Chapter 1 — When the Sky Broke

Dev noticed the silence because his daughter stopped talking.

A moment earlier, she had been explaining why the small stone she had picked up beside the path was definitely treasure and therefore had to come home with them.

Then she went quiet.

"Daddy."

Dev looked down.

She was staring at the sky.

He followed her gaze.

Grey clouds hung above the buildings. Nothing unusual at first.

Then he realised what was missing.

Birds.

No pigeons on the rooftops. No gulls circling above the flats. Nothing moving between the buildings at all.

The street below the sky was still normal.

Cars passed. A woman pushed a buggy along the opposite pavement. A delivery rider was chaining his bicycle outside a shop.

His daughter squeezed his fingers.

"Look."

The clouds were opening.

Not drifting apart.

Opening around something descending through them.

Dev stopped.

For several seconds, his mind tried to force the shape into something familiar.

Plane.

Helicopter.

Drone.

None fitted.

The object had no wings that he could see, no tail and no visible engines.

And it was enormous.

A man near a parked van noticed it next.

"What the hell is that?"

Phones began coming out.

More people looked upward.

Then more shapes appeared behind the first.

Smaller.

Dozens of them.

Dev's stomach tightened.

He bent and lifted his daughter.

"Come on."

"Where?"

"Home."

He started walking quickly toward their building.

He didn't know what was happening.

That was enough reason to get indoors.

The largest object continued descending almost silently.

Something that size should have made noise.

Instead, Dev felt pressure building inside his ears.

His daughter squirmed against him.

"My ears hurt."

"I know."

His did too.

People were still filming.

Someone nearby was speaking rapidly into a phone.

Then Dev's own mobile vibrated.

He pulled it from his pocket.

The signal indicator disappeared.

The screen froze beneath his thumb.

A second later it went dark.

Voices rose around him.

"My phone's gone."

"Mine too."

"I've got nothing."

Dev shoved his useless phone back into his pocket.

"Hold onto me."

His daughter wrapped her arms around his neck.

Above them, the nearest craft stopped descending.

It simply hung there.

The pressure vanished.

For one strange second, the whole street seemed to hesitate.

Then blue-white light appeared beneath the craft.

It struck somewhere beyond the buildings ahead.

The ground lurched.

Windows rattled.

Someone screamed.

Dev ran.

He kept one arm beneath his daughter and the other across her back as he sprinted toward their entrance.

People scattered around him.

A car mounted the kerb.

Someone fell.

Then came a deep pulse from behind.

Dev glanced back.

Something was descending into the road.

It was much smaller than the craft overhead.

Still far too large to mistake for a human once it landed.

Two legs.

Two arms.

A head.

The similarity ended there.

It stood well over two metres tall, every part of its body enclosed in overlapping dark plates. Its face was hidden behind a smooth helmet crossed by a thin strip of pale light.

Another landed farther along the street.

Then another.

Dev turned forward.

Their building was close.

The entrance opened.

A neighbour leaned out.

"Dev!"

"I don't know what's happening!"

He ran harder.

A pale flash came from behind him.

A man several metres away collapsed.

No explosion.

No visible wound.

He simply dropped.

Another pulse.

Another person fell.

Dev's heart hammered.

"Inside!"

He was almost there.

The pale strip across the nearest figure's helmet brightened.

Something hit Dev across the back.

His legs stopped working.

He crashed onto the pavement.

His shoulder struck first.

Pain tore down his arm.

His grip loosened.

His daughter slipped from him and landed near the entrance.

She started crying.

Dev tried to stand.

Nothing happened.

His legs were there.

He could see them.

They simply would not obey him.

"Take her!"

The neighbour stared.

"Take her!"

The woman rushed forward.

She grabbed his daughter beneath the arms and pulled her towards the entrance.

"Daddy!"

"I'm here."

Dev dragged himself forward with his elbows.

"Daddy!"

"It's okay."

It wasn't.

He knew that.

But he had nothing else to give her.

The armoured figure approached.

Dev clawed at the pavement, trying to put himself between it and the entrance.

The neighbour had his daughter.

Get her inside.

That was all that mattered.

The figure spoke.

Several harsh sounds came through its helmet.

Dev stared up at it.

"I don't understand."

More words.

Meaningless.

"I don't understand you."

Its pale visor swept over him.

Then its head turned towards the entrance.

"No."

Dev dragged himself another few centimetres.

"No. Me."

He struck his chest with one hand.

"Me."

The figure looked down at him.

Something narrow unfolded from its forearm.

Dev barely had time to see the metallic point before it touched his neck.

Cold.

Then burning.

His vision blurred.

He heard his daughter screaming.

Dev twisted towards the entrance.

The neighbour was carrying her inside.

Then the world went dark.

---

Dev woke staring at a surface less than half a metre above his face.

He sucked in a breath and immediately struck his elbow against something beside him.

There was nowhere to move.

His shoulder touched one side.

His knee touched another.

For one terrified second, he thought he had been buried.

Then he saw the thin strips of white light running along the edges of the compartment.

Dev pushed both hands against the panel above him.

It didn't move.

"Hello?"

His voice came back at him.

He hit the surface.

"Hey!"

Nothing.

Memory returned.

The street.

His daughter.

The neighbour carrying her inside.

Dev shut his eyes.

That was the last thing he had seen.

He didn't know what happened afterwards.

Didn't know what happened to his wife.

Didn't know what happened to anyone.

His fingers moved.

Then his feet.

Whatever had paralysed him had worn off.

A faint vibration passed through the compartment.

Dev went still.

Machinery?

Movement?

He couldn't tell.

"HEY!"

He slammed his palm against the panel.

"I'm awake!"

A click sounded above him.

Dev recoiled.

A narrow seam appeared around the panel.

It rose.

Cold white light flooded the compartment.

Dev shielded his eyes.

When he could see again, he slowly sat upright.

Rows of identical compartments filled a long chamber.

Some were open.

Others were opening now.

People lay inside them.

Human people.

A woman sat up several rows away and began crying immediately.

Another man climbed out so quickly he nearly fell.

Questions spread through the chamber.

"Where are we?"

"What happened?"

"Where's my son?"

"My phone's gone."

Dev climbed from his compartment.

His legs felt weak, but they held.

He checked his pockets.

Empty.

Phone gone.

Wallet gone.

Keys gone.

He still wore the clothes he'd had on outside.

The chamber had no windows.

Its dark walls were seamless except for narrow strips of white light.

Dev could see no obvious way in or out.

He searched the faces around him.

Once.

Then again.

His daughter wasn't there.

Of course she wasn't.

He had seen the neighbour take her.

Still, he had looked.

A soft tone sounded overhead.

Three notes.

Everyone went silent.

A voice followed.

Not English.

Not anything Dev recognised.

A short sequence of sounds.

Then the same sequence repeated.

"What did it say?" someone whispered.

Nobody answered.

The lights changed from white to amber.

At one end of the chamber, a section of what had looked like solid wall split apart.

People backed away.

Two armoured figures entered.

The same kind Dev had seen in the street.

Someone screamed.

A man stepped forward.

"Where are we?"

He got three steps.

A pale flash struck him.

He collapsed.

Silence followed.

The man moved weakly on the floor.

Still alive.

One of the armoured figures pointed through the opening behind it.

Nobody moved.

It spoke.

Then pointed again.

There was no need to understand the words.

Dev stepped forward.

Not because he wanted to.

Because the alternative was standing in front of the weapon.

Others followed.

---

The corridor beyond the chamber was unlike anything Dev had ever seen.

Dark surfaces curved without visible joins.

Thin lines of blue light moved beneath translucent sections of flooring.

Small objects drifted near the ceiling with nothing holding them up.

Dev tried to make sense of what he was seeing.

He couldn't.

Then another group crossed the corridor ahead.

Dev stopped breathing for a second.

They weren't human.

One was tall and narrow, its skin grey-green.

Another had four arms.

A third was covered in short pale fur.

All wore thick metal bands around their necks.

More armoured figures walked beside them.

Nobody among the humans spoke after that.

Dev felt faint vibration beneath his feet as they moved.

He had no idea whether the structure itself was moving or whether the sensation came from machinery somewhere nearby.

The corridor eventually opened into a much larger chamber.

A circular structure dominated its centre.

A ring built into the floor, surrounded by machinery.

Dev stared.

The inside of the ring looked no different from the surrounding floor.

Then the machines activated.

Light raced around its circumference.

The air above the circle distorted.

Dev narrowed his eyes.

The distortion deepened.

The surface inside the ring seemed to disappear.

Darkness replaced it.

Not a black wall.

Something with depth.

Tiny points of light appeared inside.

They reminded Dev of stars.

The image shifted before he could decide what he was looking at.

Someone behind him whispered,

"Oh God."

The armoured figures began pushing the humans forward.

A woman tried to retreat.

A weapon rose.

She stopped.

The first man in line reached the ring.

One of the figures shoved him.

He stumbled through.

And vanished.

Dev stared.

No flash.

No explosion.

One step there.

The next gone.

Another person followed.

Then another.

The line shortened.

Dev's mouth went dry.

He looked around for anything that might offer another option.

There was nothing he understood well enough to use.

The people ahead of him disappeared one after another.

Dev looked down.

The crooked little star on his forearm was still there.

Tiny crown above it.

Uneven lines.

Ordinary ink.

The sight brought his daughter back so sharply that his chest hurt.

A hand struck him between the shoulders.

Dev stumbled.

His foot entered the circle.

The chamber vanished.

There was no transition his senses could follow.

No floor.

No sound.

No direction.

Pressure closed around his entire body.

His stomach twisted.

Dev tried to breathe and couldn't tell whether he had.

Heat flashed across his skin.

Then cold.

The flesh beneath the tattoo prickled.

For a fraction of a second, Dev had the nauseating sensation that he was falling in several directions at once.

Then something changed.

He couldn't have said what.

Only that one impossible sensation became another.

And suddenly there was air.

Dev gasped.

His feet found nothing beneath them.

He fell.

Stone struck his knees and palms.

He rolled onto his shoulder.

For several seconds he could only cough.

Voices surrounded him.

None were familiar.

Dev forced his eyes open.

The chamber was nothing like the one he had left.

Rough dark stone formed much of the walls, reinforced in places by heavy metal supports. Strips of amber light cast uneven illumination over old-looking machinery.

Metal cages stood along one side.

Figures occupied them.

Dev stared.

Not human.

Different bodies.

Different faces.

Some close enough to human to be unsettling.

Others much less so.

He turned quickly.

The people who had entered the circle ahead of him were nowhere to be seen.

No humans at all.

A broad figure several metres away noticed him.