Invasion | Box Set | Books 1-7

by Platt, Sean

  “What sucks?”

  “Forgetting how sassy I used to be.” He gestured to Clara’s cup. “I remember when I found that in my pack. A part of me understood that it was my cup, but a bigger part of me treated it like something I’d unearthed from the ground. I didn’t question what it was or how it could even exist. I’d found a goddamned metal-and-plastic travel mug at the dawn of man with World’s Sassiest Aide written on the side, and I simply accepted it. Like, no big deal. After a half hour or so, it felt like a logical thing for our tiny tribe of hunter-gatherers to have.”

  Clara smiled at Kamal. She’d liked him back at Jabari’s palace and found that she liked him even better now.

  “Did you at least act sassy once you started using it?”

  “Sadly, I couldn’t read at the time and was hence oblivious to the sassy imperatives the mug implied.” He sipped, then sat. “Do you have written language in your village?”

  Clara nodded and made a noise of agreement. The Lightborn had seen to literacy. The Rest of Humanity’s Existence was too long a wait without something to read, or at least the ability to leave notes and scribble to-dos.

  “I’d think you could infer sassy from this font, even without the ability to read.”

  “We also didn’t have typography. It’s been a tough era for graphic designers.” Kamal pointed at a thin-faced woman in her hut across the fire. “And the irony? Veronica is a graphic designer. Or was. You know.”

  Clara took another look around the small clearing. “You’ve been here all along? In this same spot?”

  “Yep.”

  Clara looked into the dark and laughed without humor. “I doubt you’re ten miles from us. How have we never run into each other?”

  “Maybe it was luck. Or something a lot like luck, but different.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Clara raised her cup, and Kamal clinked it with his.

  “Did you come over on the vessel?” she said after a quiet moment. “The one Mara and I took with all the others? I didn’t see you on board. And Mara never mentioned seeing you. She felt terrible that she’d had to leave you behind.”

  “That’s because I was so sassy.” He took a sip, shifting on his rock by the fire. “No, I missed the vessel. I tried like hell to get on it, believe me. But the crowds … Well, you saw the panic. I don’t think they’d have parted for my diplomatic credentials. Besides, I wasn’t in the lottery to get on board anyway. I’d already opted out so someone more vital to the future could take a spot.”

  Clara thought that was selfless enough to cry over, but she shoved it away. “So how did you survive?”

  “Boat,” Kamal said.

  “I thought the Astrals blew all the other boats out of the water.” Except the monolith, her mind amended.

  “Hey, I don’t understand it either. I know how this sounds, but I sort of feel like I was … guided.”

  “Guided how?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Clara thought she’d believe him just fine. She even had ideas how it might have happened and who’d been behind the guiding. But she let that go as well, saying nothing.

  “My mother died today.”

  Kamal looked over. Clara kept her gaze straight ahead, offering only her profile.

  “Was she in the caves? Where we found you?”

  “No. She was somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a moored ship past our village. I think it happened there.”

  “Today?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you were …” Kamal stopped, probably calculating travel times and realizing they didn’t jibe. Finally he seemed to let it go just as Clara had and said only, “I’m sorry.”

  There was another long, quiet moment. Only the fire spoke. Then Clara turned, her eyes drier than they should be. “Kamal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you believe in fate? That everything happens for a reason?”

  He seemed to really think before finally saying, “I guess I have to.”

  “I couldn’t tell you why, but I get this feeling that what happened with … with my mom?” She took an extra breath, then pushed on. “It hurts. It really hurts.” She put her hand on her chest, near her heart. “But at the same time, somehow it feels necessary. Like there’s a purpose to it, for the greater good.” After a half second she turned her head and said, “Jesus, that sounds awful.”

  “No. I think I understand.”

  Clara finally turned and met the man’s haunted expression. “What happened to you, Kamal?”

  “I was ready to die back in Ember Flats. I really, truly was. When the network finally broke and I couldn’t reach Mara anymore? That happened before the floodwaters hit us. Quite a while before, really. There was only one way out of town, and I’d already surrendered my spot. I’d told her I’d watch the city, so I decided that was all I had left to do. I’d be safe until the end, locked in that bunker. It was even possible that the seals were good enough to keep the water out once the city flooded. I could live a while that way, if the water didn’t go high enough to cover the stack vents. I had supplies. It would be like living in an undersea habitat I could never leave.”

  “That sounds horrible.”

  “I figured I could stay busy until I ran out of air, water, or food — whichever came first. There was a charged Vellum loaded with books. I wasn’t sure how the generator worked or if it would vent right and not asphyxiate me, but I knew there was one, plus fuel enough for a while. There were TV shows and movies on the juke. I’d lost the city network, but the computers were filled with plenty of files.”

  “You were just going to settle in? Just like that, for as long as you could?”

  “I had a Plan B if things went south.” He touched the gun at his side — the first firearm Clara had seen since the New Beginning. She felt herself watching him with sympathy, unable to help it. He laughed.

  “Relax. You know the ending of this story. It worked out. I didn’t even see the floods until I was on my boat with the crew of the SS Cubicle beside me.” He nodded to the huts and their unseen occupants. “But I did start going through Mara’s files, because she was always stingy with information and I figured this was my last revenge. She had tons of data on the Astrals. Most of it was Da Vinci Initiate archives — stuff Mara probably never even went through but kept for reference. I plinked around for a while, but at some point during my repeating cycle of time-killing activities — read, make a lap around the room, do five push-ups, stand in front of the mirror and declare a sassy affirmation — I started to wonder why, when your grandfather and the others wanted to leave the city, she insisted on staying. It was a real puzzler. She said it was safer in the bunker than outside, but Mara was the kind of person who always had plans to back up her backups.”

  “Was she staying in case I came back?”

  “Maybe. You’d have to ask her.”

  Clara felt her lips purse. She exhaled. He didn’t know.

  “Mara passed away.”

  His head bobbed. Apparently it wasn’t unexpected.

  “I don’t know if she stayed for you. We thought for a while the Mullah had abducted you for leverage. That little point of confusion led to quite the concussion.” He rubbed his temple absently, like a reflex. “But it had me thinking in circles. Mara either stayed because she thought it was safer inside the city — or for you — or because someone else needed to go.”

  “Are you suggesting she stayed behind so that my grandfather and the others could take the sub? There were a bunch of them, weren’t there?”

  “Plenty.” Kamal nodded. “Plenty for Mara and me to go with you, if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with unconsciousness at the time. But who knows? Maybe only one worked. Maybe if two subs had gone, they would have presented a bigger target for the Astrals and nobody would have survived.”

  “Kamal. There’s no way Mara could have known anything like that.”

  “I�
��m sure she didn’t. And I don’t think she had delusions that she did. I’m just saying that one way or another, everything worked out. And so when you ask about whether I believe things happen for a reason? Well, it’s hard to argue with the results. I’m here. As are you. Mara made it, and so did Meyer, based on what you’re saying. So who’s to say it wasn’t all planned that way … somehow?”

  Clara turned to the internal vision of her mother and the departed at the end of that long hallway. It sure did feel like Lila’s death had a cosmic reason — but of course she’d feel that way. Invoking faith was just another way of saying the deceased had gone to a better place. Believing the irrational made grieving so much easier.

  “Maybe it’s coincidence,” Clara said.

  Kamal shifted on the rock, rolling a bit to the side to access his pocket. He reached down, and when his hand opened in front of Clara, there was a polished silver sphere sitting on its palm.

  “Do you know what this is? I’ve carried it like a holy token every day of my life here, and still it doesn’t have a scratch. That used to tell me it was something special, like it would make me invincible or bring me luck. But this morning I remembered where it came from. That’s when I rounded everyone up, saddled the horses, and rode ‘quickly to the east, in the direction of the rising sun, to find her.’” He nodded meaningfully toward Clara. “To find you, Clara, just in time.”

  Clara picked up the sphere, cradled it in her hand, feeling a quiet buzz from its smooth metal skin.

  “Stranger. Stranger gave this to you, didn’t he?”

  Kamal shrugged, apparently not knowing the name. “A tall man in jeans and boots. Long, narrow face and hands the size of dinner plates.”

  “Why? To save me? But he couldn’t possibly know …” She stopped on her own, shaking her head, lost.

  “He told me I needed to tell you something.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I don’t know.” He clinked his cup against hers. “Maybe it’s that now, you’re the world’s sassiest aide.”

  “It’s just a coincidence, Kamal. It’s luck. It has to be.”

  “I don’t think so, Clara.”

  “I do.”

  “I don’t,” he insisted.

  Clara’s shoulders rose and fell. She met his stare. “Why? What makes me so special?”

  But Kamal just repeated what he’d said before.

  “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The dark-haired Astral — Divinity, Meyer believed she was most conveniently called, though of course every entity that ran a mothership was called the same damned thing — entered the room. She stood in the white doorway, nearly impossible to tell from the white room other than by a slight difference in illumination. Meyer was sitting, far more coherent than he’d felt earlier, Carl still watching him as if he expected Meyer to go berserk at any moment. The two men hadn’t spoken since Meyer started babbling. Carl seemed to prefer silence over nonsense.

  “You,” she said, pointing at Carl. “Go for a walk.”

  Carl looked at Meyer as if this might make sense to him. It didn’t. Meyer was more or less himself again, strange transcendental experience aside. For a while it had felt like he was on a medicine man’s trip through the expanded universe, but right now he was only a man with the limited knowledge that came with it. And something was wrong with him — he was finding the Astral attractive, having mood swings like a pregnant woman, oscillating between confused, terrified, and apparently plain old cocky Meyer Dempsey — who’d apparently been in short supply over the past two decades.

  The woman sighed. Rolled her eyes. Then stepped aside.

  Two Titans entered.

  “Don’t make me say please.”

  Carl gave Meyer another glance. Meyer shrugged. After another few beats, Carl stood, went to the door, and gave Divinity another long look to be sure she was really asking him to leave their prison — in the company of the Titans, but departing nonetheless — then finally moved past her. Once the trio’s footsteps faded, another two Titans appeared.

  She moved to a wall. Pressed a panel. A small door opened, and she dragged out what looked like an ordinary desk chair — all white, of course. Then she turned it around and sat, legs primly crossed, looking up at Meyer until he did the same on one of the benches along the wall, opposite her.

  “Needed a prop?” Meyer asked, nodding toward the chair.

  “Needed a place to sit.” She raised her eyebrows. “Would you like one?”

  “I’ve got a seat.” He tapped the bench. “And there weren’t any more chairs in there anyway.” He looked at the closed compartment, now invisible.

  “This wasn’t just sitting in there,” Divinity said. “It made the chair at my request.”

  “I didn’t hear you request anything.”

  She assessed him, her stare unblinking.

  “There are a lot of things we’re able to do that you have yet to figure out.”

  Meyer waited for more, but she took her time going on.

  “I could ask that compartment to make me a table. Or a refrigerator. Or a baseball bat.”

  “You know baseball?”

  “We know your game. But why did you leap to that conclusion? Perhaps I needed something I could beat you to death with.”

  Another long pause.

  “I don’t think you’d have brought me here if you wanted to kill me.”

  “I was offering examples. Don’t be so jumpy.”

  Meyer shook his head. “What are you? Really.”

  “You can call me Divinity.”

  “Bullshit. You strike me as human. I know what Divinity is like. They’re stiff. Can’t talk for the sticks up their asses. I used to share Kindred’s memories, and he talked to you all the time.”

  “Kindred?” She pretended not to understand. Then: “Yes. I remember. The duplicate we sent down to fuck your wife.”

  Meyer had his rebuttal ready, but that particular comment took him off guard.

  “He seemed to think that—”

  “The second duplicate we sent down to fuck your wife, actually. The first was so damaged that at the end, it wanted to fuck your ex-wife, too.”

  Meyer’s brow wrinkled. “What are you?”

  “Divinity.”

  “You don’t talk like they do. You don’t act like they do.”

  “Maybe I’ve improved at my job. Perhaps during the past twenty years we’ve had to stay here thanks to your granddaughter, I’ve learned the trick of getting under a man’s skin.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged and made a why not pout with her lips. “Why beat you to death with a baseball bat?”

  Meyer sat back, unsure where this was headed. Divinity made up the difference, leaning forward, elbows on the knees exposed by her mid-length skirt.

  “Let’s cut the shit, as your people say.”

  “Okay.”

  “You know what you are.”

  “I thought we were discussing what you were,” Meyer said.

  “Our monitors showed you in here not long ago, babbling as if you were intoxicated. Then you said, ‘You don’t have to kill them. You can outrun them.’”

  “So?”

  “Were you intoxicated?”

  “There’s nothing in here to drink. Or eat. Or use.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Meyer didn’t respond. After a moment, Divinity shook her head and sat back. She walked to a wall and pressed something to open the door. She didn’t say anything to the Titans, but both looked at her as if not hearing correctly, then eventually half shrugged and left the room. The door closed. Divinity pressed something else, and the panel flashed red.

  “You can speak freely. We’re alone.”

  “Without your guards, what’s to stop me from tackling you and breaking your neck?”

  Divinity shrugged as she sat back in her chair. “Nothing, I suppose. But this is just a body. You of all people should understand t
hat the body is only matter, and that the energy lives beyond it.”

  “Why would I ‘of all people’ know that?” Meyer’s legs had tensed of their own accord. Without his mind’s permission, Meyer’s body had taken the idea to spring and tackle as a legitimate one. He somehow felt certain that the woman-thing was bluffing — despite her being a puppet for Divinity’s true being, the death of this meaningless body was something she’d fight hard to prevent.

  “Who were you talking to when you said, ‘You can outrun them’?”

  “Myself.”

  “And who was the ‘them’ in that sentence? Who could be outrun? And to where?”

  “It didn’t mean anything. I was babbling.”

  “I thought we agreed to cut the shit?”

  Divinity’s tongue found her cheek. She seemed to consider whether or not to say something else, fingers working in tiny rhythms on her lap, her every nuance perfect. She was barely alien — as good a human as any of them.

  “Do you seriously not know what you did?”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  Another long pause. Divinity was deciding whether or not to give him more without getting something in return. An effortless negotiation that wasn’t a negotiation at all. If he’d been holding out like a poker match, he would have been winning. But here Meyer was clueless.

  “Our species does not have a true hierarchy. You see Reptars and Titans and Divinity, and above Divinity you see Eternity, responsible for the largest of our Earthfaring ships. But we are all the same. There is one field of energy, and the bodies are manifestations, like the tallest of underwater mountaintops poking their heads above the sea.”

  Meyer didn’t believe that at all. Maybe it had been true when they’d arrived, but this woman was nothing if not an individual.

  “Nevertheless, we consolidate our collective decisions within the area that manifests as Divinity — and above that, Eternity. It creates what appears to be a hierarchy, even though it is not.”

  “She’s your boss,” Meyer clarified.

  Divinity’s lips tightened, then relaxed. Her jaw worked.

  “Eternity believes that Earth is a malleable experiment. In short: Whatever happens, happens. Others in the collective have what you might feel is a more literal interpretation: The experiment operates within strict conditions, and any events that outgrow those conditions should be considered anomalies. Our usual protocol with farm planets is to conduct a reset at the end of each epoch so that the next one will not be flawed with the previous epoch’s prejudices. So when, after the extinction and population reset, our Forgetting failed to hold, there was disagreement in what has previously been a harmonious whole. One opinion — that of Eternity — called for us to continue the experiment until we could accomplish a complete Forgetting. And so that is what we have done: we’ve been in orbit this entire time, trying to erase knowledge that Clara somehow keeps restoring as fast as we can blank it.”