Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (20 page)

Thelonius watched her for a moment then said, “Our best guess — and by our I mean us here and your friends in Utah — is that they used stone because they thought that’s what we expected.”

“But they changed. They took away the stones before the first row was finished and began using that blue glass instead. Or at least, it
looks
like glass.”

“It’s definitely not glass. I’d love to get my hands on a nice big chunk of it to be sure, but so far we think it’s something they grow.”

“Grow?”

“A crystal. It can be seeded and grown. Interestingly, it would have been far easier five thousand years ago to just
grow
the pyramids instead of building them, but it would have been too jarring to us.”

“Wouldn’t the arrival of aliens be jarring enough to those ancient people? What’s the harm in building blue pyramids after that?”

Thelonius shook his head. “No. I meant to
us
. Jarring to people
today
, not the people who were around back when the pyramids were built. Today, we can almost explain pyramids. Archaeologists content on kidding themselves have been trying to do that forever. But if the ancient structures had been like the Apex back then, what would we have thought?”

Piper felt like she was missing something. “I’m not sure I follow. Are you saying that they didn’t build blue glass pyramids in ancient Egypt because it would have been jarring to us today, in modern times?”

“That’s my theory, yes.”

“But how — ?”

“Believe me, you don’t want me to go into it.” Thelonius smiled. “Let’s just say our perception of time is dependent on the human experience. Mathematically speaking, it’s more accurate to say that every time is now.”

“So they know the future?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but don’t get me started.”

Piper decided he was right. She
didn’t
want him to elaborate. Heather had all of the
Back to the Future
movies from the 1980s and ‘90s on the juke, and they’d watched them a few times through as a family, both pre-and post-Astrals. Thinking about time always hurt her head.

“Then why are they building with glass now?”

“Crystal.”

“Whatever.”

The monk shrugged. “They must think it’s more in line with what we expect today, and that it won’t shock those who find them in the future, given all our society has done on its own without Astral help. We’re not ancient stonecutters ourselves anymore. But what’s particularly fun, and gives me hope for what you’ve got here — ” He tapped the screen, where the files had finished copying. “ — is that if you ask me, I’d say they’re making it up as they go this time.”

“Don’t
you
make life up as you go? Or are you implying that they know the future again?”

“No… ” He turned his body toward Piper’s. He was such a strange monk. She’d already surmised that he only wore his robe as disguise, to make him fit into the church’s cover. Inside, he looked as straight-laced and rational as they came: an egghead in any clothing. “I mean, they seem to be adjusting their plan on the fly to account for new information they hadn’t anticipated.”

“Is this what you said before about the Internet?” Piper hadn’t really understood that the first time.

“Our worldwide network is just an effect, but yes, it’s one thing. Didn’t Benjamin tell you about the past alien visitations when you were in Moab?”

“Yes, but … ” Piper didn’t want to finish. She was embarrassed to admit that as nice as Benjamin seemed, his theories had always struck her as convenient, paranoid, and decidedly wacko. But even more than that, Piper was embarrassed to admit that she still didn’t really believe those wacko theories, even though Earth’s occupation proved her version of history to be the wackier between them.

“Ask Gloria about it when you get a chance,” he said. “I was never a churchy guy, but in this case some of the hard facts make me want to believe. I can tell you all about quantum entanglement, but that’s not much different than what she’d call ‘the energy of connection.’ I used to think that ‘Law of Attraction’ bullshit was … well …
bullshit
, but really it sort of reflects what theoretical physicists have been seeing in the way intention and observation affect reality. It’s a bit outside her sweet spot, but Gloria will tell you that ayahuasca might have opened real doors for Meyer rather than just showing him hallucinations. It might have allowed him to see other worlds … and, more importantly, allowed those other worlds to peek in on
him
. My first instinct is to roll my eyes about that (the idea that we’re all somehow connected through an invisible god energy), but it’s the same phenomenon we see with quantum flux and the holographic universe theory as calculated by Susskind and ’t Hooft.”

“Okay,” said Piper, not at all understanding.

The monk laughed. “It’s just funny. History has always moved back and forth between periods of spirituality and rationalism, each a reaction to a previous period of the other. But both sides are arguing for the same stuff in different languages. The point is that in the past — when the Astrals were here before — human society had more or less reconciled the two. Those old societies all seemed to have developed high degrees of spiritual connectivity while remaining rational — something someone with my nerd background would probably try to explain as ‘nonlocal energetic phenomena’ and other big words. But it boils down something between church and science — or more accurately, both. The records imply that ancient human societies had learned mental tricks that the Astrals use without being taught — which makes sense, considering that the Astrals clearly seeded life here in the first place. But the thing is, what happened in the past — the development of a deeply connected human society, like the Egyptians or Mayans — didn’t happen this time around.”

“Why not?”

“Who knows? But it didn’t. Instead, in the false dichotomy of spirit and intellect, intellect won. The Astrals have been able to peek in on us through people who learned how to reach some of those far-away worlds with their minds — doing the things the Mayans did every single day —but could only get glimpses until they crossed space-time see our society in person. We’re far less spiritually connected than they seem to have anticipated, but we’re
far
more
technologically advanced. I don’t think the Astrals quite know what to do. In a way, we went wrong this time around. We failed to grow into what they seeded us to become. But still, something deep down in modern humanity seems to know we should be connected and still yearns to build the mental bond we
should
have in another way — a way that suits what our minds became, more rational than spiritual. Hence computers: our attempts to recreate brains. And networks, which allow us to connect in a way our souls seem to crave.”

“It’s strange to hear a scientist talk about souls,” Piper said.

Thelonius flapped the loose arms of his robe. “Hey, I’m a monk, too.”

Piper smiled, feeling herself relaxing, descending from her paranoia about Reptars coming to get her.

“So,” he went on. “Let’s see what you’ve got here, shall we?”

He clicked on an icon indicating the archive’s primary image. It was
the
image, Piper saw as it opened, that had led her to commit theft and seek a second opinion.

The picture showed what looked like a stone tablet, indeterminate in size because there was no point of reference. It had been taken (probably with an iPhone; the Astrals had given up using their own technology for anything that had to pass through human hands) somewhere dark. Piper could make out a dark corner, as if of an underground passageway. The light seemed to have been provided mostly by the flash. The stone was covered in strange glyphs that Piper had never seen in any museum.

Propped below the tablet, visible as an apparent way of marking the object within the photograph, was a tablet computer, its screen filled with large white text on a black screen. The text — again, probably for the benefit of human toadies who’d file and analyze the image — was in English, likely typed by human hands.

EXHIBIT 401

** DEVICE MISSING **

“What does it say?” Piper asked.

“Exhibit four oh — ”

“No. I mean the markings on the tablet. Is that a language?”

Thelonius squinted. Then he enlarged the image, pinched it in and out, scrolled around at the scratches, drawings, and indecipherable markings.

“I have no idea. But like you said, if anyone knows, it wouldn’t be the science teacher. It would be Benjamin.”

Looking at the image, Piper felt her creeping dread return. The image was only one of many files bundled into the drive’s package. Her heart had been pounding with hurry, but she’d popped open a few of the other documents before creeping intuition had sent her from curiosity to espionage. Some of the language (again in maddeningly readable English) in those files that had made her sweat, but seeing this one image sent it all rushing back. It renewed her sense of dawning hopelessness — a certainty that her husband, whom she loved and wanted to trust, was playing for the wrong team.

“What do you think this means,” the monk asked,
“‘device missing?’”

A booming erupted from the front of the church, as if the doors had been blown open.

Then screams.

Around the enclosed back room, the scientist monks traded stares with wide and frightened eyes. Then they scurried like ants, grabbing drives and shutting down screens, every move purposeful and rehearsed.

Thelonius yanked the drive from the computer and shot a glance at the others. Across the room, Gloria stood.

“They found us,” he said, his voice barely calm. “Grab what you can in ten seconds, then get to the passage.”

C
HAPTER
24

“Mom.”

Heather waved Trevor away. She was watching Meyer at the table’s end. He’d behaved strangely for long enough now that she’d finally grown used to it, but this was unusual for even the new and improved Meyer Dempsey.

A man with a gray beard was speaking to him in a rather self-important manner, but Meyer was pressing a finger to his head, barely listening. As Heather watched, his hand rose until the finger was straight out and parallel to the ground. Meyer looked like he might be pantomiming a gun to his temple and was soon to pull the trigger, completing the visage of blowing his brains out with boredom. Heather didn’t think he was making an attempt to show the table how dull the conversation in front of the man, but it would be hilarious if he was. It was the kind of thing Heather would have done, if this banquet had been in her honor rather than his.

“Mom. I need to talk to you about Piper. I think she might be — ”

“Shh,
Trevor. I’m watching something funny.”

From the corner of her eye, Heather saw Trevor’s head tick toward Meyer. He looked back at her and set his hand on her arm, begging for his mother’s attention.

“Now. I need to talk to you now.”

“Hang on.”

At the end of the table, Meyer’s eyes settled. The last of his attention turned from the man. This wasn’t lost on the orator, who all at once seemed to realize he was being ignored but appeared similarly reluctant to call the viceroy on his lack of manners. Instead, he kept speaking, hoping the moment might pass.

Meyer’s finger pressed harder to his head. Wrinkles formed against his perfect dark-brown hair, graying at the temples. His finger paled from pressure. It trembled, the digit giving at the knuckle.

“Mr. Viceroy?” Heather heard the man say.

Meyer stood. He didn’t look at his inquirer or any of the dignitaries who broke from their conversations at the sound of his squeaking chair. Instead, he looked down at his own chest, pressing harder, seeming to focus intently on something that no one could hear.

“Mom!”

“Shut up, Trevor. Look at him. What do you think he’s doing?”

“Who knows. Listening to alien radio?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know you’re serious, Mom. But I need to tell you something about — ”

Meyer left the table, exiting to the hallway. Baffled heads turned to watch him go.

Heather stood. A few people turned to look at her, but no one cared about Heather Hawthorne. She was something of a matriarch at this table, like a retired queen kept around to feign respect. She probably wouldn’t be here at all if Lila hadn’t given birth to Goddess Baby Clara, who so fascinated Meyer’s adoring public.

“Mrs. Hawthorne?” said the man to her right. He’d already offered his official title, but Heather had given so little of a shit that she’d actively forced herself to forget it.

“Mom?”
Now Trevor sounded more curious than urgent.

Heather pressed a finger to her temple then followed Meyer from the room, trying to mimic his zombielike walk. Those who’d been watching the viceroy’s strange, out-of-the-blue departure turned to Heather instead. She was wearing a long green dress that might have been at home on a Hollywood red carpet. Her days on real red carpets were probably over, but at least the stiffs at the table could watch her still-fine ass on its way out.

Trevor came behind her, snapping at her heels like a terrier. She found herself safely out of the dining room with her seventeen-year-old son now demanding her full attention. Some of that attention was still on Meyer, who’d gone farther along the hallway and rounded a corner. So far as she could tell, he’d yet to notice her behind him.