Colonization (Alien Invasion Book 3) (21 page)

“Mom!”

“Not now, Trevor! Can’t you see that your father is having an episode?”

Heather pushed past him. She reached the bend in the hallway where, thankfully, Trevor took a hint and fell silent. A good thing. The minute Heather arrived at the corner, she heard voices trickle around it: Meyer and someone else.

She peeked around the corner. The other voice was Mo Weir, Meyer’s aide. Meyer had beelined directly to him as if he’d known precisely where the man was, despite Heather assuming Mo had left for the day.

“Mo. Where’s Christopher?”

“The guard captain?” Still spying, Heather watched Weir shake his head. “I don’t know. I can radio out. Or if you’d like to go into your office — ”

“No, no. Look. There’s been some sort of a breach.”

“We know that, Meyer. Your wife — ”

“Not her,” Meyer said in an irritated, impatient voice. “Jesus Christ, nobody’s told you?”

“Told me what?”

“Fucking hell, Mo. You need one of those earbud things.”

“Maybe you could just
tell
me, Meyer.”

Heather liked Mo. He didn’t take shit, just like her. Half the world was awed by Meyer Dempsey, and the other half was afraid. Weir was neither. When Meyer said stupid things, Mo threw them back. If the fabled emperor had employed a right hand like Mo Weir, he’d never have embarrassed himself by parading naked in his new clothes.

“It’s hard to say. Nobody’s really talking to me.”

“I’m
talking to you, Meyer.”

“In my head. It’s all just confusion. I’m not hearing anything direct from Divinity. It’s like trying to listen in on a cocktail party.”

“This is fascinating. But until you give me something I can use, I’m at a loss as to — ”

“Someone’s outside. Someone at the gate.”

“Okay. Do you want them let in?”

“No. He’s not supposed to be there. He’s … he has something.”

“Jesus, Meyer. This is like playing charades.”

“They’re pissed off. Just hang on. I’m … I’m trying to sort it out.”

“Maybe they sent you instructions. Have you checked your computer or your phone?”

“They’re in my office.”

“Well, let’s go there then.”

Meyer turned forward. Heather fell back and rammed Trevor.

“Wait,” she heard Meyer say.

“What?”

“There’s a few things happening. That’s why it’s confusing. Something in the desert. Did we launch an attack?”

“We? Nothing I know about, but they don’t ask my permission.”

“It has to do with the person at the gate. From Utah? He’s here to … shit, I can’t tell.”

“Go check your messages.”

“Fuck that. Hang on. I can get it if I focus.”

Heather had caught this particular tone a time or two from Meyer and recognized it plain as day. If there was one thing Meyer Dempsey hated, it was being excluded as if he were an idiot incapable of making his own decisions. Meyer was no one’s toady. Heather could hear his irritation at being kept from the loop, and his natural defiance to subvert the authority keeping him out.

“Meyer … ” said Weir.

“Shh!”

Silence. Heather looked carefully around the corner and saw Meyer with his hands on his head, eyes closed. Mo Weir was beside him, arms crossed in obedient annoyance.

“Okay. There are a few things.”

“The thing with Piper … ”

“No. They don’t care about that. At least not right now. It’s … the man outside, he has something. He’s … being watched.”

“If he’s a problem, they’ll kill him.”

Meyer shook his head. “They can’t. Something to do with … dammit, I can’t tell. They … sent a message? Something. But they don’t want to kill him. Just stop him. Where did you say Christopher was?”

“I didn’t.”

“Get him.”

“Okay, let’s go to your office.”

“They’ve sent peacekeepers to the gates,” Meyer said. “They know right where he is.”

“And you want to send the guards? Christopher?”

“No, there’s something else.
Shit
. This is impossible.”

“Sometimes, I wonder if you’re just making these things up to fuck with me,” said Weir.

“Dammit.” Heather watched Meyer open his eyes and shake his head. “Wait. My office.”

“Your office,” Weir repeated.

“Did I get a package today?”

“Like FedEx? They’re out of business, I think.”

“A data dump, I mean. About the Apex. There’s something about the Apex.” A look of recognition crossed his eyes. He seemed almost frightened.

“What,
Meyer?” Weir sounded tired.

“Shit. I wonder if that’s what Piper saw.”

“What?
Hell.”

“I missed something. The archive. Under the Apex.”

“What archive,
Meyer?”

“Did anyone tell you that they’re digging under
all
of the capitals?”

“No, but why do I care?”

“It’s not just here, Mo. Hell. That’s what I’m feeling. That’s what I’m hearing; they’re not just searching here in Heaven’s Veil. They’ve lost it. They can’t find it, and now they’re looking all over.”

“What
can’t they find?”

Meyer pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, but it’s a problem. Is it related to the guy outside? I don’t know.”

“Meyer … ”

“Come on, Mo. We have to leave.”

“Where? Aren’t you still in the banquet?”

“Not anymore.” Meyer bit his lip. “Come on.”

“I could help you more if I knew what you were planning,” said Weir’s voice.

Heather flinched back, preparing to slide into an alcove.

“Whoever’s outside is a problem, but they’re not telling me why,” Meyer said.

“So?”

They turned to head away, toward Meyer’s office. “So we’re going to find out for ourselves,” he said.

C
HAPTER
25

Piper ran.

She’d been in low heels when leaving the house, but she’d discarded them a while back, content to walk the streets in bare feet like a kid. Now running, bare feet were painful. Enough that Thelonius (
Franklin
, she felt compelled to call him in her mind now that they were sharing the same peril) had doffed his sneakers and handed them over during their flight.

Piper didn’t know what was funnier: that a monk would wear sneakers under his robe or that this particular monk’s shoes didn’t fit her all that badly. They were far from perfect, but stayed on as the group traversed the underground tunnel, accessible by the hidden doorway and staircase in the church.

Piper ran, her questions mounting.

How had this tunnel been built? Heaven’s Veil was an alien city. It had grown from a collection of hippies in tents, before the trees had been razed and the ground leveled. Work had been shared equally. The Astrals had used their energy beams to ease the burden, but human dignity seemed to require that they not all sit around and be waited on. Even so, it was hard to believe anyone had missed the tunnel’s creation.

But there were other questions, too. Like:
How had the Reptars found her?
And really:
Had
the Reptars found her, or had she merely had the horrible misfortune of being in the building when the Reptars just so happened to find the dissident church instead?

What about the monks in the chapel’s large main room? Piper, Gloria, Thelonius, and the others in the back had run without hesitation, moving with the smooth precision of a practiced drill. She’d heard the rattling, purring Reptars. She’d heard the screams. So were the others dead? And if so, why didn’t any of those running in the tunnel seem to care? They’d turned tail and sprinted, yanking removable drives from computers, grabbing samples. There would be no mistaking the church’s true purpose once peacekeepers breached the back room; there hadn’t been time to right the room or silence the artificial choir. They couldn’t return, and they’d left the others to die. Like cowards.

Piper ran, listening for pursuit behind her.

The tunnel wasn’t long. After a few minutes, they reached a set of stone steps, and Piper got the answer to at least the first of her questions: the tunnel existed because it wasn’t a tunnel at all. It was a series of interconnected basements with doors knocked through adjoining walls, supports added to hold back the soil between them.

They emerged in the home of a small old woman with a shock of white hair. She was wearing thick glasses — one of the stubborn few people who’d refused vision correction and kept the eyeglasses industry afloat. They stormed up through the basement door with a crash and found themselves staring right at her. She was in a wheelchair, a shotgun leveled directly at one of the lead monks’ chests.

With a clucking tongue, the woman raised her weapon’s barrel, pointing it at the ceiling, then slid it into a makeshift holster on her wheelchair’s side.
That
, Piper had many new questions about. Did the woman just sit here all day, waiting? Who kept a shotgun in a holster, especially on a wheelchair? And how had she kept the weapon from the police and peacekeepers?

Gloria pushed to the front and nodded briskly to the old woman.

“Mary.”

“I’d say it’s good to see ya, Gloria,” the woman said, her voice carrying a slight Appalachian accent, “but I guess tha’ad be a lie.”

“Peacekeepers,” Gloria said, out of breath. The abbess wasn’t a small woman. Piper was winded, and she’d maintained a decent yoga routine even in her new station as Queen of Sheba. Gloria, who didn’t seem to be in peak condition, was probably knocked flat.

“Yeh, I saw. Ran by an’ raised a helluva holler. I guess you’re retired now, ain’t cha?”

“I don’t know if they followed,” Gloria huffed.

“I guess if they did, they’ll get a chest fulla buckshot,” the old woman said mildly.

Gloria nodded. Without a parting word, they ran again, leaving the woman to her apparent duty.

Out in the streets, Piper saw a pattern in their duck-rush-duck movement. She fell into step without effort, but again: it had the feel of something the monks had rehearsed — on paper if not in life.

“The others,” Piper said, catching a glimpse of the distant church. Still just a steeple, nothing unusual. But what did she expect? For it to be on fire? The church was only a building and, in itself, had committed no crimes. The peacekeepers would appear and keep peace. It’s what they did. It’s why Heaven’s Veil had so little crime despite its heavy air of malcontent.

“They knew what they were signing up for,” Thelonius said, his tone short.

“You can’t go back.”

“No.”

“What will you do?”

“We’ll have to head into the outlands. That’s the plan.”

“The plan?”

“It’s always a good idea to know your exits,” Gloria said. “On a plane or in life. I didn’t want any of this, but it’s hard to feel bad. Everything happens for a reason, and is right in the end.”

Piper thought that sounded like an icy answer. She glared at the abbess, her sneakered feet pounding concrete. Like the others, Gloria had discarded her robe in the old woman’s home. They were all in the normal clothes they’d been wearing beneath: jeans, tees, and sneakers. As if they spent their days ready to run at a moment’s notice.

“How can you say that?” Piper hissed.

“No matter what I say … nothing changes,” Gloria said, still searching for her breath.

“The outlands,” Franklin repeated. They paused along the side of a building, his gaze asking for peace. “We’ll need to get out of the city.”

“How?” Piper asked.

“It’s not hard to get out. I doubt they’d chase us.”

“You
doubt they’d chase us?”
Piper said.

“Not us,” said Gloria, pointing at the entire group. Then she pointed instead only at the former monks, excluding Piper, and corrected her:
“Us.”

“So just you, then. Not me.” Now feeling colder, angrier. Apparently, this was a group that just cut and run —
all for one and
… well, and apparently that was it.

“Not you. You’re the viceroy’s wife.” Realizing how she’d taken her exclusion, Franklin rushed to clarify. “You have to go back home.”

Piper assumed she’d heard wrong. “You think they’ll just let me go back to him?”

“No,” Franklin said. “You’re not understanding me. You’re the viceroy’s wife, so you have access to the mansion.”

“Access? What the hell do you mean?” Piper wanted to scream. She’d heard gunshots a few seconds ago, and was hearing Reptars purring nearby. They were barely concealed, nowhere near … well, nowhere near wherever they were going, as a group or in pieces. The issue felt undecided, hanging by a thread.

“The drive,” said Franklin, pointing at Piper’s pocket, where she’d restowed it. “The information we were about to send to Moab before they broke in. You can get it to the network hub. We’re fairly sure it’s in the mansion.”