by Jacob Whaler
“My head is killing me.” She touches her forehead and opens her eyes.
Matt leans over and looks down. “Are you OK?”
“Are we dead? Is this a dream?”
Matt caresses her cheeks and, without a word, presses his lips against hers, feeling their softness and warmth. After a long interlude, he pulls away. “We’re not dead. Somehow we made it out of the room and jumped here. I think we’re in Japan. A place I know.”
Her eyes open wide. “Japan? How?” She pulls herself up to a sitting position.
“It’s the Stone. There’s so much to explain, but no time. You have to trust me.”
She dips into his right hand and empties its contents. “So this is the Stone. How does it work?”
Matt leans back. “It’s an ancient artifact, a piece of super technology with the power to manipulate time, space, energy, matter. I don’t really understand it myself.”
“But you know how to use it?” Jessica says.
“A little. I think that’s how we got here.”
Jessica raises her eyebrows and stares at the trees in the grove, and then her eyes open wide with realization. “He has a Stone too. He’ll come after us to kill you.”
“Probably.” Matt stands on his feet and pulls Jessica up. He gently slips the Stone out of her hand. “He may know where we are. Maybe he can follow us. I’m not sure. We have to get away.”
The next instant is a blur.
Matt’s muscles go tense and he hears a faint crackle, like the sound of electricity jumping between wires. There’s the sudden odor of sulfur, and then a man steps out of a bright flash in the air. Before Jessica can move away, the man grabs her hand and jumps off the top of the boulder, pulling her with him. Matt reaches out to her and brushes against her leg as she falls away.
There’s another flash of light that engulfs the man and Jessica, and they both vanish.
In that instant, Matt feels a pull toward the flash, like standing only centimeters from a speeding train as it shoots past. Without thinking, he closes his eyes and relaxes into the pulling sensation, willing himself to go with it, releasing control over his body. Silence falls around him.
He opens his eyes in darkness and smells the odor of sulfur again. A cold rain is falling, and the ground is spongy and unstable. Straining his eyes to see, large dark shapes loom high in the distance.
After a few more seconds, it all comes into focus.
Ryzaard is twenty meters away, running across a field toward the base of a huge building that rises up like a monolithic tombstone thousands of feet into the dark air.
He’s pulling Jessica behind him.
Dozens of structures on all sides tower over Matt in neat geometric shapes of spheres, cylinders, squares, triangles, each one held up by a thin column of glass. The empty field is an open area in the middle of a dark city lined with trees on the outer edge, an eerie version of Central Park.
Suddenly Matt understands.
I’m back in Ryzaard’s world.
As he sprints in the direction of Ryzaard and Jessica, Matt’s feet sink into black mud, making it feel like weights are hanging from his legs and ankles. He doesn’t think he’s making good time, but when he looks up, he’s gained on them and is only ten meters behind.
Ryzaard suddenly stops and turns, still holding Jessica’s arm just above the elbow. A broad grin cuts across his face.
“Just as I planned,” Ryzaard yells, above the din of the rain. “It all ends here, my friend. You’re too dangerous, too unpredictable.” He thrusts Jessica to the mud.
She goes down hard on her hands and knees. Matt can see now that she’s struggling for breath, chest heaving, hands to her mouth.
Raising his Stone above his head, Ryzaard holds it in both hands like the handle of a broadsword. His eyes drift up to Matt. “Now that I’ve got you here, I don’t need her anymore.” Pulses of blue energy shoot out from the Stone. He points it at Jessica.
Matt grasps the Stone in his right hand and thrusts it forward. A jagged line of energy jumps from its tip. It lashes out and strikes at the pulses coming from Ryzaard’s Stone, dissipating them and shielding Jessica just inches from her head. Each time the two energies make contact, it feels like a hammer smashing into Matt’s hand.
A surge of anger and hatred seems to travel through the jagged line back to Matt’s Stone and into his arm. An image of Ryzaard with teeth bared and hands wrapped around Matt’s neck flashes into his mind. He staggers backward.
Jessica’s eyes flip open, and she rolls away from Ryzaard’s feet. An instant later, a power beam bursts from his Stone and slams into the ground where she had been lying moments ago, only a meter from her. Steam and dirt explode from the impact.
He looks up and smiles. “You can’t beat me, Matt. This is my world, my rules. Your strength is an illusion. It’s over.”
As he speaks, Jessica jumps to her feet and runs on a diagonal away, arcing around to come closer to Matt.
Ryzaard laughs again. As a massive blade of blue energy shoots from his Stone, he swings it in front of him, three feet off the ground, in a full circle, on target to catch Jessica at the waist and cut her and Matt in two.
Lunging forward, another jagged line bursts out of Matt’s Stone to intercept Ryzaard’s blade, bringing it to a full stop. Matt feels the full impact in his arms, and it’s like getting shocked with thousands of volts of electricity. He screams out in pain. A rush of violent emotions explode inside his head. In his mind’s eye, he sees and feels Ryzaard thrusting a dagger into his chest. The combination of pain and imagery causes him to stumble and drop to his knees in the mud. A wave of weakness and nausea washes over him. His legs are trembling uncontrollably.
Jessica steps in front, between him and Ryzaard, her hands bent into fists.
The smile is gone from Ryzaard’s face, and he’s breathing hard. “Why do you resist?” he yells across the five meters that now separate them.
In the pouring rain, a small river of water runs over Matt’s hair and down his spine. The jagged line of energy extending out from his Stone grows thin and flickers off. The Stone goes cold and black. He tries to imagine the light shooting out. Nothing happens.
Ryzaard walks slowly toward them. A curved blade of blue sticks from the tip of his Stone like a neon arc in the darkness. Drops of rain sizzle and steam on its surface. He lifts it high in the air.
With vision blurring, Matt’s legs feel like wooden stumps, no longer part of him, no longer under his control.
Ryzaard moves closer. “Power is the ultimate reality.” His soft voice is barely audible through the din of the rain. “How does it feel to be powerless, as helpless as a baby? To watch those you love struck down because of your refusal to embrace a precious gift.”
Something moves around him and gently touches Matt’s back and caresses his neck. It’s Jessica, her fingers tracing lines back and forth, like she always does when they are alone.
“I love you,” she says, her lips close to his ear so that only he can hear. “He can never take that away.”
A rush of emotion flows through his body and collects in the middle of his chest. From there, it moves out into his legs and arms, warming him in a way he’s never felt before.
“This is like a bad movie that just goes on and on.” Ryzaard says. “But it ends now.” He raises both arms high in the air. The energy blade of the Stone is now several meters long and dwarfs him in size, pointing straight up over his head. He visibly grinds his teeth together as he walks closer. The muscles in his jaw flex as rain drips from his mouth and beard.
Jessica puts her arms around Matt’s chest and holds him tightly. “Together,” she whispers.
Digging deep, Matt tries to move his legs again, but they seem to be firmly cemented into the mud. He drops his arms down to his sides and closes his eyes, feeling the rain run down his face and hoping the end would be quick and painless for both of them.
In the black rain, his thinks of Jessica, the wa
rmth of her body against him, her willingness to stand by him and die with him. His dad is somewhere back in the real world. He regrets that his dad will never know what happened to them. They will die together on an alien world light years from earth, their bones rotting in the mud under a relentless rain. He thinks of his mom. With his eyes closed, he searches his memories and finds that day on the beach, her smiling face looking down on him.
A sliver of light takes shape on the back of his shut eyelids. It grows in the darkness until it becomes the face of the Woman from the hilltop in Japan, eyes the color of brilliant amber, lips moving.
“We are the Allehonen.”
As his breath slows and deepens, warmth surges over and through Matt like an ocean tide, flooding into his body, sweeping away the fear of death and Ryzaard, leaving only love in its wake. Love for Jessica, his father, his mother. To his surprise, the love brings energy. He feels it moving down from his eyes to his fingertips, descending his legs to the soles of his feet.
His eyelids flutter opened.
Ryzaard stands ten feet away, holding his Stone in both hands overhead, bloodshot eyes fixed on Matt.
As he stares into those eyes, Matt finds that the hatred for Ryzaard has drained away. In an instant, he sees the happy child that Ryzaard had been, playing baseball in the park across the street from his home in Poland. He sees the dark planes overhead like a cloud of locusts, the tanks rolling down the streets, the coming of the Nazis. He sees Ryzaard’s father taken away and the last dying gasps of his mother. Last of all, he sees the young man in the death camp, stripped of all humanity, helpless and alone.
A feeling of pity mixed with love wells up in Matt’s chest. He tries to speak, but finds that he is unable to move his tongue or mouth.
I understand, he thinks. I understand, and I… love you.
A look of utter surprise crosses Ryzaard’s face. For a brief instant, his eyebrows lift. His Stone drops to his side, and the energy blade fades away. He swallows and takes a step back.
Then a renewed look of determination replaces the look of surprise. Ryzaard’s jaw clenches shut.
Matt hears the voice of a man in his head.
There is no understanding or love. Only power.
With rain pouring off his curled lips, Ryzaard leans forward, raises the Stone and brings the energy blade down in an arcing overhead swing.
CHAPTER 102
“I think you should have a seat first.” Long lines in the tall man’s forehead stand out in the dim light of the tent, darkened by the dust that sticks to everything in the camp. He looks down at Little John.
“Sit down? Why? What’s going on?” Little John paces back and forth, more nervous than ever.
“He’s in the building.”
“Inside? How did he get inside? MX Global has the most sophisticated security technology on the market. They developed most of it themselves.”
“There’s been a major security lapse at the building.” The tall man takes a white handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes the sweat from his forehead. He looks down at the brown stains on the cloth.
“Tell me about it.”
“From what we know, the protocols at the main level security portal suffered a massive breach. Or so it appears. There’s been a full scale breakdown. Security implants aren’t working, and it’s rush hour. The whole area is locked down. It’s chaos.”
“A diversion?” Little John cocks his head to one side.
“That’s my guess.”
“How do you know he’s penetrated into the building?”
The tall man shifts his weight back and forth on his large feet. “There was an explosion.” He lets the words come out slowly and carefully.
“An explosion? Where?”
“The onsite power generators. They’re all on level 5. Looks like he got them with the shaped charges.”
Little John sits down in the camp chair next to the small fridge. He opens it and takes out a cold beer, pops off the top and takes a long drink before looking up.
“So there’s no power in the building.”
“That’s right. It’s dead in the water right now, top to bottom.”
Little John shakes his head back and forth, laughing to himself. “He’s good. You have to give him that. He’s good.” He takes another drink from the can, and then puts it down. “How do you know he’s in the building?”
“The Children are tracking him.”
Little John spews out a mouthful of golden liquid and covers the open floor of the tent.
“Tracking him?” he says. “The Children are inside the building tracking him?” He shakes his head back and forth. “This is bad.”
“They’re following him up an abandoned elevator shaft right now. It looks like he’s heading straight for the top. Right for Ryzaard.”
Little John holds the beer can to his lips for a moment, and then places it on his knee, cocking his head to the side and squinting his eyes, as if he’s trying to see across the thousands of miles that separate him from the crazy man trying to find Ryzaard in the MX Global building.
“The time for decision has arrived.” Little John’s gaze is unfocused, drifting around the tent. “What do we do?”
“Operation Corporate Takeover.” The tall man shifts his weight on his legs. “It’s our only choice.”
Little John looks up. “I know we’ve been thinking about it for years. Are we ready for something that big?”
“Hard to say.” The tall man strokes his chin with long fingers. “We’ve got good climbers, all with the latest scaling equipment. They’ve been itching to do something like this ever since we formed the group. If we got them started now, they’d be up the sides of the building and reach the 175th floor in a few minutes. Then they’d break through the windows at the top. With all the chaos in the building, it might work, at least as a diversion to get him out.”
“What about the visibility?” Little John’s fingers drum the side of the beer can. “It’s still daylight. They’d be seen from the ground. People will get curious. Investigate. It might lead them back to the freedom camps.”
“That’s a chance we have to take, if you want to get him out of there alive.”
“Agreed.” Little John stands up and walks to a pile of pallets at the back of the tent. He picks up a wooden box on top and opens it with a key. The lid pops up, exposing a blue jax. “Get Jones on the line and tell him to get it started. You can give him the details. Let’s hope this doesn’t backfire.”
CHAPTER 103
The last thing Matt remembers is a blast and a blinding flash of light. Then darkness. When he wakes up, he is laying in the mud with Jessica leaning over him, looking down into his face. She helps him get up into a sitting position. Still gripping the Stone in his right hand, Matt has an aching feeling in his wrist just above the Stone.
A dark form lays crumpled on the ground a few meters away.
Matt glances over at it. “Is that Ryzaard?”
“Yes,” Jessica says. Her hands and arms are trembling, her whole body shaking. The same as Matt.
“How did you do it?” she says.
The muscles in Matt’s back ache and spasm. “Do what?”
“Don’t you remember?” Jessica looks incredulous.
“Not really. There was a blinding flash, a big noise.”
“The light exploded out of your Stone and slammed into Ryzaard. Just before it hit, a thin film of blue formed around him like a shield. But your light still blasted him over there. I think you might have killed him.”
The rain is pouring down as Matt stands up on shaky legs and pulls up Jessica. They lean on each other, breathing hard.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Matt turns to glance at the body of Ryzaard again, lying still in the mud.
Jessica shakes her head. “I don’t know, but he hasn’t moved.”
“Either way, let’s get out of here.” Matt’s fingers go around Jessica’s arm while he holds the Stone firmly in his other hand
. “Just relax. I’ll try to move us somewhere else.” With eyes closed, he thinks again of the hilltop in Japan and imagines that he and Jessica are standing there, at the base of the boulder. Any minute, he expects the darkness to vanish and the sun to burst down upon them.
After a long silence, they don’t go anywhere. Matt opens his eyes.
“Not working?” Jessica says.
“No. I don’t know why. I’m doing the same thing I did before.”
His eyelids drop down again, and his grip on Jessica’s arm tightens. This time he thinks of home in Colorado. With a deep focus on his breath, he can feel the air going in and out, belly rising and falling. An image of him and Jessica standing in his kitchen plays through his mind. He opens himself to it, reaches for it.
Nothing.
He has a sense that something is holding him back. His gaze is pulled over to Ryzaard, still lying on the ground. “I’m going to have a look at him. Stay here.”
“Are you crazy? What if he wakes up and—” Jessica stops and becomes a statue.
Before she can finish her sentence, Matt quickly finds the familiar place inside his mind where he goes to stop time.
Great drops of rain hang in the air like dirty diamonds in the darkness.
He walks a few paces through the mud until he’s standing over Ryzaard. Pointing his Stone to the black underbelly of the clouds above, he wills a beam of energy to rise up. A thin white line with crisp edges slowly stretches skyward for two meters until he wills it to stop. Suspended drops of water sizzle and pop against it as he waves it silently in the air. Without warning, he brings it down and slices into the mud inches from Ryzaard’s head. A cloud of steam and dirt explodes at his feet.
In his mind’s eye, he sees the destruction he wreaked on an entire city that night Ryzaard first brought him to this world. He looks around at the shadows of buildings rising around the clearing.
With the Stone in both hands, he finds a connection with the energy beam and wills it to grow longer. Like an extension of his own body, it shoots out another ten meters. As he concentrates, he finds that he can make it bend, as if it were his own arm.
