The Accidental Invasion (Atlantis Book #1)

by Gregory Mone

  The water was already up to his waist.

  Hanna was pounding on the glass. “Professor!”

  “What’s he doing?” Lewis asked. He was too frightened to think.

  “Professor! Stop!”

  “What’s happening? Hanna?”

  “He’s trying to get outside the cell, into the water.”

  “W-why?” Lewis stammered, barely able to get the word out.

  The water was rising faster.

  Hanna was shouting now, slamming her fists against the inner door. “Professor! Professor!”

  Could he even hear them?

  As the water reached his shoulders, his dad turned, smiled, and raised both of his thumbs.

  Everything was okay? Was that what he was saying? No.

  No, no, no.

  Everything was absolutely not okay.

  His dad turned again, then leaned back, so they could see the top of his head, and sucked in a huge breath. The water rose faster now, climbing over his head and up to the ceiling. Then the outer door opened, and his dad pressed his hands and feet against the interior walls. He braced himself there, like someone scaling the walls of a narrow alley.

  “What is he doing?” Lewis asked. “I don’t understand what he’s doing.”

  “I don’t know,” Hanna admitted. “Wait,” she continued. “Look!”

  His dad held himself in place with his legs and one arm, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his wristpad. Lewis yelled his father’s name over and over. His calls bounced back off the soundproof walls. His father held out the wristpad. “Is he recording something?” Lewis asked.

  “Or playing something,” Hanna said.

  The entire cell started moving differently, as if pulled by some outside force.

  The pumps began churning again. The outer door slid closed, and then the water began to drain out of the entryway. His dad was trying to get back inside. But what was he doing out there in the first place? Had he risked his life to collect more data?

  Lewis pounded his fists against the door. Hanna grabbed him, holding his wrists, pulling him away. They fell to the floor in front of the entryway as the door opened. The last of the water spilled out, and his father collapsed forward. Lewis crawled to him. His father was icy cold and soaked. His skin was gray and white. He mumbled something about the hatch.

  “What?” Lewis asked. “What about the hatch?”

  “A shield,” he said. “When the door opens, they’ll come for you. Use it as a shield.”

  “Who’s coming for us, Dad? What are you talking about?” Lewis turned to Hanna. “What does he mean?”

  The wristpad was playing the same notes over and over.

  “I know that tune,” Hanna said.

  His father closed his eyes and gently sealed his lips, breathing only through his nose.

  Hanna sat back with her hands clasped behind her head, thinking.

  “What was he doing?” Lewis said. “Why did he do that?”

  She still didn’t answer. She squinted at the wristpad. “That song . . .”

  The same simple tune continued to play.

  His father was breathing, but he was barely moving.

  Hanna raced to the couches, pulled off two blankets, and tossed them to Lewis. “I’ve got it! That was brilliant, Professor.”

  Lewis started wrapping his dad in the blankets. What was so brilliant about swimming in toxic, frigid water? “I don’t understand.”

  “He records everything, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So he must have recorded what happened when he was in the control room on his wristpad. They played that tune when we were there, too. It must control this cell. The wristpad is waterproof, and the speaker’s powerful. Not powerful enough to carry through these walls, though. So he played it outside, in the water. He tricked the cell into thinking it was being called back!”

  Lewis looked at his dad. His eyes were still closed.

  So that’s what his father had been thinking about.

  He wasn’t doing research. When Lewis had thought he was collecting more of his stupid data, his dad was plotting a way to save them.

  He held his hand to his dad’s face. His skin was frigid. Hanna helped Lewis strip off his dad’s soaking-wet shirt. She rushed upstairs and pulled all the blankets and sheets off the beds, then tossed them down through the hatch. Lewis draped them over his dad; he needed Hanna’s help to roll him onto his side. The weight of him was tremendous, especially since he was limp. Dead weight, Lewis thought.

  No—his dad was alive. And he was going to stay that way.

  “What did he say about the hatch?” Hanna asked.

  “Something about using it as a shield,” he said. “When the door opens.”

  Hanna pointed through the glass as the cell moved closer to the outer wall of their watery prison. The window of the control room came into view. She looked down at his dad. “That might be the craziest idea you’ve ever had, Professor Gates,” she said. “But it’s actually working.”

  17

  A Different Kind of Loss

  Kaya and Naxos had been traveling for what felt like forever when the cruiser finally lifted out of the water and turned into a dry tunnel. They could’ve moved so, so much faster, but Naxos insisted on saving the power. She had tried to remind him that this was a newer model of cruiser. The power practically lasted forever. Had he listened? No.

  Now he leaned forward, concentrating. For the first part of their journey, he’d rambled on and on about his marvelous vehicles and his plan to help the People of the Sun escape. But she was only half listening. She couldn’t stop thinking about her parents. Had the Sun People really destroyed her mother’s ship? And was her dad really an Eraser?

  Naxos brightened the cruiser’s lights.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Kaya asked.

  “Ah, she’s alive! Those are the first words you’ve spoken in some time.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  “Well, this is the right way, I can assure you. The last signal the Sun Man’s tracker sent out was from right here. We’re very close to the headquarters of the Erasers.”

  The tunnel ended in an empty cavern. Three small cruisers rested on the floor. Two guards sitting on either side of a single steel door leaped to their feet. The smaller of the two rubbed his eyes with his fists and sneered as they approached. Both of them raised sonic rifles.

  “Stay calm,” Naxos whispered to Kaya.

  “They’re holding blasters,” she pointed out. “I’m getting mine—”

  “No,” he insisted. “We won’t need weapons.”

  He hunched over and limped as they walked from the cruiser. “Greetings, friends,” he grumbled in a weak voice.

  The guards lowered their weapons. The sneers disappeared. “This is a private tunnel,” the smaller guard said. “Turn yourselves around and head back.”

  “But we’re a bit lost, you see, and I—”

  The guard raised his hand to his earpiece. “Quiet,” he barked. Someone was calling him. He leaned his head to the side as he replied. “What’s that? What’s wrong?”

  Both guards crumpled to the floor.

  Naxos lowered his sonic pistol.

  “I thought you said we wouldn’t need weapons,” Kaya said.

  “The situation has changed.”

  She grabbed the backpack stuffed with Hanna’s cords and cables and gadgets. Naxos hurried over and pressed his ear to the door, then gestured for her to do the same. The metal was cool against her cheek. She cupped her hand over her other ear. She heard alarms. Shouting. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Naxos reached down and grabbed a small square device attached to one of the guards’ belts. He clicked a button in the center, and a tune played. The door swung open, and Kaya’s ears rang from the sound of the alarm.

  Inside, lights flashed in a long hallway, but she saw no other guards.


  The place was almost empty.

  Then she heard voices. “This way,” she said.

  Naxos and Kaya raced around a corner and into a large room. Two women were standing at their desks, frantically working on their pads. One of them swung a weapon in Kaya’s direction. “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Look!” the other called out.

  The stones in the far wall were shifting and moving. A sealed metal hatch was hidden behind them. The alarm continued to wail, and Kaya watched as the hatch opened. She was looking into some kind of glass-walled room. No—there were several rooms, and an enormous pool of water behind them. There were people inside, too.

  Not just any people.

  Sun People.

  Or Lewis and Hanna, at least. But where was the professor?

  The two women rushed across the room, weapons raised, as the door popped open.

  Kaya yelled to her friends as they hurried through the opening, crouching behind some kind of circular glass shield.

  Naxos tackled Kaya to the ground, then pulled her behind a desk.

  The first woman fired as the other called out for her to stop.

  A pulse rushed through Kaya, a vibration that rang in her bones. She was shaken but awake. Naxos, too. He shifted his jaw from side to side as if he’d been punched in the chin. She heard bodies drop heavily to the floor.

  “Help! Please!”

  That voice—Lewis.

  Off-balance, her ears ringing, Kaya stood. The Atlantean women were down, but the Sun People were still standing. The shield must have deflected the blast and sent it right back at the women. But where was the professor?

  Kaya and Naxos sprinted across the room as Hanna tossed aside the glass shield. Finally, Kaya spotted the enormous man; Hanna and Lewis were struggling to drag the professor out of the cell. He was lying on his back, looking like some huge, exhausted fish reeled out of the deep. His thick hair was sopping wet. The blankets wrapped around him were soaked, and his skin was blue.

  Naxos stood before the cell, staring into the water beyond. “I’ve heard of this place. This is the High Council’s secret prison. No one has ever escaped.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re trying to change that,” Hanna snapped.

  “What happened to him?” Kaya asked.

  Lewis was holding one of his father’s large hands. “He swam out of the cell to save us.”

  Naxos paled. “I’ve been told that the water is filled with toxins. It’s impossible to swim out of one of these cells and—”

  “That’s enough,” Hanna said, cutting him off. “Are you going to help or not?”

  Survive, Kaya guessed. That was the word he was going to use. No one had ever swum out of a cell and survived.

  At Hanna’s orders, Naxos helped drag the professor farther into the room. The alarms were still ringing.

  “Can we find a doctor?” Lewis asked.

  Naxos pressed his ear to the professor’s chest. “His heartbeat is weak.”

  “How do we shut off these alarms?” Hanna asked. “This place will be swarming with Erasers soon.” She pointed to Naxos. “Figure it out.”

  He started to say something, then simply followed her orders, rushing over to one of the workstations. Apparently Hanna was in charge now. And Kaya was fine with that.

  One of the women—one of the Erasers—rolled onto her side. She’d wake soon.

  Hanna grabbed the sonic pistol from her, prying it out of her sweaty fingers. Then she did the same with the other woman’s weapon.

  “What should we do with them?” Kaya asked.

  The alarms stopped. Naxos smiled proudly.

  “Good work,” Hanna said. “As for these two . . .” She glanced at the still-open cell, then shrugged. Naxos needed no further instructions. He dragged the two Erasers into the glass prison. Kaya helped him carry in the guards from outside the entrance as well, and then they sealed the door. Finally, Hanna played the tune stored on the professor’s wristpad, and the strange glass sphere drifted out into the water.

  As the cell floated away, Kaya stood at the window, staring out into the prison. Who else was trapped inside? And did any of them actually deserve to be there? The Erasers had grabbed Elida at the theater. A harmless old storyteller—or harmless in Kaya’s mind, anyway. Was she in there, too, trapped in one of those cells? Kaya rushed over to the tablet, scanned the list of prisoners, and found the storyteller’s name.

  “What are you doing?” Hanna asked. “We need to leave.”

  “I’m retrieving another prisoner,” she explained. “Someone who shouldn’t be in here.”

  A new tune played.

  “We can’t wait,” Hanna insisted. “Let’s go.”

  Lewis was crouched over his dad. “He’s still not responding.”

  Hanna motioned to Naxos. “You brought a cruiser, right?” she asked.

  Kaya nodded to the doorway. “It’s out front.”

  “Carry him to it now,” Hanna said. Then she pointed to Kaya. “Your friend will have to make his own way out.”

  Her way, Kaya thought, but she didn’t bother correcting Hanna.

  Naxos grabbed the professor under the arms, dragged him to the door and down the hall. At the exit, Kaya grabbed him at the ankles so they could carry him down the few steps.

  Two guards appeared from around a corner.

  They stopped a quick sprint away.

  Kaya hadn’t seen them before, and the two men had clearly never seen People of the Sun. Neither man even reached for the pistol at his side. Instead, they stood motionless, mouths open, staring at the giant Sun Person as Kaya and Naxos held him.

  The guards fell.

  Hanna calmly lowered her sonic pistols. “Hurry,” she reminded them.

  Outside, Kaya and Naxos lifted the professor into the waiting cruiser. Lewis was holding his hands to the sides of his head. The boy’s face was flat, cold, expressionless. With a pistol still in each hand, Hanna swung her arm over his shoulders. “It’s okay, Lewis. He’s going to be okay.”

  “He’s shaking,” Lewis said.

  Naxos said nothing. The boy was staring up at Kaya now. Did he expect her to have an answer? A solution? What was she supposed to say?

  “Shaking is good,” Hanna said. Her voice was calm, strong, reassuring. “Shivering is the body’s way of trying to warm up.”

  Good? His eyes were still closed, and his breaths were shallow and weak, as if someone were squeezing his lungs tight from the inside. Lewis leaned over his shivering father, running his hand over his wet hair, whispering to him, pleading with him to stay alive. What was he feeling? She could hardly imagine. Sure, she’d lost someone once. But she had been so young at the time. This had to be a different kind of loss.

  No. This wasn’t a loss. Not yet.

  They weren’t going to lose him.

  They couldn’t lose him.

  “We need to get him to a doctor,” Naxos said.

  “Yeah, I know, but how?” Hanna asked. “We’re at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The nearest doctor is a day’s journey at least.”

  “Not one of your doctors,” Naxos said. “One of ours.”

  Lewis rubbed one of his father’s hands between his palms. “Really? Will they treat him?”

  Hanna was watching the door. “I don’t like being here. We really need to go.”

  Lewis looked at Kaya again, quietly pleading. For what, though? Reluctantly, she reached into the cruiser and clasped the professor’s other hand. His skin was frigid and damp. The cold leached into her. She wanted to pull away. But Lewis was almost smiling now, watching her hold his father’s hand. She pressed it tighter.

  “I know someone in Evenor who would help,” Naxos said.

  “Evenor?” Kaya replied. “The flooded city?”

  “Yes. She’s a healer,” Naxos added. “I’d trust her with my own life.”

  Hanna turned to Kaya, then pointed to Naxos. “Sure, but can we trust you?”

  Right. The last the
Sun People had seen of Naxos was when they were fleeing the border station. After the Erasers had turned up at Gogol’s shop, they’d blamed him. So this was a fair question. “Yes, we can trust him,” Kaya said. “Plus we don’t really have a choice.”

  Suddenly the professor coughed and blinked.

  Lewis jumped back, startled. “Dad?”

  The huge man coughed again. His teeth were chattering. He was struggling to speak. “Just relax, Dad,” Lewis said. “Relax.”

  “But stay awake,” Hanna said, still watching the door. “Keep him awake, okay?”

  Kaya studied the professor’s neck. “Even if we do get him to a doctor, won’t they track us? Can you turn that thing off?”

  Naxos sat back. “I could destroy it, but . . .”

  “But?” Hanna asked, skeptical.

  “But I don’t think we should. It could prove helpful.”

  “Helpful?” Kaya replied. “How?”

  While Lewis stayed at his dad’s side, the three of them gathered at the front of the cruiser. Hanna grabbed the backpack full of gadgets and scraps, stuffed one of the pistols inside, and pulled the straps over her shoulders. The bag did belong to Kaya. But this didn’t really feel like the time to point that out.

  “We split up,” Naxos suggested. “Kaya can get you two back to the surface.”

  “Us two? What about the professor?”

  “He stays here in Atlantis.”

  “No,” Lewis answered. He was still trying to hold his shivering father.

  Hanna, so vocal until that point, was listening quietly now. Thinking.

  “The cruiser will be much faster without all of you in it,” Naxos said. “The vehicle has plenty of power left”—Kaya had to credit him for riding the waterways instead of drifting—”and with this model, I can get to Evenor long before they find us. I’ll draw them away and give you time to escape. Then I can destroy the tracker and rush him to the healer.”

  “They’ll know where you are,” Kaya noted.

  “Evenor is an easy place to hide,” he replied.

  “Even with a giant?” Kaya asked.

  “Even with a giant.”