by Platt, Sean
“I don’t like this,” Benjamin said.
Nathan Andreus smirked across the table. The room’s door was closed but not impervious to the intrusion of small, pearl-sized silver spheres. Nathan’s signal detector was in the table’s center, still declaring the room clear. But the detector was a rubber stamp, not a deterrent or a protection. If the BB entered this room, they’d be sunk. They’d be alerted to its arrival with no time to hide. They were clearly plotting something, and Benjamin had never been good at keeping a straight face and a secret. Andreus had only told him about the spy among them because Benjamin was the linchpin that would make their deception possible. Without that, he’d be as much in the dark as everyone until the big reveal beside the Great Salt Lake.
“Of course you don’t,” said Andreus.
“We should at least tell Ivan. He’s the muscle. Ivan has the survivors from the rebel camp who are hot for revenge. They can at least stay ahead of us and—”
“Nobody’s hotter for revenge than I am.” Andreus recrossed his legs and leaned back. “But this will only work if the Astrals don’t think we’re expecting problems with this plan of ours. They know we don’t think they’re stupid. If we go out heavy, they’ll know we’re assuming the shuttles are watching from above. Then it’s a big game of who knows what. Trust me.” Nathan’s disturbing smile bunched his goatee. “I’ve done this sort of thing before.”
“So we go in unarmed?”
“Not unarmed, but not heavy. We can’t take any of my biggest, best vehicles. Remember, this is cat and mouse. After your little performance, explaining the mission to everyone, they’ll assume we’re going into the front lateral tunnel of the Cottonwood archive. They’ll get out of our way when we arrive — trying to make it look like we just managed to sneak by without being seen — because they want you to take the supposed codex.” Nathan laughed. “Where did you get that photo you showed of the codex we’re supposedly looking for anyway?”
“It’s a back stock photo from the Smithsonian. I think it’s an ancient adding machine, like an abacus 2.0, but I’m not totally sure.”
Andreus laughed again then settled. “So that’s where we have to go: into the front lateral tunnel. And that adding machine — our decoy — is what everyone in the group other than the few of us who know the truth needs to believe we’re after. Everything has to go exactly by the supposed book. The BB will follow you, and I can hang behind to verify that it does. Then we branch off: Cameron, Trevor, and I going for the plate the tablet actually talks about.
“How can you know the BB will follow me?” Benjamin asked.
“Because I’ve been watching it for days, and it always follows you. It’s only with Cameron now because he’s out in the front room delivering ‘important mission information’ while it thinks you’re asleep. It even hung out in your room well after you were supposedly snoring. Believe me, I’d been hoping it would just leave and we wouldn’t need Cameron’s distraction. I didn’t want to have to tell him about this, too.”
“Cameron can keep a secret.”
Andreus assessed Benjamin, who felt X-rayed.
“I sure as hell hope so. Because if someone looks directly at that BB, we won’t be able to trust any of this from that point on. Even now, part of me thinks they’re playing a long con: trying to trick us into lying in front of the spy BB so we’ll show our true hand elsewhere, the way it played Piper to deliver that information then almost played you to decipher it for them.”
Benjamin nodded slowly. That near-miss had occurred to him with some ferocity. If Andreus hadn’t noticed the signal and its source, Benjamin would have given the same basic briefing, but telling everyone the truth instead of the lie.
“If we’re trying to mislead them,” said Benjamin, “why don’t I just stay in the lab, pretending to work while you sneak out to Salt Lake and grab the plate unseen?”
“Because we won’t be unseen.” Andreus pointed at the ceiling. “The trick here is to almost show them what we’re after — almost, but not quite. Haven’t you ever lied to someone, Benjamin?”
“Sure.” But staring into Andreus’s eyes, he felt like a rookie masquerading as a veteran.
“Little lies sell deception. Big lies get you caught. If you’re not greedy, you can get away with a little lie here and there. It’s like warming an ice-cold bath one degree at a time.”
Andreus sat forward and continued. “The shuttles will see us leave this place, so we have to explain why we’re leaving, and do that part of it openly. The Astrals knew you’d crack the Templar code when they couldn’t, so you had to do that, too. We’ll have eyes on us the entire time. This mission has to succeed, and all on the sly. So no one can know. We have to go in numbers. Not because we need them to get the book from the archive, but because going in numbers is what we’d do if we thought they weren’t watching, and if we were truly pulling a trick we thought they’d never see coming — while simultaneously pulling a different trick they actually don’t.”
Benjamin planted his head in his palms. “This hurts my brain.”
“Oh, come on now. That big brain of yours? You’re humanity’s salvation, Mr. Bannister.”
“Or its downfall.”
“We get the plate.” Andreus tapped the table for emphasis. “I’ve communicated with your man, Terrence. He’ll inject his virus in time with our finding the artifact. When the network opens and we’re again topside, we can broadcast our find. We’ll grab the artifact and smuggle it out then rejoin the group on the decoy mission to try and find your typewriter thing (and ‘unfortunately’ fail) then leave. We’ll act disappointed that the tablet steered us wrong and go home. They’ll never know it steered us right and gave us what we needed. If we’re lucky, no one fights.”
“Can’t the Astrals intercept the messages you’re sending to Terrence?”
“The Astrals know about our new channel of discussion,” Andreus said, “but that’s okay because reestablishing a channel to Terrence is what crafty people like us would do if we didn’t know the Astrals were watching. So yes, they’ll hear whatever we say to each other. But fortunately, Terrence and I have worked out a simple code so I can tell him what I really want him to do, out in the open, without raising alien eyebrows. If they had them.”
“How did you manage that?”
“Did you ever tell a kid, ‘Don’t you dare mop that floor, Timmy’ because you want him to do the opposite?”
Benjamin stared. “You’re kidding.”
“The Astrals are terrible at understanding the nuances of human communication. This is safe, especially given how little needs to be said. Remember, the Astrals let my people use our comm channels openly as part of our deal. Yet we’ve been talking behind our hands, to some degree, the entire time.”
Benjamin chewed his lip. It would work. If the channel was already established, Terrence only needed a signal. A command of “Now” would suffice. But he still didn’t like it, with so many ways to go wrong.
“You’re afraid,” Andreus said, watching him.
Benjamin didn’t respond.
“It’s okay, Benjamin. Everyone’s afraid. It’s not bravery to act when you’re sure everything will be fine. Brave is being scared shitless and acting anyway.”
“I don’t want to be brave.”
Benjamin didn’t think it was cowardice holding him back. He flat-out didn’t want to do this — not because of his or anyone’s fear but because it simply wouldn’t work. The people they had for this mission weren’t fighters. With the exception of the rebel leftovers, they were all scientists. The Astrals had disposed of their fighting force, leaving Ivan and a few others in possession of a killer instinct. Ivan would agree to this plan in a bloody instant and arm everyone to the teeth if he knew its full truth, but that was why nobody had told him.
Andreus’s plan, unfortunately, relied on stealth and deception, with no room for error. They’d be armed, but not sufficient to handle any potential problems. Benjamin had hea
rd Cameron, Piper, and Trevor’s tale of escape from Heaven’s Veil, but he also knew they’d made that escape in what was essentially a tank — and now that Benjamin knew about the BB, it also sounded like the Astrals had allowed them to go. This Salt Lake mission would be different. If their subterfuge was discovered and they had to scrap at Cottonwood — if they had to scrap at all — they’d be massacred.
The game would be over. If the Astrals discovered what the tablet had really led them to find, they’d have drawn an engraved map to Thor’s Hammer and delivered it to them. Nothing could stand in their way after that. No one could stop them.
“I changed my mind,” Benjamin said, even though Andreus was practically staring him down.
“You don’t get to change your mind, Ben.”
“We’ll find another way. We know where the plate is, and the Astrals don’t know we know. We can take our time, figure out a way to do it right.”
“You’re letting fear get the best of you.”
“It’s not that. It’s stupid to act when we know we’ll fail.”
Andreus shook his head.
“What?” Benjamin asked.
“The die is cast. You made your speech, and the Astrals were listening. If we don’t go, they’ll know we know something.”
“I’ll make another speech. I’ll tell everyone I changed my mind. Cottonwood’s an Astral base, for Christ’s sake. They’ll understand if it looks like we want to think twice about running into the lion’s den.”
Andreus shook his head. “No.”
Benjamin met his eyes. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s not just you in this anymore. I stuck my neck out there to save your people in Vail.”
“They weren’t actually in danger.” Benjamin said, knowing his response sounded lame.
“We didn’t know that. And the Astrals know I didn’t know but went in anyway. I’ve had amnesty, but those days are numbered. They could show up at any time to destroy my camps, like they did for the rebel base. I lost my wife to this. Do you know how hard it was to decide whether to send Grace to the Republic or keep her here? Two terrible choices. Shuttles could burn either one without any notice.” He stabbed a finger into the table. “This? This is our only chance. You don’t get to make the decision alone. We’re partners now, like it or not.”
Benjamin watched him, feeling chastised. He’d never been so frightened — and so sure they were merely lining up for execution. He felt helpless. He didn’t just fear death. Its inevitability prickled his skin.
“Then we have to arm up,” Benjamin said. “We have to take one of your tanks.”
“They’ll know we’re up to something if we do that.”
“Our official version is that we’re up to something!” Benjamin blurted. Andreus was infuriating to talk to. He pretended to be having a discussion while delivering orders.
A small smile had grown on Andreus’s lips, despite his shaking head. Benjamin wanted to leap across the table and punch him. Benjamin was out of his mind, and this bastard was enjoying himself, keeping secrets because he thought it was funny?
“Benjamin,” Andreus said. “Do me a favor.”
Benjamin stared.
“Take a deep breath.”
“What’s so goddamn funny, Nathan?” It felt reckless to say his first name. Assuming familiarity. It was the kind of thing that local rumor said could get you disemboweled to teach you a lesson. Drawn and quartered, or beheaded.
“We have to get in and out, pretending to look for one thing while searching for another, without breaking our illusion. But the lack of fallback seems to be bothering you. No chance of surviving if things go wrong, and we can’t maintain that illusion. Sound about right?”
“If we’re killed,” Benjamin said, “we won’t get a second chance to get Thor’s Hammer before they do.”
“Would it make you feel any better if I assured you there’s no chance we’ll be killed?”
The flat, statement-like quality of the lie left Benjamin momentarily speechless. Andreus hadn’t inquired as preamble to a pep talk. He’d stated it like a fact — the way he’d declare that there were two men in the room. He’d implied it as a mission objective. Datum a commander might use to plan an assault.
The only question was how Andreus could possibly think Benjamin would believe something so absurd — or, possibly, just how stupid Andreus thought he was.
“How could you possibly think that heading directly into an Astral-controlled area won’t entail risk?”
Andreus told him.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Heather clenched the silver canister between her breasts.
Terrence extended his hand. “Heather.”
It had taken Terrence time to get used to Heather’s caustic nature the same way getting used to her took everyone time. But Heather’s house on the grounds was on Terrence’s other side, opposite Christopher’s. Years of having her as an obnoxious neighbor had taught him that there was no winning. Brevity was the only way to argue — not because it worked, but because it meant you’d put yourself out there less when she eventually made fun of you before walking away, having done exactly whatever the fuck she’d wanted.
“You gave me this thing,” she told him. “So now, if you want it back, you have to tell me what you plan to do with it.”
Terrence looked around Heather’s small living room. He wasn’t wearing his trademark glasses, so his worry and urgency were clear.
“I told you,” he said.
“You just told me it’s something you made for Benjamin. Having to do with the Internet. But I know you were talking to Benjamin through that church that got blown up, maybe with the help of that big pile of black ashes that Piper had been hanging out with.”
“So what?”
Heather held the canister tighter. Terrence kept beckoning with his fingers. “Come on, Heather. Give it to me.” He was much bigger and stronger but wouldn’t pry it from her. He was oddly polite, and Heather strangely intimidating. Like a tiny spider with giant fangs.
“So a lot has changed since the original plan. You don’t know for sure what Cameron was going to do with this before he handed it off. Piper and my son are out there somewhere! How do you know Benjamin’s plans don’t require saving them from the desert instead of hacking the Internet and—”
“Do you know the Andreus Republic?”
The warmth left her skin. Of course Heather knew about the Andreus Republic. They were animals. People claimed they skinned their enemies — or at least, that’s what the news said. Andreus bands were the main reason nobody left Heaven’s Veil or local outposts. She didn’t want to hear what followed. She’d mentioned Trevor, and Terrence had replied by broaching the Republic. A chilling implication. Advantage: Terrence.
“Turns out, Nathan Andreus and I have a lot in common,” Terrence said, clearly enjoying his conversational coup on the Queen of Wry. “He’s a lot smarter than people give him credit for. I was sitting in the guard station the other day when my radio started giving static bursts of Morse. Long story short, I changed a few settings in my web browser code, and now Andreus and I are pen pals.”
Heather still didn’t trust herself to speak. Terrence wasn’t getting to the point, unless the point was that he’d turned traitor and wanted her to know he was about to join a group the news painted as practically cannibals.
“He’s a tech guy,” Terrence said, taking mercy, his smarmy look relaxing. “He’s had an in all this time. Understands all my network stuff, including the general idea behind Canned Heat.”
“Is that a saucy women’s prison movie?”
“Trevor is fine, Heather. He and Piper and Cameron made it to Moab okay. The tank thing we told you about? Turns out that was an Andreus Republic vehicle. Now Nathan Andreus and his people are working with them. And they’re … planning something.”
“What are they planning?”
Terrence reached for the silver cylinder. Heather clenched it tighter and pivoted
away.
“The Astrals are watching Internet traffic, such as they’re able. And that’s not a problem for someone like Andreus or me, who know where to hide messages in the deluge, then couch them so they aren’t terribly incriminating if discovered. The bigger problem is the wholesale severing of channels. What you have there—” he pointed, “—is a virus that I think will disrupt their blockages, opening some of those channels for at least a little while. Long enough for people like Benjamin to share some information in order to … to do other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
“That’s need-to-know information.”
“Well, guess who needs to know?”
Terrence got a few fingers on the canister, but Heather slapped him away. Soon, he’d tire of the game and simply pin her despite his nature, but she could weasel some more secrets before he did.
“Fuck off, Terrence. If I’m good enough to hide this for you, I’m good enough to know what you’re doing.”
“The more you know, the more you could get in trouble.”
“More trouble than running off and killing one of the peacekeepers? More trouble than helping Piper get away after stealing some CIA secret shit from His Lordship the holy motherfucking Viceroy of Heaven’s Veil?”
“Time is a factor, here, Heather. You’re not helping.”
“No way. You thought they were suspicious of you, so you gave me this thing to hide. Then you come here, to my house, rubbing your suspicious ass all over my face. Now I’ve got suspicion on my chin.”
“Wow. Vivid imagery.”
“Look. Just let me help. I’m in it this far anyway.”
“There’s no way for you to help.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just need to plug that into a port and execute.”
“So it’s a program.”
“It’s complicated. It can’t just be emailed. I need that actual canister you’re holding.”
“Is it complicated or simple? Make up your mind, Terrence.”
Terrence sighed. He kept himself from rolling his eyes, probably because Heather would take it as a sign of victory. His hand fell to his side.