Reality Gold

by Tiffany Brooks

  ThinkTwice: Depends what it is. I could help with gold coins

  Viper5: Jewelry is a European market. There’s a guy in Spain who’d know how to clean that

  MrJackSparrow: I don’t want to clean it, I want to sell it

  ThinkTwice: That’s what cleaning means, idiot. You’re talking about something illegal, which means you have to clean it by passing through certain sales channels. You’re out of your league

  MrJackSparrow: No need for insults. I’m here for information. You don’t want to give it, be quiet

  Viper5: I’m out. I don’t deal with amateurs

  ThinkTwice: I’m still here. What do you have, Sparrow?

  MrJackSparrow: Nothing yet. But I have a lead. A good one. I’ll be on Black Rock soon and I want to set up sales channels ahead of time

  DeadSea: Everyone get offline. You’re violating terms of service. Treasure hunting is currently illegal on Black Rock, as is smuggling items of value out of that country. Don’t bring this garbage here

  And that was it. I frantically searched for more conversations. What had happened? This was a year ago and MrJackSparrow had said he would be on Black Rock soon. Had he found anything? My search for the gold could be over before it even started.

  The gong sounded for dinner. Not now! I needed to keep looking.

  Slow down, Riley. Think.

  I’d had conversations with MrJackSparrow in the past year. If he’d found the treasure already, there wouldn’t be any reason for him to be on the site anymore. He’d be over in Europe “washing” the gold with his new partners.

  That made me calm down a bit, but still, I couldn’t be sure. I reluctantly logged off. I checked the battery—ouch. It had drained a noticeable amount. I was going to have to be more careful about the amount of time I spent online. I had no way of charging the satellite; I couldn’t bring the charger because it would have been confiscated, or at least raised questions about what it was needed for.

  Of course, there was always the possibility that I wouldn’t even need to use the satellite again. The gold could be long gone. It was possible MrJackSparrow had already beaten us to it.

  “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Joaquin announced after we’d finished eating dinner. “Sean is going to be fine, that’s the good news. The great news, actually. He banged himself up pretty well doing that jump, but he’s going to be fine after some time in the hospital. Unfortunately, he won’t be rejoining us.”

  “What if you’re lying?” Taylor called out. “What if he’s not fine, but you aren’t telling us because you don’t want us to lose it?”

  “I assure you, I’m telling the truth, and there’s no need to ‘lose it.’”

  I had to admire Joaquin’s restraint for not noting that Taylor was already, in fact, losing it. It was also nice the way he went over to sit with her.

  “Tell that to the crew,” Rohan said under his breath. I wasn’t sitting with him, but my chair backed up to his. I twisted around to ask what he meant. On Rohan’s other side, Justin leaned in, too.

  “They say nothing’s been going right,” Rohan told us. “I was helping out in the kitchen tonight with dinner prep, and they told me things have been stolen and broken. Sometimes when it doesn’t seem like any people are even around. This island is haunted, they’re all sure of it. Deb’s already run through an entire staff because the locals keep quitting. Didn’t you notice everyone making breakfast today was new?”

  I hadn’t. I felt mildly guilty, but there were so many new people and things to keep track of.

  “Look at Phil and Deb, arguing all the time. This show is a mess, and they know it. That can’t be good for us, because if things start going down, they’re going to ramp up the drama on our end.”

  I didn’t know how much more drama I could take, and from the look of it, Phil was pretty close to his limit, too. He was standing at the edge of the Snack Bar, taking his baseball cap on and off, off and on.

  “Are you feeling all right?” I asked him. “Need anything from the Quack Shack? You’re looking a bit nauseous.”

  “No. Wait, yes.” He sighed. “I think I do need something for this headache.”

  I walked with him to the Quack Shack. Phil used his key, but once inside I wondered why they even bothered to lock it. There was hardly anything here—just bandages and aspirin and medicine you’d find in every bathroom. Nothing hardcore. It seemed like there should be a lot more supplies on site, seeing as this was an isolated island, but then again, it wasn’t like anyone from the show seemed overly concerned about safety or health.

  Phil found the aspirin and shook four tablets out. “You guys are killing me. This show is so much different from the one Deb and I worked on before, with the Alaskan fishermen.”

  “You did a show together before?”

  “Three, actually. Our whole crew as well. We’re the go-to team for the Alaska beat.” He waved his arm toward the beach. “Can you tell we wanted to do something different? We put this thing together while we dreamed of escaping frostbite. Went from that set to this one.”

  “That’s quite a change! The weather has got to be an improvement.”

  “That might be the only thing that’s better. The last show followed four crabbing boats. The routines and relationships were already established, we were simply capturing it on film. Here, we’re creating everything from scratch, so when something goes wrong, it’s our fault. It’s not like when a guy from one boat decides he’s had enough of another rig creeping in on his territory and then the two of them get into it. That’s on them, not us. This, though—Sean jumping. One of us should have tested the depth of the water so we’d know if it was safe, but since we booked this island sight unseen, we’re playing catch-up as we figure out the terrain. We’ve got this whole team of people who run through the challenges ahead of time, but we should have had them live at camp for a few days, too.”

  “Oh, right. Deb pointed them out.”

  “Exactly. The B-team. I don’t know why we didn’t think to have them completely replicate your whole experience, not only the challenges. Epic fail, as you teenagers might say.”

  It wasn’t quite as bad hearing Phil say epic fail as when my mother tried. At least he said it right, and not: that was an epic failure.

  I remembered the hidden canoe. “Would the B-team use a boat for anything? We found a canoe up the path along the beach.”

  Based on Phil’s startled expression and the way he quickly rushed us out the door, mumbling something about finding Harry to see his footage, I was guessing that was a no.

  It seemed as if everyone was having a bad day.

  After I left Phil, I found everyone down at the fire pit. I felt a pang when I saw Porter hugging Willa. Was he just making her feel better, hey friend, or was there more to it? My brain said I don’t care, but my heart said I might.

  I sat next to AJ and Maren on one of the logs. It was weird to see the entire group so muted, silently staring at the flames.

  “Phil didn’t seem happy to hear about the canoe,” I told AJ and Maren quietly.

  “We’ve got bigger things to worry about. Maddie just finished telling everyone about the curse, and now people are trying to stop us from going back to look for the treasure,” Maren said. “They think the island was trying to get its seventh death and that’s what caused Sean’s accident or something.”

  “The island isn’t a gatekeeper, you guys, keeping the treasure hidden until a certain amount of blood is spilled,” AJ said loudly, addressing the whole group. “You’re being crazy. I’m not going to stop looking.”

  “You will if we make you,” Murch said. I put a hand on AJ. That guy scared me.

  AJ shook me off and stood up. “How about you do your thing and I do mine, tough guy? Or is that a problem for you because you don’t have a thing? Go on, give up. But you’re not drop
ping out of the treasure hunt because of the curse; you’re dropping out because you can’t handle the fact that it’s hard.”

  I saw the lights of some phones, filming. I wondered if these devices were a smart idea after all—wouldn’t they get in the way of the real camera footage, or at least diminish the results? How great was it going to be if the real camera was only filming a bunch of kids holding phones?

  “Whatever. I’m not taking crap from a loser like you,” Murch said. “Huaca, you’ve gotta vote this guy out. Get rid of him. You wouldn’t want to lose another teammate to an ‘accident,’ would you?”

  AJ jumped up and raised his fists. “You want to fight now? Let’s go!”

  Murch stood up, a lot more confidently. And for good reason. He wasn’t ripped like Cody, but he was large.

  “Yeah, boy,” Rohan yelled.

  “Stop it! Don’t encourage him,” Taylor screamed.

  This set off a round of cries, some in support of a fight and some not, but it ended quickly after Murch cuffed AJ on the head. AJ immediately backed off.

  I looked around. Seriously, where were the adults? Murch was huge and AJ was scrawny. This was dangerous. Did Deb know this was going on and not care, or did she not even notice?

  “Forget it,” AJ said. “I’ve got better things to do than waste my time on you.”

  He stormed off toward his cabin in better condition than Taylor, who was nearly hyperventilating.

  Willa pulled her up. “Let’s go on a quick cabin break, sweetie,” she said.

  Someone on Sol started a game of cornhole, but I stayed put. I didn’t agree that the curse should be a reason to stop the search, but on the other hand, the idea of the island not surrendering the treasure until it was ready was interesting. People thought of the sea that way, too, sometimes. Supposedly “she” guarded her sunken boats and often searchers would return to a dive where they’d seen signs of a wreck to find the ocean floor mysteriously washed clean.

  I stared into the fire, probably looking like a moron thinking all these random deep thoughts, when Porter slid onto the log and bumped up next to me.

  “Hey, Frisco,” he said.

  I made a sour face, but inside I felt the thrill of hearing him use that nickname. It was like a code that only the two of us knew.

  “I had an idea.”

  “Oh, is that a new thing for you?”

  “Hey, don’t be salty. I figured out how we can give your team an advantage without insulting Maren with another sex trade proposal. How about the next time Sol wins, we choose ourselves to vote someone off instead of forcing Huaca?”

  “Is this to get your stuff back?”

  I’d seen his things; Maren had relented last night. Some terrible notes, mostly. I’d been happy there weren’t signs of a girlfriend—no pictures or love notes. Rohan had brought a book, and Willa had brought pictures of friends. Nothing special. The real value in their things lay in the fact that they wanted them. I’d even caught a glimpse of what Maren herself had brought: a sketch pad and colored pencils, although she’d shoved them back in her safe pretty quickly before I could see any of her artwork.

  “Can you bring the trade to Maren?” Porter asked. “Think she’ll do it?”

  I nodded. “I think so. Why not?”

  Because I’d been thinking so much about Miles, my godfather, the movie of that name was in the forefront of my mind. It felt natural to reference it to Porter.

  I laughed. “I feel so Godfather-ish right now. Does this make me Maren’s consigliere?”

  “You know that movie?”

  “Obviously. Who doesn’t? My dad and I used to watch it all the time, usually at midnight when neither of us could sleep.”

  I missed those days, but before I got sad about it, Porter put his hands on both sides of my face. “I know it was you, Fredo.”

  I flinched in surprise. Inside I was basically screaming, He’s touching me!

  He took his hands away. “That’s the best scene, isn’t it?”

  “You weren’t trying to give me the Kiss of Death, were you? Haven’t you done enough to me already?”

  He leaned into me, giving me a shoulder bump. “Oh, so you wanted me to kiss you?”

  I felt my face burning. Was I being played? He had just been hugging Willa.

  “Definitely not. I would never kiss anyone who didn’t know that scene was from Godfather II, not the original.”

  “Godfather is a single canon, no need to divide up the movies.”

  “You know what my favorite line is? Leave the gun, take the cannoli.”

  Willa emerged on the other side of the fire, Taylor-less. “You guys, this is crazy. We’re on a tropical island. What are we doing moping around? You heard Joaquin, Sean’s going to be fine. Later he’s going to watch this on TV and feel so sorry for all of us losers who don’t know how to have a good time. Let’s do something Boom_Sean_alaka would do! Make him proud.”

  Justin stood to join her. “I’m in. No cliff jumping, though.”

  Willa pulled off her shirt. The girl must have packed ten different bikinis. This one was white with gold trim, all the better to show up in the dark night. It was almost like she’d planned it, which, based on her Instagram success, she probably had.

  “No jumping,” Willa promised. “Just a little bit of night swimming.”

  A yellow glow from the moon stretched all the way to the water’s surface, and it made the idea of slipping into its dark, invisible depths almost attractive. It was peaceful, actually. Small waves rolled ashore with a rhythmic, quiet swish.

  Taylor and Chloe and Alex started taking off their clothes, too.

  Porter stood up and held out his hand to me. “You coming, Frisco?”

  Was I? I wasn’t sure. They were the opposing team. Plus, this could be a ploy. Porter had played me before.

  But what if it wasn’t? I was suddenly glad for Deb’s advice to always wear a bathing suit underneath any clothes. It wasn’t skimpy or reflective, but my black bikini worked fine.

  “Okay,” I said. I’d been waiting for Porter to notice me, so why not?

  I let him pull me up.

  Willa danced between us. For a second I thought she might be there to separate me from Porter, but she put her arms around both our backs and it felt friendly, warm. It was easy to imagine the three of us pictured in one of her posts. One of her long red curls spilled over my shoulder, and it was so light, glinting gold in the firelight. No wonder she was so confident. Hair like that could make anyone feel special. My own hair felt weighty and boring compared to that single, bouncy curl.

  “Yes, come, Riley!” she said. “Join the fun group!”

  “Only if I get to push him in this time,” I said, reaching across Willa to elbow Porter.

  He broke free and splashed ahead. “Gotta catch me first.”

  We went far enough in so that the water was over our waists, the boys predictably taking turns brushing against the girls underwater enough times so that eventually we were all giddily grabbing each other and squealing What was that? until Phil rushed to the edge of the water in a panic and made us come ashore.

  “One of you drowning or a shark attack is just what I need right now. Time for lights out! I need to call a wrap on this day.”

  “What’s the matter, Phil? Your B-team never went night swimming?” I called out.

  He went from frantic to weary. “Just come in, please, and don’t forget to log your Demons in. I put the job sign-up sheet out for tomorrow, too, if you want to pick your shifts.”

  No one did, but it was smart of him to invoke the word shark. There had been enough unclaimed flicks to our feet and legs that none of us really objected to coming ashore, not even Willa.

  We splashed onto the beach. I thought of the first day, when we’d all walked to the marker together and I’d realized
it was the first time I’d been part of a group in a long time. I’d been so nervous, not knowing how or where or with whom to walk, but tonight I didn’t feel any of that.

  Later, when we were all getting ready for bed, I slid onto Maren’s bunk and told her about Porter’s proposal.

  “Had fun skinny-dipping with all of them, did you?” she asked, ignoring the trade details.

  “Yes, actually. But he came to me with that plan. What was I supposed to do, ignore him?”

  “It’s just so predictable, that’s all.” She turned her back to me after adding, “I’ll think about returning their stuff. Maybe I’ll do it. Maybe not.”

  I sat there for a second, confused. She’d been so clear. We were not friends, she’d said. Many times. But now she was mad because I’d possibly started making friends elsewhere? And the other weird thing was that I was pretty bothered by the idea that she might be mad at me.

  Everything was upside down. I didn’t know who meant what to me anymore.

  15

  It was a challenge day, which meant the gong woke us up bright and early. We grabbed our phones from the charging station and had a quick breakfast. It was hard to believe this was only our third day here.

  Because the sun was hardly more than a dark pink ball above the horizon, there wasn’t much talking. Thank God for coffee. I managed to suck down two cups before Joaquin herded us onto the boats and over to what we’d all started to call Challenge Island.

  I wasn’t sure what today would bring. Maren was obviously mad, and I was nervous how that would play out. Her T-shirt today—Good morning. I see the assassins have failed—was not a good sign.

  The arena had been transformed by the hardworking B-team, who had replaced the sand squares with two giant piles of rocks. It would be a wall-building challenge, Joaquin told us. He had to be filmed four times doing the instructions. Definitely off his game.

  Deb finally stepped in to make sure we were clear on what to do.