Max Tilt: Fire the Depths

by Peter Lerangis

  On the positive side, his legs were no longer numb. On the negative side, some of the thorns had even cut through his wet suit.

  He walked to the top of the hill, where the land leveled off. He was now at the edge of a thicker forest that led into the island’s interior. Berries of all sizes dotted the bushes, and his mouth began to water again. Most of them looked like blueberries and raspberries. He had read about how to tell those apart from poison berries.

  He pulled the goggles from around his neck and held them by the strap. They would have to be his bucket. As he began picking berries, he tossed some in. And ate some.

  There were no paths here, so Max made his own, taking a big stick and whacking away as much underbrush as he could. After a few feet, he looked back and felt a wave of panic. Everything looked the same. He knew that if he went any farther, he’d never find the way back.

  He put down his berry-filled goggles, unzipped his wet suit, and felt a rush of freezing cold. Quickly he reached into his pants pocket and found a few slightly soggy receipts left over from the shop at Piuli Point. He could rip them into small pieces and use them as markers—jamming each piece into a tree along the way with a stick. Even small white markers stood out. This was a smart idea.

  As Max walked, the tree cover grew thicker. His goggles filled with berries, and so did his stomach. He had no idea how much time had gone by, but by now he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to find people.

  At least he had enough for both him and Alex to eat.

  As he turned to go back, he noticed a shift of light in the woods just ahead—the soft yellow glow of a clearing. His heart thumped. A clearing could mean an encampment.

  He pinned his last paper marker to a tree, leaned the walking stick against it, and balanced the goggle-pail on the stick.

  Another minute wouldn’t hurt.

  Trudging through the brush, he stopped at the clearing’s edge. It wasn’t an encampment, but an almost perfectly round circular area at the top of a ridge. There wasn’t much special about it. But looking beyond, he could see the sea winking at him through the tree cover. He had reached another shore.

  He turned, deciding what to do. He could follow the markers back through the trees and brambles, or he could instead go down to the shore and follow it around, back the way he’d come. Either would bring him to Alex. He liked the shore idea better. Lots of rocks, but no thorns.

  He began walking across the clearing toward the water. The ground was sunken, the soil gravelly and sparse. It was as if a house had been in the clearing and suddenly disappeared from sight. His foot clipped something hard, and he tripped, landing hard on his left hip.

  Groaning with pain, he sat up. He kicked the rock that had tripped him.

  But it wasn’t a rock. It was a piece of metal, jagged and broken.

  He looked around the clearing. There were other pieces of metal lying around, rusted and corroded. On all fours, he began digging around the piece at the center, the one that had tripped him. It was a part of something bigger, but what?

  A crashed plane, maybe. In which case there might be food aboard. Cookies, peanuts, or pretzels. Or even the stuff you had to pay for.

  His mouth began to water as he grabbed one of the loose shards of metal. It was about the size of a shovel. He began digging.

  And digging.

  The bigger piece of metal, the one that had tripped him, went deep. At its base, it widened into what looked like the metal frame of the plane. The deeper he got, the softer the soil was. He worried about Alex. She might be awake now. She would be wondering where he’d gone. But he was curious. Just a few inches more . . .

  “Max? What are you doing?”

  Max looked up with a start. Alex was standing on the rocky shore by the water, looking up at him.

  “Alex!” he blurted. “Sorry. I was trying to get us something to eat—”

  “I thought you were taken by wolves!” she said, trudging up to meet him.

  “I found something! Come up here, this is so weird.”

  Alex’s eyes widened when she saw Max’s excavation. She grabbed another small metallic shard, knelt by his side, and dug in.

  They worked silently, concentrating, focusing all their strength. Neither of them knew how much time had gone by, but it felt like days. Every few minutes revealed something new—a wire like an antenna, a section of a rounded hull, the broken remains of a long pipe with broken pieces of glass.

  “This looks like a telescope,” Max said, holding the pipelike thing up to the sun.

  Alex was digging furiously. “Max, look at this!” she cried out.

  Her tool was uncovering a section of the hull that contained the rusted remains of white lettering. Max jumped in to help, digging like crazy, until they both had to stop to catch their breath.

  They sat back, staring at the word that glinted against the golden rays of the low-slung sun:

  NAUTILUS

  “I don’t believe this . . .” Max said. “So . . . a plane crashed here that was named after the Nautilus. What kind of coincidence is that?”

  Alex shook her head slowly. “I don’t think it’s a plane, Max.”

  “What else could it be?” Max said.

  “Jules Verne sent us here. He did that for a reason.”

  Max stared at the word. “You think this is the submarine from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea? But that’s a work of fiction.”

  “Verne was here, Max,” Alex said. “And so was the real Nemo. If Nemo existed in real life, then maybe the Nautilus did too. It was a real submarine. It had to be.”

  Max sat back, catching his breath. “But then what’s it doing here, buried on dry land?”

  Alex smiled. She held up her little digging utensil. “Cousin, there’s only one way to find out.”

  44

  WORKING with two broken pieces of metal wasn’t exactly the best way to dig up a nineteenth-century submarine. But it kept Max warm.

  He and Alex broke often to eat berries. Hundreds of berries. They gathered fish that washed up on the shore alive. Using their digging utensils to gut them was sloppy and disgusting at first, but it was all worth it when they were roasted over a fire.

  The Nautilus was tilted to its side. Max and Alex dug until they were able to free the observation deck and the hatch.

  Using broken pieces of metal as crowbars, they jimmied open the top. Foul, musty-smelling air rushed out. The interior was angled to the sun, and Max could see a ladder leading down into a holding area.

  “It really does look like the Conch,” Max said.

  “Only older,” Alex remarked.

  He turned and began walking down the ladder.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Alex said. “This isn’t like you.”

  Max shrugged. “I’m not like me anymore.”

  The dark didn’t scare him. Nothing scared him now. He’d come too far, risked too much. He crawled into the hole, clinging onto the ladder.

  At this angle, it was like scaling monkey bars in the playground. The rungs were almost parallel to the earth. When it was safe, he leaped down into a corner of the sub. His foot jammed against a pile of debris, and he squatted to sort it out. Everything was lopsided.

  A lamp. A jar of kerosene. A flint lighter. The lamp’s metal was corroded, but the wick was still good. When he lit it, there was enough light to see the interior of the ship.

  Alex was looking in from above. “Looks spooky.”

  Max squinted, looking around. Lying in a slanted heap on a slanted wall was a thick cord of well-preserved rope. He brought it to the hatch and tossed the end up to Alex. “Anchor this thing to the top rung of the ladder. I may need to hold on to it for balance. The sub was buried at a tilt. It’s hard to stand up. Even for a Tilt.”

  “Will do,” Alex said.

  In the flickering flame, shadows danced across the hallways, disappearing in and out of rooms. Max braced himself as best he could, walking on walls as often as on floors. He sw
ung his lamp into the control room, the diving chamber, the library. It was a lot like the Conch, but smaller. Decay and rot had destroyed or damaged nearly every table, every panel, every piece of equipment. All that was left unruined was the steering wheel and the husk of the captain’s chair. Even the windows were nothing but holes.

  “See anything?” Alex called down.

  “It’s a mess,” Max said, moving methodically through the entire sub as he hung onto the rope. He stooped to pick up a plastic cup with an ancient-looking Coca-Cola logo. “Looks like other people may have been down here.”

  “What?” Alex said. “Do you think they took the treasure? Like people who looted the pyramids in Egypt?”

  “Maybe,” Max said. “Unless the treasure was never here in the first place. Verne is unpredictable. He might have left another note. Maybe The Lost Treasures had a Part Four.”

  Max could hear Alex’s enthusiasm deflate. “Keep looking. Keep your eye out for a leather booklet.”

  The more he looked, the deeper his heart sank. Any possible hiding place was rotted away, any secret corner was a hole or a rusted pile of metal.

  As he climbed back out, Alex looked at him expectantly. But he shook his head. “No treasure. No note. At least not that I could find. Whoever was here cleaned it out.”

  “But—this place—who could have discovered it—?” Alex said.

  “I don’t know.” Max sighed. “There are a lot of things we don’t know. Like what is the sub doing here in the first place?”

  The two sat quietly on the soil, and Alex leaned her head against Max’s shoulder.

  “We failed,” Max said.

  “Don’t say that,” Alex replied.

  “It’s a fact,” Max said. “We came all this way. We nearly died. We actually caused someone to die. And we have nothing to show for it.”

  “Not nothing,” Alex said. “We discovered the wreck of the real Nautilus. That will be worth something to a museum or a collector. So we’ll have a treasure, kind of. Just not such a huge one.”

  Max nodded, desperately trying not to be swallowed up by disappointment. “I guess you can write about it. Maybe you can get paid for that.”

  “Yup.” Alex looked out to sea. “Now let’s set a nice smoky fire and keep it going until someone sees us.”

  She slipped her hand into his, and they stood. Behind them, a rustling in the bush made Max spin around. An animal was running through the trees, a flash of fur and foot.

  “What was that?” Max said.

  “Dinner,” Alex replied, running in the direction of the movement. “Come on, Max. Let’s do something fun.”

  “Hunting is fun?” Max called out.

  “Fish is great,” Alex said, “but meat is better!”

  She picked up a branch and broke it so that its end was pointed.

  “That’s your spear, Katniss Everdeen?” Max shouted.

  “Ha! That was sarcastic, Max!” Alex said.

  “For a reason!” Max said. “This is crazy!”

  But Alex was off. “If you’re not with me, you’re against me. Come on!”

  Max followed her into the woods. Hunters, he knew, were supposed to be quiet. They were supposed to stalk their prey by surprising it. But Alex was tromping through the woods like Sasquatch.

  He stopped every few feet, taking a mental snapshot of where they were. Getting lost was not in the plan, and he was out of receipts.

  When he could no longer hear her, he spun around.

  She was nowhere in sight. “Alex!” he cried out.

  Nothing.

  “Alex! Where are you?”

  His voice echoed in the woods. He looked down and saw what he thought were footsteps. He followed them as best he could, shouting her name.

  Until he finally heard her answer from behind a grove of trees. “Sssshhh, Max.”

  He nearly ran into her at the edge of an inland pool. It was about as long as a city block and teeming with fish. Alex was following along the edge, holding a long stick, eyeing a school of fat fish. Her arm was drawn back as if the stick were a spear.

  “I thought you wanted meat,” Max said.

  “That critter was too fast,” Alex replied softly. “But Katniss is going to nail one of these tasty babies.”

  Max folded his arms. “This I have to see.”

  Alex stopped. Her arms went slack. “Max?” she said. “Max, come here, you have to see this.”

  He ran to her side. She was no longer eyeing the fish. At her foot was something round and white partially buried in the soil. Along with what looked like part of a buried silver necklace.

  Alex began digging around it. Max grabbed a stick himself and joined her. Slowly they uncovered something rounded and deep. With two eye holes. And a jaw.

  A skull. And definitely human.

  Max squatted next to it, dug his hands around the side, and pulled it out of the ground. The chain came with it. It broke with the force, sending a metal plate flying toward Alex, who picked it up.

  It was small, about the size of a military dog tag, and as she turned it over, she wiped it clean of dirt.

  Alex dropped to her knees. “Bingo . . .”

  Max knelt next to her as she held out the chain, and he read the inscription.

  NEMO

  45

  “HE died here,” Alex said in a hushed voice, lifting the silver tag and turning it over in her hand. “Captain Nemo was here on this island with the Nautilus, and he died.”

  Max held his fingers to his forehead. “Why . . . ?”

  “I don’t know,” Alex said. “This whole island scares me.”

  “Break it down into parts . . .” Max said, his eyes squeezed shut. “So Verne travels with him to explore the world in this crazy invention, the submarine. They find Ikaria, and Nemo destroys it, stealing their secrets and their treasure. He wants to make all of these underwater bubble kingdoms and become ruler of the seas. He figures he’ll drive people into the domes by causing the seas to rise, which will flood the cities and cause panic. So he starts planting dynamite in remote places. At some point in the future, he’s going to set them off. Ice sheets will break into the Arctic Ocean like crazy, and his plan will come true. Except for one thing.”

  “He’s a total wack job,” Alex said.

  “Yup.”

  “Runs in the family,” Alex said. “So Verne writes The Lost Treasures as a set of clues leading to the Ikarian fortune. He doesn’t think anyone will believe it, so he leaves the first part with his son and tells him to keep it in the family. To be safe, he sends some clues to the only other person he trusts, his editor Hetzel. Verne spends the rest of his life revisiting the places he discovered with Nemo, leaving sections of The Lost Treasures along the way—so someone can see what Nemo has been planning and stop it from ever happening. And as a reward, they get the treasure.”

  Max sighed. “The fact is, Nemo’s plan could never have happened. He would never have enough explosives. So the two guys have some kind of fight in Piuli Point, and they end up here.”

  Alex looked back toward the Nautilus. “So, what exactly happened on this island after Nemo and Verne got here?”

  “Plans went wrong, I guess,” Max said. “Nemo wigged out, Verne took action. Verne won. Score one for the good guys.”

  “Score zero for you and me though,” Alex said. “And a big one for the person who struck it rich by looting Jules Verne’s treasure.”

  At the edge of the pool, Max saw a crab scuttling out, moving sideways along the edge. His stomach groaned. “All this disappointment is making me hungry.”

  “Me too.” Alex raised her pointed stick. Together they tiptoed around the pool, drawing closer to the scuttling crustacean. “Hyeeahhh!” Alex shouted, thrusting the stick down.

  It missed the crab and plunged into the soft sand. Alex’s stick broke in two. As the crab began digging a hole and vanishing inside, Max lunged for it. He thrust his hand into the wet sand, grasping for the creature.

/>   But his hand jammed against something solid and cold.

  “Yeow! What the—?” he cried out. “There’s something in here.”

  “It broke my spear . . .” Alex said. “Is it the rest of Captain Nemo?”

  Max began digging. He exposed a rusted piece of metal. “It’s not a skeleton.”

  “We need our digging tools,” Alex said, darting away into the woods.

  “I didn’t leave markers!” Max called out.

  “I was in Girl Scouts!” Alex yelled back. “I can track footprints!”

  She was back in minutes. They dug together around the metallic piece, which was long, heavy, and solid. At one point, it made a sharp right turn. A corner. “What is this thing?” Max cried out. “A car?”

  They began digging harder, faster. They uncovered a rectangle of metal and began digging around it.

  It wasn’t a car. More like a box.

  “Mint mint mint mint . . .” Max hummed.

  “Stop that, Max, keep digging!” Alex said.

  They cleared away all four sides. On the two shorter sides they found metallic handles, riveted to each side of the container. Alex was grinning. “Do you think . . . ?”

  “Dig more first. Think later,” Max said, closing his fingers around his handle. “Ready?”

  “Heave . . . ho!” Alex said.

  The thing was stuck solid. They dug down all the way to the bottom edge, but it wouldn’t budge. They tried at least five times, finally collapsing in the soil.

  “What do . . . we do . . . now?” Alex said, catching her breath.

  “We could use that rope in the Nautilus,” Max said.

  “Be right back!”

  She flew back through the woods and returned a few minutes later with the thick rope Max had used for balance. “I’ll knot the handle,” she said. “You throw the other end over the thickest branch you see.”

  Max looked up into the canopy of a sturdy old fir tree. It had a branch extending over their heads like a goalpost. He tossed the rope over it and caught the end as it came down. “Ready!”