Chapter 9: The Challenger
By the time we left my parents' house, Ben had already contacted a friend he knows that lives in the Keys and owns a diving equipment store (named Andrew). He said he would be happy to lend us all some, and would take us to the location we needed to be. We got there at around seven, and considering it was summer, it was still bright enough out for us to go ahead and dive. So we met up with Andrew, got diving gear on, headed out on his boat, and dove into the ocean.
Light had started to fade from the sky, and we still hadn't found a sign of anything. However, shortly before it became too dark to dive any longer, we found the Challenger. We began to investigate, looking for anything that could possibly be a clue. It was Abigail, though, who was the one who called saying she found something.
"What is it?" I asked through my regulator as we all swam over to Abigail.
"It's some sort of box," Abigail replied. "It has 'Danu Talis Chárti̱s' on it."
"And 'chárti̱s'," Hannah began, "means 'map' in Greek."
"So this is like an 'Atlantis map', right?" Riley asked.
"Exactly," Hannah replied.
"It has some markings on the bottom of it too," Abigail added. She flipped the box over to investigate.
"Yay, it's in English!" Riley exclaimed upon viewing the markings.
Abigail observed it some more, and then began to read, "'You have found the map, but to find the 'X' that marks the spot, find the crack in the memorial of nameless fallen soldiers, and inside you will find the key to the lock you seek.'"
"Ok," Ben began, "there is some sort of keys at the memorial of nameless fallen soldiers, and one will reveal the 'X', and one is one that we're obviously seeking." He looked at us and asked, "Do you know where this is leading?" We all shook our head, and Ben answered, "The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier."
"Oh crud," Riley replied.
"I know," Ben agreed. "It's one of the most guarded US monuments."
"True," Riley agreed, "but that's not why I said 'oh crud'." We gave him confused glances as Riley pointed upward and said, "It looks like we have company."
Sure enough, Riley was right. At first, we thought it was just Andrew. But as they got closer, we realized that there were more divers, and none of them were Andrew.
"Hello Ben," one of the divers greeted.
"Liam," Ben sneered.
"Nice to see you too Ben," Liam replied. "So, this is where the next clue is, huh?"
"How did you know that?" Riley asked.
"I have my ways," Liam said. "So, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. I want the next clue."
"No," Ben replied.
"Fine," Liam said.
Suddenly, two of his men grabbed Hannah, and they all began to swim toward the surface. I immediately began to swim after them, but Liam pulled out a knife, and before I could dart out of the way, he slashed the tubes connecting my regulator to my air tank. Being fifty feet below the surface of the water, and my source of air cut off, I immediately began to shoot for the surface. I held my breath the best I could, knowing that water getting into my lungs would make things worse. Still thirty feet from air, black spots began to invade my vision, and I passed out before I could reach the surface.