Invasion | Box Set | Books 1-7

by Platt, Sean

  Well, the Astrals hadn’t known about the Lightborn. Not what they meant. And in the ways that mattered, the aliens still didn’t truly know why the Lightborn were so incredibly important. The Mullah seemed to suspect, but the Astrals hadn’t a clue. They simply weren’t human enough to get it.

  And the Astrals didn’t know what the Pall had been. What Stranger now represented, now that he truly understood what he was and why he’d been born — now that he’d soaked in so much more of the emotion that had caused him to be here in the first place.

  Maybe the newfangled breed of humanity hadn’t developed the New Age mental kumbaya that the Astrals expected, but another thing Stranger knew (that the Astrals had missed): they were mentally connected all the same.

  Meyer Dempsey proved it with drugs. He proved it by taking ayahuasca with Heather. At the time, Stranger knew by looking inside his own memories, Heather had thought they were tripping out and having fun. But even back then Meyer had suspected their journeys were something more. He’d known even all those years ago that by speaking to “Mother Ayahuasca,” he’d been talking to some kind of universal unconsciousness, composed of all the minds the world — all the worlds — had to offer.

  That had opened one kind of window — the one that had let the Astrals see Meyer’s world through his eyes, and begin to judge it while their ships were still on their way to Earth.

  But there were other kinds of windows to open, just like there were other ways in which universal unconsciousnesses were formed.

  Stranger crossed his legs.

  He closed his eyes.

  And as the window opened in front of him, he said to the New Human Collective: “What they tell you next, friends? It’s only smoke and mirrors.”

  He felt the collective’s minds turn to listen, even if they didn’t understand what they were hearing.

  And Stranger told them about themselves. About who they were and what they represented. And about how Cousin Timmy might just have his day after all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Whatever was happening, things were getting worse rather than better.

  Kindred followed Peers through the upstairs hallways, not so much oblivious to the frenzied, all-too-human panic visible through gaps in the fence as mindfully defiant of it. All that was happening in Ember Flats struck Kindred as stupid and annoying. So the water had turned to blood? It wasn’t like the Astrals were killing everyone, which is what was supposed to happen in the aftermath of rendered judgment. The entire population — especially after Meyer and Kindred had told them about Heaven’s Veil and the massacre there — had been primed for a bloodbath. Instead, the Astrals had given them a bath in blood. Context made all the difference. Blood water smelled bad, but it didn’t hurt anyone. And yet even now that the shuttle lasers and Reptar patrols had mostly stopped (so far as Kindred could see, and so far as Jabari reported from her monitors), everyone kept right on panicking.

  Kindred kind of wished the Astrals would get on with it. At least that would shut everyone up and stop their whining.

  He clenched his fists. He couldn’t close his eyes or he’d run into Piper’s back, but he forced himself to breathe. And again he recited, for the thousandth time:

  It’s just the Ark. Cameron opened the Ark, and you’re feeling its negative energy, not just your own. Cameron dropped his dumb ass into the Ark as some sort of a mindless sacrifice, and for some reason that’s a goddamned problem. For some reason Cameron’s issue became your issue. You were supposed to make a speech. You did your, part and Cameron was supposed to do his, but he did it wrong (or maybe too right) and now the world is filled with bad juju. It’s not you who’s pissed off; it’s the world, thanks to all this bullshit with Cameron and his inability to follow a simple set of fucking instructions.

  Kindred’s fists didn’t unclench. He wasn’t calming. At first, the self-talk had seemed to remind him that he was being influenced by the Ark’s bad energy — all the judgment in the air and whatnot. At first, he’d felt a bit better with every reminder, telling himself that he felt angry because the planet felt angry. But not anymore. Now whenever he thought of the Ark, he got pissed at Cameron for botching his part of their carefully laid plan.

  Meyer’s hand on Kindred’s upper arm, surprising him enough to make him jump.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Meyer asked, his voice a near-whisper.

  Kindred, startled enough that his emotions fell to neutral, turned to Meyer. It was like looking in a mirror except that Kindred, during their time in the basement, had shaved whereas Meyer hadn’t — probably planning to regrow his salt-and-pepper beard. But why wouldn’t Kindred shave? Life went on. And if he needed to shave again now that things had gone red, he’d lather up and shave with blood. It’d be very pagan. Very manly.

  “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “Bullshit. You’re all pissed. You’re making it hard to concentrate.”

  “What do you need so badly to concentrate on?”

  “Peers.”

  “What about him?”

  For the second Meyer spent glaring, Kindred thought his double might slap or shake him. But then Meyer’s incredulous look became words, and he said, “I’ve been in your head for a half hour at least about this. You haven’t noticed?”

  “I’ve been preoccupied.”

  “I gathered. About the Ark? But who cares? It’s open. It’s over.”

  Even having this discussion was proof of how much things had soured. Normally there was no need to whisper because anything that required whispering could be done in their shared mind. Meyer had gained intense human insight during his time in captivity, and Kindred was supposed to be their Astral half, able to access the motherships and Divinity, even if only partway. Together their shared headspace was like a room full of supercomputers. At least that’s the way it was supposed to be, with interoffice memos passed between them below the level of conscious thought. Meyer’s presence in that shared space — borrowing from Kindred’s mind, basically — without him noticing? That was troubling. And the way Meyer seemed not to understand why the Ark still troubled Kindred? That was troubling, too.

  “Tell me why you’re concentrating on Peers,” Kindred said, deflecting Meyer’s question.

  “You’ve seen the scenarios. You’ve seen the conclusions.”

  Kindred looked inside. Yes, Meyer had begun assembling their usual scenarios, but the quiet part of Kindred’s mind didn’t seem to have been terribly involved. They’d be weak logical arguments at best, but it also meant that Kindred wouldn’t have a clue, without delving in, as to what they even were.

  “Pretend I haven’t.”

  Meyer gave him a look.

  “Just spell it out. I’m an auditory learner sometimes.”

  The look persisted. But after another few steps down the long hallway, lagging farther behind Piper, Lila, and Peers at their group’s head, Meyer complied.

  “Peers is hiding something.”

  “We knew that.”

  “He knows far too much without logical roots. He’s making assumptions about Clara and the Mullah with nuances that would only come from experience.”

  “You think he took her?”

  “No.”

  “He was in on it,” Kindred said.

  Meyer paused. Apparently he was having trouble accepting that now was the first time Kindred was hearing any of this. “Not necessarily.”

  “What, then?”

  “He might be Mullah.”

  “In which case?”

  “We’re headed to tunnels only Peers knows about. Tunnels. Tubes underground in which we could be easily surrounded. The Mullah have been trying to catch us, but we’ve always managed to get away. Maybe this is their chance, and Peers is their tool.”

  “So we shouldn’t go.”

  “You really haven’t looked at the scenarios?”

  “Just tell me, dammit.”

  “Given the alternative, it’s still the best option. But there a
re other questions. His nerves, for one. And some of his biometrics. He’s sweating too much. His pupils are dilated. His pulse is up. I can hear it, for fuck’s sake. And that makes us think that he’s hiding something beyond being Mullah. Something more present than a plot to trap us.”

  Kindred noticed Meyer’s use of the word “us,” as if Kindred had been involved in the analysis. He let it go.

  “What’s the assessment?”

  “Guilt.”

  “Guilt over what?”

  “It’s hard to say. That’s why we’re concentrating on watching him — so we can see if it’s guilt that makes him dangerous or guilt that will make him helpful. Perhaps he’s guilty because he was involved in Clara’s abduction and now he plans to make amends. Or maybe it’s something bigger. My money’s on something bigger. But I can’t really tell because I keep trying to concentrate, and all I hear is your bitching. About the Ark.”

  “It’s been on my mind.”

  “Why?”

  Kindred glanced at Meyer. If there was one person he could be honest with, it was Meyer. But in the end they weren’t actually the same person. Meyer was human, and Kindred — despite all he’d been forced to go through — was still Astral. The minute he admitted to being more angry than sympathetic toward humans, the group would turn on him. What was happening in Ember Flats? It was Us versus Them. Only perimeter security had kept the hordes out of the palace so far, but the power wouldn’t stay on forever. Then the obnoxious, panicky human assholes would come inside, too, with little patience for Astrals of any shape or size — especially if they seemed to be losing a grip on what had made them human-ish in the first place.

  “It’s just another datum for our scenarios,” Kindred lied.

  “Seems like a big datum. And I’m not even seeing your mind inside.”

  Kindred forced himself to focus. He entered the mindspace. He felt Meyer join him, and together their mental selves moved to the cognitive planning tables to work scenarios about Peers and his potential plans.

  “Better?” Kindred said.

  Meyer watched him for a long moment. His beard was already noticeably back, stubble dark and obvious. Humans were so damned hairy. This one in particular.

  “Good enough,” Meyer answered.

  At the group’s head, Peers stopped. Piper and Lila paused behind him, and Meyer and Kindred brought up the rear. They all looked forward at nothing. The wall at the group’s head looked ordinary enough to Kindred, but it seemed special to Peers — and after a few moments’ searching he popped open a concealed panel under the baseboard. Kindred bent forward to assess it. Inside the panel was what looked like a very strange keyhole: an inverted triangle made of three smaller inverted triangles.

  Peers pulled a keyring from his pocket. Kindred half expected him to brandish a key to match the strange hole, but instead he made three of the normal-looking keys into tips and touched them all to the contact points as if hoping to short-circuit a mechanism.

  There was a grumbling of stone on stone. A section of wall moved back, separating from its neighbors at cleverly concealed gaps in the panels.

  Below was a tunnel lined in ancient-looking stone, lit by what seemed to be dangling, naked bulbs.

  One by one they descended.

  Then, as they walked the tunnel at a fair clip, Kindred’s natural ability to mesh with Meyer’s mind returned, and they both repeated the same conclusion, one to the other.

  There is only ahead and behind. There is no way to escape if we are surrounded, and none of us but Peers knows where we might be going.

  This is a Mullah place.

  And even now, I can hear them stirring.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Lightborn children moved toward one end of the big room with all its tiny, nomadic living spaces, centering on a tall teenage boy that had to be Logan. To Clara, the movement seemed to be unspoken, unannounced — almost instinctual. Nobody had called them together. It was simply happening.

  But the message hadn’t reached Clara and didn’t seem to have reached Nick. Ella had moved on with the others, but Nick was still facing Clara as the others passed them, unheeding. The others must not be hearing either of their minds, either, because none perked up as they passed. They were all focused on something, and no distraction, for anyone, seemed loud enough to cause a diversion.

  “What do you mean, ‘expected plagues’? What kind of a ‘show’?”

  “It’s just a feeling I get.”

  Nick moved closer. He used his voice, but Clara could feel his thoughts reaching out as well, grabbing her by a mental arm, gripping it too tightly.

  “I get it. I’m asking, what’s the feeling?” It was more a demand than a question. Like Clara herself, Nick acted older than his years when compared to non-Lightborns. They were like a tribe of stunted adults. Pods grown to age fifteen or more before the day they entered the world.

  Clara looked around, uncomfortable. Her words were like a confession to clear the air of secrets and mental withholdings, but she hadn’t thought it would strike Nick as a surprise. They were all gifted. They could all see, hear, and sense things on the air that the others couldn’t. Clara had wanted to toss in the helpful information that seemed missing from the Lightborn Collective, but it hadn’t dawned on her that they’d have sighted none of it.

  Clara stammered to catch up.

  “The … the voices I hear. They seem to say …”

  “Like the voice from earlier? From on our way over, when you stopped on the street like you were listening?”

  “No. This is different.” And yet that voice was back as well. Or one an awful lot like it. Something inside her mind was rising, building steam. Did the others feel the same thing, or was she alone in that, too? She’d finally found a group of like minds who wouldn’t see her as a freak. But was she strange even within the Lightborn? A freak among the freaks?

  “Clara?” Nick prompted when she stalled. There was urgency in the air, like the building of a static charge. That, all of them seemed able to feel. Clara saw it in her mind like a timer ticking to zero. It was why the others were going to Logan, the reason Nick sounded so rushed and impatient.

  “Chatter. You can’t hear chatter?”

  “I hear the others in this room.”

  “What about the others outside this room?”

  “You’re saying you hear other Lightborn?” Nick’s raised eyebrows told Clara all she needed to know: They only knew those in the city. Another reason she’d never sensed collectives before now. They were local. Except that now that Clara knew what to listen for, she could swear there were ever more on the air.

  Freak among the freaks.

  She shook the thought away.

  “No. I mean like the siren. From before the blood. When we knew something was about to happen?”

  “Yeah …”

  “That’s it! That’s all I mean: like before, when we knew it was coming.”

  “Ella and I knew something was coming before the blood. Not what it was.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Did you know, Clara? Did you know the water would turn to blood?”

  The technical answer was no. She hadn’t know that the citizens of Ember Flats were turning on taps and stepping into baths made of liquid that would clot at the edges. But the story behind the story had been clear as day. The gist of her mind’s translation?

  Let’s see how they react to this.

  Even now, thinking back, Clara could see those moments from a distance. There weren’t specific words — at least not in English — but there was meaning and intent. There was curiosity, and dispassion. It hadn’t felt like punishment. It hadn’t felt like the Bible’s portrayal of ancient Egyptian plagues. Even now, it felt more like a science experiment. The mood behind the chatter was investigation and analysis, not retribution.

  “No.”

  “But you knew something.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “I told you.
No.”

  “Why is it a big deal?”

  Clara jarred something in Nick. Maybe he sensed her agitation — the feeling of being accused. So he let go a little, and the mental grip Clara felt on her mental arm relaxed.

  “Look. You’re different. Ella already sorta told you that, but the more time you spend here, the more obvious it becomes. To all of us.”

  Clara looked toward the assembling knot of Lightborn. Logan must have been standing on something in the group’s middle because he was above them all, his head as high as someone seven or eight feet tall. The others kept glancing back at her. Curious, yes. But maybe afraid.

  “Maybe it’s because you haven’t been around other Lightborn, or because you’re Viceroy Dempsey’s granddaughter. But you shone so bright we had to go out and get you. It’s not like light from the others. I can see into you just fine. But there’s … more.”

  “More how?”

  “That kid? From earlier? Cheever. He’s gifted. And nosy. Normally, people can’t keep secrets from him if he really wants to know them.”

  “I’m not trying to keep secrets!”

  “I’m not saying you are,” Nick said, subtly patting the air between them. “I’m saying that you puzzled him the way you’re puzzling the others whether you realize it or not.”

  “I realize, all right,” Clara said, again looking toward the group. Toward Logan, who was now looking right at them.

  “Point is, whatever you’re talking about with the plagues and the Astrals, I haven’t seen it in our hive. That means the others haven’t either. From where I’m standing, there was a warning, then the water turned to blood. But now you’re talking about a show. You’re talking like there’s something else behind it all.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe there is.”

  “Like how?” Nick asked.

  “I don’t know, Nick.”

  “You brought it up!”

  Clara’s patience broke. Her voice rose, and heads turned. “I don’t know! I don’t know! I just get a feeling, but I can’t tell you what it is, okay?”

  “Try. Just … try.”