The Colossus Rises

  We stopped underneath it. Torquin pointed upward. “The night we picked you up,” he said. “Hit something. Almost didn’t make it.”

  “Looks pretty bad,” I said. Was that why I was here? So Torquin could show the damage we’d caused the sub? Did he expect me to apologize? “Next time we’ll send for a car. Now where do I go?”

  Torquin just stood there, staring at me. After a minute or two, he bent down and picked up a wrench off the floor.

  “Fix,” he said. “I come back at one forty-five.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Marco yelled, nearly bounding across the lawn. “Hiro says I’ll be double black belt in a week!”

  Marco the Magnificent was the last person I wanted to see at the end of my morning of torture. Despite the fact that he’d just been deep in martial arts, he was dribbling a basketball toward me. I slumped against the outside of the garage. My face was smudged with grease. Behind me, the submarine was tilted to one side and it looked as if its intestines were hanging out.

  I had managed to befriend a mechanic named Fritz, who had his entire face tattooed with the KI snake symbol. He tried to teach me how to use a welding tool and a rivet remover. I burned a hole in the hydraulic lift, managed to yank the sub’s emergency hatch off its hinges, cracked a motherboard and its circuitry, and somehow hammered off one of the propellers. The sub was in worse shape now than it had been this morning. Fritz was screaming his head off in German. And a team of techs was discussing whether to commission a replacement sub.

  “Whoa, what happened here?” Marco asked as he saw my face, and the sub, up close.

  “You almost got a black belt,” I said, walking out toward the lawn. “I almost got a Schlag auf dem Kopf mit einem Schlussel.”

  “Sounds amazing,” Marco said. “What’s that?”

  “A smack on the head with a wrench,” I replied.

  Across the compound, Professor Bhegad was waving to us from the other side of the oval lawn. He was wearing a faded KI baseball cap that wasn’t quite straight, and he stood at the base of a museum-like structure with wide stone steps topped by seven stone pillars. It could have passed for a courthouse in Washington, DC, but for the distant black mountain rising like a witch’s hat from the jungle behind it.

  I began walking across the lawn. My feet were so sweaty they squished in my shoes. My pockets were loaded down with some junk I wanted for my room, which Fritz let me take—pulleys, hooks, rope.

  “So, are you some kind of car genius?” Marco asked.

  “They must have thought so.” I sighed. “I mean, I’m not stupid. I’m not afraid to try things. But I like to construct things my way, which isn’t necessarily the way anyone else does it. So this afternoon was one big epic fail. I messed up everything.”

  Marco’s brow furrowed. “This is called training. I think we all have to do a little bit of everything. Expand ourselves. Maybe I’m the one who gets garage duty tomorrow. Come on, brother Jack, pessimism not allowed. What are you great at? When people think of Jack McKinley, what do they say? He’s an incredible…what?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “I can’t even wake myself up in the morning without smacking myself in the head with a plastic toy.”

  Marco nodded. “Okay, that’s pretty pathetic, I admit. But come on—art? Chess? Foreign languages? Angry Birds? Swimming! No, wait, you suck at that.”

  As we neared Professor Bhegad, I saw for the first time that the majestic building had a name, carved into a stone block above the pillars: HOUSE OF WENDERS.

  “Looks like a big typo,” I said, “for House of Wonders.”

  Marco snapped his fingers. “There’s your talent—spelling!”

  By now Cass and Aly were jogging toward us, laughing at some joke. A breeze had kicked up, and Aly’s hair looked like a pink flame.

  “Well, well, looks like you all had a splendid first day so far,” Professor Bhegad called out. “Follow me, please. Jack, there is a men’s locker room down the first set of steps when you enter. It has showers and fresh sets of clothing.”

  We followed Bhegad upstairs and into the building. A grand hallway greeted us, its floors made of polished wood, its walls of bright mosaic tile. At the opposite end, a wide carpeted stair led to a marble balcony that surrounded the hallway and opened onto rooms and offices.

  But I could not take my eyes away from the hall’s center, where the ceiling vaulted at least three stories high to accommodate a skeleton that nearly took my breath away. It rose up like some brontosaur on steroids, with a snakelike neck that ended in a fearsome raptor head with saber teeth. It stood on bent legs with clawed feet, and its tail was short with thick bones. “Wow, what do you call that thing?” Cass asked.

  “Sir,” Marco said, his head craned upward.

  “The skeleton was excavated by paleontologists shortly after the island was discovered,” Bhegad said, removing his baseball cap, “by one of the greatest Scholars of Karai, Herman Wenders, who died in 1897.”

  “Oh, well, so much for the spelling angle,” Marco muttered.

  “It is only one of the bizarre specimens we have uncovered, as you can see…” Bhegad said.

  As I looked around the room, I felt something odd. Like the walls themselves were expanding and contracting in rhythm. Breathing. The light, too, seemed to be seeping through the pores of the stone, like a draft that could be seen and not felt.

  Marco was peering at me oddly. “’Sup, bro?”

  “I think I inhaled too many garage fumes,” I said. “See you in class.”

  I hurried down to the showers.

  Trumpets and drums and quivering violins blasted out of speakers. They echoed through a musty old classroom, where I was sitting at a wooden desk in the second row, behind Aly. An image filled a screen—a glorious castle with a great lawn on which a king and queen greeted subjects while little boys played nearby.

  “The kingdom of Atlantis,” Professor Bhegad announced, “existed on this spot for thousands of years. It is unlike other ancient advanced civilizations—India, Italy, Greece, China—because the historical record was completely destroyed. Or so it was thought…”

  “Can you cut the sound track?” Marco called out from the back of the room.

  Aly leaned forward and pressed the mute button.

  “Yes, ahem,” Bhegad said. “A transcription and several images were found by KI archaeologists shortly after the discovery of this island over a hundred years ago. They are said to be based on stone tablets, which we have not been able to locate. The transcription provided much of the history we know, and this slideshow is based on that. Behold Atlantis’s last rulers, King Uhla’ar and Queen Qalani, along with their sons, Karai and Massarym.”

  “The Great Qalani…” I murmured.

  He clicked the remote and another image appeared—seven globes, glowing brightly. “A pioneering genius in mathematics and physics, Queen Qalani spent her life studying the source of Atlantean power. She worried about attack from barbarians who would abuse the energy for evil intent. So she sought to analyze the power, perhaps to convert it into physical form. Imagine! It could then be transported, hidden away, kept safe. Over years, using techniques not even imaginable to our scientists today, she isolated this energy into the seven components, each to be stored in a Loculus.”

  “Like harnessing electricity and putting it in lightbulbs,” Marco said.

  “Not exactly,” Professor Bhegad said. “Massarym, who inherited his mother’s curiosity if not her intellect, found something astonishing upon handling the Loculi. Each of the seven power components had a unique property of its own. With one Loculus he could fly…with another become invisible…things of that nature. But the Loculi did not work for just anyone, only those of royal blood.” He looked meaningfully at each of us. “And their descendants, too. Which would be those carrying the G7W gene marker.”

  Aly’s eyes widened. “The Select…”

  “I’m a prince?” Marco said, nearly leaping out of his chair.

  ??
?Exhilarated by the discovery,” Bhegad continued, “Uhla’ar, Qalani, Karai, and Massarym showed off the powers of the Loculi. Their people were in awe. They began seeing the royal family as gods. Some became envious and tried to steal the powerful spheres. Karai, who had a deep connection to Atlantean fauna, trained one type of giant raptor to protect the Loculi.”

  I knew the answer to this one. “The Ugliosaurus!”

  The image now changed to a painting of a slavering red creature with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion. “It is known in mythology as a griffin. The fiercest of beasts. When they imprinted on something, they would guard it with their lives. They tore to shreds anyone who came close, the way a hawk captures a rat. Now the game was changing. People began hating the royals. Rebel bands emerged, bent on unseating the family and stealing their magic. Karai realized that the Loculi were not preserving Atlantis but poisoning it. They needed to be destroyed.”

  Now we were seeing a fight scene, the dark and fair brothers in a fistfight as the queen summoned a team of burly courtiers. “Massarym would have none of Karai’s talk. He loved the powers of the Loculi. So one night, when the palace was under attack, he slipped away. He commandeered a fearsome reptilian beast to kill every last griffin, and then he stole away the sacred Loculi.”

  The fight scene faded, replaced by a scene of horrific disaster. An explosion blackened the sky as a horrified Qalani cried out in agony. Fire swept through the jungle, and a crack opened in the earth—directly in the path of the fleeing Karai.

  The dream.

  I recoiled. My fingers felt scorched. I had the urge to run. My body went rigid with fear. Fight or flight.

  Marco, Cass, and Aly were staring at me. They’d had the dream, too. Were they feeling the same thing I was?

  “You okay, dude?” Marco asked.

  “F—” I couldn’t even say fine. My jaw was locked tight.

  I couldn’t stay here. Below me, the smooth floor seemed to vibrate like a delicately plucked string. I ran out onto the balcony that surrounded the grand entrance hall. A song seemed to be flowing from above, only it wasn’t sound really, and it wasn’t light either.

  Bhegad had stopped talking. In a moment Cass, Marco, and Aly were by my side.

  “Do you feel it?” I whispered. “Do you hear the song?”

  Bhegad was standing in the door, watching us closely. Below us, the skeleton seemed to be glowing. Some of the bones were dissolving, shaking loose. They floated, re-forming in midair. The neck was shortening, the tail growing longer, as if the creature had not been put together quite right and was correcting itself. Other bones flew in from other skeletons. The beast’s form was changing, its mouth growing rows of sharp teeth, its claws sharpening.

  A white shroud began to form around it, slowly sapping color from the room, until a transparent film of mosaic scales had wrapped the beast from head to toe.

  I felt bolted to the floor. I saw nothing now but the pale ghost of a shrouded reptilian giant. And the piercing, unmoving eyes of Professor Bhegad.

  “Jack?” Aly said. “Are you okay?”

  Why wasn’t she looking upward? Why wasn’t anyone? I blinked once, twice. I shook my head. “Look!” I said. “Open your eyes!”

  As if in answer, the creature turned toward me.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE FIRST TREATMENT

  IT IS THE largest of them all. It bounds over the ridge, slashing trees in its path. The red raptors—griffins—surround it like hornets, dive-bombing, screeching. But it springs from its haunches, grabbing one of the taunting raptors out of the air and crushing its neck. I turn away as it holds the bird-lion under its claw, waiting for its twitching to stop.

  I do not want it to see me. So I continue to run. Until I hear a voice.

  I know the voice. It is my brother’s.

  He is my age, but we look nothing alike. I am angry with him, but I don’t know why. He is telling me to come, to escape with him.

  A fireball plunges from the sky, nearly taking my head off. I believe my brother’s plan is doomed. But I see an escape: a scorched pathway through the woods, leading over the ridge. I point that way and call to him. His name comes off my tongue, but I can’t hear it.

  And now I can no longer see him. Where is he? I hear his voice behind me. Then to my left. My right. Above me. I turn and turn, helpless, confused.

  And I see the great creature looming above, the head of the lion-bird gripped between its teeth.

  It is coming for me.

  “No!” It is the first word I hear out of my own mouth.

  The beast laughs, dripping blood from its jaws. “Ja-a-a-ck…” it says.

  “No-o-o-o-o!”

  “Jack!” a voice called out of the darkness. “You’re awake, Jack. You’re healthy and alive and in the real world! Welcome back.”

  My eyes blinked open. I saw charts and beeping LCD monitors and IV tubes. For a moment I thought I was in Belleville again, and this whole adventure had been a horrible dream.

  But the voice was Professor Bhegad’s, and he was dressed in a white lab coat. The silver-haired doctor from the submarine—Dr. Bradley—was adjusting my IV tube.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Your first treatment happened,” Dr. Bradley replied. “It wasn’t scheduled yet, but you collapsed in the House of Wenders.”

  “You were having visions,” Bhegad said. “The timing of the first symptoms is unpredictable, which is why we’ve been monitoring you so closely since you arrived.”

  “Now you tell me!” I said.

  Professor Bhegad smiled. “The hump is over, Jack. After this one we can time the other treatments nearly to the minute. From here on in, they will be given to you before anything bad happens. You will receive a schedule.”

  “Lucky me.” I sat up, feeling weak. I thought of the museum. “I…felt something in there. That building…”

  “Yes,” Bhegad said. “The others did, too. To a lesser extent, but that may be because they’ve been here longer. For the Select, physical relics of the ancient world seem to act as conduits to the past. It as if the past and present are together.”

  “I saw the creature move,” I said.

  Bhegad cocked his head. “The others did not see that. To them, you screamed and fell to the floor. They are concerned about you.”

  “Why didn’t they see it?” I demanded.

  “I—I don’t know,” Bhegad replied.

  “There was a song, too,” I said. “Not really music, but more like…a call. From one of the rooms.”

  “The Wenders Collection?” Bhegad said. “Just above where I was standing…one of the rooms leading into the balcony?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Fascinating…” Bhegad murmured. “That is where we keep the most unusual relics from Dr. Wenders’s archaeological digs. We believe he alone possessed knowledge of where the heart of Atlantis lies. The place where the seven Loculi must be gathered to regain the power of the lost continent. But his studies were never completed. After his young son died, at age fourteen, he fell into grief and began trying to destroy all he had discovered. He died a broken and confused man.”

  “Age fourteen?” I said. “Was he…?”

  “Yes, young Burt Wenders was most likely a Select,” Bhegad said.

  I lay back in my bed and closed my eyes. I could still hear—feel—what was coming from that room. “So…that’s one of our tasks, isn’t it? To find that place where the Loculi were gathered. Which no one has done in thousands of years.”

  “Give yourself a night’s sleep and a good shower,” the professor said softly. “It’s been a long day.”

  I spent the rest of the night in the hospital.

  Wide awake.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HERMAN AND BURT WENDERS

  “IT’S OBSIDIAN,” CASS said, staring at a jagged rock he held up to the light through the dusty windows of the Wenders Collection room.

  Marco s
hrugged. “Seems well-behaved to me.”

  “Obsidian, not obstinate, you ape,” Aly said.

  “Oo! Oo! Oo!” Marco grunted.

  I felt as if I were floating somehow. The Wenders Collection was alive to me in ways that I couldn’t understand. Down the center of the room ran a solid oak table with neatly organized glass boxes full of artifacts. The dark wood walls were lined with cabinets, stuffed to bursting. Wherever I looked, I saw bones and potsherds, scraps of clothing, artwork. Each seemed to be calling to me somehow, crowding my brain. Each was its own déjà vu.

  I felt stronger today. Bhegad insisted it was because of the treatment. The others assumed the same thing. But a part of me couldn’t believe it. Yes, Aly had passed out, and I’d had some kind of spell. Yes, we were both whisked away behind closed doors. But maybe we would have recovered anyway. Maybe the “treatments” were nothing more than keeping us out of sight until we were well.

  The better to make their story seem true.

  I took the rock Cass was holding. It was palm sized, an odd, geometric shape that looked like it had been carved.

  “That’s sad,” Aly said.

  “That’s gross,” Marco remarked.

  “This was found on Herman Wenders when he died,” Bhegad said. “He had gone missing for days, mentally unraveling over the death of his son, Burt. When Wenders reappeared, he seemed haunted, babbling to himself. Claimed to have seen the center of Atlantis. The Scholars tried to take him seriously. They attempted to nurse him back to health, all the while gently coaxing him for details. But he would lapse into a confused silence and stare hopelessly at this rock.”

  I looked up above Professor Bhegad’s head to a portrait of Herman and Burt Wenders. The father was grim and scowling, with a trim, gray beard and a waxed handlebar mustache. He sat ramrod straight in a neat, dark jacket. His son looked energetic and full of mischief, like he was dying to tell the photographer a joke.