Invasion | Box Set | Books 1-7

by Platt, Sean

  Before trying the door, Piper paused to peek through the fence at the first of the enormous effigies in the parched land beyond: one of many religious artists’ stabs at a portrait of Divinity, the rumored Astral class that never left the motherships.

  The door opened. Piper’s hand had been resting on the wood while she looked through the fence at a twisted, angular black-marble monstrosity, so the door’s sudden retreat surprised her. But it was only a Rational Monk — a man in a brown cloak, his chest bearing the symbolic lever and fulcrum.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” the monk said, watching Piper jump. “I didn’t realize you were standing there.”

  Piper’s hand had gone automatically to her chest. Her head shawl had come askew, and now her hair was mostly in her face. From the neck up, she probably seemed like a crazy vagrant. From the waist down, she probably looked like she was ready to go skipping in the park with her parents on the better side of town.

  The monk didn’t seem to notice her odd attire or care. He appeared in his forties, with small, round glasses beneath his hood and short, graying hair. He lowered the hood then looked at Piper’s quasi-babushka, seeming to encourage her to do the same. She did not. She’d spent almost two hours on high alert, jumping at every sign of possible pursuit. Relaxing would take a while to come.

  “Are you seeking elevation?”

  It was a ritual greeting. Piper had seen the monks around and thought they were nut jobs, but the duality of their garb always made her wonder if she was being fair. On one hand, the New Redemption Church and others had formed their cult-like religions within months of the city’s formation and begun praying at the altar of Interstellar Jesus. That unseated Piper a little, whose relationship to Traditional Jesus had always been complex. But on the other hand, they wore that insignia on their robes — supposedly a nod to pragmatic realism. The lever was one of the simple machines — a group of concepts that first helped mankind master its physical world.

  “I … I’m not sure why I’m here.”

  The monk took Piper’s hand. “Many who find us feel the same. Were you admiring the images?”

  Piper wasn’t sure what the monk meant, but then saw him looking through the fence at the black stone creature, buried to the waist with its hands raised as if in greeting.

  He didn’t wait for her answer.

  “One tenant of our predecessor faiths was to refrain from creating graven images. The intention, as we interpret it, was to not worship false idols.” He gestured. “But we believe these are the true idols.”

  “You think God was an alien?”

  “We seek the truth. Whichever form it may end up taking.” He gestured again. “This is only one guess as to how our deliverers may appear.”

  “Well, they don’t look like that,” said Piper, who’d lived around Titans and run from Reptars in just the past few hours alone.

  “I refer to the unseen class,” said the monk.

  “That’s a lot of work for a guess of something you’ve never seen.” The effigy was huge — the size of a moderately sized building in the New York of her not-terribly distant past. She’d heard cranes at work on this side of the city before. She didn’t think permission to work outside Heaven’s Veil fell under Meyer’s purview, but clearly the Astrals had no issue — allowing the church to build as it wished as a tribute or possible warning. Piper hadn’t been outside the city since the fences had gone up, but she’d heard there were church-built effigies surrounding it. All were different — each a specific artist’s attempt to capture the unseen face of his new god.

  The monk had apparently finished discussing the statue. He took Piper by her shawl-covered upper arm and gently steered her toward the door.

  “Come. It doesn’t matter why you’ve come. Only that you seek elevation. We welcome all who are interested in the truth.”

  Piper was suddenly unsure she wanted to enter the church after all, no matter what Terrence had shoved into her hand. It seemed dark in there, and was sure to be filled with weirdos in robes who thought God looked like a praying mantis.

  She moved opposite the monk, not quite pulling away but not going with him either. The slight tugs in different directions resulted in a stalemate, but it did unseat her shawl. It spilled from Piper’s head and pooled in a drape across the monk’s beckoning arm.

  His gaze met her big, blue, famous eyes.

  “You’re Piper Dempsey,” he said, his mouth slightly open.

  “I …” Piper couldn’t finish. The monk’s grip had tightened slightly — just enough to inform her that he wouldn’t be letting her escape so easily. She tried again. “I made a mistake. I need to go.”

  “You are, aren’t you? I’ve seen you on television. On the city network. You’re the viceroy’s wife.”

  She tried to pull away, but the man’s grip tightened further. He wasn’t overly large, but she was small. Piper could flee, if she hit him.

  “That’s right,” she said, trying to puff up. “So you’d better let me go right now.”

  The monk shook his head then pulled her hard, his grip certain. Piper found herself stumbling into the church after him, the big wooden door falling closed behind them.

  With the door closed, the stone room’s silence was palpable. An empty silence didn’t permeate the cathedral; it was a thoughtful, contemplative quiet. The place was inhabited by no fewer than thirty monks, men and women, all staring directly at Piper.

  She opened her mouth to protest, scream, or bluff her way out, but nothing came.

  Piper was caught, quite literally.

  She felt herself twisted, then looked back to see the monk holding her leaning back to slide a heavy bolt into place on the church door.

  “Tell Gloria to call off the search,” he told the others. “I’ve found her.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The motorcycle came with a helmet. Cameron had to yank it from its dead rider’s head — simple because the head, like the rest of the body, had been transformed into shiny charred cinders like those on a campfire floor.

  Cameron shook the helmet out and blew inside to clear the dust. He set the thing on his head, then heard a chirp and realized it was active, still paired with its bike. It took him a while to figure out which bike the helmet matched, but he found it soon enough. He righted the heavy vehicle, kicked it to life, then threaded it back past the barricade its rider and his companions (Her companions? It was hard to tell gender from ashes) had unwisely decided to cross.

  Passing the barricade made Cameron nervous. Nathan Andreus had promised him clear passage to the Heaven’s Veil gates, but he’d offered no escort. Cameron was trusting Andreus about two things — one he hoped was true, and one he hadn’t even thought to ask. He was trusting that Andreus was a man of his word, and would prevent his men from waylaying Cameron — hopefully also keeping the roads clear of human marauders outside the Andreus camp, if there were any fool enough to cross without permission.

  But Cameron had also assumed that safe passage meant clearing the road of human interference. The bikers, however, had been incinerated by a shuttle. Did Andreus have sway with the shuttles? Or was he only promising to keep himself out of the way, leaving Cameron to roll dice with the rest?

  He looked slightly upward, afraid to properly scan the sky and topple the bike. He’d only ridden a motorcycle once before and felt uneasy atop it. He straddled it to look above. The sky was empty. But shuttles moved like hummingbirds; one might blink into position any second. He’d never know what hit him.

  Cameron could only keep moving.

  So he did. The roads were vacant except for a few broken-down hulks the Republic must’ve cleared away with tow trucks or heavy machinery.

  At the first roadblock, Cameron’s heartbeat had quickened and he’d reached for the pistol at the small of his back — the one Andreus’s lieutenant had taken upon arrival and returned at departure. Before Cameron could get close enough to merit withdrawing the weapon, the blockade shifted. Soldier
s pulled an orange-and-white highway barricade aside then flanked the gap like ushers. Cameron practically expected them to salute as he passed.

  The second roadblock was the same.

  The third was slightly larger, on the periphery of one of Andreus’s many unofficial settlements in the outlands. Cameron could see paths that were almost roads (some floored in gravel), buildings, and cleared sections of trees. Guards wore official-looking uniforms, unlike the ruffians Cameron had previously encountered.

  He rolled through their gap then stopped the bike and turned toward one of the guards. Cameron tapped one of the circular gauges on his dash panel.

  “I’m low on fuel. I don’t suppose you can set me up with any?”

  Cameron fully expected a “fuck off” — in which case he’d roll on, hoping to siphon from a dead gas station, cursing himself for not grabbing an electric bike and harvesting charges from the others. His chances if he had to siphon were, he thought, rather slim. He’d probably end up walking the rest of the way. The world’s gas had gone bad months ago; you were lucky if you could fire an engine.

  But the guard nodded and beckoned. Cameron puttered forward, only now realizing that he’d ridden a hundred miles without a hitch. The bike was a hybrid, of course, but still the gas had ignited, hadn’t misfired or given him any trouble at all.

  The guard stopped at what looked like an old oil barrel suspended six feet in the air on a lashed-together wooden stand. He removed a hose with a nozzle and looked at Cameron, waiting for his next move.

  Cameron killed the engine, and the guard filled his tank.

  “Where is this gas from?” Cameron asked.

  “We have a supplier,” the guard said without looking up.

  “Who?”

  “Who do you think?”

  The guard’s tone was terse, so Cameron didn’t press further. The guard’s question was likely rhetorical, but Cameron didn’t think anyone at all, and had inquired because he didn’t know. Did the guard mean the aliens were manufacturing fuel? If so, why? They didn’t use gasoline. Its use polluted the atmosphere. But if the ships were using their technology to refine oil or allowing human refineries to regrow and do the same, Cameron hadn’t a clue. And, he supposed, it didn’t matter.

  Before pulling away, he chanced a final query.

  “How are you communicating with your headquarters?”

  “None of your business.”

  “He’s letting me pass,” Cameron said, trying to sound braver than he felt. “I think he’d want you to tell me, don’t you?”

  The guard’s eyes flicked to the side. “The Republic has its own communication system.”

  “Is it over the air?”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Look,” Cameron said. “I just want something to listen to. I can’t get the radio to work on this thing.”

  “There’s no radio out here, you asshole,” said a second guard. He didn’t elaborate, but Cameron knew he wasn’t referring to the bike’s lack of receiver — but to the lack of public radio broadcasts this far out.

  “You can listen to the pirate bands if you want,” said the first guard, probably remembering what Cameron had said about Andreus and where his favors had fallen.

  He tapped the console a few times, and Cameron heard a burst of static in his helmet speakers. The pairing between helmet and bike suddenly felt purposeful. Until now, he’d only been able to listen to system notices, like the low fuel warning that had caused him to stop in the first place.

  “Tune it here.” He tapped the console again.

  Cameron tapped around but realized something delightfully unexpected: He could enter a manual frequency into the receiver. Most radios weren’t like that, restricted to the public range of both the frequency- and amplitude-modulated bands. But Cameron had memorized a number before he’d left Moab (a slow frequency that would carry low-fidelity voice outside the normal ranges) but hadn’t thought he’d be able to use it until reaching the city and Terrence’s equipment.

  Cameron thanked the guard, who seemed annoyed, then steered out and was again on open road before he dialed the frequency and spoke into the wind-dampening microphone that lowered from his helmet on a boom.

  “Hey,” he said. “Hey, Ivan. You suck.”

  It wasn’t official protocol language but whatever. Nobody would be listening at a frequency this low and so far outside the normal range. Maybe the Astrals, but that only meant he’d have to watch what he said, not the official manner in which he said it.

  “Cameron?” came a woman’s voice.

  “Who is this?”

  “Danika.”

  “I thought I’d get Ivan.”

  “Predictably, Ivan found something better to do. He’s all for the comm room, except when he has to sit here for hours waiting. So I’m doing it. But I was listening for Franklin or Terrence, not you.”

  “You got me,” Cameron told her.

  “I’ll take you.”

  “Oh. Well, thanks for looking out for me.”

  “Don’t get too excited,” Danika said. “I’m only in here because I’m heating up a burrito.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you there?” Danika, like Cameron, knew the limits of what should be said over the air and didn’t specify where there was. Terrence had cobbled together secure protocols in the past, but this wasn’t one of them. Most of the time, Terrence ushered them into an existing system, allowing them to piggyback rather than generating something brand new like this one-on-one radio show. But Cameron’s options had always been limited, and both sides knew it.

  “I’m on my way,” Cameron told her.

  “You’re calling from halfway?”

  “I’m on a motorcycle.”

  “A motorcycle, huh?” Cameron imagined Danika putting a hand on her slim hip through the pause. “I won’t lie. I’m a little turned on.”

  “Is … is the main man there?”

  He meant Benjamin, but flinched from using his name. He’d already used his own, and Danika had used hers, but for some reason Cameron thought there was a possibility the Astrals might know a Benjamin who knew too much information, out there in the desert. Piper might have told Meyer, who might have finked. But then of course, Meyer would know and be able to tell the aliens about Cameron, too.

  “You mean Benjamin?”

  Sigh. “Yes.”

  “He’s outside somewhere. I think he’s trying to look at the … the hole thingy again.”

  Danika meant the old money pit, which the ship had used to recharge while hovering above Moab. The same ship, Cameron sometimes thought, that was now over Heaven’s Veil and yet never bothered to float back over for long enough to incinerate the camp of dissenters it had spent so much time floating above. They must have better things to do, or found them unworthy of notice.

  “How long for you?” Danika asked. Meaning: How long until you reach Heaven’s Veil?

  “Hard to guess. Unless I run into something, maybe two or three hours.”

  “That close?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, when you get there, can you also — ?”

  A flash of something caught his eye. Cameron cut her off. “I’ve gotta go.”

  “Why?”

  Cameron swallowed, looking at the shimmering cluster ahead.

  “Because I’ve run into something.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The monk, who’d introduced himself by the name Thelonius (said with a smirk, as if it were a joke), led Piper past the group of milling robed figures, toward the large doors of a back room. Chanting hummed from somewhere — a sound Piper now realized had been forming a subtle buzz in the background for the final few blocks of her journey. She had no idea what times of day the Rational Monk choir did their rational chanting, but if done at night, the area’s people must sleep well.

  Heads continued to turn toward the dignitary among them as Thelonius dragged Piper through the gathering. They were nearing the choir room,
and Piper had a bizarre hope that she wouldn’t be asked to sing. The chanting was in Latin, for one. For another, it would have to be about aliens or rational science. She knew some about the former, less about the latter, and none of it in any dead or foreign tongues.

  “Unbar the front doors once we’re through here,” he said to a brown-haired woman, before seeming to reconsider. “Actually, prop them open. I don’t think anyone saw us out there, but I feel a sudden urge to appear open and holy.”

  The woman nodded and crossed the shadowed space to stand by the door. Thelonius stopped in front of the large inner doors as Piper remembered her reticence and pulled against him.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “We’re friends. Friends of your friend. Of Terrence.”

  “How do you know Terrence?”

  “It’s not important.” He tugged again, but Piper resisted. Behind the closed back room door, the rich, deep sounds of the choir continued to roll like soothing tides.

  “I have no idea who you are, why you’re looking for me, or what you think I—”

  “He sent us a message, Mrs. Dempsey. Terrence. He told us that he sent you our way but was concerned that you either wouldn’t make it or would fail to understand. You’ve seen our pilgrims walking the streets?”

  Piper nodded.

  “Today they walk and search for you.”

  “Why?”

  “On that, I’m trusting Terrence.”

  Piper looked at the door. This was all too strange. She felt snared in a trap, and took a step back. “Prove it.”

  “I don’t have details.”

  “Who is Terrence to you?”

  Thelonius, who’d seemed so serene outside, now looked urgent, maybe annoyed. He grabbed her again with a glance at the barred front doors.

  “Terrence,” he said, “is the man we trust enough to believe when he asks us to show the wife of this city’s viceroy this.”

  With Piper’s now-bare arm firmly in his grip, the monk leaned back toward the choir room door and rapped a complicated knock on its surface. A loud metallic clang preceded a swinging door and a sight that was nothing like Piper expected.