LIU LED Hoku and Dash and Zorro on a wild run through a dozen white corridors. Hoku would have sworn they were all identical if not for the different patterns etched into the surfaces: starfish, dolphin, Big Blue, sunfish, kelp, wave. When they reached the section marked with the City of Shifting Tides’ seahorse design, he knew they were getting close.

The control room door stood out from the others. Instead of a little pad of numbers next to the handle, there was a huge artifact mounted on the wall. The door itself was ink black and imposing and looked thoroughly impenetrable.

Liu scuttled up to the device and stuck her face against it.

“Retinal scanner,” she said simply, as if Hoku would understand. But he almost did understand. The machine was scanning her eyes! There must have been some form of identification hidden in them.

The red light over the door turned green with a loud buzz, and a mechanism inside the door shifted.

“Come on,” Liu said. She grabbed the door and swung it out. “Gentlemen first!” she said, motioning to Dash.

Hoku couldn’t tell if Dash was blushing under his sand-colored skin. Liu had been going on and on about the kiss since it had happened. How could she skitter so fast and talk at the same time?

Inside, the control room was large, vaulted, and packed with gleaming artifacts. Machines hummed from every wall. Lights flashed. Portions of the wall displayed graphs and charts that moved and beeped and monitored. He turned in place, trying to make sense of the chaos.

“Quickly, I will show you what to do,” Liu said. She headed for the station with the biggest set of moving pictures above it. “This is the main computer.” Her two front claws started pressing buttons while her human hands pressed letters at an alarming speed. Words started appearing on one of the screens. “We need to restore power to the Kampii generators before —” she started to say, then froze, her hands and claws hovering over the computer, her mouth half open.

“Before what?” Hoku asked.

“Before she is put back to sleep,” Dash said, frowning. He walked over and waved his good arm in front of Liu’s face. She didn’t even twitch. He turned to Hoku. “It is your room now.”

“But, I don’t —”

“Hoku, it is your room now,” Dash said. And all of a sudden, the horse-boy was a leader again. How did he turn that on and off? “Use it to save Aluna and your people,” Dash said.

Hoku took a deep breath. Save Aluna. Save Daphine. Save the Kampii. Maybe even save himself. He took another breath for good luck.

“Okay, let’s do this.” He headed over to Liu and gently pushed her aside. Her crab legs scraped across the floor. “Zorro, connect to this . . . computer.”

The raccoon hopped onto the desk and poked his tail at a socket Hoku hadn’t even seen. The animal’s eyes flashed green.

“There’s a flashing red light here,” Hoku said. “Should I push it?”

“I do not know,” Dash answered. “What will that do?”

Hoku shrugged. “There’s one easy way to find out.”

“Wait. What if —?”

Hoku pushed the button.

The air exploded with alarms. Red lights flashed. The noise — the noise! Hoku covered his ears with his hands and saw Dash do the same.

“Zorro! Turn off the alarm!” Hoku yelled. The creature’s eyes flashed green again and the noise stopped as suddenly as it had started. Hoku lowered his hands, but his head was still filled with shrieking echoes.

“That didn’t work,” Hoku said. He looked over to see if Dash was okay and found the boy flat on his stomach, his ear to the floor.

“They come,” Dash said. “At least six, maybe more. I do not know how many legs they have.”

Barnacles! They didn’t have much time.

“Zorro, uh . . . restore all power to the Kampii,” he said. Zorro’s eyes glowed yellow and he tilted his head. “Zorro, deactivate . . . uh . . . whatever Fathom did?” More yellow glow.

Dash pulled the huge black door closed.

“It will not latch,” Dash said.

Hoku saw another eye-scanning device on this side of the door. “Push Liu to the scanner,” he said. “Her eye is the key!”

Dash did as he was told but couldn’t maneuver Liu’s eye close enough to the device. She’d been hunched over the keyboard when she stopped moving, and her eyes were in the wrong place.

“Zorro, lock the door,” Hoku said.

The raccoon’s eyes flashed red, meaning he understood but couldn’t obey the command.

“It is no matter,” Dash said. He pulled his sword from his satchel and expanded the blade. After moving Liu to the far end of the room, he positioned himself by the door. “I will give you the time you need. Just . . .”

“What?” Hoku could hear footsteps thundering through the corridors.

“Work quickly,” Dash said.

Hoku nodded grimly and stared back at the array of blinking lights and knobs and strange glowing letters and pictures. Grandma Nani’s words echoed in his ear: Hoku, my boy, it’s time you had an adventure.