by Jacob Whaler
CHAPTER 34
The sun is high in the sky when Matt rises from the sand, fingers gripping the dagger.
Only two things in the world matter to him now. Jessica and his dad.
And Ryzaard has taken one of them.
Matt turns the blade over and over, watching it catch the sun and reflect a blinding light into his eyes. The anger boils hotter in his veins with each slow rotation of the knife. Somewhere, Ryzaard is laughing at him, taunting him, daring him to come to the rescue.
He walks to the smoking ruins of the house and looks down. A dark square in the debris catches his eye. Using the blade of the dagger, he fishes it out from under the charred remains of the low table where he and Jessica ate their last meal of gyoza and miso soup.
Naganuma’s little black book.
Taking it carefully into his hands, he fans its pages. The leather cover is burnt, but the yellow pages remain intact, untouched. Sitting down on his haunches, he opens it up to the first page and reads the words, written like a preface in the form of a classical Japanese poem, translating in his mind as he reads.
Hidden over the Earth, the Stones await discovery.
Divided among many, the Stones are strong.
United in one, the Stones overpower.
United among many, the Stones are invincible.
Paradise awaits.
The words repeat themselves inside Matt’s head like a mantra, giving him a point of focus that allows his mind to relax, to let go. Raw emotions of hatred and love ebb and flow like the tide, but they do not attach to him.
With the equilibrium restored, he begins to see things as they really are and assess the reality he now faces.
Against all odds, Ryzaard has found a way into Matt’s world. No doubt the addition of Naganuma’s Stone has increased Ryzaard’s power. He came to kill Matt and failed. In his anger, he did the only thing he could. He hurt Matt, destroyed what Matt had built and took Jessica.
The dagger left behind was a taunt thrown in Matt’s face, daring him to rescue her.
Ryzaard will be waiting for Matt, expecting him, counting on anger and rage to drive him crazy with grief.
With a deep breath, Matt calms himself and sees the truth: Ryzaard has set a trap, and Jessica is the bait. Until Matt makes a move, Ryzaard won’t harm her. Once Ryzaard kills Matt, there will be no more use for Jessica. At that point, her life will be measured in nanoseconds.
It makes perfect sense. As much as he hates it, the conclusion is clear.
Jessica will have to wait. For her own safety, she will have to wait until Matt can face Ryzaard with at least a fighting chance.
The words of Naganuma’s last message float through Matt’s mind.
It’s time to gather the Stones.
Matt’s eyes drop to the open book.
United among many, the Stones are invincible.
Time to find the other Holders and unite them.
He opens the pages of the book. Where should he start? Colorado, Matt’s original destination, is out of the question. Ryzaard can easily pry that information from Jessica. Nothing jumps out at him. He closes the book and holds it in his hand, standing on the beach, staring out at the ocean. After a few minutes, he opens it up again, this time starting at the back.
Rio de Janeiro.
It feels right.
The page has GPS coordinates, but little additional information. Only two words describe the Stone Holder that lives there.
The Healer.
That sounds good.
When he jumped with the Stone before, it was always to a familiar place, a place that he could picture in his mind. How can he make a jump using nothing but GPS coordinates? The only way to find out is to try.
Gear is essential for any trip. Matt goes over a mental list of what he needs. The cloaking box for sure, to stay hidden from Ryzaard on arrival. His Stone is in it now, safely tucked away in his pocket. A jax would be helpful. In the real world, information makes the difference between life and death. He could use a backpack with some bare essentials. Food, climbing equipment, clothing, money. All the stuff his dad taught him about. All the stuff stockpiled in his bedroom back home.
That gives him an idea.
CHAPTER 35
“We’ll be at the freedom camp in Colorado in a few hours,” Jake says. “We can stop there for the night.”
Kent finishes working on the remaining half of his salami sandwich and stands up to grab another from the refrigerator. “Is that the same freedom camp where I first met you and Little John?”
“Yep. Same one.”
“There’s something I’d like to know.”
“What’s that?”
“The freedom camps,” Kent says. “They’re all over the country. Other countries too. How did they get started?”
“Not much to tell really,” Jake says.
“That’s what you said about your eyes.”
Jake pushes the aviators higher up on the bridge of his nose. “Like I told you, after he found the Stone, Little John was having visions and dreams.”
“Right.” Kent goes to the refrigerator to get a drink. He pulls one out in each hand and throws one to Jake. It gets snagged out of the air.
“Little John started talking about it to people that passed through our camp out in the desert. About how technology would bring on total slavery of the human race and about how the only way to avoid it was to live apart. The idea began to gel in people’s mind. Pretty soon he had a following.”
“Disciples?”
“No, just fellow believers,” Jake says. “Fellow hopers, if that’s a word. People that hoped the Apocalypse of slavery could be avoided. Little John was the leader, but he didn’t consider himself to be a prophet. Just a messenger.”
Kent takes a drink. Cheap beer runs down his throat. “That must have been a long time ago. Where are all the original believers? I haven’t seen many old folks in the freedom camps.”
“Well, that’s the thing most people don’t understand.” Jake lowers his voice even though no one else is around to hear. “Most of the freedom camps are a training ground. A place where young people can unplug from the world, cleanse themselves from their tech-addictions, learn new values, prepare for a different future. When they get older, they graduate and melt back into the real world to watch and wait.”
“To live in the world, but not of the world.”
“Something like that,” Jake says. “As for myself, I prefer life in the camps, so I’ve never left. It’s just simpler.”
“What about Abomination? What piece of technology did Little John see that will enslave humankind?”
“Look, I’m not trying to jerk you around,” Jake says. “I don’t know exactly what it is either. Only Little John does. He always kept it a secret.” He stands up and walks to the bathroom, then turns around to face Kent. “But he did give me a hint, once.”
Kent throws his bottle at the trashcan and misses. The sound bounces off the walls of the little room.
“What kind of hint?”
“He said it would be like an exquisite piece of jewelry.”
CHAPTER 36
Ryzaard looks down at the woman on the sofa in his office. Her hands rest neatly on her lap, wrists bound together with a thin carbon cord. A similar cord wraps around her ankles a few inches above the floor. Two armed guards in battle armor stand near the door to the corridor, pulse rifles balanced at a precise angle, fingers resting on triggers.
“I’ve forgotten. What’s your name again?”
The woman says nothing.
“Wait, I think Alexa told me. Jessica, right? I know it sounds cliché, Jessica, but you have nothing to fear from me if you will just cooperate.” Ryzaard stands with his back to the woman and both hands clasped behind him, looking out the window.
She turns her body in the same direction as Ryzaard, letting her gaze drift outside to the upper reaches of the city. “And I know it sounds cliché coming from me,” Jessica says, �
�but I have no idea where Matt is going or what he plans to do.”
Ryzaard laughs through his nose. “You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?”
“And you don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?”
He raises an eyebrow. “No, not really. But I had hoped you would spare me the necessity of forcing it out of you.”
“Is his Stone really that important?” Jessica says.
“Unfortunately, yes,” Ryzaard says. “Your young friend cannot or will not comprehend the simple truth, that I only want to save the world from itself. As much as I like him and his tenacity, I cannot allow him to stand in the way. There is too much at stake. The future of the human race. It is that simple.”
“So, in other words, the ends justify the means.”
Ryzaard turns to face her. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?” Jessica cocks her head to the side.
“Of course,” he says. “I have seen it before. You are thinking that all my talk about saving the world is just a cover to take control. To satisfy my lust for power.”
The woman nods. “You got me there.”
Ryzaard walks to his chair and drops down, facing Jessica. “What do you think will happen to our civilization, to all the people in the world, if nothing is done to save them from themselves?”
“I suppose it will just muddle along like it has for thousands of years.”
“Wrong.” Ryzaard scoops his jax off the table. “Consider this from today’s news.” He looks down at the holo screen that jumps up out of the jax. “The Free Republic of North Korea just made a public announcement. They have planted remote control plasma charges in twelve major U.S. cities, although they refuse say which ones. According to their foreign ministry, it is a purely defensive move to protect them from similar bombs they suspect are planted throughout their country by the U.S.”
“Yes, the world is a mess,” Jessica says. “I couldn’t agree more.”
Ryzaard plays his fingers on the jax. “Millions are starving to death in Russia, but just across the border, China, the richest country in the world, refuses all shipments of food until the Russian authorities agree to hand over all claims to the mineral-rich Siberian territory, which China claims is part of its ancestral lands.”
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” Jessica lifts herself up and sits erect on the sofa. “I’ve got one for you. I understand that kidnapping is becoming a common practice in corporate America as a negotiating tactic. There’s an article in The New York Times from last week.”
Ryzaard stands up from his chair. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”
“Nope,” Jessica says. “But that’s exactly what you’ve done with me. Proof that people like you are the problem.”
“Again, I disagree.” He walks to Jessica and stops at the side of his desk. “But I see you are just like Matt. You refuse to acknowledge the truth, even when it is as plain as the sun shining in the sky. No amount of arguing will help you see the light.” He reaches back into a drawer of the desk and takes out a long slender tube the color of gold that looks like a martini stirrer, making no effort to hide it from Jessica.
“So you’re going to drug me?”
“You leave me no choice. I need to know where Matt’s going. It’s your last chance. Take it or leave it.”
Jessica grins. “I’ll leave it.” She makes no effort to move away when Ryzaard approaches.
He presses the end of the tube against her neck.
She slowly relaxes back into the sofa.
CHAPTER 37
The white flash fades, and Matt opens his eyes.
He’s standing in the most familiar spot in the world. His own bedroom.
“Dad,” he calls out, but only silence answers him.
The Stone goes into the cloaking box, and Matt snaps its lid shut. It’s dangerous to use it any more than absolutely necessary now that Ryzaard can track it. All Matt can do is hope that Ryzaard isn’t monitoring the house and hasn’t detected this jump.
Every second he spends here puts his life in danger. He moves as quickly as he can.
First, he looks for a spare backpack. A bunch of old ones languish in his room at the bottom of a closet, but he needs something bigger.
He rushes upstairs into his dad’s room and finds one under the bed.
Next is a jax. His dad always keeps recently purchased disposable jaxes in a drawer close to his bed. Matt opens the drawer and finds six. He drops one into a side pocket and puts three in his backpack, leaving two behind.
Dad will understand.
It’s been a long time since he’s been in his dad’s room, and he stops to look around. A stack of plastic boxes lines one wall, a cornucopia of climbing gear, food packets, specialized snooping equipment and other gadgets. For most of them, Matt can only guess at their purpose. Without putting too much thought into it, he starts pulling out items that look useful. Theoretically, he can come back any time and grab whatever he needs.
A small picture of his mother stands next to his dad’s bed. It shows her as a young woman before they were married. He picks it up, gazes into her eyes for a long time, and stuffs it in the backpack.
On his way to the living room, Matt swings by the refrigerator and peeks inside. It’s empty except for a bag of homemade gyoza in the freezer, old bread, a cube of tofu, ketchup and soy sauce. The bread and tofu, both green with mold, go into the garbage.
He’s tempted to grab the gyoza and cook them. But there’s no time. Maybe later.
Then Matt remembers. Over the years of being on the run with his dad, a little ritual has grown up between them. It started out as a game, but over time took on almost religious significance.
Years ago, when Matt was small, his mother brought a salt and pepper shaker from her home in Japan, two glass cubes stacked on top of each other, one white and one black. When Matt arrives at home, he always puts the white cube on top. When his dad gets home, he reverses it, black cube on top.
Matt walks to the shaker on the countertop. The black cube is on top. He feels the urge again to call out for his dad.
Instead, he flips it over, white on top. Just in case Dad comes home.
With everything he needs, he goes to the living room and sits down in the middle of the floor. It’s time to make the jump to Rio de Janeiro. He slips the leather-bound book out, opens it to the last page and stares down at the GPS coordinates.
How do you make a jump using only GPS numbers?
Then he has an idea. He commits the coordinates to memory and relaxes into a yoga meditation state. After breathing for five minutes, he thinks of the numbers and imagines himself jumping to a spot on the globe that roughly corresponds to Rio.
But nothing happens.
He tries it once more, taking time to relax. Again, nothing.
A low humming sound jars him to attention. The garage door is opening. There are voices outside on the driveway.
Then he remembers he forgot to take the Stone out of the cloaking box. He grabs the box from his pocket and, with trembling fingers, opens it so that the Stone drops into in his right hand.
The voices are inside the garage.
In a panic, he fumbles for the jax in his pocket, whips it out with his left hand and plugs in the exact GPS coordinates. A blue holo screen shows narrow concrete steps climbing up into darkness between a jumble of run-down three story apartments less than three feet apart. The plaster on the outside walls has crumbled away, exposing bright orange bricks underneath like flesh in an open wound. The remaining plaster is a mixture of dirty greens, yellows and pinks. Wires and cables run in every direction between the buildings. A torn blue tarp drapes down from an open window.
Words appears below the picture.
Rocinha Flavela, Rio de Janeiro
Matt stares at the picture and closes his eyes.
Only a few meters away, the doorknob turns, and a muffled male voice comes through the closed door. “Hard to believe a kid like
that killed so many people. I doubt he’s here, but the chief said to have a look—”
The air flashes white around him.
CHAPTER 38
“Colorado?” Alexa drops down on the sofa in Ryzaard’s office. “Are you sure about that?”
Ryzaard stands in his favorite position at the window. “That’s what she said. Truthtell drugs do not lie.”
“Why would the kid be going to Colorado?”
“No idea,” Ryzaard says. “But it’s imperative that we get some boots on the ground there to—”
“Dr. Ryzaard?” Jing-wei’s voice comes out of Ryzaard’s jax on his desk.
“I’m in a meeting, Jing-wei,” Ryzaard says. “I’ll call you back.”
Two seconds of silence follow. “But it’s urgent, Dr. Ryzaard.”
“Everything is urgent.” Ryzaard reaches out to turn off the jax.
“We found some interesting information on the patient, Little John.”
Ryzaard pulls his fingers back from the jax. “Tell me.”
“I ran his image through our biometrics database and plugged it into our Mesh search algorithm.” Jing-wei pauses again.
“And?”
“We got a hit,” Jing-wei says. “The New York Times did a special piece on freedom camps last year. They sent a reporter out West to visit one of the largest freedom camps. There’s footage on the Mesh of a man that’s an exact match to Little John. I’ve had it confirmed three times by biometric algorithms. It’s him for sure.”
Ryzaard sits down in his chair and puts his feet on the desk. “Where is the camp located?”
“The eastern plains of Colorado.”
CHAPTER 39
The transport truck rolls to a gentle stop.
Jake opens his eyes. “Here we are.” He gets up out of the chair and stretches his arms, fingers easily touching the ceiling. “Made it to our stop. Colorado.”
When they go outside in the evening twilight, Kent recognizes many of the young faces from the last time he saw them. None of them pay any attention to him or Jake. A large group gathers around a transport truck fifty meters up the road, moving up and down a ramp that runs out its back, unloading boxes of bottled water.
