Moonfin (20 page)

Half an hour later, light broke out around their sub as they arrived at an inland lake. A quick jolt brought them to a sudden stop; the Bip parked right next to an empty dock, as it had undoubtedly done so hundreds of times. Lizzy thought the Bip must be preprogrammed for several routes around the island, this one being its main route from the lab.

The hatch clicked open to the blinding light of day, flooding their compartment and stinging their eyes (for it was quite easy to forget about the sun while being transported by fish in the dark under-realms of the sea). Springing out of the floating fish-trap, they jumped onto the warm dock and took a moment to soak in their new surroundings.

Lizzy immediately noticed the pool lapped against a small beach, and was surrounded by a tall bluff covered in lush green plants and flowering vines overhead. A second waterfall spilled into the glistening water to their left, and a wooden staircase zigzagged from the sand below to the forest above on their right. Luckily, they were all alone—Krell's lab grunts must have had the day off.

Kai leaned down and scooped up a lotus flower from the water and held it gently in the palm of her hand—“Paradise,” she breathed.

“I wonder how Krell kept this place a secret for so long. I could put a hotel right
there
,” said Jeff, pointing up at the precipice. “And think how much money tourists would pay for a ride in one of those Bips! This place is a gold mine.”

“Do you Pinkertons ever stop thinking about money?”

“No, not really.”

“Ugh—smell that?” asked Lizzy, wrinkling her nose. “It stinks like rotten eggs. The pool is bubbling and gurgling in spots. It must be a hot magma zone.”

Kai cupped some water and sniffed at it. “There's sulfur in the water. But the lotus flower—”

“You're right—something's off—the Lotus doesn't grow in sulfur pools. And
whew
!—this is hardcore heat,” said Kai, wiping her brow. “This island doesn't even have the same climate as the mainland. It feels like a sauna here.”

“A hot springs resort is even better!” Jeff silently calculated profits while pulling their gear from the sub.

Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai strapped on their packs and shuffled up the staircase, trekking down a sandy path into a dense, shadowy forest. It was mesmerizing, and the three children thought they had found an enchanted place.

Lizzy marveled at the bizarre plants and animals they saw, many having strange features, almost primordial, as if from exotic and untamed lands. She found a square rock along the path and picked it up, except it turned out to be an egg and broke in her hand.

“I've never seen anything like this around Blowing Prawn! Maybe Dr. Krell had it all brought over from another country, like Africa or somewhere.”

Jeff was wondering something else at the moment and said, “I don't understand how Krell is connected to this place and that terrifying beast we saw in the Quarantine Room back at the lab.”

“Xili explained it to me a little,” said Lizzy. “Moonfin is the only one of her kind, and Dr. Krell is trying to make another—or even more than one, as I said before. The creature, the one you saw in that room, is a clone of her. A copy.”

“But
why
? What would he possibly do with more than one?”

“The Waterpeople think he wants to create an efficient destroyer, one that kills without mercy or remorse,” she said, a small shiver running down her spine. “They're not sure what his plans are beyond that.”

“Yeah, except all the ones in the tanks that we saw looked like they died, apart from the one that glared its creepy eyes at us,” said Kai

Lizzy lifted a hand to her heart. “I could feel it, the
coldness
. If there are many of those in the sea, I'm afraid to think what would happen to the dolphins and seals and … and
people
. What about the people who fish there, and all the food we eat?”

She stopped and gave them both a pleading look.

“The Waterpeople have asked me to find and set her free … and I'm not sure
how
—or even
if
I can do it.”

Kai suddenly understood and said in a stunned voice, “And what about surfing? The ocean could become too dangerous to swim in!” The thought of never being able to do spins or aerials made her angry. Her mind did a flip-flop and she was decidedly
for
finding this Moonfin now. “Well, I'm in. Let's stop this psychopath if we can,” she said with new resolve.

Jeff even agreed when he realized what it would mean for his family's seafood restaurant business if the bay swarmed with prehistoric sea monsters. He wasn't going to go looking for her, but when push came to shove, he'd have to protect his family's investments.

They fell silent, quietly pondering the consequences while treading down a worn path through thick foliage, not sure of where they were going or what they were looking for. The sun started to descend into the sea, and the forest turned into murky darkness.

“Night is coming and it can't be more than three o'clock,” said Lizzy, puzzled.

Kai looked up at the sky. “Maybe the island has its own light source, like in a snow globe … or maybe time moves faster here.” She was joking, of course, but Lizzy thought there might be some truth to what she was saying.

“Whatever the reason, we definitely arrived here with the sun directly above us, and we've been on this path for only an hour.”

“We should head to the beach and make a fire,” suggested Jeff. “I learned how to make a palm branch shelter in survival class. We can hunker down for the night and—”

SWOOOOSH
!

In the blink of an eye, and before Kai could say “Flying cheese balls!,” the ground beneath them gave way, and down Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai tumbled, into something very deep and very dark. Jeff thought it a cistern or a mine shaft at first, and reminded Kai of the time she got caught in a muddy riptide. But the only word that came into Lizzy's head was
pit
.

Indeed, the pit was so slimy and slippery, it carried them screaming and flailing wildly about at lightning speed ever downward. Spinning around on their backs and bellies, they tried very hard to grasp a root, or a rock, or anything to stop their speedy descent, but only wet, squishy sludge wiggled out through their fingers. It was like trying to grab hold of raw eggs. Then
sploot
!—all three came to a splashing halt at the bottom of a pool of gunk.

A chaotic chorus of
eeewwws
and
blechs
sung out. They scrambled clumsily to their feet—for the slime came up to their knees, gluing them in place—and shook their hands fiercely about, as a cat would do if it found a sheet of flypaper stuck to its paw, trying to remove what appeared to be purple goo that clung to their skin and clothes. But it was no use. The more they tried to fling it off their skin, the more it seemed to stick and crawl into their very pores.

Kai grabbed a handful of purply slime off her shoulder. “
Yuck
! What is this? It looks like—”

“Jello,” finished Lizzy, swiping a glop out of her curls. Food was always getting stuck in her hair, there was no escaping it.

“I was going to say gorilla snot, but that works too.”

Jeff, who was usually fascinated by the grosser things in life, was not at all happy to be covered in jello
or
snot.

“Look!—there are big chunks of it all along the wall—that's why it was so hard to hold onto anything. We won't be able to climb out of this!”

Lizzy took a handful of the wiggly stuff and held it up for a closer look. “Well, it
is
fascinating,” she said, starting to feel woozy, the glop sparkling and glowing in her palm. “Be a great jello-explosive in my lab back home …”

All three started to feel their minds mucking up a bit, like the sticky goo had seeped into their brains and bogged down the works.

Reaching through the ooze and running her fingers along the circular wall, Lizzy searched for something to latch onto, but nothing but slippery slime covered her arms up to her elbows. Their predicament became more desperate as night approached and only a small glimmer of light spilled in from the speck of a hole far above their heads.

“I'm feeling so
tired
—think I'll sit down a while,” said Kai, her head and limbs tottering about like they were made of stone.

Jeff slid to the floor. “Me too, I c-can't seem to …” He reached out a hand and swiped the empty air, grabbing at something only he could see.

Lizzy could feel something too, but wasn't muddled enough to stop searching for a way out. She heard whispers above and leaves crackling under someone's feet.

“Ho there! Is anyone up there?” she shouted through the tiny opening.

A quiet murmur hung on the air, more crackling of leaves, quick breaths…. Then—

“Hello, Lizzy,” said someone crisply.

She knew that voice
.

“Lee tells me you've been quite a busy girl lately,” said the woman in a sing-songy tone.

Lizzy gripped the wall and frantically called out, “Please—
please
help us! We fell, and now we're stuck in here!”

“Oh, I doubt you'll want to come out in a few moments. Now the pit will undoubtedly affect your human friends quite easily, but for
you
, it might take a little more time,” she said tartly.

Lizzy laid a hand against her pocket—the picture folded there held a mystery she couldn't explain. How could that person now speaking to her from above be in a photograph taken over
one hundred
years ago?

“Mrs. Gates … how could you … you're a
teacher
.”

She was beginning to think they might be doomed.

Mrs. Gates peered down at her, a cruel smile stretched across her face. Lizzy could see the outline of a little hair bun and cat-eye glasses hovering in the fading light.

“And what
exactly
did you expect to accomplish here? You should have stayed on the mainland. Tsk, tsk! Taking the Bip wasn't wise at all—who will ever know you've come here? We'll quietly take care of you and your annoying friends once and for all. Omebus will never have to know.”

Omebus
, Lizzy thought humorously. Dr. Krell's first name. She'd indulge in a giggle if she weren't stuck in a pit surrounded by purple goo and her last hope a demented science teacher.

“You wouldn't just leave us here, would you, Mrs. Gates?” Lizzy moaned.

“Wouldn't I, now? There
might
be a use for you. Not that I succeeded with your interfering brother.” She leaned over the opening and studied Lizzy like an animal trapped in a cage.

“At first he wanted to help us, you know … but he turned,” she said in a bitter tone.

“Brandon? What …
what
do you know about him?” Lizzy could feel her mind slipping away—the purple slime must be having some insidious effect on them all. She tried to keep her thoughts lucid … to get answers from this awful woman whom she thought was a kindly middle school teacher.

“He liked our ideas—we were making so many scientific breakthroughs—but when he saw the suffering…. There's always a price to pay.”

“What ideas—what are you doing to these animals? Why are you changing them?” Lizzy garbled.

“You've heard of cloning and genetic modification?”

“You mean like with DNA?” Her parents often talked about DNA, the codes that made life possible.

“Yes, deoxyribonucleic acid: splicing, dicing, rewriting, virus mutations—we've tried a whole gamut of experiments. Some with great success and some, well, not so much. Think of all the good we could do for the world with this knowledge! We could create burgeoning crab and tuna populations to feed the starving—so much marvelous potential!”

Lizzy couldn't believe her ears. She slid to the floor, eyes glazing over, helpless. Mustering what little strength she had left, she cried out, “What have you done that's
good
? You aren't helping anyone by making turtle-sharks!” She wasn't buying any of this “save the world” stuff Mrs. Gates was trying to sell her. It was just cruel.

Mrs. Gates's playful tone dropped, and turning dark and strange, she said, “We can control any living thing we want. You can be a part of it too, if you wish.”

It made Lizzy's stomach turn.

But she was also …
curious
. There was a part of her that wanted to see what Mrs. Gates was talking about—wanted to belong to this “club” that seemed to know so much more than everyone else—to know how a Bip worked. It was tempting, this forbidden knowledge. Then Iddo's words came crashing in on her thoughts and she remembered—

“There are things that shouldn't be messed with. You have only caused great pain,” she said sadly.

“Pish-posh! Where will all that
morality
get you? In a pit, I dare say. Ha-ha! I see you are a
Grape
for sure,” Mrs. Gates said, mocking her some more. “Science is so useful on this planet. You can't stop us, you know. Your brother was foolish to even try!”

“Where is my brother!” Lizzy yelled back in one last failed attempt to find out what happened to him.

“Goodbye. Have a nice sleep, you meddling little imp.”

Mrs. Gates's footsteps trailed off, and Lizzy couldn't be sure, but she thought she heard two other sets of feet stomp away as well. She looked over at Jeff and Kai—both were trapped in a glassy stare, barely conscious. She gave Kai a sharp nudge.

“Snap out of it! We need to get out of here!”

Kai's head fell on her shoulder, and she said dreamily, “
Why
would I want to get out of here? I love right where I am! I never want to leave.”

“We're in a pit of disgusting slime!” Lizzy hissed. “What's wrong with you?” She pushed Kai again, and the effort caused Lizzy to topple over, her back now stuck to the floor of purple goo.