CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

THE HEPTAKIKLOS

MARCO AND ALY stared at Professor Bhegad in disbelief.

“But—but that’s impossible,” Marco stammered. “How can I be tracked if I’m not wearing a tracker? You need an ankle bracelet or a special watch.”

“Please,” Bhegad said. “We can discuss this later. Tell me about the Circle!”

Aly took Bhegad’s device from me and examined it. “All four of us are here—time-lapse path—three going in, four coming out.”

“You knew the correct pathway into the maze beforehand?” Cass asked.

“No!” Bhegad said. “Not until we tracked your paths. But—”

“Where is the tracker, Professor Bhegad?” Aly demanded angrily. “Hidden in our shoes? Have you been following us all along?”

Professor Bhegad swallowed hard. “Part of the initial operation was to install tracking devices in each of you,” he said quickly. “Surgically. Not for any nefarious reason. For your own good.”

My mind reeled. “So when I tried to escape that first day…” I said. “And when we all attempted it, the next night…you knew where we were. The whole time, you were following us!”

Bhegad nodded. “Well…yes. But I thought you’d figured that out by now. How else would I have found you with the submarine?”

“You knew I wasn’t really at my treatment that night…” Aly said.

“You let us get onto that boat,” Cass added. “We almost drowned!”

“No, no, that’s not true,” Bhegad protested. “You did fool us for quite some time. I confess, your tricks with the looping camera footage and so forth actually worked rather well. It’s lucky that dear Torquin has a suspicious soul. After seeing a large fly crawl up Cass’s window in an exactly identical path seven times, he woke me up and we tracked you, but by then you were already at the beach.”

“What else aren’t you telling us, Professor?” I demanded. “What exactly have you done to us?”

“Peace, brothers and sister,” Marco said, his voice unnaturally calm. “Let us not yell, but rather show him how we feel.”

He reared his arm back and hurled the device deep into the jungle.

“No!” Bhegad shouted. “Do you know how much those cost?”

Cass stood over Professor Bhegad, glowering. He looked like a different person. “Marco died for your mission. If he hadn’t fallen in the right place, his blood would be on your hands. You owe us, Professor. You owe us big.”

“Owe you?” Bhegad said, his voice rising with impatience. “My dear boy, we planted the tracker for your sakes. We did not want to risk losing you. There are other forces after the secret of the Loculi. You are not as safe as you think. Now, please, tell me everything you saw in there!”

“Wait—what forces?” Marco asked.

Bhegad took a deep breath. “The Scholars of Karai discovered this island. For a century we have been dedicated to restoring Karai’s lineage. He recognized the foolishness of creating the Loculi—of trying to control the great Atlantean power. But his quest to destroy them backfired. It angered Massarym. So Massarym stole them and took them off Atlantis—and that removal brought on the destruction and sinking of the great civilization. Karai somehow survived, and he devoted his life to finding what his brother had taken. He searched the world for clues, going undercover, bribing people, until at last he finally found Massarym’s plans.”

“Do you have those plans here?” I asked.

Bhegad shook his head. “It was long ago. They’ve since been lost. We believe Karai wanted to return the Loculi to Atlantis. To restore the balance, possibly to raise the continent and start anew. But he was constantly thwarted by the Massa—a group of Massarym’s followers. They were in awe of the powers Massarym drew from the Loculi. They thought him a god, and he thrived on that. But after Atlantis sank, he changed. He regretted his decision to steal the Loculi. He realized Karai had been right—they were too dangerous and should not have been created in the first place. But Karai’s desire to return them to the island—this horrified Massarym. He feared another cataclysm, a global one. He thought Karai had lost his mind. He considered destroying the Loculi but worried about the release of energy. So he devoted the rest of his life to hiding them away for eternity.”

“These people—the Massa—are they still active?” I asked.

Bhegad nodded. “They are obsessed with finding the Loculi—and us. We believe they are close to locating this island. Our surveillance has picked up increased chatter.”

“Can’t we all just be friends?” Cass asked. “Work together? We want the same things.”

“Most certainly not.” Bhegad shook his head. “The Massa have stayed loyal to the early aims of Massarym. They are about control. Domination. Ultimate power. We must find the Loculi before they steal them and figure out how to activate the powers.”

“If we let you sic us on the Evil Empire,” Marco drawled, “what do we get in return?”

“Your lives.” Bhegad glared at him. “If the Massa get the Loculi, you can’t return them.”

“Which means…we die,” Aly said.

Bhegad turned to me. “Now tell me about that Circle, Jack.”

I gulped. “It was carved into stone and there was a…bowl dug out of the middle, with writing in it. And this mist billowing out of a crack. Jammed inside the crack was a piece of sword,” I said. “And around that part were seven other bowls—”

“The Heptakiklos…” Bhegad said, his voice choked. “The Circle of Seven. Wenders was right. It’s here—the center of Atlantis! The place where the Loculi were stolen.”

“Each of the bowls had a carving,” I continued. “Statues and buildings that were totally recognizable—”

“Whoa. Pause button,” Marco said. “Behold the Immortal One. Marco who fell a billion feet without a scratch.” He stared around at us all, his eyes blazing. “Why are we worried about G7W anymore? And treatments? We have the Magic Waterpark of Life!”

I sucked in my breath. In all the excitement, I hadn’t thought of that. The water had brought Marco to life. Maybe it had cured us, too. Maybe we were free to go home.

I looked at Aly and Cass and knew they were thinking the same thing. Bhegad pulled a small, finger-shaped object out of his jacket pocket. He took Marco’s hand and shoved the instrument onto his right index finger.

Marco flinched. “Yeow. Easy, P. Beg, the Immortal One is still sensitive to pain.”

“Blood sample.” Bhegad removed the instrument and fished a Band-Aid out of his pocket for Marco. We gathered around, watching in bafflement as the numbers changed on the instrument. When they stopped, Bhegad sighed. “Same enzyme levels, same signs of mitochondrial chaos.”

“In English, please,” Marco said.

“The waterfall regenerated your tissue,” Bhegad said. “But it had no effect on G7W.”

“You mean, if we skipped a treatment and started going haywire and then got dropped into the water…” Aly said.

“It would not do a thing.” Bhegad shook his head sadly.

That seemed impossible. I searched Bhegad’s face. He had lied to us before, and there was nothing stopping him now.

“Atlantis was about balance,” the professor continued. “Clearly some of the energy has seeped through the rift. Powerful energy indeed, which is now trapped down there in the waterfall. But you are connected to Atlantis in a deeper way. Your ceresacrum needs that connection, that balance created between the Loculi and the forces underground. We must find them, Jack.”

“If Karai couldn’t do it, how can we?” I asked. “Especially with the Massa breathing down our necks?”

“You said there were carvings,” Bhegad said. “In each of the seven circles. Can you re-create them?”

“I can,” Cass volunteered.

“You don’t need to,” I said. “There was a statue over a harbor, a great lighthouse, pyramids, hanging gardens…. They were the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.”

“By the Great Qalani…” Bhegad said, aghast. But before he could say a word, his phone let out a sharp beep. He glanced down and blanched.

The screen read CODE RED.

He flipped the phone up to his ear. “Bhegad here…A what?” His face darkened. “Are you sure? We’re on our way.”

“What happened?” I asked.

Bhegad was already heading back toward the compound. “Tell me. That blade you saw, in the middle of the Heptakiklos. Did you pull it out, Jack?”

“I put it back in afterward!” I shot back.

Bhegad went pale.

Before I could ask him to explain, an ATV crashed through the undergrowth with Torquin in the driver’s seat. “In!” he commanded.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The Karai Institute,” Bhegad shouted as he piled into the front seat, “is under attack!”