The Forgotten Shrine Page 9

  “Hey!” Lucy shouts. She holds her hands out to her sides like a chicken so she doesn’t smear her wet nail polish. Her hair is piled on top of her head in an elaborate braid secured with hot-pink ribbons.

  Marco and Cole also grumble about the interruption, but they reluctantly gather around the center recliners when Mira waves them over.

  I clap my hands. “Mira and I were thinking we should explore Alkalinia today.”

  “Why?” Marco says. “We’ve got everything we need right here.”

  “Marco’s right,” Lucy says. “If they need us for something, they’ll come and get us.”

  “That’s just it,” I say, lowering my voice. “We’ve been here for almost two days.”

  “Has it been that long?” Cole asks. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” I wave my hand in a circle, trying to get the rest of them to fill in the blanks on their own.

  “If you’ve got something to say, Ace, say it,” Marco says.

  I shake my head in frustration. The Alks must be listening, and I’d rather not let them know that we’re onto them.

  Mira reaches for a tablet and jots down some letters. She turns it to our pod mates: LISTENING.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Cole asks. “Who’s listening?”

  “Oh, for earth’s sake!” I say.

  Mira throws up her arms and spins around the room.

  “Ahh!” Lucy says. I can tell from her face that she finally understands. “You’re so right. I am starting to feel a bit cooped up in this place. Let’s take a stroll.”

  “Can I play one more level first?” Cole asks. “Another victory and I’ll earn triple points in Crusades free-play mode.”

  “No,” Lucy and I say at the same time.

  Lucy grabs the tablet from Mira and scribbles something. “Remember, we told the admiral we’d be good guests, and that means asking the Alkalinians to show us around their planet.”

  She turns the tablet around to reveal what she’s written: MUST FIND OCCLUDIUM TETHER.

  And below those words: SHHHHH!!!

  As soon as everyone’s read what she wrote, she erases the screen.

  Marco nods grimly. “Got it.”

  Fortunately, Cole seems to get the message, too, and doesn’t say so out loud.

  “Change into uniforms and meet at the door in five minutes,” I say. “And Cole, bring that voice box Gedney gave us. You never know when we might need it.”

  While I wait for my pod mates, I try the door handle. It doesn’t budge. We’re still locked in.

  “So we’re trapped?” Lucy asks when she comes out of her bedroom.

  “Patience! Patience!” Marco says. “Coming through!” He swapped his futbol jersey for his Earth Force dailies.

  “And what exactly do you plan to do to fix this, Mr. Macho?” Lucy asks.

  “Step aside, DQ, and let me demonstrate how it’s done.” Marco grabs the handle and yanks. Nothing. He braces his feet in a lunge position and yanks again. “It’s locked.”

  I throw up my hands as the five of us gather around the door with our blast packs and gloves.

  “As if we didn’t know that,” Lucy says. “Cole? Try your luck at the keypad?”

  “I suppose I could.”

  As soon as Cole starts jabbing at the panel, the door swings open.

  Steve stands at the threshold. “Greetingsss!” he hisses. “I hope you had a good sss-sleep.”

  “A good sleep?” Lucy says. “Try two.”

  “Exsss-ellent! Nothing like a little exsss-tra ressst to make you feel sss-sharp for your training sss-schedule.”

  “Training schedule?” Cole asks.

  Was he really about to come get us for training? What are the odds? They must have heard us talking about wanting to leave our quarters. That’s reason enough to get out of here. We need to find a place to talk in private.

  “Yesss! Right thisss way!”

  As we follow Steve out of our room and into the hall, my claustrophobia roars back. The cozy quarters we’ve been hanging out in for the past two days are fake. We’ve been holed up in a carbon copy of the mushy orange Youli ship in the middle of a cold gray ocean. What a reality slap to the face!

  I wonder if the VR tech came from the Youli? After all, the Alks are using our passenger crafts. What if they acquire all their tech from other species in exchange for secret information or—what else did Gedney say?—illicit substances?

  Marco puts out a hand, slowing our pod and letting a gap open between us and Steve. “Jasper and Mira are right, poddies,” he whispers. “Things are off. We need to talk.”

  “How?” I ask. “We can’t exactly chat in front of Steve.”

  “Leave it to me,” Lucy says.

  I actually have a bit of confidence in Lucy until I hear the words that come out of her mouth. “Hey, Steve! Please take us to see Officer Johnson.”

  10

  APPARENTLY, STEVE ISN’T TOO CONCERNED about us seeing Bad Breath, because he simply shrugs (or what looks like a shrug where his robot arm attaches to his serpent body) and turns right at the next hallway. A few turns later we find ourselves in front of a door that looks identical to the one for our quarters.

  Steve punches in a code and cracks it open. “Greetingsss,” he hisses before pushing the door open the rest of the way.

  The room looks absolutely nothing like our quarters. In the center is the largest bed I’ve ever seen. It’s crafted of dark mahogany and has crimson satin sheets and drapes hanging from a canopy. Flames roar in a fireplace across from the bed. The mantel above holds a gold-framed portrait of Bad Breath himself. The window opens to a garden with naked stone cherubs spitting water and a hedge in the shape of Bad Breath’s profile.

  Bad Breath reclines on the bed. He’s dressed in shorts and a pink silk robe. A woman stands next to him wearing a tuxedo. She plucks grapes from a bunch and places them one by one in Bad Breath’s mouth. Next to her is a sideboard stacked with bottles of wine, platters of cheese, bowls of fruit, and a giant hunk of meat on a carving board.

  This place is . . . a little much.

  As we make our way into the room, we steal glances at one another. Marco bites his finger to keep from laughing. Mira’s sparkly giggles tickle my brain.

  Bad Breath slowly processes our arrival. He pushes up in bed. “What on earth are you B-wads doing here?”

  “Who’s she?” Marco asks, pointing at the grape girl.

  Bad Breath looks at the woman as if it’s the first time he’s seen her. “No idea. Go away!”

  I’m not sure if his last words are meant for us or his tuxedoed guest. Either way, she sets the bunch of grapes next to the meat and leaves the room through a door by the fireplace.

  “Very nice treatment of women,” Lucy says.

  “I don’t think she’s a woman,” Cole says. “She’s virtual.”

  Lucy rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”

  Bad Breath grabs a shirt from a pile next to his bed and puts it on. His face is red and getting redder. There’s no doubt he’s about to freak out on us.

  Steve seems to sense that the interaction is not going particularly well. He steers his throne in front of us. “Offi-ssser John-ssson. It is time to sss-start the training. The cadetsss are sss-set. Sss-shall we depart?”

  “What training?” Bad Breath asks. “What time is it?”

  “Time to go,” Marco says. “We’ve been in here for days!”

  Bad Breath tips his head and considers what Marco said. He must think we’re trying to trick him. “Speak when spoken to, Romero,” he finally says. Then he tells Steve he’ll meet him in the corridor in five minutes.

  We retreat into the hall to wait. Steve excuses himself, saying he has to check in with the regent and ready the training facilities. We’re to wait in the hall until his return.

  We’re finally alone. I wave over my pod mates, and we huddle near the wall. “What do you think is going on? Why’d
they want to keep us in our quarters?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lucy says, “but they’ve obviously been spying on us. I’d say we should ask Steve, but we have to assume he’s in on it. I really miss Neeka. She was the best junior ambassador ever. And Steve is . . . not.”

  “Few could really compare to our furry friend,” Marco says.

  “You loved Neeka, and you know it!” Lucy says.

  “It’s true! I do miss Neeks! No sarcasm here.”

  I think about this morning—the pain in my head where the patch is implanted, and the sensation that Mira was screaming for help. What if spying means more than listening in? What if the Alks are actually doing something to us? I don’t want to freak anyone out without proof, but I have to stay alert. Like the admiral said, we need to exercise extreme caution.

  “What if they’re listening to us now?” Cole says, looking up and down the hallway. He pulls his tablet out of his pack and starts paging through screens.

  “I guess that’s a chance we’ll have to take,” Lucy says. “Don’t forget we have a mission.”

  “I almost did forget,” Marco says. “I swear there’s something in the food here, even though it won’t stop me from eating it.”

  “We haven’t been in our quarters for two days,” Cole says, still staring at his tablet.

  “Yes, we have,” Lucy says. “I distinctly remember going to bed twice.”

  “I double-checked my time and calendar apps,” Cole says. “We’ve been in our quarters for an entire week.”

  “What?” Marco and I say at the same time.

  Cole flips around his tablet. The screen shows a calendar that highlights the current date, exactly one week since we left the space station.

  Mira’s mind bristles with confusion and fright.

  “How is that possible?” Lucy asks.

  “Think about it,” Cole says. “It wouldn’t be that hard—everything in our quarters is virtual. The Alks completely control our perspective of time: the meals tell us the time of day, the fading light tells us it’s time to sleep, the morning sun says it’s time to wake up.”

  “And what seemed to us like two days was really a week?” I ask.

  Cole nods.

  “Oh my God,” Lucy says.

  We stare at one another, not sure how to process what we just learned. Something is definitely wrong about this place, but what are we supposed to do about it? Plus, when we wanted out of our room, they let us out, so we’re not technically held hostage against our will.

  “Well, we made it out of our quarters,” I say. “We need to get on with the mission. Who knows how long we have before the Alks start pressuring the admiral to come with the other cadets?” The last thing I want is Addy caught up in this Alkalinian mess.

  “Our mission, right,” Lucy says. “Any thoughts on how we find the occludium tether?”

  “Nope,” Marco says.

  I shake my head.

  None, Mira weighs in.

  “Cole?” Lucy asks. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t have any ideas. From the short look I got at the keypad this morning, it’s not something I could hack without setting off alarms.”

  “That means we need to explore,” Marco says. “We have to find the tether as soon as possible. Something fishy is definitely going on here. And I want to know we have a getaway plan.”

  Seconds later Steve returns, and Bad Breath emerges from his quarters dressed in uniform.

  “Thank goodness he put some clothes on,” Lucy whispers as Bad Breath talks with Steve. “Although, I’ll never be able to unsee that horrible pink robe. Who does he think he is? The star of a cheesy romance novel?”

  “I guess we know Bad Breath’s secret fantasy,” I say.

  Steve waves us over with his cyborg arm. “Exsss-ellent. Now that you’ve sss-settled in, it’sss time for a tour of Alkalinia. Follow me.”

  Just in case we didn’t understand Steve’s perfectly understandable words, Bad Breath snorts, “Fall in line and don’t try anything stupid!”

  Steve turns his chair and zooms up the hallway with Bad Breath at his side.

  Settled in? Is he for real? We’ve been here a week! What is really going on?

  We fall in line behind them and wind through interior halls, one after the next. After the first few corners, I’m completely turned around. It helps my claustrophobia not to be staring at all that water, but it’s horrible for my sense of direction, and I still can’t shake the feeling that the walls are closing in around us. It reminds me of the space station, except that instead of the vastness of space, it’s the Alkalinian sea waiting to crush me under its weight.

  “Where are all the . . . uh . . . people?” Lucy whispers.

  “You call these snakes people?” Marco asks.

  “For lack of a better word.”

  “No clue,” I say.

  We follow Steve through the halls until he comes to a stop in front of a door with silver markings branded on the front.

  “Boundersss,” Steve says, “we have reached the round table of the Alkalinian Sss-seat. Regent Sss-seelok will sss-see you now.”

  Steve raps on the door with his cyborg arm. The door buzzes open, and he glides through.

  We funnel in behind him.

  The room is perfectly round and filled with thick smoke that smells like cedar. The walls are lined with heavy, multicolored tapestries, and torches are mounted around the perimeter, casting enormous shadows on the floor and ceiling. In the middle of the chamber is a large, circular table, and a bowl in the center is filled with brilliant gemstones. Around the table are at least twenty Alks hovering in tiny thrones. Flying a meter higher than the rest is Seelok.

  “Ahh, cadetsss!” Seelok shouts. His throne thrusts forward, and he flies over the table. “Allow me to formally introdussse my-ssself. I am Sss-seelok, regent of the Alkalinian Sss-seat, repre-sssentative to the Intragalactic Coun-sssil, and friend to your Admiral Eamesss and all of Earth and itsss peoplesss. On behalf of Alkalinia, I welcome you.”

  Friend? I’m thinking foe.

  Beside us, Bad Breath clears his throat.

  “Yesss, forgive me,” Seelok utters. “Welcome, Offi-ssser Wade John-ssson. I am sss-so very pleasssed that sss-such an esss-teemed and trusssted sss-servant of Admiral Eamesss’s would blesss usss with hisss company.”

  All the Alks in the room, including Steve, raise their robotic arms and hiss. It’s terribly scary, but there’s no doubt it’s a show of respect.

  Bad Breath bows his head. “It is my honor, Regent Seelok.”

  “Offi-ssser John-ssson,” Seelok continues, “my comradesss would like to give you the grand tour while the cadetsss conduct their training drillsss.”

  Bad Breath looks from Seelok to us, then back to Seelok. “Y-y-you want me to go with your men while the Bounders train?” he stutters, like he can’t quite process what Seelok is asking. Maybe because he knows the admiral would definitely not approve.

  “Exactly,” Seelok says. “Caring for children doesss not sss-suit a man of your sss-stature. Don’t you agree?”

  Bad Breath scrunches up his face like he’s trying really hard to think through Seelok’s question. His eyes dart from side to side. Then he stands straight, tips up his chin, and puffs out his chest. “Absolutely.”

  “Exsss-ellent. After, you may wish to retire early to your chambersss.”

  “Yes, that would be grand,” Bad Breath says.

  Grand? Really? Seelok is totally manipulating him. I’m sure Bad Breath would love to retire to his chambers with the rare roast, grapes, and virtual butler. But isn’t chaperoning us the whole reason he’s here?

  Within moments five of the Alks hurry off with Bad Breath, leaving us behind. The remaining Alks click and hiss and wave their cyborg arms at the same time, which is greatly disturbing and also leads me to question how they can begin to understand one another.

  “Cadetsss,” Seelok says, “you may return to your quartersss.”


  What? I thought we were supposed to start training. How are we going to find the occludium tether if we’re locked up in our room?

  “Excuse me, Regent Seelok, sir,” Lucy says, “but we need to practice. If we don’t get our training in, we’ll fall behind the other cadets. It’s ever so important.”

  “It’s also what the admiral negotiated,” Marco says coldly. “Daily training outside of your occludium tether.”

  Leave it to Marco to lay it all out there.

  Seelok flies his throne across the table until he hovers half a meter before us. He flicks his tail in front of Marco’s face. Marco doesn’t flinch, even though I know how much he hates snakes.

  “Very well, cadetsss,” Seelok says. “Sss-steve will esss-cort you to your training area. But do not sss-stray, for your own sss-safety, of courssse. We wouldn’t want you to be harmed—lossst forever like your beloved aeronautsss of Bounding Bassse 51.” Seelok stares at Marco as he says this. “I need not mention that Admiral Eamesss is counting on you. Relationsss between Earth and Alkalinia are of the utmossst importanssse.” Then he hisses something at Steve, turns his throne around, and flies out of the room. The other Alks hurry after him.

  Marco looks at me with wide, hard eyes. We both heard Seelok’s warning: if we don’t do as directed outside of the occludium tether, we’ll be putting our planet at risk. The admiral told us as much the day we left for Alkalinia. I guess we won’t be bounding back to the space station anytime soon.

  We follow Steve to the siphon port where we arrived a few days ago. There’s no sign of the passenger craft we arrived on. Steve leads us through the empty port and into another bay filled with small ships, each stranger and more alien looking than the last. He steers us to a vessel that looks like a fat green frog. The top of the vessel flips open when he presses a button on the side. A second button lowers stairs to the ground. He waves us in.

  We fill the back compartment as Steve checks some controls on the exterior of the vessel.

  “What’s with all the weird ships?” Marco asks.