Blackout

  BLACKOUT

  ~ BREAKERS, BOOK 8 ~

  © 2015

  Edward W. Robertson

  I:

  RETURN

  1

  The ship hung in the sky like a crime.

  Beneath it on the beach, Walt was a speck. A bacterium. The vessel edged forward, a thick disc hundreds of yards across, so huge and black it looked less like a physical object and more like a hole in the sky. A portal to another world. To hell. To madness.

  The last six years—he'd dreamt them, hadn't he? He hadn't really blown up the ship. Nor had he lived in the Yucatan like a hermit-god, perched atop Chichen Itza until he'd been summoned back to L.A. to kill even more aliens and then, later, to be dragged into a civil war for the soul of the city. He'd been knocked out years ago, hadn't he? Back with Otto and Mia and Raymond, when the alien jet had bombed them. Everything since then had been an overheated fever dream.

  With a cavernous hum, the ship inched closer, hovering a mile above Santa Monica Bay. And beneath it, the ruins of the first ship lay in the blue-gray waves.

  Which meant the second ship was just as real.

  His legs almost went out from underneath him. The unfairness of it. Back then, the first time, the aliens had been weakened by fighting, by having spread themselves across the world. Even then, he and Otto had barely pulled it off. It'd been a thousand to one shot. If there was any justice in the universe, that would have been the end of it.

  Once upon a time, civilization had manufactured justice, cranking out its best approximation of right and wrong. But the world had changed and he had too. The only justice these days was what you made for yourself. These days, like always, unfairness no longer made him want to give up.

  It pissed him off.

  He stuck his middle finger up at the mile-wide ship. Then he turned and ran toward the five million dollar Manhattan Beach house where Carrie lay dreaming, unaware that the world had changed yet again.

  * * *

  On the deck of the alien submarine, Ness held tight to Tristan's arm, gaze locked on the ship. He'd never seen one of the big mothers up in the sky before. During the initial invasion, he'd been holed up in the mountains of the Idaho panhandle. Later, he'd been a slave in a nuclear plant in eastern Washington. By the time he'd extricated himself from that human sewer, the mothership had already been knocked down.

  Seeing it now, he was about ready to shit his pants. But that wasn't why he was staring. He stared because the ship—the size of a town, held up in the air like that's what air was there to do—was incredible.

  His voice felt like it was coming from a different person. "You got to be kidding me."

  "I wish." Sprite moved to the edge of the deck, peg leg clonking. "What do you think it's doing here?"

  Sam sighted in on it through the scope of her rifle. "Don't see any jets. No troop carriers. Right now, I'd say they're risk-assessing."

  Tristan folded her arms. "There's only one reason for them to come back."

  "Gentrification?"

  She jerked her chin at the ruins of Los Angeles miles to their left. "They sure didn't fly all this way for the scenery."

  Ness didn't want that to be true. Most of the Swimmers were real sons of bitches, but the only aliens they'd known had been the ones who'd traveled to Earth with the express purpose of burning the place down. So there was some selection bias going on there. Even so, one of those murderous space monsters had turned out to be Sebastian—who was standing with them at that very moment, his bulbous eyes fixed upwards.

  Reading the alien's chitinous, rubbery face wasn't easy, but they'd known each other for five-plus years. They'd traveled the world together. Fought together. First the humans—those abusing and preying on their fellow survivors—and then the leftover Swimmers who were still waging war on the planet. In that time, Ness had come to learn a few things about alien expressions.

  And to the great pain of Ness' hopes that Tristan was wrong, Sebastian looked like he'd just stumbled into a mass grave.

  "Say you're right," Ness said. "Say they are here to wipe us out for good. What do you suggest we do about it?"

  "The same thing we've been doing for the last two years." Tristan smiled grimly. "Go kick some alien ass."

  * * *

  In the foothills above Pasadena, Lowell stood stock still, binoculars pressed to his eyes. His face was as motionless as the empty cities beneath him. His heart, though—whew, it was racing like a thoroughbred.

  He knew what he had to do, but his feet weren't moving. He was locking up. Staring at a nightmare as if his wish it wasn't real would make it disappear. He'd seen it in plenty of others. He had a term for those people: corpses.

  When others locked up, though, it was out of fear. That wasn't what had him, was it? He was taken by something else: exhaustion. He was tired of fighting. For years, he'd swallowed Anson's promises of peace and unification, working behind the scenes to make that dream real. Scouting. Strong-arming. Murdering. All the dirty work needed to clean out the city. And all of it lies. In the end, the only thing Lowell had done to redeem himself was to cut off Anson's head.

  The ship hung over the bay like a mile-wide gun barrel. If Lowell had been on his own, he might have sat down and let the future come to him.

  He wasn't alone, though. And before he could retire, he had one last thing to do.

  He turned from the bay and ran through the woods, ears sharp for the whine of alien jets. Within minutes, he was at the cabin. The front yard was empty. He threw open the front door.

  "Randy?" Lowell moved to the front closet and grabbed the two bags stashed there. Bulging and heavy—but not too heavy—they contained several days of food and water, and everything they'd need to last long enough to find more. "Randy!"

  The boy wasn't in his room. Nor the den. Lowell swung open the back door. Across the overgrown yard, Randy drove a shovel into the rich soil of the garden.

  "Randy!" Lowell jogged toward him. "Your ears working?"

  "I was just finishing up." The teen blinked from behind his glasses. His pudgy face was sweaty, dirt-streaked. His eyes moved to the two packs on Lowell's shoulder. "What's the matter?"

  "The aliens. They're back."

  "When did they ever leave?"

  "There's a second ship. Every bit as big as the first one. And this one's still airborne."

  Randy paled, then screwed up his face and strode toward Lowell, reaching for his go-bag. "Where are we going? The Dunemarket?"

  Lowell passed the boy the smaller pack. "Colorado."

  "Is that where the others are headed?"

  "Doubt it."

  Randy held the bag before him, not yet shouldering it. "You want to run away."

  "I want to survive."

  "But the city's just been brought together. How can we run away from that?"

  Temper flaring, Lowell stopped himself from grabbing the boy's arm. "You want to fight?"

  Randy's mouth fell open. "I can't believe you don't!"

  "Fighting to unify the city was one thing. That fight was winnable. But this? This is a flying city. A fleet of jets. And a new army. We can't stand against that."

  "But our friends are down there. How can we leave them behind?"

  "They'll leave, too." Lowell held Randy's gaze. "Because anyone who stays and fights is dead."

  Randy hesitated, emotions grappling for his face. His expression calmed. He shouldered the pack. "Then let's move."

  * * *

  As Raina considered the ship, a seed of fear unfurled in her heart.

  After months of fighting—years, if you considered her earlier war against the would-be barbarian king Karslaw—it was finished. Anson was dead. From Long Beach to Malibu, the survivors lived in peace beneath the banner of the Dunem
arket. She had unified the basin.

  And no sooner had that task been completed than the aliens had returned.

  It couldn't be coincidence. It could only be punishment. Somehow, during her conquest of the land, she had been judged unworthy. She had committed some unknown wrongs. The aliens had been sent to right them. And to take what was hers.

  Raina clenched her jaw. The ship did not belong there. If this was meant to be a punishment, then she would stand tall against it. And send the Swimmers to the same fate she had handed to all who tried to fight her.

  * * *

  Walt rushed into the upstairs bedroom. Carrie was a lump beneath the sheets.

  "Carrie," he said. "Carrie, wake up. Wake up wake up wake up—"

  Her eyes fluttered open. She scowled at him, but before she could speak, she broke into a coughing fit, lungs ratcheting so hard it was a wonder they didn't fly out of her throat.

  She caught her breath, eyes watering. "What's the matter? Get chased by a bee again?"

  He pointed toward the west window. "Your eyes will explain faster than I can."

  Carrie's annoyance dimmed, replaced by a hard-edged focus she seemed able to summon like a wizard's cantrip. She slipped out the edge of the bed and pushed aside the dusty, crackling curtains. Sunlight dazzled from the sea that lay three blocks downhill.

  "Daylight?" she said. "I hate it too, but I don't see the emergency…" She trailed off, falling a step back from the window, gaze lifted to the sky. "Whoops. Tell me that's not real."

  "I wish it was the brown LSD. Bad trips have an ending. But these assholes just keep crashing the party."

  "Have they done anything?"

  "Not yet. And I don't intend to give them the chance."

  Carrie turned to face him. Dark circles ringed her eyes, the product of the illness clogging up her lungs. She'd been taking antibiotics, but the only ones they had were seven years old, and Walt doubted they were targeted for chest infections. He'd been sick a few times since the plague, but nothing too bad. The lack of human hosts able to pass along disease was one of the many fringe benefits of near extinction. Within Walt's pantheon of troubles, illness had been a very minor deity.

  Carrie was sick, though. In a way that didn't seem inclined to clear up on its own. Lately, he hadn't had any choice but to worry.

  "Oh no?" She was almost smiling. "So you've got a plan."

  "Rig up a hot air balloon, land on top of them, and stuff their engines full of C-4."

  "That's not a plan."

  "It worked the first time. I don't know how much more planly a plan can get."

  Carrie took another look outside, decided they weren't in imminent danger of being bombed, and closed the curtains. She picked up her jeans from the floor.

  "We should go see that girl," she said. "Raina. She's got hundreds of followers."

  Walt cocked his head. "You think that's a good thing?"

  "That she has an army to back her up? Yeah, I could see that helping."

  "The whole point of the balloon is it's too small-scale for the Swimmers to see coming. If we get this so-called army involved, it'll only provide the aliens with a target. Make it harder to pull this off."

  Carrie buckled her belt and grabbed her shirt, which was long-sleeved but almost filmy in its thinness. It was January, but in Southern California, that meant 75-degree afternoons paired with chilly nights. Tough to dress for.

  She pulled her shirt over her head. "And you're that sure you need to kill the Swimmers."

  "If you see Bruce Willis around, I'm happy to give him the job. Otherwise, I'm the only one with the experience to pull this off."

  "What if the aliens aren't here to invade?"

  "Why else would they fly all this way?"

  "Come on. You're smarter than that."

  "To investigate what happened," he tried. "Or to pick up the idiots who lost the war. Or…who knows. They're aliens. It could be anything."

  "Exactly." With her sneakers on, she picked up her pack. "We don't know anything. If they're not here to kill us, and we start killing them, it could provoke a new war. Raina's got scouts watching the entire city. Whatever the aliens' objective, she'll have better intel than we will."

  "I think the explosions and screams will be intel enough." He moved to the bathroom and swept up the toothpaste, meds, and razors that had proliferated during their stay in the house. "I'm telling you, we're all we need. Adding more people to the mix will only make us worse at our job."

  "So you already have your balloon? And your fuel? And your explosives?"

  "For supplies, I was planning to consult that eldritch tome known as the 'yellow pages.' I hear they were quite useful before cell phones."

  "Right, we'll just pop over to Duke's Discount C-4 Outlet." Carrie leaned through the bathroom doorway. "It will be faster to get everything from the locals. And with any luck, we'll learn we won't have to."

  "That makes a certain amount of sense." Walt zipped up his kit and added it to his pack. "I still don't like it. We can do this alone. Other people will be the death of us."

  After a thorough look out the windows, they hit the streets, heading south toward San Pedro. She carried a rifle and a pistol. He carried his trusty laser. A steady wind blew off the ocean. It was a beautiful, sunny day. But wherever they went, the hum of the ship followed.

  * * *

  "One question," Sprite said. "How do we kick their ass from down here? This sub of ours is pretty sweet, but that ship up there? That's like the last level boss of a Final Fantasy game."

  Tristan gestured at the city. "We can't reach them in the sky. But if they want this place, they'll have to put tentacles on the ground. That's when we'll hit them."

  "Okay, but there's five of us. And like way more of them."

  The confident resolve on Tristan's face grew a few cracks. Ness often thought she was too sure of ideas, but he had to admit her surety was part of what attracted him to her.

  "We don't have the resources to put a dent in their army," Ness said. "Lucky for us, we know someone who does."

  "Raina," Sam said.

  He nodded. "They got hundreds of people in this city. Weapons, too. We don't have numbers or firepower, but we do have plenty of experience. Sounds to me like we'll go together like chocolate and peanut butter."

  Tristan eyed him. "Since when did you advocate working with others?"

  "Since the second alien mothership rolled in. Besides, I'm not saying we sign up with them. But coordinating makes a whole lot of sense."

  "Fair enough. They know this place much better than we do, too. Shall we set sail?"

  A snake-like tentacle shoved Ness in the ribs. Sebastian shuffled in front of him, gesturing in their personal sign language. "YOU STAND LIKE YOU DECIDE. BUT WHAT DECISION IS REACHED"

  Ness reddened. He'd been so struck by the ship he hadn't been translating the conversation. He signed, "We're going to go see the people who rule this place. If this is a second invasion, we'll be able to help each other to drive it off."

  "IF IT'S AN INVASION"

  "You don't think so?"

  Sebastian turned, lifting his two thick sense-limbs toward the ship ten miles to their south. "I THINK YES"

  Ness nodded glumly. "I was afraid you'd say that."

  "BUT I DON'T KNOW YES. THIS SHIP, IT WASN'T PART OF THE PLAN. MAYBE IT WAS SUMMONED—OR MAYBE IT COMES ON ITS OWN"

  "So what should we do?"

  "GO SEE YOUR RULER," Sebastian gestured. "AND I WILL SEE HER TOO"

  "No way. If you show your face in San Pedro with that ship overhead, they'll shoot you on sight."

  The alien turned on him, straightening to his height of seven-plus feet. "YOU WISH FOR WAR"

  "We've been fighting the Swimmers for years. More war is the last thing I want."

  "YOU DO NOT SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE. NOR DO ANY HUMANS. IF I AM TO BE THE AMBASSADOR TO MY PEOPLE, I MUST KNOW WHAT MESSAGE I AM TO BRING THEM"

  Ness gritted his teeth. He spoke, signing simu
ltaneously. "We'll go see Raina. And Sebastian's coming with us."

  This drew raised eyebrows, but the others hardly knew a lick of their sign language, and tended to leave Sebastian's affairs to Ness. Glancing over their shoulders, they climbed the ladder to the alien submarine's tower and descended the spiral ramp to the interior. Within a minute, they sank beneath the waves, heading south along the coast.

  * * *

  A steady wind ruffled the leaves of the forest. Though "forest" might be putting it strongly. More like a large grove. Within two miles, the cover grew spotty, shrubs and grass grown high from the winter rains. They were thirty miles between them and the ship, but as the trees dwindled, Lowell's jaw clenched tighter and tighter.

  Randy glanced up at the sky. "Are we moving west?"

  "That's right."

  "But you said we're going to Colorado. That's northeast."

  "We're going to find bikes," Lowell said. "Over in Crescenta Valley."

  He gestured ahead to where a bowl of brown mountains enclosed a green valley of small buildings. The highest ridges bore a dusting of snow. Portions of the towns had burned, leaving black scars and rubble, but most were intact. There would be bikes. They'd take I-5 out of the Valley and cut east, putting the San Gabriels between them and the aliens. They'd cross a lot of desert on the way to the Colorado Rockies, but the snows would provide water. Worst case, they'd hole up somewhere along the Colorado River—Lake Havasu or Needles were close enough—and let the weather warm up while they stockpiled dried fish and jerky and so forth.

  As they neared the valley, Lowell angled downslope, heading for a park road that led down from the mountains.

  Randy wouldn't quit looking over his shoulder. Lowell knew it was coming. Randy said, "It doesn't feel like we're doing the right thing."

  "We're not. We're doing the smart thing."

  "It's smart to abandon your friends?"

  "If that's an invasion, the Swimmers' first targets will be the population centers. The Dunemarket's the worst place we could be."