Resurrection

by Sean Platt

  When the light and sensation had mostly abated, a circular vortex began to glow on the wall. And then Sarah saw a blonde-haired woman’s face appear, disembodied. The woman began to speak. But as Sarah considered responding, the words continued, and Sarah realized she was looking at some sort of black magic — a message left in light from someone in the past, meant to be received by someone at an unknown point in the future.

  “If you have found this,” the woman said, “It is because the observer has not returned to us and instead has found a new host. This was not our intention, but it was always a possibility.”

  Sarah watched the woman, fascinated.

  “We will not return, as agreed. But as we are changing, so might you change.”

  Sarah felt a strange feeling in her belly. Her hands went back to it, and after a moment of discomfort, she finally lifted her shirt to look at her skin — to see if she’d scraped herself on the way in, or otherwise caused injury.

  Instead she saw her glowing body. And it struck her clearly that the woman wasn’t talking to Sarah, from whatever time in the past she’d made this message.

  She was talking to Sarah’s baby.

  “When you are ready,” the woman said, “come and find us.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  So here’s the way these things go:

  Late in 2014, Sean and I decided to write something that would appeal to the rabid sci-fi fans we hadn’t quite hit with The Beam (which you should read now that you’re done with Invasion, by the way) or our other sci-fi properties. Because although we’d written compelling sci-fi in the past, we hadn’t written mainstream sci-fi. There’s a difference. Compelling means that the story is good — great, even. Mainstream means that a huge number of everyday folks can see the cover, hear the concept, and immediately know it’s something they want to read. Compelling and mainstream can overlap, of course, but they don’t always.

  As of late 2015, our shit was too rich and complex to be truly mainstream.

  (I practically needed a GPS, an accountant, and a 1700s-era mariner’s transit to get through all the plot twists in the third season of The Beam. It’s a great story, for sure. But holy crap.)

  And that sucked a little from an audience-growing point of view.

  So we set ourselves some rules. We decided to write a less twisty-and-turny plotline. We’d keep things simple because more straightforward stories excite readers and deliver thrills. We’d give readers what they were asking for, in maximal numbers. We’d tell a riveting story, then get out of the way.

  What was hot? Alien invasion stories.

  And hey, that was easy because we already had one in mind. Sean and his other writing partner, Dave, had actually pitched an alien invasion story to a publisher a while back, then never written it. And I’ve been known to pick up crumbs of other writing partners like a scavenger crow.

  We’d tell the story of aliens coming to earth in our way — but stick to the rules of such books as readers understood them.

  We’d start with A, and write through to Z.

  And because we wanted to give ourselves a good head start, we wrote all of the initial trilogy — Invasion, Contact, and Colonization — before publishing the first book. Before telling anyone the first book existed. Then all of a sudden, with no warning, we’d drop the first book on the world — with two more in the bank, ready to follow.

  (Internally, we referred to this whole project as “the Beyoncé,” because Beyoncé was badass enough once to just drop an album like we dropped these books. And also because we dance just like her.)

  That was how it began: one simple story, told right down the middle. And for a while, we stuck to that plan.

  Well. It didn’t stay that way.

  The way we had the full series figured, it’d unfold like this: humanity gets invaded; humanity gets judged on the big cosmic scale; humanity fails that judgment and gets wiped off the planet. We’d need some ray of hope so that people didn’t end on a downer, but that’s more or less how we saw things.

  Humanity fails.

  Humanity dies.

  Humanity is basically told to get it right next time, and the series ends.

  We stuck with that plan for the first few books, but then we started to realize that it wasn’t going to be so simple. For one, the idea of just killing off the humans and being done with it kind of blew ass. Who wants that ending? So we considered alternatives, knowing full well that we were considering said alternatives after several books were already out in the world and it was too late to change history. And that gave us some unique challenges.

  For one: If the aliens don’t win, does humanity? Because that’s a trope, too. There are stories that end in obliteration and stories that end with upheaval. Problem was, neither of us bought the notion that these all-powerful aliens could be defeated by garden-variety humans. What was this, Independence Day? Were we going to have Will Smith fly into the belly of the mothership and set off a bomb? The idea was ridiculous. So nope, the humans couldn’t win either. Not without a lot of help.

  I could go on and on, but if you’ve read the story to its end (and if you haven’t, why are you reading the Author’s Note?), then you know we were unable to keep the story simple. It got super convoluted. I pulled out my GPS and my mariner’s transit and I dialed up my accountant. And I said:

  “Wait. So the Astrals Founders were responsible for Meyer being a leap forward in evolution? No? Oooh … the Founders were responsible for the chaos of the first ‘human seeding’ that culminated in Meyer or someone like him being an eventual consequence of that chaos?”

  Because I don’t actually have an accountant, there was no easy answer.

  But Sean and I talked it out over and over, and eventually decided it worked. Because that solution didn’t mean the humans or the Astrals won. It was more like a stalemate. The Astrals couldn’t destroy humanity because they were intertwined with us thanks to Meyer and Clara. The only solution — once the Ark was opened and Divinity’s plan was out of the way — was for the Astrals to evolve as well.

  Now, let’s go back in time. Set the way-back machine for early 2015, when we Beyoncé’d the first book in the series.

  Believe it or not, there were people who didn’t like that our alien invasion story didn’t actually have an alien invasion in it. We were shocked. (Not really.)

  But it’s true. In that first book, the Astrals don’t show up until the very end. And some of those same annoyed readers felt that the ending of Book 1 was “tacked on.” They said that we added the scene where Meyer was abducted by the shuttle because we wanted to force a sequel.

  And that part? It wasn’t true.

  That, Faithful Reader, was why we wrote the first Author’s Note in this series, which you’ll find in the back of Invasion: to explain to readers that we hadn’t started with Meyer just for the hell of it, and we hadn’t decided only at the last minute that he should be abducted. That Author’s Note was our way of asking our readers to have faith in us and hang in there because we had plans in mind.

  Here’s some of what we said:

  It’d be easy to enjoy this novel’s ride, taking a quasi-apocalyptic adventure ending in a confrontation and a twist ending. You can do that if you’d like. Plenty of readers certainly seem to enjoy this book on that level.

  But we hope, when this series is done, that you’ll look back and see Invasion for what it is in the larger story’s context.

  Because the story doesn’t start with the aliens.

  The story begins with Meyer Dempsey.

  The story begins with an itch that Meyer can’t quite scratch — an urge not to flee the city or escape the crowds or even to get his family away from danger … but rather from an overwhelming urge to reach his “Axis Mundi” — a place he was told was special through his dreams and journeying in an otherworldly haze.

  In Contact, you’ll learn where Meyer vanished to, and why.

  In Colonization, you’ll see what role Meyer has
yet to play, and you’ll see how he was always handpicked by his captors, always selected in advance for a purpose, always dragged toward his axis as if by an invisible hand.

  And in the following books, you’ll learn what the aliens want from us. From the planet. And from Meyer himself.

  Meyer Dempsey — whom many readers hated and found grating — mattered. To the entire human race.

  And Lila, who started as a selfish brat, mattered. Because she was Meyer’s daughter.

  And second-to-most of all — or maybe even most of all we could argue — Clara mattered. Because although Meyer was the hybrid whose dual nature allowed human changes to “pollute” the Astrals (thus forcing their hand and evolution), it was Clara’s unique position that ultimately broke the system where the Founders had meant for it to break.

  Meyer’s next-level hybrid mind …

  Plus the changes to our “external collective intelligence,” altered forever by the Internet …

  Equalled Clara.

  We went back and forth a lot over this ending, starting in Book 5. Because by then we knew Clara mattered more than we’d thought and that Meyer mattered differently than we’d believed. We wanted to give our readers a satisfying, thrilling conclusion that answered all the questions and tied up all the loose ends, and needed a way for humans to be victorious without getting away scot-free. We knew pretty early that there’d be a near extinction, but that we’d survive it. We wanted a reset, but a wise reset.

  And given all of that, this book you’ve just read was how it all seemed to work out.

  We hope you enjoyed it.

  Now, one parting word, about that ending.

  You might be wondering if the story is truly over, if Meyer’s observer found a new home in Sarah’s baby. Because that means there’s still a hybrid left on Earth, and that the Astrals know it’s there.

  The answer, as it always is with us, is maybe.

  We do know for sure that Invasion, as the arc we imagined from the start, is over.

  But we won’t know — not until the collective intelligence tickles us — whether or not a new story might one day begin.

  One day, maybe we’ll find out together.

  Thank you so much for being a reader.

  — Johnny (and Sean)

  July 2016

  Austin, Texas

  SO WHAT’S NEXT?

  Sucks finishing a series, doesn’t it? Well, fear not because you can begin something new right now — our sci-fi/political thriller, The Beam.

  Click here to buy Season 1 of The Beam.

  When all of humanity is connected, the center of the Web is the seat of true power.

  In a century, the world’s old political borders have dissolved. At the center of what remains of civilization sits the NAU, a nation ruled by two political parties: Enterprise, the sink-or-swim party where each party member has no one else to blame for their starvation or astronomical wealth, and Directorate, whose members have a guaranteed safety net but can never rise above their station.

  Every six years, an election determines the course of the NAU’s future. The process is called Shift, and the next one is coming soon. With humanity intertwined by way of the Beam -- a hyper-advanced version of the Internet that serves every whim and need -- Shift is the be-all and the end-all. More than an electoral method, it is the future’s political discourse…

  And through it all, a shadowy group is pulling strings behind the scenes, guiding Shift exactly where they want it to go. Their identities are unknown to all but a few, and anyone who stumbles upon them by accident — or, worse, learns their true goal — is swiftly disposed of. But if their power goes unchecked, their cloak-and-dagger actions will shape the fate of millions for years to come ...

  Plug your mind into The Beam. It's been waiting for you.

  Learn the Story Behind Resurrection

  Want to know how this book was written? Back Story is our podcast where we talk about the creation and writing of all our books. Follow the link below to hear how we took Resurrection from concept to completed work. It’s like DVD extras, but for books.

  Go here to get the Back Story: http://sterlingandstone.net/go/resurrection-backstory/

  WE NEED YOU …

  Without reviews, indie books like this one are almost impossible to market.

  Leaving a review will only take a minute — it doesn’t have to be long or involved, just a sentence or two that tells people what you liked about the book, to help other readers know why they might like it, too, and to help us write more of what you love.

  The truth is, VERY few readers leave reviews. Please help us by being the exception.

  Thank you in advance!

  Johnny and Sean

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Johnny B. Truant is an author, blogger, and podcaster who, like the Ramones, was long denied induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame despite having a large cult following. He makes his online home at SterlingAndStone.Net and is the author of the Fat Vampire series, the Unicorn Western series, the political sci-fi thriller The Beam, and many more.

  You can connect with Johnny on Twitter at @JohnnyBTruant, and you should totally send him an email at johnny@sterlingandstone.net if the mood strikes you.

  Sean Platt is speaker, author, and co-founder of Realm & Sands. He is also co-founder of Collective Inkwell, home to the breakout indie hitsYesterday’s Gone and WhiteSpace, co-authored with David W. Wright. Sean also publishes smart stories for children under the pen name Guy Incognito, and writes laugh out loud comedies with Johnny under the pen name Max Power. You can see Sterling & Stone’s complete catalogue at SterlingAndStone.Net/Books. Sean lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, daughter, and son.

  You can find Sean at SterlingAndStone.Net, follow him on Twitter at @SeanPlatt, or send him an email at sean@sterlingandstone.net.

  For any questions about Sterling & Stone books or products, or help with anything at all, please send an email to help@sterlingandstone.net, or contact us at sterlingandstone.net/contact. Thank you for reading.