Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (19 page)

Raj dabbed the linen napkin at the corners of his mouth, realizing that doing so was excessively decadent and not caring. Everything about this official banquet was excessively decadent. They were eating wagyu steak and Yubari melon while the world roiled in chaos. None of the ambassadors from the other cities would look at Raj and think him pompous for dabbing with a napkin — and if they did, who cared?
They
were pompous.

The slope graphing inequity in modern America (modern
Earth
, really) was sharp, and they all stood at its top. The outlands were lawless; outposts were poor and exploited for resources; larger cities were filled with opiated labor. Only the capitals were prosperous — and within the cities, you only had to go a few miles from the viceroy’s mansion to find the poor. This well-set table was the
crème
of even the elite
crème
. Nobody would fault the commander of the guard for being dainty when they were all (let’s be honest) fluffing their beds with human lives.

The woman across from Raj was giving him suggestive glances. She was an assistant to the Giza ambassador and had an exotic look that Raj couldn’t help but see as his personal vision of Cleopatra. Maybe she wanted him. Maybe he could have her. And why not? His marriage was a sham. He was only at the table because he was Lila’s husband, and only married because he’d accidentally fathered a girl who’d essentially become a princess. People only knew Raj as the brown guy standing beside the girl with the baby in press photos and public interviews of Meyer Dempsey, but so what? Family was family, and power was power. It no longer mattered
how
Raj had arrived; he’d done it and now had what others wanted. He couldn’t be kicked out of the family, even if Lila tried to leave him. Because how would that look? People turned to the viceroys for cues. Dissent in his family would look horrendous to the citizenry.

Raj spotted Lila from the corner of his eye. She’d attended this event with the greatest reluctance, bemoaning the need to dress up, to wear her fine jewelry, to be paraded in front of tabloid cameras and presented as if their lives were a fair representation of life on Earth. But where was her moral superiority now? She was dressed to the nines, looking damn fine in Raj’s opinion. Jewels dangled everywhere. And now that she’d been dragged to the table with gemstones dripping from her wrists and neck, Lila was having a grand time. Laughing while the outlands burned.

Of course, it wasn’t just Lila’s clear lack of fortitude that would give Raj permission to play footsie under the table with the fine woman across from him — and whatever else later on. He also had an ace in the hole.

Raj had Piper.

Everyone knew by now that Piper had gone missing. She wasn’t at the table, of course, but she’d also been acting strange beforehand. She followed Meyer like a puppy, but everything recently had left her mouth sideways, as if she were parroting what everyone else (especially her husband) wanted to hear. Raj had been thinking of saying something about Piper for a while, but raising suspicions about the lady of the house was a fine line. Done right, it would earn him more respect than a yes man like Christopher because it would show he was willing to make tough choices for the greater good. But Meyer was also attached to Piper, and might not appreciate Raj suggesting the treason they all now knew was true.

Plus, Lila might be involved. Trevor, too.

Farther down the table, the ambassador of somewhere-or-other (Raj hadn’t paid attention and didn’t care) asked Meyer about construction on the Apex — as if human hands had anything to do with
that
.

Meyer gave a suitably PR-appropriate answer.

People behind the cameras smiled and nodded. They knew where their bread was buttered. They knew who funded the press. They knew who controlled all information into and out of the city.

Raj ate his scallop sashimi with lemon confit steak, glad to have good food but failing to appreciate why
this
, of all things, was what the mansion served when it had important guests. But whatever. He was where he needed to be, with a hot woman sitting across the table, clearly into him. He merely had to wait out the dinner.

How much longer would this all drag on?

When the cameras finally packed up and left, Raj relaxed, knowing he could stop posturing. The cessation of the media circus meant they were at the meal’s halfway point, maybe more. Now tongues would loosen. They could all drink more freely. And Raj could get up and leave the table if he wanted to — which he would, if he could get the Egyptian ambassador’s assistant to follow.

But the Giza ambassador distracted the girl’s attention before Raj could send signals, demanding this or that bit of information that the ambassador could have extracted her damned self.

The discussion droned on, making Raj’s head hurt with its dullness.

Progress of the South American monoliths.

Unrest in Asia, quelled in seconds by shuttles.

There was talk of human power structures — slightly guarded because there were Titans at the table, silent but seated among the humans for appearances. Everyone was greedy. Everyone wanted a grab at the brass ring. The Astrals clearly planned to stay, to let human society regrow under its thumb now that it had governments back in place. The Astrals needed to be here for reasons that were none of Raj’s business (To teach? To advance humanity? It sure didn’t seem to be harvesting organs, and the Astrals could be peaceful if people would just do as they were fucking told), but supposedly the Astrals didn’t want to rule and would leave such things to the humans.

There were viceroys today. Maybe in time — perhaps when things had stabilized enough to spread into the outlands — there would be presidents. Or kings. Everyone at the table was well positioned to accept those roles, the viceroy’s family and friends (and sons-in-law) prominent among them.

There was a lull. Raj made sure nobody was looking and winked at the girl across from him. She winked subtly back. A half wink, but definitely there. He whispered an unnecessary excuse to Lila, who barely heard him and didn’t bother to act like she cared, then gave a final look to the girl, set his napkin on his seat, and left the room.

He was in the hallway before realizing the girl hadn’t followed.

Raj peeked his head back into the room. The Giza assistant was still where she’d been, giving no indication of moving anytime soon.

Bitch.

Unable to return immediately lest he look stupid, Raj made his way to the bathroom. He was about to go in and wash his face when a dinging farther down the hall, like an old-timer’s spit striking the bottom of a brass spittoon, grabbed his attention.

He waited. The noise repeated.

Curious, Raj walked forward. The sound chimed a final time then stopped.

After a moment, it started again.

It was a ring. A strange ring, but a ring nonetheless. A single ping, like an incoming message.

He found himself at the door of Meyer’s office. It was open because this was a house first and a government building second, and everything on the computers was supposed to be protected. You could only access them if you had clearance to be in the house, and could only access anything sensitive with a palm print. The Titans didn’t seem to understand Raj’s recent changes, and he’d been embarrassed to realize that at least part of the problem was that the Titans didn’t
have
palm prints. But for human-to-human communications — and certainly for storage — everything was secure. No need for closed doors around here.

But the ring wasn’t coming from the computer. It was coming from Meyer’s phone.

His
phone?

Raj didn’t like using the phone anymore because he had the distinct impression that everything he said was being captured and analyzed. But ever since the network had returned, phones had regained their status as a necessity, even for the viceroy.

The phone chirped again. This time, Raj was close enough to see the screen light up. It read:

Well, which was it? A call or a text message? Raj didn’t text anymore. Text was worse than voice calls. The feeling that the Astrals were reading texts was even stronger than with calls — especially given Raj’s better-than-average understanding of such things from his vantage as ad-hoc network engineer.

Raj picked up the phone. It chirped again.

Meyer was busy. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted. And besides — if this were an Astral thing, they’d talk directly into his head. Nobody liked to admit that Meyer could hear the aliens in his thoughts, but he obviously did. He’d even admitted it to the media. Hell, the media
played it up.
Part of Meyer’s image as slightly supernatural. A god, really, that people shouldn’t just love and adore and be fascinated by, but worship. Like a pharaoh.

The phone chirped again. This time, Raj felt like the thing was talking to him.
Ordering
him to take the message. That was his job, if he wanted to be the viceroy’s right hand. Or maybe, if he proved himself, the viceroy’s second in command. Possibly his eventual successor.

He could answer it. The phone would unlock on his thumbprint, seeing as he was the home’s sysop and had administrative access to the system. And what was even better: if the call turned out to be something that didn’t concern Raj in any conceivable way, he could relock the phone. The sysop could do that kind of thing, too. Meyer would never need to know.

Raj pressed his thumb to the screen.

He read the message and smiled.

He wouldn’t need to bother Meyer with this trifling matter at all.

He could send the peacekeepers after Piper Dempsey all by himself, and accept the viceroy’s gratitude once it was over.

C
HAPTER
23

Piper thought she heard it again: a distant sound filled with a dry but somehow gurgling rattle. The sucking sound of a vacuum — not the kind you used to clean a carpet but the vacuum of space, where there was no air, life, or anything but endless miles of gas and rock and fire and nothing.

“Do you have cameras on this side of the church?” she asked Thelonius, indicating the place she may or may not have heard the strange noise.

The monk looked up. He’d plugged in the slip drive of pilfered data from Meyer’s computer and was dragging files over to the church system. Piper had been lucky, finding what she’d found. Human records were encrypted and locked down at all times, but the Astrals were sloppy because they didn’t understand the system. They worked on thought and biological energy. Codes and electronics weren’t beyond them in concept but did represent another language. A custom the aliens hadn’t yet learned.

You were lucky to have seen this before anyone else,
Thelonius had told her.

Lucky
indeed. Now she was up to her armpits in shit. Piper could do with less good fortune.

“Of course,” he said, “I’ll just need to pull up the surveillance program on this monitor. I want to abort the copy first because sometimes we have fidelity issues here when too much is running at once. Hang on.”

He moved to stop the file copy process, but Piper waved him away, feeling stupid. She’d felt stupid for exactly as long as she’d felt lucky. An odd combination that left her all alone because it meant she was probably a fool.

She was standing beside a monk, jumping at noises that, the harder Piper listened, the more she realized probably weren’t there. She kept imagining pursuers at every turn, even though she was safe. Piper was among holy people who were also rationalists, wearing her dainty little dress, her almost-black haircut and styled with fashionable bangs, her giant blue eyes probably making her look like a doe in headlights. She couldn’t find a comfortable position for her body and kept crossing and uncrossing her legs as she sat, and her arms at her waist to match, fluffing her hair, propping her chin on one hand, the elbow below with nowhere to rest.

She couldn’t get comfortable. Her mind wandered.

Piper was certainly unwelcome back at home by now, based on the way the peacekeeper had come to Terrence’s before she’d fled through the back door. Where would she sleep? Could she
ever
go home? Was she now a member of this dissident church? Should she trade her dress for a robe, so she’d be appropriately modest rather than flaunting her deposed status as city royalty?

What had she got herself into?

“No, no, don’t bother,” she said.

“It’s no problem.”

“It’s fine. I just thought I heard something.”

“What did you hear?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you
think
you heard?”

“Oh, nothing.” Piper giggled nervously, hating how weak it must make her sound. “One of them. A Reptar. But I hear them everywhere now, after a near-miss.”

She laughed again. Thelonius watched her. “I know what you mean. I think I hear them sometimes, too.”

Piper didn’t want to dwell on her petty fears. She changed the subject.

“Why did they use stone?”

The monk looked up, confused.

“Before, when you were talking about old alien construction,” Piper said, trying to orient him. “When they first showed up, they plunked down all those big stones. Then they cut all those big bricks — or
someone
did anyway — and started making the Apex out of stone at first. So, I mean … why
stone?
They’re an advanced culture.”