The Synthesis and the Animus (The Phantom of the Earth Book 3) (28 page)

Brody neared.

He looked revolting, even more so than earlier, when she’d had her bit of fun with him for the evening’s performance. His hair shot out in all directions, his eyes were bloodshot, and his mouth dripped with saliva. Tonight, the people would see just how unworthy a scientist he was, and finally,
finally
realize that Antosha should lead Project Reassortment.

She danced faster and screamed with delight.

A woman grabbed Brody and kissed him. He threw her off and sailed through the crowd. Gwen saw him disappear and reappear, obscured by a hand, a glass, a fountain of champagne, an aristocrat’s legs thrown around a lover. She broke from Antosha and floated to Brody. She smoothed his hair, moved the boa around his neck.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away from me forever,” she said, running the back of her hand along Brody’s slippery chin. “I knew you wanted me.”

Brody licked his lips and swallowed and his voice slurred. “Gwen, you’re not yourself.”

“Me?” she laughed. “Look at you. You have lipstick smeared along your cheek, you’re drenched in sweat, you stink like an ox.” She giggled. “Dance with me.” She twirled with her boa again.

Brody spoke, but she couldn’t understand him.

Now Brody grabbed Gwen and pulled her close. “You don’t know what he’s capable of!”

She leaned into him for a kiss, but he grunted and pushed her aside.

She lost her step, but Antosha caught her and she twirled with him.

“Get away from her!” Brody said.

Antosha didn’t respond.

Brody looked here and there as if he was searching for something. But for what? The Janzers? Gwen had seen them bolt hours ago. More likely he was still looking for Damy, but she was in the forest for a meeting with her lover, or so Antosha told her. How he knew this, Gwen did not ask, did not care.

She enjoyed Antosha’s touch presently, his smell, his lips, his hands all over her. He pushed his head beside hers, looking at Brody, Gwen assumed, who wouldn’t leave them alone.

It’s over
, Gwen thought.
The people will never want a debacle like Brody running Reassortment research. They’ll want
…
no, they’ll
beg
Antosha to step up after they see what Brody looks like tonight in the highlights from the
Beimeni Press
.

She smiled at the thought.

Antosha broke away and cut in front of Brody, who lacked coordination in his lunge for Antosha’s throat. Antosha squeezed a tiny balloon near Brody’s face.

More fun. More fun.

Brody sneezed.

Antosha strutted to Gwen, lifted her by her arms, and spun with her. She responded immediately.

“Not even you, good captain,” Antosha said, “can hold back
my
violin.”

Brody’s eyes reddened. He blinked and rubbed, rubbed and blinked. “What’d … you … do to me? You … what’d you do …”

“Are you seeing the world clearly, Captain?”

Antosha tangled Gwen in his arms and dipped her.

“The Granville panels, good captain, they are where you will experience your
choice destiny
, not with me, not with Gwen.”

Antosha had told Gwen that Brody told him about Delphi’s constant prediction for his life, his choice destiny.

Brody swayed. Gwen thought he might topple.

Now the scene around the celebration flickered and focused upon a canopy of leaves. The view dipped down the long trunks.

“The tide in their affair has come,” Antosha said, spinning with Gwen, “and taken them like a flood, wafted her lover on to a crime of passion.”

The Chalice Archway was rendered into view and beyond it, Verne, his fingers tethered to Damy’s throat. The hiss that escaped her lips was like no sound Gwen had ever heard.

“A crime of passion!” Antosha spun Gwen past Brody. Like a boomerang, she returned to his grasp.

Brody moved toward the elevator, his gait somewhere between a stagger and a sprint.

Gwen stepped out of Antosha’s arms and looked up.

“What happened?” Gwen said.

Antosha grabbed her and laughed. “Our music, my sweet violin.”

Brody punched DREAM FOREST and latched to the wall. He blinked rapidly. He felt as if two people competed for his sight. He peered over the skyline of Beimeni City, and its buildings parted and returned in a trail of darkness and moonlight. He closed his eyes. He exhaled. He envisioned Damy beneath Verne, who straddled and hovered and choked her. Had he really seen it? Was it some mirage of Antosha’s? He’d been drugged, he knew that much, but Damy’s face, the horrible sound she made, seemed so real.

Brody stumbled through the maze of giant sequoias.

“Damy!”

His speech slurred. He careened over the bridge and called her name.

“Damy, where are you!”

Silence.

“Damy, can you hear me?”

Violet rose petals rained through the airy parts of the canopy. Some twinkled through and across the Dream Forest, over sculptures, tree trunks, the pond, the archway. He looked up. The Chalice Archway!

Brody staggered under the archway and ran into Verne. They fell to the ground.

Verne gasped and groaned.

“What did you do?” Brody said. Verne’s head moved and multiplied, leaving tracers.

“I didn’t mean it!” Verne said. “I mean, I didn’t, I mean—”

Brody threw him against the archway. He knelt to Damy.

Her face broke and trailed and combined.

Brody rubbed his eyes and placed his unsteady hands on what he thought was Damy’s chest but was instead the ground, cold and rough upon his fingers. He waited for the specters to combine, felt her silky hair and nose and chin.

He pushed his ear to her chest. When he heard nothing he screamed, a scream loud enough to shake the commonwealth.

“Damy … please don’t … don’t leave me …”

He heard a voice.

He killed her.

“Who’s there?” Brody raised his head and turned to and fro. The voice sounded like his own. He couldn’t be sure if it spoke out loud.

He killed her!

“I’m so sorry!” Verne said, on the ground now, face to face with Brody. “I. Didn’t. Do. This.” He struggled to draw breath. “I would never hurt her—”

He killed her!

Brody jerked his head to the side.

Verne killed her!

Brody turned to Verne. “You,” he said, “this is because of
you!
”

“No, no, no, I tried to help her! I tried to save her! I summoned the Janzers!”

He killed her!

“You killed her!”

Brody grabbed Verne by the throat. His hands tightened, his arm twisted, and he heard a
snap.

Verne’s eyes emptied.

Brody dropped his limp body.

“Damy!” Brody scrabbled over the ground. “Where are you?” He reached for a phantasm and fumbled his hands about. Finally, he felt her hair, and the flower, the daisy.

Damy’s dead body.

Brody held her.

The Janzers surrounded him, shackles in hand.

Brody didn’t notice.

He rocked back and forth with his Damy in his arms.

Permutation Crypt

2,750 meters deep

So much blood, so much death, so many Janzer body parts strewn across the holding cell. “Did you do this?” Nero said to Aera.

She shook her head no, looking more than a bit surprised by what just happened. In fact, the First Aera looked slaughtered, much as Nero assumed he appeared, covered with bloody streaks. Only this picture was one he’d never seen before. What kind of connection to the ZPF could overcome the Janzers’ telekinetic defenses?

Aera knelt to Connor. Her body armor was torn and blood streaked from her wounds, though, it seemed, she’d used ufilicin to stem the flow.

“Is he …” Nero couldn’t bring himself to say
dead.
A piece of him hoped Connor had died, and a piece of him hoped Connor had survived, for the ability to kill transhumans—even Janzers—with the ease of thought reminded him too much of Antosha Zereoue. Yet it was a skill that might be useful, should more Janzers arrive from Phanes, or should his captain require his talent in battle.

“He’s alive—” Aera said.

Two silhouettes crashed into the cell.

Nero shifted to standard vision. He didn’t recognize this man. He
did
recognize the man draped over his arm—Supreme Scientist Jeremiah Selendia, or what was left of him. Lacerations split his cheeks, blisters riddled his arms, and burns covered his torso, bits of clothing melted to his skin. His face was scarred, his hair and beard matted. Dark violet circles hung beneath his eyes. A
T
was branded deep in his arm.

Aera advanced, sword raised.

“Wait!” the man said. “I’m here to help.”

“Traitor!” Aera said and moved forward.

“Aera, hold it,” Nero said.

She checked her advance. For a long moment, she held her sword drawn back as if to strike. “Jeremiah wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Zorian!” She pointed her blade at Murray’s body parts. “Murray wouldn’t be dead—”

“
No!
Murray!” Zorian said. Carefully, he handed Jeremiah to Nero.

The BP had told Nero about Jeremiah’s eldest and estranged son, Zorian Selendia. He did look a lot like Jeremiah, Nero reflected. He had sharp features, an aquiline nose, and a crested hairline. He was covered with dust and sweat. He wore a tunic but wasn’t as haggard as Jeremiah. Then the reality of the situation struck Nero. He looked down.
Jeremiah Selendia, the all-powerful Jeremiah Selendia,
he thought,
alive and in my arms
. Jeremiah mumbled something incomprehensible.
Who would’ve thought this possible?
Certainly not Nero, for he’d been told the former supreme scientist had perished decades ago, fallen ill of old age and shame without athanasia and his RDD.

Memories of Jeremiah surged forward in Nero’s mind from the ZPF; Jeremiah’s constant scheming, his lectures about commonwealth behavior, and his insulting claims that the strike teams had betrayed their oaths to transhumankind. Who did he think he was? What made him so righteous? He created Marstone! He killed Vastar Alalia! He helped the chancellor consolidate power in Phanes!

Nero pushed aside these thoughts. He
had
to control his emotions, lest he kill Jeremiah here and now, failing his captain and his eternal partner with one stroke.

Zorian knelt in a bloody pool, putting his hand upon Murray’s lifeless face, half-covered by a visor, half-exposed, revealing his bloodied eye. “Murray,” he said. “Murray, Murray, Murray, ever the fool.” He sounded mournful. He turned. “And Connor! Gods,
no!
” He rushed to his youngest brother. “Oh, thank the gods, Connor
lives!
”

“You stay away from us,” Aera said. She examined what remained of her damaged synsuit. “Don’t give us trouble and none will come to you.”

“They sent Icarian to the Lower Level!” Zorian said. “They’ll send me there next! You have to take me with you!”

“No fucking way,” Aera said.

“You know,” gently, Zorian set Connor’s body against the rusted tub, “I always thought you had a pretty face.” He took one step and leaned forward. He had the intense look of a Selendia that made Nero feel uncomfortable. “I’d hate to bust it up.”

Before Nero could blink, Aera spun toward Zorian, who telekinetically brought two Janzer arms across his body, blocking her.

Then he lifted five, ten, twenty more Janzer arms and closed their diamond-gloved hands into fists, thrusting them toward her.

Aera backflipped and avoided the fists, then swiftly she jump-kicked Zorian over the tub.

“
END THIS NOW!
” Nero said.

Aera turned to him, breathing deeply.

“We have no time to fight each other!” Nero pointed his dagger toward to the doorway. “The reinforcements will be here any second!”

“He gave the commonwealth Jeremiah!” Aera said, pointing a shuriken at Zorian, who was now covered with Janzer blood.

Zorian limped forward around the tub and knelt to Connor. “You’re leaving out something else I did, Miss Aera.” He lifted his brother, letting his limp body sprawl across his arms. “I sent that bitch Lutetia right into the trap beneath Navita, and you guys couldn’t even finish her off.”

“What?” Nero said.

Aera threw her head back and laughed. “You think I’m going to believe that?”

“I don’t care what you think. I love my family.”

Nero had heard enough of this. “We have to get out of here,
all
of us.”

Aera pointed her sword at Zorian, looking toward Nero. “You think I’m letting him come back with us?”

“What’s the harm?” Nero said. Jeremiah mumbled as Nero injected him with uficilin. “Let Jeremiah deal with him when he’s recovered.” He injected uficilin into himself.

A smile flitted over Zorian’s face before he turned stoic.

Nero set Jeremiah down, then placed the tip of his bloody shuriken beneath Zorian’s chin. “If this operation turns ill on your account, I’ll rip out your entrails and hang you by them in Artemis Square.”

Zorian nodded and raised his eyebrow. “How colorful.”

Aera searched the ground for something.

“What’re you doing?” Nero said, holstering his shuriken
.

“We can’t bring Murray back with us,” she said, “but we won’t leave his body for the commonwealth.” She lifted several charges from the Janzers’ dead bodies. Then she raised her eyes as she extended her consciousness and scanned the area. “We’re clear,” she said. She lifted a Granville sphere out of the tub, the one that apparently had projected Jeremiah’s likeness in the ZPF, tricking them. She crushed it under her boot, then set charges around the tub and Murray’s body.

Nero carried Jeremiah, and Zorian held Connor, while Aera led on point. They all made their way back into the Crypt. It shook when the charges exploded in the holding cell.

They’d traveled through the countless half-lit tunnels and rooms. Throughout the Crypt, sparks flew from the coils overhead and in the corners, alloy and wiring splayed about. Either the damage had been caused by the EMP or the shifts afterward. Nero didn’t know and didn’t care. Aera assured him she had the route to the pit where their rappel ropes hung. Nero wasn’t about to argue with her.