Quest for Atlantis by Noelle Marisa & Noelle Marisa

Author:Noelle, Marisa & Noelle, Marisa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“We’re here,” Dad called from the helm, interrupting Wade and me.

The group gathered on the deck and my father lowered the sub into the water. The ocean remained crowded with vessels. Gal eyed the surrounding boats warily. Maya scrolled through her phone, declaring five more mermaids and selachii had been captured. Jordan’s brother remained in a lab.

The hoist mechanisms clanked and thrummed as the submersible was lowered. A ladder provided a way to the open hatch.

“Trent, Nerida, Gal, and Dylan will stay here and man the boat,” Dad said. “The rest of us need to climb in.”

“How long will it take to reach the bottom?” Wade asked.

“An hour, hour and a half,” Dad replied. “Cordelia, where’s the pearl?”

I removed the green pearl from the leather pouch and handed it to my father. He attached it to one of the sub’s mechanical clawed arms. He could operate the arm from within the sub and would be able to slot the pearl into whatever hole was appropriate. Once the pearl was secure, Wade, Maya, my father, and I climbed into the sub. Dylan closed the hatch after us and my father sealed us in. The heavy atmosphere was thick enough to drown a mermaid.

Dad took the central seat in front of the domed window. Wade sat in the seat directly behind my father, me to Wade’s right and Maya to Wade’s left. She unrolled the ancient map in her lap and peered at the strange black markings.

“It’s in the deepest part of Challenger Deep,” she said.

“Of course it is,” Wade muttered.

“Once we’re there, I can give you instructions,” Maya said.

“Okay, let’s take it away.” Dad started the sub’s engine. He pressed the buttons to vent the air and we dove under the water.

We descended quickly and without ceremony. Scuba divers, fishing nets, and shoals of fish were quickly passed. The water darkened. We reached a thousand meters, the point at which sunlight can no longer penetrate, and had to rely on the illumination of the sub’s lights. Shadows loomed at us through the domed window. Maya laughed as a large leatherback turtle tapped on the glass with a flipper before swimming away after a luminescent jellyfish.

I glanced at Wade’s profile, the strength in his tense jaw, the hint of a dimple in his cheek. I wanted to touch him, but I couldn’t.

He caught me looking, smiled tentatively.

We descended two thousand meters and light seemed to filter through the water again.

“I thought you said sunlight can’t go this deep?” Wade asked my father as he squinted at the window.

“It doesn’t,” Dad replied. “What you’re seeing is bioluminescence. You’ll see more pockets of it as we descend.”

Disembodied lights flashed by the window, pulsing and ebbing to an internal rhythm. One large, glowing eye peered into the sub. A squid. A huge squid. We shrank back as two of its tentacles gripped the window, anchoring itself there.

Dad wrestled with the steering. “Christ, that’s one hell of a beast.”

I kept my eyes on the outline of the green pearl.

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