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I was jolted awake the next morning by someone knocking on our bedroom door. Loudly and insistently.
“Who is it?” Skyler asked sleepily, as she turned over disturbing Leah who was sleeping on her stomach.
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” I replied as I stumbled out of bed. Most of our clothes had ended up on the floor in a crumpled heap, and all our night dresses were in the closet, so I just threw Skyler’s jacket on before opening the door.
As soon as I opened the door, aunt Choi pulled back and started wringing her hands. “I apologise for disturbing you, miss, but there are people here to see you. I tried to turn them away, but they were very insistent.”
“What sort of people?” I asked, as I pulled the jacket tighter to keep the warmth in.
Aunt Choi stepped closer. “Government people, half a dozen of them, and there’s a samurai with them,” she explained in a harsh whisper. "The security team nearly shot them!” The older woman was trembling, so I reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s fine, we’ll apologise when we come out,” I told her.
Behind me Skyler sat up. I knew that, because out cats, which were all lounging on her, scattered. “Which samurai?” she asked.
“I didn’t recognize her, but she identified herself as ‘Velvet Aurora,’ miss.” Aunt Choi replied.
“Tell them we’ll be out in a minute, we’ll just need to get dressed,” I told the older woman. She nodded, then rushed off down the hallway, back toward our guests.
“What do you think they want?” Skyler asked as I gently closed the door. She’d already thrown off the sheets and was deep in our walk in closet before I even turned around.
“I don’t know, but Grey did mention that the incursion wasn’t the only issue. Maybe they’re here to talk about that?” I replied, grabbing a nearby t-shirt. Before I could even think about putting it on Skyler had already snatched the shirt out of my hands and stuffed a more up class blouse and pant combo into my hands.
“We’re meeting with Aurora and people from the government, we’re not going to head out there looking like hobos,” she hissed.
“The last time we saw Aurora we were both covered in antithesis juices, I don’t think she minds,” I replied as I took the outfit out to the bedroom to change.
“Well, I mind!” Skyler hissed. I didn’t bother arguing further. Skyler got this way when she was stressed, like before a big trial, or meeting an important client. The best thing I could do is leave her alone, and let her focus.
I slowly got dressed in the outfit Skyler chose, then quickly tidied up my hair. When Skyler stepped out of the closet, she looked like a million bucks. In the time I’d taken to change she’d cleaned up her hair, and did full makeup. I knew if I gave her the chance she’d nag me to clean myself up a little more, so I jogged to the door and ripped it open. “Come on, our guests are waiting,” I said.
Skyler just snorted, and followed me out. When we finally stepped out into the living room we found Velvet sitting comfortably, enjoying a nice cup of tea with an older gentleman, while the rest of the government agents, along with mother’s security detachment, stared at each other across the room. Velvet was wearing a different, maroon bell bottom suit, and her wings were missing. Her antenna were still there though, laying down flat partially hidden by her hair.
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“Sorry we’re late,” Skyler said politely. “We weren’t exactly expecting guests this early in the morning.”
“It’s quite alright, you two had a long day yesterday,” Aurora replied, as she rose to her feet.
“Not as long as you, I would bet,” I replied, as I reached forward to shake her hand. “Did you even go to bed last night?”
“I don’t need much rest anymore,” Aurora said simply. Once we’d shook hands Aurora turned and gestured towards the elderly gentlemen. “This is Alexander Beckett. Cascadia’s strategic coordinator for the Vancouver region.”
“Is that like a general or something?” Skyler asked as she shook his hand.
“General is an outdated term here in Cascadia,” Alexander explained. “Since most of our forces are PMC based I don’t have a ton of direct subordinates, just a ton of independent contractors. I honestly wish I had more traditional forces, I wouldn’t feel like I was herding cats everywhere,” the old man laughed.
Skyler and I exchanged a glance. “So what can we do for you exactly at…” I checked my augs and winced. “Four in the morning?”
Aurora put her hands together in front of herself. “I’m sorry for barging in, but your AIs were blocking all incoming calls. They said you needed more time to recover, but we couldn’t wait until morning.” She straightened up, and motioned for everyone else in the room to leave. The militia left, but the security stayed around, looking at me for confirmation. When I nodded, they followed the other group out and closed the door.
Once we were alone Aurora pulled out a small device out of her jacket. As soon as she placed it on the table a large holographic recreation of the city popped up. The city itself was covered in small green and yellow dots around the city center, but as the image zoomed out thousands of red dots popped up around the city’s perimeter.
“This is the current state of the antithesis in the area. As you can see, we have the incursion under control, but there’s massive movement outside the city,” Aurora explained.
“How the fuck did the antithesis get out there?” I asked, as I leaned forward and inspected the map. "Was there another incursion outside the walls?”
“From what our scouts can tell,” Alexander said. “The antithesis had hundreds, maybe thousands of hidden, inactive hives in the area, and when the incursion hit they all activated.” He leaned forward and pressed something on the device, and the image switched to a global view, with red dots over many of the major cities. “In addition to that, we’ve had reports that nearly every major human settlement was hit last night. Simultaneously. This is a global invasion.”
I continued staring at the map for a couple seconds, trying to get my sleep-addled brain to absorb the information. “Why couldn’t you wait until tomorrow to tell us this?” I finally asked. “I know it’s important, but I don’t understand why it was critical.”
Aurora cleared her throat. “We’re trying to arrange for all the local samurai to meet up at six in the morning, on the Redemption.”
I blinked. “Again, I don’t see what the rush is,” I said.
“We were going to discuss this tomorrow, but…” Aurora’s eyes went glassy, and the map changed once again. It zoomed out, leaving earth and becoming a solar system map, before zooming in on our nearest neighbour, mars.
At first the image showed nothing but the planet’s surface, but then slowly, sector by sector, the planet lit up.
“What are we looking at exactly?” Skyler asked.
“Just a few hours before the incursion a satellite around Mars started sending back real time images of the Martian surface,” Aurora explained. Each time the satellite passed into a new area that area lit up bright red.
“Is it showing what I think it is?” I asked, feeling a mounting dread as the satellite finished its first orbit.
“If you think it’s antithesis, you’d be correct,” Alexander said. “We have no idea when they arrived, but it looks like they’ve slowly been terraforming the planet over the last few months, or years. Now the planet is completely infested.”
“The Family was just starting to put together a plan to deal with it when the global invasion hit. There are still people calling for a team to go exterminate the antithesis even now,” Aurora explained. ”Even in the midst of this emergency, they’re still screaming that we need to go deal with mars.” She slumped in her seat, as if just discussing this was exhausting. “They’re planning on taking a vote tomorrow at noon, our time, on what their response will be.”
“That seems insane,” Skyler muttered.
“I agree, but that’s not going to stop the vote,” Aurora said quietly. “That’s why we’re gathering everyone together, early. We’d like to get everyone’s feedback before the vote actually happens. Being able to get a jump on planning for the rest of this shit,” she said, waving her hand and returning the map to the local view, “is just a bonus.” She leaned forward, her antenna poking slowly rising out of her hair. “So, will you come?”
Skyler and I exchanged another glance, and she nodded slightly. I sighed, but turned back towards our guests. “I guess we’ll be there.”