Above World (25 page)

He punched in the combination, popped open the box, and removed the letter, photo, and dolphin. Now that it was empty, he could easily see that the container part extended only halfway through the box’s depth. He ran his fingertip slowly along the smooth plastic bottom, feeling for anything unusual.

Then he found it. A small depression at the back, no bigger than a few grains of sand. A button? He pulled out an Extra Ear, straightened one of the wires, and poked the end into the hole.

A small square flap in the bottom of the box swung open, revealing a hidden compartment. He pulled out a thin black rectangle, no bigger than the palm of his hand and thick as a finger. He looked up at Aluna and Dash and grinned.

“I examined that box thoroughly,” Dash said. “How did you do that?”

“Because he’s Hoku,” Aluna replied, as if that explained everything. “What is it?”

“A piece of really old tech,” Hoku said. “Wait, I bet there’s a way to turn it on.”

He found a series of buttons along one edge and pressed them in succession. As soon as he hit the second, the tiny video screen filled with the glowing, spinning symbol of the Kampii seahorse. A moment later, it was replaced by the face of a familiar dark-skinned woman in a small domed room full of air. He recognized her high cheekbones and strong, tired eyes immediately.

Sarah Jennings. Moving as if she were still alive.

“Amazing,” Aluna whispered, and crowded closer. Hoku felt Dash on his other side and angled the device so they could both see.

On the device, Sarah looked over her shoulder, at something they couldn’t see, then forward again. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought she was looking right at them.

“Hello, Kampii descendant, whoever you may be,” Sarah said. Her accent twisted the words strangely, but she spoke with a slow, stately grace that helped him keep up. “I don’t have much time, so I will make this brief: I fear that my compatriots, the other men and women who will become the ruling council of our new society, have a different view of the world from mine.”

She looked down at something in her hand. He could just make out the dorsal fin of a small wooden dolphin.

“There were bound to be differing opinions,” she said. “I recruited strong men and women for this great experiment. It is the rare individual willing to give up everything he or she has — all material, emotional, and cultural ties to the world — and begin a new life, with a new identity, somewhere as dangerous and unforgiving as under the sea.”

Aluna snorted.

Sarah Jennings continued, “We need to hide, to stay safe, while the world is so broken. On that point, we are all agreed. But for how long? My fellow leaders would have us hide forever. They would have the City of Shifting Tides become our home, now and for all time. The coral reef would be forever the limits of our world.”

She leaned forward, her brown eyes intense. “The world is broken, but it will not always remain so. Eventually, it will be ready for us again. We have a duty — a responsibility — to help it heal. The world needs us, and we need each other. We must not hide forever.”

Sarah looked over her shoulder again. When she looked back at them through the screen, she tucked a rebellious twist of graying black hair behind her ear. Her voice came in whispers. “This outpost, Seahorse Alpha, houses information about the world — facts and figures and scientific data, but also the stories of its people. Art, literature, languages, cultures, TV archives, movies . . . every last bit of digital information I have been able to find and download and encrypt in the last few months. Let it be your window to the past . . . not so you repeat the mistakes we have made, but so that you learn from them.”

She pulled the mermaid box into view. “Because the people in power are the least likely to encourage change, I will give this recording and this box to my assistant, Christopher, for safekeeping. He’s smart and resourceful and has been a good, loyal friend. I have filled the remaining space on this device with information that HydroTek does not want me to have: passwords, formulas, schematics, and the like. They will be useless to you without the computers to interpret them, but I feel better knowing that someone else will have them.”

“And so farewell, descendant of mine,” Sarah Jennings said with a sad smile. “I wish you swift currents and Godspeed. And remember: we are not alone. We were not meant to be alone.” She reached forward, and the screen fell to blackness.

He didn’t understand everything Sarah Jennings had said, but he understood enough. Aluna had been right about the outpost holding secrets. The Elders had been wrong — so, so wrong — about what Sarah Jennings wanted for her people. But best of all, formulas! Schematics! Passwords! All hidden in an artifact so small he could shove it in a pocket.

“I need to see it again,” Aluna said. Quiet tears dripped down her cheeks. “Please.”

Dash stood quietly beside them, and said only, “A wondrous woman. She must come from a strong bloodline.”

A loud screech echoed through the cave, interrupting the spell Sarah Jennings had cast over them. Every Deepfell turned his or her head toward the sound, listening.

Eekikee pulled himself to the clearing while the alarm still blared. He had to gulp air before he could coax his throat to speak. “Cap-turrre,” he said finally. He leveraged himself onto his tail and held out his hand fin. A small pearled hair stick sat in his palm. Hoku had seen dozens like it worn by the Kampii women back home. In fact, Aluna’s sister —

“Daphine!” Aluna cried.

“No,” Hoku said quickly. “It could be anyone’s.”

“It’s hers. It’s my sister’s,” Aluna said. She snatched the hair stick from the prince and pointed to one of the shells. Her finger shook. “I borrowed it last year and broke it.”

Hoku squinted and saw a faint line where the shell had been snapped in half and glued back together with sticky jellyfish goo. “No,” he said. “It can’t be.”

Dash muttered a curse.

“What happened to her?” Aluna said, her voice cracking. “She was probably looking for me. This is all my fault. Did they kill her? Tell me!”

The prince looked surprised at her outburst. “No keeeel,” he said. He motioned to his neck and said, “Slaaave.”

The words hung in the air. Hoku had never seen Aluna both crying and ready to rip something’s heart out at the same time. Her fist closed around the jewelry. He could see her gritting her teeth, trying to calm herself down enough to speak.

“I’m going after her,” she said finally, her voice low and scary.

Hoku shuddered. She looked just like her father.

“But we have no army and no plan,” Dash said. “Your death will accomplish nothing.”

“I don’t need a plan,” Aluna said. “I’ve always trusted my instincts, and I’m trusting them now. There’s no time to squabble like Elders, discussing plans and never actually doing anything. I need to go. Now. I have to save Daphine, or I have to die trying.”

“Then let us go with you,” Hoku said. “Me and Dash and Zorro, we can help you! And maybe Calli —”

“No,” she said. “Daphine wouldn’t have been captured if it weren’t for me. I couldn’t bear it if you got captured, too. You have to stay safe, Hoku. Don’t you see?” She grabbed his arm and pointed to the video device in his hand. “You’re the one who has to save us. Sarah Jennings herself just told you so. And I can’t protect you when I’m trying to protect my sister.”

“But what if —?” Dash said.

“I said no,” Aluna shouted. “Do whatever you want, but you’re not coming with me. I catch either of you following me, and . . . and you know what I can do.”

She glared at Dash, then turned and glared at Hoku, daring either of them to disobey. Hoku wanted to, but she scared him. Aluna-his-best-friend would never hurt him, no matter what. But the Aluna in front of him now? He didn’t know her at all.

Aluna turned to the prince. “Thank you for saving us from the Upgraders,” she said. “I think our people make better allies than enemies. I hope we can meet as friends again after all of this is over.”

The prince bowed.

Aluna smiled grimly. “Can one of your people show me how to get inside the dome?”

Eekikee squeaked and a Deepfell dragged itself over. The prince called some orders, and the Deepfell took off toward the water.

“Stay here and be safe,” Aluna said to Hoku and Dash, half ordering them, and half begging. Then the steel returned to her eyes, and she raced after her guide.

As Hoku watched her go, his hands curled into fists. Again? She was leaving him again, after everything they’d been through? Dash still had a broken arm, Calli was out there somewhere on her own, probably afraid and in danger, the Kampii still needed to be saved, and he . . . he was supposed to be her best friend.

No.
He was done taking orders.

Hoku turned back to Dash, Zorro, and the prince. “If we’re going after her, we’ll need a plan.”

A
LUNA FORCED HERSELF
to breathe slowly, despite the pounding in her chest. What was happening to Daphine? Were Fathom and his Upgraders hurting her? Was she really a slave? It was hard to think about anything else, and she needed to focus.
A good hunter stays relaxed and ready,
Anadar always said. Panic was making her stupid.

In the distance, the domed city of HydroTek floated on the water, looking like a giant gleaming jellyfish. Inside the huge translucent cap, buildings in shimmering silver twisted and flowed to amazing heights. She couldn’t make out any details, even when she and the Deepfell crested the water for a better look. Below water level, pipes and machinery and long, thin buildings swayed and churned like a mass of tendrils. She had no doubt that, just like a real jellyfish, those tendrils could sting.

A pod of three Deepfell approached. She thought they were a scouting party, but when her guide gripped his spear and pulled out a knife, Aluna looked closer. All three of the Deepfell wore collars around their necks.
Slaves!
They swam in a tight pattern, their spears raised. She didn’t understand Deepfell facial expressions very well, but something was definitely wrong with them. They looked dead.

“Can we rescue them?” she said. The Deepfell raised his spear and bared his sharp, sharklike teeth. He probably wanted to rescue them more than she did. But his grimace only widened into something dangerous, something feral.

“No can free. Only keeeel,” her guide said.

She grabbed his arm before he made his first throw. She couldn’t watch him murder his own kind, even if they were mindless slaves. The Deepfell twisted to break her grip, but she held on.

“HydroTek,” she said, pointing to the dome with her other hand. “I have to get there. I have to save my sister.”

They stared at each other. Aluna thought about all the horrible things she would do to whoever hurt Daphine. It wasn’t difficult to let the anger swell into something almost overwhelming. And then she let those emotions swim into her eyes. The Deepfell stared at her for a moment, then nodded.

Instead of fighting, they hid in an outcropping of kelp. As the patrol passed, she got a better look at the enslaved Deepfell’s faces. They looked as unthinking as fish. Even their mouths hung open. Whoever had enslaved their bodies had enslaved their minds as well.

As soon as they were gone, Aluna and her guide resumed their swim toward HydroTek. She tried not to imagine Daphine as a brainless slave, but the images assaulted her. Daphine with that same slack-jawed idiocy, Daphine with no spark in her eye and no smile on her perfect lips. She’d never forgive herself if that happened. Daphine was the Voice of the Kampii, irritatingly beautiful and graceful and eloquent and kind. No one was allowed to hurt her. No one.

HydroTek got bigger and bigger, until it loomed as large as Skyfeather’s Landing in front of her. The tendrils that floated below it didn’t undulate in the current as she had thought. No, they created the current. Pipes hissed, artifacts pumped up and down, and Deepfell slaves became more plentiful. She noticed dolphin and shark slaves, too. Even a few great whites were leashed and guarding some of the entrance holes.

But her guide avoided those areas and took her up, toward the surface of the ocean inside the lip of the dome. This close, the dome seemed impossibly large and intimidating. They squeezed into a narrow intake pipe and swam through the darkness. Aluna focused on the gentle swoosh of water around her body, on her heartbeat, and on the distant hum and clank of machinery.

Eventually, they emerged in a shallow pool inside the dome.
Inside HydroTek.

“Thank you,” she said to her guide. And then she added, “May the currents always carry you to safety.”

He squeaked once, twice, and then dove beneath the water. He wouldn’t wait for her. That had never been part of the plan. When she needed to escape, she was on her own.

Aluna squinted in the sunlight. She had surfaced in a pool surrounded by a ring of dirt dotted with dead grass and matted with garbage. Maybe it had been a pretty garden once, but abuse and neglect had turned it ugly. The sloped curve of the dome loomed on one side, and tall, silvery buildings on the other.