Meet Abby Banks VOLUMES: 1-3

by J. A. Cipriano

  11

  We were in the water. It was surprisingly warm for being a billion miles beneath the surface. This might have had to do with the super-expensive looking gizmos on my scuba suit that kept whirring and blinking with all sorts of lights. I glanced around, but couldn’t see beyond the end of the flashlight in my hand. Its beam extended only a couple feet into the distance before being swallowed by dark water.

  I swallowed, still unused to breathing through my Darth Vader mouthpiece, and tried to keep calm like Esmer— my mother— had told me. The more I panicked, the more oxygen I would use. Running out of air didn’t exactly seem fun. Then again, I wasn’t even breathing air. I was breathing some kind of weird nitrogen mixture so my lungs wouldn’t explode. Man… even the air wasn’t genuine.

  I glanced back toward where the submarine should have been but couldn’t see it through the inky blackness. I wished once again that my mother had brought a bigger vehicle. Why we hadn’t taken her submarine was immediately clear when we hit the water. Her ship was designed only for one person, so I wasn’t going to fit.

  Also, since she’d cut a hole in Donovan’s submarine, if she detached, water would rush inside, killing both him and Stephen. Since they were alive, albeit unconscious, this seemed like a particularly bad plan since they were supposed to be colleagues.

  I suppose we could have taken them with us, but well, she didn’t want to do that for reasons she hadn’t quite explained. This meant that now I was swimming under the ocean with my adoptive mother’s hand locked in a death grip.

  Still, part of me was glad we were leaving them behind. There was something about Donovan that made him hard to trust, and well, I wasn’t sure I could trust Stephen either because, after all, I was leverage. Esmeralda, on the other hand, had come all this way just to save me. If I couldn’t trust her, I was screwed.

  Already, my legs were starting to burn from the effort of kicking, which was lame because as I watched my mom and tried to mimic her perfect, mermaid-like strides… I just couldn’t. My kicks were all disjointed, and I kept swinging my flashlight around at every shadow. This made my body start to spin, and I’d have to kick again to right myself. It was getting very tiring.

  “I still don’t think this is a wise way for one to first experience the joys of scuba diving,” I said, glaring at a shadow that turned out to be an outcropping of rock. “You could have taught me to do this, you know, in the comfort of our local pool.”

  “Abby,” my mother sighed, her voice coming through the speakers embedded in the helmet just above my ears so it was like hearing her in surround sound. “I could have done a lot of things differently. Do you want me to go back in time and be all ‘Sarah Conner’ for you?”

  “No,” I replied, trying to will my breathing to be slower. “We’re not facing any killer machines. If that was the case, the moment I tried to operate it, I’d somehow fill it with spyware.”

  My mother’s laughter echoed in my ears, making me relax a little. Even if she wasn’t my real mother, she had raised me, and well, she wasn’t trying to gut me and play mix and match with my insides, which in my opinion, was a huge plus in her favor.

  “But you could have taken me scuba diving, or like, taught me some martial arts, or well, anything,” I said a few minutes later.

  “I could have, you’re right, Abby. But I wanted you to have a normal childhood. There’re lots of kids in our town just like you, should we be training all of them to be assassins to keep them safe from their parents?” my mother asked, and for whatever reason, it sounded like she genuinely wanted my opinion. “And I did try to get you to take a self-defense class, remember?”

  “Well, I… okay fine,” I said, relegating myself to silence for a moment because she had a point. Ninety-nine percent of us would have complained and rebelled if we didn’t know why we were being trained. If we did know, well, that’d sort of defeat the purpose of the fake town designed to give us some semblance of a real life. It was like witness protection on steroids, and I could see the logic in not wanting us to all be crazy assassins. “And I guess no one wants a crazy assassin kid they trained bent on vengeance for being abducted as a child.”

  “That, too,” my mother agreed and squeezed my hand.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked.

  My mother was silent for a long time before she spoke, so long, I began to wonder if she had heard me. “We rendezvous with some people I know. They’ll take us somewhere safe,” she replied what felt like several hours later.

  “Oh, like more agents? Like Donovan and Stephen?” I asked. “Where are they taking us?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know, and they won’t be like Donovan or Stephen because… this isn’t exactly sanctioned.”

  “Eh?” I asked, quirking my eyebrows even though she couldn’t see my face. “What do you mean it’s unsanctioned?”

  “Abby, I was coming to get you whether or not Stephen got you out. That… didn’t sit well with my boss so I stole that submarine. Thankfully, Stephen got you out, but frankly, I don’t trust them. There’s a mole in the agency.”

  “Whoa there, Mom. You mean you went AWOL to save me?” I asked.

  “Yes, it was either that or put a bullet in Gabriella’s head. Unfortunately, she has some gizmo hooked up that makes it so if she dies from anything… unnatural, it detonates several more bombs,” she replied, and my heart sped up in my chest. “Now we’re going to meet some people I know and they are going to whisk us away to a safe place until Gabriella dies of natural causes. Then I’ll take us back home, and they won’t punish me because I succeeded where they failed.”

  I glanced at her as she said the words, all full of bravado and confidence. “Um… Mom have you ever dealt with petty bureaucrats? Like at all? Because let me tell you, in my limited experience, that is exactly the opposite of how they work.”

  “I know, Abby,” my mom said, turning to glance at me, before kicking again with one of her mermaid strides.

  “Well, you don’t seem worried about it,” I said as water overhead pushed me down and to the left. I glanced upward, but all I saw were drifting shadows.

  “Abby, I want to keep you safe. I’m glad you have such faith in me, but it’s still a coin toss. Once you’re alive and well and this is all over, I’ll worry about bureaucrats, okay?” she asked, and there was a strange change in her voice because she just sounded tired.

  “Okay, Mom,” I replied as the water on my right surged, making me lose my grip on her hand. I flailed for a moment, my beam cutting through the darkness around me like one of those pathetic lighters in the cave in scary movies.

  Then my beam caught the surface of something huge and grey as it swam away. All I could see was a shimmering tailfin. Only…

  “Shark!” I screamed. My terror-filled voice ripped out of my throat as my heart felt like it exploded, and the pit in my stomach swallowed it.

  My mother swung her body around in an instant, her headlamp illuminating the distance far better than my crappy flashlight could. The creature surged toward us, maw agape to reveal its fifty million teeth. There was a crack in the water to my left and bubbles surged forward in a cloud. Something struck the shark as my mother grabbed me by the arm and yanked my bobbing form behind her body.

  She had a gun in her other hand, but she didn’t seem too keen on using it because it wasn’t raised toward the creature. The shark veered to the left, narrowly avoiding us as it passed so close to our bodies that I was sure it was going to turn and gulp us down in one bite.

  “Shoot it!” I cried as we swung around to watch the shark. I hoped beyond all hope it would just go away.

  “My bullets have an effective range of like three feet underwater, Abby. They’ll peel apart like metal flowers that will bounce harmlessly off of it at this depth,” my mother said as she holstered the weapon.

  I couldn’t quite comprehend that. Didn’t people use guns underwater all the time in movies? The shark turned back toward us in one
lightning-quick movement that made me shriek.

  “Maybe we should try anyway?” I screamed, my voice cracking partway through.

  “Stay here!” my mother commanded as she pulled a blade from a sheath on her leg and swam out a few feet in front of me. The monster caught sight of her and barreled forward, all teeth and fury. Its cold, flat eyes glinted menacingly in the glare of her headlamp as my mother swung her body around at the last second, narrowly avoiding its hideous, gaping maw.

  With one lithe motion, she jammed the knife into the creature’s gills and tore it outward in a cloud of crimson that darkened the water. The shark snapped, gnashing its horrible teeth as my mother pushed off the creature with her other hand.

  “Swim! Now!” she screamed, kicking toward me and pointing. I glanced at her for a split second before thrashing forward.

  My mother caught up to me in an instant and when she grabbed me, I jumped and flailed wildly, trying to throw her off as my screams filled my helmet.

  “Abby, it’s okay,” my mother’s voice was so labored, it took me a moment to make out her voice over my own cries. “Just swim naturally and try not to look so much like a wounded animal.”

  I glanced at her as she surged ahead of me, gripping my hand as she did so. I turned my head back toward where the shark should have been but I couldn’t see it anymore as I swept the blade of my flashlight beam back and forth.

  My mother pulled me forward, and as I turned back forward, I made every effort to kick like a normal, non-panicked Abby Banks. “Hopefully it was alone,” I murmured, mostly to myself.

  “Or if there are others, they decide he’s the prey now,” my mother replied.

  That thought chilled me to the core. Maybe there were others? What if they thought we smelled mighty tasty covered in shark blood? I swallowed, trying to concentrate on breathing because if I didn’t, I was going to freak out, and I didn’t think that would help much, especially given that we were a million miles beneath the ocean with no help in sight.

  One breath in. One breath out.

  I don’t know how long I swam like that, focused on my breathing, but when I looked up there was a huge underwater mountain looming before us. In its base, a few meters from our position, was a dark hole in the wall. Brown crags of rock jutted up from all angles as bits of fleshy green plant-life floated around.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing with my flashlight so that my mother would see what I was talking about.

  “Our destination. That’s where we rendezvous with my friends,” my mother said, glancing back at me, and for whatever reason, I knew she was smiling at me.

  I don’t know why, but that made me feel pretty good inside even though we were headed into a deep, dark hole under the water.

  “How many secret underwater bases are there?” I asked as we reached the entrance. It was way bigger than I’d initially thought. Maybe even big enough to fit one of those one-person submarines that my mother used earlier.

  “A lot,” my mom said, placing her hand against a small metallic pad. It glowed with bright, crimson light for a second before a green light flashed three times. Then a series of lights came on around the entrance, illuminating the sea for several hundred meters in every direction.

  “This is a lot bigger than I’d expected,” I said as a metal door opened a few feet into the cave to reveal a solid black rubber room with a grated floor.

  “This one is just a baby,” my mom said, and I knew she was smirking at me as she pulled us into the room and pressed a button. The doors behind us snapped shut with a surge of bubbles. Then the water in the room began to drain away through the grates beneath our feet.

  A moment later, my mother pulled off her helmet and shook out her hair in a way that made me envious. She smiled at me, and I could see the relief in her face as she took a step toward me and patted me on the shoulder.

  “You did great, Abby. We’re almost out of here,” she said, and for some reason, I almost believed her.

  12

  The elevator we were in was weird because it was made of glass. The walls, ceilings, and even the floor were nothing but glass. You would think this meant I had an awesome view, but because we were inside a freaking underwater mountain, the only thing I could see was black rock and cabling.

  The moment my mother had pulled off my gear, we stepped into the elevator without changing out of the skin-tight black under-suits. This wasn’t bad if you were my mother because the way the thing hugged her body made me a little jealous because, well, it made me feel curveless. I crossed my arms over my chest and glanced out one of the glass walls. More black stone. Awesome.

  “Why is there a glass elevator inside an underwater mountain? There’s no scenery,” I said.

  “There will be,” my mom replied, not looking up from the electronic device in her hand. It was about as big as a greeting card and just as thin. The light from its screen illuminated her face, casting it in a blue glow that made her look almost ghostly.

  “Will be? We’ve been in this elevator for like an hour, how much more travel could there possibly be?” I asked, glancing up and down in the small space but seeing no discernible change in scenery.

  My mother glanced up from her tablet and gave me a look that meant I had confused her somehow. “Abby, we’re not moving,” she said. “We’re only being decompressed.”

  “What?” I asked. “The walls look like they are moving. How could we not be moving? It feels like we’re moving.” I stamped my foot and the elevator didn’t move at all.

  “Whatever you say, dear,” my mother replied, focusing back on her electronic gizmo.

  A moment later, the wall behind her slid open with the hiss of compressed air to reveal a lime green room. White tile with a stripe of lime led the way out of the elevator before turning off down a corridor. My mother stepped out of the elevator and motioned for me to follow with one hand while stuffing her tablet into a pouch on her leg.

  I followed her into the agonizingly colored room and cringed. The walls and ceiling were all lime green, and the lights overhead were those fluorescent ones you see above workbenches and in factories. They swung haphazardly on too-thin cables as we passed under them. It was as though our movement was disturbing them even though they were several feet above our heads.

  When we reached the corner, I noticed that the colors changed. While one of them was still lime-green, the left fork was caustic-yellow and the right one was blood-red. The middle stripe of tile changed as well. I looked at it for a long time, waiting for my mother to decide where we were going to go.

  “Is this whole place color coordinated?” I asked when my mother didn’t move.

  “Yes,” she replied. “It’s to help you know where you’re going.”

  “So why aren’t we moving then?” I asked.

  “We’re supposed to meet my contact at this corridor. It’s why we came in the way we did,” she said, glancing down the hallways and taking a step backward. Her left hand reached down toward her gun, fingers resting lightly on the handle.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied. “We need to leave.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, filled more with confusion than fear. Didn’t we just get here?

  “Hawthorne is never, ever late. I’ve been trying to ping him this whole time, and he hasn’t responded.” She reached out and grabbed my hand, yanking me down the blood-red hallway. Our footfalls, or rather my footfalls echoed on the tile like a leaping elephant.

  “Maybe he just got tied up, you know, getting to an underwater mountain base?” I asked, but even as I said the words, I didn’t really believe them. My mother was unflappable, and for some reason, she was totally flapped.

  “The only reason he wouldn’t be here is if he is dead or captured. Neither of those two scenarios are particularly useful to us,” she replied as we came up to a room with a white door. It was closed, and it had one of those little windows with the steel mesh like you somet
imes see in hospitals.

  My mother reached out, gripping the knob with one hand and twisted it, but it didn’t move. This should have been obvious since the little red light next to the door was solid red. Didn’t that generally mean it was still electronically locked?

  “Um… I think it’s still locked,” I said, pointing at the light. “Isn’t that what the light means?”

  “Yes,” my mother hissed. “I’m trying to decide if I want to risk using my keycard or if that will just make bad things happen to us.”

  “Bad things?” I gulped. “Like what?”

  “Like filling the hallway with nerve gas so that we die puking our guts up. I really don’t want to go that way if I can help it.” She glanced at me. “I somehow doubt you do either.”

  I forced myself to smile at her and shook my head meekly. Part of me hoped she was joking, but I didn’t think she was because this really wasn’t the time or place for that. “So let’s not do that. What is your plan B?” I asked.

  “Steal a submarine,” she said, tapping the door with her finger. “They are through this door.”

  “Well if there is a choice, should we try the yellow submarine instead of the red one?” I asked. My mother smirked at me, and I didn’t quite understand why.

  “You’re cute,” she said, pulling out her gun and moving farther down the hallway. The weapon was huge in her hands now that I could see it in clear light. It looked different than the other guns I’d seen, too, because it was all black with a wooden grip.

  There was a sound above us. A sort of high pitched whine that reminded me of gears moving, and I glanced upward to see a solitary white camera, its black lens pointed toward us. My breath caught in my throat as I scampered forward and grabbed my mom by the shoulder.