The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4) (56 page)

PROTECTOR PROTOTYPE:
a new line of telekinetic synbots designed to protect assets considered critical to the commonwealth.

QUANTUM PROBABILITY:
quantum mechanics is intrinsically probabilistic; quantum physics doesn’t reveal the probability of where an object is, but rather the probability that if you look, you will observe the object at a particular place. The object has no real position until the position is observed.

QUATERNARY PERIOD:
is a geologic time period that encompassed approximately 2.6 million years; the second most recent period, which ended with the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly.

REASSORTMENT ATMOSPHERIC ANOMALY:
the great extinction event at the end of the Quaternary Period; also known as the process by which the Reassortment Strain spread throughout the Earth’s atmosphere. The anomaly has never been fully understood, though scientists hypothesize that the strain developed unique methods of transforming sunlight and nitrogen into energy.

REASSORTMENT BATON:
an alloy rod that transmits the synthesis for
E. agony
into transhuman neural cells, which leads to the painful sensations common to Reassortment infection.

REASSORTMENT RESEARCH TEAM:
formed by Ruslan Masimovian during the first year, After Reassortment, on direct order from Chancellor Noriel Livelle; tasked with constructing Reassortment-resistant biomats and to finding a solution to the Reassortment enigma.

REASSORTMENT SCARE:
refers to when the Reassortment Strain breaches containment in the underground.

REASSORTMENT STRAIN, THE:
a synthetic organism designed with the 4 traditional bases of DNA and their mirrored versions. The Reassortment Strain contains 8 nucleotides and 39 amino acids, and functions in ways unpredicted by science. Scientists believe it learned to live off sunlight and nitrogen and spread rapidly over the Earth’s atmosphere, killing most of humanity in what historians called the Death Wave. Nitrogen in the form N2 can be stripped of electrons and used as a source of energy, and thus finally oxidized to No2- (nitrite) or No3- (nitrate); prior to Reassortment, there was no known example of one organism that could do this—it would normally take a conglomerate of several organisms. The strain is intelligent enough to identify humans as human, then it moves into action. It liquefies human neural cells (rapid acid generation) and crystallizes the blood cells (rapid scabbing). The strain recodes portions of its genome every few minutes (acting similar to a computer encryption), and does so with many more combinations given its characteristic of chirality. In nature, near all biomolecules prefer one of two hands, with amino acids and proteins being designated as left-handed (or levo), and natural nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) designated right-handed (or dextro). While the transhuman body’s DNA and cells are altered in ways no native pathogen can understand or invade, Reassortment, combining the levo and dextro, can, in fact, enter and take control of transhuman neural and blood cells. Put simply, the Reassortment Strain confounds the enhanced transhuman immune system and as of 368 AR no known cure exists; the fatality rate for exposure is 100 percent.

RECALLER:
illegal technology that “recalls” brain impulses, sending new, acceptable ones into the ZPF; can impact transhuman impulse waves within a radius of one to twenty-five meters, depending on the model and preference setting. They’re designed to deceive Marstone and look like a benari coin.

RECOMBINASE:
an enzyme that catalyzes the exchange of short pieces of DNA between two long DNA strands, particularly the exchange of homologous regions between the paired maternal and paternal chromosomes; used to manipulate the structure of genomes.

REGENESIS CHAMBER:
the second laboratory that housed Dr. Kole Shrader’s stasis tank, with Dr. Shrader being the last of the living scientists who was frozen near absolute zero, just prior to the Death Wave.

REGENESIS PROCEDURE:
the event by which a living creature would be revived after having been frozen near absolute zero.

RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT:
also called the RDD; the department founded by Atticus Masimovian to centralize scientific research and most raw material synthesis. (Note: Before and after the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, the Earth lacked readily accessible, valuable metals and minerals such as diamond, gold, copper, iron, and nickel, among others.)

SECOND HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR:
also called the Resource War, the struggle between the Western and Eastern Hegemonies for nonrenewable resources throughout the solar system, which commenced in 103 BR (or 2312 on the Gregorian calendar standard) and ended in the year zero (or 2415 Gregorian) with the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly.

SEEPAGE:
the unsolved osmotic, diffusive process by which the Reassortment Strain spreads underground.

SIBLING-IN-DEVELOPMENT:
(i.e., sister-in-development or brother-in-development), the term given to a brother or sister who are candidates at about the same time and complete the Harpoon Exams together. Siblings who are not necessarily blood-related.

SIGNIFICANT CONVERSION:
the highest level of scientific achievement in the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni. (
See
Mark of Masimovian.)

SKILLED TELEPATH:
a transhuman with a superior mind-body-cosmos connection with the ZPF.

STRATEGIC EXPEDITION TEAM:
also called
strike team
, they were designed to protect transhumans from the dangers of underground living; pledged to the Underground Realm of humanity, rather than to a specific government such as the Livelle city-state or its successor, the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni. Their role transitioned to exploration by the 220s.

STRIKE TEAM AERA:
the term attributed to female strategic expedition (strike) team strikers, named for the first woman to complete the striker training program. Like their male counterparts, they focused on traversing dangerous parts of the underground where a structural collapse or Reassortment scare threatened transhuman lives; traditional role transitioned to the Janzers by the 220s.

STRIKE TEAM CAPTAIN:
the leader of the three-person strategic expedition (strike) team. The strike team captains were responsible for containing Reassortment breaches in Livelle city-state (including Livelle Laboratory) and the Underground Realm, which included the villages—not under direct control of the city-state—where transhumans expanded to along prehistoric underground lakes, rivers, and streams inside the Earth. The captains also led underground excursions to stabilize structural collapses and conduct search and rescue operations. By the 220s, the strike team captain’s traditional role shifted to the divisional leaders of the Janzers, while the strike teams’ purpose shifted to one of exploration. They’d hoped to find survivors of the Death Wave at installations utilized in the solar system during the Second Hundred Years’ War but all perished during or after the battles in space.

STRIKE TEAM COMMANDER:
the leader of all strategic expedition (strike) team captains; decommissioned after Vastar Alalia, the fifth strike team commander, perished in 273 AR.

STRIKE TEAM STRATEGIST:
the strategic expedition (strike) team member focused on logistics, strategy, and containment of a crisis (typically structural or biological) in the underground; traditional role transitioned to the Janzers by the 220s.

STRIKE TEAM STRIKER:
the strategic expedition (strike) team member focused on traversing dangerous parts of the underground where a structural collapse or Reassortment scare threatened transhuman lives; traditional role transitioned to the Janzers by the 220s.

SUPREME MINISTRY OF BEIMENI:
also called the
ministry
; the electoral body that represents the people of the thirty territories of the Great Commonwealth; based in the Central Government District, Beimeni City, Phanes Territory. Chancellor Masimovian casts the thirty-first and deciding vote in ministerial matters.

SUPREME SCIENTIFIC BOARD OF BEIMENI:
also called the
board
; consists of fifteen members, typically with representation from the supreme ministry and from the RDD; based in the Science District, Beimeni City, Phanes Territory.

Board Members circa 368 AR

Source: Office of the Chancellor.

SUPREME SCIENTIST:
a highly skilled and talented scientist, typically with experience in the RDD, appointed by the ministry and the board to lead one of the RDD’s facilities and research projects therein.

SUPREME SCIENTIST COVERING REASSORTMENT:
a special role carved out within the RDD; third in line to the chancellorship; requires a public campaign and a two-thirds majority vote in the ministry; typically given a seat on the supreme scientific board.

SURFACE ZONE:
the surface of Earth.

SURGICAL SEARCH:
a Janzer search in the underground.

SURGICAL STRIKE:
a Janzer attack in the underground.

SYNSUIT:
a suit made of synthetic diamond, designed to protect those who wear them against intense heat and pressure in the underground in areas of the underground where expansion plans are being implemented, where coolant systems malfunction, or where coolant systems don’t exist. Variants of the suits are typically worn by aeras, strikers, and Janzers.

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY:
also called
synbio
; the science of selectively altering the genes of organisms to make them do things that they wouldn’t do in their original, natural, untouched state.

SYNTHETIC ORGANISM:
also called a
synism
; any organism, either based on an existing biological system (such as
E. coli
or the vibrio) or a synthetic one, which has been trained to perform a task it wouldn’t otherwise complete.

SYNTHETIC ROBOT:
also called
synbots
or
bots
; made of synthetic alloys, typically sculpted to look transhuman. They are designed to perform a multitude of tasks, including but not limited to: provide keeper services to aristocrats, research services to supreme scientists, and record keeping services for the central government. Their communicable range is limited with the ZPF. They lack a consciousness.

TELEKINESIS:
the ability to move objects via the ZPF.

TELEPATHY:
the ability to communicate via the ZPF.

TENEHOUND:
a genetically modified greyhound, capable of connecting to the ZPF and controlling lower fauna; utilized by the Department of Peace to find criminals.

TERROR BIRD:
a flightless prehistoric bird known for its predatory jabs.

THREAT LEVEL:
included in classified dossiers in Marstone’s Database; on a scale of one to five, with one being the lowest and five being the highest; an indication of the willingness of a citizen to break the law or disturb the peace of the commonwealth; the higher the threat level, the more scrutiny given to neural feeds in Marstone’s Database. In some cases a high threat level could preclude a citizen from being qualified for athanasia. (
See
athanasia-qualified.)

TIMESCAPE:
analogous to a landscape, with all past and future events located there together.

TIMESCAPE THEORY:
the supreme scientist Heywood Querice’s theory that the time lapse for a traveler through space-time could be hours or days, but the time lapse for anyone in the present time should be seamless (i.e., theoretically, if backward time travel is possible, a person who travels back in time should return to the precise moment when they left).

TRANSHUMAN:
(
See Homo transition
.)

TRANSICEOUS PERIOD:
the geologic time period that encompasses the most recent 368 years of history, or since the last great extinction event known as the Reassortment Atmospheric Anomaly, which ended the Quaternary Period. (
See
Quaternary Period.)

TRANSPORT:
typically oval-shaped, made of synthetic alloys or carbyne, and constructed in Transport City, Portage Territory. They are built in several varieties, including intracity, intraterritory, and interterritory.

TWIN GODS OF THE COSMOS:
the two celestial beings, male and female, believed by the transhuman race to be creators of the metaphysical and physical realms, including the electromagnetic zeropoint field, and all the galaxies that are, that were, and that will be in all the ever-expanding universes. (
See
multiverse.)

UFICILIN:
an all-purpose healing agent.

UNDERGROUND PASSAGE:
the system of safe houses, businesses, waterways, caves, and tunnels overseen by Beimenians loyal to the Liberation Front.

UNDERGROUND REALM:
the generic term for all underground dwellings of humanity After Reassortment.

UNREGISTERED, THE:
also called
illegals,
these are residents of the underground that aren’t registered in Marstone’s Database. As an unregistered resident has broken Chancellor Masimovian’s Fifth Precept, if apprehended by the government, the individual is registered, then is either: (1) sentenced to exile in the Lower Level; (2) purchased by a house of development in the great city for employ as a Courier of the Chancellor; or (3) purchased by a house of development anywhere in the commonwealth and prepared for the Harpoon Exams.