by Jacob Whaler
“I’m going to ask you one more time. What did you do to Yoshi?” The little man standing over Matt looks down with a mixture of torment and rage on his face. “He was my senpai, my friend. He taught me everything I know. Like a father.” He reaches his hand into the suit coat and takes out a small black pistol.
Matt does not respond. His mind is a raging storm as he struggles to find the same mental location that allowed him to stop time on the mountain, the place he found again on the street when he rushed in front of the car to save the child. He feels himself getting closer.
And then he is on the beach, standing next to his mother, the ocean surf in his ears.
The little Yakuza man stands over Matt and presses the warm steel of the barrel against Matt’s forehead. “You’re lucky, gaijin scum. They forbid us to kill you.” He pulls a long black cylinder out of the other side of his suit jacket and slowly screws it into the tip of the barrel. “But they didn’t say anything about hurting you.” The point goes deep into Matt’s cheek. Then the man scrapes it down Matt’s chin, along his neck and onto his chest, leaving a path of red on Matt’s skin. Beads of blood pop up here and there, like a perforated line.
“I didn’t do anything to Yoshi.” Matt looks up, trying to buy time until his mind can figure out how to use the Stone.
“Then what happened on the mountain?”
“I’m not sure.”
The little man manually cocks the pistol. “You used a bomb, didn’t you? Some kind of phosphorus explosive.” He presses the tip against Matt’s chest hard enough to leave a bruise. “You burned him real bad before he died.”
Matt shakes his head. “He’s not dead! I saw him before I left. That’s when I got the dagger.” He has almost found the spot in his mind, like before.
Letting up on the pistol, the man nods. “So that’s when you killed him?” The tip comes down hard on Matt’s sternum.
“Please stop.”
“Funny. Those were Yoshi’s last words, too.” The man works his way down Matt’s body with the point of the barrel. He comes to Matt’s belly and hesitates for a moment. Then he moves straight down a few more inches. “I’ve always wanted to do this.” He raises his eyebrows as if talking to himself.
The man holding down Matt’s legs shifts his weight. “Boss won’t like it. Too messy.”
“You’re right.” With a frown, the little man moves the barrel of the gun lower onto Matt’s right thigh, twists the corner of his mouth. “No, that would be too easy.”
Letting his eyes drop down, Matt begins to silently count breaths backward from ten. He feels the sensation of the tip of the barrel slide down his leg, like a viper deciding where to take the first bit, until it goes over and past his kneecap to the top of his shins. It stops and comes back to the kneecap.
“Perfect,” the voice above him grunts. “Make him hurt. For Yoshi.”
The hands holding his ankles and shoulders tighten their grip. His eyes flip open. “Don’t.”
Two faces smile at him, relaxed and content. The sound of quiet surf grows louder in his ears. A muffled pop, like slipping the cork off a champagne bottle, causes the pistol to jump up.
An electric jolt shoots through Matt’s leg, awakening every nerve in his body. The barrel of the gun is still pointed at his knee, and a wisp of smoke curls out of the tip. As the jolt dissipates, warmth spreads through his leg followed by a dull and growing storm of pain, a wave rising up out of blackness.
The two men release their grip on his wrists and ankles and stand back.
A wave of agony crashes down on Matt. He takes a gulp of air and tries to push it back, but it rolls over him and consumes his body. An involuntary yell rips through his throat. His injured leg descends into a hell of spasms and cramps while the muscles in the rest of his body twitch and jerk. Struggling to breathe, he looks up.
All three of the Yakuza thugs bellow out in laughter.
“He won’t go anywhere now.” The pygmy Yakuza screws off the silencer and slips the gun back into his shoulder holster. He points to the tall man. “Come with me. We need to go see the boss.” As he moves past Matt, he stops and turns to face the one Matt mentally calls Big Buddha. “Tomo-chan, you stay here and make sure he doesn’t try to go anywhere. We’ll be back with the others in a minute.” They walk out the door and slam it shut, leaving Matt alone with the Buddha.
The pain in Matt’s leg transforms from a chaotic storm into something sharp, vicious, biting. He tries to sit up and get a better view of his knee but Big Buddha lands a kick on his side. Reaching a hand down his leg, there is warm wetness everywhere. When he pulls it back, his fingers are covered with blood.
Sweat beads up on his forehead and drips into his eyes.
As his mind shifts into panic mode, Matt feels reality begin to fade, like fingers slowly losing their grip on a trapeze bar high above the ground. Thoughts become a blur. Confusion and despair start to nibble around the edges. It’s impossible to concentrate on a single idea or emotion, like trying to focus on a single spoke of a spinning wheel. He is sliding down an icy slope, fighting for a hand hold, fighting for a single point of reference to grasp and steady his mind. And then it comes.
Dad, you were right. Right about everything.
Thoughts of his father turn to his mother. He closes his eyes, slows his breathing and concentrates on that day at the beach. He imagines himself standing next to her, holding her hand, watching the waves wash in, looking up into her face. He can feel the warm sand between his toes. The perfection of the world. All things at rest. Nothing wanting. Vibrant clarity and joy.
Warmth spreads between his shoulder blades where the Stone lays. The sharp pain in his leg passes through him and trails off as the distant sound of a beating surf plays louder and louder in his ears.
Matt opens his eyes and sees Big Buddha standing over him, unmoving, still as a rock. Time has slowed down. Keeping his mind focused on the image of his mother and the beach, he pulls himself up to a sitting position, and then reaches back and grabs the Stone with his right hand. A large bloodstain is already forming on the bed beneath his knee. Lifting up his cargo pants to get a clearer view of the damage, the open wound is swimming in blood and tissue. Little white flecks float around in it, and he takes that to be part of the shattered bone. He probes gently around the wound with the tip of a finger. There is no hint of pain or discomfort.
For a long time, he stares at the wound, contemplating what to do. With no pain and no passage of time, all sense of urgency and panic melt away, washed clean by the sound of an invisible ocean. He bends the knee and finds that it moves, but with an unsettling sound of bone grinding on bone. For now there’s no pain, but that may be because time has slowed down. He’ll have to face a fresh onslaught when he returns to normal time.
The Stone in his right hand starts to turn milky white and triggers another thought in his mind.
If the Yakuza thugs found him, they might also have found Professor Yamamoto. Perhaps that’s why he sent Matt a full copy of his research notes on the Stones.
A sense of urgency to get back to the professor’s office weighs on his mind. For a moment, the image of that day at the beach with his mother slips away, and the low sound of buzzing cicadas just outside the window creeps back into his ears.
Big Buddha starts to move sluggishly, like a monster unthawed from the Arctic ice. He looks down at Matt and raises his eyebrows in slow motion. There’s surprise and a hint of confusion in his eyes when he sees Matt sitting up on the bed. The foot rises to kick him again.
Letting his eyelids drop down, Matt focuses and finds the image of his mother on the beach. The stillness comes back, and Big Buddha’s movements grind to a halt.
He seems to be getting better at controlling the Stone.
While maintaining his mother’s image in his mind, Matt turns his attention back to the wounded knee. As he stares at it, he recalls a college anatomy class. The knee is a complicated collection of bones, muscles, ligament
s, cartilage and blood vessels. Doctors spend years understanding its nuances and perfecting their ability to heal it.
Matt doesn’t have years.
Pushing back the rising fear, he lets his feelings of helplessness go and examines the knee again out of sheer curiosity, opening his mind, waiting for clarity. It’s like teasing out a knot, strand by strand. At first, there’s no progress.
Then, in a burst of understanding, he sees the knee, not as a mechanical system of separate parts, each broken down into smaller and smaller sub-components, but as an organic whole, comprehending its entirety from the top, bottom and sides simultaneously. A gasp rises in his throat as the beauty and simplicity of its structure becomes clear. The exact nature of the wound is laid open before him.
And something else becomes clear. He can fix it.
He puts the white Stone down on the bed and stretches both hands out to the knee, covering it with his palms. In his mind, he reorganizes the image of the knee into a perfect whole until it feels right and complete. Then he pulls his hands away and looks at it again. The wound is gone. He opens the palm of his right hand and gazes down at the bullet.
Carefully, gingerly, he stands on his feet, bending and straightening both knees. They work to perfection. He grabs his backpack, slips the jax and the Stone into his pockets and rushes out the door, still holding on to the image of his mother on the beach and the sound of the surf.
All he can think about is getting to Professor Yamamoto’s office as soon as possible.
When he stands a few feet from the closed office door, time is still stopped. Not wanting to alarm the professor by suddenly appearing, he relaxes his mind and completely lets go of the image of his mother. As if descending suddenly from the sky, the sound of crying cicadas jumps back into his ears.
He knocks on the door. A long moment passes.
“Come in.” It’s the familiar voice of Professor Yamamoto. Yet something feels different. Matt puts his hand on the door and steps in as it opens.
There is the stench of burning sulfur. An immediate sense of danger floods his chest.
The office is full of people.
Before he can react, out of the corner of his eye, a tiny yellow dot flies at him like a swift moving mosquito and stings his neck. A wave of relaxation surges through his body. He struggles to find the image of his mother on the beach again, but it’s like swimming through honey. His arms and legs go limp and his eyes trace a line from floor to ceiling as he twists and falls.
On the way down, his vision sweeps past a woman sitting in a chair by the window. For an instant, her eyes lock with his before he hears the sound of his head hitting the floor. There is a look of horror mixed with confusion in her eyes. A fleeting thought crosses his mind before blackness flows in and overwhelms it.
Jessica.
CHAPTER 52
The half-lit neon sign out front tells Kent everything he needs to know. He has found a no-name motel in a no-name town in rural Indiana, just the sort of place where you can stay the night without attracting attention. He is glad there are still a few places like this left in America.
Small-town people, small-town values.
Guiding the Chikara into the parking lot, he passes the office where a pudgy night attendant with sandy hair is hunkered down behind the counter, a can of beer tilted to his lips. He puts the can down, walks to the glass door and stares at the old truck as Kent smiles and glides past.
It isn’t hard to find an empty slot to park.
“Haven’t seen one of those old trucks for a long time.” The night attendant smirks as Kent pulls open the door. A little cowbell clanks against the glass.
Kent slaps a piece of colorful currency on the counter.
The night attendant holds the green and blue paper up to the light to see the watermark and stares into the face of Benjamin Franklin. “No one pays with paper anymore.” Trickles of sweat run down his neck past a thin gold chain onto a damp wife beater.
“Just criminals and runaways, right?” Kent shoots back a steely smile. “Don’t worry. You can take it to the bank. It’s still legal tender, for a little while longer.” He notices the wrinkle-free hands and guesses the young man to be about twenty-two years old. About the same age as Matt. Something strikes him as odd. Where is the ubiquitous jax and holo screen a twenty-two year old would normally have glued to his hand?
“For three more months, to be exact.” The attendant lays a keycard on the counter. “I don’t have any change. But I do have this.” He reaches behind into a small refrigerator, pulls out a can of Coors beer and puts it up on the counter next to the keycard. “Where you headed?”
“East. Trying to stay out of trouble.” Kent scoops up the keycard and motions toward the beer can. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll pass. Been sober too long to go back.” He grins and walks out the glass door as the cowbell clanks again.
The lukewarm shower and the smell of cheap motel soap bring back memories of that cross-country trip he took with his dad when he was a kid. Back when the world was simple, stable, predictable. He lingers until the heat slowly drains out of the water and it turns room temperature. Eyes closed, he relishes the rush of nostalgia and hears his dad’s gruff voice play in his mind like an old phonograph.
They make the soap smell like this so you won’t use it.
Kent laughs to himself, and it sounds just like his dad. He wonders if Matt has any memories that play in his mind the same way. He hopes the answer is yes, but he’s not sure.
After the shower, he sits on the edge of the bed in his underwear, still running that old cross-country trip through his mind and emotions. He is ready to slip under the covers for a good, long sleep.
There is a soft knock at the door.
He glances quickly at the slate lying out on the table and wishes he had put it away. Easing onto his feet, he stands up and walks to the peep-hole in the door. It’s the night attendant he met at check-in. The guy is standing there with another Coors in his hand.
Kent quickly pulls on some pants and opens the door. “Is there a problem?”
The young man looks up at Kent. “Sorry to bother you, sir, but you’ve come from the freedom camps, haven’t you?”
Kent quickly scans the man for weapons. It would be hard to hide anything under that thin shirt. The pants aren’t much thicker, and he doesn’t look like the violent type anyway. But you never know.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, I couldn’t help but notice when you pulled into the parking lot.”
“Notice what?”
“Your truck, the Chikara. Nice. My dad had one just like it when I was a kid.”
“What about it?” Kent was thinking about that long sleep waiting for him just a few feet away.
“Well, it has the sign.” The young man scratches his back and looks up at Kent.
“Sign?” Kent wrinkles his forehead. “What sign?”
The young man motions back to Kent’s truck in the parking lot with his chin. “You know, the sign of the freedom camps.”
“I drove through a couple of them, but I don’t think there’s anything on the truck.”
“Well, it’s not exactly on the truck. More like coming from the truck.”
Another few seconds of this and Kent is going to slam the door shut.
“My young friend,” he says. “It’s late, and I’m tired. What are you trying to tell me?
“Your motor-tone.” The young man took a drink from the can. “It’s got a freedom camp theme. Somebody must have downloaded it onto your car-com.”
Kent cranes his neck to look at the Chikara. “Funny, I didn’t notice anything different about the motor-tone. Whale calls and electric shavers. Nice mix.” He yawns and looks back at the bed waiting for him.
“Yeah, but it’s also got an old American Indian chant on a sub-channel. Some sort of high-frequency ultra-sonic stuff. I noticed it half a minute before you pulled in. I guess old guys can’t hear it.” The young man takes
a drink of beer, brings his arm up and wipes his mouth with a hairy bicep. “No offense.”
“Interesting,” Kent mutters to himself.
“So, I got to ask you. Are you the one they’re talking about?” The young man leans forward and looks up into Kent’s eyes. “The one who’s going to pick a fight with The Complex?”
CHAPTER 53
Matt slowly opens his eyes to see a blurred pattern of white octagons and blue diamonds.
Professor Yamamoto’s office.
With effort, he raises his gaze from the floor to look up. There is a pool of warm saliva that has run out of his mouth. Painful little prickles, like bee-stings, stab him from the inside in a thousand places on his neck, face and eyes. He tries to bring his hands up and push himself over, but discovers neither of his arms will move. They feel like heavy slabs of concrete running down his sides. The legs are the same, with no feeling in either one of them.
He’s lying on the floor like a beached whale.
“Your muscles are taking a bit of a rest. Tetrodotoxin.” A male voice behind him speaks. “Extracted from the blue-ringed octopus. Nasty little creatures. Fortunately, they only fight back when provoked.”
Matt remembers that he saw Jessica. “Where is she?” He yells between clenched teeth. With his head balanced precariously above the floor, he struggles to focus his eyes forward trying to get a fix on his position. Multiple-colored rectangles hang in the air. After several seconds of staring, he realizes it’s the bookshelf at the far end of Yamamoto’s office, and he’s facing it with his back to the door. The spine of the book directly in front of his eyes slowing resolves itself. Aristotle’s Metaphysics. There is a gap next to it where The Complete Works of Shakespeare should be.
“Are you referring to Jessica?”
It’s the same voice, one with a vaguely European accent, difficult to place.
“Who are you?” Anger mixes with panic, and the anger is quickly taking over. “What do you want?” He yells through a clenched jaw.
