The other man nodded. ‘She will be very valuable to the Group, then.’
Stikes sipped his drink. ‘If the statues do what they’re supposed to.’
‘We’ll soon know. Takashi-san will see you afterwards. In the meantime, I must get back to him.’ He bowed and left the room. Stikes took another sip, then with a look of sardonic amusement stood and walked out of sight.
Eddie remained still, mind racing. Nina was working with Stikes’s new paymasters? He couldn’t believe it. But much as he hated to admit it, Stikes was right about her being obsessive about her work. It was something that had prompted him to everything from teasing to outright anger in the past. Even so, he couldn’t accept that her lust for knowledge was so great that she would throw in her lot with Stikes to satisfy it. It wasn’t possible.
Was it?
Either way, he had to find her. He resumed his search for another way down.
8
Takashi opened the display case. ‘Here, Dr Wilde. Let us see if the legend is true. Please, pick them up.’
Nina realised as she stepped up to the case that her heart was racing. She knew what to expect of the statues individually, but the effects of putting them all together she could only imagine.
In a few moments, though, she wouldn’t have to imagine. She would see for herself.
She held out a hand, hesitating before picking up the statue she had discovered within the Pyramid of Osiris. It glowed strongly.
The industrialist didn’t appear surprised, only intrigued. ‘As I told you, all my life I have been fascinated by ideas like Feng Shui,’ he said. ‘This skyscraper was built according to its principles, on an intersection of dragon lines. It is a place of great power. As you can tell.’
Nina examined the statue. As she had seen on previous occasions, the shimmering light running over its surface was strongest in the direction of its companion pieces. The effect was a pointer, allowing those who could use it — those like her, some aspect of their body’s bioelectric field allowing them to channel the strange energy — to find the other crude figurines.
And now that they were finally together… their secret would be revealed.
She picked up Takashi’s statue. It too glowed. She brought the pair shoulder to shoulder, carved arms interlocking. The glow intensified, the brighter bands merging and pointing towards the last figure. Cradling them in one hand, she reached for it…
It also lit up: its being split into two parts had not affected its mysterious properties. Excitement rose in her, as did an urge to complete the triptych; an almost electric thrill of imminent discovery.
Literally electric, she realised. There was a faint but definite tingling in her hands, as if a low current were running through them. Not painful, or even unpleasant, but a clear sign of something extraordinary.
She glanced back at Takashi. His gaze was fixed on the glowing stone figures, his expression one of rapt expectancy. He whispered in Japanese, anticipation so great that he momentarily forgot his guest did not understand the language. ‘Put them together,’ he said. ‘I must see!’
Nina felt the same. Carefully shifting the split statue in her hand, she brought it closer to the other two, turning it to join up with them for the first time in untold centuries…
They touched.
And Nina’s senses were thrown into another world.
The effect was only brief, her shock causing her to break the link between the statues, but the results were almost overwhelming. Just for that moment, she felt as though her mind had left the confines of her body. Not a dislocation, but an expansion, spreading into the room, down through the building, into the city and the land beneath it.
And, somehow, she also felt… life.
She sensed Takashi’s presence a few feet from her, and others farther away — above, around, below. And not just people. Birds roosting amongst the machinery atop the skyscraper, the plants in Takashi’s office, insects and rats in their hiding places within the building’s structure. The lawns around its base — and beyond them the mass of living creatures of every kind within Tokyo. She was connected to them, some strand between all the different forms of life linking them in an inexplicable unity, a feeling of oneness.
And there was another sensation, equally strange, like a tugging at her soul. Something far away, yet also a part of her — and of everything else. She could feel it without touching, knew where it was without seeing—
Then it was gone, her consciousness snapping back to reality as her shock made her stagger. She instinctively grabbed the display case for support, letting go of the statues…
They didn’t fall.
Before, the figures had always stopped glowing the instant they left her touch. Now, though, they continued to shimmer — as they hung impossibly in the air, slowly drifting apart. Both Nina and Takashi stared at them, she in astonishment, the tycoon with…
Vindication?
The glow quickly faded. The figurines dropped, at first in slow motion but rapidly picking up speed—
With a stifled shriek Nina grabbed two of them, Takashi lunging to catch the last as it fell. Suddenly breathless, she leaned against the case. The pair of statues in her hands were glowing again, but the incredible experience did not return. ‘What the hell was that?’ she gasped.
Kojima hurried back into the room and went to his boss’s side, but his urgent and concerned questions were waved away as Takashi kept his gaze fixed on Nina. ‘You felt it?’ he said urgently. ‘You must tell me! What did you feel?’
‘I dunno,’ she said, bewildered. ‘It was… I don’t know how to describe it, just — just overpowering. But the statues… they were floating! How is that even possible?’
‘Diamagnetism,’ said Takashi.
Nina blinked. ‘What?’ Considering what he had just witnessed, he seemed remarkably composed. ‘What do you mean? I’m an archaeologist, not a physicist.’
Kojima provided a partial explanation. ‘All materials can be affected by magnetic fields, even ones we don’t think of as magnetic. You can levitate a train with magnets — but with enough power you can levitate an animal, even a person. Diamagnetism is the name of this property.’
‘You charged the statues with earth energy,’ continued Takashi. ‘For just a few seconds, they held that charge — and were levitated against the energy fields of the planet itself. It was an effect we had predicted. But,’ he admitted, ‘seeing it for myself was… startling.’ He regarded the figure cradled protectively in his hands.
‘Wait, you predicted this?’ Nina demanded. Her initial amazement was already being tempered by a growing feeling that she had been played: Takashi knew far more than he was letting on.
He lowered his head. ‘I apologise, Dr Wilde. We thought we knew what to expect, but there was no way to know exactly what would happen when you brought the statues together.’
‘There’s that “we” again,’ she said. ‘Who else knows about this?’
Takashi ignored her question. ‘What did you feel while you were holding the statues?’
‘You answer me first.’
A flash of anger crossed his face at being challenged in his own domain, but he quickly regained control. ‘I am a member of… a group that believes earth energy is the key to the world’s future. We seek to use its unlimited power for the benefit of humanity, while keeping it from those who might misuse it. People like Jack Mitchell.’
Mitchell — supposed friend turned betrayer, using the IHA as the means to his end of constructing a devastating weapon powered by the planet itself. She felt a twinge of phantom pain from her right leg, where he had shot her to force her to do exactly what Takashi had just manipulated her into — channelling earth energy. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. ‘How do you know about him?’