The Forbidden Fortress Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Kristin

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  1: The Forgotten Fortress

  2: High (Temperature) Fashion

  3: Cake and Code Breaking

  4: Sub-Sub-Suborbital

  5: Welcome to Guidant

  6: Play the Game

  7: Et in Arcadia, Ego

  8: Nursery Rhymes and Nanotech

  9: Robots and Radios

  10: Green Dinner

  11: Savvy Secrets

  12: Crooks

  13: Baa, Baa

  14: The First Astronauts

  15: Reception

  16: True Believers

  17: Creepy Crawlers

  18: Sweet Dreams

  19: Freeze!

  20: Undercover

  21: Underbergs

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  THE FORGOTTEN FORTRESS

  I REALLY MISSED MY DAD. THAT WAS THE FIRST THOUGHT THAT CROSSED my mind when my eyes fluttered open to a sunny summer morning. The air was filled with the scent of fresh-baked bread, and I could hear pots and pans rattling in the kitchen of our cottage, but all I wanted to do was shove my head under my pillow and make it all go away.

  Instead, I rolled out of bed and shuffled into the living room, which was uncharacteristically spotless. Eric’s usual tangle of video game consoles and wires was tucked neatly away, and everything was dusted and buffed to a high shine.

  Mom and Eric wore running clothes, which meant it was Tuesday, Thursday, or Sunday—since Monday, Wednesday, and Friday were the mornings they went to the community pool to swim laps, and on Saturdays, even my mother agreed it was okay to sleep in.

  “Hi, Gills!” Eric called brightly through the kitchen door. He was whisking eggs. “You missed a great 5K this morning.”

  Five-kilometer runs, unlike my father, were not something I missed. Ever.

  But Eric’s been on a fitness kick. “You never know when you’ll have to outrun an exploding rocket ship,” he liked to say.

  The thing was, we hadn’t had to outrun a rocket ship in nearly ten months.

  Mom was chopping veggies. “We’re making a frittata,” she said. “Do you know where your father keeps the cast-iron pan?”

  Yes. He’d tossed it after an attempt at pancakes brought the fire department to our door. But there was no way I was going to tattle on him. “Umm . . .”

  Mom got that knowing expression on her face anyway. She turned to the pad she’d stuck to the fridge door and added cast-iron pan to the growing list there.

  I rolled my eyes. That list wouldn’t even exist if she hadn’t run out on us in the first place. Dad had been on book tour for the past two weeks, and Mom came home from Asia to babysit us.

  Before he left, Dad told me I wasn’t allowed to call it babysitting, but I don’t care. It’s not parenting if you’re here for less than a month.

  “I guess I’m going to make another shopping trip,” Mom said. “Gillian, why don’t you come along? We can get you some new school clothes.”

  “I don’t need any,” I grumbled.

  She gave me a small, pained smile and turned to Eric. “Don’t whisk too much. You’ll bruise the eggs.” Then she looked back at me. “Gillian, dear, may I see you in private for a moment?”

  Eric shot me a look, then pretended to be fascinated by the bubbles in his bowl.

  She brushed past me and down the hall, and I stomped along behind her, fuming. Did she honestly think that lecturing me in another room was somehow saving my dignity? Eric wasn’t stupid—he knew I was being dragged off to get in trouble.

  Mom ushered me into Dad’s office, then shut the door. This was the only room in the house that, so far, had been safe from Mom’s influence. She hadn’t dared to touch Dad’s towering piles of books, notes, photos, and old film reels. But don’t give her too much credit. It’s not that she didn’t want to, it’s just that, unlike the kitchen or the living room, it was tough to know where to start without ruining Dad’s secret organizational system.

  Her expression was one of motherly concern as she crossed her arms over her chest. Behind her, on either side of the door, were eight-foot stacks of Dad’s new book, The Forgotten Fortress. The black and electric blue of the cover nearly matched her turquoise running outfit and smooth black ponytail.

  I matched her stance, crossed arms and all, and stared back at her. “Go ahead and give me that oh-so-important private information about what school clothes I need.”

  Mom raised her eyebrows. “Gillian, you’re almost thirteen. Did you want me to talk about bras in front of your little brother?”

  I felt my face heating. Bras?

  She sighed. “Kiddo, I know it’s rough that I haven’t been here. Believe me, I wouldn’t have gone to Asia if there’d been another option. But there weren’t a lot of universities that would have me after . . .” She gestured at Dad’s desk. “Well.”

  After the destruction of Dad’s academic reputation and, by association, hers. Both Mom and Dad were history professors, but Dad’s controversial research had gotten the whole family in trouble. Ever since the scandal, it had been tough for either of them to find teaching work. Mom had spent the last year studying foot binding in China and pretending she had never married him.

  So what if she couldn’t get a real job in this country? Dad had made it work—teaching part-time classes at the VA Hall and the occasional seminar to his kooky conspiracy theorist friends. And now he was back, better than ever, with a book that was putting his name on the map.

  Thanks to us.

  “But I’m here now, and I have a great offer from a school in Idaho. I’ve been trying to find a time to tell you, but you’ve been avoiding me since I got here. Eric is really excited about the idea.”

  “About you living in Idaho?” Why, because it was only half as far away as China?

  “About us living in Idaho,” Mom said.

  What? I couldn’t have heard that right.

  “With your father doing all this visiting lecturing, you guys are going to need something steady. And it would give us the chance to get to know each other again.” She looked at me like I had the option to say no, but I knew I didn’t. My parents were supposed to split time with us, according to what their lawyers agreed when they got divorced.

  And that meant I was moving to Idaho. Getting a bra and moving to Idaho. This was the worst day of my life.

  She spread her arms like I was supposed to hug her. I just sniffed and turned around.

  “Okay,” she said, and I heard another sigh. “I’m going to figure out breakfast. We can maybe do omelets or something. I trust your father didn’t ruin the griddle?”

  He totally had, in an ill-fated grilled-peanut-butter-sandwich incident.

  “Come on out when you’re ready, and we’ll chat more about it. I made fresh-squeezed orange juice.”

  Of course she had. Everything with Mom was just perfect.

  I heard the door close behind her, and then a soft thump. I turned around to find one of the copies of The Forgotten Fortress had fallen off the stack.

  I picked it up, flipping open the cover to the dedication page.

  To Gillian, Eric,

  Savannah,

  Howard, and Nate.

  Without whom

  Omega City would have remained buried.

  Exactly. If Dad’s career was going well now, if the family reputation was improved enough that Mom was getting tenure-track offers in Idaho, then it was because of Omega City, which meant it was because of what we did. M
e, and Eric, and our friends.

  We found the clues in Dr. Underberg’s diary that led to the secret entrance. We followed them and went into the lost, half-drowned bunker city that was Dr. Underberg’s lifework. We got chased by thieves and risked our lives and proved that Dr. Underberg wasn’t some crazy old scientist.

  Well not just some crazy old scientist, anyway. Everything in Dad’s book was based on the information we’d uncovered. And now Mom wanted to move Eric and me to Idaho? What would Dad do without us? He was still researching his new book on the Arkadia Group, the secret organization that had buried Omega City and threatened anyone—from Dr. Underberg to my father—who tried to expose them. What would happen if we left him alone?

  I knew my dad. When he was deep into his research, he sometimes forgot to eat.

  I glanced up at the piles of paper still littering Dad’s desk, trying to imagine how chaotic it would get, and saw the message light beeping on his office phone. This was exactly what I meant. Dad was terrible at checking messages on the road, with no one to remind him.

  I pressed play.

  Good afternoon, my name is Dani Alcestis, and I’m calling on behalf of Elana Mero and the Guidant Technologies Foundation. This message is for Dr. Sam Seagret. Ms. Mero is very interested in—

  Eric chose that moment to barge in. “Gills, Mom says breakfast is on the table—”

  “Shh!”

  —your children to the Guidant campus at Eureka Cove to discuss your experiences and potential opportunities for us to learn from one another.

  I grabbed a pen and started writing down the phone number on the back of an old map of Area 51.

  “What’s going on?” Eric whispered, but I’m sure he could hear the message as well as me. The Guidant Foundation was inviting Dad to speak at their high-tech campus—and not just Dad. Us, too, as “participants in the Omega City adventure.”

  I wonder if that meant Savannah and Howard and Nate, too?

  I hopped up and down in excitement as I finished jotting down the message. This was perfect. Dad had been all over the country promoting his book, but clearly these Guidant people had actually read it and realized the part that we kids had played in bringing Omega City to light. This was the first time anyone had bothered asking us to talk.

  If we started joining Dad at his lectures, then there was no way we could move to Idaho. Dad would need us to stay close, so he could bring us to his events. I imagined standing in front of a crowd of people and talking about scuba diving though an underwater parking lot and up a flooded elevator shaft. I pictured Howard on a stage in his silver Omega City utility suit.

  Or maybe we’d all be wearing them. Would they want us to bring them along?

  “We have to call her back!” I said when the message finished playing. “This will be awesome for Dad. And us.”

  “Guidant,” said Eric, impressed. “The tech company? Why would they want to talk to Dad?”

  “Um, because he’s a genius?” Guidant was a huge technology firm. They made computers, software, apps, phones . . . and probably a lot of other stuff. Eric would know better than me.

  “But he’s a history professor,” Eric corrected. “Well, ex–history professor.” Still, he looked thoughtful. “I heard that if you work for Guidant, your whole family moves onto their property. They call them tech campuses.”

  “Like university housing?” Even when Mom and Dad had still been married and teaching at the same university, they hadn’t wanted to live in the professional housing the school provided. Mom had called it “substandard.”

  Then again, Mom hadn’t yet known how bad it could get, like Dad forcing us all “off grid”—camping in a tent for weeks on end to protect us when the scandal first broke. That’s what had really pushed Mom over the edge.

  “Well, that’s it, then,” I exclaimed. “Omega City is the original tech campus!”

  “True,” Eric said, though he didn’t sound too sure. “Are you sure they want him to lecture? Maybe they want a better battery for their laptops—Underberg’s battery.”

  I held the phone in both hands, hesitating for a moment. Well, Dad could figure that part out, right? I started punching in numbers.

  “Wait!” Eric yanked the phone out of my hands. “You can’t call them back.”

  “Yes I can,” I cried, and grabbed it back. “They invited us, too.”

  Mom poked her head in the door. “Guys? Cold eggs are the worst. Come on out.”

  I hid the receiver behind my back. This was none of her business. She didn’t have anything to do with Omega City.

  But Eric didn’t seem to realize this. “Dad just got an invite to the Guidant campus at Eureka Cove,” he announced. “And they wanted to know if we could come, too. You know, all us kids. All expenses paid.”

  Mom smiled. “Really? What an exciting opportunity! After breakfast, we’ll call your father and see if he can work it into his schedule.”

  Eric gave me a smug look. Mama’s boy. I watched him hand my notes over to Mom, then trudged after them as they headed back into the dining room. Silently, I took my place at the table, trying not to enjoy the aroma of fresh bread, melted cheese, and spicy sausage. Breakfast looked delicious. Blecch.

  “This could be such a fun vacation for you,” Mom was saying as she filled my glass with fresh-squeezed orange juice and handed me a new linen napkin. “Especially if we can get permission from your friends’ parents to take them along. Won’t that be wonderful? A big last trip with your friends before you move away.”

  She would bring that up. Just when everything was going so well, too.

  2

  HIGH (TEMPERATURE) FASHION

  “DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM WOULD DO MY COLORS NEXT?” SAVANNAH asked, standing in front of the mirror on my closet door and holding up my new purple dress.

  I sat on my bed, surrounded by piles of new school clothes and, yes, three training bras. Mom had finally forced me to go shopping. “You look good in everything,” I said.

  “No,” she replied with a laugh, and grabbed the edge of my utility suit from where it hung in the back, behind my old Easter dresses. “I look awful in silver, remember?”

  “Utility suits are hardly high fashion,” I pointed out.

  “Tell that to Howard. You know I saw him sweating through that thing four different times this summer down at the baseball fields?”

  “What was he doing at the baseball fields?” I asked.

  She gave me a look. “Gee, I don’t know, Gillian. Golf?”

  “I didn’t know he played baseball,” I said. When had everyone gotten so sporty? First my brother and running, and now Howard?

  “The team’s called the Rockets,” Savannah said. “Maybe he got confused.”

  That sounded far more likely. As far as I knew, Howard had one interest and one interest only: outer space, and the means of getting there. He’d very nearly headed into orbit with Dr. Underberg last fall.

  Savannah rooted around my closet for another minute, then pulled out a green blouse. “This stuff is kind of fancy for school, don’t you think?”

  I pretended to be very busy examining the fastenings on my stupid new training bra. I still hadn’t managed to tell her about Idaho. I was hoping for some kind of last-minute miracle. “My mom picked it out.” And what would she know about what I liked to wear?

  “Well, your mom has excellent taste,” Savannah said. “Isn’t it nice to have her back?”

  “No.” I tore the tag off a sweater. A thick, Idaho-friendly sweater.

  Savannah slipped the shirt off the hanger and over her head. “I’m starting to worry about you, Gillian. I know if my dad ever bothered to come back to town, I’d be glad to see him.”

  I had no idea why. Savannah had never even met her father. He didn’t know what he’d missed by walking out on her mother before she was born. Whereas Mom supposedly loved us, and she still left. Now she thought she could just come back, babysit us for a couple of weeks, then drag us away from Dad
and Savannah and everyone else to go to Idaho?

  “I don’t trust her,” I said. “She’s not one of us anymore.”

  “Us and them again?” Savannah asked. “She’s not Fiona.”

  “She’s not Fiona?” I spluttered. “That’s the best you can do?” The last time I’d seen my father’s evil ex-girlfriend, Fiona, she’d been covered in ash, completely deaf, and had just tried to blow up Omega City and trap us underground forever. The woman had been a member of the Arkadia Group, for Pete’s sake! No, my mother was not Fiona. That didn’t mean we were best friends.

  “Well,” said Savannah, pulling out another dress from my stack and primping in the mirror. “You should be nice to her anyway. She’s driving us all up to the Guidant campus to meet Dr. Mr. Seagret. If you get grounded, it’ll ruin the whole weekend.”

  That was true. The Guidant campus was an hour and a half east, and Mom had offered to drive Eric and me as well as Savannah, Howard, and Nate out there. But I was pretty sure Nate, Howard’s seventeen-year-old brother, was only coming because Guidant was just a short bus ride away from one of the colleges he was looking at.

  “She can’t ground me if she’s leaving,” I argued. “She won’t be home to babysit.”

  There was a knock on the door and Mom peeked in. “Oh, Savannah, that looks very nice on you.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Mrs. Seagret!” Savannah beamed at her reflection, shaking out her long blond hair, which, thanks to the summer and copious amounts of lemon juice, was even lighter than usual.

  “I just put lunch on the table,” Mom said. “We’re having ham sandwiches.”

  Savannah made a face. “Didn’t Gillian tell you I’m a vegetarian now?”

  “Oh.” Mom looked disappointed. “Well, we have cheese. Let me get you some cheese.”

  Savannah bopped down the hall and I followed. Why was everyone so ready to fit Mom back into their lives? Cheese sandwiches and training bras did not make up for walking out on us when everything fell apart.

  We joined Eric at the table while Mom retrieved some extra swiss cheese for Savannah. I looked at the spread before us with dismay. It was like she was fattening us up for something. Why did everything she served have to look so delicious?