Nil Unlocked (33 page)

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to paddleboard before the wind kicks up. Want to come? The waves aren’t that big today.”

I hesitated. Jillian had been right. I loved paddleboarding; it was my new island obsession. Standing on a big huge board, on the calm water past the breaking waves, brought an amazing sense of peace—a peace so
close
to the water, a peace borne of the water—that I’d never expected. Nil had been full of surprises, not all of them terrible. I turned to Jillian, whose friendship was a Nil gift.

“I think I should stay with Paulo,” I said reluctantly. I felt Rives’s eyes still watching. Studying. “I’m the only one he knows here, and I think I should be here when he wakes up.”

“Makes sense.” Jillian nodded.

When I looked up, the doorway was empty. Rives was gone.

*   *   *

Paulo woke that afternoon. He sat up with a jolt. “Where am I?” he croaked.

“In the City,” I answered. “Here. Drink this.”

He thrust out his hand. “No way!” He eyed the cup with fear. “The last time you people had me drink something, the nasty stuff almost killed me!”

“No, that nasty stuff knocked you out so Jillian and Dex could set your leg without you feeling it.” I pointed to his splint, a crafty three-prong creation to fix his leg in place. “And thanks to them, you might actually be able to walk again.”

Paulo lay back on the bed and moaned.

“You need to drink and eat, and probably use the bathroom. Jason found a pair of crutches for you in the Shack yesterday. They’re by your bed.” I gestured to the foot of Paulo’s bed, where a pair of primitive wooden crutches fashioned from tree branches rested against the edge.

Paulo didn’t move. He stared at the ceiling.

“Why were you following us, anyway?” I asked.

No answer.

“Okay, well, why did you run away from that gate? You could’ve been far away from here by now. And no broken leg,” I added.

He jerked his head toward me. “Take a wild portal? Are you crazy? Those portals take people and those people disappear.”

I shook my head. “No, they just appear somewhere else. Not on the Death Twin island.” I looked pointedly at Paulo. It struck me that each of us had little knowledge of the other’s Nil, and some of what we thought we knew was wrong.

“Not always,” he said. His voice dropped to a shaky whisper. “Sometimes the wild portals kill people. Electrocutes them, steals their life force. I’ve heard the stories. I’m not stupid. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to die, either.”

“Those wild portals,” I said slowly, “are the only way home for most of us. It’s how most people got here, too. You, me, Maaka—we’re the exceptions, Paulo. No one else came here by that fancy portal that stood patiently waiting. And those wild portals? They only zap you if two people try to take the same one.”

Paulo frowned as the wheels turned.

“Yup,” I said, watching his expression shift as understanding dawned. “Those wild portals only take one person at a time. Your portal was different.” I paused. “But you already know that.”

Paulo said nothing. Sensing we were dangerously close to the
let’s-all-take-your-special-portal
territory that made Paulo clam up in a swift minute—
or run
, I thought, not that he could run now—I took a different tack.

“Why teenagers?” I asked. “Why
only
teenagers?”

“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?” he asked.

“Sure.”

For now
, I thought.

Like he’d read my mind, Paulo sighed. “There are stories back in my homeland, tales passed down for generations. That portal has been alive for as long as my ancestors can remember; it was there when my people came to their island. Some say it is as old as the Earth; others say it was created on the eighth day. No one knows.” He shrugged. “It’s just always been.” He paused. “But many generations ago, as my people explored the islands around their own, someone stumbled across the portal for the first time. Specifically, the son of a king. The bravest of the brave. He walked through it and into this land. His cat—” Paulo glanced at me. “In our culture, each child is given a kitten at age seven, to protect and care for. Cats are a symbol of wisdom and luck.” His voice sounded respectful. I thought of the leopard and Archie, and didn’t feel that cats were lucky at all. “To have your cat join you is an honor.” He exhaled.

“Anyway, the prince’s cat had traveled with him in his canoe and followed him through the shimmering door. The king saw what happened, and tried to follow too, but by the time he got to the doorway between worlds, the portal had closed. Disappeared as if it never existed at all. People mourned the loss of the brave prince. The king banned everyone from traveling to the island, saying it held evil spirits. But then the prince reappeared, months later. Older and stronger and wiser, with tales of a beautiful, faraway land where peace was plentiful. The next time the doorway opened, the king tried to enter, but he passed through the doorway like a ghost, still walking on Spirit Island. The doorway denied him.” Paulo looked at me. “Our people believe the prince left his mark on the gate. From that point forward, the gate only recognized people on the edge of adulthood. People with the ability to become something more.”

Teenagers
, I thought.

“Like the prince imprinted on the gate,” I murmured.
Had the gate been waiting there, waiting for someone—or something—to pass through? And had the cat altered the gate, too?

“Please,” Paulo said. He sounded tired. “Go. And tell no one what I told you. I’ve broken our rules by telling you our secret history.” He gave a weird little laugh. “But everything’s been messed up since you followed me through the door. It’s not the way I thought it was supposed to be.”

“Most things aren’t,” I said.

Paulo’s story swirled though my mind, another Nil world to mesh with the ones I already knew. The worlds blended and knit, the past and the present, a shifting kaleidoscope of time and people and island scenes, all with meaning I needed to
see.
Potential futures flickered like images I couldn’t quite catch.

“Please go,” Paulo said. He was watching me, a lost expression making him look younger than Jason.

He still looked broken, in more ways than one. But he was here, with the potential to be
more
.

“Paulo, you’re going to be okay,” I said softly. “I believe that with all my heart. And I promise I’ll always be honest with you. Friendships are built on truth. And because I’m going to be honest, I want you to know that I can’t agree to keep what you told me a secret. People who’ve been stuck here with questions deserve to know; people who didn’t ask to come.”

Paulo looked ready to cry. “I guess I don’t have a choice, do I?”

“You say that a lot.” My voice was calm. “But we all have choices, even when it seems like we don’t. And this choice is mine. There are so many good people here, Paulo, all wondering why they’re here. If what you know helps them sleep at night, I’m all for it. Information is usually meant to be shared.” I paused. “But at the same time, I respect your history and your privacy. So I promise you that I’ll only tell the people I trust most, okay? Like the people who set your leg. And for what it’s worth,” I said slowly, thinking of Dad’s Micronesian map with myriad tacks, all hunting for the elusive Nil, “I think secrecy is what’s gotten everyone into trouble.”

Paulo’s eyes narrowed.

Abruptly I sensed I’d gone too far again.

“Not secrecy, pride,” Paulo spat. “
Haole
pride and power.
That
is what’s gotten everyone into trouble.” But his inflection on
everyone
matched his inflection on the word
haole
, like the word tasted bitter. “Go.”

Paulo said nothing as I left.

Paulo’s words ran through my head.
The prince left his mark on the gate. The wild portals … steal life force.

A fully formed theory poured into my head like rain. A fully formed
future,
glittering and seductive and glorious as a shimmery outbound gate.

I broke into a run, heading for the beach, desperate to find Rives.

He stood near the water holding a board. Ahmad stood a few feet away. Kiera and Macy strolled just past Ahmad.

“Rives!” I flagged him over, slowing, willing him to come to me. I didn’t want more of an audience than Rives. He dropped his board and walked over, dripping wet, reminding me of that first day we’d met. Fully present, and intense.

“Paulo’s up,” I said when he drew close. “And listen to this.” I recounted Paulo’s story carefully, taking time to repeat it exactly as Paulo told me. Rives listened intently as he always did. When I finished, I said, “I have a thought. It’s really out there, so let me get to the end before you say anything, okay?”

Rives nodded.

I took a deep breath. “First, let me ask you something. Do you know how people die here? I mean,” I said quickly, inwardly wincing at the indirect reference to Talla, “if their time runs out? If they don’t escape before one year?”

Rives crossed his arms, a sign I’d learned meant he was thinking. Hard.

“I’ve never been with someone on their last day,” he said finally. “Most people usually go renegade as their clocks run out. Go off on their own, to have privacy or peace or whatever they want or need in their final days. But Natalie—she was Leader before Thad—told me once that people just die. Literally, they just stop living. That when the window between Nil and home shuts, something breaks. It’s like something’s cut.” He took a heavy breath. “She was with Uta on Uta’s last day. Problem was, Uta had miscounted. That afternoon, Uta collapsed while they were on Search. Just stopped breathing.” Rives glanced toward the Flower Field. “Natalie told me that Uta had landed on Nil in the afternoon too. It was like Nil calculated Uta’s time down to the minute.” Rives paused. “Why?”

“My uncle’s journal said the same thing. That Toby collapsed, out on the red rocks. He also said Toby grabbed his chest as he fell, but by the time my uncle reached him, Toby wasn’t breathing. My uncle wrote that it happened without warning, without noise. He wrote that it was like an invisible hand had pulled an invisible string, stopping Toby’s heart.” My voice was quiet. “I think Nil holds that string, but that somehow, we’re connected to the island. Keep this in mind, okay?”

“Okay.” Rives’s intense expression hadn’t changed. Like he just might buy into my crazy idea, too.

I took a deep breath. “Back to Paulo’s story. Do you remember what you told me about Nil truth number four?”

“Balance reigns,” Rives said.

“Exactly. So the prince’s gate imprinted on him, or linked with him in some way—and maybe the cat, too—so that the gate only recognizes teenagers and warm-blooded creatures, right?”

“Right.” Rives frowned slightly, not following.

“But the ocean. It only has cold-blooded creatures here, right? No dolphins, no marine mammals.” Rives was nodding. “So I’m thinking there’s a second gate—a companion gate, a gate underwater on both ends that only transfers cold-blooded things. That
imprinted
on cold-blooded things, like fish. It’s the balance to our gate, the counterweight.” I paused. “Make sense?”

“A yin and yang,” Rives murmured.

“Right. Just like we—all of us—are the counterweight to the island. I don’t know if I’m right, but it makes sense. And I keep thinking, what if a counterweight disappears? Gets upset? What happens to the island?”

Rives’s eyes widened.

“I think the gates are connected to the sun somehow, but the island is connected to
us
. Paulo mentioned a life force, like the island steals ours. I think that when people die, that somehow the island absorbs our energy, the same energy—like electricity—that powers our hearts.” I shivered. “I can’t stop thinking that maybe it uses our energy, like a symbiotic relationship. Maybe it’s the teens that give this place life. So I’m thinking, what happens if we get all the people off the island at once? The balance will tip too far, right? And Nil’s power will be dramatically lost. Maybe fatally lost.” I held Rives’s eyes, trying not to look as crazy as I felt.

“Maybe we can save everyone at once, and destroy Nil, too.” I paused. “Forever.”

CHAPTER

45

RIVES

DAY 291, MORNING

Skye was more than fire, more than ice.

Skye was an atomic weapon.

“Damn,” I said, fighting to process the killer thought of taking Nil down. “You don’t do anything halfway, do you?”

She waved it off. “It’s totally crazy. But we can try. So the way I see it, we’ve got to do three things. One, figure out when and where the next stationary gate will show up. Two, sweep the island for all the kids ahead of time to make sure no one is left behind, right? Number one will save us all, and number two will hopefully crush Nil.” She chewed her lip as she looked at the sea.

“What’s number three?”

“I’m not sure yet. But good things always come in threes, right? And I don’t want to miss anything.” She grinned.

“You won’t,” I said quietly.

“Skye!” Jillian’s voice rang out across the sand. “Paulo’s up, and he’s asking for you. He won’t talk to anyone else.”

“Crap,” she said. “I totally forgot I told him I’d bring him some food.” She looked at me, her face bright with hope. “Think on number three, okay? Be back in a bit.”

I watched her run up the sand, blown away by her ambition.

Could we do it?

Full Nil destruction was a possibility I’d never considered. I’d only thought of escape.

Waves crashed onto the shore without break. It was like the ocean was hell-bent on fighting Nil ground, day after day. Holding even, keeping the land in check.

A counterweight
, Skye had said.

The sea never won. It always withdrew.

A spike of icy fear followed the thought. If we could destroy Nil, what was the cost? Because everything good on Nil came at a price.