The Restoration of Flaws (The Phantom of the Earth Book 5) (37 page)

I knew it
, Oriana thought. She looked at Gwen.
And I helped him, just like she did.

Antosha told Gallegos to hold the pulse gun, aim it, and
kill them, kill Chancellor Masimovian, kill Prime Minister Decca.
Gallegos pulled the trigger twice in the darkness of the BP blackout, darkness Antosha had learned, through Lady Isabelle, would occur.

The thoughts Oriana now heard around her, that she assumed Father and Gwen and Antosha heard as well, were traitorous thoughts, thoughts of justice, the crowd angered by Antosha’s arrogance, angered by his assassination of Chancellor Masimovian, angered by his present attempts to strike down the People’s Captain, whose life he ruined.

Don’t believe any of this.
For the first time since Oriana met him in her suite, Antosha sounded desperate.

She smiled.

They’re the traitors. They’re the deceivers whose guerilla war ended our Magnificent Masimovian.
Antosha sneered. His charred face looked appalling.

The crowd did not chant his name.

He’s lost them
, Oriana thought. She turned, extended her consciousness, and zoomed. The shadows she’d seen along Phanes Lake neared the center, where they sprinted over the water. Tens of thousands of them!

Something else struck Oriana as odd. She scanned them. They wore Janzer synsuits, painted with a design—was it a snake?

Now she recognized the forbidden image taught during the Harpoons, the
Morelia spilota spilota
, and beneath, the forbidden phrase:

They slowed. All but one of them drew diamond swords and pulse weapons. The one who didn’t draw a weapon stepped forward, raised his palm, and closed it into a fist. He twisted his hand.

The Janzers in the square turned their weapons on Antosha, Lady Isabelle, and General Arnao.

He is our ally
, Oriana thought,
but who could control the Janzers this way?

Antosha rubbed the Pendant of the Chancellor and spoke words incomprehensible to Oriana.

The Janzers turned their weapons toward the attackers, who now lined much of North Boardwalk near the tip of Artemis Square, and the teams, who formed ranks ahead of her father.

SLAY THEM ALL!

Antosha’s command went out through Marstone.

Beimeni Zone

2,500 meters deep

Antosha’s command echoed in the ZPF, and a chainless diamond-spiked orb, initially unseen, gashed kilometers across the square, into Gwen’s chest. She flew into the BP’s front lines.

A new pair of orbs moved in elongated elliptical patterns toward Brody. Somewhere, possibly behind the stage, a Protector Prototype was locking on him. He timed his backflip, and the orbs crossed beneath him. They soared through the air and back near the vase behind the stage.

The crowd screamed and ran for the city’s pedestrian paths.

Lady Isabelle ripped off the bottom of her gown and hand-signaled the Janzers.

“Rally to me!” Captain Ruiner Holcombe said.

He and the teams braced for the Janzer onslaught. The commonwealth’s forces outnumbered them five thousand to one, by Brody’s count—and not all captains and strategists could fight the way he and Verena did. It had been nearly one hundred fifty years since the teams had been the true protectors of the underground.

Brody searched for Oriana. He called out for her through the ZPF but got no response. Where did she go?

More than two million Janzers charged one hundred fifty teams from all sides. Some of those stationed on rooftops rappelled down the walls, while others sprayed the square with pulse blasts from above.

Brody’s army sprinted forward. He didn’t notice Gwen among them; he didn’t feel her presence in the ZPF.

The sound of alloy on alloy filled the square. Pulse blasts passed over the square in a grid, blowing apart Janzers, BP, and statues alike. Fires broke out in the First and Second Wards. Limestone blew apart. Smoke billowed from all sides, testing the city’s ventilation system.

One blast struck the newly erected fountain in memoriam for Chancellor Masimovian. Its main column exploded, raining water, bits of stone, and red rose petals.

Brody tried to connect to Oriana through the ZPF again. He still couldn’t find her.

A Janzer division rotated near him, but before they could strike, the first wave of his army streamed around him. Brody drew his sword and met a Janzer, swing for swing, until he stuck his sword into the Janzer’s visor, shattered it, and pierced the Janzer’s skull. He withdrew his sword, and the Janzer dropped. He matched swords with another Janzer until an aera twisted its neck. Brody took deep breaths of air that tasted like burnt flesh and death, not so dissimilar from the Lower Level.

Where was Oriana? Was she safe?

The Granville panels near the stage shifted and displayed Reassortment Hall, the glass cylinders enclosed around transhumans—how many, Brody couldn’t tell.

Verena, Xylia, and Breccan were due to arrive at Reassortment Hall to free them. Where were they? And why was this site materializing? Would Antosha dare proceed with an impromptu Jubilee at his inauguration?

Brody thought,
I must find him. I must find Oriana.

His army encircled what remained of the memorial fountain and mixed with the Janzers and the teams and snake-painted BP in the square’s center. The air hummed with swords, pulse blasts, Reassortment batons, shuriken, and spiked orbs, controlled by a Protector Prototype as lean as a Graka training bot, as quick as a Janzer, near the stage, near Oriana!

Upon the stairs, in and out of the fog, Brody’s daughter fought Lady Isabelle. His little girl, now developed, swiped and swung her sword like an aera beat for beat with the Master of the Harpoons. But this wasn’t an even battle, for General Arnao now attacked.

And Oriana now swung a second sword as easily as the first.

She could not defeat them both, not alone.

He ran over slippery stone, over bodies, pushed and cringed. The stage was so far away. A Janzer’s sword was slung across his body, and he fell sideways upon the square, rolled, and found his footing. He sprinted and shoved, but he couldn’t get to her, couldn’t stop Isabelle, who now held his baby’s neck while General Arnao poised himself to deal the killing blow.

Brody couldn’t attack them through the ZPF. Antosha and Isabelle blocked him.

After all this, his survival in the Lower Level, his escape, Luke’s death: his daughter was to be killed by Antosha’s allies.

Antosha, burnt from the neck up but in his silver synsuit from the neck down, ascended the stairs flanked by his Janzers.

He restrained General Arnao’s wrist and peered down the square. Through a mess of blood, black-and-blue phosphorescence, flashes of light, and fog, Antosha’s snowflake eyes found Brody. He grinned and brushed his fingers gently over Oriana’s eyes and ended her struggle.

She hung unconscious (or dead?) in Isabelle’s arms.

Brody screamed.

Why was it taking so long? Why couldn’t he fly over them? Why couldn’t he access the ZPF near them? Another Janzer charged him. Brody flipped over him, felled him, twisted his neck, and rose. He caught sight of Oriana’s fluttering dress, wrapped around Isabelle, who carried his baby over one shoulder, down the stage’s backside.

“My boy,” Pirro said to Connor, “they have the Protector Prototype that defeated us in Underground West.”

“So they do.”

Connor didn’t journey hundreds of kilometers from Xerean City to Beimeni’s great square to be denied.

He’d assured Minister Mueriniti he’d end Antosha’s rule and bring justice to Lady Isabelle, who wrought so much harm to her people over the decades. He’d found a surprising amount of support in the Northern villages on his way from Xerean City. Father had ceased recruitment in these villages, Pirro assured Connor, given their animosity towards the BP. But these same villagers lacked the sense of loyalty to Antosha that they had for Chancellor Masimovian. Indeed, many blamed Antosha for Masimovian’s death, and Connor had found more friends than foes.

Connor suspected the BP would fall under Antosha’s rule if they didn’t act swiftly. Pirro suggested they move under cover of darkness across Phanes Lake and down to Portage City to recover from the journey before the attack. Connor decided against this. They would collect allies along the way and strike before the ceremony, though only those who could acquire Janzer synsuits were permitted entry to his host. He would neither risk lives needlessly nor hinder his Polemon army in battle with ill-trained recruits.

It took more time than he’d anticipated, however, and now here they were, at the great city, like he’d promised. Only they’d arrived during the ceremony, rather than prior, and Antosha had fortified the city with more Janzers than Connor had ever seen.

And he’d killed Zorian …

The traitorous fish, Pirro had called Connor’s eldest brother.
Our great father is dead.
A part of Connor didn’t want to believe Zorian would lead the commonwealth to Hydra Hollow, and another part admitted his unstable brother capable of it and worse. He didn’t know if Zorian had survived the fall from Mount Lilien, (for no body had been recovered), but even if he had, Connor never expected he’d attack Antosha and Lady Isabelle at the inauguration.

Nor did he expect Captain Barão’s arrival with a BP host. It made him uneasy, particularly because since their arrival, Connor couldn’t hear any of the BP’s thoughts. Captain Broden Barão, rather than Antosha, blocked him from them, as skilled with the ZPF as Father had assured him.

Connor and Pirro now ascended the marble stone of Fortunia Wharf, behind North Boardwalk and Artemis Square, where smoke snaked up, some of it flowing out of the city through filtration piping hidden within the Granville sky.

Connor extended his consciousness and pointed his sword. In the distance, Antosha, Lady Isabelle, and General Arnao moved with a hostage, someone of importance, Connor assumed. They trotted across and down the stage and through North Archway into Masimovian Center. Connor presumed they headed for Masimovian Tower.

“The cowards retreat,” he said.

“Or prepare for the final blow to the BP, my boy,” Pirro said.

“There must be another way to enter the tower.”

“Fountain Square will have been secured by now, and the pedestrian paths in the wards are clogged or burning. You must enter here.”

Enter Antosha’s field.
The thought turned Connor’s stomach. He believed his abilities with the ZPF strong enough to counter Antosha and Isabelle, but he’d thought the same in Faraway Hall, and lost.

The fog thickened over Artemis Square, the consequence of shattered marble and stone and fire, blazes that raged throughout the wards and throughout the square. It limited Connor’s visibility. Could he challenge Antosha’s field? Could he succeed?

Perhaps he didn’t need to face this threat alone.

Captain Broden Barão, listen to me.

Connor used the eyes of a Janzer in the square to focus on the captain.

Captain Barão turned to the Janzer.

The campaign continued. Around him, swords slashed and bodies fell. The fighting spread through North Archway.

I am Jeremiah Selendia’s youngest son. We have a common enemy, and I need your help to end this war.

Connor heard Captain Barão’s voice:
They’re going to the tower. Find your way to the stage’s eastern side.

When Connor entered Artemis Square, his heart quickened, for he felt the same sensation he had in Faraway Hall when last he’d encountered a quantum field created by Antosha Zereoue.

It felt as if his body and mind weren’t his own.

I can control this
, Connor thought.
I can maintain my place in the ZPF and in Artemis Square
.
I must end Lady Isabelle’s life.

Connor, Pirro, and six Polemon sprinted through the fog of war, through the fire and smoke and diamond swords, the pulse blasts and spiked orbs that crisscrossed the massive square. Connor choked on the singed air. Though he couldn’t control these Janzers as readily as when he’d escaped Farino Prison, he could influence those nearby, disrupt their vision the way Hans had done, and he did so.

His team arrived at Captain Barão’s position unscathed.

He heard the captain’s voice in his head:
The Protector is impervious to telepathic or telekinetic manipulation.

Captain Barão pointed to the vase where their comrades pushed futilely against glass cylindrical containments upon platforms in Reassortment Hall. He nodded to the square, where the Janzers rotated through the mist in their attack formations, engaged with the teams and the BP.

Connor and his team slipped behind the stage.

The Protector’s spiked orbs floated around its body. It spun, kicked, spun, and punched, felling strikers and aeras and BP. All who neared it perished as quickly.

Just like Nero and Aera and Pirro
, Connor thought.

A Janzer spotted them and led his division toward them.

Connor slammed into the formation, the way Aera had taught him, and his Polemon engaged, slicing, twisting, dying. The Protector turned. Its weapons returned to its orbit. Its citrine eye slit glowed and narrowed. It opened its carbyne mouth as if to scream but didn’t. Its orbs, which rotated around it, instead moved in elliptical patterns.

The distraction proved useful.

An aera Connor didn’t know dashed for the Protector and tackled it. The orbs lost their center of gravity and flew into the stage, through North Archway, and toward the burning wards.

More strikers and aeras lunged now, ripping the Protector apart, while Connor snapped the last Janzer’s neck.

More Janzers moved through the swirling fog.

“The tower,” Captain Barão said.

The teams and BP converged and provided cover for the captain, Pirro, and Connor, who snaked through Masimovian Center and dashed up the stairs, into Masimovian Tower.