Authors Note:  CLICKS is almost finished here on Wattpad. I will be uploading the final chapters over the next two weeks. If you've enjoyed, please let me know by leaving reviews and comments. If you go on over to AMAZON and leave a review you could win an ALEX and ANI dolphin bracelet. The link for the contest is on the side of the page.  Enjoy! xoox

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We’d decided on the end of sunset as the best time for the mission. The waning light made it hard to see anything on the water’s surface, even more so than when it was fully dark at night. In addition to the quality of the fading sun’s glow, it was also our own private Pinhold Changing of The Guard.

At shift switch, the people who’d been on all day went back to the The Guard Shack with all the equipment. They spent twenty minutes with the night staff, while they all exchanged information and discussed the conditions for the day. Then the night Guard went on duty.

Helix told me I would have, maybe, twenty-five minutes in the lab with the alarm down, but I needed to be in and out in twenty. The goal was to be already swimming away when the meeting was over and The Guard came back on duty.

The one thing I knew I could count on The Guard for, was a prompt adherence to schedule. With military precision, the schedule had changed little over the past fifty years. I was counting on that now.

Although I felt like I was advertising my interest in the old lab, really I’d discussed it with very few people in town. Still, between the talk that there was and the alarm going off the other night, I’d been concerned that the Lighthouse was going to be under more of a watch than usual. Luckily, that had only seemed to be the case for a couple of days after the alarm incident. Things had seemed back to normal for almost a week.

I called my dolphin and texted Helix at the same time, giggling to myself at the absurdity of how the two actions could accomplish the same thing in totally different ways. My dolphin seemed to respond to a series of three whistles, one long click, and one short one—it sounded a little like yodeling to me. Without fail, she always came right over to me when she heard me make the call.

A minute after making the sound, I saw a picture of her swimming toward me in my head. Helix texted that he was in place and no one else was around. I was able to tell him the dolphin was headed my way, too.

Everything was in place.

My heart pounded so fast I could see it pulsing under the skin of my wetsuit. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down and jumped in, off the dock, trying to diminish the splash as much as possible, just in case anyone was around.

The Guard had said swimming alone on the beaches was against the rules. I wasn’t swimming on the beach, but despite the semantics, The Guard would not be supportive of my actions. I hoped the outcome would prove it was the right action.

Despite my nerves, I couldn’t help but smile when my dolphin came up. It was a thrill to know that I had finally gotten her sound on the first try.

It had taken me most of the summer to understand that the repeated sounds identified her, and then another two weeks to be able to produce the noises properly. Since getting this sound down, she would come right away and I, somehow, knew when she was en route.

I pulled my pack onto my back, and checked in with Helix when my phone was submerged. It appeared to work, so we set off.

Swimming together had become second nature for me. I could keep up with her speed, and breathe and go under as she did. The setting sun broke on the waves, tossing prisms of pink light above and below the water line. My gray eyes processed all of the information so quickly, I never even needed to squint.

We flew over and under the water, and around to the other side of the Island. The water was almost completely shadowed by the time we got to the jetty closest to the Lighthouse.

Per my plan with Helix, this is where we were supposed to stop. He would then turn the alarm off. I looked to the beach and saw him—a speck off to the side of the Lighthouse. He had his headphones in, and his head was tilted back, looking deceptively like any other beach bum watching the sun go down. It likely would not be obvious to anyone else on the beach that he was using his iPhone to interrupt the alarm signal in the lighthouse.

He’d promised an interruption in service, based the system tests that were frequently conducted between the alarm company and The Guard. The twenty-minute window of downtime wouldn’t trigger a warning if it was turned off on the inside. Whatever software Helix had cooked up, was supposed to ensure that it did.

With my fingers and toes crossed, I texted him to go. The six seconds in between my message and his return were the longest of my life. Eventually, his text came back, “Go now.”

With one look at my dolphin, we did. Staying in her shadow, under her flank, I swam the entire five hundred foot distance underwater. We arrived at the door, and I, very quietly and carefully, surfaced to take in as much air as I could handle. I’d been testing myself by the dock all week; I could stay underwater for up to four minutes without coming up for air. If I stayed under for eight minutes—which I could do—I would exhaust myself, so horribly I would not be able to do anything else.

I hoped that four minutes would be enough time to get me in the door and into the inner lab. One look through the window confirmed that the alarm light was off. It also seemed that there was air in the lab because, it looked dry and free from water. I hoped it would stay that way after I opened the door. When we had gone down the week earlier to scout the location, my dolphin had aimed her sonar at the lock and cracked it open. We left it hanging on the door so that I could come back.

With a quick prayer to my dolphin, Mica, and every god I could think of, I dove down and pulled the ancient lock off of the door. So far so good. Now, I had to jimmy open the outer door and get inside.

The gray metal was rusted in spots and hard to move.  I put the heavy metal lock back through the outer part of it's hole for leverage and pulled. The creak that sounded pounded in my ears—and clearly my dolphin’s, as well- but the door barely moved.

My dolphin examined the door, turning her head slightly to gaze at it with her right eye.

When she shifted back to face front, I knew she was about to blast the door. Before I had a chance to stop her, she did. Her sonic waves pushed the door sideways on the frame, leaving an open triangle that was too small for me to fit. No matter how I twisted and turned, I was unable to get more than my head and one arm through.

Only an arm’s length away was a glass door. It looked just like the kind on the deck at my house. It made sense that the same person had provided all the doors in town, which hopefully meant the door locked the same as well. Ours had a lever you could pop from the outside if you knew where to find it.

That trick had saved me millions of times when I would leave home without my key; I prayed that it would help me know, but I had to get to it first. I couldn’t do that without more air.

As slowly and as quietly as possible, I snuck to the surface to breathe. The countdown clock on my phone read sixteen minutes left. I knew fifteen was my better goal.

My dolphin swam to the surface with me, breathing noisily through her blowhole. I shushed her, realizing after I did that it was a pointless action about a noise she couldn’t control. I spent an extra second glancing around for people or boats near enough to see us. Finding none, I went back underwater to take another stab at the door.

Using my feet for leverage, I used my hands to push within the triangle the dolphin had made. In the ton of effort expended, I had only managed to move the door an inch. My dolphin watched and then lined up, ready to blast again.

I held up my hands, wanting her to stop and hoping she would somehow understand, worried a second blast would fracture the glass door beyond the metal, and flood the lab. One last time, I lined up, feet and hands ready to push and pull again.

With all the pressure in my legs, I pushed at the door. It flew open and pushed me back, knocking me out of the way. It started to swing closed again, so I pushed past my dolphin, determined to get through. I was inches away, when a hand flew out from the door and kept it from sealing shut.

 And even though I was underwater, where no one could hear, I screamed.

Blake went to work while I recovered, quickly opening the interior door and dragging me in. I gasped in the stale air as he slid the door closed behind us, pushing it a little harder than I was comfortable with, considering its age and importance.

“Easy, Blake. If you break it, we can’t get out.”

“Right—or it’ll crack and flood us in. But this never concerned you before, Cami, so why worry about it now?”

“What are you doing here, Blake?” I said, coughing a bit a sulfur taste of the stale air.

“Let’s try a thank you?” he asked, whacking me on the back to help me catch my breath. “You wouldn’t have gotten in here if it wasn’t for me.”

“I was doing fine. You just got in the way—so stay out of it now. Be a good little soldier and just keep watch or something. I have things to do.”

“You go right ahead and find your secrets. I don’t have high hopes for a place that has the same sliding glass door as my grandparents’ patio for protection. I’ll stay out of your way. Excuse me for trying to make sure you don’t die.”

I took a deep breath. I didn’t have time to argue; I had to focus. Distractions of any kind—even the ones with the misplaced-hero concept—were not something I could afford. I rolled my eyes and put my bag down on an empty table, taking out my camera so I could get to work.

I sent Helix a quick text to let him know I was in. I had ten minutes. From what I could tell at first glance, there were three key areas that needed investigating.

The lab didn’t look so different from the new ones at the hospital or in the research center. I was grateful for the little bits of time I’d spent in both this summer, because I had an idea of just where I needed to look. Ignoring Blake, I approached a row of large metal cylinders plugged in against a wall.

A quiet hum and soft green lights told me they were still on, despite the rust and mold that stained the silver. It smelled damp, and I looked around for leaks. In the corner, above a bank of file cabinets, a wet stream was actively running down a crumbling plaster wall. It had clearly seen its fair share of water damage.

Drips coming through the ceiling in the middle of the room were less of a concern, because they were likely from the heating and air conditioning unit that serviced the main part of the lighthouse. But the file cabinets needed handling—that wall didn’t look like it was likely to hold.

“Make yourself useful,” I said, tossing the plastic file folder pack to Blake. “Take anything that looks important. Whatever will fit.”

He rolled his eyes at me, about to argue, but I turned my back to him before he could say anything. It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep my eyes turned to the task at hand, but I did it. A slight glance in the rusted silver showed a reflection of him prying the cabinet open, getting to work. I blanked everything else from my mind and set to my own task.

The humming of the third cylinder caught my attention, even though it wasn’t first in the line. It sounded louder than the others. Closer inspection showed some green goo leaking around the seal. I snapped a couple pics on my iPhone and texted Helix. In case I didn’t make it back, he would know that there was something in here worth looking at after all.

There were five cylinders in all. Besides number three, they looked untouched. Each stood as tall as my waist, and had no less than five tubes going in and out, connecting to one another. I’d seen equipment like this before in the hospital; it was used for testing and experiments, but that’s about all I knew. I documented the serial number on each tank and tried to find a brand name or other identifying information.

There was a plaque at the bottom of the first one, but the letters had been ruined with damp and rust. I zoomed in and captured as much detail as possible, hoping it would be recognizable to someone—even if it wasn’t recognizable to me.

A noise outside the window to the sea caught my attention. My dolphin was looking in the window, which I found encouraging. I walked towards the glass, hoping it wasn’t a warning that someone was around. My watch showed that we had ten minutes left, and there were other things I needed to accomplish.

The dolphin shook her head at me, her perma-grin offering comfort just as it always did. Though I knew it was structural and not emotional, her smile never failed to bring about the same response in me. The panic I’d felt when I thought she was sending a warning disappeared and was replaced with quiet confidence.

She was so secure in every movement, action, and interaction. Guided by instinct, there seemed to be no room in her psyche for doubt or delay. I took my strength from her and looked around the room, taking in details I’d failed to notice on my first glance around.

Old posters lined one wall: faded, but visible depictions of human and dolphin anatomy, as well as the in-utero development timeline for both species. I looked closer—the dolphin development images were something I’d not come across before. Up until month six, the dolphin and human fetuses looked remarkably similar.

Clearly, I wasn’t the first to notice. Closer inspection revealed notes written on both posters—difficult to decipher, but there nonetheless. I pulled each poster off the wall, folding them up inside one another. There wasn’t time to do things twice so I immediately took them over to the paper pack Blake was working to fill.

I carefully folded the posters one more time to fit, praying the folds and the age of the paper wouldn’t render the handwriting illegible. I took quick note of the other papers that were already inside: charts, diagrams, text-book stuff. My heart sank; I saw nothing proprietary or obviously written by Doc.

“This is a waste of time, Cami,” Blake said, slamming a drawer shut before opening the fourth cabinet on the wall. The drawer popped into place, shaking the entire bank of metal and tilting the end unit so that it banged into the banking wall. A loud crack preceded a dust blast as bits of old plaster came loose and landed at my feet.

Blake’s result-oriented anger bugged me, causing my thoughts to flash to Kaleb. He’d love it in here: mysterious and illegal was right up his alley. I couldn’t help but wish he was the one here with me now; his passion for the process might yield information that neither Blake nor I were able to see.

Despite the lack of relevant files, I refused to be discouraged.

“Keep looking,” I instructed, and turned back to the science experiments, blocking both boys from my head. We were well into the single digits on the time we had left. I figured I had time to find one more thing before we needed to bolt.

A last look around confirmed that the file cabinets and the canisters were the points of interest, so I headed back over to see if I could get any additional detail on what was cooking in the containers. They had remained in place and turned on since the lab had been sealed off so many years ago, but there wasn’t a clear reason why. From the outside, it appeared that they were empty.

While it was important to note that they were here, I feared it wasn’t important enough to justify my break-in or to get The Guard to unseal the door properly and take a deeper look.

Running my hands around the top of the third container, I looked for a lever or a latch—something that would let me raise the hatch to check out what was inside. The other containers were too tightly sealed, but the little leak at the bottom of this one indicated a breach of some kind.

Hopefully, it hadn’t ruined whatever was inside, because in that moment I decided that if I could get it open and get it out, I was taking whatever was in there with me when we left. I closed my eyes, reached around the back, searching the seam for a release. I felt it then: a lip with a hinge. This was where the lid came up, but that didn’t get me any closer to in.

Taking both hands to the back, I inched my fingertips around both sides of the circle, looking for any break in the symmetry. I found a bump on the right side, and pressed it in. Nothing happened. I tried to remember the centrifuges in the lab, for I’d decided these were the same thing. They had magnet releases that were coded to the cards of the scientists who had clearance to unlock each specific one.

These were older than those, so there was hope that they were easier to open. But time wasn’t on my side.

“Cami!” Blake yelled, appearing suddenly in front of my face. My eyes flashed open, startled right out of my trance. Pulled in by his intensity, I paused and briefly forgot what it was I was trying to do.

“Cami, now! We have to go!” Blake yelled, grabbing my shoulders.

I glanced at my watch. We had two minutes left. I caught my breath, intending to use every last second to get the container open, or disconnected from the wall.

“I need to get this open. Can you stop yelling at me and try to help?”

“Cami, look!” With a force made stronger with fear, he turned me physically to face the entrance, which was also the only exit we had.

The simple glass door that had done its job successfully for years, was beginning to crack. Spider veins on the surface were visible, even from where I stood twenty feet away. There was water rising outside, too, no doubt getting in from the small triangle my dolphin had blasted through the exterior door.

The one-hundred-and-twenty seconds I’d been counting on were disappearing quickly. I sucked in the stale air and turned my attention back to the equipment.

“If the lab floods, the experiments will be buried. We have to get these out.”

“If the lab floods, we could be trapped. Best case, caught. Worst case, dead! Disaster case: we die and everything gets ruined. Leave it, Cami. We have to go!”

Blake’s warnings got a signal boost by similar squawking from my dolphin outside, chatter that, while harder to decipher, was more difficult for me to ignore. I felt her fear in every fiber of my body, in the very center of my brain where Mica used to talk. It was very real danger she was clearly reporting; but, for my twin’s sake, I needed at least one more minute to try again.

“If we die down here, it doesn’t help Mica at all!” Blake screamed.

But I obsessed. The irony of ignoring my own imminent death in an attempt to save my brother’s life was not lost on me, but I didn’t worry. The instincts that had led me this far, also told me that this was not the time to give up.

The pressure of the water wall, the dolphin’s voice, and Blake’s ripe fear all faded as time expanded in my brain. I shook off his hold and reached for Mica’s fishing spear that was hooked on the back of my belt. Raising it above my head, I brought it down on the glass case.

The crack was loud, but ineffective. Small lines appeared, similar to the ones in the glass door up front, which were multiplying every second. I tried again and still the top on the machine stood