Stones: Experiment (Stones #3) (37 page)

“But I don’t think I can—”

“You can. And you will. Until the new leader finds you, you will lead the freedom camps. They will wait to hear from you.” The old woman turns to Eva, nodding. “And this one will help you.”

The wind howls outside, causing the house to creak and sway. Radio static crackles in a box on the floor next to Aanak. She reaches in with one hand and pulls out an old piece of electronic equipment and sets it roughly on the table. It has dials and a small green display with numbers. Her fingers pick up the handset and bring it close to her mouth. “Are you getting all of this, Franklin?”

A radio voice mixed with static comes out of a speaker. “Read you, loud and clear, Aanak. We’ll all miss you.”

“How about the rest of you?” Aanak says. “Any questions?”

More static. The wind picks up outside the house.

“Wazak here. Got it.”

“Boomer on the line. No questions.”

“Yuri. Understood.”

For the next ten minutes, hundreds of voices of men and women float through the speaker, one by one, each identifying itself by name and giving an answer.

Aanak sits back and slowly chews the
muktuk
, nodding her head as each of them call in, as if she were mentally checking them off a list. She sits in silence for a long time after the last one speaks.

Without saying anything, Jessica reaches out with her hand and lays it on the old woman’s worn and wrinkled palm, sensing the warmth, squeezing hard.

“I wanted to be here to see it.” Tears trickle down the leathery cheeks of Aanak as she looks across the room. “To see the rise and fall of the Abomination.” She flashes a glance at Jessica. “To see him.”

“Maybe you will.” Jessica’s eyes plead for the old woman to agree.

But Aanak only shakes her head. “No. Only days remain for me. Or hours.” She stares up at the gathered men at the table, letting her eyes sweep past each one and linger for a moment. Then her eyes stop, and she lifts a crooked finger, pointing across the table. “Give me that.”

The captain reaches over and grabs the pulse rifle, propped up against the table a few feet away. It is passed around until it comes to the old woman. She wraps her fingers on the silver metal barrel and grips it tightly.

“I thought you only used the old musket,” the captain says. “I didn’t know you could use one of those.”

Aanak smiles. “It’s not for me.” She hands it to Jessica. “Keep this close. Always. Until he comes.”

The wind suddenly dies. The house stops creaking and swaying. A profound silence engulfs the room.

Then, from far away, a sound floats into the stillness. They all hear it with their ears. Vibrations play in their chests.

Thump, thump, thump.

“Y
ou sure about this?”

“You read the reports.” Ryzaard looks up from the co-pilot’s chair in the darkness of the transport cockpit, stirred to life by the sound of Alexa’s voice in his earphones. “After the assault on the Vancouver freedom camp, they slapped a tracking device on that submarine vessel and let it go. It went straight north, to the exact location of one of the three remaining Stones. Why wouldn’t I go after it?”

“She’s there, isn’t she?”

“Who?”

“Jessica. Matt’s girlfriend.” Alexa slurs her words as the sound of champagne being poured into a glass plays in the background.

“That’s what the report said. They saw her board the vessel.”

“You not only want to destroy him, you want to destroy everyone that knows him.” Alexa takes a drink. “Why?”

Ryzaard shakes his head in disgust. “She’s dangerous, that’s why. She’s been with the kid for the last several months. And she’s seen our operations. Knows our intentions. I can’t afford to leave her alive. You know I’m right.”

“But I’ve met her and talked with her. I might even be friends with her if it weren’t for—” She pauses as if searching for the right word.

Ryzaard rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time to listen to Alexa’s rambling drunk thoughts.

“Having friends is a bad idea,” he says. “They compromise your dedication to the cause.”

“Or point you in the right direction.” Alexa belches. “Besides, it’s so far north. I have a funny feeling about this. The Inuit are a mysterious people.”

Ryzaard chuckles to himself. “I’m not superstitious. And the Inuit are no more mysterious than anyone else.”

“But these are a primitive people. Little contact with civilization. They’re more—”

“More what?” The irritation is evident in Ryzaard’s voice.

Alexa sighs. “I don’t know. Pure. Innocent. We shouldn’t worry about them. Or kill them. I don’t want their blood on my hands.”

“You’ve already got so much blood on your hands that a little more won’t matter.” Ryzaard looks out the window at the barren wasteland a hundred meters below. Attack-helis push forward into the night on either side of the one he rides in. For thousands of miles, there’s been nothing but windblown ice and rocks on the landscape. “So do I. And it’s all for a good cause. It’s the price we pay for being the ones that will bring Paradise to the Earth. Nobody’s going to miss a couple dozen Eskimos. Nobody will even know they’re gone. We’ve scattered a few hundred million IMUs across the Canadian ministries for good measure. It’s always the same story. They’re glad to take the money and happy to cover up what we do.”

Alexa’s voice trembles. “You’re going to wipe out the entire village?”

“To the last child. I’d be a fool to do anything else.”

The line goes silent for several seconds before Ryzaard realizes that Alexa has hung up.

L
eo lies on the floor between them.

“Give me the child and your Stone, and I may decide to make your death quick and painless.” Jhata steps in front of Leo.

Matt stands in the middle of the two broken spheres, their glass shattered and lying scattered on the floor with the remnants of the sticky goo they once contained.

“Funny.” Matt’s eyes drop to Leo. “I was going to tell you the exact same thing.” He puts Yarah gently to the ground, still holding her close with his left hand, keeping a wary eye on Jhata. He whispers in Yarah’s ear. “Lock your mind against her. Keep her out. Don’t let her in.”

Yarah nods, her eyes narrowing with focus.

“Is that a challenge?” Jhata takes a wide stance with her feet apart and drops her hands to the side, like a gunfighter, a Stone tightly gripped in each one. Darts of black energy flash out, dissipating against the transparent white bubble protecting Matt and Yarah.

“You’ll have to do better than that, bitch.” Matt grins, hoping the provocation will throw Jhata off.

“Oh, I have every intention of doing better than that.” Jhata lets loose a barrage of black energy pulses, peppering the protective film covering Matt and Yarah. Ripples move wildly across its surface.

The realization comes to Matt that she might be probing his defenses, searching the barrier he has thrown up, preparing for an onslaught that will finish the job.

He doesn’t know whether that is possible or not.

“You don’t think I can kill you, do you?” Jhata shifts her weight back and forth. “You think you’re the Chosen One, the only one to pass through the Eye of the Universe and live.”

Matt doesn’t answer. His mind races for a way out. Even if he could jump away, he would have to leave Leo with her.

Unacceptable.

Keep your focus. Don’t let her distract you. Don’t let her hurt Leo.

Jhata’s eyes drop to Leo. “You see, that’s the problem with love. Causes you to lose focus. Pulls at your emotions. Makes you weak.” She kneels and places the point of a Stone on the side of Leo’s head. “He’s very much alive. And we all know how sensitive our Leo is.”

Leo cries out in pain, his body writhing on the floor.

“No!” Yarah says. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Jhata looks up. “If you love him, my child, then show me by coming here. He desperately needs your help.”

Yarah tries to move forward, but Matt holds her back. “No, Yarah. Don’t listen to her.”

“Don’t listen to him.” Jhata touches the Stone, now glowing green, to Leo’s head near his closed eye.

His spine arches and mouth opens wide. A primal scream wracks his body.

“But Leo needs my help.” Lines of tears streak Yarah’s face. She pulls on Matt’s arm. “He helped me. Now I have to help him.” Her eyes look up at Matt, pleading. “Let me go.”

Matt kneels and stares into Yarah’s brown eyes. “If I let you go, I’ll never see you again. I don’t want that to happen.” He lifts a finger and wipes away her tears. “Now I’m going to ask you to be brave and not listen to anything Jhata says. She’s a liar. She’ll say anything to get what she wants. Do you understand?”

Yarah stares back into Matt’s eyes and nods her head.

He unwinds his arms from her body, letting her stand on her own by his side.

“Oh, the difficulties that love and honor plunge us into. Better to live without their limitations. That is true freedom.” Jhata stands up and puts her hands on her hips. “But enough of this meaningless drama.” Her eyelids drop for split second. When the long lashes touch down, a blinding flash lights up the air enveloping them all.

New smells fill Matt’s nostrils.

Jhata has jumped them to a new location. Matt does a quick scan of their surroundings.

He and Yarah stand in the exact position they were in before, still enveloped in a protective white bubble over their bodies. Jhata and Leo are there too. Only now they find themselves in the middle of a crowded marketplace. The aroma of roasted meat and pickled vegetables drifts past them, strong, but pleasant. They see tables laden with baskets of fruit the shape of pears with colors of deep red and blue, and purple grapes the size of oranges.

“A change of scenery.” Jhata gazes at the people walking by, women with long flowing hair and colorful robes, men dressed in billowing pants with skullcaps on their heads. Children run freely among them, some playing games of hide and seek, others throwing balls that magically bounce back into their hands.

All of them are oblivious to the presence of Jhata and Matt, Yarah and Leo.

“Welcome to Queelum,” Jhata says. “A world of extreme pacifists in a far corner of my domains. Unlike Earth, this is a peace-loving society. Incredibly empathetic people. They share each other’s pain, making war and violence impossible. When I appeared among them and threatened to kill one child, the entire planet bowed to me and became my loyal subjects, almost overnight.”

“Why are we here?” Matt’s heart grows sick, knowing the answer before Jhata even speaks.

“They can’t see or hear us. Or our weapons. You hurt one of them and you hurt
all
of them.” Jhata tweaks her neck. “A perfect place to do battle, no?”

Matt immediately changes the configuration of the energy membrane engulfing him and Yarah to a hazy green.

“Let’s see if it holds.” Jhata bends forward and raises two Stones in her hands, mimicking a gunslinger from an old Western movie. All of the Stones on her belt glow like fire. Gold lightning shoots out from her hands, ripping through the crowd. The sound of thunder causes the marketplace and the ground beneath it to tremble.

This time, the energy burst from Jhata penetrates Matt’s protective bubble and breaks against the blue armor on his chest, sending out ripples of pain, like tearing flesh, through his body core.

He stumbles forward and falls to the ground, grabbing Yarah’s ankle.

Screams of terror fill the marketplace.

When Matt looks up, a line of torn and mangled bodies lies between him and Jhata, all of them burnt and blown apart by the force of her energy blast. Some of the people gather close to the fallen victims, staring in horror, unable to control an outpouring of emotional agony for their fallen loved ones. Others gather children and spouses in their arms and rush to leave the marketplace.

“We can’t let them get away, can we?” Jhata says. “After all, the show isn’t over yet.”

A single vertical wall of polished gray metal shoots out of the ground in a perfect circle ten meters high, enclosing the marketplace in a large arena. The people stare in confusion, frantic and scared.