by Zen, Raeden
“Connor presents a unique opportunity for you,” Hans said.
Isabelle raised her brow and leaned on her front foot. She seemed surprised by his tone, though Hans sensed intrigue more than anger in her. He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “You of all people should understand that if you kill me, Murray, or my father, no matter what you do to Connor’s mind, he’ll discover the truth. The zeropoint field holds the past, present, and future. The field doesn’t lie. My brother will turn on you … the same way you’ve turned on Chancellor Masimovian.”
Isabelle started.
Jeremiah, Zorian, and other BP informants had told him about the chancellor’s indiscretions, his obsession with his maidens and parties. They’d not revealed any dishonor by Lady Isabelle. Hans had only been fishing.
He didn’t know what drove her emotions but was grateful he unleashed a flurry of them inside her, for he found an opening to her neurochip, and her mind. He closed his eyes.
“Yes,” Hans said, “there it is.” He opened his eyes slowly. “Let your fury go, my lady. The chancellor doesn’t own you anymore. You don’t have to serve—”
She swung the inactive baton into his face.
He lost his connection to the ZPF, and to her, spitting out blood and a tooth.
Isabelle raised her leg, as gracefully as a dancer, holding her boot upon Hans’s neck and jaw, choking him with his own blood. She released him and he gagged.
He spit out bloody saliva, then swiveled his head to her. “Here’s your answer, my lady—”
Hans grimaced at the pain shooting down his jaw and neck. Blood streaked between his teeth over his lower lip. He steadied himself.
“—I serve the Beimeni Polemon.”
Isabelle cleared the illusion …
… She stood on the other side of eight teal laser beams that secured Hans in a holding cell.
Green phosphorescent light emitting from a Converse Collar obscured his view. She must have deactivated the collar for the interrogation.
Hans looked down. His spit scattered on the ground, not blood, vomit, or a tooth. He wasn’t chained to a seat, but rather sat upon a hard stone slab protruding from a moonstone wall. He felt his jaw, suddenly not in pain. In fact, he’d not been beaten or bruised at all.
Wide-eyed and not a little awed, he pondered Lady Isabelle. He’d never encountered talent with the ZPF such as this, not even with Zorian. Was he truly sitting on a stone slab? Hans wondered. Had he unwittingly given her more intel?
Lady Isabelle moved her chin up and to the side. She looked enchanting in her golden gown with a golden phoenix hanging from a chain around her neck. “Enjoy your stay in the Department of Peace, Mr. President.”
Hans didn’t react, even as his heart sang.
She gave him a long look with her lavender eyes, then strutted down the corridor.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Johann Selendia
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
Over time, Hans decided his surroundings were, in fact, real. He lay across the stone slab in his holding cell, his hands folded over his chest, his eyes closed. Lady Isabelle’s words flooded his mind: Enjoy your stay in the Department of Peace, Mr. President. How could she know? Had he given his inauguration away, somehow? Or was she just fishing, the same way Hans had with his comment about Masimovian? He’d not seen Isabelle since then and figured a hearing with Chief Justice Carmen awaited him. Many of his comrades were held in the DOP prior to their hearings, if they even received one.
Now a prisoner screamed as if he was being murdered. This happened from time to time. Once Hans discerned the voice differed from Connor’s, he ignored it.
He rolled, facing the moonstone wall. He meditated and slept as often as he could. Now and then a keeper bot would visit with food and drink, a slice of stale bread, discolored water and a biscuit, maybe some beans if he was lucky. The tiny hole in the ground smelled of feces even though Hans rarely used it. The cell block quieted. He closed his eyes but couldn’t sleep, sickened by the smell, plagued by his fear for Connor. A holding cell would be a terrible place to undergo the fever, and if Lady Isabelle didn’t allow for medical assistance, plenty of fluids, and sustenance …
Sometime later, shards of light reflected upon the ceiling. Hans leaned on his elbow and forearm. He furrowed his brow. Sixteen garnet gemstones levitated in a line between two of the beams, spreading into his cell. Was this another of Isabelle’s tricks? He sat up, letting his legs dangle from the slab. The gemstones spun like twisters, quickly, quickly, they snaked in front of him, rising, orbiting.
A part of Hans wanted to scream. Another part wanted to cry. Why didn’t Zorian help him from the beginning? Why did he have to be such a bastard?
The gemstones formed a line in front of Hans, spinning fast. Then the rotations ceased and the gems spread out, like feelers from a cephalopod, to the sources of the teal beams at the front of the cell. The gemstones sparked, blocking the beams.
Hans looked down. The collar around his neck still glowed green. Without the ZPF, he’d be as defenseless as Connor in the DOP. Carefully, silently, he stepped forward, toward the cell’s entrance. The floor felt cold on his bare feet.
He lunged—and survived. He looked both ways. The white light from bulbs in the corridor’s ceiling hurt his eyes. Hans looked at the ground. A key lay on the floor.
The collar, he thought. He picked up the key and inserted it. The green light disappeared, the collar unlatched, and Hans felt his connection with the ZPF restored.
He heard the erk, erk, erk, erk of boots upon alloy, rather than the alloy-upon-alloy footsteps of bots.
You think you’re as advanced as me with the zeropoint field, brother?
Zorian’s voice, in Hans’s head.
Please, Zorian—
Prove it.
The teal beams cut through the gemstones, splitting them apart, and the barrier reconnected behind Hans.
Zorian? Hans sent. Zorian?
No response.
You selfish bastard! If you would just do your part, we could’ve already won this war!
A Janzer pair rounded the corner.
Hans focused a telekinetic burst upon them, snapping their heads back. Unlike in Ypresia Village, he killed these Janzers.
No, Hans thought, biting his fist, no, no, no. He knew the Janzers continuously connected to the ZPF and to Marstone, and from Marstone they could connect to the chancellor. While Marstone might detect these deaths, it wasn’t clear whether the chancellor would. If the rumors of his debauchery were true, he might be too distracted to notice. Hans didn’t plan to wait to find out.
He dashed between the dead Janzers. The cells in this detention block were placed every ten meters or so.
He searched for Murray and Connor, ignoring the other inmates’ pleading cries. The BP’s war with Masimovian’s Administration was their best hope in the long run, and time was against him.
Connor and Murray were not in the cell block. Neither was Zorian.
Hans activated a Granville sphere, displaying a map. He couldn’t find Connor and Murray, but he did find potential escape routes and the control area.
When he arrived at the control area’s entrance, he pushed outward through the ZPF, connecting his mind to an access dock. He broke the cipher and entered the code. The opaque entrance cleared. There stood two DOP scientists, a man and a woman, in bodysuits and transparent lab coats. They inclined their heads, for rather than seeing Hans, they saw Corvin Norrod, Supreme General and Director of Peace, in military fatigues that matched the white corridor.
“I’ve been looking for you two for hours,” Hans said, “didn’t you get the message?” The scientists turned to each other and shrugged. “Come with me!”
They entered the control area, a triangular room in an open environment where thousands of scientists operated their workstations.
Hans would have loved to learn what they were doing, bu
t there wasn’t time for a tour. All eyes in the room turned to the likeness of General Norrod and the two scientists.
“Activate a workstation,” Hans ordered them, “the traitors in the detention blocks. I need their locations.”
He sent images of Murray and Connor into the workstation, and they were rendered as holograms above it. The scientists went to work.
They found the cells for Murray and Connor. They weren’t far from the control area.
“Excellent, leave me.”
The scientists shrugged again and scurried through the maze of workstations. They chatted and looked back, their brows narrowed. Hans probed them to see if they would sound the alarm and found they were more terrified about having overlogged their hours worked than concerned about General Norrod’s request.
Hans conducted his search for Jeremiah Selendia. He flipped through millions of files before he found the one he believed held the key to his father’s survival. We had it all wrong …
An image of a prison with parallelogram-shaped rooms repeated and repeated, extending over the workstation like an endless labyrinth, with tunnels and chains and coils humming with electricity. “What is this?” Hans said, distracted.
He copied the contents to a commonwealth z-disk.
The workstation powered down. All eyes in the room glared at him.
Hans hadn’t kept up his conscious presence in the ZPF, and his illusion had given way.
He reasserted himself into the scientists’ visual cortexes but lost his concentration again when an alarm blared and dark red light drenched the room.
Janzers streamed into the control area.
Hans secured the z-disk in a pocket and scanned the room. He dashed for the side exit.
The Janzers ordered the scientists to drop and aimed their pulse guns, but Hans slipped out and rushed down the hallway.
The wreeer, wreeer, wreeer of the alarm pinged the walls, throwing him off balance. After he adjusted, he ran to Connor’s cell, guarded by an entire Janzer division. Hans stunned them with a telekinetic burst and they collapsed. His brother lay on his stone slab, his hands over his ears. Sweat slicked his hair, face, and neck, and he was shivering, but he’d been given fluids and sustenance, clearly. Hans entered a Janzer’s code on the digital display, and the teal lasers cleared. Connor lunged out and hugged him. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in years.
“What’s happening, brother?” Connor asked. “The Janzers told me I’m sick. I didn’t know what that meant. Why am I like this? Why is the alarm blaring? Why did Lady Isabelle—”
“I’ll explain everything when we get out of here,” Hans said. He swiped Connor’s wet hair from his face. “I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to hold yourself together just a little while longer. Can you do that for me?”
Connor nodded wanly. A Janzer division ran past them. The leader looked their way, then signaled his team onward. Connor shuddered. Perspiration flew off his hair.
I’m in control now, Hans sent to him. They can’t see us, they can’t stop us.
He slung Connor’s arm along his back over his left shoulder and carried him on their way to Murray’s cell, two floors up. Their developer leaned against the wall and peered between the teal beams when they arrived.
“About time,” he said. Hans released him and unlatched his Converse Collar. “Do you know the way?”
“I do.” Hans and Murray carried Connor together through the DOP’s lengthy corridors, filled with flashing light and pings from the alarm.
“Here it is.” Hans tapped a taupe Granville panel in a coded pattern, and the doorway next to it cleared their way into Beimeni City.
White bioluminescence lined the pedestrian path that led into one of Artemis Square’s bazaars. The pillars and buildings of the First and Second Wards, Masimovian Center, Masimovian Tower, the Brezner Building, and Hammerton Hall shimmered beneath the starlight. Hans connected to the ZPF and entered the neurochips of passersby. Through Beimenian eyes, citizens and Janzers alike, Hans, Murray, and Connor now looked like aristocrats dressed in fur-lined capes and dark bodysuits with matching boots.
Hans looked at Connor. Dark skin ringed his bloodshot eyes, his nose dripped, and his lips looked a touch blue. Hans debated whether his brother could survive the journey. He looked at the Beimenians who shopped, drank, conversed, and stared at the steady flow of Janzers entering the DOP, then back to Connor. “I need you to be strong now.”
Connor waved his head in what might’ve been agreement or disagreement, Hans couldn’t tell. He wrapped his hand around his brother’s sweaty neck and put his forehead to Connor’s. “You are a Selendia. You are a Rupel. Your body was made for the fever.”
“What is … the fever?” Connor said, blinking.
Hans didn’t answer him. He lifted Connor’s arm and draped it around his back, then moved onward.
Murray also helped carry Connor. “Where’re you leading us?”
“Beimeni River,” Hans said. Unlike Zorian, he’d never entered Beimeni City, but their father had forced him to memorize maps of the place, including several routes for escape scenarios.
They made their way through the First Ward and arrived at the archway leading out to the sprawling Dunes of Phanes, hills and depressions with white sands so soft that their bare feet disappeared with each step. It was slow going, and gradually the warm sand began to chafe. Connor looked like he might pass out.
“Hold on, brother,” Hans said.
They’d traveled only a few kilometers when noises halted them.
Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.
“Did you hear that?” Connor said. His voice slurred a bit.
Hans scanned the horizon. “I heard it.”
“Tenehounds,” Murray said.
Hans removed Connor’s arm from his back and turned.
Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.
“They have our genetic scents,” Hans said.
Connor stood without Murray’s help. He shook sand from his foot. “What now?”
Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.
Hans scanned the horizon again. This time he saw tiny specks in the distance. “Lady Isabelle will hunt you now,” he said to Connor.
“We can’t leave Father with her.”
“No, no we cannot.” Hans handed him the z-disk. Connor looked at it in his shaky palm. “This is a commonwealth z-disk, so you mustn’t ever access it in Beimeni or try to send its contents telepathically.” Connor sniffled and wiped snot from his nose. He looked bemused. “You’ll be surrounded by Janzers and Isabelle would track the message to wherever you sent it.” To Murray, Hans added, “My father isn’t in Farino Prison.”
“Where is he?” Connor said.
“I’m not entirely sure, though I think the answer’s in here.” Hans closed Connor’s fingers over the z-disk and held his hands around Connor’s fist. “See it to the Leadership,” he turned to Murray, “in Blackeye Cavern.”
“The Hollow is closer—”
“Closer to Natura and Gaia, where surveillance is up, we should assume the same is true all along the Zwillerzweller—”
Connor coughed violently.
Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.
They turned. A trio of hounds sat upon their haunches on a nearby dune, howling.
“We’re out of time,” Hans said.
Connor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and put the z-disk in his pocket. “Will I … see you again?”
“I hope so, little brother—”
Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.
Hans kissed Connor on his cheeks and did the same to Murray. See to it Connor survives the fever, Hans sent to his developer. They locked eyes and Murray nodded, his brow crumpled. Then Hans turned and sprinted to the top of the highest dune he could find.
Sweet Maribel, please forgive me, he thought.
Hans let the universe’s energy fill him, expanding his presence, pushing out his consciousness and
his genetic scent in the ZPF.
The hounds snapped their heads toward Hans in unison. He manipulated their vision, made them see three BP rather than just one.
Hans, and his illusions of Connor and Murray, ran over and between the dunes. They slid down waterfalls of sand, drinking in waves of artificially cool, musky air.
Hans felt the burn in his legs, but he could not slow, could not stop, for if the hounds took him down, they might learn of his trick, then shift their attention to the real Connor and Murray. He ran faster, faster.
But soon the tenehounds emerged on either side of him, closer, closer. Their colorful fur stood on their backs, bristling beneath the moonlight. They barked and growled.
Hans attempted to establish a deeper connection with them, as he could with lower fauna, to manipulate, or kill them.
They howled and closed on either side of the apparent BP, unhindered. Saliva dripped from their mouths.
They didn’t move in to strike, and it didn’t seem as if they’d discerned his illusions.
They’re forcing me to Masimovian Crossing, Hans thought.
If Hans could make it to the river, he might be able to escape. He could slip onto a river barge unseen or commandeer a trader’s ship. It seemed a strange choice for the hounds.
He turned, running up a dune, but when he reached the top, a hound lunged for him. Hans’s legs weren’t as strong, and he couldn’t evade it.
He toppled, rolling down the dune with the hound. At the bottom, Hans wrapped his hands around the hound’s neck and snapped it, maintaining his concentration and control in the ZPF.
He stood and rushed between two more dunes, away from the crossing.
The tenehounds weaved around the apparent three BP in elliptical formations, designed to assess their enemy. To what purpose, Hans wasn’t sure, for they didn’t move in to capture him.
He dashed left, then right, up, down, around, up, down, around, dune after dune after dune.
When he smelled the river and saw the crossing, he put his hands on his knees. The hounds had deceived him.
He turned to the city skyline. It was as beautiful as his father described, with Hammerton Hall and its waterfalls of light, Masimovian Tower’s crystalline spires, the Fountain of Youth with its blue bioluminescence, and the ward and district buildings—canyons of polished limestone, carbyne, alloy, and glass.