Moonfin (10 page)

Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai climbed up an outcropping and slid off their goggles. Jeff pulled out a pair of binoculars from his deep-sea belt and scanned the coastline. The water was sloshing forcefully against the three of them, drowning out their voices and nearly pushing them back into the sea.

Jeff was the first to notice it with the binoculars.

“Can you see it?”

“What?” said Kai. “I can't see anything with all this mist.”

“It's like a
face
set in the rocks.”

They stared hard, squinting through all the slosh and dark granite.

“Yes! It looks like … like a
tribal mask
!” she cried.

When the light hit it just so, a mirage appeared, but after the blink of the eye, it instantly disappeared. They swam around the Thumb and gazed at it from different angles, but any fixed point only whisked the face away with each moment, like one of those magic plastic cards that changed from one picture to another when tipped from side to side.

“Do you think … that
might
be it!” Lizzy yelped excitedly. “You wouldn't be able to see the face close up—no wonder my father and Captain Quinn never found it!”

And there was something else about the face Jeff noticed too, as it flickered in and out—“Do you see how the forces of the waves get absorbed into the rock, rather than splash back? The physics are all wrong—let's go and check it out!”

They left the Thumb and swam back to shore, being careful to avoid the patches of coral and stray granite lining the seabed. Reaching the side of the rock cliff, they snorkeled into an alcove and clutched tightly to the stone to keep from being knocked over from the constant roiling water—it was tricky business to keep from being pulled away by the tide, and also from being pushed into the sharp, pointy rocks at the same time.

Lizzy swam parallel to the cliff, where the face first appeared, and ran her hands along the edge, discovering a sudden drop-off into air where there should have been more stone.

“It's an opening!” she gasped.

“It's … an
illusion
,” said Jeff, looking confused, “and it's massive.”

“I think it's a hologram.”

“A holo-whaty?” asked Kai.

“An image made with light. These aren't real rocks, but a recorded image of rocks being reflected back.”

Jeff pulled off his mask to get a better look and swim the full length of the opening to estimate its size. “It looks big enough for a small craft to fit through,” he observed.

Lizzy tingled from head to foot. “Feel like going in?”

“Float through solid rock?” Kai smiled. “Absolutely—”

“Not! I'm not going anywhere if I can't see what's on the other side,” said Jeff, frowning. “For all we know there might be a trap or a giant stingray ready to zap us.”

“All right, but now that the sun's going down, I think you'd have more of a chance of running into a hungry shark.”

Jeff's eyes widened considerably.

“You're such a landlubber,” laughed Kai.

“I'm going in,” said Lizzy, heart racing. “My dad was right about a secret doorway all along!” She pulled on her goggles and lunged into the face-like rock, Kai and Jeff splashing close behind.

Colored light particles briefly washed over them, and they found themselves in a small cavern filled with a deep blue pool. It was so quiet, every splash seemed to echo back as if bouncing off a kettledrum. Waning light streamed from the outside and spilled down on the crystal-blue water. On the far side of the pool was another curved opening, which emptied into a darker passageway. They started toward it but abruptly halted—a humming sound was coming through the tunnel, and a fin broke the surface right in front of them.

“Move!” hissed Lizzy in a frenzied panic. She waved them against the cave wall just as a large object with fish scales and fins, but stiff and mechanical, glided by.

Kai held her breath. The thing swept by her feet and moved to the center of the pool, then submerged, the tail whipping and flapping as it went. She quickly noticed the eyes were made of Plexiglas, with visible hinges and screws attached under the fins.

It left through the cave door and sped off into the hazy sea.

“What kind of freak contraption was that? That's
worse
than running into a giant stingray!” said Jeff, aghast.

Lizzy peered into the tunnel. “We must be headed in the right direction.”

They hugged the cave wall and swam along the dark passage for approximately fifteen yards. The water muddied as it fed into a larger pool-filled cavern, which was dim and cold and utterly dreary, apart from a few lights spotting the walls. There were only two structures that they could see: one was a metal staircase that wound up a six-story rock face to a platform above; the other was a dock sitting at one end of the pool, which lodged several watercrafts, fish-like, similar to the one they saw go through the tunnel.

Kai found a ledge and climbed up.

“Well, well—some more of those crazy subs,” she said, pointing toward the line of strange creatures bobbing life-like on the surface of the water.

“I hear voices,” Jeff suddenly spurted.

Ducking back into the tunnel, they watched as Dr. Krell and a lab technician walked out onto the dock and stood by the fish-subs. Krell's mottled gray hair and glasses flashed a grisly orange in the lantern light. He pointed a long, bony finger at one of the golden-green subs docked nearby.

“Take Lilith out to the island and get some more tissue samples—she's the fastest, and we need more for the procedure to work,” he said, his voice bouncing eerily off the cave walls.

“If she doesn't kill me first,” the young man said testily. “She's been so moody lately—probably drive me right into the reef. Last week she chased after a whale for over a mile, and I completely lost control!”

“Tsk, Tsk, Lilith, you bad girl!” said Dr. Krell, chastising the sub as if it were a naughty pet. “I will have Lee check her this week. Sometimes the mechanical technology is overrun by the fish's neurons, and the animal's instinct kicks in.” He paused and looked proudly over his fleet of subs. “But the Bips are, without a doubt, the best suited to conceal our work.”

“Bips?”

“Yes, we shortened their names—so much easier to say than ‘Biomechanical Pods.'”

“She does blend into the ocean incredibly well, and no one suspects a thing, but it does make for a wild ride when she gets distracted,” the lab tech complained. He gave Lilith an irksome nudge with his foot, and she turned and squirted water all over his shoes.

“Aargh!—it's time for the reprogramming room for you,” he snapped.

The fish-sub trembled and swished in reply.

Dr. Krell pulled a small handheld computer from his coat pocket and scrolled through a series of images.

“And how is our subject doing these days?”

“She is despondent of late. We keep her sedated. Only one survived, and she violently protects it.”

“Yes, yes, I heard she broke through the gate to search for it”—he waved a hand irritably—“found it trapped in a fishing net … attacked a small vessel…. The chain will be necessary, of course.”

“Her rage increases with each one. If this one doesn't make it, there's no telling what she'll do.”

“That is unfortunate. The replicating technique is
imperfect
. Send me a report as soon as you examine her …”

The lab tech stepped to the edge of the dock and pressed down on the fin of the Bip. A hatch popped open, and in one swift movement, he crawled down into the belly of the fish, closing the fin-hatch behind him (and three gasps gurgled nearby as he did so).

The fish-sub twisted and whipped toward the tunnel.

“Oh no!” panted Kai. “Here we go again—get down!”

All three plunged deep into the murky pool and swam toward the far edge of the dark cavern where they hoped they wouldn't be seen. The fish-sub slowly puttered into the passageway and disappeared, seeming not to notice them.

When it was safe to do so, Jeff poked his head out of the water and watched as Dr. Krell climbed the steep staircase, vanishing into a lighted room above. He gave Kai and Lizzy the “all clear” signal and they paddled over to the Bip pool. Crawling onto the dock, a safe distance from the bizarre subs, they took a few moments to catch their breath.

“Tell me how a grown man can climb into a fish and swim off like that?” Jeff croaked.

“Yeah, I'm starting to believe all your crazy stories, Lizzy,” said Kai.

“Thanks … I think
.
”

“Who do you think they were talking about—the one chained up?”

“Don't know.” Iddo was missing from the aquarium, and all she cared about right now was finding him before it was too late.

“Let's look around.”

They discovered a ramp along the wall leading to a series of doors, all of which were locked up tight, a dull glow emanating from an opening in the wall farthest up the ramp. They followed it through to a small opening carved out of rock; this emptied into a damp cave full of pools and tanks, some of which were lit up.

Lizzy could feel the pain before she even set foot in the room. “Such fear,” she said, trembling, blood draining from her face.

“What's wrong?”

“This feeling, I've had it before. Oh my—” Lizzy covered her mouth.

Scattered from wall to wall were tanks in all different sizes, filled with all sorts of creatures. At first it seemed like a typical aquarium, but on second look, they were strangely jumbled. There were groupers with cat whiskers and sea turtles without shells. Some of the turtles had shark's teeth and fins. They were all out of place and had all the wrong pieces, like a mixed up sea life puzzle.

“Look—a crab with flippers shooting out of its shell!” cried Kai, blinking her eyes as if in a dream, or more like a nightmare.

“This place … it's … it's
different
,” sputtered Lizzy. She was comparing it to the little aquarium she used to visit when she was younger. “Those were very old, but these … I don't even recognize these.”

Jeff ran his hand along a sea otter tank, except the sea otter had a dolphin body.

“You mean you've seen this before?”

“Kind of—remember that miniatures shop on the boardwalk with the musty aquarium in back?”

“Yeah, that place was freaky. They closed it years ago. My parents never let me go there, thought it was a quirky little place. But I snuck in there one day after school to check it out … reminded me of my Aunt Zella's funeral—she was over a hundred years old—and the way she looked, all shriveled and gray and stuff and—AAAHH!” he screamed, falling back several feet.

Something with eyes the size of melons had popped out from a floor tank near his feet.

“It's staring right at me!”

“I don't think it can help staring at you with
those
eyes,” giggled Kai, stepping back as well from the unsettling gaze. “What do you think happened to these poor little guys?”

“Well, let's see. I was able to talk to the crab back at the aquarium. Maybe we can have a chat.” Lizzy placed her hand up against the sea turtle tank, next to where its body sat against the glass.

“Can you hear me?” she said nervously.

“Snarkle!”

“Excuse me?”

“SNARKLE-snark.”

She pressed a bit closer to the glass. “Er—maybe I misunderstood you—”

“Snarkle-splark-shturt-stnark-shnark-sturtle-snarky-snark!”

There was a pause. It tilted its head and looked at her strangely. Then it smiled, and it wasn't pretty.

Lizzy's heart skipped a beat as the ghastly grin revealed a mouth full of jagged shark's teeth.

“What are you?” she said, a slight quiver in her voice.

It continued to stare at her with its toothy grin.

“What are
you
?” it echoed back.

“Well—um—I'm human.”

Lizzy had the impression that it wasn't only their bodies that had changed, but something inside them as well. It was like their innocence had been removed.

“
Huuummaaan
,” it said in a mysterious, high-pitched voice, “you are here and not here at the same time—SNARK!”

Lizzy blinked, shocked by its words and very being.

“Check this out,” said Kai, staring into a grimy jar filled with murky yellow fluid, where a reptile with fins and metallic scales floated lifeless inside. “It doesn't look like a combo fish of any kind—more like another species entirely.”

But Lizzy had spotted something else: A long octopus arm had reached up from one of the floor pools.

Could it be
?

She ran over and slid to her knees, gently placing her hand on the outstretched, tentacle-arm, somehow knowing it was her own Iddo in there. She smiled at what she heard next.

“Hullo, Lizzy!” His words leapt into her mind. “You have been octopying my mind. Ha-ha! Get it? So sorry, they are putting something in my water, and it makes me feel a little giddy. I have been waiting for you to come!” Huge relief flooded Lizzy.

“Oh, Iddo, what's happened? Dr. Krell didn't hurt you or change you into one of these
things
, did he?”

Iddo took his soft, sinewy appendage and wrapped it around the length of her arm, the suction cups lightly pop-popping against her skin.

“No, dear girl, not yet. I tried to escape. The feeder left the lid off my tank by mistake and, in the cloak of night, I slipped out and made my way to the rooms facing the ocean. I had begun prying open a window when I was caught …”

He swayed and sloshed as he spoke.

“It was that lab assistant, Lee. I don't like him! Dr. Krell must've thought I was trouble because he sent me here … and I am
very
sleepy.”

She stroked his arm to comfort him.