I look at Ollie. “So ‘Ollie Dotrice’ is your real name?”
She gazes back, impassive. “The ‘Ollie’ part is.”
“Who are you? All of you, I mean. Are you really the Sect of Huracan?”
“Well, aren’t you the clever one?”
“What’s all this about? What’s down there? What were those sarcophagus things?”
“Oh, please. You surely don’t think I’m going to fill in the gaps for you.”
I keep going. “What have you got against the people in Ek Naab?”
This time, Ollie seems irritated enough to answer. “Those people in Ek Naab are not just some charming, Yucatec-speaking Mexicans. They’re not the remains of the Mayan civilization. And they’re not your friends. Stop thinking of them that way. If you had any idea what they’ve done in their history … Why do you think there are so few Bakabs in the city?”
I gape, speechless. How can Ollie know so much about Ek Naab?
“Do the math, Josh. Every male born to a Bakab is a Bakab since Ek Naab was founded. They should be a dime a dozen. Where are they?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t. You don’t have a clue.”
Everything Ollie is saying confuses me further. I struggle to understand, but the truth is that I can’t even grasp the most basic part of this.
Why?
“Why, Ollie? Why are you doing this?”
“I already told you; don’t you ever listen? It’s a mistake to save the world from the effects of the superwave.”
“Things like this come along,” Priya says. “And it’s survival of the fittest.”
“I just don’t understand you. How can you say that?”
Ollie gives a scornful laugh. “Oh, what do you know? You’ve wasted most of your life being brainwashed by TV and computer games.”
“What, then?” I yell. “We should just all shut up, wait for 2012, and just stand by while civilization crumbles, while billions of people die?”
“What’s the alternative? You think we can go on like this indefinitely, everyone on the planet living to consume? Using up all the natural resources, poisoning the planet, driving every other species to extinction?”
I hardly even know what to say to her. “I thought you were the most amazing girl I’d ever met. But you’re not. You’re insane.”
Priya rewards that remark with a vicious twist of my arm. I can’t help yelling.
Ollie sighs. “See how confused you are? We love the planet, not just the human part of it.”
“How did you get so two-faced?”
“You belong with us, Josh. Not with them.”
“Are you trying to persuade me?” I ask. “‘Cause you’re not doing a very good job.”
“All the Bakabs belong with us. But stop all this stuff about 2012.”
“We’ll never stop. That’s what Ek Naab is for!”
Ollie shouts, “And it’s wrong!”
Our last two statements echo around the cave, jolting my nerves even further.
Ollie sighs. It sounds as though it comes from the depths of her soul. Her voice softens. “Josh. Please come with us.”
“Who is that ‘Professor’ woman? She your mother?”
“What?” Ollie seems puzzled, suddenly thrown. “No … she’s …”
I interrupt. “She wants to use me for some kind of medical experiment. That’s the kind of thing you do out of ‘love of the planet,’ huh? Using innocent people for lethal experiments?”
For the first time, I see that Ollie is surprised. Astonished, definitely. Even dismayed.
“She … she must know you’ll probably survive …”
“No, she doesn’t. She doesn’t care. Listen. I’m not sure what this ‘Revival Chamber’ is or what it does,” I tell her. I pronounce my words slowly, spelling it out. “But I know you need the Adapter to activate it. Well, you’re not getting it. Ever.”
In the distance, there begins a faint sound, from deep within one of the tunnels. We’re silent, tense. Listening.
Something’s coming toward us—something huge, disturbing all the air around us. Something fast.
27
At first it’s just a tremor in the stillness. A second later, I can put a name to the sound. Fluttering. Like hundreds of birds with delicate wings. A dark cloud belches up from inside the tunnel. The cave fills with shadows. Caught in the edges of the flashlight, I see the flicker of hundreds of wings. The air is thick with the creatures, flapping in our faces, against our skin, tangling in our hair.