by PJ Hoover
Magic shook his head. “No, I bought it for Benjamin.”
Okay, things were getting strange. Actually, they were plenty strange already and just getting stranger. Why would Magic be giving him this thing?
“Any particular reason?” Benjamin asked.
“You’ll be needing it,” Walker said. “That’s all we can say. Got it, Magic?” He looked to Magic who looked back, and Benjamin knew they were talking with telepathy—well-blocked telepathy. Was Magic getting scolded?
When they finished, Walker moved away from the counter. “Anyway, we’ll be going now. As always, Morpheus, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
“Wait!” Benjamin said.
“There’s nothing else to talk about,” Walker said.
“There is. Before you go—can you fix the menu system?” Benjamin asked Magic. Even though he was totally confused with whatever was going on, he wasn’t stupid.
Magic thought for a moment. “I could change it to liver and onions I suppose.”
At the word liver, Benjamin cringed. “No. Seriously, no.”
Magic waved his hand. “It’s no problem. Consider it done.” And without another word, both Walker and Magic teleported away.
CHAPTER 13
Misplaced Moai and DNA Samples
After Benjamin relayed his exchange with Walker and Magic, nobody—not even Gary—held out any hope of the menu problem ever getting resolved. And with the additional threat of liver, they headed to The Deimos Diner Sunday morning; after two years, nobody even bothered suggesting anywhere else.
“I thought Aurora was going to meet us,” Gary said.
“She hasn’t shown up yet.” Heidi pushed her auburn hair behind her ears. “Wait!” And she put up her hand and closed her eyes.
Benjamin recognized this. Heidi was having a telepathic moment. She didn’t have to close her eyes, but Benjamin figured she just did it to let people know not to talk to her.
After a minute, she opened her eyes back up. “Aurora should be here any minute,” she said, and sure enough, Aurora sailed through the door not thirty seconds later.
“You’re late,” Gary said.
“Yeah, for good reason,” Aurora replied. “I paid a little visit to Easter Island this morning.”
“You did?” Benjamin asked. “Why?”
“I wanted to see these Moai,” she replied. “I just couldn’t believe that after all these years, new Moai had surfaced. I knew the world would be in an uproar. In fact, I was expecting so much publicity, I teleported a mile away and hiked over so no one would notice me.”
“And?” Andy asked.
“And they’re gone,” Aurora said.
“Gone!” Benjamin jumped to his feet. “That’s impossible!”
“Benjamin’s right,” Andy said. “We lifted them ourselves, and let me tell you—my mind still hurts.”
“Well, someone’s moved them again then,” Aurora replied.
“Not to the bottom of the lake.” Andy put his head into his hands. “Please tell me we don’t have to lift them again.”
Aurora shook her head. “No, not to the bottom of the lake. In fact, not even on the whole island.”
“Not even on the island?” Iva asked. “Where did they go?”
“That’s what we need to find out,” Aurora said.
“And we need to find out soon,” Benjamin added. “We only have a week until we need to visit them again.” Before two weeks had seemed so long. Now time was compressing around Benjamin.
“A week until what?” Ryan Jordan walked over to the table.
Benjamin snapped his head around to face Ryan. When had that little weasel come into the diner?
“Sounds like you guys are planning something,” Ryan said.
“Whatever we’re planning isn’t your business.” Andy stood up and got in Ryan’s face.
Ryan laughed. “If it’s not my business, you should be more careful where you talk.”
“And you should be more careful with your illegal contraband,” Jack said, teleporting onto the table. But he wasn’t empty-handed. Instead, the tiny Nogical held a black sphere nearly half as big as he was.
Ryan lunged for it. “Hey, give that back!”
But Jack teleported himself and the sphere off the table and onto Benjamin’s shoulder.
“You dirty, rotten, little—” Ryan began, attempting to grab the sphere from Jack.
“What is it?” Benjamin asked, taking the sphere Jack offered him. But as soon as he said it, he felt the strange telenergy pulse through him. “It’s a telemagnifier.”
“And an illegal one at that,” Aurora added. “They haven’t sold those in Lemuria in thousands of years.”
“And it’s mine,” Ryan said. “So give it back now.”
“Why don’t you just teleport it back?” Heidi asked and smiled.
Ryan glared at her, but at the same time, took a step back from the table.
“You can’t, can you?” Benjamin said and joined Heidi in smiling. “You can’t do anything.”
“That’s not true,” Ryan said. “I don’t need a stupid telemagnifier for anything. You can keep it.”
And then Benjamin heard Ryan’s thoughts so clearly, he was sure Ryan hadn’t even bothered trying to put up any kind of mind block. “Nathan is going to kill me. He’ll lock me up just like he did Jonathan.”
“Nathan gave you this!” Benjamin said.
Ryan gaped. But then some small part of his brain must’ve taken over. “Nathan? What are you talking about?”
“Dude,” Andy said. “We all just heard your thoughts. You said Nathan was going to kill you. Seriously, tell him he’d be doing all of us a favor.”
Ryan opened his mouth to reply, but shut it again. And then opened it again. “You know, you guys are crazy. Acting like you’re so important, running around the world on whatever stupid little quest you’re on.”
It was Benjamin’s turn to be speechless.
“Yeah, I know all about it,” Ryan said. “Between piecing things out of your conversations, and following you around, it didn’t take a genius.”
Which Ryan most certainly was not.
“You don’t know anything,” Heidi replied. “You can act like you do all you want, but you’re as clueless as Julie.”
On cue, Julie Macfarlane called over from a table near the door. “Ryan, are you going to stay over there all day or what? Aren’t we going to the art museum today, sweetie?”
Ryan glared at the same time he flushed from his head to his toes. He didn’t even manage to squeak out another word before he turned and headed back to the table.
“I can’t believe it,” Benjamin said. “Nathan Nyx hired that moron to spy for him.” He held the black sphere out. “How did you get this, Jack?”
Jack shrugged. “It was just some patterns I’ve been noticing. It happened with Jonathan last summer, too. Every time one of those two did anything even remotely powerful, I felt a strange telenergetic signature coming from them.”
“The telemagnifiers,” Iva said.
Jack nodded. “I put one and one together, and in Nogical City, that always equals illegal contraband. So I teleported the telemagnifier out of Ryan’s brain as soon as he walked over to the table.”
“Does this mean Ryan won’t be spying on us anymore?” Heidi asked.
“I think Ryan’s biggest problem is going to be explaining to Nathan why he got caught,” Jack said.
Which was one less problem to worry about.
Benjamin got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom but something teleported him right as he’d walked in the door. And then he was standing on the roof and looking over the entire city of Mu—at least until Lulu appeared right in front of his face.
“Oh, did I get you at a bad time?” she asked.
It took a second for Benjamin to fully wake up. And then another second for him to realize she’d teleported him. “I was about to go to the bathroom.”
&nbs
p; Lulu knew exactly what he’d been about to do. She pretended to snap her fingers. “Well, I’ll just send you back then. Cory can wait for another crack in the shields to teleport through. Maybe in a month or so.”
“Wait!” Benjamin said. “I don’t have to go that bad.”
Lulu smirked. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” And she teleported away, and Cory appeared.
“Hey there, little brother,” Cory said.
“Don’t ‘little brother’ me,” Benjamin said but smiled, and then proceeded to tell Cory about Walker and Magic Pan, and the meeting in The Silver Touch.
“Are they working for us or against us?” Cory asked once Benjamin had finished.
Benjamin shrugged. “Good question. They gave me the teleporter surger to help me get through the dome and back; that much is clear. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing is anybody’s guess.”
“Just be careful,” Cory looked out at the empty city.
“Aren’t I always?” Benjamin shrugged. “How are things in Atlantis anyway?”
“Shhhh!” Cory said. “Don’t say the name.”
Benjamin chuckled. “Okay, little brother, how are things in the mysterious beyond?”
Cory laughed. “Boring. All I do is play Drop Squash with Lulu.”
Benjamin raised an eyebrow. “Drop Squash?”
Cory nodded. “Some weird virtual reality game she stomps me at every single time. It’s like having a thousand giant orbs trying to squash you. Nogicals have an unfair advantage. Anyway, the biggest thing going on has been planning for the museum opening.”
“Sounds kind of boring,” Benjamin said.
“Yeah,” Cory said. “It is. The only reason I’m keeping tabs on it is because the rulers are directly involved. They’ve been spending all their time preparing for it, so as a result, I’m spending all my time watching the exhibits get put in place.”
“Why would they take such an interest in a museum?” Benjamin asked. “Especially now? Don’t they have more important matters—like world domination—to plan?”
“I would have thought so,” Cory said.
“What kind of museum is it?” Benjamin asked. He remembered the museum with the teleporter exhibits he’d visited the first summer he’d come to Lemuria. But Helios and Selene Deimos didn’t waste their time there.
“Natural History Museum,” Cory said. “But the weird thing about it is that in the last week it’s all been restructured to plan around a new exhibit.”
“Seriously?” Benjamin asked. “What kind of exhibit?”
“Three huge statues from Easter Island,” Cory said.
Benjamin jumped to his feet. “Have you seen them?” They had to be the same statues. They just had to be. The coincidence was too much.
Cory nodded. “Sure. I saw them when they moved them into the city.”
“Do they look something like this?” Benjamin asked, and then formed an image in his mind of the three Moai.
“Exactly.” Cory tilted his head. “How did you know?”
And so Benjamin filled him in on the second clue, what had happened with the statues, and how they had been commanded to visit the statues again.
“Interesting,” Cory said.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Benjamin said. “So what am I supposed to do?”
Cory smiled. “Sounds like we need to plan a little trip for you. And we may have to get Lulu to help us.”
Andy’s eyes almost popped out of his head when Benjamin told them what they had to do.
“So let me get this straight,” Andy said. “We get to sneak into Atlantis, go undercover at some big event where the rulers of the whole continent are going to be, and covertly speak to the statues?”
Benjamin nodded. “Yep. That pretty much sums it up.”
“You’re assuming they’ll speak again,” Gary said.
“Oh, they’ll speak,” Iva said. “Now that they’ve been woken up.”
“That’s gotta be the coolest thing in the whole world,” Andy said. “Count me in!”
“Yeah, well count me out,” Gary said. “Teleporting to the lion’s den is just not a sensible idea. It might not even work.”
“Gary,” Andy said, “espionage is not sensible.”
“It can be if done right,” Iva said.
Everyone looked at her and stared.
“What?” she said.
“What kind of response is that?” Benjamin asked.
“A sensible response,” Iva replied. “What did you expect?”
“Well, to be completely truthful, I expected you to throw a fit about going,” Benjamin said.
“Yeah,” Andy agreed. “I was sure you’d side with Gary.”
“This is important,” Iva said. “So if we’re going to do it, we need to do it right. And the first thing we need to do is get on the invite list for the museum opening.”
Benjamin nodded. “I worked it out with Cory last night. We get Lulu the DNA samples, she’ll give them to Selene, and Selene will give them to Cory. And then Cory gets us on the list.”
“Wow, that’s quite a process,” Heidi said.
“You aren’t kidding,” Benjamin said. “This is going to be huge.”
Lulu got back in touch with them two days later. “You’re on the list,” she said. “All of you. And please don’t ask me to do anything else.”
“You got me on the list?” Jack said.
Lulu tossed her hair. “No way, bro. It’s impossible to get your DNA through the filters.”
Jack frowned. “You got yours through. What’d you do? Pester someone to death?”
“Yeah. Exactly,” Lulu said.
“…more persistence than ringworm,” Jack muttered under his breath.
Lulu glared at him. “What did you say?”
Jack glared back. “Oh, I think you heard me. I seriously can’t believe we have the same parents. I’m so perfect, and, well…you’re not.”
“Perfect,” Lulu said. “Not quite the word I would use.”
But Benjamin tuned them out. They were going to Atlantis—at least all of them except Jack. This was going to be totally awesome.
CHAPTER 14
Into the House of the Enemy
As coincidence would have it, the teleporter surger came in handy right away. Benjamin teleported back and forth with each of them, using the surger each time. He still hadn’t figured out why Magic and Walker had given it to him in the first place, but as long as it helped them get to Atlantis, he didn’t really care.
Benjamin wasn’t sure what he’d expected of Atlantis—maybe something just like Lemuria. And it wasn’t that Atlantis was so different. Everything was just taller. And closer together. And the telegens looked basically the same, though possibly a bit oppressed. No evil monsters roamed the streets. But then, why would there be? Time and again they’d been told how the people of Atlantis weren’t the evil ones. The cruel government—the government Benjamin now knew was lead by Gaea and his father Caelus—caused Atlantis’ bad reputation. He could only imagine the family reunion when they finally met.
As soon as Benjamin arrived, he felt Nathan’s presence—not close by, but somewhere on the continent. And if Benjamin could feel Nathan, then Nathan could feel Benjamin. Had Nathan been watching them this whole time—watching them solve the riddles that had eventually led them here to Atlantis? With Ryan spying, he must’ve known at least part of what they’d been up to.
“Hey, look,” Benjamin said, nodding his head in the direction of a glass window with a holographic sign hanging overhead.
“The Silver Touch,” Heidi said. “How can that be?” Without waiting for a response, she walked to the window. And no one seemed to want to stop her since they all followed.
Gary looked up and his mouth fell open. “Look in the window.”
Benjamin hadn’t reached the window yet, but from the expression on Gary’s face, he was sure the treasures of Tutankhamun were on display.
“The chess set,” Iva s
aid.
“The Ammolite chess set,” Gary echoed. “Here. In Atlantis.”
“How can it be in two places at once?” Andy asked.
“It’s not the exact same set,” Gary said, heading for the door. “But it’s close enough that I’d bet my left hand they were made at the same time.”
“Bet your left hand,” Andy said. “What kind of bet is that? You’d just grow it back.”
Gary shrugged as he opened the door. “Maybe. But it would still be an inconvenience while it was gone.”
And they went inside.
“Morpheus?” Gary asked.
The man standing by the chess set turned around.
“It is Morpheus,” Andy said.
“No, not quite,” the Morpheus-look-alike said. “But let me guess: you know my twin brother.”
“Twin brother!” Iva said.
“That’s right,” the man said. “Morpheus Midas is my twin brother.” He reached out and grabbed Gary’s already extended hand and shook it. “The name’s Mantis. Mantis Midas.”
But Benjamin didn’t feel ready to shake the man’s hand yet. “If you’re really Morpheus’ twin brother, why are you here in Atlantis when he’s in Lemuria?”
“Why are you in both places?” Mantis Midas asked, but then laughed. “No, that’s not fair. We don’t give away our secrets of the trade, so why should I expect you to give away yours?”
Benjamin didn’t answer. No telling what this Mantis Midas person knew.
“Opportunity,” Mantis said. “What better business opportunity than to have stores in both major locations? We trade items to sell, and since they’ve come from somewhere far away, it makes them that much more desirable.”
“How do you get back and forth?” Heidi asked.
Mantis turned his head as Benjamin heard an almost inaudible click coming from the back of the store.
“I think you’re about to find that out for yourself,” Mantis said.
Morpheus stopped when he saw the students. His face looked like he’d walked in through the out door.
“You—? How—?” Morpheus said.
