“I thought I heard the barn door slam closed a while back. Maybe it was Patrick?”

  “Hmm, don’t think so. I’ll check it out.” I raced upstairs and dug through the upholstery of the La-Z-Boy. With a rush of relief, I felt one of the gadgets and wrapped my hand around it. Nope, wrong one. A little more groping produced the communicator.

  I pressed the mike button and said, “Sheldon?”

  “Here, Jack.”

  “Has someone been in the barn besides us?”

  “In fact, yes. I was going to tell you, but you seem to have preempted me.”

  “Are they still there? Did they do anything? Was it a Lorann?”

  “No, yes, no. I floated up to the top of the barn as soon as the individual entered. He poked around for a while but did no damage and took nothing. Correction. He took some pictures with his phone. I deduce it wasn’t a Lorann because of the level of technology and because of the lack of any cohesive goal. This was amateur hour.”

  “He didn’t plant any bugs or anything?”

  “By which you mean electronic surveillance? No. Human tech-level devices would be ridiculously easy for me to detect. I did note one interesting detail. He had on a baseball cap that appeared to be lined with a metal mesh, presumably intended as a sort of Faraday cage.”

  I stared into space, momentarily frozen with astonishment. “He was wearing a tinfoil hat? Seriously? Where would he have gotten that?”

  “Amazon, of course. You humans have no idea what is available on that site.”

  “Okay, Sheldon. On the plus side, he doesn’t appear to have done any damage. On the minus, any attention is bad. Can you give me any more info? Maybe a mug shot?”

  “Sorry, Jack, I have nothing more. He was wearing a ball cap and a hoodie, so I don’t have a clear face shot, but I might be able to stitch something together from multiple stills. Let me work on it.”

  “Okay. On a different subject, although now it’s just gotten much more relevant, do you have enough of whatever you use for printing to give each of us a remote and a communicator? And a cloaking detector? And maybe a disruptor?”

  “Cheep cheep cheep. Mouths always open. I have some of those items, and I can print what I don’t have. In addition, I will have to configure the detectors. You can have them tonight.”

  “Can you set them up so only we can use our devices?”

  “Yes, they can be set up with biometrics. Although I might have to make a couple of attempts to get the human biometrics right.”

  “Fair enough. I’m going to collect my gadgets and head for the barn.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  I pulled the rest of the gadgets from the depths of the recliner and dropped them in my backpack. I picked it up and swung it onto my back, then stopped. Pulling out my phone, I began to type furiously.

  Barn broken into. Someone snooped around. Sheldon says no harm. Patrick—check with Tim. Nat—if Sheldon can retrieve face shot can you do reverse image search?

  That would give my friends something to think about. I hoped it didn’t result in a dead little brother.

  I looked around the barn as I entered through the regular door, then turned to closely examine the latch and frame. Nothing had been forced, because we never bothered to lock it. The door wouldn’t have put up much of a fight anyway. As security equipment went, it was more at the level of a suggestion than an actual barrier. And honestly, I probably couldn’t have located the key if I wanted to. That would have to change. In fact, a security audit of the entire barn might be in order.

  I wandered around for a few minutes, but other than some items possibly being moved, there was no damage and no indication of a break-in. I spoke into the air. “Sheldon, have you managed to get a clear image of the guy’s face from your logs? If so, is there any way to get it to me?”

  My phone dinged as a text arrived. I didn’t recognize the number but the caller ID said Sheldon, and the attachment was an obvious still from a video. The background was my workbench, and the figure in the foreground was someone I didn’t recognize. Middle-aged, slightly jowly with incipient bags under the eyes, the man was completely forgettable—the kind of person who would fade into the background in an empty room.

  “How the hell did you do that? You don’t even have a phone.”

  Two more texts arrived simultaneously. Dinner’s Ready, and, Oh please. Hacking the cell phone system is one step above bashing rocks together. As a bonus, I am now a Wi-Fi hotspot.

  I forwarded the image to Nat, then headed back to the house for dinner.

  “We have problems,” Nat said.

  “We certainly do,” Patrick replied.

  “Me first,” Nat said. She opened her laptop and turned it so we could see the screen. A website with lurid graphics screamed ARE THEY AMONG US? Below the banner, images of flying saucers and aliens vied for space with overblown claims and leading questions.

  Nat scrolled down until a face appeared.

  “That’s him,” I said. “The guy who broke in.” I squinted. “I think. It’s close, but … ” The image was similar, but with additional details that Sheldon’s interpolation hadn’t been able to provide. For one, the male-pattern baldness that left the typical fringe around the sides and back of his head. Or the fact that he’d let his remaining hair grow way too long. Even without the evidence of the website, I’d have tagged him as a nutbar.

  “I’m pretty sure this is right,” Nat said. “Sheldon’s picture was a composite, remember. But it’s a pretty good hit. This is Phil Ross, the nuttiest saucer nut ever spawned. Came out of nowhere about three years ago. Real tinfoil hat stuff. And he has our scent.” She scrolled down farther, then clicked a link. Up popped images of my workbench, the ceiling of the barn, and the dirt floor behind the bales of hay, where an unplugged extension cord lay and an impression of a chest freezer could clearly be seen. A caption under the picture said, “Is this where the alien corpse was stored?”

  I let my jaw drop. “Oh, freakin’ hell. How?”

  “I have a theory,” Nat said. She alt-tabbed and one of Patrick’s videos came up. “Patrick, you yutz, you have geolocation turned on. Your videos of Alaric all have the GPS coordinates of this barn embedded in them. And when your brother posted the video clip, he didn’t strip the metadata. I bet this Ross character downloaded it before Tim took it down, and found the coordinates. From there it’s just Google Maps.”

  “Shit. Fuck. Hell. Jesus Christ. Also, shit.” Patrick unlocked his phone and began poking at it. “Okay, it’s turned off now. Too late, of course.”

  “And on that happy note,” I said, “what delightful news did you have for us, Patrick?”

  “Oh yeah. Tim wants in. He’s not sure what in means, specifically, but he’s seen enough of my videos to realize that something’s up. He’s threatening to blow the whistle. Of course, at this point, I would consider disappearing him to be a reasonable response.”

  “Let’s deal with discussions of fratricide later,” I said. “Right now, we need to be concerned about security.” I took my communicator out and put it on the table. “Sheldon, we’ll need you to be an active participant in this discussion. We need to guard against human interlopers, Lorann snoopers, and curious relatives. We can start with things like bars on all the windows, locks on the doors, and go from there.”

  “I will manufacture bars and locks, and also additional cloaking detectors. You can place enough of them around the perimeter so that no one can sneak in. They will report to me via subwave.”

  “Subwave?”

  “Subspace radio. Technically inaccurate but metaphorically descriptive.”

  “Uh, do you have to open a wormhole?”

  “No, it’s not the same as FTL communications. And it’s limited by light speed. Subwave is different only in that it doesn’t use electromagnetic radiation and is therefore less affected by line-of-sight issues. It has completely replaced radio for short-range communication amongst Covenant species.”

  “Yet another answer to the Fermi Paradox,” Nat muttered.

  I glanced at her but decided to stick with the main topic. “Great. Next item. Sheldon is preparing gadgets for each of us. But security is an issue. They’ll be biometrically tied to each of us, but even so, losing one would be bad. Or even letting it be seen.”

  “Can they be disguised?” Nat asked.

  I gave her the side-eye. “As what?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Something innocuous. Jewelry? A phone?”

  “So we’d be carrying around three or four phones?” I said. “That would be the opposite of unobtrusive.”

  Sheldon interrupted. “One moment, Jack. This could work. I can’t put all of the devices together, but I could create a believable replica phone that would include the communicator, remote, and detector functions, and still operate as your original device.”

  “Okay,” I replied, “the disruptors we could carry separately, and we have no use for the medical kit. That just leaves the belt. And I’m not sure about the belt.”

  “I could make belts small enough to fit you if I left off the shield device, so they wouldn’t look like Batman’s utility belt.”

  Patrick laughed. “Nice reference, Sheldon. You’re really absorbing Earth culture.”

  “Or being assimilated by it,” Nat added.

  Patrick grinned. “Resistance is futile,” he said.

  I made a growling sound. “Focus, please. Sheldon, could you make a belt for each of us anyway? Properly sized, of course. If we do need them, we might need them in a hurry.”

  This reminder of the seriousness of the situation was an instant conversation killer. After a few moments, Patrick said, “This is good. This feels like we’re finally being proactive. We may actually be getting ahead of this.”

  “Sure,” Nat grumbled, “if you ignore the small detail that we still don’t know diddly about what the Loranna are doing.”

  “Patience, my nerdy friend,” said Patrick. “We’ll get there.”

  “Nerdy fr— Do you want to die?”

  I sighed theatrically and said, “So, to continue … ” and waited a moment for attention. “We need to find out specifically which business or businesses in Tate Park are fronts for the Loranna, and how they are being used to infiltrate our society and cause those global disasters. Then we need to figure out what to do about it. Have I missed anything?”

  “That is a very high-altitude summary, but essentially correct,” Sheldon said.

  “Can you help out with any more information, Sheldon? Maybe things the Loranna have done before?”

  “No, sorry, I don’t have access to every item of Covenant history. A lot of the information in my database is summary only.”

  “Okay.” I nodded. “For now, let’s get our security upgraded, get our new phones, then we start spying.”

  Chapter Eighteen: Battening Down

  Day 12. Tuesday evening

  Sheldon had been busy running his printers, and we eventually found ourselves facing a large number of items needing installation.

  Patrick and Nat began with bars and privacy frosting film on all the windows, while I worked on the people entrance. Sheldon had printed a completely new door, with a reinforced frame and a locking system that included dead bolts on all nonhinged edges. It was even Wi-Fi enabled so we—or Sheldon—could lock or unlock it remotely. The replacement looked enough like the existing door that it wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, but the material was a fake wood that seemed more akin to Kevlar than anything.

  The new frame fit neatly over the existing one, so no demolition was required. However, the reinforcing rods required some foundation drilling. Fortunately, Sheldon helpfully provided a drill from the Gen ship inventory. That was interesting—it didn’t use a rotating bit at all. Instead, it seemed to pulverize or disintegrate the concrete. The word patents came unbidden to my mind. In Patrick’s voice, strangely.

  The last items were the cloaking detectors, which were installed on the outside of the barn walls, craftily integrated into quite normal-looking motion-sensing lights.

  It was well after dark when we finished. I returned the Gen tools to the Halo, then sat heavily in my chair. “Remember when we were young and could go all night?”

  “I’m pretty sure alcohol figured into that,” Patrick replied. “Likely as an anesthetic. And we weren’t doing actual work.”

  “Whatever.” Nat groaned as she stood and grabbed her stuff. “I’m bagged. Let’s go.”

  Patrick gave me a wave as he and Nat headed for the car. I looked wearily around the barn, searching with minimal enthusiasm for anything left to clean up.

  “It’s all good, Jack,” Sheldon said through the communicator. “Detectors are working, door lock is on Wi-Fi, nothing has been left out. You can go get some rest.”

  “Thanks, Sheldon. I guess tomorrow we get down to the real work.”

  I woke to the sound of my name being called.

  “Jack. Jack. Wake up. Please respond.”

  It was Sheldon. Groggily, I grabbed for the communicator, which I had placed on the bedside table. “Wha. Whazzup?”

  “We have an intruder. Human. Someone is circling the barn, trying to approach without triggering the motion-detector lights.”

  “Aagh. Next step, webcams.” I sat up slowly and put my head in my hands. Honestly, even when I was a teenager, I’d been mostly useless when woken up in the middle of the night. Apparently, I hadn’t improved with age. “I don’t have a gun.”

  “You have the disruptor.”

  “True. And Barkley, although he’s more likely to lick someone to death.” I looked at the communicator. “Y’know, this thing would be a lot more usable if I could pair some headphones with it. As it is, stealth is out of the question.”

  “A set of earbuds is, in fact, available. Designed for Gen ears, though. I doubt you’d find them comfortable. Actually, I think you’d feel violated if you actually managed to get them inserted.”

  “Ooooookayyyyyy … I did not need that visual. Look, Sheldon, is the intruder doing anything more than skulking around?”

  “Not so far. I believe he is trying for subtlety. Unsuccessfully.”

  I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed and put on my pants and shoes. I grabbed the communicator and the disruptor, then swore. “Flashlight. Of course it’s in the barn. Because where else would it be?” One more item to take care of.

  Barkley, always ready for adventure, perked up the moment I came down the stairs, and ran circles around me all the way to the back door. I raised the communicator and said in a low voice, “Status?”

  “Still poking around. He’s activated the motion detectors twice. He may finally be getting a clue.”

  “Okay, we’re coming out.”

  I opened the door and Barkley shot out, apparently having detected the odor of a stranger. The dog’s name was well earned, as he set up a verbal assault that would wake the undead, if we had any around.

  I jogged around to the barn and scanned the area, being careful to stay out of range of the motion detectors.

  “He’s left, Jack. It appears the highly irritating calls of your pet have a repelling effect.”

  “Was it the same guy?”

  “I could not tell. He didn’t get close enough. I would hate to think we’ve attracted two different covert investigations.”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t rule out anything at this point. Call me again if something more happens, but I think for tonight at least, if all they do is snoop around the periphery, I don’t really care.”

  I trudged back to the house with Barkley running excited circles around me, flopped back into bed without undressing, and was asleep immediately.

  Chapter Nineteen: Shoring Up Defenses

  Day 13. Wednesday evening

  “We’re never going to get anywhere,” Nat grumbled. “This whole project is nothing but constant reaction to whatever current crisis we’re in, then preparation for the next one.”

  “So, pretty normal, in other words,” I replied.

  “Hah hah hah.” Nat turned away and opened her laptop. “You guys work on the webcams and shit. I’m going to do some data analysis.”

  It seemed like a reasonable division of labor, honestly. Nat was twice as efficient as Patrick and me put together at research and data-massaging. But she did seem to be getting increasingly frustrated. I decided we’d have to call a meeting about it, and soon.

  Patrick already had his ladder set up at the first location and was mounting a webcam on the wall. Wiring it to the lights for power would take a few extra minutes. I grabbed my ladder and tools and moved to the next location.

  “So if I wanted to get around this kind of setup,” Patrick said in a conversational tone, “I would either shoot out a light with a pellet gun, or sneak up during the day with a folding ladder and unscrew some bulbs, or just cut the power to the lights.”

  I paused while I briefly considered how I’d go about getting around our security setup. “I wonder if the motion detectors will pick up someone who’s invisible,” I replied.

  “Of course not,” Patrick replied, huffily. “I mean, why would you think otherwise?”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said. “The motion detectors aren’t necessarily tripped by a change in the image. Otherwise they’d activate for the movement of trees in the wind.”

  “They don’t?”

  “Some do. The cheaper, passive ones. Some will only react to motion toward or away from the camera. Some use infrared images. Some use a sum of the infrared signature over a number of zones. Some are active rather than passive and use microwave or sound pulses as a sort of radar.”

  Patrick stuck out his jaw, a sure sign he was getting stubborn. “I bet there are ways to fool them anyway.”

  “On the internet? Bet on it. Some of those ways might even actually work.”

  “What I’ll bet on is that we’ll get another visit tonight,” Patrick said. “The question is: what will we do about it? We’re not really set up as a high-security installation. No watchdogs, no guards, no guns.”