Alien Invasion 04 Annihilation (24 page)

“Where are they?”
 

“A safe place.” Christopher looked around the room, trying to help Terrence’s hands look busy to the guards. Raj had hooks in him. He probably would have explained further, but if he did and Raj was listening, axes would fall.
 

“They weren’t picked up by the Astrals?”
 

“Something happened out there. Have you seen what’s going on with the Apex?”
 

“I saw a flash.”
 

“Well, something’s going on with
them
, too. They … hell, they started to
change
somehow, T. Fought like a bunch of football hooligans.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
 

“Sounds like it’s working out, if they’re safe.”
 

“But why?” Again, Christopher looked at the guards. “Terrence, your Canned Heat … could it affect them, too? Whatever shit connects their ships to each other?”
 

“I don’t see how. I mean, it looks like they’ve piggybacked off our ground- and satellite-based networks, but they communicate all through space without our help.”

“But … could it infect them? It’s a virus.”
 

“No. It only destroys, and they still have plenty of power.” Terrence’s eyes went to the window. “
More
power, maybe. Tell you the truth: Since that flash, it’s occurred to me that I might have
helped them
as much as
hurting us
. I don’t think their shuttles can talk to each other right now, same for the little surveillance droids the others mentioned before the network blacked out. They’re fast enough that they don’t need to — they can fly wherever in no time and
talk
in person, if that’s a thing for them. If they’re drawing more power into the Apex, that gives them an advantage. Especially if they’re planning … ” Terrence trailed off, aborting his ominous what-if.
 

“Cameron said there’s a mothership over Utah again. Where his dad was.”
 

“Did the mothership destroy the lab?”
 

“I don’t know.”
 

Terrence looked up. “Because you said ‘was.’ ‘Where his dad
was,’
past tense.”
 

“He’s dead.” Christopher sighed. “Benjamin is dead.”
 

“Shit.”
 

“A lot of their people. The rebel thing I mentioned, that Jons told me about? It was them. They got a thing.” Christopher paused again before describing the key and the idea of the weapon, wary of revealing too much for ears in the walls. But then he added, “Trevor too.”
 

Terrence closed his eyes and shook his head. “Hell. I liked Trevor.”
 

Christopher bobbed his head grimly. He’d liked Trevor too. A lot. But there wasn’t time to mourn with so much still in the balance.
 

“But the mothership. Cameron said it’s … I don’t know … leeching power from this underground plug. Like it’s charging up, back in Moab.”
 

“Why?”
 

“That was what I was hoping you’d have thoughts on, Terrence.”
 

Terrence shook it off. “Same question. They’re probably planning something if they’re powering up.”
 

“Look, they need to get … ” Christopher paused, but there was no way to convey the information without simply saying it. “They need to get into it. Into the Apex. Is there any way to clear a path from where you’re — ”
 

“Forget it,” Terrence said. “First, I’d have no way to affect that.
Any
of that, and certainly not with Raj’s oversight. But there’s a bigger problem.”
 

“What?”
 

Terrence pulled something from his tool bag. It looked like a 1990s-era phone — something with alligator clips on one end, old like a repairman might have carried before Christopher was born.

“I can hear your radio transmissions,” he said.
 

“Okay.”
 

“Well, haven’t you been listening?”
 

“I’ve had it off.”
 

“Turn it on when you get out of here. You’ll see. It sounds like
they’re
swarming the Apex. Forget about being kept out. Cameron and Piper would be mobbed. Like fighting through a crowd, from the sounds of it.”
 

“Why?”
 

“I’m hearing human talk, not Astrals. So you tell me; you’re the one in uniform.”
 

“Something to do with the ‘powering up?’”
 

“No idea. But it’s occurred to me that — ”

A voice from the doorway: “Well, isn’t this a nice little reunion?”
 

It was Raj, with a tablet in his hand.

CHAPTER 45

The viceroy was taller than Nathan expected.
 

Usually, people who appeared to be larger than life — and Dempsey was certainly one of those, both before and after Astral Day — earned their size through the media’s flattering eye. There had always been tall actors, politicians, and leaders, but more often than not, anecdotes said that meeting them in person was disappointing.
 

Not so for Meyer Dempsey. He was several inches taller than Nathan, firm in bearing, and with a strange look in his eye that Nathan, who was used to intimidating his way through negotiations, felt himself wanting to flinch from.

No wonder some people said that Dempsey was a god. He’d been scooped up by aliens and returned like Lazarus. He’d risen to power in an obvious fashion, as if he’d always intended to be and everyone had expected it of him. His presence was unflinching. And, if the murmurs he’d heard on his way in were true, the man might have been shot, before emerging from death unscathed.
 

“Come in, Mr. Andreus.” Meyer nodded to the man who’d led Andreus in. Then the man left, and he gestured at the seats. Nathan took one, careful to select the highest and largest. That was how you took command of a discussion: by sitting in the room’s obvious throne.
 

But Dempsey effortlessly trumped him. Only once seated did Nathan look up and realize Dempsey meant to stay standing.
 

“I received your message,” he said.
 

“And?”
 

The viceroy nodded. “I believe it. The Astrals believe it.”
 

“Why do you need to
believe
it? Couldn’t you see it for yourself?”
 

“It’s none of your concern.”
 

But watching him, Nathan realized he’d scored an early — if accidental — hit. They’d escaped. The son of a bitches had somehow slipped away, despite the Astrals’ force and might. That could be good, or bad. It certainly weakened Nathan’s bargaining position. If they’d captured Cameron, they’d have recovered the key Nathan had told Dempsey he was carrying. They’d know that Nathan was telling the truth. Now, he had to take at least half of his informant’s information on faith.
 

“Have the Astrals found the item they were looking for? Under the Apex?”
 

“A search is underway. But unfortunately,” Meyer gave Nathan a sidelong look, as if reminding him who was skeptical of whom, “your suggestion to scan the chambers for stone of the same composition as the key has run into trouble.”
 

Meaning: Without capturing Cameron and getting the key, the Astrals couldn’t yet verify that Nathan had been telling the truth about
that
, either. Stupid fucking ETs. It wasn’t Nathan’s fault they couldn’t get their big white heads out of their muscular white asses for long enough to catch one man and one woman walking directly into the city, unarmed and without backup.
 

Maybe he shouldn’t have done this. Yes, ratting out Cameron had gained Nathan entry into the city and earned him the viceroy’s presence, but he hardly had all the chips in his corner. He was sitting like a supplicant while god-king Dempsey stalked around him, large and in charge.
 

Maybe it was all for nothing.
 

“Well … ” The single word made Nathan sound weak, further backed into a corner.
 

“I’ll be blunt. Word from Divinity on the mothership is that the Astrals don’t like you. They also don’t trust you.”
 

Nathan felt his chest constrict. He wanted to stand and act like a man instead of a mouse, but it was hard. The room’s oppression, even for Nathan Andreus, was too strong.
 

“But they need you. And while they don’t trust you, they believe you in this case. At least they buy your sense of self-preservation.” A smile ticked up the corner of Dempsey’s mouth. Nathan felt him shift off the official script, now speaking as himself rather than as the Astrals’ mouthpiece. “A trait we share, as selfish sons of bitches,” he added.
 

Nathan shifted. Tried to sit taller. Tried to make his face impassive, as if none of this mattered.
 

“I’ve been asked to act as a surrogate for Divinity. Are you familiar with the process?”
 

“No. I was contacted by people like you when we made our first arrangement.” Nathan tried to add a sneer to his voice. “Like you” was supposed to be an insult: meaning puppets, meaning those who got down on their knees whenever the aliens asked. But judging the lack of change in the viceroy’s expression, he seemed to take it as a straightforward phrase: “like you” meaning an authority, a person in charge.
 

“Divinity does not leave the mothership. It will speak through me. As far as you are concerned, you will keep speaking with me. But it will be them.”
 

“Like a puppet with a hand up your ass,” Nathan said, finally standing to match Dempsey.
 

The knock registered this time; there was a flicker of annoyance before the viceroy’s face went placid and blank. So unlike the intimidating presence he’d just portrayed. Still in charge. Now more quietly so.
 

“Nathan Andreus,” Divinity said using Meyer Dempsey’s mouth.
 

“You got ’im.”

“You entered Heaven’s Veil, domain of human viceroy Meyer Dempsey, dominion of the prime North American mothership, in an armored vehicle. Since that time, we have considered you a threat worthy of eradication. The matter has been given serious consideration.”
 

Nathan watched Meyer’s face. It wore a totally banal, matter-of-fact expression.
 

“As we know you have surmised, extracting the fugitive Piper Dempsey was exactly what we wished for you to do.”
 

“You’re welcome.”
 

“It was, however, unexpected. The plan was to ferry Dempsey out of the city. Your intervention was helpful, though not anticipated. But you did not know of our plan. You believed you were acting against, not for us.”
 

“I heard you didn’t speak,” Nathan said.
 

“Viceroy Dempsey speaks.”
 

“Is he still in there, or have you completely taken him over?”
 

“Details of the surrogate process are irrelevant. How do you answer the charge?”
 

Jesus.
It was such a formal, stilted way of speaking. Nathan found himself fascinated. Dempsey knew English, so apparently that allowed Divinity to speak the language through him. But the syntax and diction was nothing like it had been a moment ago.

“I was provoked. You struck first.”
 

“There was no strike against the Andreus Republic,” said Puppet Dempsey.

“Against the rebel camp outside of Moab.”
 

“That did not concern you.”
 

“My wife was there. My daughter was there.”
 

“This was not known to us.”
 

Andreus felt his jaw work. “I don’t believe you.”
 

“Belief is irrelevant. It was a counterstrike meant to eradicate a threat.”
 

“A threat you allowed to survive for two years.”
 

“It became a threat.”
 

“And that just so happened to occur after I helped Cameron Bannister cross to Heaven’s Veil.”
 

“Also our intention. And also, a betrayal you made of us, without knowing it was our intention.”
 

Dempsey stood still, waiting, accusation in those not-quite-his eyes.
 

“My wife was killed. By you.”
 

“We have come to comprehend human attachment. There was one surviving member of your party. She was watched by one of our droids, and when the Moab facility was destroyed, she was spared as a gesture.”
 

For some reason, that made Nathan’s blood want to boil. Grace was safe. But what? Was she a cookie earned for a job well done?