by Jacob Whaler
“Right away.” The pale look has left Elsa’s face. She bends forward, palms on the table. “It should give us a significant boost in performance. When will we get our hands on the third Stone, the one belonging to the boy?”
“Patience, my dear. That will happen soon enough.” Ryzaard turns to focus on Jerek Gray. “How are the science experiments going, my young physicist? You worked wonders with that stainless steel cube of yours that deactivates the Stones. If only the power hadn’t gone off, the boy and his girlfriend would never have jumped away.” He sucks on the cigarette and exhales another plume of smoke. “No matter. I need you to find a way to reduce the size and power requirements of the cube so it is smaller, more portable.”
Jerek’s eyes light up. “That’s exactly what I’m working on. Now that we have two Stones, the research will go faster.”
“I’m sure it will, my young friend.” Ryzaard pauses to cast a glance around the table. “There is another project I want you to pursue. In your spare time, of course. I have been thinking about it for some time. We may be to the point where we can pursue it.”
Jerek sighs. “Not much will get done if we don’t get power to the lab. Soon. The experiments have a voracious appetite. It takes a lot of juice to run both cluster systems. More than the emergency backup can provide.”
Ryzaard nods. “Of course. I should have thought of that myself.” He pulls a jax from inside the tweed jacket, eyes its cylindrical shape of woven titanium and blue glass and touches its side with a finger. “Let’s call the Chairman of the MX Global Board and get this problem fixed right away. Watch this.”
A tiny speaker on the jax lights up and pours out the sound of a trembling voice.
“Dr. Ryzaard, what a pleasant surprise.” The fear in the voice is palpable, as if its owner is walking on a narrow beam across a deep chasm. “You’re already back from the hospital? I was told you suffered a serious wound in the recent attack and that your life might be in dang—”
“No such luck, Van Pelt. Just a little scratch, I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint you.” Ryzaard’s grin is apparent to all gathered around the table.
“Dr. Ryzaard, I assure you that—”
“Save your lies,” Ryzaard says. “I require your immediate assistance in a matter of utmost importance.”
“I’ll be glad to help in any way I ca—”
“Listen carefully.” Ryzaard eyes the young people at the table. “We have a busy operation up here running a sophisticated trading algorithm around the clock, not to mention the science lab and multiple cluster systems.”
“Yes, of course,” Van Pelt says.
“We’re not getting enough electrical power to support our needs. It threatens to shut us down. We can’t allow that to happen.”
“Yes, I understand. Perfectly.” Van Pelt’s voice drips with fear. “Unfortunately, the terrorist attacks destroyed our power-generation systems only days ago. We are moving with all haste to restore our capabilities. At the moment, the best we can do for the building is provide emergency pow—”
“Emergency power is not good enough. I want the rest of the building shut down and all available power diverted to the 175th floor. Is that clear?”
The silence on the other end of the line is deafening.
“Did you hear me, Van Pelt?”
“Yes, but—”
“No excuses, Van Pelt. Do it.” Ryzaard tries hard to suppress a chuckle, not fully succeeding.
The color has drained out of every face around the table.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Not good enough, Van Pelt. I don’t want your pathetic best. I want it done. Now.”
“Understood. Just give me—”
Ryzaard swipes the jax with his thumb, and the voice fades out. He shoves it back into his suit pocket.
“That should do it,” Ryzaard says. “I am guessing he will have full power restored within minutes.” As if on cue, the lights come on. “Make that seconds.” He looks around the room like a father gazing upon the faces of his adoring children gathered at his feet.
The door from the corridor opens and Jing-wei walks in, out of breath. She looks first at Ryzaard. “How did you get here so fast?”
His eyes drop to the two Stones on the table.
“Never mind,” she says. “I should have guessed.”
“Any news on Kalani?” A look of concern crosses Ryzaard’s face. “I’m hoping our star jax-hacker will be back with us soon.”
Jing-wei takes her seat at the table next to Diego. “The nerve gas hit him hard. Right now, he can’t see or hear anything. But he’s young. The effects will wear off, and there’s no permanent damage. He’ll be back with us in a couple of days.”
“Good,” Ryzaard says. “Very good. We will need his help navigating the dark corners of the Mesh.” He turns his full attention to the left where Diego sits, studying his jax. “Diego, the most urgent matter is—”
“The tracking algorithm. I know. We need to find out where the kid went with his Stone and his girlfriend. I’ve been working on it since the smoke cleared, but there’s no trace of him.”
Ryzaard pauses, eyes narrowing, not used to being interrupted by anyone. “I don’t give a damn about the boy or his girlfriend. I don’t care where they’ve gone.” His jaw clenches, and his voice has an icy edge to it that chills the room. “It’s the farthest thing from my mind. Is that clear?” He scans the table.
Looks of utter surprise surround the table.
“But you are right about the tracking algorithm.” Ryzaard stands up from the table. “It is a matter of the utmost urgency that we get it up and running so we can begin locating the other Stones.”
“Other Stones?” Diego looks confused.
“Yes, other Stones. Forgive me if I haven’t mentioned it before.” Ryzaard lifts one hand in a fluid motion. “Several other Stones exist, their Holders hidden. I want you to ignore the kid and his girlfriend for now. They are no longer a matter of concern. Put all your energy into finding the other Stones as soon as possible. The whole process should go much faster now that we have both of these.” He picks the two Stones off the table and drops them into his suit pockets.
Jing-wei slides forward in her seat. “Forgive me, but I’m confused about Matt and Jessica?” She swallows carefully as the names hang in the air. “You aren’t even going to look for them?”
There are tentative nods around the table.
Ryzaard smiles on his way out of the room.
“No need to. I already know where they are.”
CHAPTER 5
Matt lies down on a thin futon on the tatami floor, arms down at his side, palms facing up, eyes closed. As relaxation flows over his body, his hands and feet are heavy, made of lead. Only his lower belly moves, rising and falling with each breath. Thoughts and emotions come and go like visitors in a room. He observes them from a distance, little more than moving shadows, but avoids interaction. They mill around and eventually leave.
Meditation is much easier in this world of his, a place where concentration comes almost without effort and where multiple lines of thought are not only possible, but a constant companion.
Jessica is asleep in an adjoining room. The rhythm of her breathing is like the ebb and flow of a slow surf on a midnight beach. A chorus of crickets and frogs plays outside the walls.
For a moment, he comes as close to contentment as he’s ever come in his life.
But it doesn’t last long. A random thought presses on his mind.
Ryzaard isn’t dead.
It enters as if from nowhere, threatening to explode into full-blown panic. Matt avoids the temptation to engage the fear and lets it pass. Meditation and contentment return.
His fingers brush the Stone just inches away on the tatami. Perhaps the Woman will come tonight. Perhaps not. No need to rush things. It will happen when it happens.
How long have he and Jessica been on this exotic planet? It’s hard to say. The days and nights do
n’t have the same feel as they do back on Earth in the real world. Time might be shorter or longer here. Has it been weeks or days? It’s strange, but Matt honestly can’t tell.
He tries to remember the face of his dad the last time they parted. It takes far too long for the image to distill in his mind.
The thought comes back, and it takes longer to push it away this time.
Ryzaard isn’t dead.
The dagger hurt him, no doubt, but he might have recovered. With the power of his Stones, both his own and the one he stole from Naganuma, he might have been able to heal himself. Just like Matt.
After all Ryzaard has done to him, to Jessica, to his dad and all the others, it’s strange that Matt holds neither fear nor hatred of the old man. Ryzaard, the son of a Jewish jeweler. Persecuted by the Nazis. Survivor of Auschwitz. Over a hundred and fifty years old, thanks to his Stone. A man who watched his own mother die of starvation in the ghetto and now has a clear sense of mission.
It’s even stranger that Matt understands what Ryzaard is trying to accomplish. Matt could never fully agree with the old man, but can’t deny at least a little sympathy for his cause. The truth is, of all the people Matt has ever met, Ryzaard is the purest in his motivation and dedication to a cause.
Eliminate suffering and chaos. Replace it with safety and order.
With a clear vision for the future, Ryzaard has the power to accomplish it.
And Matt could have joined him.
For a fleeting instant, he sees himself at Ryzaard’s side, looking down from a platform high above an open plain. Millions of people stand at attention far below, like a colony of waiting ants.
His fingers find the Stone and grasp it. Power surges through his body.
Ryzaard’s great scheme is based on a simple principle. Sacrifice freedom and chaos so that one man may rule and bring back Paradise for all. He wants to be the philosopher king of Plato’s Republic.
The logic is compelling.
Freedom leads to suffering. Give up freedom, and suffering dies with it.
For an instant, Matt flirts with the idea. Could it be that Ryzaard was right, after all? Could it be that Matt was wrong to reject his offer?
A new feeling stirs in Matt. He knows he should ignore it and let it pass, but he decides to open himself to it, to explore its depths and see where it leads.
Before he can change his mind, he’s engulfed in a cascade of emotions. Rage against the world and all its hurt and pain rises up in his belly. He’s consumed by a sudden hunger for revenge, to throw all the hurt and pain back at the world and watch it suffer for what it has done to him for so long. With the power of the Stone, it would be easy to jump back to Earth, wreak havoc on civilization, destroy the powerful and elite who brought misery to him and his dad for the last twelve years. He can restore the balance that has been stripped from the world. For himself and everyone else.
I have the power. Why not use it?
His body, still horizontal, floats off the futon, fingers gripping the Stone. It floods his consciousness. For an instant, he reaches out to anyone that will listen.
Come to me. Let us kill and destroy everyone that opposes us. Let us have our revenge. Until the world is filled with blood.
And then Jessica’s voice pierces the silence.
“What are you doing?”
Matt’s eyes flash open. He falls a full meter through the air and slams into the tatami.
Her words quell the rage in his belly. It recedes as quickly as it came, like water down a drain. He knows the truth now. He must be careful to never agree with Ryzaard, never even try to understand him.
To understand evil is to become evil.
He sits up on the futon, drenched in sweat. “Sorry Jess, I don’t know what happened. Must have been a nightmare.” He looks out a nearby window that stretches from floor to ceiling.
A full moon rises over the ocean.
Jessica takes a step into the room. “Are you OK?”
“I have to go for a walk.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No. Wait for me here.” Matt is already on his feet, holding the Stone. “I have to go down to the water. But don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” An intense sense of longing pulls him outside. Without a glance at Jessica, he walks across the room, down the wooden steps and into the cool night air, leaving her standing in the doorway.
A familiar fragrance floats out of the jungle, the smell of his mother’s sweet rolls, pungent with cinnamon. He turns and moves toward it, but it doesn’t feel right. Going to the water is what feels right, so he heads back to the beach.
The sand is warm under his feet. He steps into the ocean up to his ankles and stares at the moon and the shimmering trail of light stretching out beneath it on the water. He breathes in the moist, salty air.
Heat washes over his face. A luminous form appears, coming closer. At first, it’s just an organic shape floating above the sea. As it comes into focus, its fluid motion and outline are familiar.
Arms, legs and torso glide beneath a white robe.
The Woman is walking on the water, feet stepping on its surface without so much as a ripple.
Matt gazes in silence until she stands only a couple of meters away.
With her feet on the surface and his below it, her head is a foot above Matt. Seawater laps over her toes, yet they remain dry. A luminous garment of golden fabric hangs on her shoulders. Her hands and feet are bare, and her hair hangs down past her shoulders to the middle of her back. She smiles at Matt.
He relaxes and breathes in deeply.
At last, you have come, he thinks.
The Woman locks eyes on him. Her voice echoes in his head.
I am here.
Matt says nothing. The voice is different. It repels him instead of drawing him closer. A hint of confusion mixes with anxiety and fear. Tightness spreads across his chest. He takes a step backward.
The voice in his head speaks again. This time it is a composite of high- and low-frequency tones, like multiple individuals speaking at once.
Do not fear the power.
Her eyes travel the length of Matt’s body, up and down, lingering for a long time on the Stone in his hand.
It glows a deep purple, heavy and dead. Matt says nothing, waiting for her to speak again.
When the voice comes, it’s like cold steel stabbing into his brain. It splits into multiple chords, each garbled, like a roomful of bickering children clamoring for attention and speaking all at once. He tries to make sense of it, but is unable to draw any intelligible words from the flow of sound in his head.
Why? Matt thinks. Why are you doing this to me?
The Woman’s eyes open wide and become impossibly large. Her hands rise, palms up, and slowly curl into fists. Movement ripples across her face, changing the shape of her nose and cheekbones like soft clay. The light fades in and out, and the outline of her body blurs at the edges like a holo image going out of focus. The white robe falls away and disintegrates. A thousand sharp points, like small daggers, burst through the skin of her feet and travel like a wave up her legs and torso and down her arms, transforming into a hideous beast out of his childhood nightmares. Towering over him, her mouth fills with fangs. A bony ridge bursts out of her forehead and runs back over her skull and down the length of her spine. Her skin is covered with black scales, fingers sprouting claws tipped in red.
The image passes, and the woman’s skin becomes smooth again. Her fists uncurl. The face returns to its original radiant form. She speaks in a single, unified voice.
Why do you refuse the power of the Stone?
Matt slowly backs out of the water.
The woman comes closer.
“Who are you?” Matt senses movement behind him and whips around to see another identical woman standing on the sand only a few feet away. “Are you the Allehonen?”
Loud shrieks and bright colors explode on all sides. A shockwave drops him to his knees in the sand, and his eyes blur
from a surge of nausea that punches through his chest. Burnt sulfur reeks in his nostrils. Walls of dark stone rise up, encasing him at the bottom of a deep pit. Voices move in and out of his mind, speaking, crying and wailing incoherently. He covers his ears with no effect. Dozens of fingers squeeze at his throat, cutting off his breath.
And then the voices unite into one.
Do not speak of Them.
Silence follows. The pressure on Matt’s throat releases. His eyes focus and look up. The stone walls are gone. Four humanoid forms stand in a circle staring down into his face. The robes of golden light are gone. They wear no clothing and lack a definite color or shape. Their faces move and flow as if the bones have liquefied. Everything about them is in a state of flux. The light of the full moon shines through their near-transparent bodies, and they cast no shadows on the sand.
Wherever Matt stares, the creatures fade to nothing. They only appear in his peripheral vision when he looks slightly askance.
Standing up, Matt remembers a conversation with the old Shinto priest, Naganuma, about the beings he called the Others, who were separate and distinct from the Allehonen. He implied that they hated the Allehonen.
Now Matt understands.
His mouth opens, and he is able to speak. “So, you are the Others.”
The reply is immediate and plays like an old record of multiple voices inside Matt’s mind.
No. They are the Others.
“Then who are you?”
We are the True Ones, the Only Ones. They have stolen the Power. It belongs to us.
“Why have you come?”
You called us here. For revenge. To fill the world with blood. To hold the Power.
“Wrong.” Matt’s does his best to cast the fear out of his mind as he looks upon the loathsome and pitiful forms floating in front of him. He braces for a backlash as the words flow from his mouth.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want revenge. I want the Allehonen. Leave me.”