Stones (Data) (64 page)

S
omething hard is digging into Matt’s back. He shifts positions and notices the sun is warm on his face. The sound of songbirds and cicadas fills his ears. The faint smell of cedar bark wafts by under his nose. The air all around is heavy and moist. He slowly becomes aware that he’s holding something warm and soft in his left hand. The fingers on his other hand grasp the Stone.

It must be a dream
, he thinks.

A sense of deep relaxation soaks through him.

And then he remembers. Ryzaard. The room. The chair. Jessica. Blackness.

His eyes shoot open and he looks directly into the sun overhead. A sound on his left causes him to glance over and see Jessica, her hand clasped in his. She’s lying on her back beside him, moaning. They’re both on top of the boulder in the clearing where he saw the Allehonen. A gentle breeze blows through the grove, making Jessica’s hair float around her face.

“My head is killing me.” She touches her forehead and opens her eyes.

Matt leans over and looks down. “Are you OK?”

“Are we dead? Is this a dream?”

Matt caresses her cheeks and, without a word, presses his lips against hers, feeling their softness and warmth. After a long interlude, he pulls away. “We’re not dead. Somehow we made it out of the room and jumped here. I think we’re in Japan. A place I know.”

Her eyes open wide. “Japan? How?” She pulls herself up to a sitting position.

“It’s the Stone. There’s so much to explain, but no time. You have to trust me.”

She dips into his right hand and empties its contents. “So this is the Stone. How does it work?”

Matt leans back. “It’s an ancient artifact, a piece of super technology with the power to manipulate time, space, energy, matter. I don’t really understand it myself.”

“But you know how to use it?” Jessica says.

“A little. I think that’s how we got here.”

Jessica raises her eyebrows and stares at the trees in the grove, and then her eyes open wide with realization. “He has a Stone too. He’ll come after us to kill you.”

“Probably.” Matt stands on his feet and pulls Jessica up. He gently slips the Stone out of her hand. “He may know where we are. Maybe he can follow us. I’m not sure. We have to get away.”

The next instant is a blur.

Matt’s muscles go tense and he hears a faint crackle, like the sound of electricity jumping between wires. There’s the sudden odor of sulfur, and then a man steps out of a bright flash in the air. Before Jessica can move away, the man grabs her hand and jumps off the top of the boulder, pulling her with him. Matt reaches out to her and brushes against her leg as she falls away.

There’s another flash of light that engulfs the man and Jessica, and they both vanish.

In that instant, Matt feels a pull toward the flash, like standing only centimeters from a speeding train as it shoots past. Without thinking, he closes his eyes and relaxes into the pulling sensation, willing himself to go with it, releasing control over his body. Silence falls around him.

He opens his eyes in darkness and smells the odor of sulfur again. A cold rain is falling, and the ground is spongy and unstable. Straining his eyes to see, large dark shapes loom high in the distance.

After a few more seconds, it all comes into focus.

Ryzaard is twenty meters away, running across a field toward the base of a huge building that rises up like a monolithic tombstone thousands of feet into the dark air.

He’s pulling Jessica behind him.

Dozens of structures on all sides tower over Matt in neat geometric shapes of spheres, cylinders, squares, triangles, each one held up by a thin column of glass. The empty field is an open area in the middle of a dark city lined with trees on the outer edge, an eerie version of Central Park.

Suddenly Matt understands.

I’m back in Ryzaard’s world.

As he sprints in the direction of Ryzaard and Jessica, Matt’s feet sink into black mud, making it feel like weights are hanging from his legs and ankles. He doesn’t think he’s making good time, but when he looks up, he’s gained on them and is only ten meters behind.

Ryzaard suddenly stops and turns, still holding Jessica’s arm just above the elbow. A broad grin cuts across his face.

“Just as I planned,” Ryzaard yells, above the din of the rain. “It all ends here, my friend. You’re too dangerous, too unpredictable.” He thrusts Jessica to the mud.

She goes down hard on her hands and knees. Matt can see now that she’s struggling for breath, chest heaving, hands to her mouth.

Raising his Stone above his head, Ryzaard holds it in both hands like the handle of a broadsword. His eyes drift up to Matt. “Now that I’ve got you here, I don’t need her anymore.” Pulses of blue energy shoot out from the Stone. He points it at Jessica.

Matt grasps the Stone in his right hand and thrusts it forward. A jagged line of energy jumps from its tip. It lashes out and strikes at the pulses coming from Ryzaard’s Stone, dissipating them and shielding Jessica just inches from her head. Each time the two energies make contact, it feels like a hammer smashing into Matt’s hand.

A surge of anger and hatred seems to travel through the jagged line back to Matt’s Stone and into his arm. An image of Ryzaard with teeth bared and hands wrapped around Matt’s neck flashes into his mind. He staggers backward.

Jessica’s eyes flip open, and she rolls away from Ryzaard’s feet. An instant later, a power beam bursts from his Stone and slams into the ground where she had been lying moments ago, only a meter from her. Steam and dirt explode from the impact.

He looks up and smiles. “You can’t beat me, Matt. This is my world, my rules. Your strength is an illusion. It’s over.”

As he speaks, Jessica jumps to her feet and runs on a diagonal away, arcing around to come closer to Matt.

Ryzaard laughs again. As a massive blade of blue energy shoots from his Stone, he swings it in front of him, three feet off the ground, in a full circle, on target to catch Jessica at the waist and cut her and Matt in two.

Lunging forward, another jagged line bursts out of Matt’s Stone to intercept Ryzaard’s blade, bringing it to a full stop. Matt feels the full impact in his arms, and it’s like getting shocked with thousands of volts of electricity. He screams out in pain. A rush of violent emotions explode inside his head. In his mind’s eye, he sees and feels Ryzaard thrusting a dagger into his chest. The combination of pain and imagery causes him to stumble and drop to his knees in the mud. A wave of weakness and nausea washes over him. His legs are trembling uncontrollably.

Jessica steps in front, between him and Ryzaard, her hands bent into fists.

The smile is gone from Ryzaard’s face, and he’s breathing hard. “Why do you resist?” he yells across the five meters that now separate them.

In the pouring rain, a small river of water runs over Matt’s hair and down his spine. The jagged line of energy extending out from his Stone grows thin and flickers off. The Stone goes cold and black. He tries to imagine the light shooting out. Nothing happens.

Ryzaard walks slowly toward them. A curved blade of blue sticks from the tip of his Stone like a neon arc in the darkness. Drops of rain sizzle and steam on its surface. He lifts it high in the air.

With vision blurring, Matt’s legs feel like wooden stumps, no longer part of him, no longer under his control.

Ryzaard moves closer. “Power is the ultimate reality.” His soft voice is barely audible through the din of the rain. “How does it feel to be powerless, as helpless as a baby? To watch those you love struck down because of your refusal to embrace a precious gift.”

Something moves around him and gently touches Matt’s back and caresses his neck. It’s Jessica, her fingers tracing lines back and forth, like she always does when they are alone.

“I love you,” she says, her lips close to his ear so that only he can hear. “He can
never
take that away.”

A rush of emotion flows through his body and collects in the middle of his chest. From there, it moves out into his legs and arms, warming him in a way he’s never felt before.

“This is like a bad movie that just goes on and on.” Ryzaard says. “But it ends now.” He raises both arms high in the air. The energy blade of the Stone is now several meters long and dwarfs him in size, pointing straight up over his head. He visibly grinds his teeth together as he walks closer. The muscles in his jaw flex as rain drips from his mouth and beard.

Jessica puts her arms around Matt’s chest and holds him tightly. “Together,” she whispers.

Digging deep, Matt tries to move his legs again, but they seem to be firmly cemented into the mud. He drops his arms down to his sides and closes his eyes, feeling the rain run down his face and hoping the end would be quick and painless for both of them.

In the black rain, his thinks of Jessica, the warmth of her body against him, her willingness to stand by him and die with him. His dad is somewhere back in the real world. He regrets that his dad will never know what happened to them. They will die together on an alien world light years from earth, their bones rotting in the mud under a relentless rain. He thinks of his mom. With his eyes closed, he searches his memories and finds that day on the beach, her smiling face looking down on him.

A sliver of light takes shape on the back of his shut eyelids. It grows in the darkness until it becomes the face of the Woman from the hilltop in Japan, eyes the color of brilliant amber, lips moving.

“We are the
Allehonen
.”

As his breath slows and deepens, warmth surges over and through Matt like an ocean tide, flooding into his body, sweeping away the fear of death and Ryzaard, leaving only love in its wake. Love for Jessica, his father, his mother. To his surprise, the love brings energy. He feels it moving down from his eyes to his fingertips, descending his legs to the soles of his feet.

His eyelids flutter opened.

Ryzaard stands ten feet away, holding his Stone in both hands overhead, bloodshot eyes fixed on Matt.

As he stares into those eyes, Matt finds that the hatred for Ryzaard has drained away. In an instant, he sees the happy child that Ryzaard had been, playing baseball in the park across the street from his home in Poland. He sees the dark planes overhead like a cloud of locusts, the tanks rolling down the streets, the coming of the Nazis. He sees Ryzaard’s father taken away and the last dying gasps of his mother. Last of all, he sees the young man in the death camp, stripped of all humanity, helpless and alone.

A feeling of pity mixed with love wells up in Matt’s chest. He tries to speak, but finds that he is unable to move his tongue or mouth.

I understand,
he thinks.
I understand, and I… love you.

A look of utter surprise crosses Ryzaard’s face. For a brief instant, his eyebrows lift. His Stone drops to his side, and the energy blade fades away. He swallows and takes a step back.

Then a renewed look of determination replaces the look of surprise. Ryzaard’s jaw clenches shut.

Matt hears the voice of a man in his head.

There is no understanding or love. Only power.

With rain pouring off his curled lips, Ryzaard leans forward, raises the Stone and brings the energy blade down in an arcing overhead swing.

“I
think you should have a seat first.” Long lines in the tall man’s forehead stand out in the dim light of the tent, darkened by the dust that sticks to everything in the camp. He looks down at Little John.

“Sit down? Why? What’s going on?” Little John paces back and forth, more nervous than ever.

“He’s in the building.”

“Inside? How did he get inside? MX Global has the most sophisticated security technology on the market. They developed most of it themselves.”

“There’s been a major security lapse at the building.” The tall man takes a white handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes the sweat from his forehead. He looks down at the brown stains on the cloth.

“Tell me about it.”

“From what we know, the protocols at the main level security portal suffered a massive breach. Or so it appears. There’s been a full scale breakdown. Security implants aren’t working, and it’s rush hour. The whole area is locked down. It’s chaos.”