Defenders (43 page)

Or maybe she should get over it, and stop being so suspicious.

It was astonishing to think this was really happening. People and Luyten were going to be fighting, and dying, side by side.

We’re recruiting more humans for leadership positions every day
, Five said.
As we launch new attacks, we’re able to gauge people’s reactions, and identify those who not only approve of the attacks, but wish they could take part in them.

“Not everyone approves of the attacks?” Oliver asked.

Oh, no. Some are afraid the defenders’ retaliation will spread to humans. Others are working for the defenders—they’re only interested in ingratiating themselves by feeding the defenders information.

“If you know who those people are, shouldn’t we be doing something about them?” Kai asked.

“Like what?” Lila asked. She didn’t like the implications of the question.

I’m glad you brought that up
, Five said.
Do you want us to supply names?

“Hang on,” Lila said. “Why would we want their names?”

“Because they have to be killed,” Kai said.

After all this time, she realized, Kai still felt some sort of connection with Five. Both of them did—father and son. The Luyten had been right, to move heaven and Earth to get Five here in person.

Lila looked from Kai to Five, and back again. As Kai followed her gaze, his stolid expression turned dark, almost accusatory. Lila had a moment of wondering if Kai knew her so well he knew what she was thinking, or if Five had plucked it out of her mind and passed it on to Kai. That was the thing about having a Luyten present—you couldn’t help but feel paranoid.

“Let me get this straight,” Lila said. “We’re going to kill people—
humans
—because aliens tell us they’re spies?”

“We’re all in, Lila,” Kai said. “If we can’t trust the Luyten, well, we’re fucked. We’ve already crossed that bridge.”

“So we’re just going to
off
people? What are we going to do, slip into their houses when they’re asleep and cut their throats, trying our best not to wake their kids? Lure them into alleys and beat their skulls in with steel pipes?” She looked at Oliver, Kai, and Dominique. “Who’s going to do this? Us?”

We can identify former Special Forces, CIA operatives, army snipers, and provide assignments directly to them. Most will want contact with some sort of human leadership first, to make sure our authority is legitimate.

“And we’re the human leadership?” Lila said. She brushed her hair out of her face. “Is no one else getting uncomfortable with this?”

“We’re
all
uncomfortable with it,” Dominique said. “None of us wants to decide who lives and who dies.”

“But when push comes to shove, you will.”

Dominique didn’t answer.

“While we’re on the topic of leadership,” Oliver said, “I think I should point out that Dominique is the highest-ranking government official involved in this action. I’d like to suggest we officially acknowledge that, ultimately, she’s in charge.”

Dominique raised both of her hands. “Whoa, hold on. Don’t put that on me. Four voices, four votes.”

“What happens in the event of a tie?” Oliver asked.

“We talk it out.”

Lila nodded agreement. “Can we vote on this assassination idea?”

“Yes,” Dominique said, her voice clipped. “All in favor of authorizing the assassination of known human traitors?”

Everyone but Lila raised a hand.

For the record, most of us are in favor as well
, Five said,
although we won’t personally kill humans under any circumstances, for obvious reasons
.

Somehow Lila didn’t find that reassuring.

We’re planning to escalate the attacks tomorrow. We’re going to hit armories where at least one altered defender is stationed.

“They’re not going to like that,” Kai said.

No, they’re not. More of us are going to die, but we can’t let up. A few more days, and then the real war begins. Is three days from now an acceptable time frame?

They looked at each other, then Oliver said, “Yes.”

Good. In the meantime, we’re going to try to evacuate the cities where gas attacks are planned. Those are obvious first-strike targets, with the defenders already cleared out.

In the end, Oliver suggested he and Vanessa go for a walk. Oliver was a nonperson, so meeting at a coffee shop or restaurant carried risk, and he felt uncomfortable suggesting they meet in his apartment. So they met near his apartment and circled the block, their chins tucked against a chilly wind.

They caught each other up on their lives. Oliver told her what it had been like to be in Australia when the war broke out. How he’d be dead if not for Lila.

Vanessa described watching from her bedroom window as the first bombs dropped on D.C., then hiding in her basement, terrified, as the bombers flew overhead, evidently saving their bombs for more densely populated areas.

“I’ve never felt as alone as I felt in that basement,” Vanessa said. “Most of the time, I’m happy on my own. I enjoy my own company; I thrive in the silence. But when you’re terrified, when you’re watching bombs drop on the roofs of your city, suddenly it’s awful to be alone.”

Oliver was surprised by Vanessa’s honesty. It reminded him of the early months of their marriage, when he’d felt closer to her than he’d ever felt to anyone.

“I tried calling my mom, but the phones were out by then. The power was out; I was in the dark. I would have given anything to hear another human voice.” Vanessa’s mother, who’d lived in Albuquerque, died in the war. So did her brother, and an uncle.

A defender came around the corner. Oliver tensed, ever afraid one of them would demand ID and somehow see that his was fake. He and Vanessa pressed close to the wall to give the defender plenty of room to pass. As the thump of the defender’s boots faded, Oliver’s pulse returned to normal.

Vanessa noticed how tense he’d become. “I don’t know how you do it. I could never disappear like you did, and worry all the time about being discovered.”

Oliver shrugged, put on a brave face. “The trick is to hide in plain sight. If you seem to be avoiding them, they get suspicious. I really had no choice; even with Lila’s protection, sooner or later they would have killed me because of who I was.”

“You hated it when they drafted you into the CIA. Do you remember? You absolutely didn’t want to do it.”

Oliver nodded, watched a concrete mixer roll by, driven by a man who must have been ninety.

“But you adapted. You thrived.” After a pause she added, “I didn’t think you would.”

The comment took Oliver by surprise. He nearly stopped walking before regaining his composure. “No?”

She touched his shoulder. “You were such a gentle man; too gentle to fight a war, I thought.” She must have seen something in his expression, because she quickly added, “Don’t get me wrong, I
liked
that you were gentle—it was one of the reasons I married you. But I confused gentle with weak. You’re not weak.”

“Thank you” was all he could think to say. When he first joined the CIA, he’d been afraid he was too weak. He wouldn’t necessarily have used that word, but that was the crux of it. Over the years those fears had vanished. Still, it did his heart good to hear Vanessa say she didn’t think he was weak.

“We probably should have done this a long time ago,” Vanessa said. “Get things right with each other. Lots of divorced people reconnect and become friends after some time passes.” She glanced at him, smiled. “We shouldn’t have waited twenty years.”

Oliver nodded. His throat had tightened; he didn’t trust himself to speak, but he was afraid Vanessa hadn’t seen him nod, and he didn’t want her to think he didn’t agree with what she’d just said. So he added, “I missed you,” almost choking on the last word.

Vanessa studied his profile. Oliver kept his head down, face forward, not wanting her to see how choked up he was.

“I missed you, too.”

How long had he imagined taking this walk, having this conversation? He felt … he couldn’t put it into words. His senses felt sharpened; he felt lighter than he had in ages. The wars hadn’t made Vanessa sour and brittle, or depressed and anxious, as it had so many people. At her core she was still the same woman. There were wrinkles around her eyes, the softness of middle age showing under her chin, but it was still Vanessa. She’d made it intact through two wars; Oliver wondered how she’d fare in a third.

“I want to tell you something I’m not supposed to tell anyone. But for now, you can’t ask me for details.”

Vanessa swallowed. “This is the thing you talked about on the phone. ‘Ask me again in six months,’ you said.”

Oliver scanned the street, looking for any sign of defenders, or security cameras. It would be too dangerous to go into specifics, but he felt he had to say something, or he would be lying to Vanessa in a very real sense. “There’s another storm coming, Vanessa. Very soon.”

She slowed. She understood exactly what he was saying—Oliver could see it in her reaction. “You’re sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“As bad as the other storms?”

Oliver squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “Just as bad.”

Vanessa took this in, then nodded. “Good to know.”

A few blocks ahead, the row of colorful three-story connected houses ended, replaced by the towering frames of new defender construction, cranes and bulldozers, and piles of rubble—the remains of the human buildings that had been demolished to make room for more defender dwellings. Hopefully, they would never be completed.

“We’d better turn around,” Oliver said.

They headed back the way they’d come.

Vanessa took out her phone, tapped the keys for a moment, then held it up. “I haven’t listened to this in twenty years, but today, I need a laugh.”

Sounding like he was speaking from inside a can, Oliver heard his own quavering voice. “Yes, Vanessa, this is Oliver Bowen? My sister, Leslie Bowen, gave me your number, and I hope you don’t mind my calling you, but—”

As they laughed, Oliver watched for defenders. If a defender happened by and saw two humans laughing as hard as they were, it would raise suspicion.

The crawlspace under Erik’s house was large enough for Kai to walk upright. When Kai and Lila had owned their own house, it had been a struggle to move around in the crawlspace with his back bent, squatting. And that had been before the war, when his body was strong and fully intact.

Kai located the plumbing that went up to the kitchen, listened to each of the pipes in turn with the stethoscope he’d brought. He marked the one connected to the sink, which he’d purposely left running, with a red X, then went to find the main circuit panel.

He felt like he was deceiving Lila by planning this without telling her. But there was no doubt in his mind that Erik was going to try to kill him; he was too good a poker player to misread what he’d seen on Erik’s face.

He flipped the breaker switch leading to the heater for Erik’s pool. Erik would never notice it was off; as far as Kai knew, Erik had never been in the pool—it was just a prop, a display of his wealth and power.

Rerouting the wiring was the hard part, especially with only one good hand. During basic training he’d received cursory instruction in booby-trapping, including about two minutes on how to electrocute someone using a house’s typical 110-volt setup.

An hour later, shaking from the exertion, his hip throbbing, he had the wires from the pool’s heater wrapped around the pipe leading to the kitchen faucet. In theory, when the time came all he had to do was flip the breaker, then get Erik to touch the faucet. He hoped he’d done it right.

It was a pathetic war room. In place of interactive high-definition electronic maps, they had paper maps and push-pins on the walls. And Spider-Man. Dominique didn’t even feel qualified to participate in planning an insurrection. She was a geneticist, for God’s sake.

We’re in direct contact with hundreds of high-ranking officers with combat experience
, Five said in her head, probably from miles away.
They’ll be making the military decisions.

“I know, I know,” Dominique said. “They’re just my
thoughts
, Five. That’s where we express our private doubts and insecurities. If we’re all going to live together in peace and harmony, your kind is going to have to learn to politely ignore what you hear us thinking.”

Sorry. You’ll have to excuse my manners, but thousands of my people are being slaughtered at the moment, and each time it happens, it feels a little like dying myself. I’d appreciate it if you’d cut me one fucking inch of slack.

Dominique swallowed. “I’m sorry. I forgot for a moment.”

Oliver took a sip from his third or fourth cup of coffee, politely ignoring the altercation. He had three days’ growth of dark stubble on his face, and smelled like a defender. Dominique wasn’t sure how to tell him that if he didn’t have time to shower, he should at least change his shirt.

They were all on edge. Forrest had his face buried in his computer, trying to find a way to hack into the defenders’ video feeds to give them a better idea of what was going on out there. He cursed under his breath as he pounded away on the keyboard.

“Five, how are the evacuations in those cities going?” Oliver asked.

Chaotically. Some people are trying to get out, others are staying put. The defenders are saying no one who stays will be harmed, and anyone who tries to leave without a pass will be killed. Meanwhile, we’re doing our best to panic people into fleeing. If we can create stampedes out of the cities, the defenders won’t be able to kill as many refugees. The defenders are frantically trying to understand what’s happening.

“How do they think people learned about their plan to gas those cities?”