by Jacob Whaler
On the way back upstairs, he wanders into Matt’s room to see how much of his climbing gear he left behind. It looks like he’s taken couple of the newer nylon cords, but there are still plenty to choose from. Kent rummages around some more, runs through his list one more time and walks upstairs with cables and ropes dangling from the boxes in his arms.
Dropping into a chair at the kitchen table, he picks the slate up in his hand. This time around, intel on the Mesh is unusually scarce. The feelers sent out to contacts result in little more than public information, rumors and wild conjecture. MX Global doesn’t want the world or its own organization to know what SciFin is up to.
That’s why he has to go in person.
Kent puts the climbing gear and assorted batteries in a black cargo box and lugs it out to the garage. There is only one open slot left in the back of the Chikara, and he heaves the box into place. Once again he reviews the list while surveying the truck bed. Electronic eavesdroppers, telescopic laser nets, GPS, Torcel lights, even a crossbow. All military grade.
His days as lawyer at a white shoe Wall Street firm seem like an eternity ago.
The face of Ryzaard flashes through his mind. The man in a bowtie and tweed jacket. A former Oxford don. Now the head of the two largest divisions at MX Global. He is the logical place to start.
If there’s anything Kent knows about, it’s corporate mergers. He saw a constant stream of them while a lawyer at Sullivan & Myers. The first few weeks after a merger are always chaos. New personnel learning the ropes. Security systems getting tweaked. Datasites being reconfigured. Working out the kinks. It absorbs a lot of time and energy. The bigger the merger, the bigger the upheaval. And MX Global is right in the middle of one of the biggest mergers in history.
Now is the perfect time to strike.
Back when he had been on the run with his son, Kent remembers reading something in an old military tactics manual he pulled off a dusty shelf in a library in Billings, Montana.
The best time to exploit the enemy’s weakness is when they are on the march.
MX Global is certainly on the march now.
At exactly 2:30 in the morning, Kent completes the loading. He walks into the garage, eases open the door and walks out onto the driveway. The stars are pinpricks of light in the black dome of the night sky. A symphony of crickets plays in the bushes by the house.
He pulls out his jax.
Matt, hope all is well in Nippon. The old snake is going to shed its skin and go on a hunting trip with the Chikara. If things get tight, call Mom. She’ll know where to find me. Love you.
Kent sends off the encrypted message and waits a few seconds. His jax softly pings with the reply.
Enjoy the hunting and take care of the truck. I’m on the last leg. I’ll keep in touch with Mom. Love you too.
Kent closes his eyes and imagines his son on the flight to Sapporo. Sliding the memory crystal out of the jax, he drops it to the concrete driveway and crushes it with his boot heel, symbolically destroying the only remaining connection between him and the rest of the world. Then he carefully sweeps up the powder. He’ll throw it out the window when he crosses the bridge over the Sardox River.
If there’s an emergency, he still has a link to Matt through MOM.
Walking to the cab of the Chikara, he climbs in and drops down into the seat. An unused jax lies on the carcom. He lifts it and checks to make sure the new ID is loaded. Then he pulls out the tiny power cell from the bottom and watches the glowing jax slowly fade out in the dark, disengaging its tracking function. He’ll only turn it back on if there’s an emergency.
Until then, no electronic footprints.
The Chikara eases out of the garage and down the driveway. He drives off, leaving the sound of whales in his wake.
CHAPTER 34
Ryzaard paces back and forth in his office between his desk and the closed door, hands behind his back. His tweed jacket hangs limply over the back of the chair.
The jax flashes on the desk. A full-color holo of Alexa’s face floats above it, showing her standing on the other side of the door.
“Come in.” He shouts at the face. The door glides sideways without a sound, and she enters.
Alexa walks to the sofa and sits directly under the Chinese wall-hanging. “Any word yet?”
“None.” Ryzaard shakes his head. “It’s been two hours since he landed in Tokyo. They should have found him and reported back by now.” He brings a clenched fist up to his lips. “If we lose him now, we’ll have to restart the tracking algorithm and waste another day. He might be anywhere in Japan by then. Damn Yakuza thugs.”
“They’re not the most intellectually gifted organization, that’s for sure.” Alexa picks a small wooden statue off the floor and begins to examine it closely. “I like this totem. Where did you get it?”
“It’s Maori, and it’s priceless.” Ryzaard hates the way Alexa can sense his stress and her odd habit of making annoying remarks unrelated to the matter at hand. Maybe she does it to relax him, but it only stresses him more. If she weren’t so useful, he would have disposed of her months ago. A snarl forms on his lips, and he marches over and rips the statue from her hands. “Don’t underestimate the Yakuza. Though crude in their methods, they are one of the most dependable organizations in the world, and they always get the job done.” He’s in no mood to argue about the wisdom of involving the Japanese Mafia.
“If you pay them enough,” she says.
“Don’t worry. We already have.” Still gripping the statue, Ryzaard draws in a long breath and walks over to the massive window behind his desk, looking out into the night. Relaxation slowly returns. The streets glow red and white with Midtown Manhattan’s night traffic. “So many of them.” Ryzaard stares down and lets out a long exhale. “Their lives ruled by forces beyond their control, forces that exploit and manipulate them.”
Her hands gently slide across the tops of his shoulders. A single finger traces the line of his spine, causing his flesh to tingle at her touch. His muscles soften as he inhales the subtle scent of her lavender perfume. His anger toward her drains out.
It’s at times like these that Ryzaard is glad he hasn’t disposed of her yet.
“They don’t look unhappy. After all, this is New York City. Nightclubs, restaurants, shows, anything you could want or imagine.” Alexa’s fingers do a delicate dance between his shoulder blades. “Isn’t that happiness?”
“Being told that you’re happy and actually being happy are not the same thing.” Ryzaard’s fingers stretch out to the streets below, palms facing down, as if he can relieve their suffering through some supernatural power. “The Complex tells them they are happy as long as they have a constant barrage of sensory stimulation. Bluescreens, holos, music, drugs, food, pleasure. No time to stop and think. For now, that is all they have. Lives devoid of meaning. But we will bring the Complex crashing down. Soon.” Ryzaard turns and reaches his hands out to Alexa, drawing her close.
“Dr. Ryzaard.” She gazes up through thick eyelashes. “You are happy, aren’t you? Look at what you’ve built. It’s all going according to plan. No mistakes. Hardly a hiccup. You have the power of the gods. That must make you the happiest person on the earth.” She lays her ear against his chest.
“Have you heard about the latest freedom camp?” Ryzaard pulls away and looks down into Alexa’s eyes.
“The latest? Another one? They already dot the countryside. Hellish places.”
“There’s a new one that’s come together, a few miles outside of Las Vegas, near Lake Mead. Thousands are flocking to it, mostly the young who have rejected modern civilization.”
“Rejects, all right. They are the ones who have been rejected by modern civilization.” Alexa slips the Maori statue out of Ryzaard’s hand and starts walking back to the couch. “The homeless, the unemployed, prostitutes and street thugs. The scum of society.”
“Their leader is an old Indian chief. He’s declared himself and his people free from mo
dern society. He says they’re going to turn the clock back a thousand years.”
“Crazy, isn’t it?”
“No, not crazy. Desperate, maybe, but not crazy. He understands something. Something important, I’m afraid.”
“What could he possibly understand?” Alexa drops onto the couch and stares into the surface of the Maori carving.
“That our entire civilization is built upon a deceit, a lie.”
“Is that so?” Alexa digs fingers into the fabric of the sofa. “And what, exactly, is the lie?”
“Simple,” Ryzaard says. “That more is always better than less. That happiness comes from the size of your house, your car, your bank account or who knows what else. That unbridled worship of the individual is the path to contentment.”
“And you will be their savior?”
“Their savior? No.”
“Then what are you?”
“Their liberator. Their guide.” Ryzaard walks to the desk and picks up the Stone. “I will free them from the crushing burdens the Complex has placed upon them. We will start over. Just like the Indian chief out in Las Vegas. Only he will fail, and I will succeed.”
There is a pleasant pinging sound. A color holo appears in the air above his jax. It’s the face of Diego Lopez, sitting in a chair next to his desk.
“Dr. Ryzaard.” Diego clears his throat. “We just received a priority-one message from Mr. Harukichi Shinoda in Tokyo. They’ve located the target and carried out your wishes. We have a link to the tracking device. I’ll put it through.”
Diego’s face fades into a satellite view of Japan. The screen zooms in on the northern island of Hokkaido. As the screen moves in closer, a red dot appears on the outskirts of Sapporo.
It’s moving closer to the University.
CHAPTER 35
“Iroiro arigato gozaimasu.” Matt bows to Dr. Hikaru Yamamoto almost deep enough to touch his toes. It is not an empty gesture. He feels deep gratitude for Professor Yamamoto, for coming to meet Matt at the airport and bringing him to the dormitory, and for taking him and his dad under his wing so many years ago when they fled to Japan as refugees.
The door to his room already has his name and home country on the nameplate, written in crisp Katakana script. Matt Newmark, America.
“See you tomorrow, Newmark-kun.” Professor Yamamoto returns a slight head bow. He turns to walk down the long, narrow hall lined with identical doors on both sides. A drab carpet the color of pink puke lines the floor.
Matt chuckles at the kun attached to his name by Professor Yamamoto. It’s a sign of affection. Only in Japan would a grown man be spoken to like a six-year-old child.
Walking through the door, Matt lets his backpack slide off his shoulders to the floor. He stretches the aching muscles of his back. Without thinking, he starts scanning the room for hidden cams, data sniffers and surveillance equipment. A bed lies against one wall. A short refrigerator stands against the opposite wall next to a desk, below a large bluescreen on the wall. All in all, it is more than he could have hoped for, especially since he has the room all to himself.
He opens the window and looks out on a line of cherry blossom trees running down the middle of a narrow courtyard between him and dorms on the other side. The music of cicada beetles rises in waves of crescendo and washes through the early evening air. A faint chorus of frogs has started in a pond just outside the dorm. He eases his long gaijin frame onto the bed, feels his calves hanging over the edge, closes his eyes and thinks of evening frolics with his mom, walking between rice paddies, catching tadpoles and watching the red sun drop behind lush green mountains.
The jax comes out of his pocket. He looks again at the message from his dad and laughs. From what he can make of it, his dad has taken off in the Chikara on a secret trip for some old-fashioned hardcore snooping, and he’s thrown away his old jax and switched to a new one. He hasn’t given Matt the new jax ID because he’s gone into deep stealth mode and doesn’t want any incoming traffic. Or maybe he just wants to give Matt some distance.
Either way, it’s a good idea.
And so, for the first time in his life, Matt is out of instant communication with his dad.
The only way for Matt to send a message is through MOM, a clandestine Mesh-point set up by the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and used by hi-tech thugs for untraceable transactions. He remembers how his dad acquired a no-name account at MOM two years ago while researching the criminal activities of the Congo drug lords. He must have liked what he found. It’s where he stores all his high-sensitivity data. The only catch is that it’s expensive, slow and cumbersome to use.
For emergencies only.
With his hands behind his head, a ripple of relaxation washes over him. The more he thinks about it, the more he likes it. Dad is out of touch. Matt is completely on his own.
Paradise.
His eyelids slowly drop down as he willingly surrenders to jet lag.
The sound of a screaming girl pierces through the curtain of sound made by cicadas and jars Matt awake. He jumps up and stumbles to the window. In the dim twilight, a group of college students are standing in the courtyard. Another girl screams and then laughs. It’s just some kids goofing off.
He looks at his jax. An hour has gone by. Time to get out and explore before his research work starts tomorrow.
Given the state of relations between Japan and America, it took a lot of courage for Professor Yamamoto to take on Matt as a research assistant. That’s especially true since the Professor knows that Matt and his dad are running from something in their past. They’ve never shared the details, and the Professor has always been kind enough not to ask. Matt is keenly aware that he owes a deep debt of gratitude. Hopefully, he can live up to the Professor’s expectations.
He walks out into the night, inhaling deeply as a wall of heat slams into him and instantly lays down a wet film on the entire surface of his skin. He passes the pond, the line of cherry blossom trees and a string of low-rise dorms before walking out the main gate and heading straight for the 7-Eleven across the street. Its neon sign is a horizontal band of red and green running the length of the roof line.
The store is like a garden of earthly delights. In this case, it isn’t fruit hanging from the trees, but a selection of exotic Japanese snack foods. He browses the aisles and notes his favorite shrimp chips and chocolate. In the end, he settles on two steaming hot buns with generous centers of shredded pork barbeque. The Japanese call them nikuman. One of them is half gone before he makes it out the front door. Both of them are entirely consumed before he walks a block.
He pulls out his jax and plays out a message.
Jess, can we go for a walk?
It is 3:00 in the morning for her. Matt doesn’t expect a reply, but he gets one anyway.
I just came out of a dream when you jax’d. Been waiting for you. Where are we going?
He looks around.
Through a bamboo grove on the edge of campus. Past a pond full of singing frogs.
The jax gently purrs in his hand.
Sounds wonderful. I’ll just close my eyes as we walk along.
Matt knows Jess is lying in bed, the jax in her right hand, playing out messages in his sim-voice.
Just downed a couple of nikuman at Seven-Eleven. Could eat a dozen of those without trying. Better than sugar-creme doughnuts.
The croaking of frogs mixes with a section of cicada to form a rich symphony.
Sounds delish, but no idea what a nikuman is. I’m game as long as it’s not raw.
Images form in his mind of the first and last time he took Jessica to a Japanese restaurant for sushi. For fun, he asked the chef to surprise them with something unusual. A plate arrived with raw sea urchin guts, split squid eyes and white chunks of pickled meat known as whale zits. Jess had to look away while Matt consumed the delicacies with gusto.
They stopped at McDonald’s on the way home for some soy burgers.
What’s a nikuman? It’s heavenly and sof
t on the outside with a heart of gold, or in this case, pork. Almost like you.
The reply comes swiftly.
I don’t have any pork on the inside. And I’m not soft.
Matt counters.
But you are heavenly, and I love everything about you.
Like a cherry blossom blooming in slow motion, that old feeling unfolds inside him. It usually comes when he and Jess are on a long walk or ride in the mountains. Or on the chairlift at the Skull on a deep powder day. It starts in the middle of his chest, just below the solar plexus and ripples outward, like rays of sun, cutting through flesh and bone, leaving him with a lump in this throat and moist eyes.
He wonders if Jessica feels it like he does.
Turning a corner, he walks away from the main street toward a bamboo grove a hundred meters away. Neither of them speaks for more than a minute. The moon is just rising above the canopy of the grove. A distant chorus of frogs draws him closer.
Jess, for you.
Matt points the jax in the direction of the moon and engages the video-cam and audio. He walks straight ahead, panning from side to side.
Wish you were here.
CHAPTER 36
Ryzaard relaxes in his chair in the bubble at the center of the lab. A dark cigarette hangs off the edge of the table, its blue smoke etching a thin line in the air to the ceiling. Alexa sits to his right. The others are positioned in their accustomed places around the table.
Nobody moves.
All eyes are on the video playing out in real time on the glass wall. The scene slowly moves around, showing a 360-degree view from ground level within a bamboo grove. It pans past the bright disk of a full moon above, shining through the leaves. Frogs and cicadas sing in the darkness.
And then they see it. The face of a young man looking into the video, his Asian eyes complemented by straight hair flowing down to his shoulders. A well-defined nose and cheekbones stand out in high relief. A mixture of East and West.