It was the perfect shape and size, like a soccer ball cut in half.
"Hey, Ren," she cried.
"Ren!"
His immersion blinker sputtered to a halt, the eye-screen glaze slipping from his face.
"Moggle's down there!"
He stretched his arms, swinging his legs over the side of his hoverboard. "Great. Time for stage two, which is much more kick."
"Good. I was kind of getting bored."
He smiled. "Believe me, you won't find this boring."
Stage two turned out to involve a tank of compressed helium the size of a fire extinguisher, with a limp weather balloon hanging from its nozzle.
Aya stared at the contraption. "I don't get it."
Ren tossed her the tank, and Aya grunted under its weight. Her board dipped for a moment before the lifters compensated, smacking flat against the water.
"Feel how heavy that is?" he said.
"Um, yes." Water trickled across the board's riding surface, getting her grippy shoes wet.
"That's to solve your floating problem," he explained.
"I have a floating problem?"
"Yes, Aya-chan: Like most people, you float," he said. "It's all that pesky air in your lungs. That tank's heavy enough to carry you straight to the bottom."
She blinked. "Ren, wait a second I like my floating problem. I like the air in my lungs! I'm not going down there!"
He laughed. "How else are you going to get Moggle?"
"I don't know," she said. "I thought maybe you'd make some sort of little submarine?"
"Like I don't have better things to spend my merits on?" He pointed at the helium tank. "There's a magnet on the bottom. Just balance the tank upright on top of Moggle, and it should stick."
"But how do I get back up? This thing weighs a ton!"
"That's the clever part: Just turn this." He drifted closer and gave a valve on the tank a turn. It hissed for a second before he twisted it back. "The balloon fills up, and that carries you and Moggle back to the surface! Pretty kick, huh?"
"Okay. But I can't breathe helium. Where's my underwater mask?" She looked at the open cargo compartment on his hoverboard.
"Just hold your breath."
"Hold my breath?"
Aya cried. "That's your awesome tech-head solution?"
Ren rolled his eyes. "The bottom's only five or six meters downlike the deep end of a high-diving pool."
"Oh, thanks for bringing up high-diving, Ren. My favorite panic-making activity." She frowned.
"And it's cold down there!"
"Good." He nodded. "Maybe next time you'll think about that before you lose your hovercam."
Aya stared at Ren, realizing that Hiro must have put him up to this. If the two of them only knew how kick this story was, they'd understand why sacrificing Moggle had been worth it. But she couldn't explain yet, not until she found out what was hidden in that mountain.
"Fine." She clutched the helium tank closer to herself, glaring down into the luminous water until she spotted Moggle again. "Anything else I need to know?"
He smiled. "Just be careful, Aya-chan."
"Whatever."
She sucked in a deep breath and jumped.
The splash rumbled in her ears for a moment, but the weight of the tank carried her swiftly through the turbulence to the still waters deeper down. The hoverlamps glowed through her closed eyelids, and it was freezing cold.
Her feet bumped against the reservoir floor, grippy shoes skidding for a moment on loose dirt.
The heavy tank threatened to drag Aya to her knees, but she managed to stay upright.
She opened her eyes Rotten leaves and twigs swirled around her head, a mini whirlwind thrown up by her landing.
Depth had turned the light dull green, and spinning shadows danced across the reservoir floor.
A flash caught her eyeone of the shiny stickers on Moggle's cover, shimmering in the lamplight like the eye of some bottom-dwelling beast.
She walked in slow motion toward the hovercam, feet skidding on the slippery bricks. Every step stirred up whirligigs of silt and slime, dark clouds billowing around her. Moggle almost disappeared among them.
But there was no time to let the muck settle. Her heart was beginning to hammer against her rib cage, demanding more oxygen, and her fingers and toes were going numb in the freezing cold. The pressure of the water was dizzy-making, like two hands squeezed around her head.
Squinting through the murk, she maneuvered the helium tank over Moggle and let it drop. The clank carried straight to Aya's eardrums, a certain and final sound.
She fumbled for the nozzle of the air tank, lungs screaming, heart pounding, but her frozen fingers managed to give it a twist. A rumbling filled the water, and the weather balloon began to expand.
Aya let go and pushed away, shooting up from the reservoir floor. She kicked hard, propelling herself toward the blinding suns of the hoverlamps.
With one last glance down, she saw the balloon growing, straining against the tank's weight as it gained buoyancy. Slowly the whole contraption began to rise.
Aya broke the surface gasping, sucking in welcome lungfuls of air.
"You okay?" Ren was kneeling on his hoverboard.