by Zen, Raeden
“Let’s just forget about it,” Brody said. “Damy, Pasha, and Oriana are safe, and that’s all that matters.”
Verne agreed. “Who’s that?”
Brody looked up. Lord Thaddeus, tall and broad with a belly Brody didn’t remember, strode down the hallway. Lady Parthenia glided in his wake, still as slim as a twig, with a face that would melt any man’s resistance to temptation.
“Look at you,” Lord Thaddeus said to Damy. She disappeared in his garb when he hugged her. “Beautiful, and a big-time scientist in Nicola.”
“So good to see you, Monsieur Developer,” Damy said. She kissed his hand, then turned to Lady Parthenia and bowed. “Madam Developer, you’re as angelic as I remember.”
“Where’s Noria?” Lady Parthenia said. “I was hoping to … see her again.”
Small chance for that, Brody knew. Minister Noria Furongielle was more likely to travel to the fighting Hole of Yeuron or fishing Block of Piscator than to visit with Parthenia and Thad Summerset. Whereas Damy had told him the lady acted “unpredictably,” Noria said Lady Parthenia beat her nightly. “That’s not how it was,” Damy had insisted, “the lady struck her once, and only when Noria spit in her face after thirty hours in the simulators.” Brody’s development wasn’t easy either, but the Variscans would never strike their candidates. He eyed Parthenia carefully and, out of the corner of his eye, noted Thad likewise scrutinizing him.
“I’ll not have Noria near my babies,” Damy said, “and I’ll not speak of her today.”
Parthenia grabbed Damy’s hand. “My dear, I meant no harm.” She grinned and gazed at Oriana and Pasha. “They’re lovely, like their lovely parents. We’ll make sure they impress in the Harpoons, that their performances are worthy of your reputations and House Summerset.”
Conversation ensued, and Brody, smile firmly fixed, did his best to discuss the hearing, the demotion, Antosha’s return, Gwen’s status, the attack in the Superstructure, and every other sensitive subject the Summersets dredged up. He was thrilled when Jenny gathered the guests and escorted them to the exit.
Now he and Damy stood before their twins for the viewing, the only time alone with their children they were ever sure to have. Damy’s eyes followed Oriana when she swayed, bundled in her pink wool, her round eyes glazed and curious. Oriana reached a hand out toward Damy, and Brody imagined what his eternal partner might have looked like before development. Who might Oriana be without House Summerset? he wondered. And who will she become, given the choices we’ve made?
Pasha, jealous of his sister’s attention, reached as if to the stars with tiny fingers. His cheeks, puffy like marshmallows, lifted when he smiled. His foot was stuck in a pillow, and when he kicked it out, another foot poked from beneath the blue wool. Brody wanted nothing more than to whisk them to Underground South, where security had never been as strong as in Central and Northeast. But if he developed them himself, how would they compete in the commonwealth? And if he hid with them, how could they elude Lady Isabelle?
He hugged Damy, stuck in space and time until Jenny returned and told them the viewing was over.
“Aha, come, come, it will be best this way.”
Brody and Damy wiped their eyes, held hands, and took the elevator to the top of the center, where they meandered to the exit. They made their way to the line for the city transports, a line one hundred Beimenians deep. The glass-and-carbyne oval intracity transports stopped and zipped and zipped and stopped. They stepped forward, then stepped again, caught in an indolent daze.
An adolescent boy, dressed like a Courier of the Chancellor in a chameleon cape and dark boots, intercepted Brody and Damy upon their approach to a vacant transport. The momentary holdup led to gripes from the crowd. “Either get in or we will!” cried one spectator, with cusses flying from others.
The boy handed Brody two coins. “Captain, the Front offers its congrats to your family at this special time,” he said and disappeared into the crowd.
Brody rubbed his fingers over the coins. They were burlier than benaris, altered, the forbidden snake on one side, the forbidden phrase on the other.
He dropped them in his pocket.
Damy dragged him into the transport. She glanced through the skylight toward the ivory onyx towers, drenched by illusory starlight and moonlight. “Don’t tell me the chancellor summoned you again.”
“It’s not a hearing, my love. It seems word of our twins’ birth has spread, and we’ve received a benari gift.”
“Can I see?”
“Why don’t we wait until we get back to the city?” Brody wouldn’t put Damy in unnecessary danger, for if she were ever asked, she could truthfully deny her knowledge of his BP encounter.
“Surely there can’t be any harm in allowing your eternal partner to hold benari gifts, is there?”
“No, I suppose not.” Brody reached in his right pocket, the pocket without the BP coins, and delivered two benari coins with a 50 on the front.
Damy narrowed her eyes. “Did he say whom it was from?”
“I missed what he said, sounded like a lord in Palaestra City, but I can’t be sure.”
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
Back in their apartment unit in the First Ward, with Damy in the shower, Brody set out his recaller and placed the BP coins near it. They’d already visibly oxidized, the forbidden phrase no longer legible. He pushed a small indentation on each of them, and when he did the coins split in half. One of them contained a cryptor. A cryptor was a diamond shard that contained a bacterium, E. cryptor, typically used by the Janzers who guarded Fountain Square, enabling Beimenians to know how long they’d have to wait for entry. He inserted the cryptor into a vein on the top of his hand. Activated, the cryptor filled with Brody’s blood; he knew the bacterium infected his neurochip, as it was programmed to do, when he extended his consciousness and read:
TTAGTGAATCATA
CAATCGGTCTCAC
AATATATCTTTCG
ATGAATCCATCCT
Genetic code, Brody thought. Far too short to be that of any species. Confounded, he twisted the inside flaps of the coins and noticed the cipher key. He began running through the endless combinations and permutations. When the shower stopped, Brody removed the cryptor from his hand and tucked it back in the coin, closed the other coin, then hid them beneath a cushion on his couch between a slit in the stone.
Damy was too upset herself to notice Brody’s distraction as he worked on the cipher over dinner. When she was asleep, he rose and stood on the terrace, overlooking Artemis Square. He ran combinations through the night, until finally, as the sky began to lighten, the letters moved through each other, revealing words:
Spa of Delphi
ZPF Impulse Wave: Isabelle Lutetia
Beimeni City
Phanes, Underground Central
2,500 meters deep
Lady Isabelle lay in a sea of burgundy rose petals and steaming water in Phanes Spa, her neck lodged against the bath, head resting on a warmed and new-mown hay-scented towel. Her dampened hair lay upon her neck and shoulders and curled around her breasts. A quartet of musician bots played chamber music in the corner, and the rays from the Granville sun flickered through a skylight above.
“My lady looks troubled this afternoon,” Valentine said. The courier, also nude, lay relaxing on the other side of the bath, her long, colorful hair splayed around her. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No, my sweet, I’m afraid not.” The BP attacks had worsened in the days since Captain Barão had disappeared. In his report to the DOC, he’d claimed he’d been abducted by common criminals seeking ransom. He’d convinced them they’d never get paid, and if they were caught, they’d be sent to the Lower Level. The next thing he knew he had awakened in his apartment unit. It wasn’t entirely unusual—many criminals don’t understand what it means to be hunted by the Janzers, and when they do, they often give up quickly—but the captain didn’t provide enough details to follow up. Isabe
lle would need more help, and soon. “Do you remember what I told you last trimester, about your future in the commonwealth?”
“I might one day become Lady of the First Ward of the great city.”
“Do you still want that?”
Valentine hesitated, looking away from Isabelle. She gulped. “I do.”
“To protect your people, you’ll have to make difficult decisions. You might have to recommend to the Great Court to exile citizens to the Lower Level. Can you do that?”
Valentine turned back toward Isabelle. More assuredly, she said, “I can.”
Isabelle sighed. She envied the courier’s courage and ignorance. She recalled her life before she’d been forced to kill her fellow transhumans; before her children had betrayed her and the commonwealth they’d sworn to serve. It twisted her inside, thinking about all the Harpoon candidates she’d worked with over the decades who’d joined the BP—whose lives had ended prematurely. Would Valentine betray her as well?
No, she told herself, this courier would become as valuable to her as Lieutenant Arnao had. “There’s only one way to find out,” Isabelle said. She massaged the sides of her neck with her forefingers, then eased her head back onto the towel and closed her eyes. “You’ll have to join me on a surgical strike.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You will soon.” Isabelle received a Marstone ping from General Norrod and sighed again. He only ever contacted her with bad news. “Hush now, my sweet. I have an important call.”
Lovely to hear from you today, General.
You’ve got to see this.
General Norrod delivered the security video from the Port of Life, and the scene unfolded in her extended consciousness. A transport floated through a supply tunnel, slowed, and stopped at Gate 32A.
The transport’s ramp lowered.
Six Janzers telekinetically moved drums filled with synisms off conveyor belts. They separated the drums by type. One of the Janzers used hand signals to direct the rest of the division to the drums labeled C. PERFRINGENS SYN-B5.3 MINERAL CRUSHERS. They stood in a line and passed the drums from one to the next. Within a minute or two, they’d loaded forty-two drums by Isabelle’s count.
A Janzer on board the transport gave the halt signal, and the division on the ground stopped. He closed his fist—the departure signal. He placed his diamond-gloved hand on the screen: JANZER-D2753-13 ACCEPTED. SELECT YOUR DESTINATION. He tapped a box labeled PHANES TERRITORY. UNDERGROUND CENTRAL. RESOURCE DOCKS.
The transport’s ramp lifted. Its joints shrieked, and in the ramp’s shadow against the limestone wall stood a transhuman, a Polemon terrorist, it seemed, covered with chameleon camouflage. The terrorist moved as swiftly as a striker (or aera?), pushed off the wall with his or her boot, and flew over the hatch. The terrorist drew a diamond sword and thrust it, rapidly and elegantly, through the lead Janzer’s visor. In the interval during which an entire division of Lady Isabelle’s Janzers stood stunned by the conveyor belt, signals delivered from the transport shifted, becoming consistent with the use of a scrambler.
Finally, the Janzer on point rushed forward, but by then the entryway had snapped shut.
The transport disappeared through the tunnel.
Isabelle sat up. We need new Janzers, ones not so incompetent and as stupid as these!
Agreed, my lady. Keep watching, there’s more.
Another transport eased into the gate. The Janzer inside lowered the hatch, and one by one the Janzers on the ground loaded drums of C. PERFRINGENS SYN-B7.5 ATHANASIA. More camouflaged terrorists slithered against the wall, obvious on the video, but unseen and undetected by the Janzers. How this could be, Isabelle didn’t know. Perhaps they had developed new stealth technology or lifted it from the RDD, as they were clearly quite adept at doing.
The Janzer closest to the transport finally spied their boots, then the rest of them. He broadcast a distress signal to the nearest division. JZ3865 REQUESTING SUPPORT IN POLG32A flashed across Isabelle’s extended consciousness.
The Janzer lifted his pulse gun, and the terrorists dropped. Bombs exploded around the gate and filled the port with flashes, smoke, and debris. Janzers groaned and terrorists shouted. The cavern darkened.
Emergency maroon light winked in the port’s corners. The Janzers lowered their visors and mobilized to an elliptical attack formation around the darkened center. She heard the faint sounds of BP unsheathing their swords in the darkness. The Janzers drew their pulse guns and shuriken. They fired a salvo into the shadows, then charged. The melody of death followed.
A Polemon snapped a flare and moved her light over the pile of Janzers.
“Lift their weapons,” she said, voice muffled. The BP stuffed Reassortment batons, canteens, goggles, shuriken, pulse grenades, pulse rifles, pulse guns, everything they could find into burlap sacks. They loaded as many synism drums as they could before the rumble of reinforcements echoed into the port.
The BP hopped into the nearby transport and commandeered it.
The Janzer reinforcements arrived.
Late as usual, Lady Isabelle thought.
One of them made his way to the track. He hailed the transport that hastened into the distance but received no response. He bent to his knee and positioned his pulse launcher on his shoulder, the scope over his visor. He pulled the trigger, and a thin wire shot toward the transport. An instant later, a ball of plasma traveled along the wire bridge and ignited, lighting the tunnel on impact.
The Janzer flung the launcher over his shoulder and looked down. He tilted his head, then lifted what seemed to be a benari coin and turned it over. Carvings with the unmistakable mark of the BP focused in Isabelle’s extended consciousness—a Morelia spilota spilota, a snake no one in Beimeni would have ever crossed, but which she and all the Janzer divisions were familiar with. The Janzer flipped it over. Chiseled into the coin was the forbidden phrase:
WE WILL STRIKE THE IRON FIST
FROM IT THE BLOOD OF OUR KIN WILL FLOW
The video fizzled and disappeared.
General Norrod spoke through Marstone. This was worse than the Superstructure. A direct attack on a Palaestran gate. The BP’s emboldened, my lady.
How many casualties?
Seven of ours. A handful of theirs. Lost two transports. One destroyed, you saw, another in BP control. Gate 32A down.
Do you have tracking?
No.
What was the inventory?
Mineral crushers. Enough to hollow out a village.
I’ll check the neural feeds. Keep me updated.
Lady Isabelle signed off. She revealed no emotion, even as the pressure built in her skull. She pulled in a breath of roses and jasmine and new-mown hay and steam, and she dipped into the tub. The petals parted, then constricted over her. Underneath the water, she screamed. The petals atop the water curdled and rolled.
Isabelle lurched out and gasped as if she’d run a hundred kilometers.
“My lady!” Valentine screamed. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” A keeper bot handed Isabelle a robe, and she stepped onto the marble with water and petals dripping over her shoulders, down her back, off her calves, along her toes. “After you’re done here, get back to your homework. We’ll chat in the morning.” Tossing the robe aside, Isabelle darted to the dressing room.
The supreme director arrived at the Department of Communications in her chameleon fatigues and black boots, a Reassortment baton at her belt. She took long strides through the spherical Cerebral Core, its top a hollowed dome made of polished stone, its atmosphere artificial and cool. Sixty black bots stood around the rim, maintaining a security laser grid. The beams that shot from their maroon eyes could cut through granite.
She requested connection to Marstone’s Database, and the lasers cleared. Strutting to the ring in the center, which glowed with golden light, she held up her arms and looked up to the dome as it shifted to a starry rendition of outer space.
Welcome to the
Cerebral Core of Beimeni, Lady Isabelle Lutetia. How may I be of service to you? Marstone’s voice.
I want all data that contain key words and phrases, Polemon, BP, Jeremiah, Connor, Johann, Zorian, raid, attack, Bicentennial, Hammerton Hall, Port of Life, Athanasia, mineral crushers. Adjust search for emphasis on at-risk territories, cities, and villages.
Marstone hummed and began its search, in tune with her commands as no one else’s. For decades, Lady Isabelle had improved Marstone’s capabilities to monitor the citizenry’s neurochips and brain impulses—thoughts, spoken words, dreams, and subconscious ponderings in the ZPF. She’d recruited RDD scientist Antosha Zereoue, a purported master of telepathy, to aid in her quest to quell the safeguards the terrorists used to deceive her, the recaller among them. Antosha’s improvements led to more accurate searches, data, and coordinates to give her tenehounds and Janzers.
Prior to Antosha’s exile, they enhanced Marstone’s reach, shifted it from passive to active, in order to fully understand the commonwealth’s enemies. She discovered a top secret gathering of the Leadership in Piscator, including Solstice Rupel, the BP’s chief recruitment officer. After Lieutenant Arnao led the search and destroy that left Solstice headless, Isabelle expected the BP attacks to subside, but they didn’t, and after the implosion of a supply line from Vivo to Phanes years ago, Chancellor Masimovian had smashed his fist into a marble table so hard that he shattered every bone in his arm. “Find them and kill them! Do whatever it takes!” he said. “Give me the resources I require,” Lady Isabelle countered, “give me Antosha Zereoue!” It had taken some time and persuasion, but eventually she’d prevailed upon the chancellor, as she always did on matters of national security.
Marstone completed its search. Within the dome streamed brain impulses that contained thoughts, conversations, memories, ideas—all the inner workings of the transhuman mind from citizens as far away as Gaia and Marshlands and as close as Beimeni City. Hundreds of thousands of impulses floated before her, ranked by relevance:
