Alien Invasion (Book 1): Invasion by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant Read Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t happening. And as Meyer topped off, he thought that this could be any night, anytime, anywhere.  
    But the highways were another story, and despite what he’d told Heather about surface roads, highways still seemed like the best way to travel. The van was well-stocked, but it wasn’t otherwise as end-of-the-world prepped as it should have been. It had tires that could be punctured, windows that could be broken, and plastic side panels that could be shot through. The freeway was crawling. But surface roads, as they looked into the shadowy and streetlight-lit neighborhoods beyond, looked dangerous.  
    They didn’t have far to go. Sleep, for the passengers, made time tick quickly. Meyer had his running thoughts, and Piper seemed to feel her only job (which she was happy to do) was to be by his side. The time spend was fine. They didn’t have an assigned flight time like commercial fliers. They wouldn’t have to go through security or even through the airport itself, small as it was. All that mattered was that they arrived whole, that the plane was still there, and that the pilot was ready to fly. And thanks to the still-functional cell network, he was able to confirm the second two just fine. As long as Morristown stayed peaceful, there was no reason for Nick to hop into the jet and fly off on his own. He was well paid, and despite the day’s events, money still seemed very much to matter.  
    There had been scant new information. The van’s radio had been on and tuned to a satellite news channel the entire trip, and as the evening had rolled on the station had taken to replaying the exact same half-hour loop over and over.  
    Ships were still approaching Earth, same as they’d been this afternoon.
    The president was still urging calm.  
    NASA was still predicting an arrival in approximately five days.  
    And the special interview guest — a man named Bertrand Delacroix, who sounded like a conspiracy nut to Meyer but who apparently had some sort of legit credentials — was still saying that if not for the public availability of the Astral app, the government would be covering all of this up. They were forthcoming now, he scoffed, because there was no way to lie. Somehow this was good news, but Meyer could only intuit that from Bertrand Delacroix’s tone of voice, and the interviewer’s reaction.  
    Ten miles from Morristown, Piper reached over and touched the radio, turning it to music.  
    “That’s enough of that,” she said.  
    “We need to know what’s happening, Piper.”  
    “We know it. Like six or seven times, we know it by now.”  
    “Something might change.”  
    But Piper wasn’t listening. He’d thought she’d fallen asleep, and now she closed her eyes and looked it. She took his hand. He’d had them folded in his lap for most of the trip but had remained sitting in the driver’s seat just in case a move to manual proved necessary. So far, it hadn’t. A line of traffic was a line of traffic, and everyone had to wait their turn. The autocar could do that much just fine.  
    “It’s crazy to think there’s still music, isn’t it?” Piper said.  
    “On the radio?”  
    “In the world.” She sighed. Piper loved music and was much more up on trends than Heather ever had been. It was one of the things Lila loved about her stepmother, and a tiny source of jealousy with Heather. “All that’s happened, all this fear and fighting, and someone is still out there playing music.”  
    “I’m sure it’s programmed.”  
    She sighed, not wanting to hear him.  
    Meyer shook his head at the line of traffic. “We’re almost there. I’m going to be so glad to get out of this van.”  
    “After all the time you spent stocking it?”  
    “The Axis Mundi is better stocked than the van.”  
    “Why do you call it ‘Axis Mundi’? The ranch, I mean.”  
    Meyer considered explaining, but despite her spiritual bearing, he felt that Piper didn’t understand any of the