by Jacob Whaler
“Right. Do you know where your son got that rock?”
“No idea.” Kent says.
Little John looks unsatisfied. “Are you sure you haven’t seen it before?”
Kent stares at the screen. The rock’s shape is vaguely familiar. Then it hits him.
“Wait a minute. Yeah. I remember now.”
“Remember what?”
“The rock. It was the night before Matt left for Japan. I got woke up by his nightmares and went downstairs into his bedroom. I saw it lying there on the floor, next to his futon. The same object, glowing light green in the dark. I thought it was a new gadget he bought.”
“Did your son say anything about it?”
“No. Nothing. We were in a big hurry the next morning to get to the airport. I forgot to ask him.” Kent narrows his eyes and looks at Little John. “Why are you so concerned about it? It’s just a rock.”
“You really don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what?” Kent grabs Little John’s shoulder and swings him around. “What are you talking about?”
Little John walks a few paces away and stops. He reaches into his shirt. His hand comes out with a soft leather bag hanging from a silver chain around his neck. “Your son has a Stone.”
“Yeah, I know. A stone. A rock. Whatever.”
“No, not just a rock. A Stone with a capital S.”
Little John opens the leather bag. His hand reaches in and grabs something, pulling it out. Then his fingers slowly uncurl.
Kent stares down at an identical rock resting on Little John’s open palm.
“I’ve got one, too.” Little John looks up. “This is why Ryzaard was trying to kill your son. And this is how your son vanished.”
Kent swallows and drops into a chair. “You’re right. We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 7
Ryzaard sits behind his desk and stares out the window at the city. He inhales deeply and swings his chair around. Diego Lopez stands in the center of the room, hands behind his back.
“No success yet?” Ryzaard studies the young man’s face.
“It’s only been a few hours,” Diego says.
“I don’t have the luxury of time, Mr. Lopez.” Ryzaard leans forward, opens the drawer. His fingers find the pack of black Djarums. With a few well-practiced motions, he has one of the cigarettes in his lips with a glowing tip and takes a long drag before settling back into the chair. “It is imperative that I find another Stone quickly.”
“Understood,” Diego says. “I’m doing my best with the location algorithm. It accesses both of your Stones, working in series, and we have a new structured feedback loop. I’ll know within seconds when it picks up a signal from a Stone. What more can I—”
“Yes, of course,” Ryzaard says. “I’m sorry if you think I am making unreasonable demands. You are the best. That is why I brought you here to MX Global. If anyone can do it, you can.”
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your confidence.”
“I have never doubted your abilities,” Ryzaard says. “But is there anything we can do to increase the sensitivity of the algorithm, to speed it up?”
“There is one thing, Dr. Ryzaard. But it’s risky.” He begins to pace in front of the desk where Ryzaard remains seated.
“Tell me.” Ryzaard leans forward, resting elbows on the desk and dropping the barely used cigarette into an ashtray.
“The algorithm is searching for signals worldwide, using a Defense Department satellite array. Actually three of them.”
“Impressive,” Ryzaard says.
“It’s something Kalani worked out before his accident.”
Ryzaard breathes in sharply, a sign of impatience. “Go on.”
“Right now we are scanning the entire planet. If we were to restrict the search to a smaller area, say, just one continent, it might go much faster.” Diego keeps walking back and forth, tapping his fingertips together in deep thought.
“I see,” Ryzaard says. “But the risk is that we pick the wrong continent and don’t find anything.”
“Exactly. I don’t recommend that we do it.”
Ryzaard leans back in his chair and steeples his fingers, running the tips across his lips. “How long would it take you to reconfigure the algorithm to do a restricted search?”
“Less than an hour.”
Ryzaard nods. It’s a big risk, perhaps a fatal one. How could you know where to look? But time is running out. He needs every possible advantage he can find.
“Do it.”
Diego looks surprised. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Ryzaard says. “Jump on it immediately.”
“OK. Where would you like to start the search?”
Ryzaard closes his eyes.
That is the question, isn’t it?
He breathes in slowly and carefully. “You’re from Chile, right?”
Diego smiles. “Yes, a little city called Valdivia. Why?”
“Let’s start with South America.”
“Very good. I’ll get to work right now on the reconfiguration.” Diego turns to leave the room.
“Diego,” Ryzaard says.
“Yes?”
“Make that North America.”
CHAPTER 8
“Did you see her?” Matt drops down on the sandy beach next to Jessica and puts his arm around her shoulders.
She stays silent, staring straight ahead out to sea, looking at the moon.
Both of her arms slip around him.
Leaning in, she speaks slowly and deliberately. “So beautiful. Was that her?” The light of the moon shows her face in high relief.
“Yes.”
“An angel.” Jessica turns to face him. “Matt, you’ve been talking to angels. Just like I always imagined they would look.”
Matt moves closer and presses his lips against the top of Jessica’s head. “An angel? Are you sure about that? I didn’t see any wings.”
“But the light, and her face. She’s got to be an angel. Or something more.”
“A glowing humanoid female appears in the night, wearing a white robe, enveloped in light. Her voice is as the rushing of mighty waters. Then she vanishes. I can think of a dozen religions that would be more than happy to claim someone like her as their god.” Matt puts his hands on Jessica’s cheeks and looks down into her face. “But now I know the truth.”
“Tell me.”
“Are you sure you want to hear it? It might not be what you expect.”
“What did she say?”
“Not much. Her preferred form of communication is visual. She shows me things.”
“A vision. What did you see?”
“A planet with oceans and continents. A lot like earth, but different. Her home planet.”
“She has a home planet?”
“That’s one of the few things she said. I think she wanted me to understand where she came from, what she was before she became what she is. And get this. She was just a simple farmer, living in a simple village with a husband and child. It reminded me of North Africa or maybe Pakistan. What it might have looked like a couple thousand years ago.”
“Interesting. I wonder wh—”
“Hold on. There’s more, Jess. An army attacked the village and slaughtered all of them. All of them. Even the Woman herself. She had a Stone like mine and tried to use it, but it didn’t work and they just cut her down.”
Jessica looks confused. “Why would she show you that?”
“I don’t know. From what I’ve seen, the Allehonen are great and powerful beings. Builders of worlds and galaxies. But she was just a woman. An ordinary woman in some obscure village.” Matt looks down at the sand. The water of the incoming tide laps over his feet.
“She had a Stone, right?” Jessica says.
“Yeah, but it sure didn’t do much for her.”
“But look at her now. She became one of them, one of the Allehonen.” Jessica stares past Matt at the moon. “From a lowly farmer murdere
d on her home planet to the mighty being we both saw.”
“I don’t understand,” Matt says. “What’s it all supposed to mean?”
Jessica stands up. “I’m not sure. Give it time. She’s trying to tell you something. It was important enough for her to come here and deliver the message personally. If she gave it to you all at once, you might not understand. So she’s giving it to you piece by piece. Bit by bit. Just be patient.” Jessica pushes him down and breaks into a run up the beach. “Race you to the house.”
Matt laughs and jumps up, chasing after her.
They arrive at the little Japanese house, walking slowly hand in hand. The mammoth mountain to their east stands out against the purple sky behind it.
“Looks like the sun is coming up,” Jessica walks up the wooden steps into the house with Matt close behind. “Funny. I’m not the least bit tired.”
“Neither am I,” Matt says.
Then he freezes.
“What’s wrong?” Jessica says.
“Look behind you.”
Jessica slowly turns around.
A Harley Davidson vintage motorcycle is parked in the middle of the tatami floor.
CHAPTER 9
“So, you’re telling me you have a magic rock, and that my son has one too?” Kent says.
Little John walks to a mini-fridge and takes out a beer. “Need a drink? This may take a while.”
“No thanks, I don’t drink.”
Making his way over a floor cluttered with empty beer cans, Little John sits down on a plastic crate and motions for Kent to pull his camp chair closer. “I don’t think it’s magic. As near as I can tell, it just gives you power over the laws of physics. Some of them.”
“I’m not really one for fairy tale stories,” Kent says.
“You saw what your son did with the Stone. Vanished into thin air. It’s on the video. Was that a fairy tale?” Little John pops the lid off the beer and guzzles a long swig.
Kent leans back. “You’ve got me there. Something happened in that room that I can’t explain.”
“I can explain, or at least show you, if you’re willing to watch and listen. But you’ll need an open mind.”
“I’m all eyes and ears,” Kent says. “I’ve always enjoyed a good magic show.”
Little John laughs. “Like I said, it’s not magic. Better to think of it as—”
“A hi-tech gadget?” Kent says.
“It’s much more than a gadget. And it’s the highest piece of hi-tech gadgetry you can imagine.”
“Abomination in its purest form?”
“Let me make this clear.” Little John takes another long gulp from the beer can and looks at his Stone. “This is not Abomination. It’s how we’ll fight Abomination.” Little John stares at Kent. “Observe closely.”
And then Little John vanishes.
Kent bolts out of his chair and looks around the room. There’s no sign of Little John. Kent stumbles to the crate that he had been sitting on. Perhaps it was some sort of illusion that can be explained once you know the trick. But after a minute of carefully inspecting the crate and everything around it, Kent has no idea what happened.
“It’s called jumping.” Little John walks through the tent flap with a mouthful of food and a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. “Exactly what your son did.”
Kent stands with his jaw hanging down, pulse racing, head cocked to the side, eyes on Little John. After a half minute of silence, he remembers to breathe.
“Any questions?” Little John raises an eyebrow.
“How does it work?” Kent asks.
Little John walks to the crate and sits down, leaning back to take another bite of the sandwich. Chewing slowly and carefully, he reaches down to the ground on the side of the crate as if to pick something up. His body jumps slightly, like a film with missing frames. A beer can suddenly appears in his hand.
Stumbling backward, Kent falls over a chair.
“OK, I get the picture,” he says. “It’s not magic. It’s super-advanced technology, able to bend the laws of physics. How does it work? And where did you get it? How did my son end up with one of these Stones? What’s he going to do with it? What if Ryzaard finds him?” That old feeling of panic comes back.
“I’ll take the second question first.” Little John twists his body into a comfortable position. His feet go up on a nearby box. “I was in college, back in the eighties—”
Kent’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wait just a minute. The 1980s? You’re kidding, right? That would make you over a hundred years old. You’re not exactly careful about what you eat and drink. How have you managed to live so long?”
Little John fixes his stare on Kent. “Can you let me finish without interrupting?”
“Sorry.” Kent bows his head and presses his palms together in front of his chest in a mock apology. “Please continue.”
“I was born in 1963, just a few months prior to the assassination of JFK. Yes, that means I’m much older than I look. The Stone keeps me healthy.” Little John looks down at the half-eaten sandwich in one hand and the Stone in the other. He takes another bite and talks with his mouth full. “After graduating from high school in 1981, I did two years of college at Brown. Started out studying physics, and then switched to philosophy. I didn’t fit in, so I dropped out and went to Africa. Pretty typical story, I suppose.”
“You found the Stone in Africa?” Kent says.
“Did I say that? Why don’t you just let me finish.” Little John puts the last of the sandwich in his mouth.
“By all means.” Kent says. “Please go on.”
“I’m trying to.” Little John chews a few more times and swallows. “So there I was in Africa. One day—”
“Where in Africa?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Of course it matters.”
“Can’t you just shut up and listen?” Little John drains the beer can and drops it to the ground. “I was in the Congo. Not a safe place back in the early eighties. Remember, I was only twenty years old. Thought I was indestructible.”
Kent nods and doesn’t say anything.
“I was working for the Red Cross in a village on the edge of the jungle. One day, some fighters showed up from out of nowhere and started shooting. They killed everyone they laid eyes on.”
“What did you do?”
Little John smiles like he’s told the story many times and loves telling it. “I did the only thing I could. I ran into the jungle and kept running. The soldiers chased me for a mile or so and then just gave up. I found out later that they don’t follow you into the jungle. Too dangerous. People that run into the jungle don’t come out.”
“So how long were you in there?”
“I had a small backpack with water and food. It was standard procedure with the Red Cross. So I kept walking deeper and deeper for a whole day. Then I camped. My plan was to hide out for a couple of days, until things settled down and the fighters moved on. Then I’d come out.” Little John pauses, as if giving Kent a chance to ask more questions.
But Kent stays silent.
“The next day, I woke up and had a look around. That’s when I figured out I was completely lost. No compass, no radio. Just a clueless kid from the city in a world where I didn’t belong. I wandered around for a week until my food and water ran out. The funny thing is, the Congo is full of food and water. Hundreds of tribes live and thrive there. But for a guy like me, it was like a desert. I would have died if it hadn’t been for the Luba.”
Kent squints his eyes. “The Luba? Never heard of them.”
“They’re from the Kasai region of the south Congo. They brought me back to their village and nursed me back to health. They probably would have eaten me if not for the old medicine man on his deathbed. The people practically worshiped him because of his powerful magic. He convinced them it would be bad luck to kill me. So they made me stay with him in his hut until he died.”
“OK . . . So, what happened?”
Little John shakes his head. “Don’t you get it?”
“Get what?”
“That’s where I got the Stone. From the old medicine man.”
“He gave it to you?”
“I didn’t say he gave it to me. He died in the night. I heard him stop breathing. One minute he was alive, and the next minute he just quit breathing, as if he was just letting go of life. I started looking around the hut, hoping to find something to take back with me. Some kind of souvenir.” Little John holds up the Stone. “That’s when I saw this. The old medicine man had it in his hand. I didn’t know what it was, but I took it and kept it close to me the rest of the night.”
“How did you get out?”
“That the interesting part. The next morning, a woman came to the hut and saw that the old medicine man was dead. It caused an uproar in the village. I guess they thought I killed him, even though he was already sick. It wasn’t long before a dozen men surrounded me with poison-tipped arrows notched in their bows.”
Kent’s pulse jumps. “But you had the Stone. You used it to get away, right? Just like you did with me a few minutes ago.”
“You have to remember something. I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was just a pretty rock, some kind of talisman.” Little John stares into the Stone. “I had no idea of the power it held.”
“But you must have figured out how to use it.” Kent leans back in his chair. “Just like my son, Matt.”
“I got scared and dropped to my knees, begging for my life. I was sure I was dead. From the looks in their eyes, they were wondering whether I’d taste like chicken or pork. Then the strangest thing happened.” Little John stands up and walks to the mini-fridge and pulls out another beer. He looks back at Kent. “Sure you don’t want one?”
“I’m sure.” Kent doesn’t breathe. “What happened?”
Little John finds his way back to his chair and sits down. “Where was I?”
“You dropped to your knees—”
“And when I looked up, they were all—”