by Tina Chan
Troop snatched up his sneakers and threw them as far away as he could. “It’s to mislead the Sniffers,” he explained.
Everyone else copied him and they all splashed into the water. Kristi stopped when she was knee-deep though, and said, “Finn, where did you leave your crutch?”
“Oh snap, I forgot about it,” he said. “It’s beneath the bench by the dragon statue.”
“I’ll go get rid of it,” Kristi said. “Troop, you remember where the trapdoor is, right?”
“Of course.”
Troop located the trapdoor and heaved it open. Then he came up and led Chelsa and Finn to the entrance of the safe place. When he passed through the trapdoor, he broke through some type of gel-like membrane. Then he dropped like a rock and landed hard. Luckily, his backpack cushioned the worst of his fall. Chelsa and Finn followed through.
“This is so weird,” Chelsa said. “How come the water isn’t entering through opening?”
Although they were still soaked through, they were standing on dry grounds. If he hadn’t known better, Troop would’ve thought they were simply inside an underground hideout instead of beneath a pond. From the looks of his surrounding, they were in an old subway tunnel.
“I think it’s because of this.” Finn pointed to a large metal cylinder with various tubes attached to it. There was a small screen implanted in the cylinder with blinking numbers and symbols Troop didn’t recognize. “It’s an air pressure controller.”
“So?” Troop said. “What does that do?”
“It manipulates the air pressure so that it nullifies the water pressure from above. Essentially, air is pressing against the membrane we passed through and keeping the water out of here.”
Troop unzipped his (thankfully) waterproof backpack and removed his electro-slate from it. The slate was still set on the GN channel, but Troop’s video was being played instead of whatever broadcast the government had planned to air.
He wondered if his film was being played a second time, since the entire clip wasn’t much longer than twelve minutes and he was sure it had been at least twenty minutes since Nick and Jane first overrode the channel.
Troop tried to change the channel, wanting to see what other news stations were making of the GN override. But no matter which station he turned to, the results were the same: the film he made was being played. He grinned inwardly; Nick and Jane had really outdone themselves.
“Hey, can I see your slate?” Chelsa asked. “I haven’t watched the completed video yet.”
“Yeah.” Troop handed it over to her.
Finn and Chelsa found a spot on the floor a few yards away from him and turned up the volume of the electro-slate. Troop paced beneath the trapdoor, expecting Kristi to come crashing through any moment. He counted the concrete tiles beneath his feet to pass time. I shouldn’t have left Kristi on her own, he thought. I know she’s prone to make hasty choices when under pressure.
He started to recount the tiles a second time. One, two, three, four…
“That’s it.” Troop turned to Finn and Chelsa. “I’m going back up to find Kristi. She’s taking way too long.”
“Don’t,” said Chelsa. “We don’t know if there are Searchers and Sniffers up there.”
Troop paled. What if the Searcher caught her? I should’ve stayed behind to dispose Finn’s crutch instead of having her do it.
“Troop, look at me.” Chelsa grabbed him by his dripping shirt and spun him around so that he was facing her. “I am being dead serious right now. Don’t risk all of our lives by going after Kristi. Our scents are all over the Meditation Garden which means the Searchers and Sniffers are going to be all over that place for a while. Wait until either Nick or some other Revealer member notifies us that it’s safe to go before leaving this hideout.”
chapter fifty
[ Kristi ]
