by Jacob Whaler
The east side of the building tells a different story. It’s entirely devoid of the telltale signs of high energy consumption and the heat output of electronics. In fact, it consists mostly of empty space, with only one long office on its outside edge looking out to the old Brooklyn Bridge. A long corridor connects that lone office to the work area on the west side.
It is clear from the layout that whoever occupies the lone office wants privacy and isolation and is in a position to demand it, in spite of the high price of office space in Midtown Manhattan. And they are not keen on surrounding themselves with wall-to-wall hi-tech gadgetry. Put those facts together, and it points to only one conclusion: the head of the organization, an old man, occupies that office.
Kent smiles with the knowledge that he has finally found the office of the new President and CEO of MX SciFin, Dr. Mikal Ryzaard.
CHAPTER 70
Matt knows he is dreaming.
He can tell by the murky fog that hangs all around and the muffled sound of a man’s voice that floats loosely through his consciousness, never quite taking hold. It has a general quality of urgency as it rises and falls in spikes that jolt him halfway out of relaxation, only to let him fall back into that contented place from which he does not want to move.
The fog thins out, and the head of a massive snake floats into the corner of his eye. It must be part of the dream. Nothing to be afraid of. Large fangs glisten near his neck, which is resting comfortably on a white pillow. There is only a slight pricking sensation as the fangs sink into his moist flesh. Bliss and repose take over. He gives himself up to the overpowering need for sleep within the dream.
But sleep does not come.
Through closed eyes, his sight is drawn inside his body. A black sphere moves slowly across his line of vision from left to right against a white background. He knows the sphere has entered his body from the outside, and it’s trying to get to a large blood vessel on the far right that resembles a tree with multiple branches. If the sphere makes contact with the blood vessel, the sphere will open and release a poison that will flow through his body and instantly kill him.
The black sphere was put there by Ryzaard.
But Matt is not afraid. Dying means rest, and he is utterly exhausted and tired of fighting, tired of living, tired of trying. Relaxation takes over as he gives himself up to the inevitable end of life.
Then there is a bone-jarring flash. Lightning seems to strike only a few inches away and startles him.
“Okiro! Okiro!”
Someone is yelling at him to wake up, shouting in Japanese. It’s a man’s voice, the same one he heard earlier in the dream. He tries to ignore it, to block it out. It fades for a time, and then comes back, this time louder and more insistent.
“Omae, Okiro!”
The black sphere is only a hair’s breadth from touching its target. Matt looks at its round shape and wants to separate himself from it, to look away, to ignore it. But he can’t. He reaches out just before the sphere kisses the thin wall of the blood vessel and finds that he can move it back. But it takes great effort, and it is easier to ignore the whole thing and just let it go.
“Okiro!”
The voice tries to wake him. It does not want the sphere to finish its work. The voice is telling him to pull the sphere back so it never reaches its goal.
Matt trusts the voice. He decides to help it.
Mustering as much strength as he can in the dream fog that envelops him, he reaches out and pushes the sphere away. His hands feel heavy, and the effort saps his strength, leaving him drained and empty. A part of him wants to cease the struggle, to find rest.
But he makes a choice.
He ignores the part of him that wants to give up. He chooses to focus on the voice that wants him to live. With all his effort, he follows the voice and moves the sphere back until it has gone far to the left out of his line of vision. When he sees it no more, he collapses back in on himself, unsure of whether he has succeeded.
He feels like a rocket that has exhausted its fuel and, failing to reach escape velocity, rests in momentary motionlessness before the long descent back to earth. His head is heavy, and he relaxes his shoulders and neck, allowing gravity to pull on him, giving him a sense of falling, of letting go. But there is no fear in the falling. A lush green meadow stretches out below him, drawing him down. In his dream state, he turns to face it and opens his arms wide to receive the impact. When it comes, there is no pain, only intense white light. On the edge of his field of vision, colors emerge and sounds are born out of the silence. There are birds chirping, insects buzzing, the wind dancing with leaves in the trees. It all begins as something far away and then, with gathering intensity, draws close until he finds himself at its center. The fragrance of cedar wood and wild flowers fills his nostrils.
Matt breathes in and opens his eyes.
A blue circle of sky opens through the trees above him. Wisps of clouds float across the expanse. He lies still for a long time savoring the feeling. No pain, no struggle, no need to think. Rest at last. His eyes drop down. The only motion comes from the rise and fall of his chest.
But the presence of another wakes him, and his eyelids float open.
An old man stands over him, wearing a stiff white robe down to his ankles, with generous sleeves that drape almost to his knees.
Matt studies the man, the wide furrows on his forehead, the thin mustache drifting down over full lips that end in a mischievous twist at each end. Thick eyebrows of gray hang over large brown eyes that tapper out to the edges. There is a look of profound concern on the face. It reminds him of the look on his Japanese grandfather’s face when Matt was seven and blacked out after jumping out of a tree and slamming his head into the ground.
“Daijoubu kai?” As the old man speaks and leans closer to Matt’s face, the folds of his robes brush Matt’s chest. “Are you all right?”
Matt opens his mouth to speak, but his throat feels like he has swallowed a cup of fine, white flour, and no sound comes out. An enormous hand slips under his neck and raises his head. Another hand brings a clear tube of blue liquid to his lips. As the end goes into his mouth, it floods his tongue with the sugary taste of shaved ice he remembers from the long, hot summers of his childhood spent in Japan.
He pauses for a moment as the refreshing liquid runs down his throat. “Arigato.” Matt sits up and stares around the mountain clearing.
“My favorite drink,” says the old man. “It still gets me up in the morning.” Matt detects a northern accent in the man’s rough Japanese.
The clearing looks familiar. Cedar trees mixed with pine, white dokudami flowers carpeting the ground, their petals open to the sky, and a large boulder with a flat top squarely in the middle. Matt’s eyes narrow. “How did I get here?” He gazes up into the dark eyes peering down at him.
“No time to talk,” the old man says.
There’s an aching soreness in Matt’s wrists and ankles. Trembling fingers run back and forth over the chaffed skin as he struggles to remember how the marks got there. His mind is like an empty bucket, shot through with holes, water draining out the bottom and sides. As if acting on its own, his right hand drops into a side pocket, and the fingers wrap comfortably around a hard object. He pulls out the Stone and opens his palm.
As soon as Matt sees it, something stirs within his mind. A cascade of memories pour in. In an instant, he sees Professor Yamamoto’s office, Ryzaard standing over the professor in triumph, the dagger plunging into his chest four times, the white shirt stained crimson, Jessica slumped over in her chair, out of Matt’s reach. He shoots a glance at the old man and falls back out of fear until he bumps against the boulder, unable to move further away. Holding the Stone at arm’s length, he grips it like the hilt of a long sword, pointing the tip at the old man.
“Who are you?” Matt’s voice trembles.
“No need to fear, my young Holder of a Stone.” The old man smiles and takes two quick steps in Matt’s direction.
“But this must be concealed for now.” In a flash, a long staff appears from out of the thick folds of the man’s robe and sweeps past Matt as a puff of hot air brushes his face.
Matt looks down at his hand and sees that it is empty. “My Stone,” he says. “Give it back!” He lunges forward, hands outstretched.
The mysterious man steps to the side and deftly works his staff into the middle of Matt’s ankles and knees, sending him sprawling to the ground, a confused tangle of arms and legs. Matt lands softly in a mass of vegetation and rolls until his movement is stopped by the trunk of a pine tree.
“He killed Professor Yamamoto. He still has Jessica!” Matt’s eyes open wide. The full realization of what Ryzaard might do to her hits him with the force of a baseball bat between his eyes. “I have to go—”
“No time for that. As long as you are alive, he will not harm her.” The man in the robe turns and walks out of the clearing back to the main trial. “Now get up and follow me.”
CHAPTER 71
Ryzaard stands on his feet, still staring at the empty chair.
Impossible.
There’s no way the boy could have jumped himself out of the office, not in the condition he was in. It had taken Ryzaard years of practice to hone his jumping ability, and even now it required careful concentration and mental exertion. He had injected Matt with enough hydrizal to keep every neuron in his nervous system firing for the next three days. And the assassin’s bullet in Matt’s neck should have released its payload and killed him within minutes even if he was able to manage a jump.
For the first time in many years, Ryzaard feels his age. He walks to the door with slow steps, noticing on the way that his shoulders are stooping forward. It’s an old habit he picked up back in the death camps as a teenager, and he finds himself reverting back to it whenever defeat and frustration threaten to overtake him. With visible effort, he straightens his spine, thrusts his chest out and pulls his shoulders back.
His fingers find the Stone, and he jumps into the shadows of an empty hangar at the Sapporo Airport.
Walking out of the hangar, he moves into the fading evening light to the MX SciFin transport still idling its engines on the tarmac.
Through the window, Alexa sees him coming and reads the failure in his gait. She steels herself for his arrival.
He enters the cabin, moves down the aisle and drops into a seat across from her, looking blankly out the window and exhaling audibly.
Alexa knows that Ryzaard is used to winning, so she doesn’t dare ask about the details of the last few hours. It pains her to see him slumping in his chair like an agglomeration of mud and rocks balanced precariously on the side of a mountain, waiting for the slightest disturbance to send it into a headlong plunge to the valley below.
Pulling himself up in his chair, Ryzaard finally breaks the silence. “I’ve never seen anything like him. Either I have severely underestimated his abilities, or he has someone helping him.”
Alexa waits for a few seconds. “Where is he now?”
“I have no idea. He just vanished, along with the Stone.”
“He already knows how to leap?” Alexa knows she is treading on thin ice by asking questions.
“Jump. It’s called jumping. It would appear so. Either that, or someone else is jumping him.”
“The Allehonen, perhaps?”
Ryzaard’s eyes narrow to slits. “I don’t want to hear that word from your lips again. Do you understand me?”
Alexa’s face goes crimson. “Sorry.” It wasn’t her intent to make him made. They way he looks at her, anything she says will enrage him.
She resolves to remain silent.
As if regretting his outburst, Ryzaard speaks more softly this time. “They don’t work that way, my dear. They rarely interfere directly in our world. It does not serve their twisted purposes. They prefer to sit back and watch us suffer. That is why I hate them.”
“Another Holder perhaps?” Alexa ventures a bold guess. “Someone we don’t know about. A potential rival.” She winces, regretting her words again, knowing that even the suggestion of such a thing risks sparking Ryzaard’s rage.
“Unlikely but not impossible. Intriguing thought.” Ryzaard’s gaze moves outside through the window.
“We continue the hunt, I assume.”
“Absolutely. There are only two possible paths. Track him down. Or force him to come to us. We will pursue both strategies simultaneously and see which works first.” Ryzaard looks out the window as the jet transport lifts off the ground. “Call Diego Lopez and have him restart the tracking algorithm, focusing first on an area within 1,000 klicks of here. If that doesn’t work, widen the search area.” He stands and places an organic-looking cylindrical object on the table. “This is the boy’s jax. Give it to Kalani as soon as we get back. I want him to strip it clean of data. We may pick up some leads.” Ryzaard stretches his back and arms. “I’ll be in my personal quarters until we get back to the City. Don’t disturb me. I need to rest.” He walks to the front of the plane and then stops to turn back and face Alexa. “The girl will be arriving shortly on a delivery from our Yakuza friends. They won’t be happy about the loss of a couple of their comrades, but pay no attention. It’s all being blamed on Matt. As for the girl, she’s still under heavy sedation. I’m placing her under your fulltime personal care.”
Alexa nods. “I’ll make sure she gets another round of Sleepmax. It’ll help her forget the last twenty-four hours.”
“Good idea.” He turns and walks away. “We’ll need her later.”
CHAPTER 72
Who is this guy?
Just in front of Matt, the enigmatic old man flows effortlessly down the trail in his white robes, staff in hand, as if his feet are barely touching the ground. Halfway down the mountain, Matt’s head begins to clear, and he realizes the old man is wearing the stylized garb of a Shinto priest.
Each time he attempts to speak to the man, Matt is answered with only the wave of a hand, a few grunts and a stony silence.
At the bottom of the trail, Matt is utterly exhausted, but the man is barely winded. They walk through the grass and pass under the large torii gate, where the priest abruptly halts and holds up his hand. Within seconds, a black car with dark windows pulls up to the curb, and the rear door pops open.
To Matt, the vehicle bears an uncanny resemblance to a tricked-out Yakuza car. As he turns to run away, a powerful hand grabs his shoulders.
“Isshou ni norinasai.”
Hearing the command to get in, Matt feels himself being pushed headlong into the dark interior of the backseat, and the old man gets in behind him. The rear door seals shut, and Matt’s ears pop at the sudden increase in pressure. The car floats down the road to the sound of a low frequency motor-tone. It seeps up through the seats and settles in his chest. He sits up to look around. An opaque sheet of glass separates the back seat from the front, and all he can do is make out the vague figure of a driver. The car turns left and heads to the main road.
“I have to go back.” Matt glares at his captor as rage flares in his chest. “He killed Professor Yamamoto, and he’s going to kill Jessica. I have to go after her.” He thinks again of Ryzaard plunging the dagger into the professor’s chest, and nausea pools in his belly.
The old man shakes his head. “The professor was a good man, an old acquaintance. I take partial responsibility for his death. I should have acted sooner to protect him. Ryzaard moved more quickly than I expected. But it’s too late now and can’t be helped.” His head goes back against the seat, and his eyes drop down. “You must stay with me. Ryzaard has gone back to New York City with this girl you call Jessica. As long as you are alive and away from him, he will not harm her. She is the bait to lure you into a trap. If you go to Ryzaard now, he will kill you and her. The only way to keep her alive is to stay away.”
“Why should I believe you?” Matt’s mind is racing to comprehend all that has happened in the past hour, all that he has lost. “Where are
you taking me?”
The old man goes suddenly silent. He calmly faces forward with a stony expression, as if he knows nothing about dragging Matt down from the mountain and throwing him into the backseat of an ominous black car.
Matt’s hands slowly curl into fists. “Who are you?”
“Ochitsukinasai. Relax.” The man speaks in a strong Northern Japanese accent and has as much expression as a stone statue on Easter Island. “I am taking you back to the shrine with me for your safety. Unless you would rather have Rzyaard kill you now.”
“My Stone.” Matt stares at the old man, studying the gray fringe around a balding head, the unblemished skin and the dark eyes more clearly now. “Where is it?”
The man’s hand disappears into the folds of his robe and reappears with a small box on an open palm. It has a dull gray surface that reminds Matt of the color and texture of the giant granite boulders he often climbed in Powder Puff Basin.
“As long as it stays inside this box, your Stone will be hidden from Ryzaard.” He places the box back into the deep folds of his rob, and then stretches out a large hand and places it on Matt’s knee. “You must trust me, Matthew Newmark. Ryzaard intends to kill you. He almost succeeded. This was extracted from your neck just in time.” The old man opens the palm of his other hand and reveals a black capsule with small flecks of red on it. With his thumb and index finger, he pinches the capsule until it bursts, spraying a clear liquid around the inside of the car.
Matt touches his neck and feels a stab of pain as he brushes past a tender spot. “In Professor Yamamoto’s office, Ryzaard said I only had five minutes to live. I felt it moving deeper, toward the artery.” A shudder runs through his body as he recalls the events of the past hour. “You pulled me out of the professor’s office. Brought me to the mountaintop. Extracted the capsule before I died.” Matt looks down at his knees.
“We did all that together. I helped a little, but you did most of the work keeping the capsule away from the artery, in spite of the pain Ryzaard inflicted. Magnificent.” The old man’s rigid face cracks into a smile. “You are stronger than you think. I can help you learn more about the Stone. You will need it.”
