Island of the Sun

by Matthew J. Kirby

“What do we do?” Dr. Powers asked.

  “Can you lift off before we hit him?” Betty asked.

  “Maybe,” Luke said. “If not, this guy is about to lose this particular game of chicken in a pretty big way.” The plane picked up speed, the engines at full roar. “There!” Luke said. “He’s moving out of the way! He . . . Oh no . . . Everyone get down! He’s got a gun!”

  An explosive popping sounded above the plane’s engines. Eleanor ducked forward, as low as she could, and felt her mom throw her weight over the top of her back. More popping, the sound of a hammer on metal, and then Consuelo lifted a little from the ground. A moment later, Eleanor sensed the loss of contact with the earth as the floor of the plane ceased trembling beneath her, and they were airborne. A few more pops followed them into the sky, but they soon stopped.

  Eleanor felt her mom’s frantic hands all over her, touching her back, her chest, her legs.

  “Mom, I’m fine,” Eleanor said.

  “Oh, thank God,” her mom said.

  “Everyone okay back there?” Luke called.

  “We’re okay,” Dr. Powers said, his hand on Julian’s back.

  “Rattled,” Betty said. “But free of holes.”

  Eleanor remembered Finn was behind her and turned around to peer at him between the seats. “Are you okay?”

  Finn nodded, but he was looking over at his father and brother. “Yup. Just fine.”

  “This old bird can take a beating!” Luke said. Eleanor saw him stroking the flight console as if he were smoothing it out. “Her skin is made to stop Arctic hailstones.”

  “He really shot at us,” Betty said, her eyes wide.

  “What did you expect when they showed up on your doorstep with guns?” Dr. Powers asked.

  “I guess . . . I thought they were for show,” Betty said. “Intimidation. But he shot at us.”

  “Those agents only know what they’ve been told,” Eleanor’s mom said. “And back at the hangar, with that one who got away, I don’t think he knew anything about what the G.E.T. is really doing.”

  “Watkins can’t possibly trust every employee,” Dr. Powers said. “Probably only a select few know the whole truth. That might actually give us an advantage, if we can find allies within the company.”

  “No one will give us that chance if they believe we’re terrorists,” Finn said.

  “Yeah,” Julian said. “They’ll just shoot at us again.”

  Eleanor wanted to agree with her mom that Skinner would not have actually killed them. But now that a G.E.T. agent had fired at their plane, that hope seemed to have been a bit naive. This secret was literally as big as the whole world, and everything was at stake. Skinner had made it clear, before he died, that anyone who learned of the threat to the earth had to agree to the Preservation Protocol, a secret UN plan designed to manage the slow and inevitable destruction of the world. It was the goal of the Protocol to preserve a small number of the most essential citizens, so that human life could go on, no matter what. But Skinner had failed to reveal what happened to those who refused to adopt the Protocol.

  “What have you all gotten me into?” Betty sounded weak and defeated.

  “We’re sorry,” Eleanor’s mom said. “Truly sorry.”

  “But wouldn’t you rather know the truth?” Dr. Powers asked, sounding a bit brusque.

  “Actually,” said Betty, “maybe not. Maybe I’d rather have just kept doing what I was doing. Blissfully unaware. Hoping a turn in the weather was just around the corner. What hope is there now?”

  But Eleanor believed there was hope. “We might be able stop it,” she said. “I shut down the Concentrator. If we can shut the others down—”

  “Others?” Betty asked.

  “We think there are several more Concentrators around the earth connected to the rogue planet. They’re likely along the . . . Do you know what ley lines are?”

  Betty nodded. “You’re telling me they’re real, too?”

  “Yes,” Eleanor said. “The ley lines of telluric current, the earth’s energy, are where we’ll find the Concentrators. We have a map. Von Albrecht’s map.”

  “If we shut them down,” Finn said, “we think that’ll stop the rogue planet. Without any energy to feed off, it’ll just . . . move on.”

  “How do you know that?” Betty asked.

  “We hope it,” Eleanor’s mom said. “Which is all we’ve got right now.”

  “Okay then,” Betty said. “But I have one more question, and I can already tell I’m not going to like the answer. Who, or what, put these Concentrators here?”

  The cabin fell silent. No one wanted to say what they were all thinking, but Eleanor knew there was only one possible answer.

  She wondered if Betty was believing any of it. She seemed to be. The actions of the G.E.T. agents might have been enough to convince her that some kind of cover-up was going on. Eleanor wasn’t sure they’d convinced her of the rest of it, though, something for which she couldn’t fault Betty. She was well aware of how absurd it all sounded, and there were the parts of Eleanor’s experience her own mother seemed not to have fully accepted. But Eleanor couldn’t blame her for that, either. She had no idea why her mind had joined with the Concentrator. Why it had chosen her, or what made her different. But it didn’t seem to be good news that she could connect with a piece of ancient alien technology.

  Except for the chance it offered them to stop it.

  “So where is the closest Concentrator?” Betty asked.

  “Bolivia,” Finn said. “Near the Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca.”

  “So I suppose that’s where we should go,” Betty said. “Right?”

  They all looked at one another.

  “I suppose that’s right,” Dr. Powers said.

  “We need to make a stop first,” Eleanor said.

  “Where?” Finn asked.

  “Phoenix,” Eleanor said. “We have to pick up my uncle Jack.”

  “Uh, don’t you think that’s exactly what they’d expect you to do?” Julian asked. “You might as well just turn yourself in.”

  Eleanor’s fear for Uncle Jack quickly turned to anger at Julian.

  “I’m afraid he’s right, sweetie,” Eleanor’s mom said.

  Eleanor whipped a furious, disbelieving gaze toward her. “What?”

  “It’s too risky,” her mom said.

  Eleanor stammered, “I can’t—I can’t believe—Mom, it’s Uncle Jack! You can’t just abandon him—!”

  “I am not abandoning him,” her mom said, with a gentleness that seemed designed to counter Eleanor’s anger, but that only made it worse.

  “You are abandoning him!” Eleanor shouted.

  “I’m keeping him safe,” her mom said. “He doesn’t know a thing about any of this. I’m certain the G.E.T. knows that. They’ve probably been watching him since you ran away to come find me. If we make contact with him, it’ll be just like Betty—he’ll be involved, a target, on the run with us. I can’t let that happen to him. Is that what you want?”

  That question made Eleanor pause. Uncle Jack was the best man she knew, and the closest thing to a father she’d ever had, or ever needed. When she thought about how she’d run away from him to go search for her mom, and how that must have scared him, and hurt him, the guilt ripped her up from her gut to her chest. She’d been waiting for the moment she could explain everything to him and say she was sorry, and that she loved him. But now she wouldn’t have that chance, and she had no idea when she would, and she realized maybe that was what bothered her most about leaving him behind in Phoenix. Because she knew her mom was right.

  “I miss him,” Eleanor whispered.

  Her mom’s eyes turned glassy, and her voice came haltingly. “I know, sweetie. I miss him, too. But this is what’s best for him.”

  “He doesn’t know,” Eleanor said. “He doesn’t know I’m alive, and you’re alive. Who knows what the G.E.T. has told him?”

  “Uncle Jack is smart,” her mom said. “Smarte
r than anyone has ever given him credit for. I would not be surprised at all if he’s figured out for himself that things aren’t what they seem. He’s probably hoping even now that we’ll come home soon, safe and sound. And you know what? We will. Won’t we?”

  “Yeah,” Eleanor said, and even though she knew he wouldn’t be able to feel it, she sent Uncle Jack a mental hug, and for a moment, it filled up every spare thought in her mind. “We will.”

  “So . . . ,” Finn said after a moment. “Bolivia, then?”

  “No,” Luke said from the cockpit.

  The passengers turned their attention to the front of the plane.

  “Those G.E.T. goons messed with Consuelo,” he said. “And I’ve been thinking. . . . We have to assume they put a tracking device somewhere.”

  “What do you propose?” Dr. Powers asked.

  “I need help finding it,” Luke said. “And I know just the folks to ask.”

  “Who?” Eleanor asked.

  “Felipe’s family.”

  “Who’s Felipe again?” Julian asked.

  “He’s a mechanic in Barrow,” Eleanor said. “Luke and I stayed with him. He’s a nice guy.”

  “So where’s his family?”

  “Mexico City,” Luke said.

  The plane left Alaska behind, but not the ice. Below them, the endless white of the glacial sheet nullified the surface of the earth, rendering it blank. Away to the west, the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains could occasionally be seen breaching the surface, but their upward reaching seemed a desperate act, as though the earth hoped someone or something would take its hand and raise it from the crushing depths of ice.

  About six hours out from Fairbanks, they flew over the edge of the ice sheet, cresting like a mile-high wave of white over much of the state of Oregon, and then they reached the coastline of northern California. Luke had decided San Francisco would be as safe a place as any to land and refuel. The G.E.T. didn’t have much of a presence there.

  Eleanor’s mom said the city was once one of the most beautiful places in the country to live. But not anymore. With the ice sheet only a few hundred miles away, and temperatures dropping, those with the means had gone farther south, to Los Angeles or San Diego, leaving those without means behind. From the air, Eleanor saw the Golden Gate Bridge, looking forlorn, almost out of place. According to her history classes, it had once been the pride of San Francisco, an engineering marvel spanning a wide bay. But as the Arctic ice had taken up and trapped the ocean’s water, coastlines had expanded, and the bay had largely emptied, leaving the bridge a towering monument to all the city had lost.

  “Are you sure it’s safe to land?” Finn asked.

  “Safer than flying on an empty tank,” Luke said. “We need to refuel or we won’t make it much farther. Speaking of which, I’ve been using my own stash of money, but it won’t last forever. Fuel is expensive. You should try to empty your bank accounts before the government seizes your money. Standard practice with those they’ve branded as terrorists.”

  “But that will alert them,” Eleanor’s mom said. “They’ll know where we are.”

  “They’ll know where we were,” Luke said. “Hopefully we’ll be long gone before they catch up to us. We’ll just have to be fast about this.”

  He radioed the airport, falsifying their identity as he’d done in Fairbanks. Eleanor wasn’t sure how long that charade would continue to work.

  “How many aliases do you have?” Dr. Powers asked him.

  “I’ve collected a few in my line of work. Let’s hope they stay untraceable.”

  Even with his confidence, Eleanor found it impossible to relax once they’d touched down. Luke taxied the plane to where he could refuel, and Eleanor’s mom got up to leave with Dr. Powers. Eleanor didn’t like the idea of sitting there on the plane, restless and nervous, wondering what was happening.

  “Can I come?” she asked.

  “I suppose.” Her mom turned to Dr. Powers. “What do you think, Simon?”

  “It should be fine,” he said. “Boys?”

  Finn and Julian decided to stay, and so did Betty, which was probably best to avoid drawing attention, anyway. So Eleanor, her mom, and Dr. Powers left the plane. They didn’t need to suit up, which was a relief; the San Francisco air was cold, but not so cold it could kill them. Out on the tarmac, they turned toward the airport terminal, where Eleanor’s mom thought they would find an ATM, and after a short walk they reached it.

  Inside, the terminal was largely empty, most gates dark and vacant, but there were some travelers here and there, waiting stoically for the few planes that still came and went. They sat watching the TVs suspended from the ceiling, or read books and newspapers. It struck Eleanor that people seemed so able to go on with life as they had known it, even as the Freeze dismantled the world around them. She could only attribute that to the powerful allure of denial.

  “There’s an ATM,” her mom said, pointing down the wide passage between the gates.

  Eleanor glanced up at the TV screens as she followed behind her mom and Dr. Powers. They were all tuned to the same news station, where a pretty anchor was interviewing a man the caption identified as Dr. Pierce Watkins. Luke had called him an old lizard, and now Eleanor saw why. He was bald, with small ears, a sharp nose, and a slight wattle of loose skin beneath his chin. As for being old, Eleanor wasn’t actually sure she could call him that. He looked it, certainly, but he spoke with the animated vigor of a young man.

  “Mom, look,” Eleanor said. “It’s Dr. Watkins.”

  The three of them stopped to listen.

  “I’m not saying the situation isn’t dire,” he said to the anchor. “But I wish to spread a message of hope. I look around, and I do not see a world that is ending. I see a world that is finally coming together. Just look at the wonderful situation in Mexico City. Nations helping nations, neighbors helping neighbors, in the face of a profound challenge. I see people going on with their lives, with faith that there will be a tomorrow. That is what drives me. That is what inspires me.”

  Dr. Powers snorted. “That is what I call a great big pile of bull—”

  “Shh,” Eleanor’s mom said.

  “But how do you respond to your critics?” the anchor asked. “The ones who say you are using this crisis to, in their words, trample on our rights and freedoms? As in Egypt, for example.”

  “There will always be disagreement,” Watkins said. “Personally, I think that’s a wonderful thing. I welcome it. We need every idea on the table, so long as it is presented in a constructive way. But recent actions, like those of the criminals who destroyed our facility in Alaska, are not the answer. Those tactics will do nothing but speed our demise. And make no mistake. We at the G.E.T., with the full authority of the UN, will do everything in our power to find and stop such people.”

  Eleanor felt a chill as much from his words as from her memories of the Arctic. “Let’s hurry,” she whispered. “I want to get out of here.”

  “I agree,” her mom said.

  They walked the rest of the way to the ATM, and then Eleanor waited as her mom inserted her debit card into the machine, a slight tremble in her hands. She followed the prompts on the screen, and then she flinched.

  “Oh no.”

  “What is it?” Dr. Powers asked.

  “Look.”

  Eleanor peered at the screen with Dr. Powers, where a message flashed.

  For security reasons, your card has been suspended.

  Please contact your bank’s customer service for more information.

  Then the screen returned to the welcome message. The machine kept the card.

  Eleanor’s mom stared at it. “Luke was right. They’ve blocked my account.”

  “Let me try mine,” Dr. Powers said, sliding in front of the ATM. But when he inserted his card, he received the same message. “This is bad,” he said.

  Eleanor looked up at the security camera mounted above the ATM and imagined in that moment people were watchi
ng them from somewhere, alarms blaring. “We need to get back to the plane,” she said.

  Her mom nodded. “Okay. Let’s hurry.”

  They turned away from the ATM and set off through the terminal. Eleanor expected armed guards to come racing at them any second, and at one point, she heard footsteps and the static mumble of a radio around a corner. Dr. Powers hauled the two of them into the shadows of a closed and empty gate just as three TSA agents came trotting by, heading in the direction of the ATM.

  From there, the three of them simply ran for it until they reached the exit to the tarmac outside, and then they sprinted for the plane.

  “What if they won’t let us take off?” Eleanor’s mom asked.

  “Luke will, anyway,” Eleanor said.

  When they boarded, they found the others relaxing in their seats, Luke back in the cockpit.

  “We good to go?” he asked.

  “Have you refueled?” Dr. Powers asked.

  Luke nodded.

  “Then I suggest we take off immediately,” Dr. Powers said.

  “They blocked our accounts.” Eleanor’s mom pushed Eleanor forward toward their seats. “And security was onto us.”

  “Right,” Luke said.

  The three of them buckled in along with everyone else, and Luke woke Consuelo and guided her toward the runway without radioing the tower. By now, Eleanor guessed the whole airport would be looking for them, and it wouldn’t take long for security to figure out they were already back on the plane. She kept her eyes out on the tarmac, waiting for security vehicles to come barreling toward them with lights flashing. But none appeared, and Eleanor soon felt the pressure of their takeoff forcing her into her seat. Once they were back in the air, she tried to shake some of the tension out of her arms and shoulders.

  “This is a blow,” Luke said from the cockpit. “My cash won’t last forever.”

  “Mine either,” Betty said.

  “We’ll have to make it work,” Dr. Powers said. “It may not be long before cash doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  After that, they put twenty or thirty minutes behind them before anyone spoke again.

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

  “Not really. The world is ending.”