“That’s just fine, boys,” Mrs. Clawson said. Emmet thought her voice sounded like sandpaper. He had no idea how old she was. The Florida sun had baked her skin to the color of brown clay. She could be fifty or eighty. “It’s so nice to see young people taking their schooling so seriously. Emmet, I do hope the police find your Apollo before that awful man harms that sweet puppy. I just saw on the news what he was doing. Poor Apollo. Those awful creatures! What would possess a man to do something like that?”
“I really don’t know,” Calvin said. “But going to the library will keep Emmet’s mind off it. Come on, Emmet. Thanks, Mrs. Clawson.”
Calvin herded Emmet toward the garage, where two mountain bikes were parked. One belonged to Dr. Geaux. It was pretty cool, even if it was teal. Emmet didn’t care. He just wanted to find his dog.
“What was she talking about? Apollo and those ‘awful creatures’?” Emmet asked him.
“I don’t know. She’s not all there half the time,” Calvin said, pointing to his head. “I think game shows have rotted her brain. Let’s ride.”
Calvin picked up a backpack and ambled over to the tool bench in the back of the garage. He put some stuff inside, but Emmet couldn’t see what it was. With Calvin, probably a miniature bulldozer or a bazooka. Calvin slung on the backpack, got on his bike, and left the garage before Emmet could ask any questions.
They had to wait for one of the bigger, articulated buses. In Florida City you could bring your bike on these double-size models. It was a city ordinance passed to promote health and wellness, and cut down on traffic. One of them stopped and opened its center door, and they carried their bikes aboard. It took forty-five minutes until they reached the southernmost stop, closest to Undersea Land.
Once off the bus, they wasted no time. Calvin pedaled so hard Emmet almost couldn’t keep up. Only a few minutes later they arrived at the abandoned amusement park. It sat far back off the road, and the parking lots around it were now cracked and overgrown with weeds. The gigantic fence encircling the park made the place look like some derelict military camp. The place was kind of eerie, even in the daylight. Add the fact that Emmet was convinced Calvin knew something he wasn’t telling, and Emmet’s nervousness grew. He also knew trying to get Calvin to reveal something he didn’t want to would take hours. They didn’t have that kind of time.
They rode around the entire park looking for a way in. There wasn’t one. The construction fence was solid steel and only had two entrances, both of them big enough to drive trucks and bulldozers through, but also currently chained and locked. The gates at the entrances were even more intimidating. They were composed of double doors with large metal brackets in the center. A thick chain ran through the brackets and was fastened with a large tempered-steel padlock. Emmet was getting a little weirded out. Something told him this was the place. Why would somebody go to this much trouble for a giant fence? It would have cost a lot to enclose a place like this. Why all the extra expense? Unless you were trying to hide something.
And he didn’t know how, but there was one thing he was sure of.
Apollo was here.
DR. CATALYST CHASED APOLLO FOR TWO HOURS THAT night, until he finally cornered him near one of the old food stands. Apollo tried to bite him again, but he managed to grab the wiggling canine by the scruff of the neck. The little mutt had put up a valiant effort, but he was only a dog. Dr. Catalyst offered him a treat from his pocket, but Apollo refused to eat it, as if his judgment of Dr. Catalyst’s character was final and not subject to appeal.
Dr. Catalyst was halfway back to the aquarium with Apollo in his arms when he realized something. The tablet. The dog didn’t have it. Where had it gone? He hustled back inside the building and placed Apollo in the cage. He was taking no chance of letting him escape again.
Dr. Catalyst had a great deal of work to do before the morning. First, find the tablet. He went back outside and looked at the tracking screen: The red dot was stationary.
He walked to the spot where the GPS said it should be. It was an open area between the Poseidon’s Log Flume ride and Sammy the Shrimp’s House of Mirrors. He checked his phone again, and the dot started blinking. He cursed. He wasn’t getting an accurate reading because the tablet was losing its charge. The mutt must have damaged it.
This was an inconvenience, but not a catastrophe. There was a second set of controls in the operations room at the aquarium. He could raise the cage manually and set the timer from the backup system.
He activated another application on his phone, which shut down the tablet remotely. Given its low power reading, he couldn’t be sure it worked, but he would worry about that later. The chances of it being discovered were not great, and everything on it was encrypted and password protected.
Back in the aquarium, he struggled mightily to turn the crank on the winch that manually raised the cage. As he heaved and pulled, he cursed the entire Doyle family, including their dog. Finally, it was positioned over the tank. Apollo sat on his haunches, staring at Dr. Catalyst as he rose in the air. The mutt would not break eye contact, so Dr. Catalyst looked away. He removed the handle to the winch, taking it inside the control room, where he locked it in a cabinet. He then set the timer on the mechanism that would open the cage bottom.
The hour was growing late, and it was time to remove some of the Muraecudas out of the tank and deliver them to the ocean. Hopefully there was still enough darkness for cover. If there were more of them sighted before the deadline, if they attacked additional swimmers or caused more havoc, the governor and the task force would have to change their minds. Apollo would be saved.
Getting the creatures out of the tanks was relatively easy. The main tank had metal grates that lowered from the ceiling and sectioned it into three parts. When the aquarium was open and shows were going on, the trainers used these grates to herd the dolphins or seals into holding pens that were sectioned off from the main tanks by Plexiglas doors. These holding pens were out of sight beneath the bleachers and were where the animals were housed when there was no show. Each of the pens was accessible by tunnels beneath the aquarium so keepers and trainers could tend to the animals.
Dr. Catalyst had modified the holding pens, making them smaller so he could more easily remove the Muraecudas. He pushed a button and one of the thick Plexiglas panels rose. At the rear of one of the pens he lowered a mesh bag filled with lionfish into the water. Water overflowed the sides of the pen as the hydrostatic pressure from the aquarium pushed it up and over. Drains in the floor collected the salt water, cleaned and filtered it, and pumped it back into the main tank.
Quicker than he could have ever imagined, six of the beasts swam into the pen, and he immediately lowered the gate. Their sense of smell was incredible. They were insatiable, ripping open the bag and devouring the fish.
Moving the Muraecudas was the most dangerous part of the job. They were vicious and ravenously hungry. Once one of them had slipped out of the net he used to transfer them from the pen. It landed on the floor, and even though it was out of the water, its body went berserk, jaws snapping as it tried to reach him. The Muraecudas were made to fight and feed, and he could not afford an accident. One lucky bite and he could bleed out before he could get help.
Finally, his work was complete and they were safely aboard the boat. Starting it up, he turned the bow south toward the ocean and disappeared into the darkness.
EMMET POUNDED ON THE GATE IN FRUSTRATION.
“He’s here. I know it,” he said. “Only there’s no way in. I don’t suppose you thought to bring a ladder, did you?”
“No,” Calvin said. “But I did bring my cell phone. We could call my mom or Stuke’s dad. Somebody could be here in minutes.”
Emmet seriously considered it. He didn’t care about getting in trouble. Apollo was all that mattered. But if they called and Apollo was not there, then they were in huge trouble regardless. Plus, they would have pulled them away from the search. He didn’t know what to do.
&nbs
p; “What’s it going to be?” Calvin prodded him.
“Answer a question first. You’re keeping something from me. What was Mrs. Clawson talking about? Something about Apollo and Dr. Catalyst. Please don’t lie to me, Calvin. I need to know,” Emmet said.
Calvin sighed. He punched a couple buttons on his phone and handed it to Emmet. It was a photo of Apollo suspended above the tank of Muraecudas.
“He posted another video. I overheard my mom talking about it. Don’t get mad at her or your dad, Emmet….”
“What? Why? What is he going to do?” Emmet was completely distraught.
“If the governor doesn’t close the beaches and my mom doesn’t close the Everglades and stop hunting the Pterogators by ten A.M., a timer will go off and the floor of the cage will open. Apollo —”
Emmet looked at the time on the phone. It was 9:45.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought they’d find him by now! Honest, I did! Everyone is looking! Off-duty policemen, firemen, volunteers … I thought —”
“There’s no time to call now. How are we going to get in?”
Calvin shrugged out of his backpack and removed what looked like a giant pair of pliers from it.
“With these,” he said. “The chain looks too thick, but it’s all I’ve got.” He slipped the blades over a link of the chain holding the gate shut. Of course the chain was high-quality tempered steel, but these would have to do.
“Who are you?” Emmet asked. “Why do you have bolt cutters?”
“They were my dad’s,” Calvin said as he groaned with the effort. “I have all of his tools. Right now I wish he’d owned a bigger pair of bolt cutters.”
Emmet put his hands over Calvin’s and pulled hard, wedging his feet against the gate and leaning back to gain as much leverage as possible. Using every bit of strength they possessed, they dug in. When the bolt cutters finally snapped through the chain, both of them tumbled to the ground.
“Hurry!” Emmet said, scrambling to his feet.
Pulling the chain from the gate, Emmet and Calvin opened it and charged through. Off to the south they saw the aquarium building, and they headed for it at a dead run. There was a ramped entrance on both ends of the rectangular building. The ramps led to the top of the amphitheater. From there, visitors had to enter the rows of bleachers. They headed left and raced up the concrete walkway, only to find their way blocked by a locked steel door. Emmet wanted to look at the time on his phone but was afraid to.
“Come on!” Emmet said, hurrying back down the ramp. Knowing the other ramp would lead to a similarly locked door, Emmet raced around toward the back of the building. There had to be other ways inside, like a staff entrance or emergency exits.
At the rear of the aquarium, right next to the construction fence, was another door. Just a regular, ordinary locked door. Calvin stepped forward, holding the bolt cutters in one hand, and swung with all his might. He hit the doorknob squarely and knocked it off completely. He jammed the head of the bolt cutters into the opening and, using them like a lever, put his weight into it and yanked on the handles. The door popped open.
Emmet pulled his phone from his pocket. It was now 9:50. They had ten minutes.
DR. CATALYST WAS SPEEDING BACK UP THE RIVER IN HIS boat. Last night’s trip to release the Muraecudas had taken much longer than planned. Finding a suitable place had proven difficult. A storm was rising, and once he was out in the sound, the wind had picked up. The waves had gotten rough. The boat could handle them, but in order to safely free the creatures, the water needed to be relatively calm. If he opened the release panel on the bottom of the boat in high seas, the boat could take on too much water and founder before the pumps could clear the tank.
He had been forced to stay in the harbor longer than anticipated. All the while, he’d debated returning to the aquarium, but once he’d loaded the creatures onto the boat, he preferred to let them go. The harbor was not a suitable location, for the lionfish fed in deeper water, and if Dr. Catalyst’s creatures nested there, it would be that much easier to capture and remove them.
The waters had finally calmed, and he’d piloted his boat into the sound, turning east toward Miami and the more popular beaches. The closer to the major metropolitan areas the better. Once the release was completed, he’d realized he had traveled a longer distance and would need to hustle to make it back to the aquarium.
Throughout the night he kept the onboard radio tuned to a local all-news station. He heard his name mentioned frequently in the discussions among the newscasters and journalists. But no word from the governor’s office about closing the beaches or Everglades.
Part of him was not surprised. After all, he had put them in a difficult position. They did not understand his true intentions. Calling him a terrorist when he was in fact a brilliant scientist had only made matters much worse. It confused the issue. Instead of having a genuine discussion, or allowing the benefits of his work to take root, the system was out to stop him.
There was nothing he could do now. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t given them a chance. If they refused to listen, he was powerless. From here on out, anything that happened was on their shoulders.
As he traveled up the river, drawing near Undersea Land, Dr. Catalyst’s phone buzzed in his pocket. The screen blinked, showing an alarm had been tripped at the aquarium. The phone was functioning as his tablet until he could secure a new one. He pulled up the on-site cameras and flipped through their feeds. In the control room he saw something truly shocking.
Emmet Doyle and Calvin Geaux. Calvin was sitting at the console, studying the board, and Emmet was gesturing wildly behind him.
He pulled back the throttle, and the boat sped up the river toward the dock. From a drawer in the console he removed a ski mask and placed it in a pocket of the blue coveralls he wore.
Somehow they had found him again.
AS SOON AS THEY RAN THROUGH THE DOOR, EMMET heard barking.
“Apollo!” Emmet shouted. Upon hearing Emmet, Apollo upped the barking to truly stupendous levels. Racing into the main arena, they saw the tank full of slithering Muraecudas and Apollo suspended in the cage above them.
“How are we going to get him down?” Emmet said.
“Don’t know,” said Calvin. He looked at the cage and the boom it hung from. An electric winch attached it to the aquarium wall. He sprinted over and studied the box, but the entire mechanism was enclosed inside the metal. He didn’t see a switch or crank, or any way for it to be moved.
“There has to be a way to operate this thing in the control room,” Calvin said. “Come on.”
Emmet followed and stood behind him while he studied the controls. Calvin was good at mechanical stuff, but to Emmet, this console with its dozens of switches and blinking lights looked like something you’d find on a spaceship. He had no idea if Calvin could figure it out or not. Apollo’s barking was making him crazy, so he sprinted back to the tank.
“Hey, buddy! How’s my boy?” he shouted up to Apollo, who immediately stopped barking and wagged his tail.
“We’re going to get you down! Don’t worry!” he said. Apollo barked again, scratching at the cage with his paw. Emmet moved closer to the side of the tank.
Suddenly, one of the Muraecudas launched itself at him, hitting the glass with an alarmingly loud thump.
“Holy — !” Emmet jumped and scrambled backward. All he could see was a really ugly face and some of the largest, scariest teeth he’d ever encountered. They were longer than the Pterogators’, and there were rows and rows of them. They jutted out of the creature’s jaws at odd angles and protruded when it closed its mouth. The thing backed up and lunged forward, hitting the glass again. It shook its head as if stunned.
“Not so bright, are you?!” Emmet screamed at it. The Muraecuda took no notice of his outrage, swimming away.
The time on Emmet’s cell phone now said 9:59.
“Calvin! You better think of something!”
; “I’m working on it!”
Emmet heard a whirring sound. He looked up to see the bottom of the cage flip open and Apollo tumble out, landing with a splash in the tank a few feet below.
Without thinking, Emmet scrambled up the side of the tank and dived into the water.
He was going to save his dog.
CALVIN WAS SO INTENT ON STUDYING THE BOARD before him, he didn’t hear or see the man in the mask enter the control room. A bright red button labeled EMERGENCY PURGE had his full attention. He had no idea what it meant. Actually he had an idea, he just didn’t know for sure if he should push the button.
The other reason he didn’t hear the man come through the door was all the screaming Emmet was doing. The small monitor on the console showed the tank, and he had watched in horror as the bottom of the cage flipped open and Apollo tumbled into the water, followed immediately by Emmet scaling the side of the tank like a ninja and plunging in after him. Now Emmet was holding a sputtering Apollo in one arm, treading water with the other, and trying to keep his eyes on the Muraecudas that were circling ever closer.
Calvin felt something cold and metallic touch the back of his neck.
A voice said, “Slowly — very slowly — stand up and back away from the console.”
Calvin knew who it was immediately. He would never forget that voice. He did as he was ordered and stood, his arms raised at the elbows. When he turned around there was a man in a ski mask, wearing blue coveralls and pointing a gun at him. Emmet had been right all along. It was definitely the same guy. He held the gun in his left hand this time, and the ring and pinkie fingers on his right were curled up and twisted. The Pterogator bite must have torn up the ligaments.
“What am I going to do with you two?” Dr. Catalyst said.
This was when Calvin wished Emmet were here. Emmet would say something snarky and get under Dr. Catalyst’s skin. He would think of a diversion. That was not Calvin’s game. He said the only thing he could think of.
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