ocean. The waters were clearer today than they’d been the last time I’d been in there, and I could see distant shadows, dark and square. They were buildings—a phantom skyline under the sea.
Prof stood in his black lab coat, staring out into the depths, hands clasped behind him.
“Prof?” I asked, hurrying into the room. “Exel just intercepted a conversation. Someone spotted Obliteration. He’s storing energy.”
Prof continued to stare into the depths.
“Like in Houston?” I prompted. “The days before he destroyed the entire place? Sir?”
Prof nodded toward the sunken city. “You never visited this place before it sank, did you?”
“No,” I answered, trying to ignore the awful window he stared out of.
“I came into the city regularly. To see plays, go shopping, sometimes to just walk. It seemed that the most humble diners in Manhattan served better food than the nicest restaurants back home. And the finest places … Ah, I remember the way it smelled.…”
“Um, yeah. Obliteration?”
He nodded curtly and turned from the window. “Let’s go have a look, then.”
“Have a look?”
“You and me,” Prof said, striding away. “We’re point men. If there’s danger, we check it out.”
I ran after him. I wasn’t going to argue—any excuse to get out of the base was a good one—but this didn’t seem like Prof. He liked to plan. In Newcago we’d rarely moved, even on a scouting mission, without careful deliberation.
We entered the hallway and passed the room where Mizzy and Val were working. “I’m taking the sub,” Prof announced to them without even a glance. I hurried to keep up, glancing back and shrugging toward a confused Mizzy, who had poked her head out after us.
I picked up my pace and ran ahead of Prof, fetching my gun from the equipment closet. I hesitated, then grabbed the backpack with the spyril inside as well.
“You shouldn’t need that,” Prof noted, passing me.
“So you think I should leave it?”
“Of course not.”
I slung the pack over my shoulder, then joined Prof as he entered the darkness of the docking room. Here we followed a set of rope guides toward the sub. Why, I thought, do I feel like a dog who just swallowed a hand grenade? There was nothing to be nervous about; this was Prof. The great Jon Phaedrus. We were going on a scouting mission together. I should be excited.
Prof popped the hatch on the sub and we climbed in. Once we were down below, I locked the hatch, and Prof turned on a pale yellow emergency light. He waved me forward to sit in the copilot seat and started up the machine. A few moments later we were moving through the silent depths, and I had to stare out yet another window—the front of the sub—at more water.
“So … do you need to know where we’re going?” I finally asked.
“Yes.” His face was lit eerily by the yellow light.
“Well, we heard them say the words Turtle Bay.”
Prof turned the sub in a slow curve. “Missouri tells me you’re getting good with the spyril.”
“Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m practicing. I don’t know that I’d say I’m good, but I might get there eventually.”
My mobile beeped quietly. I winced, then pulled it out. This new one had a different silencing button, and I always forgot to tap it. It used my old pattern, so anyone who knew that could contact me, but the message on the screen was from a pattern I didn’t recognize.
Okay, let’s talk, it read.
“That’s good,” Prof said. “The tensors won’t be of much use to you here.”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to work out who was messaging. “When we were fighting inside the office building, it might have been good to slip through a wall unexpectedly.”
“The spyril will be more useful,” Prof said. “Focus on that for now. We don’t want to mix the powers. Might cause interference.”
Interference? What kind of interference? I’d never heard of such a thing. Granted, I didn’t know much about this technology, but if such interference were a problem, wouldn’t it have affected the forcefields Prof gave me?
My mobile buzzed again. I’d silenced it but hadn’t turned off the vibrations. You there, Knees? the message read.
My heart jumped.
Megan? I typed back.
Who else would it be, you slontze?
Prof glanced at me. “What’s happening?”
“Exel’s messaging me,” I lied. “With more information on how to find Obliteration.”
Prof nodded, turning eyes forward again. I quickly sent a message to Exel, asking if he had more information on Obliteration’s location, just in case Prof asked him later on.