Waking Gods

by Sylvain Neuvel

  —I don’t want to.

  —Close your eyes! I want you to see her. Kara. Your mother. See her fall with a huge grin on her face. She won. She took on Russian mercenaries, giant alien robots. She took on the entire universe and she won. She did what she set out to do. Your mom was a badass motherfucker. I know you didn’t get to know her, but Kara had the most beautiful smile when she was proud of herself. Smug, like you wouldn’t believe. Made you want to punch her in the face, but it was beautiful.

  —Do you hate me?

  —Why would I hate you?

  —You said Kara died to save me. It’s OK if you hate me.

  —I don’t hate you, Eva. Kara would’ve lived if I’d been faster. She’d still be alive if I were as brave as the two of you. It’s not your fault, believe me. Besides, you don’t know Kara like I do. She’d come back from the dead if she thought I was angry at you. She’d claw her way out of the grave just to slap me around.

  —I’m sorry she’s dead.

  —Me too.

  —Was there a funeral?

  —No. They wouldn’t send a team to UN headquarters until this morning. They called me an hour ago when they found her body.

  —Where will you bury her?

  —I won’t bury her. I’d like to. I’d like to have a place to visit her, but she didn’t want to be buried. She thought it was creepy. She wouldn’t watch zombie movies with me either.

  —You can keep her ashes. My friend Angie had her sister’s in her room.

  —Nah. She’d hate it. She’d want me to scatter her ashes and have a party. Will you do that with me?

  —Scatter her ashes?

  —Yeah. I’ll get someone to fly us over Detroit on a helicopter. Seems fitting.

  —I’ve never been in a helicopter.

  —Me neither. I’m afraid of heights, remember. So it’s settled then. Just you and me, and a helicopter pilot, I guess.

  — …

  —Look, I don’t know how to do this any more than you do, but I’m trying.

  — …

  —Is that a yes, Eva?

  —OK.

  —Good. We’ll do that before we leave.

  —Where are we going?

  —I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet. Somewhere safe.

  —But when will I start training?

  —Training for what?

  —Themis! When do I start training to pilot Themis? That’s what you need me for, isn’t it?

  —What are you talking about? I don’t want you to do anything!

  —You don’t understand! It’s OK. I want to do it.

  —Eva … I know you want to help, but—

  —That’s what I’m supposed to do!

  —Eva, you’re ten years old!

  —But it’s what I was made for! That’s why Alyssa made me. I’m … I’m a tool. That’s my purpose.

  —I … First of all, Alyssa didn’t “make” you, stop saying that. She spent all of twenty minutes in a lab. The woman who carried you inside her for nine months made you. Second, who gives a crap what Alyssa thought? Your mother d … Kara died so you could live. I wouldn’t be much of a father if I put you in harm’s way now. I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, Eva. I want you as far away from that robot as possible.

  —People are gonna die if we don’t do anything!

  —People are gonna die anyway.

  —You’re just gonna let them die? You’re not even gonna try?

  —If it means keeping you safe, then yeah. I’m just gonna let them die. I’m your father, Eva.

  —No you’re not! You can’t tell me what to do!

  —Eva.

  —Get out of my room!

  —Eva, I—

  —GET OUT!

  FILE NO. 1603

  STATION LOG—NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (NOAA) SPACE WEATHER PREDICTION CENTER

  Location: Silver Springs, MD

  —Chief, can you come here a sec. We lost the sun.

  —What?

  —I lost the SXI.

  —What do you mean, you lost it?

  —What I just said. It’s gone. I’m not getting anything from the Solar X-Ray Imager on GOES-13.

  —There’s no signal from the satellite?

  —Nothing.

  —Are you sure it’s not your station?

  —My station’s fine. The satellite just stopped transmitting. Problem’s up there, sir.

  —Scoot over. I wanna check someth—What is it, Clara?

  [There’s a problem.]

  OK, well, we’re a little busy here. Go back to your station and I’ll come see you when I’m done here.

  [I lost the signal from my satellite.]

  You lost … Which one do you have?

  [I’m on GOES-15. There’s something wrong, sir.]

  No shit, there’s something wrong. The problem’s gotta be down here. Two satellites can’t malfunction at the exact same time. Check the receiver.

  —Sir, it’s all of them. We’re not receiving anything, from anywhere. Nothing on microwave. Nothing on VHF either.

  —All of them? There you go. It’s got to be our equipment.

  —It’s not. We’re receiving. We’re getting all kinds of static.

  —This is nice. I’ve been here for a month! What am I supposed to do now?

  —Hold on, sir—

  —I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.

  —Hold on! NASA wants to know if we’re getting JPSS data.

  —Dammit! That doesn’t make any sense. I’ll check with Defense, see if they’re still getting their feed.

  —Europe is down too. They lost MetOp. No one is receiving any signal from orbit anymore. We’re getting calls from everybody.

  —Could it be solar flares?

  —Space weather was fine a minute ago, sir.

  [Check this out!]

  —What is it this time, Clara?

  [That’s a live stream from Mauna Kea.]

  The telescope?

  [Yeah. I asked them to track my satellite. Should be right here.]

  I don’t see anything.

  [That’s right.]

  Are you saying the satellite is physically gone?

  [I don’t know, sir.]

  Well, can you see it or not?

  [I can’t, but—]

  But what?

  [It’s not the only thing we can’t see.]

  What do you mean?

  —Sir, she means the stars are missing. We can’t see the stars.

  FILE NO. 1604

  INTERVIEW WITH EVA REYES

  Location: Shadow Government Bunker, Lenexa, KS

  —You asked to see me, Eva.

  —Yes, Dr. Franklin.

  —What can I do for you?

  —I wanna do it. I want to pilot Themis.

  —I don’t think that’s a good idea, Eva. Besides, this is something you should talk about with your father, not me. I know you haven’t had a lot of time to get used to the idea but, technically, he is your dad, he’s responsible for you.

  —He won’t do anything. He doesn’t even want me to try.

  —That sounds pretty reasonable to me, Eva. You’re still a child, I’d want to keep you safe too if you were my child.

  —You don’t understand! He can’t keep me safe. No one can. I’ll be dead in a few days. You’ll be dead too.

  —I know you’re afraid, Eva. We all are.

  —I’m not afraid. I’m telling you, we’ll all be dead soon.

  —No one knows what’ll happen, Eva. Things look pretty bad right now, but we’re working really hard to find a way out of this.

  —I know!

  —How do you know, Eva?

  —I j
ust do. Just trust me, OK?

  —You can tell me. How do you know?

  —You’ll just think I’m crazy.

  —Eva, I don’t know you well enough to make that kind of judgment. From what little I’ve seen, I think you’re an extremely brave and intelligent young woman. Nothing you tell me will change that.

  —I saw it.

  —You … How?

  —I see things. I saw Kara die.

  —You s—

  —Yes! I saw her die. Months ago. I saw this too. I saw it happen.

  —Tell me.

  —Rain. I saw black rain. It fell from the sky, not just here, everywhere, and we all died. I died.

  —I’m sorry, Eva. There’s—

  —I told you you’d think I was crazy.

  —I never said that. I just … Did you also see how to stop it from happening?

  —No.

  —Then how do you know things would be any different if I let you inside Themis?

  —I … I don’t. But—

  —Like I said, Eva. It isn’t up to me. You should talk to—

  —He won’t listen! He doesn’t understand!

  —He’s your father.

  —STOP SAYING THAT! You don’t get it, do you?! He’s gonna die too!

  —Eva, come back …

  FILE NO. 1605

  INTERVIEW WITH BRIGADIER GENERAL EUGENE GOVENDER, COMMANDER, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

  Location: Shadow Government Bunker, Lenexa, KS

  —Goddammit, Rose! It’s three in the morning!

  —You need to see this, sir.

  —I’m tired. I’m jet-lagged. Make this quick.

  —We lost all signals coming from orbit. We’re not getting data from our satellites. No one is. It’s a complete blackout.

  —They’re not transmitting?

  —Maybe they are. But something’s blocking it.

  —Like a jamming signal?

  —It’s not jammed, it’s blocked. We can’t hear anything from up there. Take a look at these.

  —What am I looking at?

  —These are from telescopes all over. What do you see?

  —I see … What’s this dark spot over here?

  —Exactly. There should be stars there. I think that’s where it’s coming from. Whatever is blocking our satellite signal, I think it’s stronger there. It’s blocking everything, including light.

  —Where is it?

  —It’s … all over. We spotted eighteen of these dark spots so far, all around us. There could be more.

  —How big are the dark spots?

  —I don’t know. Hundreds of miles … Thousands. Depends on how far they are.

  —Any idea what’s behind the black spots?

  —Whatever it is, someone doesn’t want us to see it.

  —With everything that’s happening, I think we can assume this isn’t a naturally occurring phenomenon.

  —It could be whatever brought the robots all the way here.

  —It wasn’t here before. Maybe it’s … Goddammit!

  —What?

  —I think they brought in the big guns.

  —Why? We weren’t putting up much of a fight.

  —No, Dr. Franklin, we weren’t. But we’re dying slow. I keep wondering why they’d send a dozen robots to wipe out a whole planet. It doesn’t make sense to do it one small circle at a time. There’s too much ground to cover. What they’re doing, that feels more like a surgical strike, like they were looking for something. I thought: Maybe they just don’t have anything better, but anyone who can build these things, make that gas … They’d have to be able to hit us a lot harder.

  —The gas is denser than air. If they spread it around from high atmosphere, it would mix—

  —It would be over pretty quick.

  —Yes, sir.

  —Any thoughts?

  —I don’t like it.

  —Any thoughts on what we can do? We don’t have anything we can fire at them.

  —What would we fire at? We don’t know what’s there. We don’t know how big or how far it is. I’m not sure there’s anything we can do.

  —Then, Dr. Franklin, I suggest you go back to bed. That’s what I’m gonna do.

  —I don’t think we have a lot of time.

  —When’s the last time you slept?

  — …

  —That’s what I thought. Go to bed, Rose. I’ll have you meet some folks from the UN in the morning. They’re working on plan B in case this all goes to hell.

  —Can’t you meet with them? I have a lot on my plate at the moment.

  —I could … But then again, I’ll be dead if it comes to that. The point is they’d like someone who’ll survive the gas to be at that meeting. They wanna build some global infrastructure, so those who make it can get help, find other survivors. The first step is to create a network of two-way radios that can run on dynamos. We’d like to have some every couple miles across the country, help create pockets of survivors. They want to have some sort of blueprint people can follow to build communities. I’m sure they could use your thoughts on the matter.

  —If we’re all exposed to the gas, and the ratio of survivors stays the same, there’ll be about 150,000 people left alive in the United States. That’s one person per twenty-five square miles on average. They’ll have to deal with over 300 million dead bodies decomposing everywhere, rats, bugs. Most people will be concentrated in urban areas, but so will the bodies. Disease will spread faster than people can imagine. First step has to be dealing with bodies, find medicine. Hospitals would be a good place to start a community from. There’ll be food around for a while. We can worry about that later—

  —Stop. Stop. Like I said, they can use your help. But you won’t be useful to anyone if you don’t sleep.

  —Sir?

  —Yes?

  —I don’t think I … I’ve seen enough death for two lifetimes. Apparently, I’m supposed to play a role in stopping this from happening. If I can’t … If I fail, I’m not sure I have what it takes for what comes next.

  —Well, I’m sorry the apocalypse isn’t convenient for you. Now go to bed.

  FILE NO. 1613

  LETTER FROM CAPTAIN KARA RESNIK, EDC TO VINCENT COUTURE, CONSULTANT, EDC

  Recovered on her body at EDC Headquarters, New York, NY

  Hey Vincent!

  I plan on destroying this letter when I get home so, if you’re reading this, chances are things didn’t go according to plan. I’m in Haiti. I know, I’m wondering how I ended up here myself. But I found her, I found our daughter. I should start from the beginning; you probably don’t know about her yet.

  Her name’s Eva. They’ve been keeping her from us. That psycho Alyssa put our child inside another woman when we were in Puerto Rico. Another family had our baby. From what I saw, it was a good family, but they’re dead now. Some very bad people killed them so they could get their hands on our daughter. The Russians think she can pilot Themis. I don’t know that she can, but it doesn’t matter. They have her now. They’ll take her far away and they’ll experiment on her. I don’t even wanna think about it. I have to stop them. I have no idea how, but I’ll come up with something. Doesn’t matter how, I’m taking her with me. I’m bringing our daughter home.

  That didn’t take as long as I thought to explain. I was sort of hoping it would take all night. I’m sleeping—not sleeping, really—in the shittiest car you’ve ever seen. You’d like it. Everything holds together with duct tape. And it stinks! Like a dead animal. I smell like it now. I smell like roadkill. That and old, dirty engine oil.

  That pretty much sums it up! Everyone lied to us. Alyssa cooked up a baby in a lab. Some other woman gave birth to our child. Russians are after her. I stink. I think you’re up to speed.

  That’s a lot to diges
t, I know. We’re parents! How scary is that? I know you’ll be fine; you’ve always been good with children. But I’ll have some adjusting to do. Somehow, I get the feeling taking down Russian mercenaries will be the easy part. Kicking and punching is something I’m good at. Meeting her first boyfriend … I’m not sure how well I can deal with that. You might have to stop me from punching his lights out for no reason. You know, like a vetting process. If he comes back, then he might be worthy. I know I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not sure we can even adopt her. One thing I know: I’m not giving her up to anyone. She wouldn’t be safe. They’ll keep coming for her, Vincent. They’ll chase her to the ends of the Earth. We have to keep her safe. Maybe, with everything that’s happening, no one will give a shit about adoption laws. First things first. I have to make it out of here.

  I keep forgetting if you’re reading this, then it’s a good bet I’m dead. It’s hard to write as a dead person. What can I tell you? Hi! I’m dead! I hope you’re not! Best, Kara.

  When I left, you were missing with Themis. I hope you’re OK. You have no idea how much I want you to be OK. I don’t think I could live with myself. And I hope you don’t hate me for leaving without you. I just didn’t know what more I could do. You know I’m not good at sitting around. I couldn’t help you, and I thought I could help her.

  I sure wish you were here with me. I’m better with you around. You know when I’m about to do something dumb. You put your hand on my shoulder to stop me from doing it, or you don’t and we do something even dumber together. Either way, I know everything’ll be OK. I’d give anything to have you with me now. See if you’d put that hand on my shoulder or not. I’d feel a whole lot better if you were here to help me plan this thing.

  The good news is Eva’s safe for now. The Russians will kill me if they get the chance, but they won’t hurt her unless they have to. So if I don’t make it, then you have to find her. You have to find her and bring her home. Get help. The EDC, the US government, it doesn’t matter. They’ll wanna know if the helmets will turn on for her. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but they’ll protect her. That’s good. You have to promise me, Vincent Couture. You have to promise me you’ll find her and keep her safe.