The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4) (13 page)

The Janzers were scanning near one of the alleys. The flock swooped toward them and dived, one by one, then all together. The Janzers swatted aimlessly and fell. Pasha clutched Oriana’s hand, and they scurried off the plateau, down the cobblestone path, and up the piping, back to the balcony of the golden dome and into House Summerset.

Oriana closed their suite’s doors. She and Pasha gasped. She mimicked the Janzers’ big swatting hands and crazed eyes, fell on her back, and kicked at invisible birds. Pasha fell over as if he were swarmed, and they laughed together for the first time since the early days of development.

“Shh … quiet,” Pasha said.

Oriana swung her legs harder. They collapsed in another fit.

Finally, they caught their breath and held their chests and raced downstairs to breakfast.

After the twins ate and received injections, they meditated on wooden planks in House Summerset’s Rainforest Room.

Lady Parthenia and Lord Thaddeus sat cross-legged across from them, barefoot, their eyes closed. Oriana had also closed her eyes. She listened to the sounds of gentle waterfalls, and she smelled the orchid flowers, liana vines, and strangler trees spread about the vast room.

“The mind should not be caged,” Thaddeus said, “it should not be static. A static mind may be taken by an opponent.”

“Nor should the mind move too quickly,” Parthenia added. “It should extend itself throughout the body, and the ZPF. Feel the particles around you, in this world and the subatomic one. Control all dimensions of the universe, and you will achieve anything.” The lady paused. “Open your eyes.”

Mathematical origami made of sheets of wood—a rhombic star, a ring of rhombic tetrahedra, a dodecahedron, and a skeletal cuboctahedron—and knots made of liana—a butterfly bend, a boa, a sheepshank, and a turtle—twisted and turned in midair beneath a Granville sphere, which hung from a strangler tree branch. Oriana sighed. “Another pointless lesson in folding and unfolding pointless objects?” she asked. Pasha held in a laugh.

The lady raised her brow. “Proceed.”

Oriana blew out a deep breath from her mouth and connected to the ZPF. She untied the knots and unfolded the origami, then put them back together, over and over, until the lady held up her palm.

“I want Pasha to do it,” Parthenia said.

Oriana yawned and patted her mouth. “Why do we persist with these stupid exercises when our opponents hone their use of the field, perfect their intellectual acumen, build their stamina, and log more hours in the Harpoon simulations than we do?” Oriana’s commonwealth ID number
still
hadn’t broken into the top one hundred on the Summersets’ ticker. Pasha reminded her ad nauseam.

The lady started to speak, but the lord cut her off. “There’s a big wide world out there, young lady, beyond these walls.”

Oriana and Pasha exchanged a nervous glance.
They don’t know what happened,
she thought. Pasha bobbed his head knowingly.

“My lady and I have seen much of it,” the lord was saying. “We have … connections to the RDD.” The lady put her hand on Lord Thaddeus’s knee and gave him a cautious look. He swiped his mustache and held his tongue.

Oriana knew why. Harpoon candidates learned about the Research & Development Department’s primary function—to provide the commonwealth with raw materials it required for survival—but the work conducted by scientists there was confidential; not all discoveries were part of Beimeni’s official history.

“What Thad means is that we’ve been developers for a long, long time.” Parthenia looked from Pasha to Oriana. “We know what skills are valued by the wealthiest consortiums. That should comfort you.”

It didn’t comfort Oriana. She wanted to run through simulated worlds, solve Harpoon riddles, and finally, finally see her ID number on the Summersets’ ticker. “What do mathematical origami and knots have to do with the Harpoons?” she asked. “What do they have to do with the RDD?”

“It’s a secret,” Parthenia said.

“After I receive the first and highest bid at the auction, I’ll be purchased by a research consortium,” Pasha said smugly. “Then
I’ll
be part of the RDD and learn all its secrets.”

“You’d best get to work then, young man.” Parthenia swatted the air with her forefingers, sending the knots and origami toward Pasha. He struggled but soon untied and retied the knots and unformed and reformed the origami. Then they moved on to palindromic prose until Oriana’s head ached. Afterward, the lady escorted them to the simulation room and fastened them into their harnesses …

… The twins stood with Lady Parthenia on what looked like an infinite field beneath a colorful sunset sky.

The trimmed grass tickled Oriana’s toes. She looked down at her sparring clothes, a tank top and shorts, and smiled.
Martial arts.
The lady had been training them in the style of House Summerset, a style, Oriana learned from Nathan Storm, renowned throughout the commonwealth.

Parthenia lifted her hair into a ponytail, then held out her hands. Two diamond swords formed, and she tightened her fingers around the hilts. She stepped off her heels, moving her feet as if she strolled through a garden. She swung the two swords in rhythm.

“The goal in the martial arts is the same as it is in the Harpoons, as it is in the commonwealth, as it is in life.”

She twisted between the twins, swinging up and down, like a transhuman scissor.

“You must seek total victory.”

The lady never moved with just one foot. She stepped right and left, right and left, over and over.

“Understand your opponent’s mind, feel her movements and strategy in the ZPF, and you will emerge victorious.”

She swung the swords wide, spinning in circles. She stopped, holding the swords above her head. In a flash, she lowered the tips to within a centimeter of Oriana’s and Pasha’s faces. The twins didn’t move or blink.

“Yes,” the lady said, “don’t frazzle.” She spun away from them. “Show your opponent weakness, and when she attacks, move swiftly and decisively.”

Lady Parthenia handed the twins the swords and bowed to them. She stepped away.

Oriana took her high stance, her sword hilt near her head. Pasha held his sword low and to the left. Oriana moved so that her back faced the sun. Pasha countered, moving to his right.

“Very good,” Parthenia said. The sun disappeared beneath the horizon. Stars shone brightly. “Now, begin.”

The twins moved left and right, right and left, striking, parrying, over and over, faster, faster.

“Handle your swords the way you do your minds,” Parthenia yelled, “with tranquility and ease!”

Oriana loosened her grip on her sword, moving step for step with her twin, mirroring his technique.

“Know your opponents, learn their rhythms!”

Oriana felt sweat drench her face and neck. Pasha spun to his left and pushed up against her.

She escaped. He held his sword with both hands and swung for her face. Oriana parried the strike.

“Always use one hand!”

Pasha grasped the hilt with his left hand. Oriana stabbed toward his heart. He blocked.

She recovered with another strike, swinging left to right, and right to left, again and again and again.

“Don’t strike with your body and sword simultaneously!”

Oriana blocked Pasha’s sideswipe and swung for his neck. Her brother ducked.

She swung gracefully. He dodged, but she cut off a piece of his mohawk.

“Lead with your body, then with your sword!” The lady skipped beside them.

Pasha grunted and held his sword laterally to his left, then swung it for Oriana’s legs.

Oriana jumped and roundhouse kicked him.

He fell on his back and rolled to avoid her next strike. He regained his footing, swinging his sword widely.

Oriana stepped forward and turned left, avoiding her brother’s offensive.

“Attack and stick! Attack and stick!”

Oriana pushed off the ground with her right foot and swung her sword high, left, harder, harder.

She stepped back on Pasha’s next strike, blocked, then struck her sword to his, moving it up and down and around.

Oriana feigned lethargy, and as he was about to separate and strike, she extended her right shoulder, slamming into his chest.

He flew on the ground and rolled, breathing hard and searching for his sword.

Oriana held the tips of both swords in front of Pasha’s nose. He stared at the blades cross-eyed, then up to her. Sweat dripped off their chins.

“Give me my sword, O.” Pasha stood. Oriana didn’t listen to him. “Give it!”

“No,” Lady Parthenia said.

Pasha huffed. “Oriana cheated!”

“Her movements are imprecise,” Parthenia said, and Oriana’s grin disappeared, “but she’s moving with tranquility and ease. She’s not pretending—”

“Neither am I!” Pasha slammed his left foot down. “She sent false signals in the ZPF—”

“Now I’ll hear no more about this.” Parthenia ended the lesson, and the twins again hung in the simulation room in their harnesses. “You each must study and practice, practice, practice until you’re so exhausted you can’t see your extended consciousnesses, then rest. We’ll begin your next lesson in one hour.” She hand-signaled to the bots and departed.

When the twins touched the ground, Oriana turned to Pasha. “I told you you’d beg me one day.”

He left the simulation room without saying a word.

City in the Vale

Cineris, Underground Central

2,500 meters deep

“We shouldn’t have stopped in Halcyon Village,” Aera said softly.

“Fair enough,” Nero said, “but you took down at least fifty Janzers in the Crypt. What could these do?” He did his best to keep his voice steady and sure, tucking his hatred for this place deep inside where he’d kept it since he learned, during early development in House Variscan, that this was the city where he had been abandoned.

Their transport had been unexpectedly redirected at the Phanes Beltway to the City in the Vale, and the Janzers had halted all transports for search at Tachyon Station. The lines of Beimenians lengthened. Complaints and curses followed. Nero and Aera slipped through the crowd, out of the station, and onto pedestrian pathways decorated by fractal trees. Buildings rose around them, some made of stone, others of glass, carbyne, alloy, many half-constructed with cranes angled toward the Granville sky. Synthetic dark blue fireflies scattered about, visible in the soft sunlight of Cineris Territory. The atmosphere smelled of vanilla and burning minerals, making Nero want to puke.

Prior to their departure from the Hollow, Aera had injected him with synisms that turned his eyes from greenish-blue to charcoal-gray, his skin from bronze to ivory, his hair from reddish-brown to light green. She also gave him a satchel with eyedroppers labeled VITAMIN T, which, she assured him, would shield his genetic composition from the tenehounds. The hounds slithered through the crowd now and poked their alloy noses here and there, searching for traitors, possibly them. Nero quickened his step.

Every minute of this delay drew Verena closer to a fate like Brody’s. Nero didn’t want to believe what he’d witnessed of his captain’s hearing. A part of him hoped Jeremiah had deceived him through the ZPF, but this idea was shattered when he visited House Summerset. It seemed his options were few, his friends fewer.

Nero looked down at Aera. He didn’t trust her, but her skills were undeniable, and he required them to rescue Verena, then Brody. It was a minor miracle he’d convinced Jeremiah to let him try, even more surprising when Aera offered to help. The BP didn’t run like the commonwealth, that was for sure. Decision-making was sloppy, erratic, anarchistic. Nero rather liked it, despite himself.

“Come,” he said, “to the hills and the mount.”

Aera rushed ahead of him and disappeared in the fog along the trail outside the city. The sky here looked overcast. When Nero neared her, she said, “If you can’t beat me up this sorry excuse for a mountainside, how do you expect to conquer me in battle?” Her voice carried along the ridge.

Nero stomped the ashen trail that led to Mount Cineris, a mountain in name only, for its peak wouldn’t crest a hill upon the surface of the Earth. He slowed and grazed his hand over the nearby grass, pale and tall and flowered, broken by leafless trees. His hooded lab coat, infused with chameleon synisms, adjusted to the surroundings.

“This is where I was born,” Nero said. Something about Aera’s presence made him comfortable speaking about Cineris and his past. He’d heard so much about the First Aera; among the falsities of her legend, there was truth in her strength and wisdom, a presence unlike any Nero had experienced in his life. “This is where I should be …”

“
This
is an ashen dump,” Aera said. She unsheathed her shuriken and spun it telekinetically. The blades swatted the tops of the white grass. “No place for a striker.” She raised her hand and glided the weapon into the holster on her belt. “No place for an aera.”

Nero nodded. He ran to the edge of the plateau, scanning the ridge and the City in the Vale, three kilometers distant, with his enhanced vision. The hounds and Janzers moved swiftly through the crowd. Aera joined him. He offered her a canteen, but she declined. The water felt cold in his throat. He poured some over his head, then wiped his face and detached a tiger’s-eye pipe from his utility belt.