Chapter 1: 'The Start of Something'

Ted Wiggins was lost.

And not in the kind of lost that you can easily get out of. It was the kind of lost where you're moving along and you're not stopping even though every part of your body but your motor skills are saying 'it's okay to keep moving, you'll get there when you get there, right?' He was twenty degrees west of the wrong end of town. Maybe because this wasn't town anymore, and it wasn't familiar. It was huge and black and barren, a thick wind that struck at odd intervals and blew through your small thirteen year old frame, right through your two shirts. It blew dust into your eyes—but thank god you're wearing goggles.

It smogged the air out here, snuck into the lungs, it made life miserable.

This whole place was miserable. No wonder no one came out here. Nothing lived here, no living thing could possibly…well, hopefully, Ted was wrong about that. He only needed one thing, persons actually, to be living out here. That's all he needed.

So yes, he was lost. But he was not panicking. Not yet.

So the boy traveled on, the one plus side to all this was he wasn't forced to walk this dead and empty road out past the town's high walls, his one-wheeled scooter doing all the rough work, Ted was just steering.

And cursing. He was doing a lot of that ever since he'd taken a sharp right at South Stitch and started getting that prickly 'wrong end of town I think I'm in' feeling. Wrong end of town…? More like, wrong end of the ruins of the world.

The Street of the Lifted Lorax…that's where he needed to be to get what he'd come out all this way for.

Well, sort of. That was where he'd find the person who would, with a little luck and a lot of kindness, would give him the thing he'd come all this way for.

"Find the Once-Ler, Grammy said. It'll be easy, she said." Ted moaned as he headed into a darker patch of what looked like…fog? He loved that old woman, seriously but sometimes…

'Take the road to North Nitch,' He'd done that, for as far as he'd could. His grandmother's words echoed in the boy's head as Ted scooted along, face set in concentration behind his wide goggles. 'Left at Weehakwen…sharp right at South Stitch.'

Well he'd done all that, to the T, afraid that if he strayed from the path he wouldn't just lose sight of the town behind him but that he'd lose his way to and back from the Once-Ler's place. He needed this strange, forgotten man, he needed him because he had a seed, and a seed turned into a tree and…

A slightly dopey smile slid over Ted's face as his mind drifted to lovely thoughts about soft smiles and bright red hair. Audrey…

Something shot out of the dark, coming straight for his face, and Ted yanked back on the handles, sending himself spine first down as he roughly avoided an-an AXE?

"Wha—" He had no time to shout, he'd lose his throat faster than it would take to scream in surprise, Ted jerked the scooter this way and that, the strange many armed axe wielder was laying still and Ted was the one who was moving, but that's not what it felt like!

"….Grandma…." he moaned as he flopped tiredly over his handle pbars after extracting himself form that mess, "if I live, we're gonna have words about sending your only grandchild into dangerous axe landscapes." He stressed quietly a moment longer, collected his thoughts and reminded himself WHY he was on this mission. To make the girl of his dreams the happiest girl in the whole wide world. Right. He could do this. And then for one agonizing moment Ted almost thought about turning back until…something came into view. Something too dark and too solid to be fake or Ted's imagination. The boy lit up and headed straight for it, and what loomed into view was exactly what he was looking for.

Unfortunately.

Something suddenly cawed at his approach to the street sign and the house that sat moodily in front of him a ways away. Ted blinked and coasted to a stop, moving to stand on one leg

'And no birds ever sing, excepting old crows…' Granny had said. 'Is the Street of the Lifted Lorax. Here you'll find the Once-Ler's house, Teddy.'

It….looked like a house. The…Once-ler's Lerkim? Was that what Granny had called it? Granny Norma wasn't getting punchy in her old age, Ted knew but, still, gosh this was hard to take seriously.

This place was worse than the rest of the land. It hunched over like an old man, long forgotten gears and mechanical parts of the house had stopped on the outside—the same could be said for its inside, Ted assumed.

…how was it even standing!

Ted set his bike to one side carefully, leaning it against the old lamp post that had a shattered bulb in it—with broken glass. Someone had broken the light on purpose, it hadn't been an accident.

And the old, old, depilated building glared down at Ted with blackened windows where the glass was missing, and Ted almost preferred that to the windows that were boarded up, because it felt like…it felt like this place had been boarded up to keep something in. Not just out. Dark clouds sat high above and cast down nothing but gloominess and sadness, an tone of regret and things long ago.

'The Once-Ler lives outside of town, but he'll help you. You just have to be careful. He's got…he has a friend that I'm sure is still around, that probably won't give you any trouble if you keep your wits about you. Oh but, you're a sweet kid Teddy, I'm sure it'll be alright…'

"…What have you gotten me into Grammy Norma?" Ted moaned quietly to an old crow perched on the lamppost arm above him.

It cawed. Mechanically. It was a robot stuck in place and meant to look like the real thing, Ted realized with a horrified closer look.

Ted shivered, and this time the wind had nothing to do with it.

The inside of the house was worse…but maybe that was because he'd gone in the back door behind the Lerkim. That was because the front door had…attacked him. Flung him away, sling shoted him gracelessly almost past the lamppost and now he was sore and a bit cranky and really, no one had answered when he'd called out, was the Once-Ler here or wasn't he? Why was the concept of leaving an 'out for lunch' note so hard to grasp for some people?

But the invention at the door—it had worked like it had been set only recently.

So the Once-Ler was either keeping something out, or keeping something in.

Or both.

Someone must be here, or maybe there was clues to where someone might have gone or…or maybe there was a seed just sitting on the coffee table waiting for him? Theodore Wiggins swallowed but he did not panic. He slid in through the half open door and stepped right into an ancient world of filth and oil. He wrinkled his noise at the irony smell but edged further in bravely. He couldn't tell what room he was in, the place was too dark in one corner and all he was ahead of him was a hall. Well, there was certainly no one in this part of the house, but maybe further on?

The floor boards creaked under him, something ahead scampered out of his way. The boy's shoulders lifted and he tried to flatten the hair on the back of neck by pure will alone. (It didn't work.) He trudged on, breathing through his mouth when the air became thick enough to choke someone. The next room he entered looked like the center of the house…and the center of an explosion, with all the things scattered and thrown, the oily scent got stronger.

Maybe this had been a workshop and an office once?

The young boy wasted no time in exploring more, it wasn't like this place was homely or welcoming, and that didn't make Ted think about trespassing, how could it? This entire run down tall shed was a lot more interesting on the inside than it appeared from the out. Ted had a feeling that was by design. But maybe his seed was in here, just maybe.

Still…no sign of any living creature, human or no.

But…boy there were a lot of tools. Wrenches, nuts and bolts scattered here and there. It was a work shop well worked in. Lived in. Ted's sneakers hit a screw and sent it rolling, leaving a tiny dusty trail in its wake. He followed with it his eyes, until it hit the clawed foot of a piece of wood, and Ted squinted, trailing his eyes up a thick desk leg to its surface—also dark with dust—to the tall thin form perched upright on the desk.

Ted swallowed and then his mouth fell open as his eyes widened at the shape.

A robot.

"Okay, whoa…" The awe slipped from his mouth before he could stop it, just like his legs carried him forward and brought him to stand in front of the robot and stare upward.

It was…sitting on a desk, in the dark of the room, small tiny gray light cut through the black of the dusty, oily smelling room.

Well, it certainly looked like a robot, it was very human in shape, if it weren't for the fact it was utterly motionless and had one thicker obviously metal arm slack at its right side, the slightly dangerous looking clawed hand settled in a limp curve on the edge of the desk, mirroring the other hand. The head was bowed forward; chin nearly hitting its dark green chest, but its dark cropped synthetic hair hung down lightly. Whatever this was it was amazing and it was made well, Ted could just tell.

Now if only it was working…

They'd had things like this in the grocer's, running the check outs. On the road, fixing small repairs. Robots, automatons, were a part of Ted's life, just like bottled air. So it wasn't so much of a shock to see this automaton in suspended sleep mode as it was to see it so hunched over and old looking.

He didn't know a lot about androids but…suddenly he wanted too. This thing called for it, stuck in such a way for how many years and it still looked impressive. In its hay day, however long ago that was, it must have been an amazing piece of technology.

The desk was in the middle of the room for some reason, the automaton's throne in this black castle of grime and decrepitated paraphernalia. Ted spared the papers on the desk only a moment's glance, then doubletaked as he saw written in the faded scrawl certain words on some of the aged documents.

'Once-Ler…'

'…factory…'

'….no more…thneeds…'

'Once…' The rest of the words were covered in layers of dirt or hidden forever under a spilled pile of ink that had been over turned.

Ted whipped back up to peer at that bowed head closer. Was this…the Once-Ler? Was that possible? After today, Ted was starting to think anything was possible. If at least not improbable.

In the back of the body, Ted saw as he edged around the desk, the hunched over form had a slot running along where a spine would be. It was long but at the top….at the top, almost at the base of its neck, was a bit bigger square with its hatch open, the robot's dusty clothes pulled down to show the opening better. Ted pushed the chair out of the way and stepped up behind the robot, trying to see into the hole in its neck.

Huh.

This guy was clothed, and finely from what it looked like. It was taken care of, or it HAD been taken care of, that was easy to figure out. Ted started digging in his pocket, wondering why this felt right. But if, if his hunch was right and this WAS the Once-Ler, and Granny had said to give this stuff to him then…then this was the right thing to do, wasn't it? The boy took only a second to look down at the items clustered in his palm, and something that he might have considered silly struck him as he stood there to actually go through with this. But really, he was probably long past silly and borderline crazy to even BE here so, so why not…take a chance?

Ted reached up and slipped in fifteen cents, and a nail, and the shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail.

Nothing happened, at first.

Until suddenly it did.

'It' being…noises. Gears turned within it somewhere, the body rattled and hissed and gurgled. Clanking metal moaned and creaked and Ted jumped back automatically on guard, his eyes widening, still at the back of the automaton.

Across the room in front of the robot, green dots of soft light hit the wall as the neck turned the head upward. At first its actions were jerky and uneven, and then slowly but surely it started smoothing out. Gears whirred as the joints moved and that thick clawed hand crunched into through the wood and left groves when it pulled back and started testing other limbs for functionality. Ted licked dry lips, suddenly frozen as this thing jerked and straightened to life right there in the desk. The robot's throat let out a grating noise that might have meant something if Ted spoke robot. The spine moved to perfect posture, and Ted could finally notice how tall this automaton was.

The green lights, widened, shrank, widened again. They started moving around in unison, the head looking around slowly and but surely, like it was searching.

After all this time…and it still worked!

"…holy cow." Again, the words tumbled past his lips. This time, his actions had a repercussion.

The mechanical creature paused at Ted's voice.

And then suddenly the head turned all the way around to focus green orbs behind monstrous goggles at him, it's very human like face closing its lips around its sharp bronze teeth in its mouth…and Ted Wiggins screamed at the horrifying sight.

Now he understood the warnings, now he knew he was a little bit too lost, a little bit more than he should have been.

Now, he was panicking.