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

  “It is evident,” says Rodolfo Jaguar, “that there’s no other choice.”

  “You’re wrong,” Montoyo says, firmly. “There has to be another way.”

  I say, “Carlos, Chief, look, I know you guys are duty-bound to hold the line against the outside world and all that . . . but you have to listen to them.”

  “Rather ironic,” Montoto says, sourly, “that after we preserve your right to be heard in this arena, you choose to go against us.”

  “Maybe that should convince you that I’m right. Listen . . . there’s something I haven’t told you yet.”

  There’s an expectant silence.

  “I’ve been to the future,” I begin, but my voice goes up at the end as the nerves grab hold of me. “I’ve seen the future – after 2012! The superwave on its own is not going to destroy civilization.”

  The five members of the ruling Executive simply stare at me, gaping.

  Montoyo says, “You time travelled again? But we strictly forbade that!”

  “I went to the future, OK? It wasn’t even our future, it was a parallel future. Maybe even Bosch’s future, where the Sect of Huracan ruled the world. I saw how that all began!”

  The shock continues to work its way through the gathered ruling Executive, apart from the chief, who merely shakes his head, staring at the table.

  “Yeah,” I continue. “It’s going to be bad. But what really finishes the world is a plague. A bacteria or some biological weapon escapes when all the computer security is down. And the Sect! They have this mind-control drug. You need a special gene to be able to use it, and the Sect is made up of people who have the gene. They start testing for anyone who can use it and force them to join the Sect. Then they do some genetic-engineering thing, which makes the mind-control drug work really powerfully. I bet you anything it’s the same thing the Sect did to me when they captured me in Switzerland!”

  I notice Lorena watching closely. No-one interrupts me – they’re rapt with curiosity.

  “They take over almost immediately. Everyone has to listen to the Sect, to do what they say. That’s their whole plan. The superwave just makes it possible for the Sect to act.”

  “You think,” Montoyo says with obvious difficulty, “that your trip to the future should be used as a basis for our decision-making here. . .?”

  “Why not? Isn’t that what Bosch did? He was from the future. The Sect were in charge; he tried to change the past. . .”

  “. . .and very likely, he ended up causing the Sect of Huracan to come into being! They recruit from the descendants of exiled Bakabs of Ix, after all!” says Montoyo. “From Bosch’s own blood!”

  “Which explains how come I’ve got the gene,” I insist. “I always assumed it was the Bakab gene. But it wasn’t – that was just something which Bosch introduced to protect Bakabs from the bio-toxin in the Books of Itzamna. The gene I’ve got, the gene that lets me use the time-travel bracelet, the gene that all the members of the Sect have – it was in Bosch!”

  “He’s right,” Lorena admits. “Josh is a direct male descendant of the Bakab Ix – who was a son of Bosch. Forgive me – I should have realised that myself.” She gazes at me, intently. “Josh – this is important – do you have any idea what the gene does?”

  I shake my head. “All I know is that in the future, the Sect call it ‘jelf’”

  “Typical lack of clarity from a gene’s given name,” she mutters. “But thank you – I’ll do some research.”

  “But there’s more - I got hold of the Sect’s mind-control drug,” I say, thrusting a hand into my pocket and fishing out a few plastic vials. I drop them on the table in front of Lorena. “You can analyse it, find out what it does, make an antidote. Then the Sect won’t be any threat. Give the antidote to the NRO instead! Trust me, the whole world is going to need it.”

  Lorena picks up a vial, lifts it to the table light and examines it. She lowers her glasses and turns to me. Her expression turns to one of hope. “Or – even better – we could use it.”

  Lizard Paw asks, “Meaning what?”

  Lorena smiles. “Maybe there’s another way to deal with the NRO after all. . .”

  The chief asks tersely, “Lorena – how fast can you analyse this hip33?”

  “A few hours, maybe less.”

  “And the antidote?”

  She shrugs. “More difficult to say. Months, at least.”

  “Before December?”

  “It won’t be much use to us any later than that.”

  “Please, Lorena, don’t be evasive. Before December, or not?”

  She’s silent, then: “I’ll do everything in my power to achieve that, Chief.”

  I ask, “What did you mean about another way to deal with the NRO?”

  Lorena replies, “From what you’ve told us, the Sect of Huracan relies on certain individuals to use this mind-control drug, correct?”

  “They call them blue-bloods, because after the genetic engineering their eyes turn blue. The way mine did.”

  Lorena smiles humourlessly. “As I suspected. Now we know the aim of the Sect’s genetic alterations to you, Josh. We may have an advantage; a shortcut to an antidote. When you were altered, I had your genome sequenced. The secret to how hip33 works is there, somewhere. Locked inside your DNA.”

  “Lorena’s on to something,” I tell the others. “Because I’ve used hip33. When I was time travelling in the Mayan past. Marius Martineau injected me with it. Made me have some weird mental power over this warrior who was trying to kill me. The guy wanted to slit my throat but he just couldn’t. It was something to do with my voice.”

  Lizard Paw interjects, “What you’re saying, yes, is that Josh can use hip33?”

  “I could have told you that,” I say.

  Lizard Paw smirks. “Well then, colleagues, I suggest we send Josh as our emissary to deal with the NRO. But with the advantage of hip33.”

  Lorena’s cheeks turn deep red. “Josh? An emissary? No . . . I really think that . . .”

  “I’ll do it,” I interrupt. “Come on, it’s me or Tyler, right? And he’s in now shape right now. Anyway – I wouldn’t let him. This isn’t even his reality. Why should Tyler risk his neck for us?”

  “You think they’ll just hand over the Muwan Mark II, no further questions?” Rodolfo says, incredulous.

  I nod. “If I’m using hip33, they just might. All right, Lorena, I’m up for it.”

  She sighs and shakes her head. “Dios mio, Josh. How am I going to face your mother?”

  Montoyo chuckles. “Don’t worry, Lorena. We’ll face Eleanor together.”

  “We have agreement then, yes?” says the chief. “Lorena will analyse the hip33. We’ll hear the NRO’s offer. If it should come to a face-to-face meeting, Josh will be dispatched, dosed with hip33. And if Eleanor Garcia objects . . . well, Carlos and Lorena will find a way to persuade her.”

  One by one, the five members of the ruling Executive agree.

  The chief gazes at me with a benign smile. “Well done, Josh. It appears your recklessness may have paid off – again. You’ve given us a third way.”

  For a couple of minutes I don’t know what to say. I’m suddenly hyper-aware of the person who’s missing from this gathering – the fourth Bakab, Blanco Vigores. What would he say if he were here? The people of Ek Naab seem to have given up on the idea of ever finding him. You hardly ever hear him mentioned. It’s as though somehow, people are relieved.

  Despite the chief’s confidence, I have no idea what the inscrutable old man would have thought about all this. And neither, I suspect, does anyone else. Blanco Vigores is totally unpredictable.

  In all his long years living in the city, no one ever seems to have gotten close to Blanco. His origins are an enigma. Montoyo once told me that in his memory, Blanco had always been an aged, bald man. His disappearances from the city have become so frequent that he’s easily forgotten.

  The ruling Executive disperses, exiting through the front door of th
e Hall of Bakabs. A small crowd of curious onlookers has begun to gather. Rodolfo Jaguar and Lizard Paw stop to talk to them, clearly basking in the attention.

  The chief, however, seems irritated by the fuss. He takes a call on his mobile phone. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice him grab Montoyo by the arm and lead him away from the crowd.

  I’m wondering what the two men are discussing when Benicio pushes his way through a cluster of students. He’s limping, walking with an aluminium crutch propped under his shoulder. When we spot each other we both grin. I’m so relieved to see Benicio safe and sound that for a moment I forget the tension of the last hour.

  Benicio claps an arm around my shoulder. “Hey, cuz! I just came from your buddy Tyler’s hospital bed. That dude has grown!”

  “Tyler’s awake?”

  “He’s still under the anaesthetic. But he’s going to be OK in a few hours. They gave him a little blood, stitched him up. Ehhh . . . a bullet graze to the collarbone. Painful! But he’s gonna be OK.”

  “How about you?”

  Benicio grimaces. “I was lucky – the bullet just missed an artery.”

  “Wow. What now?”

  He frowns, ironically. “Well, looks like the end of the world again. . . ”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Oh, you’re confident?”

  “There’s a lot going on. . .” I glance over my shoulder at Montoyo and the chief. They’re deep into what looks like earnest discussion. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say.”

  “So – what was it like? The future – was it bad?”

  “It was pretty bad. And what I saw was just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Man, I envy you. Time travel! You have to take me sometime.”

  I laugh. “Not likely. I’m done with it.”

  “What about your destiny and everything? What about Arcadio?”

  “I’m not Arcadio.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because. . .” My thoughts go to Tyler. “Look, don’t ask me how it all works, this time travel stuff. I’m only a beginner, right? But I’m one hundred-percent sure of this; I won’t time travel again. So Arcadio can’t be me. I can’t be him.”

  “Unless you change your mind someday. . .”

  “Which I won’t,” I say, emphatic.

  A lopsided smile appears on Benicio’s face. “Dude. Maybe you’re Arcadio. And maybe not. But while you’ve got that time-travel bracelet on your arm, the way I see it, anything’s possible.”

  Then we both stop talking, because at the edge of the crowd we see Ixchel. She’s alone. Benicio taps me lightly on the arm and waves at her. Then he hobbles away as I set off towards her. After a nervous few seconds, we step forward and hug each other. The moment my arms are around my girlfriend, I feel her relax.

  “They said they were going to stop you being a Bakab.”

  “Yeah. But it turned out OK. Montoyo stood up for me, can you believe it?”

  “Actually, yes. I think he really cares about you. But sometimes you’re like – the button he has to press to get something done.”

  “I’m a button-man for Montoyo,” I laugh. Then I pause. “I hope you’re not mad that I stayed in the future without you.”

  “I’m very, very mad,” she says, “so you’d better make a nice apology.” Ixchel raises an eyebrow in suggestion.

  I take her hand and lead her to a quiet spot behind some shrubs. Once we’re shielded from the crowd, which is now dispersing, I give her a proper kiss.

  But a moment later we’re interrupted. Montoyo’s hand lands squarely on my shoulder.

  “Josh – control yourself! There’ll be time for such things later.”

  When I look up, I see the chief and Montoyo. It’s obvious that their patience is stretched.

  “This is why you can’t take fifteen-year-olds seriously,” the chief says, and I’m only half-convinced that he’s joking.

  “OK, OK! I’m listening!”

  “We’ve just received a communication from the NRO. They want two of their own Muwans to be led directly into the city.”

  “They must think we’re idiots!” I say.

  Montoyo shrugs. “Their offer is substantial. More than the return of our Muwan Mark II.”

  “They’d have to offer the moon on a stick for us to let them inside the city, though, right?”

  “The ‘moon on a stick’ isn’t too far from their offer.”

  “Seriously. . .they must be desperate!”

  Montoyo gives a rare smile. “I’d say, Josh, that ‘desperate’ is precisely what they are.”

  The chief nods. “Aboard one of those Muwan will be Ninbanda – a survivor of the Erinsi civilization. The NRO took Ninbanda from the Revival Chamber in Iraq. Ninbanda knows how to operate the moon machine.”

  I gasp. “Whoa . . . so it’s true! The NRO has one of the Erinsi. . .”

  A couple of hours later Ixchel and I are in the café outside the Central Library drinking chocolate milkshakes when my Ek Naab phone buzzes.

  It’s Lorena. “Josh, I’m holding the results. The lab has analysed the contents of those hip33 vials!”

  “You’ve cracked the formula?”

  “Where are you? You need to see this.”

  I put my phone back in my pocket. “Lorena’s lab have analysed hip33. The thing that Martineau called hypnoticin. She wants us to get up to her lab right now.”

  We don’t even stop to finish the milkshakes. Minutes later we’re in Lorena’s lab. She pushes open the door to her office and leads us inside.

  “I wanted you to be the first to see this.” Lorena holds out a computer printout. “This is straight off the protein sequencer.”

  SEQUENCE: HIP33

  AGYLIHRPPREIKGR

  For a moment I’m frozen, staring at the printout and feeling stupid.

  Lorena is showing us the fifteen-letter amino acid sequence that gives the formula of the Crystal Key – a vital part of the Bracelet of Itzamna’s time circuit.

  The fifteen-letter inscription that is carved on to the Adaptor, which activates the Revival Chambers.

  The same fifteen-letter sequence that Arcadio left encoded in antique copies of books by John Lloyd Stephens, in case he ever forgot how to make the Key.

  Lorena told me the secret to the working of hip33 was buried inside my DNA. This is part of that secret – part of some mysterious biological circuit that allows me to influence weaker minds when hip33 is injected into my blood.

  Just like Arcadio told me in his cryptic postcard message:

  WHAT.KEY.HOLDS.BLOOD.

  Then an idea grabs me, a dumb idea, maybe, but so obvious to an Internet addict like me. . .

  “Lorena . . . can I use your computer?”

  Before she can object I’m already jumping on to a chair, sliding up to the nearest computer keyboard and typing the fifteen-letter sequence into the address box of a web browser.

  www.AGYLIHRPPREIKGR.com

  A website appears, flame-coloured graphics and strange flashing symbols. There’s a growling, mysterious audio track. Everything about the site is a warning.

  “It’s not possible. . .” I exhale.

  Lorena stares at me in complete bewilderment. Ixchel’s beside me in an instant. “What does this mean?” She can’t tear her eyes from the screen.

  “It means that what the Erinsi called the ‘Key’ . . . is exactly that! It’s the key to everything.”

  Ixchel murmurs, “Ninhursag.”

  I turn to Ixchel, confused. “What did you say?”

  Ixchel taps the screen gently. “Ninhursag. That’s what is written there . . . those flashing symbols. It’s Ancient Sumerian. One of the languages I’ve been studying. Of all written languages in known history, it is the closest relative of Erinsi script.”

  Lorena gasps, then nods and smiles. “Clever girl! You’re absolutely right.”

  “It is, though, isn’t it?” I say, wonderingly. “The writing looks just like that inscr
iption on the other side of the Adaptor. . .”

  “Indeed,” Lorena says. “One side of the Adaptor has an inscription in your friend Bosch’s own secret code using Mayan glyphs. But the other side is the original Erinsi. And yes, it looks a lot like Sumerian.”

  Before I can say anything else, Ixchel types “ninhursag” into an empty text box in the middle of the weird website.

  The music stops and a new page appears.

  It only takes a few seconds for it to sink in that we’re looking at the secret documents of the Sect of Huracan. Protected by a fifteen-letter sequence that is known only to people who have the formula of hip33. By a password that’s written in ancient Sumerian.

  “You need the Adaptor to open the Revival Chambers,” I say, breathless. “And the Adaptor needs the Key. I guess it opens some kind of biochemical lock mechanism.”

  Lorena says, “Hip33 has the same formula as the Key. . .!”

  “Yeah. . .” I laugh. “Hip33 is the Key! Just like Arcadio tried to tell me in his postcard message: What Key Holds Blood.”

  “I wonder. . .” muses Ixchel. “Why ‘Ninhursag’? She was an ancient Sumerian deity. A goddess.”

  The password-protected information on the website is organized into surveillance documents, details of Erinsi technology and some other sections that require further security clearance. We click swiftly through until we’ve found a page of technical drawings of three Revival Chambers.

  The Erinsi chambers in Mexico, Iraq and Australia.

  “The NRO control the chamber in Iraq. We control the one in Mexico, but it’s empty. And the Sect found the one in Australia.”

  Ixchel asks, “Do you think they’d leave any Erinsi survivors alive? Wouldn’t the Sect just kill them?”

  “If they could get inside, probably. But what if they can’t?”

  Lorena asks, “Why shouldn’t they be able to get inside?”

  I grin. “Because . . . I nicked their Adaptor!”

  “He did too,” smiles Ixchel. “Right from under their noses.”

  “And without the Adaptor,” Lorena says, “there’s no way to open the Revival Chamber.”