by Jacob Whaler
“So many questions, my young friend. You need to slow down and focus on what is going on around you.”
Footsteps approach him from behind and foul breath rains down. Two strong hands grab his shoulders, pull him off the floor and stuff him into a chair. Another set of hands throws a strap around his midsection and lashes him into place. He senses his ankles are being tied to the legs of the chair. Together, they swing him and the chair around so he’s facing the door. Sitting upright.
The jarring movements feel like someone is twisting his optic nerves into a knot. Sharp prickles stab the inside of his eyeball without mercy as he tries to focus his vision.
The game of Igo lies in disarray on the table with black and white pieces scattered on the floor. Matt’s jax is next to the goban board. The same two Yakuza thugs from his dorm room stand by the door, their faces made of stone and arms folded across their chests.
A tall man with silver hair in a tweed jacket and bowtie stands in the center of the room next to the table, a sympathetic smile on his face.
That face.
Matt stares in disbelief. He recognizes the features.
And then it hits him. His mind goes back to the dream.
Massive dark apes chase him through the jungle and across the wheat field. His back is against the dead trunk of the oak tree. The leading ape lunges and bares its fangs. Their eyes meet just before the dream ends.
The same face is now peering down at him, only younger, less wrinkled and hideous.
“Let me begin by answering your first question.” The man in the tweed jacket points in the direction of the window.
Matt moves his eyes to the right toward the light.
It’s Jessica, sitting limply, tied to a chair, her chin on her chest, face looking down at the floor, expressionless. Matt squints hard to see more clearly. Her eyes are closed.
He grits his teeth and strains against the cords, but his body feels like a dead sack of rocks. “What the hell have you done to her?” His chest heaves up and down as he struggles in vain to move. Arms and legs are useless.
As his eyes drift down, Matt can see a man in a blue suit, crumpled on the floor at Jessica’s feet, arms tied behind his back, eyes closed, a puffy red cheek flat against the blue and white tiles. There’s a bloody pool on the floor around his mouth. Professor Yamamoto’s black-rimmed glasses lay shattered next to his face.
“The real question, my friend, is not what I have done to her, but what are you going to do for her.” The tall man with the silver hair takes a drag on a black cigarette and walks closer.
Matt stares up. “What do you want?” He tries to calm himself by focusing on his breath, pulling it in, holding it, pushing it out, ignoring the stings and stabs that fight for attention, searching his mind for the image of his mother at the beach. With effort, he finds a hazy version of her face looking down at him, the sound of waves in the background. The image starts to fade. He pulls it back, fighting to enhance it, eyes closed to shut out all the distractions. The irritating pain is receding.
The man leans closer and whispers. “You have something that belongs to me.”
“Why is she here? She’s done nothing.” The words jump out of Matt’s mouth, erasing the image of his mother. Splinters of pain renew their attack, stronger than before. He turns to look at Jessica, yearning to reach out, embrace her, hold her close, protect her.
“You are right. She has done nothing. And I know how important she is to you. You will be able to help her by listening to me.” Ryzaard stops in front of Matt. Pity fills his eyes. “First, let me help you.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small silver tube and presses one end with his thumb. There’s a metallic click, and then the sound of releasing pressure followed by a long thick needle sliding out the other end of the tube. “I apologize for the effects of the tetrodotoxin.” The man motions with his eyes to the Yakuza thugs standing by the door. “They play too rough. I don’t always agree with their methods.” He puts a warm hand on Matt’s cheek and brings his other hand close in to Matt’s neck. “This will help.”
As the needle slides under his skin, Matt hears a hissing sound, feels a painful pressure, and then tastes vinegar in his mouth. Slowly, the piercing nodes of pain begin to soften their grip.
Matt looks down. “What about my arms and legs?”
“The anti-toxin will take a few minutes to work.” Ryzaard takes a step back, as if appraising a painting. “Just relax and let it do its job.”
“Tell me what’s going on.” As Matt speaks, his chest begins to tighten, as if it is about to explode. “What do you want from us?” He wants to lash out at Ryzaard, but instead he slows his breaths and fights to tamp down the emotion. If he’s going to unleash it, now is not the right time, not when he’s under the control of a madman.
The voice of his dad plays in his mind.
When in a hostage situation, be calm, think clearly, wait for the right moment. Then act without hesitation.
“No need to worry about Jessica. I gave her something to help her relax. She’s sleeping now and won’t remember a thing when she wakes up.” The man in the tweed suit turns his back on Matt and walks a few paces toward the door.
Matt’s eyes narrow as he studies his captor. Pinpointing his age is no easy task. The mustache has flecks of gray, and the hands are wrinkled with veins and brown spots. But the muscular stature throws him off. His straight back and athletic gait indicate a younger, stronger man.
“What have you done to Professor Yamamoto?”
The man stops, turns to Matt and looks down at the professor on the floor. “Yes,” he says. “My old friend. A truly gentle man, and a good researcher. Regrettable.” He again motions with his eyes to the men standing at the door. “They got here first. Delicate interrogation methods aren’t their specialty. You will have to accept my sincere apologies. But don’t worry. With your cooperation, he will be fine. Just like your Jessica.”
With effort, Matt wiggles his toes inside his shoes and lifts the heel of his foot off the floor a few millimeters. His fingers tingle and burn, but he can feel the sense of touch returning. He manages to bend his arm slightly at the elbow. Slowly, his body is coming together.
“Could you please tell me what’s going on, what this is all about? I’m sure it’s just some misunderstanding.” It takes all the restraint Matt can muster to keep his tone polite and arms at his side, to resist the urge to make a fist. The air comes deeply and silently into his lungs as he breathes in. A mantra runs through his mind over and over with each rise of the chest.
Focus on the breath. Stay calm.
“I see you are smart. In control of your emotions. That’s a rare gift among today’s youth.” The man runs his hands down the tweed lapels. “And you certainly have a right to know what you have done and why we are all here.” He stands squarely in front of Matt and brings a hand up to gently stroke his mustache. “Rest assured, you have done nothing wrong. Yet. In fact, I will go so far as to say you have performed a great service for the world.”
All spots of pain in Matt’s head have faded to dull throbs, and he can think clearly. The arms and legs are coming back to life. He just needs a little more time. His dad’s voice rolls again in the back of his mind.
Keep him talking.
“I’m still lost.” Matt says. “Help me understand what’s going on.”
The man laughs. “You are a clever young man. It’s not every day I get to meet someone who officially does not exist.” He paces back and forth, hands behind his back, like a university professor with a rare specimen of dinosaur, about to deliver a lecture to a hall full of students.
“Who are you talking about?” Matt raises an eyebrow and forces out a chuckle, laughing along with the man. “I’m still not getting it.”
“You. You don’t exist. Quite an achievement, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have the full resources of a multinational corporation. Access to the entire United S
tates military and espionage apparatus, real-time search rights for every private or government data-site, and a room full of the best Mesh techies working 24/7. I can order a dossier on the entire life history and quirks of any person on the planet and have it in my hands within minutes. Like her.” He stops in mid-gait and motions to Jessica, still slumped silently in the chair, her head down, eyes closed, breathing gently. “Except you. No Mesh-prints, multiple fake passports leading nowhere, hi-tech surveillance-proof protocols on your jax. Untraceable.” The man looks out the window at the outstretched branches of the cherry blossom tree. For a moment, there’s silence in the room, and Matt can hear the peaceful symphony of birds and cicadas.
Keep him talking.
“But you found me. How?” Matt thinks it wise to play along. He just needs a little more time.
“Good old-fashioned legwork. Their specialty.” The man turns toward the two blue suits at the door, arms folded over their chests. “With a little help from this.” He walks to Matt’s backpack, leaning against a bookshelf just inside the door, and stoops down to pluck a yellow speck off its side. He holds it up proudly between index finger and thumb in front of the Yakuza thugs. The short one smiles broadly and reaches into his suit coat to pull out a silver tube twelve inches long, the same tube the man on the mountain had. He lifts it to his mouth and puffs into one end.
A simple blowgun.
The man turns his back to Matt, walks to the office door and whispers something to the little Yakuza guy. He allows a slight smile and nods in return.
When being chased on foot, never give your back to your pursuers.
Matt tries, but can’t keep the voice of his dad from blasting through his mind.
He is sure of one thing.
I should have listened.
With his chest rising and falling in measured breaths, he closes his eyes and searches again for the image of his mom on the beach and the sound of the surf.
It isn’t hard to find.
There they are, standing together at the beach, watching the long line of waves rush in, stretch out its fingers onto the sand, and then flow back out. A warm breeze plays with his mom’s hair as he looks up into her angelic face. He breathes in the organic smell of salt and seaweed in the air. The great orange ball of the sun is suspended just above the horizon.
The sound of cicadas outside the window fades away, and the surf is all that remains in his ears as he opens his eyes to see that all the bodies in the room have become as still as a wax museum.
CHAPTER 54
A luminous pincushion of spikes rises up out of the horizon. As Kent speeds forward, the spikes resolve into impossibly tall skyscrapers.
The City.
At the same time, a jolt of energy wakes him out of his stupor and shoots down his spine, through his legs, dissipating into his feet. It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt for a long time.
It’s been twelve years, but Kent is finally back.
He enters the City from the north and immediately senses a difference from the last time he was there. It isn’t the skyscrapers growing up out of sight into the night sky. It isn’t the blaring colors of laser-glass embedded in the buildings, walkways and streets like giant skin grafts. It isn’t that every surface, flat or round, has become a hi-res screen for 3D images of sports cars and game trailers. It isn’t the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the omnipresent hiss in his ears from a chorus of ten thousand motor-tones.
And then he sees it.
It’s the sidewalks. Clean, pristine, spotless. And almost empty of foot traffic except for the aged and gray.
He remembers reading about this phenomenon on the Mesh. Young people in the city, those under thirty, don’t go outside into the open air much anymore. The cafes and restaurants have all moved into the upper reaches of buildings or deep below ground. You could live for months indoors, moving between work and home in the glowing skywalk tubes that join building to building, or on subway lines that snake below the City, or in gleaming airtight cars jamming the surface streets. The reason is simple. Going outside might require a break from the omnipresent bluescreens and plasma arrays that provide wall-to-wall nonstop sensory stimulation.
Going outside to breathe the air is for the older generation.
You can still carry your jax to stay connected. But for many in the city, that tenuous link is no longer enough.
The new bio-mech implant technology promises to change all that, making it possible to carry the entire apparatus of info-stimuli inside your head and on your body. But it’s still a few years, if not decades, away.
Kent can’t help thinking that the people in the freedom camps have fled the city precisely to get away from this.
Abomination in its purest form.
In spite of the traffic, once inside Manhattan, it takes less than half an hour to find his destination on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street. He catches the chuckles of the parking attendant out of the corner of his eye as the old Chikara glides through the underground parking garage to his slot.
Two hours later, he has the equipment moved into the empty office suite on the 176th floor. It’s cramped, but all he needs for a bedroom is an air mattress and sleeping bag in the corner. If he has time and wants to run the danger of detection, he can shower and work out in any one of a dozen gyms in the building. For now, he sits back in a plastic chair near the window and gazes out. It’s unfortunate the building across the street blocks the view of the Brooklyn Bridge, but he hasn’t come all the way to New York City for that anyway.
Kent thinks of his son, out on his first real adventure and completely and utterly away from him. Matt must be exulting in his freedom. Five days now and counting, it’s the longest father and son have ever been out of contact. His hand wanders over to the table and picks up a jax to make a quick call to Matt. Just to say hello.
When he realizes what his fingers are doing, his other hand grabs the jax and terminates the call before it goes through. Much too risky. He has to stay in deep stealth mode for now.
Matt will be fine on his own.
Wandering over to the window in the dark room, he stares out at the target, almost close enough to reach out and touch. But it’s late and time for bed.
The real fun starts tomorrow.
He turns from the window, finds his way past stacks of boxes to the air mattress and lays down on top of the sleeping bag, eyes dropping shut. The excitement of being back in the city is hard to suppress.
He lays awake for a long time, smiling at the ceiling.
CHAPTER 55
It worked.
Matt looks around the room. Except for the sound of a gentle surf in his ears, all is silence and stillness, including the man in the tweed suit who stands motionless on the other side of the office, back to Matt.
Maybe it’s just a matter of practice, but it seems to be getting easier to find null-time.
Moving his arms and legs, everything works. The fingers are still a bit clumsy, but he can eventually cut or untie the cords on his ankle and get the strap off his chest that binds him to the chair. He reaches into a side pocket for the Stone, but comes up empty.
It’s gone.
A rush of adrenaline pumps through his chest and out into his arms and legs. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s trying to stand up in the chair, almost falling over.
A soft chuckle comes from the other side of the room.
“Not to worry. I have it right here.”
Matt’s legs tremble and his heart beats so hard it hurts. Swallowing a huge lump, he eases back into the chair and sits down, feeling lightheaded and gasping for air.
The man in the tweed jacket slowly turns and opens one hand to reveal a Stone. “This is yours.” He uncurls the fingers of his other hand. “And this is mine.” Bringing the two Stones up to his face, one in the palm of each hand, he looks as if he is offering them to some unseen deity hovering above him. They are similar, but not quite identical. They appear to be rough mirror images of
each other.
Matt’s Stone glows with a golden hue. The other is brilliantly white, like a piece of the sun.
The man walks to the table and turns both hands over so they are facing down. The Stones drop, making loud thuds as they hit the table and stick.
He reaches out for an empty chair nearby.
“Stopping time was a good idea,” he says. “It’s better for us to talk this way. No rush.” He moves closer to Matt, dragging the chair with him, and sits only a couple of meters away. “So, you have discovered one of the powers of the Stone. Your progress in five short days is impressive. For me, it took much longer.” The man lifts his arms up and cast a glance around the room. “What do you call this?”
“Call what?” Matt’s pulse has moderated enough for him to speak.
“Slowing down time like this. I’m sure you’ve come up with a word for it. Everyone does. What do you call it?”
“Null-time,” Matt says.
“Ah, yes,” the man says. “Descriptive, to be sure, but not quite accurate.” He reaches into his suit coat and brings out a small black box with a lacquered finish. “Would you like to know what Alexander the Great called it? Or perhaps Genghis Kahn?”
Matt stars into the man’s eyes and says nothing.
“Dead time.” He opens the box and grasps a cigarette from inside with his lips as he talks. “It’s interesting. They both came up with the same word, independently. I suppose it’s because their main concern was killing the enemy. It’s something I learned from our good Professor Yamamoto’s research.” He turns his face back in the direction of the heap lying on the floor near the pool of blood. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know what happened to the rest of his research, would you?” The man reaches down and picks up a piece of shattered memory cube that lies on the floor next to a hammer.
Keep him talking.
“No idea.” Matt tries to lick his lips but finds that his tongue and the rest of his mouth are incredibly dry. “What sort of research did he have?”
The man looks squarely at Matt for a few seconds, a half grin not quite forming. “No matter. I’m sure we will find it around here somewhere. From the chatter on the Mesh, it looks like you’ve become quite proficient at the time-freeze.” Reaching over to the table, the man grabs Matt’s jax and brushes its side with a finger. They both hear a news broadcast playing out in English.
