Interest (21 page)

41

The question was, how to get back to civilization with fifty miles of grassland between the camp and the nearest town? Being Xreths, someone figured out how to get the trains that they’d come in on running again. Over the next few days, millions of people were evacuated by rail to Kansas City, hundreds of miles away on the other side of the state.

With all the Tchogols dead, and the world’s Xreths in captivity or in hiding, modern civilization had ground to a halt over the last few weeks. All responsibility had fallen to the Saskels, who were unable to keep things operational without being told what to do. The weird thing was, they kept showing up to their jobs. Only they didn’t know what to do without any guidance, so they just sat there every day until five o’clock, then went home to drink beer.

Len tried the bus station in Kansas City, which was packed wall-to-wall with waylaid refugees. There were people with S tattoos working behind the counter, but they didn’t know where the buses were, or when they’d start running again. They didn’t seem to know anything, nor did they take the initiative to find out.

Transportation was an insurmountable problem. The airports that hadn’t been destroyed in the invasion were nonetheless rendered useless by Saskel mismanagement. Trains and buses were out of commission. The only way out of Kansas City was by automobile, but the town didn’t have nearly enough of those to accommodate the sudden influx of fifty million people. In a matter of hours, every single car in the whole county had been hired, stolen, or driven away. As the concentration camp emptied out, the streets around the train station in Kansas City swelled into a massive refugee camp as people were unable to get back to wherever they’d been abducted from. The location of the Dranthyx’s concentration camp was no accident. They’d put it right in the center of the continent. In talking to people he met, Len found out the Dranthyx had brought prisoners in from as far away as Alaska and Panama.

Food, water, and sanitation were other problems. After a day in the disgusting refugee camp, Len and Natalia decided to take their chances by simply walking out of town. Out in the suburbs, they broke into a sporting goods store to steal two bicycles. Len found one with a kid seat on the back. He left an IOU note with his address.

Bicycles turned out to be the right choice. With global communications severed and no one left to orchestrate petroleum distribution, gasoline had become a fond memory. By day, they rode on the shoulders of empty freeways on their bicycles. At night, they scavenged canned goods and slept under the stars. Looking up, they saw that the Ich-Ca-Gan’s ships remained motionless upon the air in their grid formation. At sunset, the white spheres turned orange and purple like the clouds, which was oddly beautiful. At night, they reflected moonlight. They just hung there, the sentinels of the earth.

Wherever they went, there were dead Dranthyx soldiers rotting in the streets. People desecrated their corpses and tried to figure out how to use their vehicles.

Jefferson was right, Len thought. Before the whole ordeal, humans had always felt something in their bones but never discussed it: there was an unconquerable, clandestine evil in the world that had to be answered to. It lurked wherever power did—behind political decisions and corporate policies, in the courts and behind badges. People spent their whole lives wondering when the other shoe would drop: when their country would be invaded, when they’d be sued, when they’d be murdered, when they’d be foreclosed upon or jailed or blown up. But as a child discovered when an angry, drunken parent suddenly moved out,
it didn’t have to be that way
. So it was with those who survived. It took Len a while to put his finger on it, but he saw it clearly once it was gone. The human race had always been crushed by the anxiety that came from a constant anticipation of injustice, a feeling of powerlessness before the powerful. That worry died with the Dranthyx and their Tchogols. The shark-tank feeling was gone now; anarchy wasn’t scary anymore.

Passing through the towns and cities, Len felt like there was a new mood in the world, a subtle undercurrent of joy and a sense of limitlessness. It was there despite everything people had been through over the last year. He saw it in people’s faces and their actions. They were in charge of their own lives now, but they were also in it together. They were sovereign and they were family.

As none of them were expert bicyclists, it took them three weeks to get back to Pittsburgh. One day, as they were passing through Indiana, they stopped at a roadside produce stand to see if the farmer wanted to trade his apples for whatever Len and Natalia had with them. The farmer’s stand was powered by a generator and happened to have a TV. On the TV were white Japanese characters on a black background:

“What show is this?” Natalia asked.

“Oh, there aren’t any shows anymore,” the farmer said, putting some apples into a bag for them. “Not since the invasion. I don’t know what this is, but it’s being broadcast on all channels.”

“Len, you know Japanese. What does it say?”

Len looked at the screen and struggled to remember all the characters.

“It’s like a letter. It says, ‘Dear Humans…we humbly bring the following items to your attention…1) We helped you this time but the…Dranthyx…will return someday. When that happens, you will need to fight them by yourselves. 2) All authority is fraud; learn to think for yourselves. 3) Most importantly, you must learn that you are not separate and apart from the rest of the universe. Good luck. Signed…Ich-Ca-Gan.’”

“This is a message from those UFOs? Is it for us?” the farmer asked, eyebrows raised.

“For all of us, apparently,” Len said. “I do believe an alien race just told us to get our shit together.”

42

A few days later, Len, Natalia, and Octavia finally walked up the steps to Len’s apartment in Pittsburgh. Across the door was yellow tape reading “Police Line—Do Not Cross.” Len tried opening the door but found it was locked, and he no longer had his keys—Jefferson’s men had taken them out of his pockets when he was kidnapped. He asked Natalia and Octavia to wait there while he went downstairs to the first-floor apartment and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” barked Ms. Armstrong, his octogenarian landlord, through the door.

“It’s Leonard Savitz. Your tenant in 3A.”

Leonard heard the door being unlocked. Ms. Armstrong opened the door just a crack. Upon seeing Len’s face, her eyes widened and she unchained the lock.

“Leonard! I heard you were dead!”

“No such luck, Betty. Sorry about missing the rent,” Len said, with a defeated smile.

“Oh, thank God! Can you believe what’s been going on? One of those dreadful octopus creatures came to my door with some kind of gun and pricked my finger like he was checking my blood sugar. Then he zapped my arm and neck and gave me these hideous tattoos!” She mimicked the zapping of the tattoos. “They didn’t want me, but they took our neighbor David in 2B. I rang the police, but they said they were taking orders from the octopuses. Oh, it’s just horrific what’s going on anymore!”

“Hopefully it’s over now.”

“I doubt it! And now they’re saying those white balls in the skies are aliens! My goodness, where will it end?”

“Betty, do you have a key to my apartment? I think the terrorists took mine.”

“Oh my. Of course, dear. The police made me change the locks anyway.” Betty retreated into her dingy old-lady apartment and returned with a key. “Your mother has been by several times. She’s worried sick about you. Oh, and an oriental gentleman came by this morning with a letter for you. I told him you’d been kidnapped and were probably dead, but he didn’t seem to care. He said you’d be back anyway.”

“Did you happen to catch his name?”

“Oh, I wrote it down. Let me see…Mr. Hamasaki.”

Len felt his pulse quicken. He took the letter, put it in his pocket without opening it, and thanked Betty. Len went upstairs and opened the door to his apartment, letting Natalia and Octavia in. As expected, the place had been ransacked by the cops. Drawers tossed, clothes and silverware all over the place. His computer and paper files were missing. Thankfully, the detectives had left his bourbon alone.

Len poured some whiskey for himself and Natalia, took a deep breath, and opened the envelope. Inside was a letter in a woman’s hand, a flowing script from some bygone era.

Dear Leonard,

Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

I understand why you sent the Dranthyx after me, and I do not hold it against you. To tell you the truth, I was counting on it.

What you may hold against me, however, is another matter. I doubt any amount of apologizing on my part will cause you to forgive me, yet I sincerely apologize regardless.

I haven’t been terribly forthright with you. I have spent much of my existence attempting to overthrow Dranthyx control. I studied you from afar for many years before selecting you for the mission. Of the billions of human beings on this planet, you were the only one who had the right combination of talents and personality traits to make the plan work.

I did not have the technology nor the manpower to take on the Dranthyx myself. The Ich-Ca-Gan
did
have the means to do so, but I could not have enlisted their help without yours. I knew you were capable of doing what I could not: collaborating with the Ich-Ca-Gan to destroy the Dranthyx.

Regretfully, I had to kidnap you, your ex-wife, and your daughter, because it was the only way to make the plan work. While the human race will be in a much better way going forward, I regret the suffering that I put you, your daughter, and the rest of the world through. I’m truly sorry about Sara.

We now live in a world free of Dranthyx, Tchogols, control, corruption, government, and surveillance. The people of the world now have a bright and (for the first time in history) self-directed future. A blank canvas. It came at a tremendous human cost, but I believe, and history may show, that it was worth it. I hope you can see why I did what I did.

I have restored both of your identities, Leonard Savitz and Jim Rivington, erasing any hint of suspicion associated with either. You may use both as you see fit. For your troubles, please accept, in gold bullion, one hundred times the payment I originally promised. It is buried at these exact coordinates: 40°26
′
34.0
″
N, 80°00
′
57.0
″
W.

Your fellow champion of humanity,

—Neith

Len’s hands shook as he handed the letter to Natalia to read. He put a bewildered hand on his furrowed brow. Natalia appeared to read it twice, then gave Len an uncomprehending look.

“Well, now I can reimburse you for the boat,” Len said, flabbergasted.

“Yes, with enough left over to buy island and retire! Wait, so Neith is not dead? She wasn’t computer? What is she?”

“I have no idea,” Len sat down on his futon, lightheaded and feeling had. He took a big drink.

“What’s wrong, Daddy? Something’s too bad.”

“Octavia,” Len said tiredly, “when you’re older, the world still won’t make any sense.”

“OK, Daddy.”