20,000 Nerds Under the Sea

by Jeff Miller

  “I am the captain of this ship,” she said. She spoke with a subtle accent—Neil wasn’t sure where it was from, exactly, but it sounded British. She must’ve disguised it before. “Captain Jolly Rogers the Third.”

  “Do you kidnap all your guests, Captain Jolly?” asked Sam.

  “Only in special circumstances like this,” she said. “Sorry if my boys were a tad rough with you. They said you all seemed to be rather OK with being kidnapped, though.”

  Sam gave Neil a glare as the girl walked toward them with her hands on her hips. Around her slender neck was a thin gold chain with a locket.

  “I need your help,” said Jolly.

  “What kind of help?” Neil asked. “Did Jones put you up to this?”

  Neil was still hoping this could be some elaborate plan of the US government, setting them up for another covert operation.

  “I don’t know who this Jones is,” Jolly said. “But you are correct about my game. I have a proposition for you three. Something I was going to ask you, before you rudely declined my invitation.”

  She led them back out to the middle of the ship. The three followed as a parrot squawked at Biggs. Biggs squawked back.

  “I’m offering you the chance to pilot an experimental watercraft, the likes of which you’ve never seen.” The young captain paused. “Well, on second thought, I guess you have seen it,” Jolly said with a snort.

  Bubbles began to emerge from the space between the two hulls of the ship. They intensified as a massive craft began to surface.

  “Say hello to Magda,” Jolly said when a huge metallic shark fin broke through the choppy water. “The megalodon.”

  “It does exist!” said Sam, shocked.

  The monstrous mechanical shark was the size of three school buses. Salt water beaded on its gray exterior as its open jaws showed off rows of razor-sharp teeth. Each one was the size of a mailbox, and its jaws were big enough to tear a semitruck in half.

  “And you three get the privilege of controlling it—in real life.”

  Neil was in shock. The fake hologram shark he’d controlled just the day before was very real—and he was going to drive it.

  A METAL MEGALODON! THIS COULD BE BETTER THAN JET fighters—or even spaceships.

  Neil could tell this wasn’t a government mission, but he was still ecstatic as he watched the shark move. Its rear fin wriggled back and forth, like a living shark’s. When he looked closely, he could see the separate pieces of metal sheeting that had been bolted together, but it could easily be mistaken for the real deal.

  “So you want us to drive that?” asked Sam.

  Neil could see she was deep in thought about something—she always scrunched her eyebrows together while concentrating.

  “Correct, Samantha,” said Jolly. She twirled a strand of her hair around her forefinger.

  “It’s actually just Sam.”

  “Excuse me, Sam,” Jolly shot back. “Sorry again for having to snatch you up, but after showcasing my game all day, you three were the best of the best. No one came close to you.”

  Neil felt proud—they were, indeed, still the world’s best gamers.

  “I had to have you.”

  This feels . . . weird. Any video-game creator could surely pilot their own creation, right?

  “Wait, if this is your ship, why can’t you drive it?” Neil interrupted.

  “Well, aren’t we a bit eager,” said Jolly, rolling her eyes. “This megalodon requires three people to command it. I can’t leave my ship. So I’m trusting you to take over for me.”

  “So if we’re driving this, ah, sharky-what-have-you-here, what’s . . . the mission?” asked Biggs, gesturing toward the beast. “You never told us what we’re actually going to be doing.”

  The girl paused and frowned. “Oh, it’s simple—to help with the aquarium I’m building in honor of my family.”

  “What happened to your family?” asked Sam.

  The captain cleared her throat. “They were . . . they’re no longer here, is all you need to know,” said Jolly.

  “Well, we’re here to help. So are we, like, picking up forty-gallon tanks for you?” Biggs asked. “Because if so, I tried raising turtles a couple years back and they sort of, ah, escaped. So if you’re looking for a turtle tank, have I got a deal for you!”

  “Are you sure you don’t have a few screws loose?” Jolly asked Biggs.

  “Oh, they’ve been lost for a while now,” Biggs defended himself.

  “If you must know, we’re collecting sharks.”

  “Can you do that?” asked Sam.

  “We can do whatever we want,” Jolly said, smiling devilishly. “We’re going to take every shark we see.”

  “What? Why would you do that?!” yelled Biggs. “That would ruin all sea life as we know it. Don’t you know how an ecosystem works?”

  “Of course I do,” the captain said. “That’s why I need them in my aquarium. I need to collect every shark we can find.”

  “Then if you know what an ecosystem is, you should be smart enough to know this is an awful idea,” Biggs said. There was a frustration in his voice that Neil had never heard before. This wasn’t a joke anymore, and this was definitely not something that Jones had organized. “Sharks are very important. They’re just misunderstood.”

  “Misunderstood?” Jolly barked. “I think I definitely understand the fact that sharks are responsible for me being alone.”

  Jolly’s hands curled into tiny fists. She spoke quickly, without the restrained calm she’d displayed the day before.

  “Some people will never understand,” the captain said. “Do you know what it’s like to be alone?”

  “Totally. The other day I didn’t go online until after dinner,” said Biggs.

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I took the wrong people,” said Jolly. “I thought you were geniuses.”

  “Oh, we are,” said Neil, defending his friend. “And if you’re so smart, how are you gonna house every shark? I hate to break it to you, but there’s, like, a lot of sharks out there. You can’t bait them by chumming every ocean.”

  Jolly gave another piercing laugh. “Chum, that horrid bloody mess, is like shark broccoli.”

  “Huh?” said Neil, frustrated.

  “They like it but don’t love it,” Jolly said. “Shark parents just force their kids to eat it.”

  “What makes you a shark expert, then, huh?” asked Neil.

  “Because my parents were the most knowledgeable shark experts in the world. And sharks are the reason they are gone,” Jolly said, stamping her foot. “I’ve studied everything I could about the dreadful beasts.”

  Neil grew quiet. He had been growing frustrated with Jolly, but her story sounded tragic. He imagined what he would do if his own family had been eaten by sharks. It wasn’t fair, but did Jolly really need revenge? There had to be another way.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Sam. “Really.”

  “Me too,” Jolly said, exhaling loudly. “Apologies for my outburst.” She took a deep breath and looked up. “Some beautiful cumulonimbus clouds out today. Means something’s brewing.”

  “So how do you plan on finding sharks?” he asked.

  “Ketchup,” Jolly said.

  Neil and Sam laughed.

  “Like, French-fry ketchup?” said Neil, dipping an invisible fry in an invisible cup of the red tomato mixture.

  “From some lowly squeeze bottle? Don’t be crude,” said Jolly.

  “What other kind of ketchup is there?” Biggs said.

  “The caviar of ketchup.”

  “Is that just, like, a bigger cup of it?” Biggs asked.

  The girl glared back at him.

  “And sharks really like that stuff?”

  “Trust me. I’ve spent years studying a shark’s sense of smell,” Jolly said. “I know that there are ancient ketchups from Japan and Indonesia that sharks can smell across entire seas.”

  Neil thought that might actually be true. He d
idn’t really know how the whole ocean jet stream thing worked, but knew they had currents spanning hundreds of miles. Plus he loved ketchup—why wouldn’t sharks?

  “So, good for you with your ketchup and all, but what are you gonna do if we won’t play along with your awful mission?” asked Sam. “Because there’s no way we’re going after sharks.”

  “Then I hope you enjoyed your time in the brig,” Jolly said. She whistled, and her henchmen appeared. “Pierre, Fabien—our friends need another time-out.”

  With a snap, Jolly’s henchmen swooped down on the three gamers. One grabbed Neil and Sam, while the other secured a flailing Biggs. They were dragged back to the cold metal room. Jolly followed, standing over Neil.

  “You’ll come around,” she said. “Pierre, shut them in.”

  “Au revoir,” said Jolly’s goon with the hairier knuckles. He slammed the latch shut, leaving the group in total darkness once again. Neil huddled together with his friends, unsure of where he’d gone wrong.

  AFTER THE FIFTH ATTEMPT AT KICKING OPEN THE HATCH, Neil, Sam, and Biggs collapsed back onto the metal bench, sweaty, tired, and angry.

  “Something tells me we’re gonna be stuck in here forever,” said Sam.

  Forever is maybe a bit much. I’m sure she’d feed us to sharks before then.

  “Yeah, this is less than cool,” added Biggs. “If video games make me have to hurt sharks, then maybe I’m done with video games.”

  That was like hearing a superstar athlete discuss early retirement.

  “Guys, I agree,” Neil said. “I’m sorry this happened, really—but I bet she would’ve kidnapped us regardless. She was begging to take us after we played her game. At least maybe this means that the others got home safe.”

  Sam groaned. “You’re right. But why does being the best always get us into trouble?”

  A big wave rolled past Jolly’s ship, and the three friends felt their stomachs leap up a foot. Neil was growing tired of life at sea.

  “So what should we do, then?” Sam asked. “Help her destroy every shark alive?”

  “Any new inventions that might help us out, Biggs?” Neil asked his friend. Maybe he had another bright idea, like the ones from his smellable gaming and universal sign language.

  “Sorry, Neil,” Biggs said, defeated. “It’s been a slow year for inventions.”

  Neil bit at the inside of his cheek, hoping his brain would suddenly think of a perfect plan. He wished he had the rest of the team with him. It would be helpful to use the sharp thinking of JP and the Olde Worlde knowledge of Riley. Neil thought of the last time he had seen them, during their winning streak of Shark Hunt.

  The game. Something with the game?

  “Maybe there’s a cheat code from the game we can use,” offered Neil. “Something that will make the mega-lodon explode so she can’t succeed.”

  “A: Do you remember using a cheat code?” said a defensive Sam. “B: If that shark explodes with us in it, what happens?”

  “And H: Robot-shark explosions have been known to erode all types of coral,” followed Biggs. “We can’t risk something like that.”

  Neil let out a long breath.

  “I mean, what else is there?” Neil said. “We’ll be stuck down here for a long time before she’ll feel any type of sympathy for us.”

  “I got a weird vibe from her, too,” said Biggs.

  Neil dropped his voice to just above a whisper. “If she really designed that video game, why is she having other people do the work?”

  “So you think she doesn’t know how to steer her own machine?” Biggs asked. “It seemed to be working earlier.”

  “That could just be autopilot,” Neil said. “You guys remember that game—it took all three of us to control it. It was pretty tricky. Is she, like, only in charge of ketchup?”

  “Guys, we have to do it,” said Biggs. “In order to save every shark. I’d rather have us be involved than trust any of the other players she auditioned. I think we can stop her and save the day. We’ve done it before!”

  “You sure?” asked Sam. “Something goes wrong and we chomp down on a bunch of sharks. Plus we don’t have backup from Jones.”

  “We’ll be careful. I know we will,” said Biggs. “And maybe when we’re on the radio, we can try and contact Jones or the White House.”

  “If you say so, Biggs,” Neil replied softly. He felt another wave sweep under them.

  “There’s a huge aquarium in Monterey, north up the coast,” said Biggs. “We can drop off the sharks we catch in a safe location and get the aquarium’s help.”

  Neil tried to think of a better option, but he was fresh out of ideas.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “OK. ONE . . . TWO . . . THREE,” SAID NEIL.

  “Jolly!” the three screamed through the crack of the hatch. A few seconds passed before they heard the sound of footsteps overhead. The door was ripped open by Pierre.

  “We’ll do it,” Neil said.

  Jolly stepped between the two burly men and put her boot heel on the edge of the hatch. “I have your word?” the girl asked.

  “All our words. Whichever ones you like best,” Neil replied. “Now get us out of here. It smells like rotten seaweed in this thing.”

  The three captives crawled up the metal ladder to the deck. It was getting windy.

  “I knew you’d eventually see things my way,” Jolly replied, putting a hand on Neil’s and Sam’s shoulders.

  As the boat wobbled, Jolly walked them into her cabin. Neil sat down on a leather couch that was so comfortable, he nearly forgot he’d just agreed to destroy all sharks.

  “Do you think we could try this famous ketchup of yours? Before we start? I wanted to see what’s so cool about it,” Neil said.

  Jolly’s eyebrows perked up. “Of course.” She snapped her fingers and Pierre returned with a small wooden crate. He cracked the top off.

  “Careful now,” said Jolly as a jar was hoisted from a nest of Bubble Wrap. “This is an expensive delicacy.”

  She held a red container with a metal lid. It was smaller than a two-liter bottle of soda. Something was written in Japanese on the side, just under a picture of a small sea creature. Neil had no clue what it was, but it looked like a tiny shrimp.

  “What kind of ketchup is this again?” asked Neil.

  “A secret Japanese ketchup recipe, but perfected by my family over generations,” Jolly said. “My great-grandmother discovered it during her pirate days. Her son, my grandfather, created and ran our first factory.”

  “For ketchup?”

  “Absolutely. Using recipes plundered by the first Jolly Rogers.”

  Neil waved his hand over the bottle, inhaling the peculiar smell. It reminded him of the seaweed candy his friend Tyler would eat during after-school robot building.

  “So what’s in it?” Sam asked.

  “How precious. I could never give that away,” Jolly said. “But I will let you in on our key ingredient: krill.”

  “Krill ketchup?” said Sam.

  “A bit unconventional, yes. But you can’t beat the results; it’s a famous delicacy in certain circles. A jar like this can go for ten thousand euros. And the Russians love it.”

  Jolly unscrewed the top of the ketchup jar. Its lid clicked open with a satisfying pop, and the aroma of bizarre ketchup filled the air.

  “Care for a taste?” the captain offered, plunging a finger into the dark-red sauce. She licked it and handed the jar to Biggs. “It’s right tasty.”

  Neil dipped a finger in and sucked it clean.

  Oh, not that bad really. More spicy than anything.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know if these krill were free-range, would you?” Biggs asked, studying the Japanese print running along the side of the ketchup container.

  “Just taste the ketchup, string bean,” said Jolly. “But not too much. Dipping a finger in is about fifty dollars’ worth.”

  Biggs ran his pinkie across the top of the gloppy re
d mixture.

  “Very nice—I’m getting some hints of heirloom tomato,” Biggs said, licking his lips like a reality-TV food critic. “Maybe some Doritos, as well?”

  Jolly gave Biggs a stare capable of melting glaciers.

  “Sam?” offered Biggs.

  “Well, I’m a veggie-saurus, so I’ll pass. But Jolly, as a fellow dinosaur lover, I did have a few questions about your huge shark,” Sam said, cranking up the charm. “It’s literally the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. Did you model it off a living great white? What are the teeth made of?”

  Jolly’s face lit up.

  “Are you a fan of Cenozoic-era vertebrates, too?” the captain asked.

  “You better believe it, sister,” Sam replied. “At home, I have four fossils of actual dinosaurs that date back millions and million years.”

  “Then I’ve got to show you the jaws,” Jolly said, putting an arm tenderly around Sam’s shoulders. “I had our top-secret krill-collecting submersible modified. I copied the serrated edges of actual shark teeth and just made them four times as big.”

  “Whoa,” said Sam.

  The two walked out onto the deck, with Biggs and Neil trailing behind.

  “Now let’s do this, shall we?” said Jolly, turning to Biggs and Neil. She seemed to be much friendlier when things were going her way.

  She walked the crew outside and down to the end of the ship, next to the head of the mechanical shark-eating shark. With heavy steps, Pierre and Fabien followed.

  “You collect nothing but sharks, understood?” Jolly said. “Inside this vessel is a tank that can hold up to three hundred sharks, all to be deposited at the new facility near San Diego.”

  “Hey, that’s where we were,” said Sam. “I thought you said it was an aquarium?”

  “Right,” said Jolly. She stiffened, and her thin nostrils flared. “Aquarium.”

  “That didn’t look like an aquarium is all.”

  “Once it’s finished, you’ll see,” said Jolly. She pivoted back to her shark creation, Magda. It was barely three feet away, and Neil reached out his hand to touch it. It felt slimy enough to be real. Its eyes glowed a deep red. The dorsal fin was the size of a sail from a small boat. Neil had never witnessed anything so powerful, and he’d been to Mars, so that was saying something.