by Zen, Raeden
Connor’s blood sang. He was careful to keep his mind closed. He felt her knocking.
The waves in the ZPF closed upon him. He repelled her attack and swept her legs out, then rolled and lifted to his feet.
Connor’s Janzer synsuit gave him an advantage, if incomplete, given his visor’s weak point. Isabelle’s skin lay exposed all over.
But the supreme director was nothing if not tactical, as he knew too well. The swordplay was designed to tire his body and mind, eventually allowing her entry to his consciousness. From there, the lady could have her way with him, the way she had with Hans in the Department of Peace and with Father in Permutation Crypt.
Isabelle’s face did not hide her intentions. She seemed pleased with his attempts to block her. Connor might have the immediate tactical advantage, but time was on her side.
Upswing followed downswing followed sideswipe. Isabelle slung her sword with skill. In some ways, her technique reminded Connor of Aera, though Aera was far faster. You may not enter, he thought.
The tango continued around a spa that bubbled with white rose petals, whose aroma mixed with the scents of death and smoke outside. Isabelle backpedaled, breathing heavily. She’s tired. Connor devised his strategy. She held her sword up, perpendicular over her head, her hair scattered, her face red. He heard her voice in his head, through Marstone.
Give yourself to me the way your father did.
Now she lied, for Father would never bow to her, not after what she had done.
You may not enter.
Pirro fought General Arnao on the level’s far side. He sprinted behind sculptures, spun, kicked, slid, and swiped. Diamond sparks flew in Connor’s peripheral vision.
The spa solidified, and Isabelle projected her mind onto its reflective surface. Connor saw Hydra Hollow, the terror birds, the BP, and Father at the precipice, standing, speaking—dying when Isabelle thrust her sword into him and cracked his bones. She did kill him. Connor took control of the ZPF and removed her illusion.
“You’ve grown powerful since the fever,” Isabelle said, “but you’re not my equal.”
She sent a burst of quantum waves over him, and Connor fell backward. You may not enter.
Part of him knew what she’d shown him was true, though he did not want to believe his father would give his life this way. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind.
He stepped onto the spa, walking over the water as if it were solid ground. She followed him, as he knew she would, to get closer to his mind.
Connor blocked her next burst. You may not enter.
Her screams gave Connor strength, and when next she lunged, he dodged her and smashed the handle of his sword into her face. She fell, blood dripping from her nose. He swung his sword down, but she parried the strike. He flipped over her onto solid ground, turned, and split the solid layer beneath her. She fell through. He resealed it over her, then sheathed his sword and steadied himself.
She fought him. He trembled as if lifting a Piscatorian submarine.
He kept his palms flat over the spa and screamed, blood dribbling from his nose, tears falling reflexively from his eyes.
Isabelle struggled beneath the surface, as if she pushed upon a sheet of ice.
She thrashed, her hair tangled, reminding Connor of a lavender cephalopod in Piscator Reef.
He sensed her death neared, felt her pain and fear …
“Release her.” General Arnao held a pulse gun to Pirro’s head.
I’m too close, Connor thought. Pirro wouldn’t want me to.
Pirro did shake his head no, but Connor couldn’t let his comrade die. He unsealed the spa.
Isabelle exploded out of the water, gasped, and grasped the ledge. Hot water and rose petals were slung over the marble.
She coughed water out of her throat and laughed.
“That a boy,” Arnao said. “I remember you.” He inclined his head. “I remember when I took you down in Gaia.” Arnao laughed while Pirro stealthily clutched a diamond dagger near the side of his knee, latched into the Janzer synsuit. “Your brother was so pathetic,” Arnao added. “He sobbed and begged for his life.”
“You couldn’t break him,” Connor said, “and you can’t break me.”
Lady Isabelle lifted a pulse gun, and Pirro slipped from Arnao’s grip and threw his dagger at Isabelle.
She dodged the salvo, and Connor threw his sword through Arnao’s head, evading Isabelle’s pulse blast. He focused his mind in the ZPF, thrusting Isabelle’s sword through her chest, into her heart, and twisted it.
Particle 5: Broden Barão
Dr. Shrader telekinetically pushed a lever between Oriana’s and Pasha’s marble slabs, and a pillar elevated, covered with a glowing orb.
The Lorum.
Its gold, scarlet, black, silver, and yellow coloring twisted clockwise, then counterclockwise.
In Reassortment Hall, the water was now waist high.
An explosion in Masimovian Center shook the tower. A plume of fire and smoke danced beyond the terrace, lighting the hazy nighttime sky. Or was this explosion upon Masimovian Tower?
“Do you know why we convinced Chancellor Masimovian to send you to Vigna?” Antosha said.
Brody glanced at the twins and the Lorum. If he kept Antosha talking, perhaps he’d have time enough to determine his next move.
“We lost contact with the Lorum,” Brody said, “though I suspect it was really to provide cover for your return from the Lower Level.”
“Ah, first contact,” Antosha said. “Do you remember those days?”
“I remember my friend who devoted himself to research, who cared about Beimeni, who loved his eternal partner, who respected his captain—”
“And now I am the leader, the chancellor, and so it should be obvious to you, insipid as you are, that it was I who suggested we use the Warning, for I knew the Lorum hadn’t perished as some in Masimovian’s Administration hoped, and I knew you’d bring me the genome I required to create Earth’s first posthuman.”
“A psychotic dream that turned you against those you loved.”
“I fulfilled the dream; humanity shall return to the surface, for I’m connected to Dr. Shrader, and he to me, and soon I will provide the maximal genome to all the developers, and a new race of man will be born.”
“Under your control, like the doctor, I suppose.” Brody paused. “Have you learned nothing?”
Antosha didn’t respond, for the soft sounds of a deodar violin filled the room. When Brody and Antosha turned, they did not see Shrader, Oriana, Pasha, and the Lorum.
They saw Haleya Decca.
She danced, covered with moonflowers and amaranth silks, silks that streamed around her arms and back and chest and thighs, her skin as smooth as her voice, which Brody couldn’t help but savor.
Haleya sang “The Fountain” and moved like a belly dancer, sensually and spiritually. She batted her eyelashes, and she enveloped Antosha, who held her in his arms, entranced, engrossed by her voice and movements as much as Brody amid the Fountain of Youth, rendered visible around them, complete with spicy aromas, flowing water and oils, marble pillars drenched with blue bioluminescence around a plinth …
Particle 6: Oriana Barão
… A flash, as from a dying star, and Oriana’s illusion gave way to the gallery, to her, with Antosha, her lips pressed to his, a diamond dagger through his jaw and skull, his brain pierced by her kiss. His blistered lips and face felt as hot as Mars. He smelled like a cooked pig.
She pulled the dagger out, and he gagged on blood in his mouth. He, with Dr. Shrader, their minds as one, collapsed as one—and died.
Oriana dropped the bloodied dagger, shaking.
Her father ran to her and hugged her. “I thought I lost you.”
“That was my first deception.” She turned to Antosha’s dead body, then studied her palms. “What is this darkness he unleashed inside me? Does this make me like him? Flawed?”
“We all have flaws.” Her father kissed her
forehead. “Darling daughter, neither any diamond nor any transhuman is perfect. You did what was necessary.”
“Necessary?”
Brody nodded. Oriana thought of her choice in the Cryo Room, not to kill Antosha, not to warn Mother and Father and the Regenesis team what lay ahead. In a sense, everything that had happened to the transhuman race, even Reassortment, all came back to that day in the Cryo Room, when she had snapped Dr. Shrader’s neck. What if Antosha had never learned to use the ZPF to kill? Could the world have been different?
“What happened to Mother?” she said. “Was that necessary too?”
Her father grabbed her and held her against his chest. He sobbed, harder than she’d ever seen any man cry. There was a violence to it that she didn’t understand, but she reached up and held him tight. After a while, something uncoiled inside her, all the hatred of Antosha and Lady Isabelle and her own flaws, even her own mother, for giving her up, for dying and leaving her alone. She’d been so confused, so tired, and so angry for so long. But it was easy to cry there, crushed against her father’s chest. They cried until they were both out of tears. Then they turned. Outside, the city burned.
Then a silver phosphorescent flash overtook the gallery, emitted by the Lorum orb, followed by silence and darkness.
“Hullo?” Oriana said.
She and Father no longer stood in the Gallery of the Chancellor. Instead, they stood upon a dusty mountain crest, overlooking a bioluminescent river. On the other side of the river lay clouds, not in the sky, but inverted, covering a pit between the river basin and the massif, lit by Vigna’s three stars.
The Lorum materialized in a cloudy humanoid form.
“Captain Barão, you disappointed us …”
Oriana also heard the Lorum’s synthesized voice in her head.
“You lied to us, deceived us, mocked us …”
“I didn’t!” her father said.
“We gave you our being, and in return, you promised us sustenance, yet we sense no urgency, no action in your Mission to Earth’s Core …”
“I vow to you we will fulfill the treaty terms. My son—”
“Is ours, until you return with what was promised to us …”
“No!” Oriana said, and her father bellowed beside her. Then they were back in the gallery, the war raging outside.
“Lorum!” Brody said. “Don’t harm my son! I’ll do whatever it takes—”
“What was that?” Oriana said. “What’s wrong?”
“Antosha broke the treaty—”
Swirls of matter of every color emerged from the Lorum orb and spread around Pasha.
Oriana ran to him and held his limp hand. She touched his arm and torso and shoulders, feeling vibrations and energy, like tremors in the Earth.
She turned to her father, too shocked to speak.
Pasha’s body heated and glowed.
Brody raced to her side. She felt him gather his energies, but Pasha’s body continued to change. “I can’t stop them,” Brody said, his eyes wide, filled with dread.
Oriana pushed her consciousness into the ZPF like she’d never done before, not even when she’d deceived Antosha. I might not be able to change the past, she thought, but I can change the future. She found the Lorum’s connection to the ZPF, inside the tower.
“Lorum!” she said. “You know who I am. You felt my presence when my opponent seized my mind in Hengill. You have my genome. Take me instead—”
“No, Oriana!”
She blocked out her father’s voice. Please, Lorum, she sent, take me, not Pasha, take me …
The swirling light spread from Pasha’s body through his arm and his hand to her fingers, up her arm, heating her body, enveloping her essence in the ZPF.
The sensations were not unpleasant, even as she lost control of her arms, and her consciousness, her connection to the ZPF, to her body, came undone. Time seemed to slow.
Her father frantically screamed, holding her limp body, but she was not a part of this, not like before.
Pasha’s consciousness reconnected to his body.
Let him wake, Oriana sent. Let him live, and I won’t fight you. She wondered if she even could fight the Lorum’s pull or power in the ZPF. They’ll keep my body alive, they’ll send you the extremophiles. Take me, take me, take me …
Oriana’s consciousness pushed through the Earth’s crust, faster, to the surface; higher, to the blooming plains; slower, through the clouds; lower, until she looked upon the Earth and its moon and sun, and farther still, past Mars and the asteroid belt, Ceres, Jupiter, and Saturn. They all focused in her mind’s eye.
Then they all disappeared.
Let him live. Oriana wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past, hers or her lineage’s. She would willingly remain a ward of the Lorum unless and until the treaty’s terms were fulfilled. I won’t fight you. They won’t let my body die.
Would her brother survive the war? Would her father?
No, she told herself, don’t lose hope.
If she did, she would truly turn into Antosha, for it wasn’t the Lorum’s power or the loss of Haleya Decca that transformed him; it was the decay around his consciousness, down to his core.
At last, she understood. Her lessons in House Summerset, and Before Reassortment, had all prepared her for this. Maybe she could alter the past in the present. Maybe she changed it even now.
She might never again hear Pasha’s voice, or see her father, or hold Nathan in her arms. She might never become an aera. But she could do more out here to break the cycle of deception and death that enslaved them than she could on Earth.
She let her consciousness soar through the Milky Way Galaxy, through the void, to Vigna, floating with its three moons and stars.
It was so stunning to behold she wished the Lorum would let her stay up here forever …
Particle 7: Broden Barão
Brody looked into his daughter’s eyes brimming with the Lorum’s energy. She collapsed into his arms. He knelt on the ground with her limp body. “My gods—”
Boom!
Masimovian Center Building #7 collapsed and sent a plume of smoke over the terrace.
The water level in Reassortment Hall had ascended to chest level. Verena held Jocelyn in her arms. Xylia and Breccan submerged and reemerged as if they searched for a way out or a way to release the water. Other BP, Nero and Aera included, kept their heads above the water, but more BP drowned, too short to breathe, too tired to swim. Encapsulated within the platforms, they dangled like dead fish.
CAPTAIN!
It was Verena, through Marstone.
If you’re out there, help us, help us or we’ll all BE dead. Do you hear me, Brody? We will all be dead!
Gently, Brody set Oriana on the ground and dashed to Antosha’s body, to where the Pendant of the Chancellor lay upon his bloodied synsuit.
He lifted the chain and pushed his head through the loop. The pendant dangled down his neck. He connected to the ZPF and to Marstone. The pendant glowed.
Marstone, I am the supreme chancellor of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni. There is no contamination in Reassortment Hall. Halt the containment mechanism and drain the facility.
Janzers, I am the supreme chancellor of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni, and I order you to lay down your weapons.
The ceiling in the gallery shivered, and pieces of marble fell with the statues.
“Father? Is that you?” Brody knew his son’s voice, even though he’d not heard him since he had been born. He turned.
Pasha stood with Oriana draped across his arms, tears dripping down his face. “What’s going on?” He looked down at Oriana, then back to Brody. “What’s wrong with her?”
A carbyne beam fell on top of the commonwealth statues representing Palaestra, Volano, and Dunamis.
“Can you carry her?” Brody said.
“I think so,” Pasha said.
“Son, we have to get out of here.”
Pasha carried Oriana, following Brody, w
ho carried Antosha, down the spiral marble steps.
They crashed into the walls with the tremors, and Brody suspected the tower had but minutes before it would collapse.
Closer to the first level, they ran into Pirro and Connor.
“Is she …?” Pirro said, his stare focused on Oriana’s limp body.
“No time,” Brody said.
Together, they rushed down the stairs, through the smoke, through the rubble of Masimovian Center. They dashed with the Janzers and the BP and the teams toward North Archway.
Fires had engulfed the districts and departments, the wards smoldered.
Brody lost his connection with Marstone.
He ran beneath the archway’s marble stone, Antosha still in his arms.
He turned.
The walls, pillars, and spires of Masimovian Tower shattered as the building collapsed.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Broden Barão
Portage City
Portage, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
“The war is over,” Minister Kaspasparon said. He pushed aside the long sprawling drapes that lined one of the windows of his medical quarters, looking out on Wuchiaping Square.
Brody and Pasha sat beside Oriana, each holding one of her hands. Neither of them responded.
“Captain,” Kaspasparon let the drapes go, “the people will expect you to lead them now from Phanes.”
“I have much to do, Minister.” Brody worried about his daughter since the Battle for Beimeni City, as the Portagen historians were calling it, but another important thought also weighed heavily on his mind: the millions of transhumans trapped in the Lower Level. He tried to contact the Janzers and the Controller in the Lower Level through the ZPF, hoping to order them to raise the oxygen level to a livable concentration, but he received no response. The uprising must’ve claimed their lives. Brody wondered often if any of the exiles had survived, or if millions more transhumans were dead.
Now his eyes searched Oriana’s. She looked lost in space-time. She’d opened her eyes as Pasha carried her during their journey atop Beimeni River down to Portage City, but she didn’t speak. Medical bots had strapped her to a legless, levitated gurney in a seated position.