The Candy Shop War, Vol. 2: Arcade Catastrophe (28 page)

“Can we do it over hamburgers?” he asked. “We’re running out of time.”

“Not really,” she said. “It won’t take long.”

Roman leaned against the wall. “What’s up?”

“How much do you trust Jonas White?” Summer asked bluntly.

Roman seemed at a loss for a moment. “Enough, I guess. He’s held true to everything he’s told us.”

“You realize the Subs and the Racers didn’t just lose,” she said. “They disappeared.”

“I asked about that,” Roman said. “They’re on special assignments. Prep work for those of us still in the game.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Don’t you?”

Summer realized that she was on dangerous ground. If she seemed too rebellious, and he doubted her loyalty, Roman might report her to Jonas. She could get left behind on the upcoming mission, unable to help anyone.

“I’m just worried,” she said. “The Graywaters seemed sincere to me. I’m afraid that Jonas getting Uweya may not be a good thing.”

“It’s just some old treasure,” Roman said.

“You know that isn’t true,” Summer countered. “You know magic is real. The things guarding Uweya are magical. Whatever Uweya is, it’s powerful, and I’m not sure Jonas White has given us any reason to believe he’s a very good person.”

“You think he’s the bad guy?” Roman said. “You think we’re the evil henchmen?”

“I think we could accidentally end up helping the bad guys if we’re not careful,” Summer said. “Did you feel like one of the good guys back at the trailer park?”

“How do you know the Graywaters were so good?” Roman said. “What if Uweya could do a lot of good but they’re keeping it hidden?”

“Well, I know they didn’t send anybody to break down our doors and steal our stuff. And they didn’t try to hurt us when they could have. They didn’t make creepy statues that can control us, or send kids on life-threatening missions.”

“Do you want out?” Roman asked with some heat in his tone. “Is that what this is about? Nobody is making you go, Summer. The three of us will be just fine.”

“It isn’t that,” Summer said. “I’m just not sure we should deliver Uweya to Jonas.”

“You think we should keep it?”

“Maybe nobody should have it,” Summer said.

“Look,” Roman said, “we wouldn’t even know about Uweya if it weren’t for Mr. White. If we don’t get it for him, somebody else will. Which means somebody else will be Tank Racers, or maybe flying Tank Racers, and we’ll be back to normal. I agreed to this treasure hunt, and I’m going to fulfill my agreement. Whatever else I think about Mr. White, one thing seems certain to me—he’s not the kind of guy you double-cross.”

“I guess you’re right,” Summer said, feeling nothing of the sort. “I’d hate to lose my stamps.”

“I’m sure this will be intense,” Roman said, “but what can happen to us? We’re super fast and almost impossible to hurt. If we work together, we’ll be fine.”

“I hope so,” Summer said. “Thanks for talking me through it. Part of my problem is that I’m nervous.”

“No sweat, I get it. Should we grab those burgers before it gets too late?”

“Sure.”

Summer had talked to Nate earlier. He felt confident that Chris and Risa were beginning to distrust Jonas. Plus he had a sure ally in Lindy. As she walked toward dinner with Roman, Summer determined that whatever else happened tonight, she needed to make sure the Tanks didn’t win.

*****

Nate flew beside Lindy above SR-24, gaining altitude over the hills where the freeway disappeared into the Caldecott Tunnel. He could hardly believe they were about to plunge into the San Francisco Bay in search of hidden treasure. He wondered if the Tanks were behind them on the road, heading toward Yerba Buena Island, or if they had some other strategy.

The Jets had consulted the map and decided that if the chest was too heavy to fly far, they would transport it to Angel Island. The Tanks had a driver, but getting to the island would surely prove problematic. Of course, if the chest was light enough, they would simply fly it an absurd distance into the wilderness.

Having studied the map, the Jets had no trouble following SR-24 until it met up with I-580, and then continuing to I-80 and the Bay Bridge. The Jets flew high over the water, staying well away from the bridge. Dressed in dark clothes, gliding far from any lights, Nate felt invisible. From his lofty vantage above the bay, the gleaming spires of the San Francisco skyline looked beautiful. A cool breeze filled his nostrils with the humid smell of the sea.

Some distance from Yerba Buena Island, the Jets joined together in a hovering huddle. Risa held a large bowl, and Chris put the guidestone inside. They watched the stone marble roll to a certain side of the bowl, then moved off in that direction. After they had checked several more times, the guidestone finally settled squarely in the bottom of the bowl.

“We should be right over it,” Chris said.

“It feels like the stone is tugging downward,” Risa said.

Nate looked down at the black water of the bay. “I guess we’ll get a better sense of things once we’re underwater.”

“Too bad Jonas didn’t have waterproof night vision gear,” Risa said.

“We can perceive everything just fine underwater,” Chris said.

“Right, I meant for after we come up,” Risa explained.

“We have Lindy,” Nate said. “She’ll be enough.”

“I see it,” Lindy reported. “The top is barely poking above the floor of the bay.”

“You see the lighthouse?” Chris asked dubiously.

“Remember how she tracked the Hermit?” Nate asked. “Just trust her. She sees really well. Even through water in the dark.”

“Down we go,” Chris muttered.

They flew down and plunged into the water. Suddenly Nate had a precise sense of the floor of the bay and the sea life swimming around him. So far, he had sampled his Sub abilities only in the training facility pool. The capacity to perceive the surrounding environment in open water was a totally different experience. The vivid sensory input was almost too much to process.

Gliding down through the water felt different from flying through the air. The basics remained the same, but everything was slowed down. Not only was his top speed reduced, but it was tougher to accelerate. At least he could make tighter turns.

The temperature seemed perfect. Breathing the water felt no different from breathing air. His eyes saw less, but his perception of his surroundings remained effortlessly detailed.

The water here was neither terribly shallow nor shockingly deep. The bay floor was dozens of feet down, but not nearly a hundred. As Lindy had described, the top of the stone lighthouse protruded from the silt.

“It’s big,” Nate said, his voice carrying clearly through the water.

“Huge,” Lindy said. “This is just the tip.”

“It seems more like the roof of a building than the top of a tower,” Chris said. “It’s too big around.”

“It’s a tower,” Lindy assured them. “It goes a long way down.”

“Really?” Risa said. “You can see through sand?”

“Pretty much,” Lindy replied.

“How do we get in?” Nate asked.

“We dig,” Lindy said. “There are openings into the tower not far below.”

“The guidestone is pulling me,” Risa said. “I think the attraction is increasing as we get closer.”

“Can you feel those sharks?” Chris asked.

“Yeah,” Nate said. Several prowled the water near the edge of his perception, the largest around six or seven feet long. “They don’t seem interested in us.”

“If they come this way, I’m out of here,” Risa said emphatically. “I won’t mess with sharks. Not for any reason. I’ll fly home and go to bed. I’m serious.”

“Where do we dig?” Chris asked as they neared the exposed portion of the tower.

“This side,” Lindy said, pointing. “It’ll get us to an opening fastest.”

Nate plunged his hands into the silt and began scooping it away. The others worked alongside him, sending up clouds of fine particles. At first their progress was hard to measure, but as they kept working, a definite hole began to form. As they burrowed deeper, a large quantity of sand collapsed inward through a gaping window.

“I guess we loosened it up,” Nate said.

“Whoa,” Chris said. “I can feel it now. The inside of the tower.”

Nate instantly recognized that Chris was right. Now that the barrier of sand had been removed, Nate could sense the water extending down to the base of the tower. He could feel the stone stairs winding down the enormous tube.

“It’s solid stone,” Nate realized.

“Yeah,” Chris agreed. “I don’t feel blocks. No bricks or anything. No mortar. It’s one big hollow rock.”

“I don’t want the guidestone anymore,” Risa said. “It’s tugging too hard. I don’t trust it.”

“I’ll take it,” Nate offered.

Risa handed it over. He noticed the pull immediately. Until this moment, Nate had never felt anything unusual while holding the stone. Now the tug was unmistakable.

“After you,” Chris said.

Nate drifted into the lighthouse. “I don’t sense anything alive,” Nate said. “There’s nothing moving,”

Chris agreed. “Stay ready for traps.”

“Can you feel how the tower widens out down at the bottom?” Lindy asked. “Like it finally reaches a really large room.”

“I feel it,” Risa confirmed. “Really big. Lots of space.”

“But no giant squids,” Nate said. “No sea serpents.”

“I don’t feel anything like that,” Lindy said.

Nate started gliding down the stairs at a gentle pace. They had a long way to go, but he didn’t want to hurry too much and blunder into a trap.

“This is perfect darkness,” Chris said. “It makes no difference whether my eyes are open or shut. I’ve never seen anything to match it.”

“I almost can’t appreciate it,” Nate said. “I can tell that my eyes see only blackness, but I sense everything even better than when I have full sight. That sense almost becomes sight in my head, even though I see nothing.”

“Not for me,” Chris said. “I can feel everything, but it’s way different from sight. It’s more like touch. It’s like my nerves extend into the water. I feel whatever the water feels.”

“I can feel and see,” Lindy remarked.

“No surprise there,” Risa said. “You see better than Superman. Should we speed it up? The Tanks will be after us.”

“We don’t want to hit traps,” Chris cautioned.

“What traps are we going to hit?” Risa argued. “We’re not touching the floor or the walls. We’d feel tripwires coming long before we reached them.”

“She has a point,” Nate conceded. “I’ll hurry more.”

As they wound deeper into the lighthouse, the guidestone pulled harder than ever, not with overpowering force, but certainly insistent. Nate suspected that if he let it go, the stone would zoom directly to the Protector.

“Finding the Protector should be easy,” Nate commented. “The stone will haul us straight there.”

“I hope so,” Chris said. “I don’t want to stay here long. This would be a lonely place to die.”

“Shut up, Chris,” Risa said.

“Our bodies would be lost forever,” he said.

“I’ll leave,” Risa warned. “Don’t mess with me like that.”

“The one who freaks out and leaves is usually the first to get taken,” Chris assured her.

“Don’t let him scare you,” Nate said. “This is more cool than scary. Think how ancient this lighthouse must be. We’re probably the first people to come here in thousands of years.”

“It’ll be cooler once it’s a memory,” Lindy said quietly.

They continued deeper. When the space widened out, it did so dramatically. The lighthouse must have had a huge building at the base. Nate could feel multiple large rooms. Trying to find the Protector would have felt really daunting had the guidestone not kept tugging him in an obvious direction. Soon it was dragging him along with enough force that he questioned whether he could bring himself to a standstill.

“You keep going faster,” Chris noted.

“It’s the guidestone,” Nate explained.

“I think I feel the chest,” Risa said. “Farther ahead on the path we’re on.”

“You’re right,” Nate realized. “We’re almost there.”

“I see it,” Lindy said. “It’s pretty. I can’t see inside of it.”

Nate felt the chest coming closer. It rested alone on a platform. As the stone pulled harder, Nate began to worry that his hand would get crushed if he kept hold of it. Just before he reached the chest, Nate let go of the stone. The guidestone thumped softly against the chest.

“It changed shape,” Lindy said.

Nate could sense the transformation. He reached out and grabbed the new incarnation of the guidestone. It no longer seemed drawn to the chest. It had grown somewhat. “It turned into a tiny replica of the chest,” Nate said.

“The chest is pretty big,” Chris observed.

“What’s it made of?” Lindy asked.

“Wood, maybe?” Nate said. “Worn really smooth? With jewels in it?”

“Is it clay?” Chris wondered. “Some type of ceramic?”

“It’s definitely smooth,” Risa said. “I don’t feel any cracks. It’s shaped like a chest, but I can’t tell where it opens.”

“No hinges,” Lindy agreed. “No keyhole. Not the tiniest crack. It’s like it has no lid.”

“The little replica has a lid,” Nate said. “I can feel the lid.”

“Right,” Chris agreed. “Me too. It seems obvious on the guidestone.”

Nate tried to open the replica. The lid wouldn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

“Mr. White didn’t think we could open it underwater,” Chris reminded him. “We can give it a better try when we get it out of here. Should we see if we can move it?”

“Lindy?” Nate said. “Would you hold the replica?”

“Sure,” she said, accepting the transformed guidestone.

Chris went to one side of the chest, Nate to the other.

“Moving the chest could set off a trap,” Nate said.

“True,” Chris acknowledged. “Everybody get ready for trouble.”

“Go for it?” Nate asked.

“Why not?”

They lifted together. Nate found the chest a bit lighter than he expected. It had a fair amount of weight to it and was pretty bulky, but overall it felt manageable. Nothing indicated that lifting it had triggered any sort of trap.

“How is it?” Risa asked.

“Could be worse,” Chris said. “Let’s get out of here.”