The Restoration of Flaws (The Phantom of the Earth Book 5) (41 page)

Brody lifted the pendant from his neck and held it high in the air, turning side to side. When he felt sure all the Janzers understood what he meant, he dropped the pendant on the ground. It bounced on the charred marble before it settled. Brody unsheathed his diamond sword and swung it down swiftly and decisively. He split the pendant, which sent a burst of waves into the ZPF. The Janzers groaned.

Again, Brody connected to them.
Janzers, understand me! You are free! You are to live out your days as citizens of the Great Commonwealth of Beimeni!

Now a different Janzer stepped forward and also spoke with more than a million voices: “We serve the supreme chancellor of the Great Commonwealth.”

Brody sighed and rubbed his head. He felt as if he were trying to negotiate with his former striker and strategist.

Then another thought struck him. Reassortment
was
still seeping underground, while the construction on Sky City and the tunnel leading to it had halted for Antosha’s inauguration. To the Janzer who stepped forward, Brody said, “Will you finish the work you started on Sky City?”

The Janzer nodded and soon all the million-plus Janzers were bobbing their heads in agreement.

“Go forth then to Sky City and help me lead the people back to the surface.”

The Janzers filed out of Artemis Square, and in the days ahead, construction continued not only on Sky City, but on an additional fourteen terradomes and surface cities scattered about the continent, cities capable of housing tens of millions of transhumans. They also began work on a layer of Lorum-infused shielding inside the Earth necessary to protect the Beimeni zone from further Reassortment seepage.
That’s five.

Brody returned to Portage City, which temporarily housed the central government apparatus. From his chancellery quarters, he remained in constant contact with his confidants and family stretched around the commonwealth; with Pasha and Heywood in the RDD; Verena and Nero in the Comb Cove; the Janzers upon the surface and below; and of course, with Minister Kaspasparon, who shored up support for his chancellorship throughout the underground, including the North.

When at last the day of Brody’s inauguration arrived, he stepped onto a terrace ahead of a balustrade overlooking the city.

Portage’s silver Granville sun rose over the horizon and spread life over all it touched—the skywalks, millions and millions of Beimenians, bronze spires, bazaars, and children, the children of Beimeni who played Captains and Aliens, shouting orders and aiming their hands like pulse guns. They’d still be developed by the great houses, but they’d not have their growth accelerated. Nor would they be auctioned like property—they’d become part of Beimenian society in whatever way they chose.

All the people looked up to where Brody stood, as they had prior to the assault that destroyed Beimeni City, with hope in their hearts: hope that he would be different, that he would honor the memories of the fallen and be the steward of humanity Atticus Masimovian once was, the leader the people expected and needed while reconstruction moved forward underground.

On his left side stood Nero, Verena, Ruiner, Dahlia, Mintel, Charlene, Gwen, Connor, Pirro, Aera, Xylia, Breccan, and Jocelyn, his friends for life, however long that life might last—without the Fountain of Youth, without Jubilees, without Marstone or the Lower Level. On his right side stood Pasha, Desaray Hawkins, Nathan Storm, and Oriana, on her gurney. Pasha looked and moved like a Beimeni strategist, his gait steady and confident beside his girlfriend, dressed in a violet silk gown.

Nathan looked like a man who hadn’t slept in ages. And despite all the years he’d dreamed of this day, neither had Brody. That his own son would be the one to retrieve the extremophiles for the Lorum was some comfort. Pasha was the only man who longed to see Oriana return as much as he. Still, Brody worried about his daughter every minute, and he would continue to do so until her consciousness returned to the Earth. But they would take her with them today, in hopes that her spirit, along with her body, might taste a breath of
true
air.

Brody recalled that spring day earlier in the year, a day that seemed as foreign to him as Vigna, when Verena and Nero had stood with him beneath the Reassortment research terradome upon the Island of Reverie.

They’d sent a Gemini to the surface that day, the last Gemini he would ever kill, for he would find another way, another method to test transhuman nervous systems and blood against Reassortment. Surely, a society that traveled through space and time could devise a new method for clinical trials. And they would—for one day, they would find a way to escape even the Lorum-infused terradomes and subtunnels now complete, fifteen in all.

One dream at a time
, Brody thought as he led the procession out of the citadel, captains, strikers, strategists, aeras, ministers, and commoners, toward Simenurian Station. He and his inner circle boarded the first transport to arrive in Sky Station, on the Earth’s surface. Many thousands followed behind them.

The transport carried them up into the Midwestern part of the continent, eventually affording a view of Sky City. It was everything Brody imagined, crisscrossed with carbyne archway beams, gardens, sculptures, and transport tubes. The invisible dome rounded the city, sank into the ground and rose into the sky, a synthetic field designed by Antosha with the Lorum genome. While the Lorum-infused dome repelled the hated organism, it allowed the other parts of Earth’s atmosphere and soil—the parts necessary for transhuman life—to pass through freely. It allowed for a view of the
true
sky.

Brody felt a little sad looking up, for he remembered Haleya and Antosha, his friend, not the killer of Damy, not the Great Deceiver of the Great Commonwealth, as the people now referred to him.

We did it, Damy
, Brody thought.
We led our people to the surface.

Brody stepped out of the transport and breathed the atmosphere for the first time. It smelled of trees and ocean. He thought he could soar for the moon, right then and there. More transports arrived. Pasha, with Oriana at his side on her gurney, and Desaray and Nathan beside him, joined Brody. Together they led the procession of all Beimeni over the virgin grass and cobblestone paths, between the fountains and sculpted buildings. There were residences with units designed like cutouts of a conifer cone, smaller domes and cafés, and the newly constructed Liberty Building, the people’s government building, a spire in the sky that reflected the sun, intercut by hundreds of skywalks.

They arrived at Sky Square, designed to look like the top of a sea. Illusory currents moved beneath Brody’s feet.

“This is why you’re not a failure,” Pasha said to his father. “This is why the gods brought you back to us.”

Brody squeezed his hand.

Sky City soon overflowed with millions and millions of Beimenians, and the Granville panels spread the scene to those below the surface who couldn’t fit or could not walk. A new system of incentives and travel allowances would be necessary to decide
who
was permitted to travel and live upon the surface until enough terradomes were complete, but that was a worry for another day.

Ministers Tethys Charles, Kurt Kaspasparon, and Genevieve Sineine waited for Brody on the stage near the Pedestal of the Chancellor, while the rest of the ministers arced not far behind. Minister Noria Furongielle held her finger to her lips. The crowd silenced.

Brody strode up the stairs to the pedestal.

“The surface is yours, Chancellor,” Minister Kaspasparon said.

Brody looked down to his own arm, to where the burned
T
carved a permanent memory of what he’d overcome in the commonwealth. He’d carry the tattoo as a constant reminder of what could go wrong if he faltered.

“No,” he said, nodding to the square, “it’s theirs.”

With his right hand over his heart and his left hand on the Formation documents, Brody took his oath of office. He turned to his people in Sky Square and in all the territories below. Pasha was right. This was why he had survived: to return and restore order, to return and know his son, to fulfill the treaty with the Lorum, to emerge from Beimeni, into daylight.

Brody took Oriana’s hand in his and raised it to the crowd. The ground shook with the people’s cheers, above and below.

Sky City

Midwest

0 meters deep

Pasha activated the ansible. Its colorful crystals cast a polychromatic glow over the carbyne roof deck. Wearing the Lorum synsuit, he felt a strong connection to the ZPF and projected the Lorum’s signals across the galaxy to Vigna.
I understand what I have to do
, Pasha sent,
though I don’t know the way. Great Lorum, will you show me the way, will you guide me to the center of the Earth?

Pasha could travel to a mantle plume, a direct tunnel to the Earth’s core, but he couldn’t enter it and hope to survive, not without the Lorum’s help. Somehow, he assumed from his father’s stories of Vigna, the Lorum must use the ZPF in a way he didn’t understand, using their planet’s gravity to travel through its layers. He’d need to do the same inside the Earth.

The Lorum will protect you, the Lorum will guide you, the Lorum will fulfill the treaty when we receive the extremophiles.

And when I fulfill the treaty terms
, Pasha sent,
I expect my sister’s consciousness will be returned.

She will be returned
, the Lorum agreed.

I want to speak to her.
The Lorum had refused this request to Father and to Pasha on several occasions. But as time went on, the Lorum’s energy reserves declined; it would, in fact, die as a species in less than an Earth year. Pasha had sensed their desperation prior to the Timescape Mission, and more so recently. He felt confident they’d agree.
I want to know she lives before I proceed.

Pasha?

He felt his pulse quicken. He knew his sister’s voice. But was it her, truly?

O, I’m coming for you.
She didn’t answer him.
Do you hear me, I won’t stop—

Listen to me, Pash. There is no cure—

O? You there?

No response.

O? What does that mean?

No response.

Lorum, you will let me speak with her!

We’ve used too many enzymes already, you’ve spoken to her, now, bring us the extremophiles. Fulfill the treaty and your sister will be returned …

Pasha disconnected from the ansible and the Lorum.

He sent messages to his friends and family and did not accept their replies.

To Desaray and Nathan, he sent:
I’m retrieving the extremophiles, and when I come back, we’re traveling to Vigna.

To his father, he sent:
I know what I must do. I must travel by way of a mantle plume. The Lorum will protect me.

Pasha dashed to the edge of Sky City’s Liberty Building, where he and Heywood had placed Earth’s first ansible.

The Lorum’s colorful swirls of organic metal flowed over his body. It formed wings from his arms when he dove off the building’s side.

The crowd of protestors, mostly wealthy Beimenians, occupying the square below halted their chants for athanasia. Many pointed up to him as he soared through the night sky, toward the quarantine sector kilometers away.

Pasha passed through it and flew across the continent, gliding through the clouds as he’d done a thousand times before.

Only, this time was different. This time he left Sky City on the Mission to the Earth’s Core, the mission that would save his sister.

He passed kilometer after kilometer of ocean blue until he spied the Hawaiian Islands in the distance.

Lava gurgled up around the edge of the Big Island.

Pasha altered his senses, seeing the Earth as it existed in the ZPF: the land, the ocean, the mantle plume beneath, down, down, down, to the core.

He neared the volcano and the great fountain of lava it spewed into the air. He put his wings at his sides and dove, like a falcon.

I’m coming, O,
Pasha sent as the crater’s lip rose up around him.

He splashed into the pool of magma and disappeared.

Thanks for reading
The Restoration of Flaws,
the fifth book in The Phantom of the Earth series. I hope you enjoyed it. The supplemental material beyond this note contains Marstone’s Database and Appendixes 1-6. I thought long and hard about whether or not to include this material in each book or simply provide it on my website. In the end, I included the material based in part on beta reader feedback and in part because I think it provides useful perspective into the characters and world building of the Phantom Series.

Please visit
http://www.raedenzen.com/
for more information including a form for my newsletter, details about the first five books in the Phantom Series (all available now on Amazon), the spectacular concept art, detailed maps, and PDF versions of Marstone’s Database (labeled by book; to avoid spoilers, don’t skip ahead), Appendixes 1-6, charts, and graphs. I also included a page to credit the team; over the last three years, a talented group of more than thirty people, including readers, editors, scientists, and artists, among others, from six countries and three continents helped me put this project together. I also listed them, and other inspirational sources, in the acknowledgments on the product page and at the end of the book.

Now that you made it to the end of
Flaws,
you’re thinking like a
true
Biemenian. Congrats! I have a few questions for you. What do you want next in the series? A sequel could include: Oriana’s rescue, the Lorum’s fate, terradome issues, political issues, next-gen antagonists, Reassortment issues, and more. What else would you like to see in a sequel? Prequels: the fall of civilization, Before Reassortment; the fall of the Livelle city-state; world history from 168 AR to 246 AR (i.e., Masimovian’s rise, collapse of Angeles, Aera’s fate, disputes with the North, friction with the teams); world history from 247 AR to 353 AR (i.e., Brody’s and Damy’s rise, Vastar’s and Solstice’s deaths, Antosha’s exile, Jeremiah’s banishment, Connor’s birth). Anything else you’d like me to explore in the past? Sidequels: Gwen’s Harpoons; the series from the Lorum’s, Zorian’s, or Aera’s point-of-view. What other stories might you find intriguing within the universe of The Phantom of the Earth? Please feel free to email me at
[email protected]
with any feedback.