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

  I throw her a bleak look. “I’m the one with a hole in my leg that I got from looking after that thing! This is important to me. Ek Naab can wait. Anyway, I thought you were the one who wanted to tell Montoyo to get lost.”

  Susannah looks at both of us in confusion. “Adaptor? Ek Naab? What in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

  Ixchel and I are instantly silent; something which Susannah notices, logging the fact with another quiet smile.

  “I see,” she says after a moment’s pause. “Not going to talk about that, are you? On that matter you’re both quite unified.”

  “We can’t. . .” Ixchel begins.

  “You wouldn’t believe us anyway. . .”

  “We’re really not supposed to.”

  Susannah says again, “I see. Well, look: out of respect for Arcadio, I’ll drive you to the mountain. There’s a small town called Tlachichuca – it’s where all the climbers start. You’ll have to find a guide – it’s a tough hike. And you don’t even know what you’re looking for. Do you?”

  I shake my head. She’s right. I’ve no idea.

  “But I’m not coming with you. I’m an old lady – my hiking days are over. I’ll wait for you until you come back down. And then – what?”

  Ixchel says, “Could you take us to Veracruz? We have transport from there.”

  Susannah nods. “OK. I’ll do it. Now, you, young man, you’d better get some rest if you plan on walking up a glacier with that leg.”

  I turn away, staring at the distant volcano. The snowcone catches the sunlight for a second, blazing white like a star. It seems I’m long overdue an appointment with one of Mexico’s volcanoes. Mount Orizaba looms like a gigantic pyramid, a colossus, dominating the lives of everyone in its shadow.

  Including mine.

  Night has fallen by the time we arrive in Tlachichuca. It’s cold. There are even isolated patches of snow. Susannah buys us second-hand ski jackets, backpacks and thermal longjohns. She puts us all up in the climbers’ hostel. The building is a hundred-year-old soap factory, rebuilt as an Alpine mountain lodge. In the dormitories, bunk beds are stacked across a rough wooden floor. Huge stained pine beams hold up the roof. In the corner, there’s an antique oak vat for boiling up lye and lard.

  The dining room is crammed with mostly white men and women in their twenties and thirties, Americans and Canadians, fit and healthy-looking. Compared to the local Mexicans – and to Ixchel and me – they all seem impossibly tall.

  El Pico de Orizaba is the third-highest peak in the continent of North America. Susannah explained it all on the drive over from Tlacotalpan. It’s the highest mountain in Mexico, an extinct volcano – so far as the past few hundred years go. There are occasional rumbles, but no one’s worried. It’s not actively smoking and letting off fireworks, like the nearby volcano Popocatepetl.

  Apparently, young climbers love to conquer “El Pico”. There’s a hut on the lower slopes, where people stay for a day or so to get acclimatized. The climb takes you through a field of scree and lava boulders known as the “Labyrinth”, because there’s only one decent route through. Then comes the Jamapa glacier, which leads all the way to the snow-covered summit. At this time of year, the glacier is usually coated with fresh snow. It’s an alpine-style climb, needing ice-climbing gear: ropes, crampons and the right clothes. You need to be fit and strong to reach the summit, but there shouldn’t be too much clambering up rocks. Mainly it’s a very, very steep hike, into altitudes where the oxygen is so thin that it can give you weird hallucinations.

  Susannah doubts we’ll even find anyone to take us up there. We’re so young, and I’m limping. I keep expecting Ixchel to drop out. I’d happily go alone, except for my leg. But there’s no question of her not coming with me. She even seems keen on the idea.

  At first, I’m relieved to be able to climb into a bed for the first time in three days. But I toss and turn – can’t get comfortable, with the bruises on my ribcage and the deep, dull ache inside my leg. When I finally fall asleep, I dream the dream about my dad.

  I wake up dry-eyed, impatient and angry. I’ve had enough. This isn’t how I want to remember my dad, but the dream is beginning to consume my memories. Now, when I think of him, he’s always in our kitchen, with that distant air, the one which says, Hey, Josh, get off my back, OK?

  I put on my ski jacket and go downstairs to the dining room. I buy a can of Fresca from the drinks machine and take it outside, under the inky black of a star-speckled sky. There’s a couple sitting close together on folding chairs and sipping from steaming mugs. I wander around to the back of the hostel, find a patch of unspoiled snow and spend a few minutes scrunching over it in my trainers. Then I stand, just gazing out over the lights of the town, across the countryside and to the brooding shadow of the volcano.

  What am I going to find?

  I expected the postcards to lead to an informer; someone who was willing to leak me the information I so badly need. Since that didn’t happen, I don’t know what to think.

  What could there possibly be on the slopes of a mountain that would explain to me the truth behind my father’s death?

  I hear footsteps in the snow. “Hey,” a voice whispers, right behind me. It’s Ixchel. She gives me a wry grin.

  “You couldn’t sleep either, hey?”

  I shake my head slowly, staring at her.

  “It’s the altitude,” she says. “Does strange things to you. We should take a walk tomorrow, get used to it.”

  Then she gives me a little shove. “So, Josh. How did we end up here?”

  “I was just wondering that.” My mind goes back to the afternoon that Tyler and I set off to Saffron Walden. Since then I’ve been disguised as Batman, escaped from a cellar where I was going to be tortured, crossed the ocean in a Muwan, got lost in caves, almost drowned in an underground river, got shot in the leg . . . all in search of the most elusive truth in my life.

  What really happened to my dad?

  Ixchel’s voice breaks across my distant thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about your theory. The one about time travel.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Ixchel nods. “Mm-hmm. It’s not the first time I’ve heard time travel mentioned in Ek Naab.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No. There’s a rumour . . . I don’t know who started it . . . that the Bracelet of Itzamna is a time-travel device. Or part of one.”

  I struggle to keep my features steady. “Really?”

  “Don’t get me wrong – there are lots of crazy theories about how Ek Naab got started. Some say we’re founded by survivors from Atlantis. Some say we’re all that’s left of a colony of extraterrestrial visitors. And some say that Itzamna is from an alternative future – one that exists only because Itzamna intervened to save civilization in 2012.”

  I notice that Ixchel says nothing about Itzamna copying down the writings of the mysterious ancients, the Erinsi – People of Memory.

  Is that a secret, too?

  Ixchel licks her lips in a deliberate way, as if wondering how to say the next sentence. “Josh. You may have the first bit of proof I’ve ever seen that the time-travel theory is right.”

  “I thought you reckoned that Arcadio consulted a brujo.”

  “Well, maybe he did. Some of the brujos know about 2012. They know a lot more than you imagine.”

  “So. . .?”

  “It’s the letter itself. And the instructions from Arcadio. Remember how he told you not to open the envelope, to put it in your pocket? Why? It’s as if he knew that Madison would be coming. His advice made it easy to get out of there fast.”

  “Yeah,” I say, spreading my hands on the table. “That’s what I’ve been saying. Arcadio knows me. Or he will know me.”

  “Which means that whatever we find on the volcano, you’ll live to tell the tale.”

  “It means one of us will live to tell the tale,” I say.

  “I guess. . .” she agrees. “Hadn’t really thought of that.�
��

  I grin. “You’re my witness.” Shyly, she grins back, then lowers her eyes.

  We sit in awkward silence for a few moments. I sip my Fresca and offer Ixchel a swig. My thoughts swirl with the words of Arcadio’s letter.

  “A terrible storm is brewing. Yet you will never find peace until you confront your truth.”

  BLOG ENTRY: SMOOTH JAZZ AT 14,000 FT

  So, we decided to do a bit of climbing. . . I managed to charge up Dad’s iPod, and used it on a hike earlier today. We didn’t go very far, just trailed after one of the guided groups for a bit, to get used to the altitude. My leg held out pretty well, considering. Mind you, I was fuzzy from the painkillers. And we only walked for two hours.

  We bought cold-weather gear and boots for the climb. Susannah spent all morning asking around for a guide to take us up the mountain. None of the registered mountaineering guides will have anything to do with us, because they can’t get parental permission. But Susannah found a local indian from a nearby village. He agreed to take us to the second hut and no further. That’s still a long way short of the summit, but he reckons that everyone who goes to the summit has to stop at the second hut.

  If there’s something or someone to be encountered on the slope, hanging around the second hut is the way to find out.

  Comment (1) from Eleanor

  Josh. You must tell me where you are. I’m going out of my mind with worry. You can have no idea what you’ve put me through, none whatsoever.

  I searched the house for any clue as to where you’d gone. I asked your friends, Tyler and Emmy – Emmy who you said you were staying with? Her parents didn’t know anything about it! Tyler admitted he’d talked to you, that he thought you were in Mexico.

  But I could hardly believe what Tyler tried to tell me. I finally got your head teacher to give me permission to look in your locker today.

  Until I found your letter and this blog, I was ready to call the police.

  I can’t believe you persuaded your friends to lie for you. Are you really in Mexico, and if so, how? If I find you’ve used my credit card again, I don’t know what I’ll do.

  Really, Josh. We’re going to need to get some professional help. I can’t cope with you being like this any more, I really can’t.

  Stop making up these stories. You simply cannot expect me to believe this. Tell me where you are NOW. I love you, Josh, but I can’t take this. It will destroy me.

  Ixchel sits beside me at the Internet café, staring over my shoulder at Mum’s comment on my blog.

  “This looks bad.”

  “It’s pretty bad,” I agree.

  “How come she only just found your blog?”

  “I left her a letter with the Web address and a password to read it. To be honest, the blog was just in case.”

  “Just in case. . .?”

  “In case I never came back. I didn’t exactly tell her I was leaving.”

  “You left home without telling your mother?”

  “Didn’t have much choice. Madison was after me!”

  “So, you going to tell her now?”

  “I can’t. Not until I know what’s on that mountain.”

  “Well. . .” Ixchel pulls out her Ek Naab phone and gives me a rueful grin. “I hate to tell you this, but. . .”

  I groan. “Don’t.”

  “Montoyo’s not happy either. Read this text from Benicio.”

  Ixchel, if you are still with Josh, BRING HIM BACK. Montoyo has ordered us back. If I’m not in Ek Naab with Josh AND you by tomorrow afternoon, we’re all in BIG TROUBLE, me most of all, and I will NEVER forgive you.

  I close my eyes and sigh. “Just one more day. That’s all I need. I’ve given them so much – what have they ever done for me?”

  “Benicio saved your life,” Ixchel suggests. “Twice.”

  “I guess. But to be fair – I was on an errand for them.”

  Abruptly, Ixchel changes the subject. “Why doesn’t your mother believe you?”

  “I don’t know. It probably all sounds pretty unbelievable. I thought it would be best to be open, but I can’t tell any more.”

  “Have you told her everything?”

  “I haven’t told anyone everything.”

  “Why?”

  I shove my chair backwards, and in frustration, push my hands into my hair until it sticks up. “It’s dangerous. What I know is so dangerous. I’m bad luck to be around. Can’t you tell?”

  “Sounds like you’re feeling sorry for yourself.”

  Normally, I’d be irritated with a comment like that. Right now, I can’t even be bothered to respond. Mum finding out at this stage was not part of my plan. I don’t know what kind of surveillance the Sect has on my house. But for all I know, they’re spying on Mum’s Web browsing. Which means they now know about the blog, if they didn’t before.

  If so, I’ve been found out – again. The blog post doesn’t make it clear which mountain we’re hanging around. That’s my best hope to confuse them. There are four volcanoes between here and the neighbouring state of Puebla. You can climb three of them.

  So they have a one in three chance of finding me. With each passing day, those odds shorten. Unless Madison has another way of following me? But I can’t figure out what.

  I decide that we can’t waste any more time. Tomorrow, we’ll climb. Ixchel doesn’t respond when I tell her the news – not for a few minutes, at least.

  Then she heads off, wordlessly. Is she cross? Going to get ready? I really can’t tell.

  I watch idly as the minutes run out on my Internet access. With two minutes to go, I have a sudden idea. There’s still something I can do to decode Arcadio’s riddle. I type a line from his letter into the search engine:

  Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad.

  The line is a quotation – from a writer and poet named Borges. When I read the line in context, the hairs on the back of my neck seem to prickle with electricity.

  The quotation continues:

  Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.

  I don’t fully understand the meaning, but inside my mind somewhere, a light goes on, like a dusty old attic being visited for the first time in many years.

  This is definitely about time travel.

  Arcadio is speaking to me from the future. He’s warning me. Somehow, I’m destined to be involved in whatever is coming in 2012. According to Arcadio, that is my inescapable destiny.

  I don’t understand why or how. But the minute I read those words, I recognize the truth of them.

  I’m meant to be here. In some peculiar loop of time – I’ve already been here. Whatever is going to happen on the mountain, it leads somehow to Arcadio, and to the prophecy of 2012.

  I’m light-headed with the weight of destiny. I didn’t plan on being led by my dreams again, but it looks as though I have been. It’s been there all in along in my dream about my father – the image, over and over again: postcards of Mexico on my fridge.

  The postcards – a link with the past and my future.

  “What am I doing here?” I say aloud, to no one in particular. “What would happen if I just walked out of here, right now, took a bus to Mexico City and took a flight back home?”

  I’m almost ready to do it. But these words stop me: “Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river.”

  Am I the river? What if I choose differently? If that river is diverted elsewhere – will it somehow just flow back to the same spot? Will anything I do make any difference? Have all my actions already been taken into account?

  Susannah strolls into the Internet café.

  “Ixchel told me that you’re both headed up the mountain tomorrow. That can’t be right – is it?”

  “Uh huh.” I’m partly amazed, partly relieved to hear that Ixchel’
s on board.

  Susannah gives the most delicate shrug. “Well, OK.”

  “You don’t think it’s too soon to climb?”

  “It surely is.”

  “So. . .?”

  “Arcadio gave me some advice about how to deal with you, Josh. Warned me that you’d be impetuous. Told me not to interfere.”