’VE HOT-WIRED quite a few cars and driven all kinds of weird vehicles, like a school bus and a tank. Here are a couple of tips: school buses do not corner well, and tanks smell like old gym socks. I’d never stolen aTriton, but I had watched the crewman steer it around, and I thought I could do it. No one even tried to stop Gazzy and me as we raced back down the corridor and entered the pressure chamber.

TheTriton was sitting there waiting for us.

“So cool!” Gazzy said. “Did you jack a key?”

I grinned. “No key. Just a push button.”

Gazzy took his metal box and put it on the floor right next to one of theTriton ’s arms, then we scrambled up to the dome and opened the hatch. We dropped down into the seats, and I started flicking switches, hoping I was doing it in the right order. I’d only seen it done once. Gazzy sealed the hatch, and all the panels lit up inside. He looked thrilled, but I wasn’t any happier about this than I was the first time.

Then it hit me, amid all the flashing lights and alarms and the banging sounds that were getting louder: a realization that made my blood run cold and my hand freeze into a claw on the single joystick that operated the sub.

I was locked in a very small airtight container… withthe Gasman .

I’m not huge with religion, but right then I started praying to every deity I’d ever heard of.Please do not

let Gazzy have one of his episodes in here. Please .

The Voice suddenly chimed in:Get a move on, Max .

Right, right. Inside the sub, I grabbed the remote that would open the chamber doors, dropping us out into the ocean.

“Gaz, you have the arm operators right there,” I said, pointing. Dr. Akana had used them to gather small samples of water. “Pick up your metal box.”

Gazzy caught on to the simple hand controls and quickly swept up the box with the claw. Then I hit my remote. Suddenly the doors beneath us opened, and theTriton slid clumsily into the ocean as I tried to keep us level.

It was way dark, and I peered out through the Plexiglas bubble, not wanting to turn on the headlights. Stealth was the answer here, and we would be as stealthy as a bright yellow, three-ton, bubble-trailing baby sub could be.

“I can’t tell where the noise is coming from,” said Gazzy. “We’ll have to check the whole sub.”

I nodded, jerkily moving us forward.

“Maybe I should drive,” Gazzy offered.

“Shut up,” I said, concentrating. We started sinking fast, and I frantically worked the lever to make us rise up and stabilize. I hated this. I hated it with a whole new kind of hate that I should probably have reserved for Mr. Chu.

Sweat broke out on my forehead, and my hand started cramping up from clutching the joystick too tightly. But I got us out from under theMinnesota, and we started trailing along its side toward the back.

Gazzy practiced maneuvering the arms, and he accidentally whacked a big grouper in the side of its head. It darted off, while he muttered, “Sorry, sorry!”

“Do you see anything?” I asked.

“You mean, besides the sub the size of a football stadium? And a bunch of fish? Nope.”

I was getting better at driving, and we putt-putted along-side the sub. What was going on in there? Had the others made it to the front? Were they getting ready to evacuate?

Tap, tap!I almost screamed when something knocked on the Plexiglas above our heads. If the dumb-bots got a hold of theTriton …

Angel’s smiling face looked down at us. My eyes almost popped out of my head. She had done this again, after I’d lectured her the first time! I started yelling at her, but she ignored me, instead urgently pointing toward the aft of theMinnesota.

I pushed the joystick forward and in another couple seconds, saw what she was warning me about: eight M-Geeks, clinging to the side of the big sub. One was wielding an underwater welding torch, and it was attempting to cut through the sub’s hull.

“Angel! Get behind us! Hide!” I yelled as loud as I could, whichof course caused her to immediately let go of us and swim directlytoward the M-Geeks.

I flicked on the headlights and again shoved the joystick forward, trying to increase our speed. I was forming a vague plan of having one of theTriton ’s arms grab Angel somehow, but in another two seconds Angel had gotten close enough to the M-Geeks to actually tap on one’s head.

Immediately, all of them stopped working and swiveled to look at her. In the next instant, they had quickly grouped around her, and I saw they had little motors keeping them stable in the water.

“Do you see her?” I asked Gazzy tensely.

“Uh-uh.” His voice sounded choked. “They’re surrounding her. And I can’t use my bomb.”

I moved forward cautiously. The eight M-Geeks were a cluster of metal, tools, and weapons, shining brightly in my headlights. And there was no sign of Angel anywhere.