Contact (12 page)

She stopped, her hands on the sink’s edge. The mirror was in front of her, as nice as the one in her home (her
old
home, by now) back in LA. There was a Heather in that reflection, but for a scant moment she seemed to see right through her.
 

What
about
those sessions?
 

Something with her dream. She’d dreamt something important. Not just about Meyer, but something with him that seemed to have meaning.
 

But it was gone.
 

Still she blinked and ran water in the sink slowly, delicately, feeling something on the tip of her mind’s tongue. The dream was mostly gone, but one of its delicate gossamer threads seemed to still cling. If she was careful, she might not break it. If Heather kept her mind defocused — paying attention to the departing dream while not watching it closely enough to scare it away — it might yet come. If she refused to wake fully. If she let herself settle into the heavy fugue of recent sleep.
 

She blinked at her reflection.
Nothing
.

Heather sighed, turned on the water, and was about to cup some to splash her face when she stopped, watching the water swirl down the drain.
 

Plug the hole.
 

She’d just wanted a splash, needed to wet her hands, and slap the sleep from her head. She didn’t need to plug the sink to do any of that. Yet the compulsion felt heavy for some reason, so she pulled up the stopper. She watched the basin fill a few inches, then turned off the water.
 

Whatever you do, protect it, Heather.
 

That mental voice had sounded like Meyer. Like he was right beside her in this empty bathroom.

Suddenly, intensely, Heather needed to
un
plug the hole. To unstopper it. To make sure it was never,
ever
plugged again. The new compulsion was so much heavier than the deep need to stopper the sink, which in itself had been bizarre. It was almost as if she’d plugged it just to see how obviously
wrong
plugging it was, how the faucet should
always
be allowed to run as it wished without encumbrance, and how if anyone
ever
blocked the damn thing, they’d all be fucked.

Still, the compulsion was so strange and so powerful that Heather forced herself to wait a beat, desperate to understand it, rather than allowing it to master her.
 

Then, another beat.

But … there was nothing.
 

Trevor’s voice: “Hurry up, Mom!”
 

She looked up into the mirror and told her reflection, “You’re going crazy down here.”
 

Heather pushed the plunger down, uncorking the drain. Water swirled away, its rotation ticking off days and minutes and hours like a timepiece. But even the sink looked wrong now, turning her sarcastic self assessment into something with barbs. Why the hell was she staring at the sink? Why was she wary of her own reflection? Why had she been so compelled to stopper the sink then drain it, as if pushed from outside? Maybe she really was going mad. Maybe they all were.
 

Heather splashed her face, then used one of the towels to dry off. She felt the soft terrycloth against her skin with her eyes closed, wondering how much that one towel had cost. And to think: people were killing each other for scraps above them.
 

She pulled the towel from her face, but when she did she saw that the towel looked as wrong as the sink had. It was brown, but it had been smudged and blotted with a more intense color in the strange bathroom light: red, like paint.

Heather looked down at the sink, then fell two steps back, covering her mouth to hold in a scream.
 

The bowl in front of her was filled with blood. Viscous red liquid swirled down the drain, painting the basin walls behind in a murder scene.

She shut her eyes, feeling her mind unhinging.
 

A few terrifying seconds passed.
 

With effort, Heather opened her eyes.
 

The sinks contained only water. Plain old water. The final half inch of clear liquid drained away. The sink itself was clean and unmarred.
 

Trevor called again, louder.
 

Heather blinked. But there was nothing wrong with the sink or the towel. There
had never been
anything wrong. Everything was fine, and always would be.

She sighed, then hung the clean towel on the bar beside the sink.
 

“All right, all right,” she called back to Trevor, flipping off the light.
 

But as Heather left the bathroom and headed in with the others, she couldn’t help but feel herself still in the dream, and that what she’d seen with Meyer — whatever it had been — was her true reality, long forgotten.
 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“I need to go,” Cameron told the group. “I can’t do what I need to do if I stay here.”
 

He was speaking to everyone, but he was mainly addressing Piper — announcing his intentions as if asking permission. Piper couldn’t help but feel flattered. For months, she’d been the bunker’s default leader, but it had been a chore without gratitude. She’d been responsible for everyone, yet nobody thanked her. The simple, acknowledging looks this new man had given her in the week she’d known him almost made up for it. She saw respect in those glances. Appreciation — not for himself, but for what she’d done for the others.
 

“Okay,” Heather said. “Bon voyage.”
 

Heather’s hair was wet and plastered to her forehead, as if she’d just washed her face. She looked bleary but fresher than Piper felt right now — than, really, Piper
ever
felt anymore. Heather had plunked down on the sofa beside Lila. Piper didn’t want to feel jealous and wasn’t, but still there was that small, selfish pang.
She
’
d
taken care of Lila over the last few years and had, in a way, kept her alive over the past months. Heather had done nothing. She was an absentee mother, even now that Lila was pregnant. Piper had always felt like a friend rather than a mother figure to the kids, but that feeling had flipped. Now Heather was the buddy, and Piper was the nag Heather had never needed to be.
 

“I’m not an expert on this stuff,” Cameron continued. “We came here to answer a question about Meyer, but it’s too big and too sprawling. I don’t even know where to start. There’s simply too much I don’t know.”
 

“Hmm,” Heather added.

Piper looked at Heather. She was phoning it in, present for the departure only because Lila had dragged her from a nap. Clearly, she couldn’t care less, slouched in her chair like a teenager. Almost a generation older than Piper yet a full generation less interested in giving a shit.
 

“You said you thought you could get him back,” Piper said. It was a hope she’d had been holding onto far tighter than she dared admit, even to herself. She was surrounded by people but felt like the planet’s last occupant. Meyer had cheated on her with Heather, but he’d also saved her life. Sometimes, the prospect of his return felt like the only thing that could keep her going.

“No.” Cameron shook his head emphatically. “I didn’t say that. I said I thought we could find out what happened to him. That’s different.”
 

Piper kept her face neutral, hiding her disappointment.

“The ships have kept The Nine far longer than the others. The questions are why, what these people mean to them, and what the aliens are planning to do with them as part of their grand plan, if they have one. That’s the big puzzle, and it makes everyone nervous. Everywhere we know of that communication has been attempted with the ships has experienced a violent result. They showed up and hung in our skies, but it’s as if they just want to be left alone now that they’re here. But the people at the Moab facility think this — this period of
waiting
— is a lull before contact is finally made. But if we wait until it’s obvious what those nine people mean, their fear is that it might be too late.”

“Too late in what way?” said Lila, fear in her voice.
 

“No way to be sure,” Cameron said kindly.

“But why do you need to leave?” Piper asked.

“We’ve done what I can here. Now it’s time to take what we’ve learned to smarter people who can look at the information about Meyer and the others and try to find patterns.”
 

Piper said, “Why would there be patterns?”
 

“There are
always
patterns.” Cameron looked away then sighed as if with heart-weary regret. “I didn’t always believe that was true, but turns out it usually is. See, Benjamin, the guy I mentioned runs the lab in Moab? He just so happens to be my dad. He dragged me everywhere as a kid, searching for evidence to support this fringe nutball theory called ‘Ancient Astronauts.’ It basically says that aliens have been here in the past, doing things like helping humans build pyramids and putting the big stone heads on Easter Island. I played along for a while, thinking it all seemed very exciting to explore and solve mysteries. But as I got a bit older, I decided it was stupid. Because the truth is, if you look long enough with the desire to find something, well, sure enough, you’ll find it.”
 

“Like what?”
 

“Like the pyramids of the Giza Plateau maybe. The Ancient Astronauts people say those three pyramids, seen from above, are lined up just like the stars in Orion’s belt. ‘It’s too perfect to be coincidence!’ they’ll say. And then they’ll point out that in the constellation of Orion, the belt draws a line right to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. And they’ll say, ‘The Giza pyramids line up to point directly at the ancient city of Heliopolis!’ And on and on. Over and over again, people find three ancient things that line up ‘just like Orion’s belt’ and point at ‘something very important.’ But I always thought, ‘They’re
only three things
. You can find collections of three things anywhere.’”
 

His eyes ticked toward the wall, where spatters of Morgan Matthews’s blood still stained the paint. He shouted, “Look! Those three smudges are like the stars in Orion’s belt! And hark: they’re pointing directly at the corner, which is the most important part of the wall! That proves aliens have been here!’”
 

Cameron laughed then shook his head. This was much more information than any of them needed, and Piper saw his verbal meanderings for what they were: something in his past that had meaning — apparently
defining
meaning — to him. Watching Cameron, Piper couldn’t help her curiosity. There had been nothing but time for talking over the past week, and still they knew precious little about the group’s quietly insightful leader. Cameron had convinced Morgan he was a crazy kid, but clearly he was much more.
 

“But as it turns out, all that bullshit might be true. The aliens have been here before, and it’s all very obvious once you see the patterns. Aliens and humans, recorded in trails of evidence. In a loop through time, over and over again.”
 

“This is fascinating,” said Heather.

Heather’s dry voice seemed to snap Cameron out of his reverie. He scratched at his chair’s fabric.
 

“The problem is I don’t know enough to see patterns about The Nine — or about a lot of it, really. My dad took me all over the world chasing flying saucers, but I was just a kid. All I have are vague memories, some surface knowledge, and a lot of what ended up being ill-informed resentment. I can’t form a pattern without knowing a lot more, and I can’t form a pattern with only one data point for reference — with only Meyer.”
 

“Okay,” said Piper, knowing there was more.

Cameron nodded and looked toward the office. “I’d like your permission to copy those files and take them with me to Moab, where it might actually mean something.”
 

“So you’re all going to leave us.” Lila’s eyes flicked from Cameron to Christopher and the others. “Just like that.”
 

“Fine,” said Raj. Lila glared at him.
 

“Actually,” Cameron said, “I can move faster if I go to Moab alone. I’ve traveled a lot, including into some crazy little backwaters around the world, and am damned good at disappearing when I need to. Keeping a low profile. So — ” he looked at Raj, “ —
 
this depends on you, but if you’d like — if you’re comfortable and want to do it this way — I was thinking the guys could stay here with you.”
 

Heather’s exhale was audible. It was disturbing to think how much they’d come to emotionally rely on their houseguests in the past week. These men had been frightening when they’d come in pretending for Morgan’s benefit, and they’d been frightening right up through his death. But since that time — since they’d become the people they were instead of the characters they’d been playing — they’d become friends. Terrence had already fixed a few things around the place that Piper had given up on, including the security on the bunker’s door and the induction oven. As predictable as it was, Vincent’s formidable bulk turned out to be much-needed muscle — for lifting, yes, but also for peace of mind should someone break in. Dan turned out to be a fine storyteller, having traveled far and wide with Cameron. And Christopher, just twenty-one years old, had practically become the kids’ best buddy. He chummed around with Trevor and joked with Lila. They were part of the family now, for better or worse. Only Raj didn’t seem to like the newcomers, but lately Piper had begun to feel as Heather did about Raj: he could live with what they’d decided to give him or hit the road.