The Restoration of Flaws (The Phantom of the Earth Book 5) (34 page)

Oriana agreed. “My father also enacted an agreement, a treaty, and the true chancellor decreed the treaty active with his Mission to Earth’s Core, a mission you prevented when you reassigned the Holcombe Strike Team—”

“I cannot be held responsible for
all
your father’s mistakes, can I? What you don’t know is that I’ve been working on a maximal, master genome, a genome you helped me to complete.”

Oriana crumpled her brow.

Antosha rendered images of the molecular structures of
Homo transition
next to
Homo sapiens.
Then he rendered the raw Reassortment Strain’s genome and placed it across from the Lorum’s.

“Gods,” Oriana said.

“Oh, my dear, gods is right. Humans, transhumans, Before Reassortment, believed that in order to end their Second Hundred Years’ War they would evolve further, evolve completely, evolve into posthuman,
Homo evolutis
, the penultimate end of our evolutionary chain, the end made possible by the maximal genome.

“Though the Western Hegemony didn’t know it, couldn’t know it, the Lorum, an impregnable living liquid metal with a superior quantum connection to the cosmos, was always their missing link in the Reassortment Strain.”

“Why speed the evolutionary processes?”

“You don’t need to fight a war over asteroid mines or clean water or viable land if you don’t need air to breathe, if you don’t need sustenance to live, if you don’t need to build shelter or bridges to connect peoples and landmasses. With a mere thought, you could travel thousands of light-years across the galaxy.

“With mere thoughts, you could be full of food and water, flood the body with warmth or hormones, pleasure or pain, and be content.”

“But the strain killed everyone instead.” Oriana looked at Shrader, then Antosha. “He stole the data from me, that means you have it, that means you can cure—”

“The only cure for Reassortment is rapid evolution and managed natural selection. Those who survive exposure to the strain shall form a new society upon the surface—”

Oriana bared her teeth. “You
are
a monster.”

Antosha
tsk
ed. “Traitorous words have never harmed me, even from your venomous tongue.” He leaned closer to her. His mountainous scent sickened her. “I’m logical, realistic—”

“Everyone might die, just like during the Death Wave! You said you’d find a cure!”

“No,” Antosha said, softly, intensely, “you’re mistaken about Reassortment, Shrader, and much else.”

Antosha backed away from Oriana and orbited her gurney, glaring at her. “When the League of Scientists failed to discover the maximal genome, they shifted the research on Reassortment to weaponize it with the CRISPR system. Before the Eastern Hegemony infiltrator destroyed Hengill Laboratory, Shrader’s plan was to treat citizens of the Western Hegemony with gene therapies designed to alter their genomes in a manner in which Reassortment wouldn’t understand, then unleash it on the Eastern Hegemony, killing them all.”

Oriana had never heard of the CRISPR system. She had never heard any of this, and she didn’t believe Shrader capable of hurting anyone before Antosha corrupted him.

Then she recalled Dr. Marshall’s comment:
Peace isn’t possible without the East’s demolition, isn’t that what you told me last time we met?

Did Oriana misread the doctor’s intentions? Did Antosha change him, or did he unleash the Dr. Kole Shrader of Livelle Laboratory?

No, she assured herself, this is all a distraction, a well-planned deception by Antosha. “If a transhuman designed Reassortment,” Oriana said assuredly, “then a transhuman should be able to solve it.”

Antosha shook his head. “The strain reassorts parts of its genome on the quantum level, encrypting it in a way designed to thwart anyone using the CRISPR system. Even the most skilled transhuman, even the most advanced artificial intelligence in our world, Marstone, would require millions and millions of years to solve it, and as you know we don’t have that long.”

“It’s designed to be incurable …” Oriana shuddered when Antosha nodded. She recalled the tables and doors puzzles from her development and the false stomachion inside Ceres. She never imagined the Reassortment enigma might also be unsolvable.

Then she thought about the release of Reassortment, the Death Wave, and Shrader. “Something went wrong with Shrader’s plan.”

“Yes.”

“We attacked Hengill!”

“No, and yes. Dr. Kole Shrader unknowingly gave the Eastern Hegemony’s Delta Division the access codes necessary to break into Hengill Laboratory. Your attack, as you say, your battle with the Eastern Hegemony infiltrator destroyed the Hexagon, but it was your use of crushers that allowed the strain access to the geothermal vents, releasing Reassortment into the atmosphere before the nuclear detonation.” Antosha leaned closer to her. “Nothing went wrong on that mission, my dear. Ruiner thought the adjustments to the exotic matter would create a portal to 2 BR, but,” and Antosha flashed his teeth, “I made sure he’d err and send you back to the year zero, testing you and Shrader in the field at the most dangerous part of the war.”

Antosha raised his head, and his voice. “Releasing Reassortment was necessary to achieve
hyperpower,
the maximal genome. As we speak, a million Janzers are constructing the tunnel to Sky City upon the surface where the terradome of my design has been fortified with the Lorum genome.” Antosha brought the rendition of it to the Granville panels. Sky City formed. The brightness from sunrise on the surface stole even Shrader’s attention. The Janzers, conspicuously dressed in synsuits rather than biomats, were working furiously to complete the city. Shrader returned to his work.

Antosha deactivated the panels and they turned taupe. “We
are
going back to the surface, Miss Oriana.”

She didn’t want to believe him, for his deceptions knew no bounds. Still, she sensed he spoke truly to her, possibly for the first time since she’d met him. “Why did Dr. Shrader try to kill me?”

Antosha laughed, a laugh that made her want to snap his neck, the same as she had the doctor’s in the Cryo Room.

“The good doctor will fulfill his legend.”

“Because I tamed him—”

“Because you performed the way I knew you would, and in so doing, you gave him the raw Reassortment Strain, you gave him what he required to complete the maximal genome.

“You, my dear, gave me control over the Earth’s
first
posthuman.”

“No,” Oriana said. Again and again, she fell to his deceit. “You didn’t answer me.”

Antosha shrugged. “Dr. Shrader thought if he could prevent the Reassortment Strain’s release, the League of Scientists wouldn’t have been frozen near absolute zero, that the Western Hegemony’s destruction would be prevented, and that he could return to a new future—”

“Reunited with Luella Shrader—”

“—where he wasn’t responsible for humanity’s near extinction.” Antosha looked at Shrader, then back to Oriana. “Yes, he also hoped to return to a future with Luella as well, poor thing. At least she died without pain. Not all of us are so fortunate.”

Oriana shook her head. She felt hot, as if she’d melt through the gurney, through the Earth, through space and time. She eyed a Janzer’s sword.

“I’d kill Pasha the moment you tried, young fool.”

Oriana gasped. She’d let him in her mind, again. Damn him! She blocked his access.

“I met you in the past, and you weren’t like this.” She looked him up and down. “You were … kind, and strong, and you protected my father from Shrader—”

Antosha backhanded her.

Shrader turned at the sound of his name. Antosha met the doctor’s gaze and smiled. “Ah, yes, of course, now I remember.” Shrader focused back on Pasha and his work. “Now it makes sense. Shrader must have altered the time portal so that he could travel
forward
through time, to 327 AR,” Antosha narrowed his eyes, “and you followed him, clever girl. You were the Janzer who rescued us all that day from a mysterious assassin. Your father assumed I was the one to crack Shrader’s neck, but I knew it was you, or the Janzer you were pretending to be. I always wondered if we had an imposter. But you left too soon, my dear, before your father decided he could connect to the scientists in the zeropoint field and force their regenesis with insufficient regenerative synisms. Your slut mother’s recommendation, even though I explained to them—”

Oriana licked her bloody lips. “I saw plenty. I saw you, I saw who you truly are.”

“We all evolve into who we truly are,” Antosha said. “You made me what I am, much as your father did. That little move snapping Shrader’s neck through the field made a big impression. It took me years to replicate it.

“As for you, my dear, how does it feel to know your actions led to the deaths of twenty-five billion people, including your own mother?”

“I missed one along the way.” Oriana bit back tears. Here she’d thought that by seizing the data in Hengill Laboratory, she could deceive Antosha, convince Chancellor Masimovian of his treachery, and free her loved ones.

Did she instead ensure their deaths by not taking out Antosha when she had the chance?

“In time, all will be clear,” Antosha said, “but first you will accompany me to my inauguration.”

“And if I refuse?”

“I will raze Portage and its secessionist allies and send your father to the most painful and public death imaginable. You have my word.”

Artemis Square

When the last of the ministry chariots departed, a Janzer guided Oriana to the Chariot of the Chancellor. She pondered the purpose of her designation to the highest-rated chariot in the procession. Antosha hadn’t appointed her to any official position. Far as she knew, she’d return to her work as strategist, be placed in a new team—though the more she thought about the plan for her in his administration, the less sense this made. She sought to end his rule, to end his life, and Antosha knew her thoughts, yet he drew her closer.

Did he think she posed him no threat?

“This way, Madam Champion,” a Janzer said.

Madam Champion
, she repeated to herself. She thought back to the day when she’d walked upon the marble stairs outside the Neophyte Dormitories, a freshly minted Champion of the Harpoons, bid for first among millions, eager to begin her life as an aera. It seemed so long ago.

A keeper bot lifted the back of her cashmere gown, infused with synisms that rendered chartreuse clouds and golden eagles. Golden beads, parts of clips unseen in Oriana’s hair, dangled over her chest, surrounding the carnation tattoo she’d wear until Pasha awakened. She wore her hair braided up, with two braids trailing from the crest at the top of her forehead, over to one side and down her back. A thin golden tiara circled her forehead, with a phoenix feather extending high from the back. Like the Maidens of Masimovian, she wore synisms injected around her eyes. When she batted her lashes, colors bloomed beneath her skin and streamed across her face.

Oriana’s Janzer escort opened the chariot. Tethys Charles, Supreme Prime Minister-designate of the Commonwealth, stood with Antosha, Lady Isabelle, a Courier of the Chancellor whose nametag read VALENTINE, General Arnao, and seven Maidens of Masimovian who attended in the former chancellor’s honor. (Oriana overheard Lady Isabelle mention she’d send the maidens to the surface during Jubilees after the commonwealth’s mourning ended.) Several carafes filled with Loverealan wine sat upon trays held by keeper bots. Three Janzers led the chariot, mounted on black horses with teal eyes and curled manes that draped down to white, furry hooves.

“Welcome,” Lady Isabelle said, not unkindly. She extended her hand, wrapped with white gloves and amethyst gemstones. Oriana took it and bowed.

“Madam Champion,” Valentine said. She bowed and extended her bare hand. She looked the way Oriana did mid-development, an adolescent girl who wore a maroon velvet gown with makeup on her face that made her look mature. Oriana accepted her hand and nodded.

Arnao bowed deeply and welcomed her. He wore a dark suit with golden buttons down the left side, a Beimeni beret with a phoenix feather atop his head. She didn’t know this general, but he seemed loyal to Lady Isabelle and Antosha. Still, she remembered her courtesies and bowed slightly to him.

“Welcome.” Antosha kissed Oriana’s hand tenderly. She mustered all her willpower not to snatch her fingers away from his and slap him for all the commonwealth to see.

For my loved ones
, Oriana thought,
I will endure this day
.

She hoped her recaller protected her thoughts, but part of her no longer cared what Antosha did or did not know. She stared at him, still unbelieving. So many chains decorated his neck that she could barely see the Pendant of the Chancellor. It had never entered her mind that Chancellor Masimovian might die, yet here Antosha stood in the chancellor’s hoodless cape of gold-and-white silk. How he’d arranged this coup, Oriana didn’t know, but she had no doubt he was behind it.

Antosha turned and ambled up the wooden steps to the chariot’s crest, with Lady Isabelle at his side. They waved to the crowd while the maidens orbited Oriana and cooed and touched and sniffed. Oriana could feel the heat from their nude bodies, over which colorful synthetic tattoos flowed in psychedelic patterns.

Oriana felt nauseated. These women would be dead in short order. The chancellor used them for their bodies, just as Antosha used her skills. How long would Chancellor Zereoue have use for her?

“That’s enough,” Tethys said, “let her be.”

He forced his way to Oriana. The maidens pushed his cape—not nearly as extravagant as the chancellor’s—aside. Tethys kissed Oriana’s cheek, and she heard his voice in her mind without Marstone’s interference:
As long as I live, I won’t allow them to harm you.

Oriana didn’t react to the comment, even as his words eased her speeding heart. The prime minister was elected by the ministry, and next in line to the chancellorship; if he spoke true, he could be an important ally for her. She took Tethys’s hand in hers, bowed, and said, “Prime Minister, the pleasure is mine, thank you.” She sat beside him.