Max Tilt: Fire the Depths

  “Okay—pulll!” Alex urged, running to his side.

  Using the branch as a fulcrum, she and Max yanked the rope downward as hard as they could. The container began to rise. It slanted upward, out of the muck, but it wouldn’t go much farther. “I’ll try to hold the rope steady!” Alex said. “You try to maneuver that thing out of the mud.”

  Max ran over, putting one hand on the chest handle, another on the rope. The chest was solid steel and felt like it weighed a zillion pounds. Pulling as hard as he could, he managed to angle most of it over the dry soil. “Let go!”

  Alex released the rope, and the chest whomped downward, nearly half of it still in the mucky water. Holding the rope like a tug-of-war, they dug in hard and pulled. “Heave . . . ho!” Alex yelled.

  As it slowly came clear, they fell to the ground and caught their breaths.

  The chest was a mass of mud, slime, scuttling crabs, tiny fish, and a metal surface that peeked through in places. Max grabbed a thick fallen branch and got up to walk to the chest. Holding the branch with two hands, he slowly ran it over the surface of the chest like an awkward squeegee. The mud sloughed off slowly, and Alex joined him, wiping the side of the chest with the sleeve of her wet suit. The whole thing was awkward, but in a few minutes they managed to expose the surface.

  Aside from the handles, it had no ornamentation at all—no tags, signs, decoration, initials, leather straps, locks, nothing.

  Just one keyhole on the side.

  Alex pulled out the key they had found in the elephant cave. “Niemand never got this either,” she said.

  Max felt his entire body quiver as Alex inserted the key. It slid in roughly. She turned it.

  With a deep scraaawwwwk, the lid opened.

  The entire Russian army could have attacked at that moment, the skies could have rained marshmallows, the trees could have transformed into kangaroos, and neither Max nor Alex would have noticed.

  They were staring at a thick tapestry of woven fabric, folded at the top of the chest, just under the lid. “R-R-Rugs?” Max said.

  He dug his hands into the folds of the carpeting. Despite the tight fit of the lid, the tapestry was pocked with holes and covered with blackish-green mold. He pulled it out, only to reveal another one underneath, better preserved, but brittle and disintegrated.

  “I don’t believe this . . .” Alex moaned.

  The tapestry split in two as Max lifted it out, the other half falling back into the chest. His stomach churned.

  This was the treasure. Hand-woven tapestries.

  “I guess . . . they were worth a fortune back then,” Max said.

  “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Alex said. But tears were already flowing down her cheeks.

  Max didn’t know what to feel either, but he smelled cat pee. And that meant he was furious. He lifted the broken half of the tapestry over his head and threw it into the woods. Then he dug out the other half. He had planned to drop it into the water and stomp on it with both feet, when a glint from inside the container made him stop.

  Alex was leaning forward now, her eyes as big as softballs. “Um, maybe you want to come here . . .” she said.

  Max ran to her side and knelt by the side of the chest. He had to hold on to the edge of the box. For support.

  Because what he was seeing inside made him feel faint.

  It was as if the sun, feeling lazy all day, had decided to put on a dance. Its light freckled the surface with reds, greens, blues, and gold. Rubies winked, sapphires glowed, diamonds flashed, and gold coins by the thousand kept them a civil distance from one another.

  “Am . . . I . . . dreaming . . . ?” Alex said. She and Max dug their hands in, feeling the weight, playing with the luminescence. Alex pulled out a heavy chain of emeralds and threw them around her neck. She clasped a diamond bracelet on her wrist and placed a gold tiara on her head.

  Not to be outdone, Max donned a tiara of his own. He quickly slid gold and silver rings on every finger, holding them up to the sunlight and laughing so loud he began to cry.

  Instead he threw his head back and shouted to the sky: “Thank you! Thank you, Grandpa Jules!”

  “Merciiiiiii!” Alex screamed.

  They were both crying now. Max turned to his cousin and wrapped her in a hug. “I don’t believe this I don’t believe this I don’t believe this I don’t believe this . . .” Alex shouted.

  Max let out a hoot and began dancing, shouting at the sky. “Yes yes yes yes yes yes!”

  Alex took his hand and danced with him. “We’re going to do this so right, Max! We’ll get out of here with this loot, and you’ll tell the world what happened!”

  “We’ll keep the house!” Max said.

  “You’ll buy a castle!”

  “I’ll get Mom the best care!”

  “She’ll live to be a hundred!”

  He dug his hands in and tossed up a shower of gold coins. They rose high into the air, turning and winking among the canopies of the island trees, then came hurtling down to the earth.

  “Ouch,” a deep voice called from inside the woods.

  Max and Alex jolted upright. The surrounding woods had grown darker, and for a moment they only saw the hint of movement. “Close it,” Alex whispered to Max. “Close the chest!”

  Before Max could move, an arm reached out of the shadows. It was holding out a gold coin.

  “I believe you lost this,” said Spencer Niemand, stepping into the light.

  46

  MAX was always picked last for baseball in gym class, but he threw a ninety-mile-an-hour sapphire that was a perfect strike to Niemand’s left cheek.

  The man flinched, muttering a curse. “Well, it’s a good thing I arrived before you threw away all my inheritance.”

  “How did you get here?” Alex demanded. “We left you—”

  “In that godforsaken icy backwater, freezing cold and with a glob of Basile’s putrid saliva on my face?” Niemand said, stepping closer. “Yes, you did. I had to take three showers to rid myself of the smell of old-man breath.”

  “Basile was your age, and he was worth a thousand of you,” Alex said. “He didn’t make it. Did you know that? He died saving us, Niemand. Does that even matter to you? Does anything matter to you?”

  “Everything I do matters greatly, but every noble cause has its lost soldiers, I’m afraid,” Niemand said. “I shall have my people send a condolence note to his family. Though I must say, the people of Piuli Point treated me with more grace than my old chum ever did. Such a trusting group of people! No one locks anything. Everyone leaves keys in the ignition, you know. Even, say, a speedy, fully equipped cutter in the bay . . .”

  “Qisuk’s boat,” Alex said. “You just stole it?”

  “Borrowed,” Niemand said. “On a long-term lease. We took off the moment the news broke that the remains of a submarine called the Conch had been found near a remote island beyond a rather notorious whirlpool.”

  “We?” Alex said.

  From out of the woods behind him stepped André. His long, stringy hair hung about his face as he focused his green eyes at the open chest. “The others decided to stay in Greenland—permanently,” Niemand said. “Let’s just say there was a disagreement over whether the ends justified the means.”

  Max slammed the chest shut. “You can’t have this.”

  “Oh, I believe I can,” Niemand said with a little snort. “What you are guarding was taken from my family unjustly. And now it can finally be put to its best use—saving humankind from its own stupidity.” He stooped to pluck the skull out of the ground and held it high. “Alas, poor Nemo! I knew him, Horatio!”

  “Nrgmf?” André asked.

  “It’s a Shakespearean quote, you numbskull!” Niemand tossed the skull over his shoulder and stepped toward Alex and Max. “Who do you think you are? You commandeer my submarine, cause the death of my crew member, and find my treasure—which, by the way, was taken upon the murder of my great-great-grandfather many years a
go by the likes of a French stockbroker turned second-rate science-fiction writer.”

  “Your great-great-grandfather wanted to destroy the world so he could become dictator of an undersea empire!” Max said.

  “He wanted to save the world, and so do I,” Niemand said through clenched teeth, his face tightening with anger, and his skin turning red. He turned and snapped his fingers toward his new second-in-command. “The faster we load this up, André, the bigger the percentage you’ll receive!”

  Max sat on the chest. As André approached, Max thrust himself off with his hands and kicked upward, landing a solid hit on André’s chin. The scraggle-haired man fell backward, arms flailing.

  Alex lunged for him, grabbing a hank of his greasy hair and running him smack into a tree.

  “I didn’t know you could do that!” Max said.

  “Neither did I,” Alex replied.

  As Niemand reached into an inner pocket of his down coat, Alex flew toward him, head butting him in the stomach. He lost his balance, falling against a tree. Alex turned to where she had dropped her metal digging tool and scooped it up off the ground. Now André was racing toward her, hands outstretched. “Alex, watch out!” Max shouted.

  Alex spun around, but not before André had pinned her arms to her sides in a bear hug. He lifted her off the ground and spun her in the air. She screamed and pounded on his head, but he let out a guttural roar and tossed her like a bale of hay.

  Max saw her body fly over a thick copse and smack against a tree trunk. He heard her head thump and saw her limp body drop down to the forest floor.

  “Alex!” he shrieked.

  No. No. No no no no no. Max held on to the sides of his head. He felt himself spinning.

  “What is he saying?” Niemand demanded.

  “Yrrj,” André said.

  “Something about fish?” Niemand said.

  Max heard the words and spun faster. Was he talking? He didn’t think he was talking. But spinning felt good, because it sometimes got rid of the smell, because maybe if he spun enough times, counterclockwise, he might be able to reverse time. He knew that was ridiculous. It was not factual at all. But facts weren’t always everything. Miracles happened too. And maybe at the end of the spinning it might be the beginning of June again, and this time he would not let Vulturon scare his mom, and maybe that would be the thing that turned everything around, and Alex would be back in Canada and he would still be home now—

  “Will you stop him!” Niemand screamed.

  He felt André grab his arm. The spinning stopped, and Max was dizzy. But he could see Niemand glaring at him. The man’s eyes were angry, but also confused. And maybe scared. Max had trouble telling those things apart sometimes. One thing he had no trouble telling was that Niemand was holding a gun. And it was pointed at Max. “Fish,” Max said. “Fish Fishy McFishface.”

  “You are a child,” Niemand said. “The strangest child I have ever seen, but a child nonetheless. And unless I have to, I am not inclined to shoot a defenseless innocent.”

  “Ha! Ha ha ha!” Max burst out laughing. “You think you’re doing good. But you’re not. That’s a fact. You’re a murderer! Look what you just did to my cousin!”

  “André did that—” Niemand spluttered.

  “And the snowmobile—”

  “Silence!” Niemand barked. “Just step away from that chest.”

  “No,” Max said.

  Niemand pointed the gun at his face. “I imagine your sick mother would take it very hard if her precious little boy went missing forever. It might just kill her.”

  Max began to shake. The anger had risen up from his toes, flooded his body, and was now turning his vision red. “Cat pee cat pee cat pee cat pee . . .”

  “Just put your hands in the air and back away,” Niemand said evenly, “so we can get this over with and all go home.”

  The click of the cocked gun turned Max’s anger to sheer terror. He put his hands in the air and sidled away slowly from the chest. Niemand gestured toward the metal shard that Max had been using to dig. “Is that your shovel?” he asked.

  Max nodded.

  “Primitive but effective,” Niemand said. “Pick it up. Go ahead, pick it up!”

  Max scooped the shovel off the ground and held it out to Niemand.

  “I don’t want it,” Niemand said. “I want you to dig.”

  “Dig?” Max said.

  “You heard me!” Niemand gestured behind him, to the place where he’d thrown the skull. “I want my ancestor’s entire body. Every bone! And when you’re done, when you’ve gotten the whole thing out, make the hole nice and comfy. Because you will be spending a lot of time in there.” Niemand smiled.

  Max blanched. His fingers went slack and the shovel dropped from his hands. “You said we would go home . . .”

  “Yes, but I get to choose who is included in we.” Niemand smiled. “Now dig.”

  “You wouldn’t . . .”

  “Make you dig your own grave?” Niemand said. “It’s either that or make André do it for you. Your choice. On the count of three. One . . .”

  Max bent to pick up the shovel but he couldn’t feel it in his fingers. It was as if his entire body had shut down. No smells, no nothing. “Please, Mr. Niemand . . .”

  “Two . . .”

  Forcing his hand to clutch the metal shard, Max began to dig.

  47

  “THREE!”

  Alex’s voice shouted from the shadows. Niemand spun around. He fired a blind shot into the woods.

  Max flinched. “Alex!”

  “Three!” Alex said again, from a different place in the woods, further to the left.

  “Shkch?” André asked.

  “Find her, you nincompoop!” Niemand fired a shot into the air. “Go!”

  André looked left, then right, then ran straight up the middle. From the woods directly behind Niemand, Alex leaped out of the shadows and onto his back, screaming, “Three!” She brought the end of her shovel down hard on his head.

  His mouth dropped open, and the gun fell from his hands. Max jumped away from the chest and pulled the old tapestry from the ground. He flew toward Niemand, shoving the moldy rug into his face. As they tumbled to the forest floor, Max landed on top of him. For a moment Niemand was out cold, and Max managed to roll him into the rug so his limbs were pinned together.

  In a moment, Niemand’s body convulsed with a sneeze. He kicked and wriggled, coughing violently. “As . . . As . . . Asthma!” he shouted.

  “Now you tell us,” Alex said.

  André emerged from the woods. Seeing the gun on the ground, he leaped for it.

  But Alex got there first. She held it in her hands like a rotten fish. “I hate these things,” she said. “Don’t make me use it.”

  André stuck his hands in the air.

  “As . . . achoo! . . . asthma!” Niemand spluttered.

  “Is that true?” Max asked André. “Is he asthmatic?”

  “Why are you asking him, Max?” Alex said. “We can’t understand a word he says.”

  André held up a finger. Sheepishly he grabbed a stick and traced a word in the ground.

  LIE

  “Klmpf,” he said, sneering at his boss.

  “Whaaaat?” Niemand’s body shook side to side. “You disloyal, mangle-tongued, green-eyed, snake-headed disgrace to humanity—”

  André put his fingers in his ears, stuck out his tongue, and said, “Pppptttttt!”

  “That I understood,” Max said.

  “Max,” Alex said. “Do you think we’re being rude? I think Stinky would like to take a tour of the Nautilus.” She untied the Nautilus’s rope from the chest. Moving quickly, she wrapped it around Niemand’s torso, trapping him tightly.

  “Good idea, Alex,” Max said, picking up the end of the rope that held Niemand. “Maybe André can help you drag him there.”

  “Wait—no! Don’t you understand? The fate of the world is at stake. Only I can make humanity great again! None of
what happens here is as important as Niemand Domes! Do you understand? Where will your families live when the oceans rise? Let me go! We can share this opportunity—OWW!” Max followed Alex and André as they dragged a writhing, carpet-wrapped Niemand through the woods. “This is cruel and unusual punishment! Entrapment! Assault and battery! You will hear from my lawyers! You will hear from my board of directors! You will spend the rest of your lives in court!”

  When they reached the dug-out submarine, Max opened the hatch with his free hand. “Today only, admission free for two people.”

  “Smmtch?” André said.

  “Now!” Alex and Max said at the same time.

  André dumped his boss into the sub. Niemand’s cry of pain wafted up from the musty dark. Max waved the gun, and André climbed in after him.

  Max slammed the door shut, and Alex jammed her shovel between it and the railing, to keep it from being forced open.

  “They’ll figure a way to get out,” Max said.

  “I know. We just need to buy enough time to get away,” Alex said. “Come on, let’s move.”

  “Where?”

  “They came on that cutter,” Alex said. “Do you know how to drive it?”

  “No,” Max replied. “Do you?”

  “No.”

  Max shrugged. “Well, I like learning new things . . .”

  As he spoke, the deep thrum of whirring blades sounded in the distant sky. Max dropped the gun. He and Alex ran out of the clearing, through the woods, and out to the rocky beach.

  Far overhead, a helicopter hovered, tilting left and right as it scoured the island. The two cousins began screaming and waving their hands. “Here!” Max cried out. “We’re here!”

  Alex inserted her fingers into her mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle.

  “Who are they?” Max shouted.

  As if in answer, the chopper tilted to the side. Qisuk was staring down at them through a pair of sunglasses.

  “Hiiiii!” Max screamed, waving his hands.

  “I guess,” Alex said, “he came looking for his boat.”

  Max threw his head back and let out a howl of joy. “And wait till he sees the tip we give him!” he shouted, as the helicopter slowly began to descend.