by Zen, Raeden
Jeremiah opened and closed his eyes, struggling, as if he were lifting and lowering the cosmos. “My son …” He reached, trembling. “You’re … alive …” He coughed.
But when Connor touched his father’s hand, his bony fingers, and the rest of his bony body, disappeared!
Murray looked at his empty arms as if he’d been robbed.
The holding cell’s door slammed shut. The light bulb swung into the ceiling, shattering.
“It’s a trap!” Nero said.
Connor shifted his visor to night vision.
Shadows moved in the corner of the massive cell.
Janzers.
They turned their swords over their heads, perpendicular to their bodies, as they moved into elliptical attack formations.
“Break them!” Aera shouted. She backflipped over the eastern front, then downed a division as easily.
Nero and Murray engaged Janzer after Janzer.
“Get out of here, kid,” Murray said, “save yourself!”
Not this time, Connor thought. He’d left Murray in House Tremadoci during a Janzer strike. This time I’m fighting. Pulse blasts turned the green-hued room into a storm of flashes.
The Janzers streamed in an endless wave, rotating and spinning, never breaking formation no matter how many fell.
Connor took two out with his sword and another by twisting its neck the way Aera had taught him. They’re adjusting, he thought. They discovered the attacker’s weaknesses, avoided the strengths.
The team’s greatest weakness, evidently, was its synsuits.
The plate over Nero’s thigh sprang loose first, and as fast as the armor flew, a Janzer rotated a sword into his flesh. Another Janzer kicked Nero across the cell.
They engulfed Aera, whom Connor could no longer see.
Murray crouched beside the tub, taking fire. An onslaught of pulse blasts aimed at his shoulder finally dislodged the armor there.
The Janzers targeted the weak plate behind Connor’s leg, which popped free. They closed in, and before Connor could react, a Janzer’s boot spun into the back of his leg, crushing his newly healed bone.
He dropped to his knees, grimacing and hissing, and another Janzer roundhouse kicked him in his head and sent him flying backward.
Aera broke free and flung a flash grenade in the air. When it ignited, it filled the cell with silver phosphorescent light and revealed swords frozen midswing, pulse blasts frozen midsalvo, shuriken frozen midthrust.
The Janzers swatted at Connor, over and over and over, rotating, providing fresh legs and arms and swords for him to fend off.
He killed as many as he could, until he couldn’t see or move any longer.
A Janzer jump-kicked him, and he spun in midair, crashing into the ground, where he rolled, avoiding sword thrusts, dodging pulse blasts, no longer feeling his broken leg.
I will not let them keep my father! Connor found his feet beneath him and worked back-to-back with Murray, the way they’d trained.
Nero swung and spun through the Janzers on his good leg, pushing toward Connor and Murray, but there were too many.
A Janzer broke Connor and Murray’s formation, and another ripped the armor from Murray’s forearm, while another swept his legs.
Murray clawed along the ground, reaching for his sword, until a Janzer’s sword tore through the exposed flesh and bone above his wrist.
He screamed loud enough for all the villages in Phanes, all the cities in Piscator, all the facilities in Palaestra to hear.
Aera fought four divisions at once, too far away. The Janzers plucked away her armor the same as Murray’s, their swords and daggers rising, falling, piercing her flesh.
He couldn’t see Nero. Yet Connor slashed and spun, moving and killing as if he were a striker.
More Janzers swooped around Murray. One ripped the rest of the body armor from him, and he again spun to the ground. His face was covered with blood.
“Save yourself!” he shouted. “Connor—”
A Janzer rotated and swung his sword with the grace of a falcon, splitting Murray in half, then kicked him to be sure he broke apart before a healing agent might be used.
A fountain of blood sprayed over Connor, blinding him. He fell to his knees, remembering his nightmare, the one where Janzers killed his mother.
Connor screamed louder than he ever had before.
He felt a connection to the ZPF in a manner he’d only sensed in Zorian’s presence: a powerful telekinetic connection.
He raised his arms and pulled all the zeropoint energy he could summon to the holding cell, focusing it, spreading it, concentrating it upon the Janzers with all his skill, all his emotions, all his intensity and tenacity in the ZPF.
Connor tore hundreds of Janzers apart, severing them the way they had killed his mother and his developer.
Then he collapsed.
Particle 5: Damosel Rhea
Damy stepped onto the teal stone pathway cautiously, then earnestly, like the breeze that hissed through the Dream Forest. She passed several giant sequoias infested with worms that glowed bright lime green. She walked around the pond, inhabited by lotus flowers and black swans.
Music hummed up from beneath the trellis, far, far below.
She passed the marble statues of chancellors and ministers and supreme scientists of the past and present.
The top of the Chalice Archway, a gilded bulb with a chiseled reddish-orange phoenix feather, poked above the trees. As she moved, the rest of the archway came into view.
“Brody?” she said.
No response.
She attempted to link to him through Marstone.
No response.
A shadow sprang up from behind the arch.
“Brody, is that you?”
Damy felt her heart thump. She stepped back.
“Brody?” she said one last time, on the balls of her feet, ready to run.
“Not Brody,” Verne said.
“No.” She stepped back. “NOT AGAIN.”
“Damy? It’s me. It’s Vernon.” He held his arms out and plucked his bow tie in a way that only Verne ever did.
Her heart calmed. “Where’s Brody?”
“Not sure, but if he’s not with you, then my guess is he’s under the trellis.” Verne kicked the ground and moved toward her. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Damy wasn’t glad. She had to find Brody and get out of the Bicentennial and find out what happened with Nero and protect her children. She eyed Verne carefully, still seeing no sign of Antosha in him.
Verne reached for her. His fingers touched hers, and she enjoyed their warmth. Something changed inside her, a sensation unlike any she’d ever felt, like something tapped on her neurons, one by one. She troubled to draw breath, then steadied herself. The negativity is your enemy. The enemy is your negativity. Ignore the negativity and defeat your enemy.
Whether it was discomfiture or pleasure in her heart, Damy did not know. What she knew was that Verne, the child orphan turned Boy Plunger turned developed transhuman-cum-RDD scientist, who shadowed her and answered her and would die for her if she asked him to, had somehow wrangled his way into her life.
And now that they were here together, she was glad for the chance to say goodbye.
Damy peered into his blue-gray eyes and thought, Verne, Verne, Verne, you are my Verne. She ran her fingers through the waves of his hair, softer than a desert dune. She squeezed his hand tighter. She felt a bit light-headed. She tried to reach Brody again, to no avail, and decided to stay with Verne in the forest.
They meandered along the path beyond the Chalice Archway, around the sequoias, over an artificial stream, and back again. Along the way, they talked about the twins and Project Silkscape and the commonwealth. Verne apologized for taking her to the gorge. Damy accepted and told him to forget it.
“Brody hasn’t forgotten it, though, has he?” Verne said.
“It wasn’t your fault I wanted to see you.”
Verne stopped
and looked at Damy, who looked back at him. She felt heat all over her chest and face now, as if her body burned.
“I’ve wanted to say this for so long but didn’t know how,” Verne said. “I know it’s not appropriate. I know you might slap me. I know you might hate me—”
“I’d never hate you—”
Verne’s face turned as red as Damy’s, and he leaned into her. He swayed with her and the faint chords of music that swelled in the forest, as the wind swirled flower petals around them.
“When I’m with you, Miss Damosel, in this underground labyrinth, this underground inferno, I’m awake, I’m alive …”
Damy felt light-headed. Memories flowed to the surface, like the veins through the nearby lotus leaves: the first day she’d met Verne, fresh off the Harpoons, a trader who believed he’d take over the world, take over her world, and she’d put him in his place and sought his removal from Nicola. As he held her now, beneath the canopy of leaves and the starry night sky, she felt uncontrollably and wildly numb. And she saw this had been the only reasonable physiological response with Brody so far away, the birth of the twins so near; she needed to keep her feelings for Verne tucked in her subconscious where they wouldn’t destroy the life she worked so hard to build, her life with Brody, her life in—
Verne pressed his lips to hers.
She closed her eyes as his essence guided her, made her want him more than she understood she did. She opened her eyes, as if awakening from a dream. She pressed her forefingers to her lips and turned away, as if to holo-capture the moment, keep it forever where only she would ever find it. She closed her eyes, her heart beating so fast she thought it might implode, the heat escaping her body as if she were a star going nova.
“I apologize,” Verne said, breathing hard, his voice cracking.
Damy struggled for air. She felt as if she were suffocating beneath layers and layers of cloth …
The sensation began in her toes and spread to her ankles and moved up her knees, into her pelvis and breasts, around her neck and eyes and head. She coughed and wheezed.
“Damy?” Verne shouted, reaching for her.
She eased to her knees. She clutched her throat and coughed, then dropped backward on the ground.
“Damy!” Verne straddled her.
She barely saw him now. She scraped the skin around her neck, pulling, grasping at the vessels that sent her blood rushing. During her last conscious breath, she felt Verne’s hands touch hers as he pushed with her against the invisible terror—
She lost the strength to keep her eyes open.
Damy felt Verne’s balmy tears drip upon her chest, the last drops of love she would ever know.
Particle 6: Gwendolyn Horvearth
Gwen grinned and twirled with her magenta boa. She swirled it over Antosha, spun out of his grasp and back into it. She wished he would play his deodar violin, slip off her clothes, and make love to her for hours and hours as he had in the Spas of Tranquility.
He held her close, and she heard his heart hum as she knew he could hear hers.
Polychromatic rose petals drifted down from the trellis.
She looked up and saw Brody staggering through the crowd of soaked and naked bodies. Antosha twisted Gwen away from him and held her arm to his. They danced, and she breathed in the scents of perfume, sweat, sex, and champagne, her vision obscured by flying hair and boas and foam.
Brody neared.
He looked revolting, even more so than earlier, when she’d had her bit of fun with him for the evening’s performance. His hair shot out in all directions, his eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth dripped with saliva. Tonight, the people would see just how unworthy a scientist he was, and finally, finally realize that Antosha should lead Project Reassortment.
She danced faster and screamed with delight.
A woman grabbed Brody and kissed him. He threw her off and sailed through the crowd. Gwen saw him disappear and reappear, obscured by a hand, a glass, a fountain of champagne, an aristocrat’s legs thrown around a lover. She broke from Antosha and floated to Brody. She smoothed his hair, moved the boa around his neck.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away from me forever,” she said, running the back of her hand along Brody’s slippery chin. “I knew you wanted me.”
Brody licked his lips and swallowed and his voice slurred. “Gwen, you’re not yourself.”
“Me?” she laughed. “Look at you. You have lipstick smeared along your cheek, you’re drenched in sweat, you stink like an ox.” She giggled. “Dance with me.” She twirled with her boa again.
Brody spoke, but she couldn’t understand him.
Now Brody grabbed Gwen and pulled her close. “You don’t know what he’s capable of!”
She leaned into him for a kiss, but he grunted and pushed her aside.
She lost her step, but Antosha caught her and she twirled with him.
“Get away from her!” Brody said.
Antosha didn’t respond.
Brody looked here and there as if he was searching for something. But for what? The Janzers? Gwen had seen them bolt hours ago. More likely he was still looking for Damy, but she was in the forest for a meeting with her lover, or so Antosha told her. How he knew this, Gwen did not ask, did not care.
She enjoyed Antosha’s touch presently, his smell, his lips, his hands all over her. He pushed his head beside hers, looking at Brody, Gwen assumed, who wouldn’t leave them alone.
It’s over, Gwen thought. The people will never want a debacle like Brody running Reassortment research. They’ll want … no, they’ll beg Antosha to step up after they see what Brody looks like tonight in the highlights from the Beimeni Press.
She smiled at the thought.
Antosha broke away and cut in front of Brody, who lacked coordination in his lunge for Antosha’s throat. Antosha squeezed a tiny balloon near Brody’s face.
More fun. More fun.
Brody sneezed.
Antosha strutted to Gwen, lifted her by her arms, and spun with her. She responded immediately.
“Not even you, good captain,” Antosha said, “can hold back my violin.”
Brody’s eyes reddened. He blinked and rubbed, rubbed and blinked. “What’d … you … do to me? You … what’d you do …”
“Are you seeing the world clearly, Captain?”
Antosha tangled Gwen in his arms and dipped her.
“The Granville panels, good captain, they are where you will experience your choice destiny, not with me, not with Gwen.”
Antosha had told Gwen that Brody told him about Delphi’s constant prediction for his life, his choice destiny.
Brody swayed. Gwen thought he might topple.
Now the scene around the celebration flickered and focused upon a canopy of leaves. The view dipped down the long trunks.
“The tide in their affair has come,” Antosha said, spinning with Gwen, “and taken them like a flood, wafted her lover on to a crime of passion.”
The Chalice Archway was rendered into view and beyond it, Verne, his fingers tethered to Damy’s throat. The hiss that escaped her lips was like no sound Gwen had ever heard.
“A crime of passion!” Antosha spun Gwen past Brody. Like a boomerang, she returned to his grasp.
Brody moved toward the elevator, his gait somewhere between a stagger and a sprint.
Gwen stepped out of Antosha’s arms and looked up.
“What happened?” Gwen said.
Antosha grabbed her and laughed. “Our music, my sweet violin.”
Particle 7: Broden Barão
Brody punched DREAM FOREST and latched to the wall. He blinked rapidly. He felt as if two people competed for his sight. He peered over the skyline of Beimeni City, and its buildings parted and returned in a trail of darkness and moonlight. He closed his eyes. He exhaled. He envisioned Damy beneath Verne, who straddled and hovered and choked her. Had he really seen it? Was it some mirage of Antosha’s? He’d been drugged, he knew that much, but Damy’s face, the
horrible sound she made, seemed so real.
Brody stumbled through the maze of giant sequoias.
“Damy!”
His speech slurred. He careened over the bridge and called her name.
“Damy, where are you!”
Silence.
“Damy, can you hear me?”
Violet rose petals rained through the airy parts of the canopy. Some twinkled through and across the Dream Forest, over sculptures, tree trunks, the pond, the archway. He looked up. The Chalice Archway!
Brody staggered under the archway and ran into Verne. They fell to the ground.
Verne gasped and groaned.
“What did you do?” Brody said. Verne’s head moved and multiplied, leaving tracers.
“I didn’t mean it!” Verne said. “I mean, I didn’t, I mean—”
Brody threw him against the archway. He knelt to Damy.
Her face broke and trailed and combined.
Brody rubbed his eyes and placed his unsteady hands on what he thought was Damy’s chest but was instead the ground, cold and rough upon his fingers. He waited for the specters to combine, felt her silky hair and nose and chin.
He pushed his ear to her chest. When he heard nothing he screamed, a scream loud enough to shake the commonwealth.
“Damy … please don’t … don’t leave me …”
He heard a voice.
He killed her.
“Who’s there?” Brody raised his head and turned to and fro. The voice sounded like his own. He couldn’t be sure if it spoke out loud.
He killed her!
“I’m so sorry!” Verne said, on the ground now, face to face with Brody. “I. Didn’t. Do. This.” He struggled to draw breath. “I would never hurt her—”
He killed her!
Brody jerked his head to the side.
Verne killed her!
Brody turned to Verne. “You,” he said, “this is because of you!”
“No, no, no, I tried to help her! I tried to save her! I summoned the Janzers!”
He killed her!
“You killed her!”
Brody grabbed Verne by the throat. His hands tightened, his arm twisted, and he heard a snap.