The Dark Water by Seth Fishman Page A

it,” Rob says, his eyes closed. “I know where you live.”
    â€œI do not know where you live,” Straoc says eagerly. “Tell me more, please. Are you of separate clans?”
    â€œWe have clans, just small ones,” I say. “Our families. We live in a small city, on campus at a school.” Only now that I’m taking time to think about it do I realize how strange it is that the Keepers not only understand English, but that they clearly developed in a similar way to us. Being stuck down here for as long as they have, the chances are crazy small they’d be
anything
like us.
    â€œHow small are families?” he asks.
    â€œOh, they can be big, but usually only a few kids and a mom and a dad.” I pause. Next to me, I can feel Jo take a deep breath, no doubt thinking of her father.
    â€œIsn’t it beautiful?” Jo says, obviously resigned to being here. “A whole world, like Atlantis.” She’s quiet for a moment, and because I’m staring at her, I catch the quiver of her lip. “It’s like all of this has happened for a reason.”
    All of this,
for her, has to mean the death of her dad. But Mr. Banner didn’t die in some freak accident. It was an avoidable tragedy, it was Sutton’s
fault,
but now we’re here, witnessing the impossible. She can finally have a
why
for his death. Jo sniffs, tucks her knees to her chin. The floors whiz by; none of us say a thing.
    And then we stop. It’s so sudden and soft that I don’t realize we’re not moving until Straoc steps off onto a colorful mosaic of tiles. We’re at the penthouse, so close to the golden domed ceiling that I could touch the curve. The balcony is large, enclosed like a sultan’s foyer, with two trees on either side and a couple of bronze gas lamps. I take Jo’s hand and help Rob up. It’s only when I get to the edge that I realize the mosaic on the floor is of a familiar image. It’s like a bridge made of stone, held up by two rows of evenly spaced arches rising higher and higher into the air. But it’s too thin to be a bridge, and there’s water pouring off the end.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Rob says in disbelief.
    â€œNo way that’s the aqueduct,” Jo adds, but it sure looks like the aqueduct, the one we broke into and blew up to keep Sutton off our trail. In fact, the image shows what I’d expect the aqueduct to be now,
after
I blew it up. My mind flashes to the woods, and I wonder where all the water’s draining now, if we’ve flooded the whole forest. Or if it’s frozen into a mini-pond, an iced waterfall.
    â€œWho made this?” I demand.
    â€œMade what?” Straoc asks, confused. He’s moved past the mosaic and is standing near a great wooden door, the entrance to the floor.
    â€œThe tiles, that image,” Jo exclaims, flustered. “How do you know what the aqueduct looks like? How is it here? What the heck is going on?”
    Straoc frowns, then answers very slowly. “I have paid no notice to this before.” And with that, he beckons us through the door.

6
    JIMMY
    JIMMY’S RUNNING. HE’S HOLDING A WALKIE-TALKIE IN one hand and Odessa’s hand with the other. The corridors are gray and long and with lights on the floors. Runway lights. Now that he’s moving fast enough, he feels like a plane about to take off.
    â€œTurn left,” Veronica crackles through the walkie-talkie.
    It all looks the same.
    There are no more gunshots, but in some ways, that’s scarier. With gunshots, Jimmy reasons, he at least can hear where Sutton and his people are. Without gunshots, they could be anywhere. Even Veronica can’t track all their movements, and according to her, they’ve split up. Some are using the pump to get as much water out of the well as possible. Others are moving down the hallways, methodically kicking in doors, looking. And Sutton, with two armed