by Sean Platt
There was a low whistling noise in the sky above. Charlie looked up nervously, searching for a shuttle or perhaps the dark specter the others said they kept seeing like kids afraid of the boogeyman. But Nathan knew what it was, and it was right on time.
The black drone glided by, rolling to a stop on the flat land just beyond them.
“Malfunctioning,” Charlie said.
Nathan and Charlie stared at each other while Coffey trotted over. She returned with nothing more elegant or spectacular than a slip of paper that must have been banded to the drone’s belly.
She handed the paper to Nathan. He read it and smiled.
“What?” Charlie asked.
“Looks like Dempsey got my message turning them in to save my skin,” he said, “and has requested my presence in Heaven’s Veil.”
“Why?”
“To make peace,” Nathan said. “To discuss resuming my duties, controlling the outlands for our alien overlords.”
CHAPTER 36
Cameron kept looking up, reminding himself that nobody was all knowing or all powerful, and that the Astrals weren’t an exception.
There were no shuttles directly overhead, following them. There were no Reptars on the streets … on their paths. Without the reminder, Cameron couldn’t help wondering what game was being played against them — why the Astrals were letting them go free. But there was another possibility, if Cameron could let himself believe it: that the Astrals weren’t letting them go at all, and that for a change, they had actually managed evasion.
He thought of the Titans — the way they’d turned on each other like common thugs.
He thought of what Piper kept asking herself, and Cameron: what the black shadow had done back there, when it had diffused and surrounded them all. Was it responsible for what had happened? It sure seemed that way. But why? What was it? And what, precisely, had it done?
And again: Was the shadow — or the Astrals as a whole — playing them like the BB had been playing them before they’d discovered its presence? Was this another game? Another ruse designed to ease the fugitives into a false sense of security, as they’d been lulled before? Were the Astrals still watching … and were Cameron, Piper, Christopher, and Captain Jons now doing exactly what the Astrals wanted them to do, for reasons unknown?
Piper watched Cameron’s face as they half ran, half stalked the Heaven’s Veil streets. She seemed to be wondering the same things. Piper had run this same basic route before ending up at the church. Now they were headed almost all the way back, hoping for different results: a genuine escape rather than one they were coached to make. But Jons had sworn that Grandma Mary was still safe, that she hadn’t been discovered.
Unless, of course, Jons was against them, too. Playing them as one escape within another, either as part of the Astral cause or because he planned to turn them in for alien favor.
“Don’t do that,” Piper told Cameron, whispering when they stopped to scan an intersection so that the others wouldn’t hear.
“What?”
“Don’t look at Christopher and the captain like that. I know what you’re thinking.”
Despite the tension, Cameron couldn’t help a small smile. The last time he’d been running for his life, Piper had been tortured and weak. This time, she was the stronger between them.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“Because I’m thinking it too.”
Cameron caught a flash of her big blue eyes. There was something there below the surface, and for a second he sensed more than what her face was saying, as if he could again peer inside her mind. The shared bond that had struck them while traveling from Vail to Moab had dissipated years ago, but its ghost, Cameron thought, still lingered.
“You said Reptars followed you. To this woman’s house.”
Piper shook her head. “They followed us. But I don’t know where. And if they never made it to Mary’s … ”
“Shh!” Jons held up an arm and gave them a warning look that said, You two want to yammer on and get your asses caught, do it when I’m not risking my balls to be here with you.
But still, Cameron looked up. Waiting for shuttles to spot them. Thinking, If they’re looking, why can’t they find us?
He could sense Piper as she watched him. Her head slowly shook. There was something about what had happened in the melee near the gate that Piper understood even though Cameron didn’t. Something she seemed to have fathomed at Moab, before they’d sneaked —Cameron wanted to add mental air quotes: “sneaked” — in to find research that the Astrals wanted them to find. And Andreus’s daughter, whom they’d left to deliver a message.
They have everything under control, Piper had said, but they can lose control, too.
“This is it.” Jons pointed to a small house on the corner.
Cameron watched the skies, desperately hoping that Piper was right, and that even aliens might only be human.
CHAPTER 37
The first thing that assailed Piper when they entered Grandma Mary’s home through the concealed back door was, shockingly, the yeasty scent of baked dough blending with cinnamon and apples. She’d baked a pie, just as Jons had said.
The second thing that greeted Piper was more familiar: the muzzle of Mary’s shotgun.
“Malcolm,” the old woman said, lowering her weapon and sliding it into the wheelchair’s holster. “It’s good ta see ya.”
The enormous cop bent to wrap the woman in a hug. For one strange moment, Piper half expected him to pick her up, to hug her upright with dangling legs. But he merely straightened while the old woman’s hands stayed high, seeming to seek a final second of contact. Then the limbs lowered, and Mary met each of their eyes. It was neither a good nor bad look — the assessing glance of a person who’s lived enough life to know that what would be would be, and that she merely wanted to assess its shape in the meantime.
“Brought me visitors.”
“Yeah, Grandmama. This is Cameron. Piper, you’ve met.”
The small black woman tipped Piper a nod. They hadn’t met so much as Piper had run past her with Gloria, Franklin, and the other monks. There had been a muttering of thanks and a few words from the abbess, but Piper only remembered Mary as she’d remember a nightmare’s oasis. Despite the circumstances of their previous encounter, Piper felt comfort in her gut. This woman had been willing to hold off Reptars for them.
Then Piper saw Cameron’s look and knew exactly what he was thinking — exactly the same thing she was thinking in the cynical half of her brain: If she’d survived Piper’s last trip through this house, was it because she’d been lucky and the Reptars hadn’t found the exact passage? Or was Mary — and Jons — in on all of this?
Stop thinking crazy.
She forced herself to breathe. Forced herself to trust, and believe. She’d come. Now she was here. If this was all another part of an elaborate snare, it was too late to do anything about it now.
“Din’t catch ya name last time. But good to see ya got away, and good to have ya back.” Mary turned to Jons. “You ain’t stayin’.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No.” Jons clapped Christopher on the back. “Me and Chris got stations to man.”
“You think they fooled?”
“Nobody saw us.”
“They see a shit more than ya think, Malcolm.”
Jons shook his head. In Piper’s mind, she saw the shadow. She saw it spread out and become mist. She saw Titan turn on Titan, tempers erupting as if from a long-held grudge. That part of Meyer, at least, hadn’t changed post-abduction. He’d always had a child’s patience with those who annoyed him. He had a biting tongue and a tendency to snipe before thinking. He was cool in the negotiating room but petulant in the privacy of his home. Short on patience. Infuriating to live with, in the few instances where his will didn’t force his way.
“This time it was different, Grandmama.”
The woman had a face that seemed to have been wrinkled by the
press of years. She looked like a person who’d had a hard life and emerged its humble champion, but who wore those old stories’ scars in folds of skin. Piper thought she’d protest. Perhaps point out that those in charge had their ways, that Grandboy Malcolm would be a durn fool to believe what he did.
Instead, she unlocked the wheelchair brakes and turned, making for the kitchen.
“Keep your bags and guns close ’case you gotta run,” Mary said, “but bring y’selves inta the front. I ain’t gonna give this pie to Donna an’ her kids when I got hungry mouths in my own home.”
CHAPTER 38
Raj limped into the network center with a look that said, Don’t you say a fucking word.
Terrence averted his gaze immediately. There were times to trifle with Raj, but they’d been diminishing in recent weeks. Back in Meyer Dempsey’s Vail bunker, he’d been the group’s punching bag. Heather had hit his pride with a vengeance, Lila had cheated on him, and together she and Christopher had played him for a fool. Meyer, both before and after the bunker, had supposedly walked across his back like a welcome mat. Even Terrence had taken his shots when he could.
But then Raj had decided to start taking his job seriously. At first, it had been pathetically funny, before it became something darker. Something dangerous.
With a bruised and cut mouth, Raj said, “Tell me you’re almost done.”
Terrence shook his head. He found himself answering Raj straight, without any rancor. When Meyer had left the room, he’d honestly thought Raj was dead. Two of the human guards had pulled him up, dragged him out, and apparently taken him somewhere for first aid. The whole process had been done aseptically, as if the guards’ cargo was a sack of inert matter instead of a human. Now Raj was back: cut, bruised, able to walk but clearly with pain. It was hard to be cruel to Raj when life already had been.
“It’s not something that can be fixed,” Terrence answered.
“You started it.”
“Raj.” He inhaled then exhaled, trying to make his voice eminently reasonable. “I could start a fire, too, but I couldn’t unburn a home from ash.”
“Then rebuild it.”
“Every machine connected,” Terrence said. “Not just the servers here, but anything pulling data from the polluted streams.”
“You must have had a way to undo it so your friends could get help when they needed it,” Raj said, sitting with obvious pain.
“It wasn’t supposed to do this. It went wrong. It was always 50/50.”
“Just fix it,” Raj said.
Terrence felt his shoulders rise and fall in a halfway shrug. Why not? It was better than the mothership. He wasn’t doing more here than pushing code around, and deep down Raj had to know it was pointless. But he didn’t seem to know what to do or where he stood. For a while, everyone had thought he’d managed a coup, killing Meyer. But now Meyer was back. Raj didn’t know his place any more than Terrence. And nobody knew where the viceroy stood, except back in charge.
After another few minutes, a curious voice asked a question at Terrence’s side. It took him a second to place it, simply because the tone seemed wrong. Raj was always arrogant, hectoring, a total asshole. This was almost amicable.
“What’s wrong with him, do you think?”
Terrence turned.
“I know you talked to him. I saw it all.”
“How — ”
“And I know you talked to Christopher. I have proof. I’d have shown it to Meyer already, but … ” He trailed off, again indicating the problem that was Meyer Dempsey.
“By now the Astrals should have Cameron Bannister in custody. Probably up where you were, on the mothership. Applying probes and whatnot. Did you get probed, Terrence? Did it hurt?”
He didn’t know how to respond. The sadistic glint had reentered his eyes. Raj was a man with nothing to lose, it seemed. Even his allies had turned traitor.
“I killed him. Chased him and Heather off the grounds after they took you away. Shot him right in the chest. Heather hit me with something after, but I saw him hit. And when I came to, I was right there on the street because nobody bothered to help me.” His lips twisted with bitterness. “Meyer was gone, but the street was stained red. And yet now he’s back.”
Terrence’s eyes went to the door, as if expecting Meyer to return and finish what he started.
“The question,” Raj said, “is why I’m not on your side.”
Terrence’s head perked up.
“I tried to please him. I did my job. And when he betrayed everyone, I did my job then, too. Did what nobody else would. What nobody else had the guts to do. And what happened? Did anyone listen? Or did they patch him back up and send that traitor out to do the same job as if he wasn’t as responsible for this as you are?”
Terrence watched, seeing something in Raj come slowly undone. He seemed to be warring with competing emotions. With something unsolvable.
“If Meyer is on your side, am I on your side? Whose side am I on, Terrence?”
Terrence looked down at the monitor filled with senseless characters, at the house he was trying futilely to recover from cinders. Then he looked up at Raj. Security, both Astral and human, was near the door. Too far back to be hearing any of this.
“You could help,” Terrence said. “It’s not too late to do the right thing.”
Raj seemed to consider. Then he leaned forward and, with his uninjured fist, hit Terrence hard in the gut.
“I know whose side I’m on,” he whispered, still leaning forward. “Not on Dempsey’s. Not on yours. Not on Cameron’s. And, it seems, not even on the Astrals’.”
Terrence, even as he fought to regain his breath, wanted to ask which side was left.
“I’m on my side,” Raj said, his voice close to Terrence’s ear. “Now fix what you broke, if you don’t want to become disposable.”
CHAPTER 39
Heather stood across the office, watching the man who might or might not be Meyer Dempsey shuffling papers. She was leaning against the door frame. Meyer wasn’t paying attention. He seemed to be searching for something, unable to find it.
“What are you looking for?” Heather asked.
“My cufflinks.”
“Why?”
“For the formal dinner.”
Heather bit her lip. The dinner had been days ago. She said so.
“Not that dinner,” he said, though he clearly seemed flustered. “A new one.”
“Hmm. And I’m supposed to go?”
“Of course. You, Lila, and Trevor.”
“Trevor left the city, Meyer.”
Meyer seemed to reset. Heather saw him pause, blink, and resume searching. Then he stood erect, snapped the drawer he’d been pawing through closed, and looked up.
“Just me,” he said. “I got it mixed up.”
“Just you for what?”
“We have a visitor coming.”
“To a formal dinner?”
“Just a sit-down.”
“So you don’t need your cufflinks.”
“I guess not.”
Heather shifted her weight to her other leg, very aware of her body. She’d spent too much of her adult life willfully blind. She’d looked away from so much that she should have stared in the eye. Heather felt like she’d gained a new sense of vision in the past half day, a new way of seeing the world around her. With half of her mind, she felt defenseless, as if facing an attacker without armor even without anyone physically present. But with her other half, she felt a fresh curiosity. A new level of no-bullshit, and this one without all the biting sarcasm.
“When Raj killed you,” Heather said, “did you see the light?”
“What light?”
“The light people see when they die.”
Meyer still seemed distracted. He didn’t look up. “I didn’t see any light.”
“What was it like, dying?”
“I didn’t die, Heather.”
“You definitely died. If you want me to believe that y
ou’re you, then don’t insult me by saying you didn’t die.”
“Maybe medically,” he said. “I don’t really remember.”
“But you remember what you said.”
“Of course.”
“What did you say, Meyer? Just so I believe you.”
Like a robot, Meyer said, “Love you.”
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you love me?”
“I don’t know, Heather. I’m busy here.”
Heather’s jaw moved side to side. She wasn’t precisely wary of Meyer anymore. She was more curious than anything.
“Why did you attack Raj?”
“He was insubordinate.”
“I’m insubordinate all the time, and you’ve never attacked me.”
“That’s different.”
Heather nodded, but of course Meyer didn’t see it. “Because I’m a woman.”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t hit women.”
“No.”
“And Raj tried to kill you.”
Meyer stopped with his hands mid-rummage. Heather didn’t know what he was doing and wondered if he did. He’d already said he didn’t need his cufflinks for … for whoever was coming to visit. So what was he trying to find? He struck her as an animal pacing its cage, unsure what else to do with his time.
“He did.”
“So that’s why you beat him up. That’s how ‘insubordinate’ he was.”
“Right.”
“Terrence said you nearly killed him. An eye for an eye.”
Meyer paused, looked up, then resumed his pointless rummaging. That should maybe ring some bells that, for whatever reason, weren’t ringing. What had changed for Meyer? Her question about seeing the light wasn’t a joke; Heather didn’t believe in afterlife but did believe in how people always seemed to change after near-death experiences. That’s how Meyer was now. Before he’d been shot, he’d almost become the man he hadn’t been for years: the strong, independent, bullheaded man she’d fallen in love with more than two decades ago. He’d finally stopped toeing the line to do what was right. He’d fixed things with his ex-wife (whom he seemed still to love) and his daughter, before turning against the force occupying the planet after years of working on its behalf. That had seemed to make sense.