Moonfin Read online

  “Flying cheese balls! Will you look at those waves? I just might ditch this gig,” said Kai longingly.

  “Kai, focus please,” said Lizzy, snapping her fingers in Kai’s face. “This always happens whenever we come near this place. It’s like it bewitches you.”

  “Can’t help myself, the swells are amazing right now.”

  It was the first week in July, two weeks after they’d visited Lizzy’s mom in the lab and discovered the scales around their necks were emitting a low energy field, and since that time they’d hatched a plan to visit the island and see what Dr. Krell was up to. But they hadn’t a clue how they were traveling the twenty-five miles to their destination—that was Lizzy’s part to figure out when the time came.

  “Well, girl genius, tell me how we’re getting there, or I’m heading to the cafeteria,” said Jeff.

  “Wouldn’t want that to happen—we’d never find you again,” said Kai.

  “Okay, here’s my idea: We’ll start out the day doing our jobs like normal, then meet near the secret vending machine door at noon, sharp,” said Lizzy smoothly. “We’ll simply borrow one of the Bips.” She smiled proudly—using one of Krell’s own fish-subs as camouflage was simply brilliant.

  “That’s your plan? Only one problem, mad scientist, we don’t know how to make those things work.”

  Her smile fizzled.

  Wow. Demoted from genius to mad so quickly. “How hard could it be? I mean if the lab techs can do it, I think we can manage!” she spurted hotly. “Once we’re in, we’ll head out the fake cave door we discovered before. Besides, the Bips have full access to all of Krell’s island ports, and we’ll save time not having to search for them by some other means.”

  “And what if one of those things decides to malfunction in the middle of the ocean, and we get swallowed by a bigger fish, then what? You heard the lab tech before—the animal instincts can take over!”

  “It’ll be a Jonah and the whale scenario—we’ll just wait for it to spit us up somewhere,” said Kai, eyes popping with excitement. “C’mon, Jeff, they must be pretty safe if Dr. Krell uses them.”

  Jeff ignored her, because he always knew when Kai said something was safe, it usually wasn’t.

  Their shifts went as expected, and when the time came, they all met near the shark tank in the little room that housed the single humming candy machine. Jeff was most happy to be using this secret door again as he planned to snag some chips and cookies on the way out.

  Lizzy pulled on the panel door, thinking it would open up like before, but it didn’t budge.

  “Oooph—we have a problem.”

  Jeff ran his hand along the edges.

  “Maybe there’s a secret button or lever hidden beneath.”

  “I don’t see anything,” said Lizzy, letting out a frustrated sigh, “unless—”

  She squished up her face the way she did when concentrating hard at math equations and zeroed in on the keypad, which was used for selecting the food items trapped in the spiral clamps behind the glass.

  “I know that look,” said Kai. “Whatcha thinkin’?”

  “This—” she swiped the buttons, “is a natural keyless port … a door of some kind … unlocked by a code, perhaps?”

  “That’s dumb,” said Jeff. “Tourists would get quite a surprise after punching the numbers for powdered donuts.”

  “It’s not as simple as that.”

  Lizzy took a deep breath and began pressing in patterns that might relate to the lab or aquarium. Nothing happened. She tried number translations for “Doctor Krell,” “Discovery Bay,” and “Blowing Prawn” next … nothing.

  Her fingers flew across the keypad, inputting everything and anything she could think of. About to give up, one last code word came into her head, and she pressed: M … 15 … 15 … 14 … F … and so on until—

  CLICK! The side panel popped open.

  “Now we’re in business!” shouted Jeff, as if he’d thought of it himself.

  “How’d you do that?” said Kai, surprised.

  “I spelled out ‘Moonfin’ in alphanumerics. This keypad goes up to the letter ‘M’—so I applied the number position in the alphabet to the letters that aren’t there.”

  Neither Jeff nor Kai knew what “Moonfin” meant, never having heard Lizzy mention it before now, but it worked, and they were happy. Kai filed the word away in her memory, thinking to ask Lizzy about it later.

  “Very clever indeed,” Jeff smiled wryly, “you can be girl genius again.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said sarcastically, batting her eyelashes. Uh-oh. Was he joking or serious? Awkward moment. She fumbled through the candy machine door, red as a beet.

  They slipped through the doorway easily enough, and before it clamped shut, Jeff latched on to several bags of goodies for the journey ahead.

  Moving through the passageway, they expected to find the winding metal stairs in front of them. But instead, a sharp turn forced them through a lengthy tunnel and seemed to take them in an entirely different direction from the Bip cave.

  Kai felt along the narrow wall with her hands and whispered, “It wasn’t like this last time—we definitely climbed up the stairs and out the door, not to the side.”

  Several yards in they came to a tall blue door. Jeff turned the knob and it opened into a spacious, dimly lit room scattered with jars and tanks. The soft glow from the room illuminated the door face, and the word QUARANTINE shone boldly on it.

  “Where in the world are we?” he said anxiously.

  Lizzy didn’t get very far into the room before sharp pangs tore through her head. It was the same confusion she had felt in the mixed-up sea life room below the aquarium.

  “I know this place,” she said, finding it difficult to talk. “Iddo told me about it when he was trying to communicate where the slides come and go in the building. If I’m right, a food shaft starts here and goes directly into the Bip pool—it’s how Lee feeds them from up here without having to go all the way down to the caves. Only, if we take one of these chutes—”

  “The Bips could suck us to death during feeding time?” said Jeff, smacking his lips like a puckered fish.

  “Possibly.”

  “If the Bips eat real food—I thought they were just oiled,” said Kai. She wandered over to a tank filled with green fluid and tapped lightly on the glass. “Besides, I don’t think they will. The last time we ended up in their pool they totally ignored us. How did we end up in this room instead of the cave, anyway?”

  Lizzy had been wondering the same thing. “I think the vending machine port must have different codes that lead to different areas of the compound.”

  “You mean if we had punched in, say, shrimp, we could’ve ended up in Krell’s office?” said Jeff, alarmed by the idea of accidently running into him. “Or maybe even inside the shark reef?” That was even more disturbing.

  “Yeah—it depends on how many codes and matching ports there are.”

  Jeff peered into a goo-filled tank of lobsters and cringed. “This room gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “That’s new. I thought you were the king of heebie-jeebieland,” said Kai distractedly.

  “Just the culinary realms.”

  Lizzy rubbed her temples, squeezing out words through the pain. “This … Quarantine Room—is for sick and injured animals the lab techs nurse back to health for the aquarium. No one is allowed in here without express permission from Dr. Krell.” She paused and looked around the room nervously. “Shara is the senior tech that runs it—she might be here now.”

  “Naw, it’s lunchtime, so she’s probably chowing down in the cafeteria,” said Jeff. “And I can tell you, that girl can munch a lunch like no other.”

  “And how would you know that?” asked Kai.

  “I saw her once at the Burger Hut. She ordered five hamburgers and a bucket of chicken strips, all with fries and a milkshake. She was scarfing it down like there was no tomorrow.”

  Kai looked disgusted. />
  “Really? And you sat there and watched her eat all that?”

  “Yeah—well, seemed like it all went down in a matter of seconds—she must be made of muscle or something.”

  Jeff slid along the wall and discovered a metal door hatch. He twiddled the lever—it opened to reveal a square chute, cascading into hollow blackness—a stinky draft of air blew straight into his face, doing very little to calm his nerves. Covering his nose, he let the others know what he’d found, slamming it shut again to block the foul scent.

  Lizzy followed the pulse in her head to the back of the room, even though it was almost unbearable, to a series of tanks, each constructed of a thick Plexiglas material and filled with a yellow fluid. They all sat side by side, from smallest to largest, and held the same creature in different stages of development. Many appeared lifeless, although one looked alive, yet sedated.

  She stepped directly in front of its floating form as if pulled by a magnet and muttered, “Oh dear” in shock, for it was the smaller version of the beast Iddo had shown her at the aquarium: about the size of a small pony, having a long neck, reptilian face, eyes like hot coals, and a round body with four elongated flippers, each lined with a set of thorny claws.

  Jeff and Kai came up behind her, unable to take their eyes from it, drawn to its otherworldly form.

  “Look—” Jeff reached inside his collar and lifted the scale from the leather band, comparing it to the armor that encased the creature. “The scales are the same as the ones around our necks—”

  “Except the colors look a little different—this one has blue and red swirling through it,” said Kai. “It’s pretty, in a bizarre kind of way! I’ve never seen anything like it—and these!” She motioned to all the tanks behind them. “What are they?”

  “Clones,” said Lizzy sadly.

  Jeff screwed up his face.

  “What’s a clone? And pretty isn’t the word I would use to describe it—more like deadly. Take a look at those hooked barbs at the end of its flippers.”

  She told them what the Waterpeople had said about the sea dragon, and about Krell’s plan to create a second creature for destructive purposes.

  “Putting it simply, he is taking pieces of the monster’s cells and growing a new copy of her.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  Lizzy placed her hand up to the glass. “I wonder …”

  Small red eyes opened slowly and looked into her eyes, into her mind. Words didn’t come, but one feeling throbbed through her—rage. She saw it all in one piercing flash: fiery breath, belching smoke, and terrible ripping sparks flew from its claws.

  Destruction.

  Lizzy shoved away from the glass in terror.

  The creature stretched fleshy, armored lips across pointed fangs, mocking them. And, as if there weren’t enough teeth packed into one mouth, the lip rotated upward, and a second row of pointed shards rolled out. So horrific was the sight, it nearly stopped the beating of their hearts! It turned toward them, and spreading its clawed arsenal in full array, lunged at the glass, rattling the tank furiously.

  “Whoa! I’m outa here!” yelled Jeff, falling back first.

  Lizzy thought she might pass out from the pain coursing through her skull. Something was very wrong here, and it wasn’t anything like the experimental cave full of fish they had encountered before: It felt like the universe was screaming “NO!” inside her head. She felt a warm trickle beneath her nose and saw drops of blood splatter down the front of her shirt. Kai grabbed a hold of her and pulled her toward the wall chute.

  Jeff stood by the opening, shouting madly for them to hurry up. He helped Lizzy and Kai through first, and then hurtled into its dark, smelly recesses, hoping there wouldn’t be a Bip at the other end waiting to pounce.

  Splash! Splosh! Kersploosh!

  They tumbled out of the chute and into the shallow pool. Jeff shot out of the water first, poised to kick a fish sucker if it tried to chomp him, but all the Bips stayed near the docks, looking bored, save one. That one merely swam over with puckered lips, blew a bubble, and wandered back to the others, annoyed at not getting its usual dinner fare.

  “That’s right … you’d better stay back if you know what’s good for you,” Jeff threatened unnecessarily.

  Lizzy steadied herself on the sludgy seafloor, wiping the blood from her face. The pulse in her head had rapidly subsided as she slid away from the creature in the Quarantine Room. “Iddo was right about the chute taking us here,” she said feebly.

  They made their way to the docks and climbed slowly out of the pool, careful to watch for any movement within the cavern.

  The Bips were sloshing around in agitation, and Lizzy thought they didn’t like humans much, only tolerating their presence in exchange for food. She wanted to talk to them, but when she tried, all that came through was an incessant buzzing, like their brains were missing and only programming remained. They were completely blank.

  Jeff spotted a roomy-looking blue and orange fish with a flowery golden tail-fin, and darted to the end of the dock where it sat. “That one looks big enough to hold all of us,” he called over his shoulder.

  “A triggerfish,” said Kai. “Well, on the outside anyway.”

  “But how do we get inside?” Lizzy puzzled.

  Jeff reached down and pushed around the squishy gills. The triggerfish didn’t like his clumsy probing and swiped its ample tail, splashing water all over him.

  “Hey, watch it, or I’ll sell you to the fish-n-chips, or the scrap yard … or both!” Strangely, it seemed to understand and quieted down.

  He soon found a jiggling plate in a groove behind the fin and pressed it down—a hatch popped open, the fish went still.

  Astonished looks passed between them as Lizzy, Jeff, and Kai stepped down, one by one, through the narrow opening and into a metal room, just big enough for the three of them to stoop in. Two chairs and a small bench took up the bulk of the cramped compartment. Winking lights covered the walls along the belly up to the eyes, which were bulbous and concave, popping out from the walls—a two-way window for the organic sub. A joystick, of sorts, jutted up between the two front seats.

  “If it’s anything like video games, it’ll be a piece of cake,” said Jeff. He settled into the pilot’s chair and began fiddling with the buttons.

  Lizzy was awestruck. Running her fingers along the wall, she studied the internal workings, her mind alert to the wondrous technology around her.

  “Yes, yes … I see … is this what I think it is? The ship uses the fish’s natural sonar in the biological part and transfers the information to this section here, on the panel, for navigation,” she gushed excitedly.

  Jeff and Kai glazed over.

  “Uh-oh, she’s gone into one of her ‘wonders-of-science’ trances,” Kai whispered to Jeff.

  “… the same with air. Water runs along its gills, the fish extracts the oxygen, like normal, and feeds it into these tubes, where it’s used to pressurize the main compartment. This is remarkable!”

  “Yeah, truly mind numbing,” Jeff mouthed silently.

  Lizzy had lost Kai at the word ‘sonar’—she didn’t care how it worked, only how it moved.

  “I wonder how it handles in the open sea?” she said, rocking it about.

  Jeff pulled the joystick toward him, saying “Only one way to find out!” And guessing the green button was the ignition, brought the triggerfish lunging and bobbing to life.

  “Anyone know the way to Otter Island?”

  “Navigation system right here on the console. I’ll punch in the name and see if the coordinates come up,” said Lizzy curtly, sitting down in the passenger seat next to Jeff. Kai settled on a bench directly behind her.

  “Bingo. Direct routes even.”

  Jeff perked up. “Now we’re talking.”

  “Oh, now you like what I have to say, do you? Not so boring now, am I—?” she huffed.

  “What?” Jeff shrugged innocently.

  A map of the i
sland flashed onto the screen, along with many ports of entry designated in red blips. Lizzy selected one and executed the “start” command, and off they went!—plunging and swooping through the caverns and out the hidden cave exit. As they streamed effortlessly into the open sea, the panorama of the ocean deep unfolded before their eyes …

  “Look! Some seals,” Kai squealed. “And oh, a school of dolphins!”

  “Let’s hope we don’t run into any predators,” grumbled Jeff. He swung the fish-sub around and thrust into a nearby trench to avoid a feeding sea lion.

  “If we do, we’ll give it a good fight,” said Lizzy. She was willing to bet this triggerfish, being part machine, could outrun about anything that swam in the ocean, and she was quietly impressed by it.

  Two solitary figures stood on the docks watching the Bip exit through the tunnel.

  “They are on their way, Mo’tak,” a woman dripped perniciously.

  Lee smiled at hearing his given name.

  “Yes,” he said icily, beefy sideburns curling back to reveal a matching set of button-shaped gills.

  “How do you think she was able to stop me from getting her little friend at the surf contest?”

  “I don’t know that yet, Shara,” he lied. He had more than an inkling of who Lizzy was and what she was capable of. “I was wondering how they got down here.”

  There were more important things to worry about.

  “Through the vending machine, of course. I saw them go in from the tank.”

  Lee grinned eerily.

  “Spending some time with your kin?” he jeered.

  “You know how I like a midday swim, but my kin, as you call them, are so dim-witted. I can’t have one pleasant conversation without them running off and biting something.”

  She ran her hand along one of the Bips and it thrashed violently to avoid her touch.

  “By the way, did you find what you were looking for?”

  He raised a single brow at her. “Yes. Mrs. Grape will unlock her desk drawer on Monday morning and no longer find the scales there.” He shuddered at the thought of her going public with those. Blowing Prawn would have swarmed with nosy reporters and scientists in a New York minute, making their work so much more difficult.