by Roland Smith
* * *
“You’re not claustrophobic, are you?” Ted asked Marty as they walked through the air lock to the Moon Pool. He had changed back into Theo Sonborn in case anyone saw him on their way down.
“No,” Marty said.
“I didn’t think so.” Ted locked the doors behind them and started stripping out of his Theo disguise. “Your first week on Cryptos, I watched you explore the volcano on the east side of the island. You went through some pretty tight places.”
“I didn’t get very far,” Marty said.
“When we get back I’ll take you on a little tour. There’s more to that volcano than meets the eye.”
“It must be a pain in the butt getting in and out of that disguise,” Marty said.
“It is, but as you can see I’ve had a lot of practice and it doesn’t take long.”
“It must be hot.”
Ted nodded. “But that just adds to the sweaty, nervous demeanor of Theo Sonborn. It’s not so bad on Cryptos because I spend most of my time inside the QAQ working. Aboard the Coelacanth, I’m in and out of this thing a half dozen times a day.”
“How do you get out of the QAQ building without being seen? The entrance is always guarded.”
Ted laughed. “I watched you circling the building trying to find a way inside. And I have to say that you let me down on that one. There’s a secret tunnel leading from my private lab to the outside. When I’m in the lab there are strict orders that I am not to be disturbed under any circumstances. I’ve been known to stay holed up in the lab for weeks at a time. No one can be sure if I’m in the lab or not. Sometimes I’m not.”
“Where is this tunnel?” Marty asked.
“Nice try,” Ted said. “You were close a couple of times. You’ll figure it out.”
Marty was certainly going to try when they got back to Cryptos. “Why did you ask if I was claustrophobic?”
“I haven’t been watching you solely for my own amusement. There is a method to my madness.”
Ted went over to a keypad on the wall and punched in a code. A hidden door slid open on the far side of the pool, revealing what looked like an elaborate control room. He hit another button, and bubbles started coming up from the bottom of the Moon Pool. The dolphins started chattering. A moment later something started to rise from the bottom. It was glowing.
“What is that?” Marty asked.
“That is the Orb.”
It broke the surface and bobbed in the center of the pool, still glowing. For a moment Marty was speechless as he stared at the giant golden ball. It was the size of a small car, and a humming noise came from within it.
“I’ll bring it over for a closer look,” Ted said. He took out his Gizmo and used it to maneuver the ball toward the edge of the pool.
“Where did it come from?” Marty asked. The water in the pool was crystal clear and something that big and bright couldn’t be missed.
“Secret door on the side of the pool,” Ted said.
“What does it do?” Marty asked.
“It’s an Oceanic Reconnaissance Bot.”
“O-R-B for short,” Marty said.
“Exactly,” Ted said.
Marty noticed the numbers on the side: 007. “Like in James Bond?” he asked.
Ted shook his head. “More like an ironic coincidence.”
“What does it do?”
“It’s a miniature nuclear submarine,” Ted answered.
It didn’t look like any submarine Marty had ever seen. “Unmanned?”
“No. Three people will fit inside.”
Three small people, Marty thought. “How did you get permission to build a nuclear sub? I thought nuclear power was regulated.”
“It is, but Wolfe and I have friends in high places. It’s the fastest sub in the world and it will dive deeper than any other sub ever has.” Ted hesitated. “I hope.”
“What do you mean you hope?”
“It’s only been field-tested off the coast of Cryptos Island. The real test will come tomorrow morning in Kaikoura Canyon.”
“What happens if it doesn’t work?”
“The Orb will crumple like a soda can being stepped on by an elephant.”
Marty ran his hand over the golden surface and felt a tingling sensation like static electricity. “It’s soft … pliable.”
“The Orb is my pride and joy. I’ve been working on it for years. It’s made out of a special synthetic alloy. The same material the dragonspies are made from, but they’re just trinkets compared to the Orb. There’s only one man I would trust in the copilot’s seat and that was Travis Wolfe.”
“What do you mean was?” Marty asked.
“Travis is too big for the seat. And then there’s the fact that he only has one leg. There are foot controls. He has a prosthetic leg, but after about an hour in the same position his thigh starts to cramp. He has to stretch his leg to get rid of the cramp. There’s no room in the Orb to stretch, especially for someone his size.”
Marty didn’t see a hatch or a porthole. In fact, he didn’t see a seam. “So, it has a design flaw,” Marty said.
“Not a flaw. A structural necessity. The speed and maneuverability of the Orb is directly related to its size, which leaves your uncle out of the equation. He’ll be directing our dive from the control room.”
Marty walked over to the room and looked inside. It looked like a set from a science fiction movie.
He turned to Ted. “What do you mean our dive?” he asked.
“This is why I’ve been watching you,” Ted answered. “And, yes, testing you. I want you to be my copilot. If you can fly the dragonspy, you can pilot the Orb.”
At that moment, every negative feeling Marty had felt toward Ted Bronson vanished behind a grin of sheer joy.
“I take that as a yes,” Ted said.
“Duh du jour,” Marty said.
“It’s not without risk,” Ted warned. “The Orb is completely experimental. I’ve only taken 007 beneath once. She performed perfectly, but I wasn’t nearly as deep as we’re going tomorrow. The difference between the two depths is the difference between walking on Mars and walking on Earth. It took a lot of persuasion to talk Wolfe into making you my copilot. The only reason he gave in was because there’s no other choice. And you have Noah Blackwood to thank for that. If he hadn’t arrived back at the Ark sooner than expected, Wolfe would have found another copilot. He was talking to NASA to see if one of their astronauts was interested. You’d still be in the galley on KP or feeding those hatchlings.”
The truth was that Marty hadn’t minded working in the galley. It didn’t compare with copiloting the Orb, but he was proud of what he had accomplished in the galley even though it had taken him away from the hatchlings and his friends.
“How’s the Orb going to help us catch a giant squid?” Marty asked.
“Cat and mouse,” Ted answered. “The squid is the cat. The Orb is the mouse. We’ll use it like a fishing lure. If the squid isn’t interested in eating the Orb, we’ll use it to irritate the beast. One way or the other we’ll get a giant squid to come after us. What we want to do is entice it to chase us right up through the Moon Pool and trap it. Of course, that’s easier said than done. The horseshoe-shaped canyon is a thousand miles long and pitch-dark. Finding a giant squid to chase us is going to be difficult.”
Marty looked at the three dolphins. They were keeping their distance from the Orb but were obviously very curious about it.
“What role do the dolphins play in catching the giant squid?”
“None,” Ted answered. “Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod are decoys. We’ll put cameras on them and let them loose, but the only reason they were brought aboard was to make everyone think that our plan was to use them to catch the squid. We needed a way of diverting attention from the Orb, which only a handful of people know about. The Orb is the main reason Al Ikes and his men are here.”
“Not the miniature cameras?”
“Those, too,” Ted said. “And
the hatchlings, and the dragon-spy, and Blackwood, and Grace … but mostly the Orb. We haven’t decided what to do with this new technology. Until we figure that out, we want to keep it quiet, which reminds me … Can Luther keep a secret?”
“Absolutely,” Marty said. He and Luther had shared secrets for years.
“Good. Because he and Grace and a couple of others are about to be brought into the inner circle along with you. No one can know about the Orb. Loose lips sink ships.”
“Luther will keep his mouth shut,” Marty promised, looking back at the Orb. “What if the cat catches this mouse?” The Orb looked more like a golden egg than a rodent.
“I don’t know,” Ted said. “The Orb hasn’t been field-tested for that possibility, which is why I warned you, there are some risks involved. We aren’t completely defenseless, but it would be best if we didn’t get snagged by a giant squid.”
Marty continued to stare at the Orb in awe and a tiny bit of fear. “There aren’t any portholes. How do we see out?”
“Cameras,” Ted answered. “Similar to what we have on the dragonspies. We can access the cameras while we’re in our aquasuits.”
“What’s an aquasuit?”
“Let’s go into the control room.”
As they started around the pool to the control room, they were interrupted by the sound of the Moon Pool door hissing open.
It was Ana Mika. She looked very different than she had the last time Marty had seen her. Her black hair was curled, she was wearing makeup, and she was dressed in stylish pants and a blouse, with enough jewelry to buy the Coelacanth.
She walked straight over to Ted without smiling and kissed him on the lips, long and hard enough to make Marty stare at his sneakers as if they were the most interesting two objects he had ever seen.
When they finally broke apart, Ana said, “Wolfe told me I would find you two down here.”
“How are you feeling?” Ted asked.
“Thanks for asking,” Ana said. “But you’re about two days late … as usual.”
“I did check on you,” Ted said. “Twice. Both times you were sound asleep.”
“Dr. Jones must have given me knockout drugs, but I do feel better. I got up a couple of hours ago, showered, dressed, and ran down to the galley to get something to eat. The food was wonderful.”
“Here’s the chef,” Ted said, nodding at Marty. “Or I should say former chef, Marty O’Hara.”
“Ana,” she said, extending an elegant hand with three gold rings.
Marty shook her hand and said, “We met when you came aboard the Coelacanth. You barfed on my shoes.”
“Those were your shoes? Sorry about that. Your parents will get a big kick out of that when you tell them.”
“My parents are —”
“Your parents are lost,” Ana interrupted. “I’m sure Sylvia and Timothy are fine. Wolfe will find them, or they’ll stumble out of the jungle on their own. They’ve been in much worse situations than that.”
“You know them?”
“I’ve known them for years. Your mother introduced me to Ted, but I’m not holding that against her. She is the best field photographer who ever lived. And Timothy could always write circles around me. That I do hold against him.”
“So, you really are a reporter?”
“I prefer the moniker investigative journalist, but yes, I’m a reporter.”
“Speaking of which,” Ted said, “how did the press conference go?”
“You mean the Noah Blackwood show?” Ana said. “Divisive as usual. When I popped the giant squid question, he acted like he knew all about the expedition, but I could tell he was lying through his artificially whitened teeth. We tipped him off. I told you it was a bad idea for me to go to the press conference and ask him what he thought.”
Marty noticed that she was paying absolutely no attention to the golden orb in the pool, which could only mean that she had seen it before.
“He would have found out anyway,” Ted said. “Your telling him might have lost us an hour at the most. And it accomplished one of the things we wanted to do. He lied on camera about our involvement in catching the great white, and we’ll be able to use that against him one of these days. Wolfe and I watched the clip on the news.” Ted straightened up and gave them a big fake smile and a pretty good imitation of Noah Blackwood: “Travis and Ted were deckhands, and not very good ones at that.”
Marty and Ana laughed.
“Noah wasn’t even there when we reeled in the great white,” Ted continued. “And we have a dozen witnesses to corroborate that fact. You rattled him at his own press conference, and that’s exactly what we wanted you to do.”
“That’s exactly what your partner just told me,” Ana said. “He also told me about the hatchlings and the stowaway — exciting times aboard the Coelacanth. I could win a Pulitzer prize if you’d let me tell the story, but of course that’s out of the question … right?”
“Right,” Ted said. “But I love you, Ana.”
“Humph,” Ana said.
“Noah lied on camera. The more we get of that in the public record, the better off we’ll be.”
“I still don’t understand how that’s going to help us,” Ana said.
“Because at this moment Noah Blackwood’s Endangered One and Endangered Too are twenty miles away. He’ll anchor the ships at Kaikoura Canyon, uninvited, waiting for us to pull a giant squid out of the abyss, and —”
“Correction,” Ana interrupted. “His ships showed up when I was in Wolfe’s cabin. They’re anchored half a mile away.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ted said. “My point is that Noah just got back from a harrowing experience in the Congo, and within hours he jumps on his yacht and sails to the exact spot his main competitor is going fishing. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care about what the Northwest Aquarium is doing?”
“No, it doesn’t, but I have another correction,” Ana said. “Noah didn’t sail here. He took his private jet to New Zealand and just landed on the Endangered One’s helipad in his private helicopter.”
“Noted, Ms. Stickler for Details,” Ted said.
“Blackwood isn’t being very subtle,” Marty said.
“There’s no reason for him to hide,” Ted said. “Up to this point we’ve been fighting a cold war with Noah Blackwood. But after what happened in the Congo, it’s a hot war. We need everything in our arsenal to defend ourselves. One shield we can use, which Noah has hidden behind his entire life, is his mastery of public relations and public perception. We need to start chipping away at his cover.” He looked at Ana. “And you just struck the first blow.”
“It was a very weak blow,” Ana said. “Butch looked like an angry stag frozen in the headlights of an oncoming truck, but the reporters only had eyes for Blackwood. When I popped the squid question, Noah whispered something to Butch, and he did the worst I’m-going-to-collapse-from-disease routine I’ve ever seen. Of course the reporters gulped down the alleged collapse like hungry vultures.”
Ted laughed.
“Have you given Marty the chicken-and-egg question yet?” Ana asked.
“I was just about to when you came in.”
“What are you talking about?” Marty asked.
“You’ll see,” Ana answered. “I’d better get going, but before I do, Wolfe asked me to tell you that he just talked to Dr. Robert Lansa in Brazil. He’s going to do everything he can to find your parents. Oddly, I interviewed Dr. Lansa a few years ago for an article I was writing on field biologists, and he was the best of the bunch. If your parents are within a hundred miles of his jaguar preserve, he’ll pick up their trail and track them down. He’s a bit abrupt and rude, but he is very good at what he does.”
“That’s great.” Marty was happy to hear this, but he didn’t want to get his hopes up, nor did he want to think about what his parents were going through if they were still alive. He changed the subject. “So, you’re here to write about catching the giant squid.”
>
“Indirectly,” Ana said. “What I’m really doing here is adding material to an investigative piece I’ve been working on for years about the real Noah Blackwood. Up till this point I’ve been able to stay beneath his radar, but after showing up at the press conference I’m officially a blip on Blackwood’s screen.” She looked at Ted. “As Butch and Blackwood were heading back to the mansion, Butch recovered enough from his so-called illness to ask me who I was and who I worked for. I lied. But by now they’ve figured out who I am and they’ve probably connected me with you and Wolfe. I’ll bet Blackwood’s probably on Endangered One right now, thumbing through a thick dossier his people have gathered on me.”
“You’re probably right,” Ted admitted.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Ana said. “I’m going to poke around the ship and talk to the crew. I don’t agree with Wolfe and Al’s idea of quietly looking for the stowaway. If you want to find someone, you need to talk to people. There are dozens of people who have seen this guy and spoken to him. I just have to find the right crew member and ask the right question.”
She gave Ted another kiss (not as long as the one she had given him earlier, to Marty’s relief ) and walked out through the air lock.
* * *
Noah Blackwood sat in a leather chair behind a huge rosewood desk in his well-appointed cabin. The Endangered One, like the Endangered Too, was considered a research ship by his adoring fans, but in reality it was a two-hundred-and-seventy-three-foot luxury yacht Noah used almost exclusively for entertaining influential guests and smuggling rare animals into the United States.
But this voyage is a little different, he thought, and smiled for the first time in an hour, which was how long it had taken him to read Ana Mika’s dossier, emailed to him by his very private and well-paid investigators. Thinking about his investigators caused a frown to reappear. He was going to have to do some reorganization when this was all over. It was his investigators’ job to make certain that people like Ana stayed away from him. He was surprised they’d had the gall to attach the dossier. The document was a testimony to their complete incompetence.