Extinction

by Sean Platt

  Which, of course, he was.

  Because as things turned out, there was one person responsible for ringing the Astral dinner bell eleven years ago, and his name was Peers Basara. He’d tried to bury his guilt, to assure himself that even if he hadn’t gone into the Temple that day and spoken through the portal, the Astrals would have come eventually. But time and research had shown him that the point of the Temple and portal — of the Mullah’s stewardship in general — was that humanity was supposed to choose its time of judgment. They were supposed to make themselves worthy, then call the masters to check their work. But whenever Peers tried to justify his younger self’s actions with those ideas, he felt like a rationalizing asshole. Humanity hadn’t been ready for the Astrals’ return. Peers, because he’d been an idiot kid who couldn’t leave well enough alone, had called them early. And now everyone would die.

  Well, not everyone.

  The scrolls said that at the end of each epoch, a small group was chosen to carry the race and try again. The past was somehow erased (the scrolls said “washed away”), and it all started over.

  Meyer would survive. Kindred would probably survive as well. The legend of the Seven Archetypes said there was a King, and that he had two heads, and that the King survived to lead the next epoch. That’s how Peers had known it was his duty (as the Fool who did happen to know a way out of town, so long as he could find its entrance) to shepherd the King toward safety.

  Either that, or he was a coward. Either heroism made him lead Meyer’s exodus, or the hope that staying by Meyer’s side would keep him safe as well.

  Because the scrolls said nothing about the Fool and his fate.

  “I hear something,” said Piper from behind him.

  Peers turned. He’d heard things, too, but it was just Meyer and Kindred chattering like the two-headed being they were.

  He looked down. It wasn’t Nocturne making noise. Years of desert living had ground the dog’s claws so they no longer clacked when he walked.

  “I think it’s our echoes,” Peers told her.

  “It’s not just that.” She looked around, flustered, but seemed to let it go. “What are these tunnels, anyway? How did you know they were here?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  Peers winced. They deserved a better lie. Guilt had its hooks in him. His gut was churning, and he could barely think. He was a man with a hideous secret and no one to take his confession, because even the most forgiving priest would strangle him for the truth.

  “You must have a guess.”

  Peers glanced at Piper. Met her big blue eyes. She wasn’t an idiot, nor was Lila beside her. They were choosing to pretend they believed his bullshit, but Peers knew they didn’t — and in turn, they knew he knew. A game of chicken with Peers in the middle. Everyone knew he’d betrayed them, but no one spoke. They were sharpening knives, waiting. And right now, Peers could see the hatred on Lila’s face, more fierce from the blood still matted in her hair and in the creases of her skin.

  “They must be Mullah tunnels.”

  She didn’t ask how Peers had known how to enter a Mullah place. Everyone knew it, just like everyone must know he was carrying a stolen alien artifact — that he’d lied with every breath for hours, that he’d caused the human race to meet its end, that he knew a whole lot more about Clara’s disappearance than he’d let on. For a while there, his secret had been mercifully out. But then Jeanine Coffey had got herself killed, and it had again been easier to curl up and lie than admit to the shameful truth.

  “I can feel them,” Piper said. “The Mullah.”

  “Me too,” said Lila, looking right at Peers. “So close, it’s like they’re right here with us.”

  Peers pretended not to notice Lila’s stare. “Come on. It’s this way. It must be, I mean.”

  “Only makes sense,” Lila said. “Of course, none of us knows for sure.”

  “Of course,” Peers said, fighting to steady his voice. It wasn’t Lila getting to him. It was himself. Guilt, a million-pound weight. He shouldn’t be fleeing the city. He should let the Astrals take him if they wanted — maybe die heroically, like Cameron seemed to have. But every time Peers considered a hero’s exit, he found it easier to keep his mouth shut for another few minutes. To keep on walking.

  “Where do you think Clara got to, Peers?” Lila said it like a question, but to Peers it sounded like an interrogation.

  “I don’t know.”

  “The Mullah have her.”

  “Yes.”

  “And this is a Mullah place.”

  “Maybe.”

  “So maybe she’s here.”

  But she wasn’t, and Lila knew it. The tunnel had been mostly straight so far, with few branches. The chambers and jaunts they’d passed were open and straightforward with no one inside. No Mullah, and no little girls.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Is that because she’s dead, Peers?”

  Peers stopped. Piper almost ran into him.

  “Lila!” Piper said.

  “Don’t say that,” said Peers.

  Lila shrugged. It was a businesslike gesture. “If she is, I’d rather just know. It’s worse to keep hoping if that’s how it ends.”

  For a moment, Peers couldn’t respond. Lila’s eyes were spheres of ice. Her irises were brown instead of Piper’s blue, but in the tunnel’s dim light they looked black. Her skin was still stained with dried blood. Her hair was a clotted mess, and she smelled like rancid meat because there’d been only an ice-dampened rag to clean herself with. Her stare was hard. She wasn’t looking at Peers like a human. At least not a rational one. He could barely hold his space without falling back.

  “You have to keep hoping,” Peers said. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “How sure?” Lila’s voice held almost no emotion. Like she’d been bent too far and had finally broken. “Sure like you’ve seen her?”

  “Of course not. But I’m sure nonetheless.”

  “Sure like you’ve talked to her kidnappers? As sure like you are one of her kidnappers?”

  “Lila,” Meyer said from behind, trying to break the strange standoff.

  Without turning, Lila said, “I’m just asking, Dad.”

  “They wouldn’t hurt her if she was held for a reason,” Piper said.

  “But the reason was a lie.” Cold eyes turned to Peers. “He said so, and we trust him.”

  “We’ll find her,” Piper said.

  “Except that you can’t feel her anymore, can you?” Lila asked Piper. “You were so sure before that wherever Clara was, she was safer than us. But now you’re not.”

  “Lila. Knock it off.”

  Lila turned to her father. To both of her fathers. “I’m just being logical and unemotional so I can make the best decisions, Dads. Just like you do.”

  Again, her stare turned to Peers. He was so focused on Lila that he didn’t hear the rush of feet coming right at them.

  CHAPTER 20

  By the time Peers saw the Mullah, they were surrounded.

  It happened in a blink. Peers had no idea where the men and women at their front and rear had come from, but judging by the others’ faces, he wasn’t alone. Meyer and Kindred were supposed to be the logic-makers, and ever since Cameron had opened the Ark, Piper was supposed to be the empath. But nothing had seen them coming. They weren’t there, then they suddenly were.

  A hard, angry face stared at Peers. Other angry faces stood behind him, all atop long, off-white desert robes. It took Peers a minute to realize that he wasn’t imagining the sliding sensation at his throat. To realize someone was holding a blade to his skin.

  “Who are you, and why are you here?”

  The question was barked in accented English. The man who’d shouted, who by virtue of being first had been assumed the leader, had rough, sun-toughened skin. His lips made a scowl.

  Peers realized his hands had come partway up. He didn’t want to turn and look around. The others in his party could be doing
anything.

  “Please. Let me explain.”

  “I am telling you to explain! So tell! Who are you? How did you find this tunnel?”

  Peers exhaled. There was no way out of this other than shaded truth.

  “I used an Elder’s Key.”

  The blade — a long scimitar, by the look — retreated a fractional inch. There was muttering in Arabic.

  “Show me!”

  Peers moved his hands slowly, palms open. He didn’t have an Elder’s Key, of course. Fools didn’t seem to need them. But the phrase had grabbed the man’s attention, and Peers only needed a second to show him something else that might change his mind.

  Instead of reaching into his pocket, Peers raised his sleeve. He turned his bare arm to show the man his Mullah brand, tucked high near his armpit.

  “You are Mullah?” the man said.

  “Yes.”

  Something shifted behind him. The sound came from where he knew Lila was standing.

  “What is your name?”

  “Basara.”

  More whispering.

  “I know this name. But I do not know you.”

  “My Den is from Turkey. I only ask that you let us pass.”

  The man shifted to be more in his way rather than less.

  “I would be a poor soldier to let you go with only a question and half an answer.”

  “Then follow us. See that we only want the way out.”

  “Maybe I do not want to let you go?”

  “I wear the brand. I opened the lock.”

  “And yet you have not shown me your key.” The man frowned. “You know, Basara … you do not seem old enough to be an Elder among the Mullah, even if you gained access in the manner you claim.”

  “I’m not claiming anything.”

  “You claim to be friend. Are you a friend?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then perhaps you can help us. Our Den’s tunnels have been here since well before the palace atop them, and before now there has been no way to enter. Nothing could get in, not even those little balls the Horsemen send. And yet recently they came in force. One of our Elders was abducted. Like you, Elder Basara, he had a key.”

  “Oh,” Peers said, unsure where else to go.

  “Maybe you took it from him.”

  “I — ”

  “Maybe if you show me your Elder Key , I will tell you whether or not it was once Sadeem’s.”

  “Look,” Peers said. “I’m on — ”

  “Someone betrayed us,” he said, cutting Peers off. “They told the Astrals where to find us, then let them in. Someone let them take Sadeem, and helped them steal something very important to us — something we thought was protected but has now gone missing. We don’t know how it happened. They came, and we fell asleep. When we woke in our chambers, Sadeem and our treasure were gone.”

  The man smiled an unconvincing smile.

  “I’m telling you this because you are a brother among the Mullah. But I imagine it is not news to you. After all, there have been betrayers in the Mullah before … Basara.”

  Peers met the man’s hard eyes. Then there was another sound directly behind him, emanating from the parcel in his backpack.

  It was a harsh, staticky sound, followed by three sharp beeps.

  The man’s eyebrows dove downward. His lips formed a scowl.

  “What is in your backpack, my friend?”

  But before Peers could summon an answer — one for the Mullah and another for his group — the tunnels trembled, the ground shaking like the world was reaching its end.

  Peers’s legs buckled. The scimitar at his neck retreated, the hand holding it needed for balance. Someone fell at the group’s rear, ahead of Peers. Dust sifted from the ceiling. It was like that day in the Temple many years ago — the day, it seemed, when Peers had ended humanity’s chances and Cameron Bannister had first heard his own key’s calling.

  Shouting behind them. Shouting from the group ahead. The man who’d been so bent on skewering Peers now seemed focused only on staying upright, holding the wall for balance.

  “Push. Now,” came a voice in Peers’s ear.

  Meyer or Kindred. But whoever it was didn’t wait for Peers to comply. The push came from farther back, not so much against him as using Peers like a ram. He collided with his interrogator, their skulls clacking together. More shouting came — either in alarm at the situation or that their captives were fighting back — but as the tunnels shook and rock began to fall, it meant nothing.

  Peers was forced forward. Through the throngs.

  Dust sifted, getting in his eyes, eclipsing vision. His teeth chattered. His brain felt unseated, rattling like a ball in an empty box. A dog barked: Nocturne, of course, nosing his own way through. Then there was a shout. A growl. A canine thrashing, as the gentle dog found motivation to snarl and bite.

  “Go! Go, Peers!”

  And they pushed, trampled, shoved. Peers’s boots found bodies, reaching up and trying to grab him. His hands sought the wall for balance, trying to stay upright, knowing he’d be dead if he fell.

  There was a tremendous grinding. An enormous roar from somewhere above, filtered through stone.

  “GO!”

  A figure in a suit shoved past Peers to take the lead. Peers turned his head in the confusion, seeing the Mullah knocked flat and shoved aside, now too concerned with the apocalyptic shaking to mind their quarry. Piper and Lila were behind him, faces pale and frightened, but focused. Nocturne was beside another man in a suit, this one claiming the rear. The man’s tie was blue: Meyer, apparently.

  They rushed. They scrambled. And miraculously, an exit appeared. Peers thought he should have seen daylight with it, but none came.

  He could only see was the mammoth black ship, eclipsing the world.

  It was moving. Somewhere. And the sound was like the vibrations of planets.

  They came up outside the city. Beyond the wall, though Peers wasn’t exactly sure where. A glance around showed that the peril of cannibal clans was still present, but none of the vehicles or painted men seemed threatening compared to the thing slowly crossing the sky.

  They were all ignoring the newcomers. Looking away, mouths open as they gaped at the heavens.

  Between the ground and the black ship was a wide bright area, like something projected in three dimensions.

  The space carried a message, written in English in what had to be fifty-foot letters.

  It simply read, STAND BY.

  CHAPTER 21

  Lila didn’t even take time to stare Peers up and down before pushing past him. He had something in his bag that might be anything at all, and he’d been on the other side all along. But the ground was shaking like an earthquake and there was a bulletin hovering in the sky above Ember Flats. Even the cannibals were too transfixed to look away.

  She stared into the sky.

  STAND BY.

  The message and presentation were so stark. So businesslike. It had all the character of a generic, black-on-white cereal box. And once the ship stopped moving — now directly over the city’s center, a line of blue light arcing between the behemoth and the Apex pyramid — it sat there in letters tall as most of the buildings, rendered in three dimensions and, she had to assume, somehow readable at all angles, rotating slowly.

  Lila felt a tug as her still-moist shirt pulled against her front. She looked back and saw Piper pinching the fabric between thumb and fingers, dragging her subtly backward.

  Lila’s mouth opened. Piper’s index finger shot in front of her lips.

  Shhh …

  As Lila looked around, Meyer turned to watch her. Then Kindred. Then finally Peers, who didn’t seem to know where to aim his gaze.

  Lila moved back, obeying the tug. She turned after a handful of steps before Piper let her go. The group followed Piper as she moved away from the tunnel’s exit, which had come up in a rock scree. They hadn’t surfaced among the cannibal clans, but were definitely near them. They’d be
easily seen if any of the monsters turned their heads, once they stopped caring more about the big blue letters hovering above them.

  Down behind a rise, the clans dropped out of sight.

  Lila peeked at the Astral message. There’d been beeps to alert whoever had whatever Peers was carrying, followed by shaking and noise, then a placeholder note in the open air. A message must be coming, and they wanted everyone’s attention. But for now, there was nothing.

  “Anyone hurt?” Piper said, her voice low.

  Heads shook.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  Peers was staring at the sky. “Where?”

  Piper looked at Peers as if he were daft. She didn’t have the vacant look that Lila assumed must be on her own face. She appeared calm and in control. Even Meyer and Kindred seemed more shaken.

  “To Jabari’s subs. To the Cradle.”

  Lila was still staring at the message.

  “Now?” she said.

  “When else?”

  “But … ” She looked skyward.

  “We don’t want to stand by.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I can.”

  “How?”

  “I just do.” Piper touched her head. “It’s too much to explain.”

  Meyer was looking skyward too, but his eyes were on the ship, and Lila could tell he was trying to look through more than at it.

  “We don’t even know where we are,” he said. “None of the landmarks are visible, and I can’t see the sun.”

  “We’re much farther north,” Piper said.

  “How do you know that?”

  She touched her head again.

  “We can’t trust your feelings,” Peers said.

  “We can trust them more than yours,” Piper countered.

  “Can you feel Clara again?”

  Piper squinted, frowned, contorted her face. “Kind of. But I don’t think it means anything. I can still feel Cameron, too.”