Extinction (19 page)

Fortunately, she’d anticipated this.
 

Well, all but the enormous ship that ruined her plans. And that the aliens were apparently playing with her all along. It cast doubt on everything. Mara found herself wondering what would become of Meyer’s group as they headed toward the “secret” escape vessels. She wondered about the bunker, and if it was truly private or impregnable. She even wondered about the rioters banging on her door. And the force field around humanity’s only hope of salvation, of course.
 

Divinity’s message was the usual clipped, socially retarded brief:
 

Lifeboat perimeter deactivation code 091804
.
 

Mara stared, her forehead wrinkled.
 

Lifeboat.
 

Deactivation.

Was this what she thought? It looked almost like a code to unlock the big Noah’s Ark thing. It sort of seemed like they’d given Mara — traitor to her masters, rebel who’d actually gotten away with nothing — the keys to her city’s only hope for survival.
 

For 1 percent of the population.
 

“MARA!”

She looked up. Toward the stairs. Toward the impregnable door where rioters were storming her gates.
 

She clicked the video feed to one showing the palace interior. It was empty, as it had been every time she’d checked. She’d seen some aides running through a giant hole in the wall, possibly blasted by Charlie Cook and Jeanine Coffey. Reptars had been chasing them. She’d seen others leave of their own accord, but certainly nobody was still here who was, once upon a time, supposed to be here. The place was open for rioters and had been for hours.
 

But still, the house was empty.
 

“MARA! LET ME IN!”
 

She climbed the steps. Turned all the right knobs and pulled all the right levers. She peeked tentatively out even after checking the screen beside the door, then opened it wide and stared slack-jawed at the black-and-blue mess across from her.
 

“Kamal?”

“So I
am
still as beautiful as I used to be,” Kamal said, his words somehow unaffected by his fat lip.
 

Mara ushered him in, glanced through the hallway, and closed the door. She secured everything she’d unfastened then took his arm as they descended into the bunker. Kamal had a significant limp and fell down the stairs nearly as much as he was stepping.
 

“What the hell happened to you?”
 

“I walked into a wall.”
 

“Were you out in the city? Were you attacked?”
 

“Your visitors did this. I never want to run a bed and breakfast again.”
 

“Which visitors?”
 

“Jeanine Coffey.”
 

“Jeanine
did this to you?”
 

“I misspoke. I meant it was a gang of big, strong bikers.”
 

Mara ushered Kamal to a couch and eased him onto it.

“Do you need a … ?” She stalled, not knowing how to end her sentence.
 

“How about some Flintstones aspirin?”
 

“How can you make jokes at a time like this?”
 

“I’m a hilarious person. I can’t control it.”
 

Mara sat opposite Kamal. He seemed intact, just painfully ugly. Jeanine had done a number on him, but he wasn’t acting like anything was broken.

“Where were you?” Mara asked.
 

“Bitch knocked me out. I woke up a few minutes ago, and everyone had left. Then I went to the window and saw. Checked the feeds and saw more. So your State of the City didn’t go well?”

“Not so much.”
 

“And the Ark?”
 

“Cameron opened it. That didn’t go well, either.”
 

“And the girl?”
 

“Clara? I don’t know.”
 

“They thought I was Mullah. That I’d taken her. Just because I’m Muslim? That’s racist.”

“What happened?”
 

“Ravi, I think. Hard to tell with all the unconsciousness, but our secondary surveillance got most of it.”
 

“Ravi is
Mullah?”
 

“I think. Shoulda known. He’s Muslim.”
 

“So why did Jeanine beat
you
up?”
 

“Because she’s a bitch. Please tell me she’s down here so I can punch her in the vagina.”
 

“She’s dead.”
 

Kamal looked genuinely sorry. “Oh. That sucks.” Then: “So who’s here?”

“Just me. Charlie didn’t make it. Or Cameron. I don’t know what happened to most of our staff, including the insiders, but I think Reptars chased them out of the palace before they could assemble.”
 

“Cowards.”
 

“I was still with the Meyers. Ran into Piper and the younger one. Lila, the girl’s mother? Then Peers Basara ran up at the last minute, and we came here.”
 

“Peers?”
 

“Yes. And I think you’re right about him. He had something in his pack that he wouldn’t show anyone. Talked about escape tunnels but wouldn’t say how he knew.”

“Mullah?”

Mara nodded. “That’s my guess.”
 

“He and Ravi should hang out.”
 

“But I still don’t think he’s dangerous. I wouldn’t have let the others go with him if I had.” Mara realized she wasn’t fully explaining. Her mind was moving a mile a minute. There was so much Kamal might have missed. He hadn’t asked about the bloody footprints in the bunker, but that didn’t mean he knew about their new plumbing issues.
 

“They all decided to leave. I told them where to find the Cradle and how to hook up with the others at the rendezvous linkup. The big ship outside … Did you see the big ship?”
 

“Yes.”
 

“The big ship made me think it wasn’t a good idea to go at all. Went with Plan C: Stay here. But now I wonder if I could’ve made it. If there was any chance they’d so much as try to stop me.”
 

“What makes you think that?”
 

Mara waved a hand through the air like wiping an invisible windshield. “I’ll tell you later. Did you see the broadcast?”
 

“Yours, or the one by Divinity just now, about how we have to play the lottery to see who lives or dies on that thing?”

“The second one.”
 

Kamal nodded his puffy, bruised head. “Quite the conundrum. Although I don’t know why they said we need to choose. People will kill each other for their spot. It’s probably full already.
 

Mara showed Kamal the feed. Let him take it in until he squinted and frowned, seeing the force field.
 

“They can’t get in?”
 

Mara shook her head. “There’s a barrier. And they sent me the code, I think.” She showed him the laptop with its new message.
 

“Why?”

Onscreen, a team of Reptars was entering the plaza by the Apex, moving in a slow line toward the mass around the boat.

“What are they doing?” Kamal’s eyes moved upward on the screen. “And why a boat?”

Mara shook her head. “Maybe it’s symbolic. It’s not the first symbolic thing they’ve done.”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

Mara’s eyes flicked toward the blood on the floor. “Nothing. I can explain later.”
 

Reptars moved toward the force field. Then they stepped right through it, though its energy still seemed to hold the humans at bay. They lined up inside, then marched slowly outward, inching the citizens of Ember Flats away from the field, forcing them to disperse somewhat.
 

Order restored. Chaotic situation controlled through might. But why?
 

Something blocked the camera. Then whatever it was stepped back, and Mara and Kamal found themselves looking at a Titan’s overly pleasant face. It was a male, indistinguishable from any other Titan male she’d ever seen. She waited for him to move on and assist whatever the Astrals were doing in the plaza, but he stayed put, his face toward the camera.
 

“What’s it doing?”
Kamal’s voice was low, as if the Titan could hear him.
 

Mara shook her head.
 

The Titan looked directly into the camera. He gave that maddeningly polite, neutrally bureaucratic look they all had, but did so right at the two of them, as if he knew where the tiny camera was hidden.
 

The Titan pointed. To his right, Mara and Kamal’s left.
 

“What the hell is it pointing at?” Kamal asked.
 

There was another knock on the bunker door. Right where the on-screen Titan was pointing.

CHAPTER 23

In the Canaan Plains palace, Viceroy Jayesh Sai stood staring at his message from the mothership above. It was terse and simple, as were all communications from Divinity. But this time, it was also a mystery. What was a lifeboat, in this context? Why did it have a perimeter? And why did Jayesh — who wasn’t even sure what perimeter needed deactivating — need the means to unlock it?
 

He was wondering if the lifeboat in question had anything to do with the message they’d seen broadcast above the Canaan Plains main square when the door opened. At first Jayesh was annoyed. But then his dark face cracked into a smile, and a grin too young for his years surfaced.
 

“Nitya! Have you come to visit your Daada?”
 

The girl padded across the office rug, thumb firmly in her mouth. Watching her, Jayesh felt a disconcerting mixture of sorrow and envy. Nitya didn’t understand that the world was ending, didn’t know she might soon be dying along with her Daada, if the message from Divinity was any indication. But still, the sinking feeling he got thinking of the odds (1 percent survived while the rest were killed, and even the viceroy had no clue where to find the “vessel”) was counterpointed by the jealousy he felt when considering his granddaughter’s ignorance and how, if she died, it would be without the fear to precede it.
 

How would it happen?

When
would it happen?
 

And how were they supposed to make their attempt at escape?

Jayesh hadn’t a clue. Between the time the still-alive Meyer Dempsey (and his clone) made their little speech and this newest announcement, his city had heard nothing. Canaan Plains grew agitated when they learned of Heaven’s Veil, but things had been percolating back toward normal until this.
 

Nitya circled the room. She was only eighteen months old but walked as well as Pari, his assistant’s five-year old daughter. Pari was older than Nitya, but Nitya had hat special spark. Sometimes it seemed like the girl could read minds. Always it seemed like she knew far more than she let on, as if she’d been an Elder since birth.
 

“Nitya? I would love to play with you, but now is not the time.” Jayesh looked again at the message then at the girl, wondering if they’d ever have a chance to play again.
 

She took the thumb from her mouth and said, plain as a teenager: “There is a new ship in the desert, beyond the valley, perched on its keel in a cage of blue glass. A man in jeans and boots is at the palace door, wishing to speak with you. And the rain is coming.”
 

In the empty land beyond Loulan Mu, a fisherman named Shen sat in a small boat, looking out at the western sky. Thunderheads were forming on the mountains like dark and ominous snow. A slight wind rippled the water. It wasn’t like the normal breeze, in a way Shen couldn’t place. This was different. This was new.
 

His line jerked. He looked toward the water, only now aware that he’d been staring into the distance for long vanished minutes. He doubled his grip on the rod, jerking it to set the hook, and whispered his usual prayer for bounty. It was a ritual he’d always had, but in the days since the visitors came — and especially since they formed their cities and the world beyond became lawless — it had found new meaning. Shen’s village was tiny, nestling a valley few had reason to cross. Even as news of the crumbling world reached Shen, he’d mostly ignored it. He had little use for such knowledge; his life consisted of fishing and family and farming, with little need for anything else. Small prayers in thanks for fish seemed a fitting way to show his appreciation to that which kept his life the same, that kept his family safe while the planet changed forever.
 

Shen reeled in his catch. On the end of his line, somehow fused with the hook, was a metal ball the size of a large walnut.
 

Shen touched it, and took it from the hook into his palm. It wasn’t wet or slimy, hadn’t spent who-knew-how-long on the stream floor. There were no punctures to indicate where the hook had been, or how it had entered. Perhaps it had been magnetism holding it in place. He could almost feel its energy warming his skin.