Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) (7 page)

wasn’t sure what they were hoping to attain by attacking the guards, but any chance we had at a peaceful talk ended right then and there. And oh, you could probably add “getting home” to that list, too. God only knew what we’d change by being gone. Unless this is what happened all along…

Time-travel hurt my brain. I preferred more tactile sciences.

Even though Pike, Chelsea, and Sophia did no damage, the Council threw us into prison cells made of stark white, plastic-metal material that wouldn’t break. Bars appeared around us and bright fluorescent lights shone down on us, blinding and warm.

Didn’t these future guys think the same thing I did? That if we stayed here, things could change? Then again, this being the future and all, they already knew what happened. In their present, we
did
go missing without explanation. Unless the change happened in real-time, in which case they wouldn’t?

Screw time-travel
.

About an hour later Germay’s people reemerged, only to take Pike in an attempt to figure out some sort of understanding. They shouldn’t have taken the Major. He wasn’t diplomatic enough. Sophia would’ve been the better option since these people were Atlantean.

I shook my head and squeezed the bridge of my nose and eyed Chelsea, who’d been silent since Pike left. She sat on the floor of the cell with her palms pressed against the stone as if she needed to steady herself. Sophia sat across the cell from her, doing the same.

Dr. Hill cleared his throat and sat on the bench. “We might have to consider the possibility of escaping without Major Pike. If we can.”

Chelsea sighed. “With neither Sophia nor I at full speed? Probably a bad idea.”

“Why’d they take your powers?” I asked her. It’s clear Germay’s people could hold us without them.

Chelsea looked up. Her hazel eyes stole my breath. A glimpse of those eyes held enough power to still the entire world. I missed her so much. I missed
us
.

“Probably because the lack of trust is mutual,” Chelsea said. “They don’t want us leaving or overpowering them. But I think they’ll come back. I can still feel my strength. It’s like during the hijacking two years ago.”

I furrowed my brow. “But these guys are Atlantean, too, aren’t they? Why wouldn’t they trust us?” As for their powers coming back… we’d have to wait and see on that one.

Dr. Hill shrugged and crossed his arms at his chest. “None of them exhibited abilities.”

“I could feel it,” Sophia and Chelsea said in unison.

Feel it
? Feel what?

The question must have been obvious on my face because Chelsea pushed herself up off the ground in response. “I’m with Sophia on this one. There’s this…” She trailed off, searching for the right word.

“Buzz,” Sophia supplied as she also stood.

Chelsea nodded. “Yeah, there’s this buzz between us. It’s like a way of saying, ‘you’re like me and you’re on my side.’”

Chelsea had never talked about this before. “Did you have that buzz with Helen?”

Chelsea walked toward the bars of our cell, peering around the half-circle room for another way out. She even tugged on the bars, but they didn’t budge. “No.”

“Why not?” I asked, although the answer seemed fairly simple. “Because she wasn’t also a super soldier?” Helen had Atlantean blood like Chelsea, but Helen only had one power, and her future-sight wasn’t very accurate.

Chelsea shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe. Sophia?”

Sophia had worked with Helen too, before she’d joined TAO. “In the year I spent studying with Helen, I remember feeling only a little of it. It became strongest when I met you.”

Sophia joined Chelsea at the bars, and they tugged together. Still nothing, like all their strength had been zapped. It wasn’t like the time Chelsea’s powers were taken from her during the hijacking and I actually feared they might be gone for good.

“It makes sense,” Dr. Hill said. “Think about it. If Atlantis engineered these soldiers to covertly carry out top-secret war missions, it would stand to reason the soldiers wouldn’t necessarily know each other from the get-go. Rather, if you ever ran into each other, you’d know by this feeling you both have. Otherwise, the buzz wouldn’t matter to the rest of the Atlantean population.”

“So why are you getting this feeling around Germay’s people, but you didn’t with Helen?” I asked. “They can’t all be Atlantean super soldiers.” The odds of that were, well, not in their favor. At least not with the ferocity Thompson sought out Chelsea, alluding to the rarity of her kind.

“They could be more directly tied to Atlantis than Helen,” Sophia said.

“So, what now?” Dr. Hill asked.

“We can’t leave Pike behind,” Chelsea said quickly. “Even if we could escape, even if our powers return, we have to find him first.”

“I’m right here, so calm down.”

Major Pike, flanked by two guards, entered the room. He stopped in front of our cell and sized us up. Why? Didn’t we just determine we probably couldn’t escape?

“They want us to play a little game for them in exchange for a Link Piece we need and an easy-access Return Piece,” Pike said with indifferent eyes, like he were reciting lines to a boring car commercial instead of explaining our situation.

“Game?” I asked. Games were my thing. Games I could do. Back on SeaSat5, I used to make 3D games for fun. “Sign me up. Let me play, and I’ll get us out of here in no time. What kind of game are we talking about?”

Major Pike nodded. “As much as I’d hate to throw you to the wolves, I think you’re right. Only two of us have to play, so I’ll go opposite you. No matter how weird this is.”

Weird, yes. What was the point of us playing some sort of game?

I thought back to some of the last doctor’s appointments I’d attended. Sometimes they’d included little things to make check-ups more fun and high-tech. Like my eye doctor who had a 3D game to test eye reactions. Maybe this “game” was just a way for them to assess something else?

“Sure,” I said to Pike. “Whatever it is, I’m ready.”

“That will not work.” Silence blanketed us as Germay entered the space and stood behind Pike. “We have already selected the two candidates based on probable compatibility.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked. What kind of gaming system required compatibility between two players? That seemed… limiting. Entirely stupid.

Germay stood in front of me. “The Council has decided that, after speaking with your leader here, the young Atlantean soldier and the Lemurian boy have the connection required.”

My chest constricted but I didn’t dare look at Chelsea. Any game that needed whatever connection they thought we had couldn’t be just a game. That she’d gone out of her way to call us out by our heritages on top of it all…

A pit sunk into my stomach and began to rot. Something wasn’t right.

“Why her?” Pike asked Germay. “You get the gamer kid, but leave her out of it.”

“As I said,” Germay repeated as if she were talking to a child, “they have the connection required.”

Connection
. I bit my cheek. Atlantean-based powers had to do with connections. For teleportation, Chelsea had to go somewhere often enough or have a strong emotional connection to a location. Link Pieces formed from connections between objects and the location of their creation. Puzzle pieces, that’s all it was.

This time I did look at Chelsea. Our eyes met and our understanding of what we might get ourselves into saturated the moment. Connection didn’t begin to describe what we had. Because we had met
just once
, Chelsea’s powers dragged her across the world and under half a mile of ocean to me on SeaSatellite5. Because of what we had, we fell in love. Fell apart. Lost our friends. That would be enough to drive most people apart; we’d gone our separate ways, but we were still connected by pinkie fingers as a safety-blanket.

I tilted my head, asking for her response before I said anything to Germay.

She nodded. “Fine, but I want my powers back. And I want Sophia’s returned to her, too.”

“They will be returned to you after the game,” Germay promised, a smile forming on her thin lips.

“And I want you to promise you won’t hurt them,” Chelsea added. “We do this stupid thing and we walk, that’s the deal.”

Germay nodded. “Absolutely.”

Chelsea’s eyes slid to Pike’s, exchanging a mutual look of distaste. We were being played. But with no weapons, and Sophia and Chelsea powerless, we had no choice but to follow along.

At least for now.