The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4) (22 page)

Oriana put her hand to her mouth. “Sister …” She wanted to cry.

“Sister-in-development, but a sister by any Beimeni standard … and a good friend.” Noria brushed Oriana’s cheeks with the back of her hand and felt her hair. “She’d be proud of you, the transhuman woman you’ve grown into, so graceful, brilliant, and strong.” Oriana felt as if Noria’s gaze penetrated her consciousness.

Noria handed her one of the reddish-pink fern leaves. “It must be difficult, knowing you’ll never meet your mother. The Harpoons are pressure enough without such stresses. On the bridge, I hope you didn’t try to …”

“Kill myself?” Oriana gasped. “Gods, no—”

“Then you did seek to swim here, to my citadel, to break into my archive.”

“No, that wasn’t my plan. I would—”

“Win the Trek first? Sneak past my guard?” Noria chuckled. “Sweet child, you wouldn’t have gotten past the first level.”

Oriana turned as red as a Halcyon sunrise and looked to the pink plants as if she could hide among them.

“Your developers have already arrived and wait with your brother in our guest suite.”

Oriana held back her tears. “I’ve ruined our chances, haven’t I?”

“No, no, the Trek is a bit of fun, not at all what you’ll experience the day of the Harpoons.”

“We lost because of me!” Oriana swiped her damp hair away from her face. “Because of
me
…” She squeezed the fern leaf in her palm.

Marstone hears all through the zeropoint field,
she thought,
and Lady Isabelle hears all through Marstone
. “What did Lady Isabelle tell you?”

“She’s worried about you.”

“She’s wrong—”

“She, like I, wonder why on this phantom Earth you would break into an archive in a citadel.”

Oriana didn’t hedge her words. “The Summersets hate me! They won’t tell me what happened to my parents—”

“Did they tell you that your mother and I were developed under the same dome as you and your blood brother?” Oriana’s mouth opened wide, but neither words nor air escaped. “Come, sweet child,” Noria held Oriana’s hand and patted it tenderly as they walked, “let me tell you
all
about your mother.”

The guest suite entrance cleared with a
snap
, and on the other side stood the Summersets, Lady Parthenia in a golden gown with a lace scarf, Lord Thaddeus in a gray fur-lined cape tied with leather straps over his broad belly. Pasha played holographic chess with one of the lord’s keeper bots. He stirred when he saw Oriana, but Lady Parthenia ran to her first and hugged her.

“I’m so glad you’re safe.” To the minister, Parthenia said, “We thank you for your hospitality, and for finding our sweet Oriana. May we have a moment with our daughter-in-development?”

“As you wish, madam,” Noria said coldly. She rubbed the ruby on her chest. “Lady Isabelle expects you will have the twins back in their house of development by nightfall.”

“We shall.”

When the opaque entrance closed behind Noria, Lady Parthenia dropped Oriana’s hands and slapped her. “Are you out of your
mind?
” The lady’s face twisted with rage.

Oriana breathed deep and felt the sting in her raw cheeks. “I hate you,” she said quietly.

“We’ve done all we can for you since the day of your birth,” Parthenia said, hands on hips. “This is how you repay us? Breaking into a citadel? Has underground living cracked you?”

“Leave her alone,” Pasha said.

“We’ll get to you soon enough,” Lord Thaddeus said. “Now keep your mouth shut and listen for once.”

Oriana turned away from Parthenia. “I won’t go back with you.”

“Do you know who contacted us today?”

“I know it wasn’t my parents—”

“Your parents asked us to develop you.”

Oriana clenched her fists. “And did they tell you to strike us and yell at us and
lie
to us!” Oriana knew she took this too far. The pain was evident in Lady Parthenia’s eyes.

Good
, she thought.
Let her hurt. Let her cry.

“Noria told me all the things I’ve been asking you for so long!” Oriana gripped her elbows against her chest.

“Did she?” Thaddeus said.

Oriana glared at him. “And she told me you lied to her about her potential and that she didn’t perform in the Harpoons as well as Mother because you held her back—”

“Noria was jealous of your mother from the first day of development,” Parthenia said.

“She told me you’d say that.”

“You can’t believe a word she says,” Thaddeus said.

“She told me
you’d
say that.”

“What did she tell you about Mother?” Pasha said.

“Oh no,” the lady said, “you two are in enough trouble as it is, and it’ll be all we can do to save you—”

“We’re not developing with you any longer,” Oriana said.

“You cannot switch once you’ve been assigned,” the lord said, “but since you’re so eager to leave the house, let’s talk about what happened near the Redstone Dragon.” Pasha covered his mouth. “Let’s talk about your attack on the Janzers—”

“Why don’t we talk about my parents instead,” Oriana said, “about the Bicentennial and the Dream Forest, about how my mother broke my father’s heart and how her lover killed her—”

“Your mother weeps with the gods,” Parthenia said, her eyes welling up. “You know not what you say.”

“Your mother would never condone your actions,” Thaddeus added. He looked to Pasha. “Or your tone or your disrespect of the developers who seek to help you more than you could possibly imagine. We who swore to protect you and guide you and see you to success in the all-important Harpoon Exams.”

Oriana couldn’t stand the sight or sound of them any longer. She ran to the entrance, but it would not clear, it would not open.

She pounded on the door. “Let me out!”

Pasha approached her. “Oriana, calm down.”

“I can’t! I won’t! You don’t know. Our father was a Harpoon Champion, a supreme scientist. Mother
ruined
him!”

Pasha grabbed her and hugged her to him. Oriana cried into his chest.

“Look here.” Lady Parthenia held a z-disk in her hand, whose contents she telepathically transferred to the Granville panel upon the wall. “Your behavior has led to scrutiny from the Office of the Chancellor.”

Green neon words formed against a black background:

“The Warning Communiqué,” Oriana said softly.

Pasha hugged her tighter.

Blackeye Cavern

300 meters deep

In the days that followed his return to the BP enclave in the east, Connor trained in the worlds of his mind’s creation, mental exercises designed to strengthen his connection with the ZPF, further his understanding of the quantum universe, and hone his preparation for the war’s next battle.

He strode between limestone pillars at the heart of Blackeye Cavern, which simmered with midnight-blue bioluminescence. He made his way through the bazaar, with its sellers of silk tunics, ceramic pots, bubbling drinks, and leather boots of many colors. Some in the crowd turned and gawked; others were too caught up in their conversations to notice him. He heard their waking monologues as if they were his own. The mother beside him feared for her children’s safety in the commonwealth. Another mother feared for her children’s safety in the Cavern. The father in front of him reminisced about life before his demotion in Yeuron, when he’d lived as a tradesman along the Archimedes. A seller worried over making her booth rent payment this trimester—all thoughts he now wished he couldn’t hear.

He searched for that part of the ZPF where the energy was at its quietest, matter at its calmest, where the sounds he heard were those of the universe’s expansion. From here, all things were possible, as Father had taught him. Connor wrapped this zeropoint energy around himself, and he heard no more thoughts but his own. He spotted Charlene Ripley, Executive of Blackeye Cavern, a member of the Leadership Council, and one of Father’s confidantes. She wore a dark green cape held across her chest by leather strands. Her face was hawk-like with sharp angles, her cheeks reddish, like her full lips.

“Madam Executive,” Connor said, bowing, “my father is ready.”

They entered the meeting room, a seven-sided cavern with seven Granville panels adorning the walls. Golden glowworms slithered around the stalactites that hung above the obsidian table where Father, Pirro, and Aera also waited. Connor sat with them, anxious for his first briefing with his father. Nero and another woman, unknown to Connor, arrived. Her yellow bodysuit blended with the bioluminescence, but when she sat, her bronze face looked pale, as if she’d not received
E. pigmentation
treatments in years.

“Lovely Lady Verena,” Father kissed her hand, “it’s good to see you up and about. I heard about … the incident.”

Father had told Connor all about Antosha’s abilities with the ZPF, and with the CRISPR system in particular, which he used to manipulate transhuman DNA. “CRISPR stands for clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats,” Father had said, and when Connor inquired about the skills necessary to use it, he added: “Transhumans with a knack for reading prose forward and backward, who master molecular chemistry and the calculation of thermodynamic free energy, and who have a strong connection to the ZPF, tend to have high proficiency with the CRISPR system.” While intriguing, this ability seemed even more foreign to Connor than telekinesis, which he still hadn’t mastered.

Verena raised her chin indignantly. “Antosha’s attack, you mean.”

Father nodded. “His return suggests someone inside the chancellor’s circle is acting on his behalf.”

“Then this meeting is overdue and necessary,” Verena said, “and I hope that you will let the old wars die—”

“The way you let me die?” Father said. He tilted his head. “No, the old wars aren’t dead, Lady Verena, they’re alive and well and your captain is the latest casualty—”

“We won’t let him be sent to the Lower Level,” Nero said. The striker looked fully recovered from the raid. His skin was healed, smooth and clear, and he didn’t limp the way he had when Connor had first found him in one of Hydra Hollow’s holding cells.

Father put his arm over Connor’s back and shoulder. “They don’t yet have a means to cross the Infernus Sea.”

“But they will,” Nero said, “and soon.”

Father nudged Connor forward, then implored the group to sit. Aera, Charlene, and Pirro took their spots near Father at the head of the table. It was strange to look upon Pirro as his youthful self, with his dark skin taut over his high cheekbones, his eyes clean and vibrant rather than discolored and lethargic. Connor had only known him as a hunchbacked old man before they had rescued his father from Permutation Crypt. He looked forward to working with young Pirro on whatever the BP decided at this briefing for the next Polemon operation.

He connected to the ZPF and activated a Granville sphere at the center of the table. Around and above the table Area 55 in Boreas formed. A bright ball of light moved through the ground and surrounded a glowing, colorful orb.

“Our intelligence suggests Antosha is manipulating the Lorum genome into a new synsuit,” Father began, “similar in some ways to the liquid silver one he created for himself.” He hand-signaled Connor to continue, who then split open the orb. A cross section of the insides appeared, then the molecular compounds. “I trust these are familiar to you,” Father said, waving his hand across the rendition. Nero and Verena shook their heads. “Let me help you.” Father took control of the sphere, and the molecules reformed.

“This cannot be,” Verena said. She rested her elbow on the table, and her chin upon her fist. She moved her eyes up and down rapidly, as if she searched through her extended consciousness. “An adjustment … to the transhuman genome?”

Father nodded. “Antosha seeks to enhance our skin, make it tougher than carbyne, as flexible as a biomat; and to alter our brains and our mind-body-cosmos interface, make us as intelligent as a million Marstones, with the Lorum’s communicative abilities—”

“And create a human genome unrecognizable to Reassortment,” Verena said, easing back in her chair. “Then lead us back to the surface—”

“—under his control, no doubt,” Father finished.