Landlocked (Atlas Link Series Book 2) (12 page)

nce my 3D rendering and database system had finished cleaning itself up, I added both the African idol and the sickle to the Waterstar map program. I had yet to determine how I’d spend my leave time. Usually I hung around the base. Where would I go, anyway? I hadn’t talked to either of my parents since SeaSat5’s hijacking, didn’t intend to ever again, and I didn’t have many friends back home.

Instead, I pulled out some old files and set to work on Mega Rush 3, a pointless undertaking given no one would actually play it.

This leave time didn’t sit well with me, although that could have been the caffeine talking at 4 a.m. Every time I placed my coffee on the cafeteria table, my fingers drummed the metal and my eyes refused to focus on the tablet in front of me. Mega Rush 3 couldn’t even hold my attention. Something wasn’t right, but the sinking feeling that started in my throat and landed somewhere deep within my chest refused to give me any clues.

Probably just the copious amounts of coffee
.

Around six in the morning I gave up on distractions and decided to figure out the source of this uneasy feeling. I stood up and headed for the base elevator. I rode it up two floors to the science labs and knocked on Dr. Hill’s door. Early as ever, he stood in front of his computer desk, staring down at the screen. He didn’t answer. What was with archaeologists and tunnel vision?

I cleared my throat and knocked again. “Dr. Hill?”

He looked up at his name and waved. “Good morning, Trevor.” He ignored the dark circles I knew were under my eyes. I tried to wash them away in the shower this morning, but it was pointless.

“As of last night, Chelsea and I still had the telepathic connection thing going on. Have you figured out what the Altern Device did, or anything about this whole telepathy thing?”

Dr. Hill shook his head. He sat at his computer and waved me over. I stood behind him as he pulled up some images, screen captures from his vest cam. The images showcased my and Chelsea’s efforts with the Altern Device, notes littered around the edges. All TAO personnel had a vest cam, but ours stopped working, probably due to some interference with the Altern Device. I suspected it was the same interference responsible for blocking Chelsea and Sophia’s powers. Not that we knew exactly what happened there, either. Everything about that mission screamed we were in too far over our heads.

“About all I’ve been able to gather is that it wasn’t just a puzzle game,” Dr. Hill said.

I thought about it for a moment. “Germay kept saying ‘connection’ like we do when we’re talking about Link Pieces. Maybe it had to do with that.” It kind of made sense. That and she’d scrutinized Sophia, Chelsea, and I big-time. Atlanteans and Lemurians were the only people with access to time-travel using Link Pieces. Using connections.

“Then why make you two telepathically connected?” Dr. Hill asked.

“I think that was a side effect of ripping the electrodes off ourselves while the machine was still engaged. We prematurely cut our connection to the device. If it wasn’t meant to be disconnected so suddenly then maybe…”

Dr. Hill nodded, frowning. “The upside is that might mean the link is temporary.”

I blew out a heavy sigh. I hoped the TAO doctors were right. Being telepathically linked to Chelsea forever sounded… exhausting. “That’s what they hope. Are you leaving base during our time off?”

Dr. Hill shut down his computer and shed a small smile. “Yes. An old friend needs help throwing together an exhibit for their state’s natural history museum.”

The way he said “old friend,” laced with fondness, gave him away. “Old friend, huh?”

He smiled warmly. “A good friend. I’ll be back in a few days.”

I clapped him on the shoulder and stood to give him some packing time. “Have fun.”

He nodded. “See you then.”

Sophia’s fist soared at my face. I pulled my body sideways, out of the way. She’d been slowly teaching me some hand-to-hand skills over the months, but I wasn’t any good. Still too much engineer and not enough soldier. Mostly, I feared hurting her, or her breaking something of mine. It was enough to keep me from ever really
learning
.

“Trevor, you could at least pretend you’re enjoying this.” She didn’t exactly agree to help me because it’d be fun. It wasn’t that I was incapable of taking care of myself so much as she’d saved my ass on more than one occasion over me being stupid.

I shrugged. “I can’t tonight. Something doesn’t… something just doesn’t feel right.”

Another swing. This one connected. Pain radiated in throbbing flashes from my jaw to the rest of my skull. Sophia didn’t stop. She brought her leg up to kick me, but I pushed it down and swung back. She’d let me get that one in, even at the cost of a bloody nose.

“Ah, crap,” I said, jogging over to the sink in the corner. Exactly what I didn’t want to happen. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. That’s what sparring is for,” she said as she pressed the paper towels to her nose. “What do you think is wrong?”

To be honest, I didn’t know. Anxiety and paranoia had worked its way into me overnight, and now it wouldn’t go away. That’s all I knew. “Maybe something happened to Chelsea?”

Sophia shook her head. “Not likely. She went straight home on leave.”

Wouldn’t be the first time she’s done something like that. After the hijacking, Chelsea left for two weeks as soon as she could walk again. Something happening to Chelsea was the only thing that’d make me feel like this without explanation, and I wasn’t entirely convinced the telepathy was to blame.

“Go, call her,” Sophia said.

Would Chelsea want me to call? Probably not. But I’d rather have her yell at me than not respond whatsoever. Silence, in our experience, was bad. Chelsea was the one who’d said it first. She was so paranoid about falling into another situation where we couldn’t talk and get things sorted out (like during the hijacking) that she’d made up this ridiculous plan to get messages across just in case. Including this one scenario where if something happened to her, and she couldn’t get in touch with me in person, she’d use the band to do so. On stage. In public. She was
that
paranoid. But if she’d been taken before being able to get a message to me… there was no backup option, no way to plan for that. That was what worried me now.

But I went along with it. Chelsea’s gut instincts could be trusted. Mine? Not so much.

Sophia’s nose stopped bleeding and she reassured me, again, that she was fine. I grabbed an icepack for my jaw and headed to my quarters for my cell phone. I dialed Chelsea’s number. A few rings sounded, then stopped.

“Hello.”

“Hi, Chels—”

“You’ve reached Chelsea. I can’t get your call at the moment, but leave your number and I’ll get back to ya! Bye!”

I hung up before the beep sounded. My anxiety hit an all-time high. Where was she? Why didn’t she answer?

My phone buzzed in my hand. I tensed, hoping it was her. It wasn’t—only my email.

I groaned. “Not now.”

But email was one of the ways Chelsea had devised for us to get in touch. It took a few tries to swipe open the app, my fingers an anxious frenzy, and skim through my inbox. Not a single email had come from any of the names Chelsea made up, or had the right words in their subject lines, but I checked every single one just in case. Maybe one of them had come from her after all.

“Bingo,” I said as a subject line caught my attention. It was an email from a Dr. Evan Wright from the International Engineers for Global Change Group… which I’d never heard of before. And being who I was in the Navy two years ago, I’d have heard of them. These types of societies practically knocked down the doors at my graduation ceremony to hire me. Too bad my parents had other plans.

I opened the email anyway. I’d been out of the loop for a while now. Maybe something had changed.

Mr. Trevor Boncore,

We at the International Engineers for Global Change Group would like to congratulate you, as you have received the Award of Excellence for your work conducted with the United States Navy. Your rotational ballast system, dubbed HB, will revolutionize ocean exploration and travel.

We’d like to invite you to the official ceremony to
—

I stopped reading. The letter was phony, but it wasn’t spam. Hummingbird was classified, and with SeaSatellite5 missing, the pool of people who actually knew that name was diminutive. Me, but I didn’t email myself; Chelsea, but none of this fit any codes she’d come up with; Weyland, who’d been MIA from the military for a while; and the higher up brass in Pearl Harbor and D.C. That’s it, and none of these people would let their precious little secret rotational ballast system leak. Not like that. Not when, at the time of SeaSat5’s disappearance, half of the system was still classified.

Which left only one other person in the entire world who would email me.

Valerie.

I didn’t need the rest of the email to know why Valerie had sent it. She was in danger.

I tried to trace it back, to follow her digital trail, but Valerie was smarter than me. Valerie had always been smarter than me. I was an engineer, not a computer scientist. I could keep up with hacking in college, but Valerie had clearly gained skills since our university days.

The trail ran cold somewhere in Western Europe, which meant my initial guess of her location was right—probably Paris or London. Somewhere she could get lost and blend in. Somewhere I’d never be able to find her.

But why contact me now, after two years of complete radio silence?

I leaned back in my chair, hands pressed against the back of my neck. “Why now, Val?” I asked my computer screen, as if it knew the answer.

Valerie had once been my friend, my colleague. Then my rival and now my enemy.

Was she really my enemy now? The note she left after the hijacking explained her side of the story, that she’d worked for Thompson to take the artifact cache, but changed her mind when she realized that he’d been willing to destroy the station to do it. But was it enough to call it even?

Where are you?

I just wanted to know. If she needed help, she was fishing for a way to let me know. Valerie might also have answers we need. Maybe if I told her about the Altern Device, she could figure out what it was meant to be used for. And if I found her, I could help her out of whatever mess she’d found herself in.

I sat up and placed my fingers on the keyboard. I couldn’t follow the trail to her, but maybe I could get her to come to me. I opened up my indie game client and uploaded Mega Rush 3 as a free-to-play game, my own sort of covert beacon.

Now all I had to do was wait. For Valerie to appear or Chelsea to decide to return my phone call.