Diehl had the soles of his feet propped against the edge of his desk, and he was leaning his metal chair back, balancing it on its two rear legs—an old habit of his. When I tapped on the windowpane and he looked over to see me standing outside in my EDA uniform, he jerked backward in surprise, the chair tipped over, and he fell to the floor with a thud. But he recovered quickly, scrambled back to his feet, and ran over to throw open the window.
“Zack!” he said, leaning out the window to give me a hug before pulling me inside. “Jesus, man!”
We hugged each other; then I turned to wave at Cruz in his monitor. He was sitting at his computer in his own cluttered suburban bedroom, just a few miles away.
“Holy shit,” I said. “It’s really good to see both of you guys.”
“Yeah! We had no idea what happened to you!” Cruz said. “Sweet EDA uniform!”
“Thanks,” I said, collapsing into a beanbag chair in the corner, suddenly feeling the heaviness of my exhaustion weighing me down like a suit of medieval armor.
“We weren’t sure we’d ever see you again, after you flew off in that shuttle!” Diehl said, sitting back down at his desk. “Oh, that reminds me—” He leaned over and punched me in the shoulder. Hard.
“Ow!” I said, recoiling as I raised my own fist to feign retaliation. “What the actual fuck, Diehl!”
“That’s for leaving without me, Biggs,” he replied, leaning back. “Don’t ever do that again.”
I sighed, rubbing the site of my future bruise. “Like I had a choice,” I said, laughing. “Asshole.”
“School was canceled right after you left and they sent everyone home,” Cruz added. “That’s where we were when the news hit earlier this afternoon. So we jumped online and helped fight off the first wave.”
“We’ve been glued to our consoles since,” Diehl said, still in shock. “We helped defend Shanghai and Karachi—until the Disrupter activated and disabled everyone’s links. We would have been hosed if the EDA hadn’t taken that thing out.”
“The EDA’s Drone Operator Assignment System switched both of us to local defense once the enemy began to spread out and attack everywhere,” Cruz continued. “And since we’re two of the highest-ranking drone drivers in the greater Beaverton area, we got first dibs on local drone access! We used our ATHIDs to help defend Beaverton from the drones that landed here.”
“Yeah, did you see that Basilisk we took out?” Diehl asked. “It was right down the street from your house.”
“You two did that?”
They both nodded proudly.
“We couldn’t let that thing stomp your house!” Diehl said, slapping me on the back and then hooking his arm around my neck.
“Thanks, fellas,” I said. “I appreciate it.” I pointed back outside, at the ring of ATHIDs encircling his house. “How did you manage that?”
“Their operating system software has zero security installed,” Cruz said. “I guess the EDA decided not to bother—but that makes them in credibly easy to hack. People all over the world have been figuring out all sorts of hacks to make them do stuff the EDA never intended, then they post ‘How To’ videos on YouTube, showing everyone else how to do it, too.” He pointed outside. “That’s how I disabled the recall subroutine on those ATHIDs out there, so they didn’t leave for reassignment after the first wave.” He beamed proudly. “Now they’ll be here to protect my mom and little sisters when the second wave arrives.”
I nodded, impressed. I was about to ask if he’d tried making them line dance when Cruz shouted at me from the laptop screen.
“So spill it,” he said. “What happened to you after that shuttle picked you up at school this morning? Where the hell have you been all day?”
I considered how to answer.
“On the far side of the moon,” I replied. “With my dad.”
On the monitor, I saw Cruz’s jaw drop open.
To my left, Diehl leaned back a few inches too far in his chair and fell over again.
ONCE I CAUGHT my breath, I tried calling Lex to make sure she was okay. She didn’t answer, but a few seconds later she texted me: I’m OK. Will call U ASAP. <3
Then, as quickly as I could, I told the Mikes everything that had happened since we’d last seen each other. Eventually I worked my way up to telling them my father’s theory about the Europans’ true motives, and the observations he’d made that supported it. It took a while for me to get to our battle with the Disrupter, and to explain how its conclusion seemed to be proof of my father’s theory.
When I’d finally laid everything out, I asked the question I’d come here to ask.
“What do you guys think?”
They both stared at me in silence for a long time. Diehl was the first to speak.
“I think your dad is probably right,” he said. “Why would the Europans bother to send robots and spaceships to attack us?” He shoved a handful of corn chips into his mouth, then chewed thoughtfully. “If their primary goal was to wipe out the human race, they could have just hurled an asteroid at Earth. Or fired a bunch of long-range nukes. Or poisoned our atmosphere, or—”
“Maybe they’re precursors!” Cruz shouted from Diehl’s computer monitor. “Maybe they seeded life on Earth millions of years ago, and now they’re here to punish us for turning out to be such a lame species and inventing reality TV and shit?” He raised an index finger. “Or maybe they’re omnipotent beings who have grown bored with immortality, and they’re just tormenting us for their own twisted amusement? You know, like whenever Q would pop in from the continuum to fuck with Picard!”
“This conversation was an intelligent one, right up until you joined it,” Diehl said.
I didn’t chime in. I just let them debate the issue, as if we were all back in our high school’s cafeteria, arguing some trivial facet of pop culture over cardboard pizza. This was why I’d come here, I realized—to get the opinion of my two most trusted friends, gauge their reaction, and see if their conclusions mirrored my own. And in a way, they did. They seemed to be just as confounded by all of this as I felt, and yet were also just as intrigued by the mystery as my father.
I checked the time. It was still running out. And I realized that I’d already made my decision.
“I appreciate you talking through this with me, fellas,” I told them. “Now I’ve got a phone call to make.”
I raised my wrist and activated my QComm. Both of my friends’ eyes lit up.
“What the holy sweet hell is that?” Diehl asked. “A tricorder?”
FINN ARBOGAST ANSWERED after the third ring, and his smiling face appeared in high-definition video on my QComm’s display. Judging by the view behind him, he was sitting in some sort of command bunker, with giant display screens bolted to its thick concrete walls each displaying icon-littered maps of various regions of the world.
“Zack!” he said. “I’m glad to see that you’re alive! You and your father were reported missing in action just after you took out that Disrupter. Congratulations, by the way. I watched the whole thing!”
“Then you know that my father just risked his life to save us all,” I said. “So I think you owe him a favor, don’t you?”
He smiled uneasily. I waited for him to ask about my father, but he said nothing.
“Did my father ever tell you his theory, about the Europans’ true motives?”
His smile vanished and he let out a heavy sigh.
“You mean his theory that this invasion is all a ruse?” Arbogast said. “That the Europans orchestrated this whole conflict as some sort of test for humanity? Yes, I know all about it. I’m sorry, Lieutenant. Your father is a great man—a hero. And we all owe him a huge debt. But all these years at war have addled his brain. He’s become delusional.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I replied, too forcefully. “I’ve seen the evidence myself, when we were going up against the Disrupter in Antarctica—it dropped its shield on purpose. They let us destroy it! Look at the footage—you can see it happen for yourself!”
He didn’t respond, but his eyes shifted evasively. He looked as if he spent most of his time in front of a computer instead of with people, and he wasn’t used to being interrogated or put on the spot like this.
“I don’t see the point in this conversation,” he said. “We debated all of this with your father years ago, and I’m not going to go through it again now with you, kid. I mean, look around you! Our enemy’s motives are obviously no longer in question!” He pointed to the giant map of the world behind him. “The Europans just killed over thirty million people—and that was just the first wave of their invasion. The second wave is arriving just over an hour from now. So if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare for it—”
“Sir, if you’ll just let me speak to someone who—”
Before I could say another word, he ended the call.
I lowered my phone and turned to look at my friends.
“Okay,” Diehl said, leaning forward. “That was a giant ball of fail. What now?”