Stones: Theory (Stones #4) (66 page)

“D
o you think it did any good?” Matt relaxes on the white leather sofa in the middle compartment of the transport. From the looks of it, they are floating somewhere over the Himalayas. “I hope it lifted their spirits. Gave them some hope.”

“Of course it did.” Jessica stretches her arm around him. “News of the Allehonen will spread like wildfire. The Children will have hope to hold on to when the Abomination takes hold.”

Matt leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “The question is, when
will
the Abomination take hold, and when
will
the Allehonen come.”

“Soon,” Yarah says.

Jessica pulls the little girl down onto her lap. “Soon can mean so many things. A few hours, a dozen years, half a millennium.” She looks into the next room. “Has anyone checked on Miyazawa? I wonder how he’s doing.” Dropping Yarah onto the sofa next to Matt, she gets to her feet and walks into the priest’s room.

Matt and the little girl both hear her breathe in sharply with surprise. They run into the room.

The priest is sitting up in bed, eyes open, staring out through transparent walls at the lights on the continent far below.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Miyazawa twists to the side and steps onto the floor. “As darkness falls upon the earth, there are lights in the heavens above, and lights on the earth below.” A lonely smile, soaked in sadness, stretches across his lips. “I’m going to miss the simple beauty of a sunrise or a sunset.”

Matt touches the priest’s robe, as if to confirm that what he is seeing is real and not some kind of cruel holo projection. “How did you—”

“It’s clear from the medical data.” Jessica brushes her finger along the bluescreen, replaying the last few hours of the priest’s vitals. “His heart began to beat. His lungs started to function normally. The machine automatically disconnected itself and sewed him up.”

“But Ryzaard—”

“Let me go,” Miyazawa says. “I remember when it happened. Like the clouds suddenly clearing on a rainy day. The thunder stopped. Light broke through. For a moment, I was free.”

“A moment?” Matt says.

The priest slumps back down onto the side of the bed. “He replaced me at the shrine. And then pulled everyone to it so we could all hear him speak.” His eyes travel up from the floor to meet Matt’s. “It was strange. I was standing there, in the front row, staring at myself speaking on the platform.” Looking over at Yarah, he nods. “The little girl is right. It is going to happen soon. Ryzaard all but told us.” His eyes go half shut.

Turning Miyazawa back to face him, Matt shakes him awake. “What did he say?”

“That the end is coming soon. From the tone of his voice, it could come any time, surely within a few hours. All individuality will be stripped away. A higher state of consciousness awaits. We will be One, made so by the blue jewel.”

Yarah steps closer and puts her hand on Miyazawa’s. “We tried to take it away. But we couldn’t.” Her eyes drift up to Matt.

“Its roots have spread throughout your brain and spinal cord and become part of the basic structure. If we remove it—”

“Then I will die.” The priest drops his face into his hands.

Yarah raises up his head with tiny hands. “We won’t let you die.”

“But living may be worse. I’ve felt what it’s like to have Ryzaard in my mind.” Miyazawa shakes his head as if to clear away the thought. “We still have a few hours. The last deliveries of the implants won’t take place until later tonight.” He stands, walks a few feet and turns. “I would like to have a last meal, and then I will ask you to chain me up.”

“A last meal,” Matt says. “Not a bad idea. I know just how we can do it.”

Under his direction, they clear the floor in the mid-section of the transport and lay down a circle of zabuton cushions. Then Matt takes their food orders, jumping away to far parts of the world after each one and bringing back exactly what has been requested. In a few minutes, the floor is spread with an eclectic feast of everyone’s favorite food.

As the ship floats over the southern tip of Africa, they sit down and stare.

“I want you all to know,” Matt says. “It was all properly paid for.” His hand wanders down to a tall glass of chocolate milk.

Miyazawa puts his palms together in front of his chest. “
Itadakimasu
. I
will
humbly partake.” He lifts a cup of exquisite green tea to his mouth and lets the steam kiss his lips.

“No need to be humble.” Jessica reaches for a plate of crispy fried chicken next to a bowl of green jello. “Just dig in.”

“I will,” Matt says. With a pair of long black chopsticks that taper to a fine point, he reaches across a lacquered bowl of miso soup and a neon array of dragon rolls topped with tobiko eggs until he comes to generous cubes of bright red tuna stacked on a blue plate. As he pulls back with two cubes skewered on the end of each chopstick, his eyes survey the perfect form, the delicate curve of the grain. He lifts them up to a salivating mouth. The raw fish melts into oblivion.

Yarah sits back, Japanese style, with hands neatly folded in front. “Let me see.” Her eyes wander back and forth across vast plates of red, green and yellow delicacies laid out picnic style. “Yes. That’s what I want.” She bends forward, places a palm down between a long tray of steaming gyoza and orange piles of fresh sea urchin, and grasps the bowl of golden curry. Finding an over-sized spoon, she eats it straight, without rice.

“When I was a child.” Miyazawa leans back and lets his eyes wander up to the belt of Orion in the night sky over Kilimanjaro. “My mother made the best
oyako domburi
.”

Dropping another thigh bone into an empty bowl, Jessica draws a napkin across her mouth. “What’s that?”

“Chicken and egg over rice.” Matt bites a gyoza dumpling in half and inhales the intoxicating aroma of garlic and ginger. “We used to eat it at a little restaurant on visits to Japan. The sauce is not too runny, but just runny enough to leak into the rice.” His eyes close, and he searches his memories. “I can still see it. An old shop in the town of Otaru, just up from the dock near the house where my grandparents lived.”

“My mother’s pumpkin pie. Steaming hot with cold whipped cream melting on top.” Jessica leans back on her hands. “All the cousins came to our house for Thanksgiving. I was the only one that liked dark meat, and I’d get a whole turkey drumstick all to myself. We’d eat until we were sick. Then we’d go downstairs to play pool and foosball.”

Matt picks up a plate piled high with handmade cream puffs. “Luckily, the store that makes these is still in business.” He takes one, brings it close to his nose and inhales. “Pure perfection. I insist that you all have at least one.” The plate moves from his hands to Jessica, around to Miyazawa, and stops in front of Yarah.

She bites into the soft vanilla interior and stares up at the faces of the laughing adults.

Gazing around in the soft light, happiness floods Matt’s mind.

Never forget this,
he thinks.

At some point, the talking and eating stop. There are sighs and satisfied faces around the floor. The stars overhead grow dim through the dark mist of a cloud.

Miyazawa stands and steps away from the center of the room and bows deeply. “It is time to sleep. I believe there are chains in the cargo compartment. Please bring them.” He turns and walks to the adjoining room.

They all hear him drop onto the bed.

“T
he final shipment of implants was delivered to Shinto shrines in Saudi Arabia three hours ago.” Jing-wei sits close to the table, her palms resting on its crystal surface. “I’m told that all of them have been distributed and activated. All is ready for execution of the last stage.”

“The last stage.” Ryzaard’s fingers tap on the table and reach for the Zeus statue. His eyes float shut. “Yes. I feel the new minds coming into the Mesh. The final wave has begun to crash onto the shore. It’s almost time to pull the trigger.”

“What will we feel?” Kalani picks at the dirt under a fingernail with the tip of a dagger. “Will we change?”

Around the table, heads drop down with faces intent on slates and jaxes.

“You’ll feel nothing, and you’ll be exactly the same.” Ryzaard leans back with one arm thrown behind the chair. “If anything, it will make your work much easier. You won’t have to worry about human resistance or pushback.”

“What about the stock exchanges, transnational corporations, world governments?” Elsa Bergman fingers a small ivory dragon that hangs from a delicate platinum chain around her neck. “What will happen to all the structures of society? Will they simply fall away?”

Ryzaard’s eyes open slowly and focus on Zeus. “This is new territory for all of us. I don’t imagine any quick changes. It will be a slow evolution. Who knows where we’ll be in ten years or a hundred years. Once we have the reins of power firmly in our grip, there’s no need to rush.”

“So, business as usual?”

“Yes,” Ryzaard says. “Business as usual.”

“When do you plan to do it?” Jerek’s hand goes up behind his ear.

Ryzaard stands. “I suggest each of you retire to your quarters and get comfortable. I’m going to spend some time wandering the Mesh. Just wait for it to happen.” He walks back to his study and leaves the door open. One by one, he listens as they walk down the stairs until their footsteps fade to nothing.

Opening a drawer in his desk, he pulls out an old photograph of his mother.

She is standing in the doorway of their home gazing out onto the street wearing her cooking apron over the yellow dress, hands on her hips. He remembers the day. His father came home early from work and presented him with a new camera for his seventh birthday. Overcome with joy, he rushed outside and began snapping pictures. The first was of his mother.

From a lower drawer, Ryzaard pulls out a delicate crystal goblet and an old bottle of wine, Bordeaux from 1920, his father’s favorite. He extracts the cork and pours half a glass, and then turns to the photograph and raises the cup.

“For you, Mother.”

He sips it carefully and lets his mind wander back to the old kitchen with the smell of baking bread, pies and sausage.

But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t shake the image of his dead mother’s face.

Replacing the goblet and wine bottle in the lower drawer, Ryzaard turns to the window. His eye traces a long street on the edge of Manhattan as it trails off to the north, its path to the horizon blocked by an array of towering hulks. A smile flirts with his mouth as a novel thought filters down through layers of morning fog.

Return the city to its native condition. Green fields and open spaces.

Perhaps. Only time will tell.

He brushes his hand across the Stones on his chest, feeling them light up. The meditation cushion floats off the floor until it’s in position. Dropping his full weight on it, he pulls his legs up into a lotus position, stretches his back and folds his arms.

With easy familiarity, he drops into the Mesh with eyes open.

Taking the shape of a black dragon as his avatar, Ryzaard soars through the white space, his body more massive than the largest buildings. This time, he makes sure he can be seen. With no need to hurry and no destination in mind, he dives down on unsuspecting groups of exotic shapes gathered at entertainment hot spots on the Mesh. With a flick of his long tail, these are the first to be extinguished.

A little fear will prepare them for what is to come.

He makes a quick jump to the Shinto shrine where an algorithm keeps the avatar of Miyazawa talking for hours on end about becoming one with the
Kami
. The gathered faithful stare up as the black behemoth circles overhead. Their fear is palpable and exhilarating.

For hours he continues the flight.

When he tires of it, he lets the dragon avatar crumble into ash, returns to his meditation platform and stares through the window at the sun just rising over the eastern horizon. The sky is bright red.

Seamlessly, he jumps to the glossy black sphere that is the control node of the planetary network, the point from which all movement within the network obeys his command. With a palm on its cold surface, his mind moves through each of the Stones and into the sphere’s interior. Hanging in a sea of dark velvet, he brings all the implants together in his mind and sees them, nearly twenty billion points of light, floating within a single brilliant crystal.

The Stones glow hot white.

His hand reaches out, and his fingers close tight around the crystal.