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I gasp. ‘Socrates!’
The entire starboard side of the room is an open saltwater tank. The Plexiglas wall is maybe twelve feet long, five feet high, curved inwards at the top to prevent the water from sloshing out when the ship moves. The tank isn’t big enough for the dolphin to live in, but there’s enough room for him to splash around, turn and float comfortably. On either side is an underwater metal flap that reminds me of a giant pet door. I don’t quiteunderstand how the tank was engineered, but the chutes must connect to the open sea, allowing Socrates to come and go as he pleases.
Socrates pokes his head over the lip of the Plexiglas. This puts him at eye level with me. He chatters happily. I give him a hug and kiss him right on the beak. I realize I’m smiling for the first time since the school’s destruction.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘How did you even find us?’
Hewett answers for him. ‘Your dolphin friend knows this boat well. HP has cultivated friendships with many of his family over the years. Socrates, did you call him?’
‘I … Yes.’ I was about to explain that Dev and I dive with Socrates every morning, but remembering that ritual is like walking barefoot over broken glass.
‘An appropriate name,’ says Hewett. ‘Well, Socrates knows he always has a berth on theVarunaif he wants to travel with us. Now come here, Miss Dakkar. Look at this.’
Again with theMiss. This is how they wear you down: they just keep making the same ‘oopsie’, hoping that you’ll eventually get tired of calling them on it.
‘Prefect,’ I grumble, but Hewett has already turned his attention to the conference table, where Gem and Nelinha have joined him.
I guess they don’t consider the bottlenose dolphin in the stateroom a big deal. Reluctantly, I go and sit down with my fellow humans.
Spread across the table is a nautical map of the Pacific. In some respects, it’s old-fashioned. The names are in fancy calligraphy. The compass rose is elaborately coloured. Illustrated sea monsters writhe in the corners.
However, the map is made of a material I’ve never seen before. It’s light grey, almost translucent, and perfectly smooth like it’s never been folded. The ink shimmers. If I look at itsideways, all the markings seem to disappear. I don’t want to think this with Socrates in the room, but the map reminds me of dolphin skin. Maybe, like the calcium carbonate of the Leyden projectiles, it has been organically ‘secreted’ in a lab somehow.
Oh, great. My thought process is spiralling down the alt-tech rabbit hole.
Sitting on top of the map is a coppery dome-shaped paperweight thingy. At least, in a normal world, it would be a paperweight. Its curved surface is laced with intricate wires. At the apex is a smooth, round indentation. It looks like the eye of a steampunk robot. I really hope it doesn’t open and stare at me.
Hewett eases himself into the chair across the table. He mops his brow with a handkerchief. I remember what Ester said:Diabetes. Underlying condition.Hewett has never been my favourite teacher. I don’t trust him. Still, I’m worried about his health. He is literally the only adult in the room, and the only one who might be able to give me answers.
Nelinha stands on my right, Gem on my left. They studiously avoid looking at each other. Socrates chatters and splashes in his tank.
Hewett picks up the paperweight. He leans across the table and sets it in the centre of the map, like he’s calling my bet in a poker game.
‘I won’t ask you to do this until you feel comfortable,’ he says. ‘But it is the only way forward.’
I look more closely at the object. That indentation at the top …
‘It’s a thumbprint reader,’ I guess. ‘I put my thumb on it and … what? It shows us a location on the map?’
Hewett smiles faintly. ‘It’s a genetic reader, actually. Keyed to your family’s DNA. But, yes, you have deduced its purpose.’
I’m starting to deducemypurpose, too – why Hewett and Caleb South both talk about me like a commodity. I’m puttingtogether the broken pieces of this horrible day, and I don’t like what it’s showing me.
I try to pick around the edges of my real question. ‘So, Jules Verne … You say he interviewed actual people.’
Hewett nods. ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.The Mysterious Island. The foundational texts are based on real events.’
A weight grows in my stomach. ‘Foundational texts … You make them sound sacred.’
‘Hardly,’ Hewett scoffs. ‘They are novelizations. Misrepresentations. But at their core they contain truths. Ned Land was a real Canadian master harpooner. Professor Pierre Aronnax was a French marine biologist.’
‘Ned Land … Land Institute,’ Nelinha says.
‘AndAronnax,’ Gem chimes in. ‘That’s the name of the sub.’
Hewett is silent long enough to tap each of his fingertips against the map. ‘Yes. Land and Aronnax, along with the professor’s manservant, Consiel, were the only survivors of a doomed naval expedition. In the 1860s, they joined the search for a supposed sea monster … a creature that was sinking ships across the globe. Their expeditionary vessel, theAbraham Lincoln, was lost somewhere in the Pacific. Over a year later, Land, Aronnax and Consiel were found, inexplicably, in a small lifeboat off the coast of Norway.’
I find myself leaning forward. I know the plot of20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.But now it seems more like a prophecy … one that predicts an apocalypse. I don’t like apocalypses.
