And really, what did that painting say? For all I knew, the words in that painting could have been anything—a diary, an Atlantean laundry list, whatever. Did it make any sense that out of the zillion people born in the world since the sinking of Atlantis, I, Jack McKinley the Painfully Average, would be the future king?
No, it didn’t make sense. But neither did magic beach balls, or invisibility, or living statues, or time rifts, or zombies, or acid-spitting creatures.
My worn-out sandal clipped a vine, and I nearly fell over. Massa construction workers looked up and stared at me weirdly. Did they know? Maybe the good news had been sent out to them over some kind of Massaweb. What were they thinking?
All hail, King Jack!
His Royal Highness, Jack the First of Belleville!
A good day to His Jackness, Master of the Kingdom of Atlantis and Ruler of the World!
Sooner or later everyone was going to have to adjust to King Jack. Including me.
I stood up, drew myself up to full height, and gave them a kingly wave with a cupped palm. “Carry on!”
And then one of my new subjects spoke:
“Uh, kid, you just stepped in monkey turds.”
Cass was the first to run toward me from the dorm. “Did they suck out your brains and replace them with Jell-O?”
“Did you see Marco?” Aly asked, her face full of excitement and hope.
“No and no,” I said.
Cass crinkled up his face. “What stinks?”
The last hint of kingliness flew out of my head. I wiped my sandals in a wet, grassy spot. “Sorry, I thought I got it all off.”
“We need to talk, now,” Aly said. “And here, where no one will hear us.”
“And fast, because we’re starving and the cafeteria’s open,” Cass said.
“I guess you’re feeling better,” I said.
Cass nodded. “Oh. That. Yeah, well, sorry about yesterday. Aly and I have been talking. She was right. I’m not going to blame myself, and I’ll promise to be more like Torquin. The bravery part, not the grunting and bad driving.”
Aly looked like she would explode from excitement. “Jack, we want to hear about your meeting with Brother Creepo. But we have to tell you what happened to us. We got this note from—”
“Not here.” I looked around, thinking about the secret cameras the Massa had planted in the jungle. “There are bugs.”
“In the trees?” Cass asked.
“My room is safe,” Aly said, turning to go back into the dorm. “Leave the sandals and follow me. I destroyed the surveillance cameras.”
“Not all of them,” I said. “There’s one the size of a pinhead, probably up where the wall meets the ceiling, directly above your desk.”
Aly turned back. “Excuse me? How do you—?”
“I’ll help you disable it,” I said. “Show me the way.”
I kicked off my stinky sandals and followed Cass and Aly into the new dorm. It was about twice the size of the old building. Instead of being greeted in a cramped hallway by our old Karai guard, Conan the Armed and Sleepy, there was a big empty entryway two floors high. A hallway led to the right, and I found a door marked with my name. I ducked inside to look. It was a big corner room with screened windows, tons of sunlight, and a shelf with a few used books and an iPod dock. I think the dresser had been Marco’s in the old dorm, because one of the drawers had been kicked in and repaired with glue.
I could hear Cass and Aly clomping into the room next to me. I washed my feet, then put on a new pair of sandals I found in the closet and sprinted to meet them. Aly was standing on her desk, staring at me as I entered. In her hand was a piece of twisted metal. Just above her, wires jutted from a spot near the roof. “How did you know, Jack? About this camera?”
“Dimitrios showed me,” I said. “The other lenses that you covered with gum? Those were fakes. I was tracking you. They made me think you were in danger.”
“Jack, you’re scaring me,” Cass said.
Aly stepped down, eyeing me warily. “So, that note from Fiddle—?”
“A fake, too,” I said. “The Massa led you to that hatch. They made me watch. They told me you were going to be killed. But they were lying. They were testing me. To see if I would sacrifice myself to save your lives.”
They both stared at me silently.
“Well . . . ?” Cass asked softly. “Did you?”
I nodded.
“So . . . they’re brainwashing you,” Aly said.
Cass shrugged. “Sounds like bravery to me.”
“It’s called behavior modification,” Aly barreled on. “You see it in a million movies. They make you feel like you’re going to die. Or that someone you love is going to die. They start breaking down your free will. After a while you don’t know what’s real or fake. Then they can worm their way into your brain and make you believe anything. Like the Manchurian Candidate.”
“The who?” I said.
Aly rolled her eyes. “Classic movie. Don’t you have any culture?”
“Don’t you ever watch any new movies?” Cass replied.
“The point is, the Massa are sneaky and weird.” Aly went on. “They deluded Marco into thinking he’s going to be the next king. Watch it, Jack. They’re probably working on you, too. I think they’re trying to separate us—divide and conquer.”
“What exactly did they say to you?” Cass asked.
Number One’s words burned in my brain: We must keep this a secret until the training is complete.
No way. I needed to tell Cass and Aly the truth. Once you start lying to your best friends, it’s hard to go back. But right this moment, I didn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. What if I really did tell them that Number One anointed me future king? They’d say I was a sucker and a traitor, like Marco.
And I wasn’t.
I had to think this through myself. Calmly. Without being influenced.
If what Number One told me was a lie, then nothing changed. But if it was true, I had to do it right. I needed to be very, very cautious.
“Well,” I said, “it turns out that the head of the Massa is this woman called Number One. She’s, like, my grandmother’s age—”
“Wait,” Aly said. “You met the head of the Massa? Just you? Why?”
“I’m special, I guess.” I wanted that to sound like a joke, but I’m not sure it worked. “I think she wants to raise the continent of Atlantis.”
“Like, from under the ocean?” Cass said. “The whole island?”
“It’s a Massa thing,” I replied. “When Massarym stole the Loculi, raising the continent was part of his long-term plan. He wanted to bring back the glory that was Atlantis, blah-blah-blah.”
Cass punched a fist in the air. “That is so emosewa!”
“Are you serious?” Aly leaned closer, all red in the face. “Um, tell me neither of you knuckleheads know what a disaster this would be.”
“Right, tons of vromaskis and griffins and stuff,” Cass said. “That would suck.”
“No, that’s not the point!” Aly said. “Millions of years ago, the entire middle of the United States was a sea. New York City had a mountain range like the Rockies. But the continents drifted. Slowly. Meteors collided, sea levels shifted, earth moved, air quality changed, continents sank, species died. Incredibly slowly. Raising an entire continent—voom, just like that? We’re talking massive disaster. Tidal waves and earthquakes, to start. Changing wind and water currents, rising seas, coastal floods, shifting tectonic plates. New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, New Orleans, Athens, Capetown—gone. Don’t even think about the Netherlands. Dormant fault lines burst open coast to coast, followed by fires. Dirt and dust clouds will block the sun, just like the time of the dinosaurs. And you know what happened to them. We’d be lucky if anyone survived!”
“Chicago’s not coastal,” Cass said.
“You get the idea!” Aly stared at me, her face a mixture of fear and disbelief. “Do they really be
lieve they can make the continent rise?”
“Maybe you’re overreacting,” I said. “How do you know it will be so bad? Maybe Atlantis isn’t big enough to cause all that.”
“It doesn’t have to be that big to do a lot of damage, Jack!” Aly said.
“Well, people have been predicting ecological disasters and stuff anyway,” I said. “At least this way, Atlantis would appear, with all its energy restored. And if the world had, like, good leaders, they could help.”
Aly looked at me in disbelief. “How? Stop the floods with a proclamation?”
“They could think ahead,” I said. “You know, evacuate people from the coasts. Look, we’re already changing the climate by burning fossil fuels, right? And people are bombing and killing each other. There’s genocide everywhere. It’s not like the world is on a path to such a great future. Don’t you think we need Atlantis?”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this,” Aly said. “From Marco, yes. He thinks he’s going to be king. But not from a reasonable, intelligent person like you. I say we kill this ridiculous discussion and stick to our plan. We contact the rebels, find out where the shards are hidden, get the other Loculi back, and kick some butt and figure out how to get off the island. That’s going to be hard enough. Now, let’s go to eat in the cafeteria, which probably will be bugged. Cass, if they drag you and me away to meet with Number One, we have to stay strong.”
Cass giggled. “Number One? That’s seriously her name?”
As she and Cass marched out the door, my head felt like it was whirling off my neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WHAT’S A FEW MILLION LIVES . . . ?
I WAS GOING crazy.
I couldn’t concentrate.
I thought about Aly’s lecture on the great value of sleep. As she and Cass went off to the Comestibule—sorry, cafeteria—I tried to doze off. It didn’t work. Being alone scared me.
So I got out of bed and trudged down to the cafeteria myself.
I found Cass downing powdered scrambled eggs as if they were about to go extinct. Old Mustafa the pilot was sitting at a table full of men, all laughing at some joke. Mrs. Petaloude sat a table all by herself with a plate full of bugs. Well, at least that was what it looked like. Aly was chatting up this skinny old scarecrow of a guy with a stiff gray beard that looked like it could scour pots.
“Jack!” she called out, waving me over. “Meet Professor Grolsch, the Most Interesting Man on the Island. He has like thirteen PhDs—”
“Phineas Grolsch,” the old guy said, extending a bony hand, “and only two PhDs, plus an MA, MD, LLD, and MBA—Oxford, Cambridge, Yale.”
“Um, Jack McKinley, Mortimer P. Reese Middle School,” I squeaked.
“Cass Williams, starving,” Cass said, bolting up from the table. “I’m getting seconds.”
“We were discussing meteorological hypotheticals,” Professor Grolsch said.
“Who?” I said.
Aly gave me a meaningful look. “You know, what would happen to the world if, say, I don’t know, a whole continent was raised from the deep—”
“Gro-o-olsch!” Brother Dimitrios’s voice snapped.
I spun around. Against the wall, at a long table, sat Dimitrios, Yiorgos, and the guy they called Cyclops, along with a bunch of sour-faced people in black robes. If eyes could kill, Professor Grolsch would be in the ground.
Grolsch’s pale skin turned ashen. “Lovely to meet you,” he said quickly and scooted back to his seat. “My oatmeal is getting cold.”
Aly leaned close to me. “You see their reaction? They could tell what we were talking about. Grolsch was stalling. They know. About the destruction they’re going to cause. But they don’t care. What’s a few million lives if they can rule the world?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brother Cyclops lumbering toward us. He nearly collided with Cass, who was carrying a plate of muffins, bacon, and doughnuts. “Sorry, you can’t have any,” Cass said, placing his tray at our table.
“Neither can you,” Brother Cyclops said. “You have to meet someone.”
“Wait—I—hey—!” Cass yelled as Cyclops pulled him toward the entrance.
Aly and I followed. At the front door, about ten Massa were gathered, busily chattering with someone in their midst. “Clear, please,” Cyclops growled.
The crowd stepped aside, and Number One stepped through. She was dressed in layers of gossamer blue fabric embroidered with gold. As she lifted her hand, tiny jewels caught the morning sunlight. Neither Aly nor Cass shook the outstretched hand, so I did. “Guys, this is Number One.”
Aly stared her square in the eye. “Do you have a real name?”
Number One threw back her head with a laugh. “I am so glad you asked. Yes, dear girl, my given name is Aliyah. Come. We have much to talk about.”
As the Massa turned back into the cafeteria, Number One turned the other way.
“Number One to you,” Cyclops grumbled.
“And to you, too,” Cass said.
Number One led us across the campus. Left and right, people stared in awe. I had the feeling she didn’t appear in public very much. As she pointed out this and that new construction project, her voice was clipped and hurried. “As opposed to the Colonial-era foolishness of the Karai, we will have a facility light-years ahead of the technological curve,” she said. “As Jack has seen, our security is quite comprehensive—and, trust me, he has not yet seen everything.”
She gave me a sharp look and suddenly I was worried about our conversation outside the dorm. Had she heard us?
Easy. She’s trying to rattle you.
We were headed toward the long brick building that was once the Karai Command Center. From behind it, I could see a cloud of dust. High-pitched voices rang out, yelling and laughing. But not Massa goon voices.
They were little-kid voices.
“What the—?” Aly said. “Your people bring their kids here?”
“Oh, great,” Cass whispered, “we’re going to be the Babysitters Club for the Massa nursery.”
As Number One reached the back wall of the building, she turned. “I thought you’d like to see how we are preparing for a glorious future.”
Behind the building, completely hidden from the campus, was a field of sparse grass that stretched at least fifty yards to an old barn. Fifteen or so kids were playing on it, arranged into groups with color-coded shirts. The oldest were about ten years old, the youngest around seven. Some were practicing jumps and headstands. A fire-hydrant-sized girl sprang past us doing backflips. Another girl was commanding a robot made from a dead stuffed monkey, making it walk in circles. Two others were racing up a huge tree, scaling it at impossible speed with only their hands.
“These aren’t kids, they’re freaks,” Aly muttered under her breath.
Number One’s eyes scanned the field. “Their teacher is supposed to be with them. . . .”
But I was looking toward a sudden commotion at the side of the field. There, three kids were reaching through a hole in a six-foot-high chain-link fence, taunting a pig using sticks and a cape, like matadors.
I stepped closer, and I realized it wasn’t a pig.
“Is that . . . a vromaski?” I asked.
Number One’s face stiffened. “They disabled the electrical protection. Children . . . children! Where is your trainer?”
She and I ran toward them, but the kids ignored her. As one of them poked the vromaski, the bristles along its back stood on end. It swung around fiercely, spraying drool, its rubbery nose slapping against its own cheek. It eyed the attacker, a girl with dark skin and wild curly hair. She stuck out her tongue and did a mocking little dance. “Heeeere, piggy, piggy, piggy!” she called out.
“That kid is crazy,” Cass said. “She’s going to be killed!”
The vromaski coiled its hind legs and leaped up on to the side of the fence, grappling up the chain links with all four legs. It hauled its thick body upward before perching at the top, eyeing
the dancing little girl. Its jaw dropped open, revealing a row of knife-sharp teeth.
Licking its lips, the vromaski leaped at its prey.
“Watch out!” I sprinted toward the girl, knocking her out of the beast’s path.
Above me I heard a noise like a lion’s roar crossed with a broken vacuum cleaner as the beast landed behind us. I scrambled to my feet. The vromaski turned and leaped again, its hairy ears swept back, a spray of drool flying from both sides of its mouth.
“No-o-o-o—”
Before I could move, its belly connected with my face.
CHAPTER THIRTY
ESIOLE
I FELL TO the ground. I struggled to keep my nostrils open, but the stench of the beast closed them back up again.
Pushing against the mud-encrusted belly of the beast was like trying to lift a subway car. It planted its clawed feet on the ground to either side of me, roaring, as it raised one tightly sinewed leg like a hawk after its prey.
Jamming my knees into the beast’s underside, I rolled to the right and dug my teeth into the vromaski’s other leg. It jerked away, its claws ripping a small hank of hair from my head.
I tasted blood. My mouth was on fire. I thought my tongue would shrivel up in my mouth. The spot where my hair had been ripped out felt as if someone had sliced it with a knife. The vromaski was jumping around now, letting out a sound between a squeal and a roar, pawing the ground wildly.
I sprang away from the slavering creature. It was surrounded now—kids with sharp sticks poking its sides, the curly-haired girl yanking on its neck with a lasso. Cass, Aly, and Number One ran over, grabbing the beast’s collar, pulling it toward the pen.
“Trainer!” Number One cried out angrily.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a pair of thick-muscled legs heading from the direction of the barn. A body hurtled toward the vromaski, colliding against its flank. The beast fell over, flailing its legs.
“Vromaski-tipping, my favorite pastime,” a familiar voice said. “Wait till he farts. That’s really fun.”
I scrambled to my feet and caught a glimpse of my rescuer. The mop of shoulder-length hair was unmistakable. Not to mention shoulders as thick as a side of beef. His skin was tanned and his hair looked a shade lighter than I remembered, almost blond. His T-shirt and shorts were emblazoned with the Massa insignia, and an arsenal of weapons and instruments hung from his black leather belt.
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