by Amie Kaufman
I can’t help it—I glance at Jules, whose lips are pressed tight together, face stricken. He didn’t get it before, but he gets it now.
No. This is some sort of sick joke.
De Luca’s gaze shifts from Jules to me. “All together, and with your nigh-miraculous return with the ship through the portal bearing tales of ancient beings from across the galaxy, they certainly paint a picture of an alien invasion. Straight out of Hollywood, one might say. The conspiracy theorists are going wild about it online, and some of them are even trying to connect it to Dr. Addison’s own theories. But individually, each one of these incidents is so easily disproven as to be laughable.”
I can feel the hope draining away, and I can’t help but try to cling to it. “Listen, Director, you know we were on that ship, you know we came through from the portal to Gaia, you know we got here to the surface again in one of their shuttles. You have two of them in a holding cell somewhere—all you have to do is look beneath the surface, you’ll see they’re not human!”
The man’s head bobs, as if in agreement, though when he speaks it’s a question. “What you have to understand, Miss Radcliffe, is that the ship’s retrieval has created a very … delicate situation for the IA. Every country in the world wants a piece of the technology it promises, and some are ready to press their claim by any means necessary. The last thing we need is a couple of wild-eyed teenagers throwing gasoline on the simmering coals. Do you want to be the cause of the next world war?”
I blink my eyes, trying to keep myself from crying out of sheer frustration. “The next world war is already here, Director, but the enemy’s up there.” I point toward the ceiling—not as dramatic a gesture when we’re inside, but it’s all I’ve got. “What possible reason could we have to make something like this up?”
De Luca smiles at me, giving me the distinctly unpleasant feeling that I’ve just asked the question he was waiting for me to ask. His eyes shift back toward Jules. “Tell me—Mr. Addison, why did you agree to go to Gaia in the first place?”
Jules’s eyes narrow. “To prove my father’s theories about the dangers of adopting Undying technology too quickly.”
De Luca nods again. “And you, Miss Radcliffe?”
I say nothing, all too aware that I look like a sullen child. But all my past experiences dealing with the authorities have come screaming back to me, and I know what Jules does not—that once someone in charge has made up their mind about you, anything you say will only make them more convinced they’re right.
And with a sickening, twisting sense of dread, I’m realizing: He doesn’t believe us at all.
My hope, such a roaring fire moments ago, flickers out like the last guttering efforts of a burned-out candle.
De Luca smiles again as my silence draws out. “I’ll tell you, then. You signed on with our undercover agent for simple profit. Quite an undertaking for someone your age—either you have a remarkably developed sense of greed, or you need that money for something else. Or someone else.”
My heart stutters, a painful throb in my chest.
Evie. No, he can’t know. No one knows I have a sister—I’ve spent years making sure the records connecting me with my illegal sister have been purged in every database there is.
But the gleam in De Luca’s eye tells me he knows exactly what I needed that money for. My hand stretches toward Jules—or maybe he reaches for me—and the warmth of his fingers in mine is all that keeps me on my feet.
“So,” De Luca says briskly. “The two of you form a team on Gaia’s surface, and lead us to the ship currently in orbit. Rather than remain in IA custody on Gaia, you escape and stow away on board. Neither of you received the prize you went to Gaia to obtain—Mr. Addison, there was no convenient artifact or inscription elaborating on the many dangers of an extinct race’s leftover technology. And Miss Radcliffe, clearly, is not in possession of any valuable artifacts or tech to sell on the black market. So, what are two criminal teenagers to do?”
Stomach churning, vision sparking with moisture, I can’t help but watch Director De Luca speak—he’s so convincing, so calm, that for a moment I almost believe the story he’s spinning.
“It seems to me that returning to Earth with tales of an alien invasion would create exactly the kind of public panic necessary to win people to Dr. Addison’s cause. And this, certainly, would’ve gone down in history as one of the most elaborate hoaxes ever perpetrated against the world—a story worth a fortune to anyone willing to buy the rights. Certainly enough to pay for the release of one Evelyn Radcliffe.”
“No.” The word is barely a whisper, hoarse and strangled. My lips refuse to cooperate, though, and I can’t do anything other than repeat that same syllable. “No … no—”
“You’re making a huge mistake, De Luca,” Jules interrupts, suddenly fierce where he was calm and conciliatory. “Please. Please. We’re not asking for fame, we’re not even asking to be released—we’ll sign whatever you want, anything to say we won’t profit from this in any way. But you have to know, everyone has to know—they’re coming for us. They’re already here.”
De Luca’s face doesn’t even shift.
“The cheek swabs!” I blurt. “Wait until the DNA results come back. You have to—they won’t even have DNA to identify them, they’re not human.”
De Luca’s brow lowers, and suddenly his suave, urbane face flickers for an instant, and I see something far darker, more vicious, beneath it. “That’s enough, Miss Radcliffe. Both of you.” And then he’s his usual, calm self again. His hands slide back out of his pockets, and his long fingers deftly slip the button of his jacket back through the buttonhole. “You know, we actually were beginning to grow concerned about the accumulation of events of seemingly extraterrestrial origin.”
He turns, ready to stride back down the corridor out of sight, but then pauses. “I don’t know how you did it. Perhaps the other two arrested with you were accomplices on the ground to help simulate UFOs and radio signals—I don’t know. I don’t care. What matters is that your arrival, your inventive stories, are all the confirmation we needed. The ship’s arrival in orbit marks the most crucial era for the IA in the last fifty years—the two of you are nothing more than a distraction.” His voice is taut, and the last words he speaks sound anything but cordial: “Good day.”
And he’s gone, leaving us in silence.
NEITHER OF US HAS SPOKEN IN SIX HOURS.
There aren’t any words—not even between the two of us, who’ve been through so much together—to fill the gaping, gutted hole where hope once lived. The sheer relief of that hope, so profound and transformative, after such a long, grueling crucible of fear and sleepless toil and despair … my mind had filled with a million images in just those few moments.
Images of the world coming together to combat the threat in orbit, of the Undying banished from our planet once and for all. Of a world at peace, finally.
But more immediately, my mind summoned images of calling Neal to come bail us out of jail. Of having a hot shower. Of walking to the shops for a pie, or riding on Neal’s souped-up bike, of calling my dad in IA detention. Of seeing my dad released from detention, of seeing his reputation restored, of seeing his face crease with an absentminded smile as I put a mug of tea down at his elbow while he worked at his desk.
Of introducing him to Mia. Of showing her my home. Of telling her that I want her with me, no matter what, that if she’s not “Oxford material” then neither am I, and we’ll go wherever the hell she wants to go as long as we go together.
An infinite universe of possibilities—and in a few words, Director De Luca has thrown us both straight back down into a terrible purgatory of helplessness.
I’ve slept fitfully, on and off, and I think Mia has too. She’s been curled in on herself since the director left—the news that these people know about her sister, whose very existence is a contravention of “one child” policies, has hollowed her out.
There’s no way we can ask
if they’ve done anything with the information about Evie—mentioning her at all would tell them they’ve found the leverage they need from now on. But I know whatever Mia’s imagining—and her world has been dark enough for her to imagine some pretty horrendous things—must be running through her head on repeat.
I keep thinking of the laughing young girl I saw on Mia’s phone back on Gaia, of their identical smiles. I’m afraid for my father, even more so now that I’ve had a moment of thinking his ordeal was over, but I have no doubt he’s safe. These people might be ruthless in their pursuit of their goals, but they’re not stupid. They won’t harm their leading expert on the Undying. But there’s no such guarantee for a solitary American girl on the other side of the Atlantic. The IA’s reach spans the globe—there’s no one they can’t find if they really want to.
“Mia,” I murmur, looking down at the trays of rice and beans beside us, delivered some time ago by a disinterested guard. My voice is thick and hoarse with disuse. “Will you eat something?”
She’s leaning against my side, and tilts her head up to look at me, eyes shadowed. “I know,” she murmurs. Our two trays hold feasts compared to what we had aboard the Undying ship, but are somehow infinitely less appetizing. I keep thinking longingly of the chicken and porcini mushroom dinner I made Mia our first night together on Gaia. “I know I should. But …”
But she can’t, and I certainly can’t make her. It’s hard to imagine getting anything down, with the sick knot in the bottom of my stomach.
We’re in limbo, back where we started—a couple of kids that no one believes. We’re back to being the only protos, as Atlanta and Dex would say, on the planet to understand how close we all are to utter extinction.
And here we are, with nothing we can do to prove the truth of our words.
It’s not purgatory, I think, watching Mia’s shoulders quake with suppressed emotion and feeling my heart shatter all over again. This is hell.
As if my mind doesn’t want to cope with the enormity of that—and I can’t blame it—it drags me elsewhere. To a smaller issue. I’d walk over hot coals for a shower right now.
I’m still in the same khakis I wore on Gaia, and it’s been weeks. I must smell horrendous. They’re filthy, torn and crusted with dirt and sweat, and I know I need a shave. My face prickles with stubble.
The only change in scenery we’ve been allowed since we were brought to the cell has been two heavily guarded trips to the bathroom each. And last time I went, when I tried to wash my face in the sink, my escort pointed his gun at me.
Mia slides down to settle on the ground and rest her head on my thigh for a pillow, one arm slung over her face, because of course they’ve declined to turn down the lights at any point.
There’s a camera in one corner of the cell, and though there’s no convenient little red light to tell us it’s recording or transmitting, I have no doubt they’re watching our every move. Mia knows too—that she curls up in my lap regardless is a tiny flicker of warmth.
Surely at some point, even if they don’t release us, they’ll move us to better quarters. Perhaps then there’ll be a chance that we can do something to get out, or to get away. Maybe they’ll actually check those DNA tests eventually, or we can find some other proof, or supporters who believe us, and turn the tide before the Undying can accomplish whatever they’ve snuck among us to do.
I’m roused from that brief fantasy by the sound of footsteps.
Is it time for another meal already?
But then the last thing I’m expecting to see appears outside the glass—it’s Dex and Atlanta, under the same kind of friendly escort as we’ve been enjoying so far. They both look tired and sullen—Dex has his head down, his braid out now, hair hanging around his face—but I can see the light of triumph in Atlanta’s eyes. Facing toward me and away from her armed guard, she permits herself just the tiniest smirk.
Then the glass door is opened, rousing Mia, and the two of them are pushed inside. They take up positions facing us, leaning against the wall at the opposite end of our little cell, seating themselves with their legs stretched out.
For a long moment, we stare at each other across the empty space of the room. A million questions and accusations fly through my thoughts, so crowded I can’t make sense of any of them.
“Well?” I say finally, and I can hear how belligerent it sounds.
“Well what?” Dex’s eyes on us are cool, but there’s a spark in them—whereas Atlanta’s are full of ill-concealed hostility.
“Who are you?” Mia blurts, before I can try to form a coherent sentence. “Your people—what do you want with Earth?”
Atlanta holds up her hands, placating, palms out. “We don’t want hassle,” she says. “We just want to go homewards. This was a piece of lixo idea. I pledge, we ever get out, I’m gonna shift back to school and stay there.”
Mia splutters in response, and I lay a hand on her arm. When she looks my way, I lift my chin, indicating the dark pinhole of a camera in the corner of the cell.
Whether Dex and Atlanta recognize it or not, they’re too smart not to assume we’re being watched. They’re still playing the part of the repentant pranksters, and why not? All they have to do is hold on. Even though nobody here ever bloody says lixo or I pledge, unless they’re declaring allegiance to their bloody country.
And it’s working. The very fact that they’ve been brought back here, to be kept with the other “teens” tells me there’s no lingering suspicion on the part of the IA. As De Luca pointed out, they could very well be our co-conspirators in the elaborate hoax De Luca sketched out for us.
Everyone on Earth has known, ever since the Undying broadcast first reached us, that we were dealing with an extinct race. The idea that they could not only be alive, but wearing human faces and plotting to take our home for themselves, is ludicrous. It sounds ludicrous to me, and I’m living it.
I wouldn’t believe us either.
It’s one more blow in a long, steady beatdown—so much so that I barely feel it land.
Mia’s tone is sharp. “If you’re such terrible kids, why hasn’t someone called your parents already?”
Atlanta smiles, rueful. “We don’t have parents,” she replies with the ease of prior rehearsal. “Orphans, yeh?” Her veneer of woefulness is a slap in the face.
I clench my jaw to make myself stay silent. She’s playing to the camera mounted above us, and if Mia can’t trip her up, I know I certainly can’t.
I slide my gaze across to Dex instead. He meets my eyes for a moment, then looks away. I wish I knew what to make of him. He knew who we were—what we were—on the way down in the shuttle. Certainly he had every opportunity to figure it out or confirm his suspicions after we landed. And yet he was silent.
Does that mean he could be an ally?
I wish I could make my mind stop searching for hope. I wish I could make it go quiet, let me rest. But my mind chases the question in circles, around and around and around …
Eventually I must’ve fallen asleep, because I wake to a sharp pain in my neck, which has lolled to one side for too long, and the sound of a guard’s voice.
“You’re wanted,” he says roughly, not making eye contact with either of us, but rather studying our legs where they’re stretched out in front of us. Not promising, when no one wants to meet your eyes.
Dex straightens where he’d been leaning against the wall next to Atlanta, who’s stretching out her limbs one at a time as if warming up for some sort of marathon—Do aliens sleep?—but the guard takes a step back, eyes flicking across them nervously. “Not you two, the others.” His gesture is for Mia and me.
Despite De Luca’s dismissal, the guard is still nervous around the Undying teens—still watching them, still looking as though he’s seen something he wishes he hadn’t.
Maybe it isn’t hopeless after all. The thought is tiny and quiet and part of me tries to drown it out. But the rest of me clings to the idea, holding it close and sheltering
it like a fledgling bird. Maybe we aren’t the only ones who see what they really are.
Mia and I climb stiffly to our feet, and we’re escorted down a pair of unremarkable, anonymous hallways, brightly lit but otherwise featureless.
The room we’re headed for contains a long metal table flanked by six chairs, three down either side. Three of the walls are a pale gray, and the fourth finishes at waist height, with a sheet of some transparent—and no doubt practically bombproof—material sealing it the rest of the way. Down one wall a series of pages are tacked up, a sequence of meaningless letters—some kind of code, I guess. I glance at the window, fingering my watch, and then when I look back at the pages, they snap into focus. AGCT. I recognize those letters.
It is code: DNA code.
And there are four printouts—one for each of us? I straighten, moving my arm so I can surreptitiously photograph the pages, one after the other. Maybe, just maybe, these pages are Atlanta’s and Dex’s results. Which means they do have something like DNA, enough to pass a cursory glance, but no one’s processed these results thoroughly enough to see the reality. If they had, there’d be alarm bells going off everywhere about the two blatantly nonhuman entities sitting in our cell.
This is a language I never learned. To me, it’s a seemingly randomized list of endless combinations of those four letters. But if I could somehow smuggle these results out, maybe I could get them to someone back at Oxford who could analyze them. Maybe.
Mia and I wordlessly take a couple of chairs, settling in to face that window by unspoken agreement, so we can see what’s coming. On another table at the far end of the room are the few belongings we had with us when we were taken into custody, laid out like clues in a murder mystery. A few empty wrappers from the Undying sponge rations. Mia’s multi-tool. My journal. Under the table I find Mia’s hand and squeeze it. She squeezes back.