Driftwood: An Atlas Link Series Novella Read online

  Driftwood

  An Atlas Link Series Novella

  Jessica Gunn

  Contents

  Copyright

  About Driftwood

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Thank you for reading!

  Also By Jessica Gunn

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 Jessica Gunn

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Eugene Teplitsky

  http://eugeneteplitsky.deviantart.com

  ABOUT DRIFTWOOD

  A year has passed since the Lemurians took SeaSatellite5 after Trevor and Chelsea failed to save the crew. They now work for TAO alongside Dr. Connor Hill. But on the anniversary of SeaSat5’s disappearance, a media storm ignites conspiracy theories and the Navy SeaSatellite Program is charged with supposed international artifact thievery. Trevor and Chelsea must set the record straight before the media wins and TAO is shut down… grounding their mission to find SeaSatellite5 forever.

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  Chapter One

  The lights, bright and flashy, blinded me. You’d think that by now I’d be used to it, the paparazzi and the even crazier conspiracy theorists. But the Navy could only keep so many reporters, and their need for answers about SeaSat5, at bay.

  Pearl’s PR Department had dressed me in a simple blue-laced dress. Something that reminded them of SeaSatellite5 in color, and of an old-style innocence I didn’t have. I looked thirty years old and a helluva lot more mature than I knew myself to be. But whatever kept Pearl’s PR Department happy, kept me out of Admiral Dennett’s office and from being treated like a kid one detention away from being expelled from high school.

  Trevor hadn’t been as lucky. They’d done him up in a light gray suit that looked ridiculously out of place on him. He wore the same blue as my dress on a tie over an off-white shirt. Sweat caked his brow and neck—yay for the heavy, humid Hawaii weather. Even though a soft breeze kissed our faces, it stood no chance against the bright sun.

  Our eyes met behind Admiral Dennett, who stood at a podium a few feet in front of us, preparing to give a speech for the one year anniversary of SeaSat5’s “disappearance.” While the rest of the world thought the event sad, confusing, or even fake, Trevor and I knew better. It was the harrowing day we’d lost everything that mattered, two weeks after the worst twenty-four hours of our lives.

  Trevor must have seen the emotion in my eyes because he inched sideways and took my hand. His fingers slid between mine, and already the touch made me more confident, whole. Less like the deserter I was and more like the girl accidentally left behind—the girl the rest of the world thought me to be. We’d come back in time, traveled via Link Piece back to our home, to get help. Only, Trevor and I didn’t know how the whole Link Piece thing worked, and now we were stranded, landlocked with no way to get to SeaSatellite5 without a new Link Piece to travel by.

  “Okay, I think we’re ready,” Admiral Dennett said into his mic. “If everyone could hold their questions until the end, it would be most appreciated.”

  The way the reporters and journalists swarmed about their seats told me the Admiral’s wishes might be a losing battle. For now, they quieted down and took their seats, fanning themselves with notebooks and voice recorders.

  I squeezed Trevor’s hand. He squeezed back, an unspoken reassurance that we’d get through this and live to fight another day.

  “One year ago, tragedy struck not only this nation, but the world. Our greatest scientific achievement in oceanographic research was lost at sea with all hands on deck.”

  Except Trevor and me, he meant. The two of us had been suspiciously absent. The cover story said we were in Boston, but almost everyone who knew me knew that wasn’t true. I’d been wasted the night before Lemuria took SeaSat5. Freddy and Trevor had managed to take me from the Franklin and get me back to the station, and I’m still not clear on the details of that operation.

  “We lost SeaSatellite5 that day, and we have not found her since,” Admiral Dennett told everyone.

  Guess there wasn’t a reason to lie. We weren’t even sure if there was anything to be found.

  SeaSatellite5 was one of the most, if not the most, top-secret military properties on the planet. Within two weeks the station was hijacked, revealed to the world thanks to the invisibility cloak dropping during the hijacking, and taken from our time period to the future. The rest of the world thought it had disappeared, up and vanished without a trace. There were also plenty of conspiracy theories about other countries stealing the station. But I knew better, and so did the Navy. I was on board when the Lemurians took the station.

  Most of the time the conspiracy theorists barked worse than they bit. The paparazzi were worse. For the first six months after SeaSatellite5 vanished, my parents had soldiers stationed at their door. I had joined The Ancient Organization (TAO) alongside Trevor to fight with Atlantis against their ancient foe. I couldn’t be there for my parents and my sister, to fend off the reporters, but Admiral Dennett made sure they were taken care of and, six months later, the paparazzi stopped coming.

  I could even play shows with my band, Phoenix and Lobster, again. Despite all the extra press from the SeaSat5 fiasco, our band’s name had gotten popular in the Northeast. Sure, people liked throwing my connection to the station around, but all it’d done so far was make us sort of famous. We still had no record deal or headlining tour, and without those I had very little leverage with which to convince the Admiral I should still be allowed to play shows. You know, since we weren’t “really successful” anyway.

  “Each day we comb another sector of the seafloor,” the Admiral continued. “Each day we pray for the station and its crew to return to us. We will not stop searching until that day arrives.”

  He kept talking the normal fluff on the matter, anything to appease the reporters. Did we know if the SeaSatellite5 crew survived in the Lemurians’ time? No. But considering the lengths Thompson took to hijack the station, and for Valerie to help save it, its value ensured the station itself would still be in one piece. Worst case, we’d find the wreckage. In the best-case scenario, we’d find the ship and our people alive, too.

  But the Admiral’s somber words and the reporters’ flashing cameras told me it was already too late for the best-case scenario.

  All because I didn’t know how Link Pieces worked. Because I wasn’t super soldier enough to save the station and its crew.

  Some soldier.

  The Admiral had stopped talking and must have ended on an inspirational note because applause took hold of the crowd, and even Captain Marks’s family joined in.

  Facing them was the worst, after Julie’s parents. Being unable to tell them the truth, that Captain Marks and Julie—and the rest of the crew—weren’t lost, per se, only displaced, and possibly still very much alive, was worse than any pain I’ve ever felt before. I’d rather Thompson brand my whole skin with that god awful fire pencil than have to relive those conversations. But by being there to tell them, to speak with them, I reassured Captain Marks’s family and Julie’s parents that we’d find them one day. That I’d find them one day.

  One day.

  Trevor squeezed my hand once more, then let go and joined the applause. Our eyes met. I didn’t feel like clapping, but his ocean blue gaze urged me to anyway, so I did right as the applause began dying down.

  “Now,” Admiral Dennett said, hand poi
sed over the podium. “We have time for a few questions.” Several journalists stood and the action made me want to run off of the stage. On any other day, Tough Girl Chelsea put on a mask and kicked ass. Today wasn’t one of those days.

  “Please keep in mind that this is a day of remembrance as well as perseverance,” the Admiral said, as if he could read every thought I had. “Be mindful of this with your questions.” He pointed to someone in the crowd. “Mr. Grant, what’s your question?”

  “It’s been a year. People want to know how you misplaced a multi-billion-dollar project with no evidence of foul-play or wreckage,” the reporter said. “What do you say to the claims that the station is merely cloaked again, as it was for the two years of operation prior to the terrorist attack?”

  “I’d know if my own people cloaked the station,” the Admiral countered. “SeaSatellite5 is not just hanging around in the Pacific. Ms. Summers?”

  “What measures are currently being taken in the search and rescue mission?” a woman in the back row asked.

  “An enormous amount of sonar and satellite imaging,” Admiral Dennett said. “We’re combing every inch of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans first.”

  They’re not there, I wanted to say. They’re in the future, or the past. Anywhere but present-day Earth.

  “Are they part of the search?” The question came from a reporter in the front row, who had his eyes and finger pointed at Trevor and me. Admiral Dennett didn’t so much as stiffen. “I mean, they weren’t the only interns aboard during SeaSatellite5’s operational months. Families of the other interns want to know what Ms. Danning and Mr. Boncore’s roles are.”

  I gulped. The most-hated question.

  The Admiral turned his body an inch in our direction, but kept his face to the reporter. “They’re contributing as best they can. The search is largely a military effort, and as neither Ms. Danning nor Mr. Boncore are military and are therefore incapable of sailing a Navy aircraft carrier, they are otherwise appropriately involved.”

  The crowd laughed. I didn’t find it funny. This was supposed to be a tribute service, a slight memoriam for the missing crew.

  The Admiral continued fielding questions with practiced ease. Unless my name was mentioned, I zoned out. Every press conference, every run-in with reporters was the same. They thought the military had hid the station because the world couldn’t handle an internationally-built, U.S. owned research vessel with minor weapons systems. SeaSatellite5 could block torpedoes, sure. Missiles, maybe. But as far as offensive weapons went? It did little more than your average military submarine, no matter its nation of origin. SeaSat5’s biggest draw was Trevor’s rotational ballast system that allowed the station to move freely or take anchor for long-term studies, like a humming bird stays in once place, frantically batting its wings while it fed on flowers.

  Still, the world hated the idea.

  Eventually, Admiral Dennett cut off the reporters and we left the stage. The quiet inside the Naval building temporarily deafened me. It echoed off the boring walls, which had been decorated every few yards by fake plants and portraits of former Admirals. Below us, in the basement levels, were the research labs where scientists worked endlessly on further SeaSatellite models and other projects. The whole building had this clean ocean smell to it, a mixture of floor cleaner and the saltwater breeze outside.

  “That was fun,” Trevor breathed, tossing a worried look out the window at the press. “They’re going to get aggressive again.”

  The Admiral nodded. “Yes, they are. Chelsea, I’ll have a contingent sent to your parents’ house.”

  “Thank you.” At least I wouldn’t have to worry about that.

  “And Trevor, one to your family as well.”

  Pretty sure Trevor didn’t have much family that couldn’t handle themselves. I wasn’t sure. He said he hadn’t spoken to his parents or Valerie since the hijacking. I was inclined to believe him, given how blind-sided he was by the whole thing. I wouldn’t want to talk to them either if they almost cost me a life sentence in prison for treason.

  The weeks after SeaSat5 had been taken were rough. Trevor and I had agreed to take it slow, and we did, almost to the point of a standstill. Things got better after the first six months, when our world started putting itself back together again.

  “Thank you,” Trevor said to the Admiral. “I appreciate it.”

  The Admiral nodded, glanced out the window, and then to me. “I know about the show tonight. Do you think that’s the wisest idea?”

  Tonight was the Battle of the Bands show, a year and a few months after the one I botched due to teleporting onto SeaSatellite5 before our set. If I screwed up this year’s show, my band would undoubtedly kick me out. And Sarah, my sister, would feel bad about it. I would, too. But I could hardly blame them.

  “I haven’t gotten word they cancelled our set,” I said. “And if the Franklin’s willing to risk it, playing should be fine. We’ll arrive right before and leave right after.”

  Admiral Dennett sighed, shaking his head. “I can’t help but think it’s an unnecessary risk.”

  “Every crowd the last six months has had the same size and temperament as before all of this happened.” A slight lie. Audience size had actually grown. Not a lot at first. We’d barely noticed it. But then the owner of the Franklin mentioned once how he’d needed more of a liquor stock on the nights we played. That was when we’d realized the impact of the station’s disappearance on Phoenix and Lobster. “It should be okay, and if it’s not, we won’t play. I’ll stop the set and get the band out of there. I wouldn’t risk my sister’s life, or theirs, for something as stupid as rabid reporters.” Phoenix and Lobster wanted attention and paparazzi. Just not this type of attention.

  “All right,” the Admiral relented. “I may request TAO send a soldier or two with you anyway, as a guard.”

  “TAO’s only soldiers are Major Pike and the security guard at the door,” Trevor pointed out.

  The Admiral shook his head, a stand-in for eye-rolling. “Go, get out of here before they break down the doors. I’ll send people in plain clothes.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  He waved us on. We walked with him around a corner and then, once out of sight of any and all reporters, I held out my hand for Trevor. He laid his palm in mine, and I teleported us back to TAO headquarters in Ohio. With any luck, no one would question how I’d gotten from Hawaii to Boston in five and a half hours to make our show at the Franklin.

  Okay, so maybe the conspiracy theorists would have something to chew on after all.

  Chapter Two

  Pre-show jitters were the absolute worse. I spent the afternoon in the dimly lit gym at TAO headquarters. I couldn’t sit still. My fists wailed on the punching bag, hard enough to hit but not firm enough to send the bag flying off its hinges. If I stopped, I’d start thinking and then I’d spend all afternoon wondering what the situation tonight at the Franklin might be like.

  Were people as crazed as they were right after SeaSat5 disappeared? Did my parents need the military guard like before? Did my friends? Not that I had many friends left. The few I had by proxy thanks to the band had bailed. But Logan lived next door. The Admiral’s guard dogs would watch him too, right?

  I lifted my leg and kicked, a force that knocked the bag off its hinges. Despite having employed Sophia for so many years, the military never did find Atlantean super-soldier-grade gym equipment. At least now she could spar with someone her own speed.

  I stepped back from the bag and wiped my sweat-slicked forehead with my forearm.

  What had the world become? I’d thought about the answers to that question a lot since the hijacking. I thought accidentally teleporting to SeaSat5 had flipped my world upside down, revealing one where I had abilities I couldn’t imagine living without. Then we found evidence of Atlantis, and the world had spiraled into some mixture of reality and fantasy I could handle.

  I’d dreamed of Atlantis growing up, had felt so
connected to oceans and water it was impossible to think I hadn’t known about my ancestral ties to the city all along. But my sister Sarah didn’t share those things, so I never questioned it. Never knew. Part of me still worried she’d develop powers one day and I’d have to introduce her to this world. I dreaded that day.

  The hijacking had turned my world into a complete fantasy, dark and surreal. Things I thought I’d never do, I’d done in order to survive. Pain I thought I’d never suffer through, I’d dealt with. I thought I’d lost Trevor to it all, too.

  I grabbed my water bottle from the table in the corner and chugged half of its contents. I wasn’t sure if life had gotten easier in the last year or if we’d become accustomed to life’s way of never playing by a rulebook.

  “Chelsea!” shouted a voice, distant in the corridor outside.

  I spun to the doorway to find Trevor there, red-faced and out of breath. The sight was so strange, so out of place, I startled and almost dropped my water bottle. “What? What’s wrong?”

  He waved out into the hallway. “Hurry, you need to see this.”

  I followed him up a flight of stairs to his on-base quarters, his TV playing a news station.

  “This is bad,” he said, reaching for the remote. “Very bad.” He turned up the volume.

  “Rumors state that the Navy research vessel was scouting a significant archaeological find at the time,” a news reporter for the BBC said. “Emails have been leaked suggesting the site contained a cache of artifacts and artworks from across the ancient world. We’re here with world-renowned archaeologist Dr. David Johansson Jr. for his take on the emails, and what a find like that might be.”

  “Oh, fuck me.”

  This guy was a total joke. Not quite as bad as the ancient aliens and uniform pyramid dudes, but almost there. Dr. Johansson was a TV face, though his doctorate and work on Minoan culture was highly respected. He’d contributed a lot to our knowledge and archaeological evidence base. Unfortunately, that garnered him the attention of the Discovery Channel, and months later, the guy was one of the most famous TV archaeologists of all time. He’d tossed his respectable work out the window when he signed that contract.