Modern Rituals

by J. S. Leonard

  This garden’s architect had peppered in an extra pinch of Zen. While sanctuaries as these generally possess the ability to soften life’s difficulties and gently focus the mind, this particular reserve seemed to inject its visitors with potent antidepressants. It emanated a surreal calm, with its glass-still pond reflecting the moonlight and a bamboo dipping-bird making an echoey thock. The four found themselves at a footpath that spread into a confluence of trails.

  “Well, we’re here. Now what?” Olivia said.

  “Let’s split up,” James said. “It’ll be faster if we search in pairs—plus this place isn’t that big. I think we’ll be able to see each other at all times.”

  “And for what are we looking?” Keto said.

  “You got me—the card didn’t explain much did it? Perhaps another altar? Anything that looks out of place? I’m not familiar with Japanese gardens, so this is a shot in the dark, literally,” James said, snickering, and when no one else laughed, “You know, because it’s dark?”

  Blank stares.

  James wanted his arms free for the search—he didn’t need a miss grabby girl latched onto him. “Olivia, you and I are together. Is that okay with everyone?” James said.

  Colette puffed her lower lip and nodded. Keto and Olivia agreed.

  Keto surprised James with his easy-going attitude. For a man whose stalwart face could scare the freckles off a redhead, he played well with others. Tomas should take a lesson or two.

  “Let’s go, then. Remember—run back to the classroom at any sign of danger,” James said.

  Olivia followed James and when the path forked, he went left and watched Colette and Keto head right.

  Common dirt mingled with common plants, and ahead the path splintered before rejoining into a trail that ended at a towering pagoda. They stumbled upon a tiny Buddha statue, no taller than James’ knees, nestled in neatly contoured shrubbery. Olivia bent down and attempted to pick up the statue but only mustered a grunt and a meager shove. James helped her, and they flipped it on its side. Nothing.

  This became a regular exercise. They inspected statues, trees and plants—anything conspicuous—and discovered only more dirt, statues, and plants.

  The path cut in toward the pond, butting against a tiny cove where the water lapped. James pondered the inlet, staring down at a glassy mirror that reflected his ruminating face.

  “Man, this water… It’s so still. You’d think there might be a ripple,” James said.

  Olivia joined him. “Or fish. Don’t these usually have koi or something?”

  “Yeah, that’s strange. Have you noticed a breeze at all?”

  “No. Probably just the time of year, right? Can you see Keto and Colette?”

  “They just rounded a bend over there,” James said, pointing. “They’ll turn up soon.”

  They scoured the area to no avail. When Keto and Colette appeared again, James signaled them, throwing a thumbs up and then a thumbs down. Colette returned a thumbs down. Long minutes passed. James and Olivia meandered over to the pagoda steps.

  “I hope they’ve had more luck,” James said.

  “Me too.”

  The pagoda’s center bore a wide, multistory obelisk that clawed at the sky. Rings of tiled roofs, spaced twenty feet apart, stacked around the enormous spire on curved, decorative struts jutting outward from their corners. They grew smaller as the central column tapered, and an ornate steeple adorned the terminus. These impressive roofs sheltered a shrine to Buddha, whose massive, bronze figure sat amidst granite pews and incense holders and towered over James.

  “You know, either they have amazing janitors or this place doesn’t get many visitors,” James said running his fingers over an incense burner. He rubbed them together and looked.

  “Clean as a whistle. Come to think of it, doesn’t this entire place seem a little too perfect? It’s as if no one has ever worked or attended school here.”

  “The Japanese are a clean people. Perhaps it just seems that way since you are a dirty American—always leaving behind a mess,” Olivia said, her tone somewhere between sarcasm and seriousness.

  “As if the British are much better.”

  James had spent time in London during an exchange program. He’d left convinced that their impeccable manners and diction concealed a simple fact: each and every Brit was an asshole. That said, Britain produced many of his favorite writers, painters, singers, and other artists—he figured being an asshole was a fine trade-off for that much creativity.

  “Oh, we are,” Olivia said smiling.

  “Funny—ah, I’ve been meaning to ask. You said our dates were totally out of sync right—our arrival dates, that is?”

  “Yes.”

  “How is it then that we were able to wake up so quickly? I mean, if we were sedated for days, it would be an amazing feat to make us ‘turn on’ as if nothing happened between the time we got here and the time we were taken. Did you notice any lapse in the last emotion you felt upon arriving? I didn’t.”

  “No, it was immediate.”

  “Even what our muscles were doing—I was still in mid-jump when I arrived in the gym, for Christ’s sake. That just seems impossible.”

  “To be honest James, nothing seems impossible now. This is like a dream, and I want to wake up.”

  “Yeah, me too,” James said. “I’m going to have a look at this statue.”

  He leapt onto the statue’s round base, grabbing Buddha’s arm to hold himself steady.

  “Careful,” Olivia said. “Those gilded edges look sharp.”

  An intricate relief of intertwining vines and leaves webbed the base’s surface. Gold and bronze coated the leaves’ tips, some of which jabbed outward in razor points. James’ pant leg snagged one of them.

  “Ah shit—that’ll leave a hole,” James said and realized he couldn’t care less—the pants belonged to someone else.

  He stood eye-level with the statue’s solemn face, its eyes directed to the heavens, the corners of Buddha’s lips slightly upturned. James, having spent a brief stint studying Buddhism, preferred the statue’s orthodox depiction—without the big belly.

  An idea struck him. Perhaps the statue hid a mechanism that opened a secret passage, like in a movie. He felt around the face for buttons or levers, then moved on to other sections of the body: neck, shoulders, arms, stomach, legs. No such luck. He shifted to the statue’s back.

  “Hey, y’all,” Colette said.

  Keto walked in behind Colette. Olivia, crawling between pews, popped her head up.

  “Hey guys—no luck I take it?” James said.

  “Nope, though we did find some pieces of wire. Keto recognized them. Apparently they’re fancy-like,” Colette said.

  “Yeah? What’s up with the wires Keto?” James said and hopped down from the statue’s base as the two approached.

  Keto handed him a black cable that shone iridescent in the moonlight. A strange connector poked from one end—it weighed down James’ hand.

  “This has got some heft to it!” he said.

  He inspected it closer. The connector featured a cylindrical housing comprising five circular discs, each grooved and able to rotate. The housing surrounded a shaft packed tight with an array of wires, each individually as thin as a human hair—thinner. Hundreds of inflexible strands, standing firm and parallel, side-by-side.

  “What the… Wait, is this…?”

  James flipped the cable, twisting and turning it until he found the manufacturer’s name in reflective, silver ink: Amagachi Corp.

  “Keto?” James said. “Do you know anything about this?”

  “What is it, James?” Olivia said.

  James stared at Keto, who returned a shocked expression that managed also to be characteristically subdued. James turned to Olivia.

  “If this cable is what I think it is, it isn’t available to your average Joe,” he said. “Hell, very few governments can afford this stuff! It’s like a fiber cable, but thousands and thousands of times fa
ster and ridiculously expensive.”

  He held the cable up, pulling at each end. It measured the length of his forearm.

  “This would cost, what—an easy eighty thousand? USD?”

  “Ninety thousand,” Keto said.

  “And it’s from your company,” James said. “Keto, what the fuck man! Is there something you aren’t telling us?”

  “I am afraid I do not have an answer for you and am somewhat ashamed. It is bewildering that a NcCo cable is here.” He pronounced it neeko. James turned to Olivia and Colette.

  “That’s geek-speak for Nano-Carbon Optical,” he said. Their blank stares remained unchanged.

  “Yes, that is correct. It is highly unlikely a school could afford such technology,” Keto said.

  “Man, I’ve only heard about these from my buddy, Dan. One of his fellow students at MIT somehow scored three inches of this stuff—he was able to simulate, in real time mind you, the amount of electrical data that travels through the cerebral cortex. That’s a staggering amount of zeroes and ones and it didn’t even tax the cable’s bandwidth! Where did you find this?”

  “Well, I sort of tripped on it,” Colette said. My foot got caught on what seemed like a root, but after I almost fell—thank you, Keto, for catching me, by the way—we realized it was this cable thingie looping out of the ground.”

  “It looked familiar, so I dug it up and disconnected it from a small transformer,” Keto said.

  “This place just gets stranger and stranger,” James said.

  “Um…James—you got that right,” Olivia said. “Everyone, come look at this!”

  She had walked to the rear of the statue, and now stood gaping at Buddha’s back.

  Colette, Keto and James joined Olivia. James’ eyes followed hers.

  “It’s like before!” he said.

  “What’s like before? I just see the backside of a Buddha,” Colette said.

  James turned to Olivia—she was already looking at him, eyebrows furrowed.

  “You’re telling us you can’t see that?” James said.

  “See what?” Keto said.

  “The writing? You don’t see the writing?” Olivia said.

  James’ attention was helplessly trained on the phrases scrawled—as if by finger—in glowing ultraviolet ink.

  FIND THE STATUES

  RETURN THEM

  THE MAN STRIKES

  DOWN

  “Find the statues. Return them. The man strikes. Down?” James said to himself.

  “What was that?” Colette said.

  “That’s what’s written here,” James said.

  “Oh my God—what?” Colette huffed, hands on her hips and pouting at James.

  Olivia stepped between James and Colette. “That’s what I see too, James.”

  James rummaged in his pocket for the statue from the altar room and withdrew it.

  “I wonder if that message is referring to this statue,” James said.

  “Well, we haven’t run across anything else here,” Olivia said. “It must be.”

  “What are you two talking about? You are seriously beginning to freak me out,” Colette said and bobbed on the heels of her feet.

  Two ideas banged in James’ brain, their collision a luminous detonation—he resigned to the epiphany and allowed his mind to rebuild the fragments.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Olivia said. “The following words are written here on the statue’s back.” She ran her fingers across the illuminated letters as she read. “Find the statues. Return them. The man strikes. Down. This is similar to something James and I found underneath the altar room—well, at least the type of ink. These phrases are more coherent, however.”

  “How come you didn’t tell us before?” Keto said.

  “About what? The writings?” Olivia said. “I suppose it slipped our minds. What we found made no sense. It looked like a madman had written a load of bullocks—I assumed it was written by the person we found dead down there. Either that person had a thing for writing on school property, or these messages aren’t what they seem. I apologize—we should have mentioned it.”

  “No matter,” Keto said. “Is there a connection between these words and what you saw below?”

  “Not really, though I’m having difficulty recalling them. Here we have commands—the others were more discretionary, I think,” Olivia said.

  A flash of insight compelled James to jump up and down like a fool.

  “I’ve got it! But… Oh, no, we have to hurry! Quick, at the foot of the statue, feel around for a button, a lever—anything!” he said.

  “What is it James?” Colette said, her lush, red cheeks draining to white.

  “No time,” James said. “Just help me look.”

  4

  “It seems we both like to keep our mouths shut—that’s smart,” Tomas said.

  Anthony and Tomas fumbled through the kitchen in search of the door leading to the power main. The darkness hampered their efforts.

  “Yes, I suppose. What are you referring to exactly?” Anthony said.

  “We didn’t speak of what happened before we arrived.”

  Anthony wavered, tasting bile. He jilted away a dizzy spell.

  “I wasn’t being smart about anything—I truly didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  Anthony clenched his fist, wondering at Tomas’ crass inquiry.

  “First, tell me what happened to you,” Anthony said.

  “A little bit of this and a little bit of that.”

  This vague rhetoric angered Anthony who sensed Tomas was up to no good. Aggressive questioning without remorse, a reluctant desire to answer—it was as if Tomas had studied law or had spent time around practiced judiciaries.

  Tomas didn’t give him time to ask another question.

  “Tell me then—what is your profession?” Tomas said.

  “I am a solicitor advocate,” Anthony said, his shoulders tensing.

  “A law man, eh?” Tomas said with a slight grin, his malicious eyes betraying his mouth.

  “Let’s just keep quiet and find this door,” Anthony said. It seemed best to keep Tomas at an arm’s length for now.

  They left the kitchen and walked to the center of the multipurpose area. A blanket of darkness enveloped them—thin, feeble rays of light dribbled in through casement windows placed near the room’s tall ceiling. Tomas and Anthony circled the room’s perimeter. Four doors and a broom closet later, Anthony spotted the lightning bolt decal.

  “Here!” he said.

  Anthony pressed the wide handle and pushed the door open. A dim layer of black impaired his eyes. He squinted and bent down on a knee—a red glow stirred at the bottom of a set of stairs.

  “This must be it. You want to go first?” Anthony said smirking.

  “Does it matter?” Tomas said and entered the passage.

  Their feet clicked on each grated step as they descended. The stairs terminated in a hallway enclosed by a chain-link fence on the left and a cinder-block wall on the right. Spiderwebs of red lines projected onto the wall from a caged light atop a power main beyond the fence.

  “That must be it,” Anthony said.

  They entered the room through an opened gate, Anthony first to the lever beside the power box. Here he was, far from home, from the mess he’d created. He couldn’t return to the consequences, not yet—then he pictured his children’s faces: Andy, Glenda, Tam…Andy’s tenth birthday was in two weeks. I’ve ruined their lives—dammit! Dear God, what have I done? Was this place his punishment? Was it retribution for the villains he had represented, for their pardons, for their continued existence in society? Perhaps this was for the best—perhaps he wouldn’t be allowed to leave, and maybe he could do some good now. Right now.

  “Here goes,” Anthony said.

  “Wait,” Tomas said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m just…I’m curious about how you got here,” Tomas said, malice erased from his g
aze—his eyes projected genuine concern. “I beg of you, please tell me.”

  “Later—we need to turn this on.”

  Anthony attempted to pull the lever, but Tomas’ grabbed his forearm.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Anthony said.

  “I don’t like mysteries. Tell me. Now.” Like a switch, Tomas went from sympathetic to spitting venom.

  “Get off of me before we have a problem.”

  What the hell is up with this guy?

  “Oh, we do have a problem. Answer me before I snap your wrist.”

  Tomas’ eyes gleamed red and angry in the emergency light. Anthony grimaced and curled his lip, and his strength disappeared, his emotional bandwidth sapped. He had seen this look in the criminals he’d defended. Tomas was no plumber—he was a killer.

  “I’ll tell you…” Anthony said. “Lessen your grip first.”

  Tomas eased up. Anthony’s fingertips throbbed as blood returned to them.

  “I killed a man. I…” Anthony began, voice cracking. “I found him with my wife.”

  He hung his head.

  “Go on,” Tomas said.

  “That’s it. What do you mean go on?”

  “What were they doing. Describe to me in detail.”

  “Fuck off, mate!”

  Pain seared through Anthony’s wrist as his tendons twisted and compressed. He screamed.

  “Dear God! Fine! They were fucking, all right? I don’t know what happened—I just remember walking in, then I grabbed him and beat him. Bashed his head against the floor over and over and over. His blood—it was everywhere. My wife screamed and shouted at me to stop, but that just made me angrier. I saw red—only red,” Anthony said and winced at the pain from digging his nails into his neck.

  “That’s it?” Tomas released Anthony’s arm. “Boring.”

  “Boring? You cheeky fuck! Who the fuck are you to say that? I may not have been around much, but…” The anger seemed to leak from him like air from a deflating balloon. “Oh Brenda, I’m so sorry. Goddammit,” he said, struggling amidst gasps and sobs. Air pressed from his lungs as he slammed himself against the wall and slid to the icy floor.