by Platt, Sean
So here’s this book’s story. Funny how things never turn out right.
Before writing the book you’ve just read, Sean and I wrote a book called Dead City. It may be my favorite of all the books Realm & Sands has written, with the possible exception of Axis of Aaron. Dead City comes out mid-2016 in ebook and print and in audio format before that. (If that confuses you, you’re not alone. It’s a weird thing we’re doing, but the short answer is that you should be on our mailing list, where all questions are eventually answered. You can join at the link below.)
http://realmandsands.com/joinus/
Anyway, Dead City — a zombie book with a twist and an All the President’s Men vibe — was hard as hell to write. It took us longer than we’d anticipated; it required a bunch of extra story meetings to figure out; I had to have conversations with my professional scientist friend to iron out its quirks. We knew we were planning to end the year with 2015’s nonfiction book (Iterate & Optimize) and another mindbender like Axis (The Devil May Care). Those two were a heavy pair, and we needed to write Annihilation before either of them because people were clamoring for the preorder date and bitching that it wasn’t sooner.
So I said, “Okay, dude. Annihilation has to be simple. Not boring and not uninteresting by any stretch, but simple.” Simple like Invasion: The people in it have one task, and they go about doing it. Of course that can be a real fucker of a job, and they can run into all sorts of trouble along the way (and because we respect and love our readers, we’d be sure to add all sorts of exciting trouble), but it should be a singular quest. Something that can be detailed and thrilling in execution but straightforward in concept.
So Sean gives me Concept #1. And I’m like, “How is this simple?” (I won’t spoil it. You’ll see much of what began life as Concept #1 in the next book in this series.) So he set it aside and tried again.
Concept #2, which he knew better than to outline before asking me, was equally complicated. So back he went.
And by Concept #3, Sean comes to me all excited, like he’s sure this is the one. And he goes, “I’ve got it! They just need to blow up Heaven’s Veil!”
At this point, I put my palms over my face.
Because yeah, that sounds simple. But shit, it’s just not. Because there’s nothing established there. Why would anyone blow up Heaven’s Veil? You can’t just announce it. You have to build a case. You have to explain why that might happen, and you have to figure out how it could happen. Because remember: This crew had been trying to attack Heaven’s Veil for two years, according to the story in Colonization. They hadn’t made a dent. So how were they going to suddenly just nuke the place?
And so we thought about the Apex. About how they could blow that up.
You know. The alien pyramid that’s made of something other than glass. Another thing they couldn’t destroy.
At some point, while mulling over our desire for simplicity and our readers’ craving for the fast-paces stories that come with straightforward narratives, I had an idea. I got to thinking of the Pixar movie The Incredibles. You know how Mr. Incredible realizes that the only thing strong enough to damage the Omnidroid is the Omnidroid itself. And then he makes it yank out its own brain? Well, only Astral technology could blow up Astral stuff.
Which meant our story had become about the Astrals blowing shit up. Or humans finding a way to make Astral technology work for them.
You know — because it makes sense that they’d be able to do that.
Ultimately (and this always happens with our stories; ALWAYS), the problems at hand found a way to harmonize with the questions we’d wanted to answer anyway. So: the fact that Meyer was a copy? We had that to work with. We’d always figured the real Meyer would return and that the unspooling that happened in the first fake Meyer would recur in the second fake Meyer, creating allies. We’d sort of thought the Astrals’ inability to understand the dissociation of modern humans would confuse them enough to come into play, and we knew emotions — things like Meyer’s quiet love for Heather and his loyalty to his family, not to mention the death of a son — would cause glitches even in the copies of Meyer that the Astrals hadn’t anticipated.
And hey, Sean had come up with this cool idea of a shadow creature: a “Pall,” as it turned out. We had no idea what it was. But lo and behold, it became part of the unspooling/emotions/doppelgängers story as well.
So, yeah, it came together nicely. I love how Annihilation worked out, and the story we told. I love the way it sets us up for the next book and how it got us right back to a few of the revelations we’d wanted all along: that Thor’s Hammer was an archive and not a weapon and that the game was actually more about judgment than annihilation. (And then annihilation. But hey, there’s a stop along the way.)
So the book turned out great.
BUT THIS SHIT WASN’T SIMPLE AT ALL!
So here I am, happy but exhausted, sure I’m making all sorts of dumb mistakes in this author’s note but not caring too much. I miss the days when we could write things that were easier, but I suppose it’s not meant to be. The Realm & Sands tagline (Sean’s and my main imprint) is “Inquisitive Fiction.” And hey, when you ask questions with your stories, stuff gets messy. And rarely simple.
Sigh.
Anyway, we’ve got three more books planned in this series. The fifth book, Judgment, comes out on June 7, 2016. You can get Judgment here:
https://sterlingandstone.net/ubl/judgment/
After that, you won’t have to wait nearly as long for subsequent installments. There are only six weeks between Books 5 and 6, then another six weeks between 6 and the final, Book, 7. So by the end of summer 2016, you’ll know what happened with the Dempseys and Earth. And I’m sure it’ll be complex as all hell.
Again: Sigh. Good thing we love our jobs.
If you’ve made it to Book 4 in this series, you’re deep enough in with us that you really SHOULD be on our list. Stuff changes all the time, and we’d love to keep you apprised. The list is cool, and you get a free book just for signing up.
Join our mailing list and get your free book here:
http://realmandsands.com/joinus/
Okay. That’s it. My job is done, and now it’s up to Sean to take this manuscript (and this so-called author’s note) and make it shine. So mistakes from this point on are his fault. Blame him.
Thanks for reading!
Johnny and Sean
September 2015
Judgment
Eleven Years Before Astral Day
Prologue
“Right or left?”
Cameron looked up at his father then down at his napkin. The words Nile Cafe edged the corner, and to Cameron they looked distinctly hand-stamped, as if the proprietor had purchased generic napkins and decided it was worth marking them manually. In the napkin’s middle was a network of lines that looked like the bodies of massacred stick people stacked haphazardly atop each other. It had made sense when the man in the cafe had explained the tunnels, thick coffee in small cups between them, the man’s eyebrows raised at this fifteen-year-old kid who dared to ask such adult questions. But now, in the stale underground air, it was hard for Cameron to remember which line corresponded to which passageway. Any one of them could be anything.
“Go right,” Cameron said, then turned the napkin 90 degrees and nodded to himself. “Yes. Right.”
Benjamin hesitated then turned right. Cameron followed, limestone brushing each of his arms. Cameron wasn’t usually claustrophobic, but the tunnels were reversing that. It wasn’t the confined space — it was that this part of the tunnels was off limits for a reason, and although his father figured the Egyptians were keeping secrets, Cameron thought the prohibition might be for a far simpler reason: Maybe the tiny tunnels were unsafe. Maybe they were unsound and might collapse. Closed spaces required vents and chimneys for oxygen to come in and carbon dioxide to be wafted away. The shafts here were mostly plugged with sand. That’s one reason most of these types of explorations were
done by robots, or by adventurous humans donned in breathing gear. Maybe they wouldn’t be crushed after all. They could suffocate instead.
“Wait,” Cameron said a minute later.
Benjamin peeked over his shoulder, the lantern’s light throwing his shadow harshly against the stone wall.
“I meant left.”
“Left now, or left back when you said ‘right’?”
“Back there.”
“So I should turn around.”
“Yes,” Cameron said, though he wasn’t sure. This place was creeping him out. It wasn’t only the claustrophobia — the Mullah were famously averse to visitors getting close to their secrets.
Benjamin extended his hand. “Let me see the map.”
Cameron handed him the napkin.
“This is just a mess of lines,” Benjamin said after thirty seconds of looking it over. “You should have had him make a map we could actually read.”
“I can read it.”
“Oh come on. I can’t even read it.”
Cameron snatched the napkin back. He didn’t want more of this bullshit. Not now. Not after three weeks of exploring caves and talking to men who required bribes just to whisper, always feeling like the two of them might at any time be abducted and held for ransom. Not after trekking and sweating and sleeping on mattresses that Cameron felt sure were infected with insects — a fear so vivid that he swore he could feel the bugs moving at night. Not after thrice-daily lectures, delivered by his father during every meal. He said they were partners in this round of exploration, but Cameron was treated as less than an assistant. More like a pupil. A rather dim pupil who never did his homework or remembered his lessons.
“I can read it,” he said.
“How can you possibly …”
Cameron pointed at the map, his temper rising like a tide. “This is the main shaft, where we came in. And this is that branch we ran into — see, like a Y? So this must be where we are now, which puts the Sun Chamber here.”
Benjamin raised his eyebrows and repeated, “Must be where we are?”
“Is,” Cameron asserted. “This is where we are.”
“You’re sure?”
No. The answer was no.
“Will you just trust me?” Cameron said instead.
“So … left? Then you need to back up so I can turn around. Unless you want to lead?”
Benjamin indicated the narrow stone passage behind them. Cameron tried to see the gesture as a measure of trust but couldn’t shed the thought of ancient booby traps springing and impaling him. It seemed like a long shot seeing as such things were for Hollywood more than reality (the Mullah preferred a more direct approach), but he still didn’t want to go first. The initial set of tunnels they’d bribed their way into had been restricted, but this part was supposedly unknown except to those who obviously knew it best. Anything could be in here. Anything at all.
“No thanks. You’re the ‘expert.’” To get his dig on Benjamin, Cameron made the quotes around “expert” audible. Then he inched backward to the T junction and let his father pass.
“Right or straight ahead?” Benjamin asked a few minutes later.
The map showed no junction.
“Straight … straight ahead,” Cameron stammered.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Benjamin bit his lip, lowered the lantern, turned, and faced his son.
“Tell me if you don’t know, Cam. I don’t want to get lost down here.”
“I know! I said straight!”
Benjamin looked like he might persist but then just sighed and turned.
Cameron followed, holding the map with both hands, shining his headlamp down while trying to resist the headache that came with the bouncing glow. He was pretty sure this was correct. Almost entirely. Yusef hadn’t marked the right-branching passage they’d just passed, probably because he was giving them a way to reach the chamber directly without all the alternative approaches. You don’t tell someone every street they’ll cross on the way to the post office; you just tell them to cross the big intersection with the Kmart on the corner before turning.
Benjamin’s voice came back at Cameron from over forward-facing shoulders. Sound was odd in here. The rock funneled voices toward the speaker’s head, leaving a scant fraction of normal volume to echo backward.
“How do you think these passages were carved, Cameron? Hard to imagine humans doing this by hand, right?”
Cameron pretended not to hear.
“Cam?”
“It should be just up here, Dad.”
“Did you hear what I said about the—”
“Yes.”
“So how do you think they were carved?”
Cameron sighed loudly enough to be obvious.
Benjamin turned his head. “So you don’t know that, either.”
Either. So clearly Benjamin didn’t trust his map reading even after the assurances.
“I know it, Dad.”
“So why don’t you just tell me?”
“Because you know I know.”
“How do I know you know if you won’t answer the question?”
“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe because you’ve told me, like, a hundred times?”
“I guess it wasn’t often enough,” Benjamin said with false regret.
“Or maybe it’s because when most kids were getting bedtime stories, I was learning about the tools and excavation methods of ancient people. Maybe I don’t want to answer your question because I’ve already answered it a thousand times, like every day of my life is some stupid quiz.”
“That’s so not how it was, and you know it.”
“Really? What did we talk about at breakfast?”
Benjamin said nothing.
“It’s really too bad we split up at lunch so I could get the map from Yusef. If we’d eaten together, I’d probably be able to pass this test.” He snapped in the reverberating stone hallway. “Damn.”
“Forgive me for educating you. Most sixteen-year-olds don’t get opportunities like this to—”
Cameron rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Cameron!”
“Really, Dad? I’m old enough to fly around the world with you and break into deathtraps by your side but not old enough to swear? I thought the aliens taught us language? Shouldn’t I glory in its many colorful aspects?”
Benjamin didn’t reply. He seemed to be pouting, but that was fine with Cameron. It was bad enough that his father’s obsession had been forced upon him as if it were Cameron’s passion, too. Worse that the same obsession had driven his mother from their marriage. The constant lectures about aliens and conspiracy theories had replaced board games and tossing a ball in the yard. Benjamin hadn’t made it to a single one of Cameron’s band recitals in middle school — but Cameron had definitely made it to Machu Picchu and to meet the hunched-over shaman who couldn’t wait to talk about little green men. If Benjamin wanted to feel butt-hurt over Cameron’s jabs about their shared past, so be it. Someone needed to knock the man down a few pegs every once in a while — to remind him that archaeology and aliens didn’t single-mindedly interest everyone the way they interested him.
But Cameron was vindicated a few minutes later. As assured, the narrow hallway yawned into a wide chamber in the ancient structure’s central base — a place that was supposed to be caved in but turned out fine, just like Yusef promised.
Benjamin went ahead, spreading out, still conspicuously silent. His headlamp played along the walls, in many small cubbies like ancient shelves. Cameron watched him circulate, shining the lantern on everything. Finally Benjamin stooped to pick something up — a small item, the size of a coin. He looked up, and Cameron waited for his thanks and congratulations, waited for his father to tell him he wasn’t an idiot after all.
“This isn’t the right chamber,” Benjamin said.
“What? Of course it is!”
“No, it’s not.” Benjamin shook his
head. “See that?”
Cameron followed his father’s gesture and found a pencil-thin spear of sunlight shining through the rock above.
“Anything seem wrong with that light to you?”
Cameron didn’t want to answer. The question was obviously loaded.
“Does that look like a northern-facing shaft?” Benjamin asked, still pointing. “You know … for the Sun Chamber?”
“Um …”
“Hell, Cam. Of course it’s not.”
“But it’s the chamber on the map!”
“It’s just a room.” Benjamin swore under his breath. It wasn’t easy to move around undetected. If the Mullah caught wind that outsiders were snooping, there’d be hell to pay. Lucky that this was a minor outpost so their presence would be light — not much, globally speaking, to see here.
“Look at the ornamentation, Dad!” Cameron pointed around the chamber. There were symbols everywhere and a round object made of stone or ceramic lying flat, not entirely visible, on a raised podium. “It’s obviously something. Yusef must’ve—”
Benjamin reached for the napkin. Cameron, more out of reflex than sense, tried to snatch it away. Benjamin caught a pinch, and the napkin tore neatly in two.
“Great. Just great.” Benjamin held out his hand, and Cameron dutifully handed over the napkin’s second half. His mood had gone from triumphant to chastised in thirty short seconds.
Benjamin looked over the torn napkin. “Like I said. Not the Sun Chamber. This is either drawn wrong or you’re reading it wrong. Although how that could possibly happen with such excellent cartography, I can’t imagine.”
“Well, then let’s just figure out what this place is. You didn’t even know this chamber was here, did you? Lemons from lemonade, Dad.”
Benjamin was shaking his head. Pouting, Cameron thought. Now that they were here, they’d explore the chamber, all right, but not until his dad got his passive-aggressive digs in. The great Benjamin Bannister didn’t like arriving at sites unprepared — and whatever this strange ceremonial room was, it hadn’t been researched. It could be anything, and without knowing what he was looking for or at, he’d miss the obvious. But in Cameron’s mind, this was a case of getting more than they’d bargained for, not less. They’d check their current chamber out then find the Sun Chamber. Two chambers for the price of one.