A Small Spark

Stephen

“I’ve never been on a plane before,” Julie said to Stephen as they sat in their seats on the plane, awaiting take off. Stephen put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. He placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head. Mason, who sat beside Stephen, rolled his eyes.

Stephen had known Julie and Mason all his life. Their friendship and devotion to one another was unparalleled. It took all the courage Stephen possessed to ask Julie out during their ninth grade year. They had been together ever since. Still, after all this time, Mason was frequently annoyed by the sight of affection between Stephen and Julie.

“Just breathe,” he said to her, ignoring him.

“Are you nervous?” she asked, lowering her voice so that only Stephen could hear.

“I’ve been on a plane before, Jules,” Stephen replied. He knew what she really meant, he just wasn’t sure he wanted to have thatconversation.

“I mean about finding Atlantis and everything.” Stephen said nothing, letting his silence be the answer. Julie pressed on, not dissuaded by the silence. “It’ll be okay, you know.”

“Yeah, Jules, I know.” She stared at him for a moment before laying her head on his shoulder. Stephen wasn’t fooled into believing that this was the end of the conversation. He’d known her too long for that.

“It’s just that you’ve been looking for so long.” Stephen really didn’t need her to remind him. He’d wanted this all his life and now that dream was within his grasp.

The plane started to move with a jolt. Julie clung to Stephen’s arm, her eyes trained on the world outside the plane. The plane climbed into the air. Once she grew accustomed to the sensation, she turned back to Stephen. “Do you think you have any siblings?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Stephen mumbled. If we even find Atlantis, he thought ot himself. Julie took this answer as adequate and let the conversation die.

While Julie had brought numerous reading materials for the flight, Stephen decided the best way to pass the time was through sleep. It was a long way to Greece, might as well use this time productively.

When they landed in Greece, they were greeted by a Hawk Industries employee, who ushered them to a nice, fancy hotel. A hotel that Stephen would have never been able to afford if he had taken this trip alone. Thankfully, Mason Hawthorne was his best friend.

The three friends had a few hours to themselves before they would have to set out the next morning. They spent the rest of their time walking around the various crowded streets, buying a few souvenirs here and there.

Unfortunately, they were not there for sight-seeing. They were there for the trip to the Lost City of Atlantis. The crew of the submarine that would be taking them to the coordinates they stole from Anderson Laboratories, however, did not know of their alternative motive.

Hawk Industries was funding the exploration of a team of marine biologists in the Ionian Sea. The team was looking for some sort of fish that had never been identified before. Stephen, Julie, and Mason would be joining this expedition.

Mason had inherited Hawk Industries when his father had died the year before. He did not talk much about it, but Stephen knew he hated owning that company. It reminded him too much of his father. Hawk Industries, it should be noted, was one of the largest corporations in North America. For a while, Stephen used to tease Mason that he was like Tony Stark, inheriting a company of that magnitude. Their time at school proved that Mason did not have the mind component of Stark, so Stephen opted for calling him Oliver Queen. Mason was just content to the be thought of as a hero.

The next morning, they met with crew of the submarine. The crew must have heard that their boss was coming with them because they all stood at attention when the three friends walked by.

The submarine was called the Poseidonafter the Greek god. It was captained by a tall man, the tallest man on the entire crew. He had a dark look about him and reminded Stephen vaguely of the pirate from Once Upon a Time, which Stephen had only wanted because Julie had asked him to watch it with her.

A moderately tall man stepped forward and identified himself as the engineer. His name was gee. He had a long scar that extended from his left eye to his left ear. He motioned behind him to a young woman who looked exactly like himself, save for the scar. “My daughter,” he said in a thick accent that Stephen could not place, “she’s my assistant. You no date her.”

Stephen and Mason nodded vigorously. No arguments there.

Following Gee, a young woman stepped forward. She was at least twenty-five years old. On her fingers, she wore numerous rings, each she had acquired from a different country that she had visited. “I’m Lilith,” she stated to them. “I’m the cook.”

Stephen glanced over to Mason, who had his eyes trained on Lilith. No doubt his friend would be spending much of his time in the kitchen.

“She makes the best meatloaf,” Captain Thomas said on behalf of Lilith.

Stephen, Julie, and Mason turned their attention to the three unspoken people standing awkwardly away from the rest of the crew. Stephen knew them to be scientists who were spearheading the expedition. They introduced themselves as Theodore Allen, Alexander Wintergreen, and Karen Hutchinson. Each of them took the time to vehemently thank Mason for approving their project.

Mason just shrugged.

Before they left, Stephen pulled his phone out of his pocket and called home. Rosie answered, her voice indicating that she was just woken up. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Stephen replied.

“Stephen! Where are you? You promised you’d call the minute you landed in Greece. That was a week ago!” Stephen winced a little. He really did hate lying to his little sister. One day, he would try to explain it all to her. Hopefully, she wouldn’t punch him too hard for lying to her.

“Well, I’m in Greece now.”

“Were you not before?” Tiredness had fled her voice, quickly replaced by intrigue. “Have you found anything?”

“Sort of. Mason, Julie, and I found the coordinates to Atlantis. Look, we’re going to following up on this lead of ours for a few weeks. So, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me, okay?”

“Stephen­–”

“Promise me you’ll stay in school and look after Mom and Dad.” She sighed dramatically. That was Rosie in a nutshell. She had always had a flare for the dramatics.

“Fine, I promise. But only if you promise to come back.”

“I promise. I’ll talk to you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah. Love you,” she said.

“Yeah, you too.”

With a deep breath, Stephen returned the phone to its home in his pocket and turned to the submarine. Now or never. He boarded the submarine, excited for the adventure that it would give him.

They had only been in the submarine for a few hours before Stephen grew tired. He paced around the small hallways, learning the layout of the submarine. He found what he assumed to be the control center. In his boredom, he started a conversation with Captain Thomas.

Captain Thomas had literally been born at sea. Both his father and grandfather had been sea captains as well. Apparently a part of the ocean was buried deep within the tall man. On the day his mother went into labor, Captain Thomas’ father had asked his wife to go out on the water with him one last time before the baby was born.

They had four weeks before Captain Thomas was supposed to be born. What was the worst that could happen?

Since then, Captain Thomas had always been drawn to the sea. He claimed that it was his only one true love. He also claimed that it was the only constant in his life, unlike his ex-wife.

Mason found them then. “Hello, sir,” the captain greeted. He looked slightly annoyed by Mason’s presence and Stephen assumed it was because he liked only having a certain number of people in the control center at any given time.

“Hey, Captain Thomas,” Mason returned. “Do you think we’ll find that fish?”

The captain shrugged. “I get paid either way.”

“D’you know, I think we’re going to get along fine,” Mason murmured.

Mason and Stephen plodded back to their quarters. Julie was sitting on Stephen’s bed, biting her lip. “Do you think we can trust the crew?” she asked.

“If Mr. Hawthorne chose him, then I think we should be able to trust him,” Stephen answered. She shook her head, letting Stephen know that she was not in favor of the captain.

A strange expression passed over Mason’s features. He muttered something about going to see what was for lunch and left them alone. Julie looked at Stephen expectantly.

“What?” he asked, clueless as to why she was looking at him like this.

“You are so clueless sometimes,” she murmured.

“Is that something new?” Stephen questioned, smirking at her. “You’ve played Clue against me.” She glared at him for the obnoxious pun. Stephen’s smirk widen, explicating that he found himself hilarious even if Julie did not.

“This is really hard for him, Stephen” she stated.

“Jules, he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“I think you need to talk to him. Just let him know that you’re here for him.” She looked sincere and she sounded sincere. But the words she delivered to Stephen’s ears showed how truly ignorant she was about this whole situation. Mason had explicitly told Stephen not to ask how he was doing. This was a promise that Stephen did not want to go back on. Mason would talk about it when he was ready.

Stephen sat down beside her on the small bunk bed. “How are you?” he wanted to know. All her life, Julie had been extremely claustrophobic, one of the many reasons that he had told her not to come.

“I’m okay so far,” she answered bravely. “But you can tell me a story. It might help me keep my mind off of it.”

This was certainly something that Stephen could do. He launched into a rather humorous tale about how Rosie had forgotten her lines during the school’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Rosie had been playing Juliet at the time, her lines having a distinct and vital role to the play. When she forgot her lines, she tried to improvise, but somehow missed the older English language she needed to add. Even the entire audience knew that Shakespeare didn’t write, “Hey, Romeo, where you at?” This production was certainly the best one, even if it wasn’t what Shakespeare had intended.

Just as Stephen finished his tale, Mason reentered the room. “What’s on the menu?” Stephen asked him.

“Man,” he said, “do not mess with Lilith.”

Mason sat down on the floor across from his friends. Stephen was oblivious to most things in his life, but he did notice that Mason, his best friend since the first grade, looked tired. He hadn’t slept well since his father died.

“Are you okay, Mason?” Julie ventured. Annoyance flickered across Mason’s face for a moment. He let the annoyance go and nodded.

“This has to work,” he whispered, so softly that for a moment Stephen wasn’t sure he had heard it.

“It will,” insisted Stephen.

“Alright, so we find Atlantis, then what?” Julie asked. Mason and Stephen glanced at one another.

“Then, we save it.”