Young Captain Nemo: The Door into the Deep

by Jason Henderson

  Behind the light he saw an uncertain image, part visible, part hidden in shadow, a teenage girl with thick hair wet and clumped around her shoulders. She dimmed her Katana’s headlamp. Her eyes, large and black, her dusky skin: There was nothing about her that didn’t spell sister.

  “I knew it was you.”

  “I need you to look at this,” she repeated, more urgent this time. “We don’t have much time.”

  Gabriel had not seen his sister in nearly a year, and he was certain his parents had not either. Everyone in the family had to deal with the Nemo legacy. The original Captain Nemo, Gabriel’s great-great-great-grandfather, who first devised the many principles that drove the technologies they used, had chosen a dark path of vengeance on governments he despised. Mom and Dad had rejected that path. Living and working in the Nemolab at the bottom of the ocean, they had chosen peace. Gabriel had chosen … whatever this life was now. A kind of quasi-peace, he guessed.

  Nerissa Nemo, however, really was living up to Captain Nemo’s darkest legacy. Nerissa used her vessel, the Nebula, to strike illegal whalers and anyone else she found to be disrespectful to the sea. At only eighteen years old, she was already a fugitive, wanted for the destruction of at least five vessels. Which was why Gabriel and his parents didn’t get to see her much anymore. Not that he saw much of his parents, either. A few times a year. All part of the experiment.

  How much was Nerissa risking coming to see him? She wouldn’t be alone, regardless. Gabriel knew her own vessel lay somewhere within the range of the Katana she rode. Aboard the two-hundred-foot Nebula, a loyal crew waited with heavy weapons. He had heard her called the Joan of Arc of the Sea.

  “Don’t have much time?” Gabriel repeated. “What do you mean?”

  “Just look at this.”

  Gabriel shook his head in confusion, and she pointed at the buoy she had sent ahead of her. On a “screen” made up of water vapor a few feet from where Gabriel sat, the light from Nerissa’s Katana projected a grainy color image of high waves somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Thanks to the orange container boxes stacked at the bottom of the image, Gabriel knew he was looking at a shot taken from one of the vast multinational container vessels that crossed the Pacific constantly. Those containers were twenty feet long, the ships themselves enormous. Ocean spray crashed against the deck, and in the gray daylight, waves that dwarfed the giant ships chopped into the distance.

  “This image was taken a month ago in the North Pacific Gyre,” Nerissa said. “Right where all the currents of the Pacific come together, smack-dab between California and Japan.”

  “I know where it is.” Gabriel rolled his eyes. He’d studied it when he was five, just as she had.

  “Okay, okay.” Nerissa held up a hand. “Look at the shape in the water there, behind the big wave hitting the deck.”

  Gabriel heard a flicking sound as Nerissa turned on a laser pointer and circled a shadow that he had not yet noticed in the image. The shadow was below the surface, but large, boat-sized.

  “Well, that’s a whale.”

  “No.” Nerissa clicked a button. The image advanced, and now something was coming out of the water, shiny, almost like glass. “Try again.”

  “What in…” Gabriel turned back to her, squinting to see her face. “Is it a sub?”

  “Look closer.” She clicked again.

  In this image, the shape had surfaced and lay there on the waves. Gabriel felt a chill run through his body. It wasn’t a ship or a sub, but a crumpled airplane, with its glass cockpit still intact, its propeller long gone. Red circles on each wing identified its make and purpose.

  “That’s a Japanese Zero Fighter.” That was crazy. “From World War Two. Is it—Did someone outfit it with ballast tanks and make a sub out of it? I don’t get this.”

  “What you don’t see is something that the crewman who sent me these pictures told me. Those wings are moving. It’s swimming there.”

  “What?” Gabriel couldn’t wrap his mind around what a swimming Zero Fighter would mean.

  She clicked again, and something bizarre happened between the shots: The cockpit of the plane had bent slightly, and was now pointed toward the container ship.

  Next image: It was in the air. Somehow its metal wings had flapped down like a bird’s, launching it into flight.

  One more image, close and grainy: The seventy-five-year-old plane, seaweed and gunk dripping off it, was close to the camera. Its riveted sides had split, and through the seams Gabriel could make out shiny and mottled organic matter, like the skin of a squid. At the front of the plane, a long, jagged-toothed mouth had protruded, gaping wide and hungry. The Zero Fighter looked like it could eat the security camera.

  And in the next image, it was nearly gone, its metal tail disappearing outside the frame along with the rest of its body.

  “What is it?” Gabriel whispered.

  “It’s what everyone in the US Navy is worried about right now. Other than that I have no idea.”

  Gabriel thought. “It’s a creature. Like some sort of … crustacean?”

  “Well, everyone is calling them Lodgers.”

  “Them? There’s more than one?”

  “Yes. I saw one from the topside of the Nebula. That was an actual B-17. Come to find out they’ve been turning up for about three weeks.”

  “Lodgers,” Gabriel repeated. “Because they lodge themselves inside discarded shells, like hermit crabs. Only instead of taking over the old shells of other creatures, they use old planes.” He studied the vapor screen. “Back up a few images.”

  He pointed at the gaping mouth as Nerissa tabbed back. “Nasty teeth.” Finally she displayed the third image, the first one where the creature looked like a mysterious plane bounding from the water. He almost couldn’t find words. “I … So it takes up and wears a bomber, an actual man-made plane. That’s amazing. I can’t wait to show Misty and Peter this.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, I have a crew now. We do good work.” He realized it had been a mistake to mention it the moment the words came out.

  “Wait, what?” Nerissa’s mouth hung open. “What do you mean, you have a crew?”

  Gabriel winced. Half of him had hoped she would be impressed, but now he realized he should have known better. Even if it was almost exactly what she had done. “They’re two crew members. I’ve trained them myself to man the Obscure.”

  “Gabriel, that’s not the plan—who are these people?”

  That really ticked him off. As if his sister had ever cared about his parents’ plans. Their plan had been for both of their kids to live the life obscure like them, and then to gradually move into the world to see how they could bring … what did Dad call it? Their service? Nerissa had ditched the plan—and ditched Gabriel in the process. He didn’t want to hear it about the plan from her.

  “What?” he said. “I’m supposed to run the ship by myself?”

  “First, yes, it can be run by one person.”

  “Not if things get complicated.” Gabriel had an example right at hand, having just conducted a water rescue that had required Peter, Misty, and him with their hands full. “Running it by myself would mean basically cruising around, but if we’re gonna do any sort of rescue…”

  “Who are these people?”

  “They’re … classmates.”

  “Oh, for…” Nerissa closed her eyes. “No more. You’re up on land to be an ambassador, not a recruiter. You’re different, Gabriel. Laws up here are different. If you’ve been doing excursions with students? Stop it. I don’t want to hear any more about this.”

  “I…”

  “Okay?”

  “Sure … sure, okay.” He resolved that Nerissa would hear no more about this. Gabriel frowned and turned back to the image, ignoring his sister’s distrust. She had a crew—why couldn’t he? “Think about it, though. To wear a plane, it would have to either wrap itself around everything inside the plane or else it would have to scrape out the shell somehow. I have
to see one of these. Are they all Zero Fighters or, wait … You mentioned a B-17 as well?”

  Nerissa exhaled and responded, “Yes, but it goes beyond that. There’s also a World War Two midget submarine, a couple more American B-17s, and something that witnesses say may be a sunken aircraft carrier.”

  “That would be…” Gabriel tried to remember how big an aircraft carrier was. While the Nemo family studied the navies of every nation, that didn’t mean the details of every military branch stuck. “… enormous.”

  “About eight hundred feet long, and armored, with a mouth.” Nerissa chuckled. “Thankfully that one doesn’t seem to fly.”

  Gabriel’s mind swirled with possibilities. “It doesn’t make sense. I’ve never heard of these things before.”

  “Isn’t that weird?” Nerissa asked. “Don’t you think you would have by now, if they’d been out there? Don’t you think he would have?” She meant their ancestor, the first Captain Nemo. Gabriel had digital copies of all of Captain Nemo’s old journals, and while he hadn’t read every one of them, he would have remembered machine-wearing creatures.

  Gabriel nodded. “Giant creatures don’t just appear out of nowhere. Something would have to be happening to cause them to surface now.”

  “I’m with you on that. But that’s not the real problem.”

  “What is?”

  “The Lodgers attacked a US naval vessel. Last week. Damaged it severely. Now the navy is hunting them.”

  “Hunting them?”

  “I’ve intercepted strict orders to the Pacific Fleet. They’re to locate the Lodgers this week and, if they encounter a mass of them, prepare for an operation at noon Saturday. And they haven’t gotten specific about this, but I think an operation could get out of hand quickly. In other words, about one week. They’re not taking chances with something that could eat a nuclear submarine.”

  Gabriel gazed at the image. “You want me to save them.” He pondered the long, nail-like teeth in the creature’s mouth. That would be like her, to see this creature and instantly think to protect it from Man.

  “Maybe?” Nerissa shrugged, suddenly looking more like the sister he’d known at Nemolab, who occasionally let slip that she didn’t always know the next move. “You gotta see these things, Gabe. I want to know why they’re here, and you know as well as I do that the Nemos can get that kind of information before the navy does.”

  “Okay, so … why aren’t you doing this?” Gabriel asked, feeling a lump of excitement in his throat. A new species. Wow. “I mean, we could do it together.”

  She sighed. “Let’s face it. I’m a target. Right before I saw the B-17, someone lured the Nebula with a decoy smuggler ship that turned out to be a trap. If I go running around getting in the navy’s way with the Nebula—a sub that is on everyone’s red list—I’ll only make it more dangerous for the creatures. Right now, this is a Gabriel thing. Catch.”

  Nerissa tossed him a keychain-sized black object, and he caught it with one hand. It was a small, smooth stone about two inches long. A memory stick, basically, but only a Nemoship would be able to access it. “What’s on here?”

  “All the data I have on these creatures, including the coordinates where those shots were taken and where I had my encounter. Not much, I guess,” she conceded.

  Gabriel was thinking logistics. He could get away, but it would be better with his crew. “Seven days?”

  She nodded and flipped off the light. Just then Gabriel began to hear the sound of a helicopter, a distant whap-whap-whap coming toward them. Over his shoulder he saw a heavy searchlight beam sweeping the surface of the water about three miles away.

  Gabriel heard a hiss and pop, and the water nozzles on the projector buoy stopped spraying. The device’s poles folded themselves down and disappeared into the ocean.

  “I need to go before that chopper gets here. Look.” Nerissa paused. Her face kept that infuriatingly serene veneer, but her eyes softened slightly. Sometimes tiny expressions were all you got with Nerissa. “I’m sorry it’s like this.”

  “You’re sorry? Sis. You can’t keep blowing up ships. You have to stop.”

  “I’ll stop when they stop.” By they she meant a whole gallery of assailants of the sea, the whalers and the polluters and the pirates.

  “They’re never going to stop.” They’re going to kill you, he wanted to say. I’m going to read in the news that they’ve finally—

  “That’s probably the navy—go now.” Nerissa revved the engine of her Katana. “I don’t want you seen or arrested, certainly not because I dragged you out here.”

  Drag me? You didn’t drag me, he thought. If you asked me to meet you on the moon, I’d steal a rocket.

  “You don’t have to worry about me.” Gabriel revved his own Katana and steered away from the buoy. The chopper grew closer as its searchlight swept back and forth over the waves.

  “I love you, little brother.” The last word came as she disappeared into the sea.

  Gabriel bit back the sting of her disappearance as he put his rebreather in his mouth. He dove just as the chopper arrived, its searchlight finding nothing but his wake.

  6

  ON MONDAY MORNING, Gabriel was at school an hour early, watching for Peter’s and Misty’s parents’ cars. He checked his watch again at seven thirty, just as Ms. Kosydar’s hatchback rolled into the little parking lot in front of the school. Good, good. They had half an hour to the first bell, and in that time the library would be open. They could talk there. No one ever went there.

  When Peter swung open his door, Gabriel was bouncing his heels on the curb. “What?”

  “You gotta see this.” Gabriel slapped a stack of printouts against Peter’s chest. He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder as they walked. “Library should be empty—” He turned back. “Hi, Ms. Kosydar!”

  Ms. Kosydar nodded as she backed her car away. Just then Misty came riding around the corner on her bike and Gabriel waved furiously, jogging to the bike rack. Peter jogged behind him with the printouts.

  Misty eyed them both suspiciously as they ground to a halt in front of her. She clicked the lock on her bike. “What’s with you?”

  “Library—I have something to show you.” Gabriel slammed through the double doors of the school and stayed ahead of them until they reached the big glass wall of the library.

  He pushed open the library door, and Misty said, “I hate when you call me Library.”

  “Oh.” He waggled his head sheepishly as he held the door. “Sorry. Good morning.”

  They headed back to a table at the far wall, nearly surrounded by books. Gabriel dropped his backpack on the table and looked at Peter, who still held the printouts. “You look at those yet?”

  Peter smirked. “You are kidding, right?”

  “Okay, put ’em down; let me show you this.”

  “You are wired, Gabriel,” Misty observed. “I’ve never seen you like this. Did something go wrong with the rescue?”

  “The what?” Gabriel was lost for a second as they sat down, and then he realized she was talking about the Friday-night adventure. That felt like years ago. “No, this is way bigger, way better than that.”

  “Whaaaat the heck are these?” Peter asked as he spread out the printouts of the Zero Fighter Lodger leaping over the cargo ship.

  “Right.” Gabriel slapped the table. “Exactly!”

  Misty took one of the images, then set it down to “read” the other photos one after the other. “Go on.”

  “You’re looking at an unknown race of creatures that has been turning up for the past several weeks. My sister gave me these images last night.”

  “You have a sister?” Peter asked. “Since when?”

  “Since before I was born, but that’s…” Gabriel waved his hand. “She’s asked me to go find out about these things. And I have to hurry.”

  “Why do you have to hurry?” Misty asked.

  “Because the navy is going to destroy them in less than a week.”

/>   “How many are there?”

  “A lot more. But look. I’m here—my family is here—to answer the unknown questions.” Gabriel hadn’t really talked about his family much, but he wanted his friends to understand. He had a mission. “I need to find out what these things are and, if possible, stop them from being destroyed.”

  Peter leaned back. “Am I hearing this right?” He shrugged at Misty. “Is he telling us he’s going to take on the navy?”

  “It’s not about taking anyone on. And anyway, I’m asking if you will.”

  Both of them were silent for a moment. Misty leaned forward. “Where were these photos taken?”

  Gabriel pulled out a tablet and called up an atlas, then tapped in the coordinates as he spoke. “One hundred thirty-five degrees West … thirty-five degrees North.” When he was done, he spun the tablet around so they could see the image of the ocean, with the coordinates highlighted.

  “The Eastern Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” Peter whispered.

  Misty seemed to be searching her memory banks. “I’ve heard of that.”

  Peter spun his fingers in a swirl over the tablet. “There’s a current called the North Pacific Gyre that swirls through the Pacific in a circle. And this, the Eastern Garbage Patch, is a giant whirlpool of plastic trash smack between Hawaii and California.” A large oval representing the gyre glowed and revolved slowly in the middle of the ocean. “A lot of what we throw away breaks down and winds up there.”

  “Right.” Misty remembered now. “It’s a disaster for sea life, too. So how big is it?”

  “About the size of Texas,” Gabriel said. “Three hundred thousand square miles. Give or take.”

  “Yeah, so that’s … big.” Peter looked off. Gabriel could see him running calculations in his head, and then he looked back and laughed. “It would take the Obscure thirty hours just to get to the edge of that thing.”

  “Yeah,” Gabriel answered. “And we’ve only got till Saturday at noon. So if we leave tomorrow, we’ll get out there sometime Wednesday and then have only a couple of days.”

  “Give or take,” Misty repeated. “Plus if this event is on Saturday, then you’re talking about getting back early Monday morning.”