The Adventures of Anna Atom. Elizabeth Wasserman
said: “To dinner, after you’ve given your homework the necessary attention.”
“It is Friday, Ton! I can do my homework tomorrow!”
She thought of taking a quick swim to her slug garden, but it was much later than their usual return time from school. It was almost dark, and the memory of her encounter with the hammerhead the previous day made eating supper a more attractive choice.
And supper could be the perfect time to chat to her dad because her mom didn’t join them – she was too busy dealing with the ecology of the earth. Instead, Ton took some sandwiches and a thermos of coffee down to Sabatina’s laboratory.
Pip was malfunctioning in some way – he was sitting quietly in his chair. Anna didn’t mind this much – five-year-old brothers could be such a pain, and even more so if they happened to be biotrons. But Ton was concerned and whisked him off to his room for a check-up.
Pip’s room was decorated in baby blue. There were pictures of sharks and stingrays on the walls and curtains, and a small computer terminal in the corner. This was Pip’s docking station.
As a biotron, Pip had small neuro-batteries that had to be recharged every few months, and sophisticated sensors regularly checked his electromagnetic circuits. Sometimes he required a software update. The biological part of his body worked in the usual way: he had to eat and, like most boys, he liked sweet things. He could also breathe, but could go without oxygen for hours. He was an amazing swimmer, and Anna envied him because he didn’t need an aquabreather and his eyes could see perfectly underwater without waterspecs. In fact, Anna hated taking him along on her underwater swims – the sea was a dangerous place for reckless little boys, biotron or not, and he was impossible to watch. She’d often wished that he’d come with a remote control. One with an “off” switch!
Happy to be left alone at the dinner table, Anna waited anxiously for her dad’s face to appear. But the screen above the table remained dark.
Eventually Ton reappeared, announcing that Pip was sleeping. Then he served a desert of coconut mousse. Anna sat there playing with her spoon until it was clear that her dad was not going to be contacting them that night.
“Goodnight, Ton,” Anna sighed, rising from the table. She walked out on the veranda. The moon was dark and billions of twinkling stars appeared even brighter than usual. Down below, the sea was still invisible in the darkness, and she could hear the faint sigh of small waves hugging the bay.
As Anna turned to go back inside, she noticed that the light of Pip’s room was still on. She tiptoed quietly up to his room, and peered around the door. Ton was sitting at Pip’s bedside, watching him anxiously. Her little bionic brother was connected to his docking station by a wire plugged into the back of his head. There were graphs and figures displayed on a screen next to him, but Anna couldn’t make them out.
Pip appeared to be sleeping, but a rash of strange blue spots covered his tummy and chest. There were even a few bright spots on his forehead.
Anna felt vaguely concerned, but she was sure that Ton would be able to sort him out. Meanwhile, she needed to sort out the riddle.
Maybe Max had some answers.
Maybe he could help her.
Chapter 11
MR AMSTERDAM MEDDLES SOME MORE
It seemed as if Mr Amsterdam was going to burst into tears at any moment. His holographic image once again hovered in front of Professor Sabatina’s chair.
“Impossible! This cannot be happening!” His face had turned an even paler shade of grey. “You should have acted sooner, Sabatina. You should have realised yesterday what was going on. If what you say is true, every moment brings us closer to disaster!”
Sabatina glared at him, wishing she could throw something at him, but knowing it would simply pass through thin air – the real Mr Amsterdam was sitting thousands of kilometres away, safely out of reach.
“It’s true that time is of the essence, Mr Amsterdam,” she said, “which is why I’m asking you to let me and Max work through the problem in peace. We are making progress.”
“Progress? What progress? This curtain of red algae that you can so clearly see on the Environator is smothering all life in the Pacific. The dead fish washing up on the west coast of America are causing such a stink that the American president has just called me – personally! – to demand action. You can be sure that headlines will soon be announcing an international emergency!
“And for good reason,” Sabatina said. “Max reckons that the storm currently raging in Mexico is a direct effect of the algae bloom. The change in biological activity in the ocean has affected the atmosphere above it, causing a high-pressure system that is currently on the move.”
She pointed to the holograph image of the earth, where angry clouds swirled over both North and South America.
“We now know how the bloom was caused,” Sabatina continued. “I suspect it was an act of sabotage – environmental terrorism. The damage originated from an artificial acoustic wave signal generated from the bottom of the sea, right over there!” She pointed to a flashing red dot that marked the place where the Environator had first detected the strange waves. “Max established that the strange waves we detected yesterday exactly match the frequency that will stimulate the growth of algae.”
“Nonsense!” Mister Amsterdam proclaimed. “Quite frankly, that sounds like scientific gibberish.”
“Let me show you.” Sabatina rose and walked to a different section of her laboratory. The semi-transparent holographic image of Mr Amsterdam floated behind her like a grumpy old ghost.
The professor sat down in front of a selection of bright fluorescent light-illuminated beakers and test tubes and a shelf of intricate electronic equipment. She adjusted her glasses and lifted one of the larger test tubes to the light. She inserted the tube into a clamp of one of the instruments, adjusted a dial, and flicked a switch.
“This test tube is filled with sea water with a small amount of algae. I am now bombarding it with a sound wave, inaudible to our ears, but at the same wave frequency that we detected in the South Pacific. Look what happens!’
The machine emitted a soft beep, like a microwave that has just finished heating a meal. Sabatina took out the test tube and held it to the light.
It looked exactly like it did before.
Mr Amsterdam snorted. “Were you really expecting me to believe you can make algae grow by playing some music?”
Sabatina was also losing her patience, and silently cursed the technology that allowed her boss to pop up in her laboratory whenever he wished.
“Professor Sabatina, you are wasting my valuable time. We have no option but to allow the military to proceed with their solution. They’ll spray the whole of the Pacific Ocean with weedkiller. Much more sensible.”
Sabatina almost fell backwards from her chair. “Weedkiller! Have you all gone completely mad? That would be a disaster!”
“You leave us no choice! This has already gone too far. It’s turning into a natural disaster worse than any we have known.”
“Natural disaster?” Sabatina exclaimed. “Nonsense! This disaster is as man-made as the experiment I am showing you now!” She pushed the test tube right under Mr Amsterdam’s holographic nose.
The water in the test tube was transparent no longer. Instead, it had turned into a murky red mass of growing algae.
Mr Amsterdam gasped like a landed fish.
“Give me a chance,” Sabatina pleaded. “Max and I can find a better solution, I’m sure. One that won’t kill off all oceanic life