Treasure Hunting 101

Chapter XV

Brea

Music: Intermezzo from Gradius V

On our way to Africa, I tap Luke on the shoulder and ask him, "So, what's the deal with you and Avery?"

"What do you mean?" he asks in reply.

"Back at the temple, Sam said it would be a terrible idea to put you and Avery on the same team, and everybody seemed to agree. Avery wouldn't tell me why."

Luke's confusion turns into a sneaky grin. "Just watch," he smirks. He walks over, sits down next to Avery, flips his hair back, and says to her, "Hey, babe. Whatcha doin'?" The way he says that reminds me of Isabella from Phineas and Ferb. I can't help but snicker.

Avery looks his way, her face a neutral expression. "Wishing you would leave me the hell alone," she replies.

"But why would I do that?" Luke asks flirtatiously, placing an aghast hand to his mouth.

Avery doesn't reply to him, and instead looks to Sam, Elle, Heath, and Skylar and asks them, "Can one of you please either kill him or me? I don't care who. I'm begging you." They all look her way but don't respond. I stifle a laugh, not wanting Avery to get upset with me as well.

Luke looks my way, nods at Avery, and tells me, "That's why."

"Got it," I say, giving him a thumbs-up. "Do you do that because you have a thing for her, or..."

Lule laughs at my question. "Nah. I just like seeing how easy it is for me to piss her off."

Avery overhears this and joins in on the conversation. "Yeah, and I don't," she says to us. "But I've gotten used to it by now, so it's not a big deal."

"Okay then," I say, wishing I could look into their brains and see exactly how they view each other. The others don't even look in our direction. I assume they've also grown numb to these instances.

"I'm getting readings from this thing telling us there's a mine we need to go to, so I'm taking us there," Sam tells everyone. He gets a mixture of thumbs-ups, nods, and phrases like "Got it" as replies.

Music: The Moon Appeared from Sexy Parodius

Twenty minutes later, Sam lands us in front of the entrance to the mine. There are a few shirtless, starved-looking men walking in and out of the mine, who take no notice of a metallic hovercraft with seven American children riding it. What they're mining for is unknown. Sam points to a spot nearby for the hovercraft to stay and keep watch near the entrance of the cave, and the hovercraft flies there and hides behind a rock. Then the seven of us walk inside.

Not much more is revealed to us from walking through the inside of the mine. The few workers we do spot are hacking away at either the walls, the floor, or random rocks with a combination of either shovels, really weak-looking axes, or knives. They're too focused on their work to notice us. Most of the men's ribs are slightly visible, making me wish there was something we could do to nourish them some more.

"Sam, how exactly is the hovercraft supposed to get to us without being seen if it wants to tell us that it saw something?" Luke asks Sam.

"Simple. It doesn't have to get to us. It can just send a message to my phone if it spots somebody," Sam answers.

Another three minutes of quiet walking pass before we find what we're looking for. Heath notices two small pieces of paper on a large, light brown boulder lying against a wall. He picks them up, blows some dust off of them, and takes a look at what's on the papers.

"There's two different clues on these sheets of paper," he tells us. "One says Clue #6 and points to somewhere very close by, and the other isn't numbered and shows a red circle over Minnesota."