by Zen, Raeden
“This isn’t goodbye,” she said. “This is me telling you to go down there and get the job done and get out.” She attached the Janzer shin plates. “And when you get back—when,” she clamped the body plates together, “we’re using the Lorum. We’re not messing around. We’ll take the river straight into Farino City and free all the prisoners, take Brody back.”
For as tough and as assured as she sounded, Nero sensed she wanted to cry. She lifted a Janzer’s diamond sword and lay it atop her forefingers, flat across. Nero clutched the handle and sheathed it across his back.
He put his hand around her neck and kissed her, harder than he’d ever kissed her before, and he didn’t care about the BP who surrounded him or the timing or the operation, for he loved her more than he loved life itself, and this could be the last day he ever saw her.
“We must depart,” Connor said.
Nero drew back and pressed his forehead against Verena’s.
Jeremiah finished drilling a Janzer synsuit to Aera.
“Sorry lovebirds,” she said, “time to move.”
Verena, Aera, Connor, and Nero proceeded through the tortuous Hydra Hollow. All around them, faces of men, children, women, and the elderly looked on. They hung over cliffs on either side and dropped golden pebbles over their heads—a common Beimenian gesture, a wish for eternal life—and bowed and praised them and blessed them. Nero heard whispers and knew they prayed to the gods, as he had this morning when he wished for a victorious return, and Brody’s survival, and Verena, Oriana, and Pasha’s safety.
He took one last look at Verena before Aera hooded him. His eternal partner squeezed his hand, then Aera and Connor pulled him through a new set of darkened tunnels, no wider than a few meters, for hours and hours. Climbing, falling, sliding, and the perspiration condensed on the front of Nero’s helmet, over the visor.
Aera removed the hood.
They stood in a dim tunnel. An elderly man hung over a chair, a pipe in one hand, pulse gun in the other. He raised the gun and signaled to Connor, who hand-signaled back.
“Can never be too careful, young ones,” the man said.
“Thanks, Fred,” Connor said.
He kicked a stone, and a false wall cracked open, leading into the back of a pawnshop. The cooled Gaian atmosphere struck Nero, and he sighed. Synisms of every legal type stood in glass vials on the limestone shelves—synisms that refilled coolant systems, synisms that maintained oxygen levels, and synisms that spun yarn into cloth faster than any machine. The woman behind the counter squinted at Connor, who put on a worn-out fedora and flipped her a benari coin. Her eyes widened when she caught it. Connor dipped his head in thanks, and they stepped outside.
They entered a bazaar in Gaia City. Green lights spun on pedestals, tradesmen, office workers, and engineers strutted here and there in bodysuits, and workers in dirty trousers, torn shirts, and stained fedoras marched along the pedestrian paths to the power plants. Nero and Aera separated from Connor and moved onward into the flow of engineers to Givetia Station while he blended with the plant workers.
Outside the station, men and woman rode on horseback across a narrow stone bridge. Nero stepped onto the bridge and looked down at the glowing pond below. On the other end, brick residential units rose up from the limestone, and above those, jagged rock and more units and more stone. Nero neared a group of phosphorescent, power-producing, geothermal pillars and peered up. The ceiling wasn’t a Granville sky but stalactites that glowed with red-orange bioluminescence. He sensed something out of place.
Aera.
Where was Aera?
He turned.
She was back on the bridge.
He looked around, but he neither saw nor sensed any danger. Aera was staring straight ahead, not moving. Something was wrong.
He scurried back to her, searched his neurochip for Janzer protocols. Their position was highly visible.
He revolved around her. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice influenced by a synthesizer to make her sound like a Janzer.
But he could tell she wasn’t fine. This wasn’t the Aera he had battled alongside in Permutation Crypt, the Aera who had toyed with him on Mount Cineris, who had dismantled the Research Superstructure transport station in less than a minute and saved his eternal partner from certain death. This was someone he hadn’t met before. This Aera was afraid.
“Breathe,” he said. Her chest plates were hardly moving.
A Beimenian party on horses climbed up into the settlement. They stared at the bridge, as did the two Janzers who guarded the Western Passage Transport entrance, the part of Givetia Station that led to the Western Inaccessible Region and Nyx.
If she didn’t move soon, they would fail before the operation even began. Not so much because of these Janzers as because of the warning that would surely be raised when they fought.
“Don’t look at the pillars,” Nero said. “Don’t think about the city. Imagine all the aspects of your life that have improved since then, everything you hope to accomplish in the commonwealth, everything that you’ve told me about: reforming the system, removing Chancellor Masimovian. It’s all within your grasp! The commonwealth is distracted by the Regenesis procedure in the North and the Harpoons in the Northeast. This is our opportunity to strike the iron fist. Now move your feet. One in front of the other.”
I can’t do this without you, he sent, without Marstone’s interference, hoping she would hear and listen to him. C’mon, mighty Aera, one foot in front of the other …
He glanced casually to the station entrance.
The Janzers stirred and leaned, motioning to each other with their hands. They weren’t on alert yet, but they definitely stared back at Nero, definitely pondered these Janzers who chatted on the bridge, and evaluated the identity of this Janzer who froze—and broke protocol.
Nero gritted his teeth and lifted the clear visor within the helmet that covered his face. He leaned in next to Aera.
“Let’s go, soldier.”
She stared past him.
“I’m with you. I’m here. Let’s move.”
I’ll take them out, Nero thought. We’ll have to do this louder than I planned.
He wouldn’t give up.
She still didn’t move.
The Janzers sped toward the bridge.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Oriana Barão
Candidate Classroom
Harpoon VR
“Choices,” Lady Isabelle said. “In our underground existence we are faced with unimaginable choices. A poor decision by one of us could lead to the end of more than three hundred million people. The transhuman race inside Earth.”
Lady Isabelle sauntered along the wooden planks at the base of the candidate stadium. She climbed the steps toward Oriana’s row. Her heels clacked against the steps on her way up. She passed behind Oriana, who stood next to Pasha. Just as Lady Isabelle was about to reenter Oriana’s line of sight, she turned, backtracked, and came to rest directly behind her. Oriana cringed and stared straight ahead. Lady Isabelle shifted behind her but didn’t move on. Oriana’s face grew warm, then hot. She felt the eyes of the other candidates, who were beginning to notice her discomfort. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
On the other side of the row, a group of girls sniggered. Lady Isabelle shot toward them. “Is there something you’d like to add? Something so amusing you’d like to share with the rest of us?” The candidates stood stiffly. Oriana would have thanked them if she could. She exhaled discreetly, closing her eyes.
“You haven’t been scoring high enough in the simulations to warrant such disrespect,” Lady Isabelle continued. “I’ll note this lack of courtesy in your first-half scores.”
The girls blanched. They had darker skin than Lady Isabelle, whose porcelain tone matched the candidates Oriana had known from Piscator, Jurinar, Gaia, and Navita. She always found it odd that the instructor didn’t treat her own skin with E. pigmentation, something which the Summers
ets had done from the first few days of development. These candidates clearly received treatments, for they hailed from Houses Adao, Lissette, Coniac, and Aelena, elite houses of the Northeast.
Lady Isabelle descended the steps. She walked in a semicircle beneath the Harpoon insignia, which hovered like a chandelier over the candidate stadium, her hands clasped behind her cape. “With just two days to the exams, I thought it fitting to conclude our lessons with a different kind of exercise. Something representative of the difficulty you might encounter during the critical-reasoning portion of the exams.” She inclined her head. “Miss Oriana.” She waved her hand. “Come hither.”
Pasha’s grin disappeared when the instructor summoned him as well. “And Nathan Storm,” she said. “Yes you, come hither.”
One of the Harpoon insignia’s golden triangles descended to the wooden planks. Lady Isabelle nodded to it and said, “Take your positions on each corner, if you would be so kind.”
Oriana, Pasha, and Nathan took their positions at the illuminated triangle’s points.
Lady Isabelle orbited them, projecting her voice over all the candidates in all the thirty territories who attended class. “You see, children, we live in a dangerous world, with the weight of two thousand meters of raw earth above us, some of it infested with Reassortment. A dumb move by one engineer could collapse a territory, killing millions. If a coolant specialist fails to repair a malfunction in the piping system, millions could burn and suffocate. If the gamma ray shielding fails in the pressure-release pipes, Reassortment might wipe us out.” She turned. “One fisherman who doesn’t hit his quota and whose laziness spreads could take a vital part of the transhuman diet away from us.”
She whipped around, glowering at Oriana. “One scientist who decides he doesn’t have to follow the chancellor’s precepts could lead others down a dark, dangerous path, and put all our lives at risk.” She twisted and looked at all the candidates. “Do you understand what I’m telling you today?”
“Aye!” the candidates said in unison.
“You serve whom?”
“We serve Beimeni.”
“And when you serve, what do you gain?”
“Immortality!”
“Serve Beimeni.”
“LIVE FOREVER!”
Isabelle turned her back to the stands and lowered her voice so that only Oriana, Pasha, and Nathan could hear her. “Miss Oriana, do you think I’m a fool?”
“No, my lady.”
“Do you think I cannot see with your eyes, hear with your ears, or lack insight into your … unworthy impulses?”
“No, my lady.”
“Do you understand why you’re in these classes?”
“For the good of the commonwealth, to prepare for the Harpoon Exams, to attend the Harpoon Auction, and discover how I will serve Chancellor Masimovian in the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni.”
Isabelle turned until she faced Oriana. “We’ll find out whether you’re truly worthy of the title Harpoon Champion.” She leaned forward. Her breath smelled like rose water. “Sooner than you think.”
The Harpoon insignia disintegrated, revealing a Granville sphere and a world beneath it. Inside, fiery columns plumed, topped by round alloy platforms. A giant candlestick, as wide as a transport, as long as Masimovian Tower, hung over a pit of flame, spinning, dripping wax from wicks burning at either end. A narrow carbyne plank positioned beside and below the candlestick was secured at either end to carbyne pillars, while an alloy platform, wide enough for three transhumans and leading away from the candlestick, was attached to the left pillar.
“What is this?” Oriana said.
“Choices,” Isabelle said, her voice booming, “will determine your fate in two days. But why wait so long?” Softly, to Oriana, she added, “Why don’t we find out what those who would break the chancellor’s precepts might do in—”
“Leave them alone,” Oriana said, nodding to Nathan and Pasha. “They had nothing to do with the archive—”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Isabelle smiled, and Oriana felt suddenly nauseous. “I own you until the auction. Not a scientist, not an engineer, not a trader. Me.”
“I understand, my lady, please, I chose poorly, I should suffer the consequences, not Pasha, not Nathan—”
“Oh no, child, you haven’t yet chosen …”
… Oriana now stood inside the holographic world, dressed in a dark bodysuit and full-body armor made of synthetic diamond, like the Janzers’ synsuits. Her feet rested on an alloy platform that dropped away before her. Flames rose in powerful bursts ahead, hundreds of thousands, even millions of flaming columns, topped by rounded sheets of alloy. The columns rose and fell out of the pit as if timed against a dark sky. Above the pit, and far away from her, the candlestick hung, candle wax falling in drops bigger than transhumans at each end, where Pasha and Nathan stood, teetering on either edge!
Your balance could use some honing. Oriana heard Isabelle’s voice, without Marstone’s moderation. Your brother and your friend stand on opposite ends of the candlestick. They are not permitted off this candlestick on their own. If you fall in the pit, or if they do, I can assure you the traders in Navita will have no idea that you even completed the first half of the Harpoon Exams.
That’s not how the Harpoons work! Oriana sent. We’ve been preparing double time after the … Communiqué and we—
You should hurry, child. Unlike me, the candle won’t live forever …
The fiery columns raged ahead of Oriana, topping out at different heights. When they burned out, the platforms they held fell with them, suggesting she’d have to time her jumps, platform to platform. This was far more difficult than the Granville world Falcon Torres had conquered on the first day of classes.
She extended her consciousness and determined that some columns elevated to the height of the platform where she stood, others to as high as one hundred meters above it. She was ten thousand meters from the candlestick, and the ends burned two thousand meters apart at a rate of two hundred fifty meters per minute.
Eight minutes until the candle disappears, Oriana thought. My synsuit will protect me from the heat, but if I run nine point three meters per second, I’ll reach the candle in eighteen minutes. The candle wouldn’t last that long. Oriana wanted to punch something. She couldn’t alter this Granville world. Damn Lady Isabelle. Damn her!
Oriana focused on the flames. If she could jump from flame to flame in synchronization with the bursts, she might be able catapult herself farther, faster. She focused with her enhanced vision. Pasha appeared to be running sideways, and so did Nathan, for the massive candle burned and spun. She also noticed they, too, were wearing synsuits.
Another problem. She’d calculated the distance to the candlestick’s center, not the hypotenuse to either side, which was ten thousand fifty meters long and changed continuously with the long candle’s burn rate. How could she reach them in time? What was she missing?
Oriana’s heart hummed. She tried to communicate with Nathan and Pasha through the ZPF but couldn’t.
I’ll just have to run faster, Oriana thought. She plotted a course for Nathan. She’d grab him first, then count on Pasha’s creativity and dexterity to get them through the time crunch. She dashed along the alloy ground and hopped from platform to platform, letting them guide her up. The temperature in her suit held steady. I’m a champion. She jumped, and jumped again, faster, diagonal and forward, forward and sideways, closer and closer to the candle. I’m Champion of the Harpoons!
Nathan fell and rolled near the candle’s waxy edge and burning wick.
The long candle began to seesaw.
Oriana screamed, moving faster. Nathan backflipped, and the candle tilted down on his side, spinning. Somehow he didn’t fall off.
Pasha handled himself well enough, though it wasn’t clear to Oriana what stopped them from moving to the center and escaping along the plank to the outer platform.
She timed her jump with the next flaming burst,
and, crouching, waiting for the fiery column and platform to reach its apex, she vaulted through the air, swinging her arms and legs.
She landed on the next platform, rolled, and rose. She spied the maroon lasers that crisscrossed above the candle. This, apparently, prevented the men from running to the center of the candle and escaping along the plank to the platform.
Nathan fell again. Oriana raced for him, guided by the flaming columns and platforms, all the way to the candle, where he lunged to her.
She caught him, and together they hopped to another platform, which shot up. They rode it as high as it went, then separated and hopped around the candle to Pasha.
The candle had melted on either end so much that now Pasha lay on it, rolling, his synsuit covered in wax. He couldn’t stand or the lasers would punch into him, force him off the candle.
“Oriana!” He reached out, begging for her to help him.
Nathan rode the rising platforms with Oriana, on either side of the candle, as they raced for her brother.
Pasha fell into the pit below. Oriana watched him plummet, surrounded by flames.
Her mind reeled. Time seemed to slow down and speed up all at once. She couldn’t hear the flames, or feel her limbs, or see Nathan waving to her, but somehow she made it safely to the platform beside the candle, where Nathan caught her. Trying not to weep in his arms, she felt as helpless as she had during the first day of classes.
Oriana dangled beside Pasha in her harness in House Summerset. She could feel and hear her brother, though her eyes had not adjusted to the light.
“You let me fall,” he said, “on purpose! You’re afraid I might beat you when it matters most.”
“That’s not true,” she said. She was shivering, covered with sweat. She thanked the gods the Summersets weren’t there. They’d just make it worse.
The keeper bots lowered them. The golden phosphorescent light in the simulation room seemed to close in around her.