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Lila’s chest was heaving, as if she could feel her baby’s heart pumping double time along with hers.
 

Watching Raj’s face fall, her first instinct was to apologize. A lot of what she’d said — about why he was here anyway — was untrue and clearly unfair. She’d wanted Raj with her. And he was part of the family now, bound to the Dempsey clan by unborn blood for better or worse. But he wouldn’t listen. He’d raised the same arguments day in, day out for the week their new visitors had been in the bunker. Every innocuous moment, Raj had been warning her of doing wrong, of not seeing the truth, of turning a blind eye to the ill intentions of others.
 

But they didn’t have any ill intentions. Raj had been having crises the entire time they’d been in here. This was about
him
, not anyone else. He was maybe jealous, maybe feeling inadequate. But the truth was that Meyer would have accepted the attitudes and ethos of the new men much more easily than he’d accepted Raj … and they both knew it.
 

Still, she thought Raj might retort. He might even run off and pout. But he surprised her. His jaw hardened and he said, “Fine. You’re right. I’ll keep my opinions to myself.”
 

Cameron entered the kitchen then looked at Lila and Raj. They must have looked like two fighters preparing to square off. “Everyone got a minute?” he said.
 

Lila turned toward Cameron. Past him, she saw that the living room had filtered into a group, as if to prepare for an announcement. Had they heard her rant? Probably some. She felt a blush but held it in.
 

“What’s going on?” Lila asked.
 

“It’s time for me to head out,” he said, “to try and find your father."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Images roll past Heather
’
s line of sight.
 

She understands and doesn
’
t understand at all.
 

Meyer is beside her, but they, the two of them, are nowhere in particular.
 

Like many times when they were together in this place, space doesn
’
t matter. There were times when they lay on couch cushions and pillows on Heather
’
s floor
—
in what was once their
house —
and times when they met the shaman in other places. It never mattered.
 

For Meyer, it was about the depth of his dream.
 

The dream showed him understanding.
 

Like Heather almost has now.
 

“
It
’
s a beacon,
”
Meyer says.
“
But at the same time, it
’
s an inductive charge. A way of providing power without requiring them to keep that power source aboard.
”
 

He
’
s pointing. Heather sees the pyramid
—
common enough imagery for her in these dreams, which most of her mind is aware enough to know is floating through a haze of artificial reality
—
but this time something is different.
 

She usually she goes where he leads her, but for Heather it
’
s always been like taking a tour with Meyer as the guide. For her, it has always been about a shared experience. She
’
d never say it in their usual version of reality, but in the ayahuasca dreams she used to feel that the places they went
—
or the places
he
went, while she tagged along
—
didn
’
t matter as long as they traveled as one. It
’
s a curiously vulnerable idea for the wakened Heather, but her defenses always soften in this place.
 

Except that she shouldn
’
t be here. Meyer is gone. And Heather
—
the corporeal Heather, in a bed in a room
—
has taken none of the medicine.
 

She
’
s about to ask what Meyer means about beacons and power sources, but then she sees it. They
’
ve often visited symbolic places, her higher self somehow was aware that Meyer was traveling and she was only seeing what he wanted her to see.
 

But now the image is in her.
 

She
’
s never been to Egypt, and has no interest in the ancients or the structure of their monolithic buildings. But now she understands that there are two main passageways inside the structure itself, fluted up at an angle like vast vents, converging on a place at its heart called the Queen
’
s Chamber. Looking at the pyramid now, she sees the beacon Meyer means: a thin line of light emanating from one of the ascending passageways, lancing the atmosphere. Beyond it, at the beam
’
s end, she sees the moon. Only it isn
’
t a moon. It
’
s a large sphere, tied to the beacon, receiving the power generated in the earthbound building.
 

Other images shuffle past before she can wonder.
 

A hole in the ground, going down forever, booby trapped and unreachable.
 

Lines of stones. Monoliths. Perfect precision from supposedly imperfect instruments.
 

Primitive networks. Nodes.
 

And points of power
—
nine of them
—
where dormant secrets lie hidden.

Meyer is still beside her as the images flit past.
“
Do you understand?
”
 

Heather does not, and says so.
 

“
But you do. You
do.”
 

She turns to him. None of this matters. And none of this is real.
 

The days when they would lock themselves in a room with Juha and purge into buckets then travel for hours are long gone. The days of facing their darknesses before finding this place, this togetherness, this space
—
long gone. She
’
s dimly aware that she is only dreaming. But the dream is so real, so deep in its understanding. Unlike any dream she
’
s ever had.
 

“
I miss you,
”
she says.

Their surroundings change in an instant, as if a switch has been flipped. There are no more scenes of spiritual clich
é
. No pyramids, no Sphinx, no Incan ruins, no supposition, on the part of the dream, that she should imbue the old places with meaning. Now the background is hard and metallic. Lights. Panels and tables and wires.
 

“
Then protect it for me, Heather,
”
he says.
“
Protect what will allow me to return.
”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Heather awoke to a gentle shaking. Her eyes blinked away sleep’s haze, her mind slowly coming around to the realization that she’d been dreaming. She was suddenly sure that the dream was important, and she rushed to hold it close, but it was already slipping away. She’d dreamed of Meyer and a very important task he’d assigned her. But as seconds ticked by, her certainty faded. Why couldn’t it just have been a dream?
 

“Mom.”
 

She rolled halfway over beneath the sheets. What time was it? Living underground had shifted her perception of day and night. Clocks no longer mattered. Daytime bled through the skylights and reflectors, but the way it filtered down, never direct, made it feel like just another bulb. Lila and Trevor seemed to be settling into a circadian rhythm that was just under twenty-four hours whereas she (and Piper, Heather guessed, and who the fuck cared about Raj?) wanted to stretch hers to twenty-five or more. If any of them had been sealed away alone, time would probably pass slower for Heather than for her daughter, and in a few weeks they’d disagree on how many days (how many cycles of sleep and awake) had passed. But because they were all trapped together, their schedules blended. Heather was tired more often than she had been topside, and had solved the mismatch by joining her children’s schedules and taking naps. Like the one, she now realized, she was rousing from.
 

Lila was above her.
 

“Hey, baby,” Heather said.
 

“Cameron needs to go.”
 

“Oh. Well, goodbye, Cameron.”

“I thought you might want to hear what he had to say.”
 

“Is it different from goodbye?”

Lila smiled down at her mother. She wasn’t a little girl anymore. She’d been knocked up, and despite that being a bad thing by Old World standards, this was the New World, and the pregnancy gave Lila and Heather something to bond over — while, interestingly, caring for Lila had given Heather and
Piper
something to bond over. So that was nice. But on the other hand, she’d been knocked up
by
Raj,
about which Heather was less enthusiastic. He was probably a catch by most mothers’ standards, but Heather wasn’t most mothers.
 

“Come on, Mom.”
 

“I’m really tired. I had a hard day of sitting around underground and watching episodes of
ALF
.”
 

“Mom.”
 

“Why didn’t Alf ever eat that fucking cat he wanted so badly? It was
right there
, and it’s not like Alf had much self-restraint. I’ve never understood that.”
 

“I’ve never understood why you like that old show.”
 

“I’m fascinated by the complex character work.”
 

“Come on.” Lila tugged at her. Heather protested. But hey, she had this coming. Back when they’d all lived together, Heather had tried to drag Lila out of bed in exactly the same way every school day. Now the tables were turned, so there.
 

Lila finally dropped Heather’s arm and stood. She was thin, and Heather wondered if she was imagining the tiniest of baby bumps. Probably. They were all getting fat down here. Obese at the end of the world. And to think: there were starving children in Africa. And starving crowds of looting murderer-rapists everywhere, including their front lawn.
 

“Okay,” Lila said. “I tried. We’ll fill you in later.”
 

“She coming?” yelled a voice. It sounded like Cameron.
 

Heather yelled back: “No. You interrupted me before I could.”
 

Cameron laughed. “Then by all means, finish.”
 

Lila rolled her eyes. Heather ignored her.
 

Heather liked Cameron. He was Piper’s age but had the seasoned feel of a much older man. He’d told them how he’d traveled with his father in the past, hitting a world’s worth of obscure destinations — and, once older, how he’d traveled to dozens more places with his band. They didn’t make much money playing obscure backwaters, but Cameron always chose experience over profit. And Dan, bless his heart, went right along. As Cameron’s agent, he worked on commission. But somehow Cameron was allowed to play all the low-paying gigs he wanted.
 

“‘Night, Mom.”

“No, no, hang on. Just let me wash my face.” She shouted past Lila, through the door, into the living room. “If you’re playing Twister, wait for me!”
 

“Right foot green,” said Christopher’s voice.
 

Heather rolled out of bed, wondering if she was netting sleep with these naps. She’d never been a napper back before the ships’ arrival had made life socially awkward. She’d stayed up until 3 a.m., never bothering to break the pattern because she needed it for those nights she had comedy shows. Many times, she’d need to be awake earlier than eleven or noon and would eek through the morning on fumes, drinking cup after cup of highly cream-and-sugared coffee. But even on those nights of little rest, Heather refused to nap. It upset her sense of night and day enough to fatigue her. Little had changed. Naps still tricked her body into thinking day was night, and she still woke feeling like she was wearing a one-ton cloak. But what else was there to do around here besides watch old TV recordings and walk on one of the gravity treadmills?

The two larger bedrooms shared a master bathroom. Heather entered, turned on the light, and thought for a moment of how thankful she was for all of Meyer’s preparations. He hadn’t just built them a haven for what might be the end days. He’d given them a sanctuary with two full bathrooms and a Jacuzzi. If things really went to hell, that Jacuzzi might become a cistern and the bathroom a dark cave in which to store scavenged metal from topside, but for now the wind and sun continued to give them all the electricity required to run the pump. The spring or aquifer or whatever gave them water to fill the tub. So why the hell
not
have a hot, bubbly soak while the alien invasion went about its business outside? Meyer had been practical like that. He could afford anything, so he bought everything.

And what’s more, he’d done all of it well in advance of knowing what was coming. Damn near psychic of him, everyone agreed. It was enough to make the bunker’s residents believe in the positive power of paranoia. Although Heather, for her part, was beginning to believe Meyer hadn’t been operating as blind as it seemed at first. Nobody else had Heather’s intimate knowledge of Meyer Dempsey. Not even Piper knew him deep to the core, because she never journeyed with him, high on what he called healing. Heather even thought he might’ve had some sort of trippy vision during a few of their ayahuasca sessions that led him to—