Island of the Sun (Dark Gravity Sequence)

by Matthew J. Kirby

  “Are you okay?” Eleanor’s mom asked her.

  “Not really. The world is ending.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m fine,” Eleanor said.

  “Are you hungry? Luke said he has some food.”

  “I’m hungry,” Finn said behind them.

  “Me too,” Julian said from across the aisle.

  Eleanor left her seat to raid Luke’s stash in a bulkhead compartment. She grinned when she opened it, though, and glanced forward into the cockpit. “Peanuts?” she said. “Really?”

  “What’s wrong with peanuts?” Luke said. “There’s some other stuff in there, too.”

  In addition to nuts, dried fruit, and trail mixes, there were chips, crackers, cans of beans, and a substance that passed for meat—but probably not if you asked Uncle Jack—candy bars, bottled water, and other snack foods.

  “You’ve got a lot in here,” Eleanor said.

  “You don’t fly into the Arctic unprepared,” Luke said. “Ever.”

  “This could last us awhile,” she continued, and then added, “if it had to.”

  “Yeah, well,” Luke said, “help yourself.”

  Eleanor grabbed a candy bar, then tossed one to Finn and another to Julian. Eleanor’s mom ate some trail mix, and Dr. Powers boldly chose a can of beans. After that, people started nodding off. Eleanor worried Luke might be getting tired, so she went to join him up in the cockpit, slipping into the pilot’s chair next to him. The last time she’d sat there had been after Luke had discovered her as a stowaway on his way north.

  He glanced at her and raised an eyebrow. “Déjà vu.”

  Eleanor brought her legs up and crossed them under her. “I know, right? Can you believe that was, like, a week ago?”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, well, a lot’s happened since then.”

  Eleanor frowned. “You do believe us, though, right? I mean, you didn’t see the Concentrator. But you believe us.”

  He nodded.

  Eleanor bit down on her lower lip with her upper teeth. “But do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Why would I think that?”

  “You know. With the whole alien thing. Even my mom seems weirded out by it.”

  “I don’t know, kid,” Luke said. “I mean, sure, it’s strange. Makes you wonder why you, you know?”

  Yes, it did make Eleanor wonder that.

  “I know a guy,” said Luke, “who thinks he can talk to llamas. And you know what? I really like that guy. So do lots of folks.”

  “Do the llamas talk back?” Eleanor asked.

  “The point is,” Luke continued, “right now, I think we ought to be looking for what we all have in common, and just let the rest go. We need to trust each other and stick together.”

  Eleanor liked that idea.

  “Besides,” Luke said, “you don’t look nothing like an alien to me.”

  “And how would you know what an alien looks like?” Eleanor asked.

  Luke shrugged. “That’s a story I’ll take to my grave. And it may or may not involve an antique bedpan.”

  Eleanor laughed. “Thanks, Luke.”

  “Don’t mention it, kid,” he said. “You tired? Still another three or four hours until we hit Mexico City.”

  “I’m not tired,” Eleanor said. “Are you?”

  “A little,” he said. “Not bad.”

  “Have you ever been to Mexico City?”

  “Sure. A few times. It’s . . . quite a place.”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “It’s got its World Trade Center. Some UN offices. The whole world in a city, taking in the poor and huddled masses.”

  “Are you worried about the G.E.T. finding us there?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Wait until you see it. Then you’ll know.”

  CHAPTER

  5

  FOR HOURS THEY FLEW OVER A LANDSCAPE OF SEGMENTED shades of green, a verdant geometry of sustenance, field after field, every spare piece of land given over to growing food for much of the Western Hemisphere. Small towns here and there interrupted the pattern with large processing facilities, while trucks plied the highway seams between the tracts of cropland, kicking up tiny wisps of dust.

  The mountains they crossed were fairly low and restful, except for a brown, vague plateau on the horizon ahead of them that swelled high into the sky.

  “What is that?” Eleanor asked Luke. “A mountain?”

  “That’s Mexico City,” Luke said. “Or rather, the air above it. That’s pollution you’re seeing.”

  Eleanor looked again, and as they descended and drew nearer, she saw that he was right. The plateau she’d glimpsed lost some of its substance and became an oppressive cloud that smothered the ground beneath it. Their plane entered into its miasma, which dimmed the sun, and then they reached the first tattered edges of the city. If it could be called that.

  Miles and miles of brown tents massed below them in a haphazard grid and spread away almost as far as she could see. The landscape was choked with debris and smoke and people and a few lonely and desperate-looking trees, completely crowding the ground between their plane and the hazy city skyline that was still an impossible distance away. The tents must have numbered in the millions, along with other structures of scrap wood and corrugated sheet metal, each one giving shelter to who knew how many refugees. None of the news broadcasts she’d seen had shown this. This was the “wonderful situation” Watkins had mentioned?

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” Luke said. “Poor folks.”

  Her mouth was open, but she was speechless, her words tripped up in terrible awe. “I . . . it’s . . .” She swallowed, almost as though she could taste the ash and oil of the polluted air coating her mouth and throat. “I had no idea.”

  “Most people don’t until they get here,” Luke said. “In the beginning, Mexico was ready for it. The immigration. They invited it, even. But the ice kept coming, and so did the refugees, and now you have this—this place.”

  Eleanor pressed her fingers to her closed eyes and shook her head. “It’s awful.”

  “Now you see why I wasn’t worried about the G.E.T. finding us here,” Luke said. “Six different airports and landing strips, not counting military. The chaos of the refugees. Finding us would be like finding a single hair in a human landfill.”

  As bad as it was for refugees in the government housing back in Phoenix, like Eleanor’s friends Jenna and Claire, at least they lived in actual buildings. “It’s so much worse than the Ice Castles,” Eleanor said. “But Mexico is always sending aid to the US. I thought they had money.”

  “Oh, they do,” Luke said. “You’ll see soon enough.”

  They flew over a few more miles of tent city, and then Eleanor noted a boundary approaching them, a clear demarcation between the refugee squalor and something resembling a more normal city. When they reached this edge, she realized it was actually a wall, tall and towered and razor lined, crewed by uniformed soldiers carrying guns, with the desperate refugees on one side and a very different situation on the other, though the cloud lurked over both.

  Here, the trees multiplied and gathered in lush canopies between and through neighborhoods of large houses with multiangled roofs, terraces, and even swimming pools, and more modest and orderly lanes of the kind of middle-class housing development where Eleanor was lucky enough to live. Soon, the suburbs gave way to larger offices and shopping centers, and then glass and metal-skinned skyscrapers that rose up into the smog.

  “Mexico City is really two cities,” Luke said. “The one you’re lucky enough to live in depends on who you are.” He nodded back over his shoulder. “We’ll be landing soon. On the rich side. Why don’t you head back and buckle in.”

  Eleanor nodded and climbed out of the pilot’s chair, then ducked out of the cockpit back into the passenger cabin. Everyone was awake, blinking out the windows, but utterly silent, and Eleanor could guess they were a
ll feeling something similar to what she had just experienced.

  She took the seat next to her mom. “Have you ever been to Mexico City before?” she asked.

  Her mother shook her head. “It’s even worse than I’ve heard.”

  “With no relief in sight,” Betty said from across the aisle.

  “Unless Mexico alters its policies,” Eleanor’s mom said. “They could make things better for the refugees.”

  “They’ve already given us many times what the US ever gave to them,” Dr. Powers said. “And it’s hard to forget our own immigration stance just a few decades ago. A very different wall some wanted to build.”

  Eleanor’s mom directed her gaze back out the window, while Luke could be heard on the radio with a flight tower, getting set to land Consuelo.

  Behind her, Finn said, “Mexico isn’t doing anything different from what we would do in their place.”

  Eleanor agreed with that. To her, this city was simply a smaller version of the world Skinner imagined, one with limited resources devoted to a select few, and the rest left on the outside to survive, for now, on what little was given to them or what they could scrounge for themselves.

  The plane’s landing gear groaned under Eleanor’s feet, and the mounting pressure squeezed her ears until she plugged her nose and blinked hard and popped them. She wondered which of the six different airports and landing strips Luke had chosen as the plane descended sharply and her stomach jumped. When they bellied hard into the ground, the view from Eleanor’s window was of a busy commercial airport, with dozens of passenger airliners nosed up to a wide terminal like feeding animals.

  “This appears to be the international airport,” Dr. Powers said. “Won’t this be more conspicuous? Risky?”

  “Closest airport to Felipe’s family,” Luke said from the cockpit. “They’re in the Tepito barrio, about three miles west of here.”

  Consuelo taxied to the side of the tarmac opposite the passenger terminal. It was just after five, and evening was approaching. After bringing them to rest and shutting down the plane, Luke emerged from the cockpit frowning.

  “Listen up,” he said. “Tepito used to be a pretty rough place. Barrio bravo, they called it. The fierce neighborhood. It’s better now than it was, but it’s still one of the largest black markets in the world.”

  “Should you be going by yourself?” Betty asked.

  “Well, that’s what we need to decide,” Luke said. “I think the plane is safe here. For a little while.”

  “How can you be sure?” Dr. Powers asked.

  “I doubt even the G.E.T. would go behind the back of the Mexican government. It’ll take time to get clearance for an operation at their international airport. But just in case, I’d rather not leave anyone on board.”

  “You’re suggesting we go with you?” Eleanor’s mom asked. “To Tepito?”

  “It should be safe enough if we all stick together,” Luke said.

  Her mom sat back farther in her seat. “That’s not quite as reassuring as I’d like it to be.”

  “Let’s just go,” Julian said. “We’ve been on this plane for, like, twelve hours. I need to move.”

  “But should we split up?” Dr. Powers asked. “If we assume the G.E.T. put a tracking device on the plane, which is the whole reason we’re here, then they know we’re in Mexico City. Traveling as a group, matching their exact description of us, might not be wise.”

  “That’s true,” Eleanor said. “We should split up, and I want to go with Luke.”

  Her mom turned toward her.

  “I met Felipe,” Eleanor said. “He helped me out. I’d like to meet his family.”

  Her mom looked back at Luke, who shrugged. “I’ll keep her safe,” he said.

  “I’ll keep her safe,” her mom said. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Me too,” Betty said.

  “I’ll keep my boys with me,” Dr. Powers said. “Meet back here in . . .”

  “Before dark,” Luke said. “Should give us enough time to find Felipe’s folks and sweep the plane. Assuming they’re free to help.”

  Dr. Powers rose from his seat. “Two hours, then.”

  Julian rose with him, but Eleanor noticed Finn stayed in his seat, looking back and forth between Luke and his dad, but eventually he sighed and stood. They all took turns in the bathroom changing out of their polar gear, as Mexico City still had pleasant temperatures in the sixties this time of year. Luke grabbed a cell phone from what appeared to be a collection of them inside a compartment, then opened the plane’s hatch just as an airport worker wearing big round headphones rolled a motorized stairway up to the plane. Luke met the man at the bottom and reviewed some forms, and Eleanor thought she glimpsed a palmful of money trading hands. Then they all descended the stairs and walked away, leaving Consuelo on the tarmac.

  “They’ll fill her up and tow her into a hangar,” Luke said. “And hopefully I paid him enough to keep the plane registration off the books for a few hours.”

  “Where will you go?” Eleanor’s mom asked Dr. Powers.

  “We’ll probably grab a bite to eat,” he said. “Then see what we can see.”

  They walked between the airfield’s hangars and administrative buildings, the light from the sun here unlike any Eleanor had ever felt, almost . . . aggressively warm, or at least warm with intent, until they reached a street and parted ways with Dr. Powers, Finn, and Julian.

  “Don’t take the red or green cabs,” Luke warned Dr. Powers. “The VW bugs. The libre ones. They’re not safe. Take the metro or the bus, or a hotel can call you a sitio cab.”

  “I know,” Dr. Powers said.

  Luke nodded and led Eleanor, her mother, and Betty down the street. The city was alive in a way Eleanor had never experienced. Phoenix was big, and crowded, but it also felt subdued, somehow. Resigned. Like someone with a distance to walk in grim weather, shoulders hunched and head down. Mexico City, on the other hand, flashed a smile and swaggered through the end of the world. It appeared there were actually tourists here, people wearing big sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats, walking with their cameras out.

  At the level of the street, the smog hanging above the city smelled of car exhaust and oil. Horns blared and engines competed to be heard over one another, and at times the foot traffic swelled beyond the sidewalks. The city didn’t feel dangerous to Eleanor at all, but they hadn’t yet reached the Tepito barrio that Eleanor’s mom worried about.

  As soon as they arrived at a hotel, a narrow building sandwiched between offices and apartments, with potted flowers out front—flowers!—and iron grates curling into the street over the windows, Luke went inside and arranged for a taxi. In a matter of moments, a black, unmarked car squealed up to the curb, and Luke opened its rear passenger door.

  “This is us,” he said.

  Inside, the vehicle smelled of leather and the driver’s cologne. He was an older, round man, with thinning hair and several deep, craggy wrinkles on the back of his neck, in one of which nestled a thin gold chain. Eleanor sat shoulder to shoulder with Betty on one side and her mom on the other.

  “Tepito,” Luke said, climbing into the front seat.

  The driver hesitated for a fraction of a moment, his eyes on Eleanor and her mom through his rearview mirror. “Sí, señor,” he said, and pulled into the traffic.

  Though their destination was only a few miles away, it took them some time to reach it through the congestion of cars, buses, and delivery vans. When they finally did arrive, Luke paid the driver, and as they got out of the car, the man leaned across the front seat toward them. “Be safe, señor.”

  Luke nodded, and then they all turned to face Tepito.

  Eleanor had never quite understood what the word teeming meant until that moment. The streets of Tepito, which seemed an endless market maze, dove away from them in several directions beneath a multicolored patchwork of bright tarps and canopies. People filled the space beneath it, teeming, clogging the thoroughfares and vendor st
alls. From where she stood, Eleanor glimpsed a dizzying variety of merchandise for sale, from clothing to jewelry to electronics to music and movies. Things a lot of people she knew couldn’t afford anymore. Things Eleanor now found it hard to care about, considering everything she’d learned. The music and movies blared obnoxiously from multiple TVs and stereos simultaneously, but the people selling their wares seemed able to make themselves heard above the noise.

  “Stay close,” Luke said. “I think it’s this way. Try not to gawk.”

  Eleanor closed her mouth.

  For the most part, people seemed to pay them no mind as they entered the barrio, but every so often someone would stare, and Eleanor’s neck and shoulders would clench as her heart beat faster. The only way to relax again was to remind herself that Luke had said the Tepito was safe now. Though Eleanor could easily imagine it otherwise.

  They left behind the watches and sneakers and entered an area of the market selling food. Vendors hawked fresh produce—and less-than-fresh produce—including fruits and vegetables Eleanor had never seen before, and herbs and spices she had never smelled. She wished Uncle Jack were there with her. He would probably know exactly what to do with all of it and could turn it into something delicious. Eleanor then smelled meat cooking on open charcoal, the smoke and char of beef, and chicken, and other meats more pungent and barnyardy, and felt truly hungry. Dogs and cats haunted the corners here, looking fearfully hopeful.

  “Through here,” Luke said, and turned them down a side street too narrow for any vehicle wider than a bicycle.

  “Are you certain about this?” Eleanor’s mom asked.

  “Bit too late to ask,” Betty said.

  They reached a low, slim door, one that didn’t seem any more remarkable than the dozens of other doors they’d passed.

  “I think it’s this one,” Luke said, staring at it. But he didn’t knock.

  “Only one way to know, right?” Eleanor said.

  Luke looked at her and then shrugged. “Right.” He knocked on the door.

  A moment of silence passed, and something stirred on the other side, the faint vibrations of footsteps, followed by the metallic catch of a lock being turned. The door opened.