The Synthesis and the Animus (The Phantom of the Earth Book 3) (10 page)

A shadow spread in front of Connor. He broke away from Arty’s grasp, turning.

“The captain awakens,” Murray said.

Connor made for the cove’s entrance. He expected Arty to join them, but instead his foster father sauntered toward the lake.

“You aren’t coming?” Connor said.

Arty laughed like the big man he once was, putting both his hands on his slim belly. “I’ll do a lot for the Front, though I’ll freely admit I don’t have the stomach for interrogations. You go. Aera and Pirro are also waiting for you.”

Blackeye Cavern

300 meters deep

“Lady Eulalie, where’re you taking me?” Brody murmured.

“Quickly, bring another dose of uficilin.”

The voices around Brody dropped to whispers.

“Lady Eulalie, what happened to my father?”

“Hurry!”

“Got it.”

Brody heard himself mumbling, tried to get his wits about him. He’d been dreaming, he realized. A man with dark, wrinkly skin lifted a blindfold and chucked a glass of water over Brody’s face. Brody quieted and licked the droplets from his lips. They tasted like dirt and blood. The old man forced open Brody’s eyelids and used a loupe to peer into his eyes.

“This fella’s been concussed,” the old man said, “and by the looks of him a lot worse.” He jolted the spindly man, whom Brody recognized from the attack, with his cane. “Dumb
fool
.”

The spindly one shrugged.

“He’ll be all right,” the woman said. Gently, she pushed a needle into Brody’s arm.

He wheezed and puked over the side of the bed.

“Disgusting,” the old man said, dodging to one side. “You
all
should be cleaning this up after you disobeyed me.”

Brody wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. He was lying on a gurney in a small cove, his attackers around him. The tattoos upon two of them were Piscatorian, but the dark, wrinkled man with the cane appeared far too aged for any Beimenian territory, particularly a northern one where Beimenians treated their skin to a darker tone. The underdeveloped boy … and the woman … the boy, and the woman, and the spindly man all seemed … familiar. He searched his memories, but could not for his life identify any of them.

Brody’s head throbbed violently. He attempted to connect with the ZPF and found he could not. Recent events rushed forward in his consciousness: the attack in the Superstructure, the ride in the transport, the oily chemical stench, and the baton and the pain, and now Brody registered the cold weight of the Converse Collar among his many aches and stings, recognized the glow of its green light around his neck. The design was RDD, used to suppress telepathy of skilled transhumans sentenced to the Lower Level or held in Farino Prison.

“Are you taking me to the Lower Level?” Brody heard himself say. They didn’t respond. “Hullo?” He lifted his arms and legs—but only so far before the chains that secured him pulled tight. “What’s going on here?”

“Johann is
dead
,” the spindly man said, “same as Stanley and Wilhelm and Nora and Nathan and Aislin and all the rest—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Only Brody
did
know. He remembered every name from failed Jubilees, the celebrations that turned into funerals, the hope in the commonwealth destroyed by death after death after death. “I believe in our research,” Brody said softly. “I believe we’re close to the cure—”

“You’re lying!” the underdeveloped boy said.

The spindly man turned. He seemed surprised, yet pleased. He nodded, his teeth resting on his lower lip. He turned back toward Brody and raised the Reassortment baton. Brody steeled himself.

“Boy! I told you to settle down.” The old man swung his cane.

The spindly man seethed but did as he was told.

The underdeveloped boy looked like he was trying to peer into Brody’s thoughts, his neck slightly bowed, his face sweaty, a look of determination in his sea-green eyes. He appeared adolescent, but his bearing seemed more like that of a seasoned RDD scientist than that of a commonwealth courier.

The woman didn’t say anything. She toyed with her shuriken as if they were benari coins, leaning on her right leg, then her left. She had a taut, muscular body not unlike an aera’s.

Could she be an aera,
Brody thought,
could she be the first to turn against me?
Verena’s warnings seemed prescient, suddenly.

The spindly man pointed a lean finger at Brody. “He justifies his actions as orders obeyed and tells himself what he does is for the good of transhumans.” He looked Brody in the eye. “But the truth is you were jealous of Jeremiah Selendia, and you lied to me, and you betrayed your oath!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brody said.

He
had
wanted the Reassortment project, but Jeremiah brought the Lady Isabelle’s investigation upon himself! Brody had never forced Jeremiah’s thoughts, speeches, or ideas that ran counter to the chancellor’s precepts! He searched his memories for Jeremiah’s research team. And then recognition took him.
Murray Olyorna?
he thought.

No, Murray of the RDD he could not be. Murray and Jeremiah had disappeared many decades ago. There was no way they had survived, not without the Fountain of Youth, not without the ministry’s knowledge.

But what if?

Brody squinted at the spindly man’s sunken face, the angry lines around his eyes.

“Wheel him to strategy,” the old man said and prodded the boy with his cane.

The boy gripped the gurney handles. The woman held open a swinging alloy door. They left the cove and moved through a dim corridor. It was silent but for drips of leaking water and footsteps over stone. A moldy stench wafted through the hall. Brody sneezed, then winced in pain.

In the strategy room, the boy grabbed a tray that held an apple, plain oatmeal, a glass of orange juice, and a slice of flaked bread. “I know this isn’t what you’re accustomed to in Phanes,” he said, “but it’ll have to do.”

Brody didn’t know how starved he was until he spied the grub. His mouth watered. Would they poison him? Likely not, he concluded. It would be too much trouble to risk an attack inside the Superstructure, then travel through the transport and supply tunnels with a kidnapped supreme scientist just to kill him.

He devoured the oatmeal and shoved the bread in his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in years. “What day is it?”

The spindly man adjusted the gurney. “The plan is to release you,” he said. “But you get any ideas,” he pointed to the woman’s baton, “and we won’t hesitate. You’ll get out of this quicker if you cooperate—”

“If you’re interested in benaris,” Brody said, “you’ll receive none.” He downed the juice. “If you’re interested in concessions of land, you’ll receive none. If you’re interested in altering the commonwealth, this is the worst manner to proceed—”

“My boy,” the old man said, “we seek no such nonsense.”

The elder spoke rationally and thoughtfully. Brody sensed a person he could converse with. “I know you’re the BP,” Brody said. “I’ve heard of your methods and am impressed by your adaptation to the commonwealth’s systems. It took great skill to—”

“Spare us the lecture, my boy.”

The old man nodded to the woman, who activated a Granville panel that filled the room with a scene from Piscator Square where a man was being apprehended by the Janzers. “A friend of ours is in your custody,” the old man added, “a friend you once knew well.” He leaned closer. “What do you know about Permutation Crypt?”

Brody furrowed his brow and studied the man the Janzers had cornered. He wore a tan cape and bronze chains around his neck. Two burlap sacks hung from straps over his shoulders. His trimmed beard covered his dirty face from his ears to beneath his chin, his hair a nest, his boots of worn leather, tied at his ankles and knees. Two full Janzer divisions surrounded him with the Lady Isabelle and a pack of tenehounds at the lead. Whoever this man was, he was clearly important to the chancellor.

“I do not know this man in Piscator Square,” Brody said, “and I’m unfamiliar with any Permutation Crypt. I live in Phanes, but I stay far removed from the politics of the great city. You should also know that by now a Janzer search is likely underway—”

The old man flicked the phosphorescent collar around Brody’s neck with his cane. “In case you’re lying for Isabelle, know that this nifty toy keeps you out of here,” he plunked his head with his cane, then poked toward the ceiling, “and with our modifications, it also keeps Marstone away from you.” Brody nodded. The old man continued, “A supreme scientist, former or not, cannot be held under duress without the knowledge of the ministry. And you, my boy, being third in line for the chancellorship, should not have been withheld this information.”

Brody studied the image in the panel. If Jeremiah lived, he would be aware, surely. Not even the supreme director Isabelle Lutetia could justify withholding such knowledge from the ministry. He determined to seek counsel from Minister Charles—if he got out of this alive.

“I’m not giving you access to the Reassortment research,” Brody said.

“My boy, that’s far from what we seek.”

“What do you want, then?”

The old man swiped his long graying beard. “That will depend on what you feel within. Expect a message from us, a message meant for you and your strategist and your striker, and
no one else
—”

The woman, who Brody decided
was
an aera (though he remained unsure which one), handed the spindly man a box. The spindly man, who Brody was starting to believe might really be Murray Olyorna, slid open one end of the box and shook it upside down, dropping a unit access card—the card that Damy had thought she lost on North Boardwalk in Beimeni City—on Brody’s tray.

Brody cringed.

“In case it seems like a good idea to reveal our existence or this meeting, remember, we can bring the hammer home, anytime.”

“Let me assure you,” Brody said, “I have resourceful allies in the commonwealth, and should any harm come to those I love, we will tear you all apart.”

The old man signaled, and the underdeveloped boy replaced the hood over Brody’s head.

Beimeni City

Phanes, Underground Central

2,500 meters deep

A raven landed upon the white marble bust of Chancellor Masimovian adorning the stone skywalk above the Janzer division’s post. It pecked and squawked,
Lead, lead, lead,
repeating a Janzer’s assertion to Damy earlier that they needed a lead in Brody’s case. Damy wished the damn thing would fly through one of the tunnels and disappear.

She sat next to Verne on a seat made of synthetic liquid that froze at thirty degrees Celsius. After hours waiting, her bones felt like one giant bruise.

Damy sighed. Verne took her hand.

When Brody hadn’t returned home the night before, or the morning after, Damy had reached out to Verena and Nero through the ZPF, but Marstone indicated they weren’t available. She left messages and contacted the DOC, as was required by the Office of the Chancellor when a supreme scientist disappeared. Supreme scientists made for valuable targets to the criminal mind keen on ransom, though Damy couldn’t recall a successful abduction payoff in the hundreds that had been attempted over the decades. The Janzers
always
located the supreme scientists, usually within twenty-four hours, which was why, with no news at all on Brody’s whereabouts, she was starting to really worry.

She accessed the ZPF and requested connection to Brody through Marstone, and was denied once again. She lowered her head and placed her palms over her eyes.

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Verne said. “He’s the most skilled telepath in the commonwealth. No one could ever hurt him.” He looked at her with such hope in his eyes that she believed him. The Janzer hunt aside, Brody’s skill with the ZPF should overturn any attempt to hold him captive.

The Janzers stirred.

“What’s happening?” Damy said. She rushed toward the workstations, where the Janzer division operated six Granville spheres, though the data in the holograms they generated was hidden to her. “Tell me what you see.”

“We have a lead, Madam Scientist,” the Janzer said, his eyes moving up and down rapidly. “We’re acting on it, though that’s all I can say for now.”

“Damy,” Verne said, “there’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s go back to the lab. When Brody returns, he’ll be pleased with our progress on Project Silkscape and uplifted with news that the menagerie opening remains on target.” He leaned closer to her and whispered, “Let’s not give them a reason to demote us too.”

Damy frowned and pointed upward, indicating Marstone, the eye in the sky. She followed Verne to the transport.

Research & Development Department (RDD)

Palaestra, Underground Northeast

“What disgusting animals,” Damy said to Verne.

Above her workstation was rendered the
Phorusrhacos longissimus
, the prehistoric “terror bird” her synbio engineers, scientists, and artists had created. They were ancient carnivorous, flightless birds. Strike Team Hyperion had discovered eighteen species on direct orders from Lady Isabelle, Damy had learned, and Verne had secured the fossils in the facility’s back end, where he and the team had done their best, in less than a day, to recreate the genetic materials and reverse engineer a known genome into the prehistoric beasts.

The synconvert organism had aided in the creation of the terror bird’s genome, as she hoped it would, but she didn’t understand why Lady Isabelle desired something so … hideous. “We’re not keeping these … things in the menagerie,” Damy said.

She and Verne worked side by side on the uppermost rim of the front end of the cylindrical Nicola Facility, the rim labeled PALEONTOLOGY 70. This part of the facility consisted of seventy circular floors, each lined with glossy green and midnight-blue elephant’s ear plants, and amaranth, whose burgundy blooms dangled like ropes against a backdrop of running water.

“I don’t know,” Verne said, “some people might appreciate them … lawyers, holo-producers, politicians …”