Stones (Data) (37 page)

The voice of his dad plays in his mind.

When in a hostage situation, be calm, think clearly, wait for the right moment. Then act without hesitation.

“No need to worry about Jessica. I gave her something to help her relax. She’s sleeping now and won’t remember a thing when she wakes up.” The man in the tweed suit turns his back on Matt and walks a few paces toward the door.

Matt’s eyes narrow as he studies his captor. Pinpointing his age is no easy task. The mustache has flecks of gray, and the hands are wrinkled with veins and brown spots. But the muscular stature throws him off. His straight back and athletic gait indicate a younger, stronger man.

“What have you done to Professor Yamamoto?”

The man stops, turns to Matt and looks down at the professor on the floor. “Yes,” he says. “My old friend. A truly gentle man, and a good researcher. Regrettable.” He again motions with his eyes to the men standing at the door. “They got here first. Delicate interrogation methods aren’t their specialty. You will have to accept my sincere apologies. But don’t worry. With your cooperation, he will be fine. Just like your Jessica.”

With effort, Matt wiggles his toes inside his shoes and lifts the heel of his foot off the floor a few millimeters. His fingers tingle and burn, but he can feel the sense of touch returning. He manages to bend his arm slightly at the elbow. Slowly, his body is coming together.

“Could you please tell me what’s going on, what this is all about? I’m sure it’s just some misunderstanding.” It takes all the restraint Matt can muster to keep his tone polite and arms at his side, to resist the urge to make a fist. The air comes deeply and silently into his lungs as he breathes in. A mantra runs through his mind over and over with each rise of the chest.

Focus on the breath. Stay calm.

“I see you are smart. In control of your emotions. That’s a rare gift among today’s youth.” The man runs his hands down the tweed lapels. “And you certainly have a right to know what you have done and why we are all here.” He stands squarely in front of Matt and brings a hand up to gently stroke his mustache. “Rest assured, you have done nothing wrong. Yet. In fact, I will go so far as to say you have performed a great service for the world.”

All spots of pain in Matt’s head have faded to dull throbs, and he can think clearly. The arms and legs are coming back to life. He just needs a little more time. His dad’s voice rolls again in the back of his mind.

Keep him talking.

“I’m still lost.” Matt says. “Help me understand what’s going on.”

The man laughs. “You are a clever young man. It’s not every day I get to meet someone who officially does not exist.” He paces back and forth, hands behind his back, like a university professor with a rare specimen of dinosaur, about to deliver a lecture to a hall full of students.

“Who are you talking about?” Matt raises an eyebrow and forces out a chuckle, laughing along with the man. “I’m still not getting it.”

“You. You don’t exist. Quite an achievement, really.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have the full resources of a multinational corporation. Access to the entire United States military and espionage apparatus, real-time search rights for every private or government data-site, and a room full of the best Mesh techies working 24/7. I can order a dossier on the entire life history and quirks of any person on the planet and have it in my hands within minutes. Like her.” He stops in mid-gait and motions to Jessica, still slumped silently in the chair, her head down, eyes closed, breathing gently. “Except you. No Mesh-prints, multiple fake passports leading nowhere, hi-tech surveillance-proof protocols on your jax. Untraceable.” The man looks out the window at the outstretched branches of the cherry blossom tree. For a moment, there’s silence in the room, and Matt can hear the peaceful symphony of birds and cicadas.

Keep him talking.

“But you found me. How?” Matt thinks it wise to play along. He just needs a little more time.

“Good old-fashioned legwork. Their specialty.” The man turns toward the two blue suits at the door, arms folded over their chests. “With a little help from this.” He walks to Matt’s backpack, leaning against a bookshelf just inside the door, and stoops down to pluck a yellow speck off its side. He holds it up proudly between index finger and thumb in front of the Yakuza thugs. The short one smiles broadly and reaches into his suit coat to pull out a silver tube twelve inches long, the same tube the man on the mountain had. He lifts it to his mouth and puffs into one end.

A simple blowgun.

The man turns his back to Matt, walks to the office door and whispers something to the little Yakuza guy. He allows a slight smile and nods in return.

When being chased on foot, never give your back to your pursuers.

Matt tries, but can’t keep the voice of his dad from blasting through his mind.

He is sure of one thing.

I should have listened
.

With his chest rising and falling in measured breaths, he closes his eyes and searches again for the image of his mom on the beach and the sound of the surf.

It isn’t hard to find.

There they are, standing together at the beach, watching the long line of waves rush in, stretch out its fingers onto the sand, and then flow back out. A warm breeze plays with his mom’s hair as he looks up into her angelic face. He breathes in the organic smell of salt and seaweed in the air. The great orange ball of the sun is suspended just above the horizon.

The sound of cicadas outside the window fades away, and the surf is all that remains in his ears as he opens his eyes to see that all the bodies in the room have become as still as a wax museum.

A
luminous pincushion of spikes rises up out of the horizon. As Kent speeds forward, the spikes resolve into impossibly tall skyscrapers.

The City.

At the same time, a jolt of energy wakes him out of his stupor and shoots down his spine, through his legs, dissipating into his feet. It’s a feeling he hasn’t felt for a long time.

It’s been twelve years, but Kent is finally back.

He enters the City from the north and immediately senses a difference from the last time he was there. It isn’t the skyscrapers growing up out of sight into the night sky. It isn’t the blaring colors of laser-glass embedded in the buildings, walkways and streets like giant skin grafts. It isn’t that every surface, flat or round, has become a hi-res screen for 3D images of sports cars and game trailers. It isn’t the bumper-to-bumper traffic and the omnipresent hiss in his ears from a chorus of ten thousand motor-tones.

And then he sees it.

It’s the sidewalks. Clean, pristine, spotless. And almost empty of foot traffic except for the aged and gray.

He remembers reading about this phenomenon on the Mesh. Young people in the city, those under thirty, don’t go outside into the open air much anymore. The cafes and restaurants have all moved into the upper reaches of buildings or deep below ground. You could live for months indoors, moving between work and home in the glowing skywalk tubes that join building to building, or on subway lines that snake below the City, or in gleaming airtight cars jamming the surface streets. The reason is simple. Going outside might require a break from the omnipresent bluescreens and plasma arrays that provide wall-to-wall nonstop sensory stimulation.

Going outside to breathe the air is for the older generation.

You can still carry your jax to stay connected. But for many in the city, that tenuous link is no longer enough.

The new bio-mech implant technology promises to change all that, making it possible to carry the entire apparatus of info-stimuli inside your head and on your body. But it’s still a few years, if not decades, away.

Kent can’t help thinking that the people in the freedom camps have fled the city precisely to get away from this.

Abomination
in its purest form.

In spite of the traffic, once inside Manhattan, it takes less than half an hour to find his destination on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 50th Street. He catches the chuckles of the parking attendant out of the corner of his eye as the old Chikara glides through the underground parking garage to his slot.

Two hours later, he has the equipment moved into the empty office suite on the 176th floor. It’s cramped, but all he needs for a bedroom is an air mattress and sleeping bag in the corner. If he has time and wants to run the danger of detection, he can shower and work out in any one of a dozen gyms in the building. For now, he sits back in a plastic chair near the window and gazes out. It’s unfortunate the building across the street blocks the view of the Brooklyn Bridge, but he hasn’t come all the way to New York City for that anyway.

Kent thinks of his son, out on his first real adventure and completely and utterly away from him. Matt must be exulting in his freedom. Five days now and counting, it’s the longest father and son have ever been out of contact. His hand wanders over to the table and picks up a jax to make a quick call to Matt. Just to say hello.

When he realizes what his fingers are doing, his other hand grabs the jax and terminates the call before it goes through. Much too risky. He has to stay in deep stealth mode for now.

Matt will be fine on his own.

Wandering over to the window in the dark room, he stares out at the target, almost close enough to reach out and touch. But it’s late and time for bed.

The real fun starts tomorrow.

He turns from the window, finds his way past stacks of boxes to the air mattress and lays down on top of the sleeping bag, eyes dropping shut. The excitement of being back in the city is hard to suppress.

He lays awake for a long time, smiling at the ceiling.

I
t worked.

Matt looks around the room. Except for the sound of a gentle surf in his ears, all is silence and stillness, including the man in the tweed suit who stands motionless on the other side of the office, back to Matt.

Maybe it’s just a matter of practice, but it seems to be getting easier to find
null-time
.

Moving his arms and legs, everything works. The fingers are still a bit clumsy, but he can eventually cut or untie the cords on his ankle and get the strap off his chest that binds him to the chair. He reaches into a side pocket for the Stone, but comes up empty.

It’s gone.

A rush of adrenaline pumps through his chest and out into his arms and legs. Before he knows what’s happening, he’s trying to stand up in the chair, almost falling over.

A soft chuckle comes from the other side of the room.

“Not to worry. I have it right here.”

Matt’s legs tremble and his heart beats so hard it hurts. Swallowing a huge lump, he eases back into the chair and sits down, feeling lightheaded and gasping for air.

The man in the tweed jacket slowly turns and opens one hand to reveal a Stone. “This is yours.” He uncurls the fingers of his other hand. “And this is mine.” Bringing the two Stones up to his face, one in the palm of each hand, he looks as if he is offering them to some unseen deity hovering above him. They are similar, but not quite identical. They appear to be rough mirror images of each other.

Matt’s Stone glows with a golden hue. The other is brilliantly white, like a piece of the sun.

The man walks to the table and turns both hands over so they are facing down. The Stones drop, making loud thuds as they hit the table and stick.

He reaches out for an empty chair nearby.

“Stopping time was a good idea,” he says. “It’s better for us to talk this way. No rush.” He moves closer to Matt, dragging the chair with him, and sits only a couple of meters away. “So, you have discovered
one
of the powers of the Stone. Your progress in five short days is impressive. For me, it took much longer.” The man lifts his arms up and cast a glance around the room. “What do you call this?”

“Call what?” Matt’s pulse has moderated enough for him to speak.

“Slowing down time like this. I’m sure you’ve come up with a word for it. Everyone does. What do
you
call it?”