The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) Read Online Free Page A

in the murk, their branches like sickly veins twisting through the gray, and I couldn’t find the girl—
    O-wen .
    I thrashed around. Up. Down. Which was which? Who was calling me—siren or little girl?
    Except this voice sounded different. I saw a glowing form again, but it wasn’t the siren. This was a rectangle of light, and there seemed to be a face floating in it.
    All at once my mind woke up enough to stash the dream props back in their closet, to attach gravity and time and space to the real. Ash became water became air. I felt the hard sand against my cheek, the oven-hot air of midday.
    The light was the computer pad, lying next to Lilly, who was asleep on her side.
    I sat up and saw a face on the pad.
    “Ahh, there you are.”
    Paul’s face.

3
     
    PAUL GAZED UP AS IF FROM A WINDOW IN THE SAND. His tinted glasses were on, his expression calm. Other than an inky bruise on the side of his head—the spot where Lilly had slammed him with the skull—he looked like he always did: a mystery, only he wasn’t a mystery to me anymore. I’d seen his electric circuit board eyes—the bionic implants—and so his stillness now just made me think of an android, cold and calculating.
    “Enjoying your trip?” he asked.
    I picked up the pad, feeling around its edges for an off switch, but I couldn’t find one. This must have been some older model; Lilly had said that her parents had left it to her when she was cryoed.
    “Owen, look at me.”
    I kept fiddling.
    “Owen, my boy . . .”
    “Shut up!” I shouted, holding the pad at arm’s length, as if he might reach right through and grab me.
    “Okay, don’t get so worked up,” said Paul. “I just want to talk before you make a mistake.”
    I looked at him. “Mistake?” My whole body was shaking. “My only mistake was not realizing what you were sooner.”
    “Oh, come on,” said Paul. “Have you and your pals made me out to be a villain or a monster? That kind of thing? Because I think if you really reflected on our conversation in the temple, you’d realize that I am the best ally you three could have.”
    “I remember the temple,” I said. “When I didn’t agree to join you, you tried to hook me up to the skull like I was another one of your test subjects.”
    “Well, let’s be clear about that.” Paul smiled. “You were my prize test subject. You hold the key to saving humanity, and I can help you unlock it.”
    “Stop!” I felt a surge of hate like a wave breaking inside me. “Just shut up!”
    “Owen?” Lilly rolled over, eyes blinking open. When she saw Paul, she lurched up. “Turn it off! If they’re transmitting to this pad that means they can track our location.”
    Paul glanced in Lilly’s direction and smiled. “I always liked Miss Ishani’s instincts. Owen, please don’t let her kill this chat before I’ve had a chance to warn you.”
    “Give me that.” Lilly grabbed the pad.
    “It’s about your father. About your home. You can’t go there.”
    “Good-bye, jerk,” Lilly said, tapping quickly to reveal a side menu on the screen.
    “Hold on.” I caught her wrist.
    “Owen,” Lilly urged, “anything he says is a lie.”
    “On the contrary,” said Paul, “remember what I told you, Owen: I’ve never lied to you.”
    I knew Lilly was right, and yet, based on what Paul had just said, I also knew that he’d guessed we would head for Hub, which meant that they could try to intercept us there. Maybe if I let him say whatever manipulative speech he had planned, we could break it down and figure out their strategy for catching us. If there was one thing I hadn’t liked during the past night, it was looking back at an empty horizon and wondering where Eden was.
    I took hold of the pad. For a second, I thought Lilly might not let go. But she did.
    “Fine,” I said. “What.”
    “Thank you,” said Paul. “Now listen carefully. This morning, EdenWest sent a message over the gamma link to all major federation