I’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 a Triton, 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.

The Triton 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 the Triton’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… with the 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 the Triton 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.