by Zen, Raeden
Oriana was laughing when Nathan leaned closer, wiped the cinnamon rum from her lips, and kissed her.
Desaray kissed Pasha.
Oriana felt as if all her blood had rushed to her face, leaving none for her brain or her lungs.
She still couldn’t breathe when Nathan said, “And may the most exquisite candidate prove worthy of her smarts and her lineage …”
Oriana pulled her face away from his. Did he think her intelligent, truly? What did he know about her lineage?
Sweat budded on her forehead, and she felt as if she might faint. A tickling sensation spread over her arms and legs, as if a thousand insects ran up and down her body—foreign, though not unpleasant.
She struggled to find the right words. She swiped sweat from her brow and thought about the Trimester Trek. The Granville sphere at the center of the table ignited into a new world. Her vision of Alpinia City filled it, with its maze of streams between marble pillars, domes, lion statues, glass skywalks, scientists in transparent lab coats, Beimenians in colorful bodysuits, and artists and tradesmen and dancers and the terracotta Granville sun. Oriana turned to Nathan Storm and grinned.
This time, she kissed him.
Part II:
Aging Innocence
On the Surface: Summer
In Beimeni: Second Trimester
Days 229 – 231
Year 368
After Reassortment (AR)
ZPF Impulse Wave: Antosha Zereoue
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
The sheep who denied Antosha a place among them sat around the rose-laden mercury pool on the Brezner Building’s rooftop deck. The supreme scientific board, a board of fifteen members under normal circumstances, presently held twelve. Supreme Scientist Broden Barão was in Farino Prison prior to his stay in the Lower Level, a stay Antosha hoped would be as brutal as his had been and end mortally should the gods be kind; Supreme Scientist Damosel Rhea lay in a grave in Livelle Cemetery; and Prime Minister Carillon Decca, ever the fifteenth and swing vote for the board’s decisions, didn’t attend. Antosha wasn’t surprised. The fool still called him an enemy of the state and blamed him for his daughter’s death. As if Carillon Decca knew anything about love. The prime minister’s eternal partner had taken her own life, jumped clear off the side of Luxor Citadel.
Antosha was surprised that Minister Tethys Charles, the minister who dared challenge him at Brody’s hearing, didn’t also boycott the board meeting. He sat on the other side of the pool, and it took all Antosha’s self-control not to use the CRISPR system, send new instructions through the ZPF and into his DNA, force his cells to create an extinct virus with a twist, an incurable hantavirus or a norovirus or, even better, amoebas to eat his brain, slowly and painfully. Or perhaps something a bit subtler, like the asphyxiation-inducing adjustments he’d made to Damosel Rhea’s lung cells.
His self-control won.
Next to Minister Charles sat Minister Oleryis Baltica of Phanes Territory, the redness in her eyes owing more to her addiction to Loverealan wine than sorrow; Minister Urillina Volans of Peanowera Territory, hideously overweight; Minister Glenys Carpathia of Dunamis Territory; and Minister Genevieve Sineine of Boreas. Genevieve’s furs hung thickly about her shoulders, but they couldn’t conceal the discomfort she displayed in her former lover’s presence. Antosha wished he could somehow make permanent the scowl she’d worn since he entered the room.
Next to Genevieve sat the other supreme scientists: Nasha Ele of Taos Facility; Heywood Querice of Huelel Facility; Minta Pollopa of Tomahawk Facility; Yovela Cimmeria of Montauk Facility; Vanya Canis of Leguna Facility; and Dorian Knox of Chinook Facility. Of them, only Vanya, his dear sister-in-development, had greeted him properly when he’d arrived at the meeting. Also in attendance was RDD Scientist Laurent Calamites, and though the chancellor didn’t reveal the reason for Laurent’s entry, Antosha assumed he’d been chosen to lead either Brody’s or Damy’s facility.
The appointment to Reassortment should be his, of course, but he’d not expected the board and ministry to see it yet. The sheep still held Antosha accountable for Captain Barão’s follies all those decades ago, when they’d worked together on Reassortment and Regenesis. Never mind that it was Brody who had killed 334 scientists frozen near absolute zero, Brody who had murdered Haleya Decca, may she rest in peace. They weren’t prepared, even now, to see the true villain in this war with Reassortment, so wrapped up were they in the myth of their People’s Captain. They all wore black mourning capes with a single phoenix feather hanging down their backs, the front lined with red rubies, like tears of blood. Did they mourn the loss of Damosel Rhea, he wondered, or was it their great country’s collapse that truly drove their sorrow?
“I see the hope drained from your eyes,” Masimovian said. He activated a Granville sphere that floated upon the mercury pool. “I see faces weary from lack of significant conversion.”
Sky City—a city beneath a terradome near the Great Canyons of North America, a city unsafe for transhuman habitation—formed above the sphere, and the pool.
“I see the faces of failure upon you all, and I tell you now that this will not do. Captain Barão served for a long, long time but in the end gave in to depression, as did his eternal partner. They allowed the plague in our paradise to conquer their lives. We must not fall with them! A hundred campaigns commenced for Reassortment coverage in the last ten days alone, and we expect hundreds, if not thousands more in the days ahead.”
Indeed, every scientist in the room, less Laurent Calamites, had put forward their eternal partners or close advisors to run campaigns for them across the commonwealth.
“I hope we reach a million campaigns,” Masimovian was saying. “Let’s spread the aristocracy’s benaris far and wide and give notice to all of Beimeni that we will not suffer the same fate as their captain and his eternal partner. What say you?”
“Aye!” the board offered in unison.
“First order is to congratulate Laurent Calamites on his promotion to the position of Supreme Scientist of the Nicola Facility, as approved by the ministry. Does the board concur?”
The bot beside Chancellor Masimovian displayed the vote in a hologram above a workstation: nine votes of aye, zero votes of nay, three abstentions.
“So the board approves, and it is decreed that RDD Scientist Laurent Calamites is now Supreme Scientist Laurent Calamites.”
“Thank you, my friends,” Calamites said. “I look forward to completing Project Silkscape.”
“And complete it you will,” Masimovian said. “The second order is an update on Sky City. Minta?”
Minta had gained fifty kilograms since the time of Antosha’s exile fifteen years ago. The rolls around his two chins made his lips and cheeks indistinguishable. “The project moves forward, and I’ve been working with Antosha Zereoue on synthesizing a terradome fortified by the Lorum genome. Early tests show promise, but it’s too soon to request a conclave—”
“The scientist speaks elegantly but untruthfully,” Antosha said. The board turned to him. He stared at Minta. “You don’t have a clue as to what you’re doing, do you?”
“Pardon me?” Minta said.
“Pardon yourself.” Antosha stood now and orbited the mercury pool. He overrode the chancellor’s imagery of Sky City and transformed it into the Lorum orb that Captain Barão retrieved from Vigna. “The lack of conversion shames us all, and shames the memory of our great research department, and I will not just sit here.”
“We can tell,” Masimovian said.
Antosha bowed deeply to the chancellor and said, “Chancellor Masimovian, you honor me to allow my presence at this meeting, but I would dishonor you if I suggested the terradome over Sky City were any closer to completion than when Supreme Scientist Ninara Granville herself worked on it.”
Ninara Granville, famed for her conversions with illusory panels and spheres and the sky all Beimenians cherished, had failed in h
er Sky City endeavor, and the chancellor had exiled her to the Lower Level. The challenge in creating a viable terradome, Ninara had learned, wasn’t just in the Earth’s atmosphere, for Reassortment was a penetrative organism, permeating the soil in ever greater concentrations as well.
Masimovian turned. “Minta, what say you?”
Minta loosened his cape, and the rolls of skin around his neck turned as red as the rubies on his chest. “Antosha Zereoue is ever the deceiver, my chancellor. He’s no different than when he killed—”
“I killed no one,” Antosha said.
“You forced those RDD scientists into clinical trials for experimental treatments no supreme scientist would ever have approved.” Minta raised his palms and turned side to side. “Our own Prime Minister Decca refused to attend today, my lords, what does that say?”
“This is irrelevant,” Masimovian said, waving his hand. “I force none of you to attend these meetings. I honor you by allowing your membership to this body. Never forget that.”
“I bid you service, Chancellor—” Minta said.
“I tire of your delays, tell us where the project stands.”
“The terradome structure has been enhanced by the Lorum’s DNA, but I need more time, I need—”
“You don’t understand the organism,” Antosha said, “the way it breathes and speaks and feels our world through the zeropoint field, not through the atmosphere you and I know.” Antosha turned the image of the Lorum orb into the image of the ansible upon Candor Chasma Central Command, Mars, with its crystalline spires and colorful light. “I know the Lorum. I conducted research at Candor Chasma focused solely on intergalactic communications. I understand how this species thinks and works.”
“Are you proposing that you take over the terradome project?” Masimovian said.
“Why don’t we ask Supreme Scientist Zereoue for an update on the Regenesis project and his Mission to Earth’s Core,” Minta said. “Seems he’s been awfully silent at this meeting in regard to his own work—”
“You’re as disgusting as you are rude,” Antosha said. He turned to the board. “It’s my pleasure to disclose my latest research.” He shifted the image to Dr. Kole Shrader’s stasis tank, the tank beneath a grid, the grid beneath an elevated trellis, the trellis beneath the geometric panels of Faraway Hall. Genevieve shifted in her chair, looking like she might hurl. “Minister,” Antosha said to her, as kind as a kitten, “would you care to share the news?”
Genevieve sighed. Though she looked around the pool, she avoided Antosha’s eyes. “I’ve approved a public viewing of the awakening of Dr. Shrader in Faraway Hall of Boreas Territory,” she said. Many board members gasped. Vanya looked at Antosha with the widest smile he’d seen since he’d been bid upon by Supreme Scientist Broden Barão. “My office is preparing the official communiqué as we speak—”
Dorian grunted. To Antosha, he said, “You’re that confident?”
“I’ve reanimated Gemini. My next trials will be transhuman, and when I succeed with them, I will reawaken the man frozen near absolute zero—”
“We will hold you to that declaration,” Masimovian said, “and if Dr. Shrader should perish, you will join him in the afterlife.”
Antosha bowed deeply again. “I live only to serve you, Chancellor, and if I fail, you deserve my life.”
The discussion from here focused primarily on funding difficulties, resource shortages, terrorist attacks, and the status of improvements to the back-end research laboratories—topics that bored Antosha to the point of sleep. When he awoke, and the meeting adjourned, he knelt before the chancellor and said, “Chancellor, may I have permission to speak freely?”
“You’re speaking now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but what I’m about to say should be held in your confidence.”
“Rise, and speak to your chancellor freely.”
“Thank you, Chancellor Masimovian.” Antosha stood, as did Masimovian. They walked to the edge of the boardroom’s rooftop. Masimovian Center and its tower in the center glistened in the distance, and seagulls spread shadows over Artemis Square closer below. “My work into Regenesis is nearly complete, in truth. And I’m confident that as I learn more about the Lorum’s molecular structure, the way it protects itself from intense heat and pressure unlike any organism on the Earth, I can create the tunnel to the surface and the terradome our people deserve.”
“You would have me remove Minta from this project?”
“You brought me back to the commonwealth for a reason, did you not?”
“Yet so far it seems you haven’t proved your worth. The terrorists attacked the Phanes Beltway without your foresight or insight into the zeropoint field.”
“Their treachery runs deep, Chancellor. It will take all my effort to help Lady Isabelle destroy their network—”
“And now you seek a new assignment, one that would require far more effort than Regenesis, and I presume Gwendolyn Horvearth isn’t idly touring the commonwealth with a Marshlandic artist. I presume she thinks he might help her in your candidacy for Reassortment.”
“Jeremiah Selendia and Captain Barão after him were assigned to both Regenesis and Reassortment—”
“And neither succeeded. I don’t know how you can expect to take on so much with hope of conversion.”
“Dr. Shrader will awaken, and with him I’ll seek a viable construct to alter the terradome structure, then the transhuman genome, so we may defy the Reassortment Strain.”
“You are not the supreme scientist of Reassortment.”
“Whether the ministry selects me or another … worthy candidate … Dr. Shrader’s knowledge and my expertise with the Lorum will be invaluable to resolving this most ardent task. In this regard, I have another request of you.”
“By the time you’re finished, there won’t be any benaris left in Phanes.”
“The Mission to Earth’s Core is of utmost importance, no doubt, with our Lorum ally on the brink of extinction, but I’d remind you that we have our own problems, and the Holcombe Strike Team’s services could enhance our probability of solving the Reassortment enigma.”
“You’re proposing we break the treaty?”
“Not at all. What I recommend is a temporary stay of the Mission to Earth’s Core, by your decree, and a reassignment of the Holcombe Strike Team.”
“To what?”
“A new mission, one that I think will pave our path to the surface and solidify your place among mankind’s greatest leaders.”
Area 55
Boreas, Underground North
“We have some problems,” Lady Isabelle said.
“Crazy me,” Antosha said, “I thought you came all the way here to convince me to join you in the Borean spas.”
He stood beside a workstation and manipulated thirty others that surrounded the Lorum orb, its gold, scarlet, black, silver, and yellow colors weaving, counterclockwise and clockwise. “Did you know that fool Captain Barão had apparently built a z-wall around the Lorum—”
“This is serious.”
Antosha ignored her. “The question is: Why would the foolish captain do such a thing?”
“I don’t care.”
“The only reason to create a quantum barrier like this,” Antosha continued, “would be if the Lorum on Vigna communicated with the Lorum on Earth and with the captain.” Antosha turned to Isabelle, who’d folded her arms. “Do you know what that means?”
“It transmigrated here.”
“There she is!” Antosha closed a new quantum field around the orb. “Now we can’t risk having the Lorum on Vigna interfere with us on the Earth as we move forward with our plans, can we?”
“No.”
“Right, so I’ve fortified the z-wall with my own consciousness, creating a new z-wall that will enable us to adjust the Lorum’s genome and realize our dreams.” Antosha swiped his hands together on what he considered a job well done.
He shut down the workstations. The room alighted with white
phosphorescent light, and a clear cylinder enveloped the Lorum, reducing its radiance. He turned toward his paramour. “The man in stasis nears his awakening, our catspaw flies around the commonwealth, preaching my wisdom to the ministry, and the chancellor approved a new mission, Timescape. Everything is proceeding as I assumed—”
“The First Aera lives.”
Antosha flinched. He poured a glass of champagne, but Isabelle grabbed it from him and threw it on the ground. It shattered, spreading glass and yellowed drink and citrus smell. “Did you go deaf when you repaired your fucking eye?”
Antosha’s left eye had burned out in an accident while crossing the Infernus Sea in the Lower Level. He’d had it replaced only recently, under direct orders from the chancellor, as a condition for his attendance at the board meeting. The regenerative injections and electromagnetic stimulations were easy enough to endure, but Antosha missed the disgusted stares he used to receive from Beimenians who’d never seen such an imperfection.
“I heard you loud and clear, my lady.” He swiped his brow and sighed. “Is it possible she is another BP illusion?”
Isabelle had been fooled by the BP before; she’d invaded what she thought was their eastern stronghold, Blackeye Cavern, only to be pressure-shot through a rock shaft into the Archimedes River.
“No.” Isabelle balled her hand into a fist and shook it toward Antosha. “How else do you think the terrorists could’ve found the center of mass in Permutation Crypt?”
Antosha laughed. “You can’t believe that the puzzle you constructed could be solved? These aren’t Harpoon candidates.” Isabelle folded her arms and looked away from him. “My lady, I told you as much, I told you the only way to stop Jeremiah Selendia and destroy the BP’s resolve was to kill him. Instead the BP’s morale—”