Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (36 page)

The thought made her roll to look upward. The sky, bordered on both sides by wide canyon walls, was blue and empty. It could have been another average afternoon before Astral Day, hanging out in the rock scree by the entrance of the Mormon Genealogical Archives.

Cameron looked back then smiled at Piper.

“This is a terrible idea,” she said.

Cameron tried to bolster his smile, making it crawl higher on his cheeks. He partially succeeded.

“Did Charlie explain on the way over?”

Piper nodded. But she’d wondered why Cameron had beelined for the RV with Danika, Ivan, and his father, allowing Nathan to lead her into the other. She’d wanted to ride with him. Her insecurity had even entertained the idea that her desire led to refusal. Cameron had been keeping his head low for most of the day. Piper didn’t like it. If there were secrets, she wanted to hold them.

“Like I’m sure he said — Charlie and Nathan; this was mainly Nathan’s plan, but don’t tell Ivan that — Nathan’s been watching this place on his satellites for a while. Best he can tell, there’s only a handful of Titans watching, and they mostly stay outside. They don’t know it contains the codex that used to be in Vail.” Cameron’s eyes flicked away momentarily as if distracted then returned to hers with sharper focus. “Point is, that’s just a few Titans for what might turn out to be miles of tunnels. Like anything secretive, there’s the official version and the truth. This place is officially quite large. Benjamin says it’s surely much larger.”

Cameron looked over his shoulder. A small Asian woman was crouched behind a fallen boulder, eyes wide and trying not to tremble. Piper barely knew her as more than one of the lab techs named Tina. She wasn’t a stranger simply because Piper was new to the ranch this time around. Tina had been at the Moab facility Piper’s first time staying there, and they’d lived in close proximity for three months. But Tina was shy, like many of the techs. They kept to themselves and did their work, seemingly frightened of shadows.

And
these
were the people Nathan Andreus wanted to use as troops, to storm an alien base.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Cameron said, again drawing Piper’s eyes. “But remember, we’re not expecting to fight. Like I said, the Titans probably only patrol the outside and the main tunnels. There’d be no reason to go deeper. The site interests them, but in the end there are only records in there. It’s low security, and in their shoes, I’d never expect an attack.”

He ticked his head toward Tina.

“Everyone here is scared, I know. But we need runners, not fighters.”

“Runners?” Piper asked.

“For all the tunnels and rooms we know about and all the ones we don’t. We need to get in and out. That’s what matters: speed and stealth. We don’t need to be strong, tough, or brave. We need to be fast and quiet. Everyone here can run, and keep a low profile. God knows they’re quiet enough in the lab.”

For the third time, Piper looked at Tina. This time, she waved back and tried to smile. Tina was maybe five-three with practical short hair and glasses that were too small for her face.

“They’re going to change shifts in … ” Cameron looked at his watch, which he’d had rebanded and kept faithfully wound. “Six minutes. And — ”

“They punch a clock?”

“Actually, it took some time to figure that out,” said Cameron, peeking around before spotting Andreus and Coffey maybe twenty feet away. “They seem to be watching a blade of light made as the sun passes behind a series of holes in the rock farther up. Today, it lines up in six minutes.”

“They flew through space,” Piper said, “and they tell time with rocks.”

Cameron smiled. “They built a worldwide brain with rocks then started building pyramids. Just because we don’t do it doesn’t mean it’s not advanced.”

Piper eyed the Titans near the tunnels’ mouths. They were milling casually, like night watchmen going through the motions. It sure didn’t look like the Astrals were expecting an attack — or whatever it was they were about to attempt.

“Nathan’s footage shows a sort of slow regrouping every day when some Titans leave and others come to replace them. We should be able to get around
there
— ” He pointed. “ — and slide inside
there
.”

“All of us.”

Cameron nodded. “All of us.”

“This big group of human meat.”

“We only have to run and look. We brought this many people so we could break into groups and cover as much ground as possible in very little time. We need eyes. If Benjamin’s right, there will be plenty of other relics here that nobody’s told the public about, and it could be with any of them. Maybe in an old tunnel because he suspects there was something here before — something alien, from long ago, just like the temple under Heaven’s Veil — that this was built to mate with. It may look like a dig. But if the Templars and their modern cousins moved this thing from where it was supposed to be and hid it from Astral eyes, it would have been maintained — kept somewhere accessible but hidden. We know what it looks like.
They
may even know what it looks like.”

“If they’ve seen it,” said Piper, “why wouldn’t they know what it was, and that it should have been at Vail?”

Again, Cameron’s eyes flicked away before returning. This time, Piper identified the mannerism. She knew him well: he was either lying, or about to.

“The Templars must’ve put it inside something else.”

“So we’re not looking for the thing in Benjamin’s photo. We’re looking for something else, with that inside?”

“No, we’re looking for that.”

“So the thing he showed us — that’s the case, and the real device they want is inside it?”

“Right. Maybe. It’s unclear.”

“How did Benjamin find a picture of the case, if it’s just a case?”

“You’d have to ask him.”

Piper fixed Cameron with an assessing glance, but he was looking at his watch, at the Titans, at Nathan Andreus and Coffey.

“What are we really doing here, Cameron?”

Cameron didn’t seem to hear her.

“Two minutes,” he said.

C
HAPTER
56

Raj was sitting in one of the extra rooms off the fourth floor corridor, feet up, using an old business card to clean the undersides of his fingernails. He stopped between the ring and middle finger to look at the card. It was for a lawyer whose card declared
FAST SETTLEMENTS GUARANTEED
. Raj wondered at it. He’d found the card under the desk, but the building, like almost everything around Heaven’s Veil, was new and had never been occupied by lawyers. There probably hadn’t been any lawyers anywhere since before Astral Day, though Raj could imagine many jokes about lawyers attempting to sell their services to the planet’s new overlords.

How the hell had that card ended up here?

Pondering the card’s journey was more appealing than wondering what Meyer might do to him if his perimeter failed.

Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. The viceroy had beaten him up verbally, but on the bright side, he’d been giving those insulting commands to Raj, not Christopher. Christopher was
persona non grata,
apparently. Whom had the viceroy gone to when he needed security handled, even if he’d been kind of a dick about his faith in Raj’s ability to handle it? Well, he hadn’t gone to Christopher.

Not when Christopher and Terrence were the problem.

Raj had spent a fair amount of his time up here thinking about that. Outside the door, just twenty feet farther down the hallway, were the deceptively strong and impregnable double sapphire-glass doors leading into the network hub. There were three cops outside, all carrying sidearms and shotguns. Raj, who was forward thinking, had even found a gas mask for one of their belt clips, just in case the clever pair of Terrence and Christopher (whom Raj had seen in full jailbreaking mode back in the bunker) decided to smoke their way in. If they somehow got past the cops, there was the lock, which literally only Meyer and Raj could open with their palms. Their
live
palms. Raj had thought of that one, too. He didn’t think Terrence was the type to hack a guy’s hand off (or kill him) to open a door the cheater’s way, but Christopher might. He’d suspected Christopher since the day he’d met him, and now Raj had been proved right.

He wondered what Lila would think of
that
. She’d always defended both men, and now they were about to pull something stupid and get themselves arrested (or, ideally, killed) in the process.

Terrence was just a spy? Terrence had been acting on Christopher’s orders to infiltrate Piper Dempsey’s group when Raj found him … with Cameron Bannister, whom he’d also never really trusted? Yeah, right. The viceroy had seen through that bullshit as easily as Raj.

Raj stopped picking under his nails and listened. Someone was coming.

The someone revealed herself a few seconds later. Annoyingly, Heather had walked right into the off-hallway room where Raj had stationed himself as a backup, as if she’d known he was here all along.

“Hey, Beef Jerky.”

Raj let his feet fall to the floor and sat up properly in the chair.

“I need to use one of the computers.”

“I know you own two. Check your house.”

“I can’t get a signal. Terrence told me to find one with a hard line.”

“There are several downstairs. You shouldn’t even be up here.”

Heather shrugged. “I live here, don’t I?”

“No.”

Heather walked closer. “I just want to check on something for Lila, okay?”

“Lila didn’t tell me about anything. What is it?”

Raj could smell the bullshit. Especially since Meyer had basically warned him about this, almost exactly.

“It’s a surprise, Kumar.”

“So why are you up here? Seem like overkill, to use one of the nerve center machines to check a website.”

Heather sat on the edge of his desk. “I don’t need one of the computers. I need you.”

Was she coming on to him?
While
insulting him? That wasn’t possible. She must be bad at this.

“You’re good at computers and stuff.”

“I am, huh?”

“Computers and math.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Possibly outsourced tech support or customer service.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’m busy here.”

Heather looked down. “I can see that.”

Raj stood. Heather moved, as if to block his way. That set Raj’s nerves on high alert. His eyes narrowed, and he looked past Heather into the hallway. Where, he now thought, he’d just heard a small noise of indeterminate origin.

“What are you doing here?” He took a step to the right. Heather did the same, parrying to match him.

“Clara got one of her psychic flashes about some old kids’ show featuring trains with fucked-up creepy faces. I need to see if I can figure out what it is.”

Raj moved a step to the left. Again, Heather moved to block.

“I think it might be
Rapey the Train Engine
. Does that sound right to you?”

“Okay,” Raj said. “Step aside.”

“I found another kids’ show where the characters look like sex toys. I say conspiracy. Thoughts?”

“Out of my way.”

“You know what I could go for?” she said, now sounding nervous. “A game of backgammon.”

Raj shoved Heather away and marched double-time to the hallway door.

At the network center doors, with the cops unconscious at his feet and a set of tools in his hands, was Terrence.

C
HAPTER
57

Meyer took the small device from Mo then wiped the thing’s end before plugging it into to his ear. The guards all wore them on duty, and Meyer could access their protocols to give orders, but didn’t normally listen. Raj trying to reach him through security guard channels made Meyer want to punch him.

“What?”

“You asked me to let you know if anyone tried to get into the network center,” Raj said in his ear. Meyer could tell by his voice that the kid was smiling. What the hell did Raj have to smile about? He didn’t get to be smug or self-satisfied. Not until he’d erased the fuckery of sending Reptars out without consulting anyone. Piper could have been killed. Meyer didn’t care if she
had
stolen from him,
was
being used, and
might
think he was the enemy. Anyone who messed with Meyer Dempsey’s people — whether he was a viceroy or not — was asking for a fist down their throat.

“So someone did.”

“Terrence and Heather. Just like you thought they might. They had
tranquilizer darts,
if you can believe that, but I was here as a backup.”

Meyer considered telling Raj to wipe the smile off his face because that’s right, it
had
been Meyer’s thinking, not Raj’s. But telling him to stop smiling when Meyer couldn’t see him would freak Raj out.

“My ex-wife, Heather?” He knew perfectly well which Heather, and didn’t currently know any others.

“Y … yes. You said you thought she might be — ”

“Fine. I’ll be right up.” Reluctantly, he added, “Thanks.”