The Restoration of Flaws (The Phantom of the Earth Book 5) (39 page)

“What happened to Mother?” she said. “Was that necessary too?”

Her father grabbed her and held her against his chest. He sobbed, harder than she’d ever seen any man cry. There was a violence to it that she didn’t understand, but she reached up and held him tight. After a while, something uncoiled inside her, all the hatred of Antosha and Lady Isabelle and her own flaws, even her own mother, for giving her up, for dying and leaving her alone. She’d been so confused, so tired, and so angry for so long. But it was easy to cry there, crushed against her father’s chest. They cried until they were both out of tears. Then they turned. Outside, the city burned.

Then a silver phosphorescent flash overtook the gallery, emitted by the Lorum orb, followed by silence and darkness.

“Hullo?” Oriana said.

She and Father no longer stood in the Gallery of the Chancellor. Instead, they stood upon a dusty mountain crest, overlooking a bioluminescent river. On the other side of the river lay clouds, not in the sky, but inverted, covering a pit between the river basin and the massif, lit by Vigna’s three stars.

The Lorum materialized in a cloudy humanoid form.

“Captain Barão, you disappointed us …”

Oriana also heard the Lorum’s synthesized voice in her head.

“You lied to us, deceived us, mocked us …”

“I didn’t!” her father said.

“We gave you our being, and in return, you promised us sustenance, yet we sense no urgency, no action in your Mission to Earth’s Core …”

“I vow to you we will fulfill the treaty terms. My son—”

“Is ours, until you return with what was promised to us …”

“No!” Oriana said, and her father bellowed beside her. Then they were back in the gallery, the war raging outside.

“Lorum!” Brody said. “Don’t harm my son! I’ll do whatever it takes—”

“What was that?” Oriana said. “What’s wrong?”

“Antosha broke the treaty—”

Swirls of matter of every color emerged from the Lorum orb and spread around Pasha.

Oriana ran to him and held his limp hand. She touched his arm and torso and shoulders, feeling vibrations and energy, like tremors in the Earth.

She turned to her father, too shocked to speak.

Pasha’s body heated and glowed.

Brody raced to her side. She felt him gather his energies, but Pasha’s body continued to change. “I can’t stop them,” Brody said, his eyes wide, filled with dread.

Oriana pushed her consciousness into the ZPF like she’d never done before, not even when she’d deceived Antosha.
I might not be able to change the past,
she thought,
but I
can
change the future.
She found the Lorum’s connection to the ZPF, inside the tower.

“Lorum!” she said. “You know who I am. You felt my presence when my opponent seized my mind in Hengill. You have my genome. Take me instead—”

“No, Oriana!”

She blocked out her father’s voice.
Please, Lorum
, she sent,
take me, not Pasha, take me …

The swirling light spread from Pasha’s body through his arm and his hand to her fingers, up her arm, heating her body, enveloping her essence in the ZPF.

The sensations were not unpleasant, even as she lost control of her arms, and her consciousness, her connection to the ZPF, to her body, came undone. Time seemed to slow.

Her father frantically screamed, holding her limp body, but she was not a part of this, not like before.

Pasha’s consciousness reconnected to his body.

Let him wake,
Oriana sent.
Let him live, and I won’t fight you
. She wondered if she even could fight the Lorum’s pull or power in the ZPF.
They’ll keep my body alive, they’ll send you the extremophiles. Take me, take me, take me …

Oriana’s consciousness pushed through the Earth’s crust, faster, to the surface; higher, to the blooming plains; slower, through the clouds; lower, until she looked upon the Earth and its moon and sun, and farther still, past Mars and the asteroid belt, Ceres, Jupiter, and Saturn. They all focused in her mind’s eye.

Then they all disappeared.

Let him live.
Oriana wouldn’t repeat the mistakes of the past, hers or her lineage’s. She would willingly remain a ward of the Lorum unless and until the treaty’s terms were fulfilled.
I won’t fight you.
They won’t let my body die.

Would her brother survive the war? Would her father?

No
, she told herself,
don’t lose hope.

If she did, she would truly turn into Antosha, for it wasn’t the Lorum’s power or the loss of Haleya Decca that transformed him; it was the decay around his consciousness, down to his core.

At last, she understood. Her lessons in House Summerset, and Before Reassortment, had all prepared her for this. Maybe she
could
alter the past in the present. Maybe she changed it even now.

She might never again hear Pasha’s voice, or see her father, or hold Nathan in her arms. She might never become an aera. But she could do more out here to break the cycle of deception and death that enslaved them than she could on Earth.

She let her consciousness soar through the Milky Way Galaxy, through the void, to Vigna, floating with its three moons and stars.

It was so stunning to behold she wished the Lorum would let her stay up here forever …

Brody looked into his daughter’s eyes brimming with the Lorum’s energy. She collapsed into his arms. He knelt on the ground with her limp body. “My gods—”

Boom!

Masimovian Center Building #7 collapsed and sent a plume of smoke over the terrace.

The water level in Reassortment Hall had ascended to chest level. Verena held Jocelyn in her arms. Xylia and Breccan submerged and reemerged as if they searched for a way out or a way to release the water. Other BP, Nero and Aera included, kept their heads above the water, but more BP drowned, too short to breathe, too tired to swim. Encapsulated within the platforms, they dangled like dead fish.

CAPTAIN!

It was Verena, through Marstone.

If you’re out there, help us, help us or we’ll all BE dead. Do you hear me, Brody? We will all be dead!

Gently, Brody set Oriana on the ground and dashed to Antosha’s body, to where the Pendant of the Chancellor lay upon his bloodied synsuit.

He lifted the chain and pushed his head through the loop. The pendant dangled down his neck. He connected to the ZPF and to Marstone. The pendant glowed.

Marstone, I am the supreme chancellor of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni. There is no contamination in Reassortment Hall. Halt the containment mechanism and drain the facility.

Janzers, I am the supreme chancellor of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni, and I order you to lay down your weapons.

The ceiling in the gallery shivered, and pieces of marble fell with the statues.

“Father? Is that you?” Brody knew his son’s voice, even though he’d not heard him since he had been born. He turned.

Pasha stood with Oriana draped across his arms, tears dripping down his face. “What’s going on?” He looked down at Oriana, then back to Brody. “What’s wrong with her?”

A carbyne beam fell on top of the commonwealth statues representing Palaestra, Volano, and Dunamis.

“Can you carry her?” Brody said.

“I think so,” Pasha said.

“Son, we have to get out of here.”

Pasha carried Oriana, following Brody, who carried Antosha, down the spiral marble steps.

They crashed into the walls with the tremors, and Brody suspected the tower had but minutes before it would collapse.

Closer to the first level, they ran into Pirro and Connor.

“Is she …?” Pirro said, his stare focused on Oriana’s limp body.

“No time,” Brody said.

Together, they rushed down the stairs, through the smoke, through the rubble of Masimovian Center. They dashed with the Janzers and the BP and the teams toward North Archway.

Fires had engulfed the districts and departments, the wards smoldered.

Brody lost his connection with Marstone.

He ran beneath the archway’s marble stone, Antosha still in his arms.

He turned.

The walls, pillars, and spires of Masimovian Tower shattered as the building collapsed.

Portage City

Portage, Underground Central

2,500 meters deep

“The war is over,” Minister Kaspasparon said. He pushed aside the long sprawling drapes that lined one of the windows of his medical quarters, looking out on Wuchiaping Square.

Brody and Pasha sat beside Oriana, each holding one of her hands. Neither of them responded.

“Captain,” Kaspasparon let the drapes go, “the people will expect you to lead them now from Phanes.”

“I have much to do, Minister.” Brody worried about his daughter since the Battle for Beimeni City, as the Portagen historians were calling it, but another important thought also weighed heavily on his mind: the millions of transhumans trapped in the Lower Level. He tried to contact the Janzers and the Controller in the Lower Level through the ZPF, hoping to order them to raise the oxygen level to a livable concentration, but he received no response. The uprising must’ve claimed their lives. Brody wondered often if any of the exiles had survived, or if millions more transhumans were dead.

Now his eyes searched Oriana’s. She looked lost in space-time. She’d opened her eyes as Pasha carried her during their journey atop Beimeni River down to Portage City, but she didn’t speak. Medical bots had strapped her to a legless, levitated gurney in a seated position.

Kaspasparon, as always, sensed Brody’s troubles. “The people are praying for her swift recovery, as am I.”

“There’s only one way to bring her back,” Brody said.

“The extremophiles,” Pasha said. He let go of Oriana’s hand and stood. Soot still covered his sweaty face. He’d refused to bathe or change out of his ripped bodysuit since they’d arrived in the city, days ago. He never left Oriana’s side. Even with the developmental enhancements and alterations to his physical appearance, he reminded Brody much of Damy with his curly dark blue hair and sharp tongue.

“Do you believe you can travel to the Earth’s core?” Kaspasparon asked.

“I do,” Brody said assuredly, though he had his doubts. While he’d been pulled to the center of Vigna by the Lorum, that exoplanet was their home world, where they’d mastered their planetary machine. Before Reassortment, transhumans had mined much of the Earth’s crust but neither they nor Livellans nor Beimenians had penetrated the mantle, much less the outer or inner cores.

“How?” Kaspasparon wanted to know.

“The Lorum will guide us,” Pasha said.

Brody had learned about Antosha’s experimentation with the Lorum orb on his son and Dr. Shrader. “The Lorum may not be what they seem, son.”

“I agree,” Kaspasparon said, “do you think we can truly trust the Lorum?” The minister took long strides across the thick rug ringed by dragon’s tails. He looked down to Oriana and scrunched his brow. “We’ve seen what they can do.”

Brody leaned over his daughter and pushed her long hair away from her face, placing it behind her ear. The thought that his baby had saved them all had filled him with joy, never more so than when the people chanted her name upon their arrival to Portage City. He held her hand, and though it felt warm and alive to his touch, Brody didn’t truly know whether she still lived the way a transhuman should—with a consciousness and free will. Nor did he know if ever her body and mind could be reunited.

“You’re right,” Pasha said. “We’ll have to speak with her.” He turned to his father. “Captain Holcombe and his strike team served at Candor Chasma on Mars before they returned to the Earth. He told us he communicated with the Lorum through the ansible. We should—”

“The problem is that Antosha recalled
all
the teams in the solar system to the commonwealth for his inauguration. It’ll take some time before we could redeploy to Mars, given the damage caused by the BP—”

“That’s not good enough!” Pasha said. He stood abruptly and put his hand on his forehead.

Much of his mother in him,
Brody thought. He sighed. “Pasha, look at me.” His son turned, bristling. “Heywood intercepted the signals sent by the Lorum through the ZPF during the battle.” Brody learned that Antosha had enhanced the z-wall that he’d installed around the Lorum orb after the Mark ceremony. The Lorum broke through it and transmigrated to the Earth after Antosha perished. “He thinks he can replicate their methodology.”

“You’ve lost me, Captain,” Kaspasparon said.

Pasha’s expression brightened. “Heywood believes he can reverse engineer an ansible capable of instantaneous communication from the Earth.” He looked at Oriana and smiled sadly. “The Lorum did this to her,” he said. He spoke louder. “I want her back, I want to lead the Mission to the Earth’s Core.” He turned to his father. “When will this new ansible be ready?”

Brody thought his son now sounded much like himself and Nero after development, brash, confident, and oblivious to the dangers surrounding them: a commonwealth in disrepair; an imminent, unsustainable population explosion; dissension in Underground North, South, East, and West; a capital city destroyed; millions and millions of refugees; and most alarming of all—Reassortment seepage near the Beimeni zone.

It was enough to make Brody’s head explode.

He looked out the window nearest him as if he’d find the solutions to the dilemmas facing his people and his family in the Portagen horizon. He wished he had all the answers to their problems, to the Reassortment Strain, to the extremophiles, the treaty with the Lorum, and to his daughter’s transmigration back to the Earth.

“Father?” Pasha said.

Brody found his voice. “The Earth-based ansible should be ready by the first trimester next year.”

“The Lorum will die before then,” Pasha insisted, “and take Oriana to the grave with them.”

“I’ll go to Huelel myself to oversee Heywood’s progress,” Brody said.

“No,” Kaspasparon said, looking at Pasha, “your son should go. He’s familiar with the Lorum’s transmissions.” Kaspasparon paused, stepping closer to Brody. “The commonwealth will turn to you now, they’ll seek your leadership in reconstruction of their country below and aboveground. The ministry and board will be voting this afternoon to reinstate you to Supreme Scientist of Reassortment, which by Beimeni law would make you the chancellor-designate.”