Ice Shock

by M. G. Harris

  “Wear gas masks! Use gloves! There are ways around it, aren’t there?”

  Benicio nods. “In some cases, yes. But each bio-defense is unpredictable. In other cases, even those protections are not enough. And … the Bakabs have other abilities.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, it’s not completely understood. My guess is that the answers are in the Ix Codex, but you know, I don’t have the security clearance to know that, so …”

  I think about what Ollie said: That Bakab gene is just the tip of the iceberg. Have you any idea what you’re capable of, if only we could unlock your potential?

  Is this what Ollie was talking about? Do I have other abilities that I’m not even aware of? I’d ask Benicio, but I’m pretty sure he’ll just say he doesn’t “have security clearance.”

  I turn to Ixchel, ask her straight out if she sent the postcards. She claims she didn’t. Benicio seems interested.

  “What’s this? You never told me someone was sending you coded messages.”

  “I don’t know who they’re from. But they seem to be talking about my father’s death.”

  Benicio suddenly gets a call on his cell phone.

  “It’s the automatic defense system of the Muwan,” he says after a few seconds. “It’s detected someone getting nosy. I’d better go check it out.”

  He leaves me alone with Ixchel. She watches him go. Then a change comes over her. She leans forward, lowers her voice.

  “Josh, there’s something I need to tell you. About that guy in the blue Nissan.”

  “His name is Simon Madison,” I tell her, “and he keeps turning up, trying to beat me up. Benicio didn’t say?”

  “You think we talk about you all the time?”

  I glare at her. “‘Course not. But this is major!”

  “Well … Benicio doesn’t tell me everything … and I don’t tell him everything.”

  “You’re sneaky.”

  “I just want to be my own person. Not a trained monkey working for Montoyo.”

  I’m silent, but I’m starting to agree with her about Benicio. Why does he just do everything Montoyo says?

  Ixchel polishes off her Sunkist. “I did my last favor for Montoyo back when I rescued you, led you to Ek Naab. That includes marrying you, by the way, which obviously I’m never going to do.”

  She doesn’t leave time for me to respond, and I’m actually a bit irritated at the cutting way she says that. I know what she means, but it still isn’t very friendly.

  “But later, I saw that blue Nissan in Becan, you know. It was in the parking lot from about four in the morning. I was waiting until the ruins opened so that I could take the bus. I watched him. He stayed in the car for about twenty minutes, then walked into the site. He came back about four hours later. He waited until the restaurant nearby opened, ate a plate of eggs, then he went back into the site with a few tourists. The second time, I followed him. Well, as usual, there were hardly any visitors, and one section was completely empty, except for your blue Nissan guy. And, of course, me. When he thought no one was watching, he went into one of the ruined temples. He disappeared for another two hours. I almost fell asleep waiting for him to return. What was he doing in there? After he left, I followed him out and then to the Nissan. He drove away at around ten thirty in the morning. I went back to take a closer look at that temple, but it looked ordinary. Until I noticed the ground near the back wall. It was really clean and smooth. No grass. Like it had been scraped often by a heavy rock.”

  I listen in amazement. “What do you think it is? A hiding place? Another secret passageway?”

  Ixchel just shrugs and takes a couple of bites of Benicio’s abandoned club sandwich. For a second, her eyes light up. “These are so good! The chef makes them with the most delicious bacon.”

  “Yeah, the bacon’s amazing.” Talking about bacon at a time like this?! “But what about this secret passage?”

  “If there is one, then it might lead into the Depths, under the city.”

  “Have you told anyone this?”

  She shakes her head, chewing. “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t trust anyone in Ek Naab.”

  “Why?”

  “Something is going on. I don’t know exactly what, because I’m a ‘child’—that’s how they see me, at least. And they don’t tell me anything important. But I have eyes and ears.”

  “And … ?”

  “People have become secretive about who they talk to. My parents started talking quietly behind closed doors. Saying things like ‘Don’t tell so-and-so that such-and-such was here.’”

  “Any particular names?”

  “Montoyo—anyone linked to Montoyo, people are really cautious around.”

  “So, what—Montoyo’s a bad guy now?”

  Ixchel shrugs. “Benicio is a great guy. But he does whatever Montoyo asks.”

  “You really seem to have a problem with Montoyo … why?”

  “He has a lot of power in Ek Naab. And when you turn sixteen, you’ll replace him on the Executive. He’s going to lose his position. That doesn’t worry you?”

  I shrug, wondering. “Never even thought about it.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Josh. But the atmosphere has been weird for months. What if there’s another way into Ek Naab? What if there are spies in the city?”

  “Spies, why would there be spies?”

  “Josh, there are people in Ek Naab who want to sell our secrets to the outside world.”

  “I thought Montoyo already did that—isn’t that how the city is so rich?”

  “No—he sells technology that doesn’t have to stay secret. I’m talking about the secrets of the Baktun Problem. The secrets in the Ix Codex.”

  It strikes me that this isn’t quite the same story that Benicio told me. He didn’t mention anything about selling secrets.

  “Look,” Ixchel says slowly, as if I might be a little slow. “If there’s another way into the city, then … secrets might be leaving through that route.”

  I shake my head. “No way. Madison threatened to beat me to a pulp unless I told him how to get into Ek Naab. He doesn’t know the way.”

  Ixchel seems genuinely surprised at this. “Hmm. Then maybe it’s nothing.”

  “It’s not nothing. Madison’s up to something. We should investigate. Then we can tell the Executive what we’ve found. The whole Executive—all at once.”

  “You’re dreaming,” she says. “Benicio told me you’re in trouble with Montoyo. You think he’s going to give you permission to investigate?”

  “Hmm. Probably not. So let’s not ask.”

  Ixchel stares at me with what looks like admiration. “You’d do that?”

  “Yeah.” I stand up. “You and me. Let’s go, right now.”

  She shakes her head in disbelief. “I thought you were Montoyo’s errand boy too.”

  “Hey, in two years I’m going to be on the Executive,” I say. It’s the first time I’ve heard respect in Ixchel’s voice, so I go further, get bolder. “I don’t take orders from Montoyo.”

  “That’s tough talk, but what about me? You want me to walk off my shift—which will probably get me fired, by the way—and go all the way back to Becan with you … and use up all my money for the bus … ?”

  “… And crawl into the temple and find the secret way in … ,” I say. “Yeah, all that. Come on. Please. This Madison guy, he killed my sister; for all I know he may have been involved in the murder of my father. He beat me up, was going to kill me. And his evil witch of a girlfriend has been spying on me, pretending to be my friend …”

  I almost spit that last sentence out, and Ixchel seems a bit startled. She looks at me for a long moment.

  “What about Benicio?”

  “Well … first thing he’s going to do is call Montoyo and ask for permission. So that’s out.”
r />   She nods. “Okay. But we can’t leave saying nothing.”

  “You’ve got your phone, haven’t you?”

  “I’d better turn it off.” Ixchel smiles mischievously. “He can trace us.”

  We decide to leave a note.

  Benicio, I want to show Josh this really interesting thing. Plus I think it would be good for us to spend some time alone. See you back here in a couple of days.

  “‘This really interesting thing’ … are you kidding?” I say, incredulous. “He’s never going to believe that. And we should ‘spend some time alone’?”

  “I know,” she replies, grinning. “Benicio had better keep this quiet. Because if Montoyo finds out, he’s going to completely lose it.”

  “What Montoyo’s gonna have to realize,” I say as we stand up, “is that he can’t have everything his own way. Not when it comes to you and me.”

  “Okay, Josh,” Ixchel says with a smile. “Now you’re talking!”

  She jabs my arm. It feels a bit like affection …

  BLOG ENTRY: GRAN CAFÉ DEL PORTAL

  A friend of mine named Ixchel has been working in a famous coffee shop in Veracruz. My cousin Benicio took me to visit her. When she started, they made her clean floors and wipe tables. They didn’t know then that she spoke fluent English, French, and Japanese. Even fancy, rich Mexicans get impressed by that. You’d have thought they’d offer her a bigger promotion. But no. They only moved her up to waitress.

  Anyway … I’m still fine. I had to get out of Ek Naab. I thought maybe Ixchel had been sending us those postcards, the ones with the photos of Mayan cities, mailed from Veracruz. I asked her right away. She said no. She’d never heard of them.

  Then I thought—obviously she’s telling the truth. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first: how would she know your name and our address?

  “Oh, I know all that,” she said. “Josh Garcia, son of Eleanor and Andres.”

  And then she told me our address.

  “You don’t think I checked you out?” she told me. “You must be even dumber than you look.”

  Nice. They fixed me up with a girl who thinks I’m dumb.

  21

  I find an Internet café, where I persuade them to change the twenty-pound note that’s stashed in my back pocket under my dad’s iPod. They make me buy fifteen minutes online, so I do a quick update to the blog.

  And that already seems like too much time. I don’t even want Ixchel to stop off at her room to change out of her waitress clothes, but she insists.

  “You want to hitchhike?” she says, more than a bit irritated as we trot through the streets of Veracruz. “No? Then okay, I need to get my money.”

  Ixchel lives in what used to be the maid’s room at the top of a house. The room is completely separate and has its entrance on the roof. The walls are brick, painted with thick, pale pink paint, the floor a dirty marble tile. Ixchel’s bed is low and narrow. Apart from that, all she has in her room is a small chest of drawers with a twelve-inch television on top. Behind me Ixchel changes as I stare at the wall, where she’s taped postcards of Mexican film stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. It’s the single personal touch, the only decoration in the room.

  “Why are you living like this?” I ask, wondering. “I really don’t understand.”

  Ixchel turns me around. She’s dressed in blue jeans, sandals, and a salmon pink T-shirt and carries the little sisal-weave bag I remember from the jungle. The chopsticks are gone and she wears her hair in a high ponytail.

  “Let me ask you this: you want to move to Ek Naab? Live your life there?”

  “Not really, but …”

  “You see?”

  “… but I wasn’t born there. I’m not used to it.”

  “Ek Naab is a prison with golden bars, unless you are on the Executive or a pilot like Benicio.”

  “Everyone seems so happy.”

  “They are terrified of the real world outside. They believe someone’s going to kill them or rob them the minute they step out of the place.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I never believe things just because people tell me,” she says with a little toss of her ponytail. “I like to see for myself.”

  We leave her room in a hurry, make straight for the bus station. She buys two tickets on the express to Villahermosa, in Tabasco. I remember my lonely bus trip last summer, and I’m relieved to think I’ll have company this time.

  Ixchel and I take two seats somewhere in the middle of the bus. She lets me have the window seat, “since you’re the tourist here.”

  Typical.

  We decide to phone Benicio right away, while the bus is still in the streets of Veracruz. Ixchel tells him that she’s abducting me to show me something of the “real” Mexico. When she passes her phone to me, I can hear the anxiety in his voice.

  “Josh, I’m not kidding. Tell her you’re coming back with me. Montoyo will kill me.”

  “Then don’t tell him. We’ll be back the day after tomorrow. Just tell him that everything’s fine, that we’re hanging out together.”

  Benicio goes silent. “If anything happens to you guys, I’m toast. You understand? I’m finished as a pilot.”

  Ixchel takes the phone. “Don’t be ridiculous, Benicio. You’re the best pilot we have. Just be calm. It’ll be fine.”

  But Benicio doesn’t seem to agree and hangs up, cursing us both.

  Ixchel giggles, embarrassed. “Gee. Now I feel really bad.”

  “Don’t. We’re only going to find out what Madison is up to. Okay? When we find out, they’ll thank us.”

  Ixchel glances at me and seems to mull something over.

  I also use her phone to call Tyler. It turns out he hasn’t left Oxford after all.

  “My mom drove me past Ollie’s,” Tyler tells me. “And her house has a ‘FOR RENT’ sign. I looked through the windows—it’s empty. The neighbors said she moved out yesterday. I called her on her cell phone—it was turned off.”

  I ask him to check my house for any more of those postcards. He’s already been to the house and found another two. I ask him to read out the messages.

  They are:

  KINGDOM’S.LOSS.

  QUESTIONABLE.JUDGMENT.

  Ixchel copies this down, as well as the rest of the messages. All together, in date order, the message so far is:

  WHAT.KEY.HOLDS.BLOOD.DEATH.UNDID.HARMONY. ZOMBIE.DOWNED.WHEN.FLYING.KINGDOM’S.LOSS. QUESTIONABLE.JUDGMENT.

  She asks, “You know what this means?”

  I glumly fix my eyes on the message. “Not the faintest idea.”

  But the latest messages seem to tie in with my theory. Zombie downed when flying. Sounds like a nasty reference to my dad’s corpse being in the plane. Kingdom’s loss, questionable judgment. Could that be a reference to Ek Naab?

  “Maybe you need the whole message to decipher the code,” suggests Ixchel.

  “That’s not how deciphering works,” I tell her.

  “Oh, so you’re a deciphering genius now, are you?”

  “Hey, I figured out that the Ix Codex is written in English!” I say.

  Oops.

  “It’s in English … ? But how?”

  “I’m kidding,” I say. “‘Course it’s not in English. As if!”

  Ixchel says nothing more for a few seconds, instead looks at me closely. I try to look relaxed, but I can actually feel my cheeks burning. Time to change the subject.

  I put the message aside and I tell Ixchel all about my adventure last summer, how I found the Ix Codex, and some of what’s happened in the past few weeks. Every time I come to a part about what I read in the pages from the Ix Codex, I have to stop.

  “Gosh … sorry … I can’t tell you about that …”

  Eventually she tells me to shut up about the Ix Codex. But of course she wants to know. And of course I want to talk about it. We can’t, so we change the subject again.

  She tells me about how she left Becan by bus the morning
after she saw me. She headed out to Playa del Carmen, where she spent a few weeks waitressing in bars on the beach. From Playa she went to Merida, from Merida to Veracruz.

  “I wanted to see Mexico. And not just from a beach. I want to see the whole world too, one day. Might as well start here.”

  I’m full of admiration, but I can’t really understand how she can stand to live that way. I think of my own comfortable life in Oxford. Not much would persuade me to abandon that.

  We reach Villahermosa just in time to catch the overnight bus to Chetumal. I can’t help thinking sadly of poor Saul there without Camila. I wonder if he stayed. Without her, he’d only have the avocados and their beautiful house. Still—it beats being in jail.

  These thoughts turn over and over in my head. I clench my jaw, trying not to let bad memories get to me. I turn to Ixchel to see if I can get her talking again. But she’s asleep, breathing quietly, leaning against the window. Outside it’s pitch-black. The interior lights of the bus are switched off, the video screen blinks into action, and a film begins to play. It’s one I’ve seen before—Memento. I plug into my dad’s iPod. It’s mostly classical music, jazz, and prog rock. Wondering if I’ll have the dream about my dad, I select Kind of Blue and try to sleep.

  22

  It’s still dark when we arrive at Chetumal. We have to wait a few hours to catch one of the buses that take tourists to Becan, Chicanna, Xpujil, and Calakmul.

  At Becan, we get out, behind a group of six German tourists. The minute we arrive, Ixchel strolls ahead of the other visitors, who move in that slow, bewildered touristy way. We quickly leave them behind, near the thatched entrance hut. She takes me straight past the main plaza and to a set of buildings to the west in the central plaza, labeled on the map as Structure X.

  Apart from the German guys, we have the whole site to ourselves. I turn away from Structure X for a moment and peer behind the curtain of spindly trees. There, looming above the plaza, is the enormous pyramid I climbed last summer: Structure IX. There’s absolutely no sign of the secret entrance to the gateway of Ek Naab on the western wall of Structure IX. I’m still amazed that the entrance even exists.