by M. G. Harris
But is it? Deep down I’ve got a nagging suspicion that the Sect have changed something important about me; something that will make sure that whoever I am from now on, it’s not Josh Garcia.
At least, not quite.
Mum was already with Lorena when Montoyo and I rolled up at her office. It was just getting dark outside and the lights from the Tec poured over the quadrangle in the middle of the building. I stared through the window, watching the students – some of them the same age as me. They shuffled around, laughing and talking. I got a little stab of pain in my chest when I remembered mucking about in my own school, hanging out with Emmy, chasing classmates through the circular cloister.
I’ll never go back there. That life is over for me now. Looking down at those Ek Naab teenagers, I knew instantly that I’ll never fit in.
Not properly. The Bakab thing will always keep me apart.
I noticed Montoyo looking at me. He flashed me a quick grin, as if to say “hang in there”. Then he took my mother’s hand and squeezed it. Mum’s cheeks flushed a little.
For a second or two I couldn’t tear my eyes away from their linked hands. I felt pretty uncomfortable. I thought about my father in that Area 51 cell. It didn’t matter to me that it really happened months ago, or that he’d died since then.
Lorena sat down. She smiled at me, then at my mother. You didn’t need to be psychic to see that they were both nervous. It took all my self-control not to start shaking. I dragged down a couple of long breaths and held them there, releasing the air slowly through my mouth. Just the way they showed us in capoeira.
Lorena cleared her throat. “From what I can tell, Josh, the news is good.”
My mother began to sob with relief. I leaned over to hug her. Montoyo watched us, his expression unreadable.
I closed my eyes so that I didn’t have to look at him.
Tyler, Ixchel and Benicio are hanging around in the lobby of the Tec. When we come down the stairs from Lorena’s office, they turn anxiously.
I break into a grin. All three of them rush forward, Tyler and Ixchel hugging me at the same time.
“You’re all right?” Tyler asks, breathless.
“Probably,” I tell him.
“So, what did they do to you?”
I take a deep breath. “I’ve got all four Bakab genes now; not just the Ix gene, but the other three too.”
Ixchel and Benicio are wide-eyed with amazement. “You have the abilities of all four Bakabs. . .?”
I nod. “Yep.”
Benicio frowns. “Kind of worrying, that the Sect can do that.”
“The good bit is that they don’t know for a fact that it worked. They didn’t do any tests after I woke up. So hopefully they’ll still have to test it on someone else.”
Benicio shrugs. “Still . . . it’s only a matter of time.”
I’m actually pretty cross at his attitude. Sure, it’s not great news all round – but at least I’m not being turned into some genetic monster super-warrior. . .
Ixchel gestures at my eyes. “And the eye colour? Do they have some Aryan fantasy of repopulating the world with blue-eyed specimens?”
“Some what?”
“Like Hitler,” she says.
I dart a look at Ixchel to see if she’s joking. I guess she really doesn’t like my eyes like this . . . and I’m starting to wonder why.
“Lorena reckons it was the ‘positive control’,” I tell them. “The Sect used their genetic technology to change my eye colour – an obvious change that they could see. If that worked, if that was ‘positive’, then there would be a good chance that the other genetic changes also worked.”
“So you’re a four-times Bakab now,” Benicio says. “Hmm, wonder what the other Bakabs will feel about that?”
I don’t mention the other change that Lorena spoke about. That’s something that I still have to come to terms with, something that Lorena’s going to be working on.
“They put something else into you too, Josh,” Lorena told me, back in her office. “A gene which makes the Key peptide.”
“The Key . . . you don’t mean. . .?”
“The substance which makes up the Crystal Key . . . yes. It can be produced by your own cells now. And isolated from your blood.”
I have the Key inside me. It’s just like Arcadio wrote in those postcard messages.
WHAT.KEY.HOLDS.BLOOD.
Arcadio knew. I feel sick just thinking about it. Something else he knows about my future.
“Why?”
Lorena shook her head. “I have no idea. Aside from activating the Adaptor in the Revival Chamber, we don’t know what the Key does.”
“But you can find out, right?”
Lorena smiled then, quite gently, first at my mother, then at me. “Sure, Josh. Finding things out – that’s my speciality.”
Montoyo and my mother follow me down the stairs. Benicio and Ixchel still appear shaken by the news about the genetic changes that DiCanio and the Sect have made to my DNA. In fact, they’ve gone fairly quiet.
It’s not the first time I’ve had to face up to the fact that something I did has helped the Sect.
At least I made it back to Ek Naab. More importantly, so did Mum, Tyler and Ixchel. So long as we’re all together, I feel as if I can tackle any problem.
Tyler draws a breath. “The Sect have a leg up now, no doubt. But you’re back alive, innit? That’s what really matters.”
For a second or two I can’t speak; then I nod a couple of times and say, “Thanks, Ty.”
As he passes me, Montoyo taps my shoulder.
“Josh. We need to speak.”
He motions me outside the lobby and past the huddle of students crowding the front of the building. There’s a consistency to the air that’s unusual in Ek Naab. It feels almost powdery. I glance upwards and realize that above the surface, it’s raining. But this rain stops at the ceiling mesh. Only a very fine mist descends, almost imperceptible.
“It stops the rain. . .”
Montoyo nods. “Things are different here. But you’ll adapt.” His expression becomes sterner. “Now, let’s get this done. The Bracelet of Itzamna – you’re going to give it to me for safe keeping.”
It’s a struggle to hide my resentment. “OK. It’s at our apartment. But what about Vigores? You said we’d talk to him. . .”
“Yes, Vigores. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him. No luck. His assistant says he left a few days ago.”
“Left . . . for where?”
“He had business outside the city. That’s not unusual for Vigores. He travelled widely in his youth – he still has many friends in Mexico.”
“He does. . .?” For a few seconds I just stand in silence, gazing at the ground. Slowly it’s dawning on me how little I know about the daily lives of any of the people who have so much influence over me.
What do Montoyo and Vigores do; what were their childhoods like? Did they ever have normal jobs? Girlfriends, wives? Any kids? Montoyo seems to be forever on the go: putting in appearances in the Yucatan University in Merida where he’s supposed to be a lecturer, fixing financial deals for all the technology in Ek Naab. Vigores lives in his mysterious apartment in the middle of an underground labyrinth and famously disappears for weeks at a time.
One thing is for sure – the members of the ruling Executive of Ek Naab, like Montoyo, Vigores and Lorena, seem to have way more freedom than other citizens.
Or maybe that’s just my impression? After all, Ixchel was allowed to run off to live as a maid and waitress in Veracruz – when she was only fourteen. More freedom than any fourteen-year-old I know would be given. I wonder then if it’s something to do with the fact that she lost her mother so young. She never told me the details of that. But I’m willing to bet Benicio knows all about it – another advantage he has over me. I stare over Montoyo’s shoulder, watching Ixchel through the glass. She and Benicio still seem tense.
I need to learn more about these people.
/> “Can you help me to get to know people here?” I say suddenly. Montoyo peers at me. He looks more surprised by the minute.
“Anything I can do, Josh, of course.”
“People my own age,” I tell him firmly. “I want to meet them first. If I’m going to stay here, I need some friends. More people like Ixchel and Benicio.”
Montoyo nods, but now looks a little wary. “OK. Yes, I can see that. All right; why don’t you have a party?”
I consider this. “Like, a house-warming party?”
“Yes, Josh. Exactly like that.”
“I guess . . . it could be cool.”
BLOG ENTRY: BLINDED BY NOSTALGIA
Tyler asked me, “So you still keeping up with your blog?” And I replied, “As if. . .”
There’s no point having a blog that people you know are going to read. Where’s the fun in that? If your friends – or your enemies – are reading it, you can’t be truthful.
Since there’s not a person alive I can be truthful with, I’ll have to stick with the secret blog.
Tyler and Mum help me to get the apartment ready. Mum buys paintings from the market, and vanilla-scented candles. We make the living room feel really inviting. Tyler and I make fruit punch and Benicio slips us a bottle of tequila to give it some oomph. The baker delivers hot empanadas – tasty little cheese, pork, and chicken pasties.
I plug in my dad’s iPod and select some jazz. Tyler wrinkles his nose. “You’re kidding, yeah? It’s like Summertown Starbucks in here. . .”
Well, why not? I could do with a reminder of home. It’s sad to think of someone else living in our house. At least Mum is only renting it out. I’d like to think I could go back there, one day.
As we’re waiting for the guests to arrive, Tyler says, “You didn’t tell us everything about the Bracelet, did you?” I try to avoid his eye but he just grins. “It’s all right, man; you don’t need to tell me the details. Me, I reckon you used it to go back in time, further than ten minutes and not just to rescue yourself from that hospital bed. You’d never let Montoyo have the Bracelet . . . not unless you’d already done what you wanted. Unless you’d found your zero moment.”
I point out that Montoyo didn’t exactly ask – he basically laid down the law. That I didn’t know how to control the Bracelet, so it was a non-starter.
I haven’t told anyone about going back in time and meeting my dad. If time travel is risky, then it stands to reason that talking about it might be risky too. Maybe what happens in the past should stay there.
Tyler’s comment about the zero moment stays with me, though. Was that it, I wonder – meeting Dad in the underground base in Area 51?
Things are different since that, it’s true. I don’t have the same drive to change the past any more. Not when the future seems so uncertain – and so exciting.
In less than eighteen months I’ll be sixteen; a member of the ruling Executive. It’s a lot to prepare for . . . and I’m starting kind of late in the day.
People begin to arrive, the first bunch with Benicio. Some faces I recognize from the Tec. Benicio himself acts very laid back, introducing me to everyone as his “cousin Josh from England”, not as the Bakab Ix, which is a relief. I wonder then how Benicio feels about the way Montoyo keeps ordering him around the world. Is he bothered that he isn’t going back to Oxford? It doesn’t look like it. In my apartment that night, Benicio doesn’t seem to have a care in the world.
Then Ixchel arrives with four or five girls. They’re all wearing dresses and skirts, much more tidily, formally dressed than any girls I know would be for a party. None of the girls are as pretty as Ixchel.
It feels like a dream, sitting in my new apartment, entertaining friends. Like a scene from a movie. The playlist reaches the Brazilian jazz numbers – a familiar tune by Tom Jobim, one of Dad’s all-time favourites.
This again.
It’s a different recording to the one I heard in the dream with Camilla, or in Dad’s cell; this time the singing is in Portuguese. But I’d recognize the tune anywhere. Now I think of it, this was playing in Brazil too, the night we sat in that restaurant on the beach.
Standing by the window, I stare at the title of the song. Then I smile. There’s nothing else I can do.
Ixchel wanders over, giving me a quizzical look. “Something funny?”
If only you knew.
My mind goes back to that first night in Brazil. If I could use the Bracelet to time travel, that’s when I’d go back to. Forget Arcadio and the galactic superwave; if I had to pick just one moment to revisit, I’d want another shot at that evening on the beach in Brazil.
This time I wouldn’t let Ixchel go straight to Benicio. I wouldn’t play it so cool; I’d let her see how excited I was to see her again.
But really – would that have changed anything? After all – what did Arcadio write to me, the quotation from that writer Borges – Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river?
And a river flows only one way. . .
I think of the Bracelet, now locked away in Montoyo’s office. I don’t think I’ll ever totally get rid of the urge to “swim against the stream of time”. If I really am Arcadio – that sounds a lot like a warning from my future self.
Wonderful idea – but it can’t be done.
Whatever purpose time travel serves, I guess Tyler and Ixchel were right. The Bracelet of Itzamna isn’t a tool for solving my personal problems.
Ixchel continues to stare at me, her puzzlement turning into a grin. “So . . . what? Why are you smiling, Josh?”
“This song,” I tell her, “is called ‘Wave’.”
“‘Wave’. . .?” she echoes.
“Yeah. ‘The wave is on its way.’ Kind of like . . . the superwave, don’t you think?”
She’s still slightly puzzled. “I guess that’s funny. . .”
“Yeah, a bit.”
“I like it,” Ixchel says, thoughtfully. “It reminds me of that night we arrived in Brazil. Portuguese sounds so great there, doesn’t it? Really must learn to speak it.”
She’s thinking about that night too.
I raise a glass of fruit punch to my lips, hiding my face. She starts to look a little nervous too; she lowers her eyes.
“I never really got to thank you. . .” she begins.
I stare in disbelief; I get butterflies in my stomach.
Still not properly looking at me, Ixchel continues, “I always knew you’d come back for your mother. But by that river, in Brazil.” She looks up. “You could have got away. You didn’t have to come back for me.”
“It’s OK,” I mumble. “Course I had to. That was the point – to get you all back.”
Ixchel smiles. “Well . . . I’m grateful.”
Then, as if she’s just thought of it, she leans over and kisses my cheek. For some reason I can’t make myself move.
Say something. Say anything. Now.
But all I can do is nod, smile a bit and take another sip of my drink. There’s a lump in my throat the size of a plum.
After all the stuff I’ve been through, why is this so hard? Truth is, it’s impossible. I don’t know where to start. Might as well try to speak Japanese.
Warm air wafts in from outside. It smells of the rain-drizzled blossoms that fill the lanes and alleyways of Ek Naab. Ixchel stands centimetres away from me, facing the crowd of her friends from the Tec. The silence between us lengthens, becomes awkward. I pretend to glance away but out of the corner of my eye I watch her twist her ponytail between two slender fingers. Then Ixchel turns and I follow her gaze.
She’s looking over towards Benicio. She just stands there, waiting for him to notice.
Ixchel is the one person I would love to tell everything. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t say anything; not a word.
Thank you for reading ZERO MOMENT (The Joshua Files #3)
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Acknowledgements
Eternal thanks to Team Joshua at Scholastic Children’s Books UK, especially my new editor, Polly Nolan, who joins us mid-series, and to Jessica White, Alyx Price, Alex Richardson, Sarah Lansbury, Elaine McQuade and Hilary Murray-Hill for continued energetic support. To Elv Moody for a brilliant suggestion when we first discussed the plot. To my agent, Peter Cox, for being generally wonderful. To Matt Barnard, barista and manager at Summertown’s Starbucks, for providing me with such a wonderful “office”, and to fellow children’s author Susie Day for sharing long hours and laughs at the “office”. And mostly to my husband, David, for always supporting me, letting me take the family to Brazil, and for jumping on the manuscript as soon as it’s finished and not putting it down until he’s read right to the end.