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

by Zen, Raeden

  She’d also tracked the captain to Silkscape City after he dared access records in Marstone’s Database. Isabelle implanted the T, a burn mark that replaced his strike team tattoo upon his forearm, which would forever designate him a traitor to the commonwealth. She would’ve seen Captain Barão escorted to Farino Prison. Yet the chancellor had let him leave Lovereal Territory and return to Phanes for the Bicentennial.

  “I’ve taken more than Brody’s life—” Atticus said.

  “He knows about the Crypt! He knows about Jeremiah! We should’ve ended him with the majority on our side.”

  “Who will believe a murderer?”

  Atticus turned again to the center, and Isabelle turned with him. Steam rose up from the fountains below, and the Granville sun cast a summer glow over North Archway and the tall white palm trees in Artemis Square as it dipped below the horizon. Beimenians laughed and chatted, moving here and there in Masimovian Center below them, neophytes shadowing masters, eternal partners arm in arm on the marble paths.

  “Come here,” Atticus said, not unkindly.

  She angled toward him, leaning over the balustrade.

  “Do you see the ecstasy I’ve brought to this underground paradise?”

  Isabelle tried her best not to roll her eyes.

  “A world that at one time was so filled with violence and hatred that the scholars placed our probability of extinction at ninety-five percent. And now,” he swept his arm toward Masimovian Center Building #7, “we’re overseers of the greatest society in the history of mankind.”

  “Now we wage a forever war,” Isabelle said. “We’re stretched too far, too thin, with too few Janzers to secure this Great Commonwealth.”

  “My lady, see my eyes.”

  She looked into the maroon of his eyes, so familiar after one hundred seventy years of shared service, and willed him to let down his guard.

  “When great men age,” he said, and seeing her expression added, “oh yes, we still age, not visibly, but emotionally, metaphysically, and when we do there comes a time when we desire more of our being.” He leaned against the balustrade. “What will the people speak if I die? Will they remember the Magnificent Masimovian or the Masimovian turned soft? The Masimovian who, in his early eternal life, was weakened by a group of terrorists who knew not what they opposed or what they believed?”

  He stroked his goatee. “I have no doubt you will lay waste to the terrorists.” He leaned closer toward her. “You will find their enclaves and destroy them, and Captain Barão will serve out the rest of his life in the Lower Level, no longer a threat to our commonwealth.”

  He kissed her neck. “What strikes me odd is this. Barão is nothing if not noble … noble to the end. I couldn’t risk exposing his involvement with the BP, so great was his reputation with the people and the teams.” Atticus paused. “He chooses the evening of our greatest celebration to assault his eternal partner’s lover?”

  Atticus puffed on his cigar and blew out smoke rings. He tried to pretend he didn’t seek entry to Isabelle’s consciousness, but she could sense him sneaking around in the ZPF. She thought only of Brody’s hearing after the Bicentennial, the z-disk she prepared, the courier she assigned, her pleasure at his exile, though she would have preferred an execution.

  “These events have left their mark in the people’s psyche, most indelibly, I’m afraid,” he said.

  She turned to him. “It’s interesting how often nobility and insanity cross paths, isn’t it?”

  “Is that all you have to add?”

  “What more could there be?”

  Atticus narrowed his eyes. “No matter, I suppose. Captain Broden Barão shattered his reputation, and Chief Justice Carmen assured us no one will ever pick up the pieces. It’s not how I would have preferred we deal with him, but it is done, and thoroughly.”

  “The Lower Level is just punishment for his treachery against you,” Isabelle agreed.

  Atticus extended his arm, and Isabelle eased under it. They embraced near the balustrade. She clutched her glass as if it were the last one she would ever hold. For a heartbeat she enjoyed the chancellor’s warmth, reminded of why she had once loved him. She sipped the liqueur and set the glass on a marble pedestal, then placed a finger under Atticus’s chin and pulled him to her. She kissed him, sensually, and snuggled her cheek to his.

  “Of course,” she said with a smile, “should his heirs perform in the exams, we can still claim them for our own.”

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Oriana Barão

  Harpoon VR

  Candidate Café

  “In there?” Pasha lifted his left eyebrow. His lower lip quivered. “You want to hang out in there?”

  The flashing lights and thumping music in the virtual corridor intimidated Oriana as much as Pasha, though she would never admit it. She turned and glanced back at the exit, an electric-appearing door that hung between four neon blue fractal trees. She stared for what seemed an eternity, then turned to Pasha. “We have to go. We should meet candidates, make friends—”

  “You mean you want to hang out with Nathan Storm,” Pasha said. He fidgeted the way he did when he didn’t know the answer to one of the Harpoon queries, and a strange sense of triumph took Oriana by surprise.

  “C’mon,” she said. She strutted down the corridor.

  “O?”

  She kept walking.

  “O, wait for me!”

  They crossed under an archway labeled CANDIDATE CAFÉ and stepped into a massive spherical hall filled with hundreds of thousands, even millions of candidates. They were everywhere: carrying glasses, climbing staircases, sipping drinks, conversing, and activating Granville spheres and panels. Oriana tuned out the music. She thought about asking Pasha if he still wanted to turn back.

  She felt more comfortable when she spied Gaia. The House Rastedes candidate didn’t walk so much as sway. Her long, thick curly hair looped down her back and up over her right shoulder, tied at the bottom with a satin sash. Her cheeks looked full, almost chubby, around her small nose and lips. She whispered in one boy’s ear, grabbed another’s crotch, giggled, then spun out of their orbit, her floral gown floating around her.

  Gaia kissed Oriana on each cheek. “I’m so glad your developers let you come.”

  Oriana had explained to her after the last class how stern the Summersets could be with their endless list of rules, particularly on engaging with Harpoon candidates. Don’t insult anyone. Don’t lose control. Don’t be snotty. Don’t share stories. Don’t trust them. Don’t help them. If she listened to the Summersets, she’d have no friends at all!

  “They have to let us have some free time,” Oriana said, thinking about the constant simulations and studies and meditations and training between Harpoon classes.

  Gaia grinned in that mysterious, mischievous way she would when she chatted about boys. “That they do.” Her eyes searched past Oriana to where Pasha stood.

  “Pleasure to see you, Miss Gaia,” Pasha said. He sounded like Lord Thaddeus, and acted like him when he took Gaia’s hand in his, kissing it.

  Oriana rolled her eyes.

  “Ho, Oriana!”

  Knowing Nathan’s voice without seeing him, she turned. “Ho, Nathan.”

  He stood beside Duccio, Gaia’s blood brother. Biologically they were the same in late adolescence, similar to Oriana, Pasha, and most other candidates. In truth, while Gaia was born a full fifteen days after Duccio, she often acted like the elder. Oriana didn’t understand how the two candidates, developed by the same house, born of the same parents, could be so different.

  “I thought you weren’t coming.” Nathan strode the last few meters between them, all smiles. He reached for Oriana, his cufflinks sparkling in the strobe light. He held her for a long moment. When he pulled back, she felt a little giddy.

  The tingly sensations disappeared when Duccio winked at her. There was something about him that made her stomach uneasy in a decidedly squirmy way. He had the robust build of a Rastedes candidate and mov
ed as agilely as his sister did. His hands looked thicker and stronger than Nathan’s or Pasha’s, yet felt soft when he touched her. He made a show of lifting her forefingers to his lips. Closing his eyes, he gave them a long, loud kiss, then angled his face toward hers and grinned.

  She pulled her hand away.

  “Sweet princess,” Duccio said, “some say you and your brother are tearing up the leaderboard.”

  Oriana hated it when he called her sweet princess. She at first didn’t know how to respond, though she noted the glance Duccio shared with Gaia, who shook her head disapprovingly. Unlike Pasha’s thoughts, Oriana couldn’t hear Duccio’s or Gaia’s. Gaia was always so kind to her, but her brother spoke emotionlessly, revealing neither his sentiment nor his intentions.

  “Is that what they say?” Oriana couldn’t figure out why Duccio would lie to her. While she’d not seen her ID number in the Summersets’ ticker, she’d been rising in the candidate ranks, clearly. Thinking more about it, she couldn’t keep the pride from her face.

  Pasha stepped beside Oriana without greeting the boys. “From the top,” he said, “my sister and I will see farther—”

  “And fall harder,” Duccio put in, “if you’re not careful.”

  A silence lingered, until Nathan broke it. “Care to try out the lounge?” he said. He unbuttoned the top of his shirt, revealing his chest. “It’s a little cooler back there.”

  “More private too,” Gaia agreed. She massaged Nathan’s shoulders, nuzzling her chin on his shoulder.

  Oriana’s breaths quickened with her thoughts. Don’t trust them. “Let’s go then.” She pulled Nathan away from Gaia.

  “Hold up,” Nathan said. He nodded to a girl at the bar, who flipped a few benari coins to the waiter bot. She lifted a Dunamisian-designed polychromatic handbag. Desaray Hawkins. Her colorful hair puffed high from a widow’s peak and splayed around her head, down her shoulders, and over her black and orange gown, which matched her eyes. Oriana marveled at her slender, muscular body, a body Oriana noticed caught Pasha’s attention as well.

  The lounge was less crowded than the spherical hall, not at all similar to the scientific cafés that Oriana discovered during her research into Beimenian architecture. This one had circular booths, waiter bots, and a dizzying silver-and-blue ambiance, with colorful laser lights that streamed from a central orb and struck the dark ceiling in time with the music, a combination of jazz and electronica. Desaray waved to a waiter bot as if she’d done this a million times before.

  “Six glasses of Loverealan wine and six shots of the finest cinnamon rum this establishment offers,” Desaray said next to the bot’s audio capture. The bot flashed its eye slit as if to indicate its understanding, then it scurried away.

  “I hope you ordered me sparkling water,” Oriana said.

  Duccio laughed. Desaray grinned. “Relax,” she said, “a glass of wine makes you feel fine.” She giggled, pushing Duccio’s hand away from hers. “That’s what Lady California says—”

  “We’re not supposed to drink that stuff, even if it’s virtual,” Pasha said, sliding in beside Desaray, “and I’m not letting my sister get sick—”

  “Oh, pul-ease, cut the bullshit,” Desaray interrupted. Her forefingers crawled over Pasha’s arm. “We’re in the virtual Candidate Café, Mr. Hero.”

  Nathan gave Desaray a cautious nod, and he smiled at Oriana, who felt her body turn hotter than the sun. “There’s a reason the chancellor outlawed VR outside the Harpoons,” Nathan told Oriana. “No consequences in here. No worries. No hassles.” He leaned closer, his nose nearly touching hers. He moved his lips near her ear, and she could feel his warm exhalation. “Just … discovery …”

  Oriana struggled to draw breath, and part of her, not an insignificant part, wanted to pull Nathan closer, but instead she pushed him away. “Just … forget it.”

  “We’re not breaking any rules,” Gaia insisted.

  A boy Oriana didn’t recognize whispered in Gaia’s ear. His groomed sideburns looked like claws; his eyebrows, too perfect, angled up at the sides. Gaia ignored him. The boy closed his eyes, sniffing her hair. He whispered in her ear again. Gaia turned away, cringing.

  The boy persisted. “You don’t look like you’re having any fun,” he said. He nodded awkwardly to his table. “I’ll give you a night you’ll never forget.” On the boy’s table, surrounded by candidates, stood five bottles of Dunamisian liqueur that glowed with white phosphorescent light.

  “You won’t survive a night with her!” Duccio said.

  Gaia glared at him, twisting her lips.

  “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”

  Nathan laughed, and Oriana with him, though she didn’t find Duccio amusing at all.

  Gaia ignored her annoying brother. She tugged on the boy’s shirt, undoing his buttons with practiced fingers. She pouted with her naughtiest grin. The boy moved closer to her as if to kiss her. He closed his eyes. Just before his lips touched hers, she pushed away from him and spun elegantly, sitting beside Nathan in the booth.

  Duccio laughed obnoxiously at the boy, who weaved into the flow of candidates through the lounge. Soon Oriana could no longer see him. When she looked down, she noticed Gaia’s hand resting on Nathan’s thigh.

  “Where were we?” Gaia asked.

  “Breaking the rules,” Desaray said, and when Pasha tried to interrupt, she put up her hand, “all part of the preparation.” She slid away from Duccio, closer to Pasha. “We work with the developers for what, six-hour increments?” A group of rowdy candidates roared nearby, and Desaray smiled their way. “Six hours on, three hours off. Six on, three off. Train, stimulate, train, grow, stimulate, learn, and the problem with that is we aren’t like the bots, you know.” Desaray nodded at a group of robotic waiters near the café stalls. “We’re still transhuman.” She teased her magenta nails through Pasha’s dark blue hair. “We still have those primal human desires and needs, you know—”

  The Granville sphere at the center of the table burst into a holographic world, lighting their faces. Oriana recognized Pasha’s work: a pond over a transhuman hand, and a girl and a boy with a tree, clouds, and lightning bursts over a blue-green pastoral landscape.

  “Looks like we’ve got a genius with us tonight,” Gaia said to Nathan, who agreed.

  Boom!

  Desaray screamed.

  Falcon Torres slammed his palms through the hologram, and it shattered and disappeared. “Looks like this is where the party’s at tonight.”

  He flashed his teeth at Oriana.

  She grimaced. Why, with thousands and thousands of tables, did Falcon choose to start trouble at theirs? Ursula Dearborne emerged from behind him. She artfully placed her hand behind his back, and he covered her fingers with his hand.

  “Guess you were right about her,” Falcon said. “She does look pathetic—”

  “I bet she gets bids before you,” Nathan said.

  “I wouldn’t,” Duccio said softly.

  Falcon grinned. “She couldn’t even lift her finger in a Granville world.” He leaned closer to Nathan, and Oriana smelled his alcoholic breath. “Care to place a wager on your prophecy?”

  “Forget it!” Pasha said. “There’s no candidate gambling allowed at the Harpoons!”

  Two more boys, unfamiliar to Oriana, flanked Ursula and Falcon. The boy on the left was even more muscular than Falcon, with reddish-hazel eyes and a cherry-colored mohawk. The one on the right sported animated tattoos of skulls that bit down on his arm as if they were feeding.

  Nathan moved his hand across his face and around, as if he were a holographic artist. A handful of benaris dripped from his palm. He rolled those that remained off his fingers onto the black-and-yellow neon table.

  “One million benaris says Oriana Barão is bid for ahead of you,” Nathan said, as calm as a Halcyon evening.

  “Don’t do this,” Oriana said to Nathan. “These guys aren’t worth it—”

  “A candidate is sworn by his wor
d,” Ursula said, “and I’m no guy.” She twirled her hair between her fingers and leaned over the table, right hand extended. “Do we have an accord? The Barão girl over Falcon Torres. One million benaris. All or none.”

  Oriana stared at Ursula’s hand and at Nathan’s. She closed her eyes when they shook. Not real. Not real. Oh gods, oh gods, this isn’t happening.

  “Look at her,” the boy with the skulls said. He laughed. “She’s as scared as she was on the first day.”

  Oriana exhaled. I’m a champion. “I’ll receive the first bid.”

  Pasha turned, mouth open, eyes blinking.

  Oriana leaned forward. “I will be the Harpoon Champion, and you’re going to pay us one million benaris.”

  “Bring it,” Ursula said.

  She whipped her hair around and slung her arm over the cherry-mohawk boy’s shoulders, and he put his arm around her. Falcon’s nostrils flared. He grunted, spun around, and waltzed with his crew through the crowd at the center of the lounge.

  “Are you nuts?” Pasha said.

  “Are you?” Oriana said. “If we don’t believe in ourselves, no one else will.”

  “They’re being developed by the Variscans.”

  “I don’t care if they’re being developed by the gods themselves, and neither should you.”

  The waiter arrived with their wine and rum shots.

  “And on that note,” Gaia said with an ear-to-ear smile, “I think a toast is in order for the next Harpoon Champion.” She sang the words.

  Duccio ran his hand through his spiked hair. “Joy,” he said with a resigned smile.

  Pasha frowned but accepted the wine and the shot glass filled with a simmering, florid, luminous liquid from Gaia, as did the rest of the group. They raised their shot glasses. The lasers danced around them and colored their faces.

  “To new friendships and memories and victories in the Harpoons,” Nathan said.

  They gulped, and Pasha winced. Duccio pounded the table in a drumbeat. Desaray screamed cheerfully.