The Song of the Jubilee (The Phantom of the Earth Book 1)

by Zen, Raeden

  No, Brody thought, I will not use my telepathy intrusively. I will not become Antosha Zereoue.

  Brody cleared his mind, blocking their impulses from his neurochip; he no longer heard the board’s thoughts. He instead looked to the gods and prayed they prevent another death by Reassortment. He asked them to guide him in his search for a cure. He asked them to keep his team safe during an inevitable surface excursion. He asked them to exonerate his team’s research efforts. And he asked them to restore humanity’s place as the dominant species above.

  Brody found his voice. “So it will be done.” Masimovian tilted his head and placed his clasped hands beneath his chin. The board, including Damy, turned to Brody. “In the year 288, I assured you all that my strike team would lead the people back to the surface.” Damy let his hand go. Her eyes bulged. “I intend to follow through on that promise.”

  Masimovian smiled, sipped his wine, then dismissed the board.

  Damy stormed out. She pulled off her chains and robe on the way to the elevator, packing them into a tight ball with her scarf. She sprinted through the corridor, wearing only her bodysuit. Brody worried she might leave her supreme scientific board garb on the ground; and he feared what Masimovian might do if she did.

  At the elevator, she shoved it all into her Phanean-designed polychromatic handbag. Brody followed her inside. The elevator’s bot operator activated a control panel.

  “Ground floor,” Damy said.

  She sounded livid. The bot followed her order, and the elevator descended. Damy held her handbag tight against her chest.

  “Damy?” Brody said.

  She looked straight ahead, as if she didn’t hear him, and as if he didn’t stand right next to her. She ran out of the elevator when the doors opened, rushing through the Brezner Building’s glass doors and out onto the cobblestones. Brody caught up to her when she reached Artemis Square.

  “Damosel!”

  She turned.

  “What!”

  She threw her handbag at him.

  Brody caught it. “You gave me the Gemini,” he said, “you told me—”

  “To end the use of Jubilees, yet here we are, just days before another and another and another. We’ve witnessed too many since the first Gemini trial.”

  “What would you have me do?” he asked.

  “You should’ve pushed back harder during the board meeting. You should’ve—”

  Brody put his finger on her lips and, looking up, pointed up—a common Beimenian gesture toward Marstone, the eye in the sky. Damy didn’t know he’d purchased the recaller. It might protect against their impulses but not from those of the thousands of Beimenians nearby in the square, district buildings, and Second Ward, not to mention the board members, who lagged behind them but were beginning to spill out of the Brezner Building. “I serve Chancellor Masimovian,” Brody said, “like you, like we always will.” A part of Brody truly believed this, and a part of him did not, and yet another part, not insignificant, did want to see his team’s latest work in action. He dared not admit so to Damy.

  She stepped away and angled her back toward him. A group rushed across the square ahead of them, screaming their excitement, for their designated time to enter the Fountain of Youth neared. Brody ignored their cries, and the well wishes from passersby who recognized him, and the songs emanating from the nearby amphitheater.

  “The chancellor is wise and well versed in synbio tech,” Brody said. “He understands the great challenge, and he insisted on a transhuman trial, so I doubt he’d punish me for a death.” Damy nodded slightly, without responding. “Damosel, please, speak to me—”

  She turned. Her eyes looked bloodshot. “What about you?” She took her handbag from him. “How will I live if you die?”

  Brody hadn’t thought about that. Or, rather, he’d numbed to the constant possibility of death on the surface; it came with the supreme scientist of Reassortment’s job. What he’d not considered was what may happen to Damy if ever he did die during a government-approved surface excursion. To be sure, he and his eternal partner had a close ally in Tethys Charles, Minister of Palaestra Territory, while Damy maintained a steady, if strained, friendship with the women on the board. And she held the Mark. Their enemies would not find her an easy target, Brody assured himself.

  “We’ve made a lot of advances with the biomats since your parents …” Brody stopped, realizing his folly too late. Damy’s eyes welled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “How many more of us have to die from Reassortment?” She wiped her eyes in quick and determined strokes. “How many more transhumans will the board feed to it?”

  “My hope is that no transhuman will ever die from Reassortment again.” He reached for her. “I’m the supreme scientist of Reassortment.” He swiped away stray hairs beside her eye with his forefinger. “I am the strike team captain all others look to.” He searched for hope in his eternal partner’s eyes. “My teams deserve a captain and supreme scientist who’s on their side, don’t they?” Damy nodded. Brody brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I’ve made improvements to the biomat suits.”

  Damy kissed him. “How can you stay so calm?”

  “I’ve strengthened the middle and outer layers. I’ll survive. I’ll come back to you—”

  She kissed him again. “I thought you said you’d not bring your teams back to the surface. I thought you’d figure out a way to beat Reassortment underground?”

  “You pointed out the difficulty in conducting Reassortment research at a distance.” Brody shook his head. “My reach in the zeropoint field is far, but you know I could never be as effective during a transhuman trial in Reassortment Hall as I could be on the island.” He paused. “I might be able to make the serum work with a transhuman in a way I couldn’t with the Gemini.”

  Damy’s lips quivered. She hugged him. “I know.” Brody sensed it pained her to admit this. Using the ZPF, the CRISPR system, and recombinases, he and his research team could communicate with transhuman cells, manipulate the DNA, and give the immune system a better chance to fight the Reassortment Strain. Gemini, which lacked the Homo transition mind-body-cosmos interface, couldn’t be reached through the ZPF as efficiently.

  “You go up there, Captain.” She cupped his face with her hands. “You go up to that island, and you make sure this is the last Jubilee.”

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Johann Selendia

  Vivo Hills

  Vivo, Underground Central

  2,500 meters deep

  Hans rushed along the limestone trail beside his father. Pine and spruce trees rose up from the sod around them.

  Father glided over the ground, his tan cape flapping behind him.

  Hans lagged. He breathed the Vivoan air, filled with the scents of berries and flowers and leaves. The artificial weather in Vivo Territory was fair and windy, the cumulous clouds above tinged with a blue that blended with the rest of the false firmament. Even so, sweat poured down Hans’s face.

  They weaved through the trees to a clearing along the hills.

  Far below lay a fork of land layered with fauna that from Hans’s elevation looked like bulbous bushes stretching out forever, broken here and there by the compressed diamond pillars that supported the weight of the Beimeni zone. Water flowed over the edges and splashed into reservoirs below. Farther away, Vivo City’s skyline of skyscraper farms formed the horizon.

  “We’ve lost them,” Hans said.

  “Not a chance.” Father sprinted faster, and Hans thought his lungs might give out if he tried to keep pace. They splashed through a shallow stream. On the other end, Lilly and Nathaniel and Archer and Hilla, men and women of the Block, gathered around a hologram, which rendered images of the Janzer movements in Vivo Territory.

  This struck Hans as odd, for he’d never seen these people in Vivo.

  Father halted, as did Hans.

  “You will take our friends to Blackeye Cavern in all haste,” Father said. When Hans balked, his father added, “Wil
l you serve your people?”

  “Of course …” Hans said. And it was what he believed he’d do until he sensed … something out of place. Was it in the air? Or the way the waterfalls rolled into the reservoirs, or the pine scent in the trees that didn’t quite tickle his nose the way it should?

  Wilhelm and Aislin, victims of the commonwealth’s Jubilees, worked a holographic scroll across two tree trunks.

  The world spun around Hans.

  “I don’t know about a Blackeye Cavern,” he said, “and even if I did, I wouldn’t lead you to it.”

  Father turned and looked at Hans with a killer’s eyes. He took deliberate strides forward, resembling a low-flying bird when his cape lifted in the Vivoan breeze. His short hair lengthened to his back, his thick lips tightened to a seam, his broad build narrowed, his every feature shifting until the rest of Lady Isabelle Lutetia took hold of Jeremiah Selendia’s body.

  “For some reason,” she said, “I suspect you will.”

  Vivo disappeared …

  … Hans sat in a horribly uncomfortable chair, unable to move, his hair strewn across his sticky face, something painfully bright in his eyes. He found himself struggling to draw breath, and he recalled bits of a beating Lieutenant Arnao had put upon him. The blinding light cleared. He savored the darkness. But he still choked on air that smelled of burnt rubber. He licked his lips and tasted iron. Then he heard Isabelle’s voice through Marstone.

  Open your eyes, young traitor.

  He’d thought his eyes were open. He lifted his lids and winced from the effort, pain shooting into his head like a diamond sword across his neurons.

  Isabelle held an inactive Reassortment baton beneath his chin, lifting his head. She wore a wrap dress tied at her waist by a leather belt, while a golden phoenix adorned her chest. Hans found it insulting she didn’t properly treat her skin with E. pigmentation; she looked nearly as white as Beimenians in the lesser territories. It was her way of showing solidarity with the commoners, he knew, even as she hunted the BP.

  “You serve whom?” she said.

  Mari had told Hans she often said this during Harpoon classes. He glared at the phoenix, then to her porcelain face. He said nothing, and though he couldn’t penetrate her mind, he didn’t let her inside his either.

  “You think you’re indispensable because you’re Jeremiah Selendia’s son?” Isabelle said.

  Hans inclined his head.

  “You think you care about the people?” She orbited him, looking across her shoulder. “I maintain the commonwealth’s life support systems. Open your eyes!” Hans opened them. “You destroy our supply lines, steal water from our coolant piping, and force me to scatter Janzers throughout the underground rather than focus their efforts on our expansion, and on their job, protection against structural collapses and gods forbid, a Reassortment scare. How many Beimenians died because of collapses that we couldn’t respond to? What would happen if Reassortment breached the Beimeni zone of the underground, and instead of responding to it, the Janzers were instead cleaning up after a BP strike?”

  Hans didn’t speak.

  “You risk the death of us all, for what?”

  Hans licked his lips but remained silent.

  “I serve over three hundred million transhumans inside this phantom Earth,” Isabelle continued. “I enable their survival, and yours, you ungrateful ant.” She stood behind Hans now. He felt her breath upon his ear. It smelled like rose water. “I won’t let traitors like you take the world away from them.”

  He swiveled his head, searching. He neither heard nor saw Lady Isabelle, or felt her presence in the ZPF. He wasn’t wearing a collar, but she was somehow disrupting his connection.

  Oh gods, no …

  A maroon spotlight revealed Connor, Hans’s little brother who hadn’t seen the world until this day, who hadn’t known violence beyond the skirmishes on the Block or in the commonwealth’s bazaars, who was kept far from the BP for so many years, and whom Hans had assured his father he’d protect—hung from chains, utterly beaten and battered.

  Hans wanted to scream. He didn’t. He felt the muscles in his neck strain against the skin. Tears mixed with the blood on his face.

  Connor’s wrists were bound by cuffs. He dangled from chains wrapped around his neck and torso.

  Before Hans could blink, Lieutenant Arnao appeared, striking and slashing his brother with alloy-knuckled fists. Blood gushed from Connor’s mouth and nose.

  Hans puked. When he looked back at Connor, Arnao wasn’t there.

  Oh gods, Connor …

  “You can make this end,” Isabelle said. He heard her voice behind him. “You can save him—”

  “He can’t help you,” Hans tried to say but found he couldn’t speak. Just let Connor leave, he sent. He’s nothing to you.

  “But something to you. And I won’t hesitate to drain his blood, slowly, in pain most transhumans, even underdeveloped ones, have never known—unless you talk.”

  Her voice became a thousand whispers around Hans, not spoken through Marstone, but directly to his mind. You need my help. Only I can stop my lieutenant from bashing your brother. Only I can prevent my tenehounds from tearing Connor apart.

  The darkness around Connor gave way to light and towering glass walls. Tenehounds, RDD synbio creations, snarled and pawed at the glass. All BP knew the animals the chancellor used to track the unregistered. Rumor had it the hounds could sense a transhuman presence in the ZPF at great distances.

  We’ve starved this group for ten days, Isabelle sent. Don’t they look beautiful?

  Their fur stood on their backs, bristling, colored a distinct blend of sapphire, gray, and ultramarine. Their alloy teeth dripped with saliva, and their bright-orange eyes never left Connor’s inert form. His head dangled limply, a mixture of water and sweat and blood dripping off his hair. Hans hoped for his brother’s sake that he could not see the tenehounds behind the glass.

  Tell me where to find Blackeye Cavern, Isabelle sent, and your allies in the territories, the next targets. Tell me, now.

  Hans still couldn’t project his mind. He didn’t fully understand what blocked him from the ZPF, but did his best to shield his consciousness from Isabelle and Marstone. He could not send millions to their deaths to save one life, even Connor’s. And he knew, though he hated to admit the hopelessness of their situation, that even if he told Isabelle the location of Blackeye Cavern, Connor would still die in Farino Prison or on the surface or in the Lower Level. And Murray, too, wherever he was, if indeed he was still alive. Hans’s concentration faltered at the thought.

  “Oh, don’t worry about Murray Olyorna,” Isabelle said. “We’ll give the BP’s developer exactly what he deserves.”

  Triangular Granville panels emerged from the ground in front of Hans. Murray hung, beaten and bruised, in a chamber much like Connor’s.

  The panels went dark and retracted.

  The glass wall that held the hounds descended a few meters.

  Barks and howls rushed out like the Homeria Sea.

  Hans shivered and Connor jerked his head back and forth blindly.

  “Who’s there?” Connor screamed.

  “What say you, Polemon?” Lady Isabelle said.

  “I won’t,” Hans said.

  The glass wall descended farther. The hounds sniffed and lunged when they picked up Connor’s scent in the ZPF. Their paws came within a meter of the glass ledge above.

  Hans had never seen a hound jump so high.

  In the melee, one of them attacked another, snapping its neck in its jaws. The hounds chewed and ripped its fur and skin apart. The bones were soon plucked clean, and the tenehounds sifted out the remaining entrails, their fur splattered crimson.

  Hans felt as if he might pass out.

  “What do you think it feels like to be eaten alive?”

  The glass wall dropped another meter, and the hounds refocused on Connor’s presence in the ZPF. Their paws scraped the top of the glass ledge when they leapt. Co
nnor reeled back, catching sight of their snouts.

  The room darkened, and the maroon spotlight over Connor grew bright.

  “Let’s find out—”

  “Wait!”

  Slowly, the glass wall descended another half meter, and stopped. One hound got its shoulders nearly all the way over the wall, then slipped down into the roiling pack. It was in these movements that something struck Hans as odd. Tenehounds were nothing if not organized, deliberate in their actions, and highly intelligent.

  They would have already found a way inside, Hans thought.

  Lady Isabelle awaited Hans’s response.

  He remained silent.

  The glass walls dropped to the floor. The tenehounds rushed forward like an angry tide.

  Hans closed his eyes and tried not to hear Connor’s screams. He hoped beyond the cosmos that his intuition proved accurate. When he opened his eyes, the chains dangled, holding bits of bones and pieces of skin and muscle, dripping blood.

  “You’ve been developed well, Polemon.” Isabelle emerged in front of Hans again.

  The hounds, blood, guts, and chains disappeared. Hans blinked, exhaled, and dropped his head.

  “You exposed your brother to Escherichia evolution, and you didn’t even tell him what it would do.” She folded her arms. “Who’s more cruel, you or I?”

  Hans raised his eyes to her but didn’t answer.

  “You suspect his response to the fever and his ancestry suggests I won’t kill—”