I nodded slowly. “It’s a plan. Which is more than we generally run with.”

  “We should test the system,” Sheldon said. “Natalie’s and Jack’s belts are still in the fabrication shop waiting to be picked up. I’ve set out a couple of necklace speaker systems for replicating speech. The necklaces will also give me audio and video of whatever you are experiencing.”

  “I’ll grab them,” Patrick said, and hurried off.

  He was back in less than two minutes and handed belts and necklaces to Nat and me.

  “A lot less bulky,” Nat said as she snapped her belt on. “But still not usable as a fashion accessory.” She poked a spot on the belt. “It’s rigid in a couple of places.”

  “The projectors can only be miniaturized to a point. The design hasn’t changed much in a century.” Sheldon paused until Nat and I were both ready. “Now, I will activate the disguise function based on the two subjects.”

  We shimmered for a moment, then were replaced by two people who had appeared on the surveillance videos.

  “Damn, that is freaky,” Patrick said. “Say something, Nat.”

  Sheldon interrupted. “She will still sound like Nat if she speaks. I must supply the voice. Thus … ”

  The ersatz Karen Ingram began speaking. “Hi, I’m Karen. I’m a human, and therefore not very intelligent. I trip over my own feet and then drool on the carpet—”

  “All right, Sheldon, we get it!” Nat’s voice said from the direction of Karen. Karen grinned in response.

  “That,” said Patrick, “was both very cool and extremely creepy. Nat, did you do anything?”

  Nat became Nat again. “Not until I yelled at Sheldon. Before that, I was just standing there. Did my lips move?”

  “Completely believable,” Patrick said. “Sounded real, looked real. Sheldon, you’re a genius.”

  “You belabor the obvious, but I’ll take the win.”

  Nat laughed. “What worries me is if we don’t agree on what Karen should be doing. What if I want to go left and you have her go right?”

  “The disguise field follows your movements by default. I have very limited control to make changes. The programming interface is actually being stressed to its limit just to control the facial movements in real time. Under normal circumstances, the wearer would be providing the speech, and the cloaking field would respond appropriately. That’s what the Loranna are doing.” Sheldon paused. “Nevertheless, you bring up a good point. You need to know what reasonable behavior is. I will coach you over your cling-ons, and I will translate all Lorannic for you.”

  I nodded. “That sounds like it’ll work. We can’t make this zero-risk, guys. We just have to do the best we can.”

  “You’ll need security cards as well,” Sheldon said. “I am printing them as we speak. They’ll be done by the time you’re ready to leave.”

  Patrick was visibly surprised. “You can duplicate their security cards?”

  “They are using Earth security technology. RFID cards. Barely better than a carved stick. I suspect the Loranna got lazy when setting up this operation and just went with local talent.”

  I nodded. “Seems reasonable. Security through obscurity. They’re trying to look as uninteresting as possible, so no one will think to investigate them.”

  We settled into an uncomfortable silence, everyone glancing at everyone else. It was the moment of truth.

  “No more excuses,” Nat said. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. Tomorrow after work. Like you said, Jack, do or do not.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Infiltration

  Day 22. Friday afternoon

  Patrick dropped us off in a satellite parking area that wasn’t visible from the admin offices or the Harris building. While it seemed unlikely, if someone spotted Karen and her assistant, Marc, getting out of an unfamiliar car, it might raise questions.

  “We’ll have to go the long way around,” Nat said. “Sheldon, what’s the status with the real Karen and Marc?”

  “They have departed for the day, having driven off in separate vehicles.”

  “I wonder if there’s a Lorannic bunkhouse somewhere,” I muttered.

  “Unlikely, Jack. They will make a point of being as apparently normal as possible. It is likely that a number of people having the same mailing address would raise red flags with more than one government department.”

  “Which doesn’t matter if the Loranna have taken over,” I said.

  “If their infiltration was that thorough, they wouldn’t really need to be subtle,” Sheldon replied. “They could just launch the missiles, instead of having to scrap all the environmental laws and start promoting coal.”

  “Well, let’s hope.”

  Nat punched me in the arm. “Stop being a Dickie Downer. And when we get there, follow my lead. Remember, that’s my home turf.”

  I responded with an insolent salute. “Yeah, yeah.”

  The moment of truth came swiftly, and the entrance to the Harris Institute stood before us. Nat hesitated only a moment, then strode forward like she owned the place.

  The guard glanced up when we entered, appeared momentarily surprised, then glanced down. Apparently, whatever he saw reassured him, as his face relaxed.

  Nat strode past him with a small nod, heading for the elevators. I tried to avoid hunching my back, despite the feeling that I was going to be shot at any moment. I meekly followed my pseudo-boss through the lobby.

  As soon as we were out of sight, I started to speak, but was cut off by a comment from Sheldon.

  “Do not speak aloud unless absolutely necessary. Video and audio surveillance is likely, and I won’t be able to lip-synch to your commentary, so you’ll look like a ventriloquist act, which will definitely create suspicion. If you want to talk to me or to each other, subvocalize and I will retransmit it.”

  I clamped my lips shut. This would be a very quiet walk through the building.

  We quickly reached the third floor and strode down the hall. We encountered one person going the other way. He cocked his head at seeing us and said something in what had to be Lorannic. My cling-on supplied the translation. “You’re back, Karen? I thought you said you were going to be preparing for the status meeting.”

  “Karen” replied in the same guttural tones, which translated as “Forgot something. I won’t be long, though.”

  The other individual seemed unbothered, merely nodding and continuing on.

  We ended up in an office with the name Karen Ingram and the title Director, Marketing Campaigns on the door. I had a momentary twinge of worry, but the door was not locked. Nat closed it behind us, then looked around.

  “Walk around the room,” Sheldon said. “I’ll try to pick up indications of existing surveillance.”

  We obediently did a circuit of the office, then Nat sat down behind the desk and started opening drawers. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for,” the cling-on said in Nat’s voice.

  My eyebrows went up. I hadn’t seen Nat’s lips move or heard a peep from her. If that was subvocalized, it was impressive. “Anything important will probably be locked,” I replied under my breath, to test the subvocalization as much as anything.

  Nat nodded and sat back. She picked up the keyboard and flipped it over. As we had hoped, it was a cordless keyboard-and-mouse combo. She pulled out the surveillance device that Sheldon had given her and attached it to the front underside of the keyboard, as instructed.

  Meanwhile, I paced around the office, cataloguing the contents. The most glaring factoid was the complete lack of a filing cabinet. The credenza behind the desk seemed to contain only personal effects and a few books. And one thumb drive. Before I could change my mind, I grabbed the item and pocketed it.

  “We’ve placed the bug,” Nat’s voice said into my cling-on. “Time to amscray.”

  The trip back down to the lobby went without incident. It appeared Loranna really weren’t any more inclined than humans to hang around the office on a Friday. But when we got to the front desk, the guard spoke to Nat in Lorannic. My earbuds supplied the translation. “Did you get what you needed?”

  Nat, taken by surprise, did a small stutter step. But she immediately replied, in Karen’s voice and in Lorannic, “All good.”

  “I guess I’ll see you at the status meeting this weekend?”

  Wow, I thought, was this guard naturally chummy, or did he suspect something?

  “Look at your watch, Nat,” Sheldon interjected.

  Nat obediently bent her arm up and glanced meaningfully at it. “Yes, but I have a lot of prep to do.”

  “Ah, of course. Well, good night.”

  Nat and I exchanged glances as we made for the front door. Neither of us spoke until we were outside. Nat let out a loud breath. “Jeez, I thought we’d been made back there.”

  Sheldon replied to her comment. “I would have expected him to set off an alarm if he was truly suspicious, Natalie. In any case, if there is a sudden search of Karen’s office, we’ll know for sure.”

  “Sheldon, can you have Patrick meet us up front?” I asked. “I’d kinda like to be gone ASAP.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  We hurried to the road at the front of the industrial park, while doing our best not to appear to be hurrying. Patrick’s car was parked at the curb, waiting. I felt a wave of relief wash over me and quickened my pace.

  And then everything went to hell.

  A car pulled up behind Patrick and parked. The engine shut off, and the driver got out and came around between the cars just as we got close enough to think we were home free.

  It was Karen Ingram.

  It took her a moment to register that the woman and man walking toward her, doubtless with deer-in-the-headlights expressions on their faces, were Karen and Marc. She stopped dead and her jaw dropped. There was a moment of frozen mutual staring, then she said something that I didn’t catch and reached into her pocket. I watched the scene unfold in slow motion, completely unable to move. She was bringing up an item and pointing it at us.

  It was a disruptor.

  Then she said, “Urk,” did a sort of a break-dancing move, and started to slowly collapse. Behind her, Patrick stood with his disruptor extended. I jumped forward and grabbed her before she hit the ground. As I did so, Karen disappeared, to be replaced with an orange, slightly reptilian being.

  “What the hell?” I muttered. Then I looked down and realized I looked like myself.

  “Put her in here,” Patrick ordered, holding his trunk lid open.

  I dumped her in the trunk, none too gently, and started to ask, “Sheldon, why am I—?” Then I realized I was Marc again. “What just happened?” I said. In the trunk, Karen was Karen again.

  Sheldon responded immediately. “Your cloaking fields interfered with each other. It happens. Please stop yammering and get out of there.”

  Patrick muttered, “No shit,” slammed the trunk shut, and hurried around to the driver’s door. I took a moment to peer into Karen’s car. No Marc, thank God. Or anyone else. It appeared she’d come on her own.

  Nat and I jammed ourselves into the passenger side, and Patrick took off before I’d even gotten the door properly closed. Our disguises vanished as Sheldon disabled the belts.

  “What the hell happened?” Nat said. “Why did she come back?”

  “I have no data,” Sheldon said. “But she will be unconscious for ten to fifteen minutes. You need to get her here quickly. I will reconfigure a stateroom for incarceration.”

  “How long will that take?” I asked.

  “Not long. It’s in my list of standard procedures.”

  “Building a jail cell? Really?”

  “Not for this specific circumstance, obviously, but there can be situations where someone needs to be detained against their will. Once we’ve got her secured, we can talk about how you idiots managed to screw this up.”

  “She came back. She was coming back to the office for something. What could—” Nat stopped speaking as she saw the expression on my face. “What?”

  Wordlessly, I pulled the thumb drive out of my pocket and held it up.

  Nat’s eyes rolled. “Holy Mother Murphy and all the saints. She forgot her files for the seminar?” Nat sat there, speechless for several seconds, her jaw working soundlessly. Then she turned to me and glared. “You’re right, Jack. God is a malicious little troll, with the sense of humor of a sociopathic two-year-old.”

  “What do we do now?” Patrick said.

  “Get her to the barn. Get her into her quarters. Then we’ll assess the situation.” Sheldon paused. “Please try not to run over anyone along the way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: Accidental Captive

  Thankfully, Patrick slowed down and drove past my house at a properly sedate pace. Of all the times when attracting my father’s attention would be bad, driving in with a kidnapped alien lizard in the trunk had to be a contender for Most Likely to Qualify.

  And speaking of Karen, a couple of moans from the back signalled that she might be coming to.

  “Do you think she’s still out?” Patrick asked.

  “Loranna are quite robust. She should be starting to come around any time now,” Sheldon replied.

  “Wonderful.” Patrick skidded to a stop in front of the barn, turned around, and zapped the back seat of the Duster.

  “Will it go through the metal?” Nat asked.

  Patrick pocketed the disruptor with one hand while opening the door with the other. “No metal. The backrest opens right into the trunk. This is a Space Duster.”

  Nat started to laugh, then cut it off when Patrick gave her a quizzical frown. “Wait,” she said. “Seriously?”

  He grinned at her. “I don’t teach you how to download databases, you don’t question my Car-Fu. Deal?” Without waiting for a response, he slammed the door and marched to the rear of the Duster.

  I jumped out and joined him. “Think she’s been re-zapped?”

  “Hope so. Just in case, here.” Patrick handed me the disruptor and stuck his key into the lock. He popped the trunk and leaped quickly out of the way. I held up the gun in what I hoped—probably uselessly—was a professional ready stance.

  I needn’t have worried. Karen was contorted as if she were halfway to pushing out the back seat. Apparently, we’d cut it closer than I really cared for.

  “Shit. We were about ten seconds from having an angry lizard in the car with us,” Patrick said, echoing my own thoughts.

  I was staring stupidly at the alien body, thinking that this weird shit was happening to me way too often for one summer, when Sheldon broke the spell.

  “Will you missing links please stop breathing through your mouths long enough to move the prisoner? Unless you think afternoon tea with an angry Lorann is preferable. Take your time. We have several whole seconds to deliberate.”

  Before we could respond, the Final Jeopardy! music started playing.

  I chuckled and reached into the trunk. With Patrick taking the other end, we carried the prisoner into the barn, while Nat held the door. An airlock stairway was already waiting for us, with a rose-colored pulsing line at the top. We took the obvious hint and followed the line to an open stateroom door.

  “This is secure?” I asked.

  “All staterooms are required to act as personal environmental pods in case of catastrophe,” Sheldon said, “so the construction is already more than robust enough to contain an uncooperative tenant. I’ve added a mesh doorway to the configuration, and disabled any ability to open it from the inside. It’s a standardized process, albeit not one that is used very often.”

  “Why—” Patrick cut off his question and shook his head.

  Quickly, we maneuvered the unconscious Lorann into the stateroom and placed her on the bed. I reached down, felt around, and unclasped her cloaking belt. Karen Ingram changed into an orange, slightly scaly being with a tuft of browner, hairlike stuff on her head.

  As we stepped out of the stateroom, the door closed with the usual soft rumble. But instead of the expected solid door, the partition was a kind of screened affair, with four mesh panels in a metal frame. I pushed on the one of the panels, but it didn’t give at all. Much stronger than screen-door material, then.

  “Ah,” Patrick said. “So we can see the prisoner and talk to her.”

  “Very good,” Sheldon replied. “You may yet achieve sentience.”

  The Jeopardy! music started playing again and Patrick rolled his eyes. “Do any of those gadgets have a mute button?”

  We sat in the conference room, where we’d gathered to wait for Karen to recover from her second zapping. And to discuss our options.

  I held up the thumb drive. “So this is probably what she was coming back for.”

  “Which means it must have some files that she needed for the management seminar,” Nat replied. “Any chance you can read it, Sheldon?”

  “Hmm, USB spec—check. APFS or NTFS file-system spec—check. I’ll need to print a reader. Maybe two hours.”

  “Unless it’s encrypted,” Nat said.

  “Two hours and one minute then.”

  Nat persisted. “You’ll want to watch for viruses.”

  Sheldon responded with a snort and I laughed. A snort from a being with no actual respiratory system was a deliberate affectation. Sheldon continued to improve.

  “Should we wait for Sheldon to read the files before interrogating Karen?” Patrick asked.

  “I think so,” I replied. “Otherwise we’re working blind. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt to let her stew for a while.” Then I hesitated. “Actually, I’m thinking of maybe putting it off until tomorrow morning. I’m pretty bagged.”

  Patrick grinned. “It has been an exciting day. I could use some sleepy time, too.” He looked up. “She can’t break out, right?”

  “Stop worrying, you nervous ninny,” Sheldon replied. “I am constantly monitoring her activity. Or will be, once she wakes up. If by some miracle she found a weakness, I would call one of you for help.”

  “I bet that would be embarrassing for you, having to call us,” Patrick said.