Invisible City (25 page)

“Wouldn't that have to make him, you know, a visiting extraterrestrial from an advanced civilization?”

I'm only half-joking, but Montoyo doesn't laugh or even smile.

“Well, there's always speculation. Itzamna was a technological prophet of some kind. Where he gained his knowledge—that's unknown.”

“The answer's down there, though, isn't it? In the Garden? In the Depths? Why don't you send out search parties, find where Vigores lives, see what's going on?”

Montoyo seems irritated. “There are great dangers in the
Depths, as I've already told you. As for Vigores, we respect his privacy. He's brought only good things to Ek Naab.”

I don't ask again. But I have the strong feeling that Montoyo is holding back. Big time.

Montoyo says, “We need your decision, Josh. Take the night, sleep on it. And let us know tomorrow. Okay?”

Walking back to Benicio's apartment, I glimpse what passes for nightlife in Ek Naab. The plaza has been cleared of the market stalls. Round tables and chairs have taken their place. Couples and groups huddle around them, faces intimately lit with blue and red flickers from candles set in thick slabs of colored glass.

Montoyo insists that I wear the Bakab helmet all the way back. It's for my own good, he says: “You need to learn to separate
yourself
from the
role
.” I try to imagine myself as a kind of superhero paraded through the streets. It works—I feel better. I even manage to work up a little strut.

There's no sign of Benicio at the apartment. “He flies patrol most weeknights,” says Montoyo. Patrolling what, I wonder. And why? These are just two of the ten million questions I want to ask about Ek Naab and all its workings. I'm on the verge of information overload, but my mind won't stop buzzing.

“You're not tired?” Montoyo asks. I shake my head. Jetlagged is what I am, after staying up most of last night.

Montoyo searches through Benicio's kitchen cupboards. With a murmur of satisfaction, he finds a canister and gets busy
making coffee in a French press. A few minutes later we're sitting on the couch slurping sweet milky coffee.

“Okay, Josh,” he says with a smack of his lips. “Now's your time. I promised you I would answer your questions. So, go ahead.”

Answer my questions? Wow. If only this happened every day. Or if he could deal with the questions I really needed to have answered. Why did my father have to die? How do I get rid of the image of my sister's head sinking underwater? Why can't my mom be one of those totally together, I've-got-it-all-covered-no-problem mothers? Please, can I have my ordinary life back?

Maybe he senses my line of thinking, because watching me search silently for something to ask, he says, “Things are confusing for you right now, yes?”

“Yes. Very.”

“What's your biggest problem?”

“I suppose … thinking that you really can't get anyone else to do this. That it's all down to me. And the feeling that this is really not my job. If anyone's, it should be my dad's.”

“He's let you down, yes? By not staying alive? By making this cup pass to you?”

I nod slowly. He's right. At the heart of everything, that's my problem.

“I would have to say, I agree with you. Andres let us down. Not only in allowing himself to be shot down or captured. But in taking the Bracelet of Itzamna.”

I stare blankly into my coffee. “Why didn't the Executive mention that?”

Montoyo doesn't miss a beat. “They don't know, except for Vigores. And you'd better not tell anyone else.”

“What …?”

“I'm serious. It would
severely
complicate matters.”

I gaze at Montoyo, amazed. He's a dark horse, that guy!

“Please tell me what it is. I won't tell anyone that Dad took it, I promise.”

Montoyo nods, rocking slightly, his tone grave. “There is a collection of artifacts said to have been owned originally by Itzamna himself.”

“Extraterrestrial artifacts?”

He's irritated. “Not extraterrestrial, Josh. Itzamna was human, we know that. He had human children. You are one of his descendants.”

“Maybe humans came from space. You know, originally?”

“Don't you learn anything in school? Humans evolved on Earth. That's proven, completely.”

Deflated, I say, “Oh.” Then, “So what is the Bracelet?”

“We don't know its function. Another thing we hope to learn from the Ix Codex. Each of the four books of Itzamna details a different kind of technology. We've learned much from the three we already have. Over two hundred of our engineers and scientists are working right now trying to figure them out.”

“I thought they were decoded in the nineteenth century. What's taken so long?”

“Let me ask you this: if Isaac Newton had come across blueprints for building a nuclear power plant, would he have known how to use them?”

“I guess not. The world didn't understand physics in the same way back then.”

“There's your answer. In the nineteenth century our scholars learned how to read the Books of Itzamna. Understanding what they meant—we had to wait for Einstein's help there.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes—1905 and the Theory of Special Relativity. None of those books made any sense to us. Until we read Einstein. Then we could understand the Kan Codex. As scientific knowledge advanced, we gained sudden understanding of the contents of the books.”

“But that doesn't help with the Bracelet of Itzamna?”

“No.”

“Where did he get it?”

“That's just it,” says Montoyo. “I can only think that either Blanco Vigores gave it to him—or else he stole it from Vigores.”

“My dad went down to the Garden with Vigores?”

“Just like you.”

“Vigores and I, we just talked. I didn't see any chambers of Itzamna. I didn't see any artifacts.”

“All the same. I think Vigores and your father were involved in something. I think maybe it went wrong.”

My coffee's finished now. I stand, pull off the woolen poncho, and replace it on the hanger.

“So this Bracelet of Itzamna—it's important?”

Montoyo stands up too. “I have no clue what it does. But I doubt that it's just a piece of jewelry. Blanco Vigores is a somewhat eccentric old man. I've never known him to do anything without good reason. If he gave the Bracelet to your father, it's because he had a plan. I want to know what that plan was, what became of it.”

For a second or two I catch a whiff of Montoyo's sheer determination, maybe even ambition to be in control. Seems that he doesn't like it when he's not at the center of things.

“You want me to find this Bracelet?”

“Yes, Josh. That's your very secret mission, for me alone.”

I nod. “Okay. How?”

“As next of kin, sooner or later, they must return to you your father's remains and any possessions they rescued from the wreckage. I simply ask that you look out for anything unusual.”

“You said my dad left here in a Muwan. Was he flying it himself?”

Montoyo nods. “Yes. It can be flown in a basic fashion with little training.”

“If it was captured, where would the Muwan be now?”

Montoyo laughs, apparently surprised. “Area 51, of course.”

“Area 51?! As in Roswell,
that
Area 51? You think they took my dad there?”

“At first.”

“And that's where they strangled him?”

“That's my guess.”

I sit down, brooding quietly. There's no getting away from it—someone deliberately murdered my father. The Mayas may have sent him on a dangerous mission, but at least it was a mission even I could understand. Whoever killed him—they did it for their own purposes. They didn't stop to think for a second what that would mean to Dad's family.

I think about the weapons and technology that might now be put at my disposal. Deep inside me, anger squirms uneasily for the very first time.

“There's no point in revenge,” Montoyo says, “if that's what you're thinking.”

Deliberately, I reply, “That's up to me, isn't it?”

“You will not even think about revenge! Like it or not, you are the heir of the Bakab Ix; you
will
carry out your duties; you
will not
allow personal vendettas to interfere!”

I just stand there, livid, returning his intense stare. “I do not have to live by your rules.”

“You think I care where you were born? You are a Bakab: it's that simple. So, yes, you do have to live by our rules.” Montoyo grabs my arm, his fingers digging hard into the bicep. “Ignore your anger,” he implores. “Put aside your personal feelings. This
agency—with them it's not personal. Okay? It's their living. Until you have the same professional outlook, you are no match for them.”

It takes all my self-control not to struggle against him. I must know seven different ways to get out of a simple hold like this. Yet, somewhere along the line, Montoyo's won my respect.

Still gripping my arm, he adds, “You want justice, yes? That's beyond your control. What you
can
do is bring back the Ix Codex and maybe the Bracelet of Itzamna too. This must be your revenge. Understand?”

Cold fury envelops me. “Let go of me,” I tell him quietly.

“You're not a member of the Executive yet, Josh. When you turn sixteen and take my place, then you make your own orders.”

Finally he lets me pull myself free. Without giving him another look, I storm into the bedroom and throw myself into the hammock.

“Get some sleep,” I hear him say, his voice tired and dull. “Tomorrow, Josh, you must take your first action as the Bakab we have awaited.”

I wait for Montoyo to leave before I let myself fall asleep. Just like the night before, it takes me forever to get to sleep. The occasional shiver runs through me. My past, my future: it all brims with possibility.

When I wake up, the place is totally quiet, totally dark. I roll out of the hammock, pad around the apartment looking for signs of life. It's deserted. I gravitate to the kitchen, open the fridge. I find some sliced cheese and ham, fold them inside two flour tortillas, and warm them on the griddle.

It hits me then that I haven't thought of Ollie and Tyler for a long time … since back when I tried to phone them, near the cenote. In fact, I haven't thought of anything much, except what's happening to me, and Ek Naab. I stare around the living room.

Can it really be so easy to step into another world, another life?

I've heard people say you can get used to anything. But it scares me how quickly I'm getting used to this. I don't want to forget about everything else—I want to get this mission over with and get back to my life in Oxford.

Yet it's hard not to forget. This is all so foreign, and at the
same time eerily familiar. Part of the strangeness is the lack of ordinary things, like advertising posters and television and stuff. I'm sitting on the sofa, eating and wondering how the people of Ek Naab survive without television, when the front door opens. Benicio strolls in wearing a navy flight suit. There's no insignia, badge, or anything. He might as well be a window cleaner for all his clothes tell.

Benicio doesn't seem surprised to see that I'm awake, but he doesn't look too pleased either. In fact, he's got a face like thunder.

I take a guess. “Bet you're fed up with babysitting me.”

“No,” he answers shortly. “It's fine.”

But pretty obviously, it's not. The sudden difference in Benicio really throws me.

I don't really know any of these people.

I'm still wondering what to say when he breaks in, all businesslike. “Have you made your decision yet?”

“Yes. Don't see that I really have a choice.”

“Well, that sounds real committed,” he says with a hint of sarcasm.

“I didn't mean it like that. Well, maybe a bit. No, I'm in. I can do this.”

“Excellent,” he says without expression. What the heck is wrong with him? “Let's go through your instructions again.”

“You know what I have to do?” I ask, a bit surprised that he's in on it.

“I was part of the team that proposed and planned the mission,” he says, giving me a sharp look. “So let's go over it again.”

I return my plate to the kitchen, hesitating on the way.

“Benicio. Is something wrong?”

He seems slightly irked. “No.”

I've never been much good at pressuring people to “open up.” Normally I'm only too pleased to ask once and then leave it at that. In this case, though, I'm too anxious.

“Sorry, friend, but I think there is.”

Now he looks really irritated. “There's stuff going on in my life that's … complex.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Yeah,” he says. “And I prefer not to talk about it.”

“Have I done something?”

“You?” His show of surprise seems just a tad insincere. “No. It concerns Ixchel, if you must know.”

“Pumas Girl?”

“I'm the one who helped her run away from home,” he admits. “Catching some flak for it now.”

“Why'd she go?”

“A difference of opinion.”

“She told me to say it was a ‘matter of principle,'” I say.

“You could say that,” he agreed.

“A fight with her parents?”

He nods. “That's one way to look at it.”

“You're not gonna tell me?”

“Not possible,” he says. “I'm sworn to secrecy in so many ways, you can't believe it.”

“So you and me, we're cool?”

Benicio shrugs. “Sure. Why wouldn't we be?”

I pull what I hope is my most vacant expression. “No reason.”

Who knows whether he's convinced or not. Either way, he doesn't pursue it further. He joins me on the couch and draws the coffee table closer. My
Mission: Impossible
case—the aluminium briefcase from Chief Sky Mountain—sits on top of the table.