Lost Boys (Mortal Engines)

The Lost Boys are a shadowy, fictional organisation which appears in the Hungry City Chronicles written by Philip Reeve.

Beginnings of the Lost Boys

The leader of the Lost Boys is a man called Stilton Kael, known to the boys as Uncle. The Kael Family was a wealthy and powerful family on the Traction City of Arkangel, running engines, salvage yards, agriculture etc. Uncle was given control of a salvage yard and was in charge of the slaves working there. However, Uncle fell in love with a slave there named Anna Fang. He gave her the best food and made sure all the hard work was kept from her. He gave her presents and planned to marry her. However, Anna Fang was secretly building an airship, on the pretext that Uncle had ordered it. She sold her presents to buy fuel and gas for her airship and one day escaped. Uncle was arrested for aiding a slave escape and banished on to the Ice Wastes with nothing.

Uncle then took up with a band of scavengers who were looting the wreck of Grimsby, a Traction City which had recently sunk into the ocean. He killed them and went to Grimsby, from where he began to rob things from passing cities. He also began to steal information from them: he had vowed that no one would keep a secret from him again. The Lost Boys were born.

Organisation and Methods

The Lost Boys are young boys between the ages of 8 and about 20, kidnapped from various Traction Cities. They are then taken Grimsby where they are trained in a place called the "Burglarium", until they are considered skilful enough to go their first mission. The boys are sent in groups depending on the size of the mission, usually in twos or threes when robbing ordinary cities. They use limpets, a kind of submarine, to travel to their host city where they clamp, hidden underneath it. The Boys then board the city stealthily and begin to take peoples' possessions, stowing them in their limpets' hold. Once the hold is full or after a set period of time, the Boys detach the limpet from the city and sail back to Grimsby. . The Lost boys are built on a hierarchical system, with the oldest and most experienced Boys at the top, getting the best rooms, limpets etc. while the trainees or the Boys who have broken the rules at the bottom.

Technology

The most used piece of technology by the Lost Boys is the Crab-Cam, which is basically a remote controlled camera on legs. They are used by the Boys to spy on cities in order to know when it is safe to start burgling. The limpets used by the Boys to travel in are like giant submarines used as control rooms by the Boys when on a mission. The limpets also contain Message-Fish, mechanical fishes installed with Stalker brains, which are used to take messages and reports between a limpet and Grimsby over long distances.

Role in the Series

Predator's Gold

The Lost Boys first appear in Predator's Gold when they are robbing the Traction City, Anchorage. Three boys, Caul, Skewer and Gargle, are burgling the almost deserted city, whose inhabitants suspect ghosts are haunting it. When Tom Natsworthy and Hester Shaw come aboard, they are nearly found out and have to be much more cautious. However, when Hester storms out from Anchorage after she sees Tom and Freya kissing, Caul risks the limpet and his position as limpet Commander to warn Tom. In doing so, he breaks Uncle's main rule: don't get caught. Skewer takes control of the limpet, and soon after an order comes from Uncle in Grimsby to kidnap Tom and take him back to Grimsby. However, by this time Tom has realised who the Lost Boys are and is about to alert the city. The Boys capture him in time and escape narrowly from Anchorage.

They take Tom back to Grimsby where Uncle informs him of Hester's imprisonment by the Green Storm. Tom and the Lost Boys agree to help free Hester and they go to Rogue's Roost where she is being held captive. However, Uncle has his own reasons for going to the Roost. He has learned that Anna Fang, the slave who led to his downfall in Arkangel, has died and that the Green Storm are attempting to turn her into a Stalker. Uncle sends his best Lost Boys there, to try and steal her. The Boys send Tom into the building, under the pretence of rescuing Hester, as a diversion so they can plant bombs in the base. They in turn plan to use the bombs as a diversion so they can get into the laboratory where the stalker is being kept. However, Caul, who has learned that Tom is merely being used and will be killed, detonates the bombs before they are in position. The others have no choice but to go in. They reach the lab, but are easily killed by the stalker. The remnants of the Lost Boys flee back to Grimsby.

When Caul gets back to Grimsby, he is sentenced to a slow death by hanging for ruining Uncle's plans. However, Gargle, a boy who was with Caul on Anchorage, frees him and gives him a map which shows the way to America. Caul steals a limpet and sets off for Anchorage. He gives the map to the Anchorites and they use it to find a green place in America, formerly known as the Dead Continent, where they become a static settlement.

Infernal Devices

Caul, the former Lost Boy, has settled in Anchorage-in-Vineland though he is viewed as strange by the other citizens. Gargle, his former crewmate, is still a Lost Boy and sails to Anchorage in search of the Tin Book with two other Lost Boys, Fishcake and Remora, a girl. When Caul refuses to help him, he turns to Wren Natsworthy for help. She agrees and gives him the Tin Book in return for taking her to the outside world. However the deals goes wrong and Hester has to shoot Gargle and Remora. Fishcake however drags Wren aboard and escapes. But Wren learns that for months, Lost Boys and their limpets have been disappearing.