The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4) (12 page)

“No.” Isabelle balled her hand into a fist and shook it toward Antosha. “How else do you think the terrorists could’ve found the center of mass in Permutation Crypt?”

Antosha laughed. “You can’t believe that the puzzle you constructed could be solved? These aren’t Harpoon candidates.” Isabelle folded her arms and looked away from him. “My lady, I told you as much, I told you the only way to stop Jeremiah Selendia and destroy the BP’s resolve was to kill him. Instead the BP’s morale—”

Isabelle whipped her face toward Antosha. “The chancellor—”

“Has gone so far into his own world, he can’t see the one that collapses around him—”

“—hasn’t forgotten my failure to obtain Aera,” Isabelle finished. “If he learns that she’s the one who’s been stealing synisms from the RDD all this time, I could lose my hold—”

“You can handle the chancellor, as you have.”

Isabelle threw up her arms. “He’s still angry with me for defying him on Captain Barão.” Her bracelets jangled as she wrapped her left arm across her stomach and set her chin upon her right fist. “I can push only so far.” She shook her head, and her long lavender hair shook side to side. “He still has control—”

“Don’t speak to me like one of your neophytes. You had Jeremiah Selendia, the man who built the commonwealth, the man who could destroy us.” Antosha moved closer to her and put his hands on her waist. “My lady, death by age is a thing of the past, but still the end comes to transhumans in many forms.”

Isabelle broke away from his touch. “Sometimes it comes in the form of a telekinetic attack, though I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She transferred visions to Antosha’s neurochip and he saw the attack on the Crypt in his extended consciousness, the same as she had, apparently, through a Janzer’s mind.

“It seems the whelp is developing faster following the fever,” Isabelle breathed, “as you feared.”

She’d told Antosha how Hans had infected Connor with
E. evolution
, a historical method of advancing the transhuman genome no longer in use by the great houses of development. Isabelle had made sure Connor received plenty of fluids and sustenance, hopeful of turning the underdeveloped whelp to the commonwealth’s cause. Instead, the sheep had escaped her dragnet in Beimeni City.

“I would’ve preferred it if
all
of these Selendias were dead by now.” Antosha examined the zeropoint energy in the impulse waves spread by Cornelius Selendia. “He doesn’t yet have control of his abilities.” Antosha blinked closed his extended consciousness. “I can overwhelm him should he dare to challenge us.”

“I hope so,” Isabelle said, “because Marstone chatter suggests the terrorists are massing, though I don’t know where, and I still haven’t heard from Zorian—”

“Who could be dead for all you know.”

“I doubt that. Barão’s striker is too noble to allow it.”

“Assuming
he
survived. I don’t think Jeremiah would treat so kindly with
Lord
Nero Silvana, not after what he and Brody did to him in Palaestra. And in any case, why, if Aera survived, would she reveal herself now, over a hundred fifty years later, and why would she help Jeremiah?”

“I don’t know, but she’s no less lethal. And it’s only a matter of time before she seeks out the Lorum. Jeremiah isn’t stupid. He knows what you can do with such a species.”

“Way ahead of you.” Antosha turned and activated a Granville sphere. Above it, a black bot, larger than a Janzer and lined with citrine phosphorescent light, appeared.

Isabelle examined the rendition, raising her hand to it. “A Protector Prototype would fall quicker to Aera than a Janzer—”

“This isn’t a Protector, at least not how you think of them. I’ve made some … improvements.” Black balls covered with diamond spikes orbited around the bot, then circled around Antosha, who held one in his hand. “We cannot risk losing the Lorum, not when we’re so close to achieving our goals.”

“What will you do?”

He looked at the orb, then at Isabelle, smiling. “Until we’re ready for the Timescape Mission, I’ll move the Lorum orb to the one place Aera would never go.”

Halcyon Village

Dunamis, Underground West

2,500 meters deep

Oriana awoke, rubbed the reflective surface of her Granville panel, and stared at the woman she was becoming. She allowed her mind to enter the ZPF.

Her new morning ritual …

… Clouds parted for an orange sun. Fog whispered through a mossy stone inlet. A wooden ship sailed the shoals, half-eaten by the elements, its sails tattered. A dolphin broke the surface, two dolphins, three dolphins, in unison. And now the mermaids, as adolescent as Oriana once was, their bodies layered in cloth to their light green fins, their silver hair gathered loosely with clips atop their heads. Their mother joined them on the rocks, a seashell in her hand, a colorful butterfly dancing around her face.

Oriana’s mind fogged, and the images blurred. Nathan’s comment returned to her, as it had so often since that night at the Candidate Café:
May the most exquisite candidate prove worthy of her smarts and her lineage.
She brushed her hair, and the shades of violet and crimson intermingled like blood and stone. What did Nathan know about her lineage? And why didn’t she know about it, if he did?

She’d conducted her own research, hacked into the House Summerset archive and found a man who bore her surname listed on the Mantel of Champions—Broden Barão, of House Variscan. When Oriana had inquired about this Broden Barão, the lady snapped, “I’ve told you everything you need to know! Best leave it all alone, young lady.”

Oriana didn’t leave it all alone.

She had again broke into the House Summerset archive, but the file on Broden Barão was then encrypted.

“You … need … filed … Marstone … warrant!”

Lady Parthenia’s distant shouts made Oriana turn. She tied her silk nightgown and crept out of her room on the balls of her feet.

“I made a promise that I must keep!”

A man’s voice, unknown to her.

She snuck through the corridor, down the polished limestone spiral staircase, and cupped her ear. The voices came from several levels down.
Quick as light, invisible as wind.
She recalled Lord Thaddeus’s words and darted downstairs, past a keeper bot vacuuming a Gallian carpet at the entrance to the holographic art gallery, past the Loverealean chandeliers and shivering maroon curtains at the salon level, and down to the sun room. She could hear the voices clearly now, one level below.

Oriana slid against the wall and listened.

“Lord Nero, I know how you feel.”

“Do you?”

Lord Thaddeus
, Oriana thought,
and they seem cordial. Who’s Lord Nero?

“I’ve spoken many times to Minister Carpathia. She’s made her position clear. The support isn’t there.”

“Did you tell her about Jeremiah Selendia and the prison?”

“You, of all people, should understand why I cannot do that.”

“So now you expect me to walk away from them.”

“You’re a fugitive!”

“We’ve been set up!”

“They’re getting the best training in the commonwealth, in the safest village in all of Dunamis.”

“They’re not safe in the commonwealth.”

Oriana lost her footing.

Pebbles fell over the ledge and bounced in the well at the base of the spiral staircase.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“Never mind. Look, we need to set a contingency plan. I’m not losing them to the Lower Level the way I lost Brodes.”

Who’s Brodes?
Oriana thought as she tiptoed down the steps. They were walking downstairs now, the voices growing more remote. She followed at a distance, picking up stray words.

She moved down several more levels.

“The Harpoons are regulated. They’ll be prepared. Now you must go. I apologize for my lady. She means not what she says, so close to the Harpoons—”

“What’s your plan?”

“They’ll be fine. Please, you have to leave. Please don’t come back. Exonerate yourself, if you will, but do not bring hatred to those twins, they don’t deserve it, not after—”

“What have you told them about their parents?”

“Please, my lord, not now. They’ll be out and about … minute and … need clear heads …”

Oriana hung over the railing, but the conversation faded from there as the men moved deeper into the elevator passageway. The passage was illuminated orange, which meant the elevator was whisking them diagonally and up to the Grand Foyer.

Oriana climbed the staircase, round and round, thoughts of her lineage sifting through her mind, ideas of a distant life she did not know and, for some reason, was actively prevented from learning about. Who were her parents? What was the purpose of Lord Nero’s visit? What had angered Lady Parthenia? The lady’s temper flared more and more these days, but this morning she had been the loudest Oriana had ever heard her.

Green phosphorescent light emitted from Pasha’s room, and Oriana was surprised to find him awake, doing push-ups on the ground, his muscles bulging through the skin on his shoulders and back.

“You’re up early for once.”

Pasha, now a man grown, grunted with the next repetition. Sweat poured through his dark blue hair and around his eyes, which held a fury Oriana couldn’t always relate with the little boy she knew days ago. “I’m going to get the first bid at the Harpoon Auction,” he said.

She knelt. “That means you’re going to have to beat me.”

Pasha gasped and plopped onto his chest. He turned toward her. Perspiration flowed around the dimples in his cheeks. “I’ve never lost to you, O, and I don’t intend to on Harpoon day.”

Oriana didn’t want to argue with him again about this. She sat beside him, crossed her legs and pushed her hair behind her ears. “You want to check something out?”

“No.”

She stood. “Get dressed.” She threw clothes at him.

They entered the staircase, their heads covered with silk hoods. Oriana peered down the winding stairs, then up above. She heard the sounds of dripping water, nothing more.

“Let’s go,” she said.

They climbed, as quickly as light, as invisible as wind.

“Where’re we going?” Pasha said.

“Shush!”

At the top of the staircase, they arrived at a door labeled NORTHEAST EXIT.

“You know we’re not supposed to go outside,” he said. Harpoon candidates were forbidden from leaving their houses of development without proper credentials or escorts; the lady and lord had told the twins the rule was part of the tome outlining regulations of development. “I’m not going!”

Oriana ignored him and extended her consciousness to check the time: 0636. “You know how we’ve watched the sun rise and fall in the simulator and in the Granville panels?”

“Sure.”

“How about watching it in the
true
Granville sky?” She smiled and put her hand on the door.

Pasha winced but he didn’t move back down the steps.

She opened the door, and the stairwell filled with predawn light. They climbed over the balustrade and slid down a pipe on the edge of the roof’s golden dome to a cobblestone path below.

They sprinted all the way to the top of Halcyon Village, with its maze of white marble arches and grapevine-coated plinths. From the peak, they could see the whole town down the stony hill and the man-made lagoon cresting along the shoreline below.

Oriana breathed heavily. “Just … in time.” Clouds flitted across the sky, and a swift breeze carried the scent of vetiver over the rocky mesa. The artificial winds lifted her hair and cooled her skin.

“Have you been here before?” Pasha said.

“No, but I heard the Summersets talking about how beautiful the views are from the village apex.”

“Thanks for bringing me.”

The twins cupped their chins in their hands while leaning on a plinth. The sun rose over the horizon with many shades of red, orange, yellow, and violet, breaking into and around the compressed diamond support pillars that held up the Beimeni zone of the underground. The aroma of fresh fruit wafted over the village from the bazaar. Oriana could hear the bots and merchants setting up booths and tents.

She turned to Pasha. “I have something important to discuss with you.”

“Not more about our lineage.”

“Don’t you care?”

“I’m curious, I’ll admit, but we’ll have the rest of our lives to research our past—
if
we succeed in the Harpoons. Then there’s your wager …” Pasha had let her know often how stupid he thought she was for entering into the wager with Falcon and Ursula.

“I won’t fail in the Harpoons,” Oriana said, louder than she knew she should have. She lowered her voice. “I overheard a conversation I wasn’t meant to this morning—”

“O, you have to stop this!”

“A man was in the house! His name was Nero. The lady yelled at him! Then the lord talked to him and they mentioned
us
. The lord said something about Marstone and a warrant and told him to leave.”

“I’ve heard enough—”

“There’s more. He mentioned someone named Brodes. What if Brodes is another name for
Broden
. What if this man was at the house to tell us about our father, and the Summersets won’t allow him to?”

Pasha grabbed Oriana’s wrist.

“You’re hurting me,” she said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Shut up,” he said. He pulled her to the other side of a Redstone Dragon statue, the statue synonymous with Halcyon Village. He pressed his forefinger over his lips and pointed to the other side of the village apex. She craned her head around the dragon’s neck and peeked out the sides of her eyes.

A pair of Janzers crested the rise, hands on shuriken and scanners.

“What’d we do?” Oriana said.

“Let me try something.”

Pasha stared at a flock of seagulls, then closed his eyes. She felt what he felt and heard what he heard—the songs of distant birds. He sent messages of his own over the ZPF. She felt him whisper to the gulls in a language without words.

This must be how he tames lower fauna in the simulations
, she thought.