The Gambit with Perfection (The Phantom of the Earth Book 2) (29 page)

The crowd roared.

Damy heard neither her thoughts nor her breath; she only heard the crowd:

The crowd screamed Brody’s name as if he was the chancellor. All well and good, but what he truly desired was time with Damy. Giving the commonwealth an heir would make him a true Beimenian. He’d thought it would be easy.

Why did he feel so empty then?

For the first time in his life, he understood his parents’ dilemma.

And he hated Hari a little bit less.

His father hadn’t registered him, and in so doing, assured his parents’ deaths. If House Variscan hadn’t accepted him, he might have served the commonwealth in the Lower Level, but he’d never have earned his Mark of Masimovian.

A flash of silver phosphorescent light overtook him, and he could no longer see or hear the celebration …

… He stood nude upon a dusty mountain.

On one side flowed a colorful bioluminescent river with shades of violet, blue, red, and orange, and on the other side lay a cloud inversion, drenched with starlight, cupped by an infinite lifeless massif.

Brody stepped over the warm stone toward the river.

He recognized this place from the mission protocols, a spot not far from where his team had touched down on Vigna—

Am I going mad?
he thought.

“We brought you to us.”

Brody heard the voice of the Lorum, alien, thick, synthesized, and full of life.

This cannot be
, he thought.
The Lorum is stored in Area 55
.

The clouds in the temperature inversion bubbled and brightened with cream phosphorescent light. They formed in front of Brody in a humanoid shape, and a slit opened as if to form a mouth.

“The Lorum is connected throughout the cosmos by what your kind calls the
ZPF
.”

“Why do you need us then? Why can’t you take what you need from my planet?”

“You will fulfill the treaty, Broden Barão, you will serve the Lorum.”

“The treaty terms are understood, though it will not be I who leads the Mission to Earth’s Core.”

The humanoid crinkled its face, and in its mouth, it formed the sharpest teeth—if one could call them teeth—Brody had ever seen. The lips moved, and he heard,
“You will serve the Lorum, or we will pull your consciousness here, and you’ll die when we die …”

“Captain Barão?” Chancellor Masimovian now stood where the Lorum once had, in front of Brody, his body covered in so many layers of golden silk and chains that he seemed a giant. “Did you have something you’d like to share with the commonwealth?”

Tradition called for the strike team captain or lead scientist granted the Mark on a mission or project to give credit to his team, to inspire the people with his conversion, yet the only words that Brody could think to say were, “Serve Beimeni, live forever.”

The crowd cheered.

Brody feigned a smile when bright blue rose petals fell, and he thought,
My gods, my gods, did Antosha have the right of it? What have I done?

The BP watched the Mark ceremony, created from a Granville panel. The Beimenian ministers had arrived and filled out the arced dais, while the orchestra serenaded the crowd. Its chords reminded Connor of the day his brother Hans had died upon the Island of Reverie. Connor wouldn’t allow his death to go unpunished. If Lady Isabelle had truly survived a BP trap in Navita, he would see justice brought upon her.

“My boy,” Pirro said to Murray, “the z-disk.”

With his mind, Murray manipulated the contents above a workstation, and two words appeared:

“Jeremiah long suspected the commonwealth might build a sister facility to Farino Prison,” Aera said. “The islands are overcrowded, and the chancellor has been moving divisions away from Farino into the South.”

“Positioning for another assault?” Murray said.

“I don’t know.”

Murray adjusted the data in the holograms. Rows, columns, and outlines of parallelogram-shaped rooms formed above the workstation.

“What is it?” Connor said, looking up and down, left and right, at this unique construction.

“It’s … a research and correctional facility,” Murray said. “It’s near the border of Phanes and Portage, located between the Beimeni zone and the Lower Level zone of the underground, a middle zone, if you will.” Murray rotated the labyrinthine structure. “Here it is.” He zoomed in further and spun the parallelogram-shaped room one hundred eighty degrees. “Jeremiah’s here.”

The Leadership spoke out.

“We can’t crack this,” Xander said.

“It’s too deep,” Brooklyn agreed.

“We should bring this evidence to the ministry,” Gage said.

Murray waved their comments away as he would a mosquito. “The ministry will be no use to us.” He zoomed out. “It’s been built near a supply shaft.”

“We can descend to it,” Aera said.

The Leadership turned to her, as did Connor.

She moved her shuriken in a downward motion.

“You’re way ahead of yourself, girl,” Pirro said. He inched forward with his cane. “We’ll need more information.”

Connor listened to the arguments as the group worked through objections, projections, and manipulations of this new facility, its capabilities, the BP’s resources, and the times to deployment and escape. This was the way Hans had led the team on the Block, Connor reflected. He would listen to Arty’s, Murray’s, and Zorian’s plans for how to meet the quotas, how to rotate the shifts, how to maintain their jobs and identities—all the while, Connor now realized, leaving from time to time for Polemon operations. Only in the end would Hans voice his opinion.

Then Connor remembered Murray’s axiom:
All interterritory transport tunnels lead to the Phanes Beltway, but only Beimeni River travels through Phanes.

“We have everything we need here,” Connor yelled. The group turned to him. “Murray, rotate Permutation Crypt and position it next to Beimeni City.”

Again, Connor and Hans would do this sort of juxtaposition all the time in their submarine in the Gulf of Yeuron, moving the Block and the reef side by side, estimating times to departure and return during fishing excursions.

“Yes, I see it now.” Connor recalled his conversations with Luke along the Archimedes, those about the commonwealth and its capital city in particular. “The great city holds the largest population center in the commonwealth,” he began, “and here’s the problem for Masimovian—”

“You’re very perceptive, my—” Pirro said.

“I wasn’t finished,” Connor said. Pirro turned his head, nodding. “Beimeni City’s growth isn’t compatible with the commonwealth’s inefficient transportation system, with the reliance on the Phanes Beltway.” Hans had told Connor many times to avoid the Phanes Beltway, given the Janzer patrols there. He’d visited it on one occasion, and become so frightened he’d immediately gone back to Piscator, never telling a soul what he’d done. “Murray, pull up the transportation system over here.” Connor pointed to a different workstation. Murray activated it and adjusted the holograms, and the colors rotated and flashed. Bright yellow lines leapt side to side, a spider web of tubes with a glowing label overhead.

“It must waste a lot of energy to travel like this,” Connor said. The group concurred. “And because of that, Phanes lacks the resources it needs for survival. It has some synism vats, but the population far exceeds its needs. With the transportation system placing unnecessary strain, the city now relies on Palaestra and Vivo and Gaia more than ever.” Luke had told him this several times during their journey.

“You are your father’s son,” Murray said.

“Did I miss something?” Brooklyn said. “What’s your point?”

“The supply lines into and out of Phanes are vital for survival,” Murray said. “The recession and our attacks in the outer territories have prevented the chancellor’s construction in the great city.”

“That or his incompetence,” Arty said. “But you’ve left something out here. They’ll have redundancies for a power outage, critical systems will be covered.”

“Not necessarily,” Murray said. He paused. “As I see it, they’ve replaced remoteness and separation in Farino Prison with a labyrinth they don’t believe we’d dare enter, but we can and we could create chaos, hit them where they’re soft on multiple entry and exit points into and out of Phanes.”

White bulbs appeared along the tunnels to Beimeni City from Palaestra and Vivo, created by Murray’s mind. “We’ll sustain losses, no doubt, but this operation’s goal isn’t to cause a power outage or food shortage. It’s—”

“A diversionary tactic,” Connor said. Zorian had explained to Connor the best ways to use diversions during fishing excursions, to make his competitors think he’d be targeting one area of the reef when, in fact, the true target—the meat—was someplace else. He found he wished Zorian was with them now.

The group chatted until Pirro called for decorum.

“They won’t be fooled,” Arty said.

“They don’t need to be,” Murray said. “We’ll hit during the Bicentennial. The chancellor will have no choice but to deploy Janzer divisions to confront our forces.”

“The Crypt will have defenses,” Arty said.

“Of course,” Murray said.

“It’ll have Janzers—”

“Yes.”

“It’ll have protections you’re unaware of—”

“Yes.”

“Captain Barão,” Connor said. “That’s why we’ll need a skilled telepath on the inside.” Murray had said so during their stay in House Tremadoci. “Couldn’t we just
ask
the captain for his support?”

Aera snickered. “And what do you think, we approach this servant of Chancellor Masimovian, who is receiving his Mark as we speak, and ask him to betray his strike team oath, his chancellor, his commonwealth, and by extension, his people?”

Connor had no rebuttal, for Aera spoke true, yet as the bright blue rose petals fell around the captain and his team, he wondered who misunderstood Captain Broden Barão. Did he read the captain incorrectly, or did his coconspirators?

Connor found his voice. “He might help us, if he knew about this illegal prison.”

Murray shook his head. “We have the ID card and their DNA and fingerprints, so we have access to their unit.”

“This operation isn’t about revenge,” Aera said. She waved her shuriken in rebuttal. “The First Ward is heavily guarded.”

“Their Janzers don’t concern me,” Murray said. He threw his fist toward her, without striking her.

“Don’t make this personal!” Aera said. “We don’t
need
Barão or his team to enter Permutation Crypt.”

“But we’ll need them to exit,” Connor said.

The chancellor asked Captain Barão if he had any words to share with the commonwealth. “Serve Beimeni, live forever,” he said, and the crowd cheered. Murray waved his forefinger across the holograms, at the ministry, the chancellor, and the Barão Strike Team.

“They turned Zorian against us.” Murray paused and looked at Captain Barão, then to Connor. “It’s time we turned one of theirs against them.”

Lady Isabelle thought her sight deceived her, for the only light in Antosha’s room was from the holographic view of the celebration from the Gallery of the Chancellor, and the white light emitted from the strings of his deodar violin. He sat in a white hooded cape upon a white crate next to his levitated gurney, and his body swayed in rhythm as he bowed. Isabelle didn’t know what song he played, but like so many in his repertoire this one filled her with longing.

“I’m surprised you’re watching,” Isabelle said, nodding to the Granville panels. She felt tingles in her stomach. She hadn’t seen her sweet Antosha in fifteen years.

Antosha lifted the bow midnote and set the violin and the bow to his side. He lowered his hood. His black and silver hair swirled around his head, longer than she remembered. He turned slowly. The skin on his face looked freshly healed, the color of polished bronze, though his left eye was filled with what looked like liquid silver.

She rushed to him and reached for him, but he pushed her away. “My love, why didn’t you let them fix—”

He put his finger on her lips. “I take it the BP isn’t destroyed.” He must have read her thoughts. When Isabelle shook her head, he turned to the celebration, where bright blue rose petals rained. “My injuries shouldn’t all disappear, should they?” He turned back to Isabelle and said, “Why should I hide who I truly am?”

“You shouldn’t. You did nothing wrong. The injustice has been reversed—”

“Far from it, my lady,” he said, his voice a saw. Isabelle flinched. “Your gambit with perfection has awakened the beast—”

“If Captain Barão failed on Vigna, I would’ve learned from his weakness in the zeropoint field and retrieved the Lorum myself—”

“Instead he returned, more powerful in the field than I’ve ever felt, but this is no concern of mine. The way you tell it, the BP’s pervasive, the economy crashes, the chancellor ignores all. Sweet belle, our people need us to be strong, to see this to the end.”

“We shall.” Isabelle brushed Antosha’s hair away from his face. “I didn’t expect the chancellor to confer the Marks—”

“By the time I’m through with Broden Barão and Damosel Rhea, their Marks will be an afterthought. You and I will lead the people back to the surface.”

The panels darkened, the room lit only by Antosha’s deodar violin. He grabbed Isabelle and kissed her. She wrapped her legs around him.

Permutation Crypt

2,750 meters deep

Jeremiah lay submerged in a bathtub, his shorts streaked with blood.

His hands were bound behind his back, his eyes glowing feverishly, legs and abdomen wrapped with spear-tipped wiring that dug into his skin with each tremor. Snot dripped down the adhesive that sealed his mouth.

A Janzer dumped another bucket of ice in the tub.

He shivered.