“No, no, it should be temporary.” Gabriel shook his head. “But they won’t be chasing us for now. Let’s surface. It’s time to save the Lodgers.”
27
THE OBSCURE ROSE quickly. But for what seemed like minutes, the sonar stayed blank and they couldn’t see where the Lodgers or the navy were at all. There might have already been shelling, death, maybe even multiple casualties. Then as they rose, the images flickered to life on the sonar screen.
“There’s the Lodgers.” Peter indicated a group of large spots, more or less still in one place. They might be moving about, but onscreen they were not leaving their area.
“And there’s the navy.” Misty nodded toward the carrier battle group, coming fast as it crossed the ocean.
“Any sign of the ships that peeled off?”
“No. Still hunting Nerissa, I guess,” Peter said. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Me, too.” Gabriel shook his head. “But she asked us to do this. How far is the navy group from the Lodgers?”
“Just about three miles.”
“That’s close enough to hit the Lodgers with a missile, if the navy wants,” Misty observed. “They could use ballistic missiles or shoot the Lodgers from the planes.”
“If we race up and put ourselves in front of the battle group … call the Lodgers. We have the Crabsiren; we know it worked once. Call them. Now, short bursts. Aim for their group. Head toward the Lodgers. Ignore the navy for now, ascend flank speed, and turn on the siren.”
“Ascending flank speed, heading for the Lodgers, aye.” He flipped a switch, and a howling song shot out from the nose of the Obscure. “Siren.”
“Turn on our front lights, high beam,” Gabriel ordered. “Put a long white line right on the Lodger group.”
Onscreen, a brilliant white beam shot forward ahead of them in the water, lighting up tiny swirls of plastic in the ocean. They sped upward, still seeing nothing but the light in blackness. The siren howled ahead of them. They were lighting a path straight to the Lodgers.
Misty said, “Gabriel, if the navy has more subs or drones underneath, they might see us. I mean, we’re lit up like a Christmas tree.”
“We have to take that chance. Right now, our only interest is getting the attention of the Lodgers.”
They continued upward another fifty, another hundred feet, and then the first Lodger came into view. It was an old battleship, dancing in the water, its great mouth open as it ate, and swam, and ate.
Another Lodger, a World War II frigate, skinny and tall, dove under the battleship and up, nudging it and sailing through the plastic. There were more besides.
“They remind me of…”
“Dolphins.” Misty read his mind. “Or whales. Just … feeding in the Garbage Patch. Playing, even. That’s what they’re doing. Just living their lives.”
“Yeah. But they picked the wrong home. Peter, level off and slow. Can you oscillate the horn, blast and then taper, then blast again?”
The whine of the siren stopped and started again, blasting out, and out, and out.
“What if they don’t want to leave?” Misty asked. “We don’t know how they communicate. This is just a call; what if they’re not interested? They have…”
On the view screen, the battleship dipped its eyes down, swiveling until it saw the Obscure’s beam. Then it shrugged its weight and turned its whole body, moving in ways a battleship was never designed for.
“Slow due west, keep running the siren,” Gabriel said. “Come on, guys. Follow the leader.”
And then the battleship began to travel.
There was an explosion that shook the Obscure as a missile hit the water.
“Where was that?”
“Half a mile off,” Peter said. “Warning shot. The navy group is nearly here.”
“Come on!”
The tentacled frigate watched the battleship go and followed the beam of light and the siren. Then a submarine flicked its tail and followed, not far behind. Then another and another.
“They’re following!” Misty shouted. “They’re following!”
A great howling whine filled the bridge as the battleship Lodger called them, and the siren answered. Five more Lodgers fell into the group, moving west with the Obscure.
Another explosion rocked the sub from the surface.
“Okay.” Gabriel turned to Peter and Misty. “Let’s lead them west of here. But first, slide us right under the forward line of navy ships. Cut straight up.”
The Obscure turned hard left and started cutting across the line of approaching ships.
“Release all science payloads,” Gabriel said.
They heard the ratcheting against the hull of buoy after buoy, four in all, emerging from the back of the Obscure as the ship shot through the water. The buoys floated upward toward the surface, little blinking lights on the sonar screen.
“Admiral Waring?” Gabriel called.
“We see you,” Waring said. “And you’ve fired on a US Navy vessel. That makes you…”
“Technically, no, we fired no weapons,” Gabriel said, then lower, “Peter, let’s go.”
He spoke into the radio again. “I just released some buoys.” The buoys flashed on the surface, beeping. The Obscure was moving away, the Lodgers following.
“Surrender, Obscure. We will be over you in minutes.”
You jerk! Gabriel wanted to shout. Can’t you see I’m trying to save you? But he breathed. “Sir, the Nemo Foundation has taken custody of the Lodgers. We’re moving them to a spot where they won’t harm anyone. That’s all I’m at liberty to say at the moment, but I don’t think they’ll be in these lanes again.” Gabriel paused. “I promise, I promise, this is way better than the alternative.”
Onscreen, he saw the underside of the oncoming ships’ prows. He nodded to Peter. “Trigger the buoys.”
On the surface there were four bursts, one after the other. He saw the underside of the explosions of energy, lightning zipping from one ship to another. A ball of static electricity swept across each nose as the water boiled.
Peter listened for a moment. “Their engines just died … All of them.”
Gabriel heard alarms ring out and then cut off. He waited for a second, half expecting that Waring would come back on the radio. But of course he couldn’t, because all of the naval ships’ radios were dead for a while, as well.
The prows were slowing, little lightning strikes still popping in the water.
They were silent for a moment, the three of them staring. Gabriel winced, overcome with sudden guilt that he had unleashed even a non-deadly weapon on manned ships.
“Now what?” Misty finally asked.
Now we sit here amazed that we didn’t die. He wanted to go up and look from the surface but knew that would only be tempting fate. “Now we run.”
Then the real journey began—the trek to the Lodgers’ new home.
28
WHEN THE OBSCURE’S high beam finally hit the valley that Gabriel’s parents had picked out, the water shimmered with plastic particles. As the ship traveled through them, the particles swirled, and the Lodgers munched. Mom had sent them the coordinates for this spot while they were on the way. As the Lodgers swam about in the valley, Mom and Dad came aboard from a Nemotech rover they had parked nearby.
Gabriel looked out the window from his library. “What are the particles in the water? They look like … garbage pellets.”
“They’re organic.” Mom shook her head.
Dad nodded. “It was easy to do once we knew the Lodgers were prone to eating the plastic pellets in the Patch. We set up a system of tubes that collects petroleum seepage over the nursery and hardens it slightly into pellets with a binding element. Starch, basically. It pumps the particles out in this valley. So they don’t need to go up to the Patch.”
“It still bothers me,” Misty said. “Those pellets kill so many things—fish, gulls, everything. And these creatures thrive on them.”
Gabriel’
s mom shrugged. “There’s a good chance that they mutated the way they did because of the pollution. Anyway, that’s the kind of thing we’re going to be able to find out.”
His dad pointed north. “Nemolab is that way. And we’re just a few miles from the nursery, close enough that they’ll probably find their way here on their own, plus we’ll be helping them. There’s a lot to find out.”
“Look at this.” Mom brought out a tablet and tapped it with one hand as she put on her glasses.
Gabriel took the tablet and showed it to Misty and Peter. It held diagrams of large, composite-polymer tubes and shells of different sizes and configurations. “They’re shells.”
“Yeah. We figure we can leave them around, nudge the Lodgers toward different shells. This way they’re less likely to go off looking for derelict planes and sunken battleships.”
Gabriel flipped to the next design. “Needs some color.” They were all gray except for a golden N usually around the front “shoulder” of each. He looked out the window into the Lodgers’ new valley, where the creatures were feeding, waiting to be understood. “It’s too bad, really. I was kind of hoping they’d find the Nautilus.”
Misty laughed. “Speaking of submarines, has Nerissa checked in? I thought she’d be here.”
“We thought so, too,” Gabriel’s mom said. She sounded a little—not sad. Defeated, Gabriel thought. “But she hasn’t reported in.”
Gabriel’s dad put his arm around his wife. “If anything had happened, we’d have heard. It would be major news.”
“Yeah.” Gabriel’s mom didn’t sound convinced. Gabriel knew Nerissa would turn up sooner or later, though, if only for an uncomfortable dinner.
“We have to get back to the surface by Monday morning,” Gabriel said. “It’s time for everyone to get…”
Peter rolled his hands in the air. “To get … You just sort of trailed off.”
“Misty quit.” Gabriel looked at Misty and then Peter. “That’s not a secret, right? She quit—she, uh, she doesn’t like the … way we handle the truth.”
Misty held up a finger. “That’s the only reason. I want to go on our adventures. I do.” She looked at all of them. “But I can’t keep it a secret. Not from my parents. And I can’t keep missing weeks of school.”
Gabriel shrugged. Misty had done so much more than she’d planned, and so had Peter. If this was their last adventure as a crew, it was pretty amazing. “So, yeah. We gotta go back, and I guess we lose a crew member. But that’s okay, right?” He threw Misty a hopeful glance. “I mean, it’s not like we won’t see you.”
“Man, you lay it on thick,” Misty said. “We’re still going to school together.”
“Oh, come on,” Peter said to Misty. “Three days of school and you’ll change your mind.”
Gabriel looked at his parents. He wouldn’t have them with him on the surface the way he’d had them for the past few days. He’d be alone again with nothing but an empty, sad little house. And then the endless hours in class, waiting for an excuse to get out on the water.
Because they had to be in school.
No, no, no, he finally told himself. There had to be something else; surely there was.
“Wait.” Gabriel picked up one of his schoolbooks, which he had stuffed onto a shelf in his study next to an old copy of Around the World in Eighty Days. He looked at Misty. “You want to be able to tell the truth, and you want to avoid missing school. Right?”
“If by tell the truth you mean about nearly getting eaten, then yes.”
“I’m not sure if that’ll keep happening, but okay, got it,” Gabriel said. He looked at his parents. “And you want me in school, to learn about the world of the land and be a, an ambassador.” He paused for a moment. “But you know what I want?”
Mom tilted her head toward him, her eyes full of love. “What is it?”
“I want to not be alone.” Gabriel looked down at the book and back at his parents. He had to say it once. “I know that sounds … I don’t know. Weak. But I love you guys. And I want to see you. I do want to stay close to my friends. And do all the things you want me to do. But seeing you has made me realize that I can’t stand another night in that house. So I was just thinking…” He looked at his parents. “Well, what if we were a little less secret?”
Misty asked, “Meaning what?”
Gabriel shrugged. “What if we were a school?”
EPILOGUE
A MONTH LATER
The surface of the ocean beaded with shimmering sunlight at dusk, sending brilliant flashes out over darkening water.
Gabriel sat between Peter and Misty as the shiny blue drone boat skipped across the waves. Sheets of ocean spray misted over them as he looked over his shoulder at Mr. and Ms. Jensen and Ms. Kosydar, who sat in the second row. Ms. Kosydar put her hand out and grabbed onto a metal rail that ran along the back of the front seat as the boat flopped.
Misty looked back and put her hand on Ms. Kosydar’s.
“It’s not far now!” Gabriel shouted. He didn’t want the parents to get worried that they’d have to be bouncing along for an hour.
Suddenly he felt unsure that it had been wise to have them all come in a driverless boat. That couldn’t possibly make them feel at ease—and he wanted nothing more than for everyone to feel at ease. They had to feel comfortable.
Ms. Kosydar nodded gamely as Misty’s parents each gave a thumbs-up, when Mr. Jensen’s eyes grew wide. “Look.”
Gabriel and Misty turned around, and Gabriel gasped. What they saw was as much a surprise for him as it was for everyone else.
They had called it a platform—which in this case meant sort of a floating, unbuilt building of four extremely wide floors and no walls, all held steady on the waves by enormous engines and flotation pontoons under the water. In the center, a stairwell ran up and down the tower, the only thing with walls in the place.
As the drone boat drew closer, he could see his parents standing on the first floor. Both of them looked smart in white coats and black pants, and his mom had her hair pulled back.
The boat slowed and parked itself, and Gabriel’s parents helped everyone out.
“I want you to meet my parents,” Gabriel said. They introduced themselves as they all tried to hear over the sound of the waves and the wind.
“It’s a heck of a place to have a meeting,” Ms. Kosydar said loudly, bursting into a laugh as she looked around. Dad gestured for everyone to follow him to the center of the first floor, far from the edge. The central stairwell walls blocked the wind. Now it was almost quiet enough that they could have been inside somewhere.
“It feels strange for us as well,” Mom said. She put her hands in her coat pockets and looked out, tilting her head toward shore. “You know, this is the closest I’ve been to land since before Gabriel was born.”
“Really?” Ms. Jensen asked. “Do you miss it?”
Mom shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“We wanted you to see it,” Dad said, looking at Peter’s and Misty’s parents. “Where it will be.”
“Where what will be?” Misty’s mom asked.
Dad answered by looking at all of them as he spoke, his voice carrying the smile on his face. He seemed more excited by this idea than Gabriel remembered ever seeing him. Maybe he was looking forward to having Gabriel around. “Look. I know you all heard about Peter, Misty, and Gabriel’s discovery. And because of all that, the creatures that they helped will be safe from human interference in a habitat all their own.”
The parents nodded, each one giving a combination nod and shrug. They had all heard, but Gabriel was pretty sure that they hadn’t heard everything. Which was just as well.
Dad went on, “I wanted to extend the thanks of the Nemo Foundation. But that’s not really why you’re here. And obviously we didn’t invite you all the way out here to enjoy our hospitality.” He gestured at their surroundings of metal and concrete.
Mr. Jensen turned around to look toward shore. “At least you h
ave all this ocean. Look—I’m not following this.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Dad said. He seemed to try to think of the next words and then continued. “Here it is. We want to create a school. Marine biology. Underwater exploration. Sea conservation. Water rescue. Multi-atmospheric technology.” He unfolded his hand, ticking off each one with his fingers. “It would be private, very selective, and the teachers—”
“Would be us,” Mom said. “Well, to start.”
“Yasmeen and I will be trading off. Spending time here as well as at Nemolab.” Gabriel knew this was coming, but still his heart leapt at the thought that they’d be here. Right here! He could explore the world of the land without giving up his parents. He could maybe have both friends and family for once.
Of course the Lodgers would still need looking after; that was why the trade-off. The Lodgers had so far been satisfied with the imitation Garbage Patch, and some had even come from the Lodger nursery and put on the first of the Nemotech shells. Gabriel wondered if they understood at all that they were under threat if they ventured too far away.
His mom went on, “But the reason you’re here is we wanted to ask you if Peter and Misty could be the first students. On scholarship, of course.”
Peter had obviously only half been paying attention, and now he visibly started, while Misty bounced on her heels.
“They won’t be alone,” Gabriel’s dad said. “We’re reaching out across the world. We think that by the time we’re up and running, we’ll be well stocked with students.”
Ms. Kosydar cleared her throat. “But just studying marine biology? Don’t you need … English?”
“Do we?” Peter mumbled.
Mom laughed. “Absolutely. We’ll have a full curriculum.”
Misty’s dad rubbed the back of his neck. “But what about the … extracurricular stuff?”
“If you mean the submarine,” Mom said, “it’s all part of the curriculum. But in the open, at least to all of us.”
Gabriel watched Misty’s eyes. He hadn’t known everything his folks were going to say, but he knew the gist, and this last part was key. He had to have Peter and Misty, had to have them. But Misty had made it clear: only if they weren’t hiding. And this would be in the open.
Young Captain Nemo: The Door into the Deep Page 18