Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (29 page)

Piper had been raised with plenty of religion. She couldn’t help it; Benjamin’s theories rankled her. “You think Noah’s Ark was meant to survive — ” She could barely say it, and paused for effect. “ — an
alien apocalypse?”

“We can’t know, Piper. That’s my point. Maybe a literal god came down and made it flood. Or maybe those ancient people recounted their interpretation of those events: powerful beings from the sky who decimated humanity then tasked some with preserving heritage to try again. I won’t give you all the details, but there are plenty of theorists who believe there really was an ark — but that instead of taking two of each animal, that Noah of legend took genes instead.”

Nathan looked like he might walk out in boredom. What stopped him, perhaps, were two things. First, nobody else, disbelief notwithstanding, seemed willing to budge. And second, Nathan had taken a rather decisive stand when he’d burst into Heaven’s Veil to rescue Cameron — along with Piper and Trevor. He’d been playing the middle and was now clearly on humanity’s side. Piper could practically see the Astrals above, weighing his benefits and transgressions, trying to decide if they could stand to lose Nathan Andreus and leave the Colorado/Utah outlands to chaos.

“There are a lot of mysteries here,” Benjamin went on. “Is the missing device truly Thor’s Hammer? From what I can tell of the drive’s other data, I’d say it’s likely. There’s talk in there of completeness — of a ritual the Astrals may be going through now, and may have gone through every time in the past. Before making first contact with us, landing that first day and disembarking the nine worldwide viceroys, they established networks to harvest our thoughts. Even the viceroy selection process feels to me like a filtering down — like a tournament almost. They abducted a lot of Earth citizens then eliminated a few from consideration over time each day or week before sending them home. They were left with chief selections: all high profile, all highly respected or at least known prior to their abductions. All authorities — the kind of people humanity has a track record of listening to, but also possibly representatives of the best our species has to offer. So this, too, looks to me like a ritual.”

He tapped the screen, still showing what seemed to be a keystone tablet that had frustrated the Astrals as much as it was frustrating Benjamin. That tablet was causing the Astrals to scramble in a worldwide dig.

“They’ll do what they’re going to do. An ice age, a flood — maybe they’ll incinerate us all. Maybe they’ll eat us. But they’re planning something malevolent, and all that’s stopping them is finishing this ritual — finding this one thing they need. Again, literally or figuratively. They either need this device before they can push the button, or they’re looking for the button itself.”

Trevor looked cold. He looked, Piper thought, as desperate and afraid as she felt. She wanted to tell Benjamin to keep things less dire — there were children present. But Trevor, the youngest among them, was seventeen. Plenty old enough for war, and well past adulthood in countless cultures across endless ages.

“Let’s focus on what we know, not what we don’t,” Charlie said from the corner.

“Right,” said Benjamin, seeming to remember himself. “What we know is that the Astrals’ intentions are not good — ”

“Thanks, Sherlock,” Coffey said.

Andreus shot his lieutenant a look. Apparently, disbelief was okay, but jocular sarcasm was over the line.

Benjamin stuttered for a moment then continued. “We know they’re digging under all nine of the new monoliths. So whatever they’re searching for, they seem to be riffling through their pockets as if searching for keys.”

“Any idea what those big monoliths are for?” Trevor asked.

“It’s hard to say. None are complete. And they’re not hurrying either. It makes me think of a ticking clock. Something they know needs to be done and will take time, so there’s no need to rush. Maybe that’s good for us and maybe not. But as to what they’re for? Who knows? I’d ask the same questions about the Apex. But as our departed friends at the church in Heaven’s Veil pointed out, they’ve had to scramble. They started with stone, presumably because that still seemed to make sense. They’ve only glimpsed us while they’ve been gone, through the eyes of select people. They may have made assumptions about us and the way we’d be based on past visits and peeks, but those assumptions turned out to be false.”

“Like the Internet thing,” said Piper.

Benjamin nodded. “Old visitation evidence suggests we used to be much better at using our collective minds. Today, not so much. We must seem especially foreign to them. Let’s say the monoliths are hubs of a worldwide network, possibly using orbiting motherships as repeaters to connect them. It even makes sense. But if that’s the case, they can’t just tap into us as a collective. They need to make sense of individual minds, which may be slowing them down.”

“Are you saying,” Nathan began, “that our apathy and alienation is protecting us?”

“Maybe.” Benjamin shrugged. “This seems tentative and methodical to me, though again, it’s impossible to say for sure what things were like thousands of years ago. But they seem to be feeling us out. Adapting as they go. The Apex and the other monoliths may be part of that. An attempt, in conjunction with those first stone networks, to connect us. But they could just as easily be intergalactic antennas. Or big arrows that say, ‘Dig here.’”

Andreus shook his head. “Why am I here? I can’t do shit with guesses.”

“Then focus on what we know for sure,” said Benjamin.

“You said that before,” Andreus countered. “And here we are, still with the guesses.”

“What we
really
know for sure,” said Charlie. “Brass tacks.”

“And what’s that, Mr. Cook?” Andreus asked.

Charlie pointed at the screen. “We know they’ve lost something they need before they can do what they have to do.”

Andreus waited. Finally, he said, “So what?”

“So,” Charlie continued, “we have to find it first.”

C
HAPTER
47

Lila entered the small house on the mansion grounds as if she owned it then looked around its living room for Raj. Finding only the home’s owner present, she fell into Christopher’s lap, kissing him.

“Whoa. Wait,” he said. “What’s this?”

Lila kept kissing Christopher. She held him. She hugged him tight enough that he dropped his bottle of hydrogen peroxide and inadvertently rubbed the already-wet cotton ball he’d been using to dab his wound against her bare arm.

“Good to see you too, Lila.”

She grabbed both sides of his face, squishing his cheeks. Lila was on his lap, awkward in the way she’d fallen against him, putting herself at an odd angle. She kissed him again.

“I thought you were dead.”

“Why would you think I was dead?”

“I heard explosions. Gunshots. I saw fire and smoke.”

Christopher exhaled. He looked at the front door, which was as closed as it should be. Lila followed his gaze, remembering the way she’d glanced around the room. Paranoia had trained them both.

“Did you talk to your mom?”

“Yes. Just now.”

“Then she told you I wasn’t dead.”

“I was still worried. What the hell happened out there?”

“Heather didn’t tell you?”

“She told me, but … ” Lila realized that she’d been hoping Christopher’s story would be different. She’d thought on some level that his version could undo her mom’s. Heather had been grim — so unlike her old self, increasingly like her new one. Lila didn’t like the way they lived but abided it. Piper clearly hated it enough to flee. But Lila’s mother would never run. She’d live as they did, hating herself and making jokes that somehow always boomeranged back at the joker. She’d spent two years inadvertently insulting herself (or maybe
intentionally
insulting herself; she’d come from self-loathing parents), and it had stripped much of the mirth from her biting wit.

“She told you about Trevor and Piper?”

“That they climbed into a tank and ran off? Yes. Should I be glad or not? I honestly couldn’t tell.”

“Glad in that they didn’t get eaten by peacekeepers, yes. But as to the rest?” Christopher sighed. “They went with Cameron Bannister. I assume Heather told you he showed up, rather surprisingly, after I brought her back here the first time? Based on what Terrence told her afterward, I mean.”

Lila nodded. She chose to see Christopher’s return to the chaos after dropping off her mother as heroic rather than infuriating. She’d heard them arrive downstairs, but Christopher hadn’t stayed. If he’d been called back by her father, she should forgive him. If that was true, there’d have been no other way.

“She told me.”

Christopher looked around yet again. The fear, even inside his small, private house, clanged on Lila’s sense of right and wrong. Why were they here? Why did they live like this?

“I don’t know where he came from. Terrence doesn’t know either. We found Piper with some others, and I thought that was it. Your dad put us on alert about an intruder at the gate, but the Astral command, which usually rubber-stamps the viceroy’s orders or vice-versa, called us back — and back was where we were when Trevor and your mom came to me. I assume Cameron must’ve been the intruder, but he was alone when we found him. No one was chasing him. We saw two Titans holding your dad
back
, not coming at us.”

“Titans don’t fight, do they?”

“No. I don’t even think they can. But they’re always in communication with the mothership and the peacekeepers, and there’s no obvious reason to keep your dad back. It doesn’t make sense. There’s this big alarm about an intruder, but it’s like they opened up, invited him in, then let him run right into us and Piper and Trevor.”

“Maybe he snuck in,” Lila said.

“How?”

“They let people out all the time on the borders.”

“Let,”
said Christopher. “There are always shuttles. People can go, and authorized people can enter. But never unaware.”

“Maybe whoever was at the gate was a distraction,” Lila proposed. It didn’t matter, and she didn’t care, but Christopher always volleyed the ball to straighten his thoughts. She was happy to feel settled on his warm lap. After her afternoon of terror and worry, just being here was enough.

“I don’t know.”

Lila sensed Christopher’s discomfort then moved away to sit on a soft chair near rather than directly on him. She saw conflict in his eyes: familiar, after having seen so much in the mirror.

“What’s bothering you?” Lila asked. “Not just Trevor and Piper. They’re following Cameron back where he came from, right? And I know how it sounds, but I didn’t see or hear anything blowing up since, so they must be safe, at least for now. So what’s getting you?”

Christopher bit his lip. “Did your mom tell you … ? No, of course not. She was gone.”

“What?”

“Unless Terrence told her that too. Which I seriously doubt.”

“Christopher,
what?”

He looked at Lila as if assessing her discretion. If there was one person on the grounds he had to trust, it was her. And of everyone besides her brother, Lila most trusted him. After the way things had ended at the old bunker, she had more confidence in Christopher than even her own mother.

“Okay,” he said, still seeming to wrestle with divulging a secret. “When the Astrals showed, they did it all at once. From everywhere. As if they’d been hiding and waiting. Your dad too; he just kind of started yelling from down the street, then he and the Titans holding him finally came down. This was right before the … the
whatever it was
that took Trevor and Piper. Before that thing showed up. I saw some of it start to happen as I was running in. But the thing is, we kind of caught them red-handed. Terrence was right there with him, but Terrence … well, he couldn’t go with them in the tank thing.”

“Why not?”

“Because Cameron gave him something before he left. Something that Terrence — specifically Terrence — needs to have. And he has to have it
here
. In Heaven’s Veil, not out wherever they were going. Terrence had to stay. He says Cameron said to hit him, so it would look like he was a plant. Like we sent Terrence with Trevor (I don’t think any of them knew I was there earlier, too, thankfully) as some sort of a spy. Hitting Cameron was supposed to be Terrence coming back to our side after the cavalry arrived to catch the fugitives. But the thing is … well, I don’t know if I’d believe it, myself.”

Lila felt her heart beating harder. If she’d heard Christopher right, that wasn’t the kind of thing he should have said so plainly. Or maybe he should have. When doctors gave patients news of a terminal illness, Lila imagined they did so in the same way:
Here are the facts. You’ll die soon, but at least now you know
.

“What do you mean you don’t know if you’d believe it?”

“Terrence is great with gadgets, but he’s not an actor. He looked
caught
, Li. Cameron whispered something when Terrence picked him up off the ground then slipped this thing into Terrence’s pocket. But then Cam says, ‘Hit me.’ To Terrence’s credit, he got it in an instant. No hesitation. I did what I could to back him up, but your dad isn’t stupid, and neither are the Titans. Or probably the Reptars.”

“So?” Lila didn’t want to say more.