The Song of the Jubilee (The Phantom of the Earth Book 1) (10 page)

“What does that mean?”

“Lady Isabelle took our father from us and sent him to Farino.” As loud as Hans yelled, his voice seemed absent, dislocated from his body.
How could she know?
he thought.
What gave Father away?

When Connor’s eyes widened, Hans added, “I’m taking him back—”

“Farino …” Connor said. Hans had told Connor about the Northern territories, the parts of the commonwealth most dangerous for the unregistered. What he hadn’t told Connor was that in the North, ministerial outreach had led citizens to turn on citizens with such regularity that Father had long ago halted his recruitment to the BP there. “As in, Father’s been taken to Farino Prison?”

Hans nodded, and Connor recoiled, for all the unregistered knew this prison was where the commonwealth sent them to die.

The transport slid through and around another service shaft. Connor twisted his face. He exhaled deeply.

Hans heard his brother’s thoughts as if they were his own, a confused monologue of fearful, angry musings.

“I can help you,” Connor said.

Hans shook his head. He had no choice now but to meet with Murray, form a new contingency, and hope he could get Connor to Hydra Hollow before the fever erupted.

Connor ground his teeth, his nostrils twitched, and his eyes looked a bit glossy. Yet it wasn’t fear or sadness Hans sensed within him.

“I lift the sharks all day,” Connor said, “my arms are as tough as stone. I can go with you to Farino! We can do this together!”

He
is
a Selendia,
Hans thought,
and a Rupel
. He wanted to tell his brother that his physical strength meant nothing in the Great Commonwealth, where the young grew up fast and stayed young forever, and power accrued to those with a genetic edge. To be sure, the Selendias and Rupels had that edge, and Connor knew it and wanted to use it the way his older brothers did. Gods help Hans, he wished he’d induced the fever within Connor years ago. Then he might by now have the ally he lost when Zorian returned to Piscator Territory and received his mother’s severed head rather than her kisses.

That was the past, Hans reminded himself. If he was going to save Connor’s life, it would be his actions presently that mattered far more. “I can’t go to Farino,” he said, “not the way I’d planned, anyway. I meant to act swiftly. Lady Isabelle has either furthered Marstone’s capabilities beyond what I understood or …”

“What?” Connor said.

Hans formed his words so as to not put anyone else at risk.

“… or she might have someone on the inside, on our side, on her side.”

“An
unregistered?
” Connor looked like he might puke. “Working with Lady Isabelle?”

Hans opened his mouth, then closed it. As much as he wanted to reveal all his family’s secrets to Connor—the Liberation Front, Blackeye Cavern, Hydra Hollow, the plan to strike the iron fist—he could not. Not yet. To hit the boy with all he faced, and all his potential, would not help an untenable situation. Instead, he said, “Someone poisoned our father with a synism called
Escherichia barrier
.”

“
Escherichia
what?” Connor said. “What’d it do to him? Is Father hurt, or de—”

“Father’s not dead.” Hans exhaled, again considering what he could reveal to his underdeveloped brother with least risk to his people. “
E. barrier
infects the transhuman brain, temporarily disrupting our connection to the zeropoint field until the immune system can clear the infection, which could take days. There’re many variants of the synism. Sometimes, a skilled telepath can take advantage of that disruption, gaining access to a transhuman mind.”

“What does that mean?”

“Father couldn’t defend himself. That’s how the government captured him.”

“Who would poison him?”

“Only Isabelle Lutetia knows, but we cannot cross her, not today.”

“I’m not scared of her.”

Hans leaned forward. “You should be.”

Ypresia Village

Gaia, Underground West

2,500 meters deep

The line at Hirnan Station stretched farther than the Archimedes River, it seemed. Hans held his brother’s wrist. They again wore their fisherman bodysuits with tattered capes splayed around their shoulders, and worn-out packs upon their backs. On the way, Hans had also injected himself and Connor with a variant dosage of
E. pigmentation
; their skin again looked white, animated tattoos splayed over it.

“This is a terrible spot for the unregistered,” Connor said softly. “The crowd’s too thick—”

Hans twisted Connor around to face him.
It’s better than you think,
he sent.
Be silent.

Connor nodded. He and Hans rushed through the maze of Gaians wearing tunics and wooden slippers, whose skin was as pale as Southerners. They passed between and through tents with goods ranging from cotton robes to gold canteens to wooden ornaments and artistic Granville spheres of every size and color. At the end of the set, they arrived at a cavern labeled SYNTHETIC HERBS & SPICES. Hans brushed aside the curtain of beads that hung over the wide entryway, and gasped. He felt adrenaline pour through his veins.

Murray’s hands were tied to the sides of a wooden chair, his mouth sealed by tape, his hair matted, his face beaten, his eyes streaked with blood that dripped down his forehead. The Converse Collar, the commonwealth’s technology to thwart the transhuman mind-body-cosmos interface glowed green around his neck. He rumbled and groaned, but Hans couldn’t understand him.

Eighteen Janzers arced around the cavern, aiming activated pulse guns at Hans and Connor.

Marius Arnao, Lady Isabelle’s deadliest lieutenant, lean and rangy in his chameleon military fatigues, glowered. “Gentlemen.” His eyes lifted with his pouty lips. “Welcome.” He clapped twice. “I was hoping you’d come.” The lieutenant sounded confident and calm.

Connor eased backward on the balls of his feet.

“Stun them—” Arnao said.

Hans sent a telekinetic burst through the ZPF. Arnao and the three Janzer divisions collapsed.

Connor looked at Hans, his mouth moving without speech. Then he found his voice. “Did you kill them?”

“No,” Hans said. “They won’t wake for a few days, and when they do, they’ll have terrible headaches.”

“How do you and Zorian—”

Murray moaned.

Hans rushed to the back of the cavern to him. Connor followed.

Hans untied Murray and ripped the tape off his mouth.

“The alternate contingencies,” Murray said between gasps, “they knew.”

Hans’s mind was in knots, for to learn of the operation’s intent—a Polemon strike upon Farino Prison to free his father from captivity—wouldn’t have been difficult for the government to deduce. In fact, like Maribel, Hans assumed Lady Isabelle anticipated a strike, but to learn of his contingency plans in Natura and Gaia, which Zorian hadn’t outlined in his z-disk, required entirely different tradecraft. The commonwealth’s advancement with Marstone’s technology was progressing faster than the Leadership anticipated.

The situation was far worse than he’d imagined.

Murray rose, grabbed a towel, and wiped his face and arms, cleaning the blood from his animated seashell tattoos that decorated his skin. Then he snatched the key to the Converse Collar from Arnao’s utility belt and inserted it into the collar. The green light dimmed and the collar unlatched. “Much better,” he said. He stole Arnao’s Reassortment baton
—
an alloy rod that transmitted instructions for the synthesis of
E. agony
into the transhuman brain. He kicked Arnao, who slid over the marble ground into a cabinet full of vials, then turned to Hans. “Where the lieutenant goes, the lady follows.”

“Indeed. Have you warned our allies in the West and South?”

Murray shook his head. “Couldn’t.”

“I’ll do it.” Hans calmed his mind, accessed the ZPF, and simultaneously ran interference on Marstone. The unregistered familiar with the cipher heard,
The Piscatorian has fled the sea, the Piscatorian has fled the sea.
The Department of Communications and any other who intercepted the message through Marstone would hear random musings.

“It’s done,” Hans said.

“We should split up,” Murray said.

“What about Father?” Connor said.

“We’ll need a new contingency,” Hans said.

The beaded curtain tinkled.

“What was that?” Connor said.

They turned to the entrance.

Hans reached out with his mind to search the entrance. He clutched Connor and Murray, held his breath, and focused his mind in a manner he’d never done before.

Lady Isabelle Lutetia burst into the cavern. She wore a loose-fitting gown covered by designs depicting geothermal vents and geysers native to Gaia. Her long lavender hair twisted into a braid with beads and silk cloth. If Hans hadn’t seen her in Granville syntech and learned so much about her appearance from z-disks, the lift to her cheekbones, the point to her nose, the way she pressed her lips together, and her light skin tone—untreated by
E. pigmentation
, it looked almost white—he might’ve mistaken her for a Gaian.

Step back slowly
, Hans sent to Murray and Connor.
She can’t see or hear us.
Hans shook as he projected his consciousness onto hers. The perspiration built around his chin, and his face flushed. Beside him, Murray was taking deep breaths, while Connor’s breath grew rapid and shallow.

Lady Isabelle strutted across the cavern as if she owned it. She reached Arnao, who lay on the ground with his eyes open, as if he was dead. She closed her eyes, and Hans sensed her in the ZPF. Arnao sat up and groaned.

Connor started, backing into the glass vials behind them. Isabelle turned at the noise, probing. Hans gritted his teeth. His cheeks vibrated as if he held the whole Earth in his arms.

Isabelle took a few steps toward them. Hans felt her mind focus upon the thousands of colorful synism vials behind them. Creating illusions in the ZPF came naturally to him, and doing so in Piscator had been relatively easy, but this was Isabelle Lutetia, Master of the Harpoons, a neural specialist who’d been developed by the elite House Marsellessa nearly two centuries ago. He let her find the vials that had moved, barely having enough focus to keep her mind off them.

She probed again, and he diverted her. Finally, she turned slowly back to Arnao, who blinked and straightened. Blood oozed from his mouth and nose. His shoulder was also dislocated, courtesy of Murray’s boot.

Isabelle waved her head and folded her arms. “This is why you don’t send a man to do a woman’s job.”

Her voice sent a flutter through Hans, who refocused his effort in the ZPF.
She cannot see us.

Arnao groaned now and massaged his shoulder. “Polemon—”

Connor coughed. Though Hans immediately attributed the sound to a giant rat rushing across the clay floor, Isabelle turned her head, like a tigress on the prowl.

“Some interest in hallucinogenic synisms, my lady?” Arnao said.

She twisted around to Arnao. Her braided hair was slung around her neck. “You truly
are
a waste.”

Connor held his hand over his mouth, muffling another cough. Then snot dripped from his nose, over his forefingers. He trembled, violently. His teeth chattered. Hans felt heat escaping his brother’s body in great waves.

Gods, no, no, no,
Hans thought,
the fever …

Connor looked terrified. His chest rose and fell rapidly. Murray hugged him and peered at Hans, knowingly and angrily.

Hans wanted to punch something. This wasn’t supposed to happen here! Connor should’ve been secured to the new secret room in House Thuddan, on his way to rapid development, on his way to becoming a powerful ally in the war! Hans exhaled, refocusing his mind-body-cosmos connection, both on his little brother, and on Lady Isabelle and Lieutenant Arnao.

The lieutenant smashed his shoulder into the wall, and his bones popped back into joint. He rubbed his neck. “Have you requested reinforcements?”

Isabelle tapped his raw cheek. “
I’m
the reinforcements.” She sighed and held his hands in hers.

Hans sensed Isabelle was pushing her mind into Arnao’s, much as he had thrust his into theirs. As Isabelle probed Arnao, Hans began to experience his memories. It took all of Hans’s concentration to stay with them …

… He watched Arnao interrogate Murray, before his and Connor’s arrival.

“Where’s the traitorous contingent?” Arnao asked.

Murray didn’t respond. Arnao jabbed him with his baton. Murray rocked and howled a muffled scream. Isabelle shifted forward, skipping through the torture to the moment the Selendias parted the beaded curtain. Then the fight, when Arnao and his three Janzer divisions were knocked out, followed by blinding light.

Isabelle opened her eyes and dropped Arnao’s hands. She turned and pondered the vials, then took a step forward and closed her eyes. She secured visual identifications for the suspects, connected to Marstone, pulled data from the DOC, and rapidly scanned through Ypresia, hopping as if she were a virus from one Gaian to the next, searching the bazaar. Isabelle shifted from face to face, mind to mind, vision to vision, cross-referencing the Gaians with the data in Marstone’s Database. Hans learned how she accessed the database, but began to lose his connection to her thoughts.

Isabelle opened her eyes. She appeared too pleased for Hans’s liking, considering what seemed like her failure to locate them.

Drool dripped down the sides of Connor’s mouth. He broke away from Murray, swaying into the synism vials, knocking them over and shattering them. He puked.

Hans lost his concentration in the ZPF, and Isabelle shattered his illusion. His eyes met hers. He lunged at her. Isabelle screamed as they tumbled into Arnao.

“
Get out of here!
” Hans yelled. “Go!”

“Hans!” Connor started for the pile of arms and legs and cloth, but Murray clutched him and pulled him away.

… Hans stood upon a trail, the air filled with the aroma of berries, while crimson leaves splayed over the vast forest, each one crackling as if filled with electricity.