by Sean Platt
CHAPTER 65
Nathan stopped, looked at Heather and Coffey, and resisted infusing his voice with sarcasm. “What’s it want us to do now?”
They were massed behind a sprawling wall that was probably the side of an apartment building or even an in-city factory; Nathan honestly had no idea. He wasn’t used to urban warfare and frankly found all of Heaven’s Veil confining and creepy. They hadn’t seen many people, which wasn’t surprising given the police-state atmosphere perpetrated by the Astrals. Of the visible humans, most had been cops. And If Andreus had to guess, even cops knew the score. They’d avoided them all, but it was hard not to walk up to every scared-looking kid with a uniform and say, Hey. We’re fucking shit up. Want to help us do it?
“It’s gone,” Heather said.
“Gone?”
“Yes, gone,” Heather repeated then returned her gaze forward, watching the mall’s worth of Titans in the Apex courtyard. To Nathan, with his bald head and decent physique, it looked like a semi-nude convention of like-minded individuals.
Nathan said nothing. He didn’t like this. These were his soldiers, his army, his equipment. Even the useless motorbikes they were wheeling along with stilled engines were his. At the very least, Coffey should be leading the group, but she couldn’t see their scary spirit guide nearly as well as her Queen Bitchiness, so Heather had been in a lead that seemed to have stopped in front of an impassable horde. Nathan liked Heather, in theory. But he didn’t want anyone else in charge of his people. Especially not someone who lit up when allowed to boss others around.
“Why is it gone?”
“I don’t know, Nathan. Why don’t you call it and see if it comes back to you? See if it loves you most of all?”
“I’m not even sure you’re not making this up,” he said.
Both women turned to stare at him then rotated forward. That had been a dumb thing to say. He couldn’t see the specter but was clearly in the minority. Denying its existence — especially after all the impossible corners it had pulled their group from unseen — was pouting.
Coffey peered through tiny binoculars. They were at the top of one of Heaven’s Veil’s few slight hills, looking down. Most of the land had been flattened, but everyone knew that the Apex was — apparently, among other things — a dig site. Starting lower seemed to make sense, especially since the structure’s massive height more than made up for its low base. Nathan didn’t even like looking up at it. The pyramid made him feel small. And this mission, looking down at several hundred Titans, already felt impossible.
“Maybe we should just go up there and politely ask to go inside,” Heather said. “You know how these guys are.”
“Turns out Titans have a dark side,” Nathan said.
“Sure,” Heather replied. Sometimes, when we spill something in the house, they hesitate slightly before cleaning it up and … What?”
Coffey was watching her. She stopped when Heather paused then resumed spying through the binoculars. “Trust us,” she said.
The women retreated. All eyes turned to Nathan as the Republic’s rightful leader.
“We have to get in there,” he said.
To their credit, both Heather and Coffey nodded. No protest from the ranks, despite what they’d seen. Despite what his drone had conveyed to the Republic about the Titan secret, and the fact that everyone present — except Heather, perhaps — knew that they were looking down on a shallow dish teeming with leagues of potential Reptars.
“You said Charlie’s concerned about what’s happening with the Apex. That combined with what we’re seeing right now is probably enough. But there’s also my chat with the viceroy. You ask me, one of two things is happening. Either Charlie is wrong about the Hammer — it really is in there and they’re finding a way to power it up, or this is a workaround. Like they’re going to call home for help finding the thing. Or maybe they’ll have home base send another. Either way, we’ve got to take it down. Even if it means we die doing it.”
Again, no one protested. Members of the Andreus Republic hadn’t always been warriors, but they’d become warriors through a gauntlet of fire. Two years of fighting and seeing the unrelenting press of the Astral thumb had driven a few home truths into every one of them, included Nathan himself. For one, the fate of humanity might really matter more to brave souls than their own tiny lives. Secondly — and this reason was decidedly darker — Nathan was starting to wonder if life would be worth living under the Astrals’ newest regime.
“We don’t even know that it can be destroyed,” Coffey said.
“Right,” Nathan said. There was that. Not only were they carrying pea shooters; they had no explosives or heavy equipment, nothing capable of bringing down a drywall partition in a cruddy human apartment. So how were they supposed to destroy something huge, alien, and maybe indestructible?
“Meyer suggested it could be done.”
Heather squinted. “Meyer told you that?”
“You said he helped you before.”
“Giving you a code is one thing. That sounds like suicide talk.”
“What did he say specifically, Nathan?”
“He said to go to the fence then the Apex.”
“And?”
“He said we could disrupt it.”
“‘Disrupt’ is different from ‘destroy,’” Coffey said.
“How did he say to disrupt it?”
“He … ” But there was nothing. Meyer had become strange. He’d blathered on with his thoughts buried in nonsense after Nathan told the truth about Trevor. Nathan had left through the front doors, Titans already having abandoned their post, apparently on their way here. He’d felt happy to get out alive. He’d expected an escort to the gates, a return to Jeanine and the others with a plan to strike from a few fronts at once.
But about this, there was nothing useful at all.
“He implied it could be done.”
Heather shook her head. “There’s something wrong with Meyer, I’m telling you.”
There was a shout. A loud, annoyed, self-righteous bellow, demanding attention.
Hundreds of Titan heads turned at once, like a flock of birds taking notice.
At the edge, out of sight except from above, where the Andreus army was hiding, one of the Titans ducked until it was on all fours.
It changed.
Seeing the sole newly formed Reptar in the crowd, Heather covered her mouth and stifled a scream. But not quickly enough. Even as she dropped down, Heather could see Titan heads turning toward them.
The demanding, all-too-human, viceroy-like shout continued to trumpet from the other side of the Apex courtyard.
“Who is in charge here?”
CHAPTER 66
Raj stowed his gun like a hypocrite. He kept the thing in his pocket, hand on the butt and finger on the trigger. He seemed to somehow imagine that his prophetic, seemingly psychic daughter wouldn’t figure out what was going on.
Lila couldn’t help but feel insulted on Clara’s behalf. She hadn’t been fooled by peekaboo back in the day, either. She’d looked at all who tried it with scorn, seeming to say, So … when you cover your eyes, I’m supposed to think you’ve vanished? Yes. I see. Very amusing.
Clara was looking at Lila like that now. She didn’t look 10 percent as afraid as Lila felt but appeared equally insulted. Lila wanted to start a gab session. Could Clara believe Daddy was trying to pretend he didn’t have murder on his mind? Oh my gawd.
But Lila said nothing, and not just because one parent isn’t supposed to speak ill of the other in front of their child. She stayed mum because of the way Raj had eyed her on entry. In the past, she’d seen rage directed at others: Christopher, Terrence, occasionally Piper, definitely Heather, and recently Lila’s father, whose boots Raj used to so studiously lick. But now, she was in the out-group. Now, the gun in Raj’s pocket was on her, too.
Still, he spoke to Clara as if she had no idea. Come over by me, sweetheart. Take Daddy’s hand. And Clara, to Lila
’s immense relief, merely walked alongside him without claiming his offer.
Raj took the party’s rear. Thanks to their charade, only Jons had been wearing a sidearm. Raj had demanded and pocketed his weapon immediately. Jons had tried to berate Raj into subservience, but Raj seemed to have it all figured out: Jon’s complicity, likely from the start. Christopher and Lila’s affair. Their little band of resistance, spanning from Christopher to Terrence to Cameron to Piper to Heather … who, Lila realized, she hadn’t seen since that odd exchange with her father.
Dad. Where was he? Raj had already tried to kill him once; he’d damn near succeeded, according to Heather. All bets seemed to be off. Raj was rolling some mighty big dice and going for broke. If right, he’d end the day atop the pile. If he was wrong, he’d pay for subverting Meyer, and the Heaven’s Veil chief of police.
Lila watched Raj slip Jons’s pistol into his belt then nudge the others ahead with his own. There was no discussion. No decision. No debate. Raj had already hit Christopher twice: once when he’d tried to lie as an explanation and once for no apparent reason. Piper went numbly along with her hand in Cameron’s. Lila wanted to bristle at that — she was her father’s wife, not Cameron’s girlfriend. But it looked as if she might be both. And so much had changed.
“Piper?” Lila tried to ask.
Her stepmother looked lost, eyes like saucers, blue surrounded by a startling white. Cameron wasn’t merely comforting her; to Lila, it almost seemed as if he was supporting her. She’d either aged or regressed twenty years; Lila wasn’t sure which. Her gaze was wizened, as if she’d witnessed too much. But Piper was docile. Compliant. Whatever she’d realized as Raj had rushed in, it was now trapped inside and eating her like cancer.
Lila could relate.
We knew Trevor would come out because that’s how he was.
There was no reason for that simple, by-the-way mention to bother Lila, but it did. Piper was speaking of a time now two years gone. She was nervous; she’d been tossed in prison with no way out and wouldn’t be thinking eloquently. She’d clearly been recalling a repressed memory — possibly suppressed by the Astrals. Lila had asked Piper many times about what it had been like to travel on the mothership. Piper’s answer had always been the same: I think I was asleep. But it turned out she hadn’t been. Now, Piper had recalled something that made her pale, that made her shudder in a numb way that had nothing to do with Raj’s pointed gun.
Because that’s how he was.
Piper and Cameron had returned to Heaven’s Veil. Piper had mentioned Charlie Cook and the maniac from the outlands who ran the Andreus Republic. Why hadn’t she mentioned Trevor?
Lila didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t have the mental bandwidth to consider the ramifications of that particular question. Her situation was dire enough. So yes, it must have been a slip. A misspeaking of tense. Trevor was that way two years ago merely because it was in the past. That’s all she’d meant because if anything had gone wrong, Lila would know by now. Hell, Clara would have told her.
At that, Lila relaxed. Yes, of course. Clara would have told her.
She tried to catch her daughter’s eye. Reached for her small hand — backward because Raj took the rear, behind Jons, Christopher, Piper, Terrence, Cameron, and finally Lila. Anyone could run. But right now, given Heaven’s Veil’s present state — and ultimately, the horrid truth that there was nowhere to go — all would stay put. Follow orders. And wait to see.
But Raj saw her hand move back. He stepped between Lila and Clara, gestured down toward his gun, and tossed his head to indicate that she best know her place.
There were no Titans outside the station. After finding none inside, Raj seemed desperate to reach the next place and see whom he might find to hear his complaint. But the streets were empty except for bemused human cops, clutching their duties by the thinnest of threads.
“Captain?” said one, watching Jons.
Jons could have told the cop to draw his weapon and arrest the Indian kid at the parade’s rear. But the captain seemed to see what Lila saw.
The cop didn’t know which side he was supposed to be on.
The police force finally had what it always claimed it wanted: dominion over at least this part of Heaven’s Veil without any meddling Astrals. But the reality was like a table without legs, and the cop seemed lost. Without Astrals to enforce the rules, who were the police? Familiarity had bred atrophy. If the cop tried to draw on Raj, he’d shoot. Whom he’d shoot (the cop or one of their party) hardly mattered.
Jons said nothing. Tried to give the kid — as that’s all he was, to Lila’s eye — a knowing glance. But then they were past, into silent streets with one weapon leading.
“Raj?” Lila asked.
“Shut your mouth,” came the reply.
“Where is my dad?”
Raj didn’t answer.
But when Lila looked over, Piper was staring right at her.
CHAPTER 67
“Raj, hang on. I need to — ”
“Don’t try explaining anything to me. I understand just fine.” He stared at Piper for an elongated moment. Raj knew what he wanted; he knew who were his friends and foes; he knew exactly where he had to go and what he needed to know. About those things, Piper could only guess, but the minute they’d left the station courtyard he’d shouted directions to Jons that had steered them toward the big blue pyramid.
The one place where Raj knew he could find Astrals in the city — because when you meant to complain about one boss, you had to do it to the bigger boss.
Toward the single place Piper had decided they absolutely should not go.
“They won’t listen to you. You don’t know what they’re doing.”
Raj scoffed. “I suppose you do?”
Piper glanced at Clara. She looked pretty and ordinary, as if this was all very matter of fact and by the book to the little girl.
“They’re doing something at the Apex. Cameron and me, we came in here to … ” Oh, what the hell. What could it possibly hurt at this point? “To find a weapon. Something the Astrals need.”
“Really.”
“When I was on the mothership, I could sense them. They’re like one mind.”
“What a great insight, Piper,” Raj said.
“But something went wrong. Things are different now. The weapon isn’t at the Apex, but it’s … ” Her eyes went to Cameron, even to Terrence. “The Apex is something else. What they’re doing, they weren’t supposed to do. It wasn’t in the original plan.”
“Really?” Raj stopped and turned, hands on hips. “And how do you know that, Piper?”
“I can feel it. I can … ” She didn’t want to say it. Not now. Not to Raj. “There’s something coming from the mothership,” she finished, knowing how lame she must sound.
Not something. Someone. A mind that shouldn’t be there. Someone I remember from recently, that I may not have actually seen for two years.
“I can see what’s coming from the motherships.” Raj looked up at the energy beams.
Her patience snapped. She grabbed his shoulders — not to attack, but to make him see sense. How was this not obvious to him? Raj was blinded by his own self-pity, unable to see what was right in front of him. Over the past weeks, Raj had become like a dog with a bone. His position as the sole remaining human toady in Piper’s circle had become obviously pointless, but he refused to stop and think, to consider things from a new and obvious angle. In his mind, Raj was going to march right up to the nearest Titan and air his grievances then await his reward.
“We can’t be here! You don’t know what they’re feeling, what they might do, what’s boiling and about to — ”
Raj pushed Piper away. His stowed pistol resurfaced, leveled at her chest. His finger twitched. For a scant second, she imagined she heard a report. Felt the bullet kiss her skin. But he was only pointing, shaking, while the others backed away.
Cameron’s hands closed on her shoulders from behind.
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“Just walk,” Raj said. “You’re not getting away this time.”
Piper walked.
She looked up.
It was all a lie. Every bit of it.
She remembered the way Meyer had looked, in that all-white room, when she’d spoken with him on the ship. The way her mind had melded into his every bit as easily as it had into Cameron’s on their trip from Vail to Moab. The way they’d worked together to find the best way to get the others out of the house before docking.
She remembered leaving him in that all-white room, coming down to the ground, her memories already retreating.
She remembered watching Meyer emerge from the ship with the Titans behind him.
Believing he was himself, when he very much wasn’t.
What was supposed to happen had gone awry. Piper could see that now — thanks to Meyer, thanks to all the others. Thanks to what was different this time.
They rounded another corner, and Malcolm Jons practically ran into the back of a big white Titan. One of hundreds, all surrounding the Apex.
Talking to it.
Helping to focus it.
Thor’s Hammer didn’t need to be at the Apex for them to find it. Not if something in the group mind made an illogical suggestion.
Raj pushed his way forward, through the outer line of Titans, shoving their muscular frames aside. Piper sensed movement from the rear; she turned and saw Clara running away as fast as her small, strangely adept legs would carry her.
“Who is in charge here?” Raj shouted across the group.
When the black smoke returned, Piper felt as if it was welcoming her home.
CHAPTER 68
Heather squatted, her heart hammering, as the self-important shout rang across the gathering of Titans below. She tugged Jeanine Coffey down beside her.
“I just saw — ”
“We’ve seen it before,” Coffey said. “Titans can become Reptars. I assume it goes the other way around, too.”
