2017 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide

by Maggie Allen

  She shook her head; no, she couldn’t imagine it.

  “We warred with them for years. But the forest was their domain—or anyplace that had a significant amount of vegetation. And you know why we couldn’t rout them?”

  “Yes,” Lizette said, reciting what she’d learned in world history. “They have shields that our weapons can’t penetrate. Our gunfire bounces off, and even bombs explode against them.”

  “Their technology is...way beyond our capability.” Mr. Tallon took a moment to draw breath. Lizette’s eyes flicked to the monitors and their squiggly lines and numbers she couldn’t interpret. “This shield can sense what is harmful and repulses it, even plastic weapons. But the metal that you wear on your wrist, Lizzie...it repulses them. I’ve been working on it for years. And with more work, I think I can eventually get it through the shield they’ve put up.”

  “So…” She stared at the bracelet looping her wrist. “Are you going to make a weapon? Like a gun?”

  This time, his eyes nearly disappeared in all the crinkles. “Not a gun. A car. A very special car.”

  Lizette’s heart jumped in a way she was sure the monitors would have recorded. “A car…”

  He nodded. “A car that will protect the driver by safely bringing them through the shield. A car made out of a metal that the Forest People want nothing to do with. And maybe...yes, a weaponized car.”

  “I want to help,” Lizette blurted.

  “You have been helping me, Lizzie. All summer.”

  She twitched her hand impatiently. “Yes, but I want to help with taking our world back from the Forest People.”

  “That’s a long way from happening.”

  “But that’s the point, right?” She gripped the bed railings, imagining what it would be like to drive into the woods and be untouchable. “To try and make a difference?”

  “One day, yes.”

  “Then I want in.” Her brain was already shuffling through designs, mixing the cars sitting on Mr. Tallon’s pad with cars she looked up on the Internet. Some type of vehicle that sat high, with big wheels to clear whatever things you would encounter in a forest.

  A chuckle rumbled from Mr. Tallon. “This isn’t a spy movie, kid. And I think...I think you were in the day you picked up that wrench, Lizette.”

  She grinned back. “I think you’re right. Tallon.”

  Then they were both quiet, looking out the window at their world of brick and concrete and rubber, dreaming of a world where one day, trees were for climbing and not fearing.

  Juliet Silver and the Seeker of the Depths

  by Wendy Nikel

  When Wendy Nikel isn't traveling in time, exploring magical islands, or investigating mysterious phenomena, she enjoys a quiet life near Utah's Wasatch Mountains with her husband and sons. She has a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by AE, Daily Science Fiction, and others, and she is a member of the SFWA. For more info, visit wendynikel.com.

  Juliet Silver raised the doorknocker—a gilded image of a tentacled monster—and let it fall, sending a metallic clang up and down the deserted city street. Sunlight streamed over her, peeking out from the horizon with golden tendrils that seemed to tap her on the shoulder, to question what she was doing on the ground when the skies were so crisp and clear, so perfect for sailing.

  As she waited, Juliet’s fingers twitched at the hilt of her sword. It’d been months since she’d seen the sunrise from land, and she ached to rise above the dingy scraps of garbage and the hungry rats of the city’s alleys. But Stenson, a rival captain of the airship the Bearer of Bad News, was insistent that she meet him today, this morning, at this particular shop.

  Whatever the old codger wanted, it had better be worth her time.

  When the bolt finally slid across, the iron door opened with a groan of its massive hinges. The door was large enough for a steam carriage to power through, and likely many did over the course of a week. Upon entering, however, Juliet's attention was drawn not to the carriages, nor even to the new-fangled bits and baskets, snares and rudders that she might have used to upgrade her own ship, the Realm of Impossibility.

  Instead, she was drawn to an item sitting solidly in the center of the workshop, stout and bulbous and crouching like a frog. Its outer shell gleamed so that within its curves and panels, her reflection stared back at her. The metal was cold to her touch.

  “Meets your approval, Captain?”

  Juliet caught Stenson's reflection as he stepped beside her. She didn’t turn but proceeded to walk about the contraption, examining every inch of it.

  "For exploring underseas, I take it?" She knocked upon its side. "I have to wonder how well it would hold up to the water pressure."

  "Just as well as it's sitting here before you. The iron-welder who built it is one of the city's finest."

  "I'd much like to meet him."

  "He's a solitary type. Doesn't care much for pleasantries or small talk."

  Curious that he would make Stenson's acquaintance then. The old man was quite the gossipmonger. Juliet wisely kept this opinion to herself.

  “And the headlights?” She cast a skeptical glance at the blue domed lights. They hardly looked as though they’d cut through fog, much less a murky sea.

  “Mostly for show. This craft has something even better, Miss Silver.” The older captain reached forward and sprung the door open. Its pneumatic hinges hissed. Inside, a flat screen blinked to life. “Sonar. Even if the windows are filled with grime, you’ll be able to see any obstacles before you as clear as a pretty spring day.”

  "And what do you intend to do with this little fish?"

  "I intend to give her to you."

  Ah, now the real bargaining would begin. Stenson wasn't the generous type; Juliet wondered what the real price would be. "And what do you want from me?"

  "I want the treasure of the Argonaut—the largest haul of stolen gold and gems anyone has ever seen, lost beneath the Sea of Prosperity. And I want you to fetch it for me."

  "I'm not a dog." Juliet brushed past him, making her way for the door.

  "No, you're not. You're a shrewd captain, one who's daring enough to go where none has before."

  Juliet hesitated, her hand upon the door. Well, he wasn't wrong.

  "And wise enough to know that this little fish—" Stenson said, tapping the hull of the underwater vehicle "—could make you rich beyond your dreams. We both know that the Argonaut wasn't the first airship to plummet from the sky into troubled waves, though its treasure is the only one I wish to stake a claim upon. After delivering it to me and receiving your share—"

  "Sixty percent."

  "Thirty, and don't interrupt. After receiving your share, this little Seeker of the Depths will be yours to do with as you wish. It won't take a daring young lass such as yourself long to make a fine fortune in underwater salvaging. I'd do it myself if I were a few decades younger."

  Juliet considered this as she resumed her perusal of the machine. The interior was small, intended for only one diver. The rest of her crew would have to wait above the surface; she didn’t trust anyone else to the task. She'd be lying if she said that the coffers of wealth in the belly of the Argonaut didn't tempt her.

  "Are you daring enough?"

  It was Stenson's voice that spoke aloud, an echo of the question already swirling about her heart and mind. A question to which she already knew the answer.

  "Yes."

  The Seeker was strapped to the Realm of Impossibility with great lengths of chain that clanked and rattled like bones. All along the dock, crews neglected their own ships to watch the activity about Juliet’s. She stood before the gangplank, arms crossed over her chest and feet planted, daring them with her scowl to come forth and stake their claim. The Argonaut's treasure was, after all, pirates’ booty, and there were plenty among the air pilots who'd fallen victim to it.

  Geoffri
es, her first mate, was the only one who approached. “You know they won’t raise arms against you today. They’ll wait until you’ve returned with the prize… if you return at all.”

  “Do you doubt me, Geoffries?”

  “Not I, Captain. But they don’t know you as I do. Undoubtedly most expect that your little bronze fish will sink to the depths with you in its belly, and neither of you will be seen again.”

  “Fools.”

  “The ship’s prepared, Captain,” a crewmember called out.

  Juliet took a final, defiant glance about her and—with firm footfalls upon the grated gangplank—took her place on the Realm of Impossibility.

  The Sea of Prosperity was a misnomer at best, a putrid soup of grease at worst. Even the skies above it were a swamp of foul-smelling brown. Not a single bird traversed the clouds, and neither did Juliet expect to find anything living beneath the water's stagnant surface.

  Geoffries looked on as Juliet strapped herself into the Seeker's chamber. It was some sort of recklessness, perhaps, that would lead a woman to crawl into that round, iron coffin and allow herself to be lowered into the sea. But she'd tested the equipment herself, and if all went well, she'd return in just a few hours. In the meantime, she'd simply crawl along the seabed, picking through the who-knows-what she'd find there until she uncovered the wreckage of the Argonaut and the treasure hidden within it.

  "All set, Captain?"

  "Aye, aye!"

  The door hissed shut and sealed, leaving Juliet in such an absolute silence that—had it not been for the movement seen through the window—she'd have thought the outside world had ceased to exist. With an abrupt, jarring motion and the faraway clanking of iron chains, the Seeker of the Depths descended.

  Murky water closed over the window. Glistening particles floated in the rays of sun that somehow cut through the layers of silt and sediment. These bright specks of light grew sparser as the vessel descended and the darkness deepened. Finally, the Seeker settled on the ocean floor. Outside the window, all was black and still, save for the occasional flick of a phosphorescent tail fin.

  Juliet flicked on the sonar. She pulled handles and turned levers to operate the vessel's spidery legs, dragging it meter by meter across the sea floor. The sonar flickered with outlines of flat expanses, jagged cliffs, and crevices that seemed to descend into the center of the earth.

  Juliet had hardly begun her search when the Seeker became stuck. She wrenched at levers and pressed dials, but though the iron mechanisms rattled, the Seeker refused to move. Cursing Stenson, Juliet pressed the distress signal.

  She sat in the never-changing stillness of the depths, waiting for the chattering of the chain and the lightening of the murk that would indicate the Realm of Impossibility was lifting her to the surface, but it never came. Was she too deep for the Realm to receive her signal? Had the chain broken somehow? Juliet was just debating her next course of action when the Seeker jerked into motion.

  She fumbled with the controls. The vessel was moving, but the comforting rattle of its spider legs was missing. Had some sea creature swooped in and gobbled her up? Considering the blackness around her, it seemed possible. Except... the sonar still showed the landscape of the deeps.

  Had something crept up and snagged her from behind? If so, there was little she could do about it now, besides being ready when it stopped. She gripped her knife and studied the sonar.

  Finally, the Seeker reached a cliff wall. Instead of going around it, however, the vessel proceeded through what appeared to be a narrow tunnel. It opened into a vast cavern—a cavern filled with light.

  Juliet blinked against the sudden brilliance. The cavern ceiling arched high overhead, glowing with light from thousands, millions, perhaps billions of phosphorescent creatures swimming about. Some were the size of whales, while others were so small that their lights seemed like those of fireflies buzzing about.

  Beneath this sea of magnificent creatures was an even more magnificent sight—a city constructed of glass panes, crisscrossed and held up by frames of shining gold. As the Seeker drew nearer, Juliet could see the people wandering about inside, people with golden skin coming out of golden houses and walking down golden roads, conversing and carrying on about their lives as if nothing was more natural than living leagues beneath the surface.

  A panel opened in the side of the city, and the Seeker was carried inside a narrow tunnel—an airlock, in fact—where all the water rushed out around it. Juliet pressed the release button on her craft and jumped out, wielding her knife.

  The Seeker had indeed been captured from behind by a craft not too unlike it. They shared the same bulbous shape and the same thin, spidery legs, but this one also had front appendages that now held the Seeker in place.

  "Stenson," Juliet seethed. He must have known about this place, about these people and their craft. How else could his design be so strikingly similar? Had he stolen their ship, or merely the design? Her breath came hot and furious, but she didn't fight as two armed guards grabbed her from behind.

  The hatch of the larger craft sprung open, and a man with golden skin and close-cropped hair leaned out. "Take her to the Queen."

  "Yes," Juliet said between clenched teeth. "I'd very much like to speak with her."

  None of the other structures came near the opulence of the palace, with its shimmering walls. Every inch of it was composed of pearls stacked into bricks, each one perfectly polished and luminescent. Its sprawling courtyard contained innumerous metal sculptures of all types of sea life. These creatures ran by clockwork, rattling and chattering as they stretched and dove and swam through the air.

  As the guards led Juliet through the entrance, she took note of the squid whose head made up the capstone and whose tentacles cascaded down either side of the doorway, a skillful piece of metalwork. From there, they entered a cavernous throne room. At the far end, separated by a carpet of tiny, polished shells, sat the Queen. She wore a sparkling robe of fish scales and a crown composed of dozens of tiny fish ribs that rose in intricate whorls to a peak high above her brow. Her face was long and golden and unlined, though her eyes looked old and wise. She was flanked on either side by a pair of ladies in lavish gowns and bright, bejeweled headdresses.

  Juliet shook free from the guards' grasp and dipped her head in a reverent bow.

  "What have you brought me?" The Queen's voice was clear and crisp as glass, though in it, also, was the sharp edge of the same.

  "Please, Your Majesty," Juliet said before the guards could speak. "I am Juliet Silver, captain of the airship the Realm of Impossibility, explorer of the skies."

  "What purpose would an airship captain have in the dominion of the water-dwellers? Surely you know of the truce and punishment due to those who break it."

  Juliet seethed silently at Stenson. "I knew of no such truce, nor—truly—of your glorious city's existence."

  "How is it possible you've never heard of the great and powerful city of Prosperia? Has it been so long since we closed our gates that all have forgotten our existence?"

  Juliet stood silently. Certainly, she'd heard of the undersea city of Prosperia, but it was a myth, a legend, a bedtime story to amuse small children. To find that it was true was akin to discovering the mythical Bandybell's lair.

  "Liska." The Queen turned to one of her ladies-in-waiting. "How many years have passed since our isolation?"

  "Five hundred twenty-two, Your Highness."

  "Hardly a bat of the eye... yet perhaps for you short-lived folk with your warring and wandering, that would be long enough to forget. Still, I find it hard to believe this warning would not have been passed down from the older, more experienced captains to the younger ones."

  "Indeed." It would certainly explain why Stenson—superstitious man that he was—had no desire to dive beneath the waves himself. He'd certainly have heard the stories, though Juliet, a newcomer to the skies and without a mentor to guide her, had not. Had he hoped Juliet might slip past the Propserians
and recover the Argonaut's treasure? Or was this all a ruse to get rid of her? "Well, now that we've established my innocence, if you could return me to my vessel—"

  "My dear girl." The Queen rose to her feet and cast her deep shadow upon Juliet. "Ignorance is not akin to innocence. In order to preserve our isolation, we are quite unable to allow your return."

  "I see." Juliet narrowed her eyes. "And what is my punishment to be?"

  "It just so happens that this is a year of sacrifice to the kraken. I trust you'll make him a fine morsel at festival time. Until then..." She turned to one of the ladies on her right. "Sofia, please bind her. Then the guards shall take her to her cell."

  The lady the Queen spoke to rose, dipped her hand in a pocket, and pulled out a length of delicate chain. She bound Juliet's hands with nimble fingers and from another pocket procured a tiny lock, with which she secured the restraints. She pulled upon them to test their strength and—as she did so—a small sliver of metal dropped into Juliet's palms.

  Any thought that this slip might have been inadvertent left Juliet's mind when the woman met her eyes. Then she turned and announced to the Queen, "The prisoner is bound."

  The Queen nodded, and with that, the guards led Juliet away.

  The cell beneath the ocean floor was spongy and smelled of rotting fish. Juliet stood in the dark, turning over in her hands the tiny lock-pick—for that's what the lady Sofia had slipped to her—as she waited. For what, she wasn't certain. On the surface, it'd have been the darkest part of night, but here the hours stretched on without a single variance of the phosphorescent glow that bled in streaks through the grated window high above her, nor to the pacing of the guard beyond her door.

  She'd just resigned herself to try to get a small bit of sleep when the sound of a commotion in the hall outside her door sent a rush of adrenaline through her, dulling any thought of slumber.