Ice Shock(29)

“I’m fine,” she snaps. “It’s just … I forgot how loud these things are.” Then she turns the gun on me. “Get up. Hands above your head.”

I do as she says. Madison reaches into a kitchen drawer, grabs a fat roll of duct tape. He twists my arms behind my back, wraps tape tightly around my wrists, over my shirt. He takes the gun from Ollie, turns me roughly around, opens a door that I’d assumed led to a pantry.

But it doesn’t. This is serious. Behind the door are stone steps that lead to a dark, damp-smelling cellar. No one outside would hear anything from down there. They could kill me and no one would ever know.





14


The cellar is empty, except for a small side table against one wall. There is only a tiny window, right up against the ceiling, no more than two feet wide. Madison pulls a cord, turning on a single dim uncovered lightbulb. He pushes the nose of the pistol against my cheek, softly.

“On your knees.”

I hesitate, then kneel on the concrete floor. He tapes my ankles together. I sit back on my haunches. Madison clicks his tongue.

“Not like that. Kneel up. Straight.”

It’s not easy to get up without my hands for leverage. I do it, slowly.

“Josh,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”

I stare at him in what I hope is defiance, but for all I know, my face shows every bit of the terror I’m starting to feel.

“One thing I do know about torture is, you gotta give a little sample. Now maybe you and I, being old friends, can leave that part out. So first we’ll talk a little. If I like your answers, maybe I’ll stop there. But if I don’t like your answers, Josh … I may need to persuade you.”

Madison places the gun slowly on the side table. His eyes turn cold, deadly, purposeful. I shut my eyes, steeling myself for the first blow, when I hear Ollie’s voice.

“Let me try first. We should give reason a chance.”

Madison stares at her. “He’s a liar!”

“People lie under torture,” she remarks.

“Soldiers lie; a kid like him isn’t going to lie to me, not after I’ve broken a few of his bones.”

What Madison is saying is so unimaginably horrible that I can’t take it in. I blink, dazed.

Ollie says quietly, “Josh, why do you think this is happening?”

My voice cracks slightly when I reply. “You want the codex … you want to get into Ek Naab? I don’t know …”

“Well, let’s try asking about you. Why are you involved in all this?”

I stare into her eyes. “The end of the Mayan Long Count … the galactic superwave … I don’t want the world as we know it to end in 2012. Do you?”

Ollie sighs, as though this were an old, tired argument. “Hasn’t it occurred to you that saving people is the last thing we should be thinking of? What the world needs is fewer humans using up resources. Fewer humans—just those who make sensible use of what the planet has to offer. Fewer humans so that other species on the planet can actually live instead of being driven to extinction.”

I’m stunned. “So … you want to just let millions of people die … ?”

She doesn’t seem to have heard me. She continues, “We’ve made a mess of life on Earth. Climate change, wars, religious fundamentalism. One way or another, civilization is doomed. Why wait for it to happen painfully over the next century? I say we let it finish now, while the planet still has a chance to recover. Our civilization doesn’t need to be preserved—it needs to be re-created. By the right people.” Ollie throws me a meaningful look. “That could include you, Josh.”

I find my voice. “Me? Why?”

“You really don’t know? 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?”

“What Bakab gene?”

“Don’t be an idiot. The one that gives you immunity to the Erinsi bio-defense.”

“Erinsi?” I search my memory for the reference. I’ve heard it before. But right now I can’t remember where.

“Josh, you’re forgetting how well I know you. Yes, the Erinsi—as in Books of Erinsi Inscriptions. The ancient people who actually wrote your precious Ix Codex—the Erinsi, the ones who actually invented all that clever technology they’re so proud of in Ek Naab.”

“Itzamna wrote the Ix Codex … ,” I say, stalling.

“He copied them,” snaps Ollie. “As well you know. Maybe you should stop underestimating me. I know that by now you’ve decoded the pages from the codex. You would never burn it to a crisp if you hadn’t. We’re not stupid either; we’ve decoded it too. I don’t know how much you know about the Erinsi, but I’m certain that you’ve heard of them.”