by Laura Martin
“We can take them back to your office for you,” Chaz offered.
Boz shook his head, carefully closing the box. “It’s quite all right. I will take them.” He didn’t say it, but it was obvious that he didn’t trust us with the technology that could save the world. “What are you four doing here? I thought I made it clear that this was a private council meeting.”
“That would be my fault,” I said, not wanting Chaz to get assigned any more stall-mucking duties we’d be required to help her with. “I was hoping we could hear something a little sooner? Do we really have to wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m afraid you do,” Boz said, not unkindly. “And these” – he patted the box under his arm – “need to go through one last round of tests. There are still a few major glitches in them, and we wouldn’t want them to malfunction on us, now would we?” He turned and started walking down the hallway.
“We’d better go,” Chaz said after a minute when I made no move to leave.
“I guess you’re right,” I sighed, turning to follow her down the hall, but I paused when I saw Todd’s face. I’d expected him to look angry at Boz’s refusal to share the plan with us, but instead he looked smug.
“Todd?” I asked. Instead of responding, he shot a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure the coast was clear before slipping his hand out of his pocket to reveal one of Boz’s tiny plugs.
“Looks like he missed one,” he said, and the slightest smirk pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“You hid that one on purpose,” Chaz accused.
Todd shrugged. “And if I did? Don’t you think we have a right to know what this big plan is that we’ve been waiting around for?” It was as though he’d read my mind, and I bit my lip, considering. Todd saw my hesitation, and a wide grin of triumph spread across his face. He knew he’d won. Just then we heard Boz’s footsteps coming back down the tunnel towards the conference room.
“This way,” Chaz whispered, leading us down another tunnellike hallway. We followed her at a run, finally stopping a few minutes later to catch our breath.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Just another section of the conference wing.” Chaz shrugged. “I figured since the entire section shut down for the meeting, we’d be safe.”
“Let me see that plug,” Shawn said. Todd handed it over, and Shawn held it up to the light. He turned to Chaz. “Do you have your port with you?” She nodded, reaching in her pack to pull out the slim black device. Shawn took it, producing his own bulky makeshift port from his bag. He’d cobbled it together from leftover parts back at North Compound and managed to keep it in one piece through all our wild travels. It was a minor miracle. My own journal was looking much the worse for wear these days. Just yesterday one of the baby sauropeltas had got ahold of it and chewed up a corner. I noticed that his old port now had a shiny glass shell surrounding it and gave him a questioning look.
“What’s that?” I asked, reaching over to poke the case.
“A waterproof case,” he said distractedly. “Everyone else’s port down here has one, and there were a few extras in the supply room.” He gave Chaz a nervous glance, and I got the uneasy feeling that he hadn’t exactly asked permission before taking the case. Sometimes my best friend could help himself when it came to new technology, a trait that had earned him almost as many work details as me back at North. “After my little swim with Pretty Boy, I decided waterproofing might be in my best interest.” I decided to let it drop. Sensing he’d won, he turned his attention back to inspecting the small holes in the side of each of the ports. A moment later he slid his old port back in his pocket and slipped Boz’s plug into Chaz’s port. Nothing happened for a second, and then the screen flashed a bright white before going black.
“Uh-oh,” Shawn said as he pressed futilely at the power button. Finally, he sat back. “It’s dead,” he announced in disappointment.
“Dead!” Chaz squawked, yanking the port out of his hands. “What do you mean it’s dead? I just got this two months ago!”
“Sorry.” Shawn grimaced, looking sheepish. “I didn’t know that plug would kill it …” He trailed off, a far-off look in his eyes. Chaz looked like she was contemplating decking him when he suddenly jerked upright and stared at us. “It killed it,” he repeated, snatching it back out of Chaz’s hands.
“Yeah.” She scowled. “We caught that the first time.”
“No.” Shawn shook his head as he held up the blank port excitedly. “Like it’s really dead.”
“As opposed to just kind of dead?” Todd asked, but Shawn flapped an impatient hand at him to be quiet.
“That has to be what the plug does. It kills hard drives. They must be planning on somehow messing with the Noah’s technology.”
What he was saying finally clicked into place, and I understood what my best friend was getting at. I grinned at him. “It would be pretty hard to launch a nuclear attack if the technology that works the bombs died.”
Shawn was nodding excitedly. “Even if they can’t destroy the technology that controls the bombs, that many plugs could do enough damage to at least delay the bomb launch. The Noah isn’t going to start destroying the topside world when his compound isn’t in perfect working condition. Especially if the technology damaged requires replacement parts from other compounds. If nothing else, it buys us some time.”
“My dad,” I whispered as realization hit me.
“What about him?” Shawn asked.
“Boz said that they got the idea for the plugs from my dad.” I grinned. “It all makes sense now. Remember his message? If Boz hadn’t entered the correct code, his little plug was going to corrupt all the surrounding ports!”
“Wow,” Shawn said, sounding awed. “Do you think your dad put that feature in to try to ruin the Noah’s plan? Even if you both failed?”
A smile spread across my face as I stared at the black screen of Chaz’s port. Good one, Dad, I thought silently. You really did think of everything, didn’t you? But no sooner had this thought crossed my mind than I remembered that he hadn’t thought about everything. He hadn’t thought about me.
“That tiny thing can do all that?” Todd asked sceptically, interrupting my thoughts as Shawn pulled the plug out of Chaz’s dead port.
“I hope it can,” I said, taking the tiny plug carefully from Shawn’s hand. Chaz reached to take her port back, but before she could, Shawn let out a surprised yelp and dropped it.
“I know it’s dead,” Chaz said, scowling, “but you don’t have to throw it around like that.”
“Don’t touch it,” Shawn cautioned with a grimace as he stuck his fingers in his mouth. “It just got really, really hot.” A second later the port sparked, and then with a sharp pop it burst into flames.
“Well,” Todd said, stepping forward to stamp the flames out, “that is pretty impressive for a tiny thing that looks like poop.” I nodded, glancing from the tiny plug in my hand to the blackened port screen on the floor as I waved away the small cloud of metallic-smelling smoke.
“But how are they going to get them to East Compound? Let alone break in there and get these placed?” Shawn wondered out loud.
Todd raised a questioning eyebrow. “East Compound?”
“It’s the largest of the four compounds,” Shawn explained. “It was built using the underground subway systems of New York City, and it’s gigantic. It’s the most logical place for those bombs to be. It’s also the Noah’s home base, so those plugs would do the most damage there.”
Using my thumbnail, I unscrewed the back of my compass. Boz’s plug went inside it, nestled into the slot where my dad’s plug used to be housed. I didn’t want anything to happen to it until I could return it to Boz for that extra testing he’d mentioned.
“Uh, guys?” Todd said. Something in his voice made us all turn to look at him. He was facing the glass wall of the tunnel, looking out into the murky lake. “What’s that?”
We scrambled to his side to look ou
t through the glass wall of our tunnel. The Lincoln Lab sprawled out before us, an interconnected web of glass tunnels connecting bubble-shaped buildings. The lights from the lab illuminated the surrounding water in a warm yellow light that seemed to push back against the darkness of the lake. It took me a second to spot what Todd was talking about, but when I did my brow furrowed in confusion. A small silver ball was dropping swiftly through the water towards the top of the conference wing directly opposite our tunnel. A plesiosaur was swimming around the strange object, bumping it with its nose as though testing to see if the ball was eatable. We stood frozen as it sank the last few feet onto the roof of the conference wing. There was a half second of silence, followed by an ear-shattering boom. I screamed as an entire section of the conference wing collapsed in a flash of red roiling bubbles. The ground under our feet shook in the aftershock and tiny hairline cracks zigzagged their way along the tunnel wall we were looking through, making the view blurry and fractured.
“There’s more!” Shawn cried. Above our heads five more of the silver balls were floating innocently downward, one directly above our heads. Chaz flew into action, sprinting down the tunnel away from the conference wing towards a panel in the tunnel wall. She hit a red button and yelled into the speaker: “Sector F has been compromised! We are under attack! Institute full lockdown!”
I turned to look back out of the tunnel and saw another of the silver balls illuminated by the lab lights. My breath caught when I noticed the symbol shining on the side of the ball: a golden ark. A second later, thick metal plates slammed shut over the entire tunnel, throwing us into an eerie darkness.
Flashing emergency lights clicked on a moment later, but before I could process what was happening, Chaz had grabbed my arm and was yanking me after her. “We need to get to a lockdown location,” she said, shouting to be heard over the blaring alarm.
“What’s going on?” Shawn yelled as he and Todd stumbled into action a moment later and followed.
“We’re under attack!” Chaz called over her shoulder. “Stay with me!” We were halfway down the hallway when we heard an explosion and the floor rocked violently under our feet. Immediately the pressure in the tunnel changed and a stabbing pain lanced through my head.
“Clear your ears!” Chaz called. “Another one must have hit before the tunnel armour was in place.” A deafening roar filled the tunnel, making it impossible to hear anything else. Flashing red emergency sirens illuminated the tunnels in a bloody light as we sprinted down the labyrinth of abandoned hallways. If Chaz wasn’t with us, we would have got lost within seconds. Rounding a corner, we came face-to-face with a thick metal wall. Chaz shrieked in frustration as we skidded to a stop, and I looked around in confusion. This wall had never been there before.
“We’re too late,” she yelled. “This part of the lab has been locked down. We’re cut off to prevent flooding. We have to get to an emergency elevator.” We turned left and sprinted down a corridor I’d never seen before.
Suddenly a panicked Schwartz came flying out of a side tunnel in front of us before ducking into another corridor.
“Follow him!” Chaz yelled. We did, keeping his fleeing form in sight turn after turn. The roaring sound from behind us was getting louder by the second, and a quick glance over my shoulder revealed a terrifying sight. Rushing through the narrow tunnels was a solid, black wall of debris-filled water. And it was gaining on us. Fast. I rounded a curve and saw Schwartz throw himself into a small elevator, the doors already sliding shut.
“Wait!” I cried. Putting on a burst of speed, I dived at the last moment and managed to slip my hand between the elevator doors. They slid back open just as Todd, Shawn, and Chaz hurled themselves inside. Schwartz jabbed frantically at the buttons on the panel, his eyes wide and panicked. A second before the wall of water hit, I realised that we were too late. It careered into us just as the doors began to slide shut. I grabbed on to Chaz and Shawn as the icy water tried to pull us back out of the elevator. The cold was unlike anything I’d ever felt, and my muscles seized painfully in protest.
I felt a sharp thrust upward as the doors closed the last few inches, cutting off the chaos. The elevator began to rise. We stood in chest-deep water, staring at one another in stunned silence. I immediately began to shiver.
“You almost killed me!” Schwartz sputtered as he attempted to hold a small black machine above the water level.
“Yeah, right back at ya,” Todd stuttered through chattering teeth. Before he could say anything else, the elevator jerked suddenly, and we all threw our hands out to brace ourselves. The elevator made a strange squealing noise that made my teeth hurt before continuing its shaky ascent towards the surface.
“Too much weight,” Schwartz muttered, looking around the small steel elevator nervously. “Much too much weight. We must have at least two hundred gallons of water in here – no, four hundred.”
“Why weren’t you in the council meeting?” Chaz asked. “Where are the other council members? Where is Boz?”
Schwartz didn’t say anything, but there was something in his expression that made me feel sick.
I clapped my hand to my mouth in horror as something else hit me. “Is the whole lab being flooded?” I asked, thinking of the hundreds of people and dinosaurs still inside. People and dinosaurs I’d come to like and care about in the short time I’d been at the Lincoln Lab.
“No,” Schwartz said. “Chaz’s warning instituted the lockdown and the tunnel armor. I believe the flooding is contained to the conference wing.”
Todd narrowed his eyes. “It’s awfully convenient you weren’t in there.”
Before Schwartz had time to respond, a low, ominous beeping began. The emergency lights in the elevator clicked on, throwing us all into a sickly yellow light that reflected dully off the water. Then the elevator stopped.
This elevator was made of steel, not glass, so we could be three or 300 feet below the surface and we wouldn’t know the difference. Schwartz pounded on the elevator buttons in a very un-scientist-like way that did nothing to make me feel better about this situation. I was having a hard time breathing, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the icy water surrounding me or from the fear squeezing my insides. My eyes darted around the dim interior of the tiny elevator, and it hit me that it might not be either of those things. I had no idea how much air four people needed to survive, but it was probably more than we currently had trapped inside this elevator with us.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.” Todd panted, his breath coming out in short, frantic little puffs as his fingernails attempted to dig into the steel sides of the elevator.
“Relax,” I commanded, amazed at how calm I sounded. I looked into the terrified eyes of my friends. If someone had to have it together, that someone might as well be me. “We don’t have much air in here,” I told Todd. “Don’t hyperventilate it all.”
“Not,” Todd puffed, “helpful.”
“Sky’s right: this thing is airtight, and if you keep yelling, we’ll all be dead in minutes,” Chaz said.
“Why did it stop?” I asked Schwartz.
“Two possibilities,” he said grimly. “Either too much weight overheated the engine, or this section of the lab has lost power.”
“How close to the surface do you think we are?” Shawn asked, interrupting us.
Chaz shook her head. “No clue. Normally I would have been able to time it, but I think the water slowed us down.”
“If we get the elevator doors open, can we swim it?” Todd asked, his eyes wide and wild as he sloshed over to look at the panel of buttons.
Chaz looked doubtful. “Maybe. The pressure might kill us the minute we open the doors. Or a plesiosaur might eat us. Or we’ll run out of oxygen before we make it to the surface.”
“Oh,” Shawn said, groaning. “Is that all?”
“If we stay down here,” Todd growled, “we die. Period. At least out there we have a chance.”
“Great plan, but do you remember what lives o
ut there?” Shawn shot back. “Because I do. One of them was named Pretty Boy.”
“This isn’t helping,” I said. “We’re just using up oxygen. Swimming for it isn’t ideal, but we don’t have time to come up with anything better. Dr Schwartz, how much longer do you think the air will hold in here?” His face was a sickly yellow as he turned to me.
“Ten minutes, max, but I’m actually beginning to worry that if we don’t get out of here soon, the elevator might start descending. It’s a safety measure we installed a few years back in case of a malfunction.”
“Why wouldn’t you program it to go up?” Todd shouted. Schwartz ignored him, scowling down at the small machine in his hands as he began twisting knobs and turning dials.
“Then we need to get these doors open and swim for it before that happens.” Chaz panted as she braced her shoulder in the crease of the door and shoved. Todd, Shawn, and I immediately joined her, our fingers digging into the metal.
Moments later the door gave way and icy water rushed in, slamming me against the back of the elevator. Shawn’s panicked face flashed in front of me, and I reached for his hand but missed as we plunged into icy darkness.
I scrambled desperately through the pitch-black water towards where I had last seen the door. Other bodies moved around mine, the water a writhing mass of flailing limbs. My hands met solid metal. Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic, I instructed myself as I pawed blindly along the endless wall of the elevator. The thing wasn’t that big, was it? I’d never been forced to hold my breath this long before, and the pressure in my chest seemed to be building by the second. I no longer felt the brush of bodies against mine, and despite the impenetrable darkness, I knew I was alone. What if the door had closed again? My lungs tightened, and the dark water pressed in, making my ears and head throb. As I felt my way up the wall, my hand broke the surface of the water. The elevator had tilted, trapping air in one of the corners.