I squinted at the distant ruins. A stone wall snaked around the area. Inside were mounds of rubble and flattened, roped-off areas that must have been archaeological digs. Gazing through a set of binoculars, Bhegad pointed out a small skyline of low buildings near a gate in the wall. Some were flat-roofed and some peaked. “Those are restorations of the ancient city,” he said with a disapproving cluck of the tongue. “Crude, crude workmanship . . .”
“Where were the Hanging Gardens?” Aly called out.
“No one knows,” Bhegad answered. “Babylon was destroyed by an earthquake in two hundred B.C. or thereabouts. The rivers have changed courses since then. The Gardens may have sunk under the Euphrates or may have been pulverized in the earthquake. Some say it may not have ever existed. But those people are fools.”
“I hope it’s Door Number Two,” Aly said. “Pulverized. Turned to dust. Just like the Colossus was. At least we’ll have a chance for two out of seven Loculi.”
“More than twenty-eight percent,” Cass piped up.
I looked at the tracker panel on the cockpit. Marco’s signal was near the Euphrates River, not quite as far as the ruins. As Fiddle descended, we could see a team of guards outside the archaeological site, looking at us with binoculars.
“Wave! Hi!” Nirvana said. “They’re expecting us. They’re convinced this is a major educational archaeological project.”
“How did you arrange all this?” Cass asked.
“I was a professor of archaeology in another life,” Bhegad replied. “My name still carries some weight. One of my former students helps run the site here. He also happens to be a satellite member of the Karai Institute.”
Fiddle descended slowly and touched down. He cut the engine, threw open the hatch, and let us out.
The sun was brutal, the land parched and flat. The dusty soil itself seemed to be gathering up the heat and radiating it upward through our soles. In the distance to our right, I could see a bus rolling slowly toward the ancient site. Tour groups made their way slowly among the ruins, like ants among pebbles. In between, the sandy soil seemed to give way to an amazingly huge lake.
“Do you see what I see?” Aly said.
Cass nodded. “Egarim,” he said. “Don’t get too excited.”
“Translate, please,” I said.
“Mirage,” Cass replied. “The soil is full of silicate particles. The same stuff glass is made of. When it’s so bright and hot like this, the sunlight reflects off all those particles. At a sideways angle, it looks like a big, shining mass—which resembles water!”
“Thank you, Mr. Einstein,” I said, scanning the horizon. Directly ahead of us, across the yellow-brown desert, was a line of low pine trees that stretched in either direction. The heat-shimmer coming up from the ground made the trees look as if they were rippling in an invisible current. “That’s where Marco’s signal is coming from. The Euphrates.”
Marco was so close!
I checked over my shoulder. Torquin and Nirvana were struggling to lift Professor Bhegad out of the chopper and put him in a wheelchair.
“This is going to take forever,” Aly said. She darted toward Torquin, pulled the tracking-signal detector from his gadget belt, and bolted toward the river. “Come on, let’s start!”
“Hey!” Torquin cried out in surprise.
“Let them go, we have our hands full here!” Nirvana said.
Our footsteps made clouds of yellowish dust as we ran. Closer to the river, the ground was choked with scrubby grass and knots of small bushes. We stopped at the thicket of pine trees that stretched in both directions.
The ground sloped sharply downward. Below us, the Euphrates slashed a thick silver-blue S like a curved mirror through the countryside. To the north it wound around a distant settlement, then headed off toward mountains blurred by fog. To the south it passed by the Babylonian ruins before disappearing into the flatness. I scanned the riverbank, looking for signs of Marco.
“I don’t see him,” Aly said.
I held up the tracker. Our blue dot locator and Marco’s green one had merged. “He’s here somewhere.”
“Yo, Ocram!” Cass shouted. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Rolling her eyes, Aly began walking down the slope toward the river. “He might be hiding. If he’s playing a prank, I will personally dunk him in the water.”
“Unless he throws you in first,” I said.
I glanced quickly back over my shoulder to check on the others. Nirvana was struggling to push Professor Bhegad’s wheelchair across the rocky soil. He bounced a lot, complaining all the way. Torquin had taken off his studded leather belt and was trying to wrap it around Bhegad like a seat belt, causing his own pants to droop slowly downward.
I started through the brush. It was dense and maybe three to five feet high, making it hard to see. As we moved forward, we kept calling Marco’s name.
We stopped at the edge of a rocky ridge. None of us had seen this from the distance. It plunged straight downward, maybe twenty feet, to the river below. “Oh, great,” Aly said.
I looked north and south. In both directions, the ridge angled downward until it eventually met the riverbed. “We’ll be okay if we go sideways,” I said.
I went to the edge and looked over. I eyed the tangle of trees, roots, and bushes along the steep drop. Since Marco had taught us to rock climb, steep embankments didn’t scare me as much as they used to. This looked way easier than climbing Mount Onyx.
“Maybe there’s a shortcut,” I said. Quickly I stepped over the edge, digging my toes into a sturdy root. I turned so my chest would be facing the cliff. Holding on to a branch, I descended another step.
“Whoa, Jack, don’t,” Cass said.
I laughed. “This is ea—”
My foot slipped. My chin hit the dirt. I slid downward, grasping frantically. My fingers closed around branches and vines. I pulled out about a dozen, and a dozen more slipped through my hand. I felt my foot hit a root and I caromed outward, landing at the bottom, hard on my back.
Aly’s face was going in and out of focus. I could have sworn she was trying to hold back a smile. “Are you hurt?”
“Just resting,” I lied.
“I think I’ll look for a path,” Cass called down.
I closed my eyes and lay still, my breath buzzsawing in my chest. I heard a dull moan, and I figured it must have been my own voice.
But when I heard it again, my eyes blinked open.
I sat up. Aly and Cass were just below the crest of the ridge, trying to make their way down. They were both shouting. But my eyes were focused on a thick, brownish-green bush, maybe ten yards away.
A pair of shoes jutted from underneath.
CHAPTER FIVE
TOGETHER, WE FELL INTO DARKNESS
NEW BALANCE BASKETBALL shoes. Size gazillion wide. With feet in them.
I ran to them, grabbed the ankles, and pulled. The legs slid out—Ohio State Buckeye sweatpants—and then a ripped-up KI polo shirt.
From above, Fiddle shouted at me to give him CPR. How did you do CPR? I wished I’d taken a course. All I could think about were scenes in TV shows—one person blowing air into another’s lungs.
As I lowered my mouth carefully, his eyes flickered open from a deep sleep. “Jack? Hey, bro. I didn’t know you cared.”
I sprang back. “What the—how—you were—we thought—” I stammered.
“Spit it out,” Marco said, sitting up. “I’ve got time. I’ve been waiting for you. It gets boring here all alone.”
He was fine. Resting in the shade, that’s all! I helped him up and bear-hugged him. “Woooo-hooo!”
Footsteps pounded the dirt behind me. Aly and Cass ran down a path from the lower side of the ridge. They had taken the long way around.
“Dudes!” Marco yelled. “And dudette.”
As they jumped on him, laughing, and squealing with relief, I stepped back. My initial joy was wearing off as quickly as it had come. Our reaction seemed som
ehow wrong.
I watched his face, all pleased with himself, all happy-go-lucky returning hero. Everything we’d been through, all the hardship in Rhodes, the abandonment, the awful visit to Ohio—it all began to settle over me like a coat of warm tar. I flashed back to the last time I saw him, in a room at a hotel in Rhodes. With Cass lying unconscious on a bed.
He’d skipped out on us. As if flying off with our only chance of survival was some kind of game. He hadn’t cared about anyone at the Karai Institute. Or how many lives he’d turned upside down.
“Brother Jack?” Marco said curiously, staring out at me from the hugfest. “’Sup? You need a bathroom?”
I shook my head. “I need an explanation. Like, when did you come up with the idea to find a Loculus by yourself? Just, whoosh, hey, I’ll go to Iraq and be a hero?”
“I can explain,” Marco said.
“Do you have any idea what we’ve been through?” I barked. “We just got back from Ohio.”
“Wait. Did you—go to my house?” he asked, his eyes widening.
I explained everything—our trip to Lemuel, the visit to the house, the expressions on his mom and dad and sister’s faces. I could see Marco’s eyes slowly redden. “I . . . I can’t believe this . . .” he murmured.
“Jack, maybe we can talk about this later,” Aly urged.
But Marco was sinking against the trunk of a pine tree, massaging his forehead. “I—I never wanted to go home. I remember how painful it was for Aly when she tried to call her mom.” He took a deep breath. “Why did you go there? Why didn’t you just follow my signal here? That’s what I thought you’d do.”
“Your tracker malfunctioned,” I said. “It was off for a couple of days.”
“Really?” Marco cocked his head. “So you risked everything and went to the States? For me? Wow. I guess you’re right, I do owe you an explanation . . .”
“We’re all ears,” Aly said. “Start from Rhodes.”
“Yeah . . . that hotel room . . .” Marco said. “It was hot, the TV shows were all in Greek, Cass was asleep. All I wanted to do was take a break. You know, hop on the old Loculus, maybe scare a few goats and come right back—”
“Goats?” I said. “Cass was in a coma!”
“Dumbest thing I ever did. I know,” Marco said. “I’m a moron. I admit it. But it gets worse. So I’m flying around, and I get distracted by this little island called Nísyros. Looks like a volcano from the air, hot girls on the beach, you know. I swoop in close, make people scream. Fun times. Only when I get back, Cass isn’t in the room anymore. I panic. But you guys are probably already flying away. I figure, great, you’ve abandoned me.”
“Did you actually say ‘hot girls’?” Aly said, her face curdling with disdain.
“So I figure I’ll race you back,” Marco went on. “But how do I get back to the island of the KI Geeks? It’s halfway between nowhere and the Bermuda Triangle. And then I hear something. This voice. And here’s where it gets complicated. And awesome.” He paused, looking around.
“Ahoy, there!” came Professor Bhegad’s voice. Fiddle was pushing him down a sandy path, about forty yards away.
“He’s here?” Marco said, looking confused. “Wait. Four Karai peeps?”
“This is a big deal—that’s why they’re here!” Aly said. “You could have died, Marco. Or been abducted by the Massa. Besides, aren’t you due for a treatment?”
“I don’t need treatments,” Marco said, his voice rushed and agitated.
“This is no joke, Marco, you could die,” Cass reminded him.
“We need to take you back,” Aly said, glancing around. “Where’s the flight Loculus?”
“I had to hide it. People here saw me flying. There was a crowd with cameras.” Marco reached out, gathered us into a huddle, and spoke fast. “I screwed up and I owe you all big-time. But I’ll make it worthwhile, I promise. Look, there’s some stuff I have to show you, okay? I’ve been here awhile, and I’ve found out some amazing things. Like . . . hold for it . . . Loculus Number Two.”
My jaw dropped. “You found it already?”
“Not exactly, but I know where it is. Interested? I thought so.” Marco began running toward the river, and of course we followed.
He paused by the bank. Heat shimmered off the water and dragonflies flitted along the surface. Near the opposite bank, a boat floated around a bend with two people lying lazily, their fishing rods slack. “It’s there,” Marco said.
“In that boat?” Cass said.
“No, there—in the water,” Marco replied. “You’re Selects, just like me. Can’t you feel it? You know, that weird music thing that Jack talks about?”
Aly scrunched her eyes. “No . . .”
The music.
I’d felt it in the center of Mount Onyx, when I found the Heptakiklos. It wasn’t a song, really, not even a sound that you heard through your ears. It was a kind of full-body thrum, as if my nerves themselves were being played by invisible fingers like a harp.
Somehow, I was always the one who felt this most intensely. But right now it was only a suggestion, barely a tickle. It surprised me that Marco felt it, too.
Marco smiled. “No offense, Brother Jack, but you’re not the only one who senses this stuff. It’s in there, guaranteed. The closer you get, the more you feel it.”
“You went into the water to find it?” Cass asked.
Marco nodded. His face was glowing with excitement. “Yup. I haven’t located it yet, but what I found down there will blow your mind. For real. I’m not even going to try to explain. Trust me. You have to see it.”
Cass’s blotchy face was turning a uniform shade of white. “I—I’m happy to wait here. Swimming and I don’t really get along.”
“I’ll hold on to you, brother,” Marco said, taking his arm.
Professor Bhegad’s voice shouted from behind us: “My boy—come here, this wheelchair doesn’t do well on wet sand!” He was close to the bottom now. His wheelchair wasn’t liking the dry sand, either.
Cass struggled to wrench himself away. “We can’t just jump in, Marco! We have to clear this. You may be cool about breaking the rules, but you know the KI.”
“Why are you worried about them?” Marco asked.
“Uh, maybe because they’re the ones in charge of our lives?” Aly said.
Marco groaned. “They’ll require a chaperone, or an official KI submarine, whatever. That’ll take the fun out of it. We’ll do this fast, I promise. You will thank me!”
I stepped closer to the water. Toward the sound. An hour ago we had no Loculi, and now we have a chance at two. Two of seven.
But I stopped short. Bhegad was shouting now. Freaking out. Completely confused by what was going on. Why we were standing by the bank of a river, looking like we were about to go for a swim? Were we nuts?
I stepped back, shaking my head. We needed the KI’s support. Marco’s flight was a huge complication. A good plan was better than chaos. Just because the Song of the Heptakiklos beckoned, I didn’t mean we had to listen right this instant. “Just give me a couple of seconds, Marco,” I said.
As I turned toward Bhegad and the others, I felt a vise-like hand land on my shoulder. And I was flying back toward the water.
“Banzaaiiiiii!” Marco had us all in his grip, our feet off the ground. “Take a deep breath, hang on—and most of all, trust me!”
We had no choice. Together, we fell into the darkness of the Euphrates.
CHAPTER SIX
PEACEFUL
MUCK. GRAY-GREEN, THICK, weed-choked muck.
No wonder Marco couldn’t find the second Loculus. You couldn’t see three feet in front of your nose.
As I swam, trying to keep up with him, noodle-like shapes slimed my face. Marco was holding tight to Cass. The fluorescent strip on Cass’s backpack flashed occasionally in the dim ribbons of light that somehow broke through the water. I was getting colder by the second. With my clothes and shoes, I felt heavy like a whale.
Down . . . down . . . how far was this thing? It was practically black now. The light was way too far over our heads.
As far down as you go, you will need an equal amount of air to swim back up. It’s what I learned in summer camp. I learned to sense when I was half spent. And I was way past that. Already my head felt light and my heart seemed about to explode.
Marco wasn’t slowing a bit. Aly banged me on the shoulder. She was gesturing, urging me to go back up with her. I knew she was right. Marco was going to kill us. How far were we supposed to go? What exactly were we going to see—and where?
Ahead of me, Marco had stopped swimming. He still held tight to Cass, who was now hanging limply in the water. The two of them were silhouetted by a weird, dull yellow glow below them.
As I swam toward them, I realized I was gaining speed. An undertow.
I tried to pull back but I couldn’t. The glow was intensifying, looming closer. It was a circle of bright tiles with a center of solid black. In front of me, Marco seemed to be changing shape—blowing out to an amorphous humanoid blob, then shrinking to clam-size.
What’s going on?
My head snapped back, and suddenly I was surging into the black hole as if sprung by a giant rubber band.
As I passed through the hole, it let out a deep, threatening buzz. A halo of green-white light shot sparks from its circumference into my body. My mouth opened into an involuntary scream. I collided with Marco and Cass, but they felt porous, as if our molecules were joining, passing through one another. My left leg smacked against something hard, and I bounced away.
I was spinning with impossible speed, as if my head were in ten places at once. And then I felt myself catapulted forward, and I thought my limbs would separate into different directions.
But they didn’t. I flattened out, decelerating. The water’s temperature abruptly dropped, and so did its texture. All at once it had become clear and cool—and I was whole again. Solid. But the change had unsettled every biological function inside me. My brain registered relief, but my lungs were in chaos. As if someone had reached inside and squeezed them with a steel fist.