by Sean Platt
The door, which was ajar, squeaked slightly farther open. Because of a draft. Not because of some weird shit in Heather’s little house.
The widened door allowed a thicker sunbeam. It swallowed a lamp, which threw a shadow on the floor in the slanting morning light.
Except that on further inspection, the lamp wasn’t in the light at all.
On further inspection, the shadow was casting itself.
Heather blinked. Turned her head, explaining it away, refusing to look. But the strategy backfired; with her head turned, in her peripheral vision, she could see the enormous thing in her doorway plain as day.
Her breath caught. Heather’s hand jumped to her chest like a scared animal seeking solace. A half second later, she was staring at the doorway again, her pulse beating three times per second at her temples, her breath coming in a shambling intake of breath.
The doorway was empty. The shadow remained, but whatever had cast it was nowhere to be seen.
It was nothing. A trick of the eye. A strange slanting of light, bouncing off objects unseen, screwing with her already fragile mind. Her disbelieving, saw-her-husband-die-and-come-back-to-life mind.
Because of the breeze and nothing else, a tall vase filled with decorative rocks and sand tipped on its delicate end, fell to the floor, and shattered.
Heather stood, backing away.
An unseen hand wrote in the sand, slowly.
The message read, Follow.
The shadow on the floor vanished, but if Heather turned her head to the side and watched the doorway from the corner of her eye, she realized she could see the huge black shape farther up, waiting for her like an oversized dog seeking its handler.
While Heather watched, the shadow moved to the left, out of her line of sight.
Heather, wondering what the hell was wrong with her, followed.
CHAPTER 52
Meyer closed his eyes, obeying the summons. But this time, Divinity’s presence was further away, not as intimate. He doubted it knew the difference; the collective, as he was starting to suspect, was mostly one way. He could hear it when it let him, but it pulled back from fully touching him. There was something about humanity that confounded the Astrals. Or — and this, Meyer was beginning to feel like a truth — perhaps humanity revolted them. Not in an overt way or in a way that was truly disgusting. Just in the way Meyer had never really cared to touch his food with his hands. Food was delicious, but gross to the touch.
That’s how Divinity seemed to feel about Meyer. He was part of their organization and was, in whatever way the Astrals understood such things, like a partner. But they wouldn’t let him fully in. They wouldn’t wrap him with their minds as they wrapped each other because that would be like taking a delicious but reeking piece of limburger and rubbing it all over his face.
Yes, they were keeping him out. It was fine. Meyer knew he was being excluded — that, frankly, he was being commanded to do things without the Astrals bothering to ask for his input. It rankled him. It made him question his decision to be here at all, to do the things he was doing.
But then, wasn’t this how a man kept his family safe? Yes, he’d made hard decisions, but it was all in the interests of those he loved.
Loved.
It made him think of what had happened on the Heaven’s Veil streets. His words to Heather.
Why had he said that? For one, if he loved anyone, Meyer loved Piper. Piper was his wife, not Heather. And also, regardless of whether it was true or not, why had he said it? He’d just made a point to express himself to Lila, but that was mainly a counterreaction having to do with unexpressed regrets, about not saying things when one should say them, before it was too late. That was mainly because of what Andreus had told him about …
But Meyer didn’t want to go there. Not yet. Not with Divinity in his internal ear, maybe listening.
He’d been contemplating all night. Meyer barely remembered Andreus leaving or where he — or Divinity, back when Meyer had been allowing that particular violation — had sent him. After that, he’d been in his own head, searching old memories like a historian sifting through records. And oh, the things he’d found! Things he’d known but allowed himself to forget. Things that were once important, that he’d shoved aside to make room for the present.
Why had he spoken that way to Heather? It was hard to say. The kind of thing a man says when dying, to make amends. Looking back, Meyer supposed he had thought he’d been dying, before the Astral ship arrived to revive him.
But that memory — far more recent than others, and hence supposedly more durable — was most fractured of all.
For illogical reasons, he’d led Heather off the grounds, meaning to flee.
For illogical reasons, when Raj had confronted them, Meyer had decided to attack rather than be led back to his duties.
The memory was oddly devoid of color. He could see what had happened, but not why. As if he’d forgotten the reasons, or forced himself to shove them down.
In the memory, there was a jump cut, like an effect in one of Fable’s movies.
Here, the timeline became confused. There was something just out of sight. Something that hadn’t appeared in his mind until recently. After his talk with Andreus, when he’d wanted to spend the night poring over old memories. He’d wanted to delve, to appreciate what had been set behind. But at the same time — again, after Andreus — his memories began to feel distant. Far off, as if seen through foggy glass.
The jump cut had become obvious. Evident. There was a splice. And between the stitches of that splice, there was a voice he couldn’t quite make sense of because he hadn’t heard it in life, although part of Meyer felt certain he had.
There was an imperfection. A chain of events.
A room full of light. A dancing of specters. Not Meyer’s memory, but Meyer’s memory nonetheless.
In the forebear, there was an unspooling. Regrettable but now rectified.
A flash of thought. A spark of emotions, new though they couldn’t be new at all: fear. Loneliness. Panic, both existential and local. A feeling of falling. The loss of closely held control.
We have taken care in this iteration to remove discursive stimuli from the stream before passing the donor’s essence into you.
It made no sense. And yet that memory and those that came after it were somehow more real. And beyond the splice, memories had color. Rich with discursive stimuli.
Inside Meyer’s mind, Divinity listed shuttle positions. Requirements of human police, which he was requested and required to hand down. Detailed deployments of peacekeepers. Gave instructions and orders, as if Meyer were only a go-between.
There was an unspooling.
Meyer opened his eyes in the office. Blinked. Focused on Divinity’s words, which weren’t really words at all.
Groupthink. It’s called groupthink. And there is no need for a surrogate when we talk one to the other.
Meyer kept his wall up. Kept Divinity at arm’s length, speaking in human terms as it issued commands. As it told him what the fuck to do as if he were a slave. As if Meyer was only a pawn. As if nothing in him mattered, as if he had no fucking say in those things that concerned him.
The importance of the Apex. The grid. The network. A pulse must be sent. It was the only way because with a strong enough beacon, anyone, from any distance, could be drawn to any thing.
Do this. Do that. Go here. Dance and sing because it is commanded.
Something boiled inside him. Red. Barely contained. Something that made Meyer’s human skin form gooseflesh and got his human temples throbbing. Something shoved down that felt like an explosion. Something he was supposed to repress because it didn’t concern him. Because it was discursive. Because to indulge such base ideas, which had no relevance, might cause an unspooling. Something, Meyer felt sure, that the donor might feel differently about, whatever that meant.
Something about Trevor. About what Andreus had told him. Something bottled because it couldn’t
be true. And something Meyer, in turn, had told Andreus.
The communication with Divinity ended. Meyer found himself alone. He stopped for a second, blinking in the still air of the office, which he’d closed for privacy after Lila’s departure. She’d left after he’d taken his hours, combing his memories. The ones that felt distant, unlike those that came after the splice and the curiously flat memories immediately before — flat because the stimuli had been purged. Pushed out. Sent from the groupthink because we are pure, we are above, we are not base.
But he was alone. Horribly, hideously, painfully alone. Cut off. Discarded. Chattel, meant for spending and sacrifice. As Meyer Dempsey, but also as …
But there was nothing there.
The wall fell. What he’d pushed down came flooding back up.
It could not be expunged. It could not be eradicated. In the human mind, hate and loss and grief were like viruses. There was no vaccine. Like Canned Heat, it turned out that what had burned could not recover from ash.
He recalled holding Lila. How that had felt. How it had been necessary.
He recalled Heather holding him, only not him, exposed as truth now that the internal schism was forced asunder.
Meyer was an evolved man. An evolved being. He understood sacrifice. He was strong enough to accept, even in his current polluted state, that what must be done had to be done.
He grabbed the computer screen, held it high, and shattered it on the floor. He put his foot through the desk, finding that even though its wood was solid, he was far stronger than he should have been. The discursive stimuli flashed. The memory of groupthink resurged.
Fury rose inside him like a gusher.
Trevor was my son. My son! MY SON!
Meyer’s fist had begun to heal, but as he let the rage fill and become him, he opened it again, and again, and again.
CHAPTER 53
Cameron was dreaming about his father. They were in the desert somewhere because other than the Central American ruins, everything seemed for some damned reason to be in the desert. Sand, sand, and more sand — that had been Cameron’s childhood. His first friend had been an obelisk. His most constant playmates had been the specters running through ancient crypts.
But it wasn’t just Benjamin with him. There was someone else. A little girl whose growth must have been stunted, because she was tiny. She had a toddler’s body yet held herself with an adult’s confidence and pride. Her eyes were deep blue and her bearing crisp. Precise.
Benjamin looked from Cameron to the girl.
Oh, her? he said. She’s our guide.
Cameron looked around. They’d found Thor’s Hammer. He couldn’t see it, but the sense was strong. With the below-the-skin knowledge common to dreams, Cameron could feel victory as if it were in his past. As if the moment of discovery had come and gone and he’d missed it, but it remained a memory nonetheless.
At the top of a very tall hill. Like a mountain. Granite and volcanic rocks. A chapel.
Where are we? Cameron asked. Did we find it?
Not where you thought, Cameron, Benjamin said. Beside him, the little girl nodded her head in agreement.
Then where, if not the Apex?
Benjamin smiled. I know exactly where Thor’s Hammer is, Cam. You do too. That’s what kills me. As far as historical jokes go, it’s a doozy.
The words were familiar. Cameron squinted into the dream sun.
But where, Dad?
Benjamin laughed. Think about it, Cam. A weapon from the ancient aliens theorist texts. Where would it go?
The girl held her hand in a thumbs-up, smiling. As she did, Cameron’s inner vision turned to something large and glittering. Maybe gold. Shining as with an inner light. Held aloft by a team of people. A huge thing, like a chest. Something inside, broken, crumbled, from the last time around, someone’s ancient decision cast.
Where is it? Cameron asked as something sounded from outside his awareness — the dream crumbling as it became self-aware, as Cameron’s mind pulled him from the fathoms of its false reality.
I know exactly where Thor’s Hammer is. You do too.
But —
As far as historical jokes go, it’s a doozy.
The dream was cracking like ancient ruins baking beneath a millennium of sun.
A weapon from the ancient aliens theorist texts. Where would it go?
Where? Just tell me how to find it!
Benjamin touched the girl’s shoulder.
You don’t need to find it, he said as the dream’s underpinnings gave way and Cameron slowly woke. Just find her.
CHAPTER 54
Cameron awoke to the sound of breaking glass.
A rock crashed through Grandma Mary’s window. It rolled to sit across the room, at the base of a dresser that was fifty years too old to be in a house so new.
Piper sat up. She crossed to the rock while Cameron, fighting a chill, raised his hand to send her back, as if it were a bomb.
But it was only a rock. They’d made a mistake entering the city, had been given a distraction by the strange shadow thing before getting hidden by the police captain, and they’d somehow need to be extracted … or, Cameron supposed, ride out the coming turbulence with Captain Jons’s grandmama. All were fine. He was with Piper, and they weren’t running. Things could be worse. They were safe.
Piper held it up for Cameron to see.
“Kids, acting out, breaking shit,” he said.
“No, Cam.” She looked suddenly pale.
Cameron looked more closely as Piper extended the rock.
On its flat side was the message, DON’T RESIST.
Cameron looked from the rock to Piper, into her petrified eyes.
“What does it — ”
There was a shotgun blast from below. The sounds of struggle. Cameron heard Grandma Mary shout, then crashing amid the tromping of boots.
Piper went for the window. Cameron stayed on the bed where he was, and Piper looked back at him as if he were stubborn or stupid or an idiot.
“Let’s go! There’s a trellis!” Cameron could see beyond her. The streets were clear, at least as far as he could see. No visible Reptars, Titans, or shuttles. No purrs. Only the sounds of cracking and breaking below, of hard soles on hard wood.
“Wait.” He crossed the room. Picked up the rock.
“Cameron! We have to go! Now!”
“Where?”
“To the Apex!”
That was a joke. They’d been watching the Apex. Something had definitely leaked because everyone in Heaven’s Veil was suddenly interested in the usually silent Apex. But her eyes said that this was no joke; people were coming, and they needed to run.
He shook his head.
“Cameron!”
He held up the rock then turned it to show her the words in big, bold letters. Overly done, really, practically with serifs on the tops and bottoms of each stroke.
“Close the window.”
She stared, one leg already out below the shattered pane.
“Piper,” he said, again displaying the rock. “It’s Christopher’s handwriting.”
Piper didn’t come fully back into the room, but she stopped moving out of it. She looked at the rock. Cameron watched her think, her expression halfway between terrified and brave.
There was nothing to do. Staying was the wrong answer given their reason for coming, but Cameron trusted Christopher. He had no choice but to trust Captain Jons, who’d been with Chris the last time they’d seen him, who’d ferried them to safety at his grandmother’s house. And Grandma Mary, if she was as involved in any of this as she was in the underground movement, had already helped save Piper once.
Cameron felt heavy breath in his chest. Boots tromped up the stairs. Among the coming voices, he could hear Raj.
Two breaths. Three.
The door burst open — more kicked than opened. That was Raj for you; he hadn’t even bothered to try the knob. And yet it had been open, and now Mary’s door frame was kindling.
Raj came forward. He tossed a glance at Cameron but detoured to the more apparently immediate flight risk, taking Piper roughly by the wrist. Guns filled the room, but there were no Titans or purring Reptars with their needlelike teeth. Not that there was any longer a difference between them in Cameron’s mind.
Christopher, despite seeming to have authored the rock through the window, was missing.
Raj yanked Piper away from the broken window. He turned her around, placing her in unnecessary cuffs. Piper kept her eyes on Cameron. Raj looked at Jons, who was sliding restraints onto Cameron’s wrists, behind his back.
“He wasn’t lying,” Raj said. “I guess I owe you a Coke.”
Cameron felt the band on his wrists tighten. He looked up at Jons but saw only a grim little frown. It could mean anything.
But when Raj moved far enough toward the door with Piper, Jons chanced a whisper.
“You and Chris owe my grandmama a new door,” he said.
CHAPTER 55
Heart beating hard, Lila climbed the steps to the fourth floor. She felt disoriented and out of time. She might have been speaking with her father for two minutes, but it seemed equally possible that she’d been in his office for a half hour. Or an hour. Or for her entire life.
Something about his demeanor unnerved her. To put things simply, he was too nice. Too calm. The city was still eating itself; she could see it through the windows along the main staircase. The Apex’s pulsing had brightened. Now, she could see it in the daytime. It had flashed again a time or two, and all of that oddity didn’t even consider the second mothership that had established some sort of energy beam between itself and the ground.
Beyond the mansion, Heaven’s Veil looked like the kind of place where citizens never came outside, preferring to huddle indoors lest the police carry them away for existing. There were human cops, all kinds of Astrals and their spherical vehicles, and even house guard who’d stopped tending the estate to knock heads in the streets.