Stones: Hypothesis (Stones #2)

by Jacob Whaler

  “You know you’re one of us when nobody cares that you’re here,” Jake says. “Let’s go get some grub. I’m a little tired of sandwiches. Oh, and don’t say anything to anyone about Little John.”

  “Don’t they know? Don’t all the freedom camps know what happened to him?”

  “No. And we need to keep it that way, at least until we find our new leader.” Jake’s aviator sunglasses face squarely at Kent, lingering for several seconds. “It’s what Little John would want. The freedom camps will function on their own for a while. They’re all a pretty independent bunch.”

  “Sounds like you don’t think you’ll ever see Little John again.”

  “My guess is that I won’t.” Jake walks out into the sagebrush past smoking piles of electronics equipment. “Based on what he told me, he knew the Abomination would eventually find him and take him away. He never said anything about coming back. Only about finding the new leader.”

  Kent kicks at a cactus plant on the ground. “I keep hearing you talk about this new leader. You really think it’s my son?”

  “All I know for sure is that he’ll have a Stone. But I’d guess it’s your son from the way Little John stared at him on that video of your escape from MX Global.”

  “Did he say anything about it?”

  “I heard him mumbling to himself. There he is. There he is.”

  Kent nods. “Then we better find him.”

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  They move to the center of the camp and enter Little John’s tent. The inside hasn’t changed except for a layer of dust. It still has two camp chairs, two cots, a small refrigerator and a table.

  “We can stay here for the night,” Jake says. “I have a bit of business to attend to.”

  “What sort of business?” Kent says.

  Jake doesn’t answer. He pulls out a black metal box in a corner behind the refrigerator just big enough to hold a pair of shoes. When he picks it up, something rolls around inside it. Kneeling down, he takes a key out of his pocket and inserts it into a silver padlock on the front of the box. “Little John told me to open this if and when he got captured. I’d say it’s time to have a look.”

  Kent peeks over Jake’s shoulder as he swings the lid up with both hands. Anxious expectation turns into disappointment when he sees that all it contains is a rock carving of a monkey. They both stare down at it for a long time.

  Kent is the first to speak.

  “Is this Little John’s idea of a joke? No offense, but it looks like a cheap souvenir from South Africa.”

  “A mystery, as usual,” Jake says. “Little John always loved mysteries.”

  “Any idea what it means?”

  “Nope. None whatsoever.” Jake picks up the monkey and turns it around in his hand. “Never seen it before.” He drops it back in the box, shuts the lid and locks it with the padlock.

  Kent brings his hands up to his hips. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit hungr—”

  “Quiet!” Jake puts an index finger to his lips and cocks his head to one side.

  “What?” Kent mouths the words without speaking.

  “Helicopters. Black Harpy 2-47s. Six of them. Three from the east, three from the west. Heading straight for us.”

  CHAPTER 40

  The white flash dissipates. Matt opens his eyes.

  Taking out the cloaking box, he flips open the lid, but stops before dropping in the Stone.

  The Healer.

  The name has a gentle sound, but what if it’s a trick? Doing a quick calculation, Matt weighs the risk of discovery by Ryzaard against the need to protect himself against another Stone Holder nearby.

  Still empty, the cloaking box goes into his backpack. He slips the Stone in his pocket, ready to use if necessary.

  The first thing Matt sees is a pot of neon-pink geraniums in an open window at street level. The air feels moist and heavy, so he inhales deeply. His hand jumps up to cover his nose. The overwhelming stench of raw sewage hangs in the air.

  São you um anjo?

  At the sound of the voice, Matt whips around and sees a child, five or six years old, staring at him from a few meters away.

  She has deep black hair, shoulder length. A yellow T-shirt, torn and dirty almost beyond recognition, drops down past her knees. Below that, she wears no shoes and has no other clothing that Matt can see. She beams up at him with full lips that match her brown eyes and easy laugh. Not a shred of fear shows in her face.

  He quickly decides he has found the best possible guide.

  Taking the jax from his pocket, it lights up as he brushes a thumb down its side. Within a few seconds he engages the standard translator utility, and then kneels down. Smiling at the child, he holds out the jax.

  She runs to his side and puts one hand on his shoulder and stretches out the other hand to touch the jax. He lets her hold it, and she turns it over and over in her fingers, looking up at him with enormous eyes that fill her face.

  “São you um anjo?” she says, repeating the same words as before.

  A woman’s gentle voice comes out of the jax.

  “Are you an angel?”

  The little girl looks down at the jax and brings it close to her eyes as if trying to see where the voice came from. She laughs.

  Matt takes her hand and pulls it and the jax up to his mouth. “What’s your name?”

  “Qual é o seu nome?” the jax says.

  The little girl giggles and, mimicking his action, brings the jax close to her mouth. “Me chamo Yarah.”

  It becomes a game. Matt does the same thing again, putting his mouth close to the jax. “Can you help me, Yarah?”

  The jax speaks, this time in Portuguese. “Yarah, você pode me ajudar?”

  “Sim,” she says. Excitement fills her eyes as they focus on Matt, waiting for him to speak.

  This time, Matt looks at the child and speaks slowly and carefully into the jax. “Can you take me to the Healer?”

  The translation is immediate.

  “Por favor me leve para o Curado?”

  The girl’s eyes grew larger. “O Curado?” Still holding the jax in one hand, she puts out her other hand and wraps tiny fingers around Matt’s wrist. She turns and starts to walk up the narrow concrete steps between the buildings.

  Matt stands up and follows the girl as she pulls him along, the stench of sewage growing fainter as they climb.

  CHAPTER 41

  Jake runs outside, turning his head from side to side. It’s almost dark. “Stay here,” he says. “The Harpies will land in less than a minute.” He takes off walking briskly between the tents concentrated at the center of the camp.

  Most of the young people are either unloading the last of the cargo off the trucks parked on the road or gathering at dozens of campfires in a rough circle around the center, preparing the evening meal.

  In his mind, Kent sees images of the destruction back in Iowa, attack ships suspended in air over burning tents.

  Kent runs after Jake. “Where are you going?”

  “Stay in the tent!” Jake says. “You’ll be safer there.”

  “But where are you going?” Kent raises his voice just enough to get Jake to stop walking.

  “To meet the incoming choppers,” Jake says. “It’s the only way.”

  “You’re crazy. They’ll kill you and everyone else. We should leave!”

  “No!” Jake says. “I’m not going to abandon the kids in the camp like I abandoned Little John. They need me.”

  “But what can you do?”

  “Get the attention of the attackers. Talk to them. Reason with them.”

  “Don’t do this. You saw what happened last night.” Kent feels nausea spreading out from the pit of his stomach. “They haven’t come to talk.”

  “I have to take that chance.” Jake turns and starts walking away. “I don’t think they’ve come to destroy the camp.”

  Running to keep up with him, Kent stumbles over a prairie dog hole. At las
t, he catches Jake’s arm and swings him around. “I need you to help me find my son. Don’t throw your life away.”

  Jake pulls his arm back. “Go back to the tent and stay out of sight.” He starts running toward the sound of thunder on the horizon.

  For the next hour, Kent watches helplessly from inside the tent as the choppers land and the camp is surrounded by soldiers, each dressed in battle gear and holding a pulse rifle with an arsenal of other weapons hanging from legs and torsos. A string of military transport trucks stands silent on the side of the road, their silhouettes black against a flaming red sunset.

  Finally, Jake ducks into the tent.

  Kent rushes to the door. “What’s going on?”

  “Just as I thought. They’re here to collect intelligence.”

  “On what?” Kent says.

  Jake thrusts a paper photograph into Kent’s hands. “On this.”

  Kent looks down. His spine turns to ice. It’s a picture of Matt taken in the Denver airport from a couple of weeks before.

  “They say he’s wanted for the murder of a man in Japan, a certain Professor Yamashita at Hokkaido University. They have official documentation. And a representative from the Japanese Consulate.”

  “Yamashita Sensei?” Kent’s eyes go wide. “That makes no sense. Matt went to Japan to be his research assistant.”

  “That’s not all. They say Matt murdered a bunch of other Japanese men at the same time. Mafia types.”

  “Yakuza? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Kent drops down into the nearest chair, head coming to rest in his hands. The carefully constructed wall in his mind holding back a deluge of fear and terror begins to crack.

  “I’m sorry I have to ask you this, but do you have any idea what they’re talking about?” Jake pulls a chair up across from Kent.

  “Like I said, my son went to Japan to be Professor Yamashita’s assistant. I know he got there and met the professor, but I don’t have any idea what happened after that. One thing’s for sure. Matt would never kill anyone.”

  “It’s a setup.” Jake puts his hand on Kent’s knee. “If there was any killing, Ryzaard did it, and now they’re blaming it on Matt.”

  “Don’t you see what this means?” Kent looks up through his hands. “If they’ve pinned the murders on Matt, his picture will be all over the INTERPOL datasite. He’ll be an international fugitive from justice. He won’t be safe anywhere. The police have probably already searched our house.”

  “The soldiers are going to search the camp.”

  “Then we’ve got to leave.”

  Jake shakes his head. “The camp is sealed off. No one can get in or out. As long as we cooperate, there shouldn’t be any trouble.”

  “And you believe them?”

  “Yes, for now. There’s just one catch.”

  Kent lets out a long, noisy sigh. “There always is.”

  “They’re interviewing everyone in the camp. With Truthtell drugs.” Jake moves across the inside of the tent and sits down. “They have inhalers. They’ll ask you to take a whiff then answer a single question.”

  Kent gets a sick feeling in his stomach. “What’s the question?”

  Jake points to the photograph of Matt. “Have you ever seen this man?”

  “Then I’ll just hide out here until I’m done.”

  “Won’t work. They’ve already done a flyover body count with heat-imagers. They know exactly how many people there are in camp, including you.”

  Kent’s face goes back into his hands. He shakes his head as a wave of despair crashes down. “I want to see my son. To put my arms around him one more time. Once they figure out I’m his dad, then it’s all over.”

  “Have you ever taken Truthtell?” Jake says.

  “No, but I’ve done enough research on it to know that it works. There’s no way around it.”

  “They’re using an inhalant instead of the usual injection. It’s a slightly weaker form of the drug. We may be able to fool them, but I can’t guarantee that it’ll work.” Jake pulls a shiny gold coin out of his pocket and flashes it at Kent. “Are you a gambling man?”

  “What are you going to do?” Kent’s eyes narrow.

  “Just watch.”

  CHAPTER 42

  With the chest harness on, Ryzaard slides three Stones into their slots and walks from his office into the round room.

  “Good morning, Little John,” he says. “I trust you had a restful night’s sleep.” He makes sure to stand where Little John can see him.

  No reply comes from Little John. He gazes up at the ceiling without so much as a glance at Ryzaard.

  “You don’t have to talk to me.” Ryzaard slips one Stone out of his harness. “But it will make our work more interesting for both of us if you do.”

  Again, no reply.

  “Very well.” Ryzaard walks by the silver Null Box that sits on a platform two meters from Little John. Its low hum fills the silence in the room. He moves closer to the bedside and looks down into the bloodshot eyes.

  Little John’s right hand is on the bed, palm open and facing up.

  It reminds Ryzaard of the time as a child when he climbed high in a maple tree in the spring and spied on a robin’s nest. The baby robins opened their mouths to the heavens every time there was movement outside the nest, expecting to be fed from above.

  Like the mother robin, Ryzaard drops a Stone into Little John’s hand.

  His fingers close around it until the knuckles are white.

  “Excellent.” Ryzaard leans close to Little John’s face. “The Stone feels good, doesn’t it? You want to use it, don’t you? I want you to use it. I want you to feel the power, to be the power.”

  Little John closes his eyes. His chest rises and falls in deep waves of breathing in sync with the frantic movement under the thin skin of his eyelids.

  None of it escapes Ryzaard’s gaze.

  “But you must understand. From now on, you will use the Stone in a different way. We will work together. As one. This will require a small sacrifice on your part. Not much, really. Your will must become my will. You must want all that I want. Without reservation. Without judgment. Open yourself to me, Little John. Open yourself completely so that I can work through you. If you do this, you can become an instrument in my hands and feel the joy of pure power flowing through you. We will remake the world and eliminate all suffering. Together. We will bring back Paradise. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “No.” Little John’s lips barely move. “You’re wrong. Freedom is the only path. Freedom for all.”

  “But unrestrained freedom always leads to suffering. People kill and maim for pleasure. Disease, wars and famines rage. The innocent are prey to the strong.” Ryzaard leans forward, his eyes almost pleading, hands gripping the rail of the hospital bed. “I’ve seen it. Pure evil. In the Nazi death camps. But the solution is simple. Eliminate freedom, and evil dies with it. I’ve worked it out, over and over. There is no other way. You must believe me, Little John, for the good of the human race. And I have chosen you to be the first. You will show the way to the rest of the world by sacrificing your freedom to me.”

  Little John’s head lifts an inch off the bed. “Without freedom, growth is impossible. Without growth, all is stagnation. Damnation.”

  “No!” Ryzaard pulls his hands away from the railing. “You’re wrong.”

  “We come to this life so that we can grow and become more than we are.” Little John’s eyes burn with intensity. “That requires suffering. It’s unavoidable. It prepares us to join Them.”

  “Them?”

  “The Allehonen.”

  Ryzaard stumbles backward, knocking over a table and spilling surgical instruments on the floor. “No. They’ve deceived you.”

  “Don’t you see?” Little John strains against the chest-band holding him down. “They were once like us. Pain and suffering were part of their lives. But they had freedom. They grew and became as they are now. With the help of the Stones. That is the way
it has always been.”

  Ryzaard picks himself off the floor, jaw clenched, fists hard. “Freedom brings only chaos.” Steadying himself, he moves forward. “I’m offering you the chance to join me, to be the first on the new path.”

  “Never.” Little John’s head drops back down and his eyes close. “I will never give up my freedom.”

  “Then I will take it from you. By force.” Ryzaard straightens his bowtie and tweed jacket. Taking the thin green controller from his pocket, he brushes a finger along its length. “Your fate is sealed.”

  A clear tube inserted into Little John’s arm fills with green liquid. His eyes drift shut. “Don’t do this.” he says.

  Rage builds inside Ryzaard. “Listen carefully, my friend. From this day forward, you will never leave my side. Since you believe so deeply in suffering, I will help you enjoy a full measure of it.” A monster in him awakens, and he does nothing to push it back. “There’s just enough field disruption being generated by that cube on the floor to make it impossible for you to jump away, but not enough to keep me from using your Stone through you.”

  Little John is silent. The movement under his eyelids grinds to a halt.

  “And something else.” Ryzaard notices that his fingertips are stroking the two Stones on his chest harness. “Another presence will come into your mind. You may be tempted to resist it. I advise against that. Otherwise, you will learn what true suffering is.”

  A slight movement disturbs Little John’s lips. “Why?” he says. “Why are you doing this?”

  “So that we can work together to bring Paradise.” Ryzaard leans closer and whispers in Little John’s ear. “So that we can be one.”

  “Never.” Little John spits into Ryzaard’s face.

  The monster inside Ryzaard rears up. His fingers find a scalpel on a tray, and he brings it close to Little John’s throat. “Anger is good. It clears one’s mind.” With a flick of his wrist, he draws a thin line across the fat neck, just enough to break the skin. Crimson drops ooze out. The monster inside wants to ram the scalpel deeper, to open arteries and watch the lifeblood flow. But Ryzaard restrains it. “Let’s start with a little experiment. Over time, we’ll progress until we are accomplishing great things. Together.”