The Synthesis and the Animus (The Phantom of the Earth Book 3)

by Zen, Raeden

  The hologram view zoomed out, showing Johann begin to succumb. Gwen swallowed. “What does it feel like?”

  “The sensation for the victim,” Brody paused, “is … as if the body is being ripped apart. The primary part of the brain affected, the anterior insula, moderates pain sensations throughout the body. We don’t know why it does this, but we do know this is why death by Reassortment is so agonizing.”

  Gwen trembled during Johann’s final moments.

  Brody let her hear the cries, see the terror in Johann’s eyes, and finally watch as the blood poured over his lashes, out of his nostrils and ears. “It was, we think, a weapon designed during the Second Hundred Years’ War,” Brody continued. “That’s why it only affects humans.” The blood crystallized. Then it was over. “It can sense our presence, then goes into action …”

  Gwen took a small step away.

  “I think you’ve had enough, Miss Gwen.”

  She looked ill.

  “No, please go on,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “We’re done for today. Go back to the dormitories. We’ll continue the lesson tomorrow.”

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Damosel Rhea

  Research & Development Department (RDD)

  Palaestra, Underground Northeast

  2,500 meters deep

  “How many specimens do we have so far?” Damy said to Verne.

  They were on the top level of the cylindrical Nicola Facility in front of their workstations, working through holographic data streams.

  Damy had taken a more active role in the creation of the species for Project Silkscape since the birth of Antarctica, the Deinotherium she had synthesized just before Brody returned from Vigna. Earlier, she reassigned hers and Verne’s neophyte shadows for the day, promising to get to work with them tomorrow.

  Now Verne sifted through the holographic specimens that hung over his workstation. “We have fifteen with another fifteen on the way from Proterozoic through Jurassic, including plants, invertebrates and vertebrates.” He telepathically transferred the data and images to Damy’s workstation.

  Above her rotated and floated the Cyclomedusa, electric-blue, round jelly fish–like but without tentacles; Echmatocrinus, double the size of a transhuman thumb, a cactus-like invertebrate, the surface of its conical body covered with thin, polygonal plates or scales arranged irregularly; Sciadophyton, a plant with stalks ending in cups where the male and female sex cells were produced; Archaeopteris, a tree, which Damy knew would have a trunk over seven point five meters high and one point five meters thick, and on and on to Rolfosteus and Tiktaalik and Deltoblastus and Eocaecilia and Mammuthus and several more, including, of course, the Deinotherium.

  “Thirty will not do,” Damy said, “and we’ll require life for all the periods, including those between the Jurassic and the Quaternary.” Transhumans presently lived in the Transiceous Period, the period that began after the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly had nearly wiped out humanity 368 years ago.

  “It’s a start,” Verne insisted, “not an end. Opening day is still two years away.”

  “The synthesis of life, extinct life at that, takes time. Why must I still remind you this?”

  “Now you sound like me last trimester—”

  Damy stepped closer to him. “If you can’t handle this project, maybe you should leave.”

  “This is about Brody’s demotion—”

  Damy slammed her hand through the holograms above her workstation. “This is about our lack of progress!”

  Verne drew back as if struck by Reassortment.

  It was turning into the first trimester, Damy reflected, for that had been the last time they’d argued like this. The scientists on their rim in the facility stopped working and stared. “Please, everyone, get back to work, there’s nothing to see here.” Damy clumped her hair in a fist. She turned to Verne. “We must not fail.”

  Verne gave a slight nod, then fixed his bow tie and adjusted his golden suspenders, loosening them. He turned away from her and deactivated his workstation. He fetched two glasses of water from medical bots.

  He was right, though she wouldn’t admit it. Damy feared for Brody’s safety. He’d just received his Mark of Masimovian. He was about to get back on track with the Reassortment and Regenesis projects. Then the chancellor had struck him down, demoting him and reinstating Antosha Zereoue. And not just as a plain-coated scientist, but as the supreme scientist of Regenesis! Brody’s former role, now going to his former shadow; the thought made her bowels curdle. What was the chancellor thinking?

  Damy felt kicks inside her, as if Pasha and Oriana didn’t like her musings. Her twins grew at an accelerated rate, already showing, protruding her belly. She placed her hand beneath them. We will be the parents to you that Brody and I never had, I promise you, she thought. The kicking eased. Damy exhaled deeply and accepted the glass of water from Verne. She sipped it, then said, “Minister Avalonia grows more restless by the day.” She took another gulp. “She complains of constant construction and the electric power draw from Silkscape City—”

  Verne finished his water. “She should’ve thought about that before she demanded her city host the menagerie.”

  “The minister holds great sway with our great leader, so I do hope you show her courtesy.”

  “Would if I could.” Verne shrugged. “She doesn’t return my calls. She speaks only to the engineering director, and to you.”

  Minister Avalonia’s expectations concerned Damy less than Chancellor Masimovian’s, and she knew his patience was wearing thin on her team’s delays. “I will see our live work in the facility’s back end.”

  While Damy’s resurrection of Antarctica, the first Deinotherium to live on or in the Earth in over two million years, injected new life into the team and into the project, additional conversions hadn’t materialized as fast as she’d hoped. She expected her paleobotanists and paleobiologists to use synconvert, the synthetic organism that she and Verne had designed together during the first trimester, to create hundreds of species from prehistoric Earth. She would work overtime to succeed. It wasn’t as if she’d see Brody in the evenings, certainly not after a demotion.

  Three medical bots fit biomats onto Damy and Verne, then led them through the containment area labeled BOTANY. Here she saw for the first time the plants that she had helped her team create. The Sigillaria trees stood less than a meter high in pots of dirt two meters thick. Damy knew that soon the trees would outgrow these pots; in fact, they’d grow as tall as many Beimenian towers.

  “Over here—” Verne began.

  “Lady Isabelle’s calling me,” Damy said.

  My lady, Damy transmitted, it’s a pleasure to hear from you.

  Miss Damosel, you are a fine scientist and an even finer representative for Project Silkscape, so I expect this news to please you.

  Damy rarely received calls from the director of communications and commonwealth relations; she was sure that whatever Lady Isabelle desired, especially if it dealt with Project Silkscape, would further delay her work, already overdue and overbudget.

  Lady Isabelle continued, Strike Team Hyperion has discovered the remains of a prehistoric animal in a South American cave. I’ll be sending you the details shortly. I expect you to render them within days.

  Days, Damy thought, it could take several trimesters or years, depending on the species and the genetic materials. I’ll do my best.

  You will create them, I trust, you will serve the commonwealth.

  As you wish, my lady.

  Lady Isabelle disconnected.

  Damy touched the fernlike Sigillaria leaves and pondered the Lady Isabelle’s request. “That was odd.”

  “What did she want?” Verne said. He adjusted the armlet on his forearm.

  “She wants us to render an extinct vertebrate native to South America,” Damy said.

  “Tied to Project Silkscape?” Verne said.

  “I’m not sure, but it sounds urgent. She’ll be updating us soo
n.”

  “Shall we proceed?” Verne said, raising his arm as if to guide the way.

  Damy nodded. They spent the rest of their time in the back-end research facilities, working out the details for the remaining specimens Damy desired her scientists to create.

  Beimeni City

  Phanes, Underground Central

  That night, Damy returned to her First Ward apartment unit feeling a bit better about the prospects for Project Silkscape but no less concerned for Brody’s safety with Antosha so near. She stood upon her terrace and listened to the steady hum of Beimenians below. They looked like rodents from her terrace’s height. She remembered when she and Brody used to enjoy the city, going to shows together, dipping in Fountain Square’s pools, or enjoying a bite to eat. Where did the years and their relationship disappear to?

  “Madam, your tea,” Merrell said.

  Damy accepted the steaming mug from her keeper bot. She sipped it and tasted chamomile and passionflower.

  The artificial Phanean winds whipped her nightgown around her pregnant body. Oriana and Pasha were more active today than ever. Was it a consequence of the growth accelerants injected into her? Or did they also understand the danger Antosha posed to their father? Damy would soon stand across from her babies during the viewing. Afterward, they’d travel to House Summerset for development, then compete as candidates in the Harpoons.

  She felt them kicking her and placed her right hand beneath her belly. May the gods protect you during development, she thought, and after.

  Merrell placed its alloy fingers upon Damy’s arm, chilling her more than her thoughts. “The late evenings continue for Master Broden?”

  The consortium that had sold her Merrell assured her the bot lacked a consciousness. Sometimes she wondered. “Continue?” she said. She smiled wanly. “Always.”

  The bot’s eye slit dimmed, then it took its leave from the terrace.

  Damy had rarely seen Brody at home prior to the Mission to Vigna. Since his return, he was like a phantom in her dreams, there for an instant and gone when she awoke. What troubled her more was that with each day that passed since the conclave that had awarded Brody and his strike team their Marks of Masimovian, the day drew nearer to when Antosha Zereoue would return to the RDD. Assuming he hadn’t already returned. If the chancellor and the Navitan traders were to be believed, Antosha’s injury suffered during passage across the Infernus Sea wasn’t as bad as some feared or as fatal as Damy had hoped.

  Antosha was the man who had killed so many of their colleagues in the name of scientific research.

  He shamed us all, Damy thought, and Brody worst of all. Brody had loved him as he would a brother and hurt all the more when the true nature of Antosha’s crimes were revealed by Chief Justice Carmen. And now the chancellor allowed his return. To what end?

  To be sure, Brody would have to work with him again, as Damy knew that the Regenesis and Reassortment projects were related. The goal of Regenesis was to awaken Dr. Kole Shrader, the last of Livelle Laboratory’s scientists who had worked on the original Reassortment Strain, and who still lived, in stasis. “He could be crucial to solving the Reassortment enigma,” Brody had told her many times over the decades. Of course, there should be more scientists; during an awakening gone wrong, she and Brody had killed all of them except for Dr. Shrader.

  How did things go today with Gwendolyn?

  She sent the message to Brody but didn’t receive a response. He might’ve been in the back end, conducting experiments. It wasn’t unusual for him not to respond to her, even this late.

  Damy found herself thinking about Silkscape, and Vernon Lebrizzi. She smiled and sipped her tea. She requested connection to him. Are you there?

  I’m here, Verne transmitted.

  What’re you up to?

  I’m on my balcony, enjoying the stars. Verne lived in the Second Ward, in Palaestra City.

  Take me to the gorges, along the Hillenthara.

  It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?

  Not tonight, silly. Sometime. After work?

  Aren’t you close to your delivery date?

  No, it’s not for many days, plenty of time to go sightseeing. A breeze chilled her, and she folded and rubbed her arms. Plenty of time to escape Project Silkscape, the Nicola Facility, and Phanes, for a few hours, she thought.

  They talked about their project, even though they’d promised never to do so outside the Nicola Facility, and the twins, the stars, the gorges, and the Entertainment District in Phanes. Afterward, Damy sipped the rest of her tea, ambling back inside.

  She tried to contact Brody again. Again, she received no response and left him a message through Marstone. Call me.

  Inside her bedroom, the supreme scientist of the Nicola Facility let her golden nightgown slip off her body. She cuddled with her twins and feather pillows and closed her eyes, dreaming of prehistoric life.

  ZPF Impulse Wave: Broden Barão

  Research & Development Department (RDD)

  Palaestra, Underground Northeast

  2,500 meters deep

  Brody stood alone in the research center, rubbing bloodshot eyes. He’d worked through countless formulas and pages of synbio research, hour upon hour, after he dismissed Gwendolyn Horvearth, after his last team member took her leave, after his insomnia returned full strength. He requested connection with Nero and Verena. Still no response. He hoped this unexplained disappearance was their way of repairing their relationship, and they’d return to the Ventureño Facility tomorrow ready to train their shadows. But they’d always chosen low-priority days to take off in the past. This wasn’t like them. He felt sick not knowing where they were.

  He rubbed his face and focused on the Reassortment Strain moving toward him, doing that dance it did, encrypting its genome to avoid detection, and he wanted nothing more than to reach for it and bend it and shatter it with his own hands into dust. He powered down the workstation and caught his reflection in the hologram before him, watching his life disappear with it, the way he’d watched so many writhe and squirm on the surface of the Earth.

  The reality was that he wouldn’t find the cure in the next few hours in the desolation of the research center. He sucked in a breath of air laced with pleasing neural signals, grabbed his supply pack, and made for the exit. The Janzers deactivated the security system to let him through.

  While waiting for a transport at the Research Superstructure, he gazed at the Granville stars overhead. Scientists in colorful lab coats weaved by, lost in their equations.

  Another day, another failure, Brody thought. He swiped his thumb to the side of an intraterritory transport.

  Darkness descended.

  Gasps and screams echoed through the station.

  He heard a flick and saw flame and amethyst eyes in the dim light.

  The light disappeared, replaced by the tremor of an explosion on the other side of the Superstructure. Before Brody could access the ZPF, a hand gripped his arm. He flailed. From behind, from above, from the side, he felt as if he were trapped inside a thimble. Then he was gagging from the stench of petroleum and chemicals thrust upon him. Something rapped his skull, and his mind faded.

  He heard mumbling. At least two, maybe three or four men, or women? Brody couldn’t tell. He couldn’t see, could hardly breathe. His mouth had been gagged with something sticky, and his head was covered in some kind of hood. The fabric felt like wool. He reached out for the ZPF and failed. Then he noticed the cold touch of alloy around his neck.

  A Converse Collar.

  “Taste of your cure, Captain?” a man said.

  His voice sounded scrambled to Brody’s altered senses. He felt a jolt in his rib cage, and suddenly, engrossingly, the sensation of a million needles thrust into his flesh, curling into his muscles, plucking the veins from his body.

  Brody screamed.

  “What was that? More?”

  No, please, no, Brody thought as he understood they were using a Reassortment baton. I
t struck his back, sending the instructions for the synthesis of E. agony into his brain’s DNA, and he couldn’t hold back his screams. It felt as if microscopic shuriken were tugging and slicing all the pores of his body, sawing in, out, left, right, up, and down.

  Tears flowed from his eyes. He sweated beneath the sweltering hood. A knee or fist or hammer struck him, he didn’t know. He rose on his knees and fell with a thud.

  The rod dug into Brody’s armpit. His body convulsed, and he flipped on his back. Now his fingers tingled, and his eyes rapidly opened and closed, closed and opened.

  Of course, Brody thought, my death shall come at the end of the weapon my research created, my proper conversion put to use in the batons, a deserved punishment for my failures.

  He was rolled onto his back and dragged, his body tender, throbbing, stung with the stinger wedged in place.

  They dropped his legs on a cool plastic floor. The floor hummed with vibrations, movement. Brody slid left and right.

  He took a few complete breaths. He was on a transport, he realized, headed gods knew where. He reached again for the ZPF and again failed.

  The transport’s speed increased. Brody slid across the floor.

  A foot pinned him in the groin. He gasped.

  “I want you to imagine the world when humanity dominated the surface.”

  Brody heard the message as clear as Marstone, not as sinister as the other voice, but more powerful, intelligent. A woman’s voice.

  “I want you to think about the fucks like you who dug in places they shouldn’t have.” The womanly voice.

  “Dead! Gone!” The man’s voice.

  Either a foot or a hand pounded beside his head.

  “Not nature,” the woman said. “Nature cleared houses, buildings, pollution, roads, transport tubes, playgrounds, monuments—”