Stones: Experiment (Stones #3) (2 page)

“What was left of them,” Alexa says. She leans back on the red sofa and lifts a wine glass to her lips. “You made quite a mess of Dr. Zemikis and his assistant. Little John was unrecognizable.”

“I want the walls repaired and the entire lab cleaned up and sanitized by lunchtime.” Ryzaard breathes in deeply. “And do something about that smell.”

“Human flesh tends to take on a disgusting aroma when it comes in contact with high-energy plasma,” Alexa says. “But don’t worry. It’ll go away as soon as we get the ventilation system back on line.” She lays her head on the sofa and stares up at the Chinese calligraphy hanging above her on the wall. “Any idea how Little John did it?”

The fingers of Ryzaard’s right hand slowly curl and uncurl. Tension is visible in his jaw. “A design flaw in the implant. Nothing more.”

“Do you think he’s still out there somewhere, floating in the Mesh?”

“Little John?” Ryzaard laughs. “He no longer exists. I killed him.”

Alexa stands up. “Yes, but did you kill
all
of him?”

“Don’t you have something better to do?” Ryzaard brings the palms of his hands together in the middle of his chest.

“I heard about all the damage he did.” Alexa takes slow steps across the office floor. “Sounds like it might take weeks or months to get back to where we were.”

“We’ll manage just fine.” Ryzaard pushes himself up from the meditation platform and places the soles of his feet on the floor. “I have three Stones.”

“So do
they
.”

“Which means five are left to find.
The game is far from over.
”

Alexa moves to the door and stops. “The cleanup crew will be here in fifteen minutes. You might want to relocate for a few hours while they work on your mess.” She disappears down the hall.

Ryzaard puts his hand on the desk and drops into his high-backed chair. Opening a drawer, he pulls out a small leather-bound book. Its pages are worn and torn. He leafs through it, scanning the handwritten notes in Japanese.

The game is just beginning.

I
miss you, Dad.

Matt walks alone along a river bank. A green hill rises on a steep slope to his left. Just above its peak, a massive moon hangs like a blood medallion in the sky, casting a red glow on the long grass.

At the top of the hill, the silhouette of a medieval castle pierces the lower half of the moon.

“I’ve never seen it like that before.”

Startled by the voice, Matt’s hand jumps into the pocket on the side of his thigh and gropes for the claw-shaped Stone. As his fist closes on it, he turns to see Jessica approaching from behind.

“Did I scare you?” she says.

Matt’s lips fall into a smile. “You couldn’t sleep either?” His fingers slip out of the pocket.

“Nope.” Jessica’s hand finds his. “The moon’s too bright, even with the curtains pulled.” Her fingers weave a familiar pattern through Matt’s. “More dreams?”

He pulls her close, softness and warmth from her body moving through him. “Almost every night, the last few days.”

“It might help if you tell me.”

“It’s always the same.” Matt pulls Jessica along beside him. A breeze carries up the mossy smell of the river, slow and wide, off to their right.

“Your dad? And Ryzaard?”

Matt nods. “He’s standing above us, pumping pulse projectiles into Dad. I’m cowering off to the side, hand on my Stone, trying to stop Ryzaard, trying to protect Dad. But I can’t do anything. Dad’s screaming for help.”

“But no matter how hard you try, your Stone doesn’t work, right?”

“Right.”

The narrow neck of a lone white swan comes into view, it’s head turning from side to side, floating on the river like an upside-down question mark.

Jessica stops. “It’s just a dream. A product of fear and anxiety. Ryzaard can’t hurt your dad anymore. No one can. He’s where he’s supposed to be. He’s happy.”

“I know,” Matt says. “He’s fine. But it still hurts. Sometimes I wonder.”

“About what?” Jessica’s arms flow around his waist.

“About what me and Dad could have had together. If he had lived. If we had just a bit more time. If Ryzaard hadn’t killed him.” Matt’s gaze goes up to the sky. “We were just getting to know each other, after all those years on the run. I finally found a way to . . .”

Jessica stares up at Matt, the blood moon reflected in her moist eyes. She nods. “Forgive him?”

Matt gazes at the ground, squeezing out tears that streak to his chin and drop to the grass. “I hope he knew. Knows.”

“He does.” Jessica pulls Matt closer. Her cheek rests on his chest. “He knows and forgives you, too.”

Taking in a deep breath, a great weight slips away, gravity draining out his feet. But then he sinks back down.

“There’s more to the dream,” he says. “I think it’s always been there, and I just couldn’t sense it. But I saw it tonight. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Tell me about it.”

Matt swallows. “In my dream, I’m looking behind Dad as he’s dying. Lightning explodes in the sky above my head and lights up a massive plain that goes on forever. Then the lightning fades and leaves an afterimage that just hangs in the darkness.” He goes silent, swallowing again. “I can still see it when I close my eyes.”

“What’s the image?”

Swinging his head from side to side, Matt’s sweeps his eyes up to the dark outline of the castle at the top of the hill and back to the river.

“It’s everyone.”

Jessica takes a step back. “Everyone? What do you mean?”

“Everyone. In the world. The whole human race. They’re all standing there, on the infinite plain, staring at me. I didn’t know what they were thinking before tonight. But now I do. It was like I could read their minds, like there was only One Mind. Tonight, for the first time, I knew what they wanted, what they’re begging for. All of them were saying the same thing.”

“What?” Jessica says.

Matt’s head drops. His legs and arms are heavy, made of lead.

“Save us.”

T
he low buzz of the heli-transport dies as the pilot cuts the engine and the dual rotors coast to a stop.

The door slides open.

Tomoyuki Miyazawa descends the steps onto a sea of white pebbles. Ten thousand worshipers, some in robes of white, and some in Buddhist saffron, bow in his direction and kneel.

He strolls a hundred meters along the pebble walkway through the middle of the assembly of bowed heads. The long sleeves and stiff tunic of his Shinto robes skim inches off the ground, giving him the appearance of floating across its white surface. At the base of the vermillion
torii
gate, he stops and gazes up. Airlifted from the factory in Japan only hours before, the gate’s fresh paint glistens in the early morning light.

After a moment of mental preparation, he moves forward, passing under the gate onto the sacred ground beyond.

Ten thousand
Shinto
acolytes fall silent.

The head monk of the Jokhang Temple Monastery, dressed in a simple undergarment with a maroon robe draped over one shoulder, steps from the platform and moves across the courtyard for the official greeting. Three meters from Miyazawa, the monk stops to bring palms together and bows deeply.

“Welcome to our humble sanctuary.” With practiced grace, the monk stands upright and takes care to rest his gaze on Miyazawa’s slippers. “We have waited long and patiently for your Eminence to bless our humble community.”

Miyazawa forces a half smile. For the past six months, his days have been spent attending dedication ceremonies throughout China as the supreme guest of honor, and he’s grown weary of empty flattery. Yet he understands the need for it and would have been sorely angered without it.

Ryzaard was wise to have Miyazawa start with China, an unusually easy conquest. At the heart of the planet’s largest trading block, the Chinese have practically annexed the economies of Korea, Russia and a host of other countries. China has most of Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia for its playground. Only Europe and the Americas stand between it and world domination.

From here, Shinto will naturally spread through the Chinese Empire with little effort on Miyazawa’s part, cementing his reputation as Shinto’s greatest promoter.

“To be in Lhasa is a great honor.” Miyazawa takes care to keep his bow shallow and curt, drawing his sleeves together and holding them up so the long folds of starched cloth never brush the ground. “It is an auspicious day for my first visit to the greatest center of Buddhist learning in all of Tibet.”

They walk together, monk and priest, to the foot of the wooden stairs leading up to the ceremonial platform. Miyazawa takes the first step, followed by the Buddhist monk. At the top, Miyazawa surveys the gold-covered Cryptomeria cedar planks underfoot and the careful arrangement of sacred
shimenawa
rope, made of ten thousand strands of twisted rice straw, looping down and back up just above eye level. Zigzagging paper
shide
hang from its underbelly in the shape of symbolic white lightning. Behind him, a single cup of pure rice
sake
waits on a table made of
Akebono
cherry wood.

Cold water from a mountain stream trickles out an open bamboo pipe at the side of the platform.

Miyazawa takes a wooden dipper and fills it with the sacred water. Raising it to his lips, he briefly sucks in, holds it for an instant in his mouth and lets it drain out past his teeth onto a pile of pebbles. He replaces the dipper and rubs his palms together under the wet flow.

Having completed the ritual cleansing of his inner and outer vessel, and by proxy the cleansing of the whole multitude, he walks to the middle of the platform. A rough rope hangs from an acorn-shaped bell made of brass. Miyazawa pulls it sharply. The tinny sound floats across the silence of the courtyard and calls out to the
Kami
gods.

He turns and casts his eyes on the throng of worshipers. A stir ripples through the crowd.

The Buddhist monk moves three paces behind Miyazawa and sits on a wooden bench.

Pulling his hands back inside the sleeves, Miyazawa finds the jax hanging there. The index finger of his right hand brushes along its gleaming cylindrical surface. A thin wire unwinds from a coil in his black cap and snakes down the skin of his cheek to a point near the corner of his mouth.

This dedication ceremony, like all Shinto shrine ceremonies, will be conducted in Japanese, the only language still existing in the pure form handed down from the days of the Ancient Ones.

Miyazawa takes a moment to reflect on the events that have brought him to this point. A visit from Ryzaard months ago with an offer of unlimited funds from MX Global for the expansion of Shinto through China. The construction of hundreds of thousands of new shrines across that country, the training or hiring of even more men and women to serve as priests. The unexpected welcome Shinto has received in every town and city.

All of it has come together with an ease that leaves Miyazawa, head of the new worldwide Shinto movement, breathless and awestruck.

Opening his mouth, he speaks evenly and clearly in the silence of the cool mountain air, his words picked up by the wire on his cheek and amplified through tiny blue boxes hanging from the chestnut trees lining the pebble walkway.

“
Kono seinaru chi ni youkoso irasshimashita.
”

Ten thousand worshipers bring both hands in front, palms together, clapping twice and bowing their heads. The non-Japanese among them press soft round translators into one ear so they can hear both the pure language and their own tongue.

“Welcome to this sacred ground.” Miyazawa’s eyes pan across the heads of the gathered faithful. Numberless faces look up, lost in utter ecstasy. “I am pleased to be with you at these dedicatory services for the last Shinto shrine to be built on the soil of the great Chinese commonwealth.”

A pair of white cranes, male and female, fly low over the heads of the crowd trailing green ribbons from their talons. They land on the railing on either side of Miyazawa. Waves of adulation move through the masses as they see the birds. They bring hands together in front of their bowed heads.