And All the Stars

Chapter Eleven

Madeleine had taken to biting her nails, unable to settle to anything, shifting from room to room, scouring the internet for news then not wanting to read it. She had a most wondrous portrait boiling inside her and couldn’t let herself progress now the sketch was transferred, couldn’t immerse herself in paint and escape the new world. Pan wasn’t much better, debating plans of action with Min, who seemed to delight in pointing out problems with every idea, their squabbles getting on Madeleine’s nerves until she realised that Pan was less edgy after these minor spats.

The television delivered a constant stream of bad news. Stain appearing anywhere and everywhere, infection blown on the wind. Families on the fringes of dust zones where there’d been no rain, gambling with their lives when food supplies ran low. Millions of displaced overwhelming non-Spire cities. Fights over food, water, face masks. Glimpses of Moths making themselves at home while Greens buried bodies and restored services, even travelling out of their cities on errands. New religions, and established ones grown strange and angry, calling disaster a judgment, a test. Very occasionally a sighting of a creature of light, every description different from the last.

To Madeleine’s surprise, not a single government, pre-existing or hastily formed, agreed to obey the Moths' demand for Blues. Officially. But Blues were handed over all the same: countless quiet betrayals.

Once, a spectacular battle on the fringes of Buenos Aires had been streamed. Two girls running from, then fighting back against a group who’d been discreetly drugging and delivering up local Blues. The girls had shield-paralysed most of them, and killed one, before stumbling into an army detachment. No-one seemed able to decide who should go to jail.

The phrase "the greater good" reached fingernails-on-chalkboard frequency, and the fourth day after the attack at the beach the robotic Warning! Warning! of Min’s walkway alarm came almost as a relief.

Madeleine, sitting on the rug near the closed patio door, glanced at the laptop set on an ottoman next to the television, but whatever had triggered the alarm was already out of camera range, in the small foyer where they would have a choice of doors, an elevator, or stairs.

"Go! Go!"

Nash, voice sharp and low, was already scouring the room, while Pan turned off the television and bent to mute the walkway monitor and switch the laptop to camera mode before tucking it out of sight. Madeleine grabbed her big sketchbook and dashed to the main floor bathroom.

They’d made it a rule to wipe down the shower after use, and by the middle of the day it had had time to dry thoroughly. It was quick work to swipe a handtowel around the sink, and glance to ensure nothing looked out of the ordinary. Then a race for her bedroom, trying not to pound the metal of the circular stair, to double-check her en suite, and close the wardrobe doors before heading to the quickly-filling study.

She’d managed to be second-last, Fisher following her through the door with the garbage bag of kitchen scraps, which he tucked into a pre-cleared file drawer after pulling the bookshelf door closed. And then they settled in, Noi sitting next to the computer, Pan underneath the desk, and Emily perched on top of the filing cabinet. Min, Nash, Fisher and Madeleine sat on the floor, legs in a tangle because there really was no room – they’d had to remove the chair after the first practice run so they could all fit in.

The computer was already set split-screen between the walkway and lounge room webcams. Neither showed movement, and there was a frustrating wait while they all wished they’d dared risk more cameras, and wondered if it had been a false alarm. Minutes ticked by with no sign of movement.

Pan, playing with a laptop and headphones, suddenly sat upright, knocking his skull against the underside of the desk. The noise wasn’t truly loud, but in the strained silence it felt like a shout.

Rather than apologetic, Pan looked excited, waving the laptop in response to frowns. Nash made a get on with it gesture, and Pan paused a moment to launch a word-processor and type:

ALIEN OVERLORD SINGING ON YOUTUBE

He waited till they had all had a chance to be properly incredulous, then switched windows to show the Japanese Blue, the Core of Taiee. She seemed to just be standing, smiling cheerfully at the camera, but when Pan passed the headphone ear buds around they could all hear the oscillating song which was presumed to be the aliens' language.

Noi snagged a notepad and pen from the desk and scribbled: What’s the text say? Googletrans plz.

A few clicks later they could see the clip was titled: "First" and the text below, posted by "Taiee", said: "First challenge call: Lot-nak".

This was hyperlinked, and Pan followed it to a site – a blog entry which was in Japanese but proved to also say "First challenge call: Lot-nak" above a time and date, a map of a golf course with a line drawn around its borders, a hyperlink to the video, and last a picture of a small glowing ball which had just a suggestion of paws and trailing ears.

"That’s tomorrow?" Nash asked, then made an apologetic face.

Noi held up her pad: Why are they using the internet? Can’t they use their ships to talk to each other?

Min took the pad from her: Must have same limitations we do – without satellites, can’t communicate on other side of planet. Makes sense to use our tech, especially since they’re in human bodies.

Maybe they can’t use their ships while in human form? Pan suggested.

Fisher, a warm presence at Madeleine’s side, had been browsing a tablet computer, and wrote: This place is in Manila. The Philippines Spire is there.

She said they’ve come to settle primacy. They’re holding a competition and this is round one.

Pad held high, Noi frowned because everyone’s attention had shifted to the computer monitor beside her. Four people had crossed the walkway, coming from the main building. Then, just at the edge of the screen, movement in their apartment. Someone heading up the spiral stair.

They sat frozen, not daring even to scribble notes, unsure whether this was simply part of the Greens' search for bodies, or if their presence was suspected, looked for.

A creak, not a metre away, and they held their breath as a heavy step moved toward the master bedroom. Madeleine felt inexplicably invaded, even though it was not her home, not truly her room. She hunched down unhappily, and then Fisher shifted at her side, leaned a little closer. That was all, but it distracted her from the person in her room.

The steps returned, heading toward the two superhero rooms, but the pace was brisk, and after only enough time to glance in the doors the person moved for the stair, and down. It was a search for bodies then, not hidden Blues. They could relax, and wait it out.

There was no sign of anyone leaving the building, but Noi guessed that it would be easier to remove bodies via the garage level rather than take them over the walkway stairs, and so decided on a two hour delay before emerging, in hopes that would be long enough for any lingerers to make their presence obvious. Everyone had brought something to do, and once staring at the Manila Golf Course had lost its early attractions they settled to their separate entertainments. Madeleine, of course, had planned to sketch, but it was hard to drag her mind from the canvas she planned for Noi and Emily, propped against the wall beside the desk, ready for paint.

Fisher was reading the first book of The Lord of the Rings, despite the movie marathon of the trilogy and prequels they’d held yesterday in an attempt to take their minds off aliens. Madeleine liked him a great deal when he was wearing his glasses and had that absorbed expression, so she began, through sideways glances, to capture a small portrait which pleased her. She moved on to fill the page with her companions, lingering over Emily cross-legged on the filing cabinet reading the copy of The Three Musketeers she had discovered with great excitement in the apartment library.

A study of each of them finished, and nearly an hour to go, she was hesitating over what to work on next when Fisher held out his hand for her pencil. She’d been aware that he’d stopped reading to watch her draw and, warmed by his interest, she’d been working to do her absolute best. It was inordinately difficult to not react to the faint brush of his arm against hers.

In tiny, precise letters he wrote: Draw Emily as a Musketeer.

Usually she didn’t like bright suggestions about what she should draw, but this one sparked a response. She’d need a reference, though, so pointed at his abandoned tablet, using it to look up clothing, sabres, stances. But then, as a different picture crept into her thoughts, she switched the tablet to camera mode and held it above and a little before her, triggering the photo button with difficulty from the angle. After a miscalculation which captured only half her face, she managed a satisfactory shot of herself staring upward, and handed the tablet to Fisher, gesturing for him to do the same.

He photographed himself obediently, paused to look at the result and shook his head with a wry lift to the corner of his mouth. But handed the tablet over to her.

After some pantomime and a little stifled giggling, she had seven photographs, and began to outline, covering the whole of a page in her large sketchbook with faint circles and lines, roughing out proportions and angles. It was a challenging picture, a circle of seven seen from above, each with a sabre raised to a central point, some faces smiling, some grave beneath their broad-brimmed hats and curling feathers.

"That’s two hours," Noi said softly, breaking Madeleine’s concentration. "I think we can risk sending a scout now, but first I’m dying to see what the hell it is you’ve been drawing Maddie."

Madeline passed the sketchbook around, and felt oddly breathless, not at their pleased reactions, but at the implications of that picture. Blue Musketeers, united and bold.

She, too, agreed with Emily.