Stones (Data)

by Jacob Whaler

  Matt looks up. “How do you know about the Stone?”

  “I have some experience.” The old man opens the palm of his hand and stares into Matt’s eyes.

  There, in the old man’s hand, is a claw-shaped rock, mostly dark purple with a distinct shape.

  “The Yasakani no Magatama.” Matt whispers the words to himself.

  The old man’s eyebrows lift. “You know of the Magatama Jewel?”

  “I saw a picture of it in Professor Yamamoto’s office.”

  “Ah, yes. The only photograph ever taken.” The old man’s eyes drop down, and he puts the Stone back into the recesses of his robe.

  “You’re the one who holds the Magatama for the Emperor?”

  “Yes.” The old man grins. “The professor must have told you.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “To keep it safe. The way it has been for more than two thousand years.” The old man rests his head on the back seat and exhales a long, deep breath. “No more questions. We have many hours to travel, and you need rest. Close your eyes. Sleep.”

  Matt fumbles in his pocket for his jax so he can leave an emergency message with MOM for his dad. Then he realizes that he left it in Professor Yamamoto’s office. No doubt Ryzaard has it now.

  The lights dim inside the car. Matt leans back and tries to relax, and then turns to the old man. “One more question. Tell me your name.”

  “Naganuma Ryunosuke, the 100th Holder of the Magatama.”

  CHAPTER 73

  Matt pushes off the rocky edge of the chasm with the ball of his foot and arches his back, stretching out arms and fingers for a handhold on the laser-bright line shooting across to the opposite side. The warmth of the laser kisses his fingers as he tries to grab it, but his hands slip through. Jagged rock walls rush up and away from him as he falls into darkness.

  The sense of falling brings him out of the nightmare.

  His eyes flip open to a dawn sky, pink against blue mountains on the other side of the valley. As he pulls himself up, the door behind him opens, and he rolls out onto a gravel surface. The door slams shut, and the car speeds away, spitting sand and pebbles in his face.

  Naganuma stands a few paces away on the other side of where the car had been, leaning on his staff and smiling down at Matt. “Ohayou gozaimasu, my young friend. It’s a beautiful morning. I hope you got some rest. Welcome to my Shinto shrine.”

  Naganuma’s sandals crunch on the gravel as he turns and walks to the main torii gate of the shrine, the symbolic boundary like between the unclean outside world and the sacred temple grounds. Fifteen meters high, the two vertical pillars of the torii gate are a meter in diameter, made of smooth wood and painted vermillion red. Near the top, there are two horizontal cross beams. The lower one is the same vermillion color, and the upper half of the beam on top is painted jet black. Its ends curve upward.

  “Where are we going?” Matt says.

  “I am hungry,” Naganuma grunts. “And so are you. It’s not good to talk on an empty stomach. No questions now. Eat first, talk later.”

  Matt stands and walks behind Naganuma through the torii gate to the bottom of broad stone steps leading up to the main temple. Each step is a foot high and worn round from centuries of traffic. Ascending in silence, Naganuma gazes upward as he climbs, and Matt follows a few meters behind. At the top, the Shinto priest turns to face the open valley behind them.

  Matt mounts the top step, the hundred seventy-fifth one he has counted on the way up, and breathes heavily after the brisk climb. He turns to face the same direction as the priest.

  “I came here forty years ago, just before the 99th Holder died.” Naganuma stands with his hands on his hips over the white robes of a Shinto priest. “It was my first trip to Northern Japan. Very different from Kyoto.”

  Matt gazes across the valley at the pink-blue sky where the sun will soon rise. The only road to the base of the stone stairs winds like a thin ribbon through the lush carpet of Japanese cedars that covers the undulating hills. To his left and right, mountain ridges stretch in ever fainter rows to the horizon. Behind him, a peak rises like a great pyramid, covered from top to bottom in abundant green vegetation. The temple grounds are a flat area carved into the mountainside. It feels as if they are standing on an island floating in a sea of green, a massive wave rising high to their backs, ready to crash down and crush them.

  “So we’re in Northern Japan? Where, exactly?” Matt keeps his eyes on the valley below. After several seconds, he hears no response from Naganuma and turns to face him, but the priest is gone. Whipping around, he searches in vain, and then hears the sound of wood sliding on wood. With his back to the sunrise, he turns in the direction of the sound. A stone walkway leads to the main shrine where visitors worship the Kami, the enshrined deity.

  A hundred meters away, Naganuma stands at the entrance to a smaller building to the right of the main shrine, laughing as he waves. He puts both hands to his mouth to shout. “No time to enjoy the scenery. Come now. We eat.” He turns and enters the building under its triangle-shaped roof, leaving the sliding door open.

  Jogging up the walkway, Matt moves past two massive komainu lion-dog statues standing on either side, guarding the entrance to the shrine. Just like the ones he saw on the mountaintop outside of Sapporo, the one on the right seems to be saying ahh with its open mouth and the one on the left is saying umm with its mouth closed in the traditional ahh-umm style, the first and last letters in the old Sanskrit alphabet. Alpha and omega.

  When he reaches the sliding doors, the smell of fried bacon and eggs instantly triggers hunger pains, and he remembers he has not eaten since the previous day. The aroma pulls him irresistibly through the doorway. He turns and slides the door shut behind him.

  “Come in,” Naganuma says in the lowest form of Japanese, as if he were speaking to his dog. “Sit down.”

  Matt slips silently out of his shoes and steps up onto the main floor. He has heard stories about the resurgence of militant Shinto in some parts of Japan, the same religion that fueled its disastrous entry into World War II during the last century. He remembers that much of Japan’s culture has sprung out of its Shinto roots, and that it’s the only home-grown religion on the Japanese islands. He expects to see the walls covered with gold-framed tributes to past emperors, expensive wall hangings, decorative calligraphy of the highest order, maybe even the old rising-sun war flag of the Japanese Imperial Army.

  But the actual surroundings surprise him.

  To his right, against one wall, there are two six-foot high bookcases with row upon row of old paperback novels, all in English, all of them science fiction. There is a bluescreen mounted on the opposite wall to his left with Mesh access buttons on the side. And there is the obligatory wall-hanging, this one displaying a single Japanese kanji.

  It’s the character for the word see.

  Beneath it, there is small scribbling in an archaic cursive style that Matt can’t read.

  The black and white posters are the final surprise. James Dean, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe decorate the walls. At the back of the room in a small kitchen area, Naganuma leans over a frying pan and puts the finishing touches on breakfast. To his right, just a few feet from his elbow, stands a vintage fat-tire motorcycle with a prominent Harley-Davidson logo and polished chrome, leaning on its kickstand. There’s no dust on the black leather seat.

  Naganuma turns around as Matt’s eyes are sweeping the room. “The prior Holder had a fascination with American cultural icons, like most Japanese of his generation. You would have liked him.” He walks a few paces to the low table at the center of the room and motions for Matt to sit on the tatami floor with his back to the bookcases. Sweeping his arm across the table, Naganuma clears away a dozen books and stray sheets of paper, making room for the fry pan with its sizzling bacon and steaming eggs.

  Matt drops down with his legs folded beneath him in traditional Japanese style while the aroma drifts around him and triggers an ov
erpowering urge to eat.

  Naganuma sits cross-legged on the tatami floor on the opposite side of the table. He reaches to a small cabinet behind him and slides the glass window back to grab two plates and a chopstick holder. He drops them on the table and motions for Matt to take a plate. Matt picks it up and blows off the dust.

  “Sorry for the lack of formalities and clean dishes,” Naganuma says. With chopsticks in hand, he picks several fried eggs and strips of bacon out of the fry pan and places them on the small plate in front of him. “I don’t have guests often.” He raises the plate to his mouth and finds an egg with his lips. It quickly disappears between his teeth with a slurp. Next, he bites into a slab of bacon and pulls it off the plate, dripping grease. Whipping his head back in a smooth motion, the bacon disappears between his lips.

  “Itadakimasu.” Matt reaches for the chopsticks and bows his head in a show of gratitude. Patiently waiting until the Shinto priest is done, Matt picks out an egg and two pieces of bacon and places them on his plate.

  Definitely not a vegetarian, Matt thinks.

  As they eat in silence, Matt feels Naganuma’s eyes on him and tries to look away, pretending to admire the books and posters.

  “I can’t stand miso soup and rice for breakfast. Never did agree with me.” Naganuma finishes quickly and wipes the grease from his face with a sleeve. “Eat the rest.” He picks up the handle of the fry pan and dumps its contents onto Matt’s plate. Then he licks off his chopsticks and drops them back into the holder in the center of the table.

  Matt gazes at Naganuma and then looks down at the chopsticks in his own hand.

  With the fry pan and plate, Naganuma walks to the stainless steel sink at the rear of the room and drops them in. When he comes back to the table, he reaches into the folds of his robe and pulls out the small gray stone box Matt saw earlier and places it on the table between them. He turns and walks to the rear of the room, stopping to put a hand on the handlebars of the Harley and casting a backward glance at Matt.

  “I’ll be gone to the shrine for a few minutes. Wait until I come back. Then we will talk.” Naganuma disappears behind the motorcycle down a dark hallway Matt had not noticed until now.

  His eyes fall down to the gray box on the table.

  CHAPTER 74

  The ultra low-frequency alarm pierces the darkness and pours over Kent’s consciousness like a slow-motion mudslide, first touching the skin of his toes and fingers with its vibrations, and then consuming his body in a crescendo of intensity.

  He bolts upright, jumping almost to his feet. Motion sensors in the room pick up his sudden movement and kill the alarm. With eyes still closed, he gropes his way on all fours through the darkness to the Turing Box under the window. In his wake, storage boxes, metal tubes, tripods and food containers lie scattered across the floor. It occurs to him that it might make sense to clear a path to the window the next time he sets the alarm before going to sleep.

  Earlier in the day, he shot multiple threads of Spysyn across the void between him and the 175th floor of MX Global. Now the invisible threads hang taut across the chasm like the anchor lines of a great spider web. The most careful attention went into the two stereo lines bonded to the outside window of Ryzaard’s office, or at least the one he thinks belongs to Ryzaard. Before retiring to bed, he rigged the two lines to sound sensors on the TurBo and set it up to trigger the alarm if there were any movements inside the office. Someone must have just entered and set off the alarm. He hopes it is more than just the night cleaners.

  The screen of the TurBo lights up at his finger’s touch, and he adjusts the volume controls before pressing earplugs into both ears. Voices come through, distinct and clear.

  “It’s good to finally be back,” says a male voice, possibly that of Ryzaard. “Feels like we have been gone for a week.”

  “Just under fourteen hours.” It’s a female voice, much younger.

  Kent reaches to his right and nudges the slate on the table, waking it up. Its screen fills with blue-green light, throwing an eerie glow on his face in the darkness. He brushes the screen with a finger and engages the voice assay protocol. A rolling sound wave anigraph emerges onscreen, and the protocol begins to compare the male voice to a sample of Ryzaard’s words pulled from a recent Mesh-cast, the one that caught Kent’s attention with the announcement about the creation of MX SciFin.

  Is it really Ryzaard talking? Kent will have the answer shortly.

  Kent stands up, stretches his arms to the ceiling, brings his palms together, lets his head relax backwards and arches his spine. Breathing in deeply, he fills his lungs with air. After standing in that position for thirty seconds, he rights himself and sinks into the camp chair next to the window, looking out across the night to an imaginary space where unseen voices in an unseen room converse. With the stereo lines attached to the target’s window, he can hear every sound with spatial clarity as if he is standing in the center of the same room. It gives him a sense of intimacy that has an uncomfortable, awkward edge to it. But he soon relaxes, closes his eyes and puts himself firmly into the room, hovering between the man and the woman, a ghost in their midst.

  The man lets out a sigh and walks to the right, slumping down into a chair that must be made of wood because it creaks with his weight. The woman moves to the left and reclines on what sounds like a leather sofa. Silence floats between them.

  Kent turns up the volume and can hear them breathing.

  The woman’s voice breaks in. “What should I do with the girl? She’s still heavily sedated.”

  “Can you wake her in the morning?”

  “No problem. She won’t even remember getting on the transport.”

  “Put her to work in Van Pelt’s department,” the man says. “Give her interesting projects, something to keep her busy and happy and as far away from us as possible. But do not let anything take her away from the City. If and when we find the boy, we will need immediate access to her.”

  “I’ll put her with another group of summer interns.” The woman yawns as she speaks. “They’re working on public relations for our charitable work in Africa.”

  “Good idea. Give her a generous salary. And have her stay in one of the corporation’s luxury condos down on 42nd Street. Kick anyone out you need to. I don’t care if it’s Van Pelt himself.” The man chuckles.

  “Understood. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled.”

  “Remember, under no circumstances is she to leave the City. I will let you know when I need her. It should only be a few days.”

  “Of course.”

  “One more thing. A small favor.”

  “Yes?” The woman pauses, and Kent senses the anticipation in her voice. “What would you like me to do?”

  “I’m in need of a soundproof, bulletproof room in the empty space next door.” The man stands and begins to walk.

  Kent hears him coming closer to the spot in the room where his listening is centered. As the man seems to brush past, Kent feels the hair on his spine rise, and he nearly falls out of his chair.

  The man moves by and stops a meter away. “I want only one entrance to this new room, from my office. No other doors. Have the entire room reinforced with high-impact armor from the R&D department, the best they have. It needs to be strong enough to contain a nuclear blast. Assume it will be used to hold someone or something extraordinarily dangerous. Black out the windows. I don’t care how much it costs.”

  “Sounds interesting,” the woman says. “But people might get suspicious. What if someone asks me why I’m building a high-security holding cell on the 175th floor of the MX Global building?”

  Kent hears her shift positions on the leather sofa.

  “Ignore them. If they persist, tell them we need a high-tech workout room for all the youngsters we have put to work up here. And let me know who asks.”

  There’s movement on the slate’s bluescreen beside Kent. Glancing at it, he sees that the voice assay anigraph has stopped. In its place there are tw
o words in bright green.

  Match confirmed.

  No doubt about it. He’s listening to Ryzaard.

  Ryzaard walks back across the room and drops into the wooden chair. Kent hears a scraping sound like the opening of a drawer in a desk. Fingers fumble with cellophane packaging. A match is struck, and it ignites with an audible burst of flame, a sound Kent hasn’t heard for twenty years. Someone takes a deep drag on a cigarette and exhales. Kent can almost smell the smoke.

  He imagines Ryzaard throwing his head back and blowing a long stream of blue-white up to the ceiling, just like his grandpa when Kent was a child.

  Ryzaard turns in his chair, as if he is talking directly to Kent, jolting him out of his reverie.

  “That boy is going to be a problem. He knows we want the Stone. He knows we are trying to find him and kill him. He will be expecting us to come after him.”

  “So what do we do?” says the woman.

  Another long drag on the cigarette, and then a relaxing exhale.

  “I have been thinking about it. Perhaps I have been in too much of a hurry. Perhaps we should just let him sit and stew for a few days.” Ryzaard speaks evenly and clearly. “We have his girlfriend and his jax. We will restart the tracking protocol, and find out where he is hiding. Then we will set the trap, and the next time, there will not be any mistakes.”

  “Yes, the next time,” says the woman, laughing softly.

  Kent hears the sound of a cork coming out of a bottle, and the gentle pouring of liquid into a two glasses. The wooden chair creaks as Ryzaard stands. Kent can hear Ryzaard walk across the room as the sound of footsteps passes from Kent’s left ear to his right ear. The woman moves on the couch, and Ryzaard sits down.

  Kent hears the crystal chime of two glasses touching together in a toast.