8

  This one’s for Benji and Cole—JP.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Previously

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Copyright

  PREVIOUSLY

  Sam and Zara are kidnapped by Hans and his henchmen and driven to an unknown location. Sam manages to untie himself and creeps along window ledges high above the street below to free Zara. Together they flee into the dawn, realising they are now in Monaco.

  Mourning the death of Pi, Eva tends to survivors at the Academy’s devastated Swiss campus with Tobias. The next day, they are taken to London to recover and regroup.

  In London, the Professor is targeted by a bomb, emphasising the constant danger they are all now in. Sam heads to Brazil where he meets up with Pablo, a Councillor, who aids them in their search.

  On a ferry on the Amazon River, Sam is attacked by Stella’s men and in the ensuing battle is saved by Rapha, the next of the last 13. They fly an ultralight over the rainforest to a waterfall which hides an ancient city.

  At the new Enterprise HQ in Amsterdam, Alex and Shiva wage war in a virtual battle which will affect the Dreamscape. Working together, they manage to push back their enemies and overcome a heavily armoured Matrix.

  Dodging booby traps, Sam and Rapha discover the mythical city in the clouds and Rapha finds his Gear. Before they can leave, Hans’ men surround them.

  Eva and Lora go to Chicago to meet with Mac, the renegade Councillor. He fools them into abandoning their Guardian escort, then takes them captive on his ship. They are even more shocked when Solaris appears and they discover Mac is in league with him.

  While Hans’ men are blinded by their own greed, Sam and Xavier make good their escape, snatching back the Gear as they flee through the perilous caves and tunnels. They have almost made it when Stella confronts them on the waterfall ledge.

  Sam and Rapha take a breathtaking leap from the ledge, but it is too late—Rapha is hit by Stella’s darts and passes out. Sam struggles to hold onto him as the glider twists out of control. Rapha threatens to fall from his grip as they crash towards the rocky mountain …

  01

  SAM

  ‘Rapha!’ Sam screamed frantically.

  Sam could see the two small darts still lodged in Rapha’s back. His eyes flicked to Rapha’s face—he was unconscious, his face empty.

  The lush green forest that stretched out below seemed to be approaching much faster.

  Just got to hold on …

  Everything went eerily silent as they tumbled through the air towards the cliff face. Preparing himself for the impact that he knew was coming, Sam tensed his legs, straining to keep his tenuous grip on Rapha’s jacket.

  Calculating the timing carefully as they neared the cliff, Sam pushed hard with his legs against the vertical rock wall a split-second before they would have slammed into it. The shock pulsed through his legs as he felt the glider shudder and turn sharply in the air, their trajectory changing immediately. Sam struggled and looked upwards but the thick band of cloud they had plummeted through was already concealing everything.

  If I can’t see them, they can’t see us either …

  Sam’s arm seared in agony, trying to hold onto both the makeshift glider and Rapha’s dead weight. His fingers, desperately grasping the smooth metal bar above, were sweaty and slippery in the humid air of the jungle. His teeth clenched tight as he tried to keep his grip.

  Suddenly, a gust of wind buffeted them from the side. Sam’s fingers slid off the bar, beginning their inevitable freefall towards the imposing green below.

  Sam screamed, his voice echoing out over the jungle. Still clinging to the unconscious Rapha, he stretched out his free arm, and changed his Stealth Suit into the wing-suit, clearly recalling Jedi’s instructions. Their descent slowed, but with only one free arm to steer, Sam and Rapha hurtled downwards, flipping and turning erratically.

  CRASH!

  ‘Argh!’ Sam held his free hand over his face as they smacked through the tops of the trees. The snapping branches and vines slowed their crash-landing, but whipped into Sam’s face over and over again.

  THUD!

  Sam landed heavily on his back and lay there silently catching his breath, staring back up into the hole they had torn through the leafy canopy above. His arm, still holding his friend, had twisted awkwardly in the rough landing. Sam could see Rapha’s chest moving with slow and even breaths, and he appeared to have survived the rough landing with nothing more than a scratch or two.

  ‘Owww …’ Sam winced again as he tried to free his arm from underneath Rapha. ‘He’s obviously not a light sleeper then …’

  Through the broken branches overhead Sam could see that their crude glider was still drifting down towards the forest floor, its landing slower and more graceful now that it was without passengers. He noticed the small dents and scratches all over its surface, no doubt from the stun darts shot by Stella as they made their getaway.

  A memory jolted Sam upright and he reached around to feel for his backpack. With a relieved sigh, he felt it still in place on his back, and he wriggled out of the straps and pulled it open. There, nestled safely inside, was Rapha’s Gear—the priceless piece his enemies would literally kill to get their hands on in order to get one step closer to building the Bakhu machine.

  Piece by piece, Gear by Gear … that’s five down, eight to go.

  ‘Hey,’ said a small voice beside him. ‘What did I miss?’

  ‘Rapha!’ Sam said, surprised. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think so,’ Rapha said, sitting up slowly and rubbing his head. He looked around the jungle floor and then up at the hole their descent had punched through the trees. Sam saw Rapha’s eyebrows lift in surprise and the corners of his mouth curl up into a smirk.

  ‘Maybe you should stick to being the pilot?’ Sam said, following his upward gaze.

  Rapha’s grin spread wider, before his face suddenly changed into a confused frown. He twisted his shoulders uncomfortably, reaching one arm behind his back and pulling the two small darts out from in between his shoulder blades. He stared at Sam, questioning.

  ‘Oh, those …’ Sam said sheepishly. ‘Sorry, I forgot they were still there. If it makes you feel any better, the darts are usually much bigger and knock you out for a lot longer.’

  Rapha rolled his eyes and threw the small darts into the jungle. ‘So what now?’ he asked Sam.

  ‘I don’t suppose you have another aircraft hidden away close by?’

  ‘No, sorry,’ Rapha replied. He shrugged, then said, ‘So we�
�ll take a walk.’

  ‘You … call … this … a walk?’ Sam stopped at a tree and shook the last drop from his water bottle. ‘Try hike … or trek … or a cross-jungle marathon.’

  They’d been hiking through the jungle for over an hour, sticking close to the river. Rapha had made sure they kept a quick pace, urging Sam on whenever he slowed for a drink. Despite the humid air feeling so wet against his skin, Sam had never been so thirsty.

  ‘It’s not much further,’ Rapha said at last. ‘Just up here.’

  ‘You said that an hour ago at the clearing.’ Sam adjusted his backpack across his shoulders.

  ‘I thought that was another clearing,’ Rapha said, leading the way.

  ‘Well, I guess, to be fair …’ Sam said, pausing again as they came to a drop off in the hillside, ‘it is the Amazon.’

  ‘Ha! There it is!’ Rapha said, triumphantly pointing below. ‘That’s our way out of here.’

  Sam saw a winding strip of water, a tributary of the Amazon River, snaking away into the distance. There wasn’t much of anything else.

  ‘And, we, ah, swim from there?’ Sam asked.

  Rapha smiled. ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘I use this to map areas of the jungle and follow the migrating patterns of the geese,’ Rapha said cheerfully.

  ‘Geese?’ Sam asked.

  ‘A type of bird.’

  ‘Right. Thanks.’

  Sam climbed into the small boat. It teetered and bobbed in the murky water and he concentrated on keeping his balance. He sat at one end and watched Rapha jump into the boat in one quick movement that barely made the boat rock.

  ‘First you had the speedboat, then the ultralight, now this. How come?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Well, if you remember, the first speedboat was only borrowed,’ Rapha corrected. ‘And this,’ he continued, ‘belongs to that eighty-year-old man over there.’

  Sam looked over to the shack standing alongside the rough jetty that serviced the local boats.

  ‘My parents were well-known in this community. They did a lot of work for conservation and the local villages in the area …’ Rapha’s voice trailed off in sadness at the thought of his parents. Sam could see the grief fill Rapha’s eyes and he looked back at the river, feeling awkward, not sure if he should try to say anything of comfort.

  What could I say, anyway? I’ve only made things even more dangerous for him.

  Rapha sighed determinedly and pulled the cord on the boat’s outboard motor with a short, sharp movement. Silence. ‘She’s a little temperamental.’

  A small group of locals were watching from in front of the shack, as if waiting for an invitation to lend a hand. Rapha adjusted the dials and tried again. Nothing. Sam could smell petrol fumes in the air. He felt anxious sitting there, in clear view of everyone. He glanced around and wondered when Stella would catch up to them.

  CLICK! VRROOM!

  On the third try, the engine spluttered to life, almost drowning out the cheers of their small crowd of onlookers. Rapha shot Sam a confident grin, turning to wave back to the locals before steering the boat out to begin its cruise up the river.

  We got Rapha’s Gear, and we got away from Hans and Stella. That’s a pretty good day’s work.

  Settling into the boat, Sam smiled at Rapha and leaned against his backpack, watching as the amazing jungle scenery drifted by.

  02

  SAM’S NIGHTMARE

  The water below us is crystal clear and blue, the sand golden. Against it all, the sunlight is brilliant and glaring.

  ‘Here they come,’ the girl next to me says.

  Her yellow scuba vest has a flag emblazoned on it and a name written in black marker: MARIA.

  I look in the direction she motions, wondering who ‘they’ are. She’s pointing to the water.

  ‘Look, there are four of them,’ Maria says.

  I see the movement below. Dark shapes slice the water. They move fast and with grace, predators at their ease.

  ‘Are they …’ I begin, my voice wary.

  ‘Lemon sharks. They’re like puppy dogs,’ Maria says, her tone matter-of-fact. She pulls on her face mask and puts her head into the sea, looking down and scanning the scene below. She emerges and says, ‘Come on, coast is clear.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s go.’ She turns her back to the edge of the little pontoon boat, and before I can object or question her, she holds a hand to her face mask to keep it in place and tips backwards into the water.

  ‘Swimming with sharks … great,’ I say, looking around. There is no-one else about and no land in sight. Just this little boat in a calm, shallow sea in the middle of nowhere. I press on the regulator to check it’s clear and working, then chomp down on it, put on my goggles and plunge backwards over the side.

  SPLASH!

  I am enveloped in the warm ocean. The sounds of the underwater world around me make me feel like I’m on another planet. I hear my breathing as if I am in a spacesuit. It takes a while for me to get my bearings. I see Maria. She is in front of me, handfeeding the sharks.

  Slowly, cautiously, I swim over to her. The sharks don’t look as big as I thought they were from above. They are about a metre and a half long, sleek and graceful. They swish toward Maria and take chunks out of a big piece of fish she is holding. I could almost imagine them playing with her. It reminds me of playing with my beagle Scout back home.

  That’s it, just think of them as big, sweet, dopey dogs. Labradors of the sea. Nothing to be afraid of.

  One flashes by me and bumps me with its tail and the regulator pops from my mouth.

  Yeah, right.

  I panic and grab for it, holding my breath until I reposition the mouthpiece and the sweet air mix fills my lungs once more. Maria points to a large wire basket on the seabed below us, signalling for me to get another piece of fish. I swim down, just a few kicks away and undo the latch.

  Another shark bumps me away—a friendly bump, as far as I can tell. I take out a big piece of fish and refasten the basket, swimming up to be shoulder-to-shoulder with Maria. Hundreds of small fish, colourful and agile, dart around us as we float there, happily feeding and playing tug-of-war with the lemon sharks.

  Maria pokes me in the arm, her eyes suddenly wide and pointing urgently ahead.

  A huge shape appears from the dark blue gloom in the distance. As I peer forward, wondering what the shape can be, it’s upon us with a sudden surge of speed.

  It’s another shark. But this thing is huge.

  We’re going to need a bigger piece of fish.

  I freeze, looking to Maria for a cue. She is frozen too, her eyes following the new shark warily. With a few rapid flicks of its tail, the predator flashes by us, the lemon sharks scattering in fright.

  I can see the distinctive pattern along its mighty flank–it’s a tiger shark. On one side of his head, a massive scar zigzags along his skin. I watch, mesmerised, as he circles us twice and then swims off, disappearing from view.

  Maria points up and we swim together towards the surface.

  We emerge near the boat and Maria climbs aboard in one easy move. I can see that she’s spooked.

  ‘I thought,’ I say, slightly out of breath as she helps pull me aboard, ‘that you liked sharks.’

  Maria shakes her head. I can see she’s more than spooked, she’s terrified.

  ‘Not Scarface,’ she says. ‘He’s no normal shark.’

  She walks around the sides of the boat, peering over, looking for him down there.

  ‘What do you mean “not normal”?’ I ask, sitting up and shaking off my diving gear.

  ‘He’s super aggressive,’ Maria says. ‘Last summer, he knocked my friend out of the boat. He got him.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Maria is silent as she watches the water.

  ‘Maria—what does “got him” mean?’

  ‘Hold on!’ she screams, grabbing onto the rope that runs through the sides of the pontoons of our boat.
‘Quick!’

  I grab the rope at the same moment as the boat is lifted into the air. It’s like there is an explosion underneath us, water erupting violently into the air as we splash down again. Maria wastes no time, moving swiftly to the controls and turning the key in the engine’s ignition.

  ‘It’s not working!’ she yells, running back to inspect the outboard motor. She flicks a switch. ‘Sam! Try it again!’

  I go to the helm and turn the ignition key, but still nothing.

  THUMP!

  With a shudder even stronger than before, the front of the boat rises unsteadily, knocking us both to the floor. I pull myself up onto my knees, grabbing the edge of the wildly rocking boat as blood trickles from the grazes along my knuckles. The shark breaches in the water so close to the side of the boat, I could almost reach out and touch his silvery skin. I watch awestruck as he flies through the air, then splashes down headfirst. I hold my breath waiting for the next hit, but the water around us calms, lapping quietly against the sides of the boat.

  ‘Wh … what … what do we do? Is he gone?’ I ask Maria, fighting to find the words.

  Maria nods. ‘For now.’ She watches the surface of the sea warily, trying to decide our next move. ‘Scarface is territorial. Anyone or anything is a threat to him.’

  ‘Then let’s go!’

  ‘But what we need is here,’ she says.

  ‘Where?’ I ask, before understanding what Maria means. ‘Down there? There was nothing there but sharks!’

  ‘Nothing you saw,’ Maria replies, ‘because you weren’t really looking.’

  ‘The Gear?’

  Maria nods. ‘But Scarface is scarier than your Solarium.’

  ‘Solaris,’ I say, suddenly comprehending.

  I’ve missed the start of the dream. I’ve already told her about the prophecy.

  ‘His name’s Solaris,’ I add. ‘And if the Gear is here, then he will be too. We have to go.’