Alien Invasion 04 Annihilation (32 page)

He allowed himself to feel jitters. Allowed himself to sweat. He looked up and watched the hole form in the mothership, watched the area darken from the top in a spreading circle as they eased up inside it. But before the mothership’s floor irised closed below the shuttle, Meyer looked down and let the fear of falling surround him. Let it radiate from him so the pilot could feel it.
 

The pilot gave Meyer an easy smile. Pacifying.
 

“I don’t love heights,” Meyer said.
 

The pilot held the same smile. Lowered her hands. The circle of light below her bare feet dimmed, and the shuttle’s outer hull reappeared, now solid from the inside. This was all for his benefit, Meyer could sense. In order to see a door form, the human would need to first see the wall in which it would appear.
 

He exited. Below him was a gantry, smooth and gray, without any features. If he was barefoot — Meyer knew from experience he shouldn’t have been — the surface would feel soft and gently yielding as if walking on firm rubber. Below the gantry, there appeared to be nothing but Heaven’s Veil. But if he fell — which, of course he wouldn’t thanks to correction fields he knew were around him without being told — he’d strike the ship’s one-way transparent hull rather than plummeting to his death.
 

The Titan, now a guide instead of a pilot, gestured for Meyer to proceed. It was unnecessary on two levels, but Meyer pretended it wasn’t.
 

He could hear the groupspeak urging him forward, as if he’d still be able to hear it — which, he felt quite sure, he wouldn't.

And secondly, he knew the way.
Of course
he knew the way.
 

Meyer looked down at the long white arm, draped with its robe, and walked in the indicated direction. He took a wrong turn deliberately then allowed himself to be gently corrected. The Titan remained a silent presence beside him, shepherding Meyer toward the medic able to easily heal the viceroy’s very important hands.

There had been no questions about his injury. Why would he
not
smash his hands? Humans were irrational. That’s why the Astrals were necessary. Humans had done many, many,
many
irrational things in the past two years, and well beyond that according to their history texts. Surely, there were many other irrational things (and surely some wonderful ones; humans were their children, after all, and not beyond goodness by any stretch) done in the last epoch.
 

They couldn’t verify any of it yet thanks to the delay. But that would be over soon. Now that the Apex was charging and prepared, that would change.
 

Meyer sensed great conflict on that last point — both native and exacerbated by the aberrations within the collective that hadn’t, it turned out, been fully purged. It was unfortunate, what would need to be done. But there was no progressing without it. The end,
in
the end, was always the ultimate decider. And in that end, the humans had made it necessary by their own shortsighted hands.
 

Not their first time, of course.
 

Meyer saw it all as he walked. As the Titan led him to the medic. He must be generating feedback — more of those troublesome outputs that would, to anyone with a bit of groupsense in their groupthink — indicate that the viceroy heard more from the Astral collective than he was strictly supposed to be feeling.
 

But Meyer had figured
that
out, as well. Astral minds could (via certain tools or when a mind was half-connected like Meyer’s) hear human emotion when it was
loud
. Like his almost-slip, thinking about Trevor on the ride up. But they didn’t usually hear quieter emotions, as Meyer’s were now.
 

Not because they
couldn’t
hear those emotions and thoughts from halfway-connected minds. It was more that they
wouldn’t
. They refused, closing their collective minds to human pollution, like that coming off Meyer. If they didn’t, the collective might become infected, then a Gathering would happen, discursive thoughts expelled in a Pall, purged like pus from a wound.
 

They stopped at a door. Meyer knew he could open it with what felt like an
Astral half
to his mind, but he held back, knowing that would be showing too much. So he waited and watched as his guide projected. He heard the groupthought then watched the door dissolve and bead into the edges like liquid racing from the center. He entered alone, leaving his guide outside, and found himself facing a medic.
 

The medic held a box made of what looked like red glass. He held the box out, and Meyer …

(knew)

… guessed that he was supposed to put his hands inside.
 

Then the medic looked at Meyer and …

(asked a question)

… said nothing at all.
 

(Why did you do this?)

Because nothing was asked, Meyer didn’t respond. He kept his mouth shut. Pretended this was all strange yet fascinating. Allowed his wound to change, even though he was already suspecting that if he wanted it badly enough and understood his shape for what he wanted it to be, he could probably heal the wound himself.
 

Meyer withdrew his hands from the box. Held them up and observed them. He pretended to be shocked/surprised that such healing was possible then ran the fingers of each hand over the other for good measure. He smiled at the medic and nodded.
 

“Thanks.”
 

The medic nodded back. Then the door again melted away, and Meyer exited.
 

His guide was gone. Possibly because Meyer had already groupthought ahead, explaining to the guide in another’s voice that Viceroy Dempsey was gone, that he’d already taken a shuttle back. The Titan who’d flown him here wouldn’t wonder at the idea. Why would she? The collective knew. The collective always knew.
 

Meyer paused on the gantry. Because his human shape seemed to demand the ritual, he closed his eyes and slowly inhaled.
 

After a few moments, he seemed to remember. He remembered where he’d gone and never left. He remembered where, conflicting realities aside, he still was now.
 

A white room. Four walls, a floor, and a ceiling. And an immersion to keep him busy, healthy, and strong.
 

Meyer groupthought ahead, noticing a few others between his position and his destination, and gave them the idea to move elsewhere.
 

Then he walked along the gantry, recalling the way and seeing it for the first time, following a trod path and having no idea where he was going, seeing new and known in unison.
 

Eventually, he came to a door.

He knocked because it was polite.
 

Then Meyer went inside.
 

CHAPTER 60

Nathan found Heather Hawthorne to be different in person. That shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was. She didn’t strut while crossing the floor of the dark, empty store. She didn’t insult him with each passing second. She seemed scared yet strangely confident, not merely caustic and sarcastic. It all made sense, but Nathan had formed a mental image of this woman — had, in fact, kept recordings of a few of her specials on the juke at Andreus HQ — and it was so odd to see her here, now, talking about escape and shadows.
 

“What
led you here?” he asked, sure he must have heard wrong.
 

“Never mind. I found you.”
 

“Were you
looking
for me?”
 

“I … ” It was as if she’d only now stopped to consider. Strange, the things that made unquestioned sense these days. “I guess not,” she finished.
 

“A dark shape. Like a big dog that seems to be stalking you.”
 

“It didn’t stalk me. It … ”

“Oh, forget it.”
 

“Heather.” Nathan gave her an even look. “Can I call you Heather?”
 

“Call me whatever the hell you want.”
 

“Heather, let me tell you a story.”
 

“Great.” Now she was rolling her eyes, turning away.
 

“I talked to your husband.”

“Ex
-husband.”
 

“And he wasn’t exactly normal. Set off all my alarms. If I’d been able to sneak a gun into the house, I think I’d have pulled it out and kept it pointed. He didn’t come at me. But it’s like he’s insane. Especially after I told him … ” Andreus trailed off. He needed her focused right now, and she might not yet know. Meyer certainly hadn’t, and the results when he’d explained about Trevor had been … unsettling.
 

“Told him what?”
 

“About this,” he lied. “When I told him I sent a drone. I did it on a lark, sure I was just wasting the drone’s time when I might need it somewhere else. But then he … well, not
him
, but the aliens, I guess … told me that they hadn’t destroyed my camp after all. If they got the drone, they’ll be here. But I can’t reach them.”
 

“Reach who?”

“The Andreus Republic. My people. Dempsey got very interested in helping at the end of our conversation. Gave me a code that will open the fence without triggering an alarm. But here’s the problem,
Heather
. Would you like to know what it is?”
 

Heather said nothing, seeming to see the entire conversation as rhetorical.
 

“The problem is that the Apex is that way — ” He pointed to his left. “And for some reason, the Astrals keep putting down from their motherships over there.” This time, he pointed right. “Best guess, mainly because I haven’t seen death rays and explosions, is that nobody’s paying much attention to the perimeter and my people are hiding reasonably well. There’s a gully that direction, and they hide for a living, when they’re not fighting. Meyer pretty much said this, and I’ve seen the same: Right now, they only have eyes for the Apex. Which is part of this whole problem, but farther down the chain. Right now, I can open a gate with the viceroy’s code. But I’ve been waiting here for hours. The traffic back and forth out there stops sporadically, and I don’t have my drone or a spotter. I go to the gate, I’m just hoping to get lucky.”
 

“There must be — ”

“So, Heather, if you tell me that you think your spirit guide will get us to the fence, I’m understandably curious about
what. The fuck. You’re talking about.”
He metered the words precisely, tapping a dusty countertop for emphasis. “Does that seem fair?”

“Look, if you don’t want — ”

She jumped midsentence, as if goosed. Then Heather turned her head to the side, eyes on the window.
 

Nathan spun, raising a long piece of metal he’d found on the floor. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a proper weapon — one that wouldn’t have been confiscated at the gate. Dempsey had sent him out like a pilgrimage, free to go but carrying nothing. That had been strange in itself … but if Dempsey’s permission to go was the small act of oddball rebellion it seemed to be, why not give Nathan a gun to defend himself? He’d been lucky so far, but making the gate from here was impossible. Both corners were blind, and there was no way to peek from above: nothing more than a roll of the dice.

He watched the window, trying to see what had made Heather react so violently.
 

“Did you see something?”
 

“Hang on.” She raised a hand but kept her gaze forward, her manner precise.
 

“What? Reptars?”
 

“Hang on.” Again with the hand. Then, “Don’t move.”
 

The way she said it gave Nathan gooseflesh.

“I’m not looking outside. I’m looking at you in my peripheral vision.”
 

“You were looking at me a second ago,” Nathan said.
 

“It surrounded you.”
 

Nathan looked down, around, behind him. Heather was reminding him of Piper, with her own spectral sightings. Apparently, Meyer had a type: kooks who saw ghosts. But a large part of Nathan didn’t buy that. Whatever Heather saw, it was almost as if he could
feel
it.
 

“Where is it?”
 

“Behind you. Moving toward the door. Now back to you. It’s lost its shape. Like a mist.”
 

“What are you talking about?”
 

“I think it wants me to help you.”
 

Nathan exhaled. “That’s the biggest sack of — ”

Without warning, one of the small tables upended, leaving the diner’s ground for a second before crashing down and shattering a leftover glass. The sound, in the otherwise silent room, seemed tremendous. Nathan flinched, waiting for patrols to hear it and descend, but nothing happened.
 

“And I don’t think it wants to hear your cynicism,” Heather said, still with her head forward, still peering at him from the corner of her eye.