by Paul Gamble
Seals were expensive to train and hard to keep, therefore only kings could afford to use them as messengers. Many kings were proud of their seals and would take them to the theater with them. This is where seals learned to clap so well.
The tradition of using these aquatic mammals as a postal service is where the expression “sending a letter with the royal seal” comes from.
* * *
44
THE MYSTERY OF ATLANTIS
“The Atlanteans?” Jack asked.
“Who are they?” Trudy quizzed.
Grey explained the story of the Atlanteans. “A long time ago in ancient Greece there was an island called Atlantis. It was populated by a race of people called the Atlanteans. At the time there were a lot of ancient islands that ruled themselves. The Atlanteans lived not that far from the island of Crete—you know, where the Minotaur was from.”
Jack and Trudy looked at each other and nodded. That explained why the maze that surrounded the fracking platform was guarded by the effectual and the ineffectual Minotaur. The Atlanteans must have gotten the idea from the Cretans.
“The Atlanteans were a proud race. They had technology that no other island had at that time—airships, plumbing, water-powered computers. But as with all technologically advanced races they got lazy and other nations started catching up with them.”
“Doesn’t that happen to all countries in the end?”
“Yes, Trudy, but the Atlanteans were too arrogant to accept it. So they took steps to try and avoid it. They used their plumbing systems to build enormous baths.”
Jack was unsure as to how this would help. “Baths? So they could be really clean?”
Grey looked at Jack. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re even paying attention, Jack. Baths and water make you wrinkly. The more wrinkly the brain gets the more intelligent you get. Do you ever wonder how the Romans managed to take over most of Europe? It was all the baths they built. They bathed all the time, their brains got extra wrinkly, and they outthought their opponents.”
Jack remembered doing a project on the Romans in elementary school and remembered that they had seemed extra fond of their baths. In fact, from what he remembered of their empire it seemed to mainly consist of a lot of straight roads connecting enormous public bathing facilities. “Did that work?”
“For the Atlanteans? For a while, yes. But as I said the clever Romans copied their system. And the ancient Greeks did even better by inventing the shower, which allowed you to directly wet your brain in half the time. Soon the Atlanteans were being outthought by half the Mediterranean. And that’s when the queen of Atlantis came up with a scheme to make the Atlanteans the smartest race ever. She decided to sink the entire island of Atlantis. That way all their people would be underwater forever, their brains could permanently wrinkle, and they would become a nation of geniuses.”
Trudy interrupted. “That really doesn’t sound that smart to me. I mean, wouldn’t they have just drowned?”
Jack thought about the Queen’s plan. He looked at Grey. “She didn’t tell any of the Atlanteans about her plan, did she?”
Grey smiled at Jack. “You’re still a smart boy, Jack. Of course she didn’t. If she had told anyone, it would never have worked. She secretly arranged to borrow the team of laborers who had just finished digging the foundations for the labyrinth from King Minos of Crete. They set about digging an enormous hole in the middle of the island of Atlantis. Down and down they dug until they hit water. An enormous waterspout sprang up from the ground and the entire island sank.”
“So why didn’t the people drown?” asked Trudy again.
“Think about what the Misery told you recently. Imagine how shocked the people were. The sight of their houses, their island, their very world sinking. It simply took their breath away.”
It made perfect sense. As usual Jack really wished that it didn’t, but it did. “Didn’t they ever start breathing again?”
Grey shook his head. “It was an such enormous shock it took years before they got over it. By that time most of the Atlantean people had developed gills alongside their usual lungs. And so the Atlanteans became an amphibious race. Fiercely intelligent thanks to their wrinkly brains. Capable of the most incredibly complicated plots.”
“Why didn’t you mention the Atlanteans before?” Trudy snapped. “That would have been helpful.”
“There are hundreds of creatures living under the sea. Apart from the Atlanteans and merpeople there are selkies, sea monsters, kelpies, Nerieds.… It wasn’t until Jack mentioned trying to sink a country that I realized it had to be the Atlanteans behind this.”
“But that still leaves us with one big question,” said Jack.
“Yes—why are the Atlanteans trying to sink Northern Ireland?” asked Trudy, finishing Jack’s thought.
“I don’t know,” Grey admitted. “That’s still part of a mystery that you need to figure out.”
“Well, we can do that at any stage,” said Jack. “I think it’s probably more important that we figure out a way to stop them from drilling that hole in the middle of the country.”
“Good point,” Grey agreed. “I don’t want all my suits getting wet.”
“So we go to Lough Neagh?” asked Trudy.
Jack looked at his watch. “Not tonight, it’s time we were going home.”
Trudy scowled. “You’re putting off saving our country because you want to get some sleep?”
“I wouldn’t want to save the world without adequate sleep. I’d get all grumpy. Anyway, if we’re going to attack Lough Neagh, we’re going to need a plan. There’s an entire factory staffed with Atlanteans there. There’s no way we can possibly attack them by ourselves. And I’m guessing that the Ministry won’t have any spare staff to help us out.”
Grey looked sympathetic, but ultimately his answer was unhelpful. “With overtime rates what they are at the minute? Not a chance, I’m afraid.”
Trudy looked stubborn. “We might be able to find my mother.”
“I know, but just wait one more night.” Jack consoled her. “There’s no point in finding her if we get captured and thrown into the same jail cell.”
Trudy hesitated, but finally agreed.
“I’ll sleep on it and I’m sure that I’ll have come up with a plan by tomorrow morning.”
“You had better, Jack Pearse. You had better.”
Jack’s mouth contorted into a nervous smile.
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
WATER-POWERED COMPUTERS
THEIR USEFULNESS
Many people have suggested that the creation of water-powered computers would be useful in modern society. It would mean that computers would be environmentally friendly and not use as much costly electricity.
This is true, but it misses the most significant advantage of the water-powered computer. Which is simply that no one would shout at you if you spilled your juice on it. Because for once you wouldn’t actually have destroyed the computer—you’d just have made it slightly more powerful.
* * *
45
BLACK BAG OPERATION
FRIDAY
Jack sat down to breakfast the next morning. He had a bacon sandwich. He had a glass of milk. The one thing he didn’t have was a plan. He briefly considered going back upstairs to stick his head into a bucket of water to see if that helped.
Jack wasn’t sure if he was more scared of being drowned when Northern Ireland sank or of Trudy, who was quite possibly going to murder him for not coming up with a decent plan.
“You’re not eating your bacon sandwich,” Jack’s mother observed.
Jack considered explaining to her that the reason he wasn’t eating his bacon sandwich was because he was terrified. On reflection he thought that this would probably worry her unnecessarily.
Jack then considered his bacon sandwich. He might have been terrified, but if he didn’t eat the bacon sandwich, he would have been both terrified and hungry. There didn
’t seem to be any sensible argument in favor of that, and so he devoured the bacon sandwich in four bites.
“Anything planned at school today?” his father asked.
Jack thought for a few seconds. “Swimming lessons,” he said.
“That’ll be fun,” his mother said, putting Jack’s plate into the dishwasher.88 “I always loved swimming.”
Jack secretly thought to himself that if he didn’t come up with a plan sometime soon, his mother might get quite bored of swimming after a while.
“Right, I’m off to school.” Jack grabbed his schoolbag and made for the door. Just as he was about to turn the door handle he turned and looked at his parents. “Dad, do me a favor—could you get the inflatable crocodile down from the attic at some point today and blow it up?”
Jack’s father looked sideways at Jack. “Umm, why exactly?”
There was steel in Jack’s eyes. “Just in case, Dad. Just in case.” Jack left the house to get the bus.
Jack’s mother and father looked at each other in silence.
“Our boy is either a genius or a complete idiot,” observed Jack’s mother.
Jack’s father pondered this. “Is that inflatable crocodile still up in the attic?”
“I think so, but I’m pretty sure it has a hole in it.”
“Okay.” Jack’s father stood up from the breakfast table. “In that case I’m going out to the garage to fetch the puncture repair kit.”
Jack’s mother arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Well, if he’s a genius, it would make sense for me to inflate the crocodile in case he’s right.”
“Okay, and what if he’s an idiot?”
“Well, in that case an inflatable crocodile89 will be a nice friend for him to play with.”
Jack’s mother couldn’t fault her husband’s logic.
* * *
Jack wandered along the street toward the bus stop, desperately riffling through his brain for a plan, but none came. He stopped in the middle of the pavement and closed his eyes, willing a brilliant idea to come. Sadly, brilliant ideas refuse to be cajoled in this way and every single one of them refused to appear.
“Well, that didn’t work,” said Jack as he opened his eyes again. Jack was slightly surprised when he opened his eyes. He had a general rule of thumb that every time he opened his eyes the world would become at least marginally brighter. On this occasion it wasn’t true. It was every bit as dark as it was when he had them shut.
Jack was a child of the computer generation. He decided to try a reset by closing his eyes and opening them again. That didn’t work either. Suddenly Jack smelled a strong whiff of perfume and felt as though he was being bundled off his feet and carried into a car. The reason that he felt as if this was happening, was because this was precisely what was happening. He tried to call out for help but his cries were muffled by the bag that had so recently been put over his head.
* * *
Jack sat silently. From the perfume smell and the squashed feeling he could tell that two large Atlanteans were on either side of him in the car. Jack had seen movies where people who were kidnapped, blindfolded, and put into cars were able to tell which way they were traveling by listening to the sounds they passed. Jack discovered that this was made considerably more difficult when the driver of the car was listening to an audiobook.
On the bright side, listening to the audiobook took his mind off what was happening to him. It was an especially good book about a man who was having a particularly bad day. First his house was knocked down and then the Earth exploded. The man in the book was called Arthur Dent, and a lot of strange things happened to him. Jack thought of all the strange things that happened to him and wondered if perhaps Arthur Dent might be a Ministry operative. Maybe the audiobook was actually based on the real-life adventures of an English member of the Ministry. Of course then Jack realized that the book couldn’t possibly have been based on a real-life adventure. Because in the book the Earth had exploded. And if that had happened in real life, he was pretty sure that he would have noticed it. Jack was interrupted from his thoughts and pulled out of the car. Part of him was terrified at being completely in the dark about what was going to happen next, and part of him just wanted to hear the end of the audiobook.
He was half marched and half lifted along some rough ground, then into a building. He could hear the door slam behind him. Once they were inside the building there was an overpowering smell of soap, perfume, and moisturizer. After being hauled down a few more corridors he was pushed into a seat and the bag was pulled off his head. He looked down into his lap and saw that his hands were secured with plastic ties.
Looking up, he was unsurprised to see Regina Maris. She was just finishing coating her face with moisturizer. Rubbing the last remnants away with a white cloth, she smiled at Jack, showing rows of pearly white teeth.
“I suppose you have questions to ask me.”
* * *
MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK
ATLANTEAN MOISTURIZER
THE WORLD’S BEST MOISTURIZER
The Ministry has recently come to be aware that the world’s best moisturizer is made by the Atlanteans. The moisturizer is mostly made from normal ingredients; however, it also contains pieces of starfish. The starfish’s ability to regenerate is thus communicated to the skin and helps it revitalize and renew itself.
This is clearly the only reason that the seafloor is not absolutely strewn with starfish, especially considering how difficult they are to destroy.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Now that this information has come to light it is essential that we update the section Aquatic Animals: The Starfish.)
* * *
46
THE WRONG ANSWERS
“As a matter of fact, I do have some questions to ask you. Do Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect get rescued after they were thrown out of the spaceship’s airlock?”90
Unsurprisingly, Jack’s answer confused Regina Maris. “What are you talking about?”
“We were listening to an audiobook in the car and I was just wondering how it ended.”
Jack had expected his answer to infuriate Regina Maris, but instead she just laughed. “Yes, they said you’d be the funny one.”
“Who said that?” Jack was confused but also quite pleased that someone thought he was the funny one.
Regina went over to a desk and tapped something into a computer that made a gurgling sound as it worked. She pointed at something on the screen that Jack couldn’t see. “Years ago I wouldn’t have had a clue who you were. But villains aren’t as far behind the times as you think. I’ve checked you out on the evil genius message board.”
“What? There’s no such thing.”
“How naive, Jack. There’s a message board for everyone on the Internet. There’s a message here from BlackbeardJnr1680. He just posted it last week.”
Jack eyes narrowed. So Blackbeard Junior hadn’t been trampled to death by a dinosaur after all. And now he was giving out information about the Ministry. This was going to make things a lot harder.
“He says that you’re funny, but not desperately effective.”
“Hey,” complained Jack. “That isn’t fair.”
“Apparently you’re always getting beaten up in fights and have to get rescued by your much stronger and more able companion, Trudy.”
“Hey,” complained Jack again. “That’s reasonably fair … but it still isn’t a nice thing to say.”
Jack tried pulling at the plastic cuffs that were securing his hands. They stretched slightly but still held him fast.
“But there are more interesting things here than that.”
Jack frowned. “Like what?” He didn’t like the idea that people were writing about him on the Internet.
“Well, it was Blackbeard who suggested that if anyone was going up against the Ministry, they try and capture you first. Even if you can’t punch your way out of a paper bag, he says that you have an uncanny knack of seeing through evil plots
.”
“Like a group of Atlanteans trying to sink the whole of Northern Ireland?”
Ms. Maris looked up from her computer. “So Blackbeard Junior was right. You have figured out our little scheme.”
“It wasn’t that hard … although I haven’t quite figured out why you’re doing it yet.”
Regina Maris stood up from her chair and wandered over to where Jack sat helpless. She put her face right in front of his. “So you now expect me to gloat about my entire plan?”
“From my limited experience it does seem to be how these things work.”
Regina Maris considered for a moment. “BlackbeardJnr1680 warned me about this. He said that gloating was what caused his downfall.”
Jack decided to try reverse psychology. “Well, yes, but Blackbeard Junior is nowhere near as smart and pretty as you. I’m sure you’re going to defeat us without even trying.”
Regina Maris walked away from Jack and considered his words. “I know what you’re doing. You’re doing reverse psychology.”
“Yes,” agreed Jack. “Reverse psychology is exactly what I am doing.” Jack was now trying reverse reverse psychology.
Regina sighed. “Lonely is the head that wears the crown.”
Jack knew what each of those words meant, but the order that Regina had put them in seemed somewhat confusing to him. “Umm, what do you mean?”
“I’m a queen, Jack. I’m queen of Atlantis.”
“Right, good. You seem to be making sense again. Carry on.”
“And it isn’t easy being the queen of an entire race. Apart from anything else you have to appear royal at all times. Which means you have no one to confide in.”
“Must be hard.”
“You have no idea how hard. If I talked to my servants or soldiers about my problems, they would think I was weak.”
“That is a problem,” said Jack, pretending to be sympathetic as he tried to wriggle out of the plastic cuffs.
“I mean, I used to have a little glove puppet that I talked to, but then I lost it one day.”