The Ark Plan

by Laura Martin

  I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I didn’t notice the enormous concrete structure until we were almost inside it. I stopped to gape up at this giant relic of what used to be. It stood over ten stories tall, with broken-out windows. Moss and vines covered almost every surface of the concrete-and-iron structure. It was called a skyscraper. Or was it? How tall did a building have to be to be considered a skyscraper? Either way, it was the biggest building I’d ever seen. There were pictures of whole skylines full of buildings like this in my history books. This one, however, sat alone.

  Ivan stopped at the door and motioned at us impatiently to follow him into the crumbling wreck. I glanced at it dubiously. It didn’t seem exceptionally stable. Metal skeleton showed through where the concrete had long ago crumbled away, and it was leaning to the left. The boys dutifully filed inside, but I hesitated. Moments later a roar and an animal scream came from the darkness behind me, and I scurried inside the musty-smelling building.

  “Took you long enough,” Ivan grumbled as he shut the door and slid a large board across to secure it.

  “You think that will keep out a hungry dinosaur?” Shawn asked skeptically. I wanted to smack him for being rude, but truthfully I was thinking the same thing.

  “No,” Ivan said. “But it keeps the raccoons out. I hate those furry little buggers. Got to replace the blasted thing every other week because some oversized lizard decides he wants to come a-visiting.”

  “Well, that’s just great,” Shawn mumbled darkly as Ivan led us across the deserted first floor of the building to a large metal staircase in the middle of the room. I looked around with interest, taking in the tree roots that had worked their way up through the tile floor, and the mounds of dirt and debris piled haphazardly. A hundred years of nature being left to its own devices had practically erased all traces of the occupants that once lived or worked here. I was snapped from my musings by the staircase Ivan was climbing. It seemed to disappear into the floor, and I stared at it in confusion.

  “Escalator,” he called from above us. “An old-fashioned transportation device to bring people from one floor to the next. Our ancestors were lazy. And probably fat.” The staircase had a thick layer of dirt and debris everywhere except in the middle, where it was obvious that Ivan traveled frequently. I bent down to feel one of the treads and my fingers met ribbed metal. Strange, I thought, thinking of all the ways the compound could use metal like this. Shawn was obviously having the same thought, because I saw him stop at the second floor, where a large metal panel had fallen off the side of the staircase to reveal wires and gears.

  Before I could stop him, he’d yanked two rusty circles of metal out and thrust them in his bag.

  “What are you doing?” I said, glancing nervously up to where Ivan climbed ahead of us.

  “This is the kind of pulley Todd needs back at the tree house,” Shawn said excitedly.

  “This is Ivan’s house,” I pointed out. “Will you stop pulling it apart?”

  “Right. Sorry,” Shawn said as we hurried to catch up with Todd and Ivan, who were now an entire staircase ahead of us. I didn’t have long to look at each of the floors as we passed, but I caught glimpses of rusted shelves and tipped-over metal racks covered in years’ worth of dust and dirt. The higher we climbed, the less wrecked the floors were, and I saw Shawn eyeing some of the things we passed with interest. I grabbed his arm to stop him from digging at the different bits of old-world technology we glimpsed half-hidden under collapsed ceiling tiles.

  “But that was a laptop,” Shawn whined quietly so only I could hear as he gazed longingly back at the floor we’d just left. “Ivan obviously isn’t using it.”

  “You are impossible sometimes,” I grunted, not loosening my grip on his arm. I’d lost count of how many floors we’d climbed, and the blisters on my feet were screaming. “What floor do you live on?” I called ahead to Ivan, working hard to keep the whining tone out of my own voice.

  “Top,” he grunted. “I’d have to be dumb as a stump to live on the bottom.” Breathing hard, the four of us finally scaled the final set of stairs. At the top, I discovered that the last ten steps had been removed. This forced us to pull ourselves onto the top floor of the building using a thick rope similar to the ones Todd had used at the tree house. I watched in amazement as Ivan managed the task with only one arm.

  As my head emerged onto the top floor, I blinked in wonder at this strange little man’s house. The space was cavernous, spanning the entire length of the building. Unlike the other floors, where inches of dust, broken ceiling panels, and remnants of desks and machinery lay in haphazard piles, this floor was swept clean, revealing shiny white tiles. The only light came from the wall closest to me, and I gaped in amazement when I saw that it was made of unbroken glass. I stepped closer to look out over the treetops. We were much higher than we’d been the night before, and the forest seemed to go on and on in every direction.

  Metal screeched behind me, and I jumped. Turning, I saw Ivan, assisted by Todd, drop a thick metal plate down on the hole in the floor. The rope we’d used to climb was coiled neatly at their feet. Ivan walked around to all four corners, sliding metal bolts into place to lock the panel down.

  “This,” Ivan grunted as he forced the last bolt home, “is what keeps the lizard beasties from making us their dinner.”

  “Has one ever made it up this high?” Shawn asked.

  “They’ve made it up,” Ivan said sourly, waving his missing appendage. I swallowed hard and looked over at Todd. He shrugged and grinned. Finished with the bolts, Ivan hobbled around his home, lighting lanterns. As pools of flickering light flooded the space, it became clear that Ivan did all of his living in one corner where a small bed, table, and stove stood. The rest of the empty space was cast into impenetrable shadows by the fading light from outside. But even though Ivan’s house was interesting, my eyes were drawn back to the spectacular view showcased through the floor-to-ceiling window. The sun, fat and red, dipped down and disappeared behind the trees, leaving waves of pink and orange in its wake. I just couldn’t get over how beautiful things were up here, especially sunsets. And I’d missed hundreds upon hundreds of them. I felt like something had been stolen from me. Brushing the thought away, I turned back to the rest of the group. While I’d stared out the window, they’d made themselves at home at Ivan’s worn wooden table. I glanced behind me, into the shadowy darkness of the rest of the skyscraper, and shivered. After living in tunnels, all this echoing openness made me nervous.

  “You’re probably hungry,” Ivan grumbled as he set a large pot on his stove and stoked the fire beneath it. Hungry was an understatement. My insides felt hollow and I realized I hadn’t eaten since the night before.

  “We have provisions,” Todd said, and he produced the large hunks of leftover raptor meat and handed it to him. Ivan sniffed it before chopping it into chunks and tossing it in the pot.

  “There is something oddly familiar about that guy,” Shawn whispered to me. I raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Really?” I asked. “I was just thinking that there was no way in the world my dad would ever know a guy like this.”

  “I’m amazed you haven’t been grilling him about your dad,” Shawn said. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I will.” I frowned. “There just hasn’t really been a chance. And he’s a little . . .” I trailed off as I watched Ivan scowling down at the stew he was stirring.

  “Terrifying?” Shawn finished for me.

  “I was going to say intimidating.” Ivan’s eyes flicked to me with that same penetrating look, and I gulped. “But terrifying works.”

  “So, Ivan, you are obviously still in the dinosaur trade,” Todd said. “Why haven’t you been by the Oaks in years?”

  Ivan glanced at Todd. “I’m semi-retired.”

  “What do you mean by semi-retired?” I asked tentatively as I sat down at his battered table. My eyes were growing accustomed to the darkness of the room, and I noticed large shadow
ed shapes against the far walls.

  “It means I only trade when it suits me. I don’t drag these old bones of mine around the woods anymore from village to village. And I no longer have to deal with every idiot who thinks they know how to haggle.”

  “Oh,” I said dumbly, looking to Todd for some guidance on how to communicate with this odd character.

  “What have you and your mom been doing to get by without your father?” Ivan asked.

  “We manage,” Todd said stiffly, then frowned. “Well. We did until these two came along.”

  I stared down at the rough wooden surface of Ivan’s table and wished I could disappear.

  “What do you mean?” Ivan asked sharply.

  Todd glanced at me, and I saw that anger still sparkled in his eyes. “I found Sky and Shawn about two minutes before they were about to get eaten. After I saved them, I brought them back to the Oaks. Next thing you know, the Noah’s guys showed up and took the entire village away in these big black flying machines called . . .” He trailed off, looking at Shawn.

  “Helicopters,” Shawn supplied.

  “Right.” Todd nodded. “Helicopters.”

  “We were followed,” I jumped in. Todd was making us sound really bad. “I’m not sure how the marines tracked Shawn and me, but they did.” When Ivan’s head snapped to stare out his window, as though he were expecting one of the Noah’s black helicopters to come bursting through the glass, I quickly added, “We got rid of everything we brought from the compound. There is no way we have a tracker on us now.” Ivan relaxed, but only a fraction.

  “What I really want to know,” he said, peering into his simmering pot, “is why the daughter of Jack Mundy is sitting in my home.” I jumped at the sound of my dad’s name, my eyes snapping up to meet his twinkling blue ones.

  “So you are the Ivan my dad mentioned in his note,” I breathed, not daring to hope. “How did you know him? Have you seen him? Do you know why he left the compound?”

  “What is your father doing sending you topside with nothing but this compound boy and the Birch brat?” Ivan asked as he began ladling food into bowls that he thrust into our hands unceremoniously

  “I prefer Todd, if it’s all the same to you,” Todd said.

  Ivan raised an eyebrow at him.

  “But Birch brat has a certain ring to it,” Todd said meekly.

  “He asked me to do something for him,” I said. “Shawn came along to help me, and we met Todd.”

  “Why didn’t he do this ‘something’ he asked you to do himself?” Ivan asked.

  “Because he disappeared five years ago,” I said, my stomach sinking in disappointment. “So you don’t know anything about my dad? He didn’t come here?”

  “Why would he come here?” Ivan asked.

  I felt myself deflate. I’d been so excited about finding Ivan, so sure he’d have answers.

  Ivan sat down at the table across from me and leaned back, tugging at his beard. “Why don’t you tell me how you came to be sitting at my kitchen table? Don’t leave out any details, even if you think they are insignificant.”

  I took a deep breath, and nodded. “I was seven the night my dad disappeared,” I began, telling him the same story I’d told Jett, Emily, and Todd only two nights before. But this time, I didn’t conveniently leave out what my compass contained. Ivan listened in stony silence, never taking his eyes off me. Getting looked at like that made me nervous, so I told most of the story staring at the dinged wood of Ivan’s table.

  “So do you know anything about the note, or the plug, or the map?” I asked, finally looking up.

  “No, I don’t.” Ivan shook his head, making his long beard swish like the hairy pendulum of a clock. “I haven’t seen your father in eleven years.”

  I wrinkled my nose in confusion. Ivan wasn’t making any sense. “Then how did you know I was his daughter?”

  He looked up at me with level blue eyes. “Because you’re a dead ringer for your mother.”

  I about choked. “What?”

  “Your mother,” Ivan repeated as though I hadn’t heard him. “I thought I was seeing a ghost walking through the woods this evening.”

  “Wait. You knew my mom too?” The hope that had died moments before flared back to life.

  “I’d say so,” Ivan said, taking a big bite of his stew. “Seeing as she was my daughter.”

  “You’re Ivan the dinosaur hunter’s granddaughter?” Todd said in awe as he looked at me with newfound respect.

  “I am?” I felt stunned and disconnected, as though maybe Ivan was telling this to someone else. This couldn’t possibly be real. Could it? My hands shook, sending the soup sloshing over the sides of my bowl. I set it down and pushed it aside.

  “You are,” Ivan confirmed. “My Clara had the same wild hair and birdlike build. Your eyes are your father’s, though.” He frowned. “A pity. Your mother’s were prettier.”

  “How in the world,” Shawn asked, “would your daughter, Sky’s mom, have come to live in a compound?”

  “What interest is it to you?” Ivan asked sharply.

  “Sky’s my friend,” Shawn said stiffly. “What concerns her concerns me.”

  Ivan looked at me. “Do you trust the compound boy?”

  “I’d trust Shawn with my life,” I said automatically, my brain still trying to process everything.

  Ivan harrumphed into his beard, looking unconvinced. “My daughter wanted a more formal education. She was into books, read everything she could get her hands on. When she turned eighteen, I helped her enter the East Compound, posing as a voluntary transfer from the South Compound so she could attend the university.”

  “But how—” Shawn began, but stopped when Ivan glared at him.

  “I have my ways, and they do not concern you,” Ivan said. “She was supposed to come back once she’d had her fill of formal schooling. She wanted to teach some of the children in the surrounding tree villages math and science and that kind of rot.” Ivan sniffed and took another bite of stew. “But she didn’t come back. She fell in love with that idiot father of yours.”

  My jaw clench defensively. “My father was brilliant.”

  “That’s what Clara said. He might have been compound smart, but he had absolutely no common sense when it came to survival. I told your mother that, but she insisted on marrying him anyway. And then she died.” He sniffed. “I always thought I’d die first, my line of work and all.”

  “But why didn’t I know about you?” I asked. My dad would have mentioned if I had a grandfather. Wouldn’t he? Maybe Ivan was mistaken.

  “Because last I checked, children are no good at keeping secrets from a government with eyes and ears everywhere,” Ivan said. “I always assumed your father would tell you about me when you were old enough.” He scrutinized me a moment, and I squirmed. “You do look like my Clara, though. Although she had the sense not to let her skin fry in the sun. Us redheaded folk must take extra precautions.” Ivan’s close-cropped hair and beard where white, but on closer inspection, I saw a few stray hairs that had retained their red color. “Didn’t they teach you anything useful in that compound school of yours?” he asked disapprovingly.

  I frowned. “Not really.”

  “It wasn’t completely useless,” Shawn protested.

  “Shawn, it was, and you know it,” I snapped. “Stop pretending it wasn’t.”

  “Hmmm,” Ivan said. “You have Clara’s temper too.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered to Shawn, not feeling very sorry at all. Turning back to Ivan, I thrust my dad’s note and map at him. “If you haven’t seen my dad in years, why did he ask me to find you?” Ivan picked up the pieces of paper and read them before laying them down on his table. “These were hidden in Jack’s compass?” he asked as he pulled another compass out of the front of his shirt.

  “You have a direction whatchadinger too?” Todd asked.

  “Whatchadinger?” Ivan snorted. “It’s called a compass.” He shook his head and mumbled som
ething that sounded like “village kids these days,” but I couldn’t be sure.

  “Can I see it?” I asked, not taking my eyes off the gleaming brass circle in his hand. When Ivan handed it to me, I held it up next to my father’s. They were almost identical. “Why do you have this?”

  “Every member of the secret society of the Colombe had one,” Ivan said.

  “What’s the Colombe?” Shawn asked.

  “Idiotic name, isn’t it,” Ivan said. “It was your father’s idea, Sky. It’s the word dove in Italian or French or some such nonsense.”

  “My dad loved languages,” I murmured, remembering a long-ago life where languages were woven into the fabric of every day. “But why dove?” Ivan ignored me as he reread the note from my dad. He set it down sharply on the table. “Your father was an idiot,” he said after a moment. Before I could protest, Ivan went on, muttering more to himself than us as he scowled down at the bowl. “Sending you aboveground with no training and the barest of clues to go off. Jack Mundy, what were you thinking?”

  I sat up, my spine straightening. “He was thinking that I could handle it.” When Ivan didn’t say anything, I scowled. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”

  “You are,” Shawn agreed.

  “Of course she is,” Ivan snapped. “She’s my granddaughter, isn’t she?” He frowned down at my untouched supper. “Eat the rest of that. I don’t let food go to waste.” I grimaced. My hunger from moments before had disappeared, but I picked up my spoon anyway and forced myself to take a bite.

  “The Colombe.” Ivan sighed. “I guess I better start at the beginning. I met your father fifteen years ago. I relocated east when Clara insisted on going to that compound university.” I could tell by his expression that he hadn’t agreed with her decision. Ivan took a big bite of stew and continued. “While she was at that university, she met a few other students who didn’t buy into all the dinosaur dung the Noah was flinging about.”