by Jacob Whaler
Yarah runs her fingertips over the inside of the window. “Are you afraid?”
“Nope.” Matt smiles at her. “Maybe I should be, but I’m not. Not today.”
“Neither am I.”
At the corner of Burrard and Georgia Streets, Matt and Yarah step out of the car and thank the driver. In the middle of the intersection, they both stare at a square cube monument constructed entirely of lapis lazuli.
“That’s it,” Yarah says. “The blue stone I saw in my dream.”
Matt nods. “Ground zero. I recognize the buildings and intersection. This is where it will go off.” His gaze drifts up to the mammoth structures rising 200 stories in the thin dawn light. “I wonder how many people live and work within a half mile?”
“Too many,” Yarah says. “We can’t let them die.”
“I don’t intend to. Let’s don’t waste any time.” Matt marvels at Yarah’s sudden maturity. He takes Yarah’s hand and they cross the roundabout, walking out to the monument. He boosts her up to the top.
She sits and swings her legs off the side. “Did your dream tell you when it will happen?”
“Nope, not exactly, but I don’t think it’s today.” Matt rests his knuckles on his hips and stares at the few cars passing. “Let’s see,” he says. “How do we do this? I’m not good at getting people’s attention.”
Yarah laughs. “Just pretend you’re Moses. Like in the book you read to me.”
“That’ll be hard,” Matt says. “I don’t have a stick, a long beard and a cool red robe.”
“They’ll listen.” Yarah reaches up for his hand. “Don’t be afraid. The words will come. Just say them.”
Within an hour, the roundabout is jammed with cars shaped like bullets. Early-morning pedestrians go both directions, seamlessly weaving their way over the sidewalks, staring into transparent holo screens floating inches in front of their eyes like green goggles.
Directly in front of Matt, vertical English words run alongside bright red Chinese characters running the length of the outer skin of a hi-rise.
China and Japan sign historic agreement to jointly develop strip-mining operations in central Congo.
European powers meet to discuss breakup proposals. Fears rise over reemergence of feudal society.
Steam rises from sidewalk stands where customers pause for early morning pastries or ramen noodles.
Matt opens his mouth and starts to talk. He even tries yelling a few times. But the din of traffic makes it hard for anyone to hear. People just smile, wave and go on by.
“They must be used to freaks and nutcases.” Matt sits next to Yarah. “How do we get their attention and let them know they’re about to die?”
Yarah shrugs her shoulders.
Five minutes later, they notice a young man standing still on the sidewalk, people flowing past him like a boulder in the middle of a river. He whips out his jax and talks into it as he stares up at Matt and Yarah. Then he waves and runs to the corner, down a cross street and is gone.
“Interesting,” Matt mumbles to himself. “I think we finally got someone’s attention.”
In half an hour, a sound catches Matt’s attention, like a baby crying high above in the skyscrapers. He looks up, but sees nothing.
Then a siren gets closer and pulls his eyes down. Four police cars come toward them on each street of the intersection, all sixteen meeting at the center. Officers pour out of the cars and line the outside of the roundabout. One of them looks up at Matt and motions for him to come over.
“Son,” he says. “You better sit and rest a bit. Some folks are going to want to talk with you.” He motions up Georgia Street.
Matt turns and looks. An immense crowd of people, filling both sidewalks and the street in between, slowly makes its way in the direction of the intersection. The people move in silence, some in motor-chairs, some carried on the backs of strong young men. Some are laid out on gurneys.
“There’s more.” The police officer points at each of the other three streets. “Looks like another busy day for you. Have you had breakfast?”
Yarah jumps up. “Not yet.”
“What would you like, little madam.” The man smiles. “It’s the least I can do.”
“Barbequed pork buns from Chinatown. New Town Bakery.” Yarah rubs her belly. “Steaming hot.”
It doesn’t take long for the police to clear out the cars, making room for the thousands that stand below Matt and Yarah. Sprinkled among them, working men and women in black business suits with orange feather epaulets pause on their way to work. Others look from the windows of towering structures surrounding the intersection on all sides.
A young woman hands Matt a jax. “Speak into it, so all can hear,” she says.
He brings it up to his lips, and the multitudes go silent.
Suddenly, his mind is like a white sheet of paper. “You might think I’m crazy.” His voice comes from every direction, echoing off glass and steel, filling all the empty space. Breathing in deeply, he lets the exhale carry away anxiety and fear. “Sometimes I do, too.”
Smiles and laughter scatter through the masses.
“I have a gift.” He reaches for Yarah’s hand. “We have a gift. I can’t tell you exactly where it comes from or why it came to us. But I know it’s real.”
A single voice breaks the silence. “Heal me!” A woman looks up from the foot of the monument, her legs and arms contorted into awkward positions, barely able to sit in a motor-chair. She leans forward and slips from the chair onto the pavement. Twisting, she reaches up to him. “Please. Heal me.”
Matt and Yarah hop to street level and kneel at her side. Their hands go to her shoulders. “Now stand.” Matt pulls her to her feet.
Applause runs through the streets as Matt and Yarah get back up onto the monument.
“I want to heal you, all of you, if you’ll just be patient. But there’s something I need to say first. It’s the real reason I’ve come here today.”
Silence.
“Last night, I had a dream. So did my little friend.” Yarah comes and stands at his side. “We both had the same nightmare, and we’ve come here to warn you, to tell you about the future.”
“Don’t tell me.” A drunken man shouts from out of the crowd. “Not only can you heal, you can see the future. You’re a prophet!” He raises his arms and bows in Matt’s direction.
“Please listen carefully.” Matt ignores the disturbance around the man. “Tomorrow or the next day, on a beautiful morning like this, a nuclear weapon will be detonated. At this very spot.”
Ripples of surprise and terror cascade through the upturned faces.
Raising his hands, Matt stills the crowd. “This will be the center of a crater half a kilometer across. Radiation will flood the rest of the city and suburbs. Everyone that wants to be alive a week from now must evacuate.”
A lone voice pierces the air. “Where should we go?”
“At least 100 kilometers away, for now. Further if you can manage it. East or north. Take as much food and water as you can carry. After the blast, it’ll depend on how the wind moves the radiation. This beautiful city may have to be abandoned for a couple of centuries.”
A large man in a business suit with a booming voice waves his arms. “Wait, just a minute. What the hell are you trying to do, cause mass panic?”
“No,” Matt says. “I’m just telling you what I saw.”
“Well, I don’t believe it.” The man walks to the base of the monument and pulls himself up alongside Matt. “It’s ludicrous. We’re a peaceful country, well-liked in the world. We signed a treaty with China. We’re not at war. There’s never been a nuclear strike on our soil.” Heads begin to nod through the streets. The man turns to Matt. “Are you American?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well that explains it.” The man laughs. “Isolated and alone. Hated by every other country in the world. This American prophet has come here to spread hate and fear.”
Fists rise in the air.
“Well, son, if you can see the future, I’d like to offer you a job in my stock brokerage.” The man puts his arms on Matt’s shoulders. “It’d be handy to know what the price of gold will be tomorrow morning.”
More laughter breaks out. The man is starting to carry the crowd with him.
“We worked hard to build this city, and we like what we’ve built. Clean air. Bright skies. One of the few metropolises in the world where people actually like it outside. You should go back to New York City where people live indoors all year like lab rats.” The man takes a step forward, eyes sweeping the intersection. “You’re telling us to just walk away? It’s one thing to claim you can heal. Anyone who believes hard enough will think they’re better. It’s called the placebo effect. I’m OK with that. But now you’ve gone too far. If you keep talking about destruction raining down from the skies, we could lose millions, billions of IMUs. That’s criminal theft, my son. We can’t tolerate that.”
A woman dressed in blue military fatigues starts to work her way through the throng to the base of the monument.
Matt moves away from the man. “If you don’t listen to me, hundreds of thousands of people will die.”
A random voice shoots out from the street. “Show us the proof!”
“I have no proof,” Matt says.
An old man pushes through the crowd to the base of the monument. He looks up at Matt, gentle gratitude in his eyes. Reaching his arms up, Matt bends and takes his hand. People from below help him get up.
“I am the proof,” the old man says. “Yesterday I lay in a hospital bed, abandoned by my doctors, dying from brain cancer. Unable to move. Hours from death.” The man places a steady hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Look at me now. Full recovery. I owe it all to this young man. He healed me.”
The businessman shouts. “That’s not proof! It’s nothing more than wishful thinking. Anyone can have a sudden recovery. It happens all the time.”
The woman in military fatigues now stands at the base of the monument, staring up at Matt.
Yarah pulls on Matt and whispers into his ear. “She wants to kill you.”
“I know,” Matt whispers.
The woman’s backpack drops to the pavement. Calmly reaching in, she takes out the two pieces of a light pulse rifle and clips them together. Then she pumps it once and points it up at Matt.
The sound catches the attention of the people around her. They pull back, leaving her standing alone.
“This will be the proof,” she says.
Twenty police officers lining the outside of the roundabout pull pistols from their holsters and point them at the woman.
“Drop it,” one of them says.
Calmly looking down, Matt raises his hands to the police. “Please don’t shoot her. She can’t harm me.”
Screams rise from the crowd.
“Do it.” Matt stares into the eyes of the woman.
At the same moment the rifle sings out, a thin bubble of blue energy appears on top of the monument, covering Matt, Yarah and the two men standing near him.
The woman sprays pulse projectiles up at Matt and the others. The bullets vaporize on contact with the energy shield.
Visibly frustrated, she turns and points the rifle at the crowd.
Shots ring out from the police as a bubble engulfs and protects her. A thin arc of white plasma shoots from Matt’s hand to the woman’s pulse rifle. It explodes and falls to the pavement in ashes. Pulling her hands back in pain, she brings her blackened palms up to her face.
Matt hops down from the monument. “Hold still.” He takes her burnt fingers in his. Within seconds, new skin heals over the wounds. The woman drops to her knees, bows her head and presses it to the pavement.
Stillness floats through the crowd as it takes a collective inhale. Then a deafening shout goes up in the air. Fists pump skyward.
The man in the suit jumps down from the monument and walks away without a word.
CHAPTER 105
Ryzaard looks over the list of cities. It reads like an itinerary.
Starting in Mumbai at 8:30 PM local time, the wave of destruction will move through China and the countries of Southeast Asia before turning north into Russia and west into Europe. From there, it will hop the oceans and pop up in two spots on each coast of North America as it spreads to the countries of South America. The final blows will come in South Africa and Australia.
No major country will be spared except for one.
Japan.
For all the others, the destruction will be limited to one city per hundred million of population. Every nation on earth will be required to pay a portion of the price for the coming of Paradise.
All within the space of two hours.
“Estimated casualties?” Ryzaard looks up as Jing-wei stands in front of his desk.
“It will be heaviest in Asia and Europe where the target cities are more densely packed, somewhat lighter in the Americas and Africa.” Jing-wei’s eyes drop to the slate in her hands. “Two hundred detonations in all, with an average loss of life in the range of 100,000 per shot.”
Ryzaard’s head goes up and down. “Twenty million. Less than I was hoping for, but maybe it’s enough.” He shows as much emotion as one might expect when comparing prices of grapefruit. “One tenth of one percent of the world population. Not too high a price to pay, I think.”
Jing-wei nods, lips hard as granite, saying nothing.
“I know this is difficult, but it’s necessary.” Ryzaard stands up from his chair and lets his hands drop behind his back. “You’d better get to work. You and the team have a lot to do between now and tomorrow. It will be an exciting day.”
Jing-wei acknowledges her instructions with a bow and leaves the room.
Alexa sits up on the sofa. “What do you plan on doing with the girl?”
“Where do we have her?”
“She’s in one of our high security detention cells, on the 113th floor, guarded by a 24 hour detail. Looks like they gave her a good beating, just as you ordered.”
Ryzaard raises a hand. “No more beatings. I need her to be alive and exquisitely lucid. I plan to personally administer the final beating in the room next door, all of it to be recorded in hi-def video. Especially the final moments when she cries out her hatred for Matt. I want him to see every excruciating detail.”
“As always, you’ve got a master plan.”
“I find that’s the best way to get things done.”
Alexa stands and walks to the door. “When are you going to start on her?”
“In a few hours. I need a diversion until tomorrow. Would you like to be there?”
Alexa shakes her head. “No thanks. I’m not really into torture. Gives me nightmares.”
“By the way,” Ryzaard says. “What’s the latest on the boy?”
Looking at her jax, Alexa takes a quick look at the Mesh. “Looks like Matt’s in downtown Vancouver. Healing people. Apparently he’s predicted a nuclear strike will hit in the next few days.” Her gaze goes up to the back of Ryzaard’s shirt. “He’s the butt of quite a few jokes on the Mesh. A new young prophet for the world to mock. I guess they won’t be laughing too hard tomorrow.”
“No matter. He’s quickly becoming irrelevant.”
“But he is a fly in the ointment, to say the least.” Alexa watches as the muscles in Ryzaard’s back tense. “What are you going to do about him?”
He turns and fingers the seven Stones on his chest. “Ignore him. For now.”
Alexa heads for the door. “Let me know when you need the girl. I’ll bring her to you tonight.”
CHAPTER 106
Jing-wei fights to hold down the contents of her stomach.
She walks back to the table in the center of the lab and drops into her chair, collapsing like a deflated balloon.
For a full minute, silence fills the room.
“Did he accept the plan?” Kalani’s eyes travel around the table, resting for a moment on each person before coming to a stop on Jing-wei. “Is the death of 20 million people enough to satisfy him?”
“Barely.” Jing-wei’s eyes stay fixed on her trembling fingers holding the slate in front. “Any less and he would have been furious.”
“I wonder.” Elsa takes a long pull on a slender cigarette. The smoke leaks out between her teeth as she eyes Jing-wei and Kalani. “Does that make the two of you heroes, or mass-murderers?”
“We’re all part of this.” Jerek leans forward, a hand pressed to his forehead, as if to ward off an impending migraine. “None of us have a choice. We must do what Ryzaard demands if we want to protect our lives and the lives of everyone close to us.”
“Speak for yourself.” Elsa turns her head, pouring smoke out the side of her mouth. “My job is to bring in the money. That’s all I do. And I do it very well. I have nothing to do with your plans. I’m certainly not a murderer. And I can walk away from the project whenever I want.”
Kalani’s fingers tighten around the wooden club at his side. His eyes go to Jing-wei as if to say, can I kill her now?
Jing-wei shakes her head.
“Ignore her. We all know the truth. Kalani and I already tried to walk away.” Jing-wei slumps forward. “Ryzaard make it clear that we have no choice. Our lives depend on doing his will. We were all fools to ever think otherwise. That was nothing but wishful thinking.”
“I came here for scientific research.” Jerek’s shoulders drop down. “I never wanted to be part of Ryzaard’s plans for world domination.”
“But after this is all over, you’re getting a small country to run along scientific principles, if I’m not mistaken. And a massive personal laboratory to boot, with unlimited resources.” Jing-wei falls back into her chair, arms hanging at her side. “We all have our own personal deals with Ryzaard. He found out what we want most, and then bought each one of us.”
“So what do we do?” Diego’s forehead drops until it touches the top of the table.
Jing-wei feels her stomach rising again. “I wish I had a good answer, but I don’t. It’s too late to do anything but follow Ryzaard’s orders. For the sake of our families and friends and everything else we care about.”
