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

by Zen, Raeden

  Danforth shouted and guided the guests into the hall.

  Chants of “Serve Beimeni, live forever!” broke out, and Connor dropped his candles into a BP-sponsored booth outside the hall, where a man in overalls cooked apple fritters.

  Connor used his faked credentials at the Faraway Hall checkpoint. The Janzer hesitated, then approved his entry, and he neared the sprawling lines of Beimenians awaiting entry to the eighteen archways leading into Faraway Hall. Chatter filled the air, Beimenians dizzy with excitement, drunk on the idea of living again upon the surface of the Earth—should Dr. Shrader truly have immunity to the Reassortment Strain. The movement was slow going, and Connor found he was losing patience. Then the world opened up to him, a full view of Faraway Hall, gray slabs folded over and under each other like scales on a reptile, crisscrossed by maroon beams, and below him, the rows upon rows of maroon marble benches.

  Connor ambled down the steps filled with snobs from Phanes, researchers from Palaestra, entertainers from Marshlands, masseuses from Lovereal and Natura, technicians from Dunamis, and growers from Vivo. He found an aisle seat near the first rim, engulfed by aristocrat attendees. The lights dimmed. A side entrance opened. A spotlight highlighted the supreme scientist Antosha Zereoue. He was a god of a man, taller than Father, as muscular as Zorian, and quicker than Hans, dressed in a liquid silver synsuit and fur-lined hooded lab coat. If not for Antosha’s lack of dimples, he could be Captain Broden Barão’s twin, Connor noted.

  Antosha sat in a massive amber chair across from Danforth Diamond.

  “Describe for Beimeni how it is that we’ve come to this unbelievable milestone,” Danforth said. His face was thin, his cheekbones set high. He wore a golden fur-rimmed robe and a white silk shirt.

  “My team in the Tomahawk Facility deserves all the credit.” Antosha artfully folded his hands together upon his lap.

  Danforth’s lips pushed out in a pout. “Come now, Supreme Scientist, sounds like you’re being modest.”

  Connor scanned the stage’s rim, which was lined with Janzers—at least six divisions. He glanced up to the luxury deck where the chancellor stood dressed in a lavish cape and chains, covered in gemstones and silk sashes. He swayed as if to a melody. Maidens of Masimovian, dressed only in the animated tattoos that covered their skin, surrounded him.

  Antosha raised his palms. “What can I say? I love talking to Beimenians, especially when I have good news.”

  The chancellor frowned. The crowd applauded wildly. Connor thought the surge might bring down the hall.

  And in the middle of what had now turned into a standing ovation, Connor sensed a presence with him, as if someone, or something, crawled around his body. He checked his arms and legs. Nothing here. Connor peered down to the stage, to Antosha, who peered back up at him.

  “We too share your love for Chancellor Masimovian and for the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni,” Danforth added when the crowd quieted. “Might you share with us some of the details of this long-awaited awakening?”

  Antosha twisted back to Danforth and grinned.

  Connor’s heart slowed as he eased into his chair and sipped on a glass filled with ice water. Pushing his consciousness into the ZPF the way he’d done thousands of times before, he influenced the quantum field around the stage. No issue. Perhaps Antosha isn’t as strong as Father assumes, Connor thought.

  “When an animal—and transhumans are still animals,” Antosha said, “is frozen near absolute zero, or stasis, all their living functions as we know them halt. In Livelle, the scientists who tried and failed to revive five out of the three hundred forty scientists found that the damage to the cells, while extensive, could be repaired, but it had to be done with speed that technology then didn’t allow. The technology was poorly enhanced by my predecessor, who made unfathomable decisions and errors, and most of the remaining scientists in suspended animation perished.”

  “All except for Dr. Kole Shrader,” Danforth said. “Why was he the last to be reanimated? Was he the most vital scientist in Livelle? Did his work on the Reassortment Strain cause the Death Wave?”

  Antosha paused and altered his expression, as if speaking of this event saddened him. “I’m a scientist. Whether I have an opinion is not important. Beliefs are irrelevant. I may or may not agree with what Dr. Shrader did Before Reassortment, but that would matter not, would it? The timescape is unalterable. His team developed the Reassortment Strain, and we’re all about to find out what he knows.”

  A drunken aristocrat leaned to Connor, his breath foul. “If he’s wrong about this awakening, lad, heh, he’ll surely find out himself, in the Lower Level!”

  Connor chuckled and nodded. The aristocrat went back to drinking and talking to his eternal partner. Connor closed his eyes. Antosha wouldn’t have issued invitations for such a grand evening unless he was 100 percent sure of the outcome. Kole Shrader would awaken, and the world would change forever. Meanwhile, Connor’s comrades needed his help. He couldn’t allow Antosha to interfere with the operation in the City of Eternal Darkness.

  He expanded his own field. When he channeled his mind through the trellis overhead and the geometric shapes that overhung Faraway Hall, a powerful pulse tickled his bones and body. He now heard what seemed like Beimenians’ thoughts from all of Underground North.

  This ability was so foreign, so omniscient, so unlike anything Father instructed him on or anything he’d learned on his own with the ZPF, it disturbed him. Was something in Faraway Hall enhancing his telepathy? Was it the geometry of the roof? Or something else? Antosha?

  Connor considered fleeing Boreas and transmitting a distress signal to the Front. But this was his time, his fight, and he had to prove himself in the heat of battle, as he’d done in Permutation Crypt. We will strike the iron fist, he thought. He reached out, but didn’t detect interference from Antosha in the ZPF the way Father had predicted. He let Father know this, over their private connection in the ZPF. I’m in control, Connor transmitted. Proceed with the operation.

  “What do you live for?” Danforth was saying. He pushed his hair away from his face.

  “All of them,” Antosha held his open hand out toward the crowd, “and the greatness of Beimeni.”

  The crowd cheered and clapped and chanted Antosha’s name, over and over. Again, Antosha turned to Connor. Connor attempted to access his private line in the universe, the piece of the ZPF utilized by the BP that he and Father had established, the way he just had, but he couldn’t.

  “Let’s get back to the Regenesis procedure,” Danforth said. “How has the process changed?”

  Antosha turned from Connor to Danforth. Connor regained control of his field.

  “It’s a revolutionary method, synthesized by my new team,” Antosha said. “We’ve utilized proprietary technological systems that only I understand and on which I’m unauthorized to elaborate. What I can tell you is that we’ve reanimated six transhuman volunteers.”

  Connor shuddered. They weren’t volunteers, they were BP, you scumbag. Hundreds of BP of all ages, and if just six survived …

  “Give us any snippets you can,” Danforth said, raising his eyebrows in a manner he alone was capable.

  “The gist of the procedure is that we’ll release millions of synisms, some so small you won’t be able to see them on-screen, some as large as beetles. They’ll secrete uficilin and enzymes designed to rebuild Dr. Shrader’s cellular structure from his DNA to his mitochondria to his ribosomes, vesicles, endoplasmic reticulum, all the way to his neurons, muscles, and skin.”

  The crowd swooned, and Connor attempted to send another message to his father. Mysteriously, he could not. He heard a voice in his head.

  You’re going to die tonight, traitor.

  The voice sounded similar to Antosha’s, but much deeper, stronger. It sent ice gliding up and down Connor’s arms. He gathered his strength and debated his next move.

  I can’t allow Antosha to interfere with the operation, Connor thought.

&nbs
p; Danforth stood and raised his arms. The audience stood. Danforth beckoned the crowd to get excited for significant conversion. One side of the hall shouted, “Serve Beimeni!” and the other side returned, “Live forever!”

  Antosha grinned wanly, and Connor felt a throbbing inside his head, like a drummer between his ears. The hall and waving arms, the popped bottles of champagne, and the light show in the trellis gave way to Ypresia Village and then to the Island of Reverie. Then he was back in Faraway Hall, and he heard the crowd chant Antosha’s name.

  His chest pounded. He sensed Antosha’s hold over him. The air boiled around him. He wiped his eyes and blinked, and he was back in Beimeni River, swimming underwater, arm over arm, deranged, desperate to escape Lady Isabelle’s pursuit.

  Connor fought the metaphysical hold until he heard the sound of shattered glass and broke free.

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Nero Silvana

  Gaia City

  Gaia, Underground West

  2,500 meters deep

  Aera moved, ever so slightly, ever so cautiously.

  One step turned to two steps, then three and four, and she and Nero met the Janzers midway between the bridge and the transports to Nyx. Residents peeked through their windows in homes carved from stone cliffs. Would the Janzers kill them in front of all these people? Nero clutched a z-disk from his belt—his falsified Janzer credentials. Aera supplied hers. The Janzers examined the z-disks far longer than Nero hoped, transmitting messages to the DOP.

  Ten more seconds, Nero thought, then it’s over.

  He lifted his hand stealthily for his sword. He stood in readiness, until finally the Janzers handed him and Aera their z-disks and waved them through. They stepped into a Western Passage transport and latched inside. Nero prepared to help Aera the way she had helped him in Cineris but wondered if Jeremiah hadn’t erred in his judgment.

  The transport eased onto the track and whisked them across the Western Inaccessible Region, deep into Nyx.

  City of Eternal Darkness

  Nyx, Underground West

  “It’s so different than I remember,” Aera said. “This place …”

  Her voice gave way to her breaths, and she turned to and fro. Nero assumed she was imagining a different time, a different city. Not the desolation they viewed, or the burnt aroma that permeated the air and fouled his gut.

  Nyx seemed like another planet, certainly nothing like the commonwealth, and not even similar to the BP enclaves with their bridges and crystals and bioluminescent waterfalls.

  A thin ebony pyramid stood below, streaked with light blue phosphorescent light. Light blue beams extended from the cavern floor to the carbyne roof. Thick bulbs outlined a trail down to the former city center to the pyramid and the quarantine entrance on the other side.

  “Are you ready?” Nero said.

  Aera didn’t answer him and moved as if he wasn’t there, meandering down the sinuous pathway. He orbited the central pyramid with her. Three Janzer divisions jogged past them. Here and there, Janzers adjusted machines that Nero assumed were part of the research conducted in Nyx for the commonwealth’s survival.

  Aera reached a diamond-gloved hand toward the blue beams. The beams and overhead plating that girded the city were more concentrated here than at the top, near Ghost Station.

  “What do you see?” Nero said. He would guide her, as she had done for him when he felt lost, and he and she would use the Lorum to free Brody from captivity. Then I’ll return to Verena in Hydra Hollow, and all will be right.

  Aera hesitated, still reaching through the beam as if something tangible lay upon her fingertips. “I see limestone buildings connected by strands of rope where my mother and father hung their clothes. I see Neaneara Circle with the statue, with Persephone in Pluto’s arms as they stargaze, and Angels of Angeles Territory, stage performers, sprinting through a bazaar, and holographic painters and singers.” She looked up. “I see death. The city swallowed into the Earth, and I feel the rumble beneath my feet, and my heart pounds so hard I think I might die right here, right in front of the statue.”

  Nero watched her carefully, scanning his Janzer protocols. “Best not draw attention,” he said, nodding to her outreached arm.

  She dropped her hand. “I wished I was dead. I wished my parents never settled here and never convinced me to come back, and I wished I never allowed the commonwealth scientists to experiment on my body and turn me into what I am now, weak against Reassortment, strong against nothing.”

  “What are you—”

  “I’m not transhuman.”

  “What are you?”

  “I’m something else.”

  They stood in front of the ebony pyramid in silence, Nero seeing blue pulses, Aera seeing Pluto and Persephone and a civilization long forgotten. He nudged her. “Mighty Aera, the gods spared you from this city’s destruction for a reason.”

  She turned to him, and it seemed as though she was truly listening.

  “I think that reason was for you to use this power, this skill given to you. And if we don’t keep moving,” Nero noted the city’s thousands of Janzers, many of which hovered atop airborne rocketcycles, “we’re dead.”

  She didn’t answer, didn’t move.

  “You can still turn back.”

  “The operation is what matters, not Angeles, not … Nyx … there, I said it.” She gasped. “Nyx doesn’t matter. This … City of Eternal Darkness … doesn’t matter.” She paused. “I don’t know what Jeremiah can do with the Lorum, if anything, but he believes Antosha will unleash its unique synthesis in ways unimaginable, and I can’t allow that, I can’t allow more experiments …” Her breath fogged against the visor on her helmet. “I won’t …”

  “Let’s go, mighty Aera.”

  Nero led her to the other side of the city and through a crystalline corridor into a cavernous area. Artificial light streaked across a carbyne bridge in a foggy atmosphere and burned stalactites overhead. White lettering on the bridge said CED-NYX-175, which translated to “City of Eternal Darkness, Nyx, 175 meters.” Nero and Aera’s Janzer boots clanked along the ground. Janzers hovering on rocketcycles carried synism drums and torches, and set supplies along a massive, thin carbyne building in the center of the wide bridge over a dark pit.

  Nero and Aera arrived at the next checkpoint, where a Janzer division manned workstations and manipulated holograms. Nero gave them a hand signal, two inverted fingers and an orbiting fist, which meant they’d arrived for check-in to the quarantine sector.

  “Z-disks,” a Janzer said.

  Nero set his and Aera’s disks atop the Janzer’s workstation. The Janzer held a retina scanner near their visors. A green grid splayed over their visors, penetrating to their eyes.

  They were cleared for entry to quarantine.

  They weaved through thousands of columns on the top floor. Janzers moved about like worker ants in the layered building, widest at the top, where Nero and Aera stood, and narrowest at the circular base.

  Nero’s eyes widened at the sight of the Lorum orb at the bottom. It hung beneath the fifty inclined stairwells placed every five meters around the perimeter, which led to the base. The orb swirled with the gold, scarlet, black, silver, and yellow that he remembered from when Brody had first retrieved it on Vigna.

  Strange that they would leave the orb out in the open, Nero thought. He wondered if they should turn back. To Aera, he sent, Stay sharp, they know.

  He extended his consciousness and scanned. At least ten Janzer divisions guarded the facility. Aera had handled the Janzers in the Crypt with such ease that Nero thought about storming the Lorum, taking it now, and sprinting into the city’s surrounding caverns, which connected to supply lines in the inaccessible region, where Pirro awaited their arrival.

  That would be unwise, traitor.

  Nero recognized Antosha’s voice.

  Antosha’s face formed in the Lorum’s light, the shade of his likeness, mesmerizing, dizzying, and only when it disappeared did Nero unders
tand what was happening.

  A maroon light blinded him—an overhead spotlight.

  In unison, the Janzers raised their pulse rifles, the tips aglow.

  “Get down,” Aera said.

  She slammed Nero to the granite ground, and he clutched his chest, the wind knocked out of him. He wouldn’t have thought this possible beneath the Janzer synsuit, but the force with which Aera threw him compared only to the force he’d experienced in his descent to the center of Vigna.

  Pulse blasts flew over them.

  “EMP, now,” Aera said.

  Nero managed a breath and slapped the activator attached to his leg. A flash burst from his synsuit.

  The maroon spotlight disappeared, as did the steady hum that emanated from the workstations. The Lorum glowed, dimly lighting the ground floor. Useless pulse weaponry clattered to the ground as the Janzers tossed it aside.

  “Night vision,” Aera said.

  Nero shifted his visor. A lime hue splayed the conical facility, illuminating a swirl of Janzers in attack formations.

  Aera drew her diamond sword and sprinted down the stairs. Nero followed close behind. He watched her flip over a division and swing so fast and hard she decapitated one Janzer and broke two others’ necks. A Janzer slashed toward her throat, but she ducked, swept his legs, took his sword, and spun it into his visor. She screamed and swung the two swords with fluid grace, cutting into another Janzer’s head.

  Nero dashed after her, still only midway down the facility’s layers as she approached the bottom.

  Janzer reinforcements streamed in from a shelter behind the Lorum. Nero peered down. They seemed to fill every nook and rim in sight. He pushed aside the realization that had haunted him since Givetia Station.

  The operation could fail.

  Aera activated her EMP, silencing the pulse blasts that streamed around them.