Читать книгу The Adventures of Anna Atom - Elizabeth Wasserman - Страница 20

Chapter 16

THE SUBMARINE EXPLORER

Anna collected two bottles of water, a large chocolate bar and a box of cookies, and stuffed them into a satchel – she was not going on any adventure without food! She dressed in her purple swimming costume and collected her swimfins, waterspecs and aquabreather – just what she’d take if she was on her way to the beach for a picnic and a swim.

Mutt bounced merrily behind her as she walked down the footbath to the beach. If her mother emerged from her laboratory now, Anna decided, she would tell her everything – maybe she’d be equally excited about the prospect of finding a perfectly preserved pirate’s ship, and would join Anna’s expedition. In her heart, that is what Anna was hoping for. She purposefully lingered in the little hut above the laboratory, and even stamped her feet on its wooden floor planks and coughed as if something was stuck in her throat.

But Sabatina didn’t appear.

Finally, with a sigh, Anna opened the wooden hatch that concealed the steps down to the cavern where the Submarine Explorer and the Jetcopter were kept.

The deep circular cavern was carved out of the pink granite from which the island was formed. A small colony of bats fluttered as Anna entered, but quickly settled again. The air was damp, and a few fluorescent light bulbs mounted against the walls shimmered with a pale-green glow. Anna’s eyes adapted quickly to the gloom. To the side of the small artificial lake of dark water, the smooth shape of the Jetcopter loomed, its wingblades drooping. An oval object bobbed next to a concrete jetty: the Submarine Explorer.

The small egg-shaped submarine was made of the same semi-transparent material as the admiral’s Space Ark: tougher than steel. Two water-jet engines powered it and it could seat two people comfortably, with extra space for a bit of luggage. Or perhaps a Mutt.

Anna walked towards a control panel next to the jetty and pressed a lever. Somewhere below her feet, something started to hum. Below the surface of the lake, a gate to the sea slid open, and the water began to glow as light from the bright water outside filtered upwards.

“Heel, Mutt!” Anna commanded. The little dog was programmed to follow her anyway, but she liked to sound as if she was in charge of him.

She ran down the jetty and opened the transparent hatch on top of the submarine’s roof. She lowered herself down into the cabin, and was just in time to catch Mutt as he tumbled in after her, barking furiously.

“Quiet, Mutt!” Anna commanded. “Sit!”

Mutt sat down on the seat next to her, his tail wagging and his rubber tongue drooping from his muzzle. Anna looked at him. She knew that Mutt was just a robot, but she loved him. She remembered the story of Pinocchio that her father had once read to her, and she often wondered what it would be like if Mutt turned into a real dog.

The controls of the small submarine were simple. A steering stick determined direction: left, right, up or down. A thumb-controlled button set the speed. The harder you pressed down, the faster you could go. (When Anna had first attempted to drive the Sub, she’d been nervous and so they’d shot through the water like a tuna fish.) There were many other buttons on the glowing dashboard. They controlled searchlights, cameras, electronic arms with drills, and buckets in which samples could be collected.

All of this was confusing, but Anna knew she could simply ask Max if she needed help with anything. Still, she felt nervous as she strapped herself into the driver’s seat. Maybe she should wait … It would be so much nicer if she were sitting next to her clever mother or the ingenious Ton.

But she had Mutt, perched on the seat beside her, his tail still wagging and his eye lenses glowing brightly.

Anna took the dagger out of her satchel and put it on her lap. Adventure versus a boring Saturday with everybody busy with their own stuff?

She pressed the “start” button.

Max’s voice immediately filled the small cabin.

“Good morning, Miss Anna! I did calculates the odds of a young human female staying at home when adventure is beckonings, and I knew you would comes!”

Anna smiled. “Morning, Max. Our mission today is to find the Chivonne, and uncover her treasures. I hope you are not too busy to help me?”

“Of course not, Miss Anna. I can multitasks! At this moment I is also helps Ton monitors Pip’s mumpskins, and helps your mother saves the world. But I has plenty of terabytes left to plays with Anna. No problem!”

“This is no game, Max!” Anna said, exasperated. Would anybody ever take her seriously? “You’re not going to tell anyone about our trip, right?”

“I has no instructions to do so. You wants me to tells Professor Sabatina?”

Artificial intelligence acts very differently from biological life forms, Anna remembered. As clever as Max was, he couldn’t really think for himself, and the complexities of human relationships were something he didn’t understand.

“No thanks, Max. I wouldn’t want to bother her while she’s busy saving the world. Let’s just go!”

Anna pressed the steering stick forward and down. Gliding smoothly, the little submarine pushed its nose into the dark water. When they were completely submerged, Anna made a slick turn towards the light streaming through the ocean gate.

Like a silver bubble, the Submarine Explorer gracefully escaped the confines of the cavern and cruised out into the open sea.