Alien Invasion 04 Annihilation (25 page)

“What do you want me to do?” Nathan asked. Not as a request for command, but as an expression of futility. Dempsey — or Divinity — seemed nevertheless to take it as the former.
 

“Command the outlands. They are your domain. The only way for us to truly control your population is to enslave it, as we may soon need to rule Heaven’s Veil if the fugitives are not found. We do not wish this. You must be controlled for your own good. But it should be by your own, as your society understands.”
 

“You’re saying you need me.”
 

“We do not wish to patrol the outlands. Our domain comprises the capitals and select cities. We do not wish to destroy human command structures.”
 

“You don’t want to micromanage us,” Nathan said.

“If you wish.”
 

“Why me then? Why the traitor?” Part of Nathan wanted to rebel, to take it back and play nice. The whole reason he’d done this was to get his audience, then lie down and roll over. But now that he was here, being pandered to, being commanded, being treated like a child, his instinct rebelled.
 

Remember what you came for.

“You have an established power structure. If we must replace you, we will, but we believe you want what we are not equipped to desire.”

“What is that?”
 

“Power.”
 

Nathan stopped. He felt the need to sit, and did. Something Dempsey had just said was clanging in his head, refusing to settle.
 

“I have an established power structure.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“The Republic. You didn’t destroy it.”
 

“Your actions at the Cottonwood outpost were not anticipated. An error was made.”
 

“Oh, it wasn’t an error,” Nathan said. But something about the surrogate’s voice told Nathan that the error referred to wasn’t the rebels’ mistake.
 

“Harm was caused. We do not wish to continue along this path. It is not ideal. You can be controlled, and — ”

“I can ‘be controlled,’ huh?”
 

“Your position harmonizes with checks we are easily able to make.”
 

“Which controls?”
 

“If you do not wish to comply, your outposts may yet be destroyed. Easily. And your daughter’s position is still known to us.”
 

Nathan bolted to his feet. He almost punched Dempsey out before realizing it would solve nothing.
 

“I knew it. You kept following us. You kept watch. Because that’s how you treat your ‘human partners.’ And that shadow thing. So that was real. You sent it to watch us.”
 

A strange thing happened. Dempsey’s brow wrinkled. Nathan again found himself fascinated. It was somehow working through Dempsey’s actual person, not just moving him as if on strings. How would Divinity wrinkle a brow when confused? It was a human reaction, known only by a human body.
 

“You were watched from above.”
 

Nathan let it go.

Apparently, you don’t know everything after all.

CHAPTER 46

Dempsey/Divinity laid out the proposal. It was simple: Nathan would resume his duties as warlord of the roads and lands surrounding Heaven’s Veil. He was in charge of Salt Lake City and dozens of smaller outposts. He would, as before, be considered autonomous. He wouldn’t need to check in. He would be supplied with fuel, and the Astrals would stay out of his way. He would maintain order, exactly as he’d always done, with his past transgressions forgiven so long as everyone agreed that getting back onto the same old rails was a good idea.
 

And really, it
was
a good deal. Nathan would be entirely absolved of any responsibility for his previous actions. No harm, no foul. All had worked out as it should, and Nathan Andreus was still the best choice for the job. It was the epitome of a logical, non-emotional decision. A human would have wanted to punish Nathan. But the Astrals, who saw larger and further, knew it was cutting off the nose to spite the face.
 

It was a good deal right up to the point where Nathan considered the “check” the surrogate had mentioned.
 

Of course Nathan would do the job. He’d requested this audience, and he’d betrayed his supposed cohorts to do it. He’d helped the Astrals, even though they’d botched the handoff by allowing Bannister’s escape. He still wanted the same things, and it was always — even now — better to live atop the hill rather than under another’s heel.
 

But (and this was irrelevant, considering that Nathan wanted to comply for other reasons) there was the small matter of the check.

The small matter of the gun that would perpetually be held to the back of Nathan’s head to ensure that he’d be good, just in case.
 

If he didn’t do as he was asked, it was simple to kill his daughter.
 

As much as Nathan wanted to blame the Astrals for Julie’s death, he believed what Divinity had said. It was an accident. But either way, the aliens had killed her. And that death had given them an important piece of information to consume and assimilate: that for Nathan Andreus, the most effective lever was his family’s blood.
 

“Is that all?” he asked, his hands wanting to form fists.
 

“Do you agree to retake your post?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“We have sent a shuttle to face your people outside the city. No harm befell them. Pattern matching has shown that one is your lieutenant, as known, Jeanine Coffey. The other, also as known, is your daughter. The third is Benjamin Bannister’s partner, Charles Cook. They will be allowed to live. As will all Andreus outposts.”
 

“What about Cameron and Piper?”
 

“Not relevant to your concerns.”
 

“And the Apex? If you find what you want in the Apex?”
 

“Not relevant to your concerns.”
 

“Benjamin Bannister believed it was a weapon.”
 

“Not relevant.”
 

“Bullshit!” Nathan felt his blood chilling, his voice rising, knowing he’d trapped himself in a snare. “If you set off a weapon, the whole,
you won’t kill me and my people
agreement falls apart.”
 

“No harm will befall you.”
 

“And my people?”
 

“The agreement will be honored.”
 

Nathan’s jaw worked, sliding side to side. He watched the surrogate through slits. He still wanted to punch it. To cause harm. But there was nothing to do. Nothing to do but …
 

Something popped to mind.

“You’re honorable beings, aren’t you?” Nathan said.
 

“We do not have that concept.”
 

“But you do as you say.”
 

“Yes.”
 

“Including your
agreements
with Dempsey. To protect his people, too.”
 

“Yes.”
 

Again, Nathan’s jaw slid to the side, as if searching for his tongue.
 

“Does he know about his son?”
 

Something in the surrogate’s face changed instantly. No delay. For a moment, Meyer Dempsey was back, and Divinity was gone. Then it changed again, and Andreus found himself facing the surrogate.
 

But something must have remained because the surrogate’s fist clenched once, twice, three times. In Meyer Dempsey’s voice — not the identical but tonally distinct voice of Divinity — the man in front of Nathan said, “I’m supposed to ask you about Trevor.”

CHAPTER 47

Jeanine Coffey woke and saw that the sun wasn’t yet over the horizon. The networks still seemed to be entirely down, but there was a small clock on the RV’s dashboard that, she guessed, was keeping approximately correct time.
 

Not that the time of day mattered much anymore, but it appeared to be 6:13 a.m.

She yawned then poured some of the water Nathan had packed into a coffeemaker and set a pot to brewing. It was using water and power from the batteries. That power, courtesy of the sun, was plentiful and free. As to the water? Fuck it. There were so many more interesting ways to die than thirst, and last night necessitated a strong wake-up this morning.
 

She peeked in on Grace — a bundle of blankets at the rear. Her own bunk was at the front, and (obvious jokes aside) she’d been sharing it with Nathan, keeping two separate sets of sheets. But last night, she’d had it all to herself.
 

It wasn’t until the coffee was halfway brewed when Jeanine realized the final member of their party was missing. Charlie had been on the fold-out couch in the RV’s middle, but now it was tidily away, sheets folded into neat squares and sitting on a small shelf along the window.
 

The window.
 

She looked through the glass.
 
They were behind some trees, but their hiding place was fooling no one. The way Nathan figured, the Astrals knew exactly where they were and had from the start. It wasn’t line-of-sight cover keeping them alive.
 

“It’s not in there.”
 

Jeanine jumped. If she’d been holding a knife, she’d have stabbed someone with it purely out of shock. And if she’d been holding a gun, Charlie Cook would probably have been turned to paste.
 

Instead, he remained where he’d greeted her: in an alcove near the bathroom. Just standing there. Possibly, he’d recently emerged after having washed his hands, or maybe he’d stood there all night waiting to scare the shit out of her.
 

“Don’t you ever say good morning?”
 

“Good morning,” Charlie said. “It’s not there.”
 

“Care to give me some context?”
 

“I’ve been looking through Benjamin’s research. The longer I piece it together, the more obvious the conclusion: Thor’s Hammer, at least according to Benjamin, is not in Vail.”
 

Jeanine let her shoulders relax. She turned away and watched the coffee brew. Looking into Charlie’s eyes was creepy; so was looking in his general direction. He wasn’t lecherous; she was reasonably sure he wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if she wrapped herself around him naked. He was just …
there
.
 

But the coffee wasn’t finished. She resisted the urge to flick the pot, hurrying it up.
 

“Did you hear me?”
 

“I heard you.”
 

“Are you going to do anything about it?”
 

Jeanine sighed. She turned, steeling herself for his gaze. Charlie had a way of making her (and, surely, everyone) feel stupid for not knowing things they had no way of knowing and never would.
 

“First of all, what makes you so sure?”
 

“Benjamin.”
 

Jeanine put her tongue under her lip, assessing him.
 

“Go on.”

“Benjamin makes me sure,” Charlie repeated.
 

“Let’s play a game, Charlie.”
 

“No.”
 

“Let’s pretend you’re a normal human being, on the same side as me. And as part of that game, let’s suppose you
want
me to understand what you’re saying rather than this intellectual one-upmanship wherein you get to win the knowledge war but nothing is learned or accomplished.”
 

“I do want you to understand.”
 

“Okay. Then just tell me. No one-word answers. No assumptions of things I should know, followed by eye rolls when I don’t. Just fucking tell me, okay?”
 

Now it was Charlie’s turn to look pensive. This had to be hard for him. And, she thought, he must have barely slept. The bed had been out last night; he’d definitely used it. But it was early, and he’d clearly been up for hours. His collared shirt, buttoned to the top, looked almost pressed, as if he’d decided it was worth ironing.
 

“Cameron didn’t know where to begin when he was looking through Benjamin’s files. He didn’t understand Benjamin’s organizational system.”
 

“But you do,” Jeanine said.
 

“Yes. In that he didn’t have one. He saved anything he was working on to his desktop, and then when it got too cluttered, he made a folder and dumped everything into it. Some of the techs who worked with his stuff tried to get him to make bookmarks lists, to put things in logical places so they could make sense of it. He’d try for an hour then go back to his old way.”