Stones: Theory (Stones #4) (62 page)

S
omehow, Matt ends up on a middle floor of the building.

Gripping the Stone in both hands, Matt shoots high-energy green plasma in jagged bolts that rip through the inner structure of zigzagging steel girders and blasts massive holes through the honeycomb of empty offices. He walks a few paces to a large open staircase with two sets of steps spiraling down through the building’s core like a massive strand of DNA. Looking up through the transparent glass steps, Ryzaard’s people are running higher, screaming instructions and warnings. Gazing down, he sees the same reaction. Lights have dimmed and taken on a red glow. An emergency siren bellows out words in monotone computer-speak.

Warning. Security breach detected on level ten. All personnel proceed to evacuate.

Placing his hand on a stainless steel staircase railing, Matt sends a current of energy out through his fingers into the metal. Sparks run in both directions up and down its length. People cry out in pain and jump from the stairs to the nearest floor. As Matt grips the railing, it glows red along its full length and explodes. Burning fragments rain down the open hole. Support beams give way, and the glass stairs disintegrate, starting at the top, floor by floor, into a fine mist of crystal slivers.

Pressing the middle of his sternum, blue armor flows out over Matt’s skin and eyes. A transparent bubble of churning violet energy clothes his body. He steps out into the open hole where the stairs once hung and slowly rises up through the interior of the building.

From below, security forces gather and begin firing directly up at him. A hail of pulse projectiles and laser flares churn the air, absorbed and dissipated by the protective film.

As Matt rises through the floors, people in white lab coats huddle in groups near windows and behind desks. He smiles at them and fires energy pellets at random through stacks of electronic equipment and bluescreens, careful to avoid any human casualties. Sparks and explosions jump around the floors.

A young bare-chested man in a Polynesian grass skirt charges at Matt with a spear poised in one hand and a full length wooden shield balanced in the other. As war cries spout from his grimacing face, Matt raises his Stone, throwing up a shimmering wall of transparent energy. The young man crashes into its surface and drops to the floor.

Matt has only one question.

Where is Ryzaard?

Rising to the top, Matt steps out onto the floor. A new set of ancient relics, statues, carvings and wall hangings adorn it like a museum, replacing a prior set destroyed by Yarah in a previous attack. Over in the corner, he spots Ryzaard’s office, walled off from the surroundings. The door hangs open.

As Matt walks silently through it, Ryzaard sits calmly on a meditation platform staring out at the Hudson River.

“You seem to be caught in an infinite loop. Attack and fall back. Attack and fall back. Repeat.” Ryzaard turns his head from side to side, scanning the late afternoon sun as it casts long shadows across the face of the city. “The funny thing is, we both know how it ends. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. It’s obvious. And still you fight me.”

Matt drops his free hand down so that both of his hands grip the Stone. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He lifts his palms to the center of his chest with the Stone resting between them.

“It won’t change anything to play dumb. I’ve had the dreams, saw the images. People walking the streets, laughing, talking, living in joy. All with the blue jewel behind their ears.” Ryzaard rises two inches off the platform and slowly turns to Matt. “That is, after all, the main function of the Stones. To show us the future. To inspire us. To prepare us for it.”

Matt steps back.

Yarah should be safely out of the Mesh by now, hopefully undiscovered by Ryzaard. Miyazawa will be deep under, pulled down by the four derms pouring exotic molecules into his bloodstream. It will take time, but they can revive him.

No need to remain here and listen to Ryzaard’s soft ranting.

“The future you imagine will never happen.” Matt checks the protective layer of green floating over his blue skin. It should hold against any attack. “It’s a contradiction in terms. People stripped of freedom and filled with joy. It goes against the nature of reality.”

A gentle laugh boils up from Ryzaard’s throat. “But that is the function of the Stones. To change and control the nature of reality.” He looks down and shakes his head from side to side.

“No.” Matt stares at the jewel behind the old man’s ear, its color a slightly darker shade of blue. “Some things can’t be changed. Not by you. Not by me. Not even by the Allehonen. They just
are
.”

“Agreed,” Ryzaard says. “But there is only one such fundamental reality. And you already know what it is. From all eternity to all eternity, it has existed, never changing, always beckoning.”

“Power?” Matt says.

Ryzaard nods. “Precisely. Only power.” Shards of black energy burst from the Stones on his chest and slam into Matt, disintegrating against the bubble hugging his body, making ripples through its surface. “We all crave it. You know this. Even the Allehonen know it.”

It’s quickly turning into the same tired conversation, and it’s time for Matt to end it.

“Look at you. You have power, more than any other human in the history of the earth. But you live in fear. Fear of me. Fear of all that you stand to lose. Just like Jhata.” Matt thinks about sending an energy pulse through his feet that will turn the building to a pile of ash. But there are too many others here, people misled by Ryzaard, who will be killed while the old man remains unharmed.

“The end of all fear is coming soon.” Ryzaard relaxes his fists.

Matt slowly shakes his head. “Those who reign through power always live in fear.” A sphere of boiling blue fire peels off the tip of his Stone and rises above his head. It flattens into a disc between them.

“Those who reign through power have nothing to fear from the weak.” Another sphere of boiling energy extrudes itself from the Stones on Ryzaard’s chest, shoots out and engulfs Matt’s disc. A grin stretches out his thin lips.

Matt’s disc explodes out in all directions, disintegrating Ryzaard’s ball of energy and leaving a crisp blue line on the walls of the floor at eye level. Everything above that line, every window and beam, every work of art, the roof, all of it collapses into gray sand and leaves Matt and Ryzaard standing in the open air.

Matt turns and runs off the edge of the building.

Ryzaard sinks back down onto his meditation cushion and closes his eyes.

M
att suddenly appears inside the ship and sprints three steps to the cockpit.

A scream jumps out of Jessica’s mouth, and she runs out of Miyazawa’s room. “Matt, where have you—”

“He knows.” Pulling the jax from his pocket, he presses his thumb down on the end. After a faint whistling sound, a green slit glows along its full length. “Good. All tracking signals disabled. This ship just disappeared from Ryzaard’s radar.” He reaches down and brushes the bluescreen on the com. It lights up. “Ship, can you take verbal commands?”

“Affirmative.” A soothing female voice oozes out of the transparent walls.

“Set a new course.” Matt swings his head from side to side, trying to decide where to go. “The Galapagos Islands.”

Jessica grabs his shoulder and spins him around. “What’s going on?”

“Confirmed.” The female voice intones through the ship. “Setting course for the Galapagos Islands with the usual protocols.”

The transport turns. Matt and Jessica lose their balance and lurch against one of the clear outer walls, dropping to the floor together.

“No time to explain.” Matt gets to his feet and pulls Jessica up. “Did she come back?” He runs into Miyazawa’s room.

“Yarah?” Jessica says. “Yes, but she’s disoriented. Something about Ryzaard and running free in the Mesh.”

When he gets into Miyazawa’s room, Yarah is on the floor squirming and crying. Matt kneels by her and lifts her up firmly by the shoulders. “Yarah, I need your help.”

“He’s coming, searching, staring,” she screams. “He knows where I am. He’ll find me. Hurt me. Kill me.” She looks through Matt. “Please, you have to help.”

Matt turns to Jessica, the desperation clear in his face. “Find some straps or rope. Anything you can use to tie Miyazawa to his bed so he can’t move.”

“But why—”

“Do it!” Matt yells and grips his Stone as it burns white hot. His voice drops to a whisper. “Before it’s too late.” Turning back to Yarah, he holds her close as her arms and legs flail. “Please, Yarah. I can’t do this alone.” Pulling a long breath in until it fills his chest, he slowly exhales. As the little girl screams and beats him with her fists, he closes his eyes and drops into her mind.

Ryzaard might have hurt Yarah. There’s only one way to find out. No doubt it will be dangerous in her current condition.

At first, he only senses darkness and the feeling of being held inside a closed box. Then he feels the cold hardness of a Stone in his fingers and brings it close to his face. A tiny glow gathers in its center and spreads out until it lights up a dense jungle of twisting branches and massive dark leaves. He hears the growling of beasts a few meters away.

The ground shifts under his feet. Sparks and lines of purple light burst out of the tip of the Stone. Matt swings it in a narrow circle in front, instantly turning the jungle into smoke and burnt green wood. When the smoke clears, a tunnel opens up in the wall of vegetation.

He bends low to the ground and rushes through as it starts to fill back in behind him. Breaking out into a clearing, he stands in a dark arena walled in by the jungle on every side. Two beasts as large as school buses, each resembling a gigantic praying mantis, charge at each other from opposite ends. Massive compound eyes bulge out on the elongated heads. External ribs run across their abdomens. The thorax is covered with flexible plate armor. When they meet in the middle, the ground shakes and dinosaur rage rends the air. Forearms with scissor-like claws shoot out, tearing skin and cracking bone. Green slime leaks out from the wounds.

It must be some kind of a nightmare Yarah is having.

Matt moves with the Stone poised in his left hand. The two creatures stop and release each other. As their heads swivel on razor thin necks, their insect eyes move through the color spectrum until stopping somewhere between red and orange. Front mandibles opening wide, they turn and charge on parallel paths at Matt.

He stands his ground and raises his hands in a beckoning motion. As they draw close, he crouches in a tight ball. Their clicking jaws pass only inches over his head. For a time, they gaze around in confusion.

“Right here.” Matt stands to his full height. “Come and get me.”

Long rat tails shoot out of their backs and whip the air. Matt tries to move, but they catch him just below the knees and drop him to the ground. Surprisingly nimble, the beasts turn and charge again. Too late getting to his feet, Matt stumbles as the massive jaws brush against his skin. Forelimbs come down hard on his legs, pinning them to the soft mud of the arena floor. Massive eyes flash like reflective mirrors, running through the light spectrum to violet, and the creatures bend close.

The Stone rolls out of Matt’s fingers and goes dark.

“Yarah!” Matt yells. “Don’t do this to me.”

The beasts stare at him for a split second before lunging down, their heads together. Shark-like teeth pierce through his shoulders and upper arms. Pain shoots down his spine like a piston, exploding at the bottom into stinging barbs of torment. His legs go numb. Blackness fills his eyes as one of the creatures draws its claw down the middle of his chest and belly and rips away a large flap of skin.

Without warning, all of it vanishes, leaving Matt on a parched and cracked plain. Sensing warmth pooling under him, he lifts his head.

Blood pours out of an open wound just below his sternum onto the dry dirt.

The Stone lies a few inches from his open palm. He pushes through the searing pain and, with a final effort, stretches out his fingers to grasp it and jumps up out of Yarah’s mind.

“Are you all right?” Jessica is kneeling and cradling Yarah in her arms. The girl breathes easy and nestles her head against Jessica’s body. “I finally got her to settle down and wake up.”

“Thanks, Jess.” Matt leans back against Miyazawa’s bed, breathing hard, and checks his chest. The gashes are gone. “I think Yarah’s OK. And you just saved my life.”

Yarah turns to look at him. “Sorry.”

As Matt rests on the floor, a nagging feeling that he is forgetting something gnaws at his gut.

Then Jessica’s eyes go up to Miyazawa. “I didn’t have time to tie him down.”

It hits Matt with full force. He jumps up and looks at the priest resting on the bed.

Miyazawa’s fingers slowly curl into fists and his eyes flips open. “I’m back.” The priest bounds off the bed and runs for the cockpit.