by Sean Platt
But the highways were another story, and despite what he’d told Heather about surface roads, highways still seemed like the best way to travel. The van was well-stocked, but it wasn’t otherwise as end-of-the-world prepped as it should have been. It had tires that could be punctured, windows that could be broken, and plastic side panels that could be shot through. The freeway was crawling. But surface roads, as they looked into the shadowy and streetlight-lit neighborhoods beyond, looked dangerous.
They didn’t have far to go. Sleep, for the passengers, made time tick quickly. Meyer had his running thoughts, and Piper seemed to feel her only job (which she was happy to do) was to be by his side. The time spend was fine. They didn’t have an assigned flight time like commercial fliers. They wouldn’t have to go through security or even through the airport itself, small as it was. All that mattered was that they arrived whole, that the plane was still there, and that the pilot was ready to fly. And thanks to the still-functional cell network, he was able to confirm the second two just fine. As long as Morristown stayed peaceful, there was no reason for Nick to hop into the jet and fly off on his own. He was well paid, and despite the day’s events, money still seemed very much to matter.
There had been scant new information. The van’s radio had been on and tuned to a satellite news channel the entire trip, and as the evening had rolled on the station had taken to replaying the exact same half-hour in an excruciating loop.
Ships were still approaching Earth, same as they’d been this afternoon.
The president was still urging calm.
NASA was still predicting an arrival in approximately five days.
And the special interview guest — a man named Bertrand Delacroix, who sounded like a conspiracy nut to Meyer but who apparently had some sort of legit credentials — was still saying that if not for the public availability of the Astral app, the government would be covering all of this up. They were forthcoming now, he scoffed, because there was no way to lie. Somehow this was good news, but Meyer could only intuit that from Bertrand Delacroix’s tone of voice, and the interviewer’s reaction.
Ten miles from Morristown, Piper reached over and touched the radio, turning it to music.
“That’s enough of that,” she said.
“We need to know what’s happening, Piper.”
“We know it. Like six or seven times, we know it by now.”
“Something might change.”
But Piper wasn’t listening. He’d thought she’d fallen asleep, and now she closed her eyes and looked it. She took his hand. He’d had them folded in his lap for most of the trip but had remained sitting in the driver’s seat in case a move to manual proved necessary. So far, it hadn’t. A line of traffic was a line of traffic, and everyone had to wait their turn. The autocar could do that much fine.
“It’s crazy to think there’s still music, isn’t it?” Piper said.
“On the radio?”
“In the world.” She sighed. Piper loved music and was more current on trends than Heather ever had been. It was one of the things Lila loved about her stepmother, and a tiny source of jealousy with Heather. “All that’s happened, all this fear and fighting, and someone is still out there playing music.”
“I’m sure it’s programmed.”
She sighed, not wanting to hear him.
Meyer shook his head at the line of traffic. “We’re almost there. I’m going to be so glad to get out of this van.”
“After all the time you spent stocking it?”
“The Axis Mundi is better stocked than the van.”
“Why do you call it ‘Axis Mundi’? The ranch, I mean.”
Meyer considered explaining, but despite her spiritual bearing, he felt that Piper didn’t understand any of the spirituality that actually mattered. She didn’t participate in the ceremonies. She hadn’t seen Mother Ayahuasca. He didn’t resent her for it, and she didn’t resent him, but it robbed them of common ground. Her parents had been religious and believed in a bearded savior in the sky. Meyer, on the other hand, had more or less predicted everything that had happened today. It was a decisive victory, he thought, but he wouldn’t waste breath on explanation. Some places were holy. That and the fact that he’d wanted one of his own was all she needed to know.
“Why are we doing this, Meyer?”
“Going to Morristown?”
“Going to Vail. Shouldn’t we stay put? We don’t even know anything yet.”
Jesus. It was the same thing Heather had said. He hadn’t been able to reach her again due to the overcrowded network, but if he had, he’d conference the two women so they could be ridiculous and shortsighted together.
“We know enough.”
“What do you know that nobody else knows?”
Piper looked at him with those huge blue eyes. It was rhetorical, basically a joke. But he’d already known enough to prepare, and could still feel the puzzle assembling somewhere inside. He couldn’t see it, but you didn’t need to see a black hole to feel its pull.
They needed to be in Colorado when it happened, whatever “it” was. That was the only safe place. If this had only waited another few months, they’d have been living there already. Then they could have stayed put. Then they could have bunkered down and kept off the roads. But staying in New York — the city in which all sorts of bad shit always happened first — because they hadn’t had time yet to make their big move? That was just stupid.
“We’re almost there.” Meyer looked out across the sea of brake lights. He patted her hand to soothe any possible reproach he might be broadcasting without intention and gave her a forced smile. She smiled back. He felt something release inside.
“And we can just fly away.”
Meyer nodded. “One of the perks of owning your own plane.”
Despite the awkwardness between them, Piper pulled Meyer’s arm toward her enough to lean uncomfortably atop it. They looked like a stretched-out picture of lovers side-by-side at a romantic movie.
Meyer reached out and poked the radio. They were approaching the exit. Once off the expressway, everything would be faster.
Piper moaned.
“I just want to check before we get there,” Meyer said.
The radio program had changed. Apparently, there was fresh news after all. But none of the reports had to do with Astral or the ships or anything else. It had to do with government preparations and the people’s safety.
Meyer listened. He heard the announcement that made him shout as the airport came into sight, the terminal and gate slowly being surrounded by flashing blue and red lights.
Trevor jerked awake in the back seat. He blinked. “What? What’s wrong?”
“The FAA just grounded all flights,” said Meyer, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We’re a half hour too late.”
DAY TWO
CHAPTER 8
Day Two, Morning
Rural Pennsylvania
Piper woke with a soft vibration under her head. At first she didn’t know what it was.
She’d been having a dream where she was on a roller coaster with Meyer’s ex-wife. Heather was wearing an outrageous red dress that turned her average-size boobs into respectable and decidedly Victorian-era cleavage. It wasn’t the kind of thing Heather wore in her lesser comedy shows and certainly not in any movie (released by Meyer’s Fable Studio or otherwise) that Piper had ever seen.
They’d been climbing a hill for most of the dream, a half-minute trip yawning to hours in the way time stretches like taffy in the reverie of sleep. The dream’s only common thread from beginning to end was Piper’s ever-mounting terror. She’d woken just as they’d crested the first hill’s top. The last thing Heather said before tipping down was, Hang on tight, baby. It gets bumpy from here.
Then Piper was awake, vibration under her head, and no true awareness (for the first few moments, anyway) of where she was. For a crazy second, she was sure Meyer’s ex was still around. Only Heather Hawthorne would stick a running vibrato
r under a sleeping girl’s head as a gag.
She blinked, yawned, and rolled over to see Meyer still behind the wheel. He wasn’t holding it, though, and his feet weren’t on the manual pedals. The van was on auto, apparently able to handle the light traffic. He’d scooted the JetVan’s luxurious leather seat back a foot and turned it slightly into the cabin. The radio was tuned to a whisper, Meyer tapping around on his tablet.
“Have you been up all night?” she said.
“I thought we might need to run someone over.”
Piper wasn’t sure whether Meyer was joking. He looked serious enough, his head mostly down, giving her lip service without moving focus from his tablet.
“Where are we?”
“Pennsylvania.” Meyer nodded toward the window, and what seemed to still be nighttime. A glance at the console clock: 6:23 a.m. “America the beautiful. Should I wake the kids to show them what fields look like? They look the same in the dark as they do in the light, more or less.”
Piper looked into the van’s rear. With the blinds closed, it was easy to believe the vehicle’s name — to see it as more jet than van, and to imagine they’d somehow reached the Gulfstream after all. Trevor was closest, his head canted sideways to lean against the window, his eyes closed and his large black eyebrows less troubled-looking than they’d seemed lately. Lila and Raj were asleep in the very back, past the faux-marble console, in a bench seat, leaning against each other like two poles in a teepee. Piper wasn’t sure she liked that. They needed each other, yes. But every mile farther they drove from Raj’s family in New York was one degree more difficult it would be for Lila to give him up. The way she was clinging to him now, the idea of sending Raj home felt like ripping a cherished teddy bear from Lila’s arms.
“Where in Pennsylvania?”
“The middle.”
“Not toward New York.”
Meyer looked up at Piper and gave her the look that had made him his fortune. Meyer Dempsey seldom wanted something he didn’t eventually get. Including Piper, who’d only meant to use Consensus rather than meet (or marry) the man who’d created it — a girl who’d had a simple goal of crowdfunding her tiny design project rather than partnering with the handsome entrepreneur behind it.
“West.” Meyer’s look was at once stern and almost condescending. He had his chin mostly down, his light-green eyes rolled up to meet hers. The grim expression of an authority — explaining rather than bargaining, asking, or attempting to justify.
They were going on a road trip. Discussion over.
She decided to weigh in anyway. Straightening, fluffing her hair where the seat had flattened it, she said, “I still think it makes sense to go back to New York. What are we going to do out here in the open, Meyer?”
“Drive west.”
“You think something’s coming.”
“I’ve thought it for a while.”
“Then we should be home. Not out here in the boonies.”
“Nobody’s going into the city right now. There’s a reason. New York is always a target. Of everything. Nobody wants to be there right now, unless they literally have nowhere else to go.”
“We don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Vail. LA. London.”
“Yes. Let’s fly to the London apartment. That makes just as much sense. Hell, Meyer, it’s probably about the same length as flight. We can make it on the plane that’s grounded!”
“Keep your voice down. The kids are asleep.”
“You need to sleep, too, Meyer.”
“We can take shifts keeping an eye on the road. I’m not stopping at a hotel.”
“It’s not just about being physically able to sleep. We all need a break. If we just stop for a while, finish the night …”
“The further west we get, the … fuck.”
The road had been making a gentle turn. Meyer paused, exhaled, and swore. The van moved to a courteous stop behind the rear of a car that, in the dark, appeared to be a light-blue Toyota electric.
“How has it been?” she said. “Traffic, overall?”
Meyer shook his head. They’d been driving along steadily when Piper had woken, but now the road looked like a parking lot: red lights as far as the eye could see in front of them, and nothing but white to the left.
“On and off. I keep thinking we’re free and clear, but then something happens. A few accidents with no clear cause, like people are just rushing, going manual to try and get past blocks, then running into each other. A few cars off the road, and everyone stops to rubberneck. This just looks like traffic. There’s a city ahead. One with more than two freeway exits. Maybe everyone wants McDonald’s.”
“Can we go, Dad?”
Piper turned. Trevor met her eyes for a moment then flicked rapidly away, focusing all attention on his father.
“We’re going.”
“I meant to McDonald’s.”
“That was a joke, Trevor.”
“I’m hungry.”
“There’s a bunch of dry stuff and bars in the back.”
“I don’t really want kelp bars and soy burgers.”
“I didn’t pack soy burgers, Trevor.”
“Okay, I don’t want kelp bars.”
Lila was stirring in the back seat. “Are we talking about stopping to eat?”
“No,” said Meyer.
Piper shrugged. “Might not be a bad idea, Meyer.”
“No. We have to get to Colorado.”
Lila sat up. “Wait. You were serious about that?”
“There’s an exit right there,” Piper said. “Let’s take a break. This traffic isn’t going anywhere anyway.”
“We’re staying on the road. Don’t you remember what I said about outrunning the panic? Something like this happens, speed is our only advantage. We have a bathroom, food, water, even entertainment. We stay on the road until we’re there.”
“That’s like three days, Dad.” Lila shook her boyfriend. “Wake up, Raj. We’re driving all the damned way to Colorado.”
“Try Raj’s parents again,” said Meyer. “He’s not going anywhere.”
“So you’re just going to drop him off at a gas station and hope he isn’t attacked by bandits and rape gangs?”
“There are no rape gangs, Lila,” said Meyer.
“Not yet,” said Piper.
Trevor smirked. “Nobody’s going to rape Raj. Maybe we can use him to shoo rape gangs away.”
Raj rubbed his hands across his chest. “You’re wrong. Everyone wants a piece of this.”
“We’ll call his parents,” said Meyer.
“Because they’re out here, right, Dad? Not in New York or anything. They can just ride out and get him.”
“I offered him the Beetle.”
“Well, that didn’t work out, though, did it?”
Trevor made a face at his sister. “Oh, like you wouldn’t have thrown yourself in front of the wheels if Dad had pushed him into it and those people hadn’t come. You’re not letting Raj go anywhere.”
Raj was still rubbing his hands across his chest. “Can you blame her?”
Piper looked at Meyer, then shot Lila and Raj a look. She understood; she’d been a stupid teenage girl in love once, too. But Lila’s father hadn’t been, and somehow Piper imagined Meyer’s teen dalliances as more calculated and strategic than head-over-heels foolish in love.
“Try them now,” Meyer grumbled, his attention still half on the tablet. Piper hadn’t seen what he was looking up, but now he was using it as a crutch to avoid facing his children head-on.
“Who?” said Piper.
“Raj’s parents.”
“They won’t be awake yet,” Raj said helpfully.
Eyes still on the tablet, Meyer said, “I’m okay with waking them.”
Piper could hear his restraint. Meyer needed sleep. He was as thin as the rest of them, but refused to rest and recharge. He was always a tempest. All that changed, between his calm and anger, was the strength of armor holding it back.
Raj shrugged, then tapped at his wrist. Piper had a strange desire to ask if she could see the device because she’d never used one before, but now wasn’t the time.
“Nothing,” Raj reported.
Meyer still seemed to be seething.
Piper said, “They don’t answer?”
Raj shook his head. “No signal.”
“The network is down?”
Trevor: “Probably just flooded.”
“We should get a hotel,” Piper suggested. “Let traffic clear out. Maybe the networks will open up.”
She looked at Trevor, the last to use a phone. He looked away as if angry. Maybe he resented her for something. Piper didn’t know, and had been trying for weeks not to be bothered.
Lila said, “People aren’t going to make fewer calls as the aliens get closer.”
Raj wrapped his arm around her, and pulled Lila closer. “You don’t know they’re aliens.”
“Just empty ships from outer space, then,” Trevor said. “That are flying themselves.”
Piper thought, Flying.
“That doesn’t mean that …”
Piper turned to Meyer, but she spoke loud enough to stop Raj in the back seat. “Wait. How far are we from Morristown?”
“Like, nine or ten hours.”
“How far.”
“Thirty, forty miles?”
“Well,” said Lila, verbally pouting. “I guess we’d better settle in for a long trip.”
She pushed her body even harder against Raj, then glared at the side of her father’s head. Lila and Trevor got along with Meyer, but they were still teenagers. Piper, recently a teen herself, tried to understand, but often there was no use. Somewhere around your twenty-second birthday, teenagers started sounding like melodramatic idiots no matter what you did.
“That’s another reason to get a hotel room,” Piper said. “They might let planes fly again. We can take the Gulfstream.”
“They’re not going to unground flights. Not any time soon.” He shook his head. “I knew they’d do it, too. Only makes sense. Something coming from the air, military craft heading up in droves, people down here freaking out and storming the airports because everyone has to go somewhere when panic strikes, even if it doesn’t make sense …”