Defenders

30 Lila Easterlin

May 18, 2045. Over the Coral Sea.

“Can you see anything yet?” Lila’s husband asked.

Lila leaned forward, looked out the window. There was nothing but thick, white clouds below. “Nope. My guess is, if I could see Australia, the cloak would have cut us off by now.”

“True,” he said.

“What’s going on back in the world? Am I missing anything?”

“Most of the news coverage is about this plane full of diplomats heading for Australia. You’re missing a lot of poop, though. As soon as you drove off, Errol started making that face that means he’s pooping, and he hasn’t stopped since.”

A few of the emissaries sitting near Lila glanced her way as she burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny. I hate poop. You’re our go-to poop person. I’m in charge of vomit. I’d rather clean up a bathtub full of vomit than a diaper’s worth—”

“Kai?” Lila said. Her phone had gone dead. She hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

Oliver twisted in the seat in front of her, poked his head over the headrest. “You get cut off?”

“Yeah, Dad. Sorry—I know you wanted to say goodbye.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll see him in a few weeks.”

Lila slipped the phone into her jacket pocket as Oliver turned back around. It was a strange feeling, not knowing when she’d talk to Kai again. If only they knew what the defenders had in mind, whether this summit was meant to be a brief, ceremonial reestablishment of ties, or the initiation of detailed discussions and negotiations.

The silence was jolting, the sense of isolation unnerving, partly because it meant they had entered Australian airspace. She stared blankly at the stray tufts of Oliver’s graying hair visible over the seat back. Oliver cleared his throat—a nervous habit. Lila was relieved to know the US Secretary of Science and Technology was nervous, too.

Then Lila thought to look out the window

Nothing to see yet; they were still above the smoky cloud cover. It was hard to believe Australia was down there. Over the past fifteen years it had taken on almost mythical dimensions in Lila’s mind, and knowing she would see it any moment, see what it had become, set her heart pounding.

The Spanish ambassador, in the seat next to Lila, turned, as if noticing her for the first time. “Nervous?”

She nodded. The word didn’t begin to describe the shades and layers of what Lila was feeling, but it would do as a rough approximation.

The Spaniard’s white eyebrows pinched. “Were you even alive when the Luyten invaded?” Bolibar: His name came to her as he spoke. “Have you ever seen a defender?”

“I’d have to be sixteen years old to have never seen a defender.” Lila wasn’t sure if he was trying to flatter her, or what. “I’ve seen plenty. And Luyten.” She closed her mouth. That was all she wanted to say on that topic. The last thing she wanted was to flip out on the flight in. Lila did not want to prove her skeptics right.

“Ah. I’m sorry,” he said, reading her face. “You were a young girl? I’m sorry.”

The second apology was for bringing up the painful topic, no doubt. It was impolite to bring up the Luyten invasion if you weren’t sure the person you were speaking to was amenable to the topic.

Lila shrugged. “Who doesn’t have nasty memories?” She forced a smile, turned back to the window, but it was too late. As they surged toward Australia, and humanity’s first contact with their saviors in fifteen years, Lila’s memories reeled out. She saw the Luyten, like enormous starfish dropping from the sky, twirling in one direction and then the other. She squeezed the armrest, trying to let the memory be, let it play out if it needed to. She’d learned that if she resisted it would only pull her in deeper, turn into a full-fledged flashback, and if she went into PTSD mode, they would yank her at the first opportunity. The pols in Washington would just love an excuse to pull her. Nobody wanted her there; it bugged the shit out of them that the defenders had specifically requested her. Lila suspected the only reason the president had signed off on the request was that he’d rebuffed the defenders when they first asked for Dominique, and he didn’t want to start off on the wrong diplomatic foot by saying no twice.

Lila focused on her breathing, kept it smooth and even as she saw her fifteen-year-old self rushing into the shelter of the elementary school as the ground shook from explosions and the air crackled with the Luyten’s electric fire, which stank like burning sweat. That first glimpse of a Luyten, galloping out of the trees on three arms. Her father, rushing outside.

Lila took a deep, sighing breath. It had been a few years since her last full-blown flashback, but it was inevitable, given the situation. Seeing defenders, actually standing before the massive things and talking to them, was bound to draw the memories back. It was worth it though, to be one of the first to see what sort of society they’d built. To have the opportunity to thank them personally. There weren’t many humans she respected as much as she respected every single defender.

Bolibar was looking at her, probably wondering why she was sweating, and panting like a fucking Labrador.

“So what do you think’s going to happen?” Lila asked him, mostly to deflect Bolibar’s attention from what a wreck she was.

Bolibar grunted. “That’s the big mystery, no?” He unsealed a pouch of dried fruit, offered it to Lila before helping himself. “I’m sure you sat through as many strategy meetings in your country as I did in mine, trying to anticipate why they suddenly want to reestablish ties.” He stuck out his lower lip and shook his head. “My guess is their focus is technology. They want to exchange ideas. They’ve clearly made advances of their own since they segregated themselves.” Bolibar waved in the air over his head, alluding to the cloak the defenders had developed that repelled both surveillance and missiles. What a shock it had caused when it went up, just two years after the defenders took possession of Australia. Everyone wanted to know how they had developed technology still beyond humans in such a short time. As far as Lila was concerned, that the entire population had IQs ranging upwards of 140 pretty much solved that mystery.

“If that’s the case, why did they invite a plane full of politicians, and me? Why didn’t they invite a bunch of techies?” Lila asked.

“I have no idea.”

Everything made as much sense as anything else. The defenders’ brains had been developed so hastily—few understood that as well as Lila—that it was difficult to guess what might be going on inside them. Dominique—Lila’s mentor, one of the humans she respected as much as she respected defenders—admitted she had little idea what the hodgepodge of neurological tissue and circuitry she’d engineered really added up to, beyond its military capability. The defenders had retreated into self-imposed exile before they had a real chance to find out.

“Their motives aren’t that simple, or that benevolent.”

Lila turned in her seat to see who’d spoken. It was the Korean ambassador, Sook Nahn. She was a chubby woman, short, her features kind of scrunched.

“And what do you think their agenda will be, Secretary Nahn?” Lila asked.

“Sook,” she corrected, giving Lila a warm smile that reduced Lila’s knee-jerk dislike of her by about half. “They’re militaristic beings. They eat, sleep, and breathe war and military tactics. When the war ended, they insisted on carting off millions of Luyten in cargo ships just so they could have the pleasure of executing them. My guess is they’re seeking alliances. They’ve invited representatives from all over the world, but you watch: They’ll peel off representatives from certain nations for private talks.”

“Which nations are you referring to?” Bolibar asked.

Half smiling, Sook lifted her shoulders. “The like-minded ones. I’ll leave it at that.”

The most aggressive, militaristic countries, she meant. Lila could feel her hackles rising. What an uncharitable light to paint the saviors of the human race in. She was tempted to remind Sook that her scrunched little face wouldn’t be on this plane if not for the defenders.

“It’s an interesting perspective,” Bolibar said.

“If you were describing humans instead of defenders, that characterization would seem the worst sort of stereotype,” Lila said. “They’re highly intelligent and adaptable. Who’s to say their interests haven’t branched out into science, the arts…”

Sook tilted her head, as if considering. “Who’s to say.” She didn’t seem offended, or even ruffled, by Lila’s heated defense of the defenders. In fact, she seemed amused, which made Lila even angrier.

“Maybe they’ve simply realized that our races need each other,” Lila said, “that they exist because of us, and we still exist only because of them. We share a powerful bond.”

Oliver had switched to the outside seat on his row to listen. “It’s true—they may have no agenda at all. Maybe they just want to check in, because they feel ready now. More grounded.”

“Trade,” a man sitting half a dozen rows closer to the front called back.

“Maybe,” Bolibar called, “but Australia is relatively self-sufficient when it comes to resources. Unless the defenders want Coca-Cola and a download of the new Peter Septimo album.”

“Have you ever taken a close look at a defender’s hands?” the man said. Lila moved her head left, then right, trying to see who it was. Finally, she caught a glimpse of Azumi Bello, the big, affable Nigerian ambassador. He held up his own hand, made a fist. “Their hands weren’t engineered with fine-motor skills in mind. They were made to hold weapons. I can’t imagine how they could mend boots with those hands, or manufacture dishes, or paint a picture.”

“How did they create the cloak, then?” Sook asked. “That sort of technology would require extremely fine motor skills.”

Azumi shook his head. “That, Ms. Sook, is a mystery.”

Lila lifted her hand from the armrest, felt more weight than had been there a moment earlier. They were descending. She ran her hands over her thighs, wiping sweat. Fifteen years of wondering, and in a minute they’d have their answers.

People were leaving their seats, crowding around the windows, seeking a first glimpse of Sydney. The cabin was hushed as the jet broke through the clouds and a city took shape below.

“Oh,” Bolibar said, clearly disappointed.

The city had barely changed. Visible below were skyscrapers, roads, vehicles, bridges. The jet descended, dropping below the tops of the skyscrapers.

“Oh,” Oliver said, his tone laced with surprise and disbelief. As they dropped, the size of the city became more apparent. The skyscrapers were immense. Their jet was a toy that could nearly fit through an office window. The defenders had retained the look of the city, but had rebuilt it to their scale.

“Of course,” Lila said softly. She meant it as a personal aside, but others looked at her, waiting for her to elaborate. “They’re brand-new beings—their only point of reference is how humans do things.” If everything was designed to defenders’ scale, the city would be almost triple in size. The tallest buildings might be three thousand feet tall.

The landing gear ground into place beneath them. The FASTEN SEAT BELTS sign chimed. Reluctantly, the ambassadors returned to their seats. It was quiet as the jet descended. Everyone was peering out the windows, taking in Sydney.

They landed on a strip as long and wide as a small desert, then taxied to the airport for ten minutes.

As they lined up to get off, Bolibar grinned at her. “Here we go. Into the fray.” There was a buzz of excitement, a plane mostly full of jaded politicos sounding like kids on Christmas morning.

Lila gave Oliver a playful nudge in the back. “Hurry,” she said. He turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised. He was effectively here as her babysitter, someone the feds thought could control her, someone she would listen to if push came to shove. That made her smile. It was true, to a degree. But only to a degree.

Oliver had shown her the file the CIA worked up after the defenders requested her. She was impulsive, she drank too much, exhibited classic symptoms of PTSD. In short, she was damaged goods. Big surprise. Who the hell wasn’t? Them? The clowns in charge were probably more damaged than most people; the difference was they were too arrogant to admit it.

As they approached the exit, Lila took a deep breath and swept her hair out of her face. Screw their file, she wasn’t here for them. She was here for the defenders.

A defender was waiting on the tarmac. Lila had always found them strangely beautiful. So like the statues on Easter Island, if those statues were stretched, and stood on three legs, and had what looked like enormous shards of broken glass running down each side. Their faces were chiseled and angular, set on a long, almost neckless cylinder.

“Thank you for coming,” the defender said as Lila stepped off the jet. He repeated this as each ambassador and special envoy stepped through the door, which meant he repeated the same phrase ninety-four times.

When they had all disembarked, the defender grimaced (or perhaps it was meant as a smile) and said, “My name is Vladimir. I will be your guide for the initial part of your stay. You must be hungry after your flight.” The flight had been less than six hours from Geneva, and they’d been served a meal, but Lila nodded politely, a tight smile on her face as Vladimir gestured to their left.

Something large squeezed out of a hangar.

Even from a hundred yards, even after fifteen years, there was no mistaking the thing that rushed at them.

When Lila was next aware of her surroundings, she was sprinting across the runway, her terror given voice by a tight squeal on each outbreath. A Luyten. A Luyten was charging at them. One of the other ambassadors passed Lila, his arms pumping, his loose, old cheeks flapping, his eyes round with fear.

“There is no danger. No danger!” Vladimir called, and as before, with “Thank you for coming,” he repeated the words over and over. Lila glanced over her shoulder and saw she wasn’t mistaken: It was a Luyten. It wasn’t chasing them, though. It stood beside Vladimir on five legs, something balanced on its sixth.

A silver tray. With food on it.

Lila slowed, stopped. The defender continued to shout, “No danger!”

“What the hell is going on?” It was Bolibar, suddenly beside her.

“Is it a… I don’t know, a reproduction of some kind?”

“It doesn’t look like a reproduction.” Bolibar took a few tentative steps toward the thing. Lila followed. When the Luyten didn’t move they took a few more. Soon most of the ambassadors were standing in a loose circle, a hundred feet out from Vladimir and the Luyten.

“I am profoundly sorry,” the defender said, bowing its head. “This was meant as a surprise, but not a cruel one. I will find out whose idea it was and surely he will be killed.” He gestured toward the Luyten. “Please, eat. It won’t harm you.”

No one moved. In the stunned silence the same question had to be running through every ambassador’s head: What was a Luyten doing here, alive? Hadn’t they all been executed, their ship destroyed? The moment stretched as Vladimir held his gesture of invitation, his prominent brow leaving his sunken eyes hidden in a swatch of shadow.

Lila wanted to get as far from the Luyten as she could; the hair on her arms was prickling, her heart drumming.

Bolibar finally broke the circle. The Luyten extended the enormous tray toward him as he approached. There were a hundred delicacies on the tray, from caviar to a whole, steaming roast turkey. Lila tried to follow suit, because Bolibar was right: Establishing a positive tone from the outset was crucial; they shouldn’t refuse a gesture of hospitality. But her feet wouldn’t move. She kept seeing that Luyten breaking from the trees and charging at the school.

It must be reading her thoughts at that very moment. The idea horrified her, that this creature was in her head, knew that she was afraid, felt her revulsion.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, focused on turning her fear into searing hatred. Let the stinking starfish read that. Striding into the circle, Lila plucked a croissant from the edge of the tray, held her smile, and took a bite, resisting a desperate urge to flee from under the shadow of the massive beast.

Some of the other ambassadors followed. The defender’s mouth stretched into a long, straight line of satisfaction.

Lila couldn’t take her eyes off the Luyten. Few had seen one from this distance and lived. There were two bands of color around their pupils; their skin was heavily textured, thick and waxy. A half dozen randomly placed apertures contracted and expanded like giant anuses. They were interchangeable, Lila knew—each could be used for eating, breathing, excreting, mating.

“I don’t understand,” Oliver said to their host. “What is a Luyten doing here? Weren’t they executed?”

“Some were killed. Some were kept.” Vladimir lifted one of his arms and worked his three-fingered claw. “Our manual dexterity is quite limited. Our fathers built us to fight, not to live afterward. Luyten perform tasks we can’t, or don’t want to.”

Lila looked to her left and right. The other ambassadors looked as stunned and incredulous as she felt.

“How many of them have you… kept?” Bolibar asked.

The defender wobbled its free leg. “Several million.”

“Several million?” the ambassador from China said. He sounded very far away. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, tried to clear her spinning head. Several million of them were here, all around her. Suddenly the lack of contact with the outside world seemed enormous. Through all of those strategy sessions, no one had ever brought up this possibility. Several million?

They choked down a few anxious bites of the feast, then Vladimir whisked them off in three limos the size of buses. Lifts took them to seats retrofitted to human size.

“Please relax and enjoy the sights,” Vladimir said. “I’ll show you our city, then I have a surprise for you that is very thoughtful of us.”

“I’m sure it is,” Oliver said, ever the diplomat. He was such a doofus. Lila loved her father-in-law, and he’d turned out to be a surprisingly effective administrator, adept at playing the Washington game, but he was such a doofus. As usual, he’d missed a big old spot shaving; there was a finger-sized line of dark stubble along the side of his otherwise freshly shaven face.

The city was bustling—it was downright packed with defenders. They were wearing clothes: massive three-legged jeans, business suits with ties like tarpaulins. Luyten were also plentiful, following deferentially behind defenders, repairing vehicles, cleaning the streets with steaming, high-pressured water.

There was no surprisingly advanced technology as far as she could see, but the vehicle they were riding in looked to have self-navigating capability, and the city was far from primitive. The more Lila saw, the more astonished she was that the defenders had constructed all of this in fifteen years. Of course they didn’t sleep, and had millions of Luyten slaves to assist them.

“I keep expecting to see Five,” Oliver whispered in her ear, “or hear his voice in my head. Assuming he wasn’t executed fifteen years ago. I know chances are he’s not in this vicinity, but if he is…” Oliver let the implications go unspoken. If he was, Oliver might be able to learn more than the defenders would be willing to share about what was going on with the Luyten.

“Does anyone know Sydney?” Azumi asked, his voice low. “Is the city exactly the same?”

It was a good question. Lila examined passing stores and high-rises.

“Does anyone see any churches?” a young, nattily dressed man Lila couldn’t place said in a British accent. “The turrets of St. Mary’s should be visible now and again.”

Everyone looked toward the rooftops. No turrets. So it wasn’t an exact replica. The defenders hadn’t included churches, and she guessed they’d also left out some of the more frivolous things, like Luna Park, Sydney’s famous amusement park. That was a pity—riding a gigantic roller coaster would have been vascular.

They passed several dozen defenders seated at tables outside a café, Luyten waiters scrambling around them. Lila wondered if the defenders had executed any Luyten at all. The defenders had been engineered to despise the Luyten, but you don’t always kill what you despise, especially if you control them, and they are of benefit to you.

She inhaled sharply. Down a crossing street, a Luyten was strung up between two lampposts, partially torn in two, its blood puddled on the sidewalk below. “Look at that,” Lila said, pointing. Her companions studied the scene until it disappeared from view.

Bolibar leaned toward the front of the vehicle. “Vladimir, what was that?”

“What was what?” Vladimir asked.

“It looked like a Luyten that had been lynched. It was dead, strung up by four of its limbs.”

Vladimir shrugged. “It must have made someone angry.”

Bolibar sank back into his seat, looking uneasy. Lila wasn’t completely sure what to feel. On the one hand, she liked dead Luyten far more than she liked live ones. On the other, the means of its demise seemed a little excessive.

Their limo pulled to a stop in front of an especially imposing sandstone building, the doors set at the top of massive steps. The sign on the façade indicated it was the MUSEUM OF THE LUYTEN WAR.

“I think you’ll be impressed by an exhibit developed especially for your visit,” Vladimir said as the doors slid open. Lila wasn’t in the mood to relive the war after their encounter with the Luyten on the tarmac, but she sucked it up, smiling brightly as they marched up the human-sized wooden steps that had obviously been installed just for them.

31 Oliver Bowen

May 19, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

His hotel room was enormous. It made Oliver feel like a little boy, which was exactly what CIA interrogators attempted to do to their prisoners to gain advantage over them. It also reminded him of what Five had said, years ago, about his comic collection. It’s so easy a child could do it.

At least the furniture was human-sized. Evidently their hosts had salvaged furnishings from human houses still standing outside Sydney. It was one thing—the only thing, really, besides his colleagues—that shattered the illusion that Oliver had shrunk to toddler size.

This trip was proving harder on him than he ever could have imagined. Mostly it was because of the Luyten, rising from the dead like boogeymen. How careless of the defenders, to allow them to roam free. Surely the Luyten were waiting for the right moment to strike. However, it had been fifteen years; if they were going to revolt, wouldn’t they have done so by now? Then again, maybe they had, and failed.

Oliver eyed the TV on the wall. He’d noticed it last night but had been too tired to see what defenders TV was like.

“Television on.”

CNN anchors Conchita Perez and Arthur Figgins materialized on the wall, reporting on the year’s sea level rise figures.

“Entertainment. Comedy.”

Oliver didn’t recognize the television program, but he didn’t watch much television, so that wasn’t surprising. Maybe the link had been installed in their rooms so they’d feel at home, but Oliver didn’t think so. The defenders watched human television.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come on in.”

Smiling tightly, Lila said, “Ready?” It was obvious she wanted to talk, compare notes, but who knew if their rooms were being monitored? It would surprise Oliver to learn they weren’t. They may not have an opportunity to speak privately all day; their hosts had scheduled a full slate, all of it chaperoned.

First up was a tour of the countryside, to Adelaide and back. Oliver was hardly in the mood for a quiet ride through the country, and for the life of him he couldn’t imagine why the defenders had scheduled it. Had they genetically engineered giant trees to match their giant buildings? Would they encounter wallabies the size of dinosaurs?

Everyone seemed tense as they boarded the high-speed train. Their host was waiting for them.

“Hello, Vlad—” Oliver began, but Lila squeezed his elbow.

“I’m Lila Easterlin, US ambassador. This is Oliver Bowen, science and technology emissary attached to the US contingent.”

It wasn’t Vladimir. They all looked the same to Oliver. Evidently Lila was able to distinguish one defender from another. Maybe that wasn’t surprising; sometimes Oliver had trouble recognizing people after he’d met them a half dozen times. He wasn’t good with faces.

“My name is Erik. I’ve been assigned as liaison for the North and Central American emissaries, because I have exceptionally good interpersonal skills.”

Under other circumstances Oliver might have smiled at the oxymoronic nature of Erik’s proclamation, but he only nodded while he studied Erik’s face, trying to find a way to distinguish it from all the other long, angular faces.

“Please choose a comfortable seat and make yourselves…” Erik paused, frowned. “…comfortable.”

Oliver and Lila sat across from the British contingent, Ambassador Galatea McManus and a military expert, Alan Nicely. Galatea was in her fifties, slim bordering on bony, with a lean, elegant face and red hair streaked with white. Alan was pudgy, impeccably dressed in a tight white tunic with tied lace cuffs and a matching bowler hat.

The train whisked them out of the city, into the exurbs of Sydney (much of the suburbs had evidently been consumed by the oversized version of the city the defenders had created). Massive new defender construction gave way to dilapidated human towns. Far fewer defenders lived in Australia than there had been humans, so it made sense the defenders’ renovations left off in the outlying areas.

Erik joined them as they hurtled through the eerily deserted human towns.

“Erik, how many defender cities have been constructed?” Oliver asked as soon as he sat down.

“Several,” Erik replied. An awkward silence followed, as Oliver digested the evasive answer.

Lila finally broke the silence. “Where were you stationed during the war, Erik?”

“I led the Eighth Airborne Battalion in England. My rank is colonel.”

“Ah,” Galatea said. “Did you spend any time in London? I might have passed you while running for my life.”

They all chuckled except for Erik, whose flat expression didn’t change. With serotonin absent from their biochemistry, the defenders would have a difficult time with humor. Lila had a better grasp on the defenders’ limitations than Oliver. He made a mental note to avoid joking. Better to keep communication formal until they developed a better understanding of the defenders’ psychological makeup. In many ways they were dealing with another alien species, although hopefully they would prove easier to comprehend than Luyten.

“I was in London late in the campaign,” Erik answered. Abruptly, he turned to Lila. “I understand you studied under Dominique Wiewall.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Oliver watched Lila adjust to the abrupt shift in topic. They’d been surprised, when the defenders requested Lila. She’d been fifteen when they left for Australia. For the past thirteen years humans had been incapable of monitoring the defenders, because of the cloak, but clearly the defenders had been watching them closely, and not just their television programs.

“What can you tell me about her?” Erik asked.

Lila tilted her head to one side. “What do you want to know?”

Erik leaned toward her. “Anything. Anything other defenders wouldn’t know. What are her hobbies? Does she paint?”

“Um, no, she doesn’t paint.” Lila pressed a finger to her lips for a moment. “She’s not exactly the hobby type. She runs, a lot. And plays volleyball.”

Erik folded his arms. “She’s no-nonsense. Hardworking. Pragmatic. I suspected as much.”

Lila grinned. “You’ve got her pegged. She holds herself to very high standards. If you want to find Dominique, day or night, look in her lab.”

“Excellent. Excellent,” Erik said.

There was something strange about Lila that had been nagging Oliver as he watched her, and Oliver finally put his finger on what it was: She was glowing; all of her irony and sarcasm had melted away when the defender singled her out for attention. Sometimes when the three of them were together, Oliver felt like Lila and Kai were speaking a different language, punctuated with odd tonality and wry non sequiturs. Suddenly Lila was back to speaking straight English.

As Erik went off to mingle with his other charges, the exurbs gave way to open country—alternating farmland and forest.

“So, Oliver,” Galatea said, “I have to admit, I did quite a bit of research into you before the trip. I’m fascinated by your interactions with the Luyten, Five. I’m hoping you’ll be willing to share some details I wouldn’t be able to find in books.”

“It was a long time ago, but I’d be happy to—” Oliver stopped speaking. The woodland the train had been traveling through had given way to open space again, only instead of farmland, all was blacktop, surrounding an immense factory. It must have been a mile long, fit with dozens of steel smokestacks, each hundreds of feet high. The paved lots surrounding the factory were filled with shiny, brand-new weapons: huge fighter jets that resembled manta rays; muscular tanks on four sets of treads on squat legs, sporting three independent turrets; building-sized winged monstrosities that might have been bombers. Chrome and silver sparkled in the sunlight, as if the weapons had recently been polished.

Alan stood, pressed his nose to the window. “Holy Christ.”

“What sort of weapons are those?” Lila asked, her voice just above a whisper.

Alan didn’t answer immediately. He studied the machinery passing by. “Those look like amphibian craft.” He pointed at rows of chrome shovel-shaped vehicles. “But they have wheels. They may be dual-purpose. One thing’s for certain: They’re heavily armed. Heavily armed.”

Oliver looked at Erik, who was leaning in their direction, eavesdropping. This was the reason for the ride in the country. The defenders didn’t want to show them trees; they wanted to show off their military might.

Ten minutes later, they passed another factory.

Then another, twenty minutes after that.

Aircraft, artillery, guerrilla craft. Oliver’s insides felt like liquid as he surveyed seas of shining metal. They must have a weapon for every defender alive. Unless they were making more defenders as well. Surely, surely, that was well beyond their technological abilities. Machines were one thing, genetic codes another.

A sound caught Oliver’s attention. Overhead, defender fighter aircraft as big as houses flew drills. They were the same models human engineers had designed for them in their war against the Luyten.

“Look at those—it looks like Luyten technology.”

Oliver followed Alan’s gaze. Row upon row of assault sleeves, similar to the ones the Luyten used, filled a valley paved in concrete. Hushed whispers shot about the cabin. Since they had Luyten slaves, it seemed they had access to Luyten technological knowledge.

If the Luyten were sharing technology with the defenders, who was to say they weren’t passing information to the defenders, plucked out of the emissaries’ minds?

“Shit,” Oliver whispered. He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples. If the Luyten were passing information, what would the defenders learn? What would they want to learn? As far as Oliver knew, the UN had no ulterior motives, were not plotting against the defenders. There was also no overt indication the defenders intended them harm. They were emotionally unstable, yes. Maybe a bit paranoid. That didn’t mean they were gearing up for war. Clearly they held humans in high esteem. Still, the weapons were alarming.

32 Lila Easterlin

May 23, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Among defenders, staring evidently wasn’t considered rude. As Lila and her six companions explored Sydney on their own for the first time, defenders everywhere stopped what they were doing and stared. Some followed, until they had dozens trailing them, pressed close, carefully watching them.

Sook looked straight ahead, as if she was used to ignoring adoring stares. Galatea and Bolibar seemed bemused. Oliver seemed uncomfortable, although that wasn’t unusual.

“How are you today?” Bolibar called up to a defender who was walking so close the blades along his leg were no more than three feet from Bolibar.

“Very well, thank you,” the defender replied.

“Lila Easterlin?”

Lila turned to find a defender walking beside her. She examined him carefully, recognized the slight bump in his nose, the flaring nostrils. “Hello, Erik.”

“You recognize me. I’m pleased.”

“Well, you recognized me.”

“Human features vary considerably, which makes it easier. You have blond hair, and you’re shorter than most of the other emissaries. I noted those distinctions so I would recognize you.”

Lila resisted making a self-deprecating crack about being short, afraid it would be lost on the defender. Her heart was racing.

“I came to ask if you would do me the honor of being my companion at the races this evening. It promises to be exciting.”

Lila grinned. The way he phrased it, it almost sounded like he was asking her out. “I’d love to. Thank you for asking.”

“Wonderful.” He made a fist. “Everyone will be impressed with me, when they see you’re my guest.”

Lila laughed, not sure what to say to that.

After arranging to meet outside her hotel, Erik left to find the emissaries he was escorting to the Museum of Culture.

There were at least twenty defenders following them now. The defenders were treating them like rock stars, which amused the hell out of Lila, because she’d had posters of defenders on her bedroom walls until she was nineteen. She remembered trying to strike up a conversation with a defender once, while feeding it fried chicken. She’d so desperately wanted it to talk to her, but it just went on eating like it didn’t hear her. She stifled a laugh, not wanting the others to ask what she was thinking. During the war she’d entertained such lush fantasies of having a defender friend, of going for walks with him, of the envious looks from the other kids. Of course back then the defenders had been too busy fighting Luyten. They hadn’t gone for walks, hadn’t made friends, even with each other. It was dumb, but she was excited as hell at the idea of having a defender friend.

33 Lila Easterlin

May 23, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Bolibar was chuckling as he stepped off the hotel elevator. Lila gave him a questioning look.

“Word must have spread about your date with a defender this evening, because I just received a call from a general named Hassan, who asked me to accompany him to a military banquet on Friday.” Bolibar spread his arms. “Now I have a date as well.”

When Oliver, Galatea, Azumi, and Alan joined them, they had similar stories that they shared as they all headed off to lunch.

Oliver had two engagements lined up. “When I informed the chief of housing and construction for the city that I couldn’t join him for dinner on Thursday, because I had already agreed to join Brigadier General Thomas for an art opening, he seemed remarkably disappointed. Almost jealous.”

“That’s because you’re being unfaithful to him,” Galatea said, nudging Oliver’s arm. It seemed a flirtatious gesture to Lila. She wondered if something was brewing between Oliver and the British ambassador. God, she hoped so. It seemed as if Oliver was still waiting for his ex-wife to call, sixteen years after their divorce. It was about time he got laid and forgot about Vanessa.

“Given that they’re asexual, you may not be far off,” Oliver said, straight-faced. “To the extent they have affiliative needs, they have to funnel them into friendships. Since we created them, we represent high-status friends.”

“If we created them, don’t we represent momma and papa?” Bolibar said, grinning.

Oliver pointed at him. “Don’t laugh. Not only do they have no romantic relationships; they have no parents—”

Galatea shushed him gently, gestured that a defender might overhear.

Oliver continued more quietly. “Their brains are derivative of human brains. There could be residue of human needs, like procreation and maternal attachment, built into their DNA, with no direct means of expression.”

Oliver looked toward Lila for support, as Bolibar chuckled.

“Don’t look at me,” Lila said. “I only know how genetic codes express physically. The psychology is beyond me.”

“It’s beyond everyone,” Oliver said.

34 Lila Easterlin

May 23, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

She was winded by the time she spotted the sign—ROYAL RANDWICK RACECOURSE—up ahead. The defenders had retained a lot of the original names of places after rebuilding them to larger scale, perhaps as a tribute. That seemed to be the case with the racecourse.

They had walked from Lila’s hotel, because, as Erik put it, “that way, more defenders will see me with you.” Erik was trying to walk slowly, but Lila still found herself striding briskly to keep up.

“I understand your husband is a professional poker player,” Erik said.

He’d really done his homework. “That’s right. His father, Oliver Bowen, introduced him to the game. Kai was beating Oliver soundly six months later, and he was barely thirteen.”

Suddenly Lila missed Kai, and their son Errol, so badly it hurt. In the five years they’d been married, they’d never been apart for more than a few days at a time.

“I like poker. Most defenders like poker. It’s war. Nothing but distilled military strategy.”

“I’ve never thought of it like that,” Lila said. “It is kind of like a war, isn’t it? You fight until all but one player is dead.” She didn’t like looking at it in that light. Kai was a free spirit, an utterly nonviolent man. He didn’t even like violent movies.

They were different in a lot of ways, she and Kai, yet they fit together so well. From the very start, she’d loved being around him. She smiled, thinking of their first day together. Kai had tagged along with his dad to a genetic policy conference, mostly as a way to get a free trip to Miami in January. He asked Lila to skip out on the conference banquet and go with him to a high-stakes poker game instead. An illegal game. Never one to miss out on something seedy, Lila had gone. It was exhilarating, something out of a movie. Kai had been so cool, so fearless, taking on the strange and colorful men and women huddled around the table. That time, it had been a war of sorts.

Kai lost money at the game, but on the ride home in a taxi he was in a great mood, almost manic as he deconstructed some of the more interesting hands for her. When Lila asked how he could be so happy after losing however much it had been—twenty or thirty thousand dollars—Kai explained that he never tallied wins and losses in terms of a single game. He said you played differently—defensively—if you were losing, and even good players lost 40 percent of the time. The trick was to take both a longer view and a shorter one. First, approach each hand as a new, discrete game in itself. And second, tally your wins and losses over the course of the past year. If you were a good player, in the long run you’d win more than you lost, and that was the only tally that mattered. When they got back to the hotel, Lila had led Kai down to the beach and banged his brains out.

She filed through the gate, surrounded by giants. As the only human in sight, she felt incredibly self-conscious. Everyone was staring at her. Everyone. They whispered to each other the way humans did when a movie star passed.

Their seats were close to the perfectly groomed dirt track, fringed with the greenest grass. “Wow, what terrific seats,” Lila said. “You must have friends in high places.”

Erik beamed. His smile was a stiff straight line, but wide.

Lila looked up and realized she couldn’t reach her seat. Erik stood when he saw her trying to figure out how to climb up.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“Thank you. That would be wonderful.” She held her hands out from her sides. Erik grasped her sides, lifted her ever so gently into her seat. Lifting her was clearly effortless for him.

Realizing she was blushing, Lila turned her attention to the track. A few defenders milled about by the starting gate, more down by the stable, along with several Luyten. The odds board, set out beyond the track, was active for the first race.

“Wait,” Lila said. “Who rides the horses?” It hadn’t occurred to her until then, because she had zero interest in horse racing. Kai wouldn’t go near a track—he wouldn’t gamble when the odds were against him.

“Horses?” Erik asked.

An electronic trumpet sounded. Confused, Lila looked out at the track. “Well, it’s a race track, isn’t it?”

A dozen Luyten scurried toward the starting gate.

“You race Luyten.” Of course they did. They were too big to ride horses. Luyten didn’t require riders. She should have noticed the starting gate and track were jumbo-sized like everything else, designed to race creatures bigger than horses.

“Which one should we bet on?” Erik asked. An electronic wagering system was built into the backs of the seats.

Lila eyed the Luyten, who were entering their respective stalls along the starting gate. They made her skin crawl.

What the hell, let them race. Why should she feel uneasy watching Luyten race, but comfortable watching horses race? Horses were noble animals. They deserved better treatment than Luyten.

She looked up at Erik. “My lucky number’s always been four.” Actually it had been three. She’d changed it when the Luyten invaded, clustered in groups of three.

“Four, then.” He placed a bet. Lila didn’t have any sense of the defenders’ economic system, but she assumed it was capitalist, probably closely approximating the dominant human system.

The starting bell sounded; the barriers on the stalls swung open, and the Luyten surged out. Lila had to look away. Seeing them run at full gallop reminded her of her bad time. She tried not to be too obvious; she didn’t want to disappoint Erik.

Around her defenders shouted encouragement or curses. The veins at Erik’s temples were bulging as he shouted, his fist in the air, his eyes blazing with what might be excitement, but looked more like bloodlust or rage. As the shouting reached a crescendo Lila caught a glimpse of the Luyten crossing the finish line. Erik howled with pleasure. He thumped her on the back so hard it almost sent her tumbling out of her seat.

“You did it. We won.”

Lila tried to smile as she struggled to breathe.

Defenders clamored past them down the aisle. Dozens of them pushed through a gate in the fence that surrounded the track as those still seated stomped their feet, creating a thundering that caused the concrete grandstand to tremble. One of the Luyten on the track took off, fleeing toward the stables. The defenders who’d come out of the stands chased it.

“What’s happening?” Lila asked.

Erik pointed at the fleeing Luyten. “It finished last, and some of the bettors aren’t happy with its effort. Watch what they do.”

What they did was beat it. They could have used the razor-sharp shards along their sides, but instead they punched, kicked, and stomped it. Then defenders grasped each of its limbs and lifted it into the air.

“My God.” Lila watched through her fingers. The spectators went wild as they pulled the Luyten apart.

35 Oliver Bowen

May 24, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

“Why am I doing this?” Oliver said to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’d been waiting in the bathroom for two hours; for all he knew, he could be waiting another four. He had no idea when the rooms were cleaned; all he knew was they were, and he could not picture a defender making a bed with those stiff-clawed hands, so it had to be cleaned by a Luyten.

It could prove extremely advantageous if Oliver was able to contact Five. Beyond that, he wanted to speak to Five for personal reasons. He felt as if they had unfinished business, things that needed to be said.

The door opened in the other room. Oliver heard the muffled thud of something large walking on the carpeted floor. He took a couple of deep breaths, still looking at his reflection in the mirror, then turned toward the room.

The plum-colored Luyten gave no indication it noticed Oliver; it collected the damp towels he’d left folded on the dresser and headed toward the trash can.

“You know I’ve been waiting for you,” Oliver said aloud, but softly. “Do you know where I can find him?”

The Luyten straightened, walked toward Oliver, then turned sideways to slip past him. It disappeared into the bathroom.

“Can you at least let him know I’d like to speak to him?” Oliver asked.

There was no response.

Oliver went to the bathroom door. The Luyten was cleaning the bathtub. “This is ridiculous. I know you understand me. I know you can answer if you want to.” He turned his palms up. “Can you at least show me the courtesy of answering, even if your answer is ‘no’?”

The Luyten went on scrubbing, as if Oliver weren’t there. Maybe this was the Luyten’s way of expressing their rage at the human race for signing a treaty and almost immediately breaking it. Oliver had to admit, it was well deserved. “I was against breaking that treaty, though,” he said to the Luyten. “I’d like to speak to Five for personal reasons, beyond my role as an emissary.”

The Luyten looked into the toilet, evidently judged it clean enough, and stepped toward the doorway.

Oliver stood his ground, blocking its path. “Say something. Lay out my deepest fears and insecurities. Tell me to fuck off and die. Say something.”

It waited, perfectly still.

Oliver stepped aside.

The Luyten brushed past, collected its supplies, and closed the door behind it.

36 Lila Easterlin

May 26, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

It was strange, to feel so small all of the time. Everyone on the pedestrian walk towered over her. The stone wall that ran along the river was waist-high to the defenders, but Lila couldn’t see the river at all.

She watched defenders hurry to work clutching satchels, others stop into Perks Coffee, clutching giant Styrofoam cups on their way out, or sitting at tables outside. It could almost be a human street scene; the only thing missing was the occasional sound of laughter.

She spotted Erik a little way off leaning against the wall, looking out at the water. Lila called his name; he saw her, smiled, and headed toward her carrying something wide and flat, wrapped in brown paper. Under his arm it looked to be the size of a magazine, but it would come up to Lila’s waist if he set it beside her.

“My special friend. Hello,” Erik said, loud enough for passersby to hear. He looked around, as if seeking a reaction.

“Ready?” Lila said. She checked the time on her phone. “We don’t have much time before I have to meet the others.”

Erik blew air through his nose, a signature defender gesture that Lila had learned signaled anything from frustration to sadness to anger. “Are you sure you can’t sit next to me?” His eyes were flat and emotionless, but his feelings were clearly still hurt from her unavoidable snub.

“I really wish I could, but Vladimir had a row of seats constructed just so the emissaries could sit together at the front.” The performance had been planned for months, in their honor.

“Vladimir.” His tone was surly. Then he seemed to remember the package he was holding. “I have something for you. Shall we sit?”

Pigeons flapped away from the bench they found facing the river. With Erik’s help, Lila climbed into the seat. Erik propped the package on the seat between them. “I made this for you.”

Lila canted her head at Erik, smiling. “For me? That’s so thoughtful of you.” She slid her finger under the spot where the paper was sealed, unsure what to expect. What would a defender make for someone? Pulling off the brown wrapping, Lila had to mask her reaction. It was an oil painting—a truly terrible painting, of a defender standing beside a human figure. There was little background to speak of, beyond smears of purple and green.

“It’s you and me.”

Lila inhaled dramatically. “It’s wonderful. I love it.”

“Do you really?” There was an undertone of desperation in Erik’s voice. The gift obviously meant a lot to him.

And despite how awful the painting was, she did love it. She loved what it represented, found herself choking up. She sniffed and said, “I really do. It’s the most beautiful gift anyone’s ever given me.”

Erik smiled, his mouth almost—not quite, but almost—curling at the corners. “That pleases me. I made it very small, so it would fit in your house.”

“That must have been a challenge.”

Erik raised his hand, looked at his three clawed fingers. His hands reminded Lila of Tyrannosaurus rex claws. “These aren’t made for painting. I lash the brush to my hand with bonding tape.”

“Do you do a lot of painting?”

Erik nodded. “It’s my hobby. Everyone is encouraged to pursue a hobby.” He grunted. “My work isn’t good enough to merit display in the Defender Museum of Art. At least, that’s the curator’s opinion.”

“Well, I think he’s an idiot.”

Erik beamed, his brow and mouth smoothing, giving him an almost serene countenance. “Our special friendship is…” He struggled for words, squeezed his hands together. “…it’s the finest thing.”

Lila wished she could go back in time to show her sixteen-year-old self this moment. She stood, brushed off her skirt. “Well, I should get going.”

Erik stood. “Can I walk back with you?” He sounded desperate. “I can carry your painting for you.”

“Absolutely. Thank you.”

Lila felt safe walking beside Erik. On a conscious level, she knew the Luyten padding around were no threat, but she could never seem to convince the primitive part of her mind to relax. Each time one of them came into sight, she jolted, tensed to run. Just the sight of them felt wrong. Walking with Erik calmed that feeling.

“There’s a defender named Ravi who’s written a book that’s becoming very popular,” Erik said. He cleared his throat. “He writes that the fewer legs a creature has, the more value it has.” He looked at Lila, as if trying to gauge her reaction. Lila nodded for him to go on. “Humans made defenders with three legs, because you see us as valuable, but not as valuable as humans. Mammals have four legs, insects six, and Luyten either six or seven. So killing a Luyten means nothing, but you should only kill a dog if you intend to eat it. Do you think this makes sense?”

“No, of course not,” Lila said. “We engineered defenders with three legs so they’d be fast, because Luyten are fast. Believe me,” she said with a laugh, though it was a little forced, “we weren’t thinking about things like relative status when we designed you. We were thinking about survival.” She thought about those dark days, before the defenders appeared. “It’s hard to describe just how utterly the threat of extinction pushes aside everything else. Thoughts of who’s better than who just stops mattering.”

Erik frowned, clearly wrestling with what she’d said. The question had thrown Lila, left her flustered and uncomfortable, because she wasn’t being completely honest. She had answered honestly, but there’d been more to his question than whether this wacky theory of leg count was correct. Erik was probing, trying to understand what humans thought of defenders now, and although no one ever said it aloud, Lila suspected that deep down, most humans viewed defenders as inferior.

37 Oliver Bowen

May 26, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

On the elevator, Oliver watched his reflection in the polished brass door, trying to ignore the stares of the defenders sharing the elevator with him.

Lila was waiting in the lobby. She waved, as if he might not notice the only human in sight.

“How are you doing?” Oliver asked, squeezing Lila’s shoulder.

She blinked slowly. “Well, let’s see. Apparently I have a boyfriend.”

“Erik?”

She nodded, smiling. “He gave me a gift, a painting of us. He painted it himself.”

“Is it any good?”

“No,” she said laughing. She made a face. “In fact it’s awful. But in this case it really is the thought that counts.”

Oliver had to agree. He touched her sleeve, drawing her away from the pedestrian traffic between the elevator and the exits. “How do they strike you? We all seem to be ending up with ‘special friends,’ but you’re apparently getting to know Erik especially well.”

“I don’t know about that. I am spending a lot of time with him. He gets upset if he sees me with another defender. Humans don’t seem to be an issue, but if I’m with another defender, it’s as if I’m being unfaithful.”

“So what’s your impression of them?” Oliver wasn’t getting many opportunities to talk with the others.

Lila sighed. “When I look at a defender, I see them storming over that school, fighting to keep us safe. I feel such overwhelming gratitude toward them. Love, even.” She sighed. “But I have to admit, at times they scare me. Not Erik, but generally speaking.” One of the elevators swished open; a half dozen emissaries stepped into the lobby. Lila waved to them. “The way they tore that Luyten apart at the racetrack. The huge stockpile of weapons…”

Oliver nodded, said, “The weapons were a shock. Thanks.” They went to join the others, to wait outside for the limos that would take them to the theater.

Oliver found it interesting, how cliques always formed no matter the situation. He and Lila gravitated toward Bolibar, Galatea, Alan, Sook, Azumi—their little clique, bunched together on the edge of the larger crowd of humans.

“Who’s in charge?” Sook was saying as Oliver and Lila joined them. “I mean, it’s not Vladimir. He’s some sort of midlevel official. Why haven’t we met the leaders?”

“All these dinners and performances,” Bolibar said. “Next they’ll take us to an ice cream social. It’s like they’re trying to soften us up.”

“Of course, the social events are mixed with these tours of their military might,” Alan pointed out.

Azumi nodded. “It’s an odd mix of activities, that’s for sure.”

Oliver had been wondering the same thing. They’d been in Australia for eight days and had yet to meet anyone in power. When he’d asked Erik if the defenders had a leader, Erik had proudly answered that they had three: Douglas, Luigi, and Ichiro. Why hadn’t these leaders met with them?

A parade of limos pulled up in front of the hotel, and Vladimir stepped out of the one in the lead. Everyone stopped talking.

38 Lila Easterlin

May 26, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Their limo let them off in front of the State Theatre, which had dozens of huge glass doors set under a bronze art-deco façade. The marquee announced Richard II, in a limited engagement. Below that, an announcement read, Welcome, Human Global Ambassadors.

“I don’t believe this,” Bolibar whispered, sidling up to Lila and Oliver as they were led down the aisle past hundreds of defenders already seated for the performance. Lila only nodded, afraid to be overheard. The inside of the theater was beyond ornate—the gold walls were festooned with lush burgundy drapes and crusted with polished metalwork and reliefs carved in marble. Lila guessed it was an exact large-scale reproduction of the human theater it had replaced. It comforted her, that defenders were interested in art, in Shakespeare. What she’d witnessed at the racetrack was less alarming when offset by Erik’s gift and this event. She wanted to see the fine arts museum Erik had mentioned. Even if the art was terrible, it would raise her spirits to see it.

The defender playing King Richard wore a long white robe with gold inlay, and a crown the size of a bathtub, but if the defenders were attempting to act, it was not apparent to Lila. They recited their lines as if reading, moved about the stage perfunctorily, and as often as not looked at the audience rather than the character they were speaking to.

“You seem to have especially positive feelings for our hosts,” Bolibar whispered to her as the performance dragged on. He made it sound casual but was probably more interested than he let on. They were all trying to understand the inscrutable beings they’d created.

Lila felt uncomfortable speaking during the performance, even in a whisper, but it felt rude to shush Bolibar, or ignore him. She kept her answer brief. “I’m so grateful to them that sometimes I feel like I’m going to bust.” She could have elaborated, but their whispering was causing people nearby to glance their way.

Bolibar tilted his head in a very European gesture. “And your country, along with the Canadians, were grateful enough that they provided the displaced Australians with a new home?”

He left it a question instead of a statement. The flat, cold region running from North Dakota to Saskatoon that was now New Australia was not prime real estate.

“Spain didn’t offer anything, as I recall,” she whispered into his hairy ear. “There are degrees of stinginess.”

He laughed, loud enough to make Lila flinch and nudge his arm. “How very true,” he whispered. “We’re a stingy people, the Spanish.”

The defender playing Richard stopped mid-stanza. He came to the edge of the stage. Lila sank into her seat, wishing she could hide. “Why are you laughing? Does this seem like a comedy to you? Maybe you think you can do better?”

Embarrassed, Bolibar shook his head. “I’m—”

“We’ve worked hard to get this right for you. And you’re laughing at us?” The defender reached out almost casually with its front leg and slashed Bolibar across the stomach.

Lila sat frozen as Bolibar’s insides slid out. His mouth hung open, his eyes wide with surprise as he slowly tipped forward.

“Uncalled for!” a defender shouted. It was Erik. He stormed up the center aisle, leaped onto the stage, stiff-armed the defender playing Richard. “Deeply uncalled for.” A dozen defenders followed him onto the stage, roaring. Some attacked Richard; others leaped to defend him.

As they fought, one of Richard’s legs was torn, or bitten, or cut off, and it fell into the seats, slashing open the Chilean ambassador’s back from shoulder to waist. As she screamed in agony, a few ambassadors crowded around Bolibar, crying out for medical attention as he bled out onto the seat and the polished floor. In the seats behind them, defenders roared and jostled. Lila could do nothing but stare at Bolibar, her jaw working, but no sound coming.

One of the defenders onstage fell into the seats, his nose nearly severed, blood pouring from the gash in his face. He landed on the Tunisian ambassador. Lila could hear the ambassador’s back snap before he disappeared under the defender.

“Come on,” Oliver said, grabbing Lila’s arm. She yanked her arm free. “We can’t leave him.” Bolibar was clearly dead, but somehow it felt wrong to bolt. She was in shock, she realized. It had all happened so quickly, so unexpectedly. She’d barely had time to be afraid.

By some silent assent, the combatants suddenly broke off. Erik, who was mostly unharmed, motioned to Luyten at the back of the theater. The Luyten scrambled to clean up the carnage, dragging away defenders and pieces of defenders. One reached across half a dozen rows and plucked the limp mess that was Bolibar. Lila stumbled to her knees and crawled out of the way.

She and Oliver joined the rest of the emissaries at the back of the theater as Luyten mopped the blood. A dozen conversations were carried out in harsh, shocked whispers. Lila turned to Oliver, but she couldn’t speak. They only passed a look. It said all they needed to say to each other. This is much worse than we thought.

As the last of the dead were carried away, Vladimir went to the front, waved his arms at the murmuring crowd, and said, “Please. Quiet, please. Please, sit. Let us continue.”

Lila was sure she’d misunderstood. Continue? As in, continue the play?

The lights dimmed. Actors returned to the stage, including a Richard understudy. They waited, looking expectantly at the emissaries.

“This is insane,” Azumi Bello hissed. “We’re just supposed to sit back down? People are dead. The defenders must allow us to notify their kin, their embassies.”

“Too much is riding on this,” Priyanka Vadra, the Indian ambassador, hissed. “Let’s just do as they say for now.”

Dazed ambassadors shuffled down the aisles. Lila looked around, seeking—she didn’t know what she was seeking. The real defenders, maybe—the ones who’d saved her life.

Lila was sure she wouldn’t make it through the rest of the performance. Surely she would faint, or be unable to stifle her overwhelming urge to run. The seats around Bolibar’s bloodstained one were empty; ambassadors were glancing around, eyes wide, afraid to move or speak. Lila risked a glance back at the section where defenders were seated. They were watching the performance as if nothing had happened.

Vladimir was not happy when their small contingent insisted on walking home, rather than riding in the limo. They told him they needed air, and time to mourn their friend.

“They’re insane,” Azumi said as they waited for the light—an enormous red moon hovering far above them—to change. “Did you see their reaction?” He shook his head, his arms folded tightly. “They’re insane.”

“They have less regard for life than we do, I don’t disagree,” Oliver said, “but ‘insane’ implies their thinking and behavior is incoherent. I have to disagree.”

“They’re insane,” Azumi repeated.

“Poor Bolibar,” Galatea whispered.

“Let’s set their mental state aside for now,” Sook said. “We have to decide what to do.”

The red light blinked, turned green.

“We should demand they lift the cloak so we can contact our governments,” Galatea said.

“We should leave,” Azumi said. “This is a madhouse.”

Lila shushed him. Half a dozen defenders were trailing behind them.

Azumi lowered his voice. “They kill like it was nothing.” He gestured toward a Luyten operating a bulldozer on a construction site they were passing. “Starfish everywhere. And this ‘special friend’ nonsense. I have a wife; I don’t need a brigadier general defender at my side every minute of the day.”

“We can’t leave yet,” Lila said. “Even if it’s dangerous, we have to know what we’re dealing with, why the defenders invited us here.”

“I agree,” Oliver said.

Azumi sighed theatrically. “Fine. Then let’s demand we get down to business. We’re here on a diplomatic mission, so let us proceed with the diplomacy. No more plays. No more special friends. I’m telling General Baxter I’m not available for any more films, or lunches, or cocktail parties.”

“You’re breaking up with General Baxter?” Galatea asked, in mock shock. Everyone burst out laughing.

“Yes,” Azumi said, “I’m breaking up with him.”

Lila didn’t have the heart to do the same with Erik. In any case, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. His violent nature disturbed her, but hadn’t they made him that way? The human race was alive because Erik and the other defenders killed so efficiently, without fear. All humans bore some of the responsibility for that. In some real sense, the defenders were the blameless ones; they were simply expressing what they’d been engineered to be.

The question was, since there was now no need for killing, could the defenders extinguish their violent instincts, or channel them into socially appropriate behavior? There was no alternative, really, unless the defenders decided to stay isolated. Lila thought they could do it, given time and guidance.

“Let’s not forget, they have positive qualities,” Lila said.

Sook laughed harshly. “Were you just in there?”

Lila ignored her. “This special-friend thing is a good sign. They crave close relationships, especially with humans.” She glanced at Sook. “Yes, I was in there, but what about them?” She gestured toward the defenders following. “Most of the defenders adore us.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to encourage these close relationships.” Azumi made a chopping gesture. “We should keep our relationship with the defenders strictly professional.”

Up ahead, a Luyten was loading a delivery truck with pallets of oversized milk cartons. It was crimson, on the small side. Lila slowed, studied it as they passed.

She couldn’t be sure.

“Are you all right, Lila?” Azumi asked.

Her heart was pounding. She wanted to ask the Luyten if she was right, if it was the one, but there was no point. It knew she was asking, and it chose to stay silent.

She continued past it. Had it shown itself to her on purpose? If it was the Luyten who’d killed her father, wouldn’t it go out of its way to avoid her? Maybe it wasn’t the same one. There were millions of Luyten, and even if the crimson ones were rare, there still must be thousands of them.

39 Lila Easterlin

May 27, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Lila couldn’t reach the doorbell. She considered taking it as a sign to leave while she still could, but hope and fear drove her to keep this dinner date. The hope was that Azumi and Sook were wrong, that the defenders were, at their core, human. The fear was that Erik might get angry if she didn’t show. Lila was afraid of them. All of them, even Erik. She couldn’t deny that. But unlike Azumi and Sook, she saw good in them as well. It was incumbent on her—on all of them—to get to know these creatures, to understand what they were capable of, not only when they were at their worst, but when they were at their best, too.

Having convinced herself to go through with it, Lila knocked. The heavy door hurt her knuckles and made almost no sound. She pounded the door with the side of her fist. That produced a tiny thump.

Footsteps approached the door from the inside; it swung open.

“Please come in and admire my home.” Erik held the door open for her.

It was a modern-looking house, sparsely furnished save for the walls, which were covered with enormous paintings that Lila had no doubt were Erik’s work.

Erik led her into the dining room, which was dominated by a simple but solid rectangular table and four chairs. Erik helped her into her seat as a Luyten approached holding a bottle of wine.

“I’m sorry I don’t have a smaller glass. I should have asked you to bring one from your hotel room.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.” It was a fishbowl. The Luyten filled it a quarter of the way.

She considered the painting closest to her. It was a portrait of a defender’s face floating on an otherwise empty canvas. “Are you part of an art community? Do you talk technique with other artists, share ideas and such?”

Erik seemed perplexed. “If I share what I know with other painters, they’ll improve, weakening the quality of my work by comparison.”

Lila wasn’t sure how to respond. It wasn’t surprising, really, that they saw the creation of art as a competition. And really, how far off was that from how humans thought of art? Erik was saying it aloud, but how many human artists thought the same way?

The steak the Luyten set in front of Lila was absurdly large. It was far smaller than the piece it served Erik, but still, it must have weighed six pounds. It was cut into pieces, probably to match Erik’s, since he would have trouble handling a knife. Handling a knife for the purpose of carving his dinner, anyway.

“I’m so sorry about your associate, Bolibar,” Erik said. “It was uncalled for, what happened.”

“Thank you. It’s such a shock.” Lila had been avoiding the topic, waiting for Erik to broach it. She put down her utensils for a moment. “You know what was especially tragic? It was all a misunderstanding. Bolibar wasn’t laughing at that actor; he was laughing about something completely unrelated to the performance.”

“That is a shame.” Erik was making quick work of his beef. He chewed each enormous bite once, maybe twice before swallowing it and taking another. “So many killings seem to arise out of misunderstandings.”

Lila smiled, nodded politely.

“Did you see me fight, though?” Erik asked, his eyes lighting up. “Maybe you couldn’t see because there were so many defenders on the stage.” He pointed his fork at his chest. “But I’m the one who killed him.”

She had decided to leave the wine rather than risk spilling it all over her blouse, but now she lifted the glass with both hands and took a swig. It was quite good—peppery, sharp, with a hint of licorice.

“Who makes the wine?” Lila asked.

Erik shrugged. “Charles. He took over an existing vineyard north of the city.”

“It’s really good.”

“Is it?” Erik took a drink. “Charles’s is the only wine I’ve ever tasted, so I have nothing to compare it to.”

“If the defenders negotiate trade deals, I’m sure a lot of human wineries would be eager for a chance at the defender market.”

“Yes.”

Lila waited for him to elaborate, but evidently “Yes” was the extent of it. “What sort of goods or services do you think defenders would be likely to offer, when trade relations open?”

“I don’t know,” Erik said. “I’m not involved in business and commerce.”

Lila thought of their weapons factories, and wondered if they were planning to go into the human weapons business. That was an unpleasant thought.

After dinner, they carried their wine to the living room. With the equivalent of three or four human-sized glasses in her, Lila felt more relaxed. Erik seemed more at ease as well. When he saw Lila take a seat on the rug rather than try to climb onto a chair, he sat on the floor across from her, his back against the sofa. He looked at his glass, smiled, took a drink. “We rarely drink more than a small amount.”

“Why is that?” Lila asked.

Erik closed his eyes, spoke as if reading from a page written on the backs of his eyelids. “A warrior is always in control of himself. Alcohol compromises that control.”

Lila nodded. True enough. They were developing their own standards of behavior, their own culture. In time it would mature. She crossed her legs and leaned back against the chair.

Erik crossed two of his legs, his expression playful.

“Is this an inappropriate posture among defenders? In Vietnam, it’s considered rude to sit with your legs pointing at someone.”

“A warrior maintains balance, both feet on the floor if he is standing or sitting in a chair, both legs on the ground if he is sitting on the ground.” Erik swung his third leg over his other two and laughed. His laugh was loud, and had a mechanical, slightly panicked quality to it.

She studied his enormous face, his deep-set eyes. They seemed almost human in that moment. Maybe it was the wine. “Sometimes it’s okay to allow ourselves to be a little off balance, when we’re among friends.”

“True.” He lifted his glass, held it up to the light before taking another drink. “My comrades are jealous of me, because our friendship is especially special. I’m becoming famous.”

Lila wasn’t sure how to respond. Defenders just didn’t get modesty. “That’s nice. I’m happy for you.”

“Part of it is my excellent social skills, but part of it is you.” He considered her. “What is it about you, do you think, that sets you apart from your companions?”

She told Erik the story of the first time she saw a defender, leaping off the roof of the school to save her. How in the last days of the war she’d hung posters of defenders in her room, read everything she could about them, daydreamed about having a defender as a special friend.

By the time she’d finished, Erik was beaming. “And now you have one.”

“That’s right.” She yawned, covered her mouth belatedly. “I’m getting tired.” She stood, opened her arms. “Can I give you a hug goodbye?”

“A hug?” Erik seemed taken aback.

Lila dropped her arms. “It’s okay, a handshake will do just as well.”

Erik looked off at the wall for a moment, then shook his head emphatically. “Handshakes are formal. You’re right, special friends should hug.”

Erik leaned forward to stand, but Lila motioned to him to stay put. “If you stand I’ll be hugging your legs.”

She went over and wrapped her arms around his torso, amazed by how solid, how muscular he was. It was like hugging an oak tree. Slowly, tentatively, he set his hands on Lila’s back. His hands were shaking. Lila pressed her cheek against his shoulder. It felt good—safe—to be in his arms.

Erik’s chest hitched. He seemed to be struggling to control his breathing. She looked up. He looked uneasy, his eyebrows pinched.

“Let me guess, warriors don’t hug,” she said jokingly.

Erik didn’t smile. He was trembling.

Lila hugged him tighter. This was what she’d really dreamed of when she was a teenager, she realized. Not going to the mall with a defender, but being held by one, being rocked to sleep in his protective arms, told that no one could ever hurt her again…

Before she knew it was happening, she was crying. Deep, howling sobs racked her as she clutched Erik, her face buried in his shirt. This day had ground her down to a nub. Seeing Bolibar killed, the bloody fight. Erik squeezed her tighter, his body shaking. Lila looked up. Erik was crying, too.

Tentatively, she rocked him, left and right, left and right. He seemed soothed by the motion. As she rocked him, she realized something: She’d looked up to the defenders as father figures, but Erik didn’t see her as a daughter. He saw her as a mother.

40 Lila Easterlin

May 28, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Lila woke at dawn and couldn’t go back to sleep. Her shoes lay on the end of the bed where they’d fallen when she kicked them off, exhausted and a little drunk, the night before. Even in the faint gray light she could still make out speckled stains on the toes. Bolibar’s blood. She’d packed only one pair of heeled shoes, and even if defenders’ shoe stores had sold black pumps, they wouldn’t have had them in Lila’s size.

Erik’s painting was propped on the dresser. Besides the human figure’s hair being yellow, it bore absolutely no resemblance to Lila. It wasn’t even clear it was a woman. The face was twisted, its expression a grimace, to the extent its expression could be made out. Erik’s face was rounder in the painting than in real life, his complexion pinker. He looked more human in the painting. Peering closely, Lila realized she looked a bit like a defender.

There was a sharp knock on her door. “Lila?” The tone of Oliver’s voice set her heart thumping. She sprang from the bed and flung open the door.

Oliver was staring at his feet. “Azumi is dead. Drowned. Defenders found him in the river.”

“Drowned? How did he drown?”

Oliver looked up. “I don’t know. I guess he could have climbed over that stone wall if he tried, but why on Earth would he do that?”

Lila dragged her hand through her tangled hair. She knew Oliver was thinking the same thing as she. Azumi hadn’t climbed over the retaining wall—he’d been thrown. He’d angered some defender, probably through the same type of misunderstanding that cost Bolibar his life. Or maybe it was that general, the one he’d broken up with. That made a sick kind of sense.

There were no police. As they’d witnessed on the night of Bolibar’s murder, defenders meted out justice spontaneously, and haphazardly.

“Where is his body?” Lila asked.

“They buried it. They collect up all the dead each day—defender and Luyten, and now the occasional human—and bury them in pits.” He shrugged. “That’s how they did it during the war; I guess they saw no reason to change.”

“So we can’t see if there are visible injuries on his body.”

“I’m not sure it matters,” Oliver said. “It’s not like they’re going to check him for DNA and search for his killer.”

Poor Azumi. He’d so wanted to leave. It was almost as if he’d had a premonition. With a sudden jolt, Lila realized she was the first to argue that they should stay despite the danger. Everyone else had agreed, though; it wasn’t as if they all would have packed up if she hadn’t opened her mouth.

“There’s other news as well,” Oliver said. “We’re finally meeting with the Triumvirate, on Friday.”

41 Oliver Bowen

June 1, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Oliver had imagined the Triumvirate as larger than the average defender, their faces a bit more animated, but of course that was silly. They’d all been created from the same genetic blueprint, and epigenetic variation wouldn’t create such extreme differences. The defenders on the dais, sitting in enormous plush seats that looked suspiciously like thrones, looked to Oliver like any other defenders.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. One was badly burned. Oliver recognized him as Douglas, the defender who’d addressed the United Nations when the defenders asked for Australia.

“Was Francesca the only Venezuelan representative, or is someone taking her place?” Galatea asked, whispering in his ear.

“I don’t know. I think she was their only representative.”

Francesca Villanueva, the fifth emissary to die, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Two defenders got into an argument over the placement of a chair alongside a parade route, and one of them—her “special friend”—accidentally slashed her before she could get out of the way. She’d been a stout woman in her sixties. Like Bolibar, she’d been the sort of person who laughed easily, although that trait hadn’t played a role in her death.

“Here we go,” Galatea said. She squeezed Oliver’s forearm, let her hand linger before taking it off. Lila thought Galatea was flirting with him. Galatea touched a lot of people, but he wondered if maybe Lila was right. He liked Galatea, and if the circumstances were different he probably would have asked her out. But here, with everything that was going on? If anything was going to develop, it would have to wait.

Oliver glanced at Lila, who was sitting two seats over, beside Alan. She smiled at him.

The defenders’ minister of defense, whose name was Walter, took the floor in front of the dais. As Walter began talking of their admiration for humans, their recognition that without humans, they would not exist, Oliver relaxed.

“We wanted this time of solitude to decide who we are, what sort of life suits us,” Walter said, reading stiltedly from a teleprompter. “What we’ve come to realize is, we crave the challenges that come with being part of the larger world. We want to learn from our mothers and fathers, to engage them in athletics, to study at their universities.”

Engage them in athletics? Oliver tried to picture a defender playing tight end for the Denver Broncos.

“We want to integrate. And to do that, we’ll require accommodations.” Walter stepped closer to the ambassadors. He squatted over the one vacant human-sized chair in the front row, pretending to sit. A few ambassadors laughed politely at the attempt at humor. Oliver couldn’t bring himself to smile, even insincerely. The empty chair was Bolibar’s. “As you can see,” Walter went on, “we’re not designed for human structures. We cannot be dignified if we must squat and crawl through spaces not built to accommodate us.”

Walter returned to the center of the floor. “To successfully integrate as equals, we’ll need fair representation and voting power in the world body, and other political bodies where appropriate.” A map of the world materialized behind Walter. Some areas were highlighted in orange. “We will also require places to live in addition to Australia. Certain blocks, towns, states, and provinces. We’ve mapped out those places.”

Oliver leaned forward, squinting at the map. New Orleans. The San Francisco Bay area. France. A large swatch of central China. What looked to be much of Nigeria and Cameroon. There were dozens of separate spots, maybe a hundred. Was that Jerusalem?

“You want us to give you these places?” Priyanka Vadra asked, her tone measured.

“We welcome humans to live in the areas we will control, but they will be refashioned to accommodate us.”

The areas we will control, not the areas we would control. It suggested they didn’t see this map as open to negotiation.

“Are these locations negotiable?” Oliver called out.

He half expected Walter to look to the triumvirate for guidance, but Walter simply closed his eyes, as if searching for words, or patience. “Our cartographers worked very hard on this map.” He sounded almost hurt. “The percentage of territory we’ll control is in direct proportion to our estimated population as compared to yours, adjusted for our larger size. We can make the calculations available if you’d like to examine them.”

How thoughtful of them. What they were asking was surely out of the question. The decision would ultimately be made by the United Nations, but Oliver couldn’t imagine the world agreeing to these demands.

Oliver pictured the mile upon mile of state-of-the-art weapons the defenders had manufactured. Now their purpose was clear. The human race was militarily weak. It was still recovering from the Luyten War and the global economic depression that followed. They’d needed bridges far more than tanks, and after the Luyten, no one had the stomach for human-on-human conflict, so there’d been little will to divert resources toward weapons manufacture.

“There’s one other thing we’ll require,” Walter said. He held out his open hands, as if in supplication. “We were left with no means to procreate. To repair this oversight, you can provide us with the expertise to create more of our kind. We plan to establish a production facility here in Sydney, staffed by visiting genetic engineers, and headed by your own Lila Easterlin.”

Oliver’s blood went cold. Galatea reached up and squeezed his shoulder.

Smiling a flat defender smile, Walter gestured toward Lila. “She was recommended for this prestigious position by Colonel Erik, who distinguished himself in Great Britain during the Luyten War.”

“Jesus.” Oliver’s lips were numb. He looked at Lila, who was staring at Walter, wide-eyed. Were they insinuating they expected her to stay in Australia permanently? Suddenly their insistence that she be the US ambassador made chilling sense.

The huge door swung open; a Luyten padded in carrying refreshments. That was another issue: If the defenders got what they wanted, would they expect to bring Luyten with them? Oliver was confident they would.

“After you’ve had something to eat, please take time to contact your respective governments and tell them the good news,” Walter said. “We have lifted the communications cloak for this evening.”

Heading toward the Luyten, Oliver resisted the urge to sprint from the room and contact Washington immediately. The other emissaries seemed to be struggling with the same urge. People were taking as little food as seemed polite. They ate hurriedly, eyeing each other as if silently asking how long propriety dictated they remain in the hall. Who knew what the defenders thought was proper? Perhaps the defenders wouldn’t have thought it unseemly if they all stampeded out of the room, shoving each other out of the way. For all Oliver knew, grabbing others by the hair and slamming their faces into the wall might not raise defenders’ eyebrows.

He moved through the crowd, following Galatea as their small contingent sought a space where they could talk.

Lila was clearly struggling to keep her composure. “We’ll fix this. Don’t worry,” Oliver said into her ear.

“You can’t be sure of that. What if the negotiations boil down to me staying, in exchange for San Francisco, or France?” She shook her head. “I can’t fucking believe this.”

“Washington won’t tolerate an emissary being taken hostage. Not a chance.”

Lila took Oliver’s plate from his hand and set it on a table. “I want to hear them say that.”

42 Lila Easterlin

June 1, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Erik was waiting for Lila right outside, on the steps of the Parliament Building. He galloped over as soon as she appeared.

“I just heard the news. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s an honor for you to be chosen to head up our reproductive efforts.”

Lila searched Erik’s face for some clue, something to signal whether he was truly so clueless he believed he’d done her a favor, or if he was so calculating he would maneuver to force her to stay just so he wouldn’t lose his special friend.

“Erik, I have a family at home. I have friends, a house. I can’t turn my back on all of that and stay here.”

Erik considered. “You’ll have me. You can buy a new house—you’ll be paid very well.” When Lila didn’t answer, he added, “Now we won’t have to say goodbye.”

This couldn’t be happening. Lila put her hand on her forehead and struggled to think clearly. Could they really do this to her? Things were so bizarre in the world right now that anything seemed possible. She looked up at Erik. “I just want to go home. I want to see my husband, my son, for God’s sake. Please say you’ll help me undo this. Tell them you made a mistake. Tell them anything.” She closed her mouth, realized she was shouting.

Erik looked stunned. Trembling, his voice barely controlled, he said, “Do you have any idea how hard I worked to arrange this? I risked my life for you.”

To this point, Oliver had been standing slightly behind Lila. Now, almost casually, he stepped between Erik and Lila. “I’m sorry, but we have to contact our government as soon as possible. Come on, Lila.” He took her elbow and guided her away.

Erik turned to watch her leave.

43 Lila Easterlin

June 3, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

It was a meeting unlike any Lila had ever attended, starting with the location. Surely they could have come up with another place in this oversized city where fifteen humans could meet without fear of being overheard. She glanced at the opening of the pipe, a circle of light and color fifty yards away. Actually, she couldn’t think of any. Even meeting in a sewer pipe in a smallish group, the defenders might notice and send in a spy bug.

“I understand why the UN won’t tell us anything. I just don’t like it,” Sook was saying. “We’re the ones who are here; we’re the ones who are actually negotiating with these psychopaths.”

Galatea snorted. “Negotiating. I’m surprised you can keep from lacing that word with sarcasm.”

Sook smiled grimly. “It took effort.”

Wanting to hear what those outside her little group thought, Lila headed for another cluster of people chattering in low tones. She took care not to slip on the moss growing inside the enormous sewer pipe.

“—problem is, they’re so adversarial, so zero-sum in their thinking, they see any compromise in their position as weakness,” Nguyen Dung, the structural engineer from Vietnam, was saying as Lila joined the circle. A few of them nodded to Lila, acknowledging her.

“If only there were some way to negotiate where we didn’t seem to be negotiating, where on the surface we appeared to be capitulating. Like, ‘Okay, you win, we’ll—’ Whatever.” Ahmad bin Nayef, the ambassador from Saudi Arabia, tugged on his elaborately braided mustache.

“The problem is, they won’t budge off the precise demands they made at the outset,” Nguyen said. “What would they do if we offered them more than they’re asking for? Say we offered them all of Asia, Europe, and North America. I wonder if they’d reject it, because it wasn’t exactly what they demanded?” He sighed. “Not that we’re going to offer them all of that.”

“What are we going to do?” Lila asked. “If the defenders doggedly insist we meet their demands, what will the UN do?”

No one answered. No one wanted to bring up the prospect of war. It was unthinkable, to fight another war, against such a savage and well-armed foe. Foe. The defenders weren’t their foes—that was the irony.

“I can’t see the UN giving in,” Ahmad said.

“Lila? Can I speak to you?” It was Oliver. He’d missed the start of the meeting, saying there was something important he had to do.

“What’s up?” she asked as they walked toward the circle of daylight, their heads down.

“Let’s wait till we’re outside.” Lila glanced at Oliver, realized that whatever it was he wanted to tell her, he was badly shaken by it. They hopped out of the pipe and walked along the massive, bowl-shaped concrete aqueduct the sewer pipe drained into.

“Washington wants me to locate Five. Badly.”

Lila laughed humorlessly. “Sure. We can go door-to-door. ‘Pardon me, have you seen a starfish missing a limb and blind in one eye?’”

“I know.” Oliver threw his hands in the air in frustration. “I don’t even know if he’s alive. They’re telling me to do everything I can. Everything.”

“Why do they want you to speak to him so badly?” It seemed as if the Luyten were an afterthought at this point.

Oliver swallowed. “They want to know what the Luyten would do if they invaded Australia.”

Lila stopped walking. “Holy shit.”

Oliver held up a hand. “They’re not going to invade. You know Washington bureaucrats—they’re gathering information, doing their due diligence so they fully understand their options.”

A preemptive strike. It made sense, but it sent a chill through Lila. “How would they even do that, with the cloak in place?”

Oliver shrugged. “I guess they’d fly in low under the cloak. We don’t have near the number of planes and heavy weapons the defenders do, but if the world combines resources again, re-forms the Alliance, we still have a hell of a lot of weaponry. And we wouldn’t be fighting a guerrilla war—we could bomb the hell out of this continent.”

They came to a tunnel beneath an overpass, turned, and instead headed up the lip of the bowl toward street level.

“I guess I see where I rate as an ambassador in Washington’s eyes,” Lila said. “They’re doing an end run around me.”

“Don’t take it personally. They don’t trust anyone who hasn’t worked for the government for at least twenty years.”

“Especially someone who’s unstable and unpredictable. I might go all PTSD on them.” The truth was she was relieved not to be caught in the middle of all their shit. In fact, she felt sorry for Oliver. “How do you feel about them considering this?”

“Oh, I think it’s a terrible idea. A war?” He shook his head. “It shouldn’t even be on the table. We’re too weak, militarily. Last year the US military budget was seventeen percent of what it had been before the invasion.” His shoulder sagged slightly. “But I still have to locate Five, if I can.”

They were getting close to street level; Lila paused, not wanting to go there and be forced to speak in a whisper. “You know, if the Alliance had already decided to invade, they wouldn’t tell you.”

Oliver thought about it. “No, they wouldn’t.”

They still had no evidence, direct or indirect, that the Luyten were passing on the emissaries’ thoughts to the defenders. The Luyten didn’t seem to speak to the defenders at all, ever. They clearly understood, and took direction, but they never spoke. Because they couldn’t read the defenders’ minds, they’d have to speak aloud, and, as Five had demonstrated, they were capable of speaking aloud if they chose.

“If the Luyten are reporting to the defenders, just by asking you to get this information, they’re tipping their hand. And putting you in an incredibly dangerous position at the same time.” She made a sweeping gesture, encompassing everything around. “Right now, every Luyten in this city knows the UN is at least considering an invasion.”

“Evidently they’re willing to take that risk.” Oliver folded his arms across his chest. “I’m guessing this is how their logic goes: If the Luyten tip off the defenders that we’re considering an invasion, and that I’m seeking information to facilitate that invasion, the defenders will kill me. No—they’ll kill all of us. And if we’re all killed, that signals to the UN that the Luyten may be allied with or controlled by the defenders. If there’s a good chance the Luyten will fight alongside the defenders, the Alliance is not going to invade under any circumstances, because they know they can’t win.”

They continued walking. As they came over the rise and reached the street, a brisk wind hit them.

“That would be a pretty fucking ruthless plan.”

Oliver tried to smile. “I sure don’t love it. But the stakes are high enough that I think that might be the plan.”

Of course, now the Luyten knew this hypothetical plan, and if they were tipping off the defenders, the defenders knew it as well. In which case they wouldn’t kill the emissaries. Yet. Lila pinched her temples. She couldn’t believe they were back to dealing with these telepathic monsters.

44 Lila Easterlin

June 6, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Lila blew on her hands, wishing she’d packed gloves. There were so many things she wished she’d packed. Her family. Extra shoes. Valium. She was so tired of this pipe.

“How can they even consider such a thing?” she asked. “The defenders haven’t once threatened military action.” Lila couldn’t believe they were even arguing about this.

“Those little tours of their military stockpiles weren’t intended as a threat?” Sook countered. “A quick strike while the defenders are still contained is our best chance to end this before it gets out of hand.”

Somehow, word had leaked to the others. Lila hadn’t leaked it. She knew Oliver hadn’t. So at least one of the other emissaries had been briefed by their government. For all Lila knew, all of the countries had told their emissaries.

“We’ve been told an invasion is one option ‘being considered.’ What do they mean by ‘being considered’?” Oliver asked. “Certainly, every option available should be considered, but are they seriously thinking about launching an invasion?”

“They can’t be,” Galatea said. “Not unless the defenders demonstrate a real willingness to use their weapons against us. Not even a willingness—an eagerness.” Galatea was standing so close to Oliver their shoulders were brushing. She was wickedly hot in her proper British uptight way; Oliver should be banging her nightly, relieving the crushing stress they were both under. But was he? Of course not.

“Who else would they use them against?” Alan asked. “The trees? Cats? They’ve spent the last fifteen years building weapons to use against us. There’s no other logical conclusion to draw.”

“You sound almost eager for it to happen,” Lila said. Her disdain for Alan was growing by the day. She was barely able to look at Alan when she talked to him. He clearly fancied himself a strong-willed, swinging-dick alpha male, but the more they disagreed, the more he came across as a petulant child.

“I wouldn’t say eager,” Alan said. “But if we learned anything from the Luyten War, it’s that when we’re threatened, we have to take decisive action to defend ourselves. Immediately.”

“So the reason we had so much trouble with the Luyten was that we were too easy on them?” Lila asked, incredulous. “Go tell that to the four billion people who died fighting them.”

“I didn’t—”

Oliver cut Lila off. “Why don’t we stick to the things we can control? If there is an invasion, whether we agree with it or not, we would be at ground zero surrounded by defenders. If we aren’t killed in the initial bombing, the defenders will surely fix that.”

It was a sobering thought. If only they could contact Five. Five might be able to warn them away, either by providing some insight into the defenders’ intentions, or by telling them the Luyten would fight on the defenders’ side, either by choice or out of fear of reprisal.

The Luyten’s silence was frustrating. After the war, they’d certainly been chatty enough. We’re terribly sorry! they’d shouted at the human race. Had they meant it even slightly?

Humans had double-crossed them, though. They’d handed the Luyten over to the defenders, believing the defenders were going to slaughter every last one of them. But not every human had agreed with that action. Lila had been against allowing the defenders to take custody of the Luyten. So had Oliver. Five knew that. So did the crimson fucker who’d killed her father.

Sorry I killed your dad, the crimson one had said to Lila. Were they even capable of regret? Were they haunted by the lives they’d taken? Maybe Lila should get in its face and ask it, point-blank.

She waited for a lull in the argument, then clutched Oliver’s sleeve. “Come on.”

Oliver followed her out of the sewer pipe without comment, evidently relieved to have an excuse to escape the tension.

“I think Alan may be a psychopath,” Oliver said when they were outside. “I disagree with Sook, but I respect her. Alan just seems eager to see people die.”

“I may know how to locate Five,” Lila said. “Though it’s a long shot.”

“My best idea was going door-to-door. I’ll take a long shot.”

As they climbed the steep grade of the drainage bed, Lila picked up her pace. “Do you remember which street we were on when I spotted the crimson Luyten? I want to have a little talk with him.”

Oliver, immediately grasping her plan, looked skeptical. “Five told me those apologies were nothing but a strategy to improve their chances of survival. A goodwill campaign to rebrand themselves.”

“From everything you’ve told me, Five is kind of an asshole. I’m not sure I’d put much stock in anything he said.”

“Which is why we’re trying to get information from him that might affect the likelihood of a global war.”

Lila pointed at him. “Good point. In any case, I’m not planning to play on its sense of regret; I’m going to play on its sense of self-preservation.”

With Oliver striding to keep pace, Lila stormed up the concrete bed, onto Elizabeth Street. Defenders paused to stare. One waved. Oliver waved back. Lila kept walking.

“Where are you?” she said under her breath. She was angry at Sook and Alan, and potentially the entire human Alliance, but for now she turned that anger toward the crimson Luyten. If the Luyten didn’t regret killing her father enough to help them, she was planning to find a two-by-four and beat the hell out of it. She could, too. The telepathic pinwheel wouldn’t be able to lift a tentacle to defend itself with defenders around. Odds were, if she attacked it, half a dozen defenders would join in, and they could have a good old-fashioned starfish pull. It seemed as if defenders were always in the mood for a good starfish pull.

“Where are you?” she called. “You can hide, but I’ll keep asking until I find you. Slaves can’t hide for long.”

She turned the corner onto Campbell Street, and stopped short. There it was, unloading crates from the back of its delivery truck.

I owe you nothing.

Lila stumbled as the words clawed her mind.

I lost Luyten who were closer to me than you’re even capable of imagining.

“I didn’t kill any of them. I was fifteen.” Lila heard Oliver’s sharp intake of breath as he realized she was speaking to the Luyten.

The Luyten went on stacking crates, slowly, deliberately.

We signed a peace treaty with you, and you handed us over to these monsters.

Lila had no comeback for that one. She’d been only fifteen when that happened as well, but the information she was trying to obtain wasn’t for her benefit, it was on behalf of her entire species, and her species had betrayed the Luyten in spectacular fashion. There was no denying that. She took a deep breath, willed herself to calm down. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for those you lost, and for threatening to attack you. I wouldn’t have actually done it.”

Yes, you would.

Lila opened her mouth to tell the Luyten that she knew what she was and was not capable of, that it could take its telepathic righteousness and stuff it into one of its seven mouth-asses. Then she remembered she didn’t have to speak for it to hear her.

“Did you get all that?” she asked.

Yes. It turned away, headed toward the sidewalk with a dolly full of crates. For a moment Lila thought the Luyten was ending the conversation. Then she remembered it could drive its truck eight miles and they could still hold the conversation.

“So is that the only reason you deigned to speak to me, to tell me you owe me nothing?”

I want you to understand that I’m not acting out of a sense of obligation, or fear.

A defender walking by stopped to look at Lila and Oliver. Lila turned to Oliver, so it would look as if she were speaking to him. “Then you’ll tell us how to find Five?”

Five sends Oliver his regards.

Her heart thumping, Lila repeated this to Oliver. Then she added, “Will he tell us what we want to know?”

Without the slightest pause, the Luyten replied. We would do nothing. We would seek safety underground, even if the defenders tried to compel us to fight. And they surely would.

She repeated this to Oliver, word for word.

He nodded. “Now we know. Assuming they’re telling the truth.”

You should also be aware that the defenders know you’re contemplating an invasion.

“What? How do they know?”

Oliver started to ask what it had said, but Lila waved him off.

A Luyten told them. It’s difficult to break us when we’re psychically linked, but the defenders know to isolate us before they interrogate. They learned that from Oliver.

That did it, then. There was no way the Alliance would attack if the defenders knew it was coming.

They don’t. They know you’re contemplating an attack. None of you here in Australia knows for sure. The defenders are confident there will be no invasion.

As they headed back to the meeting in the sewer pipe, Lila wondered why the Luyten had decided to answer, if it truly wasn’t out of a sense of obligation or fear for its life.

Then it came to her. It was so obvious, now that she thought about it. They’d like nothing better than to have the Alliance wipe out the defenders, and weaken itself in the process. Then the Luyten could wipe out humanity. Surely the Alliance had thought of that. Of course they had. They had no intention of invading; this was all a feint, meant to get back to the defenders, so humanity would be in a stronger negotiating position.

45 Lila Easterlin

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Faruk Demir sidled up to Lila as they were leaving Ayami Ogego’s funeral service.

“Any word?”

Lila shook her head. “There won’t be. Either it’ll happen or it won’t.” They speculated in coded whispers; everyone had an opinion, but no one knew anything for sure. Meanwhile, the defenders were busy making plans for their diaspora. At this point the official response to the defenders’ “request” was “We’re considering it.” If they were really considering it, the ambassadors had not successfully conveyed to their respective countries just how unstable the defenders were.

“Has anything been communicated to you about… your own status?” Faruk asked.

“Nothing.”

She was tired of people asking, and she found herself getting irritable when the issue was raised. It seemed inconceivable that she could be compelled to stay in this lunatic asylum, yet even if the defenders’ other demands were resolved through peaceful means, it was conceivable the defenders would simply refuse to allow Lila to leave. What could Washington do, send in Navy SEALs in the middle of the night to steal her back? Actually, that might be their plan. The thought of being trapped here, with the other emissaries gone, was intolerable. She wouldn’t let Kai join her, no matter what. She wasn’t going to risk his and Errol’s lives.

Lila waved goodbye to Faruk as he headed toward whatever event was awaiting him next. His special defender friend was especially needy, and must hold a privileged position, because he rarely seemed to work. Lila had a free hour and decided to walk in Victory Park.

She admired the elaborate flower beds. Defenders seemed to favor sunflowers, likely because of their size. Lila wondered if they drew pleasure from flowers, or if they planted them simply because parks were supposed to have flowers.

Maybe she could negotiate some sort of guest-worker status with the defenders. That was a thought. She could agree to fly to Australia three or four times a year for a few weeks. She could tolerate that. The defenders were, after all, her life’s work. If they wanted more of their kind, she and Dominique could work on creating new defenders who were less volatile. These new defenders might even take on leadership positions, become examples for the existing defenders on how to be more reasoned, and less violent.

Her mood lightened as she walked, and planned. She was also feeling better because there were no Luyten around, she realized. Usually there were a few in the park, planting flowers or picking up the defenders’ trash. They never gave any indication they noticed her, but she knew they knew exactly who she was, and how she felt about them, and that bothered her.

Lila spotted a glint of green plastic buried in fallen leaves. She kicked it loose: a flattened Lido Lemonade bottle. She chuckled. “Bits of us are still here, even fifteen years later.”

A deafening honk made Lila jump. It was followed by another, and another. To her left, where she could see the road nearest her, defenders poured into the street.

“Oh, no.” Had they really done it? No. Surely it was a drill.

A deep roar, like the sound of a raging fire, rose from the east. Lila looked toward the sky.

The sound grew louder.

She jumped at the first thump. It was followed by a dozen more. Missiles rose overhead, angled toward the coast.

The roar from the east grew steadily louder, punctuated by ever more thumps.

Hundreds of Alliance bombers came into view on the horizon.

Many were being blown out of the sky by surface-to-air missiles, but they just kept coming, filling the sky. Cluster bombs shot from the bombers and curled toward the buildings below. She felt the impacts deep in her chest. Clouds of dust and debris rose as if in slow motion.

A terrible sadness enveloped Lila as she watched. The bombs kept dropping, leaping out of the fighters, surging toward the ground like they were eager to meet their targets. She watched, hand over mouth, as Victory Tower—the tallest building in the defenders’ so recently constructed city—seemed to slide sideways before tipping, crushing several other buildings as it crashed to Earth.

From horizon to horizon, the sky was filled with Alliance bombers. There were so many explosions they blended together to create one endless, deafening boom.

She had to find shelter, or she was going to die. Lila kicked off her shoes—heels for the funeral—and ran, her palms covering her ears. They’d planned to rendezvous in the sewer pipe if the invasion came, but it was too far. She had to find something nearby. She raced toward the streets.

Above, defender fighter jets roared into view, flying higher than the invaders. They fired cannon bursts, creating a series of blinding flashes, like a sudden burst of fireworks. Alliance aircraft seemed to disintegrate, raining onto the smoldering city.

As Lila reached the street she realized how stupid she’d been to kick off her shoes. There was broken glass everywhere.

Hearing gruff shouts, she ducked behind a parked vehicle. A platoon of defenders thundered past. On the other side of the street, a convoy of vehicles roared by, defenders squatting elbow to elbow in their beds, no doubt on their way to retrieve the heavy weapons stored out in the country. They must be loving this—more war at last. She thought of Erik, wondered where he was. They were special friends no more.

A new sound lit the air: dozens of huge booms, far away. Artillery fire, maybe naval gunfire? Alan had said the Alliance would pound the city from ships. Lila stumbled, caught herself, and pushed on as the tops of buildings disintegrated.

Pain lanced the underside of her foot. Lila stopped, balanced on one leg to examine it. A nasty shard of glass was sticking out. Eyes watering from the pain, she pulled it out and tossed it aside.

Something slammed into the side of her head, knocking her down. Blackness swept over her as she lay on the sidewalk, her cheek pressed to the concrete. She fought it, struggled to get to her knees. At first her body wouldn’t respond; her hands opened and closed spasmodically, clawing the pavement. Through sheer force of will she made it to her knees, touched the side of her head. There was a deep, straight gash an inch above her ear. It felt as if her scalp, her hair, was hanging lower than it should. Her hand came away bloody.

Struggling to her feet, Lila staggered on.

She wondered if Oliver was still alive, if the others had reached shelter in time. Then she thought of Kai, their little man, Errol, and she nearly sobbed.

Up ahead, one of the enormous exhaust grates built into the sidewalks was leaned against a storefront, exposing a huge open hole. Lila ran bent at the waist, listing to the right, correcting, drifting right again until she reached the hole.

There was an enormous ladder, the rungs too far apart. She hugged one of the ladder’s vertical bars, paused, and took one last look at the city, the bombers overhead like a chain-link steel roof, the air stinking of soot and gasoline. Then she slid into near darkness.

She reached a huge horizontal sewer pipe as the earth above continued to rattle, the booms only slightly muffled. She sensed she wasn’t nearly far enough underground to be safe if a bomb landed nearby, but looking around, she couldn’t see a way to go lower.

Then she spotted an opening, and limped a hundred feet deeper into the tunnel. Shrouded in darkness, there was a ragged hole in the side of the enormous pipe. She stepped through and found herself in a wider tunnel, freshly dug, angling downward. It was pitch-black.

Every fiber in her was repulsed by the thought of climbing into that hole.

A bomb struck fairly close; dirt rained down onto her head. The open wound burned. She had to go farther down. Alan had said the Alliance would pound the city for hours, maybe days.

Lila sat, then eased herself down the steep grade. The thought of being alone in a dark tunnel for hours or days terrified her to the core.

She kept sliding, freshly dug earth tumbling down with her. Once she was down, would she be able to climb back up? The thought sent bright stabs of panic through her as she dropped. It was too late to go back.

The tunnel leveled out; Lila spotted a faint blue glow ahead. Cautiously, she got to her feet, walked the final sixty feet, the light growing brighter. She reached a curve in the wall and, heart drumming, followed the curve a dozen more feet.

The tunnel opened onto a dimly lit room packed with Luyten. Some were curled into balls; others stood along the walls. One was wounded; it lay near the center while two others tried to stanch the bleeding from a half dozen ragged gashes.

Lila turned and fled back through the tunnel, running blindly, hands in front of her, expecting to feel a Luyten’s cilia wrap around her ankle at any second and drag her back into the room where they would tear her apart. She reached the slope, stumbled in the soft earth, landed face-first, sprang up immediately, and clawed at the dirt, panting in fear. Overhead, bombs thumped like the whole city was being reduced to dust. Lila felt blood dripping off her hair onto her shoulder and chest as she scrabbled in the soft dirt with her hands and feet, trying to find purchase.

She’d managed to climb twenty feet or so, the angle growing steadily steeper, when she lost her grip and slid down again.

Lila pressed her forehead into the dirt and shook her head. There was no way. She was trapped.

It occurred to her that if the Luyten were chasing her, they would have caught her before now. She turned and sat, listening to the sounds of Luyten moving around in the bunker. Five had told Oliver they were going to remain neutral. Maybe they meant it.

She leaned against the tunnel wall, drew up her knees. This was insane. The World Alliance was bombing defenders while Lila took refuge in a shelter filled with Luyten.

Lila shrieked and scurried backward as a thick Luyten appendage pressed against her. She backed into the shelter, where the Luyten squeezed past her and continued into the shelter.

The Luyten in the shelter simply ignored her. Rather than risk being in the way of other arriving Luyten, she sat against the wall, in a wedge near the exit where the wall angled.

Looking around the makeshift shelter, she spotted crates of food tucked into the far corner, plastic barrels of water. Blue iridescent lights jutted from the walls at rough intervals. Lila wondered if the Luyten preferred the blue tinge because it approximated the light of their home world, because it made it more difficult for defenders to detect them, or simply because it had been easiest to pilfer from their masters. One thing was certain: They’d prepared for this. Thanks to Oliver, they’d had warning.

Every Luyten in the shelter could hear her thoughts. In the dim light, her mind conjured unbidden images of Luyten cooking cars full of screaming people, crawling up from the sewers in Atlanta, bearing down on her father…

Yet in the end, when they’d lost, they set down their weapons and marched into those camps, leaving themselves at the mercy of humans. And Lila’s people had betrayed them.

Why were they tolerating her presence now, she wondered?

46 Oliver Bowen

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Head down, shirt pressed to his mouth, eyes half closed against the dust and blinding flashes, Oliver ducked under a huge pipe that was probably a standard household-sized plumbing pipe in this Brobdingnagian city.

The explosions went on and on.

Oliver paused, then turned to Alan, who was behind him. “How long is this likely to go on?”

“Until any more bombing would be pointless. Then they’ll send in troops and drones.”

That wasn’t an answer. “Well, how long is that likely to take?”

“There it is,” Galatea called out, pointing. Sure enough, there was the pipe where they’d held their covert meetings. The still-smoking wreckage of a bomber was strewn to one side of it. They picked up their pace, eager to have cover, although a drainage pipe wouldn’t lead far enough underground to shield them from a direct hit.

Galatea, who was a few paces ahead of Oliver, stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” Oliver caught up to her and peered inside.

The pipe was full of bodies. Twenty or thirty of their colleagues lay in a burnt, bloody tangle thirty feet inside the pipe. Oliver turned away, gasping, trying to catch his breath. The sight in the tunnel had knocked the wind out of him.

“They must have been spying on us,” Sook said. “They knew we were meeting here, and when the invasion started, they guessed we’d seek refuge here.”

“We have to get out of here,” Alan said. “They might come back.”

“I have to see if Lila is in there,” Oliver said, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Go on, I’ll catch up.”

“No,” Galatea said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll help you.” She turned to Sook and Alan. “Shout if they come.”

47 Oliver Bowen

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

At the start of the Luyten War, Luyten had dropped from the sky like falling stars. This time it was humans who dropped from the sky.

“It looks like most of them are dropping over there.” Sook pointed to the west.

During the long, cold night in a restaurant sub-basement, they’d finally agreed that their best course of action was to leave the safety of the basement when the bombing stopped and find Alliance soldiers to take them to one of the ships off the coast. Oliver couldn’t leave without finding Lila, but Galatea had convinced him it would be both suicidal and pointless to wander the city looking for her. Wiser to get a platoon of soldiers to search for her.

“We’re better off heading east,” Alan said. “Most of the force will be coming off the boats.” They headed east along the top of the drainage bed, less than forty feet from Trafalgar Street. Because Alan had a degree in military history to go along with his extensive knowledge of modern weapons, they were grudgingly following his lead for the most part.

Another wave of Alliance paratrooper planes buzzed overhead. Then, moments later, another.

“Here comes the full invasion,” Alan said. “They’ll drop a few kilometers west of the city, then sweep this way.”

Cautiously, Oliver lifted his head above street level. The city was unrecognizable—a postapocalyptic nightmare. The enormous scale of the infrastructure meant that much more wreckage. In places, Trafalgar Street looked impassable.

“If all goes well, how long will it take before the Alliance is in control?” Galatea asked Alan.

“Based on how quickly they’ve put boots on the ground, I’d say they’re planning a quick, violent assault. Either they control the continent in a matter of weeks, or they won’t control it at all.”

Oliver clapped his hands to his ears as dozens of defender fliers roared by overhead. Oliver recognized them as the ones lined row upon row at one of the first factories they’d passed on the initial tour. They were enormous, angry-looking things, almost rectangular save for a pointed nose, loaded with turrets and cylinders that were clearly weapon systems.

“I was hoping the Alliance had gotten all of those during the bombing.”

“I’m sure they got some,” Alan said. “Hopefully, most.”

The thumping of many pairs of boots in the street sent a thrill of fear through Oliver. Risking a glance, he saw defenders carrying automatic rifles, running in step. Their eyes were wide and wild, their teeth clenched.

Gunfire erupted. Two of the lead defenders dropped heavily; the rest scattered left and right. Two more were hit by what must have been large-caliber ordnance, because it tore right through the defenders’ body armor, spraying flesh, blood, and bone.

Oliver and his companions watched from their cover as the defenders disappeared down side streets, behind vehicles. From the west, a baritone moan and a metallic clicking rose. More of the defenders’ gigantic weapons.

“We should get out of here,” Oliver said, but no one moved. They were mesmerized by the sight of defenders fighting humans.

“Look,” Galatea said.

Oliver looked where she was pointing, and saw a defender climbing out a third-story window clutching an assault rifle. He perched on the ledge right above the spot where the Alliance shots had originated, and jumped.

The defender hit the debris boots-first with staggering force, yet stayed on his feet. Howling, he unleashed a barrage of rapid, booming fire, point-blank. Oliver couldn’t see the human troops hiding in the debris, but he knew they were dying.

Four Alliance soldiers broke from their cover. Screaming, his face twisted with rage, the defender turned his fire on the fleeing soldiers.

When he finally stopped, they were in pieces.

“Let’s go,” Oliver repeated. This time, everyone moved.

48 Lila Easterlin

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Seemingly all at once, the bombing stopped. Lila had been half dozing, in a twilight state where Luyten and defenders lurked in the corners of her vision, constantly jolting her from any chance of real sleep. Now she woke fully, listened for the muffled thump of bombs exploding overhead. All was silent.

Lila jumped as something dropped into her lap. It was a defender-sized package of cereal. Weetabix. She turned to see a Luyten returning to its place beside the food stores.

“No milk?” Lila called. The package hissed as she ran her finger along the airtight seal.

49 Oliver Bowen

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

The bridge across Sydney Harbor was gone. From behind an overturned piece of a bombed fountain in Dawes Point Park, they watched a flotilla of defender submarines head out toward the sea, silent, dipping under the water then resurfacing like porpoises crossed with tanks.

“It’s going to take us forever to get to the beach with the bridge gone,” Sook said.

“Hopefully we’ll encounter some Alliance troops before then. We just have to keep moving toward them,” Alan said, pointing in the direction he thought they should go.

“Down,” Galatea hissed. Everyone ducked. Oliver had a tight view of the street running along the river through a cracked place in the fountain. He counted four defenders as they passed, walking single file, the first three carrying assault rifles, the fourth something larger and heavier, with two enormous barrels and a shoulder brace.

When the defenders were out of sight, the emissaries waited five minutes, then headed toward the beach. They stuck to the backstreets, which were tight alleys to the defenders but felt wide and exposed to Oliver. They had to backtrack often to navigate around fallen buildings, and did their best to stifle coughs that might give them away as the smoke-filled air tortured their lungs.

Oliver was sick about being separated from Lila. It had been a tremendous relief when it turned out she wasn’t among the bodies in the pipe, but if she hadn’t made it to the rendezvous point, where was she? He didn’t want to believe she was dead in this rubble. Surely she’d sought shelter, was holed up somewhere.

They’d wound a third of a mile from the downed Sydney Bay Bridge when they hit a wall of rubble a hundred feet high, stretching out of sight in both directions.

“Which way?” Sook asked.

A small jet appeared over the rooftops and paused directly overhead. They pressed into the doorway of a department store, but the jet darted down, hovered thirty feet above the street, facing them. It was like a toy, no bigger than a bicycle. From its muscular appearance—like a jagged bullet with wings—it was clearly defender made.

It whisked off.

“A spy drone. They know where we are,” Oliver said. “They’ll be coming. Run.”

They ran north along the edge of the mound, looking for a breach they could squeeze through.

“Can we climb over it?” Galatea asked.

The soft hiss of aircraft engines broke through the din. Three defender Harriers swooped into view, hovered, then landed in a semicircle, pinning them against the mound of debris.

Doors whisked open and defenders jumped out of the craft, charging at them, snorting, their eyes glowing with rage.

“Hold fire!” a defender in officer’s gold and black fatigues shouted. “Hold. I think those are the ones.”

The officer stepped between two defenders and peered at the emissaries. “You.” He pointed at Oliver. “You’re Lila’s father.”

“Yes,” Oliver said.

“Erik? It’s Galatea.” She took a step forward. “It’s good to see you.”

“We’re not combatants,” Alan chimed in. “We had no idea this would happen.”

“Do you know where Lila is?” Erik asked, ignoring them. He sounded ready to tear Oliver’s head off and crush it in his fist.

“We haven’t seen her since before—” Oliver stammered, not wanting to use the word invasion, or attack. “Since things went bad.”

Erik motioned to his troops. His meaning was evident: Kill them.

Oliver held up his hands. “I can help you find her. I know places she might be. Don’t hurt Galatea, Alan, and Sook. Take them into custody, and I’ll help you.” He named each of his companions intentionally. It was harder to kill people if you knew their names. He didn’t know if that applied to defenders.

“Lila is strategically valuable. We need her,” Erik said, as if someone had questioned his motives.

“Yes, I understand that,” Oliver said. “Let me help you find her.”

Erik eyed them from under his heavy brow. “Why?” Erik asked. “Why did you do this?”

How could Oliver answer a question like that? A truthful answer could get them all killed. Silence wouldn’t improve their odds, either.

Alan started to answer, but Oliver spoke over him. “You asked for too much.”

Erik glared at him. “We asked to be treated as equals. We asked for respect. You gave us parades, but you don’t want to live with us as equals. You think we’re a joke.”

Behind Erik, a series of huge aircraft roared by. Erik turned and watched them for a moment. They were heading north, away from the Alliance forces.

“We don’t think you’re a joke,” Oliver said. “We take you very seriously.”

“You will.” Erik studied the emissaries a moment longer, then turned toward one of his men. “Take them into custody.” He pointed at Oliver. “You, come with me.”

50 Dominique Wiewall

June 9, 2045. US Pacific Command Station, Guam.

General Willis rose from his seat. Dominique guessed that, in the general’s mind, he was springing from his seat, but the truth was that his aging legs didn’t have much spring left in them.

Squinting, Willis approached the satellite feed, where a number of enemy aircraft were traveling north. Dominique guessed they were planning to attack the enormous Alliance fleet from the rear.

Dominique sat ramrod straight, watching the feed, still unable to accept that this was really happening. They’d attacked the defenders. The defenders.

The aircraft just kept going. Up the coast, out over the Coral Sea.

“They’re running,” Willis said, sounding almost jubilant. He’d been slumped in his chair since the defenders’ coastline antiaircraft system had picked off all fifty-six of the bombers carrying nuclear warheads. He shouldn’t have been surprised—the US had almost perfected a spectroscopic technique for remote detection of nuclear weapons before the Luyten invasion had derailed the program. The defenders had been granted full access to US military databases during the desperate days of the war.

Dominique watched the feed. “Where are they running to?”

No one answered. The defenders had no safe harbor outside Australia.

More aircraft appeared, following the same route.

In Melbourne to the south, a fleet of defender warships hugged the coast, avoiding Alliance forces. Pacific Command hadn’t known about those warships. Thanks to the cloak, all they had was what the emissaries on the ground had told them. They had no idea how large the defender army actually was.

Dominique watched the aircraft. What were they up to? If they pulled a substantial part of their forces out of Australia, the Alliance would take it in a matter of days. Dominique pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think like a defender. They were fighters. They were ruthlessly aggressive. They—

“They’re going on the offensive,” Dominique said aloud.

Everyone in the war room looked at her. Mouths fell open. Admiral Adler cursed under her breath.

“They’re just going to cede Australia to us?” Willis asked, pointing at the blips that represented the Alliance ships and aircraft, a force ten times larger than any ever before assembled in one place.

“Humans always protect their homeland, because they have no choice,” Dominique said. “They can’t leave their children behind, their parents. Defenders have no children to protect, no old people.”

On the virtual map, some of the defender aircraft headed west, between Australia and Papua New Guinea. Others split off and headed east, toward the Pacific. Closer to Sydney, several Alliance aircraft carriers were flashing red on the map.

“What’s going on there?” Willis asked, pointing at the carriers.

Laura Dramis, their tech, zoomed in, giving them a tight aerial view of one of the aircraft carriers. It was canted at a thirty-degree angle, sinking.

“Holy shit. Did they get hit by aircraft, or rockets? Why didn’t our perimeter defenses take them out?” Willis asked.

Peter Hernandez spoke directly to someone in the fleet in a quick, clipped exchange. He spun in his chair. “The attack came from underwater, but sonar did not detect any foreign bodies below. There are reports of defenders surfacing in big sacks, like the ones the Luyten used.”

That they had weapons based on Luyten technology shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The report from their weapons expert on the ground had said as much. But that wasn’t the problem right now; the problem was the conventional defender aircraft and warships leaving Australia. Yet more were taking flight out of New South Wales, heading due north.

“Get every ship to send some butterfly cameras under that water, see if they can locate the enemy visually.” Willis reached out, squeezing the air like he was clutching a shoulder. “No. First, tell them to detonate depth charges, tight in, close to their ships. Detonate them as shallowly as possible.”

“General, you need to redeploy your forces,” Dominique said, interrupting. “Most of the world’s major population centers are defenseless right now.” She couldn’t believe the Alliance had put him in charge of the invasion. How did these old, incompetent relics always manage to retain power?

General Willis glared at her, then swept a backhand at the map. “I can see it as well as you can, Miss Wiewall. I’m not blind.”

No, he was just an idiot.

“You’re here to provide insight into the defenders, not advise on military strategy. Now let me do my job.”

He went on arranging for the defense of their naval forces as precious minutes ticked by. He went about it methodically, deliberately, as if to show Dominique who was in charge.

“Now,” he said, finally, dipping his head toward Dominique in mock deference, “divert forces to pursue the unfriendlies leaving the vicinity. Send warnings to strategically significant targets and major population centers to be on full alert.”

Dominique realized that by threatening the general’s ego, she’d delayed the deployment by ten or twelve minutes. They were on their way now, though. She relaxed, but not much. She’d pictured this war taking place in Australia. How foolish of her. She of all people should have known better.

She of all people. When the president refused to let her be part of the diplomatic mission to Australia, she should have tried harder to change his mind. Maybe she could have defused the situation before it even started.

51 Oliver Bowen

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

There were no human-sized seats in the aircraft, so Oliver stood clutching the pant leg of a fire suit hanging from a hook above him, trying to stay on his feet as the Harrier weaved and dove and banked. He watched what was left of Sydney through the bottom of a window. Human soldiers ran from the cover of one bombed-out building to another. A platoon of defenders vaulted over rubble, looking eager to kill.

“Where are our heavy weapons?” Oliver heard Erik shout into his comm.

“Most have been redeployed,” a gravelly-voiced defender replied.

“Redeployed to where?”

“Moscow, Mumbai, Washington, Shanghai…”

Oliver had a moment of thinking he must be dreaming this. Surely this wasn’t happening. Kai was in Washington.

“What about Sydney?” Erik asked. “What about me?”

“If the Alliance doesn’t turn its force to engage us in their cities, you’re going to die.”

Erik turned toward Oliver, shock and fear evident on his face. It was reassuring to see Erik was afraid to die. “I need Lila. We have to find her.”

“I agree.” His mind was racing. Besides being major population centers, there was something about the cities the defender on the comm had mentioned that struck a chord.

Then it came to him: They were all cities that held mothballed defender production facilities. They were going right after those facilities. Surely the Alliance had thought to destroy those facilities before they launched the invasion. Surely.

Below, blackened rubble and fires were replaced by the green calm of grass and trees. Belmore Park. Since Lila hadn’t returned to the hotel after the funeral, and she clearly hadn’t gone somewhere with Erik, Oliver’s best guess was the park. She spent a lot of her free time there; the normal-sized trees and plants made her feel less like a child, she’d said.

The Harrier dropped close to the ground, its enormous rotors causing the trees to bend and sway like reeds as leaves were torn from branches and blew in all directions.

They cruised along the main walkway, everyone aboard seeking some sign of Lila. Now that they were here, Oliver realized how futile this was. If she’d been here when the bombs began to fall, she would have sought shelter. Not in buildings adjacent to the park, though; she was too smart for that. She would have sought low, protected ground, or better yet, climbed down into a sewer.

“Watch for open sewer holes, or other places she might have taken cover.” Of course, all of this assumed Lila had been in the park when the invasion hit.

52 Kai Zhou

June 9, 2045. Washington, D.C.

Kai was fairly certain Tony Vellikovsky had a third seven in the hole. He so hoped he was right, because if he was, there was no way Vellikovsky could cut loose, and Kai had just drawn the ten he needed for a straight.

Kai saw Vellikovsky’s bet. “Raise.” He pushed another eighty thousand into the pot.

Vellikovsky looked pained, yet pleased. He saw the bet, raised another eighty.

Just in case he’d read it wrong and Vellikovsky had a full house instead of a set of sevens, Kai saw the raise, flipped his hole cards. “Straight.”

Vellikovsky leaned toward the cards, as if he doubted Kai’s assessment, then he looked up at Kai. “You called my raise with a jack-nine?” He pushed away from the table and stormed over to the gallery. “Honey, did you see this?” He gestured toward Kai. “He called my raise with a jack-nine.” He turned back toward the table. “Can you even spell ‘poker’?”

Kai smiled. “Sorry, Tony. Insults don’t sting much when you’re raking the insulting party’s money toward you.”

“You play like a twelve-year-old.” Evidently, Vellikovsky wasn’t finished. “Seeing my raise when you know the odds are against you, just in case you get lucky?” He pointed at Kai. “You won the hand, but you’re an idiot. I don’t know how you’ve lasted this long. Ben.” Finally, he sat down.

With great effort, Kai kept the smile on his face, but he could feel himself flushing, with embarrassment and anger. No one called him that. No one called him Benedict Arnold.

The next hands were dealt; he tried to concentrate.

He’d never even met Mandy Caron, the author of the book that insisted on defining his life, yet he hated her more than everyone else he hated on Earth combined. The book itself painted Kai as being far more instrumental in winning the Luyten War than he’d actually been, but it was the title that people remembered, even though it was meant to be ironic.

The Boy Who Betrayed the World.

“Ante is thirty thousand,” the dealer announced.

“And thanks for the rotten cards,” Vellikovsky said to the dealer. “All night, you’ve been handing me shit. You deal me a set, then finish off his straight.”

“Come on, this is getting embarrassing,” Kai said, his patience gone. “Stop with the tantrum and play your goddamned cards.”

Someone in the gallery spoke over him, shouting, “Jesus, they’re invading Australia!”

Kai jumped from his chair. “What? Who?” The last time he’d spoken to Lila, everything had been okay.

“The Alliance.”

“What Alliance?” Vellikovsky said. “There is no Alliance.”

The guy projected the feed onto the wall so everyone could see. There were four POV screens, most of them aerial shots above a city in smoking ruins. Planes filled the sky, some of them enormous, like nothing Kai had ever seen. They were like flying aircraft carriers.

“We’re invading the defenders?” Kai asked. Lila had hinted at problems, but war? He pulled out his comm and tried to reach Lila at the number she’d given him, although he knew it would be blocked. It was.

There was an emergency exit to the left of the gallery. Kai headed for it, ignoring the alarm that sounded when he shoved the door open. Unless they’d airlifted the emissaries out before the assault, Lila was in that ruined city. So was Oliver.

First, he had to get Errol. It would change nothing about what was happening in Australia, but suddenly Kai had an overwhelming need to have Errol with him. It was ironic—most mornings he was relieved when the nanny showed up to care for the boundless, chaotic force that was Errol. Now all he wanted was to be with him.

He’d clambered down two flights, taking the steps three at a time, when he finally stopped to catch his breath and think about what to do. He needed to understand exactly what was happening. Breathing hard, his fingers shaking, he activated the news on his phone.

The newscaster said the defenders had delivered an ultimatum, demanding huge territorial concessions, and threatened military action if their demands weren’t met. That must have been the problem Lila had alluded to but couldn’t talk about. In response, the World Alliance had re-formed, and attacked Australia.

The newscaster, who had been rattling off details in a breathless voice, suddenly went silent.

“We’ve just received new information. The conflict may be expanding beyond Australia. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is directing civilians to evacuate the following cities.”

The names of the cities appeared below the feed. Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco. Last on the list was Washington, D.C. The list was alphabetical. It was most definitely not in the order of cities most likely to be hit by a counterstrike.

Kai sprinted down the stairs, heading for the garage under the hotel.

53 Oliver Bowen

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Something small and black was skipping across the grass, blown by the Harrier’s rotors. Oliver squinted. It was probably a piece of trash, but it looked heavier, almost like a shoe. He watched it roll and bounce along.

“Hang on. What is that.” He pointed at it. Erik switched to Oliver’s side and peered out the window.

“What is what?”

“There.” Oliver pointed. “Is that a shoe?”

Erik lifted a pair of binoculars, trained them on the object as it skipped across a walkway and came to rest, pressed against a curb.

“It is a shoe.” He dropped the binoculars and turned to the pilot. “Set it down.”

Before they’d even touched ground, Erik was out of the Harrier, running toward the shoe. He was as desperate to find Lila alive as Oliver was. They could have won the defenders over, in time, if they’d been more patient, but the Luyten War had left humanity too skittish, too scarred. So instead the defenders were heading for Moscow, Mumbai, Washington. Oliver had no illusions about what they would do when they arrived. They were angry.

Erik was halfway back when Oliver caught up to him. Oliver took the shoe Erik handed him, barely had to glance at it. “It’s Lila’s.” She’d brought only two pairs of shoes, and bemoaned the limitations of her footwear almost daily.

Erik cupped his hands around his mouth. “Lila? Lila.”

Oliver scanned the horizons. The sewer grates were huge iron things, too heavy for a human to lift.

Cold.

That voice in his head, so familiar even after fifteen years.

“Five,” he said under his breath. Cold? It wasn’t cold. It was hot, even hotter than usual with so many buildings on fire.

Oliver turned, looking for some sign of Five. Was he nearby?

Warmer.

“What?” Oliver said aloud.

Erik frowned. “What?”

“Nothing.” Warmer. Like the children’s game? Oliver took a step in the direction he was facing.

Warmer.

“This way,” Oliver said, with no idea where he was going.

A half dozen defenders padded behind and beside him as he trotted down the street. He was hot. Not red hot yet, not burning, but hot.

“Lila?” he called.

The pop of gunfire erupted to their left and behind them. Oliver dropped to the ground. He heard a shout—a human shout—then more gunfire as one of the defenders went down and the others ran for cover.

Oliver lifted his head enough to see human soldiers racing from the corners of buildings, peeking from behind buses, more of them pouring in from around an enormous block of concrete that had once been part of a building. He crawled on his belly, away from the soldiers, in the direction that was “hot.”

Hot.

Behind him, he could hear defenders returning fire, someone on a comm, maybe Erik, calling for air support, or a tank, anything big.

Hot.

It was all Five would say to him. For all Oliver knew, Five had been hot-and-colding him not toward Lila, but toward this ambush.

Very hot. Red hot.

Oliver glanced around. He almost laughed out loud when he saw the rectangular gap in the sidewalk to his left, the thick steel grate leaning up against the side of the building.

Boiling.

He clawed his way to the opening, swung his legs around, and grasped a steel pipe that was one side of an oversized ladder.

He slid twenty feet to the floor of a sewer pipe, looked left, then right…

Scalding.

He went right, wary that Five might be leading him toward a divorce-sized pit. He didn’t understand why Five was helping him.

There was a breach in the pipe. “Lila?” he called.

“Oliver?”

Oliver ducked through the breach, then took a few anxious breaths before plunging ahead, down a freshly dug tunnel.

Toward the bottom he saw a blue glow. He called again, “Lila?” Rushing around a bend in the tunnel, he saw Lila, the side of her head a bloody mess. She was in a room packed with Luyten, who were doing exactly what Five had said they would do if humans launched an invasion.

Lila launched herself at Oliver and hugged him fiercely. “You’re alive. I can’t believe it,” she said.

Above them there was a mechanical shriek, like metal being twisted. One of the defenders’ big weapons had arrived. He’d sorely hoped they would surface to find live human soldiers and dead defenders.

Lila let go, and Oliver examined the wound on her head. It was difficult to see much in the dim light, but from what he could see, it was bad, even if not life-threatening. It looked like she’d been partially scalped.

“How the hell did you find me?” Lila asked.

“Five.”

Lila looked surprised. “Why would he help me?”

Oliver shrugged. “Maybe he’s trying to make amends for breaking up my marriage. Maybe they want to deliver you into the hands of the defenders. I have no idea.” He motioned for her to go first.

She took a few steps, then paused. “I think he did it for Kai.”

“For Kai?”

“That’s right. I have no idea why I think that. I just do.”

“Lila?” He could just barely hear the voice. Erik, shouting from street level.

“That’s your special friend,” Oliver said, gesturing toward the surface.

“Oh, no,” Lila said, her voice low, and soaked in dread.

54 Kai Zhou

June 9, 2045. Washington, D.C.

His car inched along. Kai was sure he could walk faster than they were moving, especially with the amount of adrenaline rushing through him, but not for twenty miles, carrying Errol and a trunk full of food and water. FEMA’s emergency navigation system had been activated, so Kai’s vehicle was under auto-control meant to maximize traffic flow out of the city.

He watched the news, keeping the feed small so Errol wouldn’t see it. Kai glanced at Errol, strapped in the back. He was sleeping, his cheek pressed against the side of the child seat. Errol’s peaceful face was a stark contrast from the images on the feed. When the defender force reached Mumbai, a piece of it had peeled off and attacked. They went right for the most densely populated spots, killing as many people as possible. Along with conventional weapons, their forces were equipped with chemical weapons. Huge fish-shaped fliers swooped low over neighborhoods, releasing gas. It was killing everyone, inside buildings and out, burning lips, eyes, lungs. Forty minutes after the assault began, everyone, everywhere in the city, seemed to be dead.

The retired general commenting on the feed said that was why the defenders had ceded Australia so quickly: In Australia their soldiers would be mixed with Alliance soldiers throughout the city; the battle would have to be fought street by street. The defenders had far fewer soldiers, so they were at a strategic disadvantage. By going on the offensive, they could capitalize on their strength: huge weapons of mass destruction; chemical weapons humans shrank from using against one another and had consequently ceased manufacturing decades earlier.

They were on their way to D.C., and they were targeting civilians. Kai dug deeper into the news feeds, seeking information about the fate of people trying to evacuate. Would the defenders target people obviously leaving the city, or just let them leave?

He found a panicked personal text feed from a woman named Sangita who was trapped in Mumbai. The people in Mumbai hadn’t had enough warning for any organized evacuation to begin, so the arteries out of the city hadn’t been clogged with evacuees. So Kai had no idea if the defenders would attack fleeing refugees.

He took a deep breath and dragged his hair out of his eyes. After the conversation he’d had with Lila, he probably knew more about the defenders than any other person on this highway. The defenders were killing as many people as possible, not just seizing strategic territory, and they wouldn’t hesitate to target evacuees.

The feed went dead. Kai didn’t bother checking his phone—he knew what had happened. The defenders were taking out the satellites, just like the Luyten had knocked out the satellites.

Kai glanced at Errol again, then ahead at the sea of taillights inching steadily along. They weren’t going to make it out in time. Kai suddenly knew this with such certainty that it felt as if he were remembering, not anticipating.

He looked out the side window. They were on a long overpass; beneath them was block after block of industrial sprawl, blanketed in darkness save for the occasional glow of yellow streetlights. It was all but deserted, not the sort of place the defenders would target.

Kai climbed into the backseat and unstrapped Errol. Errol’s eyes fluttered open, then closed again as Kai drew him out of the seat and held him. Kai had to override the safety lock to open the door in a moving vehicle. Clutching Errol to his chest, he looked down at the pavement rolling by. It wasn’t an illusion: They were moving at the pace of a swift walk.

Switching Errol to his left hand, Kai moved to the edge of the car, grasped the hood with his right hand, and stepped out, immediately breaking into a trot. He stumbled, then regained his footing. Slowing his pace, he let the car pass him, then fell into step behind it. He popped open the trunk, grabbed the backpack he’d filled with the things they would need as soon as they arrived at the refugee center, and headed off to look for a way down.

He found a stairwell a quarter of a mile on. Errol was crying in his ear, disturbed by the jostling. Kai’s thighs burned as he descended to street level. Errol was heavy.

When they reached the bottom, Kai jogged with Errol’s head pressed to his chest until he was too tired to go on.

He was gasping for breath. Too much poker, not enough exercise. He looked around. Across the street was a yard filled with construction vehicles, enclosed by a cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. To his left was an electrical power station, nothing but wires and big generators. To the right, a big old warehouse. Kai headed for that.

“I want to go to my bed,” Errol said. It was after ten; the poor guy was exhausted.

“Try to sleep on my shoulder,” Kai said, knowing that was nearly impossible.

The warehouse was locked, its big bay doors chained and padlocked. Kai didn’t think he could carry Errol and the pack much farther without rest. He circled the building and found fire escape stairs in the back. The only thing he could think to do was climb to the roof and wait up there.

Errol protested when Kai set him down on the gravel that covered the roof. Kai shushed him, ran a hand over his hair, coaxing his head into Kai’s lap.

From the roof Kai could see the line of vehicles fleeing the city, a million lights that turned to pinpoints in the distance. The tall buildings rising from the downtown area were mostly dark.

The last thing, the very last thing in the world Kai wanted his son to go through was a war. He hated the Alliance for starting this. Surely they could have found some way to resolve the dispute. Anything would have been better than this.

It looked as if a storm was coming. On the horizon the stars winked out and the sky grew darker. Kai saw something moving inside the darkness, and that was when he heard the engines. On the causeway, people were fleeing their vehicles, running toward the exit ramps.

The aircraft were deceptively fast. In what seemed no more than a minute, they reached the city. Antiaircraft fire erupted from a dozen locations; tracer rounds rose, along with surface-to-air missiles. Aircraft were hit, but not enough of them. Bombs began to fall. Kai pressed his hands over Errol’s ears, knowing it would not be enough to block the sound.

When the first ones hit their targets, it was like thunderclaps. Errol jolted fully awake, squealing in surprise and fear. Kai hugged him, still covering his little ears.

“It’s okay. We’re okay,” Kai said, but Errol wouldn’t be able to hear him over the bombs, so he was only consoling himself.

There were a few American fighter jets in the sky, but not many. Most were in Australia. By now some must be on their way back.

Kai watched the Washington Monument fall, disappearing into billowing smoke. The rest of the important buildings were too low for him to see from his vantage point, but he had no doubt they were gone, too. There was only one area that was being spared, just north of downtown. Maybe Logan Circle. The old defender production facility was under Logan Circle.

Kai ducked, held his breath as the planes passed overhead. As he’d hoped, they saved their bombs for riper targets.

What he hadn’t anticipated were the parachutes. Defenders hung below black nighttime chutes, dropping in the outskirts of the city. One came down only a few blocks away. He heard shrieking as the defender’s automatic rifle roared to life before it even landed among the people fleeing on I-395.

Hardly able to grasp what he was seeing, Kai watched the defender deliver sharp bursts into the backs of fleeing figures, tearing holes in them.

The defender’s crazed shout, its maniacal, wide-eyed expression reminded Kai of a thousand clips he’d watched of the Luyten War. If anything, this defender seemed more battle-crazed than those in the clips.

When everyone in range was dead or dying, the defender jogged up the street, toward the city center. He was going to pass right by the building where Kai was hiding.

Errol was screaming. His nose was running, his eyes wide and terrified. Kai tried to shush him, but that only made it worse, so Kai swept Errol up and, keeping as low as possible, carried him to the far end of the roof, praying that the added distance, combined with the explosions in the city center, would prevent the defender from hearing Errol.

After a few moments Kai lifted his head; he could see the defender two blocks away. They were safe, for now.

The downtown area was in flames. Defender bombers continued to pound it. They were doing the exact opposite of what the Luyten did, Kai realized. Where the Luyten took the wilderness, driving people into the cities, the defenders were attacking the cities, driving everyone into the wilderness.

Kai had to get out of the city.

55 Oliver Bowen

June 9, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

The Harrier set down on the roof of a building that looked mean and unforgiving. Oliver guessed it was the defender equivalent of the Pentagon. The door swung open. Wordlessly, Erik gestured for them to step out, where two armed defenders were waiting.

“She needs immediate medical attention,” Oliver said.

Erik grunted, gestured more emphatically for Oliver to step out. He did as he was told, then reached up to help Lila down. She looked hideous, the hair on one side of her head caked with dried blood, her scalp red meat. Her knees nearly buckled as she stepped off the Harrier.

One of the defenders waiting for them took Oliver by the shoulder; the other took Lila by the arm.

“No, we stay together,” Oliver said, dragging his feet as the defender pulled him toward a doorway.

Lila’s eyes were wide, suddenly alert. She turned toward Erik as the defender pulled her toward an open elevator. “Don’t you do it. If you kill him, you might as well kill me, because I won’t help you. You know I won’t.”

Oliver stiffened, and redoubled his effort to get away from the defender holding him.

“Wait,” Erik called to the defender holding Oliver. “I’ll take him.”

The defender released Oliver’s shoulder.

“Come on,” Erik said.

Oliver hurried to catch up with him. “I want to see my companions. Galatea, Sook, Alan. You gave me your word they wouldn’t be hurt.”

Erik stopped walking. “You want to see your companions? I’ll take you to them.” He turned, then stormed through the doorway, which led to an immense escalator. Oliver climbed onto it, then had to jump from step to step as Erik, not satisfied to let the escalator carry them along, strode down the stairs.

When they reached the lobby, Erik curled around beneath the steps, crashed through a door, and breezed past a security checkpoint with Oliver running to keep up. They headed to the end of a long hall. Erik pushed open another door that led into a walled courtyard. He held it open for Oliver.

“There you go.”

Oliver stepped through the door. Erik slammed it shut behind him. His friends were piled beside a fence, their bodies riddled with bullets.

56 Dominique Wiewall

July 10, 2045. Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Everyone stood as President Carmine Wood breezed into the war room, flanked by his brother, the former president Wood, and his wife and chief advisor, the former actress Nora Messina.

Dominique still couldn’t believe she’d been flown to Colorado Springs to join strategic command. As far as she knew, no one else on General Willis’s invasion team even held federal positions any longer. Maybe as the chief engineer of the defenders she was considered irreplaceable.

She felt a certain sick satisfaction that Willis would end his days as the modern face of incompetence and failure, but she wasn’t proud for feeling it. There was nothing good about any of this.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen, ladies,” the president said in his nasally voice. He was getting old; there was a noticeable bend at the top of his spine. He’d seemed so much younger seven years ago, when he’d been elected not through his own accomplishments but because of his wildly popular brother, who was credited with helping to turn the Luyten War around when all seemed lost.

“We’re losing,” the president said with no preamble. He allowed a moment of silence to stretch, to emphasize his words. “But you already knew that.”

Yes, Dominique knew that. The defenders held most of the world’s major port cities. They held the Panama and Suez Canals. They held Gibraltar and Morocco, so they controlled the Mediterranean Sea. They had superior weapons, maintained air and sea superiority, and held all of the defender production facilities. They didn’t sleep; they just kept coming, day and night, wearing down humanity’s superior numbers.

Something else had become clear, at least to Dominique: They carried boundless rage toward their creators for designing them so carelessly. Deep down they knew they were fucked-up, that there was something missing at their core. In a very real sense, Dominique was responsible for that rage.

When she’d been charged with creating them, her focus had been 100 percent results oriented. It had never occurred to her to give any thought to the quality of the defenders’ lives. She’d designed their hands to shoot and climb, not paint; she’d designed them to be tough and angry, not content.

She’d designed killers.

“During the Luyten War, when things looked their worst, we took decisive action,” the president was saying. “I believe it’s time for decisive action again.” Dominique had missed some of what he’d said. She needed to stay on task.

An aide activated a map of the world. There were yellow circles set over about a dozen major world cities, all of them currently under defender occupation.

“Based on our current intelligence, it will be a matter of months, if not weeks, before the defenders are able to erect cloaks over the territory they hold and install their spectroscopic nuclear detection technology. Once that happens, our military options become extremely limited.”

Dominique leaned forward in her chair, examining the cities with the yellow circles over them. New York, Los Angeles, London, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Moscow, Mumbai, São Paulo, Mexico City. The Alliance couldn’t possibly be planning what she thought they were planning.

“All told, the Alliance has seventeen cruise missile submarines on the open waters, doing their best to evade defender naval patrols.” President Wood II rested his hand on a table and took a deep, sighing breath, as if he didn’t want to say what he needed to say. Surely everyone in the room knew what he was going to say. “We’re going to target the defenders’ centers of gravity with nuclear strikes while we still can.”

No one stated the obvious. There were still millions of people living in those cities under defender occupation. Bombing them meant bombing human civilians.

“The defenders will not be expecting this,” the president said.

No, they wouldn’t. Neither would the people living there. Dominique listened carefully as Peter Smythe, Wood’s secretary of defense, filled in the details. The strikes would kill an estimated 20 percent of the defenders’ forces and a quarter of their weapons capability. It would cripple their communications for a short time, during which Alliance ground forces would launch an all-or-nothing assault on their remaining assets.

A woman Dominique didn’t know raised her hand. “I’m assuming Premier Santos made this call?”

“The premier is against this action,” Wood said. “We’re acting in concert with China, Russia, India, and half a dozen other countries.”

There was stunned silence. The Alliance had split? This was worse than Dominique thought.

“Ms. Wiewall,” the president said. Dominique raised her head. “How will the surviving defenders react to this action?” he asked.

“I can’t answer that question,” Dominique said.

“I’m sorry?”

Dominique shrugged. “I’m not a military strategist. Their reaction will be whatever gives them the best chance of defeating us. Your military people will have to advise you on what that would be.”

57 Kai Zhou

July 11, 2045. Mapleton, Utah.

“There they are.” Luis pointed at the horizon, where tufts of white smoke rose toward the sky. Kai had been expecting mushroom clouds, like the ones he’d seen in pictures of Hiroshima, but these were thinner, maybe because they were tactical nukes rather than big bombs.

No one said anything as they cruised along Route 89, elbow to elbow in the back of the open troop transport. Even if Kai felt like cheering the deaths of tens of thousands of defenders despite all the human lives that were being snuffed out at the same time, someone within earshot might have loved ones living in Los Angeles.

Kai wondered what he would have done if, when they were informed yesterday about the nuclear strikes, Atlanta had been one of the targets. Would he still be here, willing to fight? No. Not a chance. There would have been nothing he could do to save Errol, but he wouldn’t be carrying a rifle now.

He understood that it was necessary. It was still a terrible thing to do.

Kai fingered the plastic sack holding the radiation shield he’d been issued. They’ll help, Sergeant Schiller had said as they lined up to get one, but there’s no guarantee you won’t get sick. I’m not going to lie to you: You probably will get sick. But with the shields, you’ll live. How comforting. In an ideal situation, they would have twenty thousand big, expensive radiation hazmat suits to hand out, but this was not an ideal situation.

The convoy pulled off the highway at the next exit. They passed a shopping center with a Target, an Applebee’s, CVS, Golden Dragon Chinese. A little farther along they passed a strip mall. Just beyond it, they turned into a neighborhood, past a big sign that read WINDMILL PLANTATION.

It was one of those endless suburban neighborhoods. The expansive lawns, now nothing but neck-high weeds, must have needed constant watering during the hot summers. Most of the residents had probably worked in Salt Lake City, commuting an hour to work every day. It was long deserted. Everyone had fled during the Luyten War (either that, or the Luyten had killed them), and afterward none of the survivors of the war had reason to return and claim a free house in neighborhoods like this one. There was nothing here, no point in living here. There were plenty of free, fully furnished houses closer to the cities.

“Four to a house,” Sergeant Schiller called as the transport ground to a stop.

Kai followed Luis, Shoelace, and Tina toward a big beige house sitting on what must have been two acres. Tina reached the door first, pushed it open, and jumped back with a shriek.

“It’s a nest.”

Kai joined Luis and Shoelace at the door to take a look. Sure enough, some Luyten had made itself at home. Fabric stretched all over, cutting the room into weird semi-enclosed chambers. He’d seen videos of Luyten nests, but he’d never seen one for real. He stepped past the others and went inside.

“You’re sick,” Shoelace said. “Seriously ill.”

“What?” Kai glanced back at Shoelace. “You afraid a few starfish stayed behind? Maybe one’s still hiding out in here?” He ran his fingers over the fabric. It was tight as a drum, and softer than it looked.

“Let’s just find a place to sleep,” Shoelace said.

Sleep. That was the magic word. Kai followed Shoelace and the others down the driveway, toward the next house. He was so tired. When was the last time he’d gotten even five hours’ sleep at once? During basic training? Had they gotten five hours a night during basic? He couldn’t remember. And in the morning they were going into a city that had just been nuked. Yes, he needed some sleep.

The next house was fine. Without a word they split up, located bedrooms, and dragged mattresses—still in dusty sixteen-year-old bedding—into the living room.

As Kai lay down, his thoughts immediately turned to Errol and Lila, as they always did, and he felt the now-familiar stab of pain and panic. Were they all right? Kai knew Lila’s aunt Ina would protect Errol with her life, but the defenders had overrun Atlanta. Bombs and bullets had flown. Kai had no way to know if they’d survived, and what was happening to them if they had. He was tortured over his decision to report for military service.

Lots of his comrades had young kids, though; that’s why they were here, to fight for those kids, for their future.

“Do you ever wonder what would happen if the defenders won?” Tina asked from the mattress to Kai’s left.

“Come on, shut up. That’s the last thing we need to think about,” Luis said. He was sitting on the couch, thumbing through a tattered book of comic strips he’d found in one of the rooms.

“I’m just asking. I’m not saying they’re gonna. But if they did, what would they do? Would they just be in charge? Like, they get to be the presidents of all the countries, and we don’t get to vote?” Tina sounded almost relaxed. All of these people, his friends, seemed to be taking it in stride. Kai could barely stand it; each moment of being here, in this strange house in a strange town, missing his family, filthy, tired beyond anything he’d ever imagined, was torture. The defenders didn’t sleep, but people needed sleep or they’d just break down.

Kai was breaking down. He wiped a tear as it rolled to the bridge of his nose. He’d always thought of himself as tough, like steel, forged in the streets of D.C. during the Luyten War. He didn’t feel tough now. He felt like that twelve-year-old kid hiding in a bathroom, lost, cold, scared, ready to accept help from anyone, even a starfish.

“I just want to understand what we’re fighting for,” Tina went on. “They can’t put us all in prison camps like we did with the Luyten. There are too many of us. How would they feed us if we were all in prison camps?”

“Would you shut up?” Luis said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Yeah, they’re going to build a prison camp the size of Texas and put us all in it.”

“Then what are they gonna do? That’s what I’m asking?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows.” Luis spit on the carpet, studied the glob of spit for a moment before rubbing his boot over it. He stabbed at his temple with one finger. “They’re crazy. They’re psycho. There’s no telling what they’d do.”

The front door swung open. Sergeant Noonan stuck his head inside. “Everybody outside. One minute. Let’s go.” Then he was gone.

“Oh shit.” Tina fumbled with the zipper on her pack, stuffing the things she’d just set out by the mattress back inside.

As Kai lifted his pack and slung it on his back, he wondered, what now? What fresh new hell was coming their way?

They joined their squad outside. Kai watched some of the latecomers, crashing out through front doors and sprinting down driveways so they wouldn’t be late.

When everyone was assembled in a loose line on the sidewalk, Sergeant Schiller raised his voice and said, “The stilts are coming. They’re making an all-out siege, from both coasts.”

Kai exchanged a Holy shit look with Shoelace.

“Their bombers are on the way, supported by a fighter squadron. After that, in all likelihood one airborne division, possibly two, will parachute into the area. They’re trying to take Salt Lake City and the surrounding area as a jumping-off point for an overland siege of our center of gravity in the Cheyenne Mountain bunker.”

“How many will be coming by land after the paratroopers?” someone down the line asked.

“All of them,” the sergeant answered.

That got the whole division buzzing. The sergeant waited, hands clasped behind his back, letting the chatter die down naturally.

“So this is it. We must stop them here. Two additional reinforced divisions will be setting up to the north and south of our position. The rest of our western forces are scrambling to intercept the ground forces before they get here. We have a lot to do before they get here, and not much time.”

Kai looked out over the neighborhood. It was teeming with activity. Bulldozers were pushing vehicles into piles to form barriers; the few engineer soldiers they had were setting land mines in the road. Tanks and artillery were spreading out, finding protected spots. Soldiers were dispersing, seeking cover in houses, strip malls, wooded areas. Many wore tan camo, but most were dressed in jeans, stained sweatshirts, work boots, sneakers—whatever clothes they didn’t mind getting dirty, or bloody. Many had nothing but a pistol. They hadn’t been through even the cursory basic training Kai and his comrades had received. Shoot at their faces was probably the full extent of their training.

“We shouldn’t have dropped those nukes. It just pissed them off worse.” Tina was watching the horizon, where smoke rose from a copse of scrub pines that had been torched to improve sight distance, but her eyes were glassy, unfocused.

She had a star-shaped scar on her temple. Kai wondered how she’d gotten it; he was aware that the thought was bizarre, given the situation, and probably a sign that he was losing his grip.

“It just sped up their timetable,” Shoelace said. “They were coming one way or another.”

“At least we would have lived a few more weeks,” Tina replied. She sounded listless, more depressed than afraid.

Kai waited for someone to contradict her, but Shoelace went on cleaning his rifle, leaning up against the side of the house. Luis was listening to music with earbuds, his head bobbing, eyes closed.

A group of eight or nine terrified people was standing in the weeds nearby. They might have been an extended family—men and women, ranging in age from early teens to their sixties. More volunteers kept arriving all the time, answering a desperate last-minute call.

“When the sergeant said, ‘This is it,’ he didn’t mean the war’s over after this, did he?” Tina asked, stubbing out a cigarette on the house’s foundation.

“If the defenders overrun our center of gravity and kill the president, drive a wedge through the middle of the country, and meet in the middle…” Kai shrugged. “It’s over for the United States, that’s for sure.”

Tina considered this.

Kai had been watching the recently arrived group out of the corner of his eye. Now two of them broke off and approached: a stocky guy in his forties, and an Asian woman Kai guessed was his wife.

“Excuse me,” the stocky guy said. “We’re sorry to bother you, but we’re not clear about our role here. The officer who briefed us didn’t tell us what we’re supposed to do.”

“Shoot at their faces,” Tina said without looking at them, as smoke trailed out of her nostrils.

Kai rose. “Come on.” He put a hand on each of the newcomers’ shoulders and led them back in the direction of their group. “First, find an empty house, a drainage ditch, some cover to fight from. We’re facing a superior force, so we spread out, make them come to us one group at a time.” He let them absorb this for a moment before continuing. It was a lot to take in. “The first thing that’s going to happen is, you’re going to see our fighter planes overhead. That means their bombers are close.” The two newcomers nodded, looking grateful, and so utterly lost and out of their element. Kai knew the feeling; four months ago he hadn’t known a howitzer from a supply truck. “The defenders will have fighters to protect their bombers, and their fighters are more advanced than ours, so that might not go well, depending on how many planes they have and how many we have.” Kai pointed at each of the newcomers in turn. “Don’t shoot at the planes. You’re just wasting ammunition. Stay down.”

The woman looked up, blinking rapidly, trying not to cry. He knew that feeling, too. There was that moment when you realized this was real, that the defenders really were coming, and they were coming to kill you. Kai gave the woman a moment to get hold of herself, then he went on.

“Soon after that, more planes will come, and defenders will parachute out of them. When you see the defenders coming, that’s when you start shooting.”

“Go for their faces,” the stocky guy said.

“That’s right.” Defenders were hard to bring down with bullets designed to kill humans, especially given the extensive body armor they wore. Your best bet was a face shot; that way you knew they wouldn’t get back up. They were fast. So fucking fast. “Don’t move around; movement draws attention to you. Stay put.”

Kai raised his eyebrows, waiting for any questions.

“Thank you.” The guy held out his hand. “I’m Jaden, by the way.” Kai shook Jaden’s hand, then shook the woman’s hand. Her name was Julie. Jaden and Julie. He wished them luck.

As he walked back toward his friends, Kai heard the fighter jets’ engines coming from the east. A moment later they shot past overhead, going to intercept the defenders’ aircraft west of their position.

“I’m not as limber as I once was,” Shoelace said to Kai as he rejoined his friends. Kai raised an eyebrow, not sure what Shoelace was getting at.

“I’d like to kiss my ass goodbye, but I don’t think I can reach it anymore.”

Kai burst out laughing, and Shoelace joined in. Kai gave him a hug, and they clapped each other on the back.

They could hear the aerial battle, but couldn’t see it. Kai had seen enough of them to know what was happening. The defender fighters were big, almost twice the size of the human model. The defender model looked a lot like the Alliance’s YF-23, and what it lacked in maneuverability, it made up for in speed and firepower.

A half hour later, they heard the rumble of bombers. Kai and his friends headed inside the house they’d chosen, to ride out the initial bombing. It was a nondescript house near the center of the development; there was no reason it should be targeted over thousands of others spread over dozens of square miles, but some of them were going to get hit. It was all about odds, an oversized game of Russian roulette.

Slinking over, looking almost apologetic, Jaden and Julie’s clan came up behind them.

Tina waved them on. “Come on in, if you’re coming.”

Anyone who wasn’t terrified by the sight of defender bombers on the horizon was afraid of nothing. They were so big, and flew in such tight formation, that it was like a steel storm cloud blanketing the sky. As the air vibrated with the sound of their engines, Kai did what he’d always done in these situations: He closed his eyes and played poker in his mind. He found he could enter a trancelike state if he concentrated hard enough. It didn’t eliminate his terror, but it gave him distance from it.

The bombs began to fall. Mobile antiaircraft guns boomed. The newcomers huddled on the floor behind the couch. Lisa was thumbing through a coffee-table book of dog breeds. Luis listened to his music.

Somewhere down the street, a house took a direct hit. Kai heard pieces of wood and concrete thunking on their roof. He drew the five of clubs and the eight of hearts, and waited to see the bet. Maybe he would bluff. He did more bluffing in imaginary games, because imagining others playing out a hand wasn’t as absorbing as playing the hand himself.

Unbidden thoughts of Lila broke into his game. Kai saw her as she’d been the first time they met, at a genetic engineering conference Oliver had taken him to. Kai had asked to go only because it was in Miami, in February. When Kai saw Lila, trailing behind his dad’s friend, Dominique Wiewall, he’d ditched his plans to go to the beach and, to Oliver’s confusion and surprise, sat through an utterly incomprehensible presentation just so he could be near Lila. She’d been so wonderfully not what he associated with academic types. Dyed blond hair in dreadlocks, too much eye makeup, her expression daring you, just daring you, to piss her off and see what happened. That night, he’d convinced her to go with him to a poker game.

The silence startled him out of his semi-dream state. He lifted his head, went to look out the windows with the others, at the ruined houses, the leaning mailboxes, the scorched and battered ground. Smoke acted like a thick fog, making it difficult to see more than a few hundred yards, but he could see enough damage to get a sense of where they stood.

“Ninety minutes,” Luis said. “I figured they’d be at it until nightfall, at least.”

“I think they’re in a hurry,” Kai said. “It shook them, when we bombed our own people to get them. They thought they knew what to expect from us.”

“Yeah, well, they forgot they ain’t starfish.” Luis pointed at his temple.

Something was unsettling Kai. For a moment he didn’t know what it was, then the sound registered. The low rumble of aircraft.

“Oh, come on,” Luis said, crying up at the ceiling. “Can’t you give us a few hours first?”

“You talking to God, or the stilts?” Shoelace asked.

“Anyone who’ll listen.”

Shoelace tilted his head to one side and smiled grimly. “Then you’re talking to no one.”

They filed onto the back porch and watched the distant transport planes spit defenders. The paratroopers dropped feetfirst, their sky-blue parachutes not deploying until they were close to the ground. Heavy artillery pieces dropped out of one of the planes, their larger parachutes deploying almost immediately.

Kai eyed the tank at the top of the hill, nestled behind the blockade of vehicles the dozers had constructed. Its presence was somewhat comforting.

Shoelace turned to Jaden. “I don’t want to be rude, but a dozen shooters in one location is a waste. How about you take your people and set up a few houses down the road?”

When they were gone, Luis and Tina took up positions in upstairs windows. Kai took the back door. Shoelace chose a window facing the front and knocked out the glass with the butt of his rifle. Kai pulled the sliding glass door open; he left the screen closed, figuring it provided a bit of extra camouflage.

“I’d like to say today is a good day to die, but I’m not feeling it,” Shoelace said. “Today would be a shitty day to die.”

“I’m with you there.”

Soon they heard gunfire. It was distant at first, coming from the north. It grew closer.

Then it was everywhere. A thousand battles, going on simultaneously. That was the way you wanted it if you were facing a superior force—harass the enemy, slow them down.

Before he’d stepped into line the day he’d volunteered to fight the defenders, Kai had zero interest in military strategy. Now it was the only thing that did interest him, besides poker and his family. He figured he had better odds of staying alive if he knew what was going on, and why.

Kai scanned the backyard, watching for movement. There was an in-ground pool back there, the water murky and greenish brown, and a shed too small for a defender to use as effective cover. Beyond that was a line of pine trees, then the backyards of houses facing the other way.

At any minute, the first defenders would appear. They’d likely come along the road in front, but they might come through the back.

“You know what I’m craving right now?” Shoelace asked.

Gunfire erupted from the street in front of the house.

“Do you see anything?” Kai called.

“No.”

Kai ran to join Shoelace at the front windows.

The face of a defender appeared over a rooftop across the street. It had climbed onto the roof. One of its eyes closed, the other sighted down a rocket launcher. Kai ducked away from the window as an explosion shook the house. It must have hit the house next door.

Kai went back to the window. Another defender had joined the first, peering from the roof. Everyone in Kai’s house held their fire. Shooting at them from this distance would only serve to get the rocket launcher pointed in their direction.

Three defenders broke from between two houses up the street.

The tank at the top of the hill boomed; the roof of the house across the street exploded, shooting wood and black tile into the air.

Kai sprang up, took aim, but the three defenders who’d been on the move were already gone. He ran to the back door and spotted human soldiers in the backyard, running. They passed out of sight. A moment later two defenders appeared in pursuit. Kai raised his rifle, squeezed off a few tight bursts that missed. Then they were gone. They were so fast.

Upstairs, Tina and Luis were firing at something in the street.

Shoelace opened fire, then paused. Cursing, he dove away from the window. Defender bullets ripped through the window, shredding the wall beyond in a wide arc.

Two or three more defenders opened fire on them, their bullets thumping into the front of the house, shattering windows. Kai heard shouted orders outside, then a roar. Outside, the air suddenly grew bright orange.

Smoke poured in through the windows.

“They torched us,” Shoelace said as Luis and Tina barreled down the stairs.

“Down,” Kai said.

They huddled near the floor by the back door as the room filled with smoke. Kai coughed. His eyes burned. The defenders would pick them off as soon as they stepped outside, but they couldn’t stay inside. Kai glanced over his shoulder: The curtains and window frames were burning, the flames climbing the wall.

Luis held up a set of keys on a yin-and-yang key chain. “I found these upstairs. Maybe there’s a car in the garage.”

It was a chance, at least. They followed Luis, who pulled open a door leading to the garage. Thick, black smoke poured out. Kai yanked up his shirt, covered his mouth and nose, and followed the others, stumbling down wooden steps, blinded by the smoke, coughing uncontrollably, hoping the car was in the garage.

Then it occurred to him: The car had been sitting in the garage, untouched, for fifteen years. There was no way it was going to start. They’d panicked; they hadn’t thought it through. He tried to shout to the others, but nothing came except racking coughs.

Crawling on hands and knees, he turned and headed back up the stairs into the kitchen. Dragging himself onto the porch, he curled up in a ball, coughing uncontrollably in the cool air. There was a defender out back, watching the house. The smoke must have covered Kai’s exit. He tried to stay perfectly still, hoping the roar of the flames and the crackle of burning wood would muffle his cough, because he couldn’t hold it in.

In the kitchen, Kai heard someone else coughing. Keeping low, he ducked inside. Shoelace was sprawled on the blackened linoleum. Kai grabbed his hand and dragged him partially outside.

Through the porch’s slatted wood floor, Kai saw that the inner supports beneath the porch were on fire. The porch would go up in a minute or so.

He heard a shout. The defender watching the back of the house hefted his rifle and trotted off. They were moving on.

“We have to go,” Kai said, barely recognizing the voice coming from his singed throat. “You ready?”

Coughing furiously, Shoelace nodded once. Kai staggered down the porch steps with Shoelace right behind. They got clear of the fire and dropped to their knees in the grass, still coughing.

“Hold still,” Shoelace croaked. “You’re on fire.” Shoelace smacked at the cuff of Kai’s pant leg, extinguishing the flame.

Lifting his head, he looked past Kai. “Oh, shit.”

Kai followed Shoelace’s gaze. Half a dozen defenders were heading their way. He looked around for somewhere to hide. If they ran, they’d be spotted for sure. The shed was too far, the storage bin for pool supplies too small.

The pool. “Come on.”

They crawled through the gate, stashed their weapons along the fence, and slipped into the warm, swampy water.

When the defenders drew close, Kai whispered, “Under,” took a deep breath, and ducked underwater.

He couldn’t see anything but green silt floating in brackish water. Because good soldiers don’t do much talking in the midst of battle, he couldn’t count on hearing the defenders pass. His best bet was to hold his breath as long as possible, though not so long that he surfaced gasping for air.

Tina and Luis were dead. It was the first moment he’d had to register that. They were still in the garage. How had all four of them been so stupid? When Kai saw that key in Luis’s hand, he’d instantly formed an image of the four of them bursting through the garage door, careening down the street and out of harm’s way. In a car that hadn’t been started in fifteen years.

Stupid, stupid.

Kai’s damaged lungs began to ache. He guessed they’d been under no more than thirty or forty seconds, probably not long enough for the defenders to pass. Worse, he needed to cough. His lungs were twitching, his throat tingling madly.

If he was going to cough, better to do it underwater, where the sound wouldn’t carry. He let it go, expelling most of the air from his lungs, then held on a few more seconds before gently lifting his face above the water.

A defender was standing directly over him. Kai took a deep, slow breath through his nose as Shoelace’s face surfaced beside him. The defender looked left and right, then moved on.

Two more came into view. Like the first, these two were focused on threats from nearby houses and other areas that provided potential cover; none thought to look in an old swimming pool.

When they were out of sight, Kai and Shoelace pulled themselves out of the pool and retrieved their rifles.

“We should touch base with HQ, find out where we’re supposed to rendezvous,” Shoelace said as water dripped off him and pattered to the concrete.

Kai took a deep, sighing breath, then looked off at the smoking wreckage. The thought of heading back into that insanity made him want to cry. If they went, they would die. He was certain of that. Kai didn’t want to die. He wanted to see his son again, his wife.

It was time to fold, he realized. Time to collect what chips he had left and leave the table. He looked at Shoelace and said, “I think we should find a house that’s still standing and crash there until this thing is over.”

Shoelace chuckled, but Kai gave him a level look. “No, I’m serious.” This war was so big, so complicated, no one would miss two soldiers. “We can get some sleep, read a book.”

Shoelace gave Kai a pained look. “Kai, I can’t do that. Like the sergeant said, if we don’t stop them now, we’re not going to.”

“We’re not going to,” Kai said. “We both know that.”

“We at least have to try.” When Kai didn’t respond, Shoelace shook his head, then took a few steps toward the house, which was now nothing but a big bonfire on a concrete foundation. “You know what these stilts are like. You know that better than I do.”

“I don’t want my son to grow up an orphan the way I did.”

“I have four kids!” Shoelace shouted. “I’m afraid they won’t get to grow up at all.” Suddenly his face just fell. He looked at Kai, shook his head slowly, ponderously, then held out his hand.

Kai shook it. “See you again sometime.”

“Sure. You know, if the defenders take the area, you’ll be caught behind enemy lines.”

Kai shrugged. “They won’t bother me if I keep my head down.”

Shoelace headed in the direction the defenders had gone. Kai watched him walk for a moment, then he went in the opposite direction. He had about two days before the full defender ground force would arrive. By then he needed to be stocked up with food and supplies, and to be in a basement somewhere.

His stomach was a knot of guilt, more for letting Shoelace down than anything else. The rest of them would fare about as well with or without him. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t owe them anything.

A half mile away Kai found Jaden, Julie, and their family. There was a stream running under a little bridge on the access road that led into the housing development. They’d taken a position under the bridge. Not a bad move, all in all.

They were all dead.

58 Dominique Wiewall

July 11, 2045. Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Orders were shouted. All around the war room, rapid conversations took place. Dominique left her swivel seat as unobtrusively as possible, and went to stand by the exit. Not that she was planning to go anywhere; she just felt like she should get out of the way, because she was of no use in this situation. Worse, she felt as if people were silently asking the back of her head why she’d made the defenders complete psychopaths.

“They’re securing oil fields and refineries as they advance on Baghdad,” some colonel shouted. He was near the front, looking at a live feed of a tactical map. “Long-range rockets launched from the Persian Gulf have hit the center of gravity in Baghdad. No word on the status of the premier and other leaders working there.”

A civilian in a black suit was suddenly at Dominique’s side. He offered her a bottle of water. “You all right?”

She accepted the water with a nod of thanks. “I’m just trying to stay out of the way. I’m not of any use in this situation.” Someone shouted to the president. She watched him climb the steps, two at a time, then huddle with two strategists. “To be honest,” she said laughing, “I’m not even sure why I’m here. I was on the Australia team.”

“Oh, I can answer that, Dr. Wiewall. The operation in Australia was recorded—everything is recorded; we’re being recorded right now. The president went over that recording, so he knows who fucked up and who didn’t. You didn’t.”

Dominique laughed harshly. “No, I only designed the bloody things. I didn’t fuck up at all.” If felt good to say it, to get it out in the open.

“You had to be quick. Not to mention, you saved the human race.”

She stepped closer, grateful for the words, for a sympathetic ear. “I’m still responsible for what they are. I should have considered what they’d be like, not simply how effective they’d be in battle.”

The man gave her a kind smile. “I’m not sure you’re being fair to yourself.”

She offered the civilian her hand. “I’m sorry, I don’t know you.”

“Forrest Rosenberg. Secret Service.”

“Thank you for telling me about the recordings. I feel better, knowing everyone in the room doesn’t think I’m an idiot.”

“No problem.”

59 Kai Zhou

July 11, 2045. Mapleton, Utah.

A wounded defender lay beside the road. His side was flayed open, his arm gone above the elbow. Shrapnel wounds, from a tank round or a howitzer. Probably a tank. The defender had torn a strip from his pants to use as a tourniquet. The arm that was missing was the one that had held the defender’s built-in weapons system. His rifle was nowhere in sight.

“They left you behind?” Kai called from a distance. They just left their mortally wounded behind to die, like they could care less about each other.

“Yes,” the defender said. He was in obvious pain. Maybe they were short on morphine and didn’t want to waste it on a hopeless case.

“Do you want me to, you know.” Kai touched the rifle strapped across his back.

“If you want to kill me, I can’t stop you.” The defiance, the hostility in his voice, was unmistakable.

Kai held up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t mean it as a threat. I meant, if you wanted me to do it as a favor.” Why was he talking to this stilt? Maybe it was just morbid fascination. He’d never spoken to one before. Even lying there, mortally wounded, the thing scared the shit out of him.

He took a few steps closer. “Why are we fighting? I mean, we’re supposed to be allies.”

“I’m a soldier,” the defender said, as if that were all the justification he needed.

Kai nodded. “Fair enough.”

The defender licked his thin lips.

“Do you have water?”

“No.” He sounded almost embarrassed to admit it.

Kai pulled his canteen from his belt, unscrewed the cap, took a few more steps toward the defender, and underhanded the canteen to him.

He went on his way.

As he walked, it occurred to him that this wasn’t the first time he’d provided comfort to the enemy. He laughed out loud. What was it about cold-blooded killers that brought out the maternal instinct in him? Maybe Oliver could explain it.

There must be something about him, though. How many times had he wondered why Five picked him that night? There had been thousands of people within Five’s psychic range. Tens of thousands. Yet he’d chosen Kai. What had he sensed in Kai’s mind? Was it weakness? Kindness? That Kai was an outsider?

His entire life, everything he was, hinged on Five’s decision to choose him. Kai would have died in that bathroom if Five hadn’t goaded him into making a fire. If not for Five, he never would have met his father, or Lila. There would have been no Errol. He carried the burden of being the Boy, but what was that, compared to life, a father, a wife?

Yet he still hated the son of a bitch.

It had been such a shock, to learn Five might still be alive, hiding in a bunker with the rest of his kind.

Stepping over a guardrail and cutting down a ravine, Kai headed across the parking lot, toward the shopping center they’d passed on the way in. He kept his rifle at hand, but there was no one in sight, friend or enemy. The two stores on the end of the shopping center had been shelled, probably by the defenders’ bombers.

Kai felt more alert, better rested than he had since the day the invasion began. He’d slept fourteen hours straight the night before. With his judgment sound and clear, he felt more certain than ever that he’d made the right call. His allegiance was to his family, and himself, not to the nitwits who’d thought attacking the defenders was a good idea.

As he approached the Target, he reviewed his mental shopping list. Food, if by some miracle there was any left inside. New reading material—fiction, preferably set long ago in some other place. Socks. The house he’d chosen to hole up in had plenty of abandoned clothes, but no warm socks.

He ducked through shattered doors, praying it hadn’t been completely looted, and immediately spotted bodies.

They were soldiers, recently killed. One was draped across a checkout lane with big defender bullet wounds in his neck and face. Another, a young woman, was lying facedown in the big center aisle. There were five or six others.

Kai couldn’t understand how a defender could fit through the doors to get inside and shoot them. It was a big space with a high ceiling, so once inside a defender could move around, but the entrance was too tight, unless they got down on their bellies and shimmied through the double doors.

He walked the periphery of the store. It grew darker as he moved away from the front windows, but that was fine with Kai—he’d grown to associate darkness with safety. It reminded him of the early days with Lila. Every weekend he’d take the bus to New York to visit her. For months he stayed in a depressing, smoky hotel room on those visits because Lila wouldn’t let him stay over. She lived alone, and she was happy to have sex with him—she just wouldn’t let him sleep over. It baffled him for the longest time; all he could think was, she didn’t want things to get too serious.

Kai smiled wanly, remembering the night she finally let him stay over. It turned out she slept with all the lights on, the TV blaring old romantic comedies. She’d been embarrassed for Kai to find out.

After a few sleepless weekends in Lila’s brightly lit and loud bedroom, Kai tried to convince her to sleep with the TV and lights off. He was there, he’d said. That would replace the lights and TV. She would be safe.

Lila got angry. Everyone was fucked-up in some way, she’d said. Everyone coped in their own fashion. She wasn’t going to give up the things that comforted her, so if they were going to have a future together, they’d have to find a solution that didn’t involve turning the lights out.

When she’d finished, Kai was speechless. It was the first time Lila had suggested there was a “they,” and a potential future for them, and Kai had been dumbfounded with happiness. Lila took his silence for anger and said, “Are you saying you weren’t damaged by the war, that you don’t have any scars?”

Kai couldn’t keep from laughing. “Lila, I’m the Boy Who Betrayed the World, remember? What do you think?”

He bought earplugs and a sleep mask, and moved in.

There were big doors in the back, to cart pallets out of the delivery area using a forklift. Kai checked the delivery area to make sure there were no unfriendlies skulking around. He was about to start shopping when he heard a voice.

Catching the door before it shut, he went back inside and spotted a soldier looking up at him from the floor. She was lying at one end of a thirty-foot-long bloody streak. She’d dragged herself along the floor that far.

Kai squatted beside her. She’d taken three or four shots to her thighs and lower abdomen, the oversized bullets taking pieces out of her.

“Can I have a drink of water?”

Kai had left his canteen with the defender. He sprang up. “I’ll get some.”

He pulled a canteen off one of the bodies, found a medic’s bag on one of the others, and grabbed that as well. On the way back, he called HQ to request a medic. They didn’t mention him being AWOL; in all likelihood they’d lost track of him, thought he was dead. They told him they couldn’t afford to send one, so he would have to bring the wounded soldier back to them.

What was he supposed to do, pull her in a little red wagon?

She was middle-aged, Indian or Middle Eastern. Kai helped her roll onto her back. When she’d managed a few gulps from the canteen, he set it aside.

“I told them I was a stockbroker,” she said, gasping. “They said that meant I was smart, so I should be in demolition.”

“I told them I was a gambler. They gave me a rifle.”

She didn’t laugh.

“What’s your name?” Kai asked.

“Sudha. Are they all dead?”

Kai nodded.

“I couldn’t reach it,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

“Reach what?”

“It was all set.” She looked at the ceiling. “Shit. It was all set.”

Kai looked up, tried to see what she was looking at, but it was too dark. The only light in the room came from an open bay door.

“Then they got Aiken, and I couldn’t reach it.”

He looked at the blood streaked across the floor. She’d been trying to reach something. He followed the line in the direction she’d been going, and saw another soldier, dead, lying beside a forklift.

Demolition. It was all set. “You wired the store with C-4?” he guessed.

Sudha swallowed, nodded.

Kai pointed at the body. “Aiken had the detonator, but he was killed, and you couldn’t reach it in time.”

She nodded again.

They were going to lure defenders into the store, go out the front, and blow the roof down on top of them. But the defenders caught them before they were ready.

“How are we doing out there? Are we holding them off?” Sudha asked.

Kai nodded vaguely. He had forgotten about the medic’s bag. He rummaged through it, found some pre-dosed morphine shots, and gave one to Sudha.

“Where’s the detonator?” Kai asked.

“His comm. Push SEND and…” Sudha mimicked the sound of an explosion.

Kai unpacked the medic’s kit and did what he could, which was to cut Sudha’s uniform away from the bullet wounds, pack the wounds, and cover them with bandages. Despite how many he’d seen in the past five months, he still hated the sight of wounds.

“I called for a medic, but they said they couldn’t get one out here just yet. We’re on our own for now.”

Sudha didn’t seem surprised. “A lot of wounded.”

It was getting dark. Kai went inside the store and gathered some bedding. He made Sudha as comfortable as he could, gave her a second shot of morphine, then spread out a pile of blankets for himself.

“You going to try to get some of them?” Sudha asked as they lay in the near darkness.

“I’m thinking about it.” He hadn’t been. Not consciously, anyway. Now a sick dread blossomed in him as he realized he was. He could devise some way of luring them inside while he hid outside.

“If I’m… not here when they come, turn on the generator. It’s hooked to lights and a portable stereo at the front of the store. If I’m around, I can draw them in.”

“Sudha, I’m not going to use you as live bait. I’ll get us both out of here.”

“I want to die.” Her tone was almost scolding. “My children are dead. I signed up so I could get killed.”

Kai didn’t know what to say. He still wasn’t going to prop her up with a rifle and leave her here while he hid outside with a detonator. He wasn’t even sure he was going to try this.

When Kai woke, it was still dark outside, and Sudha was dead. It took him a moment to realize what woke him: engine noises, growing louder. Kai pulled a blanket over Sudha’s face, then took his flashlight and went over to her friend Aiken. He found the comm. The SEND key was painted red.

If he was really going to do this, he needed to get to work.

An alternative plan would be to hide in a pile of clothes until they were gone. Then he could find a little red wagon and use it to haul the generator back to the house where he was staying. He could watch movies until the war was over.

Glancing one last time at Sudha, Kai killed his flashlight and trotted toward the front of the store, as the defender vehicles approached, sounding like a hundred Harley-Davidsons revving. He ducked as powerful spotlights painted sections of the store white.

Squatting behind a checkout counter, Kai peered out at the front parking lot. He counted seven defenders—likely a reconnaissance team coming in advance of the main ground force.

If he turned on the generator, they’d have to go around to the back and make their way to the front of the store. That’s when he’d slip out the front and blow the roof. The problem with that plan was, not all of them would go inside. Soldiers would be stationed at the front and back entrances. The demolition team’s plan was to turn on the generator before the defenders arrived, then hide somewhere outside, out of sight. It was too late for Kai to do that.

No—better to go with the alternate plan. Hide, then haul away the generator. Kai headed toward Men’s Clothing.

He spied a side door—a fire exit. The defenders might miss that one. He could turn on the generator, wait for them to get into position, then slip out the side door.

He shifted from one foot to another, unsure. Five or six fewer defenders wasn’t going to turn the tide of the war.

If that was the case, why had he volunteered in the first place? He could have stayed with Errol. Had it all been to avoid the shame, the disdainful looks of people who wondered why a healthy twenty-eight-year-old wasn’t fighting? Not entirely. He was a pragmatist, but not a complete cynic. He believed in the social fabric that bound him to others. He just wasn’t sure he believed in it strongly enough to die for it.

The comm sat in his sweaty palm. To hide felt like a betrayal of Sudha and the others who’d died after rigging the C-4. Of course, he was the Boy Who Betrayed the World. Betrayal was his specialty. Wasn’t that why he’d gone AWOL?

He headed for the generator, moving as quickly as he could in the near darkness.

Running his hands over it, he located the power switch. Before doubts and second thoughts could creep back in, he flipped it.

A bank of overhead lights flipped on, blinding him. Music blasted from a stereo near the front windows. He recognized it—a Frank Sinatra song, “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads.”

Bent at the waist, Kai sprinted for the side door, marveling at the synchronicity of hearing Sinatra at this moment. Lila loved Sinatra. For some reason she loved old hokey 1940s music. At first he’d made fun at her antique taste, but in time it had grown on him.

Easing the side door open, Kai looked outside, just in time to see five defenders whizz by in a transport vehicle. On the main road beyond, dozens more defender vehicles were winding along the main road, almost bumper to bumper. He wondered how he was going to get out of there.

First, he had to get out of the store. Kai heard muffled footsteps, then the creak of the big swinging doors that separated the main store from the back. Defenders were in the store with him. From the open side door, he looked left and right. He didn’t see any defenders, so he slipped out, eased the door shut, then raced across the parking lot and ducked behind a van.

Keeping his head low, Kai moved from vehicle to vehicle, heading toward the front of the store. Soon he could see two defenders guarding the front entrance, rifles ready, peering inside. Sinatra was singing “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.”

Heart pounding, Kai looked at the comm. If he was going to do it, it had to be now. Ducking as low as he could behind a big black pickup truck, he pressed the detonator.

Nothing happened.

“Shit.” They were demolition people, for Christ’s sake—how could they have screwed up something as crucial as a detonator? Kai pressed the key again, and again. It was no use. He tried to think of reasons why it might not be working. Usually the solution to a mechanical problem was something simple and obvious.

The comm’s light lit when he pressed the SEND key, so it had power. Was he too far away? That could be it; he was a good two hundred yards away.

With every muscle clenched in anticipation of discovery, Kai lifted his head, saw the two defenders peering into the store, probably puzzling over the dead bodies and sudden music.

He bolted from behind the truck and ducked behind a Toyota thirty feet closer. He tried the detonator. Nothing.

He ran for another car, fifty feet closer to the store. One of the defenders turned to speak to his companion just as Kai ducked. Heart hammering, Kai steeled himself, expecting a shout of discovery, the roar of rifle fire, but it remained quiet.

He pointed Aiken’s comm at the Target, tried the detonator again.

The explosion startled him. Pillars of fire erupted from under the eaves of the store’s roof, then the roof dropped out of sight, as if it had been pounded down by a giant fist.

The defenders outside the store were thrown backward by the blast. One slammed into their transport; the other landed on the ground on his back as steel, wood, and plaster rained down.

Maybe Kai should have felt elated, but in that moment all he felt was scared. He’d made his presence known, and now they’d be looking for him. He needed to hide. The car he was hiding behind was locked. Looking around, he spotted a row of vehicles that had been melted by a Luyten heater gun years earlier and no one had ever bothered to haul away. He raced over as the defenders’ second transport vehicle came roaring around from behind the stores. The driver was the lone passenger.

Kai chose a white Honda minivan. The back half of the van was badly melted, the back tires nothing but puddles around the rims, but the front was intact and open. As he shut the door, he heard a shout that curdled his insides.

The transport vehicle roared toward him.

They’d spotted him, or maybe spotted the movement of the closing door. He should have crawled under a vehicle, he realized, not inside.

Could he surrender? He’d never heard of defenders taking prisoners. Kai watched as the defender trained his rifle on the van, waiting to get close enough for a clear shot.

Kai dove across the front seat, threw open the passenger door, and rolled out as gunfire tore through the van, rocking it. The windows blew out, raining glass down on Kai.

He crawled along the row of vehicles, seeking cover, an angle from which to return fire with the pathetic rifle dangling from a strap on his back. When he reached the end of the row he looked for the other two defenders. He spotted one, moving along the row, bent, looking for Kai. Kai turned to make a run for cover. The other defender was blocking his way, rifle raised.

Kai put his hands up and opened his mouth to tell this giant towering over him that he’d had enough, that he was ready to fold.

The rifle roared. Bullets hit him, like teeth tearing into his shoulder, his hip, his thigh. The impact spun him around, then the ground seemed to come up and catch him. He thought he would pass out, but he didn’t; he just lay there panting.

“How many were in there?” he heard one of the defenders ask. The defender sounded far away.

“Four.”

“What about the one who was outside with you?”

“He’s not hurt too bad.”

“Get him and let’s go.”

They drove away. In wide-eyed shock, Kai took in his own body. His right side was nothing but raw, open meat. It hurt. He knew it was going to get much, much worse, unless he died first.

Most of his right hand was gone. He pulled out his phone with his left, called Shoelace. It rang long enough for Kai to suspect Shoelace was dead, then, miraculously, Shoelace answered.

“Kai. What’s up?”

“I’m in bad shape, Shoelace.” The pain—the real pain—suddenly kicked in, all at once. It was worse than he’d expected. It was blinding, intolerable. “I’m shot, like, three or four times.”

“Oh, shit. Are you near help?”

“I’m way behind the lines. I just wanted to tell you, I got some of them. Four of them. Blew a roof down on them.”

“That’s killer, Kai. Good for you.” Shoelace sounded like he was crying. “Where are you, buddy? I’m gonna come and get you.”

“That’s really nice of you.” Kai grunted as another truly hellish wave of pain lanced through his side. His hand, or what was left of it, was still mostly numb. “I’d appreciate that.”

Kai got most of the way through telling Shoelace where to find him before he blacked out.

60 Lila Easterlin

July 13, 2045. Sydney, Australia.

Lila took a break from her work and went to the single window in her office/jail cell. From forty defender-sized stories high, she could see much of Sydney, stretching to the river and beyond. It looked just as it had when the last of the Alliance forces had fled or been killed. As far as she could see, not one shard of glass had been swept. The streets were mostly deserted, the bulk of the defender population off fighting elsewhere.

Elsewhere. Lila had only a vague idea where that might be. The Internet she had access to was a static Internet—a snapshot in time the defenders uploaded just before they began knocking out the power sources that allowed the Internet to function. It told her nothing about what was happening in the outside world. Everything she knew came from the bits of news Erik chose to share.

Time to get back to work. She was monitored at all times and didn’t want some defender poking his head in to tell her to get back to work. They never threatened; they just told her what was expected of her. The threat was implicit.

Sitting at her human-sized desk in front of her human-sized computer, Lila considered the files she’d compiled—the first steps toward creating a defender production facility in Sydney. Erik assured her the personnel she’d need to actually construct and run a functional production facility would eventually join her.

That certainly set her mind at ease.

She kept thinking of Kai dropping food into that church basement. The Boy Who Betrayed the World. Now here she was, drawing up plans to create more of the creatures her species was at war with. They were quite the couple.

Ironically, she was able to draw most of the information she needed from the Internet. Project Defender had been top secret during the war, but because it had been a truly global effort, detailed specifications for the project had been made available to the world scientific community after the war. It was all there, right down to the genetic codes.

She knew her cooperation was all that kept her and her colleagues alive, so as far as she was concerned, she didn’t have a choice. Maybe the heroic thing to do was to let the defenders torture her as she steadfastly refused to cooperate, but she didn’t have it in her to be that kind of hero. Her hope was that the information she was gathering would never be put to use.

If they’d only let her make changes. She kept coming back to that. She would do this work gladly, enthusiastically, tirelessly if they’d let her improve on the design. But no; other humans would check her work, and if it was discovered that she had tampered with their genetic code in any way… The threat was implicit.

There was a knock at her door, which meant Erik was paying her a visit, because no one else knocked.

“Come in.”

“How are you today?” Erik asked as he let himself in.

“I’m lonely, and I’m worried about my people, and yours.” She always gave the same answer, yet Erik kept asking.

“I’ll have to find time in my schedule to visit more often. I don’t want you to be lonely.”

Lila had decided Erik was simply incapable of grasping that loneliness involved yearning not just for company, but for the company of specific people.

“How nice,” she said.

Erik made himself comfortable in the plush defender-sized seat near the window. He planted all three of his feet firmly on the floor, as a warrior does. There was no more banter between them, no playful moments.

“Our most renowned philosopher has come out with a new treatise.”

“Oh? Is this Ravi?”

Erik seemed pleased. “You remember him. His new treatise argues that when you created us, you left out the things you value most in yourselves.”

“What would those be?”

“Your capacity for joy, humor, and affection. Ravi refers to them as the three pillars of madness. He argues that we’re superior for lacking them.”

Lila folded her arms, stared at the slate-gray carpet. They knew there was something missing in them, and they were angry about it. Maybe they had a right to be. She had no energy for this; she was tired of carrying the weight of how carelessly the defenders had been designed. She’d been fifteen and running for her life at the time.

“Maybe you are superior for lacking them. I don’t know. What I do know is you lack them because your brains lack serotonin, and they lack serotonin because it renders Luyten incapable of reading your minds. Like your third leg, there was a reason for the design decision.”

Erik grunted, folded his arms, mirroring her posture.

“How are my colleagues?” Lila asked.

“They’re well.” Erik wouldn’t tell her where they were, what they were doing. All she knew was one of them had admitted that the emissaries knew the invasion was being considered. Lila couldn’t imagine any of them divulging that information, except through torture.

“Can I see my father-in-law? Just for a few minutes?” After every meeting with Erik, she promised herself that next time she wouldn’t beg. But she was so lonely; so scared and depressed.

“I’ve told you, if any of you were to go out in public, you’d be torn apart.”

“Yet you don’t tear me apart.”

“Because I know you. I know you’re not the same as the rest of them.”

Maybe it was inevitable. No matter how much you admired a people, when you went to war with them you so quickly learned to hate everything about them.

61 Dominique Wiewall

July 15, 2045. Colorado Springs, Colorado.

When President Wood announced that the covert operation to take out the defenders’ center of gravity at Easter Island had failed, the room went silent.

Dominique hadn’t realized just how much hope she’d staked on a few dozen elite Alliance forces. She wondered what went wrong, how they’d been discovered before making it into the underground complex to detonate the nuclear device.

That was to be their game changer: take out the defenders’ high command, throw them off balance. It had been a brilliant and psychologically fascinating move on the defenders’ part, to take Easter Island, reinforce it, and make it their center of gravity.

Dominique rubbed her eyes, which were burning from lack of sleep. The war just went on and on; there was never an opportune time to sleep, and hadn’t been for the past five months. Mostly, Dominique slept in her chair in the war room.

“We have to find a way to get populations in occupied territories to rise up,” Peter Smythe said. He punched his palm. Smythe had been a baseball star, once upon a time. Despite that, he wasn’t an arrogant dickhead. Dominique appreciated that. “That’s the defenders’ weakness: The forces they leave behind to hold captured territory are wafer-thin. If they had to keep backtracking to put down insurrections, we could wear them down.”

Trying not to show the exasperation she felt, Dominique went to the back for more coffee. They’d been broadcasting pleas for resistance to the captured populations almost from the start, but the defenders were ruthlessly effective at making gruesome examples of anyone caught listening to those pleas, let alone plotting resistance.

With the coffee warming her hand through the Styrofoam cup, Dominique studied the big map at the front of the room. The defenders were positioning themselves to storm their facility, as well as Alliance headquarters in Baghdad. Those were their two primary targets. So far, Alliance forces were repelling the defenders in both locations, but the defenders were choking off supply routes, and once those were under defender control… well, you can’t fight without food and fuel.

“How are you holding up?” It was her Secret Service guardian angel, Forrest.

“Tired. Depressed.” She looked up at him. “They’re my children. At the end of the day the defenders are my children, and they’ve done unspeakable things. You know?”

Forrest put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. His touch felt good, nourishing. “I don’t think you can think about it like that. The mistake was provoking them, not making them.”

Dominique nodded, wiped a tear from the end of her nose.

“I think we’re all well past our breaking point. Hang on. We’ll get through this.”

“Somehow,” Dominique whispered.

“Somehow.”

62 Kai Zhou

July 15, 2045. Provo, Utah.

“Kai? Come on, Kai, you have to get up.”

Kai didn’t want to wake up. Waking meant returning to the pain—the relentless, maddening pain. But someone was tugging on his cheek, pulling him awake, away from his only means of escape. Whoever it was had better have a very good reason.

“Let’s go. You have to get up.”

Kai opened his eyes. The pain was there, waiting for him.

“Come on.” It was Evelyn, the nurse who was playing the part of MD and chief surgeon in the tent that was playing the part of hospital in this nightmare farce. Evelyn put a hand behind his head and lifted, as if she were trying to get him out of bed, which was absurd.

“What are you doing?” he groaned.

“You have to get up. Right now. You have to walk out of here.”

Although there was no morphine running through Kai’s veins, because there was no morphine at this mobile hospital, Evelyn’s face was hazy and swimming as it hung over him. “What are you talking about?”

Evelyn lowered her voice. “There are three defenders outside. They’re going to burn the hospital. If you can walk out under your own power, that means you’re strong enough to work, which means you can live. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Suddenly Kai was wide awake. His wounds were throbbing exquisitely, simply at the thought of standing and walking.

He lifted his head and looked at his wounds more carefully than he’d been willing to before. Most of his right hand was gone. The bandage over his thigh sagged in the middle where there was a hole that resembled a crater. His shoulder was only partly there. There was just no way.

Only, he could see in Evelyn’s eyes that he had no choice.

“I have to keep moving, we don’t have much time. Get up.” She hurried away.

Gritting his teeth against the grinding pain, Kai slid over to the left side of the cot—on his uninjured side. It wasn’t too bad as he let his left foot slide out from beneath the sheets and drop until it reached the dead grass on the floor.

When he tried to swing his right leg around, blistering pain shot up his thigh, across his side. Gasping, every fiber in him not wanting to do this, he let his right leg drop until it touched the ground, and grimaced as fresh pain shot up the leg.

He took a moment, allowed the worst of the pain to recede, then used his good hand to push himself upright.

He screamed, then realized the defenders might hear him. He bit his lip, staggered to his feet, putting most of his weight on his left leg as tears rolled down his cheeks.

The world grew fuzzy—he was passing out. “No. No.” If he passed out he’d never wake up. He took a few deep, whooshing breaths, trying to clear his head.

“Okay,” he hissed. He took a step on his bad leg, and immediately shifted the weight back to his good leg. He felt blood dribble down his pant leg, off his shoe and into the yellow grass in a series of streams. He didn’t know which wound it was coming from. Maybe all of them. He took another step, stifled a scream that instead turned into a high mewling, then grabbed the end of the next cot to steady himself.

There was a man lying in the cot, his eyes open, watching Kai. A tube trailed from the man’s chest, draining blood. Avoiding eye contact, Kai took two more steps, leaving the man behind.

If anything, it got harder as he went. His limited energy quickly became depleted, and his injured leg dragged. Two defenders were waiting, one on either side of the door as he staggered out of the tent, covered with sweat, trailing blood, gasping from the pain.

The defender on the left said, “You—go back inside.” Kai stared straight ahead and kept walking, not sure if the defender was speaking to him, and not wanting to find out.

“You,” the defender barked. Reluctantly, Kai looked up, saw the defender staring down at him. “Go back inside.”

“I’m fine,” Kai stammered. “I can work.”

“With one hand?”

“I can—” Kai tried to think. What could he do with one hand? What would the defenders value?

His pulse slowed as it came to him. He looked the defender square in the eye and said, “I’m a nuclear physicist. I worked at the North Anna Power Station, in Virginia.”

The defender studied him for a long moment, then motioned him to step to one side. “Wait there.”

Kai waited, remaining on his feet through sheer force of will. He’d never even been inside a nuclear power plant. Hopefully the people he was assigned to work with would cover his ass until he figured it out.

63 Dominique Wiewall

July 15, 2045. Colorado Springs, Colorado.

It had taken Dominique less than twenty minutes to stuff her belongings into a rucksack, but when she reached the hangar, the transport plane was already on the tarmac, its engines revving. Trying to tamp down rising panic (and the irrational, childlike voice in her head saying they were leaving her behind on purpose, as punishment), she swung the bag over her back, put her head down, and ran. Surely they wouldn’t leave people behind. Of course, they were leaving everyone behind; all of the soldiers defending the facility, all of the noncrucial facility personnel they couldn’t fit in the transport plane. They were leaving them here to die. The defenders had their underground command complex surrounded. Anyone still inside was going to die.

“Come on, let’s go.” Forrest was standing at the bottom of the stairs, waving her up. She hustled inside, took a seat along the wall. The president, his wife, his brother Anthony the ex-president, and a dozen others were already strapped in, but there were still plenty of empty seats. She wasn’t late; it was a relief to know she hadn’t been holding up the flight.

Soon others were rushing across the tarmac: Smythe, the secretary of defense; President Wood’s adult daughter, Solyn. Meryem Cevik, chief of the Secret Service, was the last. They were in the air by the time she was in her seat.

They climbed at a steep angle; there were no windows nearby, so Dominique couldn’t see what was going on. That was probably a good thing; if they were going to be shot down, Dominique didn’t want to know in advance.

As the plane leveled off, so did Dominique’s pulse. The president and his inner circle left their seats almost immediately, retreating toward the cockpit.

They weren’t ever going back to the United States. No one had said that out loud, but Dominique knew that if the president was fleeing to the Arctic, things weren’t going to turn around. How could they, at this point? The defenders had dispatched troops from Turkey to the south, Iran to the west, and Syria to the east, and were closing in on the UN command complex in Baghdad. They controlled the seas, the air. They controlled 90 percent of the world’s power sources.

She’d engineered the defenders to be vicious warriors, brilliant tacticians, so they could defeat the Luyten and save the world. She’d designed them too well. And too poorly.

“Dr. Wiewall?” Forrest set a hand on her shoulder. “The president would like to see you.” With the buzz of the engine vibrating underfoot, Dominique made her way to the front of the plane.

The president and his advisors were standing around a technician operating a shortwave radio that was now their sole means of communicating with Central Command in Baghdad. He looked up as Dominique entered the war room. “Dr. Wiewall, the premier has asked for your assistance in drafting a peace proposal to present to the defenders.”

Dominique nodded. She was not surprised by this news. She’d learned a few things standing around war rooms for the past few months, and one of those things was that once you can’t resupply your center of gravity and your troops, it is time to surrender.