by M. G. Harris
“You have no idea the favours I’ve had to pull in to keep this structure from being further excavated. And to keep the tourist traffic down.”
The woman’s laugh sounds like church bells.
“Oh, sure. I’m guessing you owe dinners to politicians in all the best parts of Mexico City.”
He answers with a dry chuckle. “Indeed. . .”
“But I’m being serious now, Marius. We gotta have an entrance we can properly guard. Right now any dumb old tourist could just wander in.”
“If they had the key, perhaps,” the man replies drily. “Fortunately, dear lady, they do not.”
“Well . . . we’ll all need to suit up,” says the woman, “with all that ancient Erinsi technology around – who knows what might be deadly to touch if you don’t have the Bakab gene. Even the men, as a precaution.”
“That makes sense. We can’t be too careful.”
“I’ve sent a team down to prepare.”
We hear a sound like metal scraping heavily against rock. The couple’s voices continue as they walk away from us, becoming fainter. Then we hear the rock beginning to scrape again.
I grab Ixchel’s hand and whisper, “Let’s go for it!”
We dash into the next room just in time to see the secret door closing. The entire back wall swings slowly. We just about have time to squeeze in before the door seals us inside.
Neither of us dares to breathe a word, but each knows what the other is thinking.
They’ve got their own way into Ek Naab. They’ve found another piece of ancient technology protected by the Bakab curse.
Have we stumbled across the Sect of Huracan? If so, then we’re probably already too late. . .
The entrance in Structure X leads to a sloping tunnel. It’s wide enough for two people to walk abreast, and meanders deeper and deeper underground. The first few metres of the tunnel seem to be recently cut. After that the walls look exactly like those of the limestone tunnels around Ek Naab. My guess is that the entrance is part of the same system.
We walk just far enough behind “Marius” and the woman he calls “Professor” to be able to benefit from the light of their torches. At times it’s hard to believe that they don’t hear us. But they don’t stop yakking loudly for a second. The more I hear, the more uneasy I become.
Now I remember where I’ve heard the name “Martineau”.
Marius Martineau – the Mayanist from the Peabody Museum in Connecticut. The guy who replied to my dad’s email about the Ix Codex, telling him that he was too busy to get involved chasing what was probably a hoax.
Yeah, right.
The NRO told me that Simon Madison sometimes uses the name Martineau.
In the house in Saffron Walden, Madison talked to Thompson’s niece about his father, and then she mentioned the Peabody. Coincidence? I doubt it.
Is Marius Martineau actually Simon Madison’s father? If he is, then it looks even more certain that Martineau and this “Professor” lady are also part of the Sect.
I have my suspicions, but I don’t have to wait long before the couple ahead of us confirm them.
“My son arrived last night. The boy, Josh, almost broke Simon’s wrist. As it is, he’s got a nasty sprain.”
The woman sighs. “We’re going to have to do something about the boy.”
“But what? I’ve always warned Simon not to kill him. If the boy’s death is traced back to me, it could be disastrous for the Sect.”
“Simon probably shouldn’t do it,” she agrees. “For a job like that, we need a professional. Simon’s never actually killed anyone intentionally.”
“Well, that’s partly the problem. Perhaps we should train him.”
“He doesn’t have the temperament, Marius. You ought to know!”
“You’re right, of course,” says Marius with a little sigh. “Now the girl, we should have trained to kill.”
“No, she was right for the job she did. She’s an excellent agent. I wonder how the boy broke her cover?”
They both take their time to ponder that one.
The woman says, “It’s high time we started graduating some of the students at Ticino.”
Ticino? Wasn’t that one of the places on that document?
“They aren’t ready. They’ve had barely half the time it takes the CIA to train an assassin.”
“And they need to be a lot better than the CIA,” she remarks.
“Hire someone from outside the Sect?”
“Never. We must stick to our own rules, Marius.”
“Yes, my dear, you’re right.”
“We’ll get Simon to bring the boy to us. Even if he really is there now, he won’t stay in Ek Naab for ever.”
“You read his blog – he has an open invitation to go back.”
I close my eyes in dread. Ollie’s betrayal went all the way. She must have snooped on me when I was using my computer.
They read my blog.
“What about the boy’s mother?” says the woman.
“Well, it’s all rather tragic. She’ll lose her son as well as her husband.”
“Who cares about that? The question is: do you think she knows anything? Is she a threat?”
My blood almost freezes when I hear these words, and I feel the sudden touch of Ixchel’s fingertips on my arm.
Marius seems to think things over before responding. “I very much doubt it. It’s clear from his blog that he doesn’t confide in her.”
“You believe what he writes in his blog?”
“So far, yes. It’s been consistently accurate.”
“So why has he stopped writing it? After he wrote the dream about his father, nothing. . .”
Marius gives a small sigh. “I very much doubt that he’s stopped. He’s simply moved it, as he did before.”
“How will we find it again? Without our agent to spy on him?”
“My dear professor, we don’t need to.”
“Because he’s no longer useful to us?” There’s a touch of doubt in the woman’s voice.
“Precisely so.”
They’re silent for the next few minutes. This does not sound good. I’m dying to say something, and even in the shadows I can see that Ixchel keeps turning to glance at me. But we have to progress even more quietly now that they’ve stopped talking.
And then the woman starts up again. “I’m not sure we should kill him, not yet, anyway. It would be a waste of a useful resource.”
“How so?”
“I could use him as a test subject. For the gene therapy. It’s almost ready to trial, but we need a human subject – one with the Bakab gene. And the experiments are illegal.”
“Dangerous?”
“Potentially fatal – no way to predict side effects.”
“And the benefits. . .?”
“If I can get the gene therapy to work, Marius, the Sect will be in a position to completely take over from Ek Naab. We won’t need them or their Bakabs to handle the Erinsi technology. And that’s just the beginning. The other abilities of the Bakabs – we may be able to enhance them.”
“Enhance them?”
“Right now it’s a weak ability at best. But in our hands, it could be turned into a weapon.”
Marius pauses just for a second, gives a tiny sigh. “If the boy can be useful to you, my dear, you must use him while you can.”
“So we agree?” the professor says. “Whoever captures the boy, he’ll be taken alive?”
“Absolutely.”
At this point, Ixchel stops in her tracks. I can’t get her to move. Martineau and the professor’s voices disappear into the gloomy depths as I silently try to persuade her.
When we can’t hear their voices any more, Ixchel pulls away from me and whispers, “No! We have to go back – didn’t you hear what they said? Do you want to become a genetic experiment?”
Help the Sect to take over from Ek Naab. . .? There’s no way I can be part of that.
Ixchel turns around and starts wa
lking back the way we came. She switches on the torch. I catch up and grab her wrist.
“How do you think you’re going to get out? You think there’s going to be a door handle?”
“Weren’t you listening?”
“Course I was. But don’t you see? We can’t stop now. We have to find out what they’re doing.”
“Josh, we’re walking into a trap.”
“It’s only a trap if they know we’re here.”
And then I get the most terrible idea. Slowly, I relax my grip on her arm.
“Is it a trap? Have you tricked me into coming here? And now that you know what they’ve planned, you’ve changed your mind?”
Ixchel stares at me in horror. “No! What? You’re crazy . . . what’s wrong with you. . .?”
I raise my voice. “Have you, Ixchel? Have you lied to me, too?”
Ixchel clamps her hand over my mouth and hisses, “Shut up; are you insane? Of course not! It was your idea to come here, idiot, your idea, not mine. I followed you.”
I push her hand away and glare at her.
She shakes her head. “You’re mad. I’m leaving. I’m sorry I ever met you.”
With that, she turns, continues walking back to the entrance.
That’s when I realize how paranoid I’ve become. I chase after her again.
“OK, maybe I’m wrong. . .”
“Maybe?!”
“OK, I’m definitely wrong. But it wouldn’t be the first time someone tricked me.”
“You’re the one who let himself be tricked.”
“No, Ixchel. Listen.”
She stops.
“That girl they talked about, the one they reckoned was an ‘excellent agent’ . . . that’s Ollie. I thought she liked me. You know, liked me.”
“Oh.” Ixchel taps her foot for a second. “I’m sorry. That’s too bad.”
“But she was a spy all along,” I mutter, almost to myself. “A spy for the Sect of Huracan.”
Ixchel stiffens. “The Sect? Tell me you’re kidding.”
I shake my head. “You’ve heard of them, then. . .?”
“The Sect of Huracan? Everyone in Ek Naab has heard of them. But they’re supposed to have gone hundred of years ago – disappeared.”
“Yeah, I’d say they’re back. And in pretty good shape, too,” I say grimly. “Training secret agents in Switzerland and doing . . . whatever’s going on here.”
I take the torch from Ixchel and offer my hand.
“Come on. We’ve got to finish this. We’ve got to find out what they’re doing here. We don’t even know how to open the outside door. We’re already trapped.”
We jog back through the tunnel. It always slopes down, heading deep under Becan. Long past the point where we last saw Martineau and the professor, we come to a fork in the tunnel. We pick the left tunnel and continue. Then, from somewhere up ahead we see light and hear voices. I switch off the torch. Behind a gap in the rock, several figures are moving.
There are more voices this time, not just the two we heard on the way down. This time, they sound muffled, as if coming through filters or a mask. I just about recognize Martineau and the professor. Then, unmistakably, I hear the higher voice of Simon Madison rising above them.
“No, no, no, that’s not how it works. The codex says something like, ‘In liquid form the Key is highly unstable . . . must be used within sixty minutes.’”
The professor says tartly, “Yeah . . . I remember the instructions, Simon.”
“But if you’re using the liquid form of the Key from frozen, it isn’t fresh . . . it’s not going to work.”
The professor sounds smug and confident. “We’ve modelled the experiment with a bio-sensor. Fresh or freeze-thawed – there’s hardly a difference.”
“Bio-sensor – are you serious?!” Madison’s voice rises to a shout. “A bio-sensor is fine for working things out in the nice, perfect environment of a lab. But things could be totally different here. We’re working completely in the dark! We should stick to the damn instructions.”
Now it’s the professor’s turn to shout. Except she doesn’t just sound loud and angry when she shouts – she sounds dangerous. I don’t quite understand what, but something is clearly going wrong with their experiment.
“Did y’all see a high-tech production facility anywhere around here? No, sir! If you want this to work, then it’s gonna have to be frozen. Now, Simon, apply the Key to the Adaptor. Stop wasting my time.”
Marius interrupts in a mild yet firm way. “Perhaps you’d explain your objection to Simon’s objection, my dear professor? After all . . . it seems like he knows what he’s talking about. . .”
She rips into him. “Oh, well, pardon me, suddenly I’m surrounded by experts. . .”
Madison is still angry. “A frozen Key is not gonna work!”
The woman remarks, “The codex does say that the Key should be fresh. But in the lab we’ve used the liquid form of the Key after freezing, then thawing. It still binds tightly.”
Super-politely, Marius asks, “‘Binds tightly’. . .?”
The Professor begins to speak very slowly, like a teacher talking to a class. “Well, this Key, see, it sticks to a chemical coating on the surface of the Adaptor. The Key changes the chemical coating in some way. Like magic! Yeah – imagine the Key is a magic potion, and we put some on to the Adaptor. When the magic potion is on the Adaptor, the Adaptor can do its job. . .”
This time Marius sounds frosty. “No need for quite such a patronizing tone, my dear lady.”
The professor sighs, exasperated, but she keeps going. “We activate the Adaptor with a ‘magic potion’ – the Key. Then we place the Adaptor in the Container . . . it activates the Revival Chamber. We think.”
Marius’s lofty tone is back. “My dear, we all know what we’re trying to achieve. I just don’t see why you aren’t taking Simon seriously.”
“Right,” Madison agrees.
With a tone of finality, she says, “Why waste more time arguing? Do the damn experiment.”
Pressed back against the walls of the tunnel, we can hardly see anything of what’s going on. I lean forward for a second and catch a glimpse of six or seven people, all wearing protective suits made of a crumpled blue material and gas masks. Madison, as well as “Marius” and this “Professor”, stand by the entrance of the room.
Ixchel pulls me back against the wall. “Did you understand any of that?” she whispers, baffled.
I’m pretty chuffed to be more clued in than Ixchel, for once. “Not everything . . . but this stuff is mentioned in the first pages of the Ix Codex. I think they’re going to try to use the Adaptor in the Container. To activate the Revival Chamber – whatever that is. But for this to work, it needs some kind of chemical reaction. Madison thinks that one of the chemicals in their reaction might have gone off.”
“The Adaptor?”
“No, the Key. Shhhh. I’ll explain in a bit.”
There’s a long silence. Seconds turn to minutes.
Finally, the professor says in a strained voice, “Well. . .?”
Madison replies, “It’s all in position.”
“But nothing’s happening.”
“I told you! The Key must be fresh!”
The Professor snaps, “Listen, sonny, it’s not the freshness that’s the problem here. . .”
Martineau asks, “Then what?”
She sighs, sounding tired. “It could be a number of things. Bottom line – we need to do more research.”
Their experiment hasn’t worked. . .
“Or we could just try the crystal form of the Key, as it says in the codex,” Martineau says, in a dry voice.
Irritably, the Professor replies, “Well, sure, that’s a no-brainer. But it’ll take months to make the crystal. All our attempts have failed so far – I reckon it needs to be made at zero gravity. Do y’all have any idea how hard it is to get time on the space station?”
Madison says nothing, but pushes past th
em both. He starts walking away from the bottleneck of suited observers near the room.