by Jacob Whaler
As he muses over the dagger, a small child on his way to school runs past the bench, a yellow hat on his head and a bright red backpack on his back. As the boy passes, he sees Matt holding the dagger and stops. His little head cocks to one side and his eyebrows rise a bit.
A shiny blade is a universal magnet.
Matt smiles and slips the dagger back into its sheath. There’s a strange feeling that he’s seen the boy before, perhaps on the train. He follows the boy’s backpack as he turns and runs across the street.
A woman screams somewhere behind the park bench, jolting Matt to attention.
As he jerks his head to the right, he sees a dark blur of movement enter his field of vision twenty meters from the boy. It’s a large black Mercedes, shooting like a missile down the street in total silence. No motor-tone.
The muscles in his chest instantly contract as his eyes focus on the little boy.
Quietness sweeps over him, broken only by the faint sound of waves breaking on a far shore.
Lurching forward, Matt grabs his backpack and sprints into the street where he scoops up the boy, cradles him in one arm, and dives for the sidewalk while bracing for impact with the car. In mid-air he turns to look for it and sees the front grill of the Mercedes hovering a meter away, like a chrome salamander with a wide open mouth, completely still, the driver’s eyes hidden behind wrap-around sunglasses. The sound of the ocean envelops Matt as he rolls with the boy in his arms and lands hard on the backpack. He relaxes and feels the hulk of the car fly by a couple of body lengths away. In its wake, a rush of wind blows across his face.
A group of schoolgirls in their sailor uniforms stare down, hands over their mouths. From the looks on their faces, he gathers that his appearance on the sidewalk is extraordinarily strange. With the young boy still on top, he smiles up at them and gives an awkward wave of his hand.
The child’s eyes find Matt and burst into tears.
He sets the boy on his feet, the rigid backpack still on the tiny shoulders, pats him on the head, and stands up. “Make sure you look both ways before crossing the street next time.”
Big watery eyes stare up at him, nodding in agreement.
As they talk, a crowd gathers. Jaxes slip out of dozens of pockets and begin taking video of him. A policeman approaches.
As the man in uniform gets within a couple of body lengths, Matt’s fear of public authority figures kicks in. Jumping to his feet, he wades through the tangle of bodies. Hands reach out to touch his shirt. A woman asks him to stop.
When he breaks free from the crowd, he shifts into flight mode and sprints around the corner down a side street. After a few strides, he cuts to the right down another narrow street and continues in a zig-zag fashion to the train station, trying to avoid attention and leaving behind the few stragglers following him. Five minutes later, he slips through the front entrance to find it empty except for a bent old man with a hunchback sweeping the floor. There’s a lone plastic seat in the far corner close to the platform. He drops the backpack and falls into the chair to catch his breath.
The little boy and the black Mercedes wander back into his mind, and he can’t escape the conclusion that he saw them in the vision on the mountain an hour before the incident.
Matt fishes the Stone out of his side pocket and holds it up level with his eye. It had shown him the future, a possible future, in which the little boy was killed. But that future had been avoided when Matt intervened and snatched him away from the speeding Mercedes.
Something else happened up on the mountain and down on the street. There was the dagger flying at him through the air and the car only meters away from killing a small child. Both of them stopped when the sense of imminent danger triggered a strong reaction within him. It was as if time slowed down when his emotions reached out for it.
It must have been the Stone. Perhaps he could test it.
With the Stone weighing heavy in his right hand, he contemplates what to do. Closing his eyes in concentration, he takes the jax out of a pocket on his left thigh and tosses it toward the ceiling. Then he tightens his chest and holds his breath. The jax arcs up into the air. For a few seconds, it is utterly quiet inside the station.
A piercing series of rings echoes through the station as the jax clatters to the ground like a jewel dropped from the sky. It comes to rest a few meters from Matt’s feet.
He looks up and sees the old man starring at him, slack-jawed. The watery eyes drift up to the bluescreen on the opposite wall and back to Matt.
Following the old man’s eyes, Matt notices the news playing on the bluescreen. It shows Matt lying on a sidewalk with a small child balanced on his chest. People, mostly schoolgirls, are gathered around, hands up to their mouths, staring down at the young man and the boy. Some of them are crying. A caption scrolls by at the bottom of the screen.
Man Mysteriously Saves a Child from Being Hit by a Car and then Disappears.
A video of the entire event, complete with a screenshot of his face, clothing and backpack, is already on the Mesh.
The train going back to Sapporo pulls into the station and stops. There’s a brief announcement. Matt stands up and walks to the platform, picking his jax off the floor on the way. He smiles and winks at the old man as he walks by.
As soon as he boards the train, Matt slips into a restroom and turns his shirt inside out. His shirts, like all the rest of his wardrobe, are fully reversible. It’s a double blessing. He needs fewer clothes, and it comes in handy when trying to quickly change his appearance to avoid detection. He bunches his hair up on the top of his head, securing it with a miniature bungee cord for a crazy gaijin look. When he exits the restroom, he walks through the train cars until he finds one with only a few passengers. Then he finds a window seat near the door.
As he gazes out at the ocean, that day on the beach with his mom and dad comes back to mind. He feels the wind on his cheeks and the warm sand between his toes just as his mother’s hand slips into his.
The jax trembles next to his leg with an urgent message. Reaching into his pocket, it falls comfortably into his hand, and he pulls it out to look at the small bluescreen.
It’s a download of ten terabytes of data from Professor Yamamoto. The message is marked urgent.
Matt, here is all my research on the Magatama Stone. Keep it safe. Original memory crystal destroyed.
Strange. Why is Professor Yamamoto giving Matt all of the research? It’s great to have already earned his trust. Matt can’t wait to get back to his dorm room and start digging into it.
By the time he steps off the train at the University stop, video of the child’s rescue by the mysterious stranger has gone viral on the Mesh. Someone has uploaded the entire sequence as captured by a security camera outside the convenience store, but the grainy footage has been run through an enhancement algorithm that gives it nearly HD quality.
Matt stops and stares down at the holo screen above his jax.
A speeding car shoots into the frame just a few meters from the child. As he watches, a blue blur flies into the street, envelops the child and exits just before the Mercedes powers by and leaves the frame. The video backs up and replays with subtitles and analysis provided by an amateur French cinematographer who just posted it to the Mesh. It shows the video slowed down to 750 frames per second, and the results are clear. Matt runs into the street, scoops up the child and dives for the other side as the car stands still. There’s no jerkiness or blurring.
There’s a clear shot of Matt’s face. Anyone who knows Matt and sees the video will be able to identify him.
As he walks along, he accesses other videos that have surfaced in the last few minutes. There’s a bio-physics professor in Australia saying it’s all been faked because it’s not humanly possible to cross a street and grab a child in such a short span of time. The only other explanation, the professor says, would be a supernatural one.
Eyewitness accounts attest that it really happened, just as shown on the Mesh. No tr
icks.
By the time Matt steps onto the campus, the police have identified the driver of the black Mercedes and arrested him for reckless endangerment. His only excuse is that he was in the middle of heated negotiations with a Chinese manufacturer for the purchase of custom power converters and was closing the deal just as he shot past the 7-Eleven and almost killed the boy.
The police have already put out a public notice on the Mesh that they’re looking for the mysterious stranger that saved the child. It is all part of their investigation.
No good deed ever goes unpunished.
Matt holds a hand up to his face as he walks briskly back to his dorm room. His disguise may work for now, but it is only a matter of time before someone tells the police that the mysterious stranger is a graduate student at Hokkaido University.
For an instant, he thinks about the Yakuza man back on the mountain and remembers that the man came to the University library. And where there is one, there may be more. Matt will need to be careful walking on campus and keep an eye out for Italian suits and sunglasses. Right now he just needs to get back to his room as soon as he can.
The hot afternoon air has already painted a film of sticky sweat on his forehead and neck. By the time Matt gets to the dorm building, his back is soaked. It’s already close to 3:00 in the afternoon, nearing the hottest part of the day.
Walking through the courtyard in front of the dorm, he passes under a row of cherry trees and breathes in deeply to taste their sweet fragrance. A thought jumps into his mind, and he lifts his face up to the sun and slowly opens his eyelids to find there’s no need to flinch or blink even though he’s staring directly at the fiery orb. He stands for a full minute and admires its shape and beauty, letting calmness pass through him.
As his eyelids drop down, he seems to slam into a wall of intense fatigue. By the time he walks into the dorm and down the long hall, all he can think of is getting back to his room, downing a drink of cool water and catching a short nap before going to Professor Yamamoto’s office.
Curiously, there’s a strange resistance in his body as he walks through the dark hallway to his door, as if the air is growing thicker and invisible rubber bands are holding him back. But he pushes forward like a fish swimming upstream, propelled by fatigue and thirst. There’s a subtle ringing sound in his ears, and the odor of sulfur hangs in the air. He wonders if someone was doing chemistry experiments in the dorm. Too tired to care, all he can think of is water and rest.
He reaches the door, ignoring the raging storm in his head, and presses the identity pad with his palm. The door swings open and he stumbles inside, eyes almost closed, letting it slam shut behind him. The backpack slips off his shoulders and thuds to the floor.
Two men in dark suits stand shoulder to shoulder next to the window with the shades drawn. The short one meets him with a cold stare, a thick cigar hanging limply from his lips. The other one keeps his arms crossed and says nothing. He senses movement from behind, but before he can react, something hard comes down on his head, and the room goes blurry.
He slips to the floor.
CHAPTER 51
“What happened to Yoshi?”
Matt looks up from the chair and recognizes the face of the short man yelling at him in guttural Japanese as one of the two men who stalked him at the airport in Tokyo. There’s another one standing just behind him with breath that reeks of cheap sake. He’s taller than Matt and must be the one who hit him.
A typical Yakuza ambush.
How could he be so stupid? Matt curses himself for coming straight back to his dorm room. He should have assumed there would be a welcoming party.
Yakuza always hunt in packs.
As he falls into survival mode, he sweeps the room with his eyes. There are three of them. The short, skinny one near the window, who first spoke to Matt and looks to be in charge. Another one with thick biceps and protruding pecs, standing like a Buddha statue, arms crossed over his chest. And the tall silent one behind Matt with alcohol breath. Sunglasses cover their eyes even though the lights aren’t on.
The short man at the window makes a half smile and opens his suit coat to reveal a black leather shoulder holster. “I’ll ask one more time. What did you do to Yoshi?” He raises his voice and stares into Matt’s eyes.
“Yoshi?” Matt stares back. “I don’t know any Yoshi.” His head still throbs from the blow from behind.
“Then you won’t mind if we check you.” The small man looks up and past Matt to the tall one behind him and moves his chin downward. “We keep Aki-chan drunk. You wouldn’t like him when he’s sober.”
A hand thrusts into Matt’s right side pocket. Foul breath rains down, causing him to wince. He feels the Stone being pulled out.
The large man moves forward and stands next to Matt, looking at the Stone in his hand. Then he lobs it to the skinny guy by the window who catches it in one hand.
The thin lips move. “What’s this?”
“Just a rock.” Matt feels a sudden and deep sense of loss as the skinny man tosses the Stone loosely up and down in his hand. Matt tries to focus his mind and concentrate, replaying the scene on the mountain. He slowed time before. He needs to do it again.
The man behind Matt moves to his left and plunges his hand into Matt’s left pocket. He shrieks with pain and jerks his hand out, bringing it up to his eyes. A thin line breaks through the skin of his palm and starts to flow with red. The big man licks the blood off and shoots a menacing glance down.
Matt slowly swallows, steeling his body for another blow.
The small man jumps forward, letting the cigar slip out of his mouth, and stops a foot from Matt’s face.
“American scum. Look, you’ve cut Aki-chan. What’s in your pocket?”
“Just a knife.”
The thin Yakuza goon looks at the big man standing next to Matt and motions down at the pocket with his eyes. Silently and carefully, the man sticks his bleeding hand back into Matt’s pants and takes out the dagger, dangling it by the tip of the blade between two fingers for the little man in front of Matt to see.
There is immediate recognition in the little man’s eyes. He tosses the Stone onto the bed, lunges forward and grabs Matt with both hands on the front of his shirt, jerking him up roughly and staring down.
“That’s Yoshi’s dagger. What did you do to him?” The short man roars and grits his teeth as his knuckles bit into Matt’s chest.
Matt breathes in the stinking breath. Drops of spit land on his face. “Like I said, I don’t know anyone named Yoshi.”
The short man releases his grip, takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Then he explodes, grabbing the handle of the knife, pulling it out of the other man’s hand, gripping Matt’s shirt again and pressing the point of the dagger up against Matt’s throat.
A warm trickle of blood snakes down Matt’s neck.
“Yoshi’s dagger. He always carries it with him. Where did you get it?” The little man has the look of fire in his eyes.
“I found it up in the mountains.” Matt has difficulty speaking with the point pressing into his skin. “Outside of Otaru.”
The little man shakes his head. “You’d have to kill Yoshi to get this from him.” A wave of rage rises up in his voice. “He followed you to the mountain. Watched you. He’s the best at tailing people, the most quiet, almost invisible. Never gets caught. He was closing in, getting ready to bring you to us. Then we got a message from his jax.” The man’s bloodshot eyes look into Matt’s face.
With slow, deliberate movements, the short man withdraws the dagger from Matt’s throat and steps back. As his eyes move to the bed, he motions to it with his chin. The tall thug behind Matt grabs his arms and forces him onto the bed where the Stone is lying. As if previously choreographed, the more muscular one near the window, already named Big Buddha inside Matt’s head, springs forward and holds down Matt’s legs. He feels the Stone jabbing him between his shoulder blades.
The ringleader pulls a jax ou
t of his suit pocket and stands over Matt. “Look.” He commands. “This is what you did to Yoshi.”
A holo bluescreen jumps above the jax and unfolds in the air into a circle. As video begins to play, Matt stares at a view of the clearing up on the mountain where he had the vision. Through tree trunks and weeds, he watches himself sitting in a lotus position, on top of a boulder.
The heavy voice of a narrator, mumbling in gutter Japanese, begins to speak in the background.
“What is this idiot American doing?” The voice chuckles. “I’ll jump him when he comes down from the rock. He looks like a real wimp, no match for my blade. When I have him, I’ll send you a message. Meet me at the bottom with the car.”
There’s the sound of blowing wind. The video image becomes unstable, moving back and forth past Matt.
“Kuso,” the voice curses. “The ground is shaking. Strange time for an earthquake.”
With the video image focused on Matt, a small point of white light appears two meters over his head. It lengthens into a bright, vertical line and then widens into a cylinder.
“What the…”
From the bed, Matt looks up into the holo of the jax, transfixed by the unfolding scene. It brings back the experience with the Woman in all its mystery.
The cylinder grows more intensely white.
“Too bright. Light everywhere. Can’t see.”
The next instant, the cylinder explodes with consuming luminosity.
There is silence for a full half minute. The video screen looks as if it’s been thrown into the sun.
“My eyes. My face. Burning. Stop the burning. Help. Please help.” The voice screams.
The holo screen goes black. The video function no longer works, but sound is still coming through. There’s a rush of movement through weeds and tree branches, the sound of snapping twigs and shoes stumbling down a dirt trail. Ripping clothing. Over and over, the voice screams the same words.
“Burning. Burning. Stop the burning.”
Matt hears a thud, as if the jax has been dropped to the ground. The moaning and sound of broken branches moves off into the distance. Then silence.