Stones (Data) (20 page)

“How?” Ryzaard obliges. “How did you find him?”

“A security camera caught this.” Diego touches his jax and a hi-def video appears on screen. It’s a young man with a blurred face passing through a boarding gate. A backpack hangs off one shoulder. Diego plays his jax again and the picture zooms in on the backpack, clearly showing the yellow
mitsudomoe
on the side.

“Yes, it looks the same, but there could be thousands of bags with the same markings. How can you be sure we have a match?” Ryzaard stares back at Diego, one eye-brow raised.

“We also found this report in InterCommand’s data files for the same flight.” Diego points up at the screen. A few lines of text and some green graphs appear on the glass.

“
You
got into IC’s files?”

Diego nods. “With Kalani’s help.”

“Impressive.” Ryzaard squints as he reads the text.

Inexplicable episodic interference with on-board avionics. See attached diagnostics. Unable to confirm specific source. Termination of interference confirmed. No further action taken.

Jerek clears his throat. “The interference patterns in the flight report are consistent with Stone activity observed here in the lab. It’s a 99% probability that we’ve found our target.” He pauses for Ryzaard to ask a question.

“Good work, Jerek and Diego.” Ryzaard turns to Jing-wei standing on the other side of the table. “Any progress on identification?”

“Kalani is still working on it.” Jing-wei nods toward Kalani’s section of the lab. “Last I heard, he’s not having much luck tracing the passport. Something about infinite loops and fake IDs. But we do have additional information you may find interesting.” Jing-wei’s eyes travel over to Diego, and she points her jax at the white screen. “We intercepted this unencrypted video message, sent four minutes before the target passed through security.” She folds her arms and steps back, giving Ryzaard a clear view.

A video plays on the glass.

It shows a young man with a blurred-out face walking through an airport, looking and talking directly into the screen. The yellow
mitsudomoe
symbol on his backpack is clearly visible.

Kalani enters through an opening in the glass wall.

“Biometrics confirm a 100 percent match to the person who passed the portal with the Stone.” Jing-wei folds her arms. “Voice and body assays conclude the target is twenty-one to twenty-three years old.”

“Steady, girl. Don’t get too excited about him.” Kalani’s voice breaks in from behind. “You still don’t know what his face looks like. Could be a real chump.”

“I ran a diagnostic on the video images. Muscle strength estimates put him in the ninth decile.” Jing-wei glares at Kalani.

“Top ten percent. So he’s athletic.” Ryzaard stands erect, shoulders thrown back, sizing up the image like a cheetah watching its quarry as the loop plays over and over on the white screen. “What else do you know about him?”

“At Diego’s suggestion, we did some layered speech analysis using one of Scientific’s own algorithms.” Jing-wei folds her arms again. “The results suggest that he’s a native speaker of Japanese and English with a deep emotional attachment to the person he sent the video message to.”

“Too bad for you, Jing-wei.” Kalani chuckles under his breath.

“He has conflicted feelings of contempt mixed with devotion towards the person he refers to as
dad
.” Jing-wei raises her eyebrows and allows one side of her lips to turn up as she looks at Diego. “In other words, he’s a normal guy.”

“Anything else?” Ryzaard says, motioning toward the image on screen.

“Yes.” Diego steps forward just off Ryzaard’s shoulder. “We’ve traced the jax that received this video message, which was easy since it wasn’t encrypted. It belongs to a young woman.”

“His girlfriend, no doubt. Now we’re getting somewhere. Tell me more.” Ryzaard stares at the screen. One corner of a lip curls up.

“Her name is Jessica, a twenty-two year old female living outside of Denver. Her father is a well-known businessman in the community. We’ve already started a background check and dossier, including a content analysis of all communications with her jax going back for twelve months.” Diego points his fingers at the screen and nods. “And we’ll continue to monitor all communications with her jax in real time going forward.”

“Here she is,” Jing-wei turns toward the wall. A picture of a brown-eyed woman appears on the screen.

“She’s hot,” Kalani whispers. “Tough competition.” He smiles at Jing-wei.

Ryzaard whips around. “No more jokes, Kalani. You can help by finding out everything there is to know about her.” He points at the picture of the girl on the screen. “One more thing. Send me the flight arrival data. I’m going to arrange for a proper welcoming party for the young man when he steps off the transport in Tokyo. We have friends there that are always anxious to help.”

Ryzaard leaves the room without another word.

T
he transport touches down at Tsukiji International Airport at 12:13 in the morning local time. Matt steps onto the auto walk and lets the moist air kiss the skin of his face and arms. A thousand odors unleash a flood of memories of happy days with his mother when he was small. At first he resists, but then he lets the thoughts flow as he drops his backpack next to his feet, reaches deep into his pocket and jaxes a quick message off with his left hand.

Made it to Japan. The air brings back long summers with Mom when I was just a squirt. Can’t wait to dig back into this world.

He counts the passing seconds, waiting for a reply. It doesn’t take long.

Be careful. You don’t have your dad to look out for you. Things have changed in Japan in the last few years. It’s a new world there.

Matt feels a half grin form on his face. He couldn’t have said it better himself.

And then it hits him. He is fleeing to Japan just as he had twelve years earlier with his dad. Japan has become a place of escape for both of them. Maybe it’s that way for all
gaijin
.

The auto walk turns a corner, and he begins moving on a downward slope with other travelers through a long tube. A sign in forty languages points to the customs portal at the end of the tunnel. He hears the sound of laughter and looks up at a full color holo of men and women soaking in an outdoor hot spring with lush bamboo behind them. More holo advertisements appear on the glass panels above. Heli-transport tours to the top of Mount Fuji. All-you-can-eat poison blowfish.
Kabuki
theater on Ginza Drive. Cosplay parties in Akihabara. All the way to the bottom, sound and color rain down from the roof of the tunnel.

And something else has changed since his last time in Japan. The walls are plastered with Japanese
kanji
, Chinese characters, Korean
hangul
and Thai script.

But no English.

More than anything else, it’s the Japanese food in the holo-ads that catches and holds Matt’s attention. The aroma of miso and ginger pours off notices for artisan gyoza, waking up his nostrils. He can taste the Bulldog and
Kyuupi
sauce on the holos of
okonomi-yaki
, the Osaka-style pancakes made with pork, finely diced Nappa cabbage and shrimp. His soul yearns for the taste of soba in chicken broth. Delicate textures of neon sashimi scream for attention. The glistening
gyudon
beef and
katsudon
pork cause a sea to form on his tongue.

Swallowing often and inhaling deeply, he is in the land where food is an art form, a multi-sensory experience.

His mind goes back twelve years to the time he and his dad fled the United States for the safety of Japan. For a time, they live mostly on ramen, the traditional food of the underworld. Not the artificial tasting cardboard resurrected with boiling water, but the deep-flavored noodles found only in the smoky dives and back streets of Tokyo and Osaka.

Thoughts of food lead Matt to Jessica. His hand instinctively reaches for the jax.

Know any good ramenyas at the Tsukiji Airport?

Jess replies in the blink of an eye. She must be monitoring her jax.

What’s a ramenya?

Matt’s laughs. He’s already making the transition to Japanese in his mind.

Noodle boutique.

Jess doesn’t skip a beat.

Don’t waste your time on ramen. Eat sushi!

Yes. Sushi. That most holy of all foods. He sees it everywhere now, splashed across the holos in succulent pinks and oranges, reds and greens.

Sushi it is.

He notices it again. No signs in English.

You could still seen signs written in English twelve years ago, when he was a refugee in Japan with his dad, prior to the
Mukden-Hiroshima Incident
, as it came to be called.

It happened several months after they arrived with fake passports. A small nuclear device was inserted in the needle-shaped monument marking ground zero in Hiroshima. It was detonated on a bright August morning at exactly 8:15, one hundred and thirty years to the second after the event that originally put Hiroshima on the map. Of the one million people gathered at that very time and place to observe a minute of silence, only half survived the sixty seconds that followed.

The Incident was blamed on American
fundanationalists
by the Japanese media, but this was never confirmed, even after an inquiry by a neutral panel of international experts. Within days, the Japanese government imposed strict limits on Americans traveling to Japan. English ceased to be taught in public schools.
Beisuboru
became
yakyuu
overnight, just as it had been one hundred and thirty years before. Weeks later, Japan shut down the U.S. embassy in Tokyo, cancelled all agreements with the United States and signed its first joint trade and security pack with China.

At the end of the tunnel, Matt steps off the auto walk, picks up his backpack and moves a short distance to the customs portal. On the way, he passes a trash bin.

As he walks by it, he opens his right palm and stares down at the claw-shaped rock resting there. It’s black and lifeless in his hand.

Ignoring the regret that flares up, he turns his hand over and watches carefully as the rock separates and drops into the trash bin. It disappears into a sea of multicolored plastic, half-eaten fruit and assorted cheap electronics. He stops and stares down, burning this moment into his memories. And then he leaves it all behind and moves to the customs portal.

Don’t need that anymore. Too weird. Gone for good. I saw the rock leave my hand. No doubts. No questions. No mysteries. Done.

Two lines of people form, Japanese on the right, foreigners on the left. He slips the collection of passports out of a side pocket of the backpack, chooses the red one and walks to the right. Reaching for his jax, he engages the cloaker as he scans the area for telltale signs of hidden cams.

A woman in a crisp blue uniform and long black hair waves him over to her counter. He steps across a black line and moves in her direction, trying to look relaxed and confident.

“
Pasupo-to o negai shimasu.
” The woman looks up through artificially lush eyelashes. Her eyes narrow.

Without saying a word, Matt executes a subtle bow of his forehead and lays the red card on the counter. Pulse quickening, he silently starts counting breaths.

One, two, three.

The woman inserts the passport card into a slot and stares into a bluescreen at eye level.

Four, five.

Her eyes glide right to left. The passport pops up out of the slot. Using both hands, she gently lays it back on the counter with no change in expression.

Six, seven, eight.

“
Dozo
.” Without looking up, she motions to a white door sliding open behind her.

“
Arigato gozaimasu.
” Matt does a shallow bow and passes through the portal. A breath slowly escapes.

Thanks for the passports, Dad.

S
itting at the kitchen table, Kent loses track of time as he gazes out the picture window. Another hour has passed, maybe more. To the west, the setting sun casts a band of orange that cuts through the snow-veined peaks on the opposite side of the valley. Garlic chicken pasta is uneaten in the frying pan, the heavy smell like a weight on his shoulders. There will be no
gyoza
, no sushi, or anything else Japanese tonight.