Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (31 page)

She asked a second question before Trevor could answer, effortlessly slotting into her strategist role. Knowing what was at stake, Danika had dropped her sarcasm.

“Is this the only one?”

“He thinks so,” Trevor said. “He’s swept the place and only found the one source. He says that means there’s either just the one, or there are a few close together. But why would they bother, if they didn’t separate?”

Coffey looked like she wanted to pace, but the room was too small. “He doesn’t want to tell everyone, does he? That’s why he just told you, and told you to tell us.”

Trevor nodded. “He said he doesn’t even trust himself. It moves like the shuttles, so it could pop in on him at any minute and hear him having this discussion with you. He can’t wall himself off without giving away that he knows it’s there but figures it’s probably not interested in me. He says that as long as we know it’s watching but it doesn’t know we know, we have an advantage.”

“A
big
advantage,” said Coffey. “It means we can show one hand and hide our real intentions on the other. But the question is, what can we show it? It’s watching us for a reason, and somehow that’s a better alternative than just destroying this place.”

Something was falling into place in Trevor’s head — something Coffey wasn’t seeing because she didn’t know the lab’s history like he did, through Cameron. Danika wasn’t seeing it because she didn’t know Heaven’s Veil — and importantly, those who’d begun this journey. Trevor knew both. He knew what this lab was capable of and what the bunker had birthed. He could only think of one good reason for all the fortunate turns of events that had fallen in line. The reason they’d been allowed to live and operate. Watched in secret.

“They’ve played us.”

Both women turned to Trevor.

“This isn’t just about the lab,” he said. “It’s about Piper, too.”

C
HAPTER
49

Meyer looked down at his computer screen, wondering if his old or new method of communication was worse. The Astrals were capable of paring their collective thoughts into bulletins meant for mostly disconnected (and unfortunately human) beings like him, but they were unpracticed and terrible. Other human authorities had men and women in their command chain. The police captain, for instance, got his orders from Mo Weir, who translated commands handed down from Meyer as he walked and talked. Meyer was capable of articulating human thought, and Mo was more than used to turning his hyperactive mishmash into actionable directives. But Meyer had nobody in the chain above him. No one human anyway. And so he had to deal with bullshit like this.

His screen read,
SUBJECT PROGRESS NULL CONTINUE TO WATCH
.

Meyer knew what that meant. He probably wasn’t originally supposed to know this part of the Astrals’ plan, but Divinity had informed him (mentally this time — perhaps the slightly less terrible of the ways they communicated) after Piper left the city. Meyer understood why. They seemed to have anticipated her actions, assuming she’d be curious enough to look at the images when they flashed magically onto Meyer’s screen while she’d been in his office, then traitorous enough to copy them and flee. They’d seemed to understand that Piper wasn’t the sort of woman to stand around and watch Rome burn once she’d accidentally discovered evidence of the Astrals’ nefarious plans. But in spite of it all, they’d seemed to understand — possibly by siphoning off Meyer’s own emotions and thoughts — that Piper loved Meyer Dempsey. She might return to him even though she should run to someone who could help her translate the stolen info. And if that happened, it was important that Meyer knew how to react. If Piper came back to confess to her crime, Meyer had to understand that her taking that information had been the Astrals’ intention all along.

Of course, she hadn’t returned. Meyer had seen her flee. In fact, he’d watched her
hug Cameron Bannister
then run. She’d delivered that information to Benjamin Bannister just as they’d wanted — despite Raj’s jackassed attempts to help by sending Reptars to the church. Meyer hated Raj for that. If she’d been allowed to simply send the information, she’d at least have stayed in the city. Raj forced her hand. His idiotic actions sent her past the gates. Now Meyer might never see her again.

He resented being a pawn but told himself that it was the best he could expect under the circumstances. He was still human, and as far as humans went, he was at the top of the chain. There were only eight humans in the world with his power, and none with more. But he was still shuffled to the side to make way for Astral strategies, invited back into the loop only when they needed his help or compliance. Or when they needed him to dance for the camera like a stooge, wearing that giant Meyer Dempsey smile that told the world that everything was under control and would, in the end, be just fine.

He looked at the screen.

SUBJECT PROGRESS NULL CONTINUE TO WATCH
.

Jesus Christ. They couldn’t even use punctuation. They knew the vocabulary but had a foreigner’s lack of understanding, clueless about how to string things together. Language had always been important to Meyer. Whenever people sent him misspelled or poorly punctuated messages in the old days, he’d handed them mental demerits. He’d always thought less of people who wrote
they’re
when the proper word was
their
. It was even possible that the “Meyerness” the aliens had sucked out of him during his abduction was the only reason they could form sentences at all. Maybe he should give them credit for being able to do any of it, when mental communication was their norm. But then again:
fuck them.
A seed of imperfection, in the form of human mind, had in this case made those perfect beings better.

But the message was still the message: a notice to their puppet in the viceroy’s mansion, giving him all the information he needed to know. Meyer once ran empires and answered to no one, but now he was someone barely worth a download.

Bannister still hadn’t cracked the human code on the tablet, as far as the droid had seen.

And, Meyer thought cynically, they’d just
CONTINUE TO WATCH
because they sure as hell couldn’t do anything more. After finally excavating their buried temple only to realize some lowly human had stolen their lucky charm and hidden it elsewhere, what had they done? Had they used the vast, superior intergalactic brain to find what was lost? No. They’d turned to a human for help, playing Bannister (and Piper, for that matter) like strings on a banjo.

Letting humans do their dirty work.

Just like Meyer had been.

Yes, sirs. No, sirs.

Meyer was on the receiving end, never planning. Powerful only because the Astrals allowed it.

He remembered how angry he’d been when the Titans wouldn’t let him run to Piper.

He remembered how stupid he’d felt when he’d come home and they’d invaded his mind to explain why.

And right now, he found himself wondering how far their mental juju extended. He was already fairly sure the Astrals had been using him as a window for years, manipulating what he’d taken for existential experiences into devices for spying on humanity — or Meyer’s slice anyway. He knew they’d placed those rocks everywhere to take humanity’s temperature and know their intentions as an aggregate. He knew that sometimes, when they passed too near the rocks, they gained a temporary ability to exchange discreet individual thoughts with others. But could they do that without someone knowing? Specifically, could they read his mind right now and know exactly how disobedient he felt? How little he wanted to keep taking their orders in front of the world?

Meyer forced himself to sit. This state of mind was impractical. He’d never been especially emotional, and the floods he’d felt recently were more mounting evidence of the situation’s intolerability. He was feeling emotions from outside; he was feeling his own emotions; he felt himself, in fits of anger and malcontent, wanting to do stupid things.

But he was better than that.

Meyer Dempsey had always been a logical man.

He breathed deeply. Closed his eyes.

Anger was pointless. Meyer’s ability to see that made him more evolved. It, along with his other outside-the-box mental abilities, was probably what had made the Astrals choose him as one of the viceroys. He’d gone through a gauntlet. He’d been tested and found worthier than the tens of thousands before him. He should have more dignity than this. He should be less stupidly impulsive.

He was the viceroy. He couldn’t change their power structure and raise humans above even his own position, so there was no point in trying. No point in struggling. Was his place ideal? No. Could it improve? Also no. But on the other hand — if Meyer stayed emotional, fretting about things he couldn’t change — could his situation decay?

Oh, yes. Most certainly yes.

His family was safe. Even Trevor and Piper, in Moab, were safe. The Astrals wouldn’t raid the lab like they’d raided the rebel village until Benjamin cracked the code and showed the watchers to their missing prize. Even then, Meyer seriously doubted they’d respond with violence. The Astrals didn’t want that. Sometimes, it was necessary because humans were violent by nature. But the point of colonizing and judging had been to avoid unnecessary strife — at least as humans understood it. But they wouldn’t act senselessly. They’d protect Trevor and Piper because that’s what Meyer desired. He had that much power at least.

But doing something stupid would change that. If Meyer rocked the boat, he might not stay safe.

Lila and Clara might not stay safe.

Piper and Trevor might not stay safe.

Even Heather, whom he still had feelings for despite her recent icy exterior, was safe for now … but might not remain so if he disobeyed willy-nilly.

And really, just about the stupidest thing Meyer could do right now would be to ignore what Mo had shown him — to keep that information from the Astrals, who had enough to juggle without sending their little ball bearing spies into every single room. They wouldn’t know what Meyer did — what he’d seen and heard on the surveillance camera hidden in Christopher’s lamp.

He’d been right to doubt Terrence and Christopher’s loyalty, after the other day’s display.

He’d been right to have his own devices planted to watch them.

And now that he knew Terrence and Christopher’s secret, he shouldn’t keep it all to himself.

But he wouldn’t share yet. The Astrals hadn’t known what to make of that little silver cylinder, and neither did Meyer.

As with Benjamin and the tablet, Meyer would watch.

And wait.

And when they did whatever they were going to do, he’d stand ready to do all he could to keep his family safe … even if it meant throwing humanity to the wolves.

C
HAPTER
50

Benjamin stood at the front of the room.

Piper watched from her seat. Cameron was beside her, their hands casually linked.

On her other side was Nathan Andreus, who still frightened her but whom she’d nonetheless found herself getting used to. Meeting Andreus’s daughter, Grace, had humanized the man in Piper’s eyes, and when he’d brought her back to the Andreus camp, that feeling of humanization had lingered. Piper knew he’d done horrible things. She still sometimes had nightmares of two years ago, hiding from his minions in a drift of fetid leaves and mud. But she couldn’t help seeing him as a man who’d done what was necessary to keep his family alive. Just as Meyer had done for her.

A wave of guilt rippled through her. Cameron clenched her hand and smiled, as if he knew and wanted to grant her forgiveness on the universe’s behalf.

“Templars,” said Benjamin.

No one responded to his dramatic declaration, and he continued with an air of disappointment. “The writing on the tablet is very much like the drawings and code left in Royston Cave, found under the Rose Stone, by the Knights Templar.” He tapped the projection the entire room had already seen, and which was no more enlightening now than the first time.

“That tells me that the Templars wrote this tablet,” he said.

“In Colorado?” said Cameron.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about the Templars,” Benjamin said. “It does seem unlikely that they crossed the oceans in wooden boats during the Crusades to leave this tablet buried under Vail — ”

“Unless extraterrestrial ships took them over the ocean,” Danika said. It was the kind of sentence Piper would normally expect to precede laughter, but the world had changed. Now the absurd was sensible.

“Not in this case,” Benjamin said.

“Why not?”

“Because of what this says.” Benjamin paused to see if anyone would ask him then continued, seemingly disappointed. “I’m paraphrasing, but it basically says, ‘Ha ha, suckers, we took your prize, and you’ll never find it, nyah nyah nyah.’”

“You’re sure you’re paraphrasing?” Danika said.

“Astrals didn’t place this tablet. If I had to guess, they probably have no idea what it says.”

Danika shot Trevor a look.

“And?” said Cameron.

“And so, that gives us an advantage. They don’t know where their device is, but we do.”

“So the tablet tells you where it’s hidden.”

“Sort of,” said Benjamin. “The Templars loved codes and deception and riddles, so this doesn’t actually tell us where the device itself is. It just leads us to the next link in the chain.”