Daughter of the Deep(10)

‘Hey, babe …’ Nelinha rests a hand on my shoulder. She doesn’t seem sure of what else to say. She just hands me a pack of tissues.

Yeah … one tissue is not going to do it today. And I’m not the only person having trouble.

By the window, Ester is still puffy-eyed and sniffling. She’s furiously writing notes on a new index card, trying to process all this awfulness. Top, sensing who needs him most, pads over and pushes his nose between my knees. Hi, I’m cute. Love me.

Gem sits across the aisle. His jaw is set like a bear trap. SIG Sauer P226s are holstered on either side of his belt, Wild West gunslinger-style. These are his ‘twins’, which is how he got the nickname Gemini. Resting on his knee is an M4A1 assault rifle.

Another one of those oddities I don’t think about much: Harding-Pencroft has a dispensation to use military-grade equipment for our training. I suppose that’s fortunate, seeing as we’re apparently now at war with another high school.

The bus is strangely silent. Everyone seems lost in their own dismal thoughts.

Finally, Gem asks me, ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on?’

His brown eyes reflect the landscape racing past. I’ve never seen him show much sign of stress. Now a single bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face.

I don’t blame him for wanting answers. I’m grateful he doesn’t sound bitter or angry at me. I know he doesn’t want to be my babysitter any more than I want him to be.

I shake my head. ‘Honestly, no idea.’

I am telling the truth. Yet I feel like I’m lying. I can hear the guilt in my voice. I hate that feeling.

Gem taps his thumb against the stock of his rifle. ‘I’m going to need your help. All of you.’ He nods to include Ester and Nelinha. ‘I know we haven’t always got along –’

Nelinha snorts.

‘– but you know what I’m going to say is true.’ Gem glances up the aisle, then lowers his voice. ‘The four of us are the best in our houses. No disrespect to Tia and Franklin. They’re great at what they do. But if we’re going to war you guys are my top picks, even if you’re not all prefects.’

‘How flattering,’ Nelinha grumbles.

‘I’m just saying –’

‘Badly,’ Nelinha suggests.

‘He’s right.’ Ester keeps her attention on her note card, now almost filled with tiny words. ‘Tia’s our top theorist, but Nelinha’s scores in applied mechanics and combat engineering are higher. Franklin’s got more advanced medical skills than me, but …’ She shrugs.

Gem gives her a dry smile. ‘But you’re Ester Harding.’

‘I was going to say I’m better at everything else,’ Ester says. ‘Except that would probably be rude. Is that rude?’

None of us bother to answer. Ester is Ester. We all know she would hate being a prefect. We also know she is the quintessential Orca. Her note cards are really just an emotional-support tool, like Top, because her mind holds more information about Harding-Pencroft, natural history and marine ecosystems than all the books in our recently destroyed library. She isn’t fond of humans, with the exception of Nelinha and me, and would much rather spend her time with animals. She’s a genius empath when it comes to non-verbal communication with other species. Ester can tell what animals – sometimes people, though she finds that harder – are thinking and feeling. She can predict their actions with uncanny accuracy … assuming her own raw nerves don’t overwhelm her.

Gem forges on. ‘We’re going to have to work together to figure out what happened. And what we’re going to do next. You know Hewett isn’t telling us everything.’

‘He isn’t telling us anything,’ Nelinha says.

‘But if I’m going to protect Ana –’

‘Which I didn’t ask for,’ I say.

Gemini looks like he wants to make an angry comment. He never curses. He’s super strait-laced. But I think he wants to.

‘None of us asked for this.’ He keeps his voice even. ‘We have to formulate a response. To do that, we have to know what we’re dealing with. How could Land Institute destroy our entire school?’

Ester shudders. Top immediately abandons me and jumps in her lap, forcing her to cuddle. I’ve never been so grateful that Ester, and all of us, has this fluff tornado drama king.

‘Seismic detonators,’ Nelinha theorizes. ‘One torpedo with three warheads. Simultaneous impacts at fracture points along the base of the cliffs –’

‘Hold up,’ Gem says. ‘That’s TMS. Pure science fiction. The technology doesn’t exist.’

‘Six warheads,’ Ester says. ‘You’d need six. Ana probably didn’t see the others because they were too deep. The attack would only work if they could hack the school’s security systems. Not just the grid. They’d need to fool the drones, the long-range sonar, the interceptor missiles –’

‘We have interceptor missiles?’ Nelinha demands.

Strawberries bloom on Ester’s cheeks. ‘I wasn’t supposed to say that.’

I make a note to grill Ester about that later. I’m curious to know what else she, as a Harding, might know that she isn’t supposed to say. At the moment, we have more immediate problems.