Stones (Data) (43 page)

She studies his face. “You’ve grown so tall, Matthew-
sama
.”

The sound of her voice triggers a flood of images and sensations. His mom is standing in the kitchen, apron on, long chopsticks in hand, making dinner. The aroma of fresh gyoza and shrimp tempura floats around her.

Another image comes, and he tries to push it away, but it plays in his mind, stuck in a deep groove, forever burnt into his consciousness. He’s ten years old, running away from the front porch. Glancing back, his mom opens her arms and calls out to him. Tears stream from his eyes as he shouts how much he hates her. He keeps running and never looks back again.

The last time he saw her.

Until now.

He can’t hold himself back any longer and rushes forward. Doubts and fears fall away as he leans down and wraps his arms around her small shoulders. The top of her head fits snuggly beneath his chin. His arms extend around her, slowly and carefully at first, and then hold her in a tight embrace.

The words come in short bursts. “Mom. So hard. Without you.” Tears drip onto her shoulders, the floodgates from years of longing suddenly opened and released. “Miss you so much.” With no more strength or reason to hold it all back, his whole body trembles and convulses. “Such a long time.”

She wraps her thin arms around him. “Don’t worry. I’m here now. I will always be here for you.”

Matt closes his eyes for a long time, not wanting to move or change anything, hoping it will never end.

After what might have been several minutes—Matt doesn’t know or care—he pulls back and smiles down at the woman, not saying anything. Turning his head to face Ryzaard, he keeps one arm wrapped around her. “I don’t know how you did it, but thank you, thank you so much.”

“We can do it together,” Ryzaard says. “You and I.”

Euphoria surges through Matt. “This city. The power of the Stones. All these people. They look so happy. And my mother. It’s incredible.”

Ryzaard laughs. “So, you
will
join me on this project, to change the world?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t really understand, but, yes, if I can have my mom back, I’ll do anything.” Matt looks down at the woman and wipes the tears from his eyes with his free hand, the one gripping the Stone.

“You won’t regret this,” Ryzaard says. “You’re much wiser than I gave you credit.”

Matt feels intoxicated, almost to the point of giddiness. He looks down at the woman again. “Mom, it’s so good to see you. I can’t believe this. I have so much to tell you. So much has happened.”

“I want to hear all of it,” the woman says. She returns his gaze, beaming with what looks like pure elation.

With his hands clasped behind him, Ryzaard comes closer. “You will have plenty of time with her later. For now, we need to get back and begin our work. Always remember this world and what you saw here, as an inspiration for all that we will do. That’s why I brought you here.”

Matt nods his head. “Understood. Is there any way to take my mom back with me? We can be a family again. My dad would love to see—”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.” Ryzaard raises a hand to Matt’s shoulder. “She’ll have to stay here.”

“But why?” Matt looks up through the mist and fog over his eyes. “She’s real, isn’t she?”

“We have to go now.”

The elation begins to drain out of Matt’s chest. “You didn’t answer my question. His eyes drop down to the woman’s face. “She’s real, isn’t she?”

“You must understand.” Ryzaard’s fingers tighten on Matt’s shoulder. “I brought you here to show you what’s possible. In the future. All of this is only an indication of what will be real. You can return to this world and visit later.” Ryzaard’s hand drops from Matt’s shoulder, and he turns and starts walking to back the platform.

Releasing the woman from his embrace, Matt looks down into her face and turns on the internal recorder, trying to memorize every feature so that he can recall it later.

Words come into his mind, but part of him is afraid to say them aloud, afraid to destroy the elation that he’s felt for the last few minutes. But the words gush out. “You are my mother, aren’t you?”

The woman’s eyes drop down to the floor. “I will be anything you want me to be, as long as it makes you happy.”

Matt smiles one more time at the woman, sniffles and wipes away his tears with the back of his hand. As he turns to follow Ryzaard to the platform, he casts one more backward glance at her.

Not my mom.

His chest tightens, and his teeth come together. The skin of his face feels suddenly hot. Walking through the crowd, his eye catches on something. It seems the wrong color and strangely out of place.

He stops to take a closer look.

A brilliant jewel, two centimeters long, deep purple and the same claw shape as his Stone, is imbedded in the skin behind a man’s right ear. Matt reaches out to touch it.

He immediately pulls back. The jewel is as cold as ice.

Going from person to person in the crowd, Matt looks behind each right ear. They all have the identical implant.

With a sidelong glance at Ryzaard, his eyes narrow and he runs back to the woman. She’s still standing where he left her, looking into his eyes with an expression of love that is exactly the same as before. He gently turns her head and gazes behind her right ear.

And sees the jewel.

Just like the others. He reaches a finger out and touches its cold surface, pulling back as if he’s been bitten by a snake.

“What is this?” Matt says.

“It tells me what to do. What to think. It makes me happy all the time.” She stares into Matt’s right hand and raises a finger, pointing to the Stone in his hand. “Just like yours.”

Matt follows her eyes down to his right hand and sees his Stone, a purple glow coming from within. He releases his grip on her and holds the Stone in the upturned palm of his hand. For several seconds, he stares into it.

And then looks back to in the direction of Ryzaard.

One by one, his fingers curl around the fat end of the Stone, and he holds it like a dagger with the point facing down. He tries to hold back the word that has already formed on his tongue. With an uplifted head, he turns away from Ryzaard and looks out on the multitude. The word explodes from his mouth.

“Kneel!”

A tremor passes through the Stone.

The entire multitude sinks to their knees in unison. He slowly turns around full circle to survey the crowd. Tens of thousands of heads bow in reverence. Hanging on his words.

Ryzaard’s footsteps approach from behind.

“She’s not my mother, is she?” Matt speaks without turning around.

“She is a human, fully alive, a representation of everything your mother was. Everything she can be again. Drawn from your own memories. If only you are willing to join me.”

“I don’t want a representation. I want my mother.” All Matt’s emotions turn to rage. He takes a step back.

“Don’t do this Matt.”

“What are the implants behind their ears?”

“I sense your frustration and anger. You must be patient. There’s so much we can do together.”

Matt whips around. “You never answer my questions! Why do they all have implants?”

“The purple jewels are a direct connection to the Stones. It will help in our work.”

“You said we could take evil and suffering from the world. You said it would be Paradise.” Matt’s jaw is clenching shut, and he can’t seem to loosen it. His words flow through and around his gritted teeth. “Tell me. Is this how you do it? With mind control?”

“Evil will have no place in the world you and I will remake. We will shut it out.” Ryzaard’s eyes narrow slightly as he looks at Matt. “Peace and harmony reign. Happy thoughts. Happy actions. Everyone is content. No suffering. No misery. It’s the only way.”

Matt’s gaze goes to the Stone in his hand, the same color as the robes worn by the masses around them. The same color as the jewel implants. “But are they free?” He takes another step back and tries to tamp down the rising eruption in his chest.

“Yes.” Ryzaard smacks his lips, and the sound seems to echo in the massive chamber. “Free to choose good.”

“But
not
free to choose evil, or what you decide is evil. They can only choose what you allow them to choose.”

“Evil starts in the mind.” Ryzaard says. “Ideas take root there, and then they blossom and grow. The only way to defeat evil is to start at its source. To stop it at the point of conception. I know this isn’t easy, but you must try to understand.” His voice rises with a tinge of anger.

Matt grips his Stone in his hand and looks away from Ryzaard at the kneeling people. “Stand,” he says. In every direction, countless thousands come to their feet, nothing but serenity in their faces. “They don’t look free to me. Robots. Puppets, maybe. But not free. Not real.”

A long sigh escapes from Ryzaard’s lips. “You don’t understand. You are young. Freedom is a difficult concept to grasp. Some people think it means the right to do whatever you want. Freedom to kill. Freedom to destroy. That kind of freedom always leads to suffering. But there is another way, if you will only believe me and use the gift you have been given.”

The anger is pressing against Matt’s chest, ready to explode. “Kneel!” he says. In unison, everyone except him and Ryzaard drops to their knees. “They fear me.” He sees the woman next to him, the one he called
mom
, kneeling at his feet, eyes to the floor. “Even she fears me.”

“But she is happy.”

Holding his Stone between finger and thumb, Matt raises it to eye level, as if trying to look through it. “Stand,” he says. A hundred thousand bodies rise to their feet, looking in his direction. “Kneel!” The ocean of purple drops to the floor, heads bowed in an attitude of reverence. Matt stares back at Ryzaard with narrow slits of eyes. “You call this happiness? It’s more like slavery.”

The smile disappears from Ryzaard’s face. “Matt. Consider carefully what I offer you. Mankind has dreamed of Paradise for millennia. It is within our grasp to make it a reality if we work together. The chance to remake the world in our own image. No more pain and suffering. No more wars. No more mistakes. No more tears.”

Matt reaches down to the shoulder of the woman kneeling beside him. His arms ache to hold her again, to look into her eyes. He gently pulls her chin up, and she smiles before her eyes drift back to the floor. He reaches down and gently raises up the woman’s chin again. Gazing at her, he stares into her eyes for long seconds, paying no attention to the tears falling again from his own face. Then he bends close and kisses her on the cheek as a tremble runs through her body.

“Whoever you are, I love you,” he says in a barely audible voice. His fingers reach up and brush the cold implant behind her ear. Without a backward glance at Ryzaard, Matt stands and starts walking away through the crowd of people.

“The future of our world, and other worlds, awaits us, Matt.”

“OK, so now I’ve seen your future.” Matt’s eyes move around the vast throng in the room. His eyes focus again on the purple jewels behind everyone’s ears. “It’s a future built on force and deception. And I’m not going to have anything to do with it.”

For a moment, the corners of Ryzaard’s eyes and mouth sag on his face as if pulled down by gravity. His gaze drops to the floor, but then he shakes his head. The mouth hardens into a snarl. “You tasted the power of the Stones out there on the balcony. That’s just the beginning. And your mother, we
can
bring her back or recreate her, if we work together. Surely you won’t throw all this away?” Ryzaard has a white-knuckle grip on his Stone.

Matt looks down at Ryzaard’s hands. “You’re wrong. These people aren’t free. Their happiness is an illusion. They fear you.” His eyes move to the woman at his side. “They fear me. I could never live like this.”

The throng of people gathers closer as the two men talk.

“I see peace and contentment.” Ryzaard sweeps his arm over the multitude of purple robes. “Safety. Love. The hopes and dreams burning in the hearts of men and women for thousands of years, fulfilled.” Ryzaard’s voice rises at the end. “Join me for their sake.” He points a finger at the woman at Matt’s side. “For her sake.”

A thought crosses Matt’s mind. He lifts his hand up to the skin behind his ear. His fingers brush the smooth surface of an embedded jewel, cold to the touch. “Am I to be one of your slaves, too?”

“Like everything else you see here, it’s an experiment, a product of this world I’ve built to test my plans for the future of the human race. The implant simply links us together so we can use the power of the Stones as one.”

Matt turns away from Ryzaard and looks out over the multitude, all of them still kneeling. Over the sea of heads, at the far end of the hall, he can see a door open to the darkness outside. “Rise to your feet,” he says, and tens of thousands stand up. He starts walking away from Ryzaard, through the crowd of people, to the open door. “Let me pass,” he whispers. The crowd parts to the right and left as he walks through it.

“Do not try to leave, Matt.” The voice behind him is firm and commanding. “This is my world. I created it and everything in it. You need me to get back home.”

Matt keeps walking, and then starts to jog. In a few seconds, he breaks into a full sprint, heading for the open door on the other side of the room, hundreds of meters away.

“Stop him!” The voice of Ryzaard booms behind Matt. The path that had opened up before him begins to close. Hands reach out and touch him as he rushes by. It isn’t long before they are trying to grab him.

“Stand back. Let me pass,” Matt says. He raises the Stone clenched tightly in his hand. There seems to be confusion among the crowd. Most of them pull back and watch him run by.

As he runs, pain stabs from behind his ear where the jewel is embedded, and an audible voice plays inside his head.

“The choice is yours. But choose wisely. You and everything you love will be destroyed if you refuse my offer. And when you are dead, your Stone will be mine.”

Matt keeps running and is halfway to the door when he looks down at his Stone and sees that its color is growing lighter.