completely.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wicked Tree Press
• Release date: Oct 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999570715

Jessica Maison

An author, screenwriter, comic book writer and publisher, director, and founder of Wicked Tree Press, Jessica Maison grew up by the shores of Lake Michigan and currently lives in Los Angeles. Her sci-fi young adult series, Plastic Girl, addresses her fears and hopes for her daughters as the world faces a climate crisis. Maison’s novels, comics, and other work can be found at www.wickedtreepress.com.

Book preview

Published by Wicked Tree Press in 2018.

Author: Jessica Maison

Cover art: Luciana Guerra

Cover design: Luciana Guerra and Michael Judd

Copy Editor: Trisha Alcisto Crabtree

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. The author’s use of names of actual persons, living or dead, and actual places is incidental to the purposes of plot and is not intended to change the entirely fictional characters in the work.

PLASTIC GIRL: EVOLUTION.

Copyright © 2018 by Wicked Tree Press.

ISBN: 978-0-9995707-1-5

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Submit inquiries through www.wickedtreepress.com.

FOR MY DAUGHTERS

and the children like them...

you will save the world

if we give you the chance

Prologue

BULLETS BLASTED STRAIGHT through a rusted tin can and into the concrete wall of an abandoned gas station. The can spun off an old milk crate and clanked to the ground.

Cheers and laughter filled up the empty station. Two near-feral boys sprinted along the gas station, slapping the faded adverts that hung like wraiths on the windows. 

The larger boy kicked the can out of reach of the smaller boy who had leaned over to pick it up.

The smaller boy shoved the kicker hard.

Don’t do that!

The larger boy shoved him back. Or what?

The smaller boy slugged the large one in the nose. Blood gushed from his nostrils down his lip and into his mouth. He howled and lunged at the smaller boy, taking him to the ground with a loud thud.

The smaller boy’s head hit the corner of the sidewalk with a crack. He went limp. The larger boy was on top of him and pulled his arm back to punch him.

Boom.

A bullet hit the cement right next to the two boys.

Knock it off, jerkwads. We need to find food and shelter for the night, a gruff voice barked.

An older boy with long tangled black hair, green eyes and a dangerous smirk glared down at them, gripping a pistol, resting the barrel on his forearm while touching the trigger menacingly.

The larger boy smacked the smaller boy’s shoulder as he stood up.

Yeah, knock it off.

The smaller boy didn’t move.

The larger boy glanced back. Come on, Griff, stop playing.

A pool of blood expanded under the smaller boy’s head.

Griffin? The larger boy ran back and leaned down.

Come on, man, wake up.

The older boy holding the pistol laughed a mean laugh. I guess that’s one less mouth to feed tonight. He turned and stalked toward the small town about a quarter-mile in the distance.

The larger boy touched the smaller boy’s face. He shook him, but the boy remained limp. The larger boy’s bloody lip quivered, and tears created dirty streaks down his face.

Let’s move, Jake, or should I just put you out your misery now? The older boy shouted.

Jake rubbed the blood, tears and dirt off his face with his sleeve. The smaller boy’s fingers twitched a few times and then went limp completely. His eyes were open, lifeless. The large boy choked back a sob as he turned and hurried to catch up.

As the boys disappeared behind a hill, the door of the gas station creaked open. A small, completely covered figure stepped out, clutching a quart of motor oil. A red scarf and goggles concealed her face and head. She wore waterproof fishing boots, long rubber gloves and a bright red parka with a hood.

She approached the boy’s body and knelt down, avoiding the expanding pool of his blood. The girl closed his eyelids. She spotted his satchel and carefully opened it.

Inside were a few cans of food, a bottle of water, a pocketknife and a photo of a family with two very little boys, one could be the dead boy before her, the other was probably the larger boy who had run off.

She took the two cans of food and shoved them in her bag along with the oil. She picked up the family photo again and gazed at it for a long time. She placed it on the little boy’s chest, closed her eyes and whispered a prayer.

I can’t believe you forgot to grab his bag, do you want to starve? I tell ya, I have half the mind to leave you here-HEY! What the-stop! Get her, she’s stealing our food!

The small girl’s eyes shot open, and her head jerked toward the voice. The older boy was pointing his pistol at her. She sprinted away as bullets started flying past her, barely missing.

She veered off the road into a neighborhood, hopping over a fence. She dodged through a couple of yards, zigzagging between houses with swift and familiar steps, quickly putting a few houses between her and the boys.

She crept into a garage and shut the door behind her. She stood perfectly still and quiet. The boys ran through the yard and past the garage and into the next yard. She peered out of a dirty windowpane and watched them search the adjacent yard for her as they kept jogging in the other direction.

When they were out of sight, she slipped out of the garage and retraced her steps back through the neighborhood until she arrived at a thicket. She glanced back toward the abandoned neighborhood. The boys were nowhere in sight. She ran quietly through the trees until she stepped onto the garbage-covered shoreline of a debris-filled lake. She shoved a fishing boat into the mucky waters.

The angry, but now muffled shouting of the older boy faded slowly as the boys searched for her deeper into the neighborhood. She gripped her oars and began the hard work of rowing her boat through the thick, tar-like water, putting as