The Legacy Chronicles: Raising Monsters

by Pittacus Lore

  They swam into the right-hand opening. The pipe was wide enough that they could swim side by side, and the combined light from their masks lit up most of the interior. Nemo reached out and touched the steel wall. The solidness of it was reassuring somehow, even though the thought of millions of gallons of water rushing through it was hovering in the back of her mind. Still, she felt like maybe this wasn’t going to be so hard after all.

  “The air locks should be coming up,” Nine said. “See? I told you it would be—”

  His words were cut off. At the same time, his light disappeared. Rather, it retreated, as Nine was pulled backwards and away from Nemo at an impossibly quick speed. Nemo turned in the water, looking for him. His face was visible for a moment through his mask—his eyes wide with surprise—and then he was pulled out of the range of her light.

  “Nine!” she called out. “Where are you?”

  “Something. Here.” Nine’s words were ragged, as if he was struggling.

  Nemo could see his light. It was retreating farther, but Nine was obviously thrashing around in the water. Nemo kicked hard, swimming towards him.

  “What is it?”

  Nine didn’t respond, although she could hear his breathing. She also saw something moving in the water around him. Something alive. Before she could process what it was, something long and thick and pale shot out of the darkness and closed around her wrist. She felt it tighten.

  She looked down. It was a tentacle. This seemed impossible. But there it was, curled around her arm. The tip flailed in the water, rows of suckers visible. Nemo tried to pull away, and the creature the tentacle belonged to tightened its hold.

  “Nine!” she said. “Tell it to let go!”

  “I did!” Nine answered. “It’s not responding! It’s like it’s not biological.”

  Nemo pulled again. The tentacle stayed where it was. She wasn’t being dragged away, but she also couldn’t get free. It was like the creature, whatever it was, was holding her there to deal with when it was done with Nine.

  Something flashed in the water, and the tentacle suddenly let go. It fell away, floating down through the water. Nine had somehow severed it. But there was no blood.

  “Go!” Nine shouted. “Swim to the air lock. I’ll catch up with you.”

  “No!” Nemo said, starting to swim towards him to help.

  Another tentacle snaked towards her. She dodged it.

  “Go!” Nine said again. “I’ve got this.”

  Nemo hesitated a moment. Then the tentacle returned, searching for her. She flailed in the water, turning around. Then she kicked as hard as she could. She swam away, guilt dragging at her as if the creature had latched on to her leg. She felt horrible leaving Nine to deal with the thing that had attacked them.

  She swam until his light was no longer visible. “Nine?” she said. “Are you okay?”

  The only response was crackling. She knew she was probably too far away for the transmitter to work well. Still, she feared it meant something worse.

  Then the air lock door was in front of her. A round handle was on one side. She worried that it was rusted shut, but when she gripped it with both hands and twisted, she felt it move. She kept turning, until eventually it stopped moving. Then she pulled. The door swung open. She looked inside and saw a small, water-filled chamber. She swam inside and pulled the door shut behind her. Another handle like the one on the outside sealed it closed again.

  She looked around and saw a lever on the wall of the chamber. She pulled it. At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then she heard the sound of machinery coming from somewhere behind the walls. There was a grinding sound, and at her feet a grate slid open. Water poured out.

  In a couple of minutes, the chamber was empty. Nemo turned and saw another door set in the far wall, with the same kind of wheel-like handle. She slipped her fins off and walked over to it. This one required more effort to turn, but slowly it did. She pulled, opening it, and looked out into a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor.

  She was inside.

  She looked back at the door leading to the tunnel. Should she wait for Nine? If he was coming, he would be there soon. But what if he didn’t come? Or what if someone inside had been alerted to the air lock being opened? It might not be safe to stay there.

  The decision was made for her when, a moment later, water started filling up the air lock again. It rose up through the grate in the floor. Nemo quickly shut the second door and locked it from inside the bunker. Now she had no choice.

  She turned and looked down the hallway. She had no idea where she was going or what she would find. Nine had the bag with the dry clothes in it, so she kept her wet suit on. She left the mask and fins, not wanting to carry them with her. Barefoot, dripping wet, and without any weapons, she started walking down the hall.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MAX

  SHILO, UTAH

  “WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH HIM?”

  Max looked at Sam, who was lying on a couch in Digby Klumber-Bach’s hidden library. Max, Lava and Six had carried him back there. Sam didn’t look good.

  “He’s been through a lot,” said Six. She told them about the sand-filled chamber. “Then he wore himself out trying to interact with the machines. He needs to rest.”

  Max suspected there was something else that Six wasn’t telling them. She sounded less confident than usual. “Is this about the stuff they injected you with?” he asked. “That hasn’t worn off yet?”

  “Not quite,” Six said. She didn’t elaborate. Instead, she looked at Lava. “I don’t suppose you have a map of this place?”

  “Sort of,” Lava said. He went to a desk, opened a drawer and took out a notebook. “Bats and I drew a rough map based on what we know and what she’s been able to see behind the walls. That’s how we found the secret passageways.”

  The passageways had allowed them to get Sam back to the room undetected. They were a series of corridors running behind some of the walls of the bunker. “I guess Digby wanted to be able to sneak into the kitchen at night for milk and cookies without being seen,” Lava joked as Six looked over the drawings.

  “This is an elevator to the surface?” Six asked, pointing to part of the drawing.

  “Yeah,” Lava confirmed. “It’s the only way up or down. That we know of.”

  “There must be another exit,” Six said. “Nobody would be stupid enough to build a place like this and have only one way in and out. It would be too easy to compromise.”

  “Maybe that’s the idea,” Lava said. “I don’t think old Digby cared all that much about people being able to get in or out once he was down here. In his journal he talked about living down here for years if a war started up.”

  “You have his journals?” said Six.

  “A bunch of them,” Lava said. “That guy liked to write about himself. A lot. They’re all in the desk.”

  “Those could be useful,” said Six. “We might find something to help us.”

  “Only if you’ve got a speed-reading Legacy,” Lava joked. “There must be fifty of them. Bats and I have only gotten through a couple. They’re super boring.”

  A light blinked overhead. Lava looked up. “And speaking of Bats, here she comes.”

  “A warning light?” Max said. “Cool!”

  A moment later, a girl walked into the room. At first, Max was startled by her appearance. She was tall, even taller than Six, and she was completely bald. She was wearing jeans and a black tank top, and her pale white skin was covered in tattoos of bloodred roses with black leaves, thorns and twisting vines that wound all around her arms and extended onto her hands. More vines and roses rose up from the neck of her tank top and encircled her neck. She had startlingly blue eyes, which surveyed the scene warily.

  The girl reached up and pressed a finger to a rose at the base of her throat. “You found some friends,” she said to Lava. Her voice was slightly scratchy.

  “You never know who you’ll find wandering around this place,” Lava sa
id. Then he asked, “How’s Kalea?”

  Bats shrugged. Again, she placed her finger on her throat. “Okay,” she said. “Something’s going on. There’s a lot of buzz up in the labs.”

  “What’s wrong with your voice?” Max asked, his curiosity getting the best of him.

  “Dude!” Lava said. “Rude much?”

  “It’s okay,” Bats said. She came closer to Max, so that he could see what she was doing as she lifted her hand and placed a finger over what he now realized was a small plastic valve in the center of the rose on her throat. “I had cancer,” she said. “Of the esophagus. They had to remove my voice box. This is how I talk now.”

  “Oh,” Max said, embarrassed now that he had said anything. “I’m sorry.”

  “They think maybe getting a Legacy helped me fight the cancer,” Bats said. “I don’t know.” She turned and pointed to Sam. “Is he okay?”

  “No,” Lava said.

  “He will be,” Six added quickly. “He just needs to rest. So what’s this about a lab? And what are they excited about? And who are ‘they’?”

  Again, Max thought maybe Six was trying to distract them from what was going on with Sam. But these were also great questions.

  “The Mogs,” Bats explained. “Magdalena, mostly. She’s the one in charge of the experiments.”

  “What experiments is she doing?” Six asked.

  “A bunch of different things,” said Bats.

  “That girl is like a mad scientist,” Lava remarked.

  “She is a mad scientist,” Bats said. “She just looks like a little girl. Anyway, we don’t really know what she’s doing because she only speaks Mogadorian when she’s working. I don’t think she trusts any of the humans.”

  “How many humans are working with her?” Six asked.

  “Besides the kids? Maybe a dozen,” said Bats.

  “And you can spy on them through these tunnels?”

  Bats nodded. “There’s one that goes close to the lab. Then you have to crawl up into an air shaft, but it’s not hard. You just have to be quiet. But like I said, unless you understand Mog—”

  “Max does,” Lava interrupted.

  Bats looked at Max, an eyebrow raised.

  “How many people can fit into that air shaft?” asked Six.

  “One,” said Bats.

  Max knew what was coming next. An excited feeling grew inside of him. “When do we go?” he said, grinning.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was standing in a corridor with Bats and Six. They were using hand signals to communicate, although they had gone over the plan a dozen times, so Max knew exactly what to do. Not that it was complicated. There was an opening in the corridor ceiling, which led to the system of air vents that ran throughout the bunker. All he had to do was get up there, crawl through the right vent until he was above the lab and see what he could find out. All without making noise or getting caught.

  Six pointed to the ceiling. Max nodded. Six crouched and made a step with her hands. Max put one foot on it and balanced with his hand on Six’s head until he was standing straight. Then Six lifted him. He gripped the edge of the opening and pulled himself in while Six pushed from below.

  Once he was inside, he moved slowly, being as quiet as he could. He had written Bats’s directions on his hand so he wouldn’t forget where he was going. Now he followed the mini palm map: straight, right, straight, left. The air vent was narrow, and the deeper he went, the more claustrophobic it felt. But at least the air flowing through was cool, which helped keep him calm. Also, he was excited to actually be doing something to help instead of running away or waiting for someone else to take charge.

  He heard voices, and paused. It sounded like kids talking. And they were speaking English. He heard a girl’s voice. Then someone laughed. But he couldn’t make out what they were saying. The voices stopped, and he guessed whoever had been speaking had walked away. He continued on until the shaft ended in a grate. He peered through it and saw below him a big room filled with equipment of various kinds.

  Only there was nobody walking around. His hopes fell. Maybe he was somehow in the wrong place? Or maybe whatever Bats had heard going on, it was over now. He wondered if he should go back to Six and Bats and tell them, or if he should wait to see if something happened.

  Then something did. Max felt something crawling on his leg. He turned his head and looked. The lower half of his body was covered with cockroaches. They swarmed over his feet and legs, heading for his torso. Some had gone under his pants and were walking over his skin.

  Instinctively, he tried to crawl away. This put him right on top of the grate that opened to the room below. Too late, he realized what he had done. The thin metal screen bent under his weight, then gave way. He tumbled out of the ceiling in a cloud of roaches.

  He had no time to think as he fell. Then he hit the hard concrete floor, and the air was knocked out of him. He lay on his back, unable to breathe. Pain radiated throughout his whole body, and he wondered if he had broken anything.

  “You could have used your telekinesis to slow his fall,” a voice said.

  “I could have,” said another. “But this was more fun.”

  Max moved his head, trying to ignore the roaches that were now scurrying away from him in all directions. Things were a little blurry, but slowly his eyes focused as his breath returned. Then he saw the kids standing a little distance away, watching him. He recognized Seamus, but the others were unfamiliar: a girl who resembled Lava enough that he guessed it was his sister, Shaky; a girl whose blond hair was in pigtails; a boy wearing a black knit hat and all black clothes who scowled at the world from beneath thick eyebrows that matched the goatee on his chin.

  The blond girl came over to him and leaned down. “I hope you didn’t get hurt,” she said, looking concerned.

  “I’m okay,” Max said, although he felt anything but.

  The girl grinned, and now she didn’t look at all pleasant. “Good. Because by the time I’m done with you, you won’t be.”

  She started to reach for him, and Max put his hands up.

  “Freakshow,” a voice said.

  The girl retreated, looking irritated. “I was just going to play with him a little, Spike.”

  “Magdalena wants him in one piece,” said the same voice. “His body and his mind.”

  A new face now hovered over Max. It was another boy. This one was short and slight, barely looking old enough to have a Legacy. His brown hair was a little long, flopping over his eyes, and he wore thick glasses that he pushed up the bridge of his nose with one finger. Then he reached out his hand.

  Max put his hand up again, instinctively preparing to fight.

  “Whoa,” the boy said. “Take it easy. I’m just helping you up. My name is Spike.”

  Max hesitated. Spike was acting like they were friends. But they weren’t. He was the enemy. Still, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to get into a fight. Not now, anyway. He was outnumbered. He wondered if Six and Bats realized that he was in trouble, and if they would come help him. Until they did, he decided, it was best to play it cool.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking Spike’s hand.

  Spike helped him up. “Sorry about that,” he said, looking at the busted vent in the ceiling. “That must have hurt.”

  “You sure made a lot of noise,” the girl Spike had called Freakshow said. “We thought you were a giant rat.” She emphasized the last word, giving Max a hard stare. “How’d you get in there anyway?”

  Max eyed her warily. He remembered her name from Rena’s stories about being in Dennings’s camp. He knew what she could do. “I was looking for a way out,” he lied. “I crawled into a vent in one of the other rooms and just kept going. I figured eventually I’d find something.”

  Freakshow snorted. “Sure,” she said. “And I bet Lava and the Bride of Dracula had nothing to do with it, right?”

  “Who?” said Max, hoping he sounded believable.

  “Kona and Bats got out,”
said the girl Max had pegged as Lava’s sister.

  Freakshow rolled her eyes. “You know that’s not true,” she said. “You know no one gets out of this place. And Lava helped this guy get away from Seamus and Ghost, so we know he’s here. Bats probably is, too. And when I find them—”

  “You talk too much,” Spike snapped. “Come on. Magdalena is waiting. We can worry about Lava and Bats another time.”

  “You going to tie his hands?” Seamus asked.

  Max peered at his former friend. Seamus still looked banged-up from their encounter earlier in the day. Still, Max was surprised to hear a note of fear in his voice. It actually gave him a little thrill. He narrowed his eyes and started to lift his hand. Seamus backed away, putting his own hands up.

  Max scratched his nose slowly, as if that was what he’d intended to do all along. Behind him, someone laughed. It was the boy in the black hat. He pointed at Seamus. “Dude must have roughed you up pretty good.”

  “It was a lucky shot,” Seamus said. “I don’t think he could do it again.”

  “Then I guess you’ve got nothing to worry about,” said the boy.

  “Whatever,” Seamus muttered, walking away.

  “You two used to be tight, huh?” the boy in the hat said to Max.

  Max nodded. “Until he turned out to be a traitor.”

  The boy reached out and grabbed Max’s arm. Lifting it up, he pointed to the tattoo that was there. “Looks like you wanted to be part of the gang, too,” he said.

  Max pulled his arm away. “I didn’t know what the gang was really doing,” he said.

  The boy shrugged. “And maybe you still don’t,” he said. Then he walked off, following Seamus along with Freakshow and Shaky.

  “What’s he mean by that?” Max asked Spike.

  “He means maybe things aren’t what they look like,” he said. “Or what you’ve been told.”