The Synthesis and the Animus (The Phantom of the Earth Book 3) (22 page)

Brody took in the sheep-sized, hoofed mammals he’d heard about so often. Its eyes scanned them as it used its muscular jaws to rip through leaves from a nearby chestnut tree. At NEOGENE PERIOD, the elevator stopped.

“Here we are,” Damy said. They stepped into arctic winds amid a tundra landscape, with low hills, streams, and the smell of salt and grass. In the horizon, snow-covered mountains and glaciers loomed beneath a sky bluer than the sea, a perfect Granville illusion.

“Did you have to pick an ice age?” Brody said. The ground shook beneath his feet. He searched for cracks. “An earthquake? Here?” Damy shook her head no. “Are you sure?” She shook her head yes.

Brody turned.

A shadow moved up over the nearest hill. It was too big to be an elephant, with two tusks close-set, like long fangs. The ground vibrated. The animal’s muscles bulged through its gray skin. Its bean-like eyes seemed fearful, or at least cautious, of the human presence. Brody opened his mind and sensed the animal’s trepidation in the ZPF.

“It’s the
Deinotherium
,” Damy said, “of the Gelasian age. His name is—”

“Antarctica,” Brody said, “I remember.”

Damy had directed Antarctica’s birth while Brody was on Vigna. While at first the medical bots thought Antarctica had been stillborn, Damy had known otherwise and revived him. The successful birth of the ancient animal provided new energy to her team, and to Project Silkscape.

Brody smiled. “I said secure, not suicidal, Damy.”

“Come on.” She took him closer to the animal. “He won’t hurt you.”

Brody stroked Antarctica’s leathery skin. The
Deinotherium
twitched his leg and turned with tusks that Brody assumed could impale anything on the Earth. He ducked.

Damy laughed and dragged over a massive trough full of bright-colored leaves.

“Treat time?”

The leaves disappeared before Brody finished his question. Damy brushed her forefingers across the side of Antarctica’s belly. Her grin disappeared when she stared at Brody. “The temperatures on this level tend to interfere with surveillance, even…” She pointed up toward the eye in the sky. “So what happened in Portage?”

Brody exhaled. “It’s time that you’ve seen what I’ve seen, experienced what I’ve experienced, heard what I’ve heard …”

“What’re you talking about?”

Brody lifted her hand from Antarctica’s snout and took her to the edge of the level near a patch of aromatic plants. Antarctica lumbered back over the hill toward some trees in the distance. Brody wrapped his hand around Damy’s neck and, staring into her eyes, brought her into his mind. The NEOGENE PERIOD with its hills and snowy horizon disappeared …

… And when sight and sound and smell returned, they were under a hood together, Damy’s face bashed by the BP as Brody’s had been. She convulsed as Brody had when the Reassortment baton struck. She listened to the BP and learned about Permutation Crypt and Jeremiah Selendia. She awoke in their unit with the Granville illusion of the Island of Reverie.

“You were abducted by the terrorists,” Damy said, “and you didn’t tell me until now?”

Brody pressed his forehead against hers. “There’s more.”

He showed her his visits with Ministers Charles and Kaspasparon, the BP’s coded message, and Jocelyn at the Spa of Delphi. He showed her the briefing on Permutation Crypt, and finally, his confrontation with Marstone.

“Stop!” she said. “I want out! Take me out!”…

… The tundra reappeared. Damy stepped back, her hand over her mouth.

“I would have told you sooner,” Brody said, “but you’ve been under a lot of stress, and when you’re not in Nicola or Silkscape City, you’re out somewhere with Verne—”

“Don’t start about Verne again, he’s a friend! My gods! You’ve aided the BP and revealed yourself to Marstone. Does the chancellor know? Does Lady Isabelle know?”

“I didn’t break any rules, I accessed Marstone’s Database, fully in my rights—”

“I meant do they know about this Permutation Crypt?”

Brody cupped her cheek. “I’m not sure about the chancellor, but Lady Isabelle tortured Jeremiah, searched his mind, closed in on the BP, sent their people to the surface as volunteers.”

Damy shook her head. “It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?” She pulled his hands away from her face, then covered her mouth, her voice a whisper. “The Jubilees … I told you …”

“Lady Isabelle seeks to silence the rebellion …” The forbidden word felt too comfortable to him now.

“Where does that leave you in this? Brody, you’re not—”

“I serve the people of Beimeni, as the strike team captains of Livelle served the people of the underground before me.” He paused. “I must find out the truth, and if the truth includes an illegal prison and the torture of a former supreme scientist, I must inform the ministry—”

“They won’t believe you. Oh, why didn’t you tell me this sooner? Brody, you can’t keep all these secrets from me!”

Brody moved his forefingers through Damy’s silky hair and inhaled her lily scent. “I’m so sorry. Please, forgive—”

“Can you blame me for spending time with Verne when you’re never around? When you were on the mission, it was one thing, but since you’ve been back I’ve been just as much alone. I wake up at night and have no idea where you are, or to a home invasion by Lady Isabelle!” She caught her breath. “Then you’re arrested and as quickly released by the chancellor, and you and he told me it was just a misunderstanding. And now I find out the lady told it true, didn’t she? You’ve been committing treason! Do you understand what you’ve done to us? To me?”

Brody nodded. “The ministry will believe if they see Jeremiah Selendia, and if they see but refuse to believe, or if all else fails, you will escape with our children. They’ll be fully developed soon.”

“And go where?”

“Navita, Piscator, and Gaia are a few of the territories friendly to the BP.”

“No,” Damy said.

“Please, my love—”

“I’ll take the twins to the North—”

Ernoooooooooloooooooooo.

The
Deinotherium
’s howl and his presence in the ZPF had a nervous edge. Brody looked to the horizon. A triplet of tenehounds mounted the hill, their fur stretched on their backs, their alloy tongues slipping over alloy teeth. The hounds moved elliptically; their tails swayed methodically. Antarctica rumbled into the wilderness.

“Tenehounds?” Damy said. Gooseflesh formed on her arms, and she turned from Brody to the hounds and back. “Say it isn’t so.”

Brody closed his eyes and connected to the ZPF. He exhaled calmly, raised his arms to his sides, and reached for the hounds.

“They’re … alone, I think,” Brody said. He dropped his arms. “I don’t sense a connection to the DOC within them …”

“I can’t influence them,” Damy said. “Can you?”

“No—”

“What’d we do?”

“Run.”

The hounds dug up the synthetic earth when Brody and Damy fled.

“This way,” Damy said and ran toward the crystalline slides.

She activated a holographic lever. A doorway opened, and they slid down, down, down, beyond the Paleogene Period and into the Cretaceous Period, where the slide ended. They dropped their hard hats and fur capes on the slide.

“What now?” Brody said. “Where’s the elevator?”

“Follow me.” She led him between fountain-shaped ferns and tall tree ferns surrounded by thick roots. “We can’t access the elevator from here,” Damy said, gasping. “That’s why we entered on the Neogene.”

“Where’re you leading us?”

“The other side.” Damy pushed prehistoric leaves out of her way. “The lower periods have skywalks, up here, they’re not finished yet.”

Owoooo, owoooo, owoooooooooooo.

Brody and Damy turned.

The tenehounds slid down the same slides they’d used and burst into the jungle. The ferns ruffled where they ran.

“Hurry!” Damy said.

They high-stepped through the foliage and arrived at the period’s marine habitat.

On the other side of the glass in a reef swam
Scaphites
the size of transhuman hands, with feelers and eyes that oozed open and closed at the edge of their shells.

They dashed beyond the habitat and swerved, avoiding the pursuit of prehistoric animals, then entered a swamp ahead of the
Tempyska
trees.

“Here,” Damy said, “we can hide.”

“We should go this way—” Brody said.

“No, they trapped us.”

The tenehounds used the landscape, as they were trained to do, and controlled the other animals on this level, as they were trained to do. As Brody scanned the Cretaceous earth, he realized he and Damy were, in fact, surrounded.

“Climb!” Damy said.

They grasped the ropy insides of a
Tempskya
tree and pulled themselves up. All around, in the jungle, the ferns swayed.

Damy had told Brody no carnivores traversed the menagerie, but as he observed the prehistoric gathering organized by the tenehounds, he didn’t know if that were true. He saw giant walking birds with heads like dragons and long narrow claws; chicken-like creatures with short grasping claws, dirty-gray fur, and yellow eyes; a reptilian beast with rows of sharp, glinting teeth. These and more prehistoric animals rushed around the tenehounds, which still moved in their elliptical patterns. Were the tenehounds predators, sent to kill, or harassers, sent to frighten, or were they informants, sent to discover?

Brody didn’t want to find out.

He calculated an escape route.

After what seemed an eternity, a fight began among the
Alxasauruses.
Brody sensed Damy’s consciousness in the ZPF, influencing the animals with her mind. That shook the tenehounds attention long enough for Brody and Damy to climb around the
Tempskya
tree and lunge to the next, twenty meters away. From there, they flew to one and the next until they slid down and darted through the ferns again.

They arrived at the slides.

Far away, the tenehounds plunged through the jungle, their glowing eyes wide, their alloy tongues dripping.

Brody and Damy closed the slide’s door and slid to the Devonian Period, where the slides connected to glass skywalks. They sprinted across to the next set of slides, moving back in time and down, down and back in time, to the Triassic and to the Silurian, down, down, down to the Archean base, the beginning of the planet, the start of life on Earth—where the Lady Isabelle and a Courier of the Chancellor waited with two Janzers.

The supreme director looked divine beneath the menagerie’s lights. Her chameleon cape fluttered in the wind. “My tenehounds
never
stray from the DOC.”

Brody breathed so hard he thought he might pass out. Damy clutched his arm, and he held her.

“A traitor moved to Silkscape City not long ago.” Isabelle’s voice was as sweet as honey. “You two haven’t seen him, have you?”

Brody didn’t know what she was doing. Did she speak the truth? Or was this part of her game somehow?

“No traitors traverse … these walls … my lady,” Damy said with a slight bow. Her breath was rapid and shallow, yet she sounded unshaken, for which Brody loved her all the more. “And we welcome your patrol of this territory … at this important time. May you bring good tidings from this city back to our Chancellor Masimovian, and news that the menagerie, and Project Silkscape, will prove true to his grand vision … for an unprecedented significant conversion is near.”

Well done
, Brody thought.

“I’m sure it is, Miss Damosel.” The tenehounds twisted around the slide, trotted next to the courier, who’d made her way beside Damy and Brody to their right sides, and licked her fingers. “Precious, aren’t they?” Isabelle said.

She whistled and the tenehounds scurried beside the Janzers and sat on their haunches. “You believe you’re clever, do you, Captain Barão?” Isabelle moved closer to Brody and Damy, orbiting them as if she were in her Harpoon class. “I’ve noted your thoughts, seen with your eyes, heard with your ears, and I tell you this now, I can find traitors anywhere.” They turned their heads to their left sides, where Isabelle kept walking. “I can find enemies of the chancellor—anywhere.”

She stopped in front of them and folded her arms. “Soon your children will be part of my classes. Think on that before you disturb the chancellor and the commonwealth.”

“My lady, I live to serve Beimeni, as we all do.” Brody thanked the gods he’d already given the Marstone z-disk to Nero with orders to get it to Jocelyn.

“
I
allowed your release from the DOP, Captain Barão. Do you know how many Beimenians can say they’ve enjoyed a second chance from me? And what do you do to thank me?”

Brody bowed his head and clasped Damy’s hand.

“Does your eternal partner even know you trespassed in the Cerebral Core and stole data for the BP, or has she been too busy slutting about with her favorite researcher to notice?”

Damy’s grip tightened in his.
I love you,
she sent.

“How
touching
,” said Lady Isabelle. “Truly, I’ve never seen a more lovely pair of traitorous BP scum. I will not stand by while you infiltrate the DOC, Broden Barão. You’re a
criminal
, and when I charge you with treason, your time in the Beimeni zone will end. In the meantime, send my regards to Cornelius Selendia and your new friends. Tell them I’ll be seeing them all, very soon.”