Chapter 7: All Secrets Revealed

The league followed Nemo into a huge room with a long table and a record player at the opposite end. He pointed to a huge silver ball with two lights on it and told them what they meant.

"That is us," he said of one light. "That is the Nautiloid. We will be upon them soon."

They all took places around the table as Nemo pulled out a map and laid it across its surface and Rebecca held Jekyll's hand, making him worry.

"Are you alright?" he whispered. She looked up at him and smiled weakly.

"I'm fine," she said then looked at Mina. "It's Mina I'm worried about."

There was suddenly a high-pitched electronic twittering that sounded through the room. Everyone looked around then at Nemo.

"It's nothing of mine," he assured them. Rebecca frowned in worry at Jekyll as he held his ear.

"My hearing is sensitive," he whispered to her, and she nodded, but still had a worried look in her eyes. One of Nemo's men ran in holding something and the noise stopped.

"Captain," he called. "The noise came from this."

"A recording disc?" Nemo wondered, taking the object from the man. He removed the disc from its cover, placed it in the player and set the needle on the record.

"Ready, Professor?" a woman's voice asked. "Recording."

"Gentlemen," a familiar voice began. "If you're hearing this, then every step leading up to it has gone as planned," M continued.

"And I have been true to the goals set to me," another familiar voice came from the record. "Yes, it's me. Dorian."

Rebecca looked at Mina who glared at the record with a look that would have killed Dorian if he were standing in its place.

"As you know by now I'm no loyal son of the empire. In fact, my loyalty to Mr. M comes in no small part from his possession of something I hold very dear to my heart. Something I would anything to regain."

Rebecca frowned when Jekyll suddenly winced, and looked at him worriedly again.

"Are you alright?" she whispered and he smiled down at her.

"My ears hurt," he said. "It's nothing."

Rebecca however was doubtful of that.

"Everything so far has been misdirection," M resumed. "Sanderson Reed, the assassins in Kenya your recruitment and mission, the secret conference---a myth. Even the league itself. There is no league. There never was. It was a ruse to get me closer to my goals."

"He likes the sound of his own voice, doesn't he?" Sawyer muttered.

"You see, I want you," M continued. "Each of you. Even tired old Quatermain, because he'll capture Hyde where all others have failed."

Rebecca looked at Jekyll in sorrow, and wrapped her arms around his arm.

"The question is why. Why all this masque and mystery? Because in the war to come, I intend to wield the greatest weapon of all---the power of the league itself."

"Turn it off, Henry," Hyde groaned at Jekyll in a reflection in a mirror. "Please, turn it off." Jekyll looked at the image in confusion, walking away from Rebecca making her frown in confusion.

"To that end," M continued. "I set my wolf among you sheep."

"Growl," Dorian said.

"Who'll gain your trust and quietly lead you astray."

"And all the while I'll collect you," Dorian explained. "The parts of you I need. Nemo's science---"

"Magnesium phosphorus," Mina breathed, and Rebecca remembered the powder Nemo found then realized Dorian must have taken a picture, seeing as that's what you would use to create a flash.

"Skinner's skin sample," Dorian went on. "Jekyll's potion. Mina's blood, and Beck's glove material sample."

Jekyll looked from the record to Rebecca who was looking at her gloves in horror.

"The hole!" she breathed. "When he kissed me. That was why he held my hands behind my back!" She looked at Jekyll with tears in her eyes.

"He's stolen us," he growled. "And we let him."

"If you fail to save Venice," M went on. "Then I get my war. If you succeed, well, it's a small price to pay for Gray to go about his tasks. War will come sooner or later. As inevitable as summer into autumn. Now some of you---Perhaps Quatermain, if he isn't dead---will pause to ask why I'm letting you know all this. What fool reveals his stratagem before the game is over?"

Rebecca stared at Jekyll in confusion as he stepped closer to the mirror he had been staring at this whole time.

"It is over. For you. Because my voice isn't the only sound being made. While I've rambled on, a secondary layer of inaudible sound, higher than humans can hear audible to dogs, lower animals, had been heard by crystal sensors dotted about your vessel."

"Sensors attached to bombs," Dorian explained. "Bomb voyage."

Nemo threw the record player to the ground, breaking it, but it was too late. Rebecca looked at Jekyll with more fear in her eyes than she was ready to admit, and a tear streamed down her cheek as he looked back at her.

There was an explosion that rattled the ship, and they all fell to the floor. Two more followed, and they all tried getting to their feet as the ship began sinking. They all scrambled to the helm room, and Nemo shoved one of the men away from the wheel.

"Out of the way!" he shouted, taking the helm.

"We have to surface!" Quatermain shouted.

"We're taking in too much water!" Nemo said. "The controls are not responding!"

"Primary engine room almost full!" one of his men reported. "Aft bulkhead is open! Pump valves are jammed!"

"Seal it off!" Nemo ordered.

"But there are men in there, Captain!"

"For the greater good we must seal it!"

Jekyll clasped his hands over his ears, and water began coming into the room. Rebecca clutched his arm as she almost slipped on the water. Jekyll suddenly lost his footing, and they both went sliding into some pipes on the other side of the room, letting out painful grunts as they landed. Jekyll looked at his reflection in a piece of glass next to him.

"We can do it, Henry!" Hyde said.

"What are you talking about?!" Jekyll shouted, making Rebecca look at him.

"You know we can do it. Together," Hyde insisted. Jekyll looked around at the other league members in their dire situation, and made a decision.

"Henry?" Rebecca called, and he looked at her. They were both soaking wet, and yet, he still thought she looked beautiful. He pulled her toward him and left a passionate kiss on her lips then locked her gaze with his.

"I'll be right back," he said then scrambled across the room toward the exit, Rebecca following behind. "Wait!" He shoved a man away from sealing the hatch. "Don't close it!" He began to open it again.

"What are you doing?!" a man asked and Rebecca watched him in more confusion then she had ever had.

"It's our last chance!" Jekyll insisted, shoving the man away from him.

"But I have orders to close it!" Jekyll pulled the hatch open then turned to the man.

"Then close it!" he shouted and jumped into the water. The men slammed the door shut behind him.

"Seal it off!"

"No!" Rebecca screamed, and ran at the hatch. "Henry!"

"Get her away!" one of the men shouted, and another man pulled her away as she kicked and screamed while they sealed the hatch.

"Hand her to me!" she heard Mina tell the man.

"No! Henry! He went back! I have to help him!" Rebecca kept screaming and kicking. Mina threw her arm around her friend's waist and pulled her back into the room, kicking and screaming the whole way.

"Beck! Stop it!" Mina pleaded. They both fell to the floor as the ship suddenly leveled out, and Rebecca sat up and looked at all of them as they stood up and everything calmed down.

"He did it," she smiled, breathlessly. "He saved us!"


Rebecca picked up a few papers from the floor as Sawyer and Quatermain put the table back into place. She crossed the threshold of the door and looked down the hall to see Jekyll walking back into the room. She ran to him and threw her arms around him as everyone else gave their thanks with their eyes and Quatermain gave him a thumbs-up.

"Let's not make a saint out a sinner," he requested. "Next time he may not be so helpful."

Rebecca detached herself from him and let him help clean up.

"Can we, uh, still follow Gray?"

"Well, we were the faster, but now we're the tortoise to his hare," Quatermain replied as they both went to pick up a chair.

"So we're done," Jekyll assumed.

"No," Sawyer corrected. "We're alive. If M has any ideas to the contrary that gives us an edge."

"We're getting a signal," one of Nemo's men told his captain, barging in. The league followed the man into a small room where another man was listening into a pair of earphones.

"Morse code," Quatermain explained.

"What's it say?" Mina asked.

"'Hello, my freaky darlings'," the man replied.

"Skinner?" Rebecca smiled in surprise.

"Uh, 'Hiding on board little fish with Gray and M'," the man continued. "'On way to base, east by northeast. Follow my lead."