8

by James Phelan

  Maria was to Sam’s right, and slightly ahead, the wave taking her across exactly as she had described. But he started to fall behind, and despite leaning hard to the right, the wave had other ideas.

  ‘Maria!’ he called out, just before the wave broke in two where it hit the underwater edge of the reef. Maria kept going the way she’d planned while Sam was spat towards the white foaming reef ahead. He decided to take evasive action and took in a huge lungful of air.

  He dived down.

  The reef was close, the water bubbling and churning. He rose to the surface and took a breath, checking the waves. The next few swells looked smaller. Sam thought he could roll with them across the worst of the reef—as long as he made it over before the next big swell hit.

  Sam swam as fast as he could. His arms ached and twice he hit his flippers against the reef. He felt one flipper tug away, breaking free, and he could feel himself slow down from the loss of momentum.

  The next crashing wave pushed him up and he was tossed over the edge of the reef.

  Made it!

  The other side of the reef was a tranquil lagoon of shallow water and Sam rode the fading waves onto the beach. He crawled ashore and lay on his back, exhausted. He didn’t know how long he stayed like that, perhaps five minutes or more, until he heard his name being called.

  ‘Over here!’ he called back wearily, waving an arm up in the air. A moment later he heard footsteps squeaking in the sand and he took off his mask and looked up, seeing Maria standing over him, the sun behind her. ‘It’s cool, I made it.’

  ‘Just.’

  ‘I know,’ Sam said, showing a defeated grin. ‘I’m done in. Can’t swim another stroke. I am cooked.’

  ‘I mean,’ Maria said, pointing to his feet, ‘that you were lucky you made it to shore in one piece.’

  Sam sat up and looked down at his outstretched legs.

  His right flipper, which he thought he’d lost, was still on—but it was now no more than a shoe, the flipper past his toes entirely missing.

  ‘What the . . ?’

  ‘That,’ Maria said, ‘is how Scarface says hello. Next time you won’t be so lucky.’

  Sam swallowed hard.

  Maria offered her hand to help him up. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘This island is much larger than the last, and we’ve got some ground to cover by nightfall.’

  34

  ‘Papa!’ Maria yelled. ‘Papa! Are you here?’

  ‘Chris!’ Sam called out. ‘Chris!’

  Maria emerged from the thick foliage and stood before Sam. She looked defeated.

  ‘Maybe we missed him,’ she said.

  ‘Have we covered the whole island?’

  ‘There’s only the far west coast left,’ Maria looked beyond the shrubbery and pointed. ‘And then there’s a long sandbar leading south. It’s the only break in the reef. It’s close.’

  Sam looked up at the sky, now heavy with cloud and the oncoming night.

  ‘Then let’s hurry,’ he said. ‘We might need to make a shelter. Looks like there’s a storm brewing.’

  Maria looked at the tall palms that shot up through the thick green growth, swaying in the gathering wind.

  ‘You’re right …’ she said. ‘Come, the calmest coast is to the west anyway.’

  ‘And we can check the sandbar,’ Sam added.

  ‘If my papa is still here, he’d have seen this weather a long way off and be sheltered there already.’

  They trudged through the big-leafed shrubbery which turned to prickly grasses and then low succulent ground-cover that squelched and crunched underfoot.

  ‘Eggshells,’ Maria said. ‘The seabirds breed here, watch where you step.’

  Sam did as he was told. The birds’ nests were dug into the sand, some as deep as an arm length. The sand in most places was so encrusted with years’ worth of birds making this their home that it was hard and brittle—until you stepped too close to a nest and it crumbled away.

  ‘Argh!’ Maria took a tumble.

  Sam helped her to her feet, she dusted herself off and they walked on, following the setting sun.

  ‘Least it’s not hatching season,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t believe the smell of this place when it’s full of birds.’

  ‘Yeah, think I’ll give that a miss,’ Sam said.

  A few minutes later they crested a small sand hill and the greenery resumed. Down below Sam could see that the palm trees ringed the waterline on a beach that twinkled with the setting sun on the water.

  ‘We’ll start up that end of the cove—’ Maria said.

  ‘Wait,’ Sam said, putting a hand out and catching Maria’s pointed finger. ‘You smell that?’

  She sniffed at the air, then nodded. ‘Smoke.’

  ‘A fire,’ Sam said. He couldn’t pick out any smoke against the greying sky, but then a crackle of wood popped and hissed and sparks flew up into the air from the direction of the beach.

  ‘Wait!’ Sam said in a shouted whisper, running after Maria as they bounded down the rise. ‘What if it’s not your—’

  ‘Papa!’ Maria called, running out into the clear expanse of the beach. ‘Papa!’

  ‘Maria!’

  Her father stood up from where he sat by a fire and ran to Maria. They embraced warmly. Sam stood by them as they hugged and cried, feeling a bit awkward. Their reunion made him wonder about his own parents.

  Not parents—Agents. Where are they now? Do they miss me? If I saw them now, would our reunion be this warm?

  ‘Papa, this is my friend, Sam,’ Maria said, finally pulling away from her father to make the introductions.

  Chris walked over and shook Sam’s hand.

  ‘Sam helped me find you,’ Maria said. ‘And he … it’s a long story.’

  ‘Well,’ Chris said, looking up at the sky as thunder rang out. ‘I think tonight, my dear, we have nothing but time. And food.’

  He pointed to a stack of coconuts to drink, as well as a couple of large fish, gutted, cleaned and skewered on sticks ready to roast over the fire.

  ‘I used a piece of net I found washed up,’ Chris said with a huge smile. His eyes looked tired from days of baking sun and sea salt. ‘I caught them this afternoon. I think our reunion tonight was meant to be.’

  ‘It’s a feast,’ Sam said, sitting down by the fire.

  How much does he know? I know he’s a Dreamer, but can he be trusted?

  Chris looked thin and gaunt, having spent nearly two weeks on his own between the islands, eating what he could scrounge from the sea and land. Sam watched as Maria and her father caught up, busying himself cooking their dinner as night fell.

  ‘I made a shelter under those trees—it should hold against this storm,’ Chris said, pointing to where he’d improvised his raft into a roofed structure thatched with leaves. ‘It’s safe here. We are in the most sheltered of the bays, and there’s no way a boat can come ashore to this side of the island, day or night.’

  Sam nodded silently and turned the fish.

  ‘So,’ Chris said, ‘tell me about you—Sam, was it?’

  ‘Yeah …’ Sam said, trying to work out in his mind where to begin and how much Chris might know.

  Well, this guy’s obviously worked out a lot himself and he should know all about me. Here goes.

  ‘My name is Sam. I’m one of the last 13.’

  35

  ‘I knew that Maria was special,’ Chris looked at Sam with wonder, ‘ever since she began dreaming of the wrecks out here. I knew it couldn’t mean nothing. I was trying to help her, to make it safer. I didn’t want them to come for her.’

  ‘So you are a Dreamer,’ Sam said to him, ‘and you know all about the prophecy?’

  Chris nodded at Sam.

  ‘Well,’ Sam said, ‘Maria’s a part of it now.’

  Chris turned to his daughter smiling. ‘So what did you find?’

  Maria took the Gear from her dive bag. ‘Here it is.’

  Chris took it gingerly from her and cradled
the Gear in his hands. ‘It matches your drawing. Well done, querida mía.’

  Sam looked closer at the tiny Gear.

  ‘Do you know what it’s for?’ Sam asked him.

  ‘I’ve heard rumours,’ Chris said. ‘There’s been talk of little else lately among Dreamers,’ he added in reply to Sam’s questioning face. ‘It’s part of a machine, isn’t it?’

  ‘Put together with the twelve other Gears,’ Sam explained, ‘they complete a machine—a kind of navigational device made by da Vinci.’

  ‘And the machine will reveal the hidden place where the greatest treasure lies—the Dream Gate. That’s it, isn’t it?’ Chris said.

  ‘Papa …’ Maria looked at him. ‘You know of this?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you—I was trying to protect you.’

  Maria looked a little unsure, this was all moving so fast for her.

  ‘How many of the Gears have you recovered so far?’ Chris asked Sam.

  ‘This is the sixth,’ Sam said, thinking back to the golden key he’d found at the start of the race inside the Star of Egypt and all the pieces since. ‘We don’t have all of them, though.’

  ‘Solaris?’

  Sam nodded. ‘He wants to create the machine himself. And there are others now—do you know of someone called Stella, from the Enterprise?’

  Chris shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘She’s the Enterprise operations leader,’ Sam said, ‘or she was. She’s gone rogue and is working with Solaris. She attacked the Academy campus in Switzerland and the Enterprise headquarters in Silicon Valley. After the attacks, the Academy and the Enterprise formed an alliance to go up against their enemies together.’

  Chris lifted his eyebrows in surprise, but his gaze stayed lost in the hot coals of the fire. ‘Very strange times indeed.’

  In Sam’s dive bag was his dart gun, which he tucked into his belt as he changed back into his Stealth Suit. He had excused himself and drifted away from the fire, leaving Maria and Chris to talk through everything alone.

  Sam finally got enough signal to use his phone to call the Academy, wishing he had called earlier. The switchboard put him through—

  ‘Bonjour?’

  ‘Zara!’ he said to the French Dreamer. ‘Any word from Tobias?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘is everything OK?’

  ‘I’ll explain later, I promise. Where’s Jedi?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s here. He finally got a trace on your phone so help is on the way.’

  Sam said, ‘That’s good news. The sooner we get out of here, the better I’ll feel.’

  ‘Did you find the Gear?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, and a whole lot more besides,’ Sam replied, looking over to Chris. Sam thought back to what had happened in the Sorbonne with Zara and her father, who had gallantly fought off Hans’ men while Sam and Zara made their escape in pursuit of her Gear. ‘How are your parents doing?’

  ‘They’re OK. They’re staying here in London. Papa is recovering after having his legs set, and my mother is reading a lifetime’s worth of novels. Never seen them happier, actually.’

  ‘See, it all kind of works out,’ Sam said. ‘So how far out is our ride?’

  Zara replied but a thunder clap broke above Sam and the sky immediately opened up with a torrential downpour.

  ‘Zara, I missed that. Say again, how long?’

  Sam couldn’t hear her. He thought he made out ‘—hours’, but couldn’t hear anything more. She may have said two or ten for all he knew.

  There was another rip-crackle in the sky and the connection was lost. Sam ran over to join the other two under the shelter.

  ‘Should have put the fire under cover,’ Chris said as the last of the embers were extinguished.

  The thunder boomed so loudly that Maria screamed and the three of them covered their ears and shrank further back into the shelter.

  ‘I sure hope you built this thing to code,’ Sam yelled, as the woven fronds and grasses of their ceiling bucked and flapped against the storm. Chris and Maria hugged one another. As the storm raged overhead, Sam realised just how much he missed his own parents, and decided in that moment that when the storm cleared, he’d try to make contact with them.

  After all, we’re in this together now.

  36

  ALEX

  ‘You sure this is the way?’ Phoebe called after Alex.

  ‘Yes!’ Alex said, pausing at the end of a corridor to check the schematic. Three doors ahead gave them three options. ‘We need to—’

  The lights went out and they stayed out.

  ‘Hang on,’ Phoebe said, zooming in on the schematic on her screen. ‘We’re where?’

  ‘Here,’ Alex said, tapping the diagram. ‘Ha! You know, this kind of reminds me of the Easter Egg hunts you used to organise for me.’

  They laughed—

  The sound of an explosion and gunfire came from down the corridor where they’d just been.

  ‘This way,’ Alex said, pushing the door open on the right, to the larger of the rooms. ‘We’re right at the vault now.’

  ‘Wait!’ Phoebe said as soon as they’d entered.

  Alex shone his flashlight to where Phoebe stood.

  ‘Someone’s been here,’ Alex said, pointing to the gaps where equipment had once been stored. ‘Whatever was here, we’re too late. Just.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because these footprints are still fresh. And you can see that all this dust has only just been disturbed,’ Alex said.

  They looked around. Gunfire continued, closer now.

  Alex checked the schematics. ‘There’s an air vent.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Around here,’ he said, leading through a door to internal offices until—the wall ahead was rubble, some of it still hot from explosives.

  ‘It’s completely blocked,’ Phoebe said. ‘We can’t get out this way.’

  ‘I can hear Rick’s guys. They’re still holding them back!’ Alex called, running ahead of his mother. ‘We have to try another way.’

  A massive blast rang out and Alex was sent flying backwards.

  ALEX’S NIGHTMARE

  In a world of black, a bright light appears and I move towards it, stumbling. It isn’t until I start running that I know I am unconscious.

  I’m in the dream world.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ a metallic voice says.

  I spin around but I can’t see anyone. The voice is inside my head.

  ‘You can be the one, Alex.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I call out, but my voice just echoes and no answer comes back. I keep going towards a door, running flat out, but as fast as I run, the distance between me and the light behind the door remains the same.

  I stop, waiting for the voice to go on.

  ‘You can be the one—at the end. It’s up to you. You will have the choice, and you should take it.’

  ALEX

  Alex blinked his eyes. Phoebe was next to him, wrapping his right arm in a bandage.

  ‘What? Where—?’ he asked, sitting up, groggy.

  ‘Slowly, slowly,’ Phoebe said. ‘We’re in one of the medical labs. I don’t know what happened on the other side of that door, but whoever it was decided to cut their losses and leave.’

  ‘Probably Stella, but it could even have been Solaris,’ Rick added, leaning over Alex and smiling. ‘I think we just had a narrow escape, in any case.’

  ‘What happened to my arm?’ Alex said. ‘I just remember the blast and then …’

  ‘You got knocked out, but you’ll be OK,’ Phoebe said. ‘The good news is that a bit of metal tore into your arm—’

  ‘That’s good news?’ Alex interrupted.

  ‘It is, because it helped us find this,’ Phoebe said, showing him a tiny piece of plastic and metal the size of a vitamin pill. A little red light sat at one end.

  ‘It had been implanted in your arm,’ she said.

>   ‘You what?’

  ‘My best guess would be that Stella put it there at some point when she was bringing you to the Enterprise,’ Phoebe said angrily. ‘While you were out, I removed it.’

  Alex thought back to when he’d first met Stella—at the hospital in New York.

  She knocked me out when I tried to escape. Must have done it then.

  ‘Do you think she did that just to me? Could she or any of the others have bugged anyone else?’

  ‘We’ll have to get everyone checked out,’ Phoebe said, sending messages through to the Academy and the Enterprise.

  ‘Oh man, do you think that’s how they always seem to know where Sam is?’

  ‘Could be,’ Rick grimaced.

  ‘We have to warn them,’ Alex said.

  37

  SAM

  Sam woke up with a start. The storm was still lashing the island and the roof above them was leaking badly but managing to hold. Chris and Maria were somehow sound asleep. Sam rolled over and realised that the rock he thought he was sleeping on was in fact the dart gun.

  Well, shooting myself in the foot would have helped me to get some sleep, I guess.

  Sam smiled in his semi-conscious delirium and put the dart gun to one side. He stretched out and changed his Stealth Suit to a padded, waterproof outfit similar to the snow suit he’d worn at the Academy’s Swiss campus. In moments, he was back asleep.

  SAM’S NIGHTMARE

  It’s hot and bright. Through narrowed eyes I look around and see sand dunes stretching out in every direction. I am marooned in a desert. There’s nothing in sight—no buildings or vehicles or even a tree.

  ‘Great,’ I say to myself, taking off my shirt and tying it around my head to block out some of the sun’s blinding rays. ‘Middle of nowhere.’

  I trudge on, down dunes, up dunes, eyes fixed on a high ridge that I head towards.