by Jacob Whaler
“Warning. Requested commands nearing limits of human structural integrity.” The voice sounds like a school teacher delivering a lecture on the proper way to dissect a frog. “Excessive gravitational pull may result in organ damage.”
Too many Gs.
Matt can throw out a bubble for protection, but what about Jessica and the others? He opens his eyes and sees the protective envelope of blue energy hugging the ship. It gives him an idea. Reaching out to the flow of time, his mind grabs it and holds on, like jumping on a fast-moving bicycle.
Time stops, giving the air a golden tint. The transport hangs motionless and silent in the night sky.
“Yarah, unbuckle and come to the front.”
Moments later, she appears at his side. “Need some help?” Her Stone glows light pink in her hands.
“You guessed it,” Matt says. “I’m going to try something new. Follow me.” He closes his eyes.
Yarah’s lids drop down at the same time.
“Ever heard of gravity?” Matt says.
“What’s that?”
“It’s what makes you fall to the ground when you jump out of a tree.” Matt tries to make the explanation simple. “It pulls a small object toward a larger one. It’s what keeps our feet on the floor. It’s what tries to pull this ship down. We need to find it so we can change it.”
“Got it.” Yarah’s voice is matter-of-fact, completely unaware of the immense complexity of anything remotely related to quantum physics. Matt wants to keep it that way.
They need a common point of reference.
“Let’s start with you, Yarah. What’s holding you to the floor of the ship?”
Matt turns his attention to the metal under Yarah’s feet. Studying the infinite points of contact between the two, he searches for some wave, particle or field that can explain how gravity works, vaguely aware that this question had been discussed in one of his college physics classes. They never reached a conclusion.
But I have a Stone. I can stop time. I should be able to do this.
Yarah giggles as her feet float off the floor.
“How did you do that?” Matt says.
“It’s easy.” Her feet come back down. “I just changed the color of the cloud.”
“The cloud?”
“Yeah. Can’t you see it? It’s all over me and the floor, darkest right under my feet, but lighter farther away.”
Matt looks, but can’t see anything. “Can you do the same thing to the whole ship?”
“Sure.” Yarah says. “Like this?”
Suddenly, all the weight flows out of Matt’s body. He floats an inch above the seat.
“That works. Can you keep doing it as we fly?”
Yarah laughs. “Yeah. It’ll be fun.”
“OK, just don’t stop.” He opens his eyes and looks at Yarah to make sure she’s listening. “Our lives depend on it. Got it?”
“Got it.” Yarah’s smile disappears, and she clenches her jaw.
“Good. Let’s go.” Matt relaxes his grip on time as it slowly slips away. When it’s entirely gone, he goes back into his connection with the ship.
An explosion of light slams against the blue energy bubble engulfing the transport.
The ship’s voice floats through the cabin. “Attackers closing in.”
Matt can see them, converging from all directions, firing a string of missiles on their approach. White light engulfs the bubble. As he watches the trajectory of the attackers, their motion is slow and sluggish. Just before they come together, he pops the ship up out of the plane of attack, feeling light and easy in the weightlessness of space.
The four attackers twist like the strands of a rope as they pass through the point where the transport had been, their wings sliding past each other with only a few feet of clearance.
“Time to have some fun.” Matt shoots toward one of the attackers on a wild zigzag pattern.
The voice comes back. “Internal forces exceed survival thresholds.”
“Wrong,” Matt says. “We’re still alive.”
No reply.
“Show me best point of impact to disable attackers.”
A technical schematic of the enemy ships pops up in Matt’s mind with a red zone over the section of the cockpit holding the pilot.”
“No,” Matt says. “How do I disable attackers but leave human occupants alive?”
“Target navigation module.”
Another still of an attacker ship jumps in front of Matt, but this time a red dot floats over a dimple in the outside skin midway between the tail and the spot where the back of the wing merges into the body.
“Got it.”
As the four ships draw apart, two turn sharply upward. The other two drop in the opposite direction. All of them ride on short arcs that bring them back into the plane of attack.
“Attackers initiating Lightning Blade sequence.”
Matt picks one of the ships and flies directly at it, adjusting his line to match its trajectory, like a game of chicken. With less than two hundred meters between them, Matt slows time and watches the ship fire off a projectile and swerve to the right. As it pulls away, its side is fully exposed to Matt.
A pulse of green energy shoots out from the bubble. Matt guides it with his mind, scoring a direct hit on the dimple. Sparks explode in the dark air. The attack vessel spirals into blackness.
Two pilots eject.
“Attacker disabled,” the voice says.
The next two are dispatched in the same way. Matt takes his time with the final one, perfecting his technique.
To his left, Alexa wakes up just as the last ship is downed.
“Impressive,” she says. “You can return full control to me.”
Matt lets go of the computer interface. They shoot north over the mountains.
“Now, we need to talk.” Alexa engages the ship’s autopilot so it circles high in an unused piece of airspace above the Canadian arctic. “Follow me.” She gets up from her chair and walks to the back. “That was the easy part.”
CHAPTER 112
“They got away.” Jerek takes a step closer to Ryzaard’s desk. “All the attack vessels were destroyed. Neat and quick.”
“What about the fighter crews?” Ryzaard leans back in his chair and lifts two fingers up to his mouth. The black Djarum goes between his lips, and he inhales a lungful of blue smoke. It pours out as he talks. “Any word from them before they went down?”
“Sure. They’ve all been thoroughly debriefed.”
“What?” Ryzaard looks confused.
Jerek’s eyes are glued to his jax. “All survived. The attack ships were surgically disabled with precise hits to their navigation systems.” He looks up, raising an eyebrow. “That is the only spot on the fighters where a direct hit won’t result in complete destruction of the vessels. The crews were all able to safely eject.” His eyes flicker from left to right. “They all say the same thing. The transport had a protective skin of blue energy, impossible to penetrate, even with laser impact cannons.”
Ryzaard nods, unsurprised.
“There’s more.” Jerek looks up. “They say the transport executed impossible maneuvers, jumping, shifting, jerking. The Gs alone should’ve killed everyone aboard.”
“It makes perfect sense. He’s using the Stone.” Ryzaard blows out another line of smoke that fades into blue haze on the ceiling. “Alexa will have told him everything by now. You know what’s going to happen next?”
“What?”
Ryzaard taps out a stream of ashes onto the desk. “He’s coming here to stop our operation.” His eyes drift up to Jerek as he leans back into the chair. “Tell me that’s impossible.”
“It’s impossible.” Jerek spreads his legs apart and relaxes. “Once we hit the go button, the entire sequence of detonations, ghost responses and messages is all preset, automatic. No room for human error. That’s what we’ve been working on for the last few hours. Kalani has everything coded into a self-executing algorithm and
ready to go. When we pull the trigger, there’s no turning back.”
“Even if this entire structure is destroyed?” Ryzaard motions toward the building with his arms.
Jerek nods. “Won’t make a difference. We’ve built in too many redundancies. The physical location of the algorithm is spread out in thousands of hotspots across the Mesh. If one part gets destroyed, multiple copies will replicate and auto-execute. There’s nothing he, or anyone else can do.”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” Ryzaard stands up from his chair and takes another pull on the cigarette. “But just to be safe, let’s move the start time up. When will you be ready to pull the trigger and walk away?”
“In about three hours.”
“Then let’s start in one.”
“One hour?” Jerek’s eyes drop back to his jax. “We thought we had eight. We’re still working on some final logistics. Minimizing damage to MX Global personnel and assets in the target cities. We can’t cut it to zero, but we can shift things and save the company several hundred billion IMUs, not to mention twenty or thirty thousand lives. The extra seven hours would help.”
Ryzaard shakes his head. “Don’t bother. Everything is replaceable.”
CHAPTER 113
Save the people.
Studying the holo above the jax in Alexa’s palm, staring into Ryzaard’s face, Matt’s pulse quickens and his fingers slowly curl into a fist.
Twenty million lives.
“What happened to him? How did he get younger?”
“He wouldn’t tell us the details, but he had an accident.” Alexa moves a string of hair out of her eyes. “Got severe burns over most of his body. Disappeared for a couple of days and came back looking like a thirty-year-old. I don’t know where he went. I’ve never seen any upgrades like it.”
“I thought he was trying to bring back Paradise. Any idea why he wants to destroy the world now?”
Alexa shrugs her shoulders. “He doesn’t want to destroy it, just cause major damage. It has something to do with Shinto. When the destruction reaches a climax, and it looks like the human race will go down in flames, it’s all going to magically stop. The credit will go to Shinto. There’s going to be a monumental speech delivered to the world by Mr. Miyazawa, a Shinto priest, Naganuma’s successor. Ryzaard wrote it himself. He thinks it’s going to be a turning point in the history of the human race. Shinto will become an instant world religion, not just in Asia, but everywhere. Every town will want a shrine.”
“Strange,” Matt says. “Any idea why?”
“Can’t say, but it’s clearly a key element of his plan for a new world order.”
Jessica slips her hand into Matt’s. “The first detonation is in less than seven hours.”
The holo image drops back into Alexa’s jax. “That’s right.”
Is she telling the truth?
Looking at Yarah, Matt lets the thought float through his mind.
“Yep.” The voice of Yarah echoes inside Matt’s mind. “And she’s scared. She’s looking for help.”
Matt turns to Alexa. “How can I stop him? Tell me everything you know.”
“I don’t know much.” Alexa turns her back to the group and walks to the window to stare out into the black night. “Ryzaard surrounds himself with incredibly smart people, the ones you saw on the holo. He leaves the technical details up to them. All I know is that they’re using the Mesh to access encrypted government files across the world. I’ve seen them working on it in the lab. That’s the heart of the operation. Where everything happens.
Matt turns to Jessica, opening his mouth to speak.
“Don’t say it.” She tightens her grip on his hand. “No plan, right? Just winging it. I’m coming with you. No arguments.”
“But Jess—”
“No, Matt.” Jessica grabs a pulse rifle off a nearby chair. Her eyes are steely cold as the rifle goes up on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”
Matt faces Alexa. “I’ve only been in one room in the MX Global building. Some kind of medical facility.”
“Next to Ryzaard’s office?”
“Right. Where’s the lab from there?”
Alexa takes out her jax and plays its side with her fingertips. “Thirty meters to the west will put you in the central conference room inside a glass bubble. There’s a round table, the one you saw in the holo. The lab surrounds it.”
Matt nods and looks at Yarah. “You stay here. Stay in my mind. I’ll call you if I need you.” He hands the cloaking box to her. “If anything happens to me, drop your Stone in this and stay hidden.”
A green bubble envelops the two of them. With his right hand, he grips the Stone.
Clicking off the safety with her left hand, Jessica holds the rifle with the barrel pointing down. They join hands between them. She looks at Matt and nods.
“Ready when you are.”
There’s a flash of white, and they’re gone.
CHAPTER 114
Darkness surrounds the green bubble.
“Welcome,” says a voice from behind. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Swinging around, Matt shoots out a bolt of blue energy in the direction of the familiar voice. It penetrates a section of the glass wall and slams into a bank of electronic equipment. A shower of sparks and flames lights up the room.
Matt realizes he and Jessica are standing on the center of a large round table.
Five meters away, Ryzaard laughs, completely exposed with no energy field protecting him. Smiling gently, he opens his palms, as if to emphasize the fact that he’s unarmed. Seven gleaming Stones hang on a necklace floating an inch off his chest.
Holding his Stone out in front, Matt bends forward. A long bar of clear energy explodes toward Ryzaard, but he makes no attempt to protect himself. It strikes his open palms with no effect other than a ripple running through his body.
“I know why you’ve come.” Ryzaard takes a step forward. Purple plasma flows from the fingers of his open palms to a spot in the middle of his hands. “You’re too late.” As he holds them up, thousands of tiny pulses burst out and smash against the energy field clinging to Jessica and Matt.
The thin skin of the bubble bends in like a dimple, but holds against the attack. Matt senses the energy burst from Ryzaard’s hands and adjusts his own defenses. The bubble begins to shimmer with a full spectrum of shifting colors. Standing back to back with Jessica, he grasps one of her hands as they slowly sweep the room with their gaze. An electronics lab occupies the other side of the surrounding glass, complete with endless bluescreens, stacks of clear crystal logic columns and random slates lying on asymmetric desks. A myriad of piercing lights tell them the equipment is live.
Ryzaard motions outward with his hand. “What do you think?”
The glass screen lights up with live video of well-known landmarks. The Taj Mahal, Red Square in Moscow, Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Collosseum in Rome. People walk on the streets, smiling, laughing, holding hands, living their lives.
“The world will soon know the meaning of power, as will you.” Ryzaard brings his hands together.
Matt squeezes Jessica’s fingers. “All of it,” he says.
She raises the pulse rifle and pumps out shot after shot, shattering the glass screen and engulfing the lab beyond in fire in a slow, rotating turn, as Matt keeps a careful eye on Ryzaard. Throughout, Ryzaard stands erect, a kind smile on his face, making no effort to stop the destruction.
After five minutes, a fire rages.
“Tell me when you are finished,” Ryzaard says.
Matt whispers to Jessica. “My turn.”
Holding his Stone on his open palm, a low-frequency hum erupts from it, expanding out in a visible ripple that surges through the floor and walls. Jessica puts her hands on her ears. It passes harmlessly through Ryzaard, picking up all the broken glass in its path. The electronics equipment of the lab, already reduced to burning heaps by Jessica’s pulse projectiles, disintegrates into tiny black fragments. The
walls of the building bend outward and rupture with the sonic pressure, finally bursting open.
Everything in the room is blown out into the dark summer Manhattan air, leaving behind nothing on the entire floor but bare steel beams, the elevator shaft, the ceiling, Ryzaard and the table Matt and Jessica are standing on. The rest, including Ryzaard’s office and the adjoining room, is swept clean.
“Now what?” Ryzaard says. “You’ve destroyed all the labs and equipment. The floor has been emptied. You can take out the entire building, for all I care. You must realize that your efforts are useless, meaningless, pathetic. Exactly what I expected from you. But a good way to use up the few minutes of time that remain before the Event.”
Trying hard to relax his fingers, Matt finds his hands curling into fists against his will. He tries to find the peace that will allow him to think rationally. He tries to find the love that has sustained him in battle before. But it all fades into the blackness of the night sky visible through the open walls.
He fights back the growing rage, eyelids dropping down.
“I sense your frustration.” Ryzaard drops into a lotus position. “And your fear. Perhaps you sense the opposite in me, and you must know why. I have embraced power. You have embraced weakness. It’s that simple, my friend. Tonight, you will know the difference, once and for all.”
When Matt opens his eyes, he is already hurling forward in a blind fury to meet Ryzaard.
“No!” Jessica says.
Purple sparks flash between them as Matt lowers his head and barrels into Ryzaard with outstretched arms. The smile drops from Ryzaard’s face, and Matt rolls him backward until they are standing near the missing outer wall, 175 stories above street level.
A cool breeze blows through the open floor.
Ryzaard reaches out to grab Matt, piercing the blue bubble with his bare hands. Matt jumps back and, in one fluid motion, cuts a large steel beam above Ryzaard’s head with a swipe of his Stone. It comes down hard on Ryzaard’s leg, baring the flesh to the bone.
As Matt stares, the muscle of Ryzaard’s leg comes together. The wound self-seals.