by Jacob Whaler
For a time, Ryzaard says nothing. Silence floats between them.
“You’re right,” Ryzaard picks up his own Stone. “If they’re used the same way, the same result will follow, over and over.”
Lines spread across Matt’s forehead. “Is that what you want?” He turns and glances at the motionless figures of Jessica and Professor Yamamoto and then back to Ryzaard.
“Of course not. And it’s not what I intend to do.” He stands, takes off his jacket and starts to roll up the sleeve of his right forearm. “It may come as a surprise to you, but I have personal experience with suffering and death. More than you might imagine.” When the sleeve is rolled up to the elbow, he shows the tattoo to Matt. “I take it you have studied history. Perhaps you know where I got this.”
Six numbers in faded green ink. 159604.
Matt’s eyes open wide. “You’re a death camp survivor? Over a hundred and fifty years old? And a smoker too. Impossible.”
“It is true. Auschwitz. As for my age, the Stone keeps me strong.” Ryzaard rolls down his sleeve. “I know suffering and death. It has made me who I am.”
“Then why are you doing this?” Matt senses the anger rising in his throat again.
“To put an end to it!” As Ryzaard jumps to his feet, his voice explodes to fill the office. His eyes are bloodshot, and the same vein bulges in his neck. “To free mankind from the endless cycle of misery. To finally bring peace to the world.” His face blazes red, and his hands form into shaking fists. “Don’t you understand? That is what we can do, you and I.”
Matt looks up at the man standing before him. “Sorry. You’ve lost me.”
Ryzaard drops back into the chair. “There’s so much you don’t know. You’ve tasted only a small fraction of the power.” He leans forward, reaches out a hand and lays it on Matt’s shoulder, pulling him in closer, looking him in the eye. His voice drops to a whisper. “The Stones are most powerful when they are bound together, when the Stone Holders work as one, toward a common goal. An incredible synergy takes place. They become orders of magnitude stronger.”
Keep him talking.
“You want me to join you?” Matt says. “With all due respect, how I can trust you? How do I know this isn’t some sort of trick?” He pulls back.
“Because I’ve seen it,” Ryzaard says.
“Seen what?”
“The future. They came to me, showed it to me.”
“Who came to you?” Matt stares at Ryzaard. “The Allehonen?”
Ryzaard sits back and laughs. “No, not them.” His hand slides into the suit and pulls out the black box. “I saw them, in the beginning, just like you. But not anymore. They’ve stopped bothering me since I started seeing through their tricks and deception.” He puts his lips to the box and pulls out a cigarette. “No, I’m talking about the Others, not part of the Allehonen. The Others opened my eyes, showed me what can be achieved with the Stones.” The cigarette dances in his lips.
“What do you want me to do?”
Ryzaard relaxes back into his chair and surveys the cherry tree on the other side of the window. He seems to be aware for the first time that he has a cigarette between his lips and pulls it out to lay it on the table, unlit. “Come with me. I’ll show you what I’ve seen. Then you can decide.”
“Where?”
Ryzaard stands up and takes a step closer to Matt. “To the future.”
CHAPTER 59
“Are you sure that’s where he is?” Little John looks up from his camp chair inside the tent.
“Yes, according to the Children. They’ve been tracking him since he left.” The tall man with the aviator sunglasses stares down through mirrors.
“It looks like you were right. He’s directly across the street from MX Global’s mother ship. Maybe he really does think he can fight against the Complex. Crazy.” Little John leans into his chair and listens to the aluminum frame and cloth webbing strain against his weight, stroking his chin with his hand. “Any idea who exactly his target is?”
“Hard to say. He’s got an office suite on the 176th floor.”
Little John brings a hand up to his ample chin. “Interesting. He doesn’t seem like the type to select a floor at random. Any idea what might be in the upper reaches of the MX Global building just across the street?”
“Of course. It’s all right here in the Children’s Book.” The tall man fingers his jax. “Floors 100 through 141 are the old MX Financial offices, and from there on up to the 175th floor is the old MX Scientific subsidiary.” He looks up from the jax. “Of course both subs were merged into one entity, MX SciFin.”
“I know. The Mesh was ablaze with the news. Happened just a few days ago, right? Maybe that’s why our friend decided to make a move. Catch MX Global in the middle of a transition.”
“Could be.” The man takes off his sunglasses and rubs the open sockets where his eyes should be. “The new company has a new president.”
“I must have missed that. Who?”
“A man by the name of Dr. Mikal Ryzaard. Previously at Oxford. Archeology, I believe.”
“What is a professor of archeology doing as CEO of one of the largest multinational corporations in the world?” Little John reaches for a bottle of water, and then stops. “I think I need something stronger.” He turns around, opens a nearby mini-fridge and pulls out a Coors. Beads of water drop from the can, and he pulls the tab. “Where’s his office located?”
“On the 175th floor, directly across the street.”
Little John brings the can up to his lips and drains it. “Interesting. Could be useful information. Make sure the Children keep an eye on our man fighting the Complex.”
CHAPTER 60
“You must see this.” Ryzaard draws his chair closer to Matt. “Then you’ll understand. Now do as I say. Put your Stone away and hold on to my shoulder.” Ryzaard holds his Stone in his right hand. “I’m going to make a jump.”
“What’s a jump?”
“The Stones allow you to go places. I can take you with me. No matter what happens, stay with me. I am your connection, your only way there and your only way back.”
Matt nods, but his thoughts move in another direction.
Wait for an opening.
Steely cold travels down his spine and settles in his belly. “What about Jessica?”
“She won’t be harmed.”
“And the professor?”
“Likewise.”
“Is this a trick?” Matt lifts an eyebrow.
“Relax,” Ryzaard says. “Remember, stay with me. When it is finished, we’ll return to this moment. Only a few seconds will have passed here. Close your eyes and trust me.”
In an instant, a plan forms in Matt’s mind. He’ll take hold of Ryzaard’s shoulder, wait for the right moment, pull him down, find his neck with both hands, overpower him, incapacitate him. He can do it all while still in null-time. Then he can free Jessica and Professor Yamamoto and get them away to safety. Somehow it will work out. His pounding heart makes it hard to breathe, and the coldness in his belly grows and spreads.
He stands, licks his lips, closes his eyes, and reaches his hand out to Ryzaard so it can rest on the thickly muscled shoulder. Spreading his feet on the floor for maximum leverage, he leans back, takes in a deep breath and holds it. Now he’s ready to take down Ryzaard.
The sound of gentle waves on the sand fades away, replaced by the low rumble of thunder in the distance. The floor trembles under his feet.
Time to do or die.
But his resolve is interrupted by a flash of silent lightning that reveals the delicate web of capillaries in his eyelids. Cold silence slams down over him like an iron cup, cutting him off from all sensation except for the feel of falling helplessly into nothing, as if the floor and ground have suddenly vanished, leaving him to plunge into blackness.
Panic descends upon him. He makes an effort to open his eyes and pull away from Ryzaard, but his body is glued in place, held by an invisible force.
Fighting for breath, he finds there is nothing to breathe.
For an instant, he’s sixteen years old again, lying at the bottom of the ravine on the back side of Skull Pass, entombed in cold darkness, feeling the last remnants of warmth sucked out by the empty blackness. He opens his mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. Instead, two words flash through his mind.
Dad! Jess!
The odor of burning sulfur drifts again into his nostrils. He opens his mouth and sucks in deeply.
“Open your eyes.” The voice of a man comes from above him, and he realizes it’s Ryzaard.
Matt half expects to see bright red flames shooting out of an active volcano in the distance. But instead, he’s standing in a green forest of dark fir trees. Thin light pierces through a latticework of branches above, casting long shadows on the spongy floor under his feet.
Ryzaard is a couple of yards away, a wide smile on his face as he looks around. “I am glad to see you made it. The first time is always a bit rough.”
Looking at his arms and legs, Matt’s wearing the purple cargo pants and neon orange T-shirt he once wore to a Slayers concert as a sixteen-year-old, a few weeks after the avalanche incident.
Ryzaard is dressed in short khaki pants and a crisp white shirt complete with bowtie. Looking at his own clothes, he chuckles as if to say not again, and then looks over at Matt. “I always seem to come through this way in this world. It’s from my first dig in Egypt as a graduate student back in the sixties, the 1960s, that is. I suppose it was the happiest time of my life.”
Matt takes the Stone out of his pocket. It’s glowing light purple. “Where are we?”
Ryzaard starts walking down a path that winds away through the trees. “In a world of my creation. Everything here has come from my mind to become reality. I have been experimenting with my view of the future, using this world as a laboratory, so to speak, and now I finally have someone to show it to. Do not worry about understanding it all right now. That will come in time. Just follow me and stay close.”
They walk together through the forest for what feels like an hour or more, but Matt is unsure of the passing time. There’s no visible sun, and the light grows neither stronger nor weaker.
Something is lacking, but Matt can’t put his finger on it. It’s all real and tangible, but somehow dull and flat. Not rich in detail like you would expect a forest to be.
And then Matt notices that all the trees are identical down to the repeating design of the outer bark and the tiny branches that jut out from the lower trunk. So are the small bushes scattered on the forest floor. It has the feel of an Escher painting, mathematical and abstract.
The path dips down into a narrow gorge with high walls of bare basalt on each side. The top of the gorge is bare except for a few lone pine trees that stand out against the grey sky.
The sound of rushing water rises up to meet them as they descend the trail. At the bottom, there’s a narrow river with a small rowboat floating near the bank, tied to a single tree.
“This is our ride.” Ryzaard says. “Please get in.”
Matt eyes narrow. “Where are we going?”
“To a city I’ve built, especially for you.”
“Can’t we just jump there?” Matt twists his toe into the moist soil.
“It won’t take long,” Ryzaard says. “Get in.”
Matt follows steps into the boat and sits on a bench, facing forward behind Ryzaard. They cast off and are swept out into the middle of the black current, pulled along with a speed that increases as they move through the gorge. Matt stares up at the narrow strip of grey sky that floats between the rock walls overhead.
Out of the corner of his eye, Matt detects a large bullet shape gliding under the surface as the top of a fin rises inches out of the water and then dives, leaving a V-shaped ripple. But there’s nothing as he stares into the dark depths. A dozen yards off to the right, a lizard head shoots up out of the water on a slender neck. Two eyes stare back at him, and then it’s gone. Maybe it’s a reflection from something high up on the walls. He isn’t sure.
He takes out the Stone and notices its purple color has grown darker since the last time he looked.
The river turns sharply to the right and flows out of the gorge into a wide, open plain. Like his Stone, the sky feels darker. The lights of a city are visible a couple of kilometers away.
“There it is,” Ryzaard says. “The city of the future.”
Matt is too busy studying this strange world to ask any questions.
As they draw nearer, buildings loom taller and increase in number. Their small boat sweeps past the first outlying towers, and they enter the sprawling metropolis.
The structures are all absurdly huge and consist of simple, but massive, geometric shapes. There are cylinders standing on end and impossibly high rectangles, pyramids with spheres balanced on their tips. Matt’s eyes are drawn to a square of dark glass a kilometer on each side. As they float past it, Matt observes that it’s only five meters thick, like a gigantic bluescreen.
“What do you think?” Ryzaard nods at the architecture around him.
Matt sits in silence, gazing upward in all directions, mouth gaping open. The structures are massive, but lack the variety and organic feel of a real city. “It seems kind of dead and boring, to tell the truth.”
Ryzaard’s jaw muscles tighten, and his chin rises as he scans the city from right to left. “Orderly and neat, is the way I would put it. Exactly the way I like it. Organized, logical, predictable. No surprises. Not messy and chaotic like the architecture you find in Tokyo or Shanghai. Even New York City is too strange for my taste.”
Words rise in Matt’s throat, but he closes his lips before they can escape.
Serious lack of imagination, he thinks. But just play along.
They drift past a building that draws Matt’s attention up a series of ever-expanding terraces that fan out from a point three meters above street level. From the tip, a single thin column of translucent material, less than a meter in diameter, extends down to penetrate the ground. It’s a pyramid standing on its point supported by a straw.
The construction of the city defies both logic and, from all appearances, the laws of physics.
On further inspection, Matt makes a discovery. Each massive structure stands on a single glass column. The entire city floats above the streets that pass underneath.
“Impossible,” Matt says under his breath.
“No.” Ryzaard shakes his head. “Not impossible. Not if you understand how to use the Stones.”
Matt looks ahead to where the river abruptly ends at a platform less than a hundred meters away. The boat gently floats to the clean metal edge where the water simply stops flowing. Staring down at it, Matt tries to figure out where the water is going.
“Don’t waste your time,” Ryzaard says with a wink. “The usual laws of physics don’t apply here. Now come with me. I’ve got a little surprise waiting.” He steps out of the boat onto the platform of polished steel. “Brace yourself. This is going to be very enlightening.” He walks to an open archway perfectly centered over the platform.
Following a few paces behind, Matt grips his Stone in his hand. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he notices masses of people walking along the streets in neatly formed lines fifty meters away on both sides. They all move together in lockstep and wear the same robes of purple.
“What are those people doing?” Matt says. “Why do they all look the same?”
“No questions.”
They move under and through the archway onto a narrow strip of metallic glass, hard and polished, like every other surface around them. Their feet make no sound in the dull light that engulfs them. Matt stares directly above his head at the bottom of a building three meters up with a grid pattern of squares etched into its undersurface.
The metallic strip leads to a single glass column supporting the building. The column lights up with a purple tinge when they are still a few paces away, as if waiting for
their approach. Its color matches Ryzaard’s Stone.
As Ryzaard reaches out to touch it, a door opens in the column.
Ryzaard steps inside. “I’ll go first. You grab the next one up.” He walks through the opening, and it closes after him. He rises up through the bottom of the building and disappears.
As he waits, Matt stares at the people marching by. Each of them turn their heads and stare back with gentle smiles on their faces. He suppresses the impulse to join them and learn more about this strange world of Ryzaard’s.
For the first time since coming to this place, Matt is alone, free of Ryzaard. Should he run? Try to get back to the boat? Take off under the city and out on the plain? Where would he go after that? Where, exactly, is he?
He grips the Stone tighter and holds it like a dagger, with the point protruding out the bottom of his fist past his little finger. An opening appears in the column of glass, and he steps in. The hairs on his head rise a few inches, and a feeling of lightness passes through his body. He floats up like water being drawn through a straw.
CHAPTER 61
After the initial rush of setting up surveillance equipment, Kent has time to think, maybe even relax. The thermal-image scan of the building across the street won’t be ready for a couple of days, and the data analysis could take even longer. The results of that analysis will tell him where the human targets are and where to place his feelers, the actual devices that will eavesdrop on MX Global and start generating data. He still needs to work out a delivery device to secure them to the outside of the building across the street.
In the face of an overwhelming technical advantage on the part of the target, he opts for a low-tech solution to the problem.
Picking up his jax, he speaks into it. “Find a sports store close to Fifth Avenue and 50th street.” A small holo of a bluescreen jumps above the jax and shows an aerial view of the local neighborhood, with a red line showing the path to the store, seven blocks away. It leads through several towers and skywalks so he can get there without ever going down to street level. He puts on his hi-top Dexter-Malloys and walks out the door.