The Silent Invasion Read online

  About The Silent Invasion

  It’s 2027 and the human race is dying. Plants, animals and humans are being infected by spores from space and becoming part of a vast alien intelligence.

  When 16-year-old Callie discovers her little sister Gracie is Changing, she flees with Gracie to the Zone to escape termination by the ruthless officers of Quarantine.

  What Callie finds in the Zone will alter her forever and send her on a journey to the stars and beyond.

  The first book in a heart-stopping trilogy from award-winning author James Bradley.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About The Silent Invasion

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  Acknowledgements

  About James Bradley

  Copyright page

  For Annabelle and Lila

  When I look back it sometimes seems as if it all happened to somebody else, which in a sense it did: I left behind the me that was there, the me that did all those things, long ago. Perhaps that other self is still out there, somewhere across that impossible distance of space and time, perhaps she even thinks of me, here, on this alien beach, under a sky so full of stars that even the night shines, or perhaps she is gone, swept away like all the others. All I know is that sometimes, when I dream, I feel like all those other versions of me I have left scattered across the stars are moving just out of reach, as if we are remembering each other back into being.

  There was a time when I used to worry about who I was, about whether I was real any more, or whether I was simply a copy of a copy. In those moments it was difficult to know whether I was her, whether she was me. But perhaps I was asking the wrong question. Perhaps nobody ever feels real. Perhaps we all fall through life looking for those instants of connection that anchor us. Perhaps who we are is never set but a process of becoming, in which we invent ourselves over and over again.

  I once thought love was about giving yourself over to something, about losing yourself. Yet I’ve done that, lost myself in something larger, and it’s not like love. Love is not about losing your self but about finding it, about allowing somebody else to know you, and even when you’re in it, in that place where it’s difficult to know where you end and they begin, when all you want is to lose yourself in the thing you’re making together, you know you will find your way back, that they will lead you. Love isn’t about surrendering yourself. It’s about being connected, through space and time, to others who know you, and care for you, and will help you be.

  Sometimes those connections are ones we make every day, worn smooth by proximity. Sometimes they are more distant, connections of memory that bind us to those we have left behind. Yet either way we are all caught in a web of connection to the living and the dead and the yet-to-be born, a web of memory and forgetting that connects past to present to future, in which each of us is forever becoming and passing away. This is what makes us real, even if, as I have, we travel so far we leave almost all of it behind. And at the same time we are made real by the fact we too will pass in time.

  I know this because I have been both. I have been part of a whole, spread across space, stretching endlessly back through time and on, onto the horizon of the future, and I have been alone, or thought myself alone, only to discover I am still connected, that I bear them in me, and always will, just as they will bear me in them, onward, into the light.

  1

  I was at the bike racks outside school when my stepmother Vanessa messaged me.

  Gracie has wandered off again.

  At first I considered ignoring her: it was already after five and I’d had a crappy day. But I knew she’d just keep messaging if I didn’t reply.

  Not in her room?

  Not in house.

  I buckled my helmet and yanked my bike from the rack while I thought about what to do.

  OK. Will find her.

  As I accelerated down the drive toward the school gates

  I imagined how satisfying it would be to just ignore Vanessa’s request. For as long as I could remember she’d treated me like an unpaid nanny or live-in babysitter, able to be called on to look after Gracie whenever she was busy or she and my stepfather Tim needed help. But no matter how much I did, it was never quite enough to be treated like one of the family: in Vanessa’s eyes I was always an outsider, an inconvenience.

  It had been particularly bad since Caspar was born, but the truth was Vanessa and I had never really clicked. Even when Dad was still around she’d always spoken to me with the false brightness people use to stop themselves having to actually talk to kids. To be fair, she was a bit like that with Gracie and Caspar as well, but it was different with them: even if she talked to them in her prattling baby voice, she was still their mother, and there was never any question she loved them.

  Outside the school I turned left down a side road. Although the back way took longer, most days for the past few weeks there had been roadblocks and random scanning stations set up on the main road, which were at best a hassle and sometimes worse. A few days earlier Quarantine had pulled a black-clad woman out of the line in front of me, dragging her away while her husband shouted desperately and their two kids bawled, an experience I wasn’t in a hurry to repeat.

  The afternoon sun was hot on my back and shoulders as I cranked up the hill, Adelaide spread out across the plain below. I knew where Gracie was, of course: she had always loved the patch of bush at the end of our street, and was never happier playing by the old dam that lay a little further down the hill. She was unusual like that: most people, even kids, were so paranoid about contamination they avoided places where plants grew wild, but for Gracie such places had always held a special fascination.

  Still, I was a little surprised she’d snuck off. When I’d left home she’d been complaining she didn’t feel well. I didn’t know what had happened after that but it was clear Vanessa had agreed to let her stay home. It struck me as odd, because although she was still in her first year, Gracie liked school and wouldn’t usually have stayed home unless she really was sick. Yet somehow she had recovered enough to slip out by the afternoon, which suggested she hadn’t been all that sick to start with.

  It was quiet as I bumped my bike down the track toward the dam. Stopping by the water I laid my bike down under one of the trees and called her name, but there was no reply. I glanced around, beginning to wonder whether I was mistaken and she was somewhere else entirely, but just as I was drawing breath to call out again I spotted her beneath an old gum on the far side of the dam.

  I walked toward her slowly. She had her back to me, and was immersed in some kind of game. In one hand she was clutching her Bunny, his bedraggled fur even dirtier than normal, in the other a small stone she seemed to be explaining something to Bunny about.

  She was so absorbed she didn’t notice me, not even when I stopped on the bank just behind her, and stood,
smiling. Although I loved watching her grow, there were times I wished she could stay like this forever.

  ‘Jeez, Gracie,’ I said at last. ‘Vanessa said you snuck out without telling her.’

  She turned with a start and stared up at me, the expression on her face telling me what I already suspected: she’d been unhappy in some way. That wasn’t surprising: in the months since Caspar had been born Vanessa hadn’t found much time to be with Gracie or to give her the attention she needed.

  She looked down again. ‘Sorry,’ she said in a small voice.

  I sat down next to her and brushed a curl off her face.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  She shrugged and I smiled despite myself. Growing up without Dad, with only the two of us, had made it difficult for me to stay angry with her.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘What was it? An allergy to school?’

  Gracie gave me a look, and poked her stick into the ground. ‘I dunno,’ she said. ‘I feel weird.’

  ‘Definitely a case of school allergy then,’ I said. ‘Probably terminal.’

  She pulled away from me, pretending to be annoyed.

  I touched her forehead. Even in the heat it felt surprisingly warm.

  ‘Have you got a fever?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Here,’ I said, standing her up so I could look at her. ‘Stick out your tongue.’

  As she stuck out her tongue she closed her eyes, and all at once I felt a fierce love for her. It wasn’t fair she should miss out because of Caspar. Gracie deserved better than to be a second choice, the leftover from Vanessa’s first marriage.

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Throat looks all right,’ I said, then poked her in the tummy so she doubled over, laughing. ‘What about these dirty hands?’

  As I spoke I turned her hands over in mine, thinking to tickle her, but as I did I caught sight of the underside of her arm and froze.

  She stopped laughing and looked at me.

  ‘What?’ she asked, still smiling.

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘What?’ she asked again, and this time I managed to tear my eyes away from her arm and look at her.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said weakly. ‘I just remembered something.’

  ‘Remembered what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, standing up. ‘Come on. We have to get home.’

  Vanessa was waiting by the door as I approached, Gracie beside me. The lights were on, and through the doorway I could see the screen was on and hear Caspar howling in his room.

  ‘Oh thank God,’ she said, stepping down and coming towards us. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ I said, more sharply than I intended. ‘Just tired.’

  Vanessa smoothed Gracie’s hair away to look at her face. I tensed, willing myself not to knock her hand away.

  ‘Where was she?’

  I glanced over my shoulder. ‘Down by the dam.’

  Vanessa was about to say something when the intensity of Caspar’s howling shifted up a notch.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll get her to bed.’

  ‘Doesn’t she want dinner?’

  I looked at Gracie, who shrugged. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  Vanessa nodded. ‘Thanks, Callie,’ she said.

  I watched her disappear up the hall into Caspar’s room. When I was sure she was gone I picked Gracie up and carried her up the stairs to our bedroom. As usual its low-ceilinged space was hot and airless, the windows sealed against the outside. I pushed the door shut with my back and sat Gracie on the side of the bed. Working quickly I drew her dress over her head and wriggled her into her nightie. She didn’t resist, not even when I laid her down on the bed and drew the sheet up over her.

  ‘You okay?’ I asked, and she nodded. I touched her cheek and sat back on my bed.

  ‘Goodnight, Callie,’ she said, looking at me over her sheet.

  ‘Goodnight, Gracie,’ I replied.

  I leaned back against the wall, watching her. And only when her breathing had slowed, and I knew she was asleep, did I look up and, fighting back tears, let out a long, juddering sigh.

  Because Gracie had begun to Change.

  2

  It was after nine before I heard Tim arrive home. Caspar had finally stopped crying and Vanessa was in the kitchen.

  On her bed Gracie was asleep, her back turned to me. From where I sat the slight phosphor on her arms and legs was hidden, yet I knew it was there, and it terrified me. When she was younger I would lie next to her as she slept just so I could feel connected to her, connected to anybody. Now I was almost afraid to go near her.

  I didn’t know where she had been infected, or when. Perhaps it had been a spore borne south on the wind from the Zone, perhaps there was an outbreak of Changed plants somewhere nearby, growing wild by a roadside or under a house: despite Quarantine’s efforts Changed biology was everywhere. What I did know was what would happen next. As the Change took hold of her the soft glow dusting on her skin would spread, gradually covering her hands and face and scattering motes in her eyes, until they turned gold and green, light moving within them as it does in those of a cat.

  Yet the phosphor was only the outward sign of another, more profound metamorphosis. For as the Change spread through her system it was bonding with her at a cellular level, rewriting her DNA, transforming her so she was no longer human.

  How long this process took depended on the individual: sometimes it would be over in a matter of days, sometimes it might take weeks. But when it was complete Gracie would be gone. For as the Change remade her body it was also altering her mind, meaning that as she Changed Gracie would begin to disappear, her memories, her intellect, her very self supplanted by something else, something alien and unknowable. Something Other.

  In the ten years since the Change arrived so many had been infected it was impossible to keep track of the true numbers of those lost or taken by Quarantine. Every week another empty seat at school, another teacher missing, another house left abandoned or child found wandering without their parents. Every week another face pinned to the walls where people placed pictures of the vanished in the hope somebody might know what had happened to them.

  In this I was lucky, I suppose. Five years earlier, when my father Changed, I had been there when Quarantine came, had seen them take him, so I knew what had happened to him, even if the thought of his absence still ached inside of me. Yet when I looked at Gracie I could hardly believe it was happening again, that I was going to lose her as well. Who was I without her?

  I knew I had to turn her in, and that even if I didn’t, as soon as Vanessa or Tim noticed the symptoms they would have no choice but to do it themselves. Yet still there was a part of me that kept hoping I’d made some kind of mistake, or that somehow it would be different with Gracie and she wouldn’t Change, or wouldn’t Change completely, or that I might be able to convince Vanessa and Tim to keep her here or hide her. Anything that meant this wasn’t what I knew it was.

  But I also knew these fantasies were ridiculous. The penalties for not immediately reporting the Changed were huge; I could be arrested for helping Gracie, or hiding her, I could even be arrested for having brought her home instead of calling Quarantine as soon as I noticed the symptoms of the Change. I couldn’t even start reading about it online without attracting the attention of one of Quarantine’s snooper systems.

  Outside the wind was getting up and I could hear the trees shifting about; downstairs Tim and Vanessa were moving around, probably getting ready for bed. Across the room Gracie was snoring softly, the sound so weirdly normal it was hard to believe it might be the last time I heard it, that this might be the last time we were together. The thought was so terrible I went and sat down beside her. This close she looked like she always did, her da
rk hair messy, her face dusted with freckles. Reaching out I touched her cheek, felt the warmth of her, then, slipping in beside her, I pressed my face into her neck. And as I did something in me snapped, and tears came, sudden and unexpected.

  I woke early. Beside me Gracie was still asleep, her face turned away toward the wall. I touched her forehead. She was warm, slightly feverish. Lifting her sleeve I looked at the underside of her arm and saw the shimmer of the Change. The knowledge it was real settling like a dead weight on my chest.

  Pulling on a T-shirt and shorts I looked out the door.

  I couldn’t risk going to the shower in case Gracie woke up and Vanessa came in and dressed her. There was movement behind me. Turning I found Gracie sitting on the bed watching me. I tried to smile.

  ‘Hey, Gracie,’ I said. She made a face.

  ‘I’m hot,’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘I know, sweetie.’

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  I glanced at the door. ‘She’s busy with Caspar. I thought we might go somewhere today though.’

  ‘What about school?’

  I shrugged. ‘I thought we’d have a day off.’

  Gracie stared at me in her serious way. I thought she was going to object, but then she just nodded. ‘Okay.’

  I really don’t know what I was planning to do. I think I thought that if we got away for the day I might come up with a plan, or something miraculous might happen, that Gracie might suddenly get better. But there was another part of me that simply wanted one more day with her before they took her away from me, a day when we could be together, a day when she was happy.

  Tim was in the shower and Vanessa was with Caspar in his room, so I sat Gracie at the table and put her breakfast in front of her. The glimmer of the Change didn’t seem to have worsened overnight, so it was unlikely anybody would notice anything as long as I kept her dress done up.

  Most kids are difficult about food, but Gracie was never like that. There were things she ate and things she didn’t, and if you offered her something she hadn’t tried before she would look at it seriously, taste it and either continue or put it aside. Drama just wasn’t her thing, which was good, because it meant that by the time Vanessa appeared with Caspar on her hip, Gracie was eating quietly.