by Jacob Whaler
Matt swallows and blinks. “Kill me, take my Stone, do what you want.” A tear streaks down his cheek and touches the corner of his mouth. “But let Jessica live. Her death is meaningless. You don’t need it.”
“You’re in no position to ask anything,” Ryzaard says.
“I’m not asking,” Matt swallows again. “I’m begging.” His eyes move to the left at Jessica. “Please. Let her go.”
Ryzaard rubs the stubble on his chin and stares straight ahead. His lips part slightly, as if he’s about to speak.
Matt’s eyes drop down.
The sound of Ryzaard laughing fills the room. “You almost had me for a minute.” His teeth come together and lips curl to one side. “You are asking for mercy. Let me tell you what life has taught me. Mercy leads to weakness, and weakness leads to failure. Power must be embraced, without excuse, without apology, without mercy.”
“You will fail in the end,” Jessica says. “You know that, don’t you? That’s why you’re afraid. I can see it in your eyes.”
Ryzaard lunges forward with the dagger and presses the tip to Jessica’s chin. In the bright beam of the flashlight, a thin streak of red runs down the shining steel of the blade to the handle.
“I’m not afraid.” Ryzaard’s voice echoes off the walls. “For that, my dear, your death will be slow and exquisite. Then you will understand what fear is.”
Jessica says nothing. Her eyes slide over to Matt as her lips move so that only he can see.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear.
They lean in together and share a kiss, mingling their tears until forced apart by the blade in Ryzaard’s hand.
“I hope you enjoyed that. It was the last time.” Ryzaard steps back and grips his Stone in his right hand. “Good-bye.” He feels the flow of time, like a summer breeze blowing across his brow, and wraps his mind around it, bringing it to a halt.
Time stops for Matt and Jessica.
For a long time, Ryzaard stands looking down on the two of them, his chest rising and falling in a shallow motion.
Finally, he breathes in deeply, walks forward, and plunges the dagger into Jessica’s chest, pulls it out, and thrusts it into Matt’s chest.
They make a fine match, he thinks.
CHAPTER 106
Naganuma’s eyes flip open to blackness.
Sensing movement, he can’t tell whether it’s him or something else in motion. Then he realizes he is lying on his back, dressed in cotton pants and a T-shirt, tied to a piece of rough wood with a thin leather cord. His face, clothes and the wood are all soaking wet. The cords on his arms and legs stretch when he pulls against them, so he gathers all his strength and bolts upright, easily breaking through, but finding himself off balance and plunging into icy waters that rage and boil around him.
The cold clears his head, and he realizes he’s been floating on a raft in the middle of a river, and now the raft is gone.
The faint outline of rocks and boulders take shape in the darkness, rushing past him in a blur. The river has tilted noticeably downhill, and the current is moving faster and faster. One glance downstream tells him all he needs to know.
A few dozen meters away, there is a cliff where the water’s surface plunges down, out of sight.
In desperation, he scans the bank for a tree, a branch hanging down, a bush, anything to grab. But there is nothing but smooth rock walls. His hands and feet flail in the water.
And then something long and rough brushes against his leg. The fragments of a rope. One hand immediately shoots out, fingers stretched wide, to grab it. They find it and try to grab on, but the water makes it slippery and the current is moving too fast. Twisting his body, the other hand finds the rope, and both hands grip tight as a burning sensation of peeling skin spreads over his palms.
The river falls away into thin air, and he is left dangling over a deep gorge with nothing but the rope to hang from. His eyes follow it up to the branch of a gnarled tree poised at the edge of the cliff. With bleeding hands, he climbs the rope, pulls himself up to the branch and manages to throw a leg over it. After it’s all over, he’s resting on his belly, face down, staring into the chasm below, chest heaving, pulse raging in his ears.
As soon as he catches his breath, he makes his way to the center of the tree and sits down with his back against the main trunk. The look and feel of this world is familiar. No stars in the black sky. The faint smell of burnt sulfur. A desolate landscape of rocks cut through with raging rivers. He’s been here before.
Ryzaard’s world.
A wave of sleep rises up and threatens to overpower him. With conscious effort, he tries to fight it back by slowing his breath and going into meditation mode. His eyes find a point of focus in a knot on a nearby tree branch, and he struggles against the urge to let his eyelids drop down.
Then he notices a bulge in his pocket in the shape of a Stone. He pulls it out and, with its help, does a quick body scan. To his amazement, the drowsiness seems to be coming from his left ankle. Looking down at his leg in the darkness, there’s a black device wrapped around the skin like a snake just above the foot.
He bends down and touches it.
At the moment of contact, the tree and the river vanish in a flash of white, and he finds himself lying on the floor in his private room at MX Global, this time wearing his Shinto priest robes. The same black device is wrapped around his ankle. With effort, he pulls it off. There’s a bloody mark on his skin where a needle penetrates a vein.
It’s immediately clear what happened. Ryzaard drugged him and sent him away to the dark planet. There must be something Ryzaard is trying to hide. Doubts begin to creep in. Perhaps it was foolish to trust him. Maybe he’s gone back on his promise to protect Matt. Sudden fear seizes his chest, making it hard to breathe. He jumps to his feet and stumbles forward before collapsing on the floor.
The realization washes over him that he’s too weak to go after Ryzaard right now. If it turns into a fight, Ryzaard will easily cut him down in his current condition. Better to be patient and prepared and strong. Take the time to rest and heal. With effort, he makes his way back to the bed and lets his body fall into it.
The natural healing process of the Stone begins. He feels strength and vigor slowly rebuilding, like a charging battery.
As he rests, his mind pages through a mental list of the other Stone Holders. It has taken decades of effort to secretly search them out. All of them but Ryzaard are well-hidden, virtually unknown to the outside world. Although most of them are not aware of him, Naganuma knows where they live and what they do. Some use their Stones for little more than selfish pleasure. Others try, in their own way, to make the world a better place.
But none of them have Matt’s natural ability.
Working together, all of the Holders could change the world, much as Ryzaard is trying to do on his own. The Stones have always been most powerful when brought together on rare occasions by the Holders, in voluntary cooperation. But sharing power is difficult. Greed and fear tend to take over. Perhaps now, at last, is the time when the Holders will find unity.
His decision to bring Matt and Ryzaard together was to be the first step. In time he hoped to convince them that they could accomplish more together than apart. One by one, he could introduce the other Holders to the group, building an alliance to benefit all. In the meantime, with the resources of MX Global backing him up, Naganuma could keep spreading Shinto and its message of peace throughout the world.
His thoughts are again drawn to Ryzaard. An image forms in Naganuma’s mind. Ryzaard stands over the frozen forms of Matt and Jessica. Lunging forward, he thrusts a dagger into their chests.
A film of sweat forms over Naganuma’s body. Fear floods his mind.
He’s not sure if he’s seeing what Ryzaard will do or what he has already done.
Naganuma wonders how long it’s been since he left Ryzaard. It can’t be much more than a few minutes. Pushing himself up on shaky legs, he fi
ghts back the dizziness and makes his way across the tatami floor to a low table, drops to his knees and picks up his jax.
Four hours.
Dread descends upon him. No more time to lose. No more time to heal. He struggles to stand again and fights back the haze that floats around him.
Ready or not, time to see what Ryzaard has been up to.
CHAPTER 107
Ryzaard senses the presence behind him in the dark.
“What have you done?” the voice says.
“Back from your trip already?” Ryzaard stands and turns to see Naganuma walking toward him through the open door. “I am only doing what must be done. There is no other way.”
“We had an agreement. You promised not to harm the boy.”
“He refuses to listen.” Ryzaard drops the hand with the dagger to his side. “He is extremely talented. That much is clear. But you said he could be persuaded to cooperate. You were wrong about that.” He grips the blade tighter in his hand as Naganuma comes close.
“Perhaps I was. Many things can be foreseen. But not all. Otherwise there is no freedom. It is too much to expect complete submission.” Naganuma stops and spreads his legs in a posture of strength. His cannot hide his trembling arms and legs.
In the dim glow of the flashlight, Ryzaard detects the weakness. “I shall leave the philosophical debate for another day.” He moves back to Matt and Jessica, carefully staying off the blue carpet. “In the meantime, I have work to do here.”
“You tried to keep me away. But you will not harm them further.” Naganuma turns into a blur and appears at the side of Matt and Jessica. “Stand back.”
Ryzaard takes a step away, grinding his teeth. Rage flashes across his face.
Naganuma kneels down between Matt and Jessica and places one hand on each of their heads. “You will not disturb me while I undo what you have done. When I am finished, they will come with me. We will see who has the greater power. You with your one Stone, or me with the other Holders.” Closing his eyes, he slows his breathing, relaxes his shoulders and goes deeply into each of them.
“So, you’re a healer as well?”
Naganuma says nothing.
As he goes into their bodies, he sees the gashes, each like a deep well. Entering them simultaneously, he falls past skin, torn muscle, ruptured blood vessels, severed nerves. When he finds the bottom, he pauses to survey the walls on each side. Working upward, he joins the walls together, restoring form and structure until it feels right and whole.
Near the surface, he opens his mouth. “It will be necessary to restore the flow of time for the healing to fully take effect.”
There is no sound from Ryzaard, but Naganuma feels the withdrawal of his energy.
Time begins to flow again.
Jabs of pain appear to awaken Matt and Jessica, and blood oozes from wounds in their chests. The only light in the room emanates from Ryzaard’s flashlight. Naganuma realizes that, to them, he has appeared from out of nowhere and kneels in front of them, his hands on their heads.
“Be still,” he says to both of them, with eyes still closed. “Let me complete the healing.”
The darkness in the room falls away as the overhead lights flicker on.
“Dr. Ryzaard, auxiliary power has been restored.” The voice of Jing-wei pierces the silence as her face lights up the wallscreen.
A low humming comes from the cube in the center of the room.
Naganuma suddenly opens his eyes, withdrawing his hands from Matt and Jessica, a look of confusion on his face. Looking down, he sees that his knees are squarely on the blue rug not far from the cube.
“You old fool.” Ryzaard savagely kicks Naganuma in the side and knocks him over, deeper into the blue.
Naganuma looks up. The cube is only a foot from his head. He tries to stand.
With the Stone in one hand, Ryzaard moves his eyes. A dental chair jumps through the air and crashes down on Naganuma, pinning him to the floor.
“Please,” Naganuma says. “Do not take this path. It will only bring more suffering.”
Raising his dagger in the air, Ryzaard rushes to the side of Matt and Jessica. For an instant, he towers over them, face bright red, spittle shooting from between clenched teeth.
The blade flashes over Jessica as Ryzaard brings it down toward her neck with both hands.
Before he makes contact, a concussion, followed by a bone-jarring boom, travels like a ripple through the floor and walls. It’s as if the entire room has been picked up by an unseen hand and shaken violently. The wallscreen behind Ryzaard shatters in a hail of sparks.
Matt is thrown against the wall and ends up sprawled at its base. Jessica lies motionlessly beside him. Blood oozes from her face, arms and legs.
For a split second, Matt manages to look up and sees Ryzaard, his arms flailing in the air, falling backward over the dental chair that still has Naganuma pinned to the floor.
Right next to the cube.
CHAPTER 108
Just before the blast, the lights come on in the corridor, but Kent suppresses the urge to look up.
The force of the shockwave surprises him and leaves him momentarily deaf. After a white cloud of blast residue billows down the hall and passes over his head, he looks above the backpack to the end of the hall. There’s a gaping hole where the door was, and the solid steel wall on the right bulges out more than four feet.
The round room is on the other side.
He stands up and walks forward.
The figure of a man, dressed head to foot in black, drops out of the ceiling in front of him. Kent stops and takes a step back. Two more men drop down.
There are three of them, not just one, and they have come through the open vent.
Behind him, a door slides open. He turns and catches a glimpse of a group of young people, men and women, standing at the opening, their eyes and mouths open.
A burly youth with no shirt and no shoes pushes through the others. “Who are you?” he says. Without waiting for the answer, he breaks into a run at Kent, a long wooden club tipped with spikes in his hand and a warrior yell ripping from his lips. Two other men and a Chinese girl follow behind.
Kent staggers backward, caught between the running boy and the three ninja-like figures in black. They rush forward. He grabs his backpack from the floor and, for an instant, stands in the middle of the onrushing hordes, looking from side to side. His gut tells him to run toward the three men. At least they aren’t brandishing weapons. He turns in their direction and drops into a roll, hugging his pack.
To his amazement, the three men bound over him and move to the opposite end of the corridor where the club-bearing youth is rushing forward.
There is a flash of light followed by a series of pops. He looks behind and sees that the far end of the corridor is filled with gray smoke.
“Nerve gas,” a woman yells. “Get back.”
The young man emerges from the smoke, doubled over and coughing violently before he collapses on the floor.
Kent doesn’t waste any more time watching. He runs through the open hole into Ryzaard’s office. A cool draft is blowing where the floor-to-ceiling window has been shattered. Bits of glass lay scattered on the carpet like tiny daggers. What was once a large desk is a burning pile of broken wood and splinters on the floor. The blackened remnants of a grandfather clock are heaped against a wall. White haze floats in the air.
He quickly crosses through the office to the open door on the other end and flattens himself against the wall. He can hear voices inside and takes a peek.
The room is a colossal mess.
Near the middle, a gray-haired man in the white robes of a Japanese Shinto priest is pinned under a heavy metal chair. Another man in a tweed jacket is sprawled on the ground next to him, struggling to get up, his ankles held in place by the priest. A large knife is on the carpet to the side of them.
Two bodies are against the far wall, covered with shards of broken glass and speckled with blood. Neither of th
em is moving. For an instant, the smoke clears so that Kent sees who they are.
Matt and Jessica.
Kent’s heart sinks. They may already be dead. He wants to run straight to them, grab them and take them out of the room. A flood of suppressed emotion wells up and rolls over him, clouding his vision, making his knees wobbly. The walls in the room seem to crowd closer together, and the floor is tilting under his feet. He drops to the floor and braces himself against the wall. His pulse is racing out of control.
He needs to think clearly. With a few deep breaths, he drives the fear and confusion from his mind.
One thing is clear. He needs a weapon, one he can use in close combat. A gun is too dangerous in such a crowded space. It could easily ricochet off the walls. The same goes for the crossbow in his pack.
And then his eyes go back to the large knife on the floor to the side of Ryzaard and the Shinto priest.
Without further thought, he bounds into the room and passes screaming faces gesticulating on the remains of a giant bluescreen on the wall to his right. Tuning everything else out, his eyes focus only on the knife. As he rushes toward it, somewhere in the chaos, a voice shouts that the auxiliary power is not stable.
He ignores it and moves on.
When he reaches the dagger, the lights go out. A low humming sound fades away, and the room falls dark.
His fingers drop down and pick up the handle.
CHAPTER 109
In the darkness, Kent’s IR goggles automatically switch on, and once again he feels like a deep-sea diver moving in a murky world of eerie shapes. No one seems to notice that he’s in the room. He crouches low against a wall to observe the scene and decide upon a plan of attack.
