The Restoration of Flaws (The Phantom of the Earth Book 5) (33 page)

“Is he?” Gage said.

“He’s still transhuman.”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Gwen said. She raised her head and tilted it. “During the Regenesis procedure, he coordinated the counterstrike in the Inaccessible Region of the West
and
manipulated my and Connor’s minds, to perfection.”

“I understand,” Brody said.
She has no idea what I’m capable of
, he thought,
no idea that I taught him, I created him, and I alone can undo him.

His thoughts moved to his twins, held in Phanes. The army that stood here, ready to die for him, didn’t matter. His feelings of anger and fear didn’t matter. Reassortment didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Pasha and Oriana lived.

Papa’s coming
, he thought.

He stepped closer to the balustrade and raised his arms. The BP roared. He threw his head back, closed his eyes, and extended his mind over them, like a blanket over a baby. The BP slipped into Brody’s past on Venus.

They glanced here and there, to the smoky geysers, flowing lava, and swirling orange-red clouds overhead.

“Follow me now,” Brody said. “See through my eyes, hear through my ears, live through my body, past, present, and future.”

The BP shifted their attention to Brody and ignored the searing heat, deadly air, and vibrating ground, which trembled beneath their feet.

“Follow me now,” he repeated.

The Venusian groundswell disappeared.

The BP hung in the void of outer space with Brody, between Earth and the moon, between past and present. The Polemon raised their arms to shield their eyes from the sun’s violent light.

“I’ve seen the other end of the galaxy, I’ve seen the surface of the Earth, I’ve seen the center of Vigna, I’ve seen advanced life, life at depths transhumans never thought possible. Now you’ve all seen what I can do, the skills that lie behind the true reasoning for my exile from the commonwealth.

“Trust me when I tell you that when Antosha Zereoue slaps your minds with his telepathic onslaught, I will defend you with all that I am.

“Trust me when I tell you that when I create a world to unite our consciousness as one, Antosha Zereoue will seek to split us apart.

“When the way seems blocked, I will set you free. Trust me.”

The Earth spun, blackness shifted to day, and the BP floated through clouds, over trees, beyond oceans and mountains, down to a clearing on the Island of Reverie.

“Follow me now.”

The green grass glistened with dew. Birds, foxes, rabbits, and chipmunks filled the air with chirping and barking sounds. The air was fresh enough to heal the soul.

“Our escape from inside the Earth, a phantom of the Earth shaped by men and women and synisms as a potter crafts a slab of clay, is the ultimate goal of our effort.

“Never forget this.

“We do not seek vengeance for loved ones lost.

“We seek justice upon those who dirtied our world.

“Follow me now!”

The Polemon shouted and waved their weapons.

Brody waited for silence.

“We seek to set the commonwealth on a sustainable path that will see us live in peace and harmony, with each other, and the planet we all love.

“Follow me now!”

Brody brought his people back to Portage City. The BP stared to and fro in astonishment.

They believe
, Brody thought
.
He raised his diamond sword and yelled, “ON TO PHANES!”

“ON TO PHANES!”

Area 55

Boreas, Underground North

2,500 meters deep

Oriana awoke from her usual nightmare, though this time it ended with the Lorum synsuit covering Pasha’s flesh. She sat up on a suspended gurney. She moved, but not far. Something held her in place. Clamps pierced into her wrists, drawing blood. She gasped.

“Aha, she’s awake!” said a medical bot labeled DOROTHY.

Oriana’s vision cleared and blurred. The bot disappeared. Now its eye slit glowed, its arm waved, and the infirmary took shape around her—a line of suspended gurneys, medical bots, and workstations topped by a rendition of the Reassortment Strain next to her vitals. She looked down. Tubes and wires circled her arms and legs.

Antosha swayed into view. He eased beside her. A large pendant hung around his neck, shimmering over his liquid silver synsuit. Antosha
tsk
ed when Oriana struggled
.
“Now, now,” he rubbed the blood that trickled down her hand and spread it between his thumb and forefinger, “look at the mess you’ve made.”

She bristled and struggled, and the clamps dug further into her wrists. Her blood flow quickened. Medical bots rushed to Dorothy’s aid, holding Oriana to the gurney, adjusting holographic levers above the workstation from the side on which uficilin and tranquilizer descended from suspended bags into Oriana’s arm.

Antosha wiped his face and hands with a wet towel.

Oriana’s wrists healed. She calmed and eased onto her pillow, holding back tears. Her hair lay matted over her face. A dribble of snot ran over her lips. Dorothy wiped Oriana’s wrists and mouth and set her hair behind her head.

“How’d I end up here?” she said. “I was just … in the jungle … on the beach … with Pasha … with—”
Nathan
, she didn’t say, too sad and unsure to speak his name, too angry at the Lorum, and Antosha. “The Lorum re-formed into a transhuman,” she added, “and it killed Pasha, and it killed me—”

“You’ve been dreaming,” Antosha said, overly friendly as far as Oriana was concerned. “Though that’s understandable with all you’ve been through.” A bot handed him a wet towel to clean Oriana’s blood from his fingers. “You missed the big events. Your father’s friends have had a bit of fun over the last twenty days.”

Her father’s friends? Twenty days? How long had she been out?

“What’s going on?” she said.

“The BP took down most of the commonwealth’s supply lines, cut off its electricity.” Antosha looked to Dorothy, and the bot lowered its head as if in mourning. “Well, lucky for you, Area 55 has a separate power source, and even more fortuitous for you, Mintel and Dahlia conducted a search and rescue for their captain.”

“Ruiner!” Oriana said. Suddenly she remembered it all, the attack in the
Voltaire
, Dr. Shrader, Hengill, her arctic foxes, Triple Drop Cave, Cryo Room. “I didn’t mean to …”

“Kill the Legend?” Antosha said. “Gods no, but this treasonous act of violence—”

“You did something to him! He thought my father killed—”

“I know it’s hard to admit your father’s follies, his obsession with advancement, and those he killed along his way to the top.” Antosha rubbed the back of his hand over Oriana’s sweaty head, and she cringed. “Poor thing, I suspect it’s your blindness to the truth that holds you back in the zeropoint field. You’ve only just begun to understand what you’re capable of, and I look forward to mentoring you further.”

“I’d die before I’d work again with you.”

“Ah, perhaps so, but then you’d miss your brother.” Oriana sat taller. She scanned the room.

“Would you like to see him?”

When Oriana didn’t respond, he added, “I assumed you would.”

He smiled and said something to Dorothy that Oriana couldn’t hear. Dorothy ordered the other medical bots to detach the workstation, and they removed the tubes and wires from her body, then threw a fur blanket over her. Dorothy pulled a bar from beneath the hovering gurney and pushed Oriana through the room. Antosha meandered beside her, his hand on its edge.

He tapped his forefingers as he would upon his violin’s neck.

They moved down a cold hall, through an archway.

Oriana shivered.

Ruiner had told stories about Nightingale Forest and the spirits that wandered through it. She never believed him, but now as she entered, she
did
feel different. White rose petals lay upon the ground. White tree trunks extended to the icy ceiling. Branches arched together and intertwined to form a gnarled canopy. Was it something foreign? Something in the minty air? Or was it her hatred for Antosha manifesting this out-of-body sensation, like leaves grazing her neck?

She grew gooseflesh.

She heard laughter, and several scientists emerged, as if from a parallel universe. A tall, handsome man held the hand of a woman with curly hair that bounced upon her fur-lined lab coat.

“Hullo,” Oriana said. They floated past her, smelling like peppermint, as if free of cares and not part of her world. She wished she could join them. Antosha glanced at her and grinned but said nothing, while Dorothy’s eye slit glowed bright, then dimmed.

“Yes,” Dorothy said, “did you need anything, Madam Champion?”

“No … I thought …”

“Don’t mind the ghosts of Boreas,” Antosha said, “and they won’t mind you.”

Oriana looked back. The scientists were gone. She shook her head, regretting having spoken to Antosha at all, though she was content to cooperate, for he was taking her to see Pasha. She didn’t trust him, but the fact remained that the commonwealth held her loved ones captive only because the chancellor believed them traitorous. Oriana would meet with Chancellor Masimovian and show him the truth.

They passed through the forest and entered Changhsingian Station, empty but for a gibbous moon that loomed in the Granville dusk, and Oriana realized that Antosha meant to take her away from Boreas.

Beimeni City

Phanes, Underground Central

The transport eased into Tortonia Station, and Dorothy pushed Oriana through the exit. When scientists streamed past Antosha and the Janzers, they bowed.

What’s going on?
Oriana thought.
Why is he so kind to me, and why do the Janzers listen to his commands, and why do they treat him like he’s the—

“Welcome, Chancellor,” said a medical bot labeled DENNIS.

“Chancellor-designate,” Antosha corrected, “but thank you.”

Oriana stared at the pendant on Antosha’s neck.
No
, she thought,
it couldn’t be.

“You seem troubled, my dear.” Antosha tapped his fingers along the edge of her gurney. “Speak your mind. I don’t seek harm to you. On the contrary—”

“Where’s Chancellor Masimovian?”

Dorothy’s eye slit dimmed.

“A tragic end for our dear leader,” Antosha said, “gunned down by the BP at the Autumn Gala.” He rubbed his chin. “You have been out for some time, haven’t you? This must all be very shocking.”

Dorothy stopped pushing Oriana at Antosha’s command.

He leaned over her bed.

“Your father’s friends are cunning, like you, but where my predecessor failed, I will not.”

“You,
you
…” Oriana said.

“Chancellor Masimovian knew for decades the fever festered beneath the surface. The disease, easy to detect, difficult to extinguish, soon spread like gangrene, and the smell, the rot engulfed what was once the Great Commonwealth.” Antosha straightened and nodded to Dorothy, who pushed the gurney forward slowly. “My rule shall be superior in all dimensions. Where my predecessor put off open war with the BP, I will not. I will see to its utter and complete destruction.”

Oriana had never heard of the BP, now repeatedly mentioned by Antosha. Nor did she understand why it would’ve harmed the chancellor. “You killed him,” she said.

Antosha snapped his head toward her. “Watch your tongue, young fool. Everyone knows I loved the chancellor as a son loves a father. As
your
chancellor, I’ll ignore your traitorous comment and your desperate plea for attention.”

“You’re …” Oriana had no words. She was utterly unprepared for this.

“In this time of mourning, in this time of great rebuilding, I shall hold the people to my bosom, and traitorous wenches like you and traitorous bastards like your father will fall in line.”

She looked up. “What about my father? Where does he fit in your new commonwealth?”

Antosha sneered and didn’t offer a response.

Father lives,
she thought,
and Antosha doesn’t have him.

“What about Nero? What about Nathan, Pasha? Are we still going to see him?”

Antosha raised the edges of his lips. His nose twitched, but he didn’t speak.

They reached Medical Center One. The glass doors parted.

Dorothy pushed Oriana through carbyne corridors that reeked like chlorine. They passed more medical bots that bowed to Antosha and greeted him as chancellor, until they arrived at the medical bays. At the back of an enormous room, surrounded by bots and a Janzer division, attached to hundreds of wires and tubes, Pasha lay on a suspended gurney.

He was unconscious, though the vitals, visible above three workstations, indicated he lived.

Next to her twin brother stood Dr. Kole Shrader!

She turned to Antosha. “Shrader’s alive? How? What’ve you done to him?”

“Behold, the Legend fulfilled,” Antosha said. He bowed deeply.

Shrader shifted the tubes around Pasha but did not say a word.

“Man’s metamorphosis to
Homo transition
took less than a century,” Antosha said. “From our superior strength and enhanced regenerative capabilities to our mind-body-cosmos interface and communications over the zeropoint field, the Marstone overseer, our present capabilities far outstretch those of
Homo sapiens
, mere mortals.”

He paused. Oriana’s stomach felt queasier by the minute. “What if we could shed the parts of our being that make us delicate and prone to weakness,” he continued, “even in transhuman form, and alter our consciousness to an even higher level?”

“Then we truly wouldn’t be human at all,” Oriana said. Antosha had her gaze now, but all she was thinking about was Pasha—and Dr. Shrader. How was he here? What was he doing to her brother?

Antosha grinned. “Ah, yes, you and the doctor performed magnificently.” Dorothy wiped the sweat that trickled down Oriana’s face.

Antosha exhaled and looked upon Granville panels that lined the wall near them. “We sent your father to Vigna in our gambit with perfection, and he resolved the chancellor’s Warning when he returned with the Lorum orb. This you know.”