Reality Gold

by Tiffany Brooks

  “Fine. I’ll wait ten minutes, but that’s it.”

  I left him sitting under a tree. He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed, and I realized immediately why I was annoyed. I’d been accused all year of going behind my friends’ backs for my own benefit, but it hadn’t even been true. And now here AJ was, actually doing it, and he didn’t even feel bad about it.

  I had just collected water bottles and sunscreen and grabbed some extra sandwiches from the Snack Bar when behind me Lou’s walkie crackled.

  “Lou, that’s a no-go for you. I need two on the beach this afternoon,” Deb’s voice came through.

  “Flying in,” Phil’s disembodied voice broadcast. He arrived in a minute, huffing up from the beach. Deb followed. They pulled Lou out of the Snack Bar into what escalated quickly into a heated argument about camera assignment.

  Deb was throwing around a lot of sass: I don’t care. Not important.

  Whatever they were arguing about, Phil must have lost, because he was the only one of the three who came back. He looked mad.

  “Bring your Demons,” he told me. It was cute how the adults all kept referring to them by their proper name instead of just saying phones. “I need someone filming at all times. Got it? We’ll download your videos later and hopefully find something to use. And don’t avoid the drone.”

  So Lou wasn’t coming with us—we’d be on our own. That meant two things: we could search without Lou reporting back every detail and every discovery, but it also meant that Porter and I might have a better chance of getting together if Lou wasn’t right there in our face.

  No way was I going to leave without Porter. AJ wouldn’t like it, but too bad. He wasn’t thinking of me, so why should I think of him?

  I hurried on the back path to the Sol hut, weaving this way and that to avoid Maren on the beach and AJ in the woods.

  I burst out of the trees, nearly running right into the hammock strung outside their hut. Most of the Sol team happened to be right there to witness my ungainly arrival.

  “Oh. Um, hey, Porter,” I said, as casually as I could. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

  Justin hooted, but Porter didn’t seem to mind. He came over and plopped down in the hammock, keeping his feet on the sand so he could swing gently.

  “What’s up, Frisco?”

  “Lou’s not coming this afternoon,” I said. “That means no camera. I think you guys should come back.”

  “You think we should come back because there won’t be any cameras? That sounds like you’re suggesting something off-limits,” Porter said, teasingly. He pushed off with his feet a little harder and the hammock rocked a little higher. “I don’t know. I might need some convincing. It was pretty hot up there.”

  “What if I asked nicely?”

  “Hmmm. How nicely?”

  Oh. This was getting into uncharted territory. I’d had boyfriends before, but casual ones, boys I’d see mostly at parties or in the park after school if a group was getting together. Conversations like this weren’t exactly the norm for me. Just as I was cursing my rusty flirting skills, Cody bailed me out.

  “Let’s continue this on the road, shall we?” he said, walking by and giving the hammock a push as he passed. “Alex and I agreed, we’re all going. Get your water bottle, son.”

  “You heard him. Hurry up, or we’re leaving without you,” I told Porter, back to business. Then I pointed at the beach where Joaquin and Maddie were setting up a volleyball game. “Or maybe you’d rather stay and play volleyball with everyone who’s not tough enough to search for the gold?”

  “I’m coming! Jeez.” When Porter hopped off the hammock, we were so close our faces nearly touched. It should have been awkward, but it felt . . . nice. Normal. It lasted just the right amount of time, and then Porter waved his arm toward the trees in an exaggerated gesture. “Lead the way. Ladies before gentlemen.”

  Halfway there, we took a break at a familiar clearing. Black Rock loomed above the jungle, so dark it seemed almost pasted onto the flat blue sky.

  “Picture time,” Alex said. “Come on, don’t even try to complain. Phil specifically said we had to document our every move. Everyone smush together.”

  Alex seemed lighter today. Friendlier. Was it escaping camp or the lack of cameras that had brought about the good mood? Hard to know, but since she was being nice, I didn’t really care what the reason was. She held her phone down low and we crowded around, trying to get all of our faces and Black Rock into the screen.

  “Willa would not approve of this angle,” I said. Only parts of each of our faces made it in, and not really any of our best features. Alex’s forehead, my right eye. We all laughed and made fun of AJ’s glasses dominating the center. We looked like friends in that pic, even if the reality was something different.

  It was definitely starting to be a much better day now that we’d shed the film crew. Even AJ had managed to shake off his annoyance at seeing the Sol team with me.

  He studied the map while the rest of us scrolled through the photos we’d just taken. “We’re going to go that way, off to the right,” he said, even though no one was really listening. He halfheartedly gave the finger to the drone again; he’d started to do that whenever the buzz announced its presence.

  “Ugh, delete that,” I told Alex as a picture appeared with only my nostrils in it.

  “Come on,” AJ said, trying to grab Alex’s phone. “I need everyone to focus.”

  “Fine.” Alex put her phone in the back pocket of her shorts and we dutifully followed AJ off to the right, picking our way through rocks and fallen trees.

  Cody held up his phone. “Why do they call those things Demons, anyway?” he asked. “Seems like something adults decide on because they think we’re going to run with it and make it a thing.”

  “I actually know the answer to this one,” I said. “The original name was spelled Daemon, with an A, inspired by a computer program spelled the same way. But no one could pronounce it right, so they dropped the A.”

  AJ looked back. “I know that program. But why?”

  “Because the Daemon program is always running in the background and that’s what our phones are doing now. They’re always there, doing everything. Waking us up in the morning, taking pictures, connecting us to friends, logging us into our school portals. Email. Everything.”

  Porter was ahead of me. We’d reached a narrow rocky part, and he held out his hand to help me up and over. “And you know this how, Frisco?”

  I made a show of dropping his hand when he said Frisco. “Because San Francisco is so close to Silicon Valley, that’s how. And because—”

  “If you’re about to say your father invented them, then it’s a good thing Maren isn’t here,” Alex called from the back of the line.

  Everyone laughed, even me. It had been nice not having judgy Maren around.

  “Not invented, but yes, good point. He helped develop them after he got in during the first round of financing.”

  We passed over another outcropping. Porter held out his hand again, holding mine for longer than necessary. Yes, it was definitely better not having the film crew here.

  “That’s a lot of input from a VC,” Cody said.

  “People like having him involved,” I said defensively. I was sure they’d recognize his name, so I didn’t offer it in case it summoned a memory of my own scandal.

  “He’s the one who donated the phones, obviously,” Alex noted. “But doesn’t that give you an unfair advantage?”

  “How?” I shot back.

  She shrugged. “I’m not saying it does, but Deb might want to return the favor and help you out somehow. Quid pro quo.”

  “Hey, easy,” Porter said, coming to my defense. “It’s not like these things are necessary to play the game or anything. They’re just gizmos to mess around with, not a big deal. And I’m sure Ri
ley would never cheat. Right, Riley?”

  I nodded, but my stomach was in knots. This was why I had to keep the satellite a secret. It did give me an advantage, and if I revealed it, everyone would be upset for the same reasons everyone was last year at Shaw—only this time, it would be justified. I didn’t want to fend off that same anger again, but more importantly, I’d get kicked off the island for violating the rules, and what a sad twist that would be! I went through all this effort to disprove my reputation, but instead I would have confirmed it.

  “Interesting,” Cody said from ahead. He took his cowboy hat off and slicked his hair back. “But y’all know what’s even more interesting? I think that’s the most I’ve heard Riley say since we got here.”

  I exhaled in frustration. Cody heard me. “What? You should talk more, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Talk more, smile more. Look friendlier. Yeah, I’d definitely heard all of that before. If I could make a list of things that people said to me all the time, at the top would be You’re so quiet. When I first met you, I thought you were a snob/a bitch/stuck up. These days everyone is all about putting yourself out there all the time, in every way. Being quiet, or wanting privacy, is something contemptible. Likes and comments are the only currency that matters, so if you like to stay invisible, you’re worthless.

  Also, there was nothing more annoying than feeling like you had to do something because someone told you to. “All right, I’ll talk more,” I said to Cody. “And to start, I’m dying to know if you have a ton of different tank tops, or whether you keep wearing the same one.”

  “He’s got two,” AJ offered.

  Cody confirmed it. “All my other shirts had logos, so they were confiscated. I alternate and wash the dirty one in the sink at night.”

  “That’s gross,” I told him.

  “They’re quick dry. For out in the woods. Came in pretty handy, I have to say. Thought I’d be on the beach most of the time, but this is like home.”

  “There are trees in Texas?” AJ asked. “I thought it was just oil fields.”

  “You never heard of the Piney Woods?” Cody was incredulous. “Get your nose out of the books, son, and try seeing the world instead.”

  “I’m in South America right now, aren’t I?” AJ pointed out. “And if you’re so in touch with nature, how about you pick where we search next. I’m stumped. There isn’t really anywhere left to go.”

  It did seem as if we were at a dead end. The rock face was ahead of us; and at our sides, nothing but trees and rocks, old ones that had never been touched. We surveyed the surroundings and suddenly it hit me how far into the woods we were. It was the middle of nowhere. And then I noticed something else—there was literally no noise or movement at all, as if the forest was holding its breath. When I had been here with Miles and his crew, there was so much activity—people coming and going, lots of talking, birds getting flushed out of the branches and into the sky. There had been so much movement that it didn’t seem so isolated. And back then, I didn’t associate this place with death, so any pockets of quiet had seemed soothing, not sinister.

  We all moved closer together, instinctively feeling the same vulnerability. My hand brushed Porter’s by accident, but he held on and our fingers hooked together, an act that must have sent an urgent message to my brain because suddenly I felt all gooey and warm inside. I squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, bumping his hip against mine before letting go.

  It took the sting out of not finding anything so far. I thought of Miles, and I tried to picture him here. Where would he look? He’d try to summon Lady Luck, I supposed, but how? Treasure hunters were creatures of superstition, but I’d never paid attention to any of his rituals when I was here before. I rubbed the pendant on my necklace, the last gift from Miles, and wished for a sign.

  Just then, a line of sun shot through the trees to our left and snaked down the face of Black Rock. Okay, then. That out-of-place glimmer of light was as good a sign as anything else that Lady Luck was showing us a direction.

  “How about over there?” I suggested.

  “Fine,” AJ said. “But I hear the drone coming back. Let’s walk the other way and let it see us and then circle back when it’s gone.”

  We executed the misdirection, and then Cody took the lead when we turned back toward the rock face. A few yards in, he stopped. “Y’all, I think someone’s been here recently.”

  Cody knelt and pointed to a patch of grass that had been flattened, as if something heavy had been placed on it. He led us farther, pointing out more signs of recent traffic. A footprint here, a snapped twig in the vegetation there. It became obvious this area had seen some action lately.

  “We should be careful,” Alex said nervously. “Whoever it is could still be here, and if they’re here looking for the treasure, they’ve got to be bad guys.”

  “But we’re looking for it, too,” Porter pointed out. “And we’re not bad guys.”

  “We’re here legally! No one else is supposed to be here.”

  “Semi-legally,” AJ corrected. “I’m not convinced Deb actually has the right permits. I think she subscribes to the better to beg forgiveness than ask permission way of doing things. But I’m going to find the treasure spot if it’s literally the last thing I do. Anyway, Cody can take anyone down, right, Cody?” He added sternly, “No matter what, we’re not stopping.”

  But two seconds later, we did just that: stop.

  “Holy . . .” Cody said. The line of sunlight had winked and disappeared, but right where it had been there was a crack in the rock face. A crack big enough to walk inside, but even more interesting, the ground in front had obviously been disturbed. Footprints were distinctly visible.

  I sucked in my breath. Porter was standing in front of me and I moved closer. He put his arm back, as if to shield me, and I held on to his shoulder, peeking over to watch Cody step inside.

  My heart was thudding. I didn’t want to hope.

  Cody stuck his head out a minute later. He was smiling broadly and holding his hat to his chest. “Y’all have got to see this.”

  18

  We had to shimmy through a narrow split in the rock. Luckily it didn’t go too deep, and after a tight squeeze, we found ourselves in a cavern. It was big enough to fit all of us, but without the lantern AJ had stuffed in his backpack, it would have been pitch black.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Porter said.

  I thought he meant it as an exclamation of surprise, but inside the cavern there was an actual stone Jesus statue, next to an ornate altar carved into the rock wall. We’d entered a shrine. The air inside was so still, it felt like we’d stepped into a bubble. And in a way we had: the priest who’d originally hidden the treasure must have created this space four hundred years ago. This was a holy site, created to protect a priceless treasure.

  AJ was looking wildly around, not saying anything, just taking it all in. I made sure to take some pictures of him before he noticed and turned back to his swaggering self. It was nice to see him awed for a change. He knelt at the base of the statue, which would have made a good picture if it wasn’t so dark: AJ, kneeling for mercy. But then I realized he wasn’t praying. He was inspecting a pile of dirt.

  I knelt down next to him. “Someone’s been here.”

  “Looks like it,” AJ grimly agreed.

  Cody bent down and ran his fingers through it. “Dirt is dry and fairly loose, but there are still a few chunks of damp soil. I’d say this was dug up a few weeks ago. More than several days have passed, that’s for sure.”

  We pushed the dirt aside—no digging required, the ground had only been loosely replaced—and found a square stone marker. It was nearly identical in shape and size to the original marker, but this one featured completely different carvings. It featured a triangle with the numbers 1, 2, and 3 at each of the points. Instead of a solid line, the longest length of the triangle
was broken up with a dot in the center so that it looked like a bit of morse code: dash, dot, dash. Below that was some sort of equation: 2 = 3, the letter C, and two X’s.

  “I think these are further instructions,” I said, dumbfounded. In all my research, I’d never heard of a treasure map leading to more clues instead of an actual treasure. I got my notebook and pencil out of my backpack to make a rubbing of the stone marker.

  AJ stood up. “This is incredible.” Some of his swagger was coming back. He raised his arms in an awkward victory sign. “Andrew Jacobson Jr. has entered the history books, my friends. To all those who doubted my mission, they can all—”

  “Suck it,” Cody and Porter said in unison.

  “Hate to burst your little bubble there, Mr. Andrew Jacobson Jr.,” Alex said, “but we all got here the same time as you. Not that it matters, because someone else obviously got here before all of us, which means they probably have the edge when it comes to history books.”

  “MrJackSparrow,” I said under my breath. It was him, it had to be. Sparrow knew about the caves. He’d been in this same area, and he’d planned to come back. It had to be him.

  “Are you kidding me with the Jack Sparrow reference?” AJ asked, letting his arms fall and dropping the triumphant pose. “Captain Jack Sparrow is neither real, nor from a decent movie. And in general, can everyone please forget the word pirate, because it seems to be causing a lot of confusion. The pirates we need to worry about aren’t running around the island with a cryptic map in search of a treasure chest filled with hard to sell gold coins. Think thieves. Bad guys with weapons who rob other people for whatever they’ve got on them at the moment. Money, jewelry, cameras. Just regular old thieves, only they’re on boats.”

  “Speaking of thieves, I heard a drone was stolen. Rohan told me Deb was losing her mind about it. Those things cost a fortune,” Cody said, standing up and dusting off his hands.

  “There’s a ton of stuff going wrong in general,” I said. I looked around the shadowy cavern, the lantern light flickering eerily on the walls. “And now we know there’s someone sneaking around looking for the gold. Do you think it’s the same person? Someone from the film crew?”