“I wouldn’t say Atlantis,” I said. It was the best I could come up with. A throbbing pain was forming behind my right eye.

“Henry here would.”

I gaped at Henry. “What? Henry, you’ve got to be kidding. Government conspiracies aren’t good enough for you, now you need aliens and fictional ancient civilizations?”

Scylla rolled her eyes. “Zak, shut up. Hank, tell him.”

Henry glowered at her. “Do not call me Hank.” Then he shifted his glower to me. “Since it seemed like you had lost interest in the whole reason we were out there to begin with, I took to the ‘net to try to figure out what the deal was with that coin of yours. Granted, I only had the low-res scan from Speculus, not the real deal, but I started asking about it in a few counter-institutional chatspaces. You’d be surprised the sort of connections people on there have.”

Never put it past a conspiracy theorist, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

“Anyway, this morning I got a DM from a guy who said he’s seen coins like that before turn up in private auctions. The one he saw most recently actually was apparently discovered in—you’ll like this one, Isaak—Veracruz, Mexico.”

“What?”

“Yup. But they’re not specific to central America. Identical coins have been found all over the damn world, and most of them have been uncovered near arches just like the one we saw out at Erick’s dig site. That kind of arch has picked up a little nickname in the antiquities business—the Atlantean Arch. They call it that because it’s a link between civilizations. Like they say Atlantis was supposed to be.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “Now, I’m willing to buy that sort of thing being a coincidence on Earth. But on Mars? So. You try telling me that there’s not something weird going on here.”

I sank down into an armchair. “What the hell?”

Henry smirked. “I thought as much. So, we’ve got the arch, the coin, and this.” He gestured at the object in Tamara’s hands. “Add it together with the fact that GSAF seems to be surveilling the site, and all signs point to a Class-A cover-up.”

A cover-up that both my dad and Tamara’s mom—two people I’d never even seen talk to each other—were somehow involved with. And where did Emil factor into this? It was all way too much to take in.

“My source said he can give us more information, but he wants to see your coin, Isaak,” Henry said. He shifted on the couch, and gave me his best conciliatory expression. “Do you think you could go on Speculus with us after school tomorrow?”

My stomach lurched. “Um, about the coin. I don’t… exactly… have it anymore.”

“What?!”