Omega City

by Diana Peterfreund

  DEDICATION

  For Luke and Brian,

  my brothers and fellow adventurers

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1: Post-Nuclear Family

  2: Attack of the Paper Clip

  3: A Scan, a Plan, a Pizza Man

  4: Lost and Last

  5: Space Case

  6: Pluto Is a Planet

  7: Fake School Projects

  8: The Missing Moon

  9: The Battle of the Boulder

  10: The World Below

  11: The Impossible Comet

  12: The Midnight Sea

  13: Cage Match

  14: The Very Messy Mess Hall

  15: Guns, Worms, and Steel

  16: Under Pressure

  17: Unseen Depths

  18: Voices from Beyond

  19: Speaker of the Louse

  20: Blind Flight

  21: The Glass Garden

  22: Creatures from the Really Black Lagoon

  23: Silo

  24: The Man in the Chair

  25: Lift-off

  26: The Forgotten Fortress

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  EPIGRAPH

  Some secrets are small—the size of a battery,

  or a button, or a scrap of paper. Other secrets are so

  big they can bury a man alive, or tear apart a family . . .

  or even destroy the world.

  Omega City was both.

  1

  POST-NUCLEAR FAMILY

  IT STARTED WITH A FIRE. WHEN ERIC AND I WALKED THROUGH THE FRONT door, we were met by a wall of gray haze filling the rooms of the cottage, hot and thick and smelling very strongly of charred meat.

  My brother gave me a look. “Third time this month.”

  “You get the oven,” I suggested, coughing. “I’ll make sure Dad’s still conscious.” I headed down the narrow, smoky hall to his office.

  Dad was bent over his desk, reading a file, his glasses inches from the page. “Dad!” I shouted as I rushed to the window, released the locks, and shoved them open. “Didn’t you see the smoke?”

  He blinked at the murky room, stacked wall to wall with books, papers, and Cold War artifacts. “What a relief. I thought my eyesight was going.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. One day he’d get so wrapped up in work he’d burn the house down. “Were you trying to cook again? Did you forget to set the timer?”

  “So that’s what that sound was,” he said sheepishly, then brightened. “But, Gillian, I got an email from the diner owner over in Reistertown.”

  For a moment, I forgot about the fire. “Really?” My historian father had been trying to track down that guy for over a month. He usually interviewed actual scientists or politicians for his books, but ever since the scandal, most of his sources wouldn’t return his calls.

  “He says there were definitely two men at the table with President Reagan that night, not one like it says in the official record.”

  I clapped my hands and leaned over to check out his screen. “And he thinks one of them might have been Dr. Underberg? Are you going to call him back?” If Dad could get verification from one source, even if it was just the guy pouring coffee at a diner thirty years ago, it would help to verify the claims he made in his book. One fact down, nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go.

  Eric appeared at the door, wearing oven mitts and holding a smoldering pan. “Space rocks for dinner again, Dad?”

  “Oh dear,” said Dad as we dragged our attention away from his discovery. “That was supposed to be a roast.”

  “Well, it’s definitely roasted.”

  Dad took the charred hunk of meat off my brother’s hands, frowning down at it like it was just another mystery to be solved.

  Paper Clip, our yellow cat, had emerged from whatever spot she’d taken shelter in when the smoke started, and now had her whiskered nose working overtime.

  “Out of here, cat,” Dad said. “I wouldn’t give this mess to my worst enemy, and you’re only my tenth worst.”

  She rubbed her cheek against Dad’s pant leg in response. Paper Clip’s named after a secret post–World War Two operation to smuggle former Nazi scientists into America to help win the Cold War, despite what an obviously huge no-no that should have been. Dad chose the name because Eric and I sneaked her in one night despite the strict house policy against pets, and she was here for a week before Dad wondered why we were all suddenly eating so much tuna.

  “Maybe I could throw together some pasta?” Dad wondered aloud, and wandered off to the kitchen.

  “Uh-oh. I’ll get the fire extinguisher,” Eric whispered to me.

  “Come on,” I said, “he can’t wreck pasta.”

  “Depends on your definition of ‘wreck.’” Eric headed into the hall. He was right. I’d never forget Dad’s invention of peanut-butter-and-jelly spaghetti.

  I fanned the rest of the smoke out the window with the map of Area 51 Dad used for his “Roswell Secrets” lectures. When the air cleared, I closed everything up and made sure the locks and the anti-tampering devices were back in place. Dad was militant about security. You would be, too, if you knew the stuff he knew.

  When Dad was still a professor at the university, his classes were all about the Cold War—the time in the twentieth century when everyone was pretty sure that any second, Russia and the USA were going to nuke the whole world. My parents were still in high school when the Cold War ended, and Dad says that when he was our age, they used to do nuclear bomb drills at school the way we have fire drills. Not that it would have done much good—everyone knows you can’t survive a nuclear blast just by hiding under your desk.

  Dad’s specialty is Cold War conspiracies, classified intelligence stuff, atomic age secrets, things like that. You used to be able to find his books everywhere, and he was even on TV a couple of times. His latest book, World Power, was about Aloysius Underberg, a really brilliant Cold War engineer. He worked for the government, but not on nuclear bombs—no one was more afraid of the bomb than Dr. Underberg. So he invented things for people to use for after humans destroyed the world, like air purifiers and food that never spoiled and special basements where people could protect themselves from nuclear radiation. He also worked for NASA on space stations and suits and other technology that helped people survive on missions. Astronaut ice cream? That was his idea. His greatest invention was a battery that would supposedly last a hundred years. But unlike astronaut ice cream, the battery went missing years ago. And so did Dr. Underberg.

  Dad’s book tells the whole story. You can’t buy it anymore, though. You may have heard about the scandal on the news last year. The one about the history professor who lost his job and his reputation after he published a book full of “faulty and fraudulent research.”

  Yes, that’s the exact quote. It’s easy to memorize after the tenth newspaper article calling your father names.

  It’s not true, of course. Dad’s good at his job. And that’s why getting this diner owner to confirm that President Reagan took that meeting with Underberg was such a big deal, the first step toward proving that the stuff Dad wrote in his book was true all along.

  I went out to the living room to find Eric already stationed at his usual spot in front of the TV, video game controller in hand, even though I knew he hadn’t done his homework yet.

  “Better not let Dad see you with that.”

  “Mail’s here” was his only reply. He swiped a hand across his eyes and kicked the paper-strewn coffee table, leaving a new scuff on its battered top. There were a few bills, some with a tell
tale “Past Due” stamp on the envelope, and a couple of very thin letters from universities I’d never even heard of. More rejections, probably. No one wanted a history professor with Dad’s reputation. Finally, I saw the source of my brother’s bad mood: an envelope nearly plastered over with stamps was already torn open and tossed aside. Mom.

  I gave my brother a look. “What did she say?”

  He shrugged and killed something on-screen. “What do you think?”

  I took a deep breath and pulled out her letter.

  Dear Gillian and Eric,

  Hi, kids! How is school? I bet it’s getting cold out there at the cottage. Did you join any sports teams this fall? I put some extra money in the account last month for whatever fees or uniforms you have to buy. I know your father needs all the help he can get.

  Guangzhou has been fantastic. I’m almost done with the new manuscript, and my publisher has all kinds of great plans for the release next year. I know I told you I’d be home by Christmas, but I just got an invitation to a conference in Kyoto for New Year’s, and it would be silly to fly halfway across the world just to turn around and go back to Asia. But we’ll definitely make plans for spring break.

  Give my best to your father. Did he ever hear back from the community college about his application?

  Love,

  Mom

  Yeah, Mom. It would be totally silly to fly to America and see your kids for Christmas. Just like it was silly to take us with you on your research trip to China when Dad was at home, “doing nothing” except teaching a weekly evening lecture at the VA Hall.

  I plopped down on the couch next to Eric and laid my head on his shoulder. Most people think of us as the Seagret twins, since we’re in the same grade, but don’t be fooled by his tough act. Eric’s my kid brother by eleven whole months.

  “At least she’ll be home in the spring,” I tried, though I don’t think I sounded very convincing.

  “Yeah,” he lied back to me.

  “And her book seems to be going well.” Or at least, better than Dad’s was.

  “You think she put enough money in the account to get my boat back?” Eric asked. His shoulder jerked beneath me as he worked the video game controller.

  “I think she meant more like bathing suits and goggles for the swim team.” Even if we could still afford Eric’s little racing dinghy, we didn’t live by the water anymore. The sailboat, the house near the university—that was our old life. All we had left was this little cottage in the middle of nowhere.

  “Oh.” The tiny figure on the screen lowered his weapon and got pummeled by the bad guys. Eric watched its gruesome and prolonged death, then jabbed a button on his controller and loaded up another life.

  Dad may burn all our food, and he only works on Thursday evenings, but at least he knows whether or not we’re on any sports teams. Eric hasn’t joined a thing since the divorce.

  Eric shrugged me off his arm. “Swim team’s boring. Call me when there’s a scuba team.”

  Eric had wanted to get certified the second he turned ten, and Dad had signed the whole family up for scuba classes. The training came in handy back when Dad was researching missing submarines, two books back. But I don’t even think they have scuba diving teams in the cities, let alone in little hick towns like ours.

  This used to be just our summer house. We’d live here during vacation or whenever our parents were taking what the university would call “sabbaticals” so they could finish their books. This is where Dad wrote World Power, just a half-hour drive from Dr. Underberg’s childhood home. And sometime between turning in the manuscript and everything going to pieces, a pipe burst here and destroyed his computer and pretty much all of his notes, so Dad could never prove he did the research everyone said was fake.

  I actually did see his notes—I spent a whole summer keeping towering piles of them from burying Dad alive in his office—but no one was going to believe Sam Seagret’s twelve-year-old daughter. And once all the accusations started coming out, even his primary sources began to claim they’d never spoken to him.

  Which, ironically, is exactly the sort of thing Dad’s book was about.

  Dad appeared at the door. “So,” he said sheepishly, “we’re out of pasta.”

  Eric rolled his eyes and whispered, “I think we should be relieved.”

  But I wasn’t relieved. I was hungry. And worried. Eric was going to spend the rest of the day moping over Mom’s letter, and who knows what sort of food-shaped object Dad might try to serve us while he was busy thinking about that diner owner.

  Wait. “Hey, Dad, that diner where Underberg ate . . . is it still open?”

  Dad’s face broke into a smile. “Why? You want to go on a field trip?”

  “Like the old days?” I sat up straight and gave Eric a hopeful grin. He didn’t look convinced.

  “Yep.” Dad leaned over and ruffled my brother’s dark hair, looking just a bit like he used to whenever he got excited about our adventures. “Come on, Eric.”

  I turned to him, silently pleading. It wasn’t scuba diving on a submarine wreck, but at least we could get a decent dinner out of it. At least we could get something.

  “We can stop for frozen yogurt at that fancy place that lets you put on your own toppings,” Dad coaxed.

  Eric sighed and paused the game. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go. But only for the fro-yo.”

  “Awesome!” I said, hugging him. “We have lift-off.”

  I had no idea how right I was.

  2

  ATTACK OF THE PAPER CLIP

  ON THE DRIVE TO REISTERTOWN, DAD FILLED US IN ON THE DETAILS OF his research and Eric stared out the window at the passing countryside like he was looking for escape routes.

  “In the official record, Dr. Underberg had already been fired from the State Department in 1984,” Dad was saying. “So the question is, why would the President of the United States be having dinner with him and the Speaker of the House?”

  “No,” Eric mumbled under his breath, “the question is why Dad thinks the memory of some old waiter is going to change people’s minds.”

  Dad says Eric’s going through a mainstream phase right now. I just call it sulking.

  “Why was he fired?” I asked Dad.

  Eric made a sound like a cuckoo clock.

  “The official explanation was unauthorized use of funds,” Dad said. “But just because they didn’t like what his research produced, that doesn’t mean he was wrong to make it. Think of all the things the Underberg battery could have done for us. Prevented wars over oil, stopped the spread of global warming—”

  “Made sure my video game didn’t run out of juice so I could have taken it with us,” Eric grumbled.

  “Exactly,” Dad said cheerily. “Meanwhile, it’s not our fault you forgot to plug in the charger.”

  “Why wouldn’t people want something like that?” I asked Dad.

  “That’s the important question, isn’t it, kiddo? The sad truth is, sometimes it’s easier for people to stick with the problems they know than try to imagine a new way of life.”

  That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. “But if the new way would work better, then wouldn’t people at least try it? I didn’t like it when you took the training wheels off my bike, but I practiced until I could ride it faster than before.”

  “Well, you’re smarter than most people, Gillian,” said Dad.

  “That’s what she’s always telling me,” added Eric from the backseat.

  “And what if you made training wheels for a living?” Dad asked. “Then you wouldn’t want people to learn how to ride a real bike, or you’d be out of a job.”

  I’d never thought of it like that.

  The phone on the console buzzed and I saw the name Fiona flash on-screen. Dad instantly forgot what he was saying and picked up.

  “Hi! Are you there yet? Yes, we’re on our way.” There was a pause. “Me and the kids.”

  Dad invited Fiona?

  Fiona and
Dad met a month ago, when she showed up at his “Roswell Secrets” lecture at the Learning Annex one Thursday night. She came the following week to “The Myth of the Moon Landing.” The week after that, they went out to dinner, and last Saturday he took her to the movies. Guess Dad’s reentered the dating pool.

  Sure enough, when we pulled in to the parking lot of the diner five minutes later, I saw Fiona waiting for us outside.

  I’ll tell you right now, Fiona Smythe was not the kind of person who usually attended Dad’s conspiracy theory lectures. Most of his students either wore tinfoil hats to protect themselves from what they believed were the government’s mind-control rays, or they were bored retirees with nothing better to do than go to beginner slide shows with titles like “JFK: The Facts Don’t Add Up.” Fiona had sleek, bouncy shampoo-commercial hair, four-inch patent-leather heels, and diamond earrings the size of gumdrops.

  And I had to remind Dad to change his underwear last week. They aren’t exactly an obvious couple. Still, she was on Dad’s side, and that’s hard to come by these days. My best friend, Savannah, thinks Fiona will be good for Dad, like maybe convince him to get his salt-and-pepper hair trimmed before his sideburns meet at his chin. Or actually fix the fraying elbows of his blazers.

  “The nerdy professor look is cool,” she once told me. “But your dad is getting a little too close to hobo.”

  I took a look at my father as he parked. Pants: clean. Shirt: wrinkled, but serviceable. His glasses weren’t crooked, and it looked like he’d trimmed his beard. Could be worse.

  And Fiona looked happy to see him. She air-kissed his cheeks when we got out of the car and gave us an awkward wave. “Hello, Eric and . . .”

  “Gillian,” I prompted.

  She faced Dad and gave a little pout. “The diner looks closed.”

  “That’s weird.” Dad peered through the windows. “I just called an hour ago.”

  I looked inside, too. The diner obviously hadn’t been updated since before I was born. Old beige booths with cracks spiderwebbing the vinyl lined up on one side, while a white laminate lunch counter sat on the other. Behind it, I saw a shadow move in the doorway to the kitchen. “Dad! There’s someone inside.”