by Zen, Raeden
“You think you’re so far advanced past me,” Hans said.
Zorian leaned forward, inhaling deeply. “I don’t think.” He closed his eyes and opened them, exhaling. Now he spoke directly into Hans’s mind, whispering, I know.
The air around Hans’s head seemed to heat, as if by the Earth’s core. Sweat swam down his face, taking parts of the painted maze with it. Then the air cooled, and Zorian balanced and stacked the gemstones above his right hand. With his left hand, he handed Hans a z-disk.
“Father is in Farino Prison, and I’ve got the prison schematics, right here, along with a plan to break him out. Take this to the Leadership, the commandos, and even lovely Maribel if you want. Get their assessments, but don’t delay, or we’ll never see Father again.”
Zorian rotated the gems around Hans, just above his head. Hans reached up, but they slithered behind him, descending toward one of the Hollow’s many streams, spinning, swirling like a snake. They fell into the stream, splashing and steaming. Hans turned. A mother carried her baby boy in her arms. A father held his daughter’s hand. Brothers, sisters, and friends walked, chatting and shopping. Hans’s eyes darted from person to person, group to group. He probed in the zeropoint field. The BP moved to and fro in the alley of the bazaar, between the tents, beside the streams and limestone columns, beneath colorful stalactites.
Zorian was gone.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Johann Selendia
Piscator City
Piscator, Underground South
2,500 meters deep
Hans sped between the pedestrian path and the transport trench. He avoided eye contact with booth operators in the early-hours bazaar and deftly combined the power of his recaller with telepathic shielding to protect his mind from Marstone. The recaller intercepted brain impulses and sent new acceptable ones into the ZPF. It looked like a benari coin, made of the commonwealth’s proprietary blend of silver, platinum, and gold. The portability of this latest model, not too hard to find on the black market assuming one could afford it, was most liberating. For many years, BP had only been able to think and speak freely in their own homes, where a clumsier version of the tech shielded their thoughts and words.
The plan is sound, Hans thought. Mari will understand. This is the only way forward for us. He continued toward the buildings ahead. The Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Wards of Piscator City were sometimes referred to as the shanty wards. Unlike the first five wards, where structures were expertly built, the buildings here were part alloy, part limestone, and appeared as if the surrounding rock had regurgitated them. A Janzer pair emerged from behind one. They looked like ghosts in their diamond synsuits, which, though supple, protected them from extreme temperatures and pressure, as well as any citizens resisting arrest. Hans stopped and waited for the Janzers to pass. Then he dodged around two working girls, one of whom drew a calloused finger across the animated tattoos—damselfish, yellow tang, and sea horses amid seaweed—on his arm as he slipped by.
He flitted through a dark alleyway and arrived at the mound of rock that housed his unit’s entrance. He inserted his commonwealth card and placed his hand, each finger covered with synthetic prints, to the scanner beside the illusory wall.
WELCOME FARKAI. His alias flashed on the readout screen, and the wall disappeared with a crack and a snap.
Maribel perked up when he strolled inside. She sat on a settee made of amber, translucent in the dim light. Her hair fluttered with the gentle wind sent over her from their wooden ceiling fan. She appeared tense, her bluish-hazel eyes questioning. “You shaved your beard.”
“For the inauguration, for the painted Polemon—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Hans nodded. You’ll forgive me when we return to Vivo, he thought.
He handed Mari the z-disk. Her eyes sped back and forth as she browsed the three-dimensional hologram it generated in her extended consciousness, viewable for her alone.
Unlike Hans, she’d been properly developed by Lady Eulalie and Lord Rueben Variscan, of House Variscan, among the most elite houses in the commonwealth. She was then purchased during the Harpoon Auction within the top 10 percent of all Harpoon candidates in her class and placed with the Berriasian Consortium, known for the quality of its farms in Vivo Territory. Hans had seen her in the fields one day, on the forty-fifth floor of the building next door, commanding grower bots.
I’ve asked her to give up so much already, he thought, hanging up his dirty cape. The shirt he wore beneath was torn, and a seaweed smell clung to his pants, though they were hand-washed daily. He’d changed back into his Piscatorian clothes for the journey home.
“This won’t work,” Mari said.
“It will.” Hans sat next to her. “Zorian’s design is meticulous and—”
“If this plan is so sure,” Mari interrupted, as she often did when Hans discussed a Polemon operation, “why doesn’t Zorian go with you to Farino? Don’t you need him?”
Hans’s face flushed. “You know why,” he said, and when Mari raised her brow, “it’s too difficult to work with him—”
“You mean he’s too unpredictable.”
“My brother has always been a talented strategist, and he knows I can execute the plan, Mari. I’m just as talented as he with the zeropoint field.”
Zorian might be able to hide his thoughts and move quickly, but as far as using the ZPF to influence the transhuman visual cortex, Hans considered his own illusions second only to his father’s.
Mari sighed. “Zorian isn’t going,” she blinked as she closed the renditions, turning to Hans, “because he doesn’t care.”
“He’s my blood.”
“He’s unstable.” She looked down at the z-disk, then to Hans. “We can’t trust him.”
“The plan’s brilliance is in its simplicity,” Hans said, ignoring her. “We have Janzer synsuits, Murray and I will wear them, meet in Natura, travel by way of the supply lines, and penetrate the prison during normal maintenance. The Janzers move in pairs during these times, and the security isn’t as fierce. We’ll leave behind a hologram that looks like Father with a transhuman signature in the zeropoint field, and by the time they realize it isn’t truly him, we’ll be on our way to Hydra Hollow.”
Mari’s jaw clenched. She placed her hand on his thigh and spoke calmly. “I know how difficult this must be for you.” She prevented him from sensing her emotions, or thoughts. “Lady Isabelle should’ve already reported the apprehension of a former supreme scientist to the board and ministry. That she hasn’t suggests you shouldn’t go—”
“No, don’t you see? It means I must go.”
“Chancellor Masimovian would never allow harm to come to your father.”
The chancellor and Jeremiah were, in fact, brothers-in-development. In some parts of the Great Commonwealth, that kind of connection—being mentored by developers from birth, learning how to navigate and use the ZPF, understanding how to survive in the underground, and rapidly growing into a transhuman adult—still meant something. And Supreme Chancellor Atticus Masimovian held traditions in front of the people like something to worship. There was a good chance Mari was right.
Then Hans remembered how the chancellor betrayed his father.
He drew back and plucked a stray thread from his tattered shirt. His voice grew cold. “Please, Mari. Don’t get me started on our fine chancellor.”
He activated the third wall in their unit, composed of a taupe graphene screen called a Granville panel. He connected his mind to it, and the illusion of Vivo formed, as if Mari and Hans sat on a transport heading across the Archimedes River to the island city. Vivo Territory engulfed them. Mari shielded her eyes, and her dark hair fluttered in artificial winds. They looked out on high-rise parks made of organic carbyne and plastics, their geometric shapes softened by trees and leaves. The sensations consistent with a breeze carrying the neural signals congruent with herbs and gardens scattered over Hans and Mari. The scents of peaches and strawberries and pine
apples wisped around them as farms and colorful flowers came into focus. The farms sat in the peaks and troughs of alloy ridges as large as skyscrapers, while the spaces between housed greenhouse orbs with spiral runways and lattices with enough fruits and vegetables to feed a commonwealth.
“Why do you take me there like this?” Mari said. “Why do you always take me where we cannot go?” She overrode Hans, and the panel turned taupe. The illusory world of Vivo disappeared, giving way to their unit.
“Don’t forget,” Hans said, “the Front will pave our way back to Vivo. The Front will ensure our survival—”
“There are other ways. Minister Blaylock’s a good man, a noble man. Can’t we try a formal channel, for once?”
Minister Blaylock had been sent from Beimeni City to Piscator, and though the election results counted him a winner, Hans was skeptical. “It’s far too late for that.”
He rubbed Mari’s dress, a gift from his father when they first arrived in Piscator City. It was a traditional Palaestran gown, puffy and orange, knitted with soft fabrics spawned by synthetic organisms in his father’s former department, Research & Development. Synisms produced most all of the materials used in Beimenian society, but the quality of results varied, depending on the lab. Jeremiah’s textiles were always the very best.
“Why Natura?” Mari said. “That seems an odd place to meet.”
There was no way to prepare Mari for this, but he wouldn’t lie to her.
“I’m going to put Connor through the fever,” he said. “He can convalesce with our allies in Natura while Murray and I go on to Farino.”
“What?” Mari jumped up from the settee. “Are you insane? You’ll kill him.”
Hans ran his hand through his hair. “We must accelerate Connor’s development. If we wait any longer, it’ll be too late. He’ll end up—”
“Like Zorian, is that what you want?”
“—like all the other unregistered and unskilled,” Hans said, reaching his hand for hers, and when she took it, “captured or killed, or sent to the Lower Level, and I cannot allow that.” The chancellor required all citizens to register in Marstone’s Database, a collection of data used by the government to track Beimenians throughout the underground. Murray had forged Mari’s information long ago, suggesting she had perished in Vivo City. As far as Hans knew, neither he nor his brothers were registered in the database.
“What you’re saying only proves my point. Bring Connor here, and he can hide with me. I’ll work with him on understanding the zeropoint field the way the Variscans worked with me. It’s not all about gene therapies. I can teach him how to protect himself from the commonwealth’s agents. You take your alias and good reputation to the citadel and beg the minister for clemency.”
“And what of my father?” He wiped away sweat that budded on his forehead. “You’re suggesting we leave him in Farino to rot? What if they break him, Mari, have you thought of that? He could give them Hydra Hollow, Blackeye Cavern, everything! I love my father, but I must act in the interest of my people. We can’t let his interrogation go on forev—”
“Kill him then,” Mari said, sitting. “Use the field.”
Contorting his face, Hans looked horrified.
“You misunderstand me,” Mari continued. She massaged Hans’s hand. “Most of the commonwealth already believes your father is deceased—”
Hans pulled his hand away from hers. “And Masimovian will make sure it remains that way—”
“Your father crossed him, for decades. He knew the risk—”
“No, my dear—”
“We all know the risk. Knowing your father the way I do, I suspect he’d approve of his sacrifice, but I know he wouldn’t approve of putting Connor through the fever so young.”
Hans’s lips felt as dry as Mars when he licked them. He’d already asked Mari to give up so much, and though it pained him to ask more of her, he couldn’t let his feelings for her impair proper judgment. “Connor isn’t safe here, and Father’s position is untenable,” Hans said. “You’re a talented telepath, fully capable. Stay here and shield yourself from Marstone. You’ll be fine on your own until I return.”
“Leave the boy with me,” Mari said assuredly. “I’ll protect him.”
“Connor’s ready, he can make it—”
“And what if he doesn’t?” Mari said. “What if Connor should die?”
“He’s a Selendia—”
Mari stood tall. “It’s barbaric. The fever hasn’t been used by developers in a hundred years!”
“Maybe so, but the BP use it all the time. Connor will survive—”
“Do you hear yourself? You’re acting like Zorian! You’re going to barrel forward, uncaring of those you bury along the way.”
Hans had never heard her talk like this. He’d always assumed she was scared, deep down, that she resisted his involvement with the BP because she didn’t want to lose him. But she didn’t seem scared, or rather, she did—but that wasn’t all. It was conviction, he realized, and a mother’s love for Connor. Gods help him, it only made him love her all the more.
“I’m not acting like Zorian,” Hans said. His older brother’s rogue attacks against the commonwealth, which worsened after their mother’s execution in the year 353 AR, had led to the death or capture of hundreds of BP and citizens. Hans and Murray’s operations were never reckless. “I’m not going to disappear.” Hans thought about his ceremony, the crowd gathered in the Hollow, the cheers, the hope he sensed within his people. He couldn’t let them down. “I’m acting like a president.”
Mari knelt to him. “You might’ve been born in Piscator,” she said, looking into his eyes, “but you’re not a fisherman,” she touched his arm, “you’re not a fighter,” she placed her hand upon his heart. “In here, you’re still a grower.” She held his hands. “How can you believe that you can put on a Janzer’s body armor, waltz over to the prison islands, and take your father back from a place no one has ever escaped?”
Hans spoke softly, his tone biting. “I’m far more than a grower, and if you would’ve attended my inauguration in the Hollow, you’d know it.”
Mari rose and turned from him. “I’m sorry.”
He rose from the settee, placing his hand on her waist. “Sweet Mari, I want what you want.” She eased away from his touch. “Don’t you remember when we first met? You were picking strawberries with grower bots, and you had that red ribbon in your hair …”
“Please, don’t—”
“I bypassed Marstone, contacted you directly over the zeropoint field, and snuck into your farm after Arty and Zorian fell asleep.”
Mari twisted to face him, her dress swirling around her. “Johann!”
“I want to have it all again, I want to take you back there and live as we once did. Don’t you still want that?”
“Of course, I do.”
His voice lowered to a whisper. “Let me make it happen.”
“You’re making me sound selfish.” She paused. “I changed my name, hid with you. Gods! My parents think I’m dead!” She sandwiched her nose between her hands and closed her eyes. “I could’ve been the head of my own farm by now, and I’m not, and I don’t care, but why must you put our lives at risk with this fruitless operation? Why would you risk Connor?”
She’d say anything to live a legal life, Hans assured himself. He heard a lecture from Zorian, years ago, repeat in his head: She’s not one of us. She’ll turn against you and lead to our ruin. Was Zorian right?
No, Hans couldn’t believe it. He loved Maribel more than he loved himself. And he could trust her to fend for herself, unlike Connor. “If I don’t proceed with the plan, Lady Isabelle might break my father’s mind, and find Connor and execute him.”
Mari lost all color in her face. Her lips quivered. “I just want peace … I just want to serve …”
“Right …” Hans’s cheerless voice gave way to deranged laughter. “Serve Beimeni, live forever.” He announced the chancellor’s First Prece
pt with a Phanean accent and walked in a semicircle, like Lady Isabelle during Harpoon classes, which Mari attended during her development in House Variscan. “I’d rather die.”
Mari raised her eyes. “I wouldn’t.”
“You haven’t seen or felt what I have from the spies’ z-disks—the Lower Level, the men and women and children, Beimenians they call exiles, who breathe air that couldn’t sustain a handful of transhumans, hallucinating, collapsing, burning—”
“Show me, let me experience what you have. How else would I understand?”
Hans kissed her but didn’t meld his mind with hers. She covered her mouth and turned away.
“I have to go,” he said.
She nodded, still not facing him.
“I’ll return.”
Hans zipped into his fisherman’s bodysuit, flung his cape around his shoulders, and grabbed his pack, a seventy-five-kilogram bag full of gear for the operation. When he neared the entrance to his unit, he turned. Maribel looked over her shoulder, her lips pressed together, her hands tucked under her elbows, her cheeks sweaty and red, her eyes narrowed. Was it determination, sadness, or hatred in her expression? Hans couldn’t decide.
He thought about how they’d awakened together yesterday morning, their arms and legs intertwined, the warmth of her skin, the smell of berries in her hair, the way her chest rose and fell when she breathed, how her heart seemed to beat in sync with his own. Would he ever see her again, the woman he loved?
In the alleyway, he trembled, even as the humidity and heat in Piscator wrapped around him. I’m President of the Liberation Front, he thought. I have responsibilities.
Hans’s eyes blurred as he took long strides, fighting back tears. Reaching the intracity transport stop, he wiped his eyes on his sleeve. I’ve made the right decision, he thought as he climbed aboard. Maribel will forgive me.
