Ice Shock (16 page)

“You two should try to get to know each other,” Benicio tells us.

I glance at Ixchel. She gives me a defiant stare.

“What do you think … ,” I begin to ask.

“I think you're too easily influenced by Montoyo.”

“I am not! And what's it to you, anyway?”

“You don't get it, do you? I've had it with the traditions of that place. Arranged marriages! As if we were some sort of animal to be bred. Think I want to have one of your little Bakab children? Guess again.”

“Yeah … Benicio … ,” I say, “why do they care if any more Bakabs are born? 2012 is just around the corner. We've got the four Books of Itzamna; we can just take them out of their boxes and leave it at that.”

Ixchel rolls her eyes. “You're so clueless!”

“Josh … ,” Benicio says carefully. “All the ancient technology is protected by a similar ‘curse'—the bio-defense. Only the Bakabs can touch it and not die.”

“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.”

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 …

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
.

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.”