by Zen, Raeden
Oriana crossed her arms over her chest. “You knew more than you told me, even before that.”
He rested his face in his hands. “I didn’t know when would be right to tell you what I knew, or how much. Is there such a thing as a right time for news like this? But now that you’re working with him … I had to.”
Oriana pushed her hands through her hair and held her neck, the visions of Antosha attacking her parents as out of place as the underground waterfalls she sat near. Could she confront a supreme scientist? Could she demand Antosha tell her the truth? During her development, her illegal searches for information about her parents had nearly destroyed her, Pasha, and House Summerset. The stakes were higher now. Even this conversation with Nathan could result in a Warning, even a trip to Farino Prison, if Lady Isabelle picked it up.
“I can’t work with him,” she said. “I can’t work with—”
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know.” She leaned over to Nathan and kissed him. “I’ll think of something.”
ZPF Impulse Wave: Isabelle Lutetia
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
“I want him dead,” Antosha said.
Lady Isabelle strutted to the bar and poured Loverealan wine into a glass. “Who, my love? We have so many on our list.”
He signaled a keeper bot for his robe. Isabelle watched the steam rise off his body as he stood and pressed his feet to the thick layer of orchid rose petals on the ground of Phanes Spa. “Prime Minister Decca writes to me on behalf of the Office of the Chancellor, the Supreme Ministry of Beimeni, and the Council of Economic Advisors.” Antosha laughed wanly.
Isabelle knew Masimovian would defer to his prime minister only in times of distress, while Swarro Gallegos, the perpetually sweaty, shaky chairman of the council of economic advisors, likely as not had been forced to sign this communiqué.
“Decca calls into question the legality of the ministry vote and the ‘unprecedented use of commonwealth assets at a time when the commonwealth bleeds jobs.’” Antosha smashed the z-disk against the marble wall. Its pieces scattered into a nearby pond. “He has also disallowed a conclave to officially recognize my significant conversion.”
Antosha threw a white silk robe around his body and turned to her. He ran his hands through his long, wet hair.
“Decca will whine and opine as he does,” Isabelle said, “but he cannot undo the ministry’s vote, and he cannot fight the will of the people. Or reverse your significant conversion. You’ve earned the Mark of Masimovian and the right to lead Reassortment research. Decca can’t change that for all the benaris in Luxor.” She twisted her hair down her left shoulder and sighed. “Alas, like the rest of your species, you think first with your cock—”
“You haven’t complained before.”
She smiled. “I could’ve sent one of my couriers to deliver this z-disk but didn’t, and now my suspicions have been confirmed. Did you spot what went unsaid in that message?”
“I spotted the need to kill that fool Decca.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “The chancellor fears you, he fears what you may become. He witnessed the birth of something in Faraway Hall he hasn’t seen in decades and knows he may have another Broden Barão—”
Antosha laughed.
“No?” She put down her wineglass, then handed him a package wrapped with a golden ribbon. “Like him, you will be the supreme scientist of the Ventureño Facility covering Reassortment. Time you dressed the part and prepared for the final stage and iterations.”
“Yes, my lady, and I trust you’ll handle the chancellor.”
“This is a delicate time,” she said, wringing her hands together. She balled her right hand into a fist and shook it in rhythm with her voice. “You must speak with Atticus and assure him you’re his most loyal supreme scientist.”
“After the board meeting?” Antosha said. Isabelle nodded. “Will this impact the new Janzer army?”
“No,” she said. “The consortiums tell me it will be ready in less than thirty days, and General Norrod is prepared to lead it into the BP’s eastern enclave.” Jeremiah had built Blackeye Cavern in a part of the Earth’s crust as yet unaffected by Reassortment seepage. But Isabelle had seen the latest diagnostic data, which suggested the Cavern would soon be engulfed by the strain. She debated whether she should let the traitors die from exposure, but decided against it given the risk to the commonwealth, should the plague somehow find its way into the Beimeni zone. The BP’s end was near, one way or the other. She raised and lowered her chin, then sipped her wine. It tasted more bitter than sweet. She sighed. “Alas, the battle with the BP may be the least of our problems.”
Antosha took the glass from her and set it upon a pedestal. Facing her, he massaged her shoulders beneath her robe. “You’re so tense, my lady. What else troubles you?”
“If you had just sent more than six million transhumans to their maker, you’d be somewhat distraught, would you not?” She pushed his arms away from her and spun, her hair twisting around her. She pressed her forefingers against her throat, tight with anger and guilt. “Do you know how many we’ve killed under Masimovian’s developmental system?” She rubbed the golden phoenix that adorned her chest, then faced her sweet Antosha with glossy eyes. She still remembered the faces of all her Harpoon candidates, all her children. “Do you understand the cost of immortality under Masimovian’s rule?”
Antosha tilted his head, shaking it no.
“More than one hundred eighty million transhumans.” She swallowed, now breathing rapidly and deeply. My poor children. She looked down, then into Antosha’s snowflake obsidian eyes. “He tells me we’re speeding evolution with more births, keeping only the elite, driving scientific advances unknown in the history of the Earth, but he doesn’t have to look at them, ever.” Her voice turned vindictive. “He doesn’t have to watch them leave the Harpoon Auction, knowing their lives are over, ever.” Isabelle performed the population growth calculations in her head, as she often did. “Do you know how many more will die if we don’t do something?”
“I don’t, my lady.”
“From this year to the year 400, if I’m to keep the annual population growth rate at eight percent compared to an accelerating birthrate above fifteen percent, I’d have to send another three-billion-plus of my children into the Lower Level. And even with that,” she raised her voice, “the population of the Great Commonwealth will swell to more than three billion!”
“Then you’d best expand the Lower Level, my lady. It wasn’t designed—”
She slapped him. “You’d best keep the chancellor’s trust! It’s the only way we’ll end it. Institute strict population controls and develop each child to their full potential.” She tossed her hair, already feeling better, until she thought of Reassortment. “We have another problem.” She fetched her glass of wine and a Beimeni beret.
“Of course, my dove, you’re always a bearer of good news,” Antosha said with a resigned grin.
“The chancellor’s hesitation to do what was necessary with Captain Barão decades ago has put all our lives in danger.” She activated a Granville sphere, and around her and Antosha formed the Earth’s crust, above the Beimeni zone. Within the topography and depth measurements was scattered sparkling dust in all parts as deep as fifty meters and in some as deep as 1,250 meters. The dust hung less than 1,000 meters from the Granville sky above Beimeni City.
Antosha spread his hand gently over the dust, tapping on the particles like the strings of his deodar violin. “May the gods protect us …”
“Fuck the gods.” They never answered her prayers; not when she’d wanted to join the ballet; not when she’d wanted the chancellor to love her; not when she’d wanted to end his developmental system; and certainly not since she’d wanted to destroy the BP menace. “The Reassortment research team has communicated to the ministry and to the board that Reassortment seepage is accelerating to de
pths once believed impossible.” Antosha turned to her with a look that might’ve been fear. “Your work, my love,” she continued, “is now of utmost importance to the survival of the transhuman race.”
“And the chancellor is having second thoughts about me, is that what you’re afraid of?”
“I fear only that which is out of my control.” She eyed him, searching his mind. Unlike the chancellor, Antosha always seemed a mystery to her. “You never told me what happened to Gwendolyn Horvearth.”
Antosha put on the customary supreme scientific board member garb, a light blue robe with golden ties. “I lost contact with Gwen when Aera and Nero nearly escaped your dragnet—”
“You moved the Lorum orb to the City of Eternal Darkness, not me—”
“And we have the First Aera and we have Barão’s striker, do we not?” He waved his hand. “Gwen has been eliminated, I’m sure of it. The girl will turn up in the Archimedes and that will be the end—”
“Or is this the beginning?” Isabelle set a Beimeni beret, black with beige fabric woven into the shape of two human hands spread over the Earth, atop Antosha’s head. “It’s time for our … demonstration in Fountain Square, I think.”
Antosha agreed. Isabelle leaned beside him. “The Barão twin,” she painted kisses on his neck, “has a certain friend who thinks unpleasant thoughts of you.” She nibbled on his ear. “He poisons the girl’s mind.” She rubbed her face on his. “She’s been searching through the archives all day and thinks you’re her mother’s killer.” She looked at him. “What say you to this?”
“The giver of this lie is destined for Farino Prison, the receiver … ours for the taking.”
Isabelle smiled. She pulled off her robe, threw Antosha’s beret, and undid his robe with practiced hands. She jumped on him and wrapped her legs around him and kissed him as they crashed onto the rose petals.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Antosha Zereoue
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
“First of three important items on the primary agenda today,” Chancellor Masimovian said, “is to congratulate Supreme Scientist Antosha Zereoue on his entry to the Supreme Scientific Board of Beimeni and on the reawakening of Dr. Kole Shrader in Boreas.”
All the board applauded, except Prime Minister Decca, who sneered. Antosha caught his eye and smiled.
Masimovian paused as a pair of keeper bots emerged with trays of wine. They rounded the mercury pool upon the Brezner Building’s rooftop to serve the now fifteen board members.
“Secondly,” Masimovian added, “I carry with me a z-disk from the ministry with their selection for the next supreme scientist of the Ventureño Facility covering Reassortment.”
He handed the z-disk to another keeper bot, which made its way around the mercury pool and set the z-disk upon a workstation. Masimovian activated it. A hologram formed over the pool: the words ANTOSHA ZEREOUE appeared beneath his likeness.
“By a vote of twenty-two in favor, seven opposed, and one abstention, Antosha Zereoue has the people’s confidence to resolve Reassortment. How does the board vote, aye or nay?”
A bot activated another workstation, ready to count the anonymous vote.
Prime Minister Decca pulled a toothpick out of his mouth and twisted his lips. “You cannot believe that Antosha Zereoue is befitting of a role as important as Supreme Scientist of the Ventureño Facility covering Reassortment.”
Decca commanded the board’s attention. Minister Tethys Charles nodded, as did Minister Genevieve Sineine and Supreme Scientist Dorian Knox.
“Please, Carillon, continue,” Masimovian said with outstretched hands.
Minister Decca stood. “Not twenty years ago, this man used the zeropoint field and illegal synisms, and all the telepathic methods with the CRISPR system outlawed by the board, which led to the deaths of no fewer than seventy-four scientists in the RDD—”
“That is a lie.” Antosha rose. “They knew what they were getting involved with, they knew my methods were … extraordinary.”
“Illegal is more like it,” Decca said. “Illegal then as they are now, and dangerous. You put the lives of too many scientists in the RDD at risk—”
“I reawakened Dr. Shrader in a fraction of the time my predecessors utilized to make zero progress, and at a miniscule cost—”
“You spent ten billion benaris! And you killed hundreds of volunteers along the way! Men and women with heirs and conversions worth more than all the gemstones hanging around your neck.”
“Traitors!” Antosha said. “Most of them part of the Beimeni Polemon, and they received exactly what they deserved.”
“You’re not fit to serve Beimeni.”
“I will fulfill the people’s dream to reemerge from the underground, that they can once again walk along a surface so foreign to them now it may as well be Pluto.”
Decca pulled a z-disk from his robe and slammed it on a workstation. A woman’s likeness overtook Antosha’s at the center of the pool. Her light violet eyes shimmered beneath the skylight’s rays. Her lips, curved and pink, opened, and she inhaled before she disappeared into a cloud of dust. “What about my daughter?” Decca said. “What did Haleya know about you?”
Antosha pulled the edges of his robe, and the chains that hung around his body clinked. The snowflakes in his obsidian eyes rotated. “You have no idea of what you speak, old man.” He pointed to the board. “You all know Captain Barão convinced her—”
“Antosha is the liar and the traitor,” Decca said, “and if you allow this man to lead the Reassortment research team, if you allow him to walk into the third position for the chancellorship, you will rue the decision.”
Decca strode a path to the exit and ignored cries from Chancellor Masimovian for civility and respect. The chancellor ordered his Janzers to secure Decca and return him to his seat. Decca threw his arms away from them and, on his own, sat in his spot near the pool. His face glistened with sweat, his taut bronze skin a shade of red.
“This board acts as a single unit,” Masimovian said, “and I will have order. We are all Beimenians, we are all one, and our decision to confirm the ministry’s selection on behalf of our people is our privilege. It must be treated as such. When you make your selection, aye or nay, keep in mind the challenges of the task and the failures of prior scientists—and the actions of those scientists.”
The board telepathically voted, and above its workstation, the keeper bot noted eight votes of aye, seven votes of nay.
“So it is decreed,” Masimovian said, “by appointment of the supreme ministry of Beimeni and confirmed by the supreme scientific board, that Supreme Scientist Antosha Zereoue will follow Captain Broden Barão as Supreme Scientist of the Ventureño Facility covering Reassortment.”
Minister Charles couldn’t hide the displeasure from his face. To Antosha, he said, “May the gods provide you wisdom at this most trying time in our history.” Several board members nodded gravely.
Antosha feigned ignorance. “I’m not sure I take your meaning.”
Charles looked to Masimovian, who said, “And finally, on the primary agenda,” his voice softened, “Reassortment seepage.” Masimovian and Charles shared with the board the latest details that suggested the rate of diffusion of Reassortment into the Earth’s crust had accelerated, with the strain now entering depths once thought utterly impossible.
“So you can see, young scientist,” Masimovian said to Antosha, “it’s more than glory that awaits you in the Ventureño Facility.” He paused, clasping his hands together. “It’s the survival of the transhuman race.”
“I understand,” Antosha said assuredly, “and unlike my predecessors, I’m up to the task.”
Conversation shifted from there to the minor items on the secondary agenda. After the sheep stopped bleating over benari and resource allocations and updates on their pointless projects, Masimovian adjourned the meeting. Decca dashed out of the chamber while the rest of the b
oard leisurely drank from their glasses and reminisced about conversions, experiments, and other war stories from the RDD.
“Chancellor,” Antosha said, “may I have a word?”
Masimovian nodded, and when the last of the board passed through the exit, he put his arm around Antosha’s shoulders. They walked amiably next to the pool. “Isabelle convinced me to reinstate you,” Masimovian said, “and I agreed because I suspect you’ve learned from prior misdeeds. I believe in your potential. I understand your unorthodox methods drive your results.” He paused. “Was I wrong in these assumptions?”
“Of course not, my chancellor,” Antosha said. “I serve you and I’m honored by the privilege and prestige you and the board and ministry have bestowed on me.”
One of the bots grabbed Antosha’s and Masimovian’s empty glasses and handed them freshly filled ones. “That’s good to hear, because troubling news has reached me regarding your former lab assistant and campaigner. Where is Miss Gwendolyn now?”
“I haven’t been able to locate Gwendolyn Horvearth, but she’s no threat to the commonwealth, or the board, my chancellor—”
“The Kaspasparons will not let this rest.” Masimovian swiped his goatee. “They allege wrongdoing.”
“Their grief blinds them from the truth that their foster daughter was mentally unstable, incapable of managing the challenges of the RDD.”
“I hope you’re right.” The chancellor sipped his wine. “How soon until you can begin new clinical trials? We have the potential for many, many Jubilees. It would be grand for one to end as successfully as your demonstration in Boreas.”
“I will solve Reassortment, just as I solved Regenesis, with skill and speed and devotion to my craft. When I vanquish humanity’s weakness against the plague in the paradise, your dominion over all the Earth shall be assured.”