by Zen, Raeden
The BP marched for a while, seeing nothing, smelling moss and humidity, listening to the faint movement of water at the river tunnel’s edges, where Connor didn’t solidify it. He knew that water from the commonwealth’s coolant system ran off into the rivers, so if he’d kept the entire width of the river tunnel solid, the top would soon flood.
By the time they arrived at the border of Xerean City, electrical power had returned to the territory. Connor looked up and noticed, as with other parts of the commonwealth he’d visited over the last year, not all the Granville sky panels in Xerean had ignited. He swiveled his head. The wards they marched between lay on the city’s border but weren’t shanty wards. They were built into the granite, not unlike Santonian Village. But unlike Santonian Village, or any other village Connor had seen, the apartment units here were faced with glass and garnet, lined with diamond and sunstone. He closed his eyes, pushing his vision outward, into the ZPF.
Pirro seemed to know Connor had expanded his consciousness. “What does it look like, my boy?”
Connor opened his eyes and observed the sprawling city from above and beyond. “It’s beautiful. The river is wider and has a rougher current here than in Farino City, snaking between canyons of stone, beneath archways within the aqueducts, three in all, built in concentric circles.” The city, he realized, wasn’t so much organized as a singular place hollowed into the earth, as most Beimenian cities were, as it was five separate ones, built into mountains of granite. Or at least they looked like mountains to Connor.
Xerean, the place of sculptures, he thought.
At the north, south, east, and west sides of the city, the mountains were chiseled, as if part of an elaborate sculpture, with the pointed tops and parts of the sides left unsmoothed, but with much of it artfully hollowed into buildings and apartment units, all with tall windows lined with sunstone. The outer and middle aqueducts were built through the mountains of granite, while the inner aqueduct surrounded the central mountain. Water streamed down all the mountainside cliffs into the rushing rapids of Beimeni River. The top of the city center looked like a terraformed plateau, covered with colorful flora—
“Cornelius?” Pirro said.
Connor found his voice. “I see where we have to go,” he said. “The citadel and acropolis are on the plateau in the city center. The stairs leading to the citadel are lined with guardsmen and … the minister.” She looked like a boar standing upon the citadel’s main terrace, gazing in Connor’s direction. Her reddish-orange eyes looked upon him ominously and her fat face twisted into a hideous scowl. He felt a sting in his head, as if diamond daggers twisted in his eyes.
“I’ve lost my connection to the ZPF,” he said. He lost sight of the city’s innards. “She knows we’re here.”
Connor put up his hand and gave the stop signal. His army halted behind him.
“Here they come,” Pirro said.
Connor sensed the nearing transhuman presence as well, though he couldn’t see them. Four specs in the distance soon materialized, flying closer, closer. Connor broke apart slabs of granite from the cliffs on either side of him and brought them over his army’s vanguard. He tried to reach the approaching transhumans in the ZPF but was blocked. He suspected the minister hindered his connection. Finally, four guardsmen of Xerean Citadel arrived, hovering upon rocketcycles.
“Cornelius Selendia,” one of them said, and when Connor nodded, “you are denied passage through Xerean City.”
“On whose authority?”
“Minister Nataya Mueriniti.”
Not Antosha Zereoue, Connor thought. “I will speak with her in person.”
The guards looked at each other, hesitant to decide. Then Connor sensed their communications in the ZPF, though he couldn’t discern what they said, or to whom they spoke.
“We will escort you to Xerean Citadel,” a different guard said.
Connor looked to Pirro, who nodded. In his head, Connor heard Pirro’s voice: If she’s willing to speak with you, my boy, there’s a chance.
Connor moved the granite slabs away from the vanguard, leaning them against the river banks. A guard descended to Connor and turned the rocketcycle around, Connor assumed, for him to hop on the back.
“I can’t keep the river top solid and go with you,” Connor said. He’d need his full concentration in Mueriniti’s presence. “My army must be allowed to shelter in the city. You have my word they will not harm any Xereanan.”
Again, the guards looked at each other and communicated through the ZPF. One of them said, “The army will remain at the base of Mount Lilien.”
Connor led his army over the river, beneath the outer, middle, and inner aqueducts, into the city center and Mount Lilien, topped by the terraformed plateau, citadel, and acropolis. A thin sheet of waterfalls fell over the wharf, which surrounded the cylindrical granite mount. It was so wide that from where Connor stood he couldn’t see the other end where it curved. Parts of it contained archways through which Xereanans lingered. They dressed in bodysuits and lab coats, primarily, though some wore tunics. All had bronze skin that looked taut and vibrant.
Connor kept the river’s top layer solid until all his army made it safely to the sands, the wharf, and the carved-out base of Mount Lilien. They lifted off their Janzer visors and helmets and mingled with the crowd. Connor unfroze the river top and stepped over the sands, following the guards.
“He can’t come with you,” one of them said to Pirro.
Pirro put his hand on Connor’s shoulder. “He’s not going anywhere without me, my boy.”
“Then neither of you will meet with Minister Mueriniti.” The guard pushed his head towards the army. “And they’re all under arrest.”
Connor exhaled deeply. He didn’t come this far to be stopped by these guardsmen or their minister. “Pirro, stay here with our men and women.” And he sent: If I’m betrayed, you must lead them out of here to the great city and finish it.
Reluctantly, Pirro turned away, and Connor began the schlep up a long staircase to the middle of Mount Lilien, where hundreds of cylindrical elevators stood in wait. He and the guards took one that zigzagged through the stone.
When the alloy door spun open, the citadel, prehistoric fauna, Beimenian flora, twenty more guardsmen, and the minister awaited them. The ancient animals grazed in grasslands on either side of the citadel, while a creature of a different sort awaited Connor’s arrival. The minister’s layers and layers of silk robes and sashes in her long, wavy hair flowed in the strong artificial gusts. She wasn’t alluring in the way her city was, but the way she stood with one foot in front of the other, her head slightly turned, her lips lifted in a crooked smile that might’ve been a sneer, held an elegance Connor didn’t expect.
He looked up beyond her to the glass dome of Xerean Citadel shimmering under the territory’s red Granville sun. The Flags of Beimeni and Xerean Territory flapped from carbyne poles in the autumn-scented winds.
He turned back to the stairs and took cautious steps. His escorts rejoined their comrades, who stood in formation on either side. Though their arms were bare, they wore carbyne armor and helmets, with slits in front of their eyes, noses, and mouths, flecked with sunstone. They held their diamond swords with both hands on the hilts, the points on the ground. Connor felt all their eyes upon him as he ascended to the dais where Minister Mueriniti stood.
She looked him over suspiciously, flapping her long eyelashes in a way that made her cheeks jiggle. She took a fisherman’s grip of his chin, moved his face to one side, then the other, examining him. Connor’s heart pounded and his mind raced. He sensed the minister searching his consciousness. Had he erred in bringing his army to Mount Lilien? Should he have found another way to Beimeni City?
“My, my, so it is true,” Mueriniti said.” She released him. Connor rubbed his jaw. “Jeremiah Selendia has a second son.”
“He had three sons,” Connor corrected. He didn’t feel a need to lie to the minister, given her telepathic reach. “My brot
her Hans died in a Jubilee and my brother Zorian is … estranged.”
“Is he?” The minister inclined her head and lifted her lips, then looked toward her guardsmen on the stairs.
Animated tattoos of sea life. Connor was so distracted during his ascent that he’d missed them. “Zorian?” he said, wondering if this were some trick, some illusion the commonwealth was using against him.
“It’s no trick,” the minister said, as if she knew his thoughts. She hand-signaled the man with the tattoos.
He sheathed his sword and removed his helmet, letting it clank and roll down the stairs. Zorian Selendia took several steps before three guards cut him off, pointing their swords at him in the front and at his sides. He gave the minister the grin that Connor knew so well, so confident, so cunning, so dangerous.
Zorian held up his hands. “We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”
“What’re you doing here?” Connor asked. He thought about all the BP from Blackeye Cavern who had died and were dying presently upon the islands in Farino Prison. “Do you understand what you’ve done to our people?”
The minister spoke in a language Connor didn’t understand. Her guards lowered their swords and retook their positions on the stairs.
Connor turned to the minister and bowed deeply. “With your permission, Minister, I’d like to speak to my brother for one hour, alone.”
The minister raised her brow, then twisted toward Xerean Acropolis behind her, beyond the colorful fields. “You have one hour.” She glared at Connor, then turned back to Zorian. “After that the boy and I shall continue our negotiations.”
The boy, Connor thought, seething. He pursed his lips, trying his best not to insult the minister. His army, and his Polemon operation to end the war, depended on him controlling his emotions.
“You’d best be careful, Minister,” Zorian said, looking at his little brother, “he’s not the Cornelius I knew in Piscator any longer. He might bring more pain to you than you might to him.”
Mueriniti chuckled, her three chins jiggling, then hand-signaled her guards. In a movement unseen, one unlatched a Reassortment baton and rapped it into Zorian’s neck. He screamed violently and dropped, overcome by spasms. The animals that surrounded the citadel, grazing in the fields, took breaks from feasting to bellow in various prehistoric tones.
Connor knelt to Zorian, who still shook from the dosage of E. agony.
“What’s wrong with you?” Connor said. “Why can’t you fight back?”
Zorian raised a shaking finger to his temple and tapped it.
Connor looked at Mueriniti with rage in his eyes. “What have you done to him?”
“Your traitorous brother has annoyed everyone, it seems. The commonwealth has put a bounty on him as large as the one on you.”
Connor moved to unsheathe his diamond sword but stopped when the minister waved her forefinger.
“My, my, you’re not as bright as Lutetia assured me.”
For half a heartbeat, Connor felt something that might’ve been fear, until he quelled it. “Whose side are you on?”
“Much has changed since your little jailbreak.” The minister hand-signaled her guards again, and this time they helped Zorian to his feet. “Your traitorous brother is my hostage to ensure the BP holds up their end of the bargain.” She frowned at Zorian. “Poor boy here wants to please his daddy, who also, for a time, wanted him imprisoned.” She turned to Connor. “Chancellor Masimovian is dead and Antosha Zereoue has recalled all Janzers to the inner territories and Palaestra.”
The minister turned and eyed the Flag of Xerean, flying just a bit higher than the Flag of Beimeni, Connor now realized.
“Who’s to suggest we Beimenians are one?” the minister continued. “The precepts? Who’s precepts? A dead chancellor’s?”
“You’re going to … break away?”
“My, my, maybe you are a fast one. Perhaps Lutetia was right.” Mueriniti raised her chin defiantly. “The lesser territories have seceded. Why shouldn’t the North?” Connor tried to speak, but the minister spoke over him. “They fucked us,” she added, “fucked us for so long we lost our dignity.” She leaned closer to Connor. “I’m done being fucked.”
The minister swept her massive arm out as if to brush it across the universe. “For decades that wench Lutetia set the Janzers upon our territories. Oh, she thought she was so smart, blowing up our supply lines, turning our people against Jeremiah and his Beimeni Polemon. I sent them traitors as required, yet the attacks continued. All the while they placed the blame on the BP, and I went along with their little game. And here we are, the chancellor is dead and that bitch is going to seize more control with Antosha than she ever had with Masimovian.” The minister raised her voice. “He took his Janzers from my territory, and they will return over my fat fucking dead body.”
With that she rumbled down the stairs, silk and hair floating behind her. “You have one hour, boy!” She continued her raucous descent. The guards rushed down the stairs behind her. “One hour! Then you, your brother, and your army are mine!”
Zorian had recovered from the baton jab, though a bruise had begun to crop out on his neck. He rubbed it. He wasn’t as muscular as Connor remembered.
“You once asked me what a barracuda looks like, little brother,” Zorian said. He pushed his head down toward the minister’s party, which weaved over a walkway to a separate entrance into the citadel. “There’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen.” He cracked his neck.
Connor laughed. “The minister implied we should go to the acropolis.”
“After you.”
Silently, they treaded across the sunstone slab through the open part of the citadel to the other side and down the steps, then made their way along a winding cobblestone path between colorful trees and prehistoric fauna, the Megatherium with their bulbous salt-and-pepper tails, dark fur and three claws, and Megaloceros, the elk with antlers the width of a transhuman, and Glypotodon, the domed turtle-like giants that Connor knew weighed more than one thousand kilograms. The fields smelled like burning firewood, and Connor remembered his nightmare, the one on the Island of Reverie in the forest, when Hans and he were swept away by a rising tide.
“Murray told me you abandoned us in Beimeni City,” Connor said.
Zorian said nothing and revealed nothing in either his expression or in the ZPF. They moved between the sunstone pillars of the acropolis and stepped onto its polished surface. Connor grabbed Zorian by the arm and turned him so that they looked upon each other face-to-face. “Brother,” he yelled, “why didn’t you help us escape the capital?”
Zorian broke free, then grabbed Connor by the throat and squeezed. “You touch me like that again and I’ll throw you off this cliff.”
Connor calmed his emotions and focused his energy in the ZPF. He overpowered Zorian’s connection to the quantum universe and slowly, methodically unfurled Zorian’s fingers from his throat, then lifted his eldest brother in the air.
“Connor?” Zorian said.
Connor didn’t reply. He blocked Zorian’s quantum connection, lifting him higher off the ground, and moved with him to the edge of the acropolis, to the end of Mount Lilien. He held Zorian airborne above the white rapids of Beimeni River, rushing one hundred fifty meters below.
“You will tell me,” Connor said, “or I will drop you.”
Zorian laughed, softly then uncontrollably. “Ah, if Father could see you now, little brother, how angry he’d be … that you’ve turned into me.”
Connor pulled Zorian back to him and threw him on the acropolis’s stone ground.
From his hands and knees, Zorian eyed his brother with contempt. “You want to know the truth?”
“I want to know why you turned on your family.”
“I love my family.” Zorian stood and wiped his arms.
“You have a very strange way of showing it.”
“You think because you have a superior connection to the ZPF you understand more than the rest of societ
y.” His voice turned cruel. “You think because Hans treated you with E. evolution and Aera and Father taught you how to control your connection to the cosmos you’re unstoppable. Well let me explain something to you, little brother, I fought for my family for decades before you were even born. I killed commonwealth agents, I killed so easily and quickly I was once the synbio thief, supplying the BP with all our resources until Aera took my place.”
“So that’s it, you’re jealous of anyone who’s better than you, like Hans?”
Zorian bared his teeth, then oddly, he began to sob. “There’s no end to the cycle, no end to the death. We kill and they kill, and around and around it goes. Our mother …”
“Died to save my life, the way any sane mother would.”
“Died because our father wouldn’t do what was necessary and kill Chancellor Masimovian, and they wouldn’t let me kill him, and now it doesn’t even matter. Mother is dead. Hans is dead. Masimovian is dead—”
“Our people in Blackeye Cavern are also dead, Zorian. Because of what you did—”
“There you go again, moving your mouth and sounding like Father. I saved more lives by forcing them out. Father in his haste to create homelands rather than extinguish the commonwealth’s iron fist once and for all by killing his brother-in-development put us all at risk to Reassortment exposure. It was a miracle it lasted as long as it did! Those people were about to die in agonizing pain—”
Boom!
A pulse blast raced across the acropolis and smashed into Zorian, and though his armor protected his body, the momentum from the shock wave sent him airborne. It all happened so fast.
Connor rushed to the edge of the acropolis and looked down.
Zorian splashed into the river.
Connor turned.
Pirro stood beside one of the pillars, holding a pulse gun, from the tip of which smoke curled.
“Why?” Connor demanded. “He was on our side!”
Pirro dropped the pulse gun and put his head down. When he looked up, he said, “He gave the commonwealth the Hollow.”
