Stones (Data)

by Jacob Whaler

  A wave of warmth passes through him, and he no longer feels connected to the earth as he carves great arcs high above the valley floor.

  Near the bottom, his line is pulled to the only exposed boulder in his field of vision, a dark object protruding shin-high above the snow. Like a giant slalom course, he rides the edges of his skis on a trajectory that will take him around it. He shoots by the rock and tucks into a hard left to loop below it. Then he discovers that it extends further down slope than he thought, like the dorsal fin of a great salamander lurking just beneath the snow.

  Too late to change course.

  Ripped out of his trance, Matt shifts his weight to bank away from a brutal collision with the boulder. But the laws of physics are in control now, and his upper body refuses to give up its momentum. The sides of his skis make first contact with the broken surface of the rock. The impact triggers an algorithm that instantly hardens them and releases the bindings from their grip on his boots. There is the sickening thud and clatter of silicon-steel alloy bouncing off rock.

  His body moves through the air and instinctively goes into a tuck. The ever-present scowl on his dad’s face flashes across the back of his eyelids. A jolt of pain stabs his shoulder as he is thrown over the top of the boulder and dumped face first in the snow on the other side. He comes out of the tuck and goes limp. Rolling onto his back, he slides headfirst on a diagonal line down the slope.

  Twenty meters later, his body glides to a stop. He lays still on the snow, afraid to move and discover the extent of his injuries.

  An eagle circles overhead, staring down at the black fetal shape on the snow.

  Matt sits up and glares at the boulder. Fury builds within him for its attempt at spoiling his perfect day. As the anger subsides, he takes inventory of the damage, both to him and, more urgently, his equipment. There is a tear on the left shoulder of his jacket, a sprained thumb, shattered goggles. The carbon fiber pants are pristine, not a scratch. The taste of salt spreads through his mouth, and a warm rivulet snakes down his forehead and soaks into an eyebrow. Crimson dots appear in the snow.

  Upon seeing the blood, his first reaction is to grab his jax for a quick video to Jessica. After a moment’s thought, he decides against it. She might get worried and forward it to his dad. He’ll immediately notice the missing helmet he set out for Matt that very morning.

  It still lay on the seat of the truck down in the parking lot.

  Matt squints up slope and spies his skis lying in disarray ten feet on the other side of the boulder. He climbs slowly back up, collects his poles on the way and crosses over the top of the boulder. A maze of cracks and fissures break up its dark surface.

  When he gets to the other side and drops down onto the snow, rock fragments are strewn around his fallen skis. He fears the worse. Young bodies heal quickly, but good skis are expensive to replace.

  He bends down and tenderly lifts each of the boards in turn like the delicate instruments of joy they are, and flexes them between his hands. Incredibly, they are unscathed other than a long dark line running the full length on the top of one ski and a series of gouges on the underside of the other. His fingers find a small metal stud on the tail of the damaged ski and press it, activating the microcaps that will fill in the gouges over the next twenty-four hours.

  Scratches on top don’t matter. Let them run wild. Only scratches on the bottom matter.

  He rams the tails of both skis into the snow so they are sticking straight up and sits down to rest.

  There, between his feet, a strange object catches his eye.

  A rock.

  He picks it up and studies its shape. With a rough surface like the basalt rock around it, it is larger on one end and curved to a dull point on the other, reminding him of a fossilized T-Rex claw he played with as a child.

  There’s something else it reminds him of, six years before, but he quickly discards that thought as ridiculous.

  Gripping the rock in the palm of his right hand, there’s an immediate sensation of rightness, as if it were made to be there.

  He isn’t sure how long he gazes at it. At some point, his eyes drift shut. Then he remembers.

  Jess will kill me if I’m late.

  He checks the time on his jax and only has two minutes to catch the last chair up. With effort, he lets the rock slip from his hand into a coat pocket and stands up.

  He can’t wait to show it to her.

  CHAPTER 4

  On the 175th floor of the MX Global Corporation building in Midtown Manhattan, a young woman in a white lab coat sprints down a stainless steel corridor to a lone door at the end. The Do-Not-Disturb sign is lit in red.

  She hesitates, looks down at the floor and then presses her palm against a glass plate to the side of the door.

  It slides open and she enters. A silver-haired man in a tweed jacket and khaki pants sits in a lotus position on an elevated platform on the floor. His back is to the door, and he faces a window that forms an entire wall of his office from floor to ceiling.

  The black shape of the old Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River in the distance. The roofs of glass skyscrapers crowd below like jewel-encrusted needles growing from an unseen pincushion.

  “Jing-wei, good to see you. Come in.” The man stares out the window for a full minute, never turning to face the woman.

  She stands in the middle of the office, hands clasped behind her back, catching her breath, waiting for permission to speak.

  The man sweeps an arm from one side to the other. “You can see the curvature of the earth from here. It’s so obvious. But you have to be up high. Down on the ground, everything is flat, an illusion. To truly see, you have to be above it all.”

  “Dr. Ryzaard.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “After all these months, we’ve finally done it.”

  Ryzaard stares out the window as if transfixed by some rare philosophical insight. At last he speaks.

  “Done what, Jing-wei?”

  She steps forward and glances down at the top of his head. The hair is unusually thick and healthy for an older man, with no sign of thinning.

  “Received a signal.”

  The man’s body collapses to the side and drops from the meditation platform. He gathers himself together and stands up.

  “From a newly awakened Stone?” he says.

  Jing-wei smiles. “Yes.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Matt throws his skis and boots into the back of the ‘51 Toyota Chikara with a scattered thud. His fingers run along the crinkled metal skin of the truck as he walks to the driver’s side and pops the door open.

  He thinks about the battered side of the truck. People pay a lot for that kind of worn style, whether it’s cars or jeans, and it hasn’t cost him a thing, except for the scar bisecting his right eyebrow from last summer.

  The old S-curve on the canyon road is treacherous. He doesn’t plan on missing the turn again and rolling the truck down the ravine a second time.

  Easing into the cab, he sinks back into the seat and exhales as he gazes up through the open door at Skull Pass and the remnants of snow that hug the shadows. He never tires of coming here. It’s the only place to get away from the stifling life forced on him by his dad. With his eyes on the car-com clock, he counts down the seconds to 4:30 in the afternoon when the ski season officially closes. The sound of a foghorn floats down from the top of the mountain.

  And then it’s over.

  Muffled cheers dance across the parking lot from somewhere over by the lodge.

  The long wilderness of summer lies ahead. It has to be crossed each year on a journey to the promised land of winter that lies on the other side of the unbearable heat that turns the valley into a desert. The more he thinks about it, an inconsolable sadness threatens to spoil his euphoria. He fights it back with thoughts of seeing Jessica.

  A tinge of pain stabs him near his left shoulder blade where his body made contact with the boulder up in Powder Puff Basin.

  “Massage program sev
en.” He looks in the general direction of the car-com.

  It lights up.

  The seat hums softly as it opens and swallows his back and neck. Unseen fingers knead his muscles as mellow J-pop music floats in the background. He slips his jax into the sync slot on the car-com and uploads the new motor-tone he ripped off the Mesh on the tram ride down.

  Switching the engine on, he holds his breath and listens. Sure enough, it fits the description on the Mesh-point where he found it.

  Deep Shave, a collage of sound with the light buzz of an antique electric razor and the bass of low-frequency whale calls.

  At least now he won’t be pulled over for silent-running his truck on the road.

  It’s 4:35. He drifts out of the parking lot and back to the real world where danger lurks. It’s useless to suppress the voice of his dad in his head. Years of instruction have drilled it too deeply into his brain.

  When you leave or enter a place, always scan for anyone following you.

  His eyes sweep past the side windows and the rearview mirror. The only other person in the parking lot is an old man loading skis onto a roof rack. A flashing green light on the car-com catches his attention, signaling that a message from Dad has just arrived. Incredibly, it’s video, something he rarely jaxes to Matt. Over the years, his dad has drilled it into him over and over. Video is dangerous because it carries the largest data footprint and is easy to trace. They might stumble onto it, and then the jig will be up. Black heli-transports will swoop in while they sleep and kill them both.

  Matt has heard the warnings a thousand times. Lately, he’s grown tired of it and lets the videos fly from his jax.

  “On screen.” Matt talks in the general direction of the car-com.

  The windshield of the truck lights up in transparent hi-def. There is his dad, standing in the kitchen, apron on, steam rising from a frying pan behind him on the stove. His dad grabs a ball of pink-looking paste from a bowl, wraps it in a thin white skin, seals it with a few quick pinches and drops it onto a cookie sheet full of neat rows of dumplings.

  Matt slows down for the old S-curve, his eyes on his dad.

  “We’re eating at 5:00.” His dad picks up another handful of the pink stuff. “We need to celebrate your safe return from the last day of skiing and talk about your trip to Japan tomorrow. I hope you have a big appetite. Don’t be late, and drive safe.”

  The windshield goes clear.

  Matt stares at his reflection in the rearview mirror. He lifts a hand up to his forehead and winces. He might not have to get stitches, but it will be tough to hide this one from dad. Or Jess.

  Leaning into the seat, the full effect of the back massage is starting to work its magic. A content smile plays across his face thinking about his dad making gyoza. Matt’s favorite food. It’s the one thing they have in common. And there’s a reason for that.

  Gyoza reminds them both of Mom. Her face floats into his mind. Whenever he thinks of her, something about her eyes reminds him of Jessica.

  Matt grabs the jax out of its slot and plays its side with the fingers of his left hand, never taking his eyes off the canyon road.

  Jess: Got a cool story about today.

  Tapping the top with his thumb, he jaxes it off. A few second later Jess answers back, and the car-com automatically reads it out in a mildly unnatural voice-sim.

  I knew it. Another crash. No helmet, right? You promised to end the tree-skiing obstacle courses. Remember?

  A grin snakes across his face. He’s going to have some fun with this.

  You’re right about the helmet, but no trees. Any other guesses?

  He sends off the message and relaxes even more into the seat as he shoots past the truck ahead on the two-lane mountain road. The car-com reads out her reply.

  Any hints?

  Jess is playing along. She always does.

  He thinks for a minute, holds the jax up in his left hand and takes a quick self-portrait of his smiling face, crusty blood and all. He adds a quick message.

  How’s this?

  After he jaxes it off, more than a minute passes with no reply. He immediately regrets sending it. He’ll be dead if it finds its way to his dad.

  Finally, the car-com makes a gentle pinging sound, letting him know her reply has arrived. He swallows hard, touches the play button on the steering wheel and holds his breath.

  Better than I expected. You’ll clean up just fine.

  Matt breathes out slowly. After two years, Jess has finally gotten used to his scrapes. The car-com pings again. Matt touches the play button.

  I guess we’re both in confession mode, so I should come clean too. Remember my bike race? I hate to admit it, but I took a little spill this morning. You’re not the only one with a tale to tell.

  A transparent picture of her fills the glass windshield, but something is wrong. She has a black eye, swollen cheek, scraped-up chin and a couple of missing teeth. A dark blue sling cradles her arm.

  Matt’s mouth drops open, and the color drains from his face. A knot forms in his stomach. The truck starts to glide to the right into loose gravel on the shoulder of the road. He snaps back to attention just before hitting a tree and slams on the brakes.

  Another ping and another message from Jess.

  Fooled you, didn’t I?

  She comes up on the windshield. There’s a hint of a scratch on her chin. Everything else looks fine. The color comes back into Matt’s face.

  He shoots off a message.

  No way. I can read you like a book.

  Near the bottom of Cutter Canyon, an old car is stopped on the shoulder of the road in front of a Japanese Shinto shrine and the large torii gate marking its entrance. The car looks ancient, one of the few antiques left that still runs on gasoline instead of electricity. Its passenger door hangs open, and a woman is holding a small child and standing near her vehicle as cars pass by without stopping. The car is leaning to one side. Probably a flat tire.

  It’s clear she needs help.

  Matt checks the time on the car-com and sighs. Let someone else help her. He has a busy night ahead and not a minute to spare.

  But something nags at him to stop. Dad won’t be happy.

  His truck drifts to a spot behind the old car. He glances again at the rearview mirror to see if he’s being followed. Then he notices a small black dot in the corner of the mirror that wasn’t there yesterday. Dad’s been at it again. He grabs the jax from the slot and plays its side as he walks to the car.

  Dad: Have to stop on the way down to help a lady with an old car. Looks like a flat tire. I’ll be late. Keep the gyoza hot.

  He sends off the message and then adds an afterthought.

  Next time do a better job of hiding the surveillance cam. It’s too obvious on the mirror.

  One point for me.

  CHAPTER 6

  Late, as usual.

  Matt pulls into the garage at 6:00 and kills the engine-tone. Through the truck’s open window, he smells the hint of something that makes his stomach growl. With skis and poles in one hand and boots in the other, he walks to the back door. As it slides open, the pungent aroma of garlic and ginger envelops his senses. He inhales deeply, filling his lungs with the heavenly smell. After a day of nothing to eat on the snow, a sharp hunger pain stabs his side, and his stomach cries out for the gyoza. He slips quickly downstairs to his room, throws everything on the futon and turns to go.

  Passing the door, he has a distinct feeling of a sudden emptiness, like something important is missing.

  He runs back into his room, grabs the ski jacket off the bed and rifles through the pockets. A jolt of panic bursts through his chest. Finally, his fingers wrap around it.

  The black rock from Powder Puff Basin.

  Except that it’s not really black anymore. Now it’s definitely more of a dark blue. Maybe it’s just the lighting.

  Chuckling to himself, he stuffs the rock into his pocket and bounds back up the stairs into the kitchen and the aroma of fr
ied gyoza and miso soup.

  Kent Newmark sits next to the window and studies the glossy surface of the slate in his hand. Like every meal, he wears the faded old black apron with the orange pumpkin made by Matt years ago when he was still in grade school. A Halloween present for Dad.

  The table is already set for two.

  “I saw the cut on your forehead.” Kent speaks without looking up. “Any broken bones? Need stitches?”

  Matt never lies to his dad, but he needs to buy a little sympathy. He takes a deep inhale. “Smells delicious. Your cooking skills never cease to amaze, Dad.” He takes another audible whiff of garlic. “A few boulders were sticking through on Powder Puff. I did a Super G run and just shaved one a little close. No big deal.”

  “And, it turns out, no helmet either, right?” Kent raises an eyebrow, scanning Matt from head to foot.

  Matt knows from experience that his dad won’t miss anything. He never does. “See?” Matt points at his head. “Just a little scratch.”

  Getting to his feet, Kent comes closer and gazes carefully into his son’s face, eyebrows furrowed, blue eyes behind round reading glasses, the kind that nobody wears anymore.

  Matt hates it when his dad stares at him like this. It makes him feel like he’s ten years old again. Through dark bangs, he does his best to put a bland look on his face. But his dad’s blues eyes are reading him like a book.

  “Let’s see,” Kent says. “Fresh blood on the chin from the edge of a ski. Looks like you bumped the maximum speed up. A jagged gash on the forehead. Must be from the boulder. An assortment of other scratches, marks and abrasions. There was a rough tumble after impact.” Kent reaches out and pinches Matt’s shoulder, and Matt winces from pain. “A bad bruise there.” A few seconds of silence pass, and Kent looks up. “Did I miss anything?”

  “Right on the money.”

  Kent shakes his head and ruffles his son’s hair. “I guess you’ll live. Somehow, you always do.” Putting the palms of his hands together, he looks to the ceiling with feigned piety. “Thank the Good Lord.”

  “No, Dad.” Matt grins and drops down in his spot at the table. “Thank my Dynastar AI799s and superhuman reflexes. That’s what saved me. It’s always worth it to have the best equipment.”