The Accidental Invasion (Atlantis Book #1) Page 3

  He wasn’t really there. This couldn’t really be happening to him.

  “What are you doing here?” his father shouted. “How did you find my lab?”

  Lewis stammered. “This . . . this is your lab? I thought—”

  His dad pointed to the hovercar. “Can you fly one of these?”

  “I . . .”

  “Can you fly one?”

  “No,” Lewis said. “I’m twelve. And the battery’s dead.”

  His father kicked the side of the hovercar, then cursed and stared out at the ocean. His jaw was crooked, and his hands were balled into fists. “Why now, Lewis?” his father asked. “The two of you! Why tonight, of all nights?”

  The two of them? Who was he talking about? “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Forget it. Never mind,” his dad snapped. “I’m sorry.” He rushed over and hugged him. Then he took him by the shoulders and stared into his eyes. “You have to come with us. It’s the only way.”

  Who was us?

  And where were they going?

  The ocean roared, a low, deep growl. Nothing like a crashing wave.

  Not yet, anyway.

  The warning towers wailed. The blasts were getting closer and closer together. Was it down to six seconds now? Five? Lewis couldn’t focus long enough to count.

  But they couldn’t have long. Eight or nine minutes at the most.

  “Get inside,” his father ordered.

  A steel ladder reached down from the hatch into an enormous room. Lewis half slid, half climbed down. The light inside was blinding white. He squinted.

  “Go, go, go,” his dad urged.

  He was moving as fast as he could. The straps of his backpack bounced against his shoulders. His father accidentally stepped on his fingers, but Lewis didn’t make a sound, and his dad didn’t notice. Jumping off the ladder onto a square metal platform, Lewis shook the pain out of his fingers and stared in wonder.

  They were standing beside some kind of giant sphere, a metallic ball as wide as his house and two or three times as tall. Steel bands wrapped around the outside, each one riveted into place. There were windows, too, like the portholes of an old-fashioned ship, and some kind of fin was folded against the side. “What is this thing?” Lewis asked.

  “I’ll explain later. Get inside.”

  Lewis stepped through a small door in the side of the giant ball. His father closed and sealed the door behind them. A girl stood at the other end of a narrow hallway. A kid. High school, Lewis guessed. Ninth grade, maybe, or tenth. Only a few years older than him, but those were like dog years. She might as well have been twenty. She was tall and thin, with dark skin and a small nose. Her black hair was braided on top and shaved close on the sides. Even from a distance, he could see the wiry muscles in her jaw, her shoulders, her arms. Her clothes were torn in places. She kind of looked like a DJ. Was his dad managing a band now or something?

  “This is Hanna,” his dad muttered. “She’s not supposed to be here, either. But if she hadn’t heard you—”

  “Not supposed to be here? I built this ship, Professor. I have every right to be here.”

  “You didn’t build it. Robots built it.”

  The alarms went off again. The sound was muffled now, but clear enough.

  “Yes, but they followed my design.” She pointed to Lewis. “Why is he wearing only one shoe?”

  Right. He’d forgotten about that. Lewis wriggled his wet toes.

  “I don’t know,” his dad answered. “Why are you—”

  The horns were almost constant now.

  “That’s only three seconds,” his dad said.

  “It’s maybe fifteen to twenty miles away,” Hanna replied. “Three minutes at most. I suggest we all strap in.”

  “Move,” his dad yelled at him.

  Lewis burped.

  Hanna winced. “That was disgusting.”

  “He burps when he’s scared,” his father added.

  “That’s not true!” Lewis insisted. But it was definitely true.

  They hurried forward.

  “Two minutes,” Hanna called back.

  Lewis grabbed the back of his dad’s shirt. “Dad? We’re going to be okay, right?”

  His father stopped, placed his heavy hands on his shoulders, and smiled. “We’re safe in here. Trust me, son. Have I ever let you down?”

  More times than Lewis could count. “Well . . .”

  “Never mind. Wrong question. You can trust me.”

  “Or me, really,” Hanna said. “It’s my design.”

  Lewis wasn’t sure he trusted either of them.

  His dad turned his head slightly, listening. Hanna grabbed Lewis by one of the straps of his backpack and pulled him into the cockpit. Four cushioned chairs in two rows faced a large window. Hanna pushed him into one of the seats in the second row. “One minute,” she said. “Get comfortable. Quickly.”

  He tossed his backpack on the floor as she and his dad started strapping themselves in. Lewis noticed that his dad wasn’t even watching what he was doing. He was focused on the wooden wall out the window.

  “You might want to tell your kid to buckle up.”

  His dad didn’t even turn around. “You heard her, Lewis.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Hanna called out.

  The fact that each chair had seven different seat belts should have been a clue to what was going to happen next. Lewis buckled one belt across his lap and several others diagonally across his chest. His hands were shaking as he strapped in both legs, too. His heart was pounding. For a few seconds, everything was quiet, even the horns, and he hoped this whole thing was just a warning. A test, maybe. Or a false alarm.

  Then the wall on the other side of the window exploded. An avalanche of water and splintered wood crashed against the reinforced glass, and Lewis flipped over backward as a powerful wave slammed into their giant metal craft.

  3

  The Only World

  Kaya and Rian were still hurrying through the city. She was sure they were far enough from the Erasers by that point, but both of them kept glancing over their shoulders. And Rian was totally stuck on criticizing her plan. She had explained everything. She was going to travel out to Edgeland, near the border of Atlantis, then swim to the surface and back without getting caught. She had a deepwater dive suit—a good one, too. And she wasn’t going to disappear for a week or anything. Her plan was totally doable.

  But Rian wasn’t supporting her. Not at all.

  “Do you even know how dangerous that is?” he asked.

  “I know.”

  “You could get into serious trouble!” Rian added. “People who get caught outside the ridge—they disappear.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “If the Erasers grabbed Elida just for telling stories . . .”

  This was getting supremely annoying. Her friend should’ve been excited. He should’ve been offering to help her, not trying to scare her. “Look, I’m ready. I’m going. And the Erasers aren’t going to harm a fourteen-year-old kid.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “My dad won’t even know!”

  “How are you even going to get to Edgeland?”

  “I’ve saved up enough money for a round-trip ticket on the vacuum train.”

  He stopped. “Really? That’s a lot of money.”

  “Babysitting,” she said. “The Murakis.”

  “The ones who are always yelling at each other?” Rian asked.

  She nodded. “They pay really well. Anyway, if I take the vacuum train, I can get out to Ridge City, shoot to the surface, and return home the same day.”

  “Easy.”

  “Exactly!” For an instant she felt better. Then he sneered. Right. He was being sarcastic. “I want to see the surface. I need to see it, Rian.”

  “But—”

  She held up her hand, signaling for him to be quiet.

  “Are you shushing me?”

  There was a voice in her earpiece. Her father’s voice.

 
; “Kaya,” her dad asked, “are you still awake? Your door is locked.”

  Apparently the farm program hadn’t been boring enough. She cupped her hands around her mouth to block out the background noise. “Just a minute, Dad.”

  “Okay,” he continued. “I’ll wait.”

  She muted her microphone.

  “Go home,” Rian said. “I’ll talk to you later about the other thing. Okay? Just go. You won’t get to the surface if your dad grounds you again.”

  She probably owed Rian a thank-you, but her dad was at her door, so Kaya scrambled into the rest of her gravity gear and sprang into the air. She was barely off the ground when Rian called up, “Are you sure I can’t borrow that gear for a ride sometime?”

  “Never!” she yelled back, smiling.

  The walls to her left were lined with balconies overlooking the city square. She grabbed the railings as she passed, pulling herself along, building speed. She soared over the scattered people below, the ferry-packed waterways, the winding streams and steaming vents.

  Her father was getting impatient. “Kaya? What are you doing in there?” he pressed.

  The antigravity cruisers overhead were even faster than her suit. She spotted one turning in the direction of her neighborhood. Drifting closer to a balcony on one of the highest floors, she planted her feet on the railing and pushed off and up. She rose higher, grabbed one of the skids below the cruiser, and held on as the vehicle sped forward.

  Her shoulder stung, but she didn’t let go. In her earpiece, the knocking grew louder and louder. “Just a second, Dad.”

  Far ahead, she spied the sparkling, crystal-walled homes of her neighborhood.

  She released her grip on the cruiser’s skid and soared toward home.

  Her wall was in front of her, but she was moving too fast.

  A flag hung outside one of her neighbors’ windows. She reached out and grabbed the folds, ripping it off its pole. But her trick worked. She slowed, flipped, then dropped safely onto her balcony.

  “Kaya,” her father said. “I’m going to open this door in one minute.”

  She ripped off her gear and dropped it in a pile on the balcony. Then she crawled through the window, peeled the old earpiece and speaker off her door, threw the accidentally stolen flag onto her bed, and started doing push-ups.

  The door slid open. Her dad stepped inside.

  Kaya glanced up. “Privacy?”

  “You’re exercising?”

  She stopped and sat up, resting her forearms on her knees. “What did you think I was doing?”

  “Nothing, I—”

  “Do you need something?”

  He scanned the room. “No,” he said. “In the morning, I’m heading away for a few days, for work, and I was just hoping to say good night.” Her father noted the slightly open window to the balcony.

  “I wanted some air,” she explained.

  “And that?” he asked, pointing to the flag on the bed.

  “I was going to hang it on my wall.”

  He walked over and spread it out. “You hate the Narwhals.”

  The Narwhals? Of course she hated them. They were the absolute worst. Their music was torture. Why was he asking her—oh, right. The flag. The family on level seven loved their ridiculous tunes. Apparently they even flew the group’s banner, which featured a narwhal banging on a drum with its tusk. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m being ironic.”

  He crossed his arms. “Really?” She could see that he believed slightly less than none of her story. “Where were you? Tell me the truth.”

  Something about his tone, or the look in his eyes, broke her spirit. She couldn’t lie to him—not when he looked at her like that. She sighed and stared down at her floor. “Rian and I went to see an Elida show. We were just listening to some stories.”

  He stiffened. “So you snuck out.”

  “Sort of.”

  “You could’ve asked.”

  “You would’ve said no.”

  “Because that woman tells lies for a living! Her shows are illegal for a reason.”

  “What reason is that?”

  He paused. “We’re not getting into that now, Kaya. Don’t change the subject. You snuck out on a school night.”

  “I’m the best student in my class,” she reminded him. “Plus, it’s not like I was doing something dangerous. We were just listening to stories.” In fact, what they’d done was ridiculously dangerous. They’d been chased by the Erasers. And they’d escaped! It didn’t feel all that scary, though. Kaya was almost smiling—she hadn’t had that much fun in so, so long. Still, her dad would lose his mind if she told him the truth. He was worked up enough already.

  Pacing the room, he added, “You know how I feel about those fantasies, Kaya.”

  Fantasies? She hated that he used that word. “But I—”

  He held up one hand and cupped the other around his right ear. A work call, she guessed. His expression quickly changed from annoyance to aggravation. “They what? Another one? I told them . . .” Her dad paused, listening. “We can discuss this more when I get there.”

  Finished with his call, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “You’re not in trouble.”

  “I’m not?”

  “No. I realize this is partially my fault. You’re bored. I’ve been working too much. But once this project is done, I’ll have more time. I promise.”

  “You always say that.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. But you have to trust me. And you have to get some rest, okay? Children need sleep.”

  “I’m not a child, Dad. I’m fourteen.”

  “You still need sleep. Promise?”

  Kaya nodded. “I promise. And Dad?”

  “What?”

  “You really don’t believe there’s any life on the surface? Mom used to—”

  He shook his head. “You are part of the only intelligent civilization on this planet, Kaya. I hate to disappoint you, but Atlantis is not just our world. It is the only world.”

  SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

  Michelle Moyer

  Features Editor

  Scientific American

  700 Water Street, Suite 400

  Denver, Colorado 80211

  Dear Dr. Gates,

  Thank you for submitting your article, “The Mid-Tectonic Anomaly and a New Theory of the Formation of Atlantis.” Unfortunately, we will not be able to publish the piece, despite your impressive credentials. I imagine this will not discourage you and that you will continue to send us articles on your various theories of Atlantis, as you have for the last few years. But I can say with confidence that the Editorial Board will never publish any such theories without solid evidence. We work with facts, Dr. Gates, not fantasy.

  Would you consider removing us from your submission list?

  Regards,

  Richard—

  Great to see you last week at AGU. I’d say you look well, but we’ve always been honest with each other. You are falling apart. This ridiculous Atlantis obsession is ruining you, Richard. You’re one of the brightest geophysicists I’ve ever met, but this isn’t science you’re doing. You might as well be chasing Bigfoot.

  Look, if you just drop the Atlantis thing, I might be able to help. I could probably get you on a project in a small role, but it would be something. You could get back to doing science again. Maybe get your life back together. What do you think? Send me a note if you’re interested. But please, no more Atlantis papers.

  —Hans

  Gates! Good to hear from you, old friend. I can only imagine what you’ve endured. I’m sorry to say that I haven’t had any success finding a home for your research yet, but please do keep sending your ideas my way. I’m always eager to hear what you’re cooking up. Fascinating stuff. —R.B.

  4

  Riding the Wave

  “Did you forget the anchors?” Hanna shouted.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why are we moving?”

  “Because I forg
ot the anchors,” Lewis’s dad confessed.

  Lewis watched his thick fingers speed across the control panel’s touch screen. The sphere lurched to a stop. Lewis was on his back now, staring at the ceiling, still strapped tightly into the chair. His backpack had tumbled behind him somewhere, and he kind of wished he’d taken off his one wet sock.

  Water rushed past the windows as if they were trapped on the bottom of a giant river. “What’s happening?” he asked. “This thing’s a submarine?”

  “It’s not an airplane,” Hanna answered.

  “Yes, it’s a submarine,” his dad replied. “Just relax, son. I’ll explain soon. This phase should last only a few minutes.”

  Lewis turned his wrist enough to check his watch, an old-fashioned timepiece that Roberts had given him. Normally, he removed it when he was with his dad; he didn’t want him asking where he’d gotten it. But now he was glad he’d forgotten to take it off. He kept his eyes trained on the slowly moving second hand.

  After a few minutes, the sphere stopped shaking. “Is that it?”

  Hanna laughed. “We’re just getting started.”

  The wave had rushed past them. Now the water was reversing direction. This, Lewis knew, was the most destructive phase of a tsunami. The first crash was brutal. But once the wave had reached as far inland as it could, all that water rushed back out to sea, carrying with it everything that wasn’t anchored deep into the ground. Trees. Houses. Restaurants. Schools. Office buildings. Churches. Even bridges. The ocean was like a giant hand clawing at the land. That was why the coast was empty in the first place. Tsunamis had swept everything away.

  His father’s fingers flew over the screen again. Motors and cables started grinding below them, somewhere in the guts of the huge machine. “Releasing the anchors now,” he said. The sub jerked slightly, then began to roll.

  “Make sure you’re still strapped in, son,” his father warned.

  Now the vessel pitched forward, and they started bumping along the seafloor as the wave carried them away from the shore. Hanna was whooping. The straps squeezed Lewis’s stomach and chest, but at least he wasn’t flipping over. He fought back another spinach burp as Hanna yelled above all the rattling and crashing. “The outer shell of the sphere is spinning like a ball,” she said. “Yet our cockpit is stable. We’re riding the wave!”