Wendy Miracle, a student at Moroa University, grows attached to one of the university's orca whales after training with him. But when he is found dead and his death is blamed on an accident with a container ship, she refuses to believe it. Instead, she convinces her blind friend and a local middle schooler to help her unravel the mystery and hunt down the killer.

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Wendy leaned closer to her favorite orca whale, Oliver, as they glided under the cool Moroa Bay water. His slick skin was like rubber under her hands, and his soft clicking was constant as he used echolocation to create a sound map.  As they darted through the murky water, Wendy could feel the current rushing against her wetsuit. Bright lights shone through the cloudiness at certain angles, like strobe lights on either side of her.

She had to speed up. It wasn’t a competition; they’d been told that a dozen times. University President, Eli Nachash himself, had addressed the program participants that this was merely an assessment of their individual skills, that there was no need to race.

Still, Wendy couldn’t help but see Maya Carreras a dozen feet ahead, a senior in the Marine Mammal Studies program who had taken the class for fun, as a challenge.

She loved being underwater. It had been the unexpected highlight of her summer, submerging and pushing away her worries about money or grades. It was so quiet, excepting for Oliver’s clicking and the constant sound of her breathing through the mask.

Wendy moved her hands to the handhold furthest forward on Oliver’s harness, which he’d been trained to recognize as a signal to speed up. It was important that they perform all the necessary maneuvers, and they had a few to go. One of the ones Oliver was best at was an abrupt stop; Wendy and Maya would practice by holding red-light-green-light tournaments with their orcas.

All right, buddy, Wendy thought, and pressed the little clicker that rested against Oliver, so that he was tapped gently on top of his head.

He stopped immediately, turning  his head toward Wendy. His slightly frustrated call barely reaching Wendy’s ears through the water and the mask.

Passing this test was so important. Everyone who’d applied for the portal exploration program, and had been selected as a potential candidate, had had to take Undersea Exploration as an elective over the summer, and Wendy knew she had to ace the final exam if she wanted to get involved with portal exploration.

Her brother, Caleb, was the poster child of the Portalnauts, but that wasn’t enough to get her in on its own. He had taken this class last spring, and now he’d be going through a portal in just a couple of days.

She scanned the turbid waters for signs of life. She’d already spotted a rockfish, which she knew she’d get bonus points for, and had logged all the necessary water conditions. Still, they hadn’t yet collected any samples, but they’d only passed one possible collection point of two. She had to remember to drop the probe at the second point, as well, when she could access her pack.

Now I’ve just got to… What is that?

Out of the corner of her eye, Wendy had spotted a strange shadow crossing the sandy floor, larger than an orca, and not the right shape. As soon as she whipped her head to face it, she couldn’t spot a thing.

Wendy refocused her attention on the algae-coated rock formations on her left she was meant to be capturing with the camera attached to Oliver’s harness. She wanted to be careful to follow every instruction of the exam.

“All participants should surface and return to the docks.” The voice that came through her scuba mask’s radio was Bradley Thame, who had been her instructor all summer, and instructing astronauts at NASA for the past ten years.

The students around her followed orders immediately; May Matthews’s head had breached the surface before Wendy had started to slow down.

Maybe it’s a trick, Wendy thought. Testing our dedication.

She’d never been told to surface in the middle of a practice before—what danger could there possibly be?

Wendy ducked down and urged Oliver forward, in the direction of the second collection point. She’d hate to waste time surfacing if they were only going to send everyone back down in a few minutes, when they’d sorted out whatever was bothering them.

Bradley Thame’s voice again: “I repeat, all participants should leave the water. The heart rates of the orcas have exceeded the normal parameters.”

That definitely got Wendy’s attention, and she stroked Oliver’s side, his skin slick like rubber. You okay, buddy? He wasn’t showing any signs of abnormalcy, and she knew him well. He nudged her hand with his head and continued to push forward.

“Wendy Miracle, please surface immediately.”

Fine, we’re going up, she decided, adjusting her handhold to signal Oliver.

When Wendy’s head broke free into the air, she pulled off her mask and scanned the faces staring at her.

First, she saw her brother Caleb, who had his arms crossed and a look on his face Wendy couldn’t read. Wendy’s best friend, Thea, was next to him, sitting on the docks with her dark legs dangling in the water, feeling the waves.

Thea turned to Caleb and asked him something and Caleb nodded. Thea was blind, but she probably heard Wendy surface and guessed it was her. She was amazing at that kind of thing.

Further back on the docks, behind the friends and family surging around participants who were toweling off, a small platform held President Nachash, making apologetic gestures to a woman in a black sheath dress with a pearl choker — probably an GenWarp executive. Bradley Thame was at the edge of the platform, scrolling through data on his tablet.

“Wendy!” Caleb called her, and she and Oliver hurried over to the docks.

“What happened?” she asked, pushing wet hair away from her face. “Not going to lie, I was doing really well.”

Thea adjusted her sunglasses. “We don’t know any more than you do. What took you so long to come up? I swear Caleb was nearing conniption.”

“I wasn’t,” he said, but Wendy could see how pale he’d gotten. “I was just worried that you weren’t coming up.”

“But why would they call us up? I swear, guys, Oliver’s fine. Heart rate normal. There’s no reason why they should have—”

Thea interrupted, “Maybe it was all the other orcas that weren’t doing well. Honestly, Wen, I don’t think there’s some big conspiracy. You were doing well today, so I’m sure you’ll do well when they retest you guys.”

“I should go talk to Bradley,” Wendy said, sliding off of Oliver’s back and climbing onto the dock. “I want to know why they called us out in the middle of our exam.”

Caleb held out his arm in front of her path. “No, you really shouldn’t. He’s busy, and they already gave their explanation.”

“Honestly, I just want to ask him something. It’ll only take a second.

“Then you’re risking disqualification,” Caleb said, pointing to Nachash. “They’re not looking for someone who can’t follow orders. Come on, Wendy.”

Wendy fiddled with the zipper of her wetsuit. “It’s not like I think there’s some grand scheme going on, but I just want to know why my test was cancelled. I studied hard for this! I ate a  hyper-nutritious breakfast for this!”

“Just shh for a second.” Thea held out one hand in front of them both.

“Can’t I at least explain—”

“No, wait a second,” Thea muttered. In the distance, a dog started barking. A few seconds later, she lowered her hand. “Didn’t you hear it?”

Caleb raised one eyebrow. “The dog? Should we be concerned?”

“Is this dog a family friend?” Wendy teased.

Thea rolled her eyes, pulling her dark curly hair over one shoulder. “Not that. I could barely hear it, but maybe it set the dog off.”

Caleb shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything. But my ears are a few years older than yours.”

“I didn’t hear it either,” Wendy agreed. “But I do have a good six months on you. So, why would they have called us all in if just some of the orcas were having trouble? It’s an individual test, right?”

Thea sighed. “Please, will you just stay here, Wen? I don’t want you to get in trouble. All the other participants are still here.”

Wendy shook her head, smiling. “Really, it’s fine. I’m talking to Bradley. He’s never minded me asking questions in class.”

Apparently, Caleb and Thea knew better to try and stop her again, and Wendy signaled Oliver to join the other orcas over by their home pool, then stormed off in the direction of the platform.

It’s not like I think they have some malicious intent, Wendy thought as she sidled her way through the noisy crowd. But I think there was something down there. They’re downplaying the danger to avoid bad press, or to keep people from freaking out.

“Bradley!” Wendy shouted when she was within his range of hearing. “Hey!”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

A middle-aged guard, about a head shorter than Wendy, with long, straight hair and a muscular build, stepped right in front of her. Her uniform was neatly pressed, and her pristine nametag read, HEAD OF SECURITY: KEKOA. “Mr. Thames is busy, kid.”

“I’ve been taking classes with him all summer,” Wendy said, “and I just have a question.”

“Spare me your excuses,” the security officer interrupted. “All that matters to Moroa U, concerning you, is that you’re out of the water.”

Wendy gave her most charming smile. “Please, Ms. Kekoa. I swear, he wouldn’t mind.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to return to the participants’ section of the docks or I will escort you off the premises myself.” Kekoa stood a little straighter. “Mr. Thames is reviewing what might have caused the fluctuations in readings. You can’t bother him.”

Repressing a glare, Wendy gave it one last try: “Please. It’ll only take a second.”

“I’m sure Mr. Nachash will be happy to hear your pestering stopped me from doing my job, Miss Miracle.”

“Wait, you know me?” Wendy said. “And you know Nachash?”

“Just because I’m security doesn’t mean I couldn’t hold an intelligent conversation with a university president, Miss Miracle.”

Wendy blushed.

“You need to return to your designated location immediately, miss. I have other things to deal with than an insubordinate student.” The officer pursed her lips and waited.

“Fine.” Wendy turned on her heels, heart racing with frustration.

Caleb and Thea had made their way through the crowd to follow after her, and had caught the last part of her conversation with Kekoa. Without Wendy looking up Caleb slung his arm around her shoulder. “What did you do to annoy her so much?”

She shook her head. “No idea.”

“Your general existence can be annoying,” Thea said, grinning.

Wendy smiled and pulled her baseball cap out of her backpack, tugging it on over her damp hair.

---

“Seriously?” Nate Lilling, a curly-haired middle schooler, clenched his fists. “There’s going to be an interstellar Launch in the Applied Physics hangar, where someone’s going through a portal—through a wormhole—just three blocks from my house! And you’re telling me that I can’t go?!”

Two adults, Dan Addis and Kristen Walsh, stood over him. Dan leaned against his desk, an antique in the modern gothic style, his brow knit with concentration.

“That’s not the whole story, Nate,” Dan said.

Nate stared at him, shaking his head. “You don’t let me do anything. I’m not even allowed to see the orcas.”

Kristen started pacing the floor, her flaming red curls swaying as she walked. “Nate, you know we have to lay low. If the government or anyone from the university found out what we can do, it would be all over. And then there are the Watchers — you know what they are capable of. Every time I’ve seen one, it’s been near the portal.”

Kristen didn’t have to remind Nate about her personal experience with a Watcher. It had attacked and killed one of her tigers. Nate felt bad about it, but he didn’t see what that had to do with him.

“The Watcher saw you with the tigers,” he said, “not me. I’ll be careful to not use my powers and they won’t care at all about me, I’ll be just like any other middle school kid. I’ll just quietly sneak in, watch the Launch and sneak out.”

“No!” Kristen said.

Dan straightened. “Kristen, maybe we should talk alone.”

They left the room, leaving Nate to sit and wait nervously in one of Dan’s oversized chairs.

He didn’t have to obey them. Obeying his aunt, AJ, was enough for him. But they were the only people he knew who had powers and all three of them trusted each-other and stuck together. Dan and Kristen had befriended him and given him a safe place to practice.

Nate leaned toward them when they re-entered the room, trying to not appear too eager.

“We will give you permission to go to the Launch,” Dan said.

“On one condition,” Kristen interrupted. “You must swear that you will not use your powers and that you will work hard to keep a low profile.”

Nate breathed a sigh of relief and couldn’t suppress a big grin. “Thank you!”

“Well,” Kristen said. “Do you swear?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll be super-careful. I just want to see it.”

“I need to hear it,” Kristen said. “In your own words.”

“Ok, ok. I swear that I will be careful, that I won’t mess with anyone’s emotions and that I’ll work hard to stay out of sight and not cause any trouble. Satisfied?”

Kristen gave a reluctant nod and Dan put a hand on Nate’s shoulder.

“We’re going to trust you in this,” he said. “But Kristen is right to be concerned. Please don’t treat this lightly.”

---

Wendy tried to focus on the requirements for her philosophy paper, but the words blurred together in a mess. She remembered that the the professor had said it needed to be fifteen pages long. She didn’t see that anywhere in the assignment though. It was probably hiding somewhere in the five pages of technical jargon and references to Kant, Nietzsche, Descartes and Locke. How was she going to write a fifteen page philosophy paper when she couldn’t even make sense of the requirements?

This is the worst week in history—my quickly sinking philosophy grade, my brother about to go on a risky expedition, the security officer kicking us out of the pool, Mom’s car getting repossessed...

Wendy groaned at the knock on the door. Thea had quickly removed her headphones, listening as Wendy went to the door.

It was Elle, the Resident Assistant in charge of her dorm wing.

“Hi, Elle,” Wendy said, trying to keep her eyebrows from raising. This was the first time Wendy had seen Elle this year. “Is something wrong?” Wendy tried to remember if she’d overstepped the printing limit with her English Literature articles.

Elle stared at the floor and tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear. “It’s just… You two have been, sort of, volunteering with the killer whales, right?”

Standing up, Thea said, “Yeah?”

“I just got a message — two of them are dead.”

Wendy’s breath caught in her throat. “What? How? Did something go wrong?”

With a quick shake of her head, Elle muttered, “I really… I just don’t know anything, okay? I thought I’d pass on the message.” She darted out of the room.

One of Thea’s hands was pressed against her face, and the other searched her desk for her cane. She knew they needed to leave.

Please don’t be Oliver. Please don’t be Oliver. Wendy couldn’t take it if it was Oliver, not with everything else.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said, rushing to grab Thea’s arm. “You need a coat. How about this one?” Wendy snatched a blue sweatshirt off Thea’s desk and pressed it into her arms.

“It’s raining, I’ll want a hood too.” Thea rushed to pull the sweatshirt over her head.

Wendy moved toward the closet, repressing a sigh.

“It’s fine,” Thea said. “I’m blind, not incapable. Go on ahead, Wen. I’ll meet you there.”

“You sure?” Wendy tried not to sound too hopeful.

Thea came to the closet, running her hands along the hangers for a jacket with a hood. “Go find out what happened before it’s all yellow tape. You can fill me in when I catch up.”

As Wendy speed-walked down the hall, she felt bad leaving her friend behind, but she had to see Oliver, to know that it wasn’t him. She picked up her pace outside the dorm and sprinted the last dozen yards to catch the cross campus mag-lev train.

Wendy chewed through two fingernails as the short ride seemed to stretch on forever. Her worries about Oliver dominated over the other thoughts that had been plaguing her. Wendy tried to lean her head against the cushioned headrest, but hit a metal pole instead, the perfect catalyst for a nasty headache.

When she stepped off the mag-lev, the orca reserve — normally peaceful and quiet — was packed with reporters and students, periodically illuminated by the bright flashes of the press’s frantic cameras. Wendy pushed through the crowd until she reached the edge.

“Two Moroa University orcas have been killed in a boating accident…” she overheard a reporter say.

Someone had spread out black plastic tarps, beneath four floodlights, on the lawn to one side of the Marine Mammal Studies lab. A handful of campus security and MMS faculty stood around the tarps, separated from the pressing crowds by an orange plastic fence. One of the school’s boats had just arrived in the bay. The pilot carefully maneuvered the boat close to the shore.

Then a crane on the boat slowly raised the netted body of an orca into view. The large black body suspended limply in mid-air, and Wendy saw the nick in the dorsal fin. It was Oliver. But it was barely him anymore — bloody gashes were staining the net red. His black eyes were lifeless.

That’s not real. This can’t be real. Not Oliver.

“The university has confirmed this was an accident, most likely involving a container ship. The Marine Mammal Studies orca program will continue to…”

Though the reporter was only a few feet away, Wendy was able to drown out her voice by focusing on the low murmurs of the surrounding crowd. Something about the explanation didn’t feel right. But why would the university lie?

Was it my fault? Maybe I was too rough with him or I wore him out...

Wendy felt hollow and looked for a bench to sit on, before collapsing onto the grass to throw up. 

---

Wendy and Caleb approached the cafeteria gingerly. The sight of trays piled with food made Wendy’s stomach turn and she turned back toward the door, only stopped by Caleb’s hand on her wrist. He had let her do what she wanted for the past day, since Oliver’s death, but apparently he was done with that approach.

“Come on, Wendy, you’ve got to eat.” Caleb’s tone was gentle but she knew he was getting frustrated. “It’s been more than twenty-four hours, and you’ve got to be starving. What about… some toast? Maybe a bowl of soup?”

Twenty-four hours, she thought. Feels like a month. “No, really, I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.

“What if—”

“Caleb! Wendy!” Professor Coenen nearly ran into them as she rounded the corner, her lunch boxed up in styrofoam and a bit of marinara spilled on her sleeve. She grinned at them, oblivious to the state of Wendy.

Professor Noëlle Coenen was one of Wendy’s physics professors. She was unnaturally tall and held her blonde hair up in a smart bun. “You two are inseparable, aren’t you?”

“Hello, Dr. Coenen,” Caleb said, voice tight.

“Good thing Nachash gave you two extra tickets,” Coenen continued. “If he didn’t, I’m afraid Wendy would sneak into the Launch herself.”

Wendy turned Caleb, who was staring straight ahead. “You got two tickets?”

“I’m sorry,” Coenen said, flustered. “I… I thought you...”

Caleb said, “Don’t worry about it.”

Coenen glanced between Caleb and Wendy, and said, “I, uh… I had better go.” She backed, towards the pasta bar, even though she’d clearly been about to leave. Caleb started to follow after her, under the naïve impression that he had gotten away with something.

“What did you do with my ticket?” Wendy said, blocking his path. “I’m trying to think of any possible way you could think it was okay to not give me a ticket.” He didn’t say anything. “Who got my ticket?” she insisted.

Caleb reached out and held Wendy by her shoulders and looked down at her.

“I’m sorry, Wendy. But if I had told you—”

“Keeping me in the dark isn’t protecting me,” she said, glaring.

“Technically it wasn’t your ticket. Nachash said they were mine, to do with what I wanted.”

“So,” Wendy said, “you didn’t want your sister to be at the most important day in your whole career?”

“Listen,” Caleb said, “it’s just… you know how much debt we’re in and you know I need to make sure you and mom are taken care of.”

Realization dawned and Wendy’s vision blurred at the edges.

“You sold my ticket?!”

“Just a ticket,” Caleb said softly.

Wendy wrung her hands. “Caleb, stop arguing semantics. It’s really not your strong point.”

“I’m sorry, but you know what we’re going through. That ticket was worth over four thousand dollars — I was able to pay off one of mom’s credit cards. You’ve got to understand, Wen.”

“Pay off one of mom’s cards? Do not tell me you sold my ticket for mom’s sake, then gave the other ticket to mom.” His lack of response cleared that up. “Great. So mom’s got a ticket. Do you really think she’ll remember to show up?”

As Wendy’s voice rose steadily, Caleb’s eyes were flitting around the half-full cafeteria, anxious people would see them arguing. “That’s not fair. Mom’s been trying to do better.”

“Did you sell it before or after Oliver was killed?”

Caleb stepped back, hands up. “Before, obviously!”

“That was my ticket, to see your first trip—the world’s first trip—through an interstellar portal. Do you think there is anything that matters more to me? Do you think I care more about one of mom’s cards?”

Caleb’s tablet buzzed and he looked down at it.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb repeated. “Honestly, I didn’t know you would feel this way. I thought you would understand.”

“That’s why you didn’t tell me, right? Because you thought I would understand?”

Caleb’s tablet buzzed again.

“I know this isn’t a good time, Wendy, but it’s Nachash and it’s about the Launch — it sounds serious.”

Wendy stared at him, her mouth open.

Another buzz. “I’m sorry, but… everything isn’t all about you, Wen. This is serious — I have to go.”

For the first time since Oliver’s death, she felt completely alone. She wanted to sit against the wall and break down in the middle of the cafeteria, but Caleb’s words kept running through her head: “everything isn’t all about you, Wen”. Wouldn’t want people to think I’m begging for attention, she thought bitterly, and made it back to her dorm in record time.

---

As she approached the Applied Physics lab, Wendy had to work at keeping her annoyance toward Caleb off her face. Everyone else was excited and chipper, and she didn’t want to stand out if she was going to try and sneak in.

Strung across the front of the hangar was a banner that read, “The Day of the Launch!”

The brick courtyard outside the lab was more crowded than she’d ever seen it, crammed full of students, parents, researchers, and reporters. Wendy nearly had her head taken off by the swinging mic of an over-ambitious boom operator. She didn’t care though; the more crowded it was, the easier it would be to slip through unnoticed.

She already had her plan to get in the door, and had it running through her head on repeat: I left my tickets on my seat, and just hopped out for some fresh air—please, I don’t want to miss…

The boy a few people at the head of the line was rifling through his pockets and feigning horror at his missing tickets; he was stealing her trick. She glowered at the back of the kid’s curly-haired head as he strolled right in.

Wendy slipped out of line and headed to the back. She couldn’t use the same trick as the boy too soon after his performance. When her turn came again, Wendy managed to get in, but there weren’t going to be any seats left.

Of course, I would have a seat if my brother wasn’t such a lying, insensitive idiot. 

On top of how upset she was about Caleb, she was also extremely nervous. He was travelling through a wormhole, after all. When she’d said goodbye to him earlier that morning, she’d had to work to maintain a cold exterior, while she was internally dying to remind him to closely monitor his oxygen levels.

The place was packed with folding chairs. She had been hoping she could linger by the wall, or amidst the crowd, but everything was carefully positioned in neat rows so she’d stick out horribly.

I’ve got to find a place to sit. For a second, she had a fleeting thought that she could go and find her mother, but Wendy knew better than to hope she’d shown up.

Then the curly-haired kid caught her eye again, his bright green shirt ducking through the crowd toward the sound station. Wendy squinted and stood on her toes, trying to see what he was doing, when she noticed the short but muscular new head of campus security, Alani Kekoa, walking up to her.

“Are you lost?” she asked.

“No, my seat is just over…”

Wendy nodded to her left and headed off that direction while Kekoa’s eyes followed her.

She hurried to round the corner and realized she was right next to the sound booth. Lots of space to hide. Once she moved to the far side of it, she knew she was out of the Kekoa’s view.

Naturally, when she pulled the curtain aside and ducked in, her head collided with the curly-haired boy’s.

“Get out!” he hissed.

Wendy elbowed him in the side, her temple pounding. “No chance. Out of my way.” She hurried to close the curtain and peered through the slats at the stage.

Bright light flooded into their hiding place as the curtains were drawn aside, revealing Kekoa’s unflinching scowl. What is wrong with this woman—it’s like she thinks I’m a Soviet spy.

“Can’t seem to find your seat?” Kekoa asked. “Get out. You could trip a power cord and shut down the whole thing.” 

Right, because there’s no back-up systems in place at all? Why is she so fixated on me?

“How safe would Mr. Miracle be then?”

While Wendy weighed the pros and cons of crawling out the other side of the sound booth and making a run for it, Kekoa yanked the curtain aside and pulled her out by the arm. Seeing the boy, she extracted him as well and escorted them both to the exit.

Wendy was in a bad enough mood that she normally might have made a bit of a scene, but she didn’t want to distract the lab techs. They needed to focus on her idiot brother, but, then again, Wendy really hated Kekoa’s sweaty fingers pinching her arm like forceps.

“Please, stop!” Wendy whispered. “That’s my brother! Caleb’s my brother!”

“I know all about you and your brother,” Kekoa said. “But unless you have a ticket, you might as well save your breath. What’s it matter whether you’re here or not? It’s not like your presence will affect his safety one way or the other.”

Arguing with that brick wall wasn’t going to get her anywhere, so Wendy turned her attention to the curly-haired boy. “This is your fault.”

“How exactly is this my fault?”

She strained to get one last glimpse at the stage before they were tugged into the entryway and the door was slammed shut. “Because if you hadn’t used my excuse, I could’ve gotten in earlier and found a spot sooner and I would be in there right now!”

“You think I’m happy about this?” The kid’s face was reddening. “I’ve been looking forward to this for months! And now I’m missing—”

“Oh, you’re missing the show, too bad. It’s only important to me because my brother is about to go through a wormhole!”

Kekoa pushed the two of them into the courtyard and warned them to stay out.

Wendy felt anger swelling up in her that was more than she could express. Images flooded her mind: Oliver’s torn body, Caleb telling her he sold his ticket, the text from her mom last night about another financial problem…

When she refocused on the kid, who was going on about why this was horrible for him, she couldn’t take it.

“I couldn’t care less about anything to do with you!” she shouted. “You’ve ruined everything!”

“It’s not even my fault! You’re overreacting.” The boy scrunched up his nose. “I...”

Wendy laughed. “You’re not even old enough to be on campus, much less know anything about this program.”

“I’m telling you—”

“Will you just shut up! I don’t want to hear it!” Her heart felt so tight. She didn’t feel like she was in control of her own mouth.

He gave her one last stare, then turned and ran.

Pulse pounding, Wendy faced the door and pressed against it, straining to hear a hint of what was happening.

---

Nate Lilling focused on putting one foot in front of the other as he slowly plodded down the sidewalk on the three-block journey to his home. 

He hadn’t meant to affect her like that… I always lose control when I get upset.

When Nate arrived at home, his aunt, AJ, greeted him at the door.

“Welcome home Nate! You’re not heading out to see Dan & Kristen today?”

“No, I don’t feel good. I’m going to lay down.”

“You don’t look so good — did something happen at school?”

“No.”

He thought about making up an explanation, but decided to just leave it at that — his aunt was pretty good about giving him space.

When he opened the door to his room, he gave a yell and jumped back. Looking in his bedroom window was the enormous head of what looked like a huge pterodactyl.

“Are you ok?” AJ said.

Don’t tell her, said an unfamiliar voice in his head. She wouldn’t understand.

“Yeah... I’m fine. Just thought I saw something. It’s nothing.” Nate was good at keeping his voice level.

“All right, honey.” AJ smiled at him and disappeared around the corner.

He closed his bedroom door and turned to stare at the creature. Its head was an orange translucent color with large black eyes and a crest shooting back from the top like a gigantic pterodactyl.

“You’re the creature that saved Kristen, a Traveler, aren’t you?” He ventured a little nearer the window.

Don’t be afraid, the voice said. I am here to help you, though you might not like it.

“What won’t I like?” Nate asked. He tried to keep his voice quiet, hoping the creature could hear him through the window.

You needn’t worry about my hearing, the creature said. I can hear your thoughts while they are still in your head. And it is precisely that — the thoughts in your head — that are the reason I’m here. You hurt someone with your powers today, did you not?

“You mean that girl at the Launch? No, I didn’t really mean to… I mean, I’m sure she’ll get over it.”

You didn’t mean to?

Now Nate wished the creature couldn’t hear his thoughts.

And no, she won’t get over it, the creature continued. Not without help. You did more damage than you realize, and there was a Watcher nearby. Yes, Dan and Kristen were right about the danger of going near campus. You’re lucky the Watcher didn’t see you exerting your powers. But that isn’t the concern right now. You created an imbalance in the girl’s mind that will start a chain reaction. And with a Watcher on campus, he will see the opportunity and exploit it. Perhaps he already has. If we do nothing, she’ll take her life before the end of the semester.

“I’m just a kid, how am I going to fix her? She probably won’t even talk to me. You’re the big powerful creature-thing with telepathic powers — you fix her!”

Elyon sent me to give you this task. If a god believes you are up to the task, do you still doubt yourself?

“Sorry, but I really don’t want to.”

Suddenly, in Nate’s mind’s eye, he could see his fight with the girl. But this time he saw more. He saw red anger and black pain streaming from his eyes into the girl’s mind, spreading and penetrating until it consumed her.

Nate saw the fear in her eyes and knew that the Traveler was right. How did I let myself do that—I seriously messed her up. His stomach rolled with guilt.

It was his fault and he had to do what he could to fix it.

---

Part 2

Wendy fought to keep her eyelids open as Professor Moore droned on about the conformity theme in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Even knowing Caleb was safe on the other side, she hadn’t been sleeping well.

I’ve got to pay attention if I want to pass. I’ve got to pass.

She realized she had nodded off when her head jerked upright. Moore was staring at her. Wendy smiled weakly and waited for an uncomfortable moment before Moore continued her hour-long lecture.

Zach Edwards was sitting two seats to her right and she didn’t want him to see her fall asleep in class. She picked up her pencil and fiddled with it. She could write notes, but all the material would either be in the reading assignment or in the email summary that Moore sent after class. Writing unnecessary notes was not going to help her stay awake.

But something had been bothering her in the back of her mind, something about Oliver’s death. The school said the cause of death was a “ship strike”—not necessarily that he had died from the collision, but perhaps from the propeller cuts. Or maybe a combination of the two. But she didn’t believe that. Was it just because she didn’t want to believe it? Because she couldn’t bear to think Oliver was gone because of a random accident?

Wendy sat up straight and gripped her pencil more tightly. She had been doodling Oliver, the way his body had looked in the net, and the four gashes that raked his side.

The pencil in Wendy’s hand snapped in half, making her jump. Wendy gasped. It was the cuts.

“Wendy?” Professor Moore said. “Did you have something you wanted to add?”

Everyone in the class turned to look at her.

“No, sorry, I just… just thought of something.”

Wendy slunk deeper in her chair and waited for Moore to resume her lecture. Wendy glanced at Zach to see if he was watching her. His eyes met hers for just an instant before she quickly looked away, pretending to be absorbed in Professor Moore’s rambling.

The cuts! They weren’t from a propeller, even a huge container ship propeller. No, the gashes were deep, they were even, they raked the side of Oliver’s body and pierced his internal organs. They looked like they came from a giant set of claws.

Of course, Wendy knew that was impossible, there were no creatures with a set of claws that large. But that’s exactly what it looked like. Like a vicious, cruel mauling.

Everyone around her started packing up their books and tablets. Wendy stuffed her things into her bag and rushed out the door.

The afternoon sunshine blazed as she stepped out the door, skirting around Zach as he talked with another guy. Had she been exaggerating her troubles? No, Oliver was dead and it wasn’t right to feel happy. She forced a scowl and headed toward her dorm, only to realize she was being followed.

Wendy turned to confront her follower and caught her breath. It was the curly haired boy from the Launch.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“It’s a free country,” the boy said. “Or at least an open campus. I live nearby.”

“I don’t want to talk to you,” Wendy said. She tried to sound angry and intimidating, but a compelling sense of peacefulness was washing over her. She didn’t want to feel peaceful. She closed her eyes and imagined the bloody body of Oliver, reliving the pain she felt when she first saw it.

“What are you doing?” the boy asked. He stared at her with his intense gaze.

“None of your business. What are you doing?” she asked. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know. Get out of here.”

Wendy walked past him, beelining for her dorm.

“Hey, I’m sorry!” he said, running after her. Just the sound of his voice grated on her.

“Leave me alone. Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

He trailed a foot behind her, trying to keep up with her pace despite the leg-length disparity.“I wanted to apologize.”

“You did, now get lost.” The dorm was in sight.

“Hey Wendy! And stranger.”

It was Thea. She was sitting cross-legged on a bench in front of the dorm, her sunglasses nestled behind thick curls. She had been sliding a tiny braille OCR device across her textbook, but she stopped as Nate and Wendy approached.

“It’s the twerp who got me kicked out of the Launch,” Wendy said.

“I said I’m sorry,” Nate repeated.

“In your own words, Wendy, he’s a twerp,” Thea said. “Can’t you just give it a rest? I don’t think he went to the launch with the intention of ruining your day.”

Wendy looked at Nate, waiting for him to pipe up, but for once he kept his mouth shut.

She sighed. What was it that had bothered her so much?

“I was deep in thought about Oliver—I figured out something really important but then he surprised me out of nowhere and distracted me,” she said.

“Well,” Thea said, “what did you figure out?”

“The cuts—that’s what has been bothering me all this time. Those aren’t propeller cuts, it’s like they’re slashes from a giant set of claws, all spaced evenly apart.”

“Like a giant grizzly bear or something?” Thea asked.

“No,” Wendy said, “more like five or ten times bigger than that. Like a monster.”

Nate jumped in: “Or a giant underwater robot with claws.”

“Uh, no,” Wendy said.

“You gotta admit,” Thea said, “a giant robot is more plausible than a monster.”

Wendy shot her an annoyed look and wished that Thea could see it.

“Yes,” Wendy said,“it’s not plausible, but that’s what it looked like. If I could just get a look at the cuts again… take some pictures, maybe show them to someone who is a specialist in whale autopsies.”

“Oh no, you’re not going to get obsessed about this, are you?” Thea asked.

“Too late. I’m going to head up to our room—and no,” she said, directing her attention to Nate, “you can’t follow me into the girl’s dorm.”

“Like I wanted to,” Nate muttered.

Then, as Wendy pulled open the glass door of the dorm lounge he called out: “It was nice talking to you. I’ll see you around.”

Wendy rolled her eyes.

---

Wendy woke up restless, with thin September sunshine streaming through the window. On the other side of the room, Thea was barely visible; she could only sleep if she buried herself deep in her plaid comforter.

Normally, Wendy lingered in bed for a while, listening to music or reading some familiar book, but today she was itching to leave. She quietly slipped out of bed. She changed into comfy clothes and yanked on her baseball cap after she realized her hair had tangled horribly over night.

Like she always did, Wendy left a quick note on Thea’s laptop—“out for research, see you at lunch”—knowing Thea would check it when she realized Wendy wasn’t in the room. The program would read it aloud to her.

It was so early that the dorm halls were empty, and the only person in the lounge was Mallory James, who was majoring in at least three subjects. Mallory was typing furiously, headphones on and legs crossed on the coffee table.

Wendy caught the mag-lev train to head over to the MMS lab. Her seat was falling apart, and she hoped she’d remember to pick all the little pieces of yellow cushion off her pants when she arrived. She tapped her foot against the grooved metal baseboard.

She had to figure out what had happened to Oliver. It had to be what was making her feel so horrible all the time. And there is no way it was just a boating accident.

“Marine Way: pier access and Moroa University Marine Mammal Studies program,” the scratchy voice of the intercom announced. Wendy sidled down the aisle and off the train.

Over the summer, she’d gotten attached to the pier. The gulls calling, the salty sea air, the rushing sound of waves beating against the rocks, it all used to be comforting to her. Now it all felt dissonant, knowing that Oliver wasn’t waiting for her in the pool. Still, she had work to do.

Since there were no procedures or training sessions on Sundays, her student ID was enough to get her inside.

Kekoa was prowling the entryway, but there was nothing she could do. Students were encouraged to visit the MMS facilities. From the way she glared as Wendy walked through, Wendy got the impressions she would’ve preferred that students weren’t permitted at all.

The pools were surprisingly empty, of orcas or students. Wendy wondered if the whales were having a day off. It didn’t particularly matter to her, either way, since she was there to talk to people, not play with the orcas.

“Dr. Halt?” she said, entering one of the conference rooms. She’d spotted David Halt, an assistant director of the program and former assistant coach to the basketball team — Caleb and his teammates had always referred to him as “The Assistant” to tease him a bit.. “Dr. Halt, could I talk to you for a minute?”

He quickly closed the file he was looking over and stood up. Dr. Halt had shaggy red hair, a patchy beard, and excellent posture. “Wendy— infamous breaker of graduated cylinders. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” she said, eyes darting to the blank whiteboard. “Listen, I was just wondering if I could talk to you about what happened to Oliver.”

Dr. Halt’s smile faded.

“I just have some questions and—”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely possible.”

She took a step closer. “Why not?”

“Just because I don’t know any more than you do, I’m sure,” Dr. Halt said quickly, hands raised like he expected her to attack. “Honestly, I don’t think anyone knows what happened… Just an accident, though.”

“I want to see the body.”

Dr. Halt scratched behind his ear. “Wendy, are you sure? I mean, even if you were, then again, I don’t think you can.”

“I just want to—”

“No, Wendy. People, and by people, I mean experts, have already looked it over. It was just a horrible accident.” He frowned and squinted at her. “Why would you want to look at it closer, Wendy? It made me sick the first time, and I was a dozen yards away.”

Wendy sighed. “Can I come and talk to you at least, if I have questions?”

“If you’d like,” Dr. Halt said, but he didn’t exactly sound eager about the prospect. “Any time. I’ve known your brother, after all, since—”

“Baseball, freshman year,” Wendy finished, tipping her cap at him. “I know.”

He smiled and opened the door for her to leave.

As she moved past Kekoa and onto Marine Way, Wendy’s mind was racing. That was a waste of time.

She spent the next few days hunting down any answers about Oliver, but everyone connected to the marine mammal studies program was dismissive about it—just an accident, Wendy, really—or clearly knew nothing about it.

Wendy still couldn’t sleep.

---

Wendy opened her eyes in the dim-lit dorm room. She could tell from the heavy breathing on the other side of the room that Thea was still asleep. A thin shaft of moonlight snuck in past the edge of the mini blinds and splashed onto the wood shelving above Thea’s bed.

It was odd, she had felt so peaceful after American Lit… even happy. But after she had gone up to her room to get ready for dinner, all the weight and memories came crashing back stronger than before. And yet, it was better this way. It had felt wrong to be happy: Oliver had just been slashed to death by who-knows-what—and it was probably at least partly her fault. She had fought with Caleb right before he left for his trip. She wasn’t on good terms with her mom, of course. She doubted that she had the brains to figure out her philosophy paper. What would happen if she failed the class? She couldn’t remember if it was too late to drop out. She was failing in life… if only there was an easy way to drop out.

Thea stirred under her piled-up comforter and then jolted up onto one elbow. Her hair was going crazy in every direction.

“Wendy… are you awake? Did you hear that?” she whispered.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Wendy said. “But I didn’t hear anything; you were dreaming.”

“I… I don’t think so; I think it woke me up. It was the same thing I heard the day you fell in the pool. It sounded like a scream, but super-high pitched.”

Wendy sat up. “Are you sure? Why didn’t I hear it?”

“It was really high—I could barely hear it. Maybe you couldn’t?”

Wendy smirked. “Underwater robots don’t scream.”

“I know…” Thea said. “You might be right about the whole monster thing.”

Wendy shivered. It was a crazy theory, but it fit the evidence. But how could she prove it if she couldn’t look at Oliver’s body?

“Thea, you like boats, don’t you?”

“No, no, no, I know where you’re going with this.” Thea sat up fully and crossed her arms. “We are not going to steal one of the university’s boats and take it in circles in the bay, looking for a monster.”

“Relax, Thea, and pull out of that sinister criminal mindset. We’ll just rent a boat.. And, anyway, we’re not going to go in circles, I have something a bit more specific in mind.”

---

Wendy shouldered her scuba gear on top of a wetsuit and took a test breath from the regulator. She had even remembered an Extra Air device — a small, self-contained alternative air device for short-term use — which she was notorious for forgetting.

She had dropped the Mercury’s plow anchor off the bow and now the boat was swinging gently from the anchor rope in the breeze. Behind them towered the rocks and steep banks bordering Skilton Bay, a few miles south of Moroa Bay. It was the spot where a retiree had first seen Oliver’s floating dead body.

She had invited Nate to come with them, not because she wanted to, but because Thea had insisted on having a sighted person to help her handle the boat.

Wendy pushed her feet into flippers and stretched the mask band around the back of her head and slid it into place.

“Mask on,” Wendy muttered.

“I’m betting you look incredibly stylish,” Thea said.

Wendy snorted. “Thank you, supportive best friend.”

“When can I dive?” Nate asked.

“You can’t,” Wendy said. “Stay here and keep watch with Thea. If there’s any trouble, just radio me, ok?”

“How about if there’s any trouble, we handle it ourselves,” Nate said, “leaving you free to pretend like you’re some kind of underwater Sherlock Holmes. What exactly do you hope to find down there, anyways?”

“Stuff.” Wendy was okay admitting to Thea that she didn’t know what she was doing, but she wasn’t about to level with Nate. She wished she did have some idea of what she might find down there, but they hadn’t been able to rent one of the fancier boats that came with sonar tech.

She sat on the edge of the boat, flippers extending awkwardly in front of her and reached out and squeezed Thea’s hand.

“Go find some clues,” Thea said.

Wendy put the regulator in her mouth, leaned back and flopped backwards into the water. She was disoriented for a second, before doing the breaststroke to descend deeper. The sound of her own loud breathing filled her head as she squinted around her, trying to see the bottom in the murky water.

She had stuffed five glass bottles in her scuba belt pack, along with a disposable underwater camera. She only hoped she would see something worthy of photographing. She had imagined some giant bite-mark in a plant or a giant foot-print or something, but as she approached the bottom of the bay all she saw were barnacle-covered rocks. Her brain was whirring to try and find any possible hint of a monster.

Wendy filled the first bottle with water directly under the boat, then swam to four different points to fill each of the other bottles before returning to the boat.

Even before she had pulled herself up out of the water, Nate was pestering her.

“So, what did you find?” he asked. “Any clues that will help us solve the case?”

Wendy rolled her eyes — this is why she hadn’t wanted to bring him. But for some reason she was in a really good mood, so she let his pestering slide.

“Thea,” Wendy asked, “could you help with the mass spectrometer?”

“Why can’t I—” Nate began, but Wendy stopped him with a glare.

Over the summer, Thea had helped Wendy work with her extraterrestrial exploration kit, which included a mass spectrometer and a radiation assessment detector. It was part of the training Wendy had done to prepare for exploration through the portal. Not that she realistically thought she would be chosen, but she was ecstatic about being on the “potential” list and jumped at the training opportunity.

Wendy and Thea poured the contents of the first bottle into the mass spectrometer and waited while the machine began its analysis. There was always water movement in the bay and the university boat that had retrieved Oliver’s body would have stirred up the water too, but Wendy hoped that maybe some heavier elements—maybe iron from Oliver’s blood?—had settled toward the bottom and were still there to help them get closer to the location of mauling.

The results of the analysis started printing out and Wendy read them aloud: “Oxygen: 86%. Hydrogen: 11%. Chloride: 2%. Sodium 1%. Gravite?!”

Gravite was exotic matter emitted by the neutron star on the other side of the portal. Why would it be in the bay?

“Maybe it’s an error,” Thea pointed out. “Or something left over from the experiments we ran during the summer?”

“I don’t think so, I washed the sample cups this morning with the solvent and did the low-temp bake out, there shouldn’t be anything on there. No trace of iron—and the other elements are all pretty common.”

They tested each of the bottles and found gravite in each one. Sample number four contained three times the gravite of the others.

“I’ve got to go back down to Area 4,” Wendy insisted, pulling on her mask before Thea could get into her protests.

She splashed over the edge of the boat and swam down to where sample four was collected. The light beam of her head lamp lit up the algae-covered rocks and barnacles, making it easier for her to see, but she still didn’t see anything unusual.

Wendy swam in a slow circle, spiraling outward. Rocks, algae, barnacles, mussels. Occasionally she spotted a crab, but nothing out of place; nothing helpful. She reversed direction and spiraled inward, but again found nothing.

She hadn’t bothered to put on the MMS’ diver headset so she couldn’t radio back to Thea and Nate, and she knew they would start to worry if she didn’t go back soon. She took a few strokes up toward the surface and turned for one last look at the spot where she had taken the sample when she saw it: the faint outline of a giant, meter-long footprint. I was too close to see it!

There were pointed claw marks twenty-five centimeters from the edge of the toes. Claws long enough to slice Oliver wide open.

---

A breeze passed through the courtyard outside the Applied Physics lab, making Wendy pull her sleeves to cover her wrists.

Caleb was coming home, but the doors hadn’t opened yet.

Wendy glanced at the path coming from the edge of campus. If their mom was going to show up, that’s where she’d come from. I sent her a reminder last night… She shuffled her feet and noticed a new black scuff on the side of her sneakers.

“Are your shoes that much more exciting than me?”

Wendy spun around and jumped at Caleb, laughing. As he pulled her into a hug, she said, “I was watching the doors! When did you sneak out?”

“I came from the back. Dr. Coenen was worried the press would be here again, but clearly no one cares about me anymore.”

“I do,” Wendy said, pulling away and grinning. She had missed him too much to be embarrassed about the sentimentality. “How was it—I mean, the wormhole, the other side? You’ve got to tell me everything, and spare no science-y detail. I’ve been reading up on a lot of the newest extraterrestrial theories, and I think I can hold my weight.”

“That’s great, Wen. I mean, there’s a lot to tell, but—”

“And—oh my gosh—Oliver. I’ve been really trying to think it through.”

Caleb nodded. “How are you doing? It sucked I had to leave right after that happened.”

He didn’t mention that he also left after their major argument about the ticket, but Wendy decided not to bring that up. “The school says Oliver’s death was an accident, but it couldn’t have been. I went diving last night.”

With a frown, Caleb said, “Wendy, please tell me you did all the paperwork and had someone who knows what they’re doing go with you. Did you do any of the things you were supposed to?”

“Of course not, that would’ve taken forever.” She beamed at him, but he didn’t smile back. “Anyway, I found a huge footprint, with claws, of something totally big enough to maul an orca.”

Caleb stopped walking. “Do you really think that’s likely? I mean, why would they lie to us?”

“I’ve got evidence, Caleb.”

“You’ve got something you think is a footprint, underwater, that’s surely gone by now. I know you’re upset about Oliver, Wendy, but making up some story isn’t going to change anything, really.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “What about if you and I went over to the pools soon?”

She started walking out of the courtyard, trying to ignore how upset she was that he didn’t believe her, for the sake of spending time with him again.

“I was thinking we could spend the rest of the day together, right? You could tell me about your fancy life, and I could catch you up on things in Moroa, and there’s a baseball game at 8:00.”

Wendy had hardly slept the night before, but she was feeling a little better, having plans for the day. Plans with Caleb, who she felt like she hadn’t seen in months, really, with all the preparations for the launch. But now that it’s over—

“Actually, Wendy, I’ve sort of already got plans.” He smiled at her, his eyes embarrassed. “There’s this girl, Arianna, I’ve been working with, and when I was messaging her from the other side she asked if we could go get coffee when I came back.”

“You messaged her from the other side of the portal?” Wendy stepped away from him.

Caleb frowned. “Well, yeah, she was in the lab.” Realization dawned on him and he sighed. “Wendy, come on. You knew I was safe. I was only talking to her because she was there, you know? It’s not like I was telling her things I wouldn’t tell you.”

“But you didn’t tell me, not anything! And you’re still not going to.”

“It’s not that simple.”

She shook her head. “And you won’t listen to me about Oliver, either. Why doesn’t any—”

Wendy had developed a headache in the past ten seconds, and her eyes were stinging with tears, which annoyed her. “Maybe I’ll see you next week,” she muttered, and shot him a glare as she brushed past him.

“Come on, Wendy!” he called, but she picked up her pace and didn’t look back.

Halfway back to the dorms, Wendy’s phone rang. Unknown number.

“Hello?” Her voice was tight, since she’d been restraining herself from crying since she walked away from Caleb.

“Um… hi. This is Nate Lilling.”

That was the last thing she wanted to hear. “Any particular, dire reason you’re calling me?” Wendy asked, her finger poised at the “end call” button.

A pause. “I just thought you might want someone to talk to.”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound very fine.”

A small sob escaped Wendy and she dropped onto a bench. “Well, that’s kind of you,” she grumbled. “My brother won’t even talk to me and I haven’t seen him in a week, Oliver is dead, and you’re—” She cut herself off and bit her lip.

“Are you crying?” Nate asked, and then hurriedly changed the subject like his first question had just slipped out.

Wendy rested her head in her hand and hung up in the middle of his rushed rambling.

---

When Wendy opened the door to her room, Thea was at her desk on her laptop, hair pulled into a haphazard ponytail.

“Hi, Wen.”

“Hey, Thea.” She focused on keeping her voice clear; Thea was good on picking up on those sorts of things. “Who are you messaging?”

Thea closed her laptop. “No one.”

It could be Nate, Wendy realized. They met outside the dorms the other day. “Really, who?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Thea said casually. She stood and grabbed her jacket. “You coming to lunch?”

“No,” Wendy snapped, and turned her back toward Thea and studied the pictures she had taped to her wall. All the smiling faces—Caleb, Thea, her mom, her dad before he died—made her feel sick.

---

Part 3

Wendy lay awake in bed. Thea had fallen asleep within ten minutes—why was it always so easy for her?

Tonight there was no slice of moonlight peeking around the edge of the mini-blinds due to a heavy cloud layer. The yellow glow of a night-light illuminated the side of Wendy’s desk, just beyond her bed, and made the rest of the room barely visible.

Wendy’s left side started aching from staying in one position too long, so she rolled over to her right and pulled up her knees to her chest.

How was it that all of a sudden Caleb couldn’t care less about her? The whole time he was gone, he was sending messages to some girl in the lab without sending her a single message. And Thea and Nate were probably messaging each-other behind her back or something, who knows what. How could her best friend suddenly prefer the company of a middle-schooler and keep secrets from her?

But then again, could she really blame them for not liking her? She wasn’t smart like Caleb or kind like Thea, she wasn’t popular or likeable. She wasn’t fun to be around… in fact, she’d been a pretty dismal friend with her mood swings and obsessions. If she didn’t even like herself, why should other people?

She was tired. She wanted to drop out of class. She wanted to drop out of life.

Wendy quietly climbed out of bed, slid open her drawer and felt around for her bottle of painkillers. A couple would knock her out. A whole bottle would finally let her feel some peace. But first she needed to write Caleb a message, so she grabbed her tablet and took it with her to bed.

---

Thea bolted upright, hands shaking, and reached out to grip her bedpost.

“Wendy?” she whispered.

Wendy looked at Thea over her glowing tablet. “Yeah, I’m awake.”

“The scream. I just heard it again — much louder. It’s got to be in the bay.”

Wendy glanced down at the bottle. This was her one chance to catch this monster, to make things right with Oliver’s death. The bottle would have to wait. And there was always the chance that she didn’t come back, that the monster would take care of things for her. She liked the darkness of the irony there, to prove to the world that she was right about the monster by being killed by it.

“Come on, Thea. It’s now or never.”

“Wendy, we don’t need another let’s-bring-bananas-into-the-monkey-exhibit idea.”

“This is different. It’s not like anyone’s going to ban us from the ocean. Besides, you’ll be glad you did it and if you don’t, you’ll always wish you had.”

Thea stood, slinging a small quilt around her shoulders like a shawl. “Don’t try and pressure me, Wendy. You don’t have a good plan. You’re not prepared.”

Wendy grabbed the bottle of pills and hid it under her pillow, but in the process she accidentally touched the tablet with her elbow. Message sent.

She gulped. She had had every intention of sending it, but it seemed unreal that it was sent. Now she just had to follow through tonight, before Caleb woke in the morning and read it.

“I’m going,” Wendy said to Thea, who knew Wendy well enough to know she was not about to change her mind.

Thea moved past Wendy to rummage through the closet for her raincoat.

---

The heavy clouds had pulled apart, revealing a full moon that lit up the bay. Thea was quiet, but Wendy didn’t miss the way she’d open her mouth every minute or so, like she was about to say something.

Wendy suppressed a gasp when she saw the blip of the monster show up on the MMS boat’s sonar. It was so large it had to be either a large orca or the monster, and the orcas never ventured to this part of the bay. It was leaving the south end of Moroa Bay, heading toward Skilton Bay.

Wendy fired up the engine and took off in pursuit of the monster, guiding the boat out of the bay by the light of an almost-full moon. They followed it via sonar through Skilton Bay and out to the deep waters of the Moroa Channel where it descended into the channel and disappeared from the sonar.

Wendy cut the engine.

“Whoa, what are you doing?” Thea asked.

“I’m going after it with the portable sonar—I have to get closer to its depth to know where it’s headed.”

“It’s the middle of the night, Wendy, you’re not going to be able to see a thing. The monster’s probably already out of range and if it’s not, what are you going to do if you find it? Or, worse, if it finds you? You know what it did to Oliver.”

“Relax, the moon is out and I’ve got a head lamp. Thea, I can’t give up now. The more we track its movements, the easier it’ll be for others to find it. Who knows, maybe I’ll find its nest. If I find it, I’ll take a picture. If it finds me… let’s just hope it’s not hungry, or if it is, that it doesn’t like the taste of wetsuit.”

“Please, Wendy.” Thea held on to Wendy’s arm. “Please don’t go.”

Wendy sat on the edge of the boat. “I have to,” she said. She leaned back and splashed into the black water.

---

Nate was brushing his teeth, eyes blurry with sleepiness after playing video games past midnight, when he heard a strangely familiar sound coming from his bedroom: banging on his window. He quickly spit into the sink and rounded the corner.

The Traveler’s head nearly filled the frame, all shiny black eyes and orange translucent skin. It breathed in and out slowly as Nate moved closer.

“What is it?” Nate said. He knew he didn’t have to talk to be understood, but that felt too weird.

Wendy’s in danger. You have to find a way to help her.

“What?”

And the Traveler just repeated itself, adding, She’s taken a boat. The Traveler left so quickly that Nate wasn’t sure for a moment if he’d imagined the whole encounter. Then he spotted the orange feather ledged into his windowpane, next to a dead fly.

Nate’s heart was pounding, and he had no idea what to do, and he was wearing pajamas.

As he changed, Nate snatched his phone off of his nightstand and called Caleb. Two rings, and then Caleb picked up, his voice groggy. Nate held his phone between his shoulder and his ear.

“Wendy’s in trouble. You’ve got to believe me!”

“What are you talking about?” Caleb murmured. “Is this Nate?”

He stumbled down the stairs and pulled the hall closet open. “Yes, this is Nate, and I think Wendy’s gone to the bay. And she’s going to get herself hurt. And I don’t think she’s doing well, you know?”

“I don’t know what you think you know, but—”

Nate found his rain jacket and pulled it on over his t-shirt. “I’ll be at the docks in ten minutes. Meet me there.”

He hung up and left a quickly-scribbled note by the door, in case his aunt AJ woke up.

---

Caleb squinted at the brightness of his phone screen. What is that kid talking about? He was sure Wendy was asleep in her dorm, or if anything still studying in the library. Same Wendy as normal. Why would she do anything that crazy?

He was wondering whether he should try and contact Nate’s family, let them know Nate was planning on heading to the docks in the middle of the night, when he noticed he had an unread message. From Wendy.

As Caleb finished reading, he had to remind himself to breathe.

He shoved the questions out of his mind and jumped out of bed, grabbing a sweatshirt and fumbling through his drawer for his ID and a flashlight.

---

The North Moroa University Security Office, or the North Shack — as most security guards called it — was not the most thrilling place to spend an evening. The tiny shack was so cramped that he could sit with his chair pressed against one wall and his shoes pressed against the other. The tubes of fluorescent light were always humming. A fir branch had fallen onto the skylight, illuminated by the dying lightbulb on top of the shack.

Matthew flicked his eyes from one screen, to the next, to the next, until he got back to the first again, and he could’ve sworn his brain was deteriorating by the second. Some of his friends worked for security too, but at the main campus office. Things actually happened there.

Matthew fiddled with the buttons of his ill-fitting rented uniform and checked Camera 1… Camera 2… Camera 3…

He straightened up and blinked. At least he had only closed his eyes for a second. He took a deep breath, willing himself to monitor the screens. The buzz of the dying light bulb above his head droned on as he rested his chin against his hand.

“WAKE UP!”

Matthew’s arms and legs flailed in surprise and he found himself on the floor next to his chair, head colliding with the side of a file cabinet. He squinted up. It was the head of security, looming directly above him.

The pain in his head overrode his usual inhibitions. “What is wrong with you!?”

Kekoa leaned closer with a grunt. “Nothing. You’re the one slacking off. Give me one good reason you belong on a high-grade security team.”

He would’ve sworn that vein in her forehead was an inch thick. “Calm down, okay? What’s going to happen at North Campus at 1:00 AM on a Thursday?”

“If our security doesn’t take their job seriously? Anything.”

Matthew propped himself up on his elbows, but his head was spinning. “I think you’re being a little overdramatic. I just drifted off.”

“This isn’t a position where you’re allowed to slack off. We run a tight ship here. If you can’t rise to our level, your internship will be over before you know it.”

She must have absolutely nothing in her life but this crappy job, he thought, judging by the beet-red color of her face. I bet she polishes that plastic badge every night.

It appeared she was taking a breath, so he interjected, “It’s fine, really,” and pulled himself back into his chair.

She whipped around to face him. “How stupid are you exactly?”

“Come on,” he replied, “nothing has happened for two hours. And that was a seagull poking the camera with its beak.”

Kekoa pushed back her shoulders. “Oh, two hours? One time I was in a situation where I had to stay alert for two days without sleep, and not a thing got past me.” She shook her head, glaring at him.

“I’m an intern.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Just an intern?” Kekoa reached for the security camera perched above the desk, turning it toward the wall. “Do you know what happens to people on my team that make the rest of us look bad?”

Matthew stared at the turned camera with wide eyes. “You are absolutely right, I need to take this job seriously. I am sorry, it won’t happen again.”

Kekoa looked over his shoulder at the monitors and swore loudly.

“What is it?” Matthew asked.

She didn’t bother to answer, and was out the door before he even spotted what she’d seen.

Camera 3, at the docks. Two girls, stealing a boat.

---

Caleb’s heart was pounding as he and Nate got closer to the boathouses.

“At least no one’s around at this time of night,” Nate said.

He was right; the docks were completely empty, aside from an empty espresso cup rolling along the copper-lined boardwalk, equipped for hover tech. They passed by glowing charging stations, next to the touch-screen park information placard. A bird was perched on the edge of the glass semi-circular maglev station. The moon cast a glossy light over the water, which was so still that Caleb wondered how far away Thea and Wendy had gotten.

Nate was walking so close to Caleb that he was touching Caleb’s arm. “It’s just dark,” Caleb said. “You don’t have to be scared.”

“Are you kidding?” Nate scoffed, jerking away. “I’m not scared. Let’s move faster.”

Caleb smiled at Nate’s quick denial. “My bad. Sorry.”

“STOP!”

Both of them did, slowly turning around. There was Kekoa, the guard who hadn’t let Wendy talk to Bradley Thame after the failed Undersea Exploration exam. She had her arms held out at a stiff ninety degrees, a taser poised between her white-knuckled hands.

Caleb stifled his laugh. “A taser? Ma’am, we’re just walking. I don’t think that’s against campus policy.”

“It isn’t,” Kekoa said, slowly lowering the taser. She didn’t move though, and was staring them down.

Just have to walk past her then, Caleb thought, and started forward again. Nate wasn’t moving, and when Caleb glanced back, his brows were knit in concentration. I thought he wanted to move faster?

“There has been some illegal activity at these docks,” Kekoa continued, sidestepping to be in Caleb’s path. “I wouldn’t suppose you two know anything about that?”

“We don’t,” Caleb said resolutely. He looked to Nate to agree, but he was just staring at Kekoa with fists clenched. It was like he hadn’t heard anything since she told them to stop.

Her eyes flitted side to side, looking slightly confused. “I’m going to have to ask you to return to your places of residence.”

“You can’t stop us from being outside.”

Kekoa took a deep breath. “It’s for your own good, if you’re not involved. If you are involved, you’ll want to leave before I can prove it.”

Caleb eyed the boats, less than a dozen yards away. He didn’t have time to double back and wait for another opportunity. “Nate and I are just here for an art project,” he blurted out. “Mr. Mendell’s class? Capture the essence of the boathouses.”

“An art project.” Kekoa raised her eyebrows.

“Yep.”

“You didn’t need a canvas for that? Or a sketchbook? A pencil?”

Caleb clicked his tongue. “Oh, shoot. Forgot those.”

He tried to push past Kekoa towards the water, but she put one hand on his shoulder. “There are no boat passes registered for this evening, especially since students aren’t allowed to rent boats past nine, Mr. Miracle.”

For the first time, Caleb noticed the definite muscle tone of Kekoa’s arms. She could knock them out in a second, if she wanted to. Someone was shouting at their friend on the city side of the boardwalk, and Kekoa squinted toward them.

Caleb saw his chance and whispered to Nate, “Get the boat in a second—the keys are behind the life jacket by the door of the boathouse.”

“What was that?” Kekoa turned and said.

“I was telling my friend what pretty eyes you have,” Caleb said.

Kekoa glared. “Sure you were.” She reached behind her and pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her belt. “I gave you a chance to leave on your own, but this is a matter of campus security.”

 Caleb stepped back, hands raised. “I’m not trying to cause trouble. But I’m not getting handcuffed.”

“You are,” Kekoa said, stepping forward. “I don’t have time to deal with you and this kid. I’ll just bring you to North Campus Security, where you will be detained until I am freed up to return you home.” She took another step toward Caleb, and when she reached out the cuffs, he jumped to the side.

“Seriously, no.”

“Seriously, yes.”

Caleb turned his back to her and took off at three-quarters speed, waiting for the inevitable…

Umph.

She tackled him to the wood of the boardwalk, twisting his arm behind his back. Caleb grimaced. “Is this really necessary?” He mumbled.

“No,” she said. “What was necessary was for you to comply the first time. I’ve got places to be.”

A boat engine revved, and Caleb grinned. “So do I.”

Kekoa jumped off of Caleb and started sprinting to the boat, but it was too late. Nate drove the boat, sputtering, out of the boathouse, looking not-so-confident in his ability to pilot it by himself.

Kekoa reached the dock and leapt out over the water, reaching for the boat. Her fingertips touched the metal railing, but she wasn’t quite close enough to get a grip. She slipped into the water and Nate hit the accelerator.

Caleb ran along the boardwalk and onto the bridge that crossed a small inlet. He hopped over the side, dangled from one arm off the planks and Nate approached.

“Drop!” Nate shouted.

Caleb took a quick breath and dropped, landing clumsily on top of a pile of oars.

“Why are there oars?” He asked shakily as he took the helm from Nate.

Nate shrugged. “I didn’t know what we’d need.”

As Caleb headed south toward Skilton Bay, he glanced back at the docks. Kekoa was running back toward the security building, sopping wet.

---

Wendy usually loved being underwater. Her breathing made a racket through the mask, but it was comforting white noise, unlike the stressful cacophony above the surface. The world felt more peaceful when she was submerged.

But tonight, Wendy didn’t feel peaceful. She felt like one dissonant chord in the middle of beautiful music.

The darkness freaked her out at first; she kept imagining the shadow of a monster moving toward her. As the light decreased in her descent to 75 feet, the only way she could calm her nerves was to imagine herself as a peaceful sacrifice, a lamb to the slaughter, giving her life to expose the monster that killed Oliver.

I’ve gone through a lot of my air, Wendy realized, looking down at her gauge.

She turned to her right, remembering how her mask was obscuring her peripheral vision, and saw something she was not expecting: lights. It was a dim line of lights, evenly spaced — some sort of man-made structure. Could it have something to do with the monster?

Wendy felt like her whole head was aching. As she swam closer, the lights from the structure reflected off of pieces of smooth rock, bright in her eyes.

“Are you coming up soon?” Thea’s voice came through. Wendy could hear her concern through the static and the added being-underwater fuzziness.

“Sure,” Wendy lied, and waited to see if Thea was going to say anything else. When she didn’t, Wendy swam closer to the structure, until it was finally clear exactly what it was.

The structure was a huge cage built into the opening of a cavern. Thick bars spanned the mouth of the cave, but they had been ripped open.

Wendy’s air supply alarm buzzed, sounding like it was coming from behind her head, but the underwater aerodynamics made it seem like every sound came from there.

I can’t go back to the surface, I’ve got to explore this. I just need enough time to figure out what this has to do with the monster and radio my findings back to Thea. Then I can say goodbye.

To the side of the cave was a small, concrete enclosure, and Wendy found upon closer inspection that the light was glinting off of fragments of broken glass windows. She peered in and saw a computer drifting through the flooded enclosure, its screen caked with green muck. It must’ve been an observation area, to watch the monster they kept caged.

A rack of rifles was mounted on the wall, and Wendy wondered if they’d been equipped to work underwater. Apparently, they hadn’t worked against whatever tore the bars off the cage.

Behind the cage and the enclosure, there was a cave, presumably natural. Above and around the cave, algae quivered in the slight current.

Wendy moved past the man-made structures and towards the shadowy cave, squinting through her mask to get a glimpse of the inside. Her gauge beeped again: 10% oxygen remaining.

Inside the cave, she found herself floating above something she’d seen dozens of times: the broken base of a portal, but twice the size of the one in the physics hangar. The ring itself, the piece she’d watched her brother disappear through, had been torn off. Another victim of whatever destroyed the cage?

The destruction within the cave captivated her. The stone wall was dented and raked with long scratch marks. She tried to imagine the hurricane this creature had unleashed on those who had tried to cage it.

Her oxygen levels were depleting fast, the distribution speed slowing, and Wendy felt a tightness in her chest. It wouldn’t be long, now.

---

Wendy was examining what was left of the door into the observation area when she sensed movement behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, but couldn’t make out anything in the murky water. She swam closer to the underwater rifle rack, a line of bayonet attachments edging the case.

“Come back up, Wendy. Don’t do something stupid.”

Wendy jumped at her Caleb’s voice over her radio. “Caleb! No, really, I’m—”

“I’m halfway down,” he interrupted.

“No, you can’t. There’s something...”  

Wendy froze.

Two all-black eyes were staring at her from the entrance of the cave. Between the eyes was a two-meter long snout, half-open to reveal double rows of thin incisors. The monster was staring at her through the entrance to the cave.

The monster was a long, sinewy creature, with four webbed feet, and two arms reaching into the cave. A short fin on top ran the whole length of its black, shiny spine.

“Seriously, Caleb,” she continued, her voice barely audible. “Do not come down. The monster is real… it’s here.” The detachment she had been able to conjure was gone; her hands shook as terror tightened her chest and made it difficult to breathe.

“WENDY! You—” She clicked her radio off and turned her attention to the monster.

Even though her heart hammered in her chest, Wendy felt a strange sense of vindication. Everything fit; she had been right all along.

The monster was reaching for the door, so Wendy pushed away from it. Its claws wrapped around the doorframe and it pulled itself fully into the cave. Once its hind legs were inside, it towered over Wendy, like a snake preparing to strike, and scraped a foreclaw against a textured plate on its abdomen, producing a fingernails-on-chalkboard scream that sent shivers down Wendy’s spine.

With one clawed hand still gripping the door frame, the other hand snaked out toward Wendy. She pushed away from the cave wall, but she was too slow. The creature’s unnaturally elongated fingers wrapped around her waist and squeezed her until it hurt to breathe.

Then, behind the creature, at the mouth of the cave, a diver appeared: Caleb.

“Caleb, get out of here!” she yelled, but he didn’t have a hope of hearing her without their radios and she couldn’t reach the radio switch on her belt while the monster held her.

She watched in disbelief as Caleb did the stupidest things possible: he picked up a broken bar and brought it down as quickly as he could against the water resistance, pushing the broken end into the monster’s side between two ridges of its spine-long fin.

The monster loosened its grip on Wendy, twisted, and lunged at its attacker. Wendy wriggled free — when the water was clear of bubbles, she could see pink scratches bright against Caleb’s neck and back.

She dove to her right and swam toward the rifle rack, but before she was within reach of a rifle, something wrapped around her legs. She stretched with both hands and grabbed the base of the rack, pulling hard until she could reach a rifle. She let go with one hand and grabbed at a rifle, snagging it before being pulled back to the monster.

She swung the rifle toward the monster but before she could get a shot off, the monster grabbed the barrel, wrenching it from her grip and then let go of her in order to grip the rifle in two hands and bent it into an acute angle.

Caleb motioned at her, and she clicked on her radio. “Swim, Wendy! Go!”

She flipped back toward the entrance and swam as fast as she could.

Caleb ducked past her, trying to distract the monster, but it pushed him aside and grabbed Wendy by one leg, pulling her toward it, its bonelike claws cutting through her wetsuit to the skin. She barely registered Caleb shouting, “Wendy!”

She shrieked and struggled, but the grip on her leg didn’t loosen. Her head spun with shock and dwindling oxygen.

In her peripheral vision, she saw the twisted form of the rifle on the cavern floor and reached out to snag it as the monster pulled her closer.

Her field of vision was all black and slick scale-coated skin, and eyes black as ink. Wendy watched in horror as its mouth stretched wide open, revealing double rows of stained teeth.

Wendy breathed deeply, willing her muscles to relax and save their strength for the one last opportunity.

When the teeth began to close around her, she rotated the deformed rifle until the bayonet pointed at the monster’s eye and she plunged it in with both hands.

With a jerk the monster let go of her and reeled, pressing both hands onto its eye.

She swam away from the creature’s flailing body, as did Caleb, who had apparently been held by the monster’s other hand.

After thrashing in two circles, the monster grabbed the bars at the cave entrance and pulled itself out, swimming away from them and leaving the cave.

Caleb swam to her and switched on her radio.

“Quick,” he said. “I brought an air cylinder and an Extra Air device, but we’ll need to work quickly in case that thing comes back.”

Wendy’s gauge had gone well past the Empty line—she had been breathing recycled air for a couple of minutes and was starting to breathe quickly and feel light-headed. Caleb connected her to the Extra Air while they hooked up the new cylinder.

As Wendy held the cylinder in place while Caleb fitted the buckle clamp around it, she thought about the way he had attacked the monster with the broken bar in his desperate attempt to save her, and she blinked back tears.

---

Wendy collapsed into a seat in the cabin of the boat, her wetsuit leaving a trail of water behind her. She closed her eyes, but was interrupted a few seconds later by the sound of someone sitting down next to her.

Finally her curiosity got the better of her and she looked: it was Caleb.

He was looking intently at her, with one arm over his own seat and one arm over the pilot’s seat in front of them.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what?”

“Why would you… kill yourself?”

Wendy grimaced and closed her eyes again. This was exactly the conversation she didn’t want to be having.

“I wrote it down, you know.”

“Come on, Wen, I need to know. Your message said you were tired, that you hated living. I assume Oliver’s death had something to do with it. But I know there’s more than that. What am I missing?”

Wendy sighed. “I am such a failure. I make life harder for you, for mom, for Thea -- it’s just easier on everyone if I’m not here.”

“Wen, that is not true,” Caleb said. “I need you. I couldn’t live without you.”

“Sure doesn’t seem like it,” Wendy said.

“Okay, okay, I get distracted and caught up in other stuff. But I would drop it in a heartbeat for you. As soon as I heard you were in trouble, I raced out here. Nate and I had to evade campus security -- I’ll probably lose my position at the University, but none of that matters.”

Wendy hazarded a glance up at Caleb.

“Why?” she asked.

“Wendy, you are the most incredible person I know. You’re fierce, you’re passionate, your curiosity is off the charts. You’re my sister and I love you.”

Caleb put his arm around Wendy and hugged her.

“I’m not the only one who cares about you,” Caleb continued. “Thea and Nate are worried sick. Can I let them come in?”

“I guess so,” Wendy said. “Just warn them that I’m super tired.”

Caleb stood up slowly and paused before he turned to the door.

“One more thing,” he said. “Promise you’ll let me take you to a counselor when we get home.”

Wendy groaned inwardly, but said, “I promise.”

Caleb winced as he turned to the door and for the first time Wendy saw the bloody gash running across his back and remembered how the monster had slashed at him.

“Caleb, your back!”

“It’s ok, Wen, it’s not as bad as it looks,” Caleb said.

---

As Wendy pulled into Moroa Bay behind the boat Caleb had stolen, she could see the beam of a flashlight stretching out from the dock. The closer they got, the more she needed to squint. “That is the brightest flashlight in the world.”

“I’m sure Kekoa changes the batteries every night, just to be safe,” Nate said.

Wendy turned to face him. “Kekoa?”

“You know, the new head of campus security that dragged us out of the Launch? Caleb and I fought her to get a boat,” Nate said, leaning over the rail of the boat and watching the waves pass. “You guys weren’t exactly stealthy with the boat stealing.”

Thea laughed. “Well, it worked for us.”

It was awkwardly quiet as Wendy pulled their boat up to the dock and cut the engine. Kekoa and her guards were standing on the dock, watching and waiting for them. Together, they helped Thea step off the boat, with Nate following behind them. There was no way of avoiding Kekoa’s barricade. “There are seven guards, plus Kekoa,” Wendy whispered to Thea as she grabbed her hand and helped her onto the docks.

By the time they were on dry land, they were surrounded by guards, two campus security cars with lights flashing, and a few security bicycles leaning against the pier.

Kekoa stepped forward. “The four of you stole two campus boats without permits. You two—” she motioned to Nate and Caleb “—resisted arrest.” 

Nate tucked his hands into his pockets and studied his feet.

“Come on!” Thea said. “It’s not like we were trying to cause any trouble.”

“Stealing isn’t trouble?”

Wendy motioned to the whole team of security guards. “Why do you have seven other guards here? That’s a bit excessive.”

“And they’re injured,” Nate added, gesturing toward Wendy and Caleb.

Holding up a few pairs of handcuffs, Kekoa said, “They’ll get medical assistance after they’ve been detained. Just come and let me cuff you. Caleb first.”

“You don’t have to handcuff us!” Thea crossed her arms.

Wendy said, “Where do you think we’re going to go? Honestly, you’ve got half your entire team here, and we’re not hardened criminals. What kind of—”

“It’s fine,” Caleb said, looking at her pointedly. “Like we said, we’re not trying to cause trouble. If we could just talk to President Nachash, I’m sure he’d understand.”

“That’s a good idea,” Kekoa said with a smirk. “I’ll contact Nachash and have him meet us at the main campus shack as soon as he gets in this morning. I’ll lay out the whole case for him, then we’ll see just how understanding he is.”

Caleb didn’t say anything, he just held his wrists behind his back for the cuffs. Once everyone was handcuffed, they shoved Thea and Caleb into one car, and Wendy and Nate into the other.

---

Though it was hard to rest on the stiff beds in the holding cells, the four of them had appreciated the few hours of sleep.

The next morning, Wendy, Caleb, Thea and Nate leaned against the campus security cars in the lot outside the security shack, watching the backs of Kekoa and Nachash as she filled him in on the previous night’s escapade. The early-morning chirping of the birds and the light rustling of the trees stood in sharp contrast to Kekoa’s military posture and the impending doom in Wendy’s gut. Whatever happened, she couldn’t let Caleb lose his job.

When Kekoa and Nachash turned and came back to the row of students, Wendy leapt into action.

“This was all my fault,” Wendy said, “the others were just trying to keep me safe. It started when I saw—”

“Slow down,” Nachash said, holding up a hand. “I’m sure you have an excuse for what you did. And I am prepared to hear it in detail soon enough. Listening to excuses is apparently part of my job description. But we don’t need to waste Kekoa’s time with such things, her time is valuable and she’s had a long night.”

“Respectfully, sir,” Kekoa said, “I recommend expulsion and the maximum fine for theft of school property.”

“Yes,” Nachash said, “at the very least.”

Wendy jumped in: “But you haven’t even—”

“Don’t worry,” Nachash interrupted, “I won’t make a final decision until I’ve heard your side of the story, in excruciating detail, I’m sure. But I would be surprised if it has a material bearing on the case.”

Nachash paused.

“Come to think of it,” he went on, “I have an idea for your punishment, something much more stringent than expulsion. Yes, it would be just the thing.”

Kekoa grinned.

“However, we won’t be able to get started right away. You’ll have to meet me at my home office tonight at 7 o’clock. Kekoa, do you have the key for these handcuffs?”

“But…” Kekoa stammered. “What if they don’t show up?”

“I think these ones are smart enough to know that things will be worse for them if they disappear.”

Kekoa stood frozen for a moment, until Nachash said, “Kekoa?”

“Yes. Sorry, sir,” she responded.

When their handcuffs had been removed and Kekoa was retreating to the shack, Nachash leaned in close and whispered, “Sorry about that, she’s a bit… overzealous. Meet me at 7 o’clock.”

Nachash squeezed Caleb’s shoulder and winked, then said in a loud voice, “You’d better get out of here before things get even worse. If you don’t show up tonight, you’ll be facing a court order and a lawsuit.”

---

Wendy, Caleb and Thea got off the mag-lev at Rosewood Drive and began to hike up the hill to Nachash’s house.

Thea shivered against the cold and wrapped her jacket tighter around her. “I wish Nachash had set up the meeting on campus… I mean, why do we have to go to his house?” she asked.

“It’s not like we’re meeting him in his living room,” Caleb said. “It’s his home office — there’s nothing weird about it. I went to a meeting there once for the portal project; I’m sure he has lots of high-profile meetings there.”

“Yeah, meetings where he needs to intimidate people,” Thea said. “Or impress them? I mean seriously, why else would he make us meet him out here?”

“Maybe he just wants us to enjoy the amazing view. It’s the house up there,” Caleb said, pointing out a lone house at the top of the ridge. “You can see the lights of the boats and the harbor reflecting off the bay. Oh, sorry, Thea. I’ll describe it for you when we get there. But there are other reasons too. Maybe he just wants it to be more relaxed or maybe he wants to get to know us better.”

“Feels creepy to me,” Thea said.

“It’s not so bad,” Nate said. He was trailing a little bit behind the college students. “At least we don’t have to go back to campus. Now that I know what campus security is like, I’m never going to set foot on campus again.”

“Nachash scares me more than campus security,” Thea said. “I can read Kekoa like a book, but Nachash just seems… fake.”

Caleb inhaled sharply, preparing to jump back into the argument, but Wendy grabbed him and Thea by the elbows and pulled them close.

“All right, all right,” Wendy said. “We’re friends, remember? We’re in this together. No matter what happens, we stick together.”

---

Nachash showed them into his home office. The floors were solid wood and all four of them sat together on one side of a glass board-room table where they could enjoy a sweeping view of the bay. Nachash sat across from them.

“I hope you like it,” he said to Wendy. “But I don’t think you came here just for the view. And I am sorry, Thea, that you can’t enjoy it. Maybe the University’s next research project should be visual implants.”

“Thanks,” Thea said, “but I’m just fine the way I am.”

“So,” Nachash began, “It sounds like you had a reason to be in the boats in the middle of the night with scuba equipment. I take it you were looking for something?”

Wendy froze. How could she say it in a way that didn’t sound totally crazy? She couldn’t think of a way, so she plunged in the deep end.

“There’s a creature in the bay,” Wendy said. “It’s enormous -- I measured one footprint at just over a meter long.”

“It’s hard to believe, sir,” Caleb interrupted, “but I saw it too. We can take pictures and we can take you to the same spot in Moroa Channel so you can see for yourself.”

Nachash smiled and looked straight in Wendy’s eyes. “Go on,” he said.

Starting with the scream that woke Thea, Wendy told him everything that had happened, trying to recount the events in a dry, scientific way. When she had finished, Wendy looked down at the glass table. Even with her most fact-focused narration the whole story sounded ridiculous.

There was a moment of silence -- even Nate sat frozen, as though he was trying to blend into the furniture. Finally Wendy looked up and made eye contact with Nachash.

“You’re saying this creature killed Oliver?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I see. And Caleb,” Nachash said, swiveling his chair to look at Caleb, “you have a wound on your back?”

Caleb nodded and started to pull off his shirt, but Nachash held up a hand.

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “But you should be sure to get it checked out at the MU clinic.”

Nachash stood and faced them.

“As you know,” he said, “the military has been pressuring me for access to the wormhole research. They argue that the university is publicly funded and is obligated to release its discoveries. But that is only a half-truth -- half of the funding for this project is from our generous corporate sponsor, in exchange for early access to the findings and a two-year window before the results are released to the public.

“What you may not know is that over the past year two individuals attempted to gain access to the portal technology. You remember Professor Lewis? Of course, both denied a connection to the military, but I had my suspicions. I would not be surprised if the military had succeeded in duplicating our technology.”

Caleb scooted his chair back, his brow wrinkled. “But why did they build it so close to the university? Why not do it on the east coast?”

“The gravite,” Nachash explained. “It would be too risky to transport. And they apparently wanted to open up the portal in the ocean in order to have direct access to the extraterrestrial ocean, instead of taking the safer route of opening the wormhole above the planet and doing an atmospheric entry, as we have been doing.”

Nachash broke into a wide smile. “It gives me great pleasure to hear that it bit them in the backside.”

He started pacing the floor in front of the window. “Still,” he said, “they will need to be dealt with quietly, behind closed doors. I’ll contact our corporate partner; their attorneys are very... persuasive. You haven’t told anyone else about this, I trust?”

Thea squeezed Wendy’s hand and Wendy tried to keep her voice steady as she said, “No, we haven’t.”

“Good,” Nachash said. “You must keep it that way, in spite of how tempting it may be. I know it seems harmless to tell a close friend or family member, but this must be kept in the strictest confidence. It would be best if you didn’t talk about it even among yourselves. The sooner you move on and forget the whole episode, the better. Do we have a deal?”

Caleb and Wendy nodded their heads, but Thea didn’t. Wendy hoped Nachash hadn’t noticed.

“Good. I have these Non-Disclosure Agreements for you to sign,” he said, pulling out a thin stack of papers. “Not that I don’t trust your word, but I’ve learned over the years to get everything in writing.”

He passed them each a paper and placed a polished silver pen on each one.

Caleb signed his first. Wendy felt a pit in her stomach, but couldn’t think of a logical reason to refuse, so she signed hers as well. Then she realized that Thea hadn’t picked up her pen.

“Is there a problem?” Nachash asked.

“She just likes to think carefully before signing anything,” Wendy said. She gave Thea’s shoulder a light squeeze.

Thea breathed deeply, then picked up the pen and let Wendy guide her hand to the right spot on the paper. Then she signed it.

And so it was done. But for Wendy, something didn’t sit right about the way Nachash had made them sign. Perhaps it was the hungry look in his eyes.

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The adventure continues in the next Wendy Miracle short story, coming in the summer of 2016.

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Coming Soon

• Wendy Miracle (working title) — a sci-fi/fantasy short story

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