Will McIntosh - Defenders

“It helps me organize my thoughts.” Oliver wasn’t going to let this creature tell him how to behave. A good interrogator was always in control of the situation. “You said there was another reason they want me to establish contact with you. What’s the reason?”

Ariel cut in on the comm. “Oliver, what is it saying? Give us an update.”

Oliver ignored her, waited, watching the Luyten groom itself with its cilia.

Isn’t it obvious?

“Not to me.”

“Oliver? What’s going on?” Ariel asked.

They want to discuss terms for surrender.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise, but the sheer magnitude of the words, the finality of what Five was suggesting, rocked Oliver. He turned to face the comm.

“It says I’m here to discuss terms for surrender.”

There was a long delay, then “Hold on.”

Surrender? His head spinning, Oliver tried to unpack what that would mean. Would humans lay down their arms, and the Luyten take control of everything—all the territory they didn’t already control? In exchange, no more humans would be killed. But how would they be treated?

“President Wood is coming down,” Ariel said.

The president of the United States.

Was coming down to speak to him.

Under different circumstances he would have been excited by that prospect.

Oliver headed to the bathroom to check himself in the mirror, to make sure he looked presentable.

Surrender.

How had it possibly gotten to this point?

When the starfish first rained from the sky, spinning like pinwheels, protected as they entered Earth’s atmosphere by huge porous bags that bore zero resemblance to any Earth transport, everyone had been terrified. But in every case, they’d dropped into unpopulated wilderness, in groups of three, and at first did little more than hide.

Oliver set his comb back on the sink and headed back into the living room.

When they began to attack, the targets were small, the goal more likely sabotage than occupation. They would hit a railway line, a wind farm, an isolated community, then disappear back into the trees, or underwater in breathable embryos that turned out to be miniatures of their mother ship. People were petrified, but it felt more like some horrible infestation than an invasion.

When it became apparent the Luyten could read human minds at will, people got really scared.

The attacks grew steadily bolder. Satellites. Weapons systems. Nuclear plants. Attacks on people living in the country escalated to the point where most fled to the safety of urban hubs, ceding more and more territory to the Luyten.

It had been a brilliantly executed attack.

The elevator flashed, indicating visitors.

President Wood was short and stocky, with a crooked nose and a curled-down mouth set in a perpetual sneer. Two Secret Service agents hung back near the elevator as Wood crossed the room to shake Oliver’s hand.

“You’re doing good work,” Wood said. “You’ve succeeded where many others have failed.” He held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen your résumé. You have forty IQ points on me, and I’m not as dumb as I sound, and your work on influence techniques at NYU?” He shook his head. “Remarkable.”

“Thank you, sir.” Oliver motioned toward the little kitchen. “Can I get you something?”

“Nah, I’m good.” Wood wandered over to Five’s cage, studied the creature. “So why don’t the three of us have a talk?” Wood waited a beat, then turned to Oliver. “Did it answer?”

“No.”

Wood turned back to Five. “What harm would it do to talk?” He looked at Oliver, eyebrows raised.

Oliver shook his head. “Earlier it asked what it gained by talking to us.”

Wood raised one eyebrow. “Awfully cocky attitude.”

“I know.”

Wood studied Five a moment longer, then sighed and turned away. “I understand it told you we wanted to discuss surrender.”

Oliver nodded. “Is it true?”

Wood started to answer, stopped, began again. “It’s one option.” He rubbed his upper lip for a moment. “Put it this way: If you can get our friend to discuss whether they would accept our surrender, and under what terms, we would be interested to hear what it has to say.”

Oliver nodded slowly, digesting this.

“That’s not to say there’s nothing in the works. There may be.”

“But you don’t know?”

“If I knew for sure, so would they.” Wood jerked a thumb in Five’s direction. “Then we’d have nothing in the works.”

July 17, 2029. Savannah, Georgia.

As rooftops came into view below them, Lila had second thoughts about the plan. She watched her father, a bead of sweat dangling from his nose, his fingers squeezing the throttle. The plane had automatic stabilizers, but still, it was not exactly safe for someone who’d never flown one to just take off and go.

The breeze kicked up and the plane wobbled, the stabilizers on the wings whirring, trying to compensate. They were above the tall pine trees, the highway visible on Lila’s right, a long strip shrinking in the distance.

“You’re doing great!” Lila said, having to shout over the wind.

Dad only nodded, his attention glued to the task. He kept going up, up; Lila had imagined clearing the trees and then staying as low as possible.

“How high are you going?” she asked.

“High enough that we’re out of range of Luyten weapons. There’s no hiding the fact we’re up here. If any Luyten on the ground can just point a heater or lightning rod and cook us, we won’t make it far.”

Lila hadn’t thought of that. Being in the air—away from all the Luyten on the ground—made her feel safe from them, but every Luyten they passed would know they were there.

“How high can we go?” she asked.

“I don’t know. How high can you go and still breathe?”

Lila thought about mountain climbers. At the top of tall peaks, climbers could barely breathe, but how high was that? She missed her feed; whenever teachers had wanted her to remember some esoteric detail like the heights of mountains, Lila had rolled her eyes and ignored them. “Like, I don’t know, maybe twelve or thirteen thousand feet?”

Dad nodded. “I guess if we’re getting too high, we’ll know.”

When the altimeter read thirteen thousand feet, they were still breathing fine, although Lila felt slightly out of breath, and inhaling deeply didn’t make the feeling go away. The cold was worse. Lila was wearing a thin short-sleeved tunic, and she was trembling. Their emergency packs, which included warm clothes, were back in their fried car.

The ground below was a patchwork of black-and-white towns, brown fields, green forest.

“How do we find Atlanta?” Lila asked. The ultralight had a built-in GPS system, but with satellites down it was useless.

“I’m just heading due west.”

Was Atlanta due west? It must be, more or less. Certainly they’d spot the downtown skyscrapers if they were anywhere close.

Dad glanced at her. “I can’t believe you were able to assemble this. It would’ve taken me a week.”

“You told me to find something productive to do.”

“I did. And you did.”

Lila studied the airspeed indicator. They were going just over sixty miles per hour, which meant maybe a two-hour trip. She turned to look over her shoulder at Savannah.

Smoke was rising from a thousand places. Some of the larger buildings were visibly on fire, the flames licking the sky. A container ship was sinking on the river.

“Oh, shit.”

The words jolted Lila awake, set her heart pounding. She looked around and immediately spotted what had caused her father to cry out: seven or eight Luyten were in the air, heading toward them.