Every muscle in my body was as taut as a wire as I moved closer to the throng of M-Geeks. Somewhere in that mess of violent metal was my baby, my Angel. She might think she could rule the world and do anything, but I knew that despite all her powers, she was still a flesh-and-blood, six-(possibly seven)-year-old girl. Who I needed to save. Again.

“Okay, you work the arms,” I whispered. “Try to push one aside.”

Gazzy’s face was white as he nodded, his hands clenched on the controls.

“On my mark,” I said. “One, two, thr —”

Suddenly the dumb-bots moved apart, revealing Angel. She seemed to be talking to them earnestly, motioning with her hands, trailing tiny bubbles out of her mouth.

I stared at her, then at Gazzy, whose jaw had dropped in surprise.

Then, as we watched, the dumb-bots seemed to huddle in for a consultation. A minute later, they started to disperse, heading off into the dark water one by one, their little fanlike rotors leaving small white trails behind them. Angel waved good-bye to them, then turned and wiggled her eyebrows at me and Gazzy.

I gave her the universal WTH expression, and she grinned and dog-paddled closer to the Triton. Clinging to the side, she went through an elaborate “told you so” pantomime.

With Angel still holding on, I turned the Triton around and headed back to the Minnesota, feeling overwhelming relief, tension, and extreme irritation all at the same time.

I was giving Angel a look of “Wait till we get back on board, missy,” which she was cheerfully ignoring, when her face suddenly went blank. Then her eyes widened in fear, and she pressed herself flat against the Plexiglas dome, her small knuckles white.

“What? What?” I cried. She looked in at me, and my heart turned to ice when I saw how scared she was.

In the next moment, a powerful swell of water came out of nowhere and swept us beneath the bigger sub, making us crash against its underside. Angel clung to the Triton and hunkered down.

“What the — there aren’t currents like this, this deep!” I said. Our dome smashed against the metal sub again, and my throat closed as I wondered just how tough the Plexiglas was.

“Holy crap!” Gazzy shouted, pointing.

A mountain was coming up out of the murky depths below us, creating such a huge swell that the Minnesota was actually tipping to one side. We crashed against the sub again, and I jammed the joystick forward, desperately trying to get back to the underwater hatch we had exited from.

“What the heck is that thing?” I cried. If I couldn’t keep us angled right, Angel would be smashed between us and the sub. I yanked the joystick to the left.