Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (37 page)

Meyer handed the comm back to Mo. “You want help?” Mo asked.

“He said they knocked out the cops with darts. If he’s calling, he cuffed the other two. Unless he’s an idiot, which he is.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I don’t need help,” Meyer said.

“Then how about props for embarrassing photo opportunities?”

Mo smiled, but Meyer left the room. He often volleyed with Mo, especially on the topic of idiotic underlings, but he wasn’t feeling it. Everything felt backward.

He was allying with Raj against Christopher, who’d served him well for years.

He was doing what the Astrals would want him to do even though he was annoyed at the way they kept withholding information, as if
he
were the idiot.

He was about to send Heather away — his friend and (if he admitted it) soul mate — while clapping Raj on the back.

But Meyer had to do it. He could get Heather off easy. She had a history of doing dumb, impulsive things, and everyone knew it. But preserving their station mattered because not many people these days were truly safe, but the Dempseys were. He had Lila to consider, and his granddaughter. Plus, Trevor and Piper, who’d return once they came to their senses. It was fun to play with the rebels, but what happened once those ill-conceived acts of rebellion petered out? You came home to Meyer, who’d done what was necessary to keep the house of cards from collapsing.

He rounded the staircase on the third floor and heard the scampering of startled feet behind him. Then, unwelcome at this of all times, he heard Lila’s voice.

“Dad?
Dad! Where are you going?”

Meyer ignored her. He began taking the steps two at a time, determined to face whatever needed facing so he could avoid looking into his daughter’s eyes.

Meyer reached the upstairs hallway and found Raj sitting on Heather’s back, her face to the cool tile floor. Terrence was beside them, upright, in restraints. Three policemen were on the ground, facedown and drooling. Lila arrived at Meyer’s side, panting from exertion. From the corner of his eye, Meyer saw her lance Raj with a look of hate.

“They tried to break in, just as you said they would,” Raj said with an infuriating smile.

Lila ran to her mother, shoving at Raj, having to rock him a few times before he finally moved aside. Heather rolled, and Lila cradled her head like a child’s, now down on her knees, sending that same disdain-filled look back at Meyer. He almost heard her say inside his mind:
Look what you’ve become. Look what
we’ve
become.

Raj, annoyed at having been thrown from his perch on Heather’s back, stood. He crossed to the viceroy, but Meyer’s eyes were still locked on his daughter’s.

Lila wasn’t speaking. He couldn’t hear her true thoughts, as he could hear the Astrals. But still he could sense the message in her look, clear as anything.

She seemed to say:
Traitor
.

Raj held out an unmarked silver cylinder. Terrence watched it change hands with jealous eyes.

“He had this,” Raj said.

Meyer took the cylinder, feeling the weight of Lila’s stare. Feeling the burden of Divinity’s expectations. Knowing that no matter what Lila thought and how much she might hate him, he’d done everything for them. For the family. For everyone’s benefit, whether they appreciated it or not.

“He also had this,” Raj added, handing over the tranquilizer pistol Terrence had used to incapacitate the guards. It was something new that Meyer had never seen — classically Terrence-modified to hold a clip so he’d be able to fire multiple darts without needing to reload.

Lila still sat with her mother, her shoulders rising and falling, brown eyes bolted to Meyer’s.

Traitor
.

Meyer took the weapon in his other hand. Then, still looking at Lila, he fired two darts into Raj’s stomach.

Lila’s eyes grew wide. Heather tried to sit up, speechless for the first time ever.

“Do it quickly,” Meyer told Terrence, tossing the silver cylinder into his still-bound hands.

C
HAPTER
58

“Here,” Andreus said.

He was talking to Trevor because Trevor had inexplicably taken the lead, but Cameron turned to look as well. The bald main held his hand out, indicating a passage in the rock that looked exactly like all the others.

“You’re sure?” Cameron asked.

Andreus took a step toward Cameron. He probably wasn’t trying to be intimidating, but he didn’t seem able to help it. The step said,
How dare you question my judgment?
and had probably served him well over his years taming unruly followers, but Cameron found himself immune. They were three people with a mission, same as the other small groups running through the much larger, more carefully mapped tunnels. Andreus’s quest was real, and the others were decoys. But that meant nothing. Everyone inside this hollowed-out mountain, from the moment they’d sneaked past the surprisingly (but not really surprisingly) easy-to-infiltrate perimeter, had proved his or her bravery. In here, Nathan Andreus was nothing special, and Cameron wouldn’t take his word for anything without an excellent reason.

After a moment’s challenging stare, Andreus held up his palm. For a moment, Cameron thought the man might strike him, but then he saw the smudged markings on his skin.

“Bird, bird, turtle, guy with a hat,” Andreus said, apparently translating the legend B-B-T-GH he’d written on his hand. He pointed back toward where they’d come from. “The concealed door was right where Ben said the tablet put it. The first branch was bird, then bird again.” He pointed above the mouth of the passage he’d indicated to Trevor, at a turtle carved in the rock. “Turtle.” Then he tromped down the passage alone, and Cameron heard his voice add from farther down, “Guy with a hat.”

Cameron shrugged at Trevor, who managed a smile in spite of his obvious nerves. They followed the warlord’s voice to the short rock-walled passageway’s end and found him pointing above a new — and apparently final — tunnel.

Cameron looked at the glyph above the door.

“I think the sun is setting behind him.”

“Guy with a hat,”
Andreus repeated, again pointing at the glyph. “Time?”

Cameron looked at his watch. “Three minutes. It’s 4:17.”

“Three minutes since we broke away.”

“Since we broke into groups.”

“Not when we broke away from Piper’s group.”

“Yes. Sorry. Three minutes from then.” The large group had split immediately upon entering the front tunnel, having found the facility’s interior surprisingly (but again, not surprisingly at all) deserted. There hadn’t been enough tunnels at the first branch to justify Nathan, Cameron, and Trevor taking their own path, so they’d waited a bit then slipped away. Piper would assume they’d split later, when they’d reached another fork — though Cameron, for one, thought it was possible she might not notice at all. Everyone had been nervous, including Piper. The facility was comprised of row upon row of tiny-drawered filing cabinets stuffed with microfilm, but they were all acting like a mothership could descend at any moment. Right now, everyone felt selfish. If Piper had noticed and was worried, she’d see them soon enough. If Benjamin’s reading of the tablet was accurate (and so far, it had been), they’d find what they were looking for and rejoin the tour in ten minutes, maybe five.

“Okay,” said Andreus. “I sure hope this is all there is, because my hand’s out of symbols.”

Cameron pushed past him into the tunnel, inexplicably irritated by Andreus’s air of authority. This was his father’s research. Only a handful of people could have translated the tablet, and Benjamin Bannister was one of them. Not Nathan Andreus. Not even the Astrals themselves.

“Your detector still on?” The passageway had narrowed, so Cameron had to turn both head and shoulders to ask.

“No,” Andreus answered. “I figured we’d go on faith that the BB was with Benjamin instead of us.”

“I didn’t hear it making noise.”

“It makes noise when detecting a signal.”

“Any noise at all.” The detector normally chirped and crackled with static. It could be silenced, of course, but they’d all nonverbally seemed to agree that in here, any sounds of life were good.

“There must not be any signals in here. Makes sense. We’re in a goddamned mountain. I’ll bet the BB signals can’t even get out. It’s probably recording to broadcast later.”

“And your signal to Terrence about releasing Canned Heat?”

“Also prerecorded. I left a modified phone in the RV.”

“So we need to do it on time, seeing as you can’t change when it sends Terrence the signal.”

“I may have overstated the timing. As long as we have a signal to the open Internet within maybe five minutes of surfacing, we’ll be able to broadcast whatever we manage to record of this thing we’re looking for to your dad’s buddies. And call for help if we need it.”

Trevor’s voice came from the rear. “Do you think we’ll need help?”

Cameron was about to revolve on the spot and answer, but the passageway widened into a chamber and they could all see one another. For the first time, looking around the chamber, Cameron wondered how deep into the mountain they were. This part of the tunnel system was impossibly old, and there would be no ventilation. The thought made Cameron claustrophobic.

“Just making sure all bases are covered, Trevor,” Cameron said.

“But if we had to escape … just in theory … how would we? You know, because you were talking about getting help. I mean, just curious.”

Cameron resisted a strange impulse to kneel before Trevor as a way of conveying comfort. But that was absurd. Trevor would take it as pandering, and the boy was taller than him.

“Our friends the Templars took care of all of that,” he said. “There are even exit instructions on the tablet. Lieutenant Coffey, Danika, and Benjamin know those instructions same as we do, and each of them is either with one of the other groups or in shouting distance. But remember, Trevor: They want us here. They know the object they lost isn’t here. It’s something they need to
get
what they lost.”

Andreus seemed to have lost interest and had gone around a bend, farther into the chamber. Cameron heard him call back to them.

“What?” Trevor said.

Cameron wanted to see what Andreus had found, so he walked backward a few paces then held up a finger, asking Trevor to wait.

Around the bend was a small, humble altar. On the altar was what looked like a small clay plate decorated with a swirl pattern. Andreus was holding up the printed image Benjamin had given each of them, comparing. They’d found it. It was here.

With the reverence he’d seen in Benjamin many times throughout his youth, Cameron picked up the plate. He held it in front of Trevor’s eyes, using his index finger to indicate a complex set of grooves circling the rim, like the knurling on a coin’s edge.

“A key,” Cameron said.

Andreus gave him a questioning look, but Cameron was talking to Trevor.

“You asked what it was,” Cameron continued. “The Templars didn’t store the device they took from Vail here, but they did store this: a key needed to unlock — or possibly
activate
— the actual device, wherever it is.”

“Possibly?” Trevor repeated.

“My father’s the expert. I think he even knows where it is. But for now, I can just tell you one thing for sure.”

Trevor raised his eyebrows.

“Whatever the Astrals lost and the Templars hid from them,” Cameron said, slipping the plate into a satchel he’d prepared and carefully padded before leaving Moab, “it can’t be used without this.”

“I’ll tell you another,” said Andreus. “If the BB decides to inspect that bag of yours on the way out and finds what’s in it, we’re seriously fucked.”

Cameron wanted to smirk at Andreus’s paranoia, but he’d picked a bag with a tight-sealing zipper for exactly that reason. The BB could force its way in, but not without Cameron’s knowledge.

“Okay,” he said instead. “Then let’s go.”

Cameron led the way down the tunnel, suddenly eager to find the others, rescue them from their wild goose chases in the name of showmanship, and gather their group of ill-prepared intellectuals back home. There were still mysteries (how to inspect the key plate without the BB seeing, how to rid themselves of the BB, and how to find and disarm Thor’s Hammer were only a few), but for now, the first big hurdle had been crossed.

Cameron stopped when there was a small, almost inaudible beeping sound to his rear.

He was thinking he’d imagined the noise when it chirped again.

Cameron turned to see Nathan Andreus — torturer, gang lord, conspirer with the enemy — staring at something in his hand with an expression of unabashed terror.

“What?” Cameron asked, feeling his heart beating harder as if it already knew. “What is it?”

Andreus held up the detector, which beeped again.

“The Astrals’ little spy BB,” he said, his voice disarmingly neutral. “It’s coming right at us.”

C
HAPTER
59

There was a noise from somewhere near Terrence’s belt. Meyer looked at him with questioning eyes, and there was a moment where Terrence looked like he might pretend the noise hadn’t come. But then he seemed to remember who’d opened the hub door, who’d tied Raj’s hands with one of the policemen’s zip ties, and who’d unbound his own. The viceroy had been on the wrong side for a long time and still might be now, in Terrence’s mind. But all three of the room’s occupants knew that if Meyer was playing a con at this point, it was so long that its duplicity failed to matter.