Lisa POV

It never gets easier, talking about what happened to Harding-Pencroft

When I explain how my brother died, I feel like I'm collecting ashes from his funeral pyre, clawing through the hot cinders of his life with my bare hands.

Jisoo and Jennie sit on either side of me. Roseanne, still quietly sniffling, sits on Jennie's right. I don't know if Roseanne is crying because of Dr. Hewett's condition, or the loss of the school, or the scary new place and new people she is having to deal with. All are solid reasons.

As usual, the other two prefects should be in on this conversation, but they seem content to let Rosie and Jennie be their stand-ins. Yuna remains in the sick bay, tending to Dr. Hewett. Moonbyul, bless her, is playing aunt to everybody. She's herding the rest of the crew around, making sure they don't get zapped by lasers or mechanical dragonflies as they settle into the base.

When I'm done with my story, Seulgi and Irene give each other a long look. They don't seem surprised by anything I've told them. Their expressions convey grim vindication, as if they've been fearing this news for years. 

Irene adjusts her steel-rimmed glasses. She sets her elbows on the table and laces her fingers, letting her bracelet cascade down her forearm. ' I'm so sorry. You deserved better from us.' 

Her tone surprises me almost as much as her apology. She sounds angry and bitter, which makes me realize how much of those emotions I've been holding inside for the past three days. I swallow back the taste of bile. I guess it's a welcome change from debilitating sorrow.

'What did we deserve?' Jisoo asks. She sounds like she's about to explode, which can never be good. 'Maybe the truth?' 

Seulgi frowns into her cup of espresso. ' Certainly. The truth...but it's not that simple my dear.'

'Why not?' I demand. 'It seems pretty simple to me. Why did Taehyung have to keep silent about what he knew? Why did Roseanne have to live with her secrets?' 

Roseanne blushes, which causes me to snap out of my funk. I realize maybe I should not have put her on the spot like that, which makes me scowl even harder at Irene. 'And do not tell me the school was trying to protect us.'

Irene shakes her head. 'No, Lisa. The school was trying to protect itself.' 

'And you went along with it.' Jisoo scowls.

Jennie clears her throat, a subtle warning that our tone is getting aggressive. Roseanne lightly touched both of our wrists. I'm not sure why I'm so angry at Seulgi and Irene. I barely know them. They've been kind to us so far, aside from the threats of annihilation.

With a sigh, Irene dips a biscotti in her espresso. 'When your parents died ... Seulgi and I were here with them. We were part of their team.'

I look down at my own coffee and cookie. I want to smash the biscotti into a million pieces, but I'm pretty sure Jupiter baked it from scratch and I don't want to offend the orangutan.

'What happened?' Jisoo manages to ask. Her tone is fragile, a stark contrast to her tone a minute ago.

Seulgi's jaw muscles ripple under her skin. 'The truth? We are still not sure. We should have been more careful. You understand, after four generations of Dakkars searching, your father finally found this place. Your mother and he were determined to move forward.' 

'You mean to explore the wreck of the sub,' Roseanne says.

Irene hesitates long enough for the coffee to soak halfway up her biscotti. 'We tried to urge caution. Seulgi did, mostly ... But this was like telling someone who had just found the Holy Grail not to drink from it. Your parents were sure they could handle the dive. And after ... after the accident ...'

Seulgi lowers her head. Jennie understands before I do. 'You blame yourselves,' she says. 'You were friends.'

Seulgi puts her hand on her wife's shoulder. 'The four of us graduated together from Harding Pencroft.' She turns to me. 'When Ha-Joon and Amy died, some of the faculty at HP wanted to bring you two and your brother here immediately ... for safekeeping. Theodosius Hewett was one of those.' 

'We did not agree,' Irene says. 'We thought it was too dangerous. It is still too dangerous. We wished you both to have more training, more years of life on the mainland before you had to face the legacy of Nemo. We didn't think Land Institute would ever risk such a brazen attack and put you two and Taehyung at risk. You were simply too important. But now that your brother ...' Irene's voice cracks. 'It seems we were wrong. I am so sorry.' 

My head buzzes, and it's not just from the caffeine.

 I try to imagine what it would have been like if Taehyung and I had spent the last two years on this island. I never would have met Jennie or Roseanne. I wouldn't be a Dolphin prefect. I would've had more time with Tae and Jisoo, but we would have spent it in this subterranean base, in the middle of nowhere, where our parents died.

I can't blame Seulgi and Irene for not wanting that. Still, a fist-size lump of anger burns in my chest. Jisoo and I weren't given the choice. If this base is our family's inheritance, if the alt-tech is ours, what right did Harding-Pencroft have to hide it from us? What right did Harding Pencroft have to hide Roseanne's inheritance from her? Why do they get to control our lives? 

I remember what Caleb South said about Harding-Pencroft keeping secrets: How many world problems could you cowards have solved if you just shared?

Irene seems to read my thoughts. 'You have no reason to trust us, but we will trust you. You two are the last of the Dakkars. Theodosius clearly thought you were capable, and you did manage to bring your crew safely to Lincoln Base.'

Seulgi gives her wife a troubled glance. 'Are you suggesting ...?'

'Yes,' Irene says. 'We will show Jisoo and Lisa everything. Let them decide.'

Jennie's chair creaks as she sits forward. 'What exactly is everything?'

She does a pretty good job keeping the excitement out of her voice. Still, like any good Shark, she is probably dreaming of shiny new weapons.

Seulgi's gaze stays on me. 'You understand that the alt-tech devices you have seen so far – the Leyden guns, the dynamic camouflage – are only pale imitations of Nemo's technology. Over the last century and a half, both HP and Land Institute have tried to re-create what Nemo did. We've had a few other successes: the microwave, fiber-optics, lasers, nuclear fission.

'The microwave?' Roseanne looks stunned. I can't imagine her surviving without the microwave oven in our rec room at HP. She does love her popcorn.

Irene musters a faint smile. 'Yes. One of Nemo's less dangerous inventions. By the late 1940s, we felt it was safe to leak that technology to the general public.'

'Hold on,' Jisoo says. 'Nuclear fission? You're telling us Captain Nemo had atomic bombs?'

Seulgi smirks. 'Of course not. He would never have created such crass, clumsy weapons. But he did pioneer nuclear physics. During World War II, Land Institute decided they could "improve" the world by leaking some of Nemo's knowledge to help with the Manhattan Project. They still maintain they did a good thing, even though the subsequent Cold War arms race came close to destroying the world half a dozen times.'

'Okay ...' Solar says slowly. 'But that tech also led to nuclear power, cancer treatments, and long-range space exploration, right? Tech can be good and bad.' 

Irene puts her hand over Seulgi's wrist as if she's afraid she might jump over the table and strangle Solar.

'My dear,' Seulgi says, 'every time an alt-tech advance is leaked to the rest of the world, it is incredibly destabilizing. Nuclear fission is just one example. Can you imagine if we told the world that Nemo knew the secret to cold fusion?' 

Jisoo takes a sharp breath. Roseanne's grip on me loosens in shock.

I'm not as much of a hard-science expert, but even I understand how big a deal that would be. Fission breaks apart heavy atoms to make energy, but it also creates a bunch of nasty radioactive waste. Fusion is the opposite. It combines atoms. It's the force that powers the sun. If humans could learn to harness that process at room temperature, 'cold' fusion, they could make unlimited energy and produce nothing but harmless gases for exhaust.

 'Why would you not share that information?' Roseanne asks. 'It would revolutionize the world.'

'Or destroy the world,' Irene counters. 'Imagine a world government monopolizing that power. Even worse, a corporation.' 

That sends a shiver down my back. 'You're saying the secret to cold fusion is here on this base.'

'That secret,' Seulgi agrees, 'and many others. But we cannot unlock them or study them, much less reproduce them, because Nemo keyed his masterpiece to his own family's blood – your blood.'

The ball of anger in my chest begins to cool and shrink, creating its own little cold-fusion reaction. 

'Nemo's masterpiece ...' Jisoo says. 'You don't mean the base. You mean the Nautilus.'

Seulgi and Irene remain silent.

I shake my head in disbelief. 'But it's a wreck.'

I think about photos I've seen from the resting place of the Titanic: a broken metal shell covered with rusticles, slowly crumbling to dust. And that ship went down something like fifty years after the Nautilus. 'There can't be much left. It was sitting on the bottom of the ocean for a century and a half.'

'No, my dear.' Seulgi sounds melancholy, like this news is even worse than the destruction of Harding-Pencroft. 'Your parents found the Nautilus intact. Tomorrow, we will introduce you.'

~~~~