“Antimatter … explosion?” I replied.

  “I kid. By the Maker, I’m getting better at this.”

  “Debatable,” Nat muttered.

  I hefted the drone a few times and tweaked the rotors. I had to admire the workmanship. This thing wouldn’t raise eyebrows at all in a normal setting. “You might as well just take it from here, Sheldon. Use your discretion, but try to get as complete a picture of the park layout and contents as possible.”

  “Use that super-advanced spiral thing you were talking about,” Patrick added.

  “In this case, a grid pattern would be more efficient,” Sheldon said. “But thanks for sharing.”

  Nat held up a hand to forestall any further bickering. “With that operating range, we don’t have to carry it to the park to let it out. Just go outside and let it loose.”

  “Acknowledged. Toss it into the air and I’ll take it from there.”

  I nodded and headed for the stairs. Once I was out of the barn, I tossed the drone gently in a softball arc. It activated, flipped over in midair, and zipped off at high speed, fading into invisibility within a hundred yards. The device made a noise very much like a hummingbird zipping by—much quieter than any drone I had ever played with.

  I rejoined the others, who were getting into the car. “How long until it gets to the park?” I said into the air, trusting the cling-on to pick up my voice.

  “Just under five minutes,” Sheldon replied. “I should caution you that we probably won’t be getting any dramatic scenes through windows of Loranna torturing hapless Earthlings. The first phase will consist of nothing more than mapping out the park and buildings from the outside.”

  “That’s fine, Sheldon. Just put up a schematic of the park and update it as you go. We’ll have a look after work.”

  Nat said, “Sheldon, if you fly low enough, you could detect disguised Loranna, right?”

  “I can detect a cloaking field, and we can assume anyone using one is a Lorann. I will be counting the occurrences, obviously.”

  “If possible, can you get high-res 3D images?”

  “Of course, but why?”

  “Like you said, a cloaking-field detector can’t tell if the subject is actually human or Lorann.”

  “Yes, it merely detects—oh.”

  Patrick looked at Nat, then frowned. “What?”

  Nat smiled at him. “If we can get an image of a human disguise that a Lorann is using, Sheldon could easily disguise one of us as that same image. If we trip a cloaking-field detector, they’d simply assume that it was Grog in his human disguise.”

  “Grog?” Sheldon exclaimed. “How exactly do you visualize the Loranna, anyway?”

  Disregarding Sheldon, I said to Nat, “That’s a good idea in its basics. But what if Oog the guard says, ‘Hey Grog, how’s it hanging?’ in Lorann?”

  Sheldon’s voice was becoming increasingly exasperated. “It’s Lorannic. And Grog? Oog? What is wrong with you people?”

  I chuckled. “Chill, Sheldon. Nat, there’s no way we can learn Lorann—excuse me, Lorannic—well enough to pull that off. Sheldon, do you speak Lorannic?”

  “Of course. Language files are a basic part of my functionality. I speak every language in the Covenant.”

  “Could someone wear a receiver with a speaker, and could you fill in the conversational part?”

  “But you’d need to move your lips in sync with what Sheldon was saying,” Nat objected.

  “And anyone would be able to tell right away if a voice was coming from a speaker,” Patrick added.

  “Wrong on both counts. Please stop telling your alien A.I. grandma how to suck eggs.” Sheldon waited for silence. “We use just such a procedure occasionally, when someone has to go out in the field and hasn’t had time to get the native language deep-induced. I can program the field on the fly for the lip-synching to be credible. We’ll have to do a dry run or two first of course, to practice. And as to the speaker issue, the reason Terran speakers sound artificial is because they drop most of the highest- and lowest-frequency harmonics. Tinny is the common description, right? Gen speakers can deliver sound from subsonic right up to the frequencies used by bats. Such speaker systems are generally built into specialized necklaces. I have some in inventory.”

  “So what I’m hearing is that we may actually have a viable plan for infiltrating a Lorannic stronghold,” Nat said.

  Still sounding exasperated, Sheldon replied, “If you stretch the definition of the word plan until it screams for mercy, then yes.”

  There seemed to be some kind of modification of reality in effect, so that as we got closer to actual results, our time at work stretched asymptotically longer. But after a millennium or two, we were all gathered once again in the Halo’s conference room.

  A map of the Tate Industrial Park was starting to take shape in one of the wall monitors. Sheldon had put up a 3D isometric view, with floating annotations beside individual buildings. It looked a little like a Sim City game in progress.

  I moved in and squinted at one of the tags. It said “Four Loranna detected.” That was interesting. I glanced at some of the other tags. Some were Lorann counts; some were names of the companies, in cases where there was a sign on the front. Some even had phone numbers attached. Sheldon was certainly thorough.

  Nat sighed and pointed wordlessly. I followed the line from her finger to a small annotation that said, “Harris Institute, nine Loranna detected.”

  “That sounds like the entire third floor,” she commented.

  “By which you mean management?” I asked.

  Nat nodded. “Top executives, senior account reps … all the real decision makers. The number’s slightly low, but they might just not all be there.” Nat paused and stared into space, a slight frown on her face. “So, this is really weird. People I know, more or less—people I’ve worked with for a couple of years—may just turn out to be aliens bent on enslaving the Earth. I feel like I should be more freaked out, but I’m just rolling with it.”

  “Wait until you wake up in the middle of the night, screaming,” Patrick said.

  “Thanks for that image, Patrick. Wait—did you—?”

  Patrick didn’t reply, merely shrugged.

  I decided to change the subject and started pointing to items on the map. “Harris Institute: marketing analysis and campaign creation. Integra Polycomms: high-speed network provider. Morris Security Services. Harris Property Management. Kich and Robertson Legal Services. All the businesses that have presences are ones that would presumably be useful for their overall plan. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Loranna actually own the industrial park. It would give them complete control of what goes on, who gets rental space, and so on.”

  “With enough regular but harmless businesses onsite, and enough human employees to provide protective coloration,” Patrick added. “It would be weird, for instance, if there were no places to eat and everyone went to the pet store every day for lunch. But now we have a plague of choices. Where do we start?”

  “That’s easy,” Nat said. “My employer. I know my way around, at least the lower floors, and I can fake it on the third floor. Plus, I know a lot of the people.”

  “Whoa, whoa, you’re jumping the gun a little,” I said. “What makes you even think you’ll be going in?”

  “Oh, you are not going to try to play that chauvinistic, sexist crap—”

  I cut her off. “No, I’m going to play that You’re short crap. Excuse me, I mean petite,” I amended, glancing at Patrick, who was overacting a death scene. “Remember what Sheldon said about a Gen trying to pass as human because of height?”

  Nat glared for a moment, but she was far too reasonable to ignore the argument. She wasn’t done, though. “Karen Ingram is only slightly taller than me. If she turns out to be a Lorann, I’m set. And that’s almost certain; a colder, more reptilian individual you’ll never meet.”

  In a voice that actually sounded tired, Sheldon said, “They are not reptilian. There are only slight, superficial resemblances. Are you people completely unable to hold onto a fact for more than a few seconds?”

  “Fine. If that turns out to be the case, I’m all for it,” I said, ignoring the comment.

  Sheldon continued, apparently ignoring me in turn, “I set the drone down where I could scan individuals as they came and went. And I got some good images to work from. Where possible, I also recorded voice samples. Natalie, I’ll forward those to your phone, and you can comment if you recognize them.”

  “Will do, Sheldon. Thanks.” Nat cocked her head and smiled at me. “Karen’s assistant, Marc Abramson, is quite tall, Jack. Perfect for you. We might both be going in.”

  I groaned. “Outstanding.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Making Plans

  Day 20. Wednesday

  We were in the barn again, reviewing Sheldon’s progress. Nat was examining all the footage taken of individuals, hoping for someone from the third floor of her office. Finally, though, she slapped the cover closed on her laptop and muttered, “Shit.”

  I looked up from my work—okay, I’d been watching a YouTube video, but she didn’t need to know that—and raised an eyebrow.

  “Sheldon hasn’t been able to get as much as I was hoping for,” she explained. “A few visuals, definitely no surprises as far as I’m concerned, but not enough in the way of audio samples.”

  “And no Karen Ingram, I bet,” Patrick added, “which is what’s really pissing you off.”

  Nat turned to him and tried to burn through his brain with laser vision, if that glare meant anything at all. When Patrick’s head didn’t burst into flames, she sighed. “And no Karen. Is there any way to speed this up?”

  “Plant a bug?” said Patrick.

  “A reasonable suggestion,” said Sheldon.

  “Um, sure,” Nat replied. “We can disguise ourselves to go in and plant a bug so we can get enough audio and video to be able to disguise ourselves to go in and spy. Am I the only one who sees a problem?”

  “Is there any way you could get yourself invited upstairs?” I asked.

  She paused and frowned in thought. “Not for anything routine. Normally they come down to the second-floor conference room for meetings, and anything one-on-one is either email or Zoom.”

  “So what would qualify as nonroutine?” Patrick asked.

  “Without getting me fired?”

  “Sure, okay.” Patrick grinned. “But yeah. Something that would get you invited up to three or allow you to go up there on your own. What kind of things might be triggering for them?”

  “Coincidentally enough, security. I could find a bug and announce it. No, that would put them on alert.” Nat shook her head. “We don’t want them doing a full sweep because they think someone’s trying to bug them.”

  “Someone is,” Patrick replied.

  Nat rolled her eyes but didn’t bother to reply. Then she sat up straight and snapped her fingers. “I could lose my fob and need a replacement. I’d have to go to three to get it.”

  “Fob?” I asked.

  “Security fob. It provides a random number to use when logging in remotely. All staff with remote access have them.” Then her face clouded up. “On the other hand, losing one can potentially get you fired.”

  “How about one that stops working?” Sheldon said.

  Nat brightened immediately. “That’d be perfect. Can you sabotage mine?”

  “Piece of pie.”

  “Cake,” Nat corrected.

  “Bad for you either way. Bring it up to the fabrication area. If nothing else, a good EMP should take care of it.”

  Nat gave us a How about that! look and headed for the descending airlock stairway. I smiled at Patrick. “It’s nice to finally feel like we’re making some headway.”

  “More so for Nat, I think. She’s uh … ” Patrick hesitated and glanced in the direction of the Halo, where Nat had already disappeared up the stairs. “Jack, she downplays it, but she’s been really bummed about not getting to go to college. And getting out of Dunnville, but that goes without saying. She truly, desperately needs this whole thing to come to something.”

  “Yeah, I know. College was all she talked about, that last year before graduation.” I sighed. “We make a hell of a poor gaggle of musketeers, don’t we?”

  Just then, Nat came bounding down the airlock steps, a wide grin on her face. “One security fob, freshly banjaxed,” she said, waving the item.

  “You checked?” I asked.

  “Oh, it’s dead. I guess I have to get a new one tomorrow. Finally, some progress.” She held out her other hand. “Sheldon also gave me a bug to plant.” A small, irregular patch of what appeared to be thin, semitransparent plastic sat in her palm. “This apparently will take on the color and texture of whatever it’s planted on. Should be almost impossible to see, even if you’re looking for it.”

  “And the Loranna won’t be able to detect it?” I asked.

  “They could,” Sheldon interjected, “if they did a sweep using Covenant-level technology. But unless they have a reason to suspect something, bringing out that equipment would itself present a potential breach of secrecy. Remember, they are trying to blend in.”

  I nodded. “We can’t do this with zero risk.” I looked at Nat. “You up for this?”

  She grinned back at me. “Lemme at ‘em.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: Going In

  Day 21. Thursday

  This was going to be one of those interminable days. More so than normal, I mean. Not that Nat was going to be doing anything James-Bond-like—sticking a little piece of plastic onto a convenient surface wasn’t the kind of thing that would require a stunt double. Still, I found myself checking my phone far too often, hoping for a text.

  Meanwhile, normal life needed my attention. Stock the cukes, restack the apples, we’re out of bulk sugar, cleanup on aisle five … Argh! I was beginning to understand more and more why both Patrick and Nat had latched on to this whole Loranna thing. They really had no credible alternative to, as Nat put it, dying of mediocrity in this Podunk town.

  My pity party of one was interrupted by a ding from my phone. Finally! I tapped the notification and read the text: Bug in place. Now we wait.

  Cool. And apparently completely lacking in drama, to judge from the message. Just as well. What was that old saying? Adventure is defined as bad stuff happening to other people somewhere else.

  Or something like that.

  The drive home was the usual uncomfortable mutual silence, punctuated by a single half-hearted attempt by my father to talk about alternative colleges. It reminded me, though, that Sheldon had said something about looking into my MIT situation. Not that he could do anything concrete, but he might dig up some info.

  And Patrick and Nat would be over right after dinner. Hopefully, Sheldon had picked up something useful.

  I blasted through the front door and foyer with a yelled, “Hi, Mom!” trailing behind me, and vaulted up the stairs in three strides. It took only a moment to change, and I was down the stairs in two leaps and out the door.

  “Hey Sheldon, what’s new?” I said as I entered the barn.

  “This just in,” he replied over my cling-on. “Humans discover thumbs, make a mess.”

  “Ha, ha. C’mon, be serious.”

  “I am serious. Everything I said is true.”

  “How about something closer to home?”

  “Nat will be overjoyed. I have significant audio and video samples of Karen Ingram and her assistant, both of whom have set off the cloaking detector.”

  “I’m … kind of ambivalent about that, honestly. Do we really need to do this?”

  “Jack, the Loranna are on their best humanlike behavior in public, which includes the third floor. They certainly don’t speak Lorannic when there are humans around, let alone discuss secrets. We need to get into their computer systems if we expect to learn anything.”

  “You can’t hack your way in?”

  “Unfortunately, the Harris systems, while of human manufacture, seem to have been given a security audit by someone with Covenant-level training. There will be no hacking in, not without a valid log-in.”

  “Got it.” I looked down as my phone dinged. “Dinnertime,” I said. “Nat and Patrick will be here later, and we’ll go over everything then.”

  “Be still, my CPU.”

  Nat was delighted that Karen Ingram turned out to be one of them. She did a dance around the room, chanting, “Oh, yeah, Karen’s a lizard, bet she has a gizzard, don’t have to be a wizard, could spot her in a blizzard.”

  “Even I can tell that’s terrible,” Sheldon said. “And you are right for all the wrong reasons.”

  “Don’t care. She’s a lizard. I’ll take the win.”

  “Fine. It’s like dealing with unruly children. I’m beginning to reconsider the advantages of sentience.”

  Nat finally stopped the celebration and waved her phone. “And we have enough to disguise me?”

  “Yes, and Jack too,” Sheldon replied.

  “Good,” Nat said. “Tomorrow’s Friday, so we can do this after working hours.”

  “Are you sure Karen will leave on time?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding? Loranna are bigger clock watchers than humans, judging by the way the entire third floor stampedes out the door come quitting time. You take your life in your hands if you’re standing in the wrong place at five-oh-one. She’ll be gone.”

  “All right. So the plan … ”

  Nat held up something too small to see between thumb and forefinger. “This little nubbin is an audio-video bug, which goes under a keyboard on the forward side so it can see the monitor. It also, according to Sheldon, picks up keystrokes. We go in, I stick this under Karen’s keyboard, and we get out. No heroics.”

  “Jack’s not really the heroic type,” Patrick interjected with a laugh. I scratched the side of my nose with my middle finger, which just produced a wider grin.

  Nat gave us both a patronizing smile before continuing, “The next time Karen logs in, we get her log-in credentials. Then I can remote in and we’ll see what we can find.”