by Jacob Whaler
CHAPTER 29
“Back so soon?” Jhata still stands at the balcony railing, looking out on the ocean below. “You’ve only been gone for ten minutes.”
Ryzaard walks out of the interior of the cathedral-like building into the open. “I brought you a gift, something that might interest you.”
“Another implant prototype?”
Ryzaard shakes his head. “Different altogether. Come take a look.”
Following him off the balcony, Jhata walks back into the interior of the cathedral.
Ryzaard stares down at Jessica, lying on the floor, encased in an oblong field of light. “He’s a very careless young man. Seems to have lost her again.”
Jessica’s eyes flick open. As she tries to sit up, her skin brushes against the light. She grimaces with pain and pulls back.
“Best to lie still.” Ryzaard kneels down beside Jessica. “That energy field has a particular affinity for your central nervous system. Do that a few more times, and I’m afraid you’ll find that it will get fried.”
Jhata stands alongside Ryzaard and looks down. “I’m impressed. How were you able to score this?”
“The boy is careless. When I popped in on him, all his attention was focused elsewhere. He didn’t even notice that she was gone.” Ryzaard takes a step back and motions down with his hand. “I’ll leave her in your capable hands. I’m sure you can make good use of her.”
“Indeed,” Jhata says. “But let’s not spoil her like this.” She opens her palm to Jessica. The envelope of light vanishes.
Jessica stands, visibly confused. Her eyes dart from Ryzaard to Jhata and sweep the inside of the cathedral, past the jade pillars and immense stained-glass windows, coming to stop on the wooden door at the far end. Still open.
“Go ahead,” Jhata says. “Run, if you’d like. There’s nowhere to hide. This is my world. I can find you whenever I want.”
Without a word, Jessica backs up a few paces, and then turns and runs for the door.
Ryzaard raises his hand, and a thin bolt of blue light jumps out of his palm, racing toward Jessica’s back. Jhata shakes her head, and the bolt dissipates into sparks and fizzle before making contact.
“She’s not going anywhere.” Jhata turns back in the opposite direction. “Follow me. We need to talk.” Her lithe figure moves back out onto the balcony toward the railing, looking down at the ocean below.
Following Jessica with his eyes until she disappears through the wooden doors, Ryzaard walks behind the kimono-clad Jhata out the other door.
“I’ve thought about your implant proposal.” Jhata’s fingers go down onto the railing. “I find it interesting.”
“Then you will accept?”
“Leave me the Lethonen implant. I’ll take a careful look at it and see what I can do. I assume you’re looking for something that can be controlled by your Stones?”
Ryzaard nods and walks to Jhata’s side. “Correct. I will want to access it through my Stones.” He drops the clear ball with the three green jewel pieces onto the table. “I’ll also need it to interface with our Mesh network on Earth.” He holds out a cylindrical jax inlaid with glass and steel. “This is the typical device we use for that purpose. A careful examination of it should give you everything you need.”
She picks it up, bringing it close to her eyes. “Primitive, to say the least.”
“I’ll come back in a few days to see how you are progressing.” Ryzaard turns away from the railing.
“I have no need for a babysitter or a boss. I’ll contact you if and when I’m ready.”
“I’m in a bit of a hurry for the implant.” Ryzaard turns his back to her and begins to walk to the cathedral opening. “Timing is important.”
Anger rises in Jhata’s eyes. She does nothing to tamp it down. Instead, she allows her hand to reach for a Stone. It takes less than a second for her to slip inside Ryzaard’s mind.
She stands in the center of an open plain divided into a precise grid system of interlocking squares. Ryzaard’s mind is well organized, a model of efficiency. No wasted space, no structures in his memory resulting from pure art or pleasure. The architecture of his mind has one purpose. Getting work done. All of it is neat, clean, quick.
His only downfall, if it can be called that, is his one-minded determination. He wants the implants, and he’s pushing her to provide them on his timeframe.
Jhata can’t recall the last time someone tried to give her an order. Since the finding of her first Stone, all who did found their lifespan tragically cut short. She isn’t going to kill Ryzaard, but she wants the assurance that she can when the time is right.
Whether Ryzaard knows it or not, that time will surely come. He’s a fool to trust her.
At the time she rebuilt his body, she installed a kill switch. She searches for it now. Seeing it one more time will be a comfort as she moves ahead with the plan to take him as a very temporary partner.
It doesn’t take long to find it.
On the far edge of the plain, a mountain range of memory bursts out of the orderly landscape. Flying low over the ground, she ascends the steep slope to the summit. There, at the highest point, is a crimson torii gate rising against the sky.
All Jhata has to do is pass through it. That simple movement is enough to trigger the kill switch, causing Ryzaard’s life to instantly end.
She stands a few feet from the base of the torii gate and gazes up at the two cross beams. It’s ironic. Having scanned his mind, she knows of his plans to blanket his home planet with the Shinto gates. He might be surprised to find that one had been erected inside the structure of his own mind. All she, or anyone, has to do is take one step through it, and Ryzaard will drop dead.
The idea intrigues her.
But not today.
Quickly ascending to the surface, her eyelids lift. During the entire time she spent in his mind, Ryzaard has walked two steps closer to the door.
“What about the girl?” Ryzaard pauses. “Shall I take her back?”
The sound of his voice grates on her nerves, but Jhata manages a smile. “You made a present of her to me, and I intend to keep her. She may prove useful when it comes time to deal with the boy.” Her eyes flash back in the direction of the cathedral. “I’ll keep an eye on her. Let her run. She can’t get off this world alone. I can find her whenever I want.”
“Please let me know if you need—”
“I have need of nothing more from you. For your own good, I suggest you leave now. I’ve had enough of you for one day.”
Ryzaard nods and vanishes.
CHAPTER 30
Matt stares at the empty spot on the bed where Jessica rested only moments ago.
Not again.
With the Stone in his hand and his heart beating wildly, he opens his mind and concentrates on feeling any residual currents of movement in the room.
It must have been Ryzaard. It feels like Ryzaard.
As he kneels at the bedside with his eyes closed, a small disturbance washes over him, like ripples in the darkness from a passing boat in the ocean. In desperation, he reaches out to hold it in his mind, to analyze the direction and pull.
For an instant, he has it, but the signal is too faint.
It slips through his fingers and fades until nothing is left but a vivid sense of his own emptiness.
He had been careful to never leave Jessica, to stay as close as he could. She had been kidnapped while only a few inches away. Why had he not sensed the danger?
How is it possible?
It must be the seven Stones that allow Ryzaard to move around almost without detection.
His first thought is to grab Yarah and jump to Ryzaard’s lab. Together, they can destroy it and everything and everyone in sight. He see’s jagged shards of energy jumping out of his Stone. Anger and rage take hold of his mind. If Ryzaard has hurt Jessica in any way, Matt will make him pay. He feels Ryzaard’s neck firmly grasped in his hands as he wrings the life out of the old man.
“I’ve got it.” Yarah’s voice echoes faintly in his mind. “All the strands of light are wrapped up. Nothing is loose.”
Her words bring Matt back into the world of his mind. He remembers that he was teaching her how to bind the strands of light to her Stone so it will escape detection by Ryzaard.
Taking a deep breath, Matt calms himself. “Good job, Yarah. Can you come out now? We have to hurry.”
“Be right there.”
When she comes out of his mind, Yarah’s eyes scan the room. “Where’s Jessica?”
Matt drops his gaze to the floor and shakes his head. “Gone. Ryzaard’s been here, while we were working on the Stones. He’s taken her away.”
Yarah leaps at Matt, hugging him tightly. “We have to find her!” Tears from her shuddering body drop like a warm ocean mist onto his neck. “Ryzaard might be hurting her. Let’s go, now!”
“We will.” Matt looks into her eyes. “But first we have to be ready. We’ll go after her tonight. Are you sure you can wrap the light threads tightly around your Stone?”
Yarah nods her head vigorously. “Not a stray strand. As tight as can be.”
“Good.” Matt turns and picks the cloaking box off the foot of the bed. “Then we can finally use this for something else.”
“What do you mean?”
Fear rises in Matt’s chest, replacing the anger.
With effort, he pushes the terror and panic at losing Jessica to the back of his mind. Like so many times before, Ryzaard has taken her to force Matt to come. If he ever wants to see her again alive, he must concentrate now on the plan that’s been knocking around inside him for weeks.
Sitting down on the floor, he motions for Yarah to move across from him. “I’ve been studying this box for the last few months, trying to figure out how it works. So far, I haven’t made much progress.” He holds it up in his palm. “All I know is, if we’re going to go after Ryzaard and find Jessica, we need to know how to use this.” He slides the lid open with his thumb and places it on the floor between them.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Yarah drops her gaze to the stone box and then looks up at Matt. “It’s just a stone box.”
“I had a dream, and in that dream, we were facing Ryzaard using this.” Matt’s fingers brush against the box. “We have to figure out how it works before we go after him. There isn’t much time. Will you help me?”
Yarah nods. “What can I do?”
“You and I have an advantage over Ryzaard and the others.” Matt puts his hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “We have each other. Maybe, if we work together, we can figure out how to turn this into a weapon. Ready?”
“Ready.”
“OK. First, close your eyes and find your Stone. Then look for me. I’ll do the same.”
Matt lets his own gaze drop down and is immediately engulfed in the darkness of his mind. A thin film of light clings to his body as tight as a second skin. Some distance away, a single point appears and grows larger as he looks at it. Whether he is moving to it, or it is moving to him, he can’t tell. As it approaches, he recognizes the shape of the Stone. It floats into his fingers when he stretches out his hand.
At the instant of contact, a universe of stars suddenly jumps into view around him.
He turns, looking for Yarah.
A woman floats in the darkness a few meters away. “Now what?” she says.
“Is that you, Yarah?”
A look of surprise appears on the woman’s angelic face. “What do you mean?”
Matt shakes his head. “You look so—”
“Old?”
“Grown up.” Matt casts his glance in a circle. “Look for the box.”
Yarah stares into the blackness in front and behind her. “I don’t see it.”
As Matt turns, his fingers brush against the point of a hard object. He stops and peers down closer by his hand.
There it is. A transparent box, visible only at the edges and corners, floating in the space between them, right where it would have been back in the real world where they are still sitting on the floor of the hotel room facing each other. He moves his palm under it and brings it up to eye level. Made of glass or crystal, stars are visible through its side and open lid.
“Here we go,” he says. “Can you see it?”
Yarah’s eyes squint. “Barely.”
They both stare at it, looking for anything unusual that catches their attention. Running his fingers along the outside, he watches for any change or shift that might hint at how it works. But there’s no reaction.
“What if we put a Stone in it?” Yarah says.
Matt nods. “Worth a try.” With his white Stone suspended between thumb and index finger, he inserts it, point down, into the opening. What he sees doesn’t surprise him. The Stone vanishes. All of it. He can still feel it with his finger, but there’s no visual signature. When he pulls it out, it glows white just like before.
“Let me try.” Yarah holds up her Stone and slides its tip inside the box with the same result.
“We already know the cloaking box can turn off a Stone. No surprise there.” Matt breathes deeply, thinking out loud. “But there has to be more to it than that.”
As he stares down at the clear box, an idea comes to him. “I wonder what it does to the filaments of light. Let me see if I can find out.” He hands the box to Yarah, holds his Stone in both hands and concentrates on its white surface. In a few seconds, delicate hairs of neon white grow out of its surface, tightly wrapped in a shell around it. “I can see the threads of light, just like before.”
Yarah’s voice comes from all directions. “See what happens when you put it in the box.”
“Right,” Matt says. “Here goes.” He lowers the Stone and its bright halo of infinite threads into the opening with an immediate reaction. “Interesting.”
Yarah’s voice booms. “What’s going on?”
“When I put the Stone into the box, it draws off all strands of light, unwinds them and sucks them away from the Stone’s surface, making it black.” He pulls the Stone out. “That must be how it works. The box drains the power and turns the Stone off. My guess is that Ryzaard knows this much. Remember that stainless steel cube he had in his lab?”
“The one that made our Stones stop working?”
“Right,” Matt says. “Ryzaard figured out how to make the cube work like the inside of this box. When he turns it on, it sucks away the filaments of light coming off any Stone close to it.” He drops his gaze down to the little box. “Let me have another look.”
Concentrating on his Stone again until he sees the tightly wound tendrils of energy, Matt watches carefully as he brings the Stone close to the open box. Until the tip of the Stone breaks the plane of the box, there’s no reaction. But as soon as any part of the Stone touches the plane, the lines of energy over the entire Stone are instantly pulled into the box where they disappear.
Matt repositions the Stone and touches it to the outside surface of the box. There is a slight jump in the lines of energy. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the sides, top or bottom. The result is the same. A slight flutter, and then nothing. Another thought jumps into Matt’s mind.
What about the lid?
Matt closes it and tries the experiment again, touching the Stone to the sides. This time nothing happens. The lines don’t change, not even a flutter. Just to make sure he isn’t seeing things that aren’t there, Matt tries it again, with the lid open and then with it shut.
It’s clear. No changes happen to the Stone with the box lid shut. It acts like a switch. Open the lid, and the box is on. Shut the lid, and the box goes off.
Good to know.
Slowly learning how the box works, through trial and error, Matt tries to think of something else they can try. “Hey, Yarah. Let’s touch the outside of the box with our Stones at the same time.”
“OK.” Yarah’s hand falls away from the box, leaving it floating
in the darkness between them.
“Make it so you can see the threads of light,” Matt says.
Yarah concentrates for several seconds. “Got it. I can see them, wrapped around my Stone.”
“Good.” Matt opens the lid of the box. “Now bring the tip of your Stone up to the side and touch it at the same time I do.”
Following Matt’s instructions, they both tap the sides of the box at the same time.
The reaction is stunning. Threads of energy tremble and jump, become intertwined with each other, but still keep within a tight circle around the box.
“Wow, there’s a difference when the Stones are used together.” Yarah’s eyes light up.
Matt nods. “That may be the only advantage we have over Ryzaard.” He looks down at the Stones. “But I’m not sure what this does for us.”
It gives him another idea.
“Remember when you came into my mind and took it over so you could learn to move the strands of light on my Stone?”
“Yeah.” Yarah, still in the form of a grown woman, floats next to him with an apologetic look on her face. “It was hard for you. I remember you said something about total assimilation.”
“I wouldn’t trust anyone else to do this to me,” Matt says. “Let’s try it again. Once you’re inside my mind, go as deep as necessary to get control of my Stone. Take yours with you. That way, you’ll be in control of both Stones, one of them directly, and one of them through me.” He swallows in anticipation of the claustrophobic feeling of utter helplessness. “Then you touch both Stones to the outside of the box. See what happens.”
“What do you think will happen?”
Matt shakes his head. “I’m not sure. Maybe nothing.” His eyes open wider with a look of subtle fear. “Just don’t take long to do it.”
Yarah nods. “Let me know when you are ready.”
Matt closes his eyes and plunges back into darkness. “Go for it.” It occurs to him that he is about to leave one alternate reality and plunge into a second alternate reality below that. A deep breath comes into his lungs. He steels his spine for what comes next.
It doesn’t take long.
An amorphous organic sphere with a pink glow drops down from above and hovers over him.
