“GIVE me one good reason,” Alex hissed, staring at Niemand, “why I should not wring your neck.”
Niemand smiled brightly. “My boyish good looks?”
“Oh, Papa, please!” With a fluttery laugh, Bitsy gently elbowed her father and stood. “You know his unique sense of humor. It really is so lovely to see you all alive and well. Er . . . how did you get here?”
She extended her hand, but Max and Alex stared at it like it was a dead fish. “Are you serious?” Max said. “I’m not shaking your hand, and it’s none of your business how we got here.”
“A bit harsh, don’t you think?” Niemand said.
“Kristin,” spat Alex. “Get. Away. From. Those. Villains.”
As Kristin jumped away, Spencer Niemand barked a laugh. “Aren’t we being a bit dramatic, dear girl? Consider our last meeting. As I recall, you had cruelly trapped me in a dangerous, unhygienic relic on a remote Arctic island. With a slavering German engineer who had communication issues. Textbook villainy if you ask me.”
“Our last meeting,” Max said, “was outside a prison in Massachusetts. Where you had escaped after being jailed for multiple crimes. I think they were kidnapping, attempted murder, and grand larceny.”
“Ah, glad you reminded me!” Niemand pulled a wallet from his pocket and slid it across the table to Max. “I believe this is yours. Sorry, old bean. I needed the cash, and you were such an easy target.”
Alex lunged across the table, reaching for Niemand’s throat. With a yawn, he calmly veered aside. She went sprawling over the table, landing on the stone floor with a sickening thud and crashing into the wall.
“Oopsy,” Niemand said.
Max, Brandon, and Kristin raced toward her. Behind them, flying monkeys were rushing into the hut, cackling and hooting.
“Ssssssssss!”
The sudden sound was barely louder than an insect’s buzz, but it stopped the monkeys’ voices cold. They stood at the entrance to the inner room and stared, slack-jawed. Annsa was just inside the door, facing them, his skeletal hand raised high over his head.
As Max helped Alex sit up, Annsa rasped a few unintelligible words to his minions. Immediately they backed into the other room.
“Are you OK?” Max asked his cousin.
“Remind me never to do that again,” Alex said, holding her head.
“I merely stepped away from an attack.” Spencer Niemand stood, offering his seat to Alex. “My apologies. You caught me by surprise.”
“Stuff it,” Brandon said, clenching and unclenching his fists.
“Where on earth did you find Dudley Do-Right?” Niemand said
“Papa, that is not called for,” Bitsy said, turning to Max and Alex. “Please don’t be angry. We can explain—”
“Give us back the serum!” Max blurted.
“Don’t ask us,” Niemand said, gesturing back to Annsa. “Ask the Zombie from the Green Lagoon.”
“Ssssssssstop! Sssssit!”
The tiny sound of Annsa’s command managed to cut through the noise like a siren. In the sudden quiet, the crackling of the fire sounded like breaking bones. Obediently Niemand, Bitsy, Max, Alex, Brandon, took seats or perched at the edge of the table.
Annsa walked slowly to a small green cabinet made of tight rubbery cords. He pulled out an enormous conch shell and held it to his mouth. When he spoke through it, his voice was still raspy but extremely loud.
“I have the serum,” he said. “And it will stay here.”
“You see?” Niemand said. “This . . . erm, fine elderly gentleman set his hench-creatures after us. We were simply attempting to do the right thing, to carry out the noble mission of Jules Verne. For the benefit of the world. So Annsa is the thief here. Not I, not dear Bitsy. We were in the midst of delicate negotiations when you so rudely interrupted us.”
“Papa, they did not interrupt,” Bitsy scolded. She looked pleadingly at Max. “I know you and Alex are angry at me, and I don’t blame you. But please know that my concern was for the good of humankind. I could have explained my plans, but you would not have supported them, so I had to act alone. I could have taken the serum earlier, but I waited for your mother to recover. I do have a heart. You were so emotionally involved. You also desired the serum for yourselves, and I understand that. But my father possessed the secret to replicating it, and it was important to—”
“Steal it from Martin Hetzel?” Alex said.
Niemand held up a bony finger. “Free it from obscurity,” he said. “Into which it was about to fall, had we not rescued it. In this age of interwebbery, you know, it’s just so easy to find people.”
“You snuck into his files while he had a heart attack,” Max said.
“The word,” Niemand said, “is sneaked. At any rate, how were we to know the old fellow would fall ill?”
“How was he to know he’d be fleeced by an escaped convict?” Alex snapped. “Who’d been freed by a thief?”
“Imprisoning a man like Papa—that was an injustice,” Bitsy said. “His life’s goal is the safety of the world in the aftermath of climate change! We all want that. So now that you’re here, now that we are trapped together, what is there to lose? We can choose to be partners. I plead with you to trust us.” She turned to Annsa. “And I plead with you, sir, to give us back the serum. Let us all heal the world together.”
“Not so fast,” Alex said. “Trust you? We heard that in the Nautilus. We heard that from Nigel, from your mother, from you. And each time we were betrayed.”
“Mr. Annsa,” Max said, “I know you’re superold and, like, really set in your ways. But this serum is a big, big deal. One of your buddies, the hairy, tentacle-y one, brought Brandon back to life with it, after he was toast. The person who brought it down here in the first place, long before you were born? He was the one and only Jules Verne, who was my great-great-great-grandfather—”
“By the light of Loki,” Annsa said, “I can see the resemblance.”
Max stopped in midsentence. “Wait, what? You do?”
“And also a resemblance to you . . .” he said to Alex.
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, no one’s ever told me that. I mean, the skin and the hair and the gender and all, plus no beard, but I can write like a fiend.”
“No . . . no, it’s in the eyes, the confidence, the quick intelligence,” Annsa said. “It is him all over again.”
“So . . . you’re a fan,” Max said. “That’s cool. You’ve seen pictures, huh? We have a portrait in our living room.”
“Ck . . . ck . . . ck . . .” Annsa said.
“That’s his laugh,” Bitsy explained.
“I do not need portraits,” the old man said. “Not for a man to whom I became closer than anyone in the world. Annsa, you see, may be what these loyal creatures call me . . .”
“Annsa! Annsa!” agreed the winged monkey guards.
“. . . But my real name,” he continued, “is Arne Saknussemm.”
Max exhaled. Claiming to be someone who died in the 1800s was definitely a sharp turn into cuckoo-land.
Alex laughed. “That’s a good one, sir. I’m Joan of Arc.”
“No, Alex, I believe him. There are many with this name.” Kristin gave the old man a weary smile. “This is another Hobnagian.”
“Excuse me?” the old man said.
“The group that believes Iceland was invaded by space aliens from a planet called Hobnag, remember?” Kristin replied. “They latched onto Saknussemm as their hero. Frankly, they are responsible for helping to destroy his reputation. No disrespect intended, sir, but the real Arne Saknussemm was a genius and a good man—a real human being who deserves his place in history, and I am proud to be his great-great-great-granddaughter.”
Annsa said nothing for a long moment, and Max worried he’d had a heart attack. Finally he rasped, “What is your name, dear?”
“Kristin.”
“Sweet Kristin . . .” A tiny droplet winked down the folds of the old man’s cheeks. “I care not a whit for history, but it pleases me greatly that I make you proud. And that dear Jules’s discovery made this meeting possible.”
Kristin stared with utter bafflement into the old man’s face. “The serum . . .”
“Yes.” The ends of Saknussemm’s lips creaked upward. “I accompanied Verne and his nephew on their initial voyage, as a guide. But when they left, I stayed. These beings, this environment—I found it much less dull than the world above. I thought I would die here, if not from the environment then from old age. None of us predicted the serum would do this to me.” He held out his emaciated arms. “Although my body has aged, my soul will not leave it.”
Choking back a sob, Kristin gently hugged the man she never thought she could meet. “That is so awesome,” she said. “And tragic.”
Alex’s jaw had dropped open. “This is getting weirder and weirder.”
“I just adore family reunions,” Niemand said. “Now, why don’t you all stay and have a party? My treat, send the bill to Niemand Enterprises, no expense spared. So if you’ll give my daughter and me our backpacks, we will be on our merry way.”
“No!” Alex and Max blurted at the same time.
“You may stay or you may leave,” Saknussemm said, releasing Kristin from a long hug. “But I’m afraid it is necessary that we keep the serum here.”
“We need it, sir,” Max pleaded. “It saved my mom’s life and cured my friend Evelyn.”
Saknussemm stared at him. “Are you sure you want that? Do you want them to be . . . like I am?”
Max fought away the thought. He didn’t want to think about that at all. “I want them alive,” he said. “And healthy. And we know you have some of your own serum here, because this hairball dude used it to save Brandon. So please, give it back.”
“And teach us what you know,” Alex added. “We have so many questions. How much of it does my aunt need? Is there a dosage? And why did Jules Verne bring the serum here?”
“In his note he mentioned something about propagating it,” Max said. “In a large body of salinated water, I think.”
Saknussemm reached over and put his hand on Max’s. Even though it felt like frozen crab claws, and Saknussemm’s eyes were solid white, Max didn’t flinch. “Do you trust me, my boy?” the old man said.
“Trust,” Niemand said, “is not his strong suit.”
“I did not ask you,” Saknussemm snapped.
Max swallowed. Looking at Niemand made him smell ammonia. Somehow that always happened when he knew someone was trying to fool him.
But the smell vanished when he looked back at Arne Saknussemm.
He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Then listen closely,” Saknussemm said. “What you should do now is go back to your family and pray for the best.”