Finally, the last gate: (with no given value for x). She had to find the x that made it true herself. Kalia stopped floating. She whispered the steps: “If I subtract x from both sides, 3 = x - 1. Then add 1 to both sides… x = 4.” She swam to a glowing keypad on the seabed, typed 4 , and the final gate dissolved.
With a sigh, she tapped “Start Dive.”
The eel uncoiled.
“To open it,” Gus’s voice crackled through the helmet radio, “you gotta punch in a sequence that equals -8. But you can’t just go straight down. The current will rip you apart. You gotta use the seabed paths—add and subtract your way there.”
She was ready.
She shot upward, breaching the surface with a gasp. She was back in her room, tablet in hand. The screen displayed a single message:
She strapped on the heavy helmet and slid into the water. The world turned blue and quiet. A glowing number floated beside her head. She kicked her fins. math snacks pearl diver
The screen shimmered, and suddenly Kaila wasn’t in her room anymore. She was standing on a rickety dock overlooking a bioluminescent sea. The air smelled of salt and rust. Beside her, a grizzled old diver named Gus was tightening the bolts on a brass diving helmet.