The Sharks look at me like, Who, us?
It hits me that I just gave an order to my classmates, and they took me seriously. Three days ago, they would have laughed or ignored me, or at the very least teased me for acting like an authority figure. A lot has changed. I’m not sure if that’s good.
I lead the way into the shack, which turns out to be nothing but a sort of foyer. The rubber welcome mat reads BLESS THIS MESS. Against the left wall is a stand-up shower. Against the right is a rack of dive masks, tanks, fins and spearguns. A security camera peers down at us from the ceiling. At the back of the room, a tunnel has been bored straight through the volcanic rock, leading into the heart of the mountain.
I glimpse Barsanti’s silhouette up ahead in the gloom. His voice echoes back to us. ‘I have turned off the lasers, so they should not cut you in half! Please, come!’
At Ester’s side, Top sniffs the air. He doesn’t look worried – more like he’s hoping for some of that bread. Top is usually a pretty good judge of danger. I forge onward, following the scent of garlic butter.
After about a hundred feet, the corridor opens into a large rectangular space like an artist’s loft. More corridors branch off in different directions. How big is this place?
The ceiling is lined with ventilation ducts and big industrial light fixtures. The polished stone floor glistens like melted chocolate. Worktables overflow with bits of disassembled alt-tech.
In the left corner, a living-room area has been set up. Two cushy sofas make an L around a coffee table. A tyre swing hangs from the ceiling. （Why?） A jumbo television, attached to half a dozen gaming consoles, is playing what looks like a cooking show. Stacks of Blu-rays are piled next to the screen. I guess the island doesn’t get satellite or streaming services.
In the right corner of the room, a chandelier made of abalone shards glitters above a long metal dining table. Sitting alone at the far end is a diminutive woman with a magnificent mass of braided grey hair like a heap of barbed wire.
She’s cross-legged and barefoot. Her thick steel-rimmed glasses glint in the light of her laptop computer. Steel bangles decorate her forearms. Her black leggings and yoga top don’t look so much like athleisure wear as a diabolical-acrobat costume.
She gives Barsanti a guarded glance, as if she’s ready to press a very dangerous button on her laptop. ‘Should I vaporize them?’
‘No, no, they’re friendly.’ Barsanti holds up his bread pan. ‘I must check the oven. Jupiter will kill me.’
‘Fine.’ The woman waves him away. She looks a bit disappointed.
Barsanti smiles at me. ‘This is Ophelia, mia moglie. Please, make yourselves at home.’
He hurries off down one of the side corridors.
Ophelia rises. She is decidedly not tall. She pads over to us like the Steel Ninja Leprechaun of Death. She appears ready to say something – perhaps an explanation of how she will incinerate us if we misbehave – when our Orca team arrives with Dr Hewett’s stretcher.
Ophelia scowls at our comatose patient. After three days in the sickbay, he looks terrible. He smells even worse.
‘Theodosius, you idiot,’ Ophelia grumbles. She snaps her fingers at the Orcas. ‘Come. No time to waste.’
We all start to follow, but Ophelia clicks her tongue. ‘Just the medics, thank you. The rest of you, wait here.’
Off they go down another corridor. Nelinha starts to drift towards one of the worktables until Ophelia yells back, ‘TOUCH NOTHING.’
The rest of us stand there uneasily, looking at one another like, Well, here we are. Now what?
‘Make yourself at home!’ Nelinha says, mimicking Luca Barsanti. Then she switches to Ophelia’s voice: ‘But touch nothing!’
Robbie Barr sneezes. ‘Well, she didn’t say we couldn’t look. I’m going to check out those game consoles.’
‘Me, too,’ Kay Ramsay says. ‘Whoa, is that a Nintendo 64?’
Gem gestures at his fellow Sharks. They fan out to examine the room. Nelinha and Meadow Newman conduct a purely visual inspection of the disassembled gadgets on the nearest table.
Halimah sidles up to me. ‘Cad a cheapann tú?’
The other Dolphins gather around.
‘I’m not sure,’ I answer, also in Irish, though I doubt any language is safe, given the level of coding we had to do just to get in the front door. ‘They seem friendly enough. If they were with Land Institute …’
I let that thought drift away unanchored. How would we know if we had walked into a trap? I’m starting to wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake bringing us here …