by Zen, Raeden
At last, he saw an exit, or was it an entrance? Connor couldn’t tell. Inside hung curtains decorated with dragons, and caves as colorful as the ones they’d passed through on their way here. Carbyne coolant pipes snaked up and down along the walls. There also stood a man unlike any Connor had ever encountered. His medium-blue hair was a thicket, his complexion bronze, his dark yellow eyes could light a fire, and his face was hard, as if wrapped with a mask of stone instead of transhuman skin. He wore many layers of emerald robes with thick gemstone chains tied at his waist.
“Connor,” Murray said, his arm outstretched, “this is Minister Kurt Kaspasparon, longtime friend of your father’s and longtime ally of the Liberation Front.”
Kaspasparon bowed, and only then did Connor realize just how tall the minister was. “Did Hans make it here?” Connor said.
Kaspasparon stared right past Connor, making eye contact with Murray.
“No more lies,” Connor said, “no more hiding. Tell me what happened to Hans.”
Murray said, “He’s been sent to Reassortment Hall.”
Part IV:
Jubilee
On the Surface: Spring
In Beimeni: First Trimester
Day 108
Year 368
After Reassortment (AR)
ZPF Impulse Wave: Broden Barão
Area 55
Boreas, Underground North
2,500 meters deep
“You’re about to embark on the most treacherous journey of your lives,” Brody said. He stood in front of the ten replacements for the scientists who had perished during the last Gemini trial. Nero and Verena told him they’d handpicked the top researchers in the back end of the Ventureño Facility, where a group of ten thousand scientists, who never traveled to the surface, conducted work vital to the success of the team in the front end. They assured Brody this group had first-class telepathic talent and experience using the CRISPR system and recombinases to manipulate and edit DNA and genomes. Brody wasn’t so sure—they appeared as if they’d not yet received their first doses of athanasia at the Fountain of Youth.
“I can’t assure you that all of you will survive,” Brody added, “but I can assure you that should we fail, many will survive to conquer the Reassortment Strain another day.”
He always repeated this to the scientists prior to their first surface excursions. He’d heard it from his former mentor, the late Jeremiah Selendia, in 273 AR during his first trip to the Island of Reverie. As a strike team captain, Brody had already traveled to the surface, but on that particular excursion he traveled as a newly minted RDD scientist, and Jeremiah had instilled in him more respect for Reassortment than he’d felt before. Brody hoped it did the same for those with whom he worked.
The scientists saluted him, then bowed. “Now go get fitted into your biomats,” Brody said, “then circle up with the rest of the team in Alalia Hall.”
“Yes, sir,” they said together, then jogged to the research team’s fitting room.
Brody joined his striker and strategist in the strike team’s fitting room, where Janzers and research bots secured them into their biomats. The room’s walls were made of carbyne, much like the rest of Area 55, one of the three primary structures with direct, protected access to the Earth’s surface. The other two were in Peanowera Territory’s Mission Control and Volano Territory’s Reassortment Hall.
Beneath the bright lights, Verena was wrapping her hair into a bun. She smiled at Brody and bowed primly to him.
Nero stood next to her, his arms extended as a bot set adhesives to his arms and shoulders. He also bowed slightly to Brody.
Brody gave his strategist and striker curt nods, then prepared for the fitting. A Janzer asked Brody to step into a biomat and lift his arms. A bot applied adhesives to Brody’s bodysuit, then pulled the biomat up over him and sealed it. Verena conducted a safety diagnostic. She checked the supply of atmospheric synisms in the helmets, the temperature control inside the suits, and the robustness of the mid layer designed to protect them against the Reassortment Strain.
“Captain,” she said, “we’re good.”
Are we? Brody wondered. He’d not divulge his doubts about the Jubilee, not even to his own strike team. He raised and lowered his chin, then telekinetically parted a doorway. He looked down the long corridor that led to Alalia Hall, the vast oval-shaped chamber named after Vastar Alalia, the last strike team commander. Brody wondered how Vastar had felt prior to the surface excursion when he died in 273 AR. Why did he agree to accompany Jeremiah’s team to the island during a transhuman trial? Did he want to see Reassortment in action? Did he believe in Jeremiah’s research? Brody reminded himself that he was not Vastar. He was not the commander of the strike teams. Nor was he Jeremiah Selendia.
He was the supreme scientist of Project Reassortment, and the People’s Captain. Beimeni expected him to lead them out of the underground.
He walked down the corridor, flanked by his striker and strategist.
Nero turned to Brody. “Permission to speak freely, Captain.”
“Granted.” Brody had developed with Nero in House Variscan. They were rivals then but grew closer after Vastar bid on them during the Harpoon Auction. After Vastar named Brody a strike team captain in 262 AR, he asked Nero and Verena, whom he knew from Harpoon classes, to join his newly formed Barão Strike Team. All these decades later, Brody liked that his striker kept to the team’s traditions when addressing him in public.
“How’s Damy handling the Jubilee?”
Brody frowned. Nero knew Damy’s parents died from Reassortment exposure during a surface excursion to the arctic gone wrong. He also knew Brody didn’t like it when anyone brought up Damy and Jubilees.
When Brody hesitated, Nero said, “Brodes?”
Brody stopped, and his strike team halted with him. He formed his thoughts and words in alignment with the precepts, for he didn’t carry a recaller during surface excursions. Janzer security prevented him from doing so. “She’s supportive in a way only a supreme scientist could be,” he said, and thought: Damy’s research into Project Silkscape could have applications beyond the menagerie of extinct species. She’s too valuable an asset to the RDD, and the commonwealth, to remove her from the supreme scientific board, or the department.
The truth was that while she’d seemed supportive of the idea of another Jubilee after the board meeting, she’d pressured him in the days since then to cancel it. Brody refused and prayed to the gods the chancellor wouldn’t seek retribution against her. This morning, the morning of the Jubilee, he had wakened before she did, kissed her gently on her forehead, and left their apartment unit.
“Is that supposed to mean I’m not supportive?” Nero said. He waved his gloved hand toward Brody. “If it were up to me, Captain,” he added, “we would’ve launched all our people off this planet a long time ago, set up larger terradomes off planet, live like men were made to live—”
“With so many grand choices, where would you like us to go?” Verena said. Brody liked the sound of this not at all. He’d need his strike team focused on the clinical trial. “Mars?” Verena continued, “Or perhaps that paradise called Venus? Or Ceres? Or Pluto?” She laughed sadly. “Securing a hundred strike teams inside a terradome isn’t the same as an entire commonwealth—”
“Love, I wasn’t thinking about our solar system. Heywood’s finding new exoplanets all the time. And there’s always Vigna—”
“I’ll not listen to this today from you two,” Brody said.
Supreme Scientist Heywood Querice led astrophysical missions from the Huelel Facility. He’d discovered an exoplanet forty thousand light years from Earth called Vigna. Brody and his strike team had conducted their own research into Vigna from Mars decades ago with Antosha Zereoue and his eternal partner, Haleya Decca. Brody believed their work on Mars had contributed to Antosha’s madness and Haleya’s death. His former friend now served the commonwealth in the Lower Level, living out a life sentence separated fr
om the Beimeni zone—and the Fountain of Youth—because of his crimes against humanity.
“We’re never going to Vigna,” Brody said, “we’re never going to colonize the solar system, or some other system. The Earth is our home. It alone is meant for human habitation—”
“Was meant, you mean,” Nero said, “and it isn’t anymore. Important distinction—”
“Why don’t we talk about what really matters?” Verena said.
They were halfway down the corridor. It didn’t have as much light as the fitting areas, and its carbyne construction made Brody feel as if he truly stood in a tomb. He wished the engineers would’ve installed Granville panels here, like they did in the rest of the commonwealth.
He exhaled. “What really matters is executing this clinical trial, manipulating the volunteer’s DNA and genome, triggering an early immune response, and protecting his cells from Reassortment.”
“What about the chancellor’s decree?” Verena said. “Since we’re speaking freely.” She crossed her arms, snuggling her gloved hands under her armpits. “Are we going to ignore that, Captain?” She leaned forward. “What if Reassortment wins today? What will happen to the next strike team forced to—”
“The chancellor hosted a supreme scientific board meeting—”
“The chancellor ordered a strike team captain to the surface. In the past he at least obtained consensus from the ministry and the board for excursions.”
“I was there, Verena. He had the board’s support.”
“Then why did Damy run out after the meeting?”
Brody’s blood sang, and it had nothing to do with the impending Jubilee. He appreciated his strategist’s forthrightness, usually. But he feared he’d allowed this debate to linger too long, and go too far, for if Marstone flagged the discussion for review …
“Oh yes, Captain, we heard about that.” Verena raised her chin indignantly. “Your eternal partner understands what you don’t—”
“Love, why don’t you calm down,” Nero said.
“I wasn’t done,” she said to Nero, and to Brody, “I cannot stand by and watch the teams lose the last bit of autonomy we have. Captain, so much has changed since you first asked me to be your strategist.” Verena paused and looked away from Brody, seething. Then she turned back to him. “Vastar is dead, the Comb Cove is closed, General Norrod isn’t supportive, and the teams lack proper training and gear.”
The Comb Cove, built by Vastar, was once the training and development center for the strike teams, decommissioned along with the commander rank after he died in 273 AR.
Now Verena pointed in the direction of Underground Central. “Captain, we’ve yielded far too much authority to the central government in Phanes!”
Vastar had permitted the transition of the teams’ role from one of protection to exploration, and Brody maintained that change. He hated it when Nero and Verena dredged up the past and politics. They had a terrible habit of doing it during Jubilees, which, like holidays, had a nasty way of bringing out the worst in Beimenians.
“The teams’ power is derived from the people.” Brody could delay no longer. The launch neared, while Marstone—and the commonwealth—must be assured of his team’s loyalty. Similar to Commander Vastar Alalia, the last thing Captain Broden Barão wanted was a war with Chancellor Masimovian and his Janzers. “The chancellor has been elected by the people, again and again and again.”
Brody turned to Nero. “I’ll speak no more about extraplanetary colonization,” and to Verena, “or the teams’ independence.” He rested his gloved hands on their arms. “The Earth is our home, the surface is our domain, and we serve the people of the underground, just like the teams of old. Today we’re going to prove that our research matters, that the strike teams matter, that transhuman civilization matters.
“Today we’re going to show the commonwealth why they’re wise to trust the Barão Strike Team with their lives.” His tone left no room for argument.
“Yes, Captain,” they said.
Brody turned, and Nero and Verena followed him. Inside Alalia Hall, the research team stood in a circle, and when Brody and his strike team neared, two scientists parted, allowing them to pass. In the center, Brody turned from one side of the circle to the other, slowly. He’d not allowed their thoughts into his mind, though he did sense unease, doubt, and excitement within the ZPF. He raised his head, and his voice. “I beg all of you, in this, our latest surface excursion together, to maintain a united front in the war against Reassortment to a victorious end.” He turned to the other side of the circle, leaned on his right foot, and pointed toward the surface. “What is our goal? What is our purpose?” Brody paused, looking from one scientist to the next. “Let me tell you.
“It is to wage this war within the zeropoint field where Reassortment is weak but we are strong.
“It is to use all our telepathic and genetic skills the gods have given us.
“It is to conquer a monstrous plague, never surpassed in the history of humanity.
“Most important of all … it is to return to the surface we all cherish.”
Brody lowered his arm and turned. “Our people see the Granville sky,” he moved his left hand in an arc to his left, then his right hand in an arc to his right, then pushed out his arms and hands, palms up, “they see the Granville fields, and Granville mountain ranges.” He let his arms fall. “Most all of us have seen the true surface, the light, the water, the land, so colorful and pure you can taste it from ten thousand meters.” Many of the scientists who’d been on the rare surface excursions nodded.
“Reassortment seepage is not extinct. Just because we’ve not had a scare in the Beimeni zone of the underground doesn’t mean we won’t. Shall we chance that? Shall we chance extinction, like our ancestors did at shallower depths?
“I think not.
“We don’t have the luxury to fail for another three hundred sixty-eight years, or even one year, to gradually wallow in this underground tomb masquerading as the Earth’s surface, waiting for the day when Reassortment eats us or the Earth burns us.” Brody raised his right fist high in the air. His research team and strike team mirrored him. “We’re gathered here in our underground fortress of Area 55, safe from the strain, and from the heat and pressure of the inner Earth, reminded of the fierce urgency of now.
“Now the hour of our departure has arrived!
“Now we will stop the Reassortment Strain!
“Now is the time to make real our promise of humanity’s return to the surface!”
The group shouted with Brody, then marched with him to the silo hangar next to Alalia Hall.
In the hangar, fifty helicopters, controlled by artificial navigation systems receptive to transhuman telepathy, waited to carry them across the continent to the Island of Reverie. When all the doors to the helicopters closed, the loud clanks of the silo locks echoed. The first circular carbyne roof spun away, and the hangar lifted. Each layer was protected from Reassortment seepage by gamma radiation, and as the hangar moved through the underground, up, up, up, the various vacuums, each five hundred meters in height, cleared the radiation for the team’s passage, then reengaged protection after the hangar passed.
When the hangar finally broke through the surface, starlight at the end of night washed over the exposed parts of Area 55. Snow covered some of its towerlike cylindrical platforms, surrounded by the lowlying tundra where polar bears roamed freely. The Flag of Beimeni, wine-red and painted with a flock of doves, wings spread along a triplet of crescent moons, shivered from three carbyne spires high above.
One after another, the helicopters departed.
Brody ordered his strike team’s helicopter to leave Area 55, thinking about how beautiful the Flag of Beimeni would look in a new city, welcoming his people to the Earth’s surface.
ZPF Impulse Particles
Surface and Beimeni Zones
0 and 2,500 meters deep
Particle 1: Johann Selendia
Hans lay
dressed in gray shorts, shackled to a slab in Reassortment Hall. The cuffs dug into his wrists, and his rib cage pushed noticeably into his skin with each breath. After capturing him on Masimovian Crossing, Lady Isabelle ordered he continually be injected with variants of E. barrier, severing his access to the ZPF. “Aha, no more escapes for you,” the medical bot had said. Hans didn’t need the ZPF to rip the bot’s head off, at which point he’d been sedated and restrained.
Now Maritza Menendes, the keeper of the hall and a former Maiden of Masimovian, freed him from the slab and helped him rise. His hands remained bound. She moved with him through a maze of Janzers, who adjusted the holograms above their workstations, and watched the events unfolding in the Valley of Masimovian from the nearby Granville panels.
She lifted a digital display from her belt. “Ah, here we are,” she said, “lucky number thirteen!” She kissed each of Hans’s cheeks. “For luck!” She pranced to a medical cart.
Hans cringed. His repeat stay in a DOP detention block had been short-lived, for a Janzer arrived with a z-disk and he was forced to sign a communiqué that approved the use of his body in a clinical trial against Reassortment. Hans wasn’t surprised, for he wasn’t the first. He thought he’d be prepared. He thought he wouldn’t be intimidated by Volano or Reassortment.
He was mistaken, but not in any ways he might have predicted. His thoughts dwelled on his loved ones. He never learned whether Murray had successfully ushered Connor to safety in Portage or if Lady Isabelle had apprehended them. He did have hope that Mari could find her way out of Underground South if she so desired. How would she handle this? Would she be watching the Jubilee? He didn’t know if he wanted her to or not.