FOR TWELVE YEARS, MY FATHER HAD TAUGHT ME ABOUT CONSPIRACY theories. He’d told me about the lies in my history books, about the way “They” twisted everything we knew to suit the facts they wanted known. He’d showed me how to spot the story behind the story. He’d made sure that I knew what kind of questions to ask to get beyond the standard excuses and find out the real truth. What about the cover story sounds fishy? Who stands to gain from making the public believe it? And, the biggie: Why are they doing all of this?
Usually, people kept secrets because telling the world the truth would send them into a panic. People liked nice, neat stories, where the bad guys got caught and the good guys were heroes and everyone turned out okay in the end.
But this—this was a conspiracy to start a panic.
I looked around this massive room, filled with tens of thousands of dead bees. Bees that had been bred to die—to go out and interbreed with normal bees, to substitute their faulty genetics, spread across the country, then conveniently die off, making everyone think there was a major problem with their pesticides or their cell phones or—if you were my father—their Wi-Fi signal.
And then what?
Board strongly feels that only panic will induce action on the part of humanity.—AE
AE: Anton Everett. I thought about dinner, about his passionate arguments to see the Earth as a world on the brink of destruction.
I’m trying to save humanity, he’d said. The planet will go on. He’d even sided with the Shepherds right in front of us, saying he agreed with them that the human race, as a whole, refused to see the danger staring us in the face. And he’d been right. All along, Anton was a Shepherd, sitting across the dinner table, telling us what he believed, and we hadn’t seen it. Dani Alcestis was a Shepherd, and she’d gotten us invited to Guidant to give a talk in order to get us here and fulfill some Shepherd plot, and we came along like . . . well, like sheep.
Baa.
And as much as I hated to admit it, I saw Anton’s point. No one liked change. As long as things were working, even if they weren’t working great, most people would just muddle along the best they could. Like Mom and Dad, fighting over the way he’d get lost in his work, or whether or not the risks he took were worth it. It took some big, horrible crisis to change it all. The scandal, the flood, the weeks spent hiding out in the woods. That’s when Mom finally had enough and decided to get out.
I wondered if that was what the Shepherds were trying to do by tampering with the Capella data. To push humanity to choose to get out, too. If we all thought an asteroid was coming toward Earth, we would definitely panic. And if we panicked enough, maybe we’d start to think more seriously about space. Maybe we’d start to behave the way the Shepherds wanted us to.
Elana had said Capella was her “pet project.” I doubted she’d like her second-in-command’s attempts to ruin it in order to help the Shepherds.
“You know what, Eric?” I turned to my brother. “You’re right. We need to get out of here. Now.”
“Freeze!” shouted a voice.
We whirled around to see four security guards standing on the walkway. Their uniforms were beige, with the Guidant logo on them. The guard in front held up her hand. “Hold on, it’s the kids. We found them.”
Behind me, Eric let out a sigh of relief. “Rescue.”
I nudged him to keep quiet. For all we knew, these were just Shepherds in Guidant uniforms.
“Come with us,” said the guard. “You have no idea how long we’ve been looking for you.”
I didn’t move. “Who sent you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Ms. Mero? Your father? It would have been way easier if you hadn’t hung up on them before we figured out where you were going to meet. Now, come on. This island was dangerous before the trespassers came.”
She must mean the trespassing Shepherds. I nodded, relieved that someone was finally on our side. Before we knew it, we were being hustled through an unseen exit near the cargo doors and down a few more flights of dimly lit stairs.
“I want to talk to my dad.”
“We have to get you off the island,” the guard said. There were two of them walking in front of us and two of them behind as we made our way down a sloping path of what looked like a basement tunnel. Pipes and wiring ran the length of the corridor, and the floor was nothing more than packed dirt. “Communication between here and the mainland is being monitored.”
I shut my mouth.
At the end of the corridor, there was a large metal door, fastened with a wheel, like a safe. One of the guards turned the wheel, unsealing the door, but it took two of them to pull it open. A gust of frigid air hit our faces, and with it, the dank smell of deep earth.
“Well,” said Eric drily. “At least this looks familiar.”
It did remind me of Omega City, and not just because we were clearly underground. Darkness stretched out around us, curved tiled walls and packed-earth floor receding into the distance. The only island of light was an inflatable enclosure about the size of our cottage sitting fifty feet away, glowing like a paper lantern in a moonless sky. Two large cargo trucks were parked in front of the door to the enclosure, and the guards led us toward them without delay.
“Is this a tunnel?” I asked one of them. “Does it go under the cove?”
She gave me a look and I shut up. Okay, I guess that was a stupid question. Of course it was a tunnel. And where else would it be going, if not under the cove? The island wasn’t that big.
“I can’t believe,” she muttered, “that I’ve spent the entire day chasing down a bunch of children.”
The guards stopped at the trucks.
“You kids stay here a second, while we check in. Do. Not. Move. Do you understand me?” She wagged her finger at us.
“Yes, ma’am,” we mumbled as they departed.
Howard looked right, left, and then into the darkness above our heads. “We’re turned around. We came farther inland, not out toward the beach. I bet we’re right about under the chimp habitat.”
Savannah cast me a worried glance. “I think we’re in big trouble. Like, really big trouble.”
“It’ll be okay,” I said, and toed the ground with my shoe. After all, I was still moving to Idaho. That was pretty much like being grounded, anyway.
“Can you get sent to jail for trespassing?” she asked. “I can’t believe how far this went. All I wanted was to hang out with you as much as I could before you moved away.”
“It’ll be okay,” I repeated, trying to convince myself as much as her. And it would. It should . . . once I explained to Dad what we’d learned about the Shepherds. Once we let Elana know about Anton and Dani.
As if my thoughts had summoned her, Dani Alcestis stepped out from behind the trucks. “Still here, huh? You guys are really bad at listening. Epically bad.”
“Help!” I screamed. “Help, it’s a Shepherd!”
The others joined in. “Help! Guards!”
Dani stood there serenely, arms crossed over her chest as we shouted. She was dry again, dressed in street clothes, her pretty lightened hair slicked back into a simple bun. She waited as our cries echoed through the chamber. “Are you done?”
The guards emerged from the inflatable enclosure, looking bewildered. I pointed at Dani. “She’s a Shepherd! I saw her. We saw everything. You have to call my dad. The Shepherds are running all kinds of creepy experiments on the island. They killed the bees. They’re trying to cause a panic! Please, you have to help us!”
The guard who’d been talking to us looked at Dani, seemingly baffled. “Miss Alcestis?”
Dani’s expression was one of boredom. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it. Finish your tasks.”
We started shouting and pleading with the guards again, as all four climbed into the first cargo truck. We reached for the door handles as the truck’s engines turned over, rumbling so loud I felt the ground shake beneath my feet. We only stepped back as they zoomed off, so as not to get run over. Their red brake lights retreated into the distance, and the trembling of the earth subsided. I wondered at that moment if that was what I’d felt when we’d been hiding in the chimp habitat.
Defeated, I turned back to Dani.
“‘They killed the bees’? Is that seriously the best you could come up with? After all the time you’ve spent poking around here?”
“Well, you did,” said Savannah. “And you killed those chimps, too.”
Dani leaned in and glared at me. “I,” she said slowly, as if talking to an idiot, “told you”—she poked me in the chest—“to run.”
“They didn’t believe me,” I said sadly, ignoring her. “They never believe us.”
Dani groaned. “Are you kidding me?”
I glared up at her. “What’s your problem?”
“Gillian,” said Howard. “Don’t you get it? They believed you. They’re Shepherds, too.”
A sense of utter horror washed over me. My knees felt weak, and I stumbled back from our captor. “What? No. They knew exactly what happened on the phone with Dad and . . .” I trailed off.
Oh, no. Communication between here and the mainland is being monitored. I replayed every word out of the guard’s mouth on our trip here.
You have no idea how long we’ve been looking for you. Ever since they’d found our kayaks, no doubt.
It would have been easier if you hadn’t hung up on them before we figured out where you were going to meet. No wonder she’d said “them.”
This island was dangerous before the trespassers came. Those trespassers . . . were us.
She hadn’t lied. She’d just told us exactly what we’d wanted to hear.
Dani rapped me on the head with her knuckles. “Figured it out yet, Little Miss Know-It-All?”
“Hey!” Eric cried. “Back off, lady!”
To my surprise, she did just that, stepping back and giving us a once-over as she shook her head with pity. “What in the world did you think you were doing in the entomology center, playing with all the controls? This isn’t Omega City, you know. We can tell when you’re accessing our files. You should have just stayed away from this place. Played on the smart courts or gone boating, like I suggested.”
I straightened. “We did go boating. We kayaked right over here.”
“This isn’t a game, don’t you get that? And it’s certainly not for kids, whatever he might have led you to think.”
He? Did she mean Dad? “Well, if we can figure out what you’re up to, then Dad and Elana can, too. It must have killed you that Elana wanted someone like my father here at Eureka Cove. You Shepherds can’t hide much longer.”
“Oh, Elana wanted your father here, all right, but not for the reason you think.”
“What?” I asked.
Dani sighed. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do now. You’ve put me in a very difficult position. I don’t like the choices I’m going to have to make.”
Her words sent a chill down my spine. Was she going to hurt us? All my bluster fled. “Please,” I said. “Please, we just want to get back to my dad. We just want to go home.”
“‘Home?’” she scoffed. “‘Please?’ Do you think politeness gets you far with the Shepherds? Or being children? I read your father’s book. Fiona Smythe warned you. Underberg warned you. Yet here we are.” She shook her head. “This makes it all so much more complicated. What am I supposed to do, claim I’ve lost you?” Dani’s eyes flicked from one of us to the next, observing carefully, as if weighing our worth. Something beeped on her wrist.
“I’ll be right there,” she said into the band, then turned back to us. “Okay. Come with me. Now, or you’ll be sorry.”
Exchanging worried glances, we let Dani herd us to the door of the inflatable enclosure. It was shaped like a giant beached jellyfish, an amorphous white bubble banded by arcs of steel. She held open the door as if she were still our Guidant hostess and gestured for us to come inside.
“Do you like it?” she asked as we blinked in the sudden brightness. “It’s Guidant’s own design. A pop-up biostation. Able to be assembled and disassembled in less than three hours. Totally self-contained and solar-powered, not that we can charge it up down here.”
I squinted. It was like standing inside a seashell. White walls, as thin and as taut as sails, separated the station into oblong chambers. Dani led us down a narrow central corridor. The whole place hummed.
“Battery backups in case of power loss—or underground use—automatic air filters and water collection, not to mention sealing capabilities in case of a plague or biochemical attack.”
Was she kidnapping us or trying to sell us one? I took a quick glance in one of the rooms we passed and saw what looked like an operating table surrounded by a bank of brushed steel lockers.
“The floors, you will note, are made of the same customizable material as the smart courts.” She glanced meaningfully at our utility suits.
Our utility suits, which were invisible to their sensors. Wait a second. . . . I grabbed Savannah’s arm and squeezed. Was Dani saying what I thought she was saying?
Was she trying to help us escape?
All this time, I was sure that Dani was a Shepherd ringleader. And maybe she was, but she had also told us to run before. Maybe she was taking pity on us because we were kids or something. Maybe we still had a chance to escape. I’d messed up bad with those guards in the bee chamber. I didn’t want to risk getting it wrong again.
She led us into the last room at the end of the hall. “Of course, the problem with infrared sensors is that they rely on the presence of heat, which in an operation like ours, is not as common as it might otherwise be.” As soon as we were all over the threshold, she unfolded an accordion door and hooked it across the opening, closing all five of us inside.
The room was small and sparse, and there was barely room for anything more than a computer terminal and an exam table. This one was topped with what looked like a large, inflatable blue mattress, covered with a sheet and riddled with wires.
Dani turned to face us, folding her hands in front of her. “Any questions, kids?”
“Are you serious?” Eric blurted.
“Eric,” I said in warning.
“No, Gills. We’ve been all over this island and we still don’t have any idea what’s going on. And she’s standing here making vague threats—”
“Mr. Seagret,” Dani broke in. “Did it ever occur to you that’s because anything other than vague means we’d all get ourselves killed? Thanks to your sister’s brilliant tattling up at the radio station, our entire operation is in danger.” She sighed. “Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got some very important matters I need to see to.” She nodded at the table in our midst. “And so do you.”
With that, she slipped back through the opening of the chamber and left us alone, staring at one another in shock across the inflatable mattress.
“I don’t understand,” said Howard. “Right?”
“Yes,” Savannah assured him. “No one here does.”
“Is she . . .” Eric lifted his shoulders. “Is she trying to save our lives?”
“She’s definitely telling us to escape,” I said, looking down at my utility suit. “And I think she’s telling us how, but . . .” I put my hand on top of the mattress.
But instead of a taut, cushy surface, the sheet crumpled inward, as if the center of the mattress was hollow. And whatever was beneath the sheet felt . . .
Alive.
I shuddered. “There’s something in there.” And it was cold as ice.
“Take off the sheet,” said Savannah.
“No way.” I stepped back, stumbling over my feet until I hit the fabric wall. I did not want to know what was under there. My hand tingled where I’d touched it, frigid as a corpse.
“Eric,” Savannah said. “Take off the sheet.”
“You first,” Eric suggested.
Howard shook his head. “I’ll do it.” He pulled back the fabric.
Underneath was a chimpanzee.