“Sir,” Dr Schwartz said stiffly, “you saw the girl’s map. Our safety here might be compromised.”
“And if it is?” the man replied with a carefree shrug. “We are not without protection. Before you jump to the grimmest scenario, let’s at least hear the girl’s story. And for heaven’s sake, untie them. They’re only children.”
Todd snorted. I had to agree. I hadn’t felt like a child in a long time. Regardless, Chaz stepped forward to untie us. She looked relieved and gave us an apologetic smile as she deftly unwound the rope.
“Take a seat, please,” the man said. “I am Dr Bartholomew Boznic, head paleontologist here at the Lincoln Lab, but everyone calls me Boz.” He was perched at a long glossy metal table set against another one of those floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on the lake, complete with frolicking plesiosaurs. Their huge bodies slid past the glass, and some even pushed off it to launch themselves in the opposite direction.
“We didn’t tell anyone about your lab,” I said as I took a seat across from Boz. “I had no idea what was in the middle of this lake when I got the map.”
“That’s good to hear.” He smiled. “I’d hate to think that the Noah’s stealth bombers were winging their way here to destroy my life’s work as we speak.”
“The Noah doesn’t have stealth bombers,” Shawn protested, but then he paused, taking in Boz’s serious face and raised eyebrows. Deflated, he sank into the seat beside me. “Of course the Noah has stealth bombers,” he said flatly, “why am I even surprised?” I rolled my eyes. Even after watching Todd’s entire village get captured, and everything that Ivan had told us, it had taken Shawn forever to come around to the idea that the Noah wasn’t the saviour of humanity we’d always been told he was. I’d been an easier sell. Between my dad’s note and the revelation that villages like Todd’s existed, I’d very quickly come to terms with the fact that the world wasn’t what I’d always been told. Not that I could blame Shawn for taking a little longer. We’d both grown up believing that only one aeroplane existed, and that the aeroplane’s sole purpose was to deliver mail and supplies four times a year between compounds. Then the helicopters had shown up at Todd’s village, so Boz’s claim of stealth bombers was not all that far-fetched. Unfortunately.
“I can assure you that he does have stealth bombers,” Boz said seriously. “And if given the opportunity, he would use them. Our position with the current Noah is tenuous to say the least.”
“Tenuous?” I asked.
“He acts like we don’t exist, mainly because he can’t find us, and we act like he doesn’t exist. But I don’t want to talk about that now. What I want to know is where this remarkable map came from.” He had my dad’s map spread out before him, and I could tell he’d been studying it before we came in. I looked at Shawn and Todd, hoping for some guidance about how much to tell. Shawn just shrugged. Todd laced his fingers into the straps of the pack he was still wearing and stared in grim silence at the plesiosaurs outside the window. I decided to proceed cautiously. Boz seemed nice enough, but he and Schwartz worked together. And there was something about Schwartz that made my skin crawl.
“My dad sent it. Just like I told Schwartz before he tried to feed Shawn to that monster Pretty Boy.”
“It was an accident,” Schwarz sniffed. “The boy attacked me, and he lost his balance.”
Boz shot Schwartz a disapproving look, clearly skeptical of this explanation, and Schwartz seemed to shrink a bit.
“Our Dr Schwartz can be a bit overenthusiastic. I’m sorry you had to experience any unpleasantness, Miss, Miss – what’s your name, my dear?”
“Sky Mundy.”
Boz sat up as though his chair had electrocuted him, leaning forward to look at me over the top of his thin wire-framed glasses. “Are you any relation to Jack Mundy? The biologist in North Compound?”
I sat up too, nodding as my heart lurched with excitement and goose bumps broke out along my arms. This was it. “I’m his daughter.”
Schwartz’s lip curled in a barely detectable sneer, but Boz looked as though Christmas had just come early.
“I know your father.” He smiled, clasping his hands in delight. “He’s an old friend of mine from when we trained at the university back at East Compound.” I waited for Boz to mention the Colombe, but he did not. He had to be the member of the Colombe my dad was talking about, but I needed to be positive. Pulling my compass out of the neck of my still-damp tunic, I held it up for Boz to see.
“Does this mean anything to you?” I asked. Todd and Shawn leant forward as one, identical expressions of anxious anticipation on their faces. I wondered what my own face looked like. Hopeful? Terrified? Anxious? All of those feelings were racing through me as I held my breath, waiting to see if this was when I’d finally get the answers I so desperately needed.
Boz’s face broke out into a wide grin, and he pulled a nearly identical compass out of the collar of his shirt. “It does,” he said. I let out a huge sigh of relief as something loosened inside of me, and I felt as though I could really breathe for the first time since I had opened that note from my dad a lifetime ago. I grinned at Todd and Shawn. See, I wanted to say, I told you that there was something in the middle of the lake, that everything we went through to get here was worth it, but my smile faded as my eyes flicked over to where Schwartz still sat, glowering at me.
Boz followed my gaze and waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about Dr Schwartz. He was also a member of the Colombe, but he and your father never really got along. He joined me when I escaped East Compound. The same escape,” he said sadly, “that killed your mother.” I nodded, pushing aside the empty feeling that hearing about my mom always seemed to trigger.
“Then I can tell you everything,” I said. “You are the person my dad sent me to find.”
“Really?” Boz said. “Why did your father send you after all these years?”
“I’m not sure where to even begin,” I said, overwhelmed by everything that had happened in the last few days. Boz just folded his hands and smiled encouragingly.
“Five years ago, my dad disappeared from North Compound, leaving me behind,” I began, quickly describing how I’d found my dad’s note and map, escaped North Compound, met Todd, and survived the takeover at the Oaks. I explained about meeting Ivan and the chaos when the marines tracked us to his house, separating us, and I wrapped up with meeting Chaz and Schwartz on the beach. Shawn chimed in to say that it was a good idea he’d decided to come along because I never would have made it without him, and Todd interjected to tell the story of me taking an impromptu dip in a spinosaur’s pond. Both comments earned them well-placed elbows in the ribs. Boz was an excellent listener, nodding and exclaiming, although he seemed saddened when I described the two dinosaurs that we had killed, and he scowled when we mentioned Ivan. Apparently paleontologists and dinosaur hunters didn’t quite see eye to eye.
“Well,” he exclaimed when I finished. “I’m sorry to hear that Jack went missing. I hope he’s alive somewhere out there, but he certainly never made it here.” Even though I’d known from the way Boz had reacted to my dad’s name that he wasn’t here, it still hurt to hear it said out loud.
“May I see the plug?” Boz asked.
I nodded, slipping off the compass and unhinging the hidden compartment. I handed it to Boz. He studied it before flipping it over, as though it might tell its secrets if he just looked at it long enough.
“Well?” Shawn asked. “Do you know what’s on it?”
“I don’t,” he admitted. “I haven’t talked to Jack Mundy in years. Why he would disappear and then send his daughter to see me is beyond my understanding.”
Todd