Free The Boy at the End of the World by Greg van Eekhout

his design and tied the pontoons directly to the sides of the raft.
    Maybe the raft would float.
    Maybe not.
    â€œWe’ll rest up and leave at first light,” Fisher told Click.
    But Fisher couldn’t rest. His legs hurt too much. And without the strength to gather wood, he managed only a dwarf fire fed by the stray sticks Protein brought him and Click (but mostly Click). Sleep came in brief fits.
    Sometime before dawn, Protein squealed an alarm.
    Fisher snapped awake. Darkness still blanketed the beach. His fire had burned down to ashes.
    â€œClick, what’s going on?”
    But the robot didn’t answer.
    Instead, Fisher heard noises. Little scritching sounds. High-pitched whirring. Mechanical noises. And a rasping sound, like something being dragged across sand.
    Fisher rose painfully, spear in one hand, knife in the other.
    â€œClick? Where are you? What’s happening?”
    â€œI believe I am being abducted, Fisher.”
    â€œI can’t see you, keep talking! Abducted by what?” Using his spear to feel his way around, Fisher tried to follow Click’s voice.
    â€œI cannot make visual identification. My night-vision unit is housed in my broken left eye. I regret that I was not constructed with a backup system—”
    Click’s voice was coming from the shore. And there were other noises as well: mechanical movements, different from Click’s.
    Fisher stumbled his way toward them. His foot struck a rock and he went down, his legs flaring with agony. He made himself get up.
    â€œClick? Keep talking! I’ll find you!”
    â€œI believe I am being dragged into the river, Fisher. I advise you to abandon me in the interest of ensuring your own survival.”
    The next thing Fisher heard was a splash. Then, some gurgling bubbles.
    Fisher tromped into the river, ignoring the fresh sting of water on his wounds, and peered into the darkness. “Click? Click?!”
    But it was no use. He was blind, and Click didn’t answer his calls. There was just an odd sound, a wet sort of buzzing. The word propeller formed in Fisher’s mind.
    Fisher thrashed through the water and kept calling for Click. Too quickly, the propeller noise faded.
    He stood in the river for just a few more seconds, listening to nothing, then stumbled back to shore. Holding out his hands, he moved toward heat to find his dead campfire. He blew on the coals until their glow returned, and after a few moments of tending them, he was able to light a stick.
    He raised his modest torch. Protein’s enraged eyes gleamed orange. He was standing on something.
    Fisher laid a gentle hand on the mammoth’s shoulder. “Let me see what you’ve got there,” he said in a soothing murmur. “Come on, step off. There you go.”
    Protein moved his foot away to reveal a smashed machine. There were wires and metal bits and a three-bladed propeller.
    Fisher’s brain and hands automatically calculated what he could make from the junk: fishhooks and arrowheads and small, fine cutting tools.
    But he also knew what the machine really was: a gadget. One of the things the Stragglers had written about. One of the things that had destroyed his Ark.
    More than ever, he felt himself called to the Southern Ark, to find the Stragglers, or their descendants, and the people they’d gone down the Whale Road for. Getting to his destination quickly seemed like his best defense now.
    But not until he got Click back.
    Fisher scooped up the debris and gathered his spear and knife and loaded them on the raft.
    â€œHop aboard, Protein. We’re on a rescue mission.”

CHAPTER   11
    The river churned. More eddies. More whirlpools. Along the shores grew tangle-brush and bamboo and trees hung with webs of moss. Fisher leaned against the mast and watched for a sign of Click.
    He could be anywhere. Fisher wasn’t even sure he was steering the raft in the right direction. Maybe the gadgets had