by Trudi Trueit
He had plenty of time now.
Taking a shallow breath, Cruz shut his eyes. When he felt the capsule tremble, his mind returned to a place he never wanted to forget. He listened again to a long, sad wail echoing through the Bay of Fundy and the words that followed from Fanchon’s translator. “Struggle. Tired. Pain.” Through the silent haze of an aqua sea, Cruz watched his teammates work together to cut away the fishing gear that trapped the right whales. He saw the flick of a free tail and a long rope unwinding and a delighted calf rolling toward its mother. “Help. Gratitude. Love.” Only after the pod breached the whitecapped surface and frolicked, the sun gleaming on their shiny gray backs, did Cruz open his eyes.
He uncurled his fingers. In his palm, the capsule glowed purple. It was done. His memory had been saved. But would anyone besides him ever get the chance to experience it?
It was pretty, the way the purple capsule lit up his hand and the ice wall next to him. It reminded him of the artwork on the seed vault at Svalbard. You could see it for miles, thanks to the reflection off the snow, and even more so at night.
Cruz glanced up at the cave ceiling, then back at the capsule in his palm. Ceiling. Capsule. Ceiling. Capsule. Was it possible? Cruz spun toward the girls. “I think I know a way out, or at least a way for us to send a signal that we’re here.”
“How?” asked Bryndis and Sailor in unison.
Cruz pointed up. “If we can see the sunlight through the ice down here during the day, then maybe it can work the other way, too.”
Sailor followed his gaze. “You mean…?”
“Maybe someone on the surface can see the light we send up at night.”
Bryndis pursed her lips. “Do you realize how thick that ice is?”
“I know, but Tripp already gave us a head start. That explosion blew away a good chunk of the roof,” reasoned Cruz. “If we gather everything we brought with us that emits light—flashlights, cell phones, tablets—and spread them out on the ground under the thinnest part of the roof, someone might just spot it.”
“That’s a big ‘might,’ ” said Bryndis.
“Not necessarily,” argued Sailor. “Someone driving up the glacier or flying overhead might see it. We can use our body heat charges to fully charge our gear first.”
“Good idea,” said Cruz.
Bryndis took off her helmet and started undoing the strap on the headlamp.
While their electronics were charging, they went through their pockets and packs to find everything that lit up. Gathering up their haul, they tiptoed over to the mound of rubble blocking the tunnel. Each item was turned on, before being placed on the ground with the others. They had three headlamps, three flashlights, three cell phones, two tablets, one pair of flashing LED ghost socks (courtesy of Sailor), one time capsule, one light-up surfboard key chain, and…
Cruz unzipped his jacket. “Mell, on.”
One honeybee MAV.
Laying everything out, they stepped back to survey their work.
“It’s probably reflecting more than we realize,” said Sailor. “We’re just on the wrong side of it, that’s all.”
“Right, and it’ll glow brighter the darker it gets outside,” said Cruz.
The three of them stared at the ground.
Suddenly, it got quiet. No one wanted to be the first to say it: There wasn’t enough light.
Even the fireflies dangling from Bryndis’s ears were shaking their heads.
Frustrated, Cruz watched the little enamel insects swing back and forth. Wait a minute! Cruz slapped his head. How could he have forgotten? “Bryndis, your earrings!”
“Oops, sorry, I forgot to add them.” She started to take them out.
“I didn’t mean that. I meant…” Cruz was wriggling free of his coat. Pulling the sleeves through to reverse it from camouflage to gray, he pressed the button on the top inside of the collar. Suddenly, thousands of twinkling blue and green lights appeared. “This! Remember, the seek side of our coats is bioluminescent!”
“That’s right!”
Sailor and Bryndis hurried to copy him.
“They look like Emmett’s glasses,” giggled Sailor as their coats flickered and pulsed with light.
“Or the art on the Svalbard Doomsday Vault,” said Cruz.
“Or the milky seas,” added Bryndis.
“What’s that?” asked Sailor.
“Bioluminescent bacteria that floats on the ocean. It’s so bright, satellites can see it from space.”
The trio looked at each other. This might actually work!
They spread Cruz’s and Sailor’s coats flat on the ground with the other lights, but kept Bryndis’s. They needed at least one heat source to stay warm. Sitting against the base of the dragon rock, the explorers huddled together under Bryndis’s coat. Cruz and Bryndis, who were on either end, each put one arm in a sleeve.
As night fell, the three of them watched and waited.
Sailor yawned. “I’d love to see the milky seas from space. I wonder why it glows?”
“I read an article about it,” said Cruz. “The bacteria glows to attract fish so it’ll get eaten.”
“On purpose?”
“Uh-huh. See, it gets gobbled up and survives on the nutrients in the belly of the fish as the fish swims along. That way, the bacteria can travel a thousand times farther than it ever could on its own.”
“So, in a weird way, bacteria are explorers, like us.”
He chuckled. “I guess so.”
“Bioluminescence only works if someone sees it.” Bryndis’s voice was barely a whisper. “What if nobody is…you know…out there?”
Aunt Marisol’s face flashed in Cruz’s mind. “They’re out there.”
But were they? Cruz hadn’t told anyone where he was going—not even his aunt—and Bryndis, Emmett, and Sailor probably hadn’t, either. The only thing Taryn and everyone else on board Orion knew was that four students were missing. They would have no idea where to begin searching for them. And if, by some miracle, they tracked them down to Langjökull and found their rental car, then what? How would they know to enter the cave? How would they know the explorers were trapped? Cruz couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. His face was cold, too.
He must have drifted off, because the next thing he knew he was being poked on the forehead. “Ouch.” He squinted. His honeybee drone zipped left, then right. “What is it, Mell? Oh, sure. You need to be charged again. Hold on.” Cruz sat up, rubbing away the crick in his neck.
The drone was blinking her eyes at him.
“I know, I know. Give me a sec, Mell, I have to get the charging—”
Wait! Was that what he thought it was? Mell circled and blinked at him again. Three short flashes. Three long ones. Then another three short flashes. It was! Mell was displaying the international SOS signal. Either someone had just broken into his cabin back on Orion or…
“Sailor, Bryndis, wake up!”
“I’m up, I’m up,” moaned Sailor, her eyelids fluttering.
“What is it?” Bryndis’s head appeared from beneath the coat. Her hair was sticking up. “Did we reel in a fish?”
“Yep!” crowed Cruz. “The biggest one ever.”
Emmett.
“WHAT DO YOU mean you can’t tell me?” groaned Cruz.
Emmett did not turn from his desk. “I promised Sailor and Bryndis I’d wait and tell them, too. They’re helping Taryn. They’ll be here in half an hour.”
Cruz fell backward onto his bed. It was good to be back on the ship, even if Emmett was keeping Cruz in suspense about how he’d made it out of the cave without so much as a scratch.
“Fine,” surrendered Cruz. “And while we’re waiting you can tell me about the Archive.”
He saw his roommate stiffen.
“Come on,” urged Cruz. “You said you’d explain la
ter. It’s later.”
“Okay, but if I do—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, sworn to secrecy. Spill it.”
Emmett came over to take a seat at the end of Cruz’s bed. “The Archive is a top secret, highly secure climate-controlled megavault located beneath the Academy. Inside is where the world’s most important documents, discoveries, treasures, and mysteries are kept.”
“A super-secret vault?” Cruz snorted. “In the basement of the Academy? You’re joking, right?”
Emmett let out an impatient sigh. “Ask yourself, do you really think humanity, as a whole, can be trusted to keep valuables like, say, the Hope diamond or the ‘Mona Lisa’ safe?”
“I…I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”
“Well, think about it. We’re one earthquake, one nuclear disaster, one war away from losing everything. In the same way the Doomsday Vault was created to safeguard our food supply, the Archive was designed to protect our culture.” Emmett’s circular glasses were flashing a bright fuchsia pink, which meant he was being honest. “Galileo’s original telescope, the Gettysburg Address, the formula for Coke, the truth about space aliens—it’s all within the walls of the Archive!”
Goose bumps rippling up his arms, Cruz slowly sat up. “You are serious.”
“Deadly.”
Cruz tried to wrap his mind around what his roommate was telling him. “They couldn’t…They didn’t…Would they…?”
Emmett smirked.
“So how did you find out about it?”
His friend wagged a finger. “One secret at a time.”
“No wonder Aunt Marisol wanted me to forget it.”
“It’s pretty hush-hush; even more top secret than the Synthesis.”
“Fanchon to Emmett Lu.”
They both jumped at the sound of Fanchon’s voice blaring through Emmett’s comm pin.
Emmett pressed his pin. “Emmett here.”
“It’s ready.”
“Be right there!” Emmett hopped to his feet. “Come on, Cruz.”
“But Sailor and Bryndis—”
“We’ll catch up with them later.”
As they passed Ali and Zane in the passage, Cruz nudged Emmett. “Do the rest of the explorers know what happened on the glacier?”
“Everybody thinks it was an accident,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “We were taking photos for our glacier melt story for Professor Benedict’s assignment when the ice cave collapsed.”
“What about Tripp and Wardicorn?”
“Nobody’s seen them. There are lots of rumors going around, of course. I don’t think they’ll dare show their faces here again.”
Cruz wasn’t so sure about that.
They had barely set foot in the tech lab when Fanchon slapped something on each of their uniforms. Cruz glanced down at the two-by-four-inch sticker on his chest. It was covered with small silver squares. When he moved, the squares shimmered a rainbow of colors like a hologram, yet no picture appeared. A hologram without an image? Cruz looked to her for an explanation.
“You are the proud wearer of a Lumagine Shadow Badge,” said Fanchon, pushing a pair of safety glasses up over her zebra-print head scarf. “Tap it twice with two fingers and the badge releases a bio-net of Lumagine that engulfs you and syncs with the circuitry of nerve fibers in your brain—your white matter, if you will. You can then use your thoughts to alter the color, pattern, and texture of whatever you’re wearing: shirt, pants, shoes, even your underwear, if you want. You can do what Emmett did in the ice cave and camouflage your outfit, or you can go the opposite way and make yourself stand out—the choice is up to you.”
His jaw dropping, Cruz punched Emmett. “That’s how you did it! That’s how you got out of the cave without anyone seeing you!”
Emmett drew himself taller. “I used my uniform jacket for the first trial—that was when you saw the sleeve turn red. For the second trial, I sprayed my hide-and-seek jacket, but I didn’t get to try it out until—”
Fanchon raised an eyebrow and gave them an understanding smile. “I’ll let you boys talk,” she said, busying herself in another part of the lab.
“Until Tripp and Wardicorn showed up in the cave,” finished Cruz. “You blended in with the ice walls and walked right out of there without anybody, including us, knowing it!”
“Except things didn’t go exactly as I’d expected.” Emmett winced. “I didn’t know Tripp was planning to seal us in the cave. I figured Wardicorn would start shooting. So when the two of them moved toward the tunnel, I slipped in behind them to grab their guns, but before I knew it they’d set off the blast and you guys were sealed in. I ran out of there as quickly as I could to get help.”
“Brilliant, Emmett.” Cruz patted his shoulder. “Brilliant.”
“Okay!” Fanchon called from across the room. “Ready to give your badges a try?”
Cruz motioned to Emmett, who motioned right back. “You do it,” said Emmett. “I want you to be the first person to officially use it.”
Cruz tapped his sticker twice. Now, what to change his uniform jacket into? The first thing that came to his mind was Hubbard’s red-and-gray-plaid dog bed. He watched as his jacket begin to roll like the incoming tide. Seconds later, it flickered silver, then morphed into the familiar tartan pattern of the Westie’s dog bed. Cruz held out his arms. “It really works!”
“Of course it works,” said Fanchon. “However, it’s not permanent. Its staying power depends on the material you’re originally wearing. We’ve found it seems to last longer on cotton, silk, and wool—you know, natural fabrics. With those you have about four hours of coverage. On man-made fibers, aka your rayon, nylon, acrylic, and poly blends, it lasts for about an hour and a half.”
Cruz smelled something sweet. He sniffed the air. It smelled like home. “Is that passion fruit?”
“Good nose,” laughed the tech chief. “We gave it a passion fruit scent. Emmett’s idea. That way, the wearer knows it’s been activated. Also, we’ve configured it so the bio-net won’t release Lumagine onto any areas of exposed skin, but even if you were to come in contact with it—either externally or internally—it won’t harm you. It’s not toxic, unless you’re allergic to passion fruit.”
Tugging on his jacket, Emmett was trying to study his sticker upside down. “Fanchon, how many reflectin platelets did you use?”
“Sixteen. That seems to give optimum coverage.”
“And what about when it gets wet?”
“The bio-net is waterproof. It’s also impervious to light, including sunlight, gamma rays, ultraviolet rays, microwaves, x-rays, and radio waves…”
While Emmett continued peppering Fanchon with questions, Cruz waited patiently. Sidril popped her head out from a nearby cubicle. She gave his red-and-gray-tartan wool coat the once-over. “Is it me or are you wearing Hubbard’s dog bed?”
“Not exactly.” Cruz felt his cheeks flush. “I hope Fanchon is right about that four-hour time frame for Lumagine to wear off, because if she isn’t, I’m not sure I know how to turn my jacket back.”
“She’s right.” Sidril gave him a crooked grin. “She’s always right. I’m going to go grab a bite. See you later.” As the tech assistant left her work area, Cruz caught a glimpse of something round and black behind her.
His heart lurched. It was the UCC helmet.
Keeping an eye on Fanchon and Emmett, who had moved their discussion to a computer station, Cruz inched toward the cubicle Sidril had just left. Once he heard the tech lab door shut, he slipped into the unit. His UCC dive helmet sat on the table next to a computer. Sidril had left a program window on the laptop open. It was the UCC helmet log, scrolled to the last few entries.
10/16
STATUS
UCC helmet is nonfunctioning
Diagnostic test results: catastrophic failur
e caused by unauthorized infiltration of onboard computer system. Perpetrator unknown.
NOTES
Sidril, please run my Hacker Tracker software to see if we can get a fix on where the hack came from. Also, send the UCC helmet diagnostic report to Dr. Hightower, all Orion faculty, Tripp Scarlatos, and Captain Iskandar. I will speak personally with Cruz.
FQ
10/22
NOTES
I’ve been running the tracker program nonstop for a week but hit a wall in identifying the hacker. He/she covered their tracks well. It is my opinion that it is unlikely we will ever determine who the infiltrator was or how they gained access to the system.
SV
10/23
STATUS
UCC helmet is functioning
Diagnostic test results: onboard computer system, rebreathing unit, and translator are all operating within normal parameters.
NOTES
Sidril, I’ve repaired the UCC helmet, but I’m concerned we have had no success in exposing the hacker or his/her method of infiltrating the system. I have decided to halt further development of the Universal Cetacean Communicator until such time as I can improve security. Please archive the helmet, including all research logs and notes.
FQ
No!
Cruz almost screamed it right there in the middle of the lab. Fanchon couldn’t give up on the UCC. She just couldn’t! He was certain she’d eventually hit on a solution to the helmet’s security issue. If only Fanchon could have seen her invention in action in the Bay of Fundy, then she’d know how truly incredible it was—
“Cruz?” It was Fanchon. “Are you still here?”
“Here!” He rushed out of the cubicle.
“I’ve got something else I want to show you,” she said, waving for him to follow her to a corner of the lab. “I think you’ll like this one.”