by Zen, Raeden
The snowflakes in his obsidian eye quickened when he exited toward North Boardwalk. He breathed the musky air, air so different than the Lower Level hell he’d left so recently. In the last hours of morning, the Granville moon reflected off Phanes Lake and filled Antosha’s liquid-silver eye, destroyed by magma after an explosion in the Lower Level’s Infernus Sea had nearly killed him. At Tortonia Station, the few sheep awake this early gawked at him, at his flaw. Let the sheep stare, Antosha thought, let them weep. He stowed his pack and violin, inserted his commonwealth card, and telepathically sent his nine-digit commonwealth security number.
What’s your destination? Marstone’s voice.
Antosha had forgotten what it meant to travel in the Great Commonwealth but wondered why the transport didn’t already know his destination. Why did he have to provide all this bullshit? Why had the incompetent scientists who worked for the consortiums not achieved significant conversion in the transport system since his exile?
Antosha swore.
He transmitted, Palaestra City, then on to the RDD’s Taos Facility.
This is a restricted location. State your name, rank, and priority code.
My name is Antosha Zereoue. My rank is Supreme Scientist of Regenesis. Priority code 3-6-2-7-2-4-5-8-0-7-8-9.
Supreme Scientist Antosha Zereoue accepted. Time to your initial destination is estimated at fifty-one minutes. Thank you for traveling on the Beimeni Interterritory Transportation System.
Thank yourself, he thought.
Now he’d have to wait for the fourteen other sheep to finish their part in the process. What a waste. What had happened to the days when a supreme scientist had unlimited access to luxury transports with unlimited Loverealan wine and unlimited feeds to the live entertainment in Hammerton Hall in Beimeni City, or the illicit pleasures from Sepricola Hall near the Great Falls of Navita? Travel used to include a feast, a plump turkey slathered with gravy or sizzling steak that melted in your mouth, and cheeses and desserts that dripped with caramel and honey. He gasped violently. How far the commonwealth had fallen in his absence!
Now he’d have to sit, unproductive, for minutes while the woman with the frizzed golden hair and massive breasts next to him searched the bag she should have stowed for her ID card that she’d never find beneath the kilos of makeup she didn’t need.
And the tourist so obviously from Gaia he might as well not open his mouth—his crooked teeth, his pants cut off at his ankles, and his skin as rough as limestone gave him away on their own. Putrid. Vile.
Then Antosha realized the unfathomable: the chancellor sent him back to Palaestra during an open house.
He swore.
Finally, he trudged into his new office, same as his old office, in the Taos Facility, “the facility in the clouds,” led by Supreme Scientist Nasha Ele.
Antosha dropped his bag to the ground, rested his violin case beside it, and exhaled. They hadn’t lied to him. Nothing had changed, not in here. The Granville syntech lining the walls and floor did make it seem like he stood in the clouds—a silver desk, wastebasket, and closet in the corner the only proof otherwise. He chuckled. The stench of chlorine was overwhelming, just like he remembered. The Yeuronian cleaners had scrubbed the floor and walls and ceiling but left the desk untouched. He wiped his forefinger along a layer of dust and tarnish that had built to a mound.
Antosha flung open the closet doors. His antiquated lab gear sat where he’d left it. He pushed the garments to the right, and a pendant attached to a chain dropped and clanked. He furrowed his brow and pressed his lips together. He picked it up. A gift from Captain Barão, he recalled. He ripped the pendant from the chain and chucked it into the wastebasket.
He unzipped a compartment in his bag and removed his Harpoon Auction medallion. Never let that medallion out of your sight, Lord Pierre had said. That’s your middle finger to anyone who says you can’t make it in the commonwealth. Antosha strung the chain through a loop at the top of the medallion and hung it in the closet.
He slung his transparent lab coat on a hook and lifted his synsuit, a tough, supple body armor constructed by synisms from his bag. He bowed his head and held the liquid silver synsuit close to his chest. Cover me, he sent. The synsuit expanded over his midsection, covering his porous bodysuit. It drew energy from his body and moved down his legs in rows and lines, over his chest and neck, leaving him as cool as a Jovian moon. The only pink skin visible now was on his face and hands. He put on his lab coat.
He strutted through the Research Superstructure, the massive transport station RDD scientists used to travel between Beimeni’s eight research facilities. A Granville sun and sky provided light here. Tens of thousands of scientists, clad in different-colored lab coats to denote rank and facility, roamed beneath the Superstructure’s olive marble archways, engravings, and statues, the largest being a sculpture of Chancellor Masimovian.
Antosha felt all their eyes on him but didn’t acknowledge their presence. He boarded a transport headed south.
On his way to the Tomahawk Facility, he extended his consciousness. He reviewed the research results published by his predecessor, Captain Barão, and his team. He mouthed, Fools, you fools, as he flipped through the millions of pages on Project Regenesis. Their methods lacked any hint of imagination or intelligence. Could the chancellor truly not understand why Captain Barão had failed?
Antosha left the transport and passed the garnet sculptures in Masimovian Square. He looked out on the synism silos that stretched across the Granville horizon. These silos provided the commonwealth with most of its raw materials, he knew. He went through several checkpoints and arrived at the final one, where Marstone transmitted, Verbal confirmation required.
Antosha Zereoue, Supreme Scientist of Regenesis, reporting for duty.
WELCOME TO THE TOMAHAWK FACILITY
SUPREME SCIENTIST ANTOSHA ZEREOUE
Antosha weaved through the labyrinthine tunnels and provided a DNA scan to the Janzer checkpoint outside the Regenesis Chamber. “Your team is here,” a Janzer said.
“That so,” Antosha said, “and who might be on this team?” He hadn’t selected his yet and didn’t plan to until he knew his research center was secured.
“Lord Nero Silvana and Lady Verena Iglehart.”
Antosha grinned. The gods did favor him this day. He entered the Regenesis Chamber, taking delicate strides along the ground. He slipped between the stasis tanks that held the animal specimens. A black and brown bear hung on either side of him, fur smoothed, claws outstretched.
“We must hurry,” Nero said.
The traitor spoke softly, but Antosha’s enhanced senses heard and saw all in his Regenesis Chamber. Verena and Nero were searching the workstations for z-disks and gear, Antosha assumed.
“This is the last one,” Nero said.
Verena perused the stasis tanks while he pried open the final workstation and sifted through z-disks. Nero swiped sweat from his face and put something in his bag.
Antosha slid behind another stasis tank and noted that neither Nero nor Verena were wearing biomats. He accessed Verena’s neurochip, delicately and diligently, and used the CRISPR system to manipulate her DNA.
Verena pressed her hand to the outside of one of the tanks, which contained a beaver frozen near absolute zero, its brown fur lifted, eyes open and empty. She didn’t see Antosha, who blended with the cylindrical tanks. She wasn’t aware of his presence in her mind, not consciously, not yet.
“Do you think Antosha will succeed where we failed?” Verena said.
“I don’t care what he does,” Nero said. “Neither should you.”
“I can’t believe the chancellor—”
Ter-krink.
“Did you hear that?” Verena said.
Antosha had swiped the tip of his boot against the alloy base of a stasis tank. Sometimes the sheep needed prodding.
Nero turned side to side. Antosha didn’t access his neurochip but felt his unease in the ZPF.
An
tosha sent a message to them both.
Traitor, traitor, traitor, in my midst …
Nero dropped the duffel bag. He turned from stasis tank to stasis tank.
Traitor, traitor, traitor, why shouldn’t I blitz …
Nero dashed from tank to tank, past a moose, its antlers curled, legs bowed; a black-footed ferret with a scraggly, twisted body; a ruby-throated hummingbird, green and black polka-dotted sheathes near its wings; past apes, monkeys, and protohumans.
Ter-krink.
What’re you doing here, traitor?
“Who’s there?” Verena said. She stumbled.
Are you going to die, traitor?
Nero rushed around a moose’s tank and an ape’s tank.
You will suffer. She will suffer.
“Show yourself!” Nero said.
Verena’s bronze face turned as pale as an eggshell.
Antosha’s whispers raced through the chamber.
“Get away from the tank,” Nero said.
Verena didn’t move. Breathing heavily, she unbuttoned her lab coat and staggered.
Nero rushed to her side and steadied her. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing here, nothing gone, nothing out here, and nothing there,” Verena said, slurring. She grabbed her head. “Migraines … and I think it’s time … to time, I think I leave …”
Ter-krink.
Verena blinked and recovered. “Where am I?” she said. “Where are we?”
“He’s here,” Nero said.
“Who’s here?”
Ter-krink.
Verena and Nero turned to the center of the chamber, where Dr. Kole Shrader hung in a stasis tank quadruple the size of the rest, suspended in misty ice, sprayed by green bioluminescence. Nero rushed around the doctor’s tank while Verena peered to the corridor beyond the glass.
“A pair of traitors in my midst,” Antosha said. “Who’s to say I shouldn’t blitz?”
Verena slid in front of Nero, her left arm protective against his chest, her right hand on her pulse gun. Nero clutched the side of his shuriken, its diamond blades sharp enough to split alloys.
Antosha emerged from behind one of the bird tanks into the pale-green light.
Nero drew his shuriken, widened his stance, and bent his knees, his body tense.
“No, striker, that would not be wise,” Antosha said, “you won’t make it—”
“We’re gone,” Verena said. She stepped and fell against Shrader’s tank. Her body shook.
“Verena?” Nero said.
Perspiration poured down her reddened face. Antosha bowed and smiled. I haven’t lost my touch, he thought. He pumped Verena’s heart even faster. She slid down the glass enclosure, into Nero’s arms, and convulsed, the artery in her neck pulsing.
“What have you done to her?” Nero shouted.
Verena calmed, and Nero set her quivering body on the ground. He lunged and grasped Antosha by his lab coat, pulling him close. “You fix her or I’ll rip out your functioning eye!”
Verena’s tremors worsened. She screamed.
“I’ve done nothing!” Antosha spat upon Nero’s brow. “Look at yourself! You’re a pathetic maggot! The gods have spoken! She is going to suffer, as you all shall suffer—”
Nero threw Antosha across the chamber. He crashed into an alloy shelf that collapsed on him. Thanking the gods for the protection of his synsuit, Antosha heaved the shelf from his body.
The alarm blared. Nero must have triggered an emergency lever.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Nero said. He held Verena and rubbed the sweaty strands of hair from her face. “Stay with me, stay with me, keep breathing, help’s on the way, on the way …”
Her eyes opened and closed, and she pressed her face to his hands. Her skin was red as if burnt. She moved her lips, but no noise escaped. Nero checked her pulse.
They deserve this, Antosha thought. They deserve to know what Haleya felt, what I felt, and by the grace of the gods, they will suffer …
Spots of blood lifted around her neck, the blots popping up as if spray-painted. Nero used his shuriken to cut the top of her bodysuit. His hands trembled.
“Oh, gods, oh, no, no, no, no …”
He rubbed her throat and caressed her face, holding her hair against her cheeks. He put his ear to her chest.
Medical bots and Janzers streamed into the chamber. Verena lost consciousness and sank over Nero’s arms. A Janzer grabbed her, but Nero wouldn’t give her up. He shouted.
“Do you see?” Antosha rose from the floor. “These traitors were in my chamber. Look at what they’ve done, how dangerous they are.”
Nero lunged for Antosha, but the Janzers pounced on him and held him down. One shot a tranquilizer dart into his neck and he collapsed.
“I want them out of here,” Antosha said.
The Janzers and medical bots strapped Verena and Nero to levitating gurneys and rushed for the exit.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Gwendolyn Horvearth
Research & Development Department (RDD)
Palaestra, Underground Northeast
2,500 meters deep
A Marstone summons awakened Gwen.
Are you on schedule?
On my way now, Gwen transmitted. The truth, actually, was that she lay in bed, in her Champion’s Suite of the Neophyte Dormitories. She’d overslept.
As am I.
Antosha disconnected from her.
What to do? Gwen thought. She threw the fur blanket from her body. What’s best for me?
She tiptoed nude across the suite so as not to awaken her guests, Caterina, who she sometimes called Cat, and Roger. Her dresser, made of white marble, felt cool to the touch. On top of it Gwen had placed three tall, golden bioluminescent candles, gifts from the Lady Eulalie after Gwen had received the first bid in the Harpoon Auction. She thought about using the ZPF to activate one of them, then heard Roger snore and decided not to. She silently, telekinetically opened her dresser drawer and sifted through her undergarments. She slipped into them and into her violet bodysuit. She braided her hair in the dark.
Yesterday, she’d learned that the DOC had overturned her registration to Reassortment, sending her instead to the Tomahawk Facility, where she’d shadow Supreme Scientist Antosha Zereoue. When she’d called Captain Barão through Marstone, he had told her he wasn’t aware of the change and that she should report to him, not Antosha. She’d told Antosha as much yesterday, but he’d demanded she meet him in the Chinook Facility to finalize their plans. She wondered what plans he referred to. Her assignment? Something else? Should she speak with Captain Barão?
No, she decided, for she understood Beimenian courtesies, and a part of her desired to meet this Supreme Scientist Antosha Zereoue, who pursued her so … thoughtfully.
“Gwenny?” Caterina said, looking here and there through bloodshot eyes. “Is that you?” She turned on a deep-pink bioluminescent lava lamp filled with molten drops from the Infernus Sea. Her hair looked tousled, her face a touch red. “What the heck … what’re you doing up so early?” Roger, next to her on the couch, mumbled and pulled the fur blanket over his head.
“Today’s the first day we shadow, and I want to prepare,” Gwen said. She pulled her transparent lab coat over her body, slid open the frosted-glass entryway, and slipped out.
In the Chinook Facility’s square, Gwen strode toward the Looking Ball—a gigantic mirrored sphere that glimmered like a polished gemstone—where it levitated and bobbed, reflecting the rows of black and dark green marble stones that paved the square. She found herself thinking about Marcel, her brother-in-development, about his dreamy smile and their time together in House Variscan, and the auction where she had been purchased first and he had been purchased with 77 percent of the candidates remaining. A top 25 percent performance, an embarrassment, Lord Rueben had said. Now Marcel was a holographic artist in Marshlands, and he never replied to her requests for connection through Marstone. She tried to contact him, and again, no response. She hoped he wasn’t
mad at her.
She moved closer to the Looking Ball. Her body flitted over it and expanded and lifted in the mirrors. She turned away as her eyes strained. Neophytes and scientists dressed in colorful lab coats streamed back and forth through a tunnel on the other side of the square. Above the arced entrance to the tunnel hung signage in bright blue lettering, REGISTRATION CENTER, and to the left of the sign, a pyramidal café. Her coffee addiction drew her toward it, but when she rounded the ball, she sensed a presence and heard a whisper, then a voice.
“Gwendolyn,” Antosha said from behind her, startling her. “Gorgeous Gwendolyn.”
It was the first time she’d heard his voice aloud, not initiated by Marstone, not in her mind as if part of her own monologue. Was this the voice of the man she had heard during the Harpoons, the voice in her head that had helped her gain advantage and enabled her to leave the auction a Harpoon Champion?
She turned, and a man she did not expect stood before her. He had long black and silver hair, a silver eye, and a silver synsuit that gripped his muscular body. The snowflakes in his obsidian eye looked like evening stars. They sent her heart aflutter.
“Gwen-do-lyn, Gwen-do-lyn,” Antosha sang, “idol for the neophytes, violin of my life.”
He extended his hand for hers and she accepted. She knew proper courtesies. He kissed her hand, and his lips felt surprisingly cool upon her skin. Gwen felt the stares from neophytes and scientists who strolled in the square, catching their reflections in the Looking Ball from the corner of her eye. She sipped the vanilla air, concerned about her attire, her hair, her face. Had she not completed her braids, or was there something on her transparent lab coat, or a slit in her bodysuit? Had she forgotten some aspect of proper behavior in the presence of a supreme scientist?
Aside from rumors spilled by neophytes less fortunate than she, Gwen knew nothing of this man who offered his aid and kind words and lips. She looked deeper into the snowflakes of his eye and felt a soothing sensation in her body, a gentleness and comfort she did not experience with Marcel, Markus Venatici, her ex-boyfriend, Lord Rueben or any other man she’d met. How could Antosha have hurt anyone? she thought. The rumors about his dangerous side intrigued her, though, in hindsight seemed silly now that she finally met him.