The Accidental Invasion (Atlantis Book #1)

by Gregory Mone

  He breached and began sucking in air.

  “Dad!”

  “Professor!”

  The huge man rolled onto his back, coughed, breathed.

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Kaya said.

  When the professor settled enough to speak, he turned upright and shook a fist in the air. “That was amazing! Thank you!”

  He told his son and Hanna what had happened as Kaya led them back to the wall beneath the mouth of the tunnel. Here they could hold on for a moment, catch their breath before the long swim to the other side. She hoped they wouldn’t be too slow.

  Lewis and Hanna both started watching the water nervously.

  “You’re fine,” Kaya assured them. “The sucker fish stay down low in the kelp.”

  This was mostly true. And besides, if another one rose up and grabbed them, she’d just jam its gills, too. So there really wasn’t anything to worry about.

  “Where are we?” the professor asked. “This cave is enormous! It must be the size of several sports arenas.”

  “Easily,” Hanna added.

  The professor stared out at the water. “Abundant aquatic plant life. A source of oxygen, presumably, and nutrients.” He turned, squinting his tiny eyes. “Is all of Atlantis like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Caves. Is it all a network of watery caves, illuminated by bioluminescence?”

  “Yes,” Kaya said. “What did you expect?”

  “The lights”—he continued, pointing at the walls—“are they natural or artificial? How does—”

  She stopped him. This was no time for a lesson or a tour. “I’ll be happy to tell you all about Atlantis soon enough, but—”

  “We’re kind of being chased,” Hanna finished.

  “Exactly.”

  “So we should hurry.”

  “Which way?” Lewis asked.

  Kaya pointed, and the boy pushed off and started floundering ahead. The other two followed, and she watched them for a moment. The other side of the cave wasn’t too far away, but the Sun People were slower than sea slugs. They swam on the surface, not under it. Was that even swimming?

  She guessed the distance to the far wall and how long it would take them to reach it. Too long.

  Naxos wouldn’t be able to hold off the other Erasers forever.

  Kaya kicked hard, lifting herself higher out of the water, and spotted the path that wrapped along the cave wall and the Darkwater Trading Company sign in the distance. The drylanders would probably be faster on stone, running instead of swimming. She could hurry them out of sight that way, into the alleys. She swam ahead of them, then made them stop to listen. “Follow me,” she said. “And Professor?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hurry up.”

  Kaya tried to swim slowly. Really. But after only a dozen kicks underwater, she was at least ten body lengths ahead. The boy and his dad took slightly less than forever to cut across the water. Hanna was a little faster; the two girls were waiting on the path when Lewis and the professor struggled out of the pool.

  Thankfully, on solid ground they weren’t slow, and Kaya kept glancing back, watching for the Erasers. They were approaching the entrance to the Darkwater Trading Company when she heard the hum of a drifting cruiser in the distance. “Get in, now!” she urged them.

  Inside the tunnel, just off the path, they waited until the cruiser passed.

  The four of them huddled together in the cramped space, and for the first time, Kaya noticed that the Sun People smelled. Not bad, exactly. Just weird. Almost like an old person’s hair. Or was it dried kelp? No. Something else. A scent she couldn’t describe. And they were huge! Even the youngest one, Lewis. He was as tall as the tallest person in Atlantis. And he was only twelve years old? Weird. Plus their eyes were so, so small. She tried not to gawk at them, but she couldn’t imagine how they could see anything at all with those tiny eyes. Their skin was darker, too. The girl especially. The color was beautiful, though; Kaya was slightly jealous.

  The hum of the cruiser’s engine faded as it drifted over the aquafarm.

  She crept back, closer to the opening and the water.

  Looked and listened.

  The faint blue taillights of the cruiser faded in the mist as the Erasers drifted into the main tunnel, over the waterway heading to Edgeland. “We’re safe,” she said.

  She ushered them back out onto the path. The professor was staring at the side of her neck like some giant fish hoping to latch on and suck out her blood. “What?” she asked.

  “He’s checking to see if you have gills,” Lewis guessed.

  “No I’m not.”

  “Sure you are.”

  The professor hesitated. “Well . . . do you?”

  “Gills?” she asked. “Like a fish? Why would I have gills?”

  Hanna explained, “He thought you might be able to breathe underwater.”

  “That was only one of my theories,” he insisted. “I also considered that you might be air-breathers like us. Seven thousand years isn’t really enough time for that drastic of an evolutionary adaptation to develop and spread. Size, musculature, the width of your eyes and feet? Sure. But an entirely new way of breathing?”

  “Evolution would probably need a few million years for that,” Hanna guessed.

  “Yeah,” Kaya said, “we breathe air, just like you.”

  The professor tapped at the device on his wrist. A small screen glowed with odd symbols, and he caught her studying it. “This is a wristpad,” he said. “It allows me to record everything. Audio, video, temperature. I can scan a rock and tell you the molecular composition within seconds!”

  That meant slightly more than nothing to her. But as she listened to the huge man blabber about his little device, she remembered the warning from Naxos. The professor was nearly the size of two Atlanteans stuck together. His hair was oddly thick and dark. His eyes were like tiny little coins, especially compared to his boulder-like head. She’d never be able to sneak this beast through Edgeland. Even the two others would stand out. Not just their faces and eyes—their hair and skin were too dark, their clothes too strange. She could work on the clothes, maybe find a way to cover their faces. But she couldn’t shrink a whale.

  “What was that?” Hanna whispered.

  Voices. Inside the Darkwater Trading Company. The place wasn’t empty after all. There were at least a few Atlanteans inside. Kaya started to lead them away, down the path, when someone stepped out of a warehouse far ahead. The man hadn’t spotted them. Not yet, anyway. But how was she going to get these three through Edgeland without them being noticed?

  Suddenly she had an idea. She ushered them back into the entryway.

  “Stay here,” she said. “Okay? Don’t move.”

  “Got it,” Lewis said.

  Kaya followed the small tunnel inside and found the monstrous man from that morning and another dockmaster sitting in busted old chairs near the deepwater pool. The man was sleeping. The other dockmaster, a woman with scraggly hair, picked something out of her teeth with the yellowed nail of her pinkie finger. She watched Kaya through narrowed eyes and scratched a scab on her elbow. The napper chortled and snorted as the woman backhanded him on the shoulder. She stood. He rose uncomfortably.

  They were easily two of the two ugliest creatures Kaya had ever seen. Greenish mucous trickled out of the woman’s nose. One of the man’s eyes was lower than the other. His ears were warped, and there was a huge, swollen bump above one eyebrow. And these were the third and fourth citizens of Atlantis the Sun People would meet? How embarrassing.

  The man pointed with a short, stubby finger wrapped in a rag.

  But not at her. He didn’t recognize her without her dive suit.

  Were the People of the Sun hiding, as she’d asked?

  Of course not.

  All three of them were crouching behind her, staring.

  Kaya pulled out the sonic blaster. She’d never used one before, and her h
ands were shaking. The two dockmasters could see she was nervous, too. They stomped forward, unafraid. Her finger pulled the trigger, and they dropped into crumpled heaps on the stone floor.

  “Nonlethal, right?” Hanna asked, hurrying to her side.

  Kaya leaned in close and listened to their breathing. “Yes. They’re just out.”

  “It’s still a deadly trumpet,” Lewis added.

  “Did you not hear what I said?”

  “About what?”

  “About hiding!”

  Lewis was leaning closer to the man. “Is that a troll?”

  “A what?” Kaya replied.

  “You know, trolls? Monstrous creatures. Kind of like humans. Big noses and ears. Live under bridges, mostly. Usually they have big iron pots to make stew.” He started making a stirring motion, prepping something in an imaginary pot.

  “I think these two are just ugly,” Hanna guessed.

  The professor was pointing his wristpad at the fallen dock-masters.

  “What are you doing?” Kaya asked.

  “Gathering data,” he said. The device began beeping. “Oh, no. No, no, no.”

  “What?”

  “It’s out of storage.”

  “You didn’t think to clear some memory before we left?” Hanna asked.

  “I suppose I could delete some files, but they’re all so, so important to me.” He stomped his foot like a large, frustrated child. Then he pointed at Hanna’s hand. “Your ring records audio, doesn’t it?”

  “You can’t have my ring. It’s new.”

  He pressed his hands together. “Please?”

  The girl slipped off the thick metal ring and handed it to him, shaking her head. He could barely fit it over the tip of his pinkie finger. “Don’t use up all the storage on that, too,” she said. “I have my music on there.”

  This was ridiculous. Kaya had just knocked out two strangers to help them escape, and they were arguing about jewelry? “Enough,” she said. “These two might be dreaming now, but they’re not going to be happy with me when they wake up. So hurry up and take off their clothes.”

  The boy laughed.

  Kaya did not.

  “Wait. You’re serious?” Lewis asked.

  Kaya tugged at the sleeve of Hanna’s shirt. “The three of you stand out too much. You’re all tall, dark, and—”

  “Handsome?” the professor cut in.

  That was not the word she was going to use. “If we’re going to get out of Edgeland, we need to get you into some normal clothes.”

  Lewis pointed down at the rags the dockmasters were wearing. “Those are normal?”

  “For scoundrels and rogues, sure,” Kaya said. “And Edge-land is mostly scoundrels and rogues.”

  She ordered the professor to help her roll the man over onto his stomach. But the huge Sun Person was surprisingly weak. Did the sun destroy their eyes and their muscles, too? She’d just have to do it herself. Kaya dragged the dockmaster into a sitting position, then peeled off his vest. The boy was staring at her, amazed. “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You are surprisingly strong,” the professor explained. He squinted at her and bit his lower lip. “Why is that, I wonder?”

  “Natural selection?” Hanna guessed.

  “Maybe,” the professor replied. “Given the hot temperatures, though, you’d think the people here would be tall and lean, to stay cool.”

  Hanna shrugged. “Or maybe down here in these caves, it’s better to be short and strong.”

  Kaya wasn’t short. They were just weirdly tall. “The clothes,” she reminded Lewis.

  He reached down and pulled the torn gloves off the woman’s hands. “Gross! They’re all sweaty and they smell like pickles.”

  “What are pickles?” Kaya asked.

  “Crazy-tasty food,” Hanna said. “But you don’t want your clothes stinking of them.”

  Hanna unwound a cloth from the woman’s head, then borrowed her jacket. She was pinching her nose. “This smells like a cross between old potatoes and a public toilet.”

  “That’s bad?”

  “Horrible.”

  “Well, you’re wearing it anyway.”

  After a few minutes of trading garments, complaining, and some gagging, the People of the Sun were transformed. No costume could disguise their strangeness completely. But the clothes would mask it a little.

  “I feel ridiculous,” Lewis said.

  “You look it, too,” Hanna added.

  The boy’s shirt was loose and wide but short, barely extending past his belly button. The vest fit nicely enough. He had fashioned a kind of headwrap out of some rags, too. That was good. He didn’t look quite so alien anymore. Hanna wore the woman’s jacket and headwrap. If she leaned over and hunched a little, she’d probably be able to slip past people unnoticed, too. As for the professor . . . well, nothing was going to fit him. He was struggling just to pull a shirt over his shoulders.

  “You look like an elephant in a leotard,” Hanna quipped.

  “Or a hippo in a bikini,” Lewis added.

  “I’m right here, you know,” the professor said.

  An elephant? A hippo? Land creatures, Kaya guessed. He really did look ridiculous. She tugged at the shirt, and it promptly split down the huge man’s back.

  “Next plan?” the professor asked.

  “There’s no way we’ll be able to hide you on the street,” Kaya said. “Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?”

  “How would you feel about being a fish?”

  Kaya hurried over to a long row of wheeled tanks. She found the largest one, grabbed the handle, and pulled it toward them, then yanked a brown tarp off the top.

  “What’s that?” Lewis asked.

  “A tank for smuggling rare fish,” Kaya said. “Everything we eat is raised in the aquafarms, but some people think the wild fish caught outside our borders are better.” She’d learned all about this from listening to one of her dad’s news programs.

  The thought of her dad stalled her. She whistled quietly to check for new messages. One from Rian, but none from her dad. He was probably busy. She whistled again, switching off the earpiece.

  The Sun People were staring at her. Right. What had she been talking about? Smuggling. “The government doesn’t want anyone fishing outside the ridge,” she continued, “but people sneak around and do it anyway.”

  Hanna was sitting on the ground, wringing the water out of her strange foot clothing. “It’s like smuggling corn into Iowa,” Hanna added.

  The Sun People laughed. Kaya didn’t get it. “Anyway,” she said, “my point is that smuggling fish is one of the biggest criminal trades here in Edgeland. Fishermen load their catch into tanks like these, then sell them in town or transport them to the bigger cities.” She pointed to the gadget on Lewis’s wrist, then his father’s wristpad. “They smuggle gear and gadgets, too. Either of those would earn a fortune in Atlantis.”

  The boy covered the thing with his hand. “I’m not giving this up.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Kaya said.

  One of the dockmasters moved.

  “Didn’t you say we should hurry?” Hanna asked. “Why the smuggling lesson?”

  “Because that’s how we’re getting him out of here,” Kaya said, pointing to the professor. She knocked on the side of the large, wheeled tank. “Climb in, Professor, and we’ll throw the tarp over the top. Everyone will think we’re just hauling some juicy creature from the deep.”

  The professor eyed the tank, which was still full of water. “I don’t believe I’ve ever been called juicy before. Am I supposed to hold my breath?” Water rushed out as Kaya opened a drain in the side. “Ah, thank goodness,” he said.

  The professor stretched from side to side, then climbed clumsily into the tank. He sat upright with his thick legs crossed, wallowing in the little remaining water. Kaya tried not to laugh. Then he pressed his lips to the glass and expanded his cheeks like some giant, h
uman-shaped blowfish. She smiled. Lewis and Hanna shook their heads, embarrassed.

  “Come on,” Hanna said. “Let’s go.”

  The Sun People were too weak to drag the tank, so Kaya pulled it herself, out of the shop and along the stone ledge that ran along the eastern wall of the huge cave. The aquafarms stretched out into the distance to their right. There were a few other shops and warehouses on their left, but it was near lunchtime now, and everyone must have been tucked away inside their offices napping, because she didn’t spot another soul. This was a massive relief. She really didn’t want to blast another trader or smuggler. She just wanted to get these visitors to her home as quickly as possible.

  Eventually they turned left out of the enormous cave into a small tunnel heading north. The air in the passageway, which was only wide enough for walkers, not cruisers, changed once they left the aquafarms behind them. The temperature rose steadily. Lewis and Hanna were both dripping with sweat. They were blinking and squinting, too, as if they were struggling to see. But the walls were lined with green lights. The path was plenty bright.

  “You know where we’re going, right?” Hanna asked.

  Yes? Mostly. That morning, Kaya had headed south along the waterway. Now they were hurrying in the opposite direction. Along a different path, sure, but hopefully this tunnel would lead them back to the city center. And if not . . . well, she’d figure something out.

  They’d been walking for a while when she heard two men stomping toward them. Were they singing? Yes, and mumbling, too. Deep into their drink, she guessed. She tensed. This was their first test. She elbowed the Sun People. “Stay on either side of me,” she warned. “And hunch over. You need to look small.”

  The two men reeked, and they leaned on each other as they stumbled forward. Their beards were caked with crumbs, and they sniffed at the air as they passed. But they kept walking, hardly noticing Kaya or her new friends. She sighed.

  “You were worried?” Lewis asked.

  “No,” she lied.

  Inside the tank, the professor had started talking to himself, or to the thing on his finger. Was this a game to him? Kaya rapped the glass with her knuckles. “Quiet!”