by Gregory Mone
“She is not joking,” Naxos replied.
Lewis shivered slightly. His dad was still for a moment, as if he were paralyzed. Then the professor pulled his arms in tight and began stomping his feet and spinning, performing the weirdest celebratory dance Lewis had ever seen. Hilarious? Yes. Embarrassing? Absolutely. But Lewis couldn’t help smiling.
“Everyone says the air up there is poisoned,” Kaya said. “They say nothing can survive.”
The professor shrugged. “They’re wrong.”
“There are almost eight billion of us,” Hanna added.
“Eight billion?” Kaya asked, astonished.
Naxos was watching them quietly. He was biting his thin lower lip. He looked as if something was bothering him. Or like someone who couldn’t decide what to order at a restaurant. And they’d forgotten all about the guy’s peanut butter question. Did they have some in the kitchen? Suddenly, Lewis was hungry. Not for canned food, either. Did they have sandwiches in Atlantis? Maybe hot dogs?
His dad was about to add something when Hanna cut him off. “How did that ship knock us out? What kind of weapon is that?”
The thick eyebrows on Naxos’s pale face rose and fell. He quickly forgot about whatever was bothering him. “A sonic blaster. Impressive, isn’t it? We’re masters of nonlethal weapons.”
“Nonlethal weapons?” Lewis asked.
“That means they don’t kill you,” Hanna explained. She motioned to Naxos. “You’re going to have to show me how that thing works at some point.”
“Your ship,” Naxos began, walking toward the subsphere. “I scanned the exterior when you arrived. It doesn’t seem to have any weapons. It certainly doesn’t seem fit for an invasion.”
“Why do you keep talking about invasions?” the professor asked. “We’re not invaders. We’re more like . . .”
“Tourists,” Lewis said, finishing his dad’s thought. “Science tourists.”
He was about to go on when his dad stopped him. His father wanted another turn, which was understandable. He’d kind of dedicated the last decade of his life to this place. “How many people are in Atlantis?”
“A hundred million or so,” Kaya replied.
His dad nearly shouted. “A hundred million people! That’s way beyond my estimate!”
“It’s crowded,” Kaya added. “Very crowded.”
Naxos was drawn into the conversation again. “We’re constantly forced to expand into new territories,” he explained. “We carve and drill out new caves and structures to make space for our people, but the ridge is getting less and less stable. Some years ago, two entire cities collapsed. I can’t even say how many Atlanteans were lost, and that was hardly the first time.”
They were all silent for a moment.
Only a moment, though. His dad just couldn’t wait to ask another question. “That is terribly sad. Terribly sad. How do you feed yourselves?”
“With food,” Kaya quipped.
“It’s a struggle,” Naxos added. “We can’t produce food the way we used to, not with the ocean changing so rapidly.”
“Yeah,” Hanna said, “sorry about the whole climate change thing. That’s kind of on us.”
“Is that why you’re sending the waves?” Lewis asked.
“What waves?” Kaya replied.
Naxos was suspiciously quiet. He cupped a hand over his right ear and leaned away, as if he were listening to a message on a really, really small phone. Hanna and his dad were too wonder-struck to fire off more questions, so Lewis squeezed in a few of his own. He pointed to Kaya. “Why don’t you have scales?”
“Why don’t you?” Kaya replied.
Fair point. “Can you swim really fast?”
“Faster than you.”
“We’ll see. Can you talk to fish?”
“No,” she said. “We eat them.”
“You could still talk to them before you ate them.”
“That would be weird.”
Another fair point. He looked down at her feet. They were long and wide and bare. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”
“What are shoes?” Naxos asked.
Lewis pointed to his father’s boots and Hanna’s taped sneakers.
Kaya’s head jerked back slightly. “Why would anyone put clothes on their feet?”
He paused and felt his toes. They were damp and warm and itchy. He’d stopped wearing the one shoe; his back had started to hurt. Now he just wore socks. Stinking, nasty, festering wet rags that hadn’t been washed in three days. The smell could probably kill a small animal. He peeled them off in a rush. “How old are you?” he asked Kaya.
“Fourteen.”
“So we’re pretty much the same age.”
“Don’t get any ideas, Lewis,” Hanna joked.
He felt himself blush, and tried not to look at Kaya. But she wasn’t watching him, anyway. She was staring at Naxos, who was still holding one hand to his ear and another to a strange kind of tablet. Her expression darkened. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Who are you messaging?”
Naxos set the tablet on a workstation. “I’m so sorry. Really. You must believe that I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Hanna asked.
“Your sensors were bouncing sound waves all over the ridge. Anytime we pick up the signal of a non-government ship so far outside our borders, I’m supposed to bring it in. And since yours is such an unusual one”—he stared at the subsphere—”I concluded that you might be invaders. I had to alert my superiors.” He stopped, held his hand to his ear again, and stared at a door in the cave wall. “They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?” Kaya asked.
“I don’t hear anyone,” Lewis noted.
“Their hearing could be more sensitive than ours!” his dad suggested. “It could have evolved differently.” He wrapped his arm around Lewis’s shoulders and pointed to Kaya. “See that, Lewis? Her ears are quite large. The eyes, too.” He waved at the glowing cave walls, the scattered blue lights. “Bioluminescence, I believe. Some kind of bio-inspired technology. No sunlight, obviously. Natural selection would favor larger eyes in these dim lighting conditions. It all fits!”
Kaya started to cover her ears, then turned back to Naxos. “Who’s coming?” she asked again.
Naxos paused. His eyes darted between the subs and the doorway in the wall. “You have to believe me. I thought this was an invasion. I was following procedure! I didn’t think . . .” Now he spun back to face Kaya. “You need to get them out of here.”
“What do you mean?” the professor asked. “We just got here!”
“Kaya,” Naxos continued, “do you have somewhere you can hide them? Where do you live? Is there someone who can help? Your parents, maybe?”
“I live in Ridge City,” she replied. “I guess my father might know what to do, but . . .”
“Yes! That’s good. Perfect.” A smile stretched across Naxos’s pale face, then disappeared almost instantly. “No, no, no. It’s too far. Even if you had the money, you couldn’t hide these three on the vacuum train.” He pointed to Lewis’s dad. “Him especially.” Naxos held up his hand for them to be quiet. “A cruiser is here.”
Lewis’s dad whispered into his wristpad. “The people of Atlantis have highly acute hearing. They can detect faint sounds through stone walls.”
“Seriously, Professor? You’re making notes now?” Hanna asked.
He tapped the wristpad. “My Atlantis journals,” he explained. “All my data and evidence is in here. These journals will reveal the truth!”
Lewis felt a small jolt of pride. Any mention of Atlantis used to make him cringe a little. But now they were here. Atlantis was real. Maybe the journals would change everything. Maybe his dad would even write a best seller. How many books did you need to sell to buy a private island for your family?
Naxos tapped his ear. “Our hearing isn’t that sensitive,” he said, correcting the professor. “I got a notification in my earpiece from my security system.”
His dad looked disappointed.
Lewis was stumped, though. What was happening? He didn’t understand why they had to run away. Wouldn’t the people of Atlantis be excited to see them? Lewis figured they’d plan parties and parades. He had always wanted to be the focus of a big, old-fashioned parade. The kind they used to have at the beginning of the century. The type that snaked through a city as people threw stuff at you from their windows. Lightweight, colorful, festive stuff. Not bricks or pianos.
“Who’s coming?” Kaya asked Naxos again. Still he didn’t answer. Then her mouth dropped open. “The Erasers! You totally work for the Erasers, don’t you? Tell me the truth.”
The name jolted Naxos slightly.
“Who are the Erasers?” Lewis’s dad asked.
“There’s no time to explain,” Naxos said.
Lewis imagined the Erasers as a children’s musical troupe that sang about school supplies.
Take that colored pencil,
Sharpen it up nice.
Don’t get close to Billy,
Last week he had lice.
He was probably a little off target, though.
Naxos stared at the tunnels in the wall. “Can you all swim?”
“Sure,” Hanna replied. “Why?”
He pointed to one of the streams that flowed into a hole in the stone. “These tunnels slope downward. The water is slightly cold, but it’s shallow, and it spills into a warmer pool. Then it’s only a short swim to the edge of the city on the other side. I can hold my visitors here long enough for you to escape.”
Lewis studied the tunnels. “So they’re like slides?”
“I suppose so,” Naxos replied.
Lewis started toward the subsphere’s ramp.
“Where are you going?” Kaya asked.
“I’m getting my backpack,” he said.
“You need to leave immediately,” Naxos insisted.
His dad eyed the subsphere. “My papers. My maps and materials . . .”
“There’s no time,” Naxos explained.
Lewis watched the rushing water and thought of his canceled trip to the mountains. He and his dad were supposed to hike to where the Blackwater River spilled down out of the canyon. At this time of year, the water was so high that the river overflowed its banks and poured down smooth channels in the rocks. They’d gone once before, when Lewis was nine, and he’d remember that trip forever. They’d spent hours going down the stone slides, hiking back up, then flying down them again. Sure, this adventure to Atlantis wasn’t quite the return trip they’d planned. But in a backward, upside-down kind of way, his dad had delivered on his promise. They’d made it to the slides. These slides just happened to be four miles below the surface of the sea. In Atlantis.
“So that’s our best way out?” Hanna asked, pointing to the tunnel.
“Precisely.”
“Then that’s where we’re going,” Hanna said.
Naxos finally met Kaya’s stare. “For now, I need you to trust me. Once you get to the city, find a man named Gogol. He’ll be able to rent you a vehicle and help you find your way back to Ridge City. You have gold?”
Kaya nodded. “Some.”
Naxos rushed to the metal desk and yanked open a drawer. He reached into the back, then pulled out a small purse. He tossed it to Kaya. “Take that. It should be enough.”
Lewis’s dad whispered something about currency into his wristpad.
“What about you?” Hanna asked Naxos.
“I’ll meet you in Ridge City,” he said.
Kaya started toward the tunnel. Lewis turned to follow Kaya when his dad suddenly slapped his neck. “Ouch!” his dad shouted. “What was that?”
Naxos lowered a small pistol. Not the deadly trumpet, though. Something else. He quickly stuffed it back into the desk drawer. “Sorry,” he said. “A tracker, to help me find you.”
His father scratched at his neck. “Fascinating,” he said. “There was an initial pinch, but now I don’t even feel it.”
Naxos tossed Kaya his weapon. She caught it and pushed it down into her backpack. “Edgeland is not a friendly place,” he noted, “but only use that in emergencies.” Then he turned to Lewis, Hanna, and the professor. “And you three?”
“Yes?” Lewis answered.
“Good luck! I still can’t believe . . . People of the Sun! Now, go!”
Lewis didn’t need to be told again. He ran across the stone floor, splashed through the frigid, ankle-deep water in the channel, and crouched as he approached the entrance to the tunnel. Then he threw his hands out in front of him and dove headfirst into the icy-cold water, coasting down the stony slide into the darkness.
9
You Can’t Shrink a Whale
The boy dove through first. He could have at least waited for some instructions or a warning. Launching himself into the shallow stone tunnel must have hurt. There definitely wasn’t enough water to cushion his fall, and she thought she heard him yelp. But then he shouted back to them, his voice resounding through the tunnel, “I’m good!”
His dad, a whale of a man, rushed in next.
The girl, Hanna, waited before sliding after them.
Kaya glanced back at Naxos, but he was already gone. Who was he, really? He seemed so . . . harmless. How could he be an Eraser? She would have to find out more about him later. Now she rushed to the mouth of the tunnel and sat, for a moment, in the cool water.
Sun People! Smiling, she shot forward feetfirst, lying on her back with her arms crossed over her chest. The tunnel swerved and turned as she slid faster and faster. One of the Sun People was whooping and hollering ahead of her. Then the tunnel sloped down. She accelerated. The cool water splashed up onto her legs, her chest, her face. She spat it from her lips.
The tunnel swerved, curved, then dropped again.
Steeper.
Faster.
Whoever had been shouting was silent now. Frightened, she guessed.
But they’d all be fine. The tunnels were safe. The water, too.
She heard the first splash.
Then a larger one.
And a few seconds later, a third.
She waited, closing her eyes, then blasted out of the tunnel. She was airborne long enough to spot two of them below her, floundering in the water, hurrying to get out of her way. She backflipped, more for the fun of it than to show off—okay, maybe she was showing off a little—and then straightened out.
Curled her toes.
Flung her arms over her head.
And knifed through the surface between them.
The soaring, the flying over the water, the splashing, wild madness of breaking the surface—she loved it all. But this last bit was her favorite part of any cliff jump or slide: When the water swallowed you and slowed you to a stop, and you hung there, turning, almost free of your body, as much a part of the water as the water itself. She hovered there, feeling it all.
Sometimes she felt like she could hang there forever.
Then she remembered the People of the Sun.
She swam to the surface, smiling.
Yet the others were panicking.
“My dad!”
“The professor is still under!”
She treaded higher in the water. But they were both moving too much, crowding the surface with ripples and splashes. How was she supposed to see anything? “Stop!” she said. “Stay still!”
“What?”
“Stop flailing. I can’t read the water if you’re splashing it all over the place.”
“What do you mean, read—”
“Just do it, Lewis.”
Hannah and Lewis calmed their strokes, their kicks. They were still flailing. There was absolutely no way this boy could beat her in a race. He barely even felt the water. But they settled enough for her to see a small boil rise. The water bowled up.
That meant something below was kicking.
Or someone.
A quick, deep breath, and then Kaya dove down headfirst. Her eyes adjusted q
uickly to the darkness. The water was high, so the top of the kelp forest below was several body lengths down. She hadn’t felt a single strand when she’d knifed down through the surface. But the professor was bigger. Much bigger. He would’ve plunged deeper.
Now she could see clearly, and she spotted him tangled in the weeds. His face was full of fear. This kind of thing wouldn’t frighten an Atlantean. This was just what happened when you dove into a kelp forest—sometimes aggressive weeds wrapped you in their slimy grip, and you had to cut yourself free. That’s why you carried a blade with you whenever you swam in one of these pools. But the whale from the drylands? This was clearly new to him. His face was pale, and he was starting to let all the air out of his lungs in great torrents of bubbles. Was he out of breath already? Seriously? The whole scene would have been almost funny if the poor blubbery giant weren’t so obviously terrified.
Kaya dove beneath him. His ankles were wrapped in the thick seaweed.
But that wasn’t the only thing holding him under.
A huge sucker fish had swallowed half the man’s foot.
Okay. Fine. That might even scare a few Atlanteans.
The fish was truly enormous, but anyone could tell you that these beasts were toothless. Almost harmless, really.
The fish had large side fins, and it was sweeping them furiously, trying to drag the professor lower, deeper into the underwater forest. She’d heard stories about these beasts. They swallowed smaller fish whole. The traders stocked the farms with them, then caught them and sold them illegally at high prices.
The monster had now practically swallowed the professor’s calf.
Kaya kicked down and slipped her fingers into its gills. Gently enough so she wouldn’t cause any permanent damage, she squeezed.
The beast panicked and spat out the professor’s lower leg.
There was still the kelp to deal with, though.
Kaya pulled the knife from her ankle holster and sliced through the leathery seaweed. The professor was pulling desperately. She slipped the knife between his leg and the kelp. He broke free, but her work was hardly finished. She had to get him up to the surface, and he was horribly slow. At least a real whale could move. This man swam like someone who’d never even touched the water before. She jammed her hand into his armpit and kicked hard, pulling with her free arm, hurrying him up.
