The Song of the Jubilee (The Phantom of the Earth Book 1) (14 page)

“I do.” Hans and Murray carried Connor together through the DOP’s lengthy corridors, filled with flashing light and pings from the alarm.

“Here it is.” Hans tapped a taupe Granville panel in a coded pattern, and the doorway next to it cleared their way into Beimeni City.

White bioluminescence lined the pedestrian path that led into one of Artemis Square’s bazaars. The pillars and buildings of the First and Second Wards, Masimovian Center, Masimovian Tower, the Brezner Building, and Hammerton Hall shimmered beneath the starlight. Hans connected to the ZPF and entered the neurochips of passersby. Through Beimenian eyes, citizens and Janzers alike, Hans, Murray, and Connor now looked like aristocrats dressed in fur-lined capes and dark bodysuits with matching boots.

Hans looked at Connor. Dark skin ringed his bloodshot eyes, his nose dripped, and his lips looked a touch blue. Hans debated whether his brother could survive the journey. He looked at the Beimenians who shopped, drank, conversed, and stared at the steady flow of Janzers entering the DOP, then back to Connor. “I need you to be strong now.”

Connor waved his head in what might’ve been agreement or disagreement, Hans couldn’t tell. He wrapped his hand around his brother’s sweaty neck and put his forehead to Connor’s. “You are a Selendia. You are a Rupel. Your body was made for the fever.”

“What is … the fever?” Connor said, blinking.

Hans didn’t answer him. He lifted Connor’s arm and draped it around his back, then moved onward.

Murray also helped carry Connor. “Where’re you leading us?”

“Beimeni River,” Hans said. Unlike Zorian, he’d never entered Beimeni City, but their father had forced him to memorize maps of the place, including several routes for escape scenarios.

They made their way through the First Ward and arrived at the archway leading out to the sprawling Dunes of Phanes, hills and depressions with white sands so soft that their bare feet disappeared with each step. It was slow going, and gradually the warm sand began to chafe. Connor looked like he might pass out.

“Hold on, brother,” Hans said.

They’d traveled only a few kilometers when noises halted them.

Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.

“Did you hear that?” Connor said. His voice slurred a bit.

Hans scanned the horizon. “I heard it.”

“Tenehounds,” Murray said.

Hans removed Connor’s arm from his back and turned.

Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.

“They have our genetic scents,” Hans said.

Connor stood without Murray’s help. He shook sand from his foot. “What now?”

Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.

Hans scanned the horizon again. This time he saw tiny specks in the distance. “Lady Isabelle will hunt you now,” he said to Connor.

“We can’t leave Father with her.”

“No, no we cannot.” Hans handed him the z-disk. Connor looked at it in his shaky palm. “This is a commonwealth z-disk, so you mustn’t ever access it in Beimeni or try to send its contents telepathically.” Connor sniffled and wiped snot from his nose. He looked bemused. “You’ll be surrounded by Janzers and Isabelle would track the message to wherever you sent it.” To Murray, Hans added, “My father isn’t in Farino Prison.”

“Where is he?” Connor said.

“I’m not entirely sure, though I think the answer’s in here.” Hans closed Connor’s fingers over the z-disk and held his hands around Connor’s fist. “See it to the Leadership,” he turned to Murray, “in Blackeye Cavern.”

“The Hollow is closer—”

“Closer to Natura and Gaia, where surveillance is up, we should assume the same is true all along the Zwillerzweller—”

Connor coughed violently.

Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.

They turned. A trio of hounds sat upon their haunches on a nearby dune, howling.

“We’re out of time,” Hans said.

Connor wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and put the z-disk in his pocket. “Will I … see you again?”

“I hope so, little brother—”

Owoooooo, owoooooo, owoooooooooooooooo.

Hans kissed Connor on his cheeks and did the same to Murray.
See to it Connor survives the fever,
Hans sent to his developer
.
They locked eyes and Murray nodded, his brow crumpled. Then Hans turned and sprinted to the top of the highest dune he could find.

Sweet Maribel, please forgive me,
he thought.

Hans let the universe’s energy fill him, expanding his presence, pushing out his consciousness and his genetic scent in the ZPF.

The hounds snapped their heads toward Hans in unison. He manipulated their vision, made them see three BP rather than just one.

Hans, and his illusions of Connor and Murray, ran over and between the dunes. They slid down waterfalls of sand, drinking in waves of artificially cool, musky air.

Hans felt the burn in his legs, but he could not slow, could not stop, for if the hounds took him down, they might learn of his trick, then shift their attention to the real Connor and Murray. He ran faster, faster.

But soon the tenehounds emerged on either side of him, closer, closer. Their colorful fur stood on their backs, bristling beneath the moonlight. They barked and growled.

Hans attempted to establish a deeper connection with them, as he could with lower fauna, to manipulate, or kill them.

They howled and closed on either side of the apparent BP, unhindered. Saliva dripped from their mouths.

They didn’t move in to strike, and it didn’t seem as if they’d discerned his illusions.

They’re forcing me to Masimovian Crossing
, Hans thought.

If Hans could make it to the river, he might be able to escape. He could slip onto a river barge unseen or commandeer a trader’s ship. It seemed a strange choice for the hounds.

He turned, running up a dune, but when he reached the top, a hound lunged for him. Hans’s legs weren’t as strong, and he couldn’t evade it.

He toppled, rolling down the dune with the hound. At the bottom, Hans wrapped his hands around the hound’s neck and snapped it, maintaining his concentration and control in the ZPF.

He stood and rushed between two more dunes, away from the crossing.

The tenehounds weaved around the apparent three BP in elliptical formations, designed to assess their enemy. To what purpose, Hans wasn’t sure, for they didn’t move in to capture him.

He dashed left, then right, up, down, around, up, down, around, dune after dune after dune.

When he smelled the river and saw the crossing, he put his hands on his knees. The hounds had deceived him.

He turned to the city skyline. It
was
as beautiful as his father described, with Hammerton Hall and its waterfalls of light, Masimovian Tower’s crystalline spires, the Fountain of Youth with its blue bioluminescence, and the ward and district buildings—canyons of polished limestone, carbyne, alloy, and glass.

Hans rushed to the crossing. The warm wood soothed his blistery feet. Beimeni River rushed below him.

The hounds emerged from either side of the river, appearing as if from out of the sand. Several silhouettes moved with them: Lady Isabelle, flanked by two Janzers.

She blocked his access to the ZPF. The fake Connor and Murray disappeared. “Find the others!”

A dart shot into Hans’s neck and he collapsed.

Beimeni City

Phanes, Underground Central

2,500 meters deep

The dunes rose and fell in a manner that reminded Connor of his trips in his submarine through Piscator Reef. At times it felt as if he’d rush so deep as to never return before he climbed back up. Elevated, he could see all, the phosphorescent spires upon trading ships in Beimeni River, the Granville moon, the swirls of sand on either side of the tumbling river. With each step he heard the tenehounds howl, and he thought about Hans. Why did he keep so many secrets? Why would he force him to drink something that made him sick? Would Hans escape the pursuit? Connor hoped so.

His bodysuit clung to him, drenched with sweat. He felt so hot. He didn’t know how much farther he could go when they arrived at white lithified dunes, made of ribbed stone with petrified veins running through them. The rock popped the blisters on Connor’s feet, and though the sting was like a thousand shards of glass sliding in and out and between his toes, the pain distracted him from the aches in his muscles and bones. He continued with Murray’s support, down, around, up, around, down, around, up, around, until he smelled the river, a smell so distinct it sent him back to the Block, the gulf, the reef, and all he’d left behind.

Perhaps this was a dream and he’d awaken, any second now, safe in Arturo’s apartment unit in Piscator City. He almost laughed at this thought, for he’d left one prison and entered another.

“We’re here,” Murray said. Connor couldn’t hear the tenehounds any longer. They hid behind ferns. Murray was so sweaty, his mustache and beard looked soaked, and his animated tattoos showed through his bodysuit. Connor pushed aside the ferns. Golden bioluminescence filled the shoreline below.

Murray lowered his head and closed his eyes. He looked as exhausted as Connor felt. They caught their breath.

Murray opened his eyes. “This way.”

He helped Connor through tamarisk thickets to a group of bamboo coracles, some of which contained fishing gear. Connor didn’t know fishermen existed outside Haurachesa and Piscator, and he couldn’t see any fish in the illuminated river. The coracles swayed gently, tethered to boulders with hemp lines. They smelled like coconuts. Murray untied one and overturned it. He and Connor waded out. The water felt like ice on Connor’s skin. He shook violently, feeling nauseous.

“Breathe,” Murray said.

Connor soon found himself neck deep in the water beneath an overturned coracle with Murray. His face felt on fire, but he no longer trembled. His nausea eased.

“Breathe,” Murray repeated.

Connor breathed. They’d taken a few steps when the water beneath them took on a maroon hue.

A Janzer spotlight.

Connor heard Murray’s voice in his head.
We must swim now.

He nodded but his breath came short and shallow. He swam whenever he could in the Archimedes River down in Piscator, but never while this scared, and never at night, and never with the fever. He unbuttoned his pockets and slipped his hands inside. On his left side, he felt his artistic Granville sphere, which held his mother’s hologram. He had been surprised when Lady Isabelle gave it back to him after the interrogation. He truly didn’t know anything, and she seemed to accept that. Then out of nowhere, she telekinetically sent the sphere between the teal beams ahead of his cell and said: “Your mother didn’t have to die,” and when Connor looked up toward her, “nor do you.” Connor hated her a bit less in that instant, though he’d never admit so. In his other pocket, he felt Hans’s z-disk, and exhaled.

He closed the pockets, then followed Murray beneath the water. His legs and arms felt the way a jellyfish looked when it bobbed beneath the sea.

Suddenly the river bubbled around them and formed a cocoon. Connor pushed out his arms, trying to quell his rising discomfort. Was it an alteration of gravity? An act of the gods? Lady Isabelle? Janzers? The water rushed away from Connor, and he stood with Murray’s support, his feet on the bottom of the river and water all around them, glowing less golden than it did near the surface. Shadows passed overhead. Connor stared, too shocked to be afraid.

“Janzer gunboats,” Murray said.

He and Connor moved along the river floor. The soft, soaked seaweed and sand soothed Connor’s feet with each step. The light faded. Murray guided him onward. More gunboats passed overhead.

When the vibrations outside the cocoon ceased, Connor found his voice. “How … how did you do this?”

“I was starting to worry about you,” Murray said. Connor couldn’t see him, or anything. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Connor stopped and Murray with him. He found that he didn’t feel as ill as he had in the holding cell or on the dunes. Was it his anger that provided his strength, or was he truly recovering from the fever? He didn’t know, yet he broke away from Murray’s hold, standing on his own two feet.

“When I last awoke in Piscator, I assumed I’d catch five hundred kilograms of meat and go to a pub with you, Hans, and Arty, and maybe even Zorian and Father. Instead, I didn’t see Zorian, I left Piscator during the peak without saying goodbye to Arty, I’ve been infected by something called
E. evolution
, one of my brothers might’ve been arrested, my father
was
arrested, Lady Isabelle and Lieutenant Arnao and their tenehounds and Janzers are hunting us,” Connor coughed and caught his breath, “and you’ve somehow created an underwater submarine bubble in Beimeni River … so if you were me, how would you feel right about now?” Connor now felt a little dizzy; he rested his hand on Murray’s shoulder.

“A bit confused, maybe.” Murray helped Connor forward along the bed of flattened seaweed.

“You can start with the fever.”

Murray sighed. “Your DNA is being altered, allowing further advancement into transhumanism.”

“I thought I was transhuman.”

“The
Homo transition
species encompasses a spectrum. Some of the genome is inherited, passed down generation to generation. Some is synthetic. Your brother infected you with
E. evolution
, a synism designed hundreds of years ago to enhance the human genome. It hasn’t been used by developers in a long, long time. It should be administered to a transhuman adult.”

“But I’m an adolescent. Why would Hans infect me with it, why didn’t he tell me what would happen, and why have you all kept so many secrets—”

“The Lady Isabelle captured your father, this you learned. What you don’t know is that she’s accelerated her hunt of the unregistered. I suppose your brother felt he had no choice but to administer the accelerant to you. Now, we must—”

“Tell me about Blackeye Cavern.”

“I’m your developer, not your father.”

“Lady Isabelle told me that my father was a traitor to the commonwealth!” Connor coughed and spit out phlegm. It tasted like blood. “She said if I expected him to live, I’d have to tell her where she could find Blackeye Cavern! I’ve never heard of it!”