by Jacob Whaler
Twenty feet down the hall, he has a feeling he should double-check the bio-lock system. He walks back to the door of his office suite and inserts his left ring-finger into the small hole in a translucent blue cube attached to the door at waist level. A tingling sensation runs up his hand as the cube conducts a bioassay of the skin, bones and blood in the finger to insure proper identity. The cube glows green, and the door lock opens. Everything checks out.
When he gets down to street level, Kent consults his jax again to figure out the way to the sports store. It recalculates and comes up with a new path. It’s the first time he’s been outside since getting there, and he’s looking forward to feeling the old energy and vibe of the city on a summer afternoon.
But it’s gone.
Everything is different, and he has the strange feeling of walking through a ghost-town left with nothing but the memory of the crowds that used to move through its streets. He passes by a few other middle-aged walkers. Just as he noticed when entering the city, there are few young people outside. He seems to have left them all behind on the inside.
Out of habit, he catalogues his surroundings as he walks, noting the location of police cameras and data-sniffers, mentally calling out the models and makes of cars on the road, memorizing the faces of passersby. After three blocks he notices a tall kid with a bright yellow jersey walking fifty meters behind him, the first youth he’s seen at street level. He looks to be barely out of his teens.
Maybe he’s the rare exception that proves the rule.
Kent purposely takes a zig-zag route to his destination and turns down a narrow side street running past a Japanese restaurant. The name Oishii is painted on the window and feels oddly familiar. Perhaps he’s been here before on a lunch break when he worked in the city. He hurries past garbage piled on the sidewalk waiting for the late-night pickup.
When he gets to the end of the side street, old habits take over. He makes a sharp left turn and steals a quick backward glance.
The yellow jersey jumps out of the corner of his eye.
It was probably coincidence, but the thought of someone tailing him is unsettling enough to demand further investigation. He makes a left turn at the next side street and circles back to the main street he just left. A quick right turn and a backward glance confirm his suspicion. The yellow jersey is still behind him.
Kent keeps up a zig-zag path to a sports store and quickly enters before anyone with a yellow jersey appears. He finds an elevator and rides it to the seventy-fifth floor where the store is located.
Once inside, he syncs his jax with the local Mesh AI, confirms engagement, and then plays out a message on his jax.
Looking for fishing line.
The reply comes back instantly.
Our selection of fishing line starts at aisle P-17. Let me know if you have any questions.
Kent walks past the aisles in alphabetical order until he finds P. He turns and walks past white numbers until he comes to 17. Bingo. Finding stuff is easy in these AI-enabled stores. He browses past a hundred brands of fishing line displayed behind a clear glass cover until he finds what he is looking for. It’s called Spysyn, fishing line made from synthetic spider silk and treated with a nano-coating that makes it nearly invisible to the human eye. Low-tech stuff that’s been around a long time.
Touching a corner of his jax to the Purchase Here logo on the glass cover, there’s an audible click confirming the sale. He walks to the front of the store to a long counter under a Check-Out sign. It has a row of twelve-inch bluescreens that run its full length. He moves to one of them, waves his jax in front of it and waits.
“Just a moment.” It’s a pleasant sim-voice from behind the counter.
Ten seconds later, a small package rises on a platform through an opening in the counter. Mission accomplished. Kent picks up the package, neatly wrapped in blue with the store logo, and walks out the front of the store to the elevator.
No need to interact with any human. Technology selling technology. It would all be pure Abomination to the freedom campers. But it sure works great.
Kent decides to avoid the streets and find his way back through the buildings and skywalks that connect them. Here he finds the younger segment of the population, large herds of them, all surprisingly well-tanned for never setting foot outside, filling the malls, gaming arenas and bio-sculpt salons. Older members of the population are absent, and he realizes that a segregation, not of race or gender, but of age, is taking place before his eyes. Youth on the inside. Elders on the outside. Feeling out of place, he seems to pass through the crowds barely noticed. Most eyes stay fixed on bluescreens and holos, large and small, handheld, free floating and hanging from walls or ceilings. He marvels at the throngs of young people and the utter lack of social interaction among them.
The dark side of technology. Abomination.
Halfway home, Kent slips into a corner to check out his surroundings. His eye catches a yellow jersey just as it’s lurching out of view.
He waits in the corner for a long time before moving.
CHAPTER 62
Matt rises higher and higher in the column, going deeper into darkness and silence. He’s ridden a lot of elevators, but nothing with such a strong, almost violent, sense of upward motion. Gravity pulls hard on his legs and feet. To mark the time and slow down his heart rate, he closes his eyes and counts breaths. When he gets to twenty, the blackness in the column merges into purple, and then blue and finally green. A point of light appears at his waist. It lengthens out into a neat vertical slit and opens up into a square room with walls and floor painted the color of gold.
A sweet fragrance hangs in the air, not overpowering, like the scent of expensive cologne. When he inhales, he can still detect an underlying odor of burnt sulfur. Ryzaard must be trying to mask it.
Matt wonders why that smell always seems to hang around the old man.
He steps through the opening.
“Quite a ride, isn’t it?” Ryzaard smiles from a few feet away. “I could slow it down, but I find the motion exhilarating.”
Without a word, Matt surveys the polished marble pillars rising out of the floor up to a sparkling ceiling. His fingers reach out to the one nearest him and run along its cold, flawless surface. His eyes narrow.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Ryzaard steps to the pillar and presses his palm to its side. “You’re wondering if all this is real, or just some kind of clever trick I’m playing on your mind.”
“How did you know?”
Ryzaard’s lips fall into a smile, and he motions around the room. “Like I told you, this is my world, my creation. One of its features is that I can sense the thoughts of anyone here.”
“You can read my mind?” Matt takes a step back. “Isn’t that an invasion of privacy?”
“The only people who need privacy are those with secrets to hide. In a perfect world, my world, there is no need for secrets. Everything is open, honest and equal.”
Matt nods and strokes his chin. “So I should be able to read your thoughts as well. But for some reason I can’t, can I? I guess in your perfect world, some people are more equal than others.” The words drip with a sarcasm that he regrets as soon as they leave his mouth.
Ryzaard’s jaw muscles flex like steel cables. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “I will forgive you this once for intentionally misunderstanding me. But you’ll find that it’s dangerous to push back too hard. I’ve had decades to think and plan. And I’ve put that planning to actual effect on this world. Everything you see is made with the power of the Stones. This is a real planet somewhere in the universe, far from Earth. I don’t know the location. It doesn’t matter.” He knocks against the pillar with his knuckles. “This isn’t a mind game. It’s all real. Actual matter. Molecules and atoms.”
“And you’re the creator?”
“I am.” Ryzaard turns and leans his back against the pillar. “And I brought you here to begin teaching you about the Stones. So, t
he first thing you need to learn is that each Stone is connected to a unique world that belongs to its Holder. This one is mine. A creator’s paradise. Whatever I think becomes actual, physical reality.”
“Not just your Stone, right?” Matt walks to a window and looks out at the vast city. “There’s a planet out there connected to my Stone?”
“Waiting for you to find it,” Ryzaard says. “All you need is a little more training and experience. Now come this way.”
Matt follows behind Ryzaard. “It’s so quiet. Where are the people?”
“Come with me. Make sure you have your Stone. You’re going to find this most interesting, perhaps even entertaining.” He moves briskly to a wall. An instant before he hits it, an eight-foot vertical cut opens up to an ornate balcony on the outside of the building, as if the entire structure is made of living tissue that anticipates and responds to his mind. Ryzaard stands with his hands on the railing and looks up into the night sky.
It’s strangely devoid of stars.
With a glance down, Matt estimates they are five hundred meters above street level. A faintly bitter smell hangs in the night air reminding Matt of baker’s chocolate. The sound of flowing water drifts up from far below. A golden glow comes through the myriad of windows in the towers that surround them. Matt expects to see people moving behind the windows, but there are none.
Ryzaard lifts up his Stone. It glows bright purple against the dark backdrop of the night. “Watch carefully.”
Pulses of light jump out of the tip of the Stone like a finely dotted line. Ryzaard moves the line across the massive rectangular structure in front of them, left to right, up and down, over and over, as if he is spraying a garden hose. The light cuts neatly through the building like a laser might cut through onion paper, opening up huge gashes, exposing its exquisite golden interior, bisecting it vertically and horizontally again and again in a sea of sparks and fire until it collapses to the ground, a mass of twisted steel and shattered glass.
Matt stumbles backward and almost falls down as the smell of burning metal drifts up to the balcony.
“Easy enough. Now it’s your turn.” Ryzaard points to the right at a large pyramid structure with a round sphere balanced delicately on its point. “I saved it for you.”
Getting to his feet, Matt points in disbelief. “You want me to destroy it?”
“That’s the idea.”
“Why?”
“So you will understand the power of the Stones.”
“How?” Matt looks down into his open palm where his Stone is glowing the same bright purple.
“Simple. You see in your mind what you want the Stone to do, and it will.”
Swallowing hard, Matt balances the Stone in his right hand with the blunt end pointing out into the darkness. The fingers of his other hand reach for the railing and wrap around its cool surface. Closing his eyes, he tries to form an image in his mind of a beam of light shooting out of the Stone’s glossy interior. A bead of sweat rolls between his shoulder blades. Nothing happens.
After a couple of minutes, Matt steps back from the railing. “I can’t get it to work.” His hand drops to his side and his gaze goes down to his shoes.
Ryzaard strokes his mustache with an index finger. “I’ll give you a hint. The Stone connects to your emotions. I assume you have some. I find that anger works best for me.”
In this new world of Ryzaard’s, Matt feels like a dry well. The only emotion he can seem to conjure is the desire to escape as soon as possible and get back to Jessica and Professor Yamamoto. He shrugs his shoulders.
“Let me see if I can help. Has the world ever taken something from you, something so irreplaceable, so infinitely valuable, that it will never be able to make it up to you?”
With his head cocked to the side, Matt looks up. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Answer the question.”
Matt stares at the Stone in his hand and thinks. A full minute passes in silence. “Yes.” He looks up into the night sky, his voice barely audible.
“What was it?”
Matt turns. “Why do you want to know?”
“So I can help you. Trust me.” With his hands behind his back, Ryzaard looks vaguely paternal. “What did they take from you?”
Matt squints his eyes and scrutinizes the city. Its collection of structures look like a graveyard of tombstones.
“Tell me,” Ryzaard’s voice lowers to a whisper. “I know it can be hard to bring back the memories.”
Matt whirls around to face Ryzaard full on. “My mother!” His voice booms in the darkness of the balcony, bounces off the walls and is sucked out into the city. “They killed my mother.”
“How old were you?”
“Barely ten.” Matt’s voice trails off.
“It must have been hard.”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“You would be surprised. I had a mother myself. And a father. Both killed by the Nazis.” For an instant, the skin seems to stretch tight across Ryzaard’s face. “Do you miss her?”
Matt glares at Ryzaard. “Do I miss her? What kind of a question is that?” He feels his own face flush with sudden heat. “She was everything to me.”
“Perfect.” Ryzaard licks his lips and takes a step forward, like a lion about to dig into a feast of raw meat. “Now think of all the years you have been without her, of everything you have lost that can never be repaid. Think of the pain they have caused you. Think of the injustice. Think of all the people in the world who have their mothers but could not care less. Nurture your outrage. Let it build and grow. Focus all of it on the Stone. Embrace its power. Hunger for it. Become it.”
Matt’s hands are shaking. He has a sudden urge to kill Ryzaard. Fighting it back, he swallows again, closes his eyes. Abdominal muscles grow taunt as his chest lifts up and his hips move forward. Slowly at first, and then more deeply, a knot of emotion gathers strength inside him, like a cobra coiling itself, preparing to spring and strike, feeling the need to explode. The image of a smooth laser beam shooting out of the Stone forms on the back of his eyelids.
“Feel it. Grasp it with your mind. Hold on to it. Now let it go.”
The tension builds in Matt’s chest until he can hold it no longer. The next instant, a tightly wound ball of emotion explodes out of his hand and the sound of a howling wolf drifts into his ears. It feels as though a dam has broken and years of frustration are flowing out into the night. And then he realizes he’s standing, head thrown back, mouth gaping open, the sound bursting out of his own throat. Eyes snap open. A jagged blue beam is shooting out of the Stone like lightning. He is slashing across the horizon from end to end, incredible pleasure welling up to replace the raw anger flowing out. He draws the beam back and forth, over and over, without mercy, finding full expression for all the built-up rage inside, feeding off the fire and devastation playing out in front of him.
He vents his rage until there is nothing left to destroy. As far as he can see, the city lies in smoldering ruins beneath him and Ryzaard.
The beam fades. Matt steps back from the railing with his shirt drenched in sweat. He is breathing in sync with the drumbeat of his heart.
“Magnificent.” Ryzaard turns to face him. “Tell me how it felt.”
“Power.” Matt’s words come between gasps as his chest heaves in and out. “I’ve never felt such pure power.”
CHAPTER 63
“Exhilarating, isn’t it?” Ryzaard folds his arms across his chest. “Now you understand a small part of what I have been talking about.”
Matt has a worried look on his face. “There weren’t any people in those buildings, were there?”
Ryzaard turns and walks back through the door behind them. “Does it really matter?”
Matt follows Ryzaard into the square room, afraid to pursue the question further, still gripping the Stone in his right hand and breathing heavily.
They move across the gilded floor to a pair of double doors hangi
ng open on the opposite side of the room and pass through into a much larger enclosure. Impossibly large. Matt estimates each of the room’s four sides are a kilometer long. The walls and ceiling have the same look of inlaid gold encrusted with multi-colored jewels. He sees brilliant chandeliers the size of houses hanging from the ceiling. They stand together on a raised platform above the main floor of the room.
Ryzaard walks to the edge.
Matt stops, still stunned by the destruction that flowed from his Stone on the balcony, unsure of whether to follow, unsure of what he may become.
When Ryzaard gets to the edge of the platform, he turns and motions with his hand for Matt to move closer. “Come. There’s someone here to meet you.”
Hesitating, Matt is afraid of what he may see, but the force of his curiosity pulls him closer. As the main floor comes into view, a deafening chorus of cheers and applause rise up out of a sea of purple.
Matt swings back around at the door he and Ryzaard just passed through, but it’s gone. The wall they came through seems to have disappeared.
“What happened to the—”
“No need to worry about such details,” Ryzaard says. “Just have a look around.”
Matt scans in a quick full circle. They’re standing on a round dish of a platform hovering in the center of the massive chamber, a hundred meters above the main level. The room now feels much larger than he first thought.
Together with Ryzaard, Matt walks the circumference of the platform only inches from the edge. Ryzaard clasps his hands behind him, and it reminds Matt of a dictator doing a triumphal review of his troops. Choruses of adulation swell up from the floor to meet them.
“I don’t understand,” Matt says. “Who are these people, and what’s going on?”
“As I told you before, this is a window into the future.” Ryzaard strokes his mustache and returns the hand to his back. “The future you and I will create with the power of the Stones. Take a look. Tell me what you see.”
