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  For Minerva Trujillo of Killeen, Texas, the best teacher I ever had

  LIKE YOU, I AM WILLING TO LIVE OBSCURE.

  —Captain Nemo

  PROLOGUE

  Four hundred miles off the coast of California, the enormous submarine Nebula needed to make repairs. Its captain had made a horrible mistake. Nerissa Nemo paced back and forth in front of the view screen on the bridge of the ship and tried to hide from her crew that she was angry, mostly at herself. She watched the ocean waves outside going from black to gray to soft, translucent blue-green, until suddenly they saw the sun and the two-hundred-foot ship broke the surface to rest.

  “Full stop,” Nerissa said to the helmsman. She felt dozens of stabilizers along the belly of the ship kick in, steadying it as they held its place. “What’s the damage?”

  Jaideep, her executive officer, looked over a crewman’s shoulder at one of the consoles and read with a pair of reading glasses he pulled from his shirt pocket. “Engines are one hundred percent; that’s the good news. The bad news is we have hull breaches in four different places, plus the machinery in the battering nose is offline.”

  They had no choice but to stop. Nerissa Nemo could spin the last six hours any way she wanted, but it all came out to catastrophe.

  She had followed a lead on a ship carrying whale oil and other substances harvested through the illegal killing of whales protected by international law. Nerissa knew that some people were still allowed to hunt—Alaskan Inuit and the like—and she had no problem with small populations carrying on their traditions. But modern, technological whaling was a crime. Not that Nerissa normally cared much about the law. But in this case the law was right. The criminals were slaughtering gray whales on the whim of some very rich people for things they could easily make on land now. The buyers in Baja California, Mexico, were expected to pay millions. So she had attacked the smugglers’ boat. Tried to ram it. That was what she did. That was what made the oceans safer one ship at a time, and what put a fantastic price on her eighteen-year-old head.

  But this boat had been a trap. A fake. They had just gotten near it when the smugglers’ ship exploded like a floating bomb—just waiting for her. She had escaped at the last minute. Barely.

  And now they were going to spend an hour fixing the holes in the Nebula’s hull, and all told she was lucky that it wasn’t worse.

  Someone had tried to kill her. And that someone was going to regret failing.

  She angrily bit her lip. “I’ll be in my quarters.” Nerissa stomped away from the view screen as the crew set about planning the repairs.

  She’d made it a few steps when the whole ship rocked hard to port. Nerissa was thrown off balance and fell to the left as the deck tilted sharply. She caught hold of a workstation as the Nebula shuddered and righted itself.

  “We collided with something!” Nerissa shouted to Jaideep. “What was that?”

  Her second-in-command didn’t answer at first, silent and transfixed by a great shadow moving across the view screen. “I can’t tell.”

  The image view flickered and couldn’t seem to stay focused. Apparently the camera had been damaged in the explosion. A long, dark shadow moved across the corner of the hazy image. Nerissa couldn’t tell precisely what it was, but the whack it had given them told her it was a ship. Normally they could have handled a collision, but with the ruptures from the explosion they were weakened already. So was this a second part of the same attack?

  That didn’t seem likely. But something was moving around them.

  “Calm waters,” the helmsman reported. The view screen filled with four different camera angles showing the whole of the ship. Water ran off the long walkway along the top of the sub, and the steel railings glistened wet in the floodlights. Beyond the sub flashing in its own light, an endless black blanket of sky stretched and shimmered with countless stars.

  “Do we see the ship that hit us?”

  The helmsman brought a sonar image up in the corner of the view screen. The green wand swept around, showing only themselves.

  “Wait a few minutes. Then let’s get the crews moving…” She stopped as something appeared on the sonar screen as a large dot moving away from them. “It came up from below. Get the cameras on it,” Nerissa ordered.

  The starboard camera swiveled and magnified.

  A bulbous rise in the water was moving steadily away from them, its wake still showing its path from underneath the ship. The shape under the water was long and round, causing the lift in the water. “It looks like a torpedo.”

  “It’s too big for a torpedo,” Jaideep observed.

  “You’re right, you’re right.” Nerissa watched the thing go. “It’s huge, like a ballistic missile.”

  “Nothing can fire that big a missile from underwater at that angle,” Jaideep said.

  “And anyway, missiles don’t run away.” She leaned on the station in front of her. What are you? Nerissa spun around. “I’m going up for a better look.” She gestured for Jaideep to follow and turned to the helmsman. “Helm, you have the bridge.”

  By up she meant topside, climbing a ladder and heading out on top of the submarine as it floated on the surface. They ran out of the bridge to the end of a long corridor, and Nerissa unclipped a pair of binoculars from a supply rack next to the ladder before beginning to climb. The hatch to topside unlocked with her palm print and seemed to take forever, but finally it opened up like an iris and she was out.

  Out in the wind and the waves. Nerissa had always loved being topside, up on the railing, the great ship rocking, just Nerissa, her ship, and the stars. Salt air misted Nerissa’s face as she stepped forward, her boots skidding slightly on the perilously slick platform—they couldn’t have rough textures on the surface for fear of causing vibrations that listening ships might hear. Even the waist-high railings she gripped tightly to steady herself were tapered at the ends to cut through the water in silence.

  Balancing against the rail, Nerissa peered across the water in the direction the object had gone. But there was nothing.

  Water splashed loudly behind her.

  “Captain, there.” Jaideep pointed and she twisted around. Now it was on the other side of the ship. It had dived under them again and was moving away once more, in the other direction.

  Ships didn’t do that, swim back and forth under you. Whales did, but this was obviously mechanical.

  “It’s fast,” Jaideep observed. “Submarine, maybe?”

  But she could see it better now. “That’s no submarine.” Through the water, she could make out the flat-painted metal of the main body with two odd shapes on either side … almost like pontoons. “But someone is definitely having fun with us.” It bothered her that this thing had appeared right after someone had tried to blow her up. But nothing about this craft—if it was a craft—seemed to be the
work of an angry government or smuggling operation.

  Could it be some kind of spy vessel? If so, why would it be playing around with the Nebula like this?

  Then it moved in a way that her brain couldn’t understand, and her blood ran cold. It seemed to flex, the side pontoons, or whatever they were, moving up and down in the water as if it were swimming.

  “It’s not a ship and it’s not a machine,” she said. “It’s an animal. We need to get tags—” She was cut off by an unearthly sound, a high-pitched, watery call that filled the air. A call, like a whale’s after all, or some other large creature’s. But what was with all the metal?

  She gasped in awe as a rushing whirlpool formed around the nose of the creature. It tilted up, whipping around to point toward them. The high call continued as the strange animal-and-metal thing rose out of the water and took flight.

  It soared into the air, water erupting all around it as the creature flapped its wings.

  Wings!

  Nerissa gaped, trying to process what she was seeing. For that’s what they were: long metal wings attached to a gray fuselage, with big dead engines in the middle of each wing. It was an airplane with a great glass cockpit, half the glass broken and streaming water and gunk. And bulging from every seam were tentacles, countless ropy, fleshy protuberances that moved constantly.

  She couldn’t see the nose properly as it rose, but the writing on the tail was visible now: Fighting Irish, in English, and the red, white, and blue of the American flag.

  “Those—those are World War Two markings,” Nerissa realized. “It’s American! It’s a B-17.”

  “A what?” Jaideep shouted. The creature turned in the air as it rose, shining wet against the starry sky. It spun like a whale, water spraying off the countless tendrils waving out of open seams up and down its body.

  All throughout, it continued a long, high-pitched, gurgling whine unlike anything she’d ever heard.

  “A B-17 airplane,” Nerissa repeated. It had to be, what, eighty years old? But how? She looked up and bounced on her heels, feeling giddiness in her chest as she called loudly, “What are you? Let us see you!”

  “Um, Captain,” Jaideep said, “is calling that thing a good idea?”

  And now as if in answer it nodded its head and started coming down, flipping over in the air, gravity taking it as it soared toward the walkway of the Nebula.

  There was no time to get inside. It was coming down fast.

  Nerissa looked into the face of the silver beast. The glass cockpit was split open, and out of it thrust a mollusklike forehead—at least that was how she thought of it—and below that an open mouth with hundreds of long, thin, whalelike teeth.

  It’s playing, she thought, but she had no idea if it had any sense not to crush them. She held up her arms involuntarily, seeing herself squashed across the platform with Jaideep.

  But the creature whipped its wings as it came down. Relief flooded through her body as it leveled off and flew over the platform so close that she could smell the gunk of the thing. The B-17 slipped through the air, roaring its strange whining roar, and plunged into the water on the other side of the ship.

  “Fantastic!” Nerissa shouted as she ran down the walkway, trying to see where it had gone.

  Off the starboard side, the creature swam away from them in its original direction, still close under the water.

  “Come back,” she whispered. “I need another look.” Nerissa bounced on her heels again. Mentally she was half in her own body, half in some unplaceable library of her mind, flipping through everything she knew about the sea. There was nothing out there like this that she had seen or heard of. Nothing.

  “Come on!”

  But the mound of water, so much like a torpedo speeding away, slowed and then dove, its metal tail kicking up as it plunged into the icy sea and was gone.

  “Captain, what was that thing?” Jaideep sounded a lot less excited than Nerissa.

  Nerissa swore and slapped the railing. “I have literally no idea. It’s amazing.”

  She raised her binoculars and swept clean around again, looking for any sign of its return. After several minutes she lowered the glasses. Her blood was pumping. Come back, she wanted to shout. Let us know you.

  Finally Jaideep spoke again. “Captain? Orders?”

  Nerissa nodded. “Start the repairs. And find me an intelligence officer. We’re gonna crack into every system on earth. If anyone else has seen that thing, I want to know about it.”

  1

  GABRIEL NEMO GLANCED around as he chained his bicycle to a secluded bike rack behind the Santa Marta Aquarium. No one had noticed him arrive alone. He secured the lock—a design he had worked on himself—with his thumbprint and heard a satisfying chirp as the tumblers slid into place.

  The salt-sea air off the Pacific lifted the collar of his dark-green jacket as he made his way toward the front. He checked his watch. Six P.M. Right on time. He rounded the edge of the enormous glass-and-steel structure, rehearsing everything he would say about why his parents weren’t there, as the clanking sounds of the marina and the roar of the ocean gave way to the chattering of his classmates.

  In his ear, a tiny radio receiver droned on with news of the sea, and he listened for a moment.

  “Sqrrk. Sitrep on the container vessel?”

  “Sqrrk. Still have containers floating for a quarter mile…”

  As far as Gabriel could work out through the static, a container vessel had collided with a dock and capsized. The crew had already been evacuated, but the seashore and shallows there were a mess and the coast guard had been calling in help for hours.

  A mess, but all in all a routine cleanup from the sounds of it. Nothing that needed Gabriel or his skills. He had decided to come here tonight instead. To fit in. To be normal.

  Even so, he didn’t take the Nemotech receiver out of his ear. Just in case. With any luck, he might be needed … which was a thought he didn’t like to examine too closely, because it meant he considered the idea of something terrible happening to be lucky.

  Gabriel fell in with the parade of middle school students and parents making its way through the entrance. Gabriel scanned the faces until he saw his friend Peter Kosydar and his mom. They had stopped just to the right of the double doors under a long white banner that read HARRISON STEM SEVENTH GRADE AUCTION TONIGHT!

  “Gabe!” Peter waved and his mom did, too. Gabriel cut through the crowd to join his friend, mentally pushing away the radio sounds in his ear.

  Peter’s mom was a hugger, so she wrapped Gabriel in a bone-crusher that left him feeling squashed, then stepped back, her arms on his shoulders. She beamed at Gabriel from under a big, floppy hat. Ms. Kosydar had freckles that reminded Gabriel of his sister, and he felt a sudden pang of sadness. He hadn’t seen anyone in his family in months, much less her.

  “Are your parents here?” Ms. Kosydar asked. “I’ve been wanting to meet them.”

  That was what he’d been afraid of, and it was the first thing his friend’s mom had asked: Where are your parents? The answer was A long way from here. He didn’t like to think about it and didn’t like to lie about it. The whole thing, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, made him sad. After all, It’s okay, they sent me here by myself would only raise more questions. When he had first arrived, he’d had the best time by himself. He could do anything he wanted, go to bed at any time at all, eat anything. He was king of his own life. The good time had lasted about forty-eight hours.

  Still, he had his extracurricular activities. Maybe that made it worth it. Maybe.

  “They might make it later.” Gabriel smiled and tried not to let his sadness leak all the way to his eyes. Instead he changed the subject. “Peter, did you hear they have a new jellyfish habitat? They use rotors to simulate ocean currents. You know, so they stay up and you can see them.”

  “Oh yeah.” Peter pushed up his glasses, and the boys stepped into the enormous foyer of the aquarium. Above them, the skeleton o
f a whale hung suspended from a far-off ceiling through which they could see the stars. “Did you know a guy got stung last week? How stupid can you get?”

  “I’m sure they’re not stupid,” Ms. Kosydar said.

  “Oh, they have rules to follow. But if you don’t wear the right gloves … bzzt.” Peter imitated a guy receiving an electrical jolt, and Gabriel cracked up.

  “Of course—” Ms. Kosydar interjected.

  “Of course that’s not what jellyfish do.” Peter rolled his eyes as he cut his mom off. “But it’s hard to do an impression of a jellyfish sting without, you know, falling down and screaming.” Peter knew his marine biology—he wasn’t crazy for it like Gabriel was (Peter’s fascination ran to navigation, vehicles, movement), but they couldn’t spend as much time together as they did without Peter being able to run rings around your average student.

  “Hello!” Mrs. Holsted, the assistant principal at Harrison, spoke into a microphone from where she stood on a stage at the back of the room. She wore a blue suit with an orchid in her lapel, and she waved a pair of reading glasses as she talked. “Good evening. I want to start off by thanking you all for being here and for your dedication…” Gabriel tuned out the rest, listening for updates on the receiver and hearing nothing.

  As she droned on, Mrs. Holsted pointed her glasses at a long table stacked with all kinds of stuff—bike helmets, picture frames, multicolored glass lamps, and stacks and stacks of manila envelopes. The envelopes held certificates for stuff that was too big or impractical to drag inside, or services donated by local merchants.

  “Let’s begin with services.” Mrs. Holsted picked up an envelope and read the front. “We have an offer of a semester of swim lessons, any level, from Emler Swim Studio of Santa Marta.”

  “No, thank you,” Peter moaned next to Gabriel. Marine-navigation-mad Peter was, incredibly, afraid of actual water. He hated swimming, and his throat would close up if he even tried to drink water.