LITMIR.BIZ

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of the fittest. So if you had dudes who were superhumans way back then, why wouldn’t they have survived to now?”

      “Because those who die early are, by definition, not the fittest.” Bhegad leaned forward. “Jack, we ran a genetic map of Randall Cromarty’s DNA after he died. And Sue Gudmundsen’s and Mo Roberts’s. They all had G7W.”

      I looked from Aly to Marco to Cass. Their faces were drawn. “So I’m—all of us—we’re going to die?” I asked.

      “No one who has had this marker has lived past the age of fourteen,” Bhegad said. “For whatever reason, the gene kicks into action around your age—and its actions are too powerful to be withstood by the body. Which is why we brought you here. We have developed a treatment. The operation on your head was the first step. You will be required to undergo regular procedures every ten days or so. Your first will be in about seventy-two hours. But we cannot keep you alive forever. There is a point after which nothing can be done—a sort of expiration date we can read in your genome. And that is what scares me. The fact that all our science is still not enough to keep you alive.”

      I sank to the stairs. The carpet felt clammy. The walls felt cold. It was as if the stairwell itself were my coffin. I wouldn’t leave here without dying. I wouldn’t see my dad ever again. I might develop a power or two in the meantime. Maybe paint a cathedral or twirl a helicopter in my bare hands. And then…?

      “So your job is to study us,” I said. “We’re your superhero guinea pigs. So what happens when we’re dead? Will you call our families and friends—or just have Torquin dump our bodies in the sea?”

      “Yo, hear him out, brother,” Marco said.

      “I’m not your brother!” I snapped. “Here’s a deal, Professor Bhegad. Call my dad. Give him your location. Let him come here so I can see him—”

      “Jack, please,” Bhegad said. “Your father would snatch you back in an instant—the worst thing that could happen to you. Besides, it would be impossible to give him these coordinates. This place is not visible by ordinary means. Radar, sonar, GPS—none of them register here. There are forces on this island even we do not understand—”

      “Then go get him and bring him here,” I said. “If he knows I need the treatments, he’ll stay. He’ll help!”

      “We can’t risk that!” Bhegad shouted. “Your lungs need air, your eyes need light—but your ceresacrum needs something here, in the earth itself. Eons ago, this island was a continent. Its people created grand architecture, made extraordinary music, governed with fairness and sophistication. It was protected by a curious flux point of natural forces within the earth—electromagnetic, gravitational, perhaps extraterrestrial. When the place was destroyed, the forces were, too.” Bhegad’s phone beeped. He snatched it angrily from his pocket and looked at the screen.

      “Dude, man up to this,” Marco said to me. “We’re on what’s left of Atlantis. And we’re, like, great-great-great-to-a-zillionth descendants.”

      “Atlantis? Very funny,” I said, attempting a laugh.

      No one else laughed with me. I looked toward Professor Bhegad, but he was texting, his face lined with concern. As he snapped it shut, he said, “I must go. But, yes, Marco is correct. You are connected to Atlantis by blood. Your ceresacrum must feed off the ancient power in order to survive. But that power must be found.”

      I swallowed hard. Aly and Cass were looking pale and frightened. “How?” I asked.

      Bhegad stood. He pocketed his phone and began edging up the stairs toward the building’s exit. “We don’t know where it is now. The power of Atlantis was stolen. Broken up and hidden all over the world. You must find what was taken. Your lives will be saved, Jack, if you locate all the elements of that power. You must bring them together and return it to Atlantis.”

      Bhegad’s phone beeped again, and before I could say a word, he was up the stairs and gone.

       CHAPTER NINE

      THE SELECT

      I FELT LIKE I’d been run over by a three-ton tank. Or squashed by Torquin’s feet.

      Aly, Cass, and Marco were all talking at once. Really loudly. We were walking out of the building and onto the path that ringed around the quad. They were telling me what a smart guy Bhegad was and how he was our only hope and how famous we would become.

      Half of me felt like a caged orangutan in the zoo. The other half wanted to burst out laughing. Either Bhegad was going to save my life or I had been pranked by some island Yoda who was two sandwiches short of a picnic.

      “Atlantis…” I muttered. “Superpowers…I’m supposed to believe this?”

      Aly put her arm around me. “Hey, we all doubted it, too!” she said in a loud, affirming voice, like she was talking to someone at the other end of a room. “It’s a tough transition!”

      I looked at Cass. “I think Bhegad is nuts. No offense, but I’m not sure about you guys either. You all don’t mind not seeing your parents?”

      “Um, no.” Cass’s face clouded over. “Not really. Well, I do, I guess. I mean, I did.”

      My heart dropped. I felt like an idiot for asking the question. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are they…?”

      “No!” Cass shot back. “They’re not dead. But we…my family isn’t close.”

      Marco ran ahead of us on the path. He grabbed a basketball that was lying against the side of a building and began dribbling.

      “Trust us,” Aly said. “This is no Truman Show.”

      “She likes old movies.” Cass stepped up onto the path’s narrow stone border, and began flapping his arms rhythmically. “Be grateful, Jack. Just think what would have happened if they didn’t find you.”

      I had to admit that one. “Okay, I might have died. But I feel totally cured now. Do you really believe this skeezy story—they’re keeping us alive so we can find our inner superpowers, but only if we find the lost power of Atlantis?”

      “I believe him!” Aly exclaimed.

      “Brother Jack, we are surrounded by world experts,” Marco said, spinning the basketball on one finger. “Wicked smart people. If they just wanted goons to travel and find the Atlantean powers, they could get them. They got Torquin, didn’t they?”

      I looked around. Teams were working hard, mowing lawns, repairing roofs, paving walkways. A group was wiring a small maroon half globe to the side of a building. It looked to me like the surveillance cameras in Dad’s old office building. They waved to us as we passed.

      “I used to feel the same way you do, Jack,” Aly said, toning her voice down. “I was on a plane flight home from Washington, DC, watching Citizen Kane for like the thirtieth time, and just when I got to the election scene, I had a seizure—and then I was here. The only other person was Marco. That was depressing.”

      “Thanks a lot.” Marco threw the basketball at her head, but she caught it. “One minute I’m about to break the scoring record in a middle school basketball game, the next minute I collapse on the court—and I wake up here. I was the first one.”

      “You’re in middle school?” I asked. I’d been assuming Marco was at least fifteen.

      “I’m thirteen. Big for my age. I think they almost flew me back home, just to get rid of me. But then I started getting the treatments.” Marco faked left, stepped across my path, and quickly snatched his ball back from Aly. “I can’t wait to become invincible.”

      Cass

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