by Zen, Raeden
Aera had appeared tired by that point. Her eyes sank, and she licked her split lips.
“Enough talking for today …”
She fell asleep. Connor noticed that Nero and Pirro also slept.
He sagged against a boulder, sitting upon the ragged limestone. He turned, mesmerized by the electricity from the eels as it flickered between the islands beside him.
ZPF Impulse Wave: Oriana Barão
Research & Development Department (RDD)
Palaestra, Underground Northeast
2,500 meters deep
“This might be too much for Dr. Shrader,” Oriana said to Ruiner.
The Hive was quiet, even with thousands of neophyte shadows beside their aeras and strikers. The treadmills hung still, the walls dark but for the light around the arena, where Dr. Shrader stood in the Lorum synsuit, its colors swirling over his body’s contours and his face. It gave Oriana a chill to watch.
“I didn’t approve,” Ruiner said, “and Antosha will have himself to blame should he lose the Legend, before or after this mission.”
Antosha does risk much, Oriana thought. His mischievousness, it seemed, knew no bounds. Oriana often thought of his kiss, what he did to her body, how she’d desired the man responsible for her father’s exile, her mother’s death, and her brother’s coma. What type of power in the ZPF could sway her that way?
Then she remembered the woman’s voice, the woman who danced for Antosha. Oriana asked him only once about her, and it was the only time she sensed sorrow in him. He didn’t answer, and she didn’t broach the subject further.
Dr. Shrader moved into the arena. Three Graka training bots approached, their bodies covered with carbyne plates, spikes in their grasp, maroon slits for eyes. They surrounded the doctor and crouched, moving almost like transhumans. Shrader held out his fist and through it formed a spike of his own, colored like the Lorum. When one Graka struck with its foot, the doctor dodged left and swung his spike. He swept the first Graka to its backside. The doctor spun into another Graka, lifted it, and squeezed its neck until its eye slit darkened. He threw it into the third Graka.
Oriana heard gasps from the teams who watched.
The two remaining Grakas danced in tandem, and Shrader met them stride for stride, punch for punch, swing for swing.
This was how easy it had been for Pasha in the Lorum synsuit, but he had trained for the Harpoons for thirty days. Antosha had developed Shrader over just a few days prior to this battle. To invite the teams and their apprentices suggested Antosha knew his protégé was ready, but Oriana hadn’t expected the doctor, who could barely walk not long ago, to prove so deadly.
Shrader bowed for his audience, and Antosha emerged, as hideous as ever in his silver synsuit and fur cape. “Behold, the Legend, the man who was held in stasis, the man who is immune to Reassortment, the man who will help us all to the surface!”
The teams cheered. Oriana cringed. Antosha’s breakup of Ruiner’s team for the Timescape Mission had set many captains against him, and Oriana hoped to use this to her advantage. What could she do now that they’d seen what Antosha’s development and technology could do? They and the developmental houses would all beg for access to his methods, and she would require a new angle to discredit Antosha.
How she hated him.
In the days that followed, she trained with Shrader and Ruiner and attended more than a hundred debriefings with Heywood. She sensed a distance between her and Shrader that hadn’t been there before he had fused with the synsuit. What was it about this alien skin that changed a man? Her brother had behaved somewhat similarly after the Lorum touched his body. Unlike Pasha, Shrader survived his surface excursion unscathed, a high-altitude skydive that ended successfully. Even so, the doctor never traversed the surface without the Lorum synsuit. Was his immunity not as definite as Antosha suggested? If the cure lay in Shrader’s genome, some failsafe used in the synbio research, Antosha would’ve shared it by now, wouldn’t he? What advantage would delay afford him?
She contacted Minister Noria Furongielle through the ZPF and requested a meeting at a time and place she knew the DOC would learn about through Marstone. Noria had developed with Oriana’s mother, Damosel, in House Summerset, the same house of development where Oriana and Pasha prepared for the Harpoons. While Noria assured Oriana she and Damosel were as close as sisters, Ruiner told her Noria loved her father as much as Damosel, but she couldn’t win his heart. Oriana cared not for the quarrels between sisters-in-development. She cared about the woman who danced for Antosha.
She rowed a skiff through the stream to Marshlands Citadel. She could sense the energy of the recaller in her bodysuit pocket. There was still no word from Nathan; she’d heard rumors he was being held in Farino Prison. She couldn’t save him, any more than she could her father from the Lower Level, but she couldn’t risk anyone else, or herself, to Marstone’s surveillance. She’d bought the recaller on the black market before she left Palaestra.
In the Gallery of the Minister in the Marshlands Citadel, Noria sat upon a crystalline chair, her two white tigers on either side, just as Oriana remembered them, their eyes like sapphire suns, tails swaying majestically. The territory’s terracotta Granville sun shone down through skylights and made the jewels on Noria’s flowing gown shimmer as bright as gold.
“Madam Champion,” Noria said.
She clapped, and two muscled, oiled, shirtless Citadel Guardsmen brought over trays filled with blueberry and raspberry tarts, strawberries, peach slices, and brandy. “Look at us, the Summerset girls.” Her voice slurred a bit. She giggled. “We are like mother and daughter, aren’t we? Dear daughter, stay here with me. Work for me in my citadel.” She gave Oriana a tight hug. “When your father returns to me, I know he’ll be so proud of you.”
Noria swayed to her guardsmen, her gown splayed over the marble ground. She ate a raspberry tart, sipped her brandy, and offered a bite to Oriana, who refused.
“You sound confident about my father’s prospects,” Oriana said.
“I’m confident in his innocence. That trader killed your mother, and it was all her fault! If she wasn’t such a slut—”
“I didn’t come here today to talk to you about my mother. I want to talk about Antosha.”
Noria fluttered her hand, and the guardsmen left, as did the tigers. “Are you mad? I will not speak about Antosha with you.”
“He played a violin, and a beautiful woman with long silver-blue hair sang a song and danced in front of him. Then she disappeared—”
“Antosha and his damn deodar violin,” Noria said. She sipped her brandy. “Someone should tell that man he’s far from talented enough to play at the Fountain of Youth. I’d have more pleasure listening to my tigers mate.” She threw her head back and laughed.
“What woman would dance for Antosha?” Oriana said. “Why is he so sad when he thinks about her?”
“Is this a trap? Did he send you here?” Noria clapped her hands high above her head. “Guards, take her away!”
“No! You must tell me!” The guardsmen returned and reached for Oriana, but she was too fast for them.
Noria staggered across the gallery. Oriana ran to her and hugged her. “You’re my mother, aren’t you? And mothers help their daughters. And I need your help.”
Oriana connected with the ZPF and threw her consciousness over Noria, showed her Antosha’s meditation center and the woman with moonflowers around her body, singing. Suddenly, Oriana lost her concentration and the vision disappeared. Her mind broke off from Noria’s.
“You have Brody’s gift,” Noria said, her hand upon Oriana’s cheek. “You’re a skilled telepath, child.” She clapped again, high above her head, and her guardsmen departed.
Oriana held Noria’s hand and caressed it. “Please, Mother, tell me who she is, tell me why she sings to Antosha.”
“She’s Haleya Decca, Antosha’s once and future eternal partner, killed during a Commonwealth Jubilee by your father’s team.”
“I was in the Fountain Square when it happened, and I’ll never forget the crowd’s reaction, the cheers that turned to tears as fast as I’ve ever seen during a Jubilee. Haleya wasn’t supposed to be on that slab in Reassortment Hall.”
“What’re you saying?”
“Haleya Decca killed herself because she found out Antosha gave his seed to another woman.”
“To whom did he stray?”
“No one knows, but Antosha denied it to the end, even at his hearing, even when they sent him to the Lower Level.”
Outer Boundary Village
Peanowera, Underground East
A Janzer drilled a synsuit to Oriana’s body. Another attached Ruiner’s, while Dr. Shrader formed various objects over his palm. A rocketcycle, a phoenix, the eye of providence, the hands of creation, Masimovian Center, all swirled with the colors of the Lorum until he closed his fist. He’d spoken to her just once since the last debriefing yesterday, and only to tell her to stay out of his way. He’d grown close to Antosha through the preparations, this Oriana knew. She suspected Antosha was up to something.
Heywood followed Mariner, the Beimeni Commonwealth space general, through the aisles between the engineers who operated their workstations.
“Report,” Mariner said. Several engineers shifted the holographic imagery atop their workstations.
“Final adjustments underway, sir,” an engineer said.
“The shuttle systems report ready for launch, sir,” a second engineer said.
“The mission protocols are uploaded, sir,” a third said.
“Keep in mind the basis of the Timescape Theory,” Heywood said. “Although the time lapse for the strike team could be hours or days, the time lapse for Mission Control, in the world After Reassortment, is seamless.”
“The Timescape will be unaltered,” Mariner said.
“Unaltered,” Heywood agreed.
Ruiner nodded. “We’ve prepared for hundreds of hours for the mission, and I’m confident in my team.”
Oriana could tell Ruiner lied by his tone and expression. She wondered if it was she or Shrader he doubted more.
“May the gods be with you,” Mariner said.
“And with you,” replied Ruiner.
In the dock silo, beyond the glass enclosure that shielded Mission Control, Shrader, Oriana, and Ruiner climbed a ladder, crossed a bridge, and stepped onto the platform that led to the Voltaire. The shuttle’s design was sleek, plump in the middle, thin toward the top.
Mariner clamored between Dahlia and Mintel to his workstation, and Heywood joined him. Mariner’s voice boomed over the speakers. He issued the first launch orders to his engineers and to the team through Marstone.
Inside the Voltaire, the team strapped to the carbyne columns, Ruiner in the center, flanked by Shrader and Oriana. The croaks from the pulley system spilled into the silo. The launch platform lifted, and hatches opened and closed as the shuttle penetrated up through the Earth’s crust. A message from Mission Control appeared.
Holcombe Strike Team, you will land upon Hengill, Iceland, Before Reassortment.
Retrieve the data that pertains to the Reassortment Strain for your chancellor, for transhumankind and for honor.
Serve Beimeni. Live forever.
A familiar liftoff to an unfamiliar denouement, Oriana thought. What would the world hold, Before Reassortment?
The Voltaire reached the surface.
Granville syntech built into the walls and floor and ceiling in the Voltaire activated, and the team now looked at daybreak in the woods in a valley.
Stage 1.
The rockets beside the Voltaire ignited. Smoke spewed. The columns vibrated.
Stage 2.
Oriana imagined the world Before Reassortment—the Second Hundred Years’ War, the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, the extinction event, the folly of it all. Did they not understand how it would end?
The Voltaire escaped Earth’s gravity. Oriana turned. A pale light flashed over the moon’s craters, then a face formed: Pasha’s, like in her nightmares. Oriana wanted to scream. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, Pasha was still there, staring at her from the gray moon. His lips moved and she heard, Don’t let it change you.
She saw another flash, and he was gone. The shuttle flew past the moon, on its way to Lagrange point one, between the Earth and the sun. What will change me? Oriana thought.
Stage 3.
They reached the area of gravitational stability at Lagrange point one, entering a stable orbit, and the Holcombe Strike Team heard, Mission Control to Voltaire, you now have command.
Copy, Mission Control, Ruiner transmitted. The captain turned to Dr. Shrader. “Release the exotic matter.”
He did as instructed, and at a point one thousand kilometers from the shuttle, the rocket exploded, and the time portal formed, pulsating violet and dark blue light around a circular boundary where the exotic matter ended and the normal matter began.
“Activate the superluminal beam,” Ruiner said to Shrader.
Shrader nodded. Phosphorescent light flowed from the Voltaire into the exotic matter, as the shuttle moved higher in its orbit, preparing to drop the team through the lower hatches.
Oriana sensed Ruiner’s presence in the ZPF as he created the two-way portal, changing the time and space destination, controlling it with two separate quantum numbers, one for time and one for space. It took an unusual amount of concentration and ability to manipulate both numbers. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to do it as skillfully.
“Two hundred seconds to the drop,” Ruiner said.
Stage 4.
The center of the Voltaire filled with the holographic scene of Lake Thingvallavatn, Before Reassortment, where another time portal formed.
One hundred fifty seconds.
The digits appeared in large white numbers suspended above the rendition of the time portal at Lagrange point one, which now looked like a three-dimensional hole through space.
One hundred seconds.
The columns adjusted, moved along tracks in the hull’s floor, and set into a triangular formation. The team rotated and faced each other.
Thirty seconds.
Stage 5.
Sounds and flashes, like that from the ansible on Candor Chasma, then a shift. Oriana was weightless. Was there a malfunction in her magnetized boots?
She didn’t hear or see when Shrader ripped himself from his column, but she felt and heard and saw when he ripped her and Ruiner from theirs.
The vibrations in her head reminded her of when she’d fought Ursula Dearborne on Ceres in the Harpoons, a pounding of blood between her ears, inside her cells, an overstimulation as her body fought for survival.
Ruiner drifted on the other side of the shuttle, motionless. Dr. Shrader raised his hands above his head, and shards of his skin climbed up and up and up, like insects creating a bridge. The shards flew from his arms as projectiles to either side of the shuttle, piercing the walls, shattering the illusion of space, the sun, the portal, and the Earth and moon in the distance.
The light and sound amplified again, and Oriana grabbed her helmet near her ears.
She felt warmth on her face. Was it blood?
“Doctor,” she said, “what … is … this … why—”
The shuttle walls exploded, and the Voltaire spun. Oriana slammed into the carbyne column, holding on for her life.
Ruiner was pulled outside the hull.
Shrader stood like a statue, one with the shuttle, held to it as if the laws of physics no longer impacted him.
The throbbing in Oriana’s head worsened. The Earth appeared and disappeared as the shuttle spun.
She braced herself against the column.
Shrader leapt at her. His synsuit formed into a spike like he used against the Grakas. He swung it at her, and she grabbed it, which allowed her momentum to carry her around a column. She slung her boots into the doctor’s ches
t.
And she spun sideways to the ground, sending the doctor into what remained of the wall.
“Why?” Oriana screamed.
She grasped the column, but the force pulling at her, trying to throw her out of the shuttle, was so strong. She didn’t know what to do. Was the shuttle still at Lagrange point one? Was she anywhere near the portal?
The sun, moon, and Earth twisted round and round in the burning, flickering Granvilles that still functioned.
I won’t lose Luella. Oriana heard the doctor’s synthesized voice, an arrow through her skull. Not again.
The shuttle spun so fast now Oriana couldn’t tell if they’d passed beyond the portal.
The column next to her fired out of the hull, creating a larger breach.
She lost her grip and flipped toward the void. Shrader grabbed her foot. She kicked, but he wouldn’t let go and they whirled out of the shuttle, above the dark time portal.
Ruiner flailed and flew off course, caught in the sun’s gravity.
The Voltaire, on fire now, plummeted toward the Earth.
Blood rushed into Oriana’s head as she swung and somersaulted and screamed until Shrader, Ruiner, the Voltaire, and the Earth, After Reassortment, disappeared …
Part III:
The Timescape
On the Surface: Autumn
In Beimeni: Third Trimester
Days 276 – 312
Year 368
After Reassortment (AR)
ZPF Impulse Wave: Antosha Zereoue
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
The Liberation Front whittled the chancellor’s might the way a river erodes the shore, bit by bit, unseen for years and years until rock dissolves and causeways curve. Though Antosha knew his allies and the people would rally to him, he wouldn’t rely on luck or the gods to decide his or their fate.
