Stones (Data) (24 page)

Ryzaard immediately recognizes the young man from the meditation-dream, his back against the old oak tree, raw terror bleeding from his eyes.

The hair on the back of Ryzaard’s neck bristles.

My opponent
, he thinks.
My prey
.

Diego peers to his left at the face of Jing-wei. She looks intently forward, studying the eyes of the young man on the glass screen.

“We installed a ghost link on the jax belonging to the woman. Jessica.” Diego’s voice shatters the silence as he speaks in the direction of Jing-wei and then turns around to face Ryzaard. “We cloned her signal and will be able to transmit text or video or anything else using her jax ID. It will appear in every way to have come from her.”

“It was her jax that led us to him.” Jing-wei breaks in, glaring back at Diego. “She calls him Matt, but that doesn’t match the ID on the jax he’s using, which Kalani traced in the NSA records.” Jing-wei nods to her left at the Tongan boy. “It actually belongs to a twenty-five-year-old man from Argentina who immigrated two years ago and died from typhoid at Lenox Hill Hospital right here in Manhattan just last month.”

“The guy must have bought it off the Mesh.” Diego turns back to the video on the wall. “Given all the recent security upgrades, fake IDs aren’t easy or cheap to find nowadays. Very resourceful.”

“I assume you have installed a link on his jax as well.” Ryzaard speaks to Diego. “We need to monitor his messages and track his exact location at all times.”

“We tried everything we had, but his jax sheds any linkage in nanoseconds. I’ve only seen that capability in military-grade hardware. What’s a guy from Colorado doing with that?”

Kalani stirs. “It fits the pattern. Fake IDs, video surveillance scramblers, non-traceable passports. We’re dealing with a smart kid.”

“Or a criminal,” Ryzaard says.

“At any rate,” Jing-wei says. “We have a link to the girl’s jax and can monitor it around the clock. We’ll know whenever he sends her a message.” She looks back in the direction of Ryzaard, and then at Diego. “I’d like to take personal responsibility for tracking him.”

“I’m sure you would,” Diego says.

“Agreed, Jing-wei. You’re the logical choice.” Ryzaard brings the cigarette to his mouth and takes a deep drag, exhaling a plume of smoke to the center of the table. “We now have our targets.”

“So where do we go from here?” Elsa Bergman speaks up from across the table.

“Let’s review what we know,” Ryzaard says. “First, this boy, Matt, has our Stone.” Ryzaard points at the screen on the wall.

Diego chips in. “He’s got a stolen ID and a cloaking protocol on his jax.”

“And a non-traceable passport.” Kalani slams his fist down on the table.

“He’s from Colorado and loves to ski,” Elsa adds.

“He’s half Japanese and deeply in love with a girl named Jessica.” Diego turns to face Jing-wei. “And she loves him too.”

“He has knowledge and resources from the underbelly of the Mesh.” Jing-wei stares back at Diego.

“Look!” From across the table, Elsa Bergman suddenly points at the glass screen.

The video has ended, but messages are playing out across the screen.

How’s the magic rock doing?

They all freeze for the next thirty seconds waiting for the reply. Then it comes.

I tossed it in the trash at the airport. It’s probably sitting below some half-eaten curry in a landfill fifty miles outside of Tokyo.

Ryzaard narrows his eyes and jaw muscles tighten as he silently grinds his teeth together. “Best of all, he has no idea what the Stone can do or how to use it.” He stands and walks away from the table.

“Where are you going?” Kalani asks.

Ryzaard glances back at the screen with Matt’s words written on it. “To do a little meditation,” he says.

M
att gets back to the dorm later than he planned. But he never regrets the time spent with Jess. He just hopes that she has enough sleep to get out of bed for work.

Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he looks out the window above the rooftops. Counting his breaths, he concentrates on the white disk of the moon as it moves against the black sky and lets all other thoughts drain away, like water through a sieve.

Relaxation flows over him. Easing himself down on the bed, his eyes close as his head hits the pillow. He feels the pull of sleep.

Images form in his mind. Dark shadows rush by.

The shadows resolve into trees, and he realizes he is sprinting through a pine forest, running as fast as his aching legs will carry him. It’s nighttime, and the hulks of great trees blot out any view of the stars overhead. Here and there, shards of silver light pierce through gaps in the forest canopy and dance across Matt’s forehead and chest as he passes beneath. He pumps his elbows up and down to force a little more speed out of his stiffening legs.

He can’t remember how long he has been running, or what he is running from, but he has already passed the outer limits of endurance. A burning pain rips through his thigh and calf muscles with each stride. His legs are on the verge of seizing up in a spasm of cramps.

Creatures leap through the forest in the darkness behind him, and he realizes they are chasing him. Their cries pierce the moonless night. They howl as if they have picked up his scent and are closing in for the kill.

A line of thin haze lingers among the trees a meter off the forest floor. His thighs cut through it and leave eddies of swirling gray mist in his wake. The smell of burnt wood and sulfur permeates the air, searing his throat and lungs. In spite of the pain, he draws in deeply through his mouth and exhales columns of moist steam into the frigid mountain air. The stench and haze grow thicker as he rushes forward. He senses that he is nearing its source.

His face and arms sting from the outstretched limbs of passing trees that whip at him as he pushes himself through the murky underbrush. Turning his head to the right, he passes too close to a dropping twig, and it leaves a sharp crimson line across his cheek.

Warmth trickles down the side of his face. The sound of heavy feet draws his glance backward.

An army of black forms come into view twenty meters behind him, drawing closer. He feels the rhythmic, almost mechanical, inhale and exhale of their breath. Branches crackle and snap as the creatures rush to engulf him. The slow embrace of terror crawls up his spine on its way to his brain.

At last he breaks free of the forest and leaps onto a field of thick meadow grass made bright under intense stars. The hulk of an oak tree stands a hundred meters ahead. He’s seen it before, somewhere just beyond the reach of his mind. Long since dead, its bark has fallen away to reveal smooth, white tissue beneath. It stands alone under the stars, naked and white. He feels himself drawn to it. Thick smoke boils up from behind the tree, wafted by the wind across the meadow.

Matt glances quickly behind him. A horde of dark shapes burst from the forest wall. Like an onrushing flood of demons, they spread out and flow toward him. The ground trembles with the sound of thunder from their stampeding feet. He senses their foul breath coming nearer. Digging deep for every shred of energy, his lungs and heart are bursting out of his chest.

With twenty meters to go to the lone tree, he can see that it stands on the edge of a cliff. Beyond it, the world becomes a sea of fog floating over an open chasm. Smoke boils up out of its depths, making a wall of impenetrable haze. The stench is unbearable. Just behind his back, the front line of the black horde closes in. He senses the futility of escape and imagines the feeling of the prey in the moments before death is the only means of escape.

His gaze is drawn down to his hand. It’s tightly closed around a hard object. Fingers opening slightly, and he sees the white horn shape of a Stone.

With less than five strides to go to the base of the tree, he grasps the Stone like a dagger. As he passes the tree, he brings the Stone down with all the force he can muster, ramming the point into the bare white wood. His fingers let go, leaving the Stone imbedded as he rushes by. In one fluid stride, his feet find the edge of the cliff and push off. He arches his spine and throws his head back, arms outstretched, as he leaps high and disappears into the billowing wall of smoke boiling up from the depths of the chasm.

A brilliant light flashes behind him.

A white beam, like a laser, shoots over his shoulder and pierces the smoke ahead of him. Instinctively, he grasps at the light and feels his fingers wrap around something solid and frictionless. His forward momentum sends him sliding across the smoky emptiness as he holds on to the beam.

The black shapes hurl themselves off the cliff edge after him. They rise high in the air and come down with outstretched arms, fingers ready to grasp the light. He senses their anger. They are filled with a hunger to destroy him and steal the Stone. But as they reach out to touch the beam, it cuts through them like water, severing limbs and fingers, laying open the black flesh beneath. Their flailing and twisting bodies disappear from view into the smoky depths below.

Gliding through the filthy air billowing up around him, Matt holds to the cool surface of the beam. After a hundred meters, the haze begins to thin. The other side appears, a sheer cliff wall with a matching lone tree, great roots dangling over the rocky edge. The beam terminates in a Stone imbedded in the trunk of the tree. He steps on to the edge of the cliff and walks two paces. As he reaches for the Stone, he turns and looks back across the chasm. For a moment, the air clears, and he can see dark shapes gathering on the opposite side. They prow back and forth, fixing their eyes upon him, raising their heads high in the air to vent growls and groans. He puts his back to them, gently pulls the Stone from the tree and walks past it.

The beam disappears.

A Woman stands before him, dressed in a seamless white robe from neck to ankle. Light emanates from within her brilliant body. Matt is drawn irresistibly toward her.

The Woman turns and moves away from the chasm, bidding Matt to follow.

He walks a few paces behind her as the landscape turns dark and barren. Within the circle of light surrounding the Woman, Matt feels secure and content and invincible. Dark, twisted shapes, the remains of what look to be destroyed cities, loom on the horizon, but Matt has no fear. He travels for hours at her side.

And then a mountain appears in the distance.

They move toward it.

When they get to its base, Matt sees a Shinto
torii
gate at the bottom of a mountain path, its two vertical red pillars standing erect and crossed by two horizontal bars, the top one curved up slightly at both ends. Moss-covered pine trees stand on either side of the gate, adorned with thick
shimenawa
ropes made from braided rice straw. Zigzagging pieces of white
shide
paper hang down like lightening.

Matt recognizes the exact spot. It’s a playground from his childhood just outside Otaru City, fifteen minutes northwest of Sapporo, where he used to spend summers as a child with his mother.

The Woman passes through the torii gate at the base of the mountain and pauses to look back before moving up the sloping path. Her face shines with a look of pure serenity. Matt is drawn with her up the path.

And then he wakes from the dream.

His heart beats calmly, but his body is covered in hot sweat. He looks down to see the rock he threw away at the airport, now an intensely white Stone, tightly grasped in his right hand.

The pink light of morning is already coming through the window.

K
ent crests the top of the hill, momentarily blinded by the first rays of the morning sun. After driving for hours through the night, the light is a welcome change.

Looking out over the valley, there is a large ring with a dark center on the eastern Colorado plain. A grey haze hangs over it.

A freedom camp.

He has heard of them, read about them, even seen documentaries on an underground Meshlog. Any official mention of them is strictly censored on all public Mesh-points. Most people just ignore them, but here is tangible proof of their existence.