by M. G. Harris
There’s going to be no easy way to explain my being in her house, alone, window smashed and lights out. My only hope is to stay out of sight until she assumes I’ve already left, and then go. I glance around the room, hunting for a hiding place. I climb into a wardrobe, among a rack of suits. I breathe slowly, stay perfectly still.
Inside the wardrobe, I can’t hear so well. I don’t hear Ollie’s movements until the bedroom door opens. She can’t be taking more than a quick look around, because she closes the door a second later.
Time passes. I wait. In the calm of this moment, it sinks in; what seemed like a paranoid nightmare has come true.
It really was Ollie. But at least Tyler is in the clear.
The minutes tick by. It occurs to me that I’ve maybe done a stupid thing. In here, I have no idea where Ollie is. She could be anywhere. I can’t leave until I know she’s safely tucked away in the bathroom or her bedroom. Slowly, slowly, I open the wardrobe door, praying that it won’t squeak.
It doesn’t.
I step out, then stumble slightly and lose my balance. I manage to land on the bed with a quiet thud. I stay rigidly still, waiting for the inevitable sound of Ollie at the door. But it doesn’t come. I stand, creep over to the door, and listen. I hear the faint sound of Ollie’s voice. She’s talking on the phone downstairs, quietly. With each passing second, I’m getting more desperate to get out of this house, but I can’t risk going downstairs while she’s there.
Another hour goes by, at least. I check my watch—8:30 p.m.
Then the front door opens again. I hear the sound of footsteps in the downstairs hallway and then Ollie’s voice:“Hi.” There’s no answer from the new person. A door closes and I hear the TV switch on.
I bite my lip, wondering what to do. I could risk leaving now, but they might suddenly leave the room. Or I could stay in this room until they go to bed. But that could be hours away. I still need to go home and pack a bag for Ek Naab.
I decide to risk it. I carefully open the door, then tread down the carpeted staircase, keeping my step on the less creaky edges. I reach the front door, try to turn the handle.
Adrenaline spikes inside me and I gasp. The front door is double-locked. I turn around, expecting to see the living room door open.
It doesn’t. Cautiously, I pace across the hallway and into the kitchen, toward the back door. I reach it, almost leaping to the handle.
It’s also locked. A wave of absolute dread floods me. And just as I knew it would, the living room door opens. Ollie saunters toward me, her expression somewhere between smug and disappointed.
“You didn’t expect us to let you just leave?”
We stand facing each other, me frozen with horror, Ollie seemingly calm.
“Look at you, all dressed up,” she remarks, casting her eye up and down. “What did you think you were coming around for, huh?”
I don’t answer; instead I’m looking for a way past her. She’s blocking the door, but I could take her down with a capoeira move. From there I’d have to make it to the broken window. I get ready to spring into action, when Madison appears behind Ollie. He pushes his way past her, stares at me for a second, his jaw clenched tightly, then throws a punch straight at my face. I drop out of the way and launch a spinning kick, the armada, aiming for his face. I feel my heel connect with his head and hear a yell of anger. But when I land, I stop short.
Ollie is aiming a pistol right at my heart.
My eyes go straight to hers. I can’t help but look appalled.
“Ollie … I thought you were my friend …”
For just a second I catch the tiniest flash of regret. But as quick as she shows the emotion, she suppresses it.
“Chill out, Josh. The dance-fighting isn’t going to get you out of this.”
From behind, I feel a violent kick land hard against my ribs. The air rushes straight out of my lungs. I collapse to the floor. My arms sweep a container of silverware to the floor as I crash. Knives and forks scatter. I try to grab one, but Madison stamps on my hand, forcing me to scream. Lying on the floor, I gasp uselessly, winded, trying to get my breathing going again.
This time Madison speaks. “Get up.”
It begins to dawn on me just how bad my predicament is. I stand up slowly, sucking in air. Still holding the gun, Ollie pats my pockets, removes both phones. She passes them to Madison. He switches off my normal cell phone and places it on the stove top, among the ashes of the pages from Thompson’s house. He doesn’t take his eyes off me until he opens the Ek Naab phone.
“Who else knows about Ek Naab?” he asks, in a matter-of-fact way.
I say nothing. Madison smashes the phone down against the sideboard, snaps it in two, then proceeds to bring his heel down on the two halves, until it’s reduced to fragments of metal and plastic, the internal chips exposed.
“This time, Josh, they won’t find you,” says Madison, with malice. “Now. Where’s the new entrance to the city?”
I say nothing.
He shouts right into my face, “Where’s the Ix Codex?”
That one, I answer. “It’s in Ek Naab.”
The answer earns me another hard kick, this time to my right shin. I double over, groaning.
“I know that, jerk. You think we don’t know all about your little trip? Where in Ek Naab?”
Another blow, this time to my ribs, which by now feel as though they’re on fire from the inside.
“You have any idea what you’ve cost me?”
Then Ollie’s voice says calmly, “That’s enough for now, Simon. Save it.”
My mind is working overtime. I don’t know exactly what they’ve got planned, but questions and more of Madison’s kicks seem pretty high on the list. Without weapons, I’ve got no chance against the two of them.
I make a sudden lunge for Ollie’s gun. She yanks the pistol out of the way, but fires it anyway. The sound is deafening, and chunks of ceiling plaster crash down over us. Madison sweeps my legs from under me and I land on my stomach, sprawled over the threshold between the kitchen and the hall.
The gunshot seems to have stunned them too. Madison recovers first. “Baby, you wanna give me the gun?”
“I’m fine,” she snaps. “It’s just … I forgot how loud these things are.” Then she turns the gun on me. “Get up. Hands above your head.”
I do as she says. Madison reaches into a kitchen drawer, grabs a fat roll of duct tape. He twists my arms behind my back, wraps tape tightly around my wrists, over my shirt. He takes the gun from Ollie, turns me roughly around, opens a door that I’d assumed led to a pantry.
But it doesn’t. This is serious. Behind the door are stone steps that lead to a dark, damp-smelling cellar. No one outside would hear anything from down there. They could kill me and no one would ever know.
14
The cellar is empty, except for a small side table against one wall. There is only a tiny window, right up against the ceiling, no more than two feet wide. Madison pulls a cord, turning on a single dim uncovered lightbulb. He pushes the nose of the pistol against my cheek, softly.
“On your knees.”
I hesitate, then kneel on the concrete floor. He tapes my ankles together. I sit back on my haunches. Madison clicks his tongue.
“Not like that. Kneel up. Straight.”
It’s not easy to get up without my hands for leverage. I do it, slowly.
“Josh,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”
I stare at him in what I hope is defiance, but for all I know, my face shows every bit of the terror I’m starting to feel.
“One thing I do know about torture is, you gotta give a little sample. Now maybe you and I, being old friends, can leave that part out. So first we’ll talk a little. If I like your answers, maybe I’ll stop there. But if I don’t like your answers, Josh … I may need to persuade you.”
Madison places the gun slowly on the side table. His eyes turn cold, deadly, purposeful. I shut my eyes, steeling myself for the first blow, wh
en I hear Ollie’s voice.
“Let me try first. We should give reason a chance.”
Madison stares at her. “He’s a liar!”
“People lie under torture,” she remarks.
“Soldiers lie; a kid like him isn’t going to lie to me, not after I’ve broken a few of his bones.”
What Madison is saying is so unimaginably horrible that I can’t take it in. I blink, dazed.
Ollie says quietly, “Josh, why do you think this is happening?”
My voice cracks slightly when I reply. “You want the codex … you want to get into Ek Naab? I don’t know …”
“Well, let’s try asking about you. Why are you involved in all this?”
I stare into her eyes. “The end of the Mayan Long Count … the galactic superwave … I don’t want the world as we know it to end in 2012. Do you?”
Ollie sighs, as though this were an old, tired argument. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that saving people is the last thing we should be thinking of? What the world needs is fewer humans using up resources. Fewer humans—just those who make sensible use of what the planet has to offer. Fewer humans so that other species on the planet can actually live instead of being driven to extinction.”
I’m stunned. “So … you want to just let millions of people die … ?”
She doesn’t seem to have heard me. She continues, “We’ve made a mess of life on Earth. Climate change, wars, religious fundamentalism. One way or another, civilization is doomed. Why wait for it to happen painfully over the next century? I say we let it finish now, while the planet still has a chance to recover. Our civilization doesn’t need to be preserved—it needs to be re-created. By the right people.” Ollie throws me a meaningful look. “That could include you, Josh.”
I find my voice. “Me? Why?”
“You really don’t know? That Bakab gene is just the tip of the iceberg. Have you any idea what you’re capable of, if only we could unlock your potential?”
“What Bakab gene?”
“Don’t be an idiot. The one that gives you immunity to the Erinsi bio-defense.”
“Erinsi?” I search my memory for the reference. I’ve heard it before. But right now I can’t remember where.
“Josh, you’re forgetting how well I know you. Yes, the Erinsi—as in Books of Erinsi Inscriptions. The ancient people who actually wrote your precious Ix Codex—the Erinsi, the ones who actually invented all that clever technology they’re so proud of in Ek Naab.”
“Itzamna wrote the Ix Codex … ,” I say, stalling.
“He copied them,” snaps Ollie. “As well you know. Maybe you should stop underestimating me. I know that by now you’ve decoded the pages from the codex. You would never burn it to a crisp if you hadn’t. We’re not stupid either; we’ve decoded it too. I don’t know how much you know about the Erinsi, but I’m certain that you’ve heard of them.”
“Honestly, I don’t know anything. I read the name, that’s all.”
“Well, it’s not for me to tell you things that even your own people won’t let you know.”
I say nothing, thinking angrily of Montoyo.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Simon and I will leave you down here for ten minutes, give you a good chance to think through your options. Then I’ll come down, and, Josh, you’d better start talking—and fast. And I better like what I hear, or Simon is going to use his own methods.”
I say quickly, “If I do talk, what then?”
A hollow silence descends. After a few uncomfortable seconds, Ollie says, “It’s not my decision. It was your choice to come here. We were happy just to keep you under observation. Now, to be frank, I don’t know.”
My head swims just thinking of the possibilities. I’m almost overwhelmed.
“You’ve got five minutes to decide,” says Madison, picking up the gun, “before we come back in here and get things moving.”
“She said ten!”
Madison puts his foot against my chest and shoves me backward. I manage to rock sideways, cushioning the fall with my left shoulder.
“Ollie’s too nice. Me, I prefer to get things done fast.”
Shivering, my cheek clammy against the freezing cold floor, I watch them leave.
15
The second the door is shut, I twist my wrists, rub them together to get some give in the impossibly tight tape. After a minute I have just enough slack to grab the edge of my left sleeve between my finger and thumb. I tug hard, pulling at the cuff, working my hand back up into the sleeve. I throw my arm backward, almost dislocate my shoulder as I try to push my left elbow through the shirt armhole. I have to grit my teeth to stop myself from gasping with pain and frustration as I squirm around on the grime-encrusted floor.
But eventually, I do it. I pull my left arm around and rip the front of my shirt open. In another second I’m out of the shirt and the tape. And my hands are free.
I set to work on the tape around my legs. It’s not easy—no time to find the edge and gently peel; I’m way too panicked for that. I yank the tape with both hands and jimmy my legs to work the ankles apart until I can reach under the tape and pull hard enough to stretch it.
This all takes several minutes. Toward the end, I’m covered in a film of icy sweat. I’ve just managed to pull the last of the tape under my feet when I hear Ollie’s voice at the top of the cellar stairs.
“Okay, Josh, time’s up.”
I bolt up the stairs and throw myself at the door as hard as I can, hearing a scream as it connects with Ollie on the other side. I practically explode into the kitchen, almost trip over Ollie on the floor, the gun still clutched in her hand. Behind her, Madison stands, momentarily paralyzed.
We both stare at the gun.
I’m betting that he can reach it before I do. I leap over Ollie, to the kitchen, knocking into the stove. I catch my cell phone as it falls, then take another leap and land in the hallway. I duck into the back room and slam the door shut, grab a chair, and jam it under the handle. No way out but the window. The broken window is closed, a curtain draped over part of it. Madison kicks the door; the chair shatters. I don’t need any more incentive—I run at the window, clutching at the curtain as my body smashes through the glass. I fall for a second and land hard on the gravel path. The outside lights turn on. Shards of glass cling to the curtain. Madison shoots once as I’m climbing to my feet and running toward the back of the yard, into the shadows. I vault over the hedge at the back, land on mossy grass at the edge of the golf course. It sounds like Madison is just feet behind.
I sprint, hearing rapid breath in the gloom as he chases me. But at least he’s not shooting anymore.
The places where Madison kicked me are beginning to throb painfully as bruising sets in. It’s easy to ignore the pain; I concentrate on the need to survive. Madison will kill me now if he has to—I don’t doubt that. But given a choice, he’ll probably capture me alive, take me back to the cellar, and get down to the bone-breaking he promised.
And that thought just drives me to run harder—because I’m never going back in there. I increase my lead on Madison.
I cross the golf course, come to some railway tracks. I vault over them and sprint into a thicket. A partial moon hangs very low in a sky thick with high, orange-tinted clouds. Between the reflected city lights and the moon, there’s enough light to navigate between the trees. Seconds later, I reach the canal. It’s easy enough to cross, but I’d risk being an easy target with Madison so close behind. Instead I turn right and run across the waterlogged grounds of community gardens.
Now I recognize my surroundings—I’m on the edge of Wolvercote Village, near Port Meadow. I keep going. Somewhere ahead, I remember, there’s a bridge, then a railway crossing.
I keep up the pressure, running hard until I come to the bridge. The soggy ground slows me down; the dress shoes don’t help either. I can still hear Madison, now about thirty yards behind.
From the railway crossing, I tear along the main path,
splashing through puddles, crossing onto a meadow trail as I approach some houses near the road. I drag my thoughts away from my aching ribs and muscles, trying to think of a plan.
If I can find somewhere to hide, I can stay here until someone arrives from Ek Naab at four in the morning.
Although, in just a vest and soaked with sweat and possibly blood, I wonder how long I’ll last in the open …
I desperately need to reach shelter. There’s a restaurant in Godstow, on the river. I could probably reach it in a minute or two. I keep going, running past the parking lot, and reach the Isis River. I remember that there’s a boathouse close by on the other side of the river, which is only a few yards wide and shallow at this point. By the time I jump into the water, the open run has helped Madison gain on me. He’s now only twenty yards or so behind.
Nothing could prepare me for the icy shock of the water. It’s like another blow to my chest. It takes only a few seconds to swim across. Already, I’m shaking. As I climb out onto a wooden jetty, Madison hits the water. I grab the end of a canoe with both hands and slam it into Madison as he approaches. He gasps, reeling, swears at me, then falls back into the water. I turn and keep running. I can still hear him cursing in anger.
As I run through the boatyard, I realize that I can’t see any way out except via the locked buildings. The boatyard is on an outcropping where two rivers join. On one side is Port Meadow, where I’ve just come from. On the other is the village of Godstow. I reach the end of the yard and run onto another jetty. For the first time, I’m out of Madison’s line of sight.
The only way out seems to be Godstow. Which means crossing another river. It’s narrow, like the first. I’m already soaked through, shivering from the wind chill. But the water will be deeper here and freezing cold.
Dreading the cold, I slip quietly back into the water. It’s horrible. I duck under the jetty and hold my breath, listening to Madison approach.