by Zen, Raeden
Antosha saw it. “Inventive,” he said, “devious …” The strain acted as if it operated like a mirrored organism, but it was so much more. Like a quantum computer, the strain contained a vast parallelism that would enable it to solve in minutes certain problems that would take classical computers a billion years. It was as simple as single-celled synisms in some ways and more complex than the Marstone artificial intelligence in others.
“It encrypts parts of its genome on the quantum level.” Shrader smiled greedily. “You’ll never find a cure for it. When you think you’ve solved it, it’ll reassort further and faster than you can adjust—”
A Reassortment research scientist collapsed and screamed, writhing on the ground.
Shrader’s eyes bulged. He moved as if to run, but Antosha grabbed his arm with one hand and with the other hand-signaled the bots. We must evacuate, he sent to his research team. He pulled Shrader into their helicopter. They latched into their seats.
Antosha telepathically connected to the chopper’s navigation system and ordered it to bring them back to Area 55. The choppers around them took off, one after another, and soon so did Antosha’s.
On the way back, Shrader turned to Antosha. “What exactly is it you want, Mr. Zereoue?” Antosha faced him. “My blood? My life?” Shrader shook his head. “If Luella’s dead you may as well kill me—”
Antosha pushed himself into Shrader’s mind …
… And the scene shifted to the Cryo Room in the Ventureño Facility, in 327 AR, where 335 scientists hung in stasis containment, Drs. Kole and Luella Shrader among them. Supreme Scientist Broden Barão commanded his team, including Damy, Nero, Verena, Antosha, Haleya, and Heywood, among others, to initiate the Regenesis procedure. The order was for a single scientist, hidden behind the vacuum, his arms sprawled across the stasis tank, his upper body nude, dark pants over his legs.
Brody lifted his arms, accessing the ZPF in typical grandstanding Barão fashion. Research bots circled their workstations. Antosha warned of an error, something he had first detected after an apparent assassination attempt; a Janzer had thwarted the attack, but in so doing caused damage to the tanks, or so Antosha believed. Brody ignored Antosha. He continued the awakening, and robotic arms melted through the ice and vacuum. Too few regenerative synisms released upon the scientist when he fell to the ground.
The procedure went out of control.
More tanks activated.
But one didn’t.
One malfunction saved Dr. Kole Shrader’s life.
Now Shrader knelt near his Luella at the base of her stasis tank, her eyes open and empty, water and gelatin pressed against her lips. “This wasn’t what Oriana told me in Livelle Cemetery, this wasn’t how it happened, they didn’t kill her, not this way. The activations weren’t timed properly, the scientists weren’t healed properly—”
“Oriana Barão has a vivid imagination,” Antosha said.
“She has been my friend since I awakened in this hellish place—”
“She’s as cunning as she is stunning, but you mustn’t allow her to sway you from the truth.”
“Which is?”
“That your beloved Luella was murdered because a supreme scientist didn’t want Beimenians to know … none of you are immune.”
“Why would Oriana lie?”
“Could it be,” Antosha said, “that she protects … someone important to her?”
Antosha rotated Brody’s image and displayed his name tag.
“Her father …” Shrader turned to Antosha. “Where is he now?”
“He’s a traitor to this commonwealth, much like his daughter, and he is serving out the rest of his days in the Earth’s depths. He won’t survive for long—”
“—and neither will she.”
ZPF Impulse Wave: Cornelius Selendia
Farino City
Farino, Underground North
2,500 meters deep
From when Connor had first awakened in the prison, confused, choking in the dark, the endless time passed much the same. Janzers rode in on rocketcycles, fed the dead to the eels, fed scraps to the living, cleared human waste from the island corners—feed, drink, shit, piss, sleep, wake, die, feed, shit, piss, sleep, wake, die.
He’d grown tired of waiting for the rescue, tired of watching his fellow Polemon die around him, tired of being the plankton when he should be the blacktip shark that Aera and Father trained him to be. He’d focused his waking hours pondering the ZPF and his suppressed connection to it.
They’d not replaced his Converse Collar since his arrival. He shielded his meditations the best he could from Marstone, penetrating the quantum signals the collar emitted into the ZPF, and his neurochip and brain. The collar neutralized his mind-body-cosmos interface the way a damp blanket might smother a fire. But what if part of the blanket could burn? What if Connor could find a crack through which he might feel the ZPF?
This became his focus, indeed, his obsession.
He could not share his plan with his comrades, lest Marstone pick up his speech, or their thoughts. He’d have to act alone, at least at first. Once he felt that connection restored, he’d be unstoppable, he assured himself, for neither Antosha nor Lady Isabelle were close enough to Farino to launch a counterstrike against him.
More time passed. Without the Granville sky illusion it was impossible for Connor to know how long. Finally, he awakened one day (or night?) and felt a sliver of his former connection to the cosmos. It wasn’t as strong as it would’ve been without the collar, to be sure, but it might just be enough. A Janzer need only come close enough for Connor to enact his plan. Then he’d lead his people out of Farino, warn his father about Antosha, and help them win the war.
He waited for the most opportune moment to launch his strike. Chow time. Thousands and thousands of Janzers weaved around the millions of islands on their rocketcycles with trays of food. A pair moved quickly, quickly, closer to him. Aera and Nero and Pirro and others sat up, leaning against ridged rock, looking weaker, dirtier, thinner, all hope drained from their expressions.
I must act now, or we’re all going to die, Connor thought. A Janzer pair arrived at his island, separating, rotating to either side of him. One held his pulse rifle aimed at Connor while the other held a tray of food. More Janzer pairs sped around the islands near him in similar formations. Connor pushed his consciousness through the crack in the collar’s field, spreading it open as if he were parting water in Blackeye Cavern’s lake.
He felt the collar battle with his mind, enclosing and adjusting to his onslaught, until Connor sent a burst of energy through the ZPF. He forced his way through. He’d use the same tactic with Antosha’s field, if given another chance.
Connor made the Janzer closest to him throw his utility belt onto the island. He dashed to it, found the storage area with keys, took one, and twisted it into his collar. The green light that had enveloped him for so long disappeared, and Connor felt his full connection with the ZPF restored.
Aera and Nero moved closer to the food trays, slowly and ponderously, watching Connor.
He pushed his own field outward, over the Janzers. Hans, Father, and Mother, please understand, I must use the ZPF this way …
Connor found his telekinetic connection in the ZPF—the one he’d unwittingly accessed in Permutation Crypt—manipulating the unseen waves of the cosmos. He sent a burst over the Janzers closest to him, knocking them from the rocketcycles.
The eels thrashed in the water below, sending their light up the sides of the islands.
The Janzers near the islands around him turned to him in unison, activating their pulse rifles.
Swiftly, Connor broke apart the chains that bound Aera’s wrists, ankles, and body. She fell to her knees.
He broke apart the island’s rock, turning it into pebbles, sending its shrapnel in a flurry and fury over the Janzers.
He dislodged them from their rocketcycles, and they fell into the murky lake. Again, the eels stirred below.
/> Millions of prisoners cheered.
More Janzers flowed closer to Connor’s island.
He hopped on the rocketcycle closest to him and accelerated forward. He sent another telekinetic burst through the ZPF, shattering the stalactites above, spraying the limestone over the Janzer reinforcements.
More shouts from the Polemon gave him strength.
Connor circled back to Aera’s island. “Can you fight with me?”
She nodded weakly. Gasping for air, she lifted herself to her feet. The chains had dug into her wrists, forearms, and ankles, leaving deep, bloody cuts.
Connor feared it had taken him too long to free her, to execute this escape.
No, he told himself, he couldn’t fail his people in the prison, or those scattered throughout Beimeni or in Hydra Hollow.
This might be their best chance, with the enemy dazed and disorganized in Farino Prison.
Connor sent the levitating, driverless rocketcycles to more islands, liberating Nero, then Pirro, then Charlene, and everyone and anyone he could find. He used the keys to remove their collars.
A new line of Janzers neared the Polemon, and Connor raised his arms the way his father would, showering them with limestone, killing many of them.
He felt more alive than he had in his whole life, the sensations from the ZPF flowing through him. He halted his attack and lowered his arms. His blood sang. Was this what Zorian felt like? Connor thought. Was this why he lost his mind?
Now pulse fire crisscrossed over the prison islands. Death surrounded Connor, Polemon blown to bits by the Janzers.
He pushed his consciousness outward, expanding his quantum field. He found he couldn’t connect to the Janzers the way he’d hoped, for something, or someone, blocked him, though he couldn’t tell what.
It didn’t feel like the energy and power Antosha had used in Faraway Hall. It felt artificial, as if the Janzers were using their connection with the cosmos to prevent Connor’s field from influencing their minds—or as if they were adjusting to his attack, the way they were trained.
They’re focusing on my weakness, avoiding my strength. Aera had taught him about Janzer battle tactics prior to the raid into Permutation Crypt. Connor couldn’t fathom which weakness the Janzers discovered.
Suddenly tens of thousands of them formed ranks upon the horizon, so far away in the enormous cavern that they looked like fireflies glowing in the dark, their diamond armor glistening beneath the glowworms slithering over the stalactites high above.
Connor’s telepathic fist couldn’t reach them there.
Nero neared Connor on his rocketcycle. “They’re adjusting,” the striker said. He looked like death, his face covered with sweat and dust, his tunic torn at his sides, blood streaking down his left leg.
“They’ve deduced the weakness in your plan,” Aera said.
She floated upon her rocketcycle on Connor’s other side. She looked no better than Nero, so thin that Connor almost didn’t recognize her.
“Which is?” Connor said.
“The eels,” Pirro said, bobbing behind Connor upon his rocketcycle, “you haven’t accounted for the eels—”
“The water!” a woman said. She leaned over the side of her island.
“The eels are rising!” a man said.
“We have to get out!” said another man.
More screams followed. Connor turned, searching. The lake’s level was lifting, for the electric bursts from the eels spread higher, higher, higher, as if their pulses were a geyser.
What did I do? Connor thought. He couldn’t move, though he didn’t know why. Was it fear or anger that stalled him?
Neither, it seemed, for he was paralyzed, shaking from a zeropoint energy shock wave sent out from the eel closest to him!
His teeth clattered, and though he struggled to turn, he noticed the Polemon near him were also stunned.
Two eels flew out of the lake then, like sea serpents, their mouths wide, their eyes focused upon their prey over the island nearest to Connor. Their bodies looked like gigantic slugs. They had no teeth but didn’t seem to need them, for they swallowed the Polemon whole, then glided over the island, slipping back into the lake.
The water was still rising, with waves that roiled the islands, like an angry beach before a hurricane.
“We must retreat,” Pirro said. “We cannot fight the eels!”
“No!” Connor said. “I won’t give in, I can’t give in.” He broke apart the stalactites, firing them through the eels like harpoons, killing one, two, three, four, so many, but even as he downed them, more eels emerged, flying it seemed, swallowing Polemon as if they were shrimps.
“You must stand down,” Aera said. “There will be another opportunity, if we survive.”
The eels were everywhere.
Connor couldn’t have said how long the high tide lasted or how many eels he killed or how many Polemon were eaten, but when it ended, he and his comrades huddled upon a single prison island.
Through the shadows and lights and dust, a Janzer division neared them on their rocketcycles.
Connor and his allies held up their hands. We surrender, he sent, while wishing he could kill all of them.
One placed a new Converse Collar around his neck, a collar equipped with a differing set of frequencies than the one he’d worn before, and brought him back to his island.
It surprised Connor they didn’t punish him, some way. Did they think letting him live with the dread of his failed escape sufficed? Did they know how much he was torn apart inside, knowing thousands of BP had died because of him? Or perhaps they knew he’d die in some worse manner, anyway.
Connor sat against a boulder on his island, pondering these questions and more, staring at Aera, held down again by many chains. She’d lost additional weight in the days (or nights?) that passed, more of her hope. After the failed escape, the Janzers never traveled in pairs, or even in a single division; two Janzers might be taken, but twelve or more, in these conditions, would not be defeated. And they replaced Connor’s collar each day, sedating him during the process; he didn’t have enough time to find that crack in the collar’s field he’d discovered the day the eels attacked.
Instead, Connor and his comrades settled into their situation. He learned to savor his conversations with Nero, Aera, and Pirro. Initially, no one divulged details of their lives—fear of Marstone and reprisal from the chancellor ever present. This despair soon gave way to the reality that they were going to die, so what difference did it matter if Pirro told stories of the trading pit in Navita, or if Nero talked about adventures on the surface of Earth or Mars?
Aera’s stories were the ones Connor savored most. Whenever she eased against the boulder on her island and spoke, he perked up a little. Presently, she leaned against the boulder and yawned, and Connor said, “Why did the chancellor exile you from the commonwealth?” He’d always wanted to know and assumed now as good a time as any to ask her.
“It was early on in the Age of Masimovian,” she said weakly. She paused, cracking her neck. Her wounds suffered during the attack in Nyx had healed, but she looked like a skeleton dipped in candle wax. She coughed, then continued, “They tested modified synisms capable, they hoped, of creating docile, loyal, dangerous protectors the chancellor believed crucial to securing his power.”
“The Janzers?”
“Yes, when they perfected the serums and enzymes, the sterile Janzers were cloned from Masimovian’s DNA and trained as protectors of the chancellor, loyal to whoever wears the Pendant of the Chancellor.”
“How does it work?”
“It whispers to a specific gene infused within the Janzers. Whoever speaks into the pendant controls the Janzer race.”
“What did this have to do with you?”
“It would be several decades before the scientists in Palaestra perfected the Janzer race. When the new chancellor assumed power, he was nervous about the teams that existed before his coup. He decided they were not the ideal force to
protect law and order in the commonwealth.
“The commonwealth expanded westward all the way to the ocean where coolant piping would connect from the Pacific to Livelle City. My mother and father, engineers on this vast project, were among the first settlers in Angeles, the newest territory, built over warnings from many of their colleagues.” Aera paused. “I was their fourth child. All their other children had received bids by local consortiums and also lived in Angeles. It was right after the Harpoons. I had returned to visit my family prior to my assignment to one of the government-run consortiums in the RDD. Our world collapsed. The rescue crews worked tirelessly to save us, and they found me. My curse, I thought, was that only I survived. Some called me blessed …” Aera shivered.
“My Harpoon performance impressed many, none more so than then-Lieutenant Norrod, ever the loyalist to Atticus Masimovian, who recommended me to the Thithonian Consortium, which bid for me early in the auction. I entered the striker training program and was the first woman to complete it. Soon I became the best known of the strikers, and the teams and the commonwealth began to refer to women strikers as aeras.
“It was about that time, around the year 220, when Chancellor Masimovian asked Supreme Scientist Ahab Janzer to test his new serum on me.”
“The chancellor feared your power.”
“He feared everything, so they sent me to the City of Eternal Darkness, to the quarantine laboratory—”
“Where Antosha placed the Lorum orb.”
Aera nodded. “They performed experiments on my body, injecting the Janzer serums, gene therapies, into me, and I suddenly had the strength of many aeras and strikers. My mind clouded, and although the serum was designed to alter the part of my consciousness that guided my free will, it didn’t work. I lost my ability to access my memories but didn’t respond to the chancellor’s pendant as expected—”
“So, you mean, he couldn’t control you?”
“Right. And that was the end. Ahab sent a team of mercenaries to kill me, but they failed, and I escaped through the caves around the city, through Nyx’s supply tunnels, and …”
