The Joshua Files - a complete box set: Books 1-5 of the young adult sci-fi adventure series plus techno-thriller prequel

by M. G. Harris

  My hand unconsciously goes to my jeans, where I’ve stashed the Adaptor. The old man’s beady eyes don’t miss a thing. He glances down at my hand and says, “You’ve got what he’s come for? Or is it you he’s after?”

  Then he leans forward and whispers, “The back door is open.” He nods his head. Barely visible behind a tangle of vines is a white door. “It leads on to the riverbank. A few houses to the right, there’s a boat. Now go!”

  We bolt towards the door. But it’s too late.

  “OK, far enough,” comes Madison’s voice. In cold horror, I gaze over the old man’s shoulder to see Madison emerging from the house.

  Pointing a gun.

  “Move aside, Pops. You don’t want to take a bullet for this loser, I guarantee it.”

  The old man doesn’t budge. Instead he whispers, “He’s right behind me, yes?” I nod. Then, without warning, the old man gives a loud cry like a bird’s caw.

  “Justiiiiiicio!”

  Madison is too astounded to react when the monstrous golden eagle swoops down on to him. Wings beating wildly, it pecks at his face. Madison has no time to shoot; not when he needs both arms to protect his eyes.

  We’re through the door within seconds, and on to the decking outside. And we’re running along decks between the houses and the river, leaping fences and gates, eyes scouring the backs of the houses for the only thing that can save us – the boat.

  A few houses ahead, I spot an elegant mansion, modern, all glass and grey brick, with a magnificent green lawn. Bobbing on the river next to it is a small speedboat. To even get to the house, we’ll have to jump across a channel of water between the mansion and the neighbouring house.

  And then I hear him. Madison smashes through the white picket fencing near the mini-zoo. He’s yelling with rage. If running in a flowing habit slows him down, it’s hard to tell. As we get closer to the gap between the houses I shout to Ixchel, “Jump!” I leap into the air, sail across the gap. Ixchel follows. She lands square on the lawn.

  “Start up the boat!” I yell, panting.

  She moves swiftly. I limber up as Madison hurtles towards me, preparing his jump. I’m getting ready to spill him into the water the second he lands on my side. Then he makes a movement which roots me to the spot.

  Still running, he reaches under his cloak and pulls a pistol from a shoulder holster.

  I throw a glance over my shoulder at Ixchel – she’s sitting in the speedboat but I don’t hear a peep from the engine.

  Madison trundles to a stop on the opposite bank. He’s grinning, shaking his head and waving the gun.

  “Jeez, man, you should learn when to quit. Now throw the Adaptor over here.”

  It strikes me for a second that Madison doesn’t know that the Adaptor is safely wrapped in plastic.

  Yet he shows no sign of being afraid of touching the Adaptor or breathing in the gas.

  “You can touch it,” I blurt.

  “Way to go, dumbass.”

  “You have the Bakab gene?”

  Madison gives a slow nod. “You got it, kid. Not so special now, hey?”

  I’m completely thrown. “But . . . back in the jungle . . . you wouldn’t touch the codex. . .”

  “First-time nerves.”

  “It was the same for me – but I did it.”

  Madison pulls himself up straight. His eyes grow cold. “You calling me a coward?”

  “Me? I’m the one with a gun pointed at me.”

  Livid with rage, he spits his words. “Throw. Me. The. Adaptor.”

  “Or what?”

  Madison cocks the gun, slips off the safety. Lightly, he says, “Or this.”

  “They want me alive, though, don’t they? Your bosses – I heard them say so.”

  This confuses him, for just a second. Behind me, I hear the engine explode into action. I give the pistol one more glance, and then spin on my heel, make a dash down the jetty for the boat. Shots ring out from Madison’s gun; bullets whizz past my ankles.

  Then one of them hits me in the left thigh.

  The pain is surprising. It doesn’t feel anything like I’ve imagined. At first, it’s like a good, solid kick, like you might get in a football game from someone wearing studs. I keep going until I reach the boat, and I jump in. Ixchel grabs the rudder and revs up the engine. The boat springs away from the moorings, cuts a deep swathe into the murky water.

  I collapse on to the boat’s deck, groaning loudly in agony. Within seconds the pain is deeper and fiercer than anything I’ve known. It feels like my thigh muscle has been sliced open and a hot poker stuffed inside. Desperately I clutch at the wound. My hands come away covered in hot, sticky blood.

  When I see that, I practically faint.

  “Don’t look at it!” warns Ixchel. I close my eyes, leaning my head on the deck, on the verge of tears.

  Ixchel’s voice is firm, calm. “Take deep breaths. Into your nose, out through your mouth. As slowly as you can.”

  I grit my teeth. My whole body begins to shake violently.

  “Hold on, Josh. You’ll be OK.”

  Eyes screwed shut, I concentrate on breathing for a few minutes, on the high-pitched roar of the boat’s motor, on the rush of water streaming past us. A few seconds later, I’m a tiny bit calmer. I open my eyes to look at Ixchel. She’s gazing over the river, towards the town’s main dock.

  “Don’t get up to look,” she says in an even voice, “but he’s hitching a lift from one of the tourist boats. It’s going in to pick him up right now. They can’t catch up with us. But when we get to the dock, you need to be able to walk. At least to a taxi.”

  I give a loud groan. “I can’t bloody walk!”

  “I’m sorry, Josh. You must.”

  I stare into the gathering clouds high above the river. It takes all my self-control not to whimper in pain. If I were alone I’d be a blubbering wreck by now. In front of Ixchel, there’s no way I can let that happen.

  The boat begins to swerve towards the left bank.

  “Get ready, Josh. You need to get up in ten seconds.”

  I take a few quick, deep breaths, and then pull myself into a sitting position, roaring from the bolt of pure agony that surges through my left leg. Ixchel’s waving at someone on the bank, and she shouts, “Help! Emergency!”

  I can’t turn around without hurting, so I can’t see what’s going on. The engine slows and Ixchel steers the boat into the moorings. As soon as it comes to a standstill, she steps over to me. She offers me a hand, helping me to my unsteady feet.

  On the deck, two young guys hold out their arms, saying, “Come on, grab hold, grab hold!”

  My blood is everywhere. My left jean leg is soaked, dark and rusty. Both my hands, and now Ixchel’s too, are coated with blood. But that doesn’t put the young guys off. They yank us both out of the boat, then the two of them support my weight, practically frog-marching me to a waiting silver VW Beetle.

  They help me into the back seat, where I lie moaning and writhing. The pain gets worse by the second. I stuff my collar into my mouth and bite down, tasting the blood that’s now smeared all over my T-shirt.

  And then I hear a voice I recognize – Susannah St John.

  “Josh.” Her voice sounds sharp, very clear. I focus on it. “Is that a gunshot wound?”

  I nod, trembling.

  “Thought so. I heard the shooting; think the whole town did. Still, least it helped me to find you. Now, darling, can you walk?”

  Just. Again, I nod.

  “That’s good; probably nothing broken, then.”

  “It hurts like hell.”

  Susannah makes a sympathetic, clucking noise. “I know, dear. Now, listen, before we can take care of that leg we’re gonna have to drive some. That fella’s on his way to the dock on a boat. Better put some distance between us. That means driving fast. Can you be brave?”

  I grit my teeth and nod.

  “Give him your hand, dear,” Susannah orders Ixchel. “Try to help hold his leg
still.”

  Ixchel gives me a look of deep concern. Slowly, she takes my hand. The car begins to move. Every pothole we drive over is pure agony, forcing a scream from me. But when we’re finally on the open road the surface is smooth.

  Susannah slams her foot down on the accelerator. “Seatbelts, kids,” she shouts above the high-pitched revs of the engine. “We need to get out of here – and fast.”

  BLOG ENTRY: SOMEWHERE IN MEXICO

  This guy who’s after me, Simon Madison, keeps popping up when I least expect him. How is he following me? It’s as if he knows every step before I do.

  When he turned up at this house yesterday where I was visiting someone called Susannah, it crossed my mind that maybe Susannah had set me up.

  But then she rescued me from him. She even stitched up my wound. Madison sort of shot me in the leg yesterday. Don’t worry! Nothing too serious, as it turns out. Mind you, it was the worst pain I’d ever felt, like my leg was crawling with fire from the inside. Having the wound cleaned and stitched was no picnic, either.

  Susannah is a retired nurse. So when she realized I’d been shot, she tossed a top-quality first-aid kit into her car and drove out to find me. We stopped somewhere on the road. In the back of the car, Susannah did a clean-and-repair job on my leg. The bullet had gone straight through – it was “just” a flesh wound. But my jeans were kind of disgusting, so we stopped off somewhere to buy some new ones.

  I tried to phone you again – no reply. I guess I always call when you’re at Mass. I left voicemail – just want you to know I’m OK. Well, kind of OK.

  If I don’t tell you anything about where I am, Mum, it’s because I’ve even started to worry that this blog has been compromised. What if somehow the Sect has got into my school, broken into my locker, found the letter to you, guessed the password and is now reading this. . .?

  So – no town names, OK? But I can’t stop blogging. Cos then you’d worry even more.

  All this uncertainty. It’s getting to me. I just want the answers – now!

  In a roadside restaurant today, I had the most amazing eggs – “Hawaiian Style” with ham and pineapple. The strips of ham and pineapple were arranged in a pattern to make the dish look like a whole pineapple.

  I’m finally getting to know this country. And still, I feel completely lost.

  Thirty minutes out of Tlacotalpan we stop at the outskirts of a coastal town, Alvarado, where we drink glasses of fresh pineapple juice and eat the most elaborate omelettes I’ve ever seen. There’s an Internet café, so I post a quick update to my blog.

  When I’m done blogging, I rejoin Ixchel and Susannah at the restaurant. I take Arcadio’s envelope out of my pocket and place it on the table in front of us. Susannah kisses her fingers and then lightly touches the envelope.

  Ixchel and I watch her. We can’t hide our curiosity. Bluntly, Ixchel asks, “You loved him. Didn’t you?”

  “Yes, dear, I did” is Susannah’s soft-spoken reply. “Which is why it’s such an honour to be of assistance to his grandson.”

  But am I? She keeps insisting that Arcadio’s my grandfather, but secretly I wonder if it’s the other way around.

  My future grandson, travelling backwards in time. . .

  I open the envelope. There’s a single leaf of paper inside. The message:

  Dear Josh,

  By now you must suspect that your fate is intertwined with the Mayan prophecy of 2012.

  As the poet once said, our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad.

  The truth you seek awaits you on the slopes of Mount Orizaba.

  A terrible storm is brewing. Yet you will never find peace until you confront your truth.

  Forever in your debt,

  J Arcadio Garcia

  I don’t know how to react. I gaze into Ixchel’s face, and then Susannah’s. They stare back at me with an expectant air.

  Finally, I crack. “What the heck is he on about?”

  “Mount Orizaba?” Susannah says. “It’s there.” She jabs a finger into the air, pointing at the distant snow-capped cone of a volcano that’s just visible on the horizon.

  “But what about the rest of it?” I say. “The stuff about destiny being ‘irreversible and iron-clad’. What’s that meant to be?”

  “I think it’s a warning,” says Susannah. “Arcadio sees your fate – whatever that may be – as inescapable. But this is very strange. What’s this mention of the Mayan prophecy? What fate of yours could he have known about all those years ago?”

  “Maybe he consulted a brujo?” Ixchel offers.

  Susannah surprises me by nodding at this, apparently serious.

  I’m incredulous. “You believe in all that?”

  “Of course,” she nods. “I’ve seen remarkable things in Mexico.”

  “I guess,” I say, remembering my own encounter with the brujos. “But there’s another way Arcadio could know about things that are going to happen to me.”

  Susannah and Ixchel bristle with instant intrigue.

  “Go on. . .”

  “It’s just an idea. . .” I say.

  “Yes. . .?”

  “Time travel,” I say. I ignore their sceptical looks, continuing, “Arcadio could be from the future. My son, or grandson, or something. And that’s how he knows what’s in my future. In my future – he knows me.”

  I don’t mention that he could be Itzamna himself, the very guy who founded Ek Naab. That would be a step too far – and it would break my promise to Montoyo.

  “You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you?” says Ixchel with a touch of scorn. “Typical macho man – so confident that some woman will give you a son. And a blue-eyed blond, too!”

  For the first time ever, I feel actual anger towards Ixchel. “All right, he could be a nephew, then – not that I have any brothers and sisters. Does that make you happy, hey? Sheesh . . . I can’t say anything around you!”

  Susannah looks mildly amused. “For best friends, you two squabble a good deal.”

  “We’re not best friends,” we say, simultaneously.

  “Arcadio must be from a future where he knows me,” I repeat. “How else could he know my address, that I’d understand the Caesar cipher?”

  Susannah smiles behind her hand. “You really think time travel is more likely than a shamanistic vision? Well, maybe we’re tal para qual, as they say in Spanish – two of a kind – each as misguided as the other.”

  I want to say more, but I don’t. I promised Montoyo I wouldn’t leak information from the Ix Codex – but it’s getting difficult. I can’t tell them about the Erinsi, the instructions to make the Key, the Bracelet of Itzamna, or Montoyo’s theory about a time-travel device.

  Susannah chops into my thoughts. “Let’s get back to the letter, kids. What is this truth you seek, Josh?”

  I sigh deeply. “I don’t know what really happened to my father. I think he was murdered by some US secret agents, but I can’t prove it. And I don’t know why.”

  “And you need to know the truth – why?”

  “I’ve tried forgetting about it. And I can’t. It’s got into my dreams. In the dreams, Dad tells me that they made it all up, the idea that he died. Him and my mum!”

  Susannah says, “Sounds as though deep down, you’re looking for someone to blame. Blaming him, anyone, even your mother.”

  “I dunno. But whoever is responsible – they have to pay.”

  Susannah shakes her head. “If it really was the secret services, you’ll never find out. Never prove it, never hold them responsible. You know that, don’t you?”

  “That’s not true! Read this letter. Arcadio knows that I will find out. That’s the ‘truth’ which ‘awaits’ me. That’s what he means when he writes, ‘You will never find peace until you confront your truth’.”

  “OK.” Susannah seems to be collecting her thoughts on the matter. “And you’re certain that you want to do this?”

  I
xchel interrupts, “Even more than getting the Adaptor back to Ek Naab?”