The Descent into the Maelstrom (The Phantom of the Earth Book 4) (39 page)

A cephalopod lunged out of the water and opened its mouth wide, its teeth sharp like daggers. Nathan flung a pulse grenade into its mouth as it chomped down. The grenade exploded, slinging a deluge of red, yellow, and green guts over Oriana’s helmet.

More tentacles wrapped around her and pulled her under.

She shouted and, with all her strength, twisted her sword through the tentacles. She spun through them, pumped her legs, found a chain in the reservoir, and pulled herself to the bridge.

The water slipped off her synsuit and helmet and blurred her vision, long enough for another tentacle to rap her face. She fell across the bridge, rolled, and spun to her feet. Another tentacle clapped across her chest, throwing her backward as easy as dust. Another slammed into her back, and she cried out.

She dug deep, deeper than she ever had before to find the strength to rise and evade the slippery limbs that swung all around her. Nathan bellowed as a cephalopod wrapped around him, chomping, hissing, spitting. Oriana charged and slashed its head. It fell off the side of the bridge.

“You all right?” she said.

Nathan nodded. They dashed down the newly extended bridge and jumped onto the ladder built into the stone, while cephalopod feelers squirmed around them.

Oriana had climbed all the way to the top when white lights burst over her. She shielded her eyes with her forearm. When her vision adjusted, she could see the rim of a plastic tunnel.

“Gods,” Nathan said, “I can’t see a thing.”

“Give it a few seconds,” Oriana said.

“We have less than thirty minutes.”

They ran for what Oriana guessed was several kilometers until they arrived at a darkened cavern with an island in the center, surrounded by what seemed like a bottomless pit. She and Nathan craned their heads over the side.

Below, an alloy bridge stretched across the pit.

“Look,” Oriana said, “a ladder.”

They climbed down the ladder to a path, which led to another tunnel. On the opposite side, beyond a maze of mining equipment, hung holographic lettering:

“This is it,” Oriana said.

Pasha, where are you?

“This is what?” Nathan said.

Oriana didn’t answer him. A voice in her mind said,
He’s there.
It was a man’s voice, similar to before, more disturbing to her presently. She turned back to the red and violet tunnel.
No, not there, the other way.
She turned toward a circle of robotic arms on the other side, where the AMALGAM SECTOR sign hung.
There …

She debated whether the voice might be her own, a part of her subconscious, influenced by the Cererian core. Or was this a message from another candidate, leading her and Nathan into a trap?

“What do you think?” Oriana said. “Which tunnel?”

Nathan leaned against the stone wall, regaining his breath. “I think we’re too far from the scientists with too little time. We’ll never get them out, not now, but it doesn’t seem as if anyone else will either.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.” For reasons Oriana did not understand, her discomfort melted from her and she said, “This way,” and headed toward the Amalgam Sector sign.

Nathan sprinted with her down the corridor. They turned left and right and climbed ladder after ladder. When they neared what seemed like an opening, they slowed. The mineral walls glistened sea blue. The Eastern Hegemony scientists stood behind a glass enclosure high above.

“That’s far enough.”

Oriana recognized the voice, even as the person’s likeness blurred in her peripheral vision, near a slew of robotic arms and wires.

Oriana turned and drew her pulse gun.

Falcon Torres held a pulse gun to Pasha’s helmet.

Ursula Dearborne, Gaia, and other candidates Oriana recognized from the night in the café, the boy with the skulls on his arms among them, emerged as well.

“Take them out,” Ursula said.

“One more step and I win—” Oriana said.

“Not another word!” Gaia said.

Oriana flinched, less from Gaia’s message than from her tone, a combination of hatred and hopelessness that ran contrary to the Gaia she knew earlier in development. She used her mind-body-cosmos interface to control her emotions, the way the lady and lord had taught her.

She turned to Falcon, studying his stance, his essence in the ZPF, and his grip on Pasha. He must fear her, she assumed, or Pasha would already be dead.

Then she wondered why, if his team had discovered the scientists, they would delay so as to allow her an opportunity. Why didn’t they end the critical-reasoning portion victorious, Falcon an obvious champion? What were they waiting for?

Then she glanced to the base of the glass enclosure that trapped the scientists, where a holographic rendition comprised of fourteen different shapes and colors rotated. It looked like complex origami. What did it mean? What enigma could elude House Variscan candidates?

Kill them.

The voice echoed in Oriana’s head. Her heart raced.

“Oh look,” Ursula said, “the coward from the first day of classes is back.” She sashayed to Oriana.

“One more step and I send you and your friends back to the halls,” Nathan said.

Ursula raised another pulse gun, now with Oriana and Nathan in her sights.

Kill them.

“It appears we’re at an impasse,” Oriana said as she tried to ignore the voice inside her head. “You can’t solve the final riddle, and therefore you cannot be true Harpoon Champions—”

“You’re a pathetic, desperate excuse for a Harpoon candidate,” Falcon said, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll make it easy on you.” He shifted his pulse gun toward her.

Pasha ripped at Falcon’s arm, and the pulses bounced off the icy stalactites above. Shattered bits rained over them.

Oriana roundhouse kicked the pulse guns out of Ursula’s hands.

Nathan rolled and fired upon Falcon’s posse, sending two of them back to the halls. Gaia sent a pulse through Nathan’s head.

Kill them.

Oriana caught Nathan in her arms. His essence in the Harpoon VR disintegrated.

Ursula guffawed.

Kill them.

Oriana holstered her pulse gun and held her sword with one hand, pointing it at Ursula and Gaia. They fired pulse after pulse, but Oriana deflected the blasts with her blade, like the First Aera. She sprinted to them.

Ursula’s eyes widened when Oriana lunged, spun, and decapitated her, along with Gaia.

Kill them.

Oriana knelt on the ground.

The bodies smacked near her and disappeared.

She vaulted for Falcon, who still held his pulse gun to Pasha’s head.

Falcon and Pasha breathed heavily, and Falcon threw him to the ground. Pasha knelt. “You’re both traitors,” Falcon said, “just like your father.”

Kill them.

Oriana’s head throbbed.

She aimed her pulse gun and took a step forward. Pasha peered up at her, his eyes pleading.

“One more move, Barão—”

Let your brother die
, the voice said.

She let Falcon fire his pulse gun into Pasha’s helmet, and when Falcon aimed his second pulse gun at Oriana, she shot him between the eyes. His blood burst into the helmet, and his lifeless body fluttered atop her twin brother before their bodies illuminated and disappeared.

She felt like someone shot her through her heart.

I’m a champion,
she thought. She steadied herself. She rushed to the riddle, with its colorful geometric shapes. It looked like Archimedes’ Stomachion.
This is why they couldn’t solve it
. The Variscan candidates and their posse, who from the first day always had the answers in the Harpoon classes, must’ve searched and searched, without truly observing the world they lived in.

“This is not a stomachion,” Oriana declared, “and there is no solution. Now, release them.”

The scientists were freed, and the Harpoons ended.

Harpoon Hamlet

Palaestra, Underground Northeast

Oriana brushed her hair, the shades of violet and crimson flowing together. She glanced out the window at the dusty Palaestran hills and the maple trees that shivered with the cool breeze beyond her moonlit balcony. Her lips felt dried and chapped, and she pressed them together. Her heart sang, and the view blurred.

She closed her eyes, and when she opened them the golden digits on her armlet read 0635. The auction was at 0800.

Oriana couldn’t focus. What had she done? Had she allowed someone else to influence her reactions during the Harpoons?

The opaque entrance to her room cleared, filled by Pasha, his dark blue hair parted from the middle and swirled around his ears. He stood with a noticeable droop.

Oriana didn’t speak. She couldn’t.

“I came here to tell you that I understand why you did what you did, and I don’t want you to feel pressure about it or think that I’ll hold a grudge against you or hate you.”

He knew her thoughts the same as she knew his, and so she knew he lied. She turned toward the balcony and imagined herself sprinting over the man-made hills, away from the nightmare of her life, away from her flaws, away from Pasha.

“Did someone … guide you … did a
man
speak to you on Ceres?” Oriana said, looking back at him.

Pasha looked down.

“He did, didn’t he?” She raised her voice, more than she should, for Marstone
was
listening. “He spoke to you as well—”

“O,
you
spoke to me,” he said. “You were the one who led me to the Amalgam Sector. You told me Falcon Torres held you hostage. You can imagine my surprise when I was ambushed—”

“No,
no.
You contacted me, you told me you were outmanned, outgunned, and you gave me instructions to pass through the Aqua Sector, you sent me to the cephalopods.”

“What cephalopods?” He moved away from her. “O, calm down. Look, I know how you must be feeling right now.”

She shook her head. “You have to believe me. I tried to contact you, but I couldn’t, I didn’t, not until you told me Falcon’s team had surrounded you—”

“I was never able to talk to you,” Pasha said. “I was only able to
hear
you, and you led me to the Variscan candidates.” He lowered his head. “Then you let them kill me so you could win.”

His words burned worse than any wound. “I’m sorry.” Oriana swallowed; her mouth was so dry. “You have to believe me, I didn’t mean to let it happen, you know I’d never let anyone hurt you
here
. You know that, don’t you? Don’t you?”

“I do … believe you.” He still lied, she could see it. “You had no choice. I would’ve done the same … in the end.”

“We must send a message to the Summersets. They must know someone tampered with the candidates—”

“And forfeit your victory?” Pasha smiled wanly. “What you’re suggesting won’t nullify the Warning … it would solidify it.”

She spun around to the windows and studied Pasha’s reflection sagging against the doorway. Her consolation, if one existed, was that even if Lady Isabelle wiped Pasha’s first-half performance, he had made it to the end of the critical-reasoning portion; the traders would see his worth. And Pasha was right; she couldn’t admit to having received outside help. Too much was at stake. While the Warning
should
disappear with her performance, the wager, the benari tag attached to Nathan that could weigh on him for years, wasn’t decided by the critical-reasoning victory.

The auction would settle the wager.

Oriana and Pasha approached the Harpoon Stadium. As far away as they were, Oriana could hear the commentary about the results: the daunting task of completing a million queries in six hours; who missed what query and why; the critical-reasoning portion; the rover weaknesses; the difficulty in entering, much less navigating, the water mine; who deserved the first bid; who deserved exile to the Lower Level; who deserved Palaestra; who deserved Vivo.

When they settled at the end of the line, the hoard of candidates stopped talking. Oriana sensed their envy, watched their eyes narrow, their arms fold, bodies turn. The chatting gradually returned, and the millions of candidates in their buff pants and matching turtleneck shirts and white foam shoes moved along the dirt path that connected Harpoon Hamlet to Harpoon Stadium.

At the base of the stadium, where it opened like a horseshoe next to Archimedes River, Oriana told Pasha to look up. Rectangular holograms hung scattered in the sky over the stadium, containing images of candidates and obstacles and queries. They watched the final confrontation, she standing by and Pasha’s head exploding.

The stadium was about a quarter full when a Janzer signaled Oriana
.

She and Pasha checked in with the registration desk along a golden half pipe near the water. They made their way across a bench, and again all the candidates in the area turned to her and stared. She didn’t speak to anyone. She didn’t know what to say. She knew nearly half the Harpoon candidates wouldn’t receive a bid; more than six million of her peers would live the rest of their days in the Lower Level rather than in the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni.

Would Pasha be one of the unbid? Would he live a mortal life in the Lower Level?