The Gambit with Perfection (The Phantom of the Earth Book 2)

by Zen, Raeden

  Workstations hung from the ceiling, angled toward scientists in biomat suits, who scurried from one hologram to the next. Farther into the facility, in a bracketed chamber, blowtorches positioned on the three walls and ceiling scorched a box next to a scientist wearing synthetic diamond armor similar to the kind the Janzers wore. The fire soon engulfed the chamber. Some neophytes gasped.

  “Not to worry,” Damy said. The blaze extinguished, revealing the scientist still lived. “We put the synisms through various stress tests, including fluctuating amounts of heat and pressure, and in so doing we create new life, not native to our world, which might one day help us back to an uninhabitable surface—”

  “My understanding differs from yours.”

  A striking young woman stepped forward. She dressed as all the neophytes did, in a teal bodysuit that indicated her elementary status. But the girl’s soft smile, the curve to her chin and nose, the slight angle of her cheekbones, her coin-shaped ears, the elegant curvature to her eyes, and even her tone, all reminded Damy of Noria Furongielle, her sister-in-development from House Summerset, when she reached adulthood.

  It would be just like my sister to send her spawn to mess with me during the tour, Damy thought, distract me from worthy candidates for Silkscape.

  “And you are?” Damy said.

  “Gwendolyn Horvearth.”

  Damy studied the girl as if she were one of her fossils. A neophyte rarely interrupted the tour. The last to do so had been Verne. The girl’s dark red-brown hair was lifted and braided and twisted from the tip of her forehead, down each side, over her ears to a bun in back. She looked studious and not a little haughty, qualities that also reminded her of Vernon Lebrizzi, may he rot in the Lower Level. Damy hoped Gwendolyn wasn’t Noria’s heir and that she hailed from a worthy territory such as Dunamis, Phanes, or Volano.

  “I don’t take your meaning,” Damy said.

  “I get it,” Gwen said. She smiled and rubbed her finger along the glass enclosure. “The RDD enables our terraformed existence in the Beimeni zone of the underground.” Gwen stood a little taller and cocked her head to the side. “So why can’t we do the same on the surface?”

  “You mean with terradomes?”

  All the neophytes stared at Gwen, who strutted to the part of the corridor in front of the silos. “I can’t believe that we’ve traveled around the solar system, and we’re sending Captain Barão to another star system, but we can’t live on the surface.”

  The mention of Brody tore at Damy’s insides worse than a diamond sword. “Would you prefer us not to produce natural resources for our survival?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “We can’t live on the surface. No terradome design has withstood Reassortment—”

  “Maybe you don’t have the right people working on it. Maybe—”

  “You missed the lessons on Beimenian courtesies during your development, child. This is my tour. Hold your comments for the end.”

  The neophytes streamed around Gwen to a workstation Damy activated. In the holograms, Damy demonstrated the combination of the inorganic components of transhumans, the neurochips and meshes, and explained how they facilitated the mind-body-cosmos interface. She moved her hands up and down in the shape of a globe. “We rearrange the building blocks of the cells, the DNA, the ribosomes, the mitochondria, and so on, and we mix it all together with a new set of instructions until a new organism, or synism, is born. With this knowledge, there’s no limit to what we can create—”

  “But there are rules to synthesis,” Gwen said, “and there are rules in science.”

  “We aren’t breaking the rules.” Damy paused. She’s relentless, she’s perfect. “Can’t computers be trained to simulate the activities of another machine?” The neophytes agreed and transposed Damy’s comments to their neurochips. “I want you to think of biological organisms as microscopic computers. We can take them, make changes to the genes, the written rules for all life, and request them to produce or do anything you can dream—”

  “Unless that involves terraforming the surface,” Gwen said.

  Damy pressed her lips together. “Here, in the real world, Miss Gwen, the projects vary. Much of what we’re doing is focused on the genetic programming and reprogramming of organisms, not people. Is terraforming a part of this? Yes. Do we obsess over it as you? No. We create new life, new technologies, new ways of accomplishing familiar and unfamiliar tasks. It’s done by combining the inorganic with the organic.” The neophytes chatted and bobbed their heads and spoke passionately. Gwen’s defiance had spread. “Hey, let’s keep it down in here. Those vats are not going to spit out a transport. They could produce the plastic for that transport—”

  “But why not?” Gwen said. “Why not just tell them to make that transport—”

  “Because the commonwealth needs jobs,” Damy said, glaring at Gwen before she addressed the rest of the recruits. “And as research scientists in Beimeni, your role in the RDD is vital in creating new jobs and in supporting those that already exist. You will learn that a harmony exists between advancement and economic growth, based on the directives from the Office of the Chancellor.”

  The neophytes murmured and affirmed Damy’s comments.

  “That doesn’t make any sense!” Gwen said.

  Damy agreed, though she knew her comment was what Marstone would want to hear. The girl was persistent and brilliant but lacked commonwealth sense. That would come, in time, with maturity. Damy could work with her. In fact, she looked forward to it.

  Damy slipped through a narrow entry at the edge of the promenade and stepped backward through a new hallway. The neophytes kept pace.

  “What do you think this is?” Damy swept her hand toward a massive alloy and glass parallelogram-shaped pool with wires and tubes and piping that connected all around, under, above, and through the walls.

  “It’s a power plant,” a neophyte said.

  Damy shook her head. “Anyone else?”

  “Water.” Gwen pushed through a pair of her peers. “This is where the water’s purified.”

  Of course, she knew, Damy thought, but who is she, truly? Where did she come from? Which House?

  Damy nodded. “This is one of Underground Northeast’s water filtration systems. Each region in the commonwealth has many of them. This happens to be the first of its kind. The pool you see runs five hundred meters down and contains an anode. When the scientists first set this up more than one hundred fifty years ago, they pumped in Geobacter metal-lireducens, a bacterium capable of releasing electrons. The electrons pass from the bacteria to the anode, itself connected to a cathode by a wire. The result is a self-sustaining water purification plant. The bacteria consume waste, the pool is cleansed, and the purified water passes through there.” Damy pointed to the pipe connected to one end of the chamber. “There, see, it flows through before additional sewage streams into the pipes and tubes—”

  “Can’t the yield of the bacteria be improved to produce excess electricity?” Gwen said.

  “You just don’t learn, do you?” Damy whipped around without answering Gwen, who curtsied to the neophytes before they followed Damy through another hallway.

  C. PERFRINGENS PROLIFERATION UNDERWAY streamed above in circular rotations.

  “Clostridium perfringens is one of the fastest reproducing natural organisms known to our world,” Damy said. “Theoretically, a single cell could expand to a mass greater than Earth in only a few days.”

  A scientist on the other side of the glass studied a holographic data stream above a workstation near a boulder. She wore a biomat with an alloy glove on her left hand, which connected by an alloy tube to a thin flat tank on her back. She jostled holographic rods over the boulder.

  “We used C. perfringens to create synisms that we called mineral crushers. They’re capable of burrowing through hard limestone and granite, among other minerals in the crust. This is how we’ve been able to travel so far, so fast. The crushers ingest the mater
ial and excrete oxygen and neon, creating more space and breathable air for the Beimeni zone.”

  The neophytes’ faces flashed when silver phosphorescence emitted from the glove over the boulder, followed by an orange burst. When the illumination faded, the boulder had disappeared. The neophytes, less Gwen, applauded.

  “We must, must, must be cautious!” Damy’s stern demeanor turned them stoic. “This is delicate work. This particular synism must be programmed and controlled by professional technicians.”

  “Why?” Gwen said.

  “The last thing we need are for mineral crushers to dig uncontrollably to the surface and allow a contamination breach.”

  The neophytes heaved and wheezed at the mention of that possibility never spoken: for Reassortment to slither its way into the Beimeni zone of the underground, an area of the Earth purposely cleared of any trace of nitrogen gas. All Beimenians knew that Reassortment attached to nitrogen in ways not natural, using it to produce energy and spread throughout the Earth’s atmosphere and bedrock. Strict protocol, including gamma-ray bombardment, was employed in the parts of the commonwealth connected to the surface. These included carbyne piping used to release pressure from the commonwealth and pull in arctic water from the bay near Area 55 and Area 51, the maglev tube that led from Reassortment Hall to the Island of Reverie, and the launch silos in Area 55 in Boreas Territory and Mission Control in Peanowera Territory.

  “Don’t be frightened,” Damy continued, “as you see, the scientist activated the crushers with ultraviolet rays and carbon dioxide, then deactivated them with gamma radiation.”

  “Why can’t you program something to consume Reassortment,” Gwen said, “the way you’ve done with limestone and granite?”

  Damy pondered the comment. Brody had attempted that method because she had suggested it, long ago when they’d worked together. The procedure had failed, for Reassortment’s outer layers mutated and reformed as quickly as they were destroyed. That dynamic capability hadn’t changed as far as Damy understood. Reassortment had a nasty way of advancing as quickly as humanity’s technology.

  “The brightest minds in the RDD work tirelessly on Reassortment,” Damy said, “and anything a neophyte thinks of has been attempted, this I can assure you.”

  Gwen turned and walked closer to the glass where the scientist operated the crushers. Damy waved the group to another hallway, and the neophytes streamed around her. She waited for Gwen to catch up, then looked back at the group.

  No, Damy thought, wrong way, don’t go there, no, no, no, I can’t deal with this today.

  They were already glued to the glass. Damy clumped her hair in a fist.

  “Who’s that?” said one of the women. “Let me see!” said another, while a man bellowed, “Get off my back!”

  “This … is …” Damy began. “Excuse me, this is the Regenesis Chamber.”

  They scrambled for a view of the shadow of a man, his arms by his sides, eyes shut, head shaved, his body naked for all they knew.

  Gwen paced behind the neophytes, arms folded, eyes squinting. “Isn’t that Dr. Kole Shrader?”

  The neophytes turned. Damy scowled. “How do you know his name?”

  “We’ve all heard about the Legend,” Gwen said, speaking now with a heavy Palaestran accent. “The man who was frozen near absolute zero is the man who may be immune to Reassortment.” She laughed with the other neophytes.

  Damy’s bronze skin turned a deep shade of red.

  “Isn’t this Captain Barão’s project?” Gwen added.

  And as fast as Damy’s face had flushed, it now lost all its color. While the commonwealth knew Brody’s team worked on Reassortment, no neophyte should have been privy to his Regenesis assignment. Damy’s mind churned. She took controlled breaths, paralyzed by thoughts of the scientists she and Brody had killed. She recited her mantra: The negativity is your enemy. The enemy is your negativity. Ignore the negativity and defeat your enemy. Wise counsel she had learned from her developer, the Lady Parthenia.

  Damy found her voice. “All right,” she said. She cleared her mind and peered at the holographic clock on her wrist. “Looks like we’re finished for today.”

  “What about Dr. Shrader?” Gwen said.

  “Before our tour of the Taos Facility tomorrow morning, I want you all to think about this.” Damy paused until she had their attention. “You’re about to join the most advanced research and development center the world has ever known. Your work will change the course of natural genomic evolution. Your work will lead to proper and significant conversions, which will ensure your survival in this department, and the world.”

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Broden Barão

  Outer Boundary Village

  Peanowera, Underground East

  2,500 meters deep

  “We should abort the mission,” Verena said.

  She and Brody stood near the entrance to Peanowera’s great Rifkertynen Hall amid a row of marble archways. Mirrors, rather than Granville syntech, on either side created an appearance of infinite depth. Golden banners swayed in a cool breeze that wafted into the hall, air sweet with the smell of figs in Peanowera Territory, “the place of exploration.” The banners marked successful commonwealth missions of decades past: Team Hurven’s Mission to the Oceanic Crust, Team Holcombe’s Mission to Jupiter, Team Barão’s Mission to Mars, Team Garznez’s Mission to the Sun.

  “Absolutely not,” Brody said, his voice low. He turned from the banner marking his team’s mission to Mars to a division of Janzers. They marched by, their synsuits reflected in the marble ground, polished archways, and mirrored walls. Brody nodded and smiled to them. He and Verena moved to the other side of a pillar.

  Nero emerged from behind a pillar at the hall’s far end.

  “There’s more at stake than our standing, Captain. The teams—”

  “Are now sworn to the commonwealth,” Brody said. He looked up, to the eye in the sky. He didn’t carry his recaller on commonwealth missions. “When I was appointed by the ministry and confirmed by the board to Reassortment, we joined with the commonwealth. We must honor—”

  “There’s no time for politics. They send us to this exoplanet when Antosha is returning to the Beimeni zone. He could be the supreme scientist covering Reassortment before we even come back!” Her whispers spread through the hall. “Never after the confirmation did we vow idiocy in place of intelligence! The teams shouldn’t be used in this manner! We’re being deposed!”

  “We don’t know that—”

  “I know it!”

  Brody clasped the bridge of his nose with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t trust Antosha, obviously, but without significant conversion we have no leverage. With the Marks of Masimovian, not even the chancellor could deny us Project Reassortment.”

  Chancellor Masimovian consolidated much power to his office in Phanes, to be sure, but Brody knew he didn’t hold the chancellorship for two hundred years by denying the will of his people, who were represented by the ministry. And the board, which assigned the Mark, was appointed by the ministry.

  “The chancellor is sending us to our deaths or to our demotions,” Verena said. She looked upon Brody dubiously. “Either way, we lose.”

  Nero strode up between the pillars with the confidence of a striker, a pair of Janzers behind him. “On to Vigna,” he declared with a grin wider than a Granville panel.

  Brody nodded. “Let’s go.”

  Verena huffed and joined the Janzers on their approach to the military transport destined for Mission Control.

  Brody felt far less confident about the decision to launch than he let on. Fifteen years ago, the ministry had voted with overwhelming support to exile Antosha Zereoue to the Lower Level after Prime Minister Decca proved he’d taken the lives of seventy-four RDD scientists with his experiments. It had taken all of Brody’s strength in the ZPF to subdue Antosha, even after Lady Isabelle weakened him. His former apprentice might have aged physically in the Lower Level, but Antosha wouldn�
�t let his mind dull, no matter the circumstance. He was as skilled as Brody—and most developers—in using the CRISPR system and recombinases to alter transhuman DNA: he’d be up to his old tricks as soon as his feet touched Beimeni bedrock.

  Now the Janzers escorted the Barão Strike Team from the transport to a hollowed cove labeled OUTFITTING, where Janzers and medical bots readied their interstellar synsuits. The synisms used in these suits emitted a magnetic shield that deflected radiation—in essence, the synsuits would protect the Barão Strike Team from the barrage of protons and electrons they would encounter when they entered and exited the exotic portals at the Lagrange points.

  “Left leg,” the Janzers said in unison.

  Brody and Verena and Nero lifted their left legs, then their right legs, with their arms extended at their sides. The Janzers attached the chest, back, torso, abdomen, arm, and neck plates. The boots followed. After the loud clicks and clacks and the grind of drill bits, the team looked much like Janzers.

  “Helmets,” a Janzer ordered, and three of his comrades lifted the egg-like transparent helmets from the medical bots. The helmets differed from Janzer visors. They were designed by the Mosaic Consortium, equipped with synisms that separated carbon from oxygen and fostered a closed atmosphere suitable for transhumans.

  A different Janzer escorted the team into Mission Control. Behind a thick layer of graphene sat the space engineers. Fabian Mariner, the Beimeni Commonwealth space general, rambled around the spherical aisles. He spewed orders, and his engineers telepathically adjusted the controls within the holograms above their workstations.

  “Welcome, Captain,” Mariner said.

  “Pleasure, General.” Brody bowed slightly, as did Nero and Verena. The Cassiopeia, its sharp edges, its dark skin made of carbyne, stood on the other side of a glass enclosure, its nose pointed toward the airlock.

  The space engineers, arranged in concentric layers, one higher than the next, shouted commands, and the Cassiopeia materialized over a holographic pad at the bottommost layer. The engineers sent signals to the pad, and depending on the system checked, a different part of the ship lit up. Then the hologram transformed into the silo above the shuttle, leading to the surface.