by Zen, Raeden
He is our ally, Oriana thought, but who could control the Janzers this way?
Antosha rubbed the Pendant of the Chancellor and spoke words incomprehensible to Oriana.
The Janzers turned their weapons toward the attackers, who now lined much of North Boardwalk near the tip of Artemis Square, and the teams, who formed ranks ahead of her father.
SLAY THEM ALL!
Antosha’s command went out through Marstone.
ZPF Impulse Particles
Beimeni Zone
2,500 meters deep
Particle 1: Broden Barão
Antosha’s command echoed in the ZPF, and a chainless diamond-spiked orb, initially unseen, gashed kilometers across the square, into Gwen’s chest. She flew into the BP’s front lines.
A new pair of orbs moved in elongated elliptical patterns toward Brody. Somewhere, possibly behind the stage, a Protector Prototype was locking on him. He timed his backflip, and the orbs crossed beneath him. They soared through the air and back near the vase behind the stage.
The crowd screamed and ran for the city’s pedestrian paths.
Lady Isabelle ripped off the bottom of her gown and hand-signaled the Janzers.
“Rally to me!” Captain Ruiner Holcombe said.
He and the teams braced for the Janzer onslaught. The commonwealth’s forces outnumbered them five thousand to one, by Brody’s count—and not all captains and strategists could fight the way he and Verena did. It had been nearly one hundred fifty years since the teams had been the true protectors of the underground.
Brody searched for Oriana. He called out for her through the ZPF but got no response. Where did she go?
More than two million Janzers charged one hundred fifty teams from all sides. Some of those stationed on rooftops rappelled down the walls, while others sprayed the square with pulse blasts from above.
Brody’s army sprinted forward. He didn’t notice Gwen among them; he didn’t feel her presence in the ZPF.
The sound of alloy on alloy filled the square. Pulse blasts passed over the square in a grid, blowing apart Janzers, BP, and statues alike. Fires broke out in the First and Second Wards. Limestone blew apart. Smoke billowed from all sides, testing the city’s ventilation system.
One blast struck the newly erected fountain in memoriam for Chancellor Masimovian. Its main column exploded, raining water, bits of stone, and red rose petals.
Brody tried to connect to Oriana through the ZPF again. He still couldn’t find her.
A Janzer division rotated near him, but before they could strike, the first wave of his army streamed around him. Brody drew his sword and met a Janzer, swing for swing, until he stuck his sword into the Janzer’s visor, shattered it, and pierced the Janzer’s skull. He withdrew his sword, and the Janzer dropped. He matched swords with another Janzer until an aera twisted its neck. Brody took deep breaths of air that tasted like burnt flesh and death, not so dissimilar from the Lower Level.
Where was Oriana? Was she safe?
The Granville panels near the stage shifted and displayed Reassortment Hall, the glass cylinders enclosed around transhumans—how many, Brody couldn’t tell.
Verena, Xylia, and Breccan were due to arrive at Reassortment Hall to free them. Where were they? And why was this site materializing? Would Antosha dare proceed with an impromptu Jubilee at his inauguration?
Brody thought, I must find him. I must find Oriana.
His army encircled what remained of the memorial fountain and mixed with the Janzers and the teams and snake-painted BP in the square’s center. The air hummed with swords, pulse blasts, Reassortment batons, shuriken, and spiked orbs, controlled by a Protector Prototype as lean as a Graka training bot, as quick as a Janzer, near the stage, near Oriana!
Upon the stairs, in and out of the fog, Brody’s daughter fought Lady Isabelle. His little girl, now developed, swiped and swung her sword like an aera beat for beat with the Master of the Harpoons. But this wasn’t an even battle, for General Arnao now attacked.
And Oriana now swung a second sword as easily as the first.
She could not defeat them both, not alone.
He ran over slippery stone, over bodies, pushed and cringed. The stage was so far away. A Janzer’s sword was slung across his body, and he fell sideways upon the square, rolled, and found his footing. He sprinted and shoved, but he couldn’t get to her, couldn’t stop Isabelle, who now held his baby’s neck while General Arnao poised himself to deal the killing blow.
Brody couldn’t attack them through the ZPF. Antosha and Isabelle blocked him.
After all this, his survival in the Lower Level, his escape, Luke’s death: his daughter was to be killed by Antosha’s allies.
Antosha, burnt from the neck up but in his silver synsuit from the neck down, ascended the stairs flanked by his Janzers.
He restrained General Arnao’s wrist and peered down the square. Through a mess of blood, black-and-blue phosphorescence, flashes of light, and fog, Antosha’s snowflake eyes found Brody. He grinned and brushed his fingers gently over Oriana’s eyes and ended her struggle.
She hung unconscious (or dead?) in Isabelle’s arms.
Brody screamed.
Why was it taking so long? Why couldn’t he fly over them? Why couldn’t he access the ZPF near them? Another Janzer charged him. Brody flipped over him, felled him, twisted his neck, and rose. He caught sight of Oriana’s fluttering dress, wrapped around Isabelle, who carried his baby over one shoulder, down the stage’s backside.
Particle 2: Cornelius Selendia
“My boy,” Pirro said to Connor, “they have the Protector Prototype that defeated us in Underground West.”
“So they do.”
Connor didn’t journey hundreds of kilometers from Xerean City to Beimeni’s great square to be denied.
He’d assured Minister Mueriniti he’d end Antosha’s rule and bring justice to Lady Isabelle, who wrought so much harm to her people over the decades. He’d found a surprising amount of support in the Northern villages on his way from Xerean City. Father had ceased recruitment in these villages, Pirro assured Connor, given their animosity towards the BP. But these same villagers lacked the sense of loyalty to Antosha that they had for Chancellor Masimovian. Indeed, many blamed Antosha for Masimovian’s death, and Connor had found more friends than foes.
Connor suspected the BP would fall under Antosha’s rule if they didn’t act swiftly. Pirro suggested they move under cover of darkness across Phanes Lake and down to Portage City to recover from the journey before the attack. Connor decided against this. They would collect allies along the way and strike before the ceremony, though only those who could acquire Janzer synsuits were permitted entry to his host. He would neither risk lives needlessly nor hinder his Polemon army in battle with ill-trained recruits.
It took more time than he’d anticipated, however, and now here they were, at the great city, like he’d promised. Only they’d arrived during the ceremony, rather than prior, and Antosha had fortified the city with more Janzers than Connor had ever seen.
And he’d killed Zorian …
The traitorous fish, Pirro had called Connor’s eldest brother. Our great father is dead. A part of Connor didn’t want to believe Zorian would lead the commonwealth to Hydra Hollow, and another part admitted his unstable brother capable of it and worse. He didn’t know if Zorian had survived the fall from Mount Lilien, (for no body had been recovered), but even if he had, Connor never expected he’d attack Antosha and Lady Isabelle at the inauguration.
Nor did he expect Captain Barão’s arrival with a BP host. It made him uneasy, particularly because since their arrival, Connor couldn’t hear any of the BP’s thoughts. Captain Broden Barão, rather than Antosha, blocked him from them, as skilled with the ZPF as Father had assured him.
Connor and Pirro now ascended the marble stone of Fortunia Wharf, behind North Boardwalk and Artemis Square, where smoke snaked up, some of it flowing out of the city through filtration piping hid
den within the Granville sky.
Connor extended his consciousness and pointed his sword. In the distance, Antosha, Lady Isabelle, and General Arnao moved with a hostage, someone of importance, Connor assumed. They trotted across and down the stage and through North Archway into Masimovian Center. Connor presumed they headed for Masimovian Tower.
“The cowards retreat,” he said.
“Or prepare for the final blow to the BP, my boy,” Pirro said.
“There must be another way to enter the tower.”
“Fountain Square will have been secured by now, and the pedestrian paths in the wards are clogged or burning. You must enter here.”
Enter Antosha’s field. The thought turned Connor’s stomach. He believed his abilities with the ZPF strong enough to counter Antosha and Isabelle, but he’d thought the same in Faraway Hall, and lost.
The fog thickened over Artemis Square, the consequence of shattered marble and stone and fire, blazes that raged throughout the wards and throughout the square. It limited Connor’s visibility. Could he challenge Antosha’s field? Could he succeed?
Perhaps he didn’t need to face this threat alone.
Captain Broden Barão, listen to me.
Connor used the eyes of a Janzer in the square to focus on the captain.
Captain Barão turned to the Janzer.
The campaign continued. Around him, swords slashed and bodies fell. The fighting spread through North Archway.
I am Jeremiah Selendia’s youngest son. We have a common enemy, and I need your help to end this war.
Connor heard Captain Barão’s voice: They’re going to the tower. Find your way to the stage’s eastern side.
When Connor entered Artemis Square, his heart quickened, for he felt the same sensation he had in Faraway Hall when last he’d encountered a quantum field created by Antosha Zereoue.
It felt as if his body and mind weren’t his own.
I can control this, Connor thought. I can maintain my place in the ZPF and in Artemis Square. I must end Lady Isabelle’s life.
Connor, Pirro, and six Polemon sprinted through the fog of war, through the fire and smoke and diamond swords, the pulse blasts and spiked orbs that crisscrossed the massive square. Connor choked on the singed air. Though he couldn’t control these Janzers as readily as when he’d escaped Farino Prison, he could influence those nearby, disrupt their vision the way Hans had done, and he did so.
His team arrived at Captain Barão’s position unscathed.
He heard the captain’s voice in his head: The Protector is impervious to telepathic or telekinetic manipulation.
Captain Barão pointed to the vase where their comrades pushed futilely against glass cylindrical containments upon platforms in Reassortment Hall. He nodded to the square, where the Janzers rotated through the mist in their attack formations, engaged with the teams and the BP.
Connor and his team slipped behind the stage.
The Protector’s spiked orbs floated around its body. It spun, kicked, spun, and punched, felling strikers and aeras and BP. All who neared it perished as quickly.
Just like Nero and Aera and Pirro, Connor thought.
A Janzer spotted them and led his division toward them.
Connor slammed into the formation, the way Aera had taught him, and his Polemon engaged, slicing, twisting, dying. The Protector turned. Its weapons returned to its orbit. Its citrine eye slit glowed and narrowed. It opened its carbyne mouth as if to scream but didn’t. Its orbs, which rotated around it, instead moved in elliptical patterns.
The distraction proved useful.
An aera Connor didn’t know dashed for the Protector and tackled it. The orbs lost their center of gravity and flew into the stage, through North Archway, and toward the burning wards.
More strikers and aeras lunged now, ripping the Protector apart, while Connor snapped the last Janzer’s neck.
More Janzers moved through the swirling fog.
“The tower,” Captain Barão said.
The teams and BP converged and provided cover for the captain, Pirro, and Connor, who snaked through Masimovian Center and dashed up the stairs, into Masimovian Tower.
Particle 3: Broden Barão
They entered the Main Level, and though Brody could hear the thunder from the battle in Artemis Square and Masimovian Center, there was no trace of the bloodshed here. White satin curtains hung along marble pillars overlooking bioluminescent streams. Massive shards of light broke through windows, windows and light that seemed out of place to Brody, given the darkness outside. Where the elevators and the tower’s spiral staircase should have been, stairwells appeared, endless stairwells that reflected from the walls, and between, streams that bubbled and boiled. Brody knew then that what he viewed wasn’t Masimovian Tower.
This was his Lower Level nightmare.
Did Connor and Pirro see it too? Brody wondered. He didn’t feel Antosha in his head, certainly not the way he had when they fought upon his re-creation of Candor Chasma.
“Father! Help me!”
“Did you hear that?” Brody said.
Pirro lifted an eyebrow. “All I hear is the fighting, my boy.”
“He’s in your head, isn’t he?” Connor said.
“There!” Brody sprinted to the stairwell. In the fourth or fifth layer of stairs and streams, Lady Isabelle carried Oriana. Synisms rushed around his daughter’s face. She looked like his daughter, and he wanted to go to her, but in a world created by Antosha, he could trust nothing and no one.
Cautiously, Brody moved onto the stairs.
Connor pulled him back. “Captain, where’re you going?”
“He has my daughter,” Brody said.
“He’s manipulating you.”
“This labyrinth has replaced the tower’s main level. I must go in.”
“We’ll not win, my boy, not on his terms, not that way.”
“I will go alone, if I must.”
Brody moved, and Connor and Pirro followed, up the white marble stairs, up and around, forever, it seemed. Oriana’s screams sounded as if she were shouting from a pit, another dimension, another time. Beyond the stairwell, streams rose, then the walls emitted sapphire bioluminescence, and in the hundreds of stairwells that reflected all around them, the Gemini emerged—Brody’s prehistoric likeness repeated and repeated.
They declared in unison, “You’re a failure!”
Then they hid.
“What’s going on?” Connor said.
“He’s in my mind,” Brody said, “digging where I cannot stop him.”
The Gemini all repeated his words, “Digging where I cannot stop him, digging where I cannot stop him …”
Brody ignored them.
They continued upward, then upon stones across one of the rising streams, to a new set of stairwells.
Oriana’s cries sounded closer, the Gemini farther.
Brody heard a strange, irregular clicking noise. When he turned around the next stairwell, a dark stone wall appeared, shrouded in mist.
Three dark horses with teal eyes galloped, closer and closer.
“You’re a failure!” the Gemini said, hundreds and hundreds of Gemini who jumped up the wall and marched, poked their heads side to side, crouched, and waddled. “Failure!”
“Get out of my head!” Brody tried to remember what he did, how he found his babies in his Lower Level nightmare.
“Failure!”
The horses and the wall and mist disappeared, replaced by stairs and Lady Isabelle’s cackle.
“Show yourself!” Connor heard it too. He unsheathed his sword, his eyes wide.
She burst through a waterfall, grabbed Connor, and pulled him down into a stream, where they disappeared.
Pirro dove in after them.
Brody rushed up the steps. When the stairwell ended, he jumped through a waterfall. The illusion gave way to the Gallery of the Chancellor, and the sounds of rushing water gave way to the inferno in Artemis Square and Masimovian Center.
/> The slab of marble in the gallery, near where Brody had received his Mark of Masimovian, was replaced with two marble slabs, equidistant. Pasha sat on the left, Oriana on the right.
They lay unconscious, or so Brody hoped.
Dr. Shrader moved between Brody’s twins.
Antosha emerged from behind the Vivoan sculpture of a grower’s hand, his eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair replaced by streaks of blood and blistered skin. His synsuit remained intact.
He puffed out his chest.
“There’s nothing like pain to remind transhumans that we live.” He grinned. “Don’t you agree?”
The gallery’s Granville panels rendered Reassortment Hall visible, where Verena, Xylia, Breccan, (and a child?) manipulated workstations. They were trying to free their comrades, who struggled behind glass cylinders, emaciated, wearing nothing but white shorts, bones protruding from every part of their bodies.
“Don’t send them to that island,” Brody said. “Send me. It’s me you want to suffer and die from Reassortment exposure, me who—”
“Killed Haleya.”
“Yes … you’re right … I see that now … her death was my fault … so release Oriana and Pasha and those people in Reassortment Hall, and send me to the surface without treatment—”
“Who said anything about sending them to the surface?”
Brody examined the panel. Water splashed and flowed down the hall’s inner walls.
Antosha wasn’t preparing them for ascent to the Island of Reverie.
He was flooding Reassortment Hall, with them inside.
Particle 4: Cornelius Selendia
Lady Isabelle threw Connor through the cedar doors upon the Pleasure Level, and his sword flew across the floor. Gusts of smoke from the battle outside spilled over the windows near the ceiling. Or was Masimovian Tower burning? Connor didn’t have time to find out.
He dove for his sword.
He couldn’t have said how he turned in time, but he met Isabelle’s downward thrust. Diamond sparked on diamond.