Stones: Theory (Stones #4) (23 page)

He brings the jax back to the green line six inches up from the floor. “Let’s hope the algorithm I got off that black Mesh-site works.” With a brush of his finger, a purple bar lights up on the side of the jax. The green line on the door grows shorter as a series of numbers float in a holo above the jax.

Matt and Yarah both hold their breath and watch as the numbers are fed into the security node.

The green line shortens to a single point, and then disappears. A quiet beep bleeds through from the other side of the door. Hinge locks slide out, metal scraping over metal. A small discharge of compressed air comes out from the seam of the door.

Silence.

Matt inserts the flat end of a screwdriver into the seam of the door and twists. The door swings open, revealing a dark interior with red running lights on a glossy floor.

“I’m a genius,” Matt says.

Taking care not to touch the door with their fingers, they both step inside. Using the screwdriver, Matt shuts the door behind them. He bends down to the same spot with his jax and plays out the combination again. The green bar reappears at the bottom. Compressed air bleeds out from inside the door, and it latches shut with a neat click, enclosing them in total darkness except for the red floor lights.

Matt drops his backpack to the floor and rummages inside. “Sonic night vision goggles.” He fits one unit to his own head, and looks down at Yarah. Her face stares blankly up at him, lit by shifting shades of gray as subtle sound waves bounce off its features and built up the topography of the nose, eyes and cheekbones. Reaching into the backpack, he pulls out another unit. “It’s a little large, but should work.” His hands slip it over her head and move the lenses together in front of her eyes. “Can you see?”

She turns her head in the darkness. “Like a bat.”

“Good,” Matt says. “Let’s find the stairs.”

“What are those white things?” Yarah reaches out and takes his hand.

The running lights burn like small suns in the black and white world of the night vision goggles. “Infrared is picking up the floor lights. They should show us the way to the stairs.”

Yarah shakes her head. “Not on the floor. The lines running between the walls.”

“Lines?” Matt gazes around. “I don’t see any lines.” He turns to follow the running lights.

“Stop!” Yarah says. She walks to his side and points at a spot level with his belly. “Right there.” She traces an imaginary line from one side to another.

Taking a step back and bending down to her level, Matt stares until the lines appear, faint hair-like structures floating four feet off the floor. When he stands, they disappear.

“Interesting,” he said. “Looks like some kind of sonic trip wire. A second line of defense against intruders. Adult intruders, that is.” He gets down on his knees and sees the wispy lines crisscrossing the room like stray threads from long forgotten spider webs. “Good thing you noticed. If we cross one of those, my guess is it triggers a silent alarm. The place will be crawling with soldiers in seconds.” He reaches out a hand and pats her on the head. “We need to find the stairs. You follow the floor lights, and I’ll follow you.”

Yarah bends low and passes under the white lines floating in the air. Matt moves forward behind her on hands and knees.

When they get to the base of the stairs, Matt looks up and sees dozens of the thin lines zigzagging across the stairs like the broken remains of exploded squares, rectangles and triangles.

“This might take a while,” Yarah says.

“Don’t worry,” Matt says. “Only twenty-five floors.”

The little girl starts up on her hands and knees. Matt follows behind.

I
n the faint light of the single lamp, Saatuk looks down at the woman’s swollen feet and ankles, running her brown fingers over the hot flesh.

Her husband, Kutaas, kneels beside her. “I do not approve. We should carry her back to the cliff and leave her there. This will only mean trouble.” His head shakes gravely. Thick wrinkles stretch across his forehead and fan out from the corners of his eyes. “When the Spider Queen finds out we have taken this woman in, we will all be killed in a single stroke. The entire village. Perhaps all of our people.”

Saatuk doesn’t bother to look up through her gray bangs. “It is against the law of our ancestors to abandon a stranger in need.”

“The laws of our ancestors do not apply on this foreign world.” Kutaas moves away and sits on the dirt floor in front of a low table. His fingers play with a sharp blade set in a wooden handle wrapped in leather. “Besides, our ancestors are dead. We appealed to them, but they did not help us when the Spider Queen ripped our village away and brought us to this strange world. Why should we worry about them now?”

“Look at yourself,” Saatuk says. “You used to teach the children in the village of the old ways.” She dips a clean white cloth in a solution of warm water and black herbs. “You told them the old ways would guarantee the survival of the
Chimpootee
people. Have you changed your mind so soon?” She washes blood from the soles of the woman’s feet with the dark solution.

The woman’s eyes flutter open. She cries out in pain and struggles to breath. Saatuk quickly turns and picks up a tightly bound packet of green leaves and bites off a small corner. Dropping it into a bowl, she grinds the pieces into a thick paste and spreads it across the woman’s lower lip. The woman’s eyes shut and her breathing becomes deep and even.

“Let the
drangee
take you back to the land of rainbows and clouds.” Saatuk bends low and runs her fingers through the long brown hair of the woman. “Your pain and sorrow will float away.”

Kutaas holds the dagger up in the faint light. It casts an indistinct shadow on one side of his face. “The
drangee
leaves may hide the woman’s mind from the Spider Queen for a short time, but they will not work forever. The Spider Queen will find this woman, and when she does, our people will be destroyed.”

Saatuk smiles and nods to herself. “It will last long enough for her wounds to heal. The Spider Queen will look for her mind but will not find it. Perhaps she will give up looking and forget about this woman.”

“This woman has the same pale skin as the Spider Queen.” Kutaas shakes his head. “Perhaps they are related. We should not meddle. The Spider Queen always gets what she wants.”

“Then how did this woman get away?” Saatuk stares down at the strange face and runs her fingertips along the strong sinews of the arms. “She reminds me of our Sakutaas. Young, strong, beautiful, stubborn. I wonder what world this woman was ripped from. I wonder who is searching for her now.”

Kutaas drops the blade onto the wooden table. “If only our Sakutaas were here with us. Then we would be a family.” His face goes into his hands. Great tremors rake his body. “The Spider Queen takes everything from us. Our lives, our people, our daughter.”

Saatuk nods. “She has taken much. But she cannot take
everything
unless we allow her to. This woman got away. Does that not give you hope? Perhaps this woman is a gift from our ancestors. Perhaps she will be the one that leads us back home to our world. Back to the other
Chimpotee
.”

A fit of laughing overtakes Kutaas. “The
drangee
leaves have taken you into their dreams and left you there. When the others of our people were ripped away by the Spider Queen, did we ever see them again? All they left were craters in the ground where their villages used to stand.” The laughter slowly turns into uncontrollable crying. “And now it is our turn. We will never see our home world again.”

The sound of footsteps approaches the open door. A young girl walks through into the pale light.

“Come in.” Saatuk stands and walks to the girl. “You have brought me more of the
drangee
leaves?”

Without a word, the girl hands over a wicker basket full of green plants. A wide smile breaks across the small face.

“You are an angel.” Saatuk bows deeply. “Tell your mother the blessings of the ancestors will be with her.”

The girl turns and runs back out into the night.

Kutaas slips the knife into a leather sheath. “What will you do when the sun comes up and we see the Spider Queen standing in our village looking for this woman?”

“Go to sleep, my husband.”

M
att straightens up and stretches at the top of the stairs. “Are you OK?” He whispers while looking down at Yarah.

“I’m fine,” she says. “What about you?”

“It’s the first time I’ve
crawled
up twenty-five flights of stairs.” Matt reaches his arms up to the ceiling, and then curls his back like an angry cat, touching the floor with his fingers, forehead against his knees, before standing up. “Much better. Do you see any more lines in the air?”

“Nope,” Yarah whispers. “Looks clear.”

“Where’s Ryzaard’s living quarters?”

Yarah points through the wall. “Straight across the floor in the corner. There’s a big spiral staircase in the middle. No elevators. If anybody comes, it’ll be up the stairs.”

“Or the stairs we came up.”

“When I looked around in the heads of Ryzaard’s helpers, none of them ever used these stairs.”

“Makes sense,” Matt says. “These stairs look like a fire escape. And it’s too much trouble to shut down the security protocol.” He moves to a metal door set in the wall. “Let’s get through the last obstacle. Need to find the security node.” With his jax in hand, he starts at the top of the door and runs it along the edge until stopping at a point midway down. A green line on the door lights up. “Right here.” He turns to Yarah. “Same key?”

She nods.

He runs his finger along the edge of the jax. “Let’s feed it the code.” With another tap, numbers begin to flash through the tiny holo screen as the green line shrinks in size until it disappears completely. They hear the crisp metal click of a lock opening. Matt slips the screwdriver into the seam between the door and the wall and gently twists.

The door swings open a couple of inches.

Matt drops his hand into a pocket and pulls out the cloaking box, taking care to place his finger under the lid to keep it open. Reaching back with the other hand, he pulls the pulse rifle from the backpack and holds it pointing out in front.

Yarah grips her Stone, jet black. Dead and cold.

Matt nudges the door open all the way. It swings silently on carbon hinges. He steps out onto the glass floor. Instead of being transparent, it appears black and solid. Matt recalls that it’s constructed of multi-chromatic material that allows full color control. Faint lights and a low humming sound erupt from the open stairwell in the center, clearly visible through the sonic night vision goggles. Fifty yards away, in the opposite corner, they see the two walls of Ryzaard’s personal quarters.

Scattered across the floor, organic and abstract sculptures stand at random points, some at eye level and some towering over him. There are Greek goddesses, Roman emperors, Cambodian Buddha statues, Chinese terra cottas, Aztec feather serpents. All of them look like chess pieces dropped there by a massive hand.

Matt and Yarah walk across the floor, two dark forms moving silently through a forest of still shapes frozen in time. Yarah grabs Matt and pulls herself close. An eerie view of the neighboring buildings stares at them through the transparent outer walls.

They stop just outside the door to Ryzaard’s quarters. Curiously, it sports a doorknob. Matt looks down at Yarah and lifts an eyebrow. She shrugs her shoulders. Her Stone is still dead and cold. His own eyes close, and he reaches out to connect with his Stone. With equal portions of relief and fear, he feels nothing. The tip of the pulse rifle drops down to rest on the floor. Matt lays his palm against the doorknob. He twists clockwise.

To his surprise, the door opens.

Picking up the pulse rifle, he nudges the door open and looks inside.

It’s completely black, but the night vision goggles reveal the fact that there’s no bed in the room. A desk is set against one wall.

Switching his gaze to the other wall, Matt sees Ryzaard lying on a sofa next to the window, dressed in silk pajamas, his body pulled together in a loose fetal position. The string of Stones around his neck is bunched up to one side. They are cold and dark.