by Jacob Whaler
Got to get out.
Ryzaard will be waiting for her and Matt as soon as he figures out they are in his mind. She’ll have to be ready to face him as soon as she jumps out and back to the planetary network. Looking up, Yarah takes in a deep breath, closes her eyes and moves into the jump.
A dry, scaly creature brushes past her ankle. She makes the mistake of looking down to stare at a delicate snake-like tendril that breaks through a crack in the rocky surface and carefully sniffs at her leg. Bending down to study it, she touches it with a trembling finger. It stiffens as if pointing at her. A crystal-shattering chord of music bursts from below ground. The next instant, the tentacle shoots out and wraps around her ankle.
The entire surface cracks and crumbles away to expose a giant squid-like creature with a huge black eye and hundreds of worm-like arms.
As she falls toward it, the tentacle closes tightly around her leg, and she dangles upside down in the air. A beak-like mouth opens up a few meters below her head.
With a single stroke of the Stone, Yarah cuts through the tentacle. The beast screams, shuts the great eye and sucks all its arms into a tight ball. She bounces off its side and hits the ground. The next instant, she scrambles up the sides of the hole and runs away as fast as she can sprint.
The creature crawls out onto the valley floor and darts after her, moving on a blur of tiny arms. It quickly catches up, stretches out two rubbery appendages, and wraps them around her legs just below the knees. She trips and falls as the creature hovers over her with open jaws.
As the great beak slams down, she rolls to the side. The mouth hits the dirt with a scream. Dozens of the arms tighten their grip on her small body, holding her in place like a spider might hold a fly. The jaws rise again and hover over her as the great eye stares into her face.
Concentrating on the two Stones in her hands, she manages to raise a blade of light from the tip of each one. With a flick of her wrists, the blade severs the arms wrapped around her. The creature rears back and emits a high-pitched hiss from its mouth. Yarah jumps to her feet, lunges and drives the blades through the great eye.
The squid slumps to the ground and dissolves into a pool of viscous black liquid that seeps through cracks and disappears.
Above her head, the rushing of air catches her attention. As she ducks, steel talons sink into the flesh of her back, lifting her into the air.
Through the pain, she looks up and sees a creature that resembles a bat. Beating its leathery veined wings, it skims above the valley floor toward the high range of rocky crags. When it gets close to the base of the mountains, it pulls up, following the line of the slope until it reaches the top. Then it follows the ridgeline as it makes its way to an unknown destination.
Yarah is too weak to move her arms. The pain has turned into a dull ache spreading out from her shoulders until her upper body is numb. Far below, she sees a peculiar shape that catches her eye.
A single red torii gate, the only manmade object in sight, sits atop the mountain ridge. The image of Miyazawa’s Shinto shrine in the mountains comes into her mind. She recalls his words.
Pass through the gate to the pure land beyond.
The creature drops down into a mass of slender branches and leaves. As it extracts its talons from her back, the pain overcomes her mind, and blackness covers her eyes.
She jolts awake to the sound of flapping wings.
Jumping to her feet, a black shadow begins to drop down just above her head. Without taking the time to look up, she dives over the edge of the nest and flexes her hands and feet to land.
But nothing is below her.
Just out of reach, the vertical rock face of a sheer cliff shoots by as she falls to the valley floor a thousand meters below. Above her, wings beat the air as the creature closes in.
She relaxes, feels the Stone in each hand, looks up and imagines herself leaving Ryzaard’s mind. The cliff and the bat blur together.
And then she is shooting through the maze of pathways in the core of the planetary network. Searching her mind like a map, she finds the point where she and Matt entered the maze. With the ease of a single thought, she relaxes, and jumps straight to it, letting go of Matt’s Stone.
She opens her eyes.
Ryzaard is standing over her.
“Welcome back,” he says.
CHAPTER 132
When a crack of light breaks through the darkness, Matt awakes as if from death with no idea how much time has passed. Multicolored tubes and filaments run along the surface of a sphere just below his feet. For an instant, he thinks he’s back home at an amusement park.
And then he remembers the planetary core. The point where he and Yarah entered the network of filaments and tendrils.
Ryzaard’s voice rains down on him. “You always get someone else to do your dirty work.”
“Where’s Yar—”
Jolts of yellow plasma tear at the thin blue membrane around Matt and send him spinning backwards. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the little girl lying beside him with the same blue light enveloping her. Burn spots pepper her skin where Ryzaard’s darts of fire have penetrated the protective shield. Relying on pure instinct, Matt bends forward, points his fists at the old man and blasts out lines of white energy, sending Ryzaard careening into the core.
Matt cradles Yarah’s burnt body in his arms. “You did good, Yarah. You got us out of there. I know it wasn’t easy.”
She stares up with half-open eyes. “He got here before I could do anything.”
Stones blazing on his chest, Ryzaard lunges back at them.
Casting a thick protective film of blue around the two of them, Matt jumps in front of Yarah and shields her with his own body. As the blast from Ryzaard pushes them back, Matt’s hand brushes against a colored tube protruding from the core of the planet. In an instant, the network’s blueprint flashes through his mind like an afterimage, and he is reminded of what Yarah said earlier about another point in the network, a point above all other points, from which Ryzaard controls it all.
He searches the image in his mind, holding off further attacks from the old man.
“It’s here.” Yarah lifts her hand and presses it against Matt’s temple.
The point stands out clearly in his mind.
“Let’s go.” His fingers wrap around Yarah’s wrist.
The air flashes white, and they float in darkness above the planet. A few feet away, a glossy globe hangs at the end of a long cable dropping down to the planet’s surface. Matt takes in the view of the planet, its surface covered with billions of floating shark heads on the end of rat tails, clamping down on billions of bodies.
Stretching out his hand, he touches the sphere.
And immediately understands.
Twenty billion minds surge through his consciousness. Twenty billion hearts beat. Twenty billion lives hang by a thread. He is one with them all.
The power to control or terminate them surges up through his palm.
“Feels good, doesn’t it.” Ryzaard flashes into place beside him. “The power is intoxicating, yet it clears the mind at the same time. And this is just one planet. There are billions more in this universe, and an infinite number of universes opening to still more without number. All this could have been yours. Can still be yours. If only . . .”
Matt stares at the sphere. “If only what?” His palm slides across the glassy surface.
“If you submit to me.” Ryzaard bends forward and whispers in Matt’s ear. “Believe in me. Join me. Don’t make me kill you.”
Twenty billion hearts beat. Matt can stop them with a mere thought. Twenty billion hopes and dreams. He can bend them all to his will. All of it is possible as long as he keeps his hand on the glass sphere.
Looking out beyond the shiny sphere, Matt sees the sea of bodies floating head down, each one a symbol of a mind enslaved. “MX Global killed my mother. You killed my father. Millions of others. And then Jessica.” Matt pushes away thoughts of hopelessn
ess that threaten to overwhelm.
“All of that is true,” Ryzaard says. “But it’s meaningless compared with the power we can wield, the power for good we can exercise. The wrongs we can right. The protection we can provide. I know you feel it now. Don’t throw it all away.”
With an act of will, Matt’s hand lifts off the glass. All of the minds fall away, out of his grasp.
He floats back from the old man, making sure Yarah is behind him. “I refuse.”
Ryzaard moves forward and slaps his palm down on the sphere. “These are the last words I will ever speak to you. The last words anyone will speak to you, living or dead. I have been more than patient, more than willing to share all that I have achieved. You have done nothing but cause me grief. Your selfishness astounds me.” His other hand comes down on the sphere. “I can take my Stones, my implants, this entire network and use it on other worlds. I can replicate it over and over through this universe and all the others. The twenty billion human lives on Earth mean nothing to me. If you refuse my offer again, I will wipe them out. Stop their hearts with a single thought. You felt the power. You know I can do it. You know I will do it. The choice is yours.”
“Why?” Matt shakes his head with glistening eyes.
“Because I can.” Ryzaard looks down and smiles. “Now try to stop me. Either that or join me. Submit to me. For all eternity. There is no other way.” He takes his hands off the sphere and opens his arms wide.
Yarah, Matt thinks. I have to do this. Forgive me if I fail.
With the Stone in his right hand, Matt stares into Ryzaard’s eyes, and then looks down at the sphere. He moves closer, his palm floating inches over its surface.
Ryzaard nods and smiles.
Taking a long inhale, Matt twists and brings the tip of his Stone down on the sphere’s hard surface with both hands.
In the microsecond before impact, a thin buzz of energy envelopes the sphere. The tip never touches its surface. Instead, an explosive, repelling force throws his hands back.
Matt tries again as Ryzaard waits with arms folded over the Stones on his chest.
The sphere remains unscathed, untouched.
Help me, Yarah.
Opening to her, he closes his eyes and finds her in the dark sub-world behind his lids. She nods and opens her palms. As he moves forward to take her Stone, a transparent wall slams down between the two of them. He presses against it and runs his fingers along its surface, like smooth cold glass.
They both hear a voice behind him.
“No cheating this time.” Ryzaard appears in the darkness. “You’re on your own.” He pulls a Stone from his chest and points it at Yarah.
She has just enough time to throw up a protective bubble before a thick beam of blue plasma pushes her off into the distance. All Matt can see is the vague dot of her spinning away.
He opens his eyes and faces Ryzaard with the sphere between them.
Anger boils in his gut, spreading out, threatening to take over. With effort and careful breathing, he pushes it back and focuses on his white Stone.
“Use it,” Ryzaard says.
Matt digs down for the power. Then he lunges and wraps his hands around the thick neck. His arms and fingers glow white as he tries to strangle the life out of Ryzaard.
The old man stands with his hands at his side, the faint smile never leaving his face. “Is this all you have to offer?” He calmly grabs Matt’s wrists and pulls them off his neck, pushing him away to the other side of the sphere. “You leave me with no choice.” He drops his palms onto the sphere beneath the white Stones on his chest. “It’s over, my friend. All of them are going to die. Because of you. I’ll start over somewhere else.”
“No.” Matt puts his own hands on the glass sphere. In an instant, he feels the blood surging through billions of hearts. A cascade of color and sensation pours over him as sees out of their eyes and takes in the villages and cities where they live, the faces of the ones they love, the moon and stars under which they sleep. Memories without number flood his mind, an endless string of images, tastes and smells. Cool dew under the toes of a child running down a hill of grass in New Zealand. The first grapes of the fall crop eaten by an old man in southern France. An Inuit mother on the northern coast of Baffin Island staring at a sunset and holding her infant close to her bare skin under the heavy fur of a polar bear parka. A young couple in love driving a coastal highway in a bright red convertible. A mother and father in China weeping over the body of their son killed in a mountain slide. An old woman in a tiny house in Albania staring into the eyes of her husband of seventy years as he takes his last breath.
It flows through his mind, a torrent of hopes and dreams, sorrow and suffering. In the short space of a nanosecond, he lives billions of lives, becomes one with them.
You’ve seen them. Good. Now watch as all of it is wiped away.
Matt shakes his head. “No.” His mind enters the glass sphere and shoots into the network. “You will not touch them.”
You think you can save them?
Giving no answer, Matt’s mind hangs inside the network, waiting for the surge of death to flow out from Ryzaard.
CHAPTER 133
Drifting in the dark, Yarah manages to stop spinning. The violent battles inside and outside Ryzaard’s mind have left her drained of energy and emotion. Two hundred meters away, she makes out Matt and Ryzaard floating on opposite sides of the glossy sphere, both of them with their hands flat against its surface. The mumbled tones of their conversation play in a far corner of her mind.
Matt may not last much longer. She must get to him.
Throwing her head back, she can’t suppress the words that rise from her mind and broadcast themselves out into space in a surge of energy.
I can’t do this alone! Someone help me!
Moving to return to Ryzaard and Matt, Yarah hears hundreds of whispers hissing behind her. She turns to see a flowing mass of gray and black, barely visible against the starlight. It moves closer and begins to form arms, legs, a trunk and a head.
“Who are you?” she says.
The shape resolves into a roughly human form.
We are the Jhata.
“Jhata?” Yarah hears the voice inside her head and squints at the mass as it becomes a woman. “What are you doing?”
We will help you. We want the power.
Yarah looks back over her shoulder. “Ryzaard took all of your Stones after he killed you. He’s using them to destroy our world.”
We can help you get the power.
Bones swim just beneath the surface of the woman’s uneven face. The eyes dart between Yarah’s Stone and Ryzaard in the distance.
“How can you help me?” Yarah says.
Kill him.
“That’s impossible.” Yarah backs away as the woman’s stray hand reaches out to touch her Stone. “He’s too powerful.”
The woman’s body begins to degrade into writhing snakes. Her skin takes on a metallic sheen as a thousand voices murmur in argument. The face grimaces in pain, and then the jaw comes together in a tight clench. Slowly, the snakes dissolve, and the body becomes that of a woman again.
We know the Way.
As Yarah stares, the face of the woman remains the same, but the body turns once again into a churning jumble of a hundred shades of gray. Its eyes flash in anger, and there are cries and shouts of terror within the mass.
It begins to transform.
Two round pillars of steel flow down from it. Above them, two horizontal crossbeams stretch out. The bottom one is perfectly straight, and the top one curls up slightly at the edges.
For just a moment, they glow bright red.
It’s the Shinto torii gate Yarah saw in Ryzaard’s mind.
The shape disintegrates back into a black formless mass. The eyes and mouth of the woman appear in its center.
Find the kill switch.
Screams pierce the darkness as a long, crab-like arm with claws on the end moves out of the boiling cl
oud of black to the Stone in Yarah’s hand.
She jumps away, turns, and starts back to Matt and Ryzaard.
CHAPTER 134
Matt’ mind circles the network at millions of cycles per second, waiting for the blow, not sure if, when or how it will come, standing between Ryzaard and the rest of the human race.
When it finally comes, it surprises him.
At first it’s just a trickle, like a delicate feeler making its way through a single thread of the network. Matt stands in its path, pushes back and destroys it. There are more feeble attempts to bypass him, all easily blocked and neutralized. By the time Matt realizes what Ryzaard is doing, it’s almost too late.
A surge of power flows through the network, simultaneously filling the innumerable pathways and circuits of the planet’s solid state core. He tries to hold it back, but it drives him to the center where it attacks him from every side with slowly increasing intensity. As the pressure builds up, it begins to rip and tear at his mind.
The Stone burns white hot in his hand.
Reaching out for strength, he imagines the face of his mother. And then Jessica. The flow begins to reverse back to Ryzaard. He hears a voice.
Just testing, Matt. One Stone. That is all I am using. Are you ready? Here are the other forty-eight.
A tidal wave of agony crashes down through the network and engulfs him. Matt tries to stand against it, but it steadily pushes him back, eating away at him, bringing pain to every corner of his mind.
You’ve tried so hard, Matt. You’ve done more than anyone expected. You’ve shown your love and devotion, your commitment to a cause. There’s no more you can do.
As Ryzaard’s voice rains down on him, grief and despair fill in all the open spaces in his consciousness. He pushes back, but in pushing, feels nothing but weakness. The white heat of the Stone begins to overflow out of his hand, up his arm and through his chest.
The pressure forces his body into a spread eagle, arms outstretched, legs dangling below.
