by M. G. Harris
“I put you in this building,” Montoyo says, logging on to the computer. “It’s small but the best we have right now. Your things – and your mother’s – are in the bedrooms.”
I take in my surroundings – the newly whitewashed smell and four bare walls. The floors are covered with hard, glossy sisal carpeting. The windows are empty, still covered with the builders’ dusty handprints. They face into a balcony across the lane, bursting with orange and yellow pot flowers.
“This is . . . my place?”
He nods. “For you and your mother.”
“We never said we were coming to live here. . .” I say with a flash of anger.
Montoyo looks up suddenly, genuinely astonished. “Josh – at this point, the debate is over.”
I stare back at my phone. We rushed off so quickly that I still haven’t had time to check the actual message. While Tyler’s looking over Montoyo’s shoulder at the computer screen, I sneak a peek at the screen.
So you visit the old man, but how about me?
There’s nothing else. Every single sound in the room is drowned out – by the sound of my own heart thumping. I can almost feel it in my throat.
How on earth can I be getting a text message from Camila?
On the computer, the familiar sight of Ixchel’s new blog pops up. We all lean in to read.
MESSAGE TWO FROM IXCHEL
Well, you’ve probably heard from Tyler by now that our new friends aren’t your usual gold-digging kidnappers. In fact, they traded all the other hostages yesterday for a very reasonable sum.
But not us. They want us for something else – as a trade for you. The kidnappers have a simple offer – just like they told Tyler. I’m guessing he’s still alive? I really hope so.
A trade – one of us in exchange for Josh. If you agree, they’ll arrange a place to swap hostages. If you don’t agree, they’ll shoot one of us. Then maybe you’ll see sense and save whoever is left. (That’s what Gaspar told me to write.)
You choose who to swap. They’ll choose who to kill.
You can’t begin to imagine what it feels like to write something like that about what might be my own death. How weird. It just seems unreal. I can’t quite get it into my thoughts.
So now you know. That’s what they say.
There’ve been a lot of threats. We haven’t been hurt so far. Unlike Tyler, we haven’t tried to escape.
Josh’s mum has been having panic attacks. They’re getting more tranquillizers for her . . . it seems she has a very nervous disposition.
What I’ve been told to tell you is this. We’ve been moved. I don’t have any idea what country we’re in now. They took us out of that empty building in Natal and into a van. We drove for many hours. Then we stopped, they drugged us and we moved on.
We have to spend all our time handcuffed together and locked in a room. They’ve offered us some books to read. It’s not easy to concentrate, though. It’s slow going. I’ve been trying to read a book called Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges. You’d like it, Josh, I think.
That’s all from me. Sorry, I’m just not in the mood to write. XXXXXX
This is straight from Gaspar: you have until 1800 hours Eastern Standard Time to decide. Let me know your decision by posting a comment here. We’ll take it from there.
Ixchel’s flat, empty tone breaks my heart. All the worries I’ve been suppressing for the past few hours suddenly tumble free. Ixchel is facing her own death again, like in the underground river where we almost drowned, like on the slopes of Mount Orizaba. Because of me – or because of how close she is to me. And my mother – she must be in some sorry kind of state if she can’t even put down some words for her only son.
I check my watch. We’ve got just less than six hours. By this evening, my mother or Ixchel could be dragged out of a darkened room to be murdered.
I can scarcely comprehend the full scale of the horror. It’s like looking at a vast painting – your eyes can only take in small chunks at a time.
I realize that I’m breathing faster. Montoyo’s hand rests upon my shoulder.
“It won’t happen,” he tells me. “I won’t let anything happen to them, Josh. Do you believe me?”
I blink as tears fill my eyes. I want to believe Montoyo, but there’s a catch in his voice . . . this time even he sounds unconvinced. I glimpse Tyler, rigid, helpless, his face ashen.
They’re both as scared as me.
I stand up straight, wipe away the tears. “They’ve really got us this time.”
“No. . .”
I insist. “They’re not going to kill me. Are they? Those genetic experiments they want me for – I won’t die from them.”
Montoyo shakes his head, appalled at what I’m suggesting. “We don’t know that. And Josh . . . if this is the Sect . . . you can’t expect me to deliver you into their hands.”
“Yes . . . I can. You’ve got to!”
The tears begin to flow again. I know that deep down . . . I’m lying.
“Yes, yes,” I say, trying to sound like I’m begging. “Let me go. Please! You can’t let one of them die. We don’t have a choice!”
Montoyo grabs my arms firmly. “Josh, calm down. This isn’t the way, trust me.”
But I get more agitated, pushing him away.
Even though the last thing I want is for him to stop.
“You have to let me go!”
Montoyo pulls me to him hard, buries my head against his shoulder. “I’m going to protect you, you hear me? That’s my first duty. We’re going to rescue them. Don’t worry, don’t be scared!”
Then I really let the tears go.
He’s saying everything I want him to say. I know then that Montoyo will never put me in real danger. Which is how I want it to be.
All this time I’ve let myself believe I could be brave, heroic. But when it comes down to it, I’m nothing but a lousy, stinking coward. More worried about my own life than about my mother’s or Ixchel’s.
Worst of all, I’m a liar, making out to Montoyo and Tyler that I’m some wannabe hero.
I don’t deserve to live.
The sightseeing tour of Ek Naab ends abruptly. Montoyo dashes off to plan the rescue mission, leaving Tyler and me in the apartment. There doesn’t seem to be much to do there, so we wander out into the lane.
I realize suddenly that Montoyo’s left us alone. Unsupervised, in Ek Naab.
“What do you wanna do?” Tyler asks. “And who was that text from? You went white when you saw it – like you’d seen a ghost.”
Slowly and without a word, I take out my phone and show him. Tyler stares, baffled, from me to the phone. “What . . . you don’t think . . . mate, don’t be daft.”
“What’s your explanation?”
Tyler’s eyes widen, astonished. “Josh, someone’s pulling your leg. Someone’s got hold of your sister’s phone, yeah? And they’re having a laugh. Did you try calling her back?”
“Great idea, man. Only, oh yeah, I already tried that.”
“And. . .?”
“Number unknown.”
Tyler shrugs. “Huh!” For a moment he seems properly stumped. “But . . . your sister. . .?”
“Read the text, Ty! I was visiting my dad’s grave just before I got this. The ‘old man’ – she means our dad. How could anyone know that except. . .?”
“A ghost?”
“That’s right.” I take a gulp of breath, think back to the past two nights when I’ve been woken by my phone buzzing – calls from a mysterious, unrecorded number. There’s some part of me that is somehow not surprised. “Yes,” I say, more firmly. “A spirit – a ghost. I don’t understand how it works or why me and not everyone else. But Ty, stuff like this happens to me. The world isn’t as simple as you imagine. With me, this is normal.”
“I mean this as a friend, Josh, but you – are not normal.”
I lick my lips, thinking. The kidnap scenario has escalated into something so scary that it’s too painful to think ab
out right now. Montoyo’s taken total command . . . I’m in the clear.
There’s only one thing I can think of that will help now – apart from handing myself over, which Montoyo will never allow.
I can fix the Bracelet. I can go back in time, save my dad and make sure that none of this nightmare that I’m living ever comes true.
“Come on, Ty,” I tell him, turning around in front of the church, trying to get my bearings. “We’re gonna go and find a Crystal Key. . .”
With that I head off towards the Tec – where I’m guessing Lorena the Chief Scientist must have her labs. Tyler follows, asking, “Find a what-now?”
“It’s not a key made of crystal, exactly. . .” I begin. “But a crystal that acts as a key . . . to unlock some special activity in objects with Erinsi technology.”
“A crystal,” Tyler repeats, a touch sceptical.
“A crystal made of chemicals . . . and I know the formula.”
“How?”
“It’s complicated to explain right now . . . but the formula was written in code, in the books that Montoyo brought to me in Brazil.”
As we walk, I bring Tyler up to date on everything we found out about the Crystal Key – how it’s mentioned in the first few pages of the Ix Codex, how it’s one of the objects needed to activate the Revival Chamber that Ixchel and I discovered.
“And this Revival Chamber does . . . what?” he asks.
“No clue. It’s something to do with stopping the galactic superwave in 2012, though.”
I tell him about how the Crystal Key has to be made in zero-gravity conditions, which is tricky. That it seems to be some key to using the ancient Erinsi technology that Itzamna, the founder of Ek Naab, managed to resurrect.
Tyler comments, “And Itzamna got all that ancient technology working again because he’s a time traveller, right?”
“At least, that’s what I reckon. Hence the Bracelet of Itzamna – a time-travel device. Only it’s busted – teleports you in space but not in time. I have to find that Crystal Key. Fix the Bracelet. And then I’ll find Blanco Vigores, make him tell me how to use it. Go back in time, save my dad, and none of this will have happened.”
This is beginning to sound like a plan I can get behind. I’m already feeling less sickened by my own cowardice.
This is dangerous too . . . but at least it’s not suicidal.
“But how will you find your dad? You don’t know where he is.”
“I can go back to the volcano, way before the avalanche hits. Spend more time helping Dad get his memory back. He arrived on that mountain months before we found him near Christmas. Maybe even before I found the Ix Codex in Catemaco? In fact . . . I could take him to the codex. Then Dad will bring it back, not me. My dad will be the Bakab Ix.”
I’ll be home free.
Tyler does a long, low whistle. “You’ve really got it all figured out, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” I tell him. “That’s right.”
He stops walking. “And in this new timeline, you and me, we’ll never become friends. Right?”
I try not to notice the disappointment in his eyes. “We’ll still see each other in capoeira.”
“Josh . . . we only became mates cos of what happened to your dad and everything.”
I don’t hide my impatience. “Ty . . . what do you want me to do? Wait until Montoyo botches another rescue attempt? Let my mum or Ixchel get killed?”
There is one thing you could do. Find a way to give yourself up.
But that thought remains unspoken. Maybe even unthought – by anyone except me.
Tyler shakes his head. “I just dunno. Playing around with time-travel, to sort out your own personal problems. . . I mean . . . is that allowed?”
“Allowed? What do you mean? Do you see anyone making any rules about time travelling? Cos I don’t.”
“But Josh, where does it end?”
I shrug. “I fix this, and it ends there.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Huh?”
Tyler stops again. We’re right in front of the main entrance to the Tec. I look up at the imposing, glass-encrusted building. Next stop – Lorena’s lab.
“What if whatever you do doesn’t fix things? What if it messes up something else – something you hadn’t thought about? Are you going to keep going back in time, trying to change one little thing?”
What Tyler says makes me uncomfortable. He’s right – I haven’t exactly planned the details.
“This feels right,” I tell him. “I’m supposed to go back. My dad as good as said it – his last words to me were This isn’t over.”
“That could mean anything.”
Irritated, I say, “Anything could mean anything!”
“Josh, hold on, take a minute. You’re losing it. One minute you’re telling me that your dead sister is texting you from the afterlife . . . the next you’re talking about changing time. . .”
My eyes light up. “Yes, and Camila too.”
“What?”
“If I change the past, I’ll save her too. Tyler – it’s the only way. Fixing the Bracelet – that fixes everything.”
We breeze past the reception desk at the entrance lobby of the Tec. Mind you, so do at least five older teenagers, students carrying books. With an embarrassed reluctance, the guy working the desk sidles out from behind it and catches up to Tyler and me just as we’re about to enter the main corridor to the faculties. I’m trying to act like I know what I’m doing because all the place-signs are written in Mayan – meaningless to me. But the reception guy stops us in any case.
“Josh . . . Josh Garcia, yes?”
I nod, trying to look like I’ve no reason to be surprised that this total stranger recognizes me.
“Uh huh. Carlos Montoyo sent me to meet with the atanzahab. Can you tell me the way to her labs?”
The receptionist looks shy, and then once again embarrassed. “I’m really sorry, sir, but . . . Montoyo hasn’t notified us. I can’t let unauthorized visitors walk right into the atanzahab’s department.”
“Well, maybe it slipped his mind to call,” I say, bristling slightly, “cos he’s dealing with a serious kidnap situation. My mother and Ixchel – you know Ixchel?” He gulps and nods. “They’ve been kidnapped by the Sect of Huracan. We have less than six hours to rescue them before one of them is killed. Montoyo sent me to get some supplies from Lorena. Now if you want to delay things, call him out of a meeting and all that, then OK. But no one’s going to be impressed.”
The receptionist visibly shrinks. I’m amazed that my bluff is being taken seriously, but I try not to show it. He stands to one side.
“Of course, Josh, sir, I’m sorry. I’ll call the atanzahab and tell her you’re on your way. It’s the second floor, two turns to your left.”
I nod and keep walking.
Tyler hisses. “He’s warned her you’re coming! What now?”
I guess we’ll have to get a little creative.
“I’ve been to university science labs before,” I tell him. “We’ll snoop around before we get to her office. We’ll say we got lost.”
We bypass the elevator and bound up the stairs.
“He called you sir,” Tyler mutters, impressed.
But there’s no time to reflect on how radically the world changes for me in Ek Naab. All I can think about is using the two or three spare minutes we might have to swipe the Crystal Key.
Beyond that, I’m clueless.
Following the receptionist’s directions, we quickly reach a department with two sets of doors. Between the two doors is a small sink, plastic bags to put over shoes and an air dryer. There’s no one else around. I hesitate for a second and then go through the first set of doors, grabbing a fistful of the blue plastic shoe covers. I pass a couple over to Tyler, then begin to wash my hands with pink liquid disinfectant soap.
“What’s all this for?” he mutters. “We gonna be performing surgery?”
“It must be so
me kind of super-clean area. Just go with it – we need to blend in.”