“Let’s get you comfortable first. I’m going to put a couple pillows behind your head, okay?”
She placed a hand under my shoulder and helped me sit up. My side still hurt, but the pain wasn’t anywhere close to what it had been on the boat. With her free hand, she placed two pillows under my back and gently lowered me onto them. Then she handed me a glass. Her hand hovered near mine as I drank.
The water tasted amazing. I tried to drink the whole glass, but Helen took it away from me. “I know you’re thirsty, but drink slowly. Okay?”
I nodded and took the glass back. Then I sipped the water more slowly.
Mohamed entered the hut and said, “It looks like my patient is awake and doing well. How do you feel?”
“Like I lost a bull fight.”
Mohamed laughed.
The memory of the rescue mission was like a fading bad dream, but it hung around the edges of my memory.
“So do you feel like having visitors?” Mohamed asked. “There is a very anxious young man out here who would like to see you.”
I nodded and Mohamed opened the door the rest of the way. William stood on the front deck. He started to come in, but hesitated when he saw me. I must have really looked like shit.
“Come on, William. I feel much better than I look.”
Tentatively, he entered the room and walked over to the other bed. He sat cross-legged and stared at me.
“Come on, Helen,” Mohamed said. “Let’s leave these two alone for a while.” Then, looking at me, Mohamed added, “No roughhousing, okay?”
I smiled and said, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
They left and I looked at William. I had almost forgotten that he was only a ten-year-old boy. All the work that we had done to decrypt the messages made me think that he was older.
“I told you that I wouldn’t get myself killed,” I said.
“But you got stabbed.” I saw the fear in his eyes. “Did it hurt?”
“Yeah. It hurt a lot.” I saw the concern in his eyes and added, “But it doesn’t hurt too much now. Well, a little.”
He looked around the room and then said, “So what about your girlfriend? Did you find her?”
“No.” I lied. How in the hell could I tell him the truth? How could I tell him that she was responsible for his dad’s death?
I needed to change the subject.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“Embudu,” he said.
I don’t know who came up with the idea to come here, but it was genius. The island had been left uninhabited after the raid. The pirates wouldn’t think to go back to an island that they already raided.
“So everyone is here now?”
He nodded. “Everyone except for Pun. He left the island right after you did. You should have seen him. He was really mad.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“Nope. A helojumper came for him. I think he went looking for you.”
“Well, don’t worry. He didn’t find me. By the way, you did a great job with the diversion.”
“Yeah, well… I had to keep that cast on until the boat came for us. Mohamed was worried that Pun might return and see me without it. It was so itchy.”
I smiled. “Well thanks for taking one for the team..”
“Oh yeah!” His face suddenly lit up. “I almost forgot. I got a surprise for you.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his data mat. Sliding off the bed, he brought it over and held it out in front of me. “I did some coding while you were gone.”
I took the data mat and said, “Did you write a new game?”
He smiled and said, “Nope. I fixed your code.” I looked at him, puzzled, as he explained. “You remember how you couldn’t figure out how to connect to the computer because the routing strings wouldn’t fit in the fields?”
I nodded.
His smile got wider. “Well, I got it to work.”
I looked at the screen and opened the communications console. I tried to connect to the quantum computer. A message popped up, followed a second later by a command line prompt.
CONNECTION ESTABLISHED
He had actually done it.
I looked at him and asked, “How did you do it?”
His smile was from ear to ear now. “Remember that hidden column? The one with the four strings of numbers that we couldn’t figure out?”
He didn’t need to finish because I suddenly understood.
“Of course. TCP/IP.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“An old protocol for something called the Internet. It was before your time and it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you figured it out. Now all we have to do is see if that code we wrote works.”
“Already did,” he said. “That’s the surprise. At first I couldn’t get it to work. So I played around with your code and… well… it took me about six hours but I got it working. Look in there, the folder marked MESSAGES. I ran the algorithm against all of the ones that Jin had collected.” He pointed to the folder. “I put them in there.”
I opened the folder and started reading the messages. He’d done it. This was the evidence that we needed to stop them from sending pirates to Mars. Most of the messages were between Shannon and Jamal. Shannon had sent him the entire inhabitant spreadsheet, piece by piece. She also gave him reports on everything that went on in the Council meetings. That bitch! She even sent him reports about me, how she had me wrapped around her finger.
As I read the messages, everything came together. Shannon had used Viyaja just like she had used me, only she leveraged his political ambition to get him to overthrow Ahmed. She even smuggled him the bomb to blow up the helojumper. All I needed to do now was make sure this evidence got to the ship’s captain.
The door opened. It was Mohamed. “Glad to see that you two aren’t wrestling.”
“Mohamed, what day is it?” I asked.
Looking a little concerned, Mohamed said, “Saturday, why?”
“And the ship, the Mars ship… it’s here?”
Mohamed nodded. “Yes. It arrived yesterday night around seven. Viyaja sent out a message to everyone. It said a delegation from the ship had arrived in Male and they were finalizing arrangements for the transport of passengers.”
“I’ve got to get there,” I said.
I started to sit up, but the pain punched me back down. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said. You have a very serious wound. It needs time to heal. Besides, the message said that they have heightened security around Male. Only authorized ships are allowed to dock and even then, they’re not letting anyone on or off the island.”
“What? Why?”
“It said that it was to prevent disorder and disruptions to the transfer process.”
I tossed William’s data mat on to the bed. “Shit.”
“What is it?” William asked.
“Nothing. Wait! Is Anand still here?”
Mohamed nodded. “Yes, but he is getting ready to depart. He said that he must continue his supply deliveries before the MDF becomes suspicious.”
“I need to see him. Can you get him for me?”
"He may have already left, but I’ll go check.”
Mohamed left and William asked, “What do you want to see Anand for?”
He had the same worried expression that he did the night I left for the rescue mission. I couldn’t do this to him again, but I had to get to Male.
“William, do you remember the diversion?”
He nodded.
I continued. “I need you to do it again, but this time we’re going to trick Helen and Mohamed. Okay?”
“But why?”
“I think I know how we can stop the pirates from getting on that ship.”
“You’re going to Male, aren’t you?”
I nodded.
“Then I’m going too.”
“Absolutely. I can’t do this without you. But you have to do exactly what I say, okay?”