“Yeh. Stop staring.” Dex is not looking at us, his eyes on the placard next to the Centauri mission uniform. “I told Atlanta to check the security on the staircases, I don’t have a lot of time.” He might not have our slang right yet, but in every other way he’ssounding smoother. He’s been learning to blend in more ways than one, changing the way he talks.
“Why are you helping us?” Jules’s voice comes out in a croak.
“Stop asking questions, I don’t have time to answer them, compren?” Dex slips his hands into his pockets, and though the movement is casual, I can see muscles standing out in his arms. Behind him, I spot Neal look up from the engine display, his eyes widening when he sees us. “You need to compren something if you’re going to stop this: It’s all about the portals. If you can stop us using the portals you can stop the occupation.”
We were right about the portals—theyarethe key to everything. But then the rest of what he says catches up with me. “Occupation?” I repeat, fear creeping into my gut.
“The Undying occupation of Earth. Once most of you are regressed, we’ll be in custody of the planet.” Dex glances from me to Jules. “You’re here for your father, yeh?”
I can feel Jules’s shock through our joined hands. A moment later his fingers go lax, slipping from mine. “How do you know who my—”
Dex cuts him off. “Are you fooling? Sirsly, the first thing we did when we got here, theveryfirst thing, we figured what you knew about us. How would thatnotbe the first thing we look for? It’s all over your internet, your television broadcasts, your books and newspapers and podcasts.”
Neal’s moving toward us, carefully. I catch his eye, and when he lifts his brows, I shrug.I don’t know if we’re in trouble or not.What Neal would be able to do about it, I don’t know, but at this point I don’t think it’s going to help if he sneaks up behind Dex and tackles him to the ground.
“Of course we looked up what you knew about the race of mysterious aliens who led you to Gaia.” Dex is still talking, sounding so much more like us than he did a few days ago, his eyes intent on Jules. I might as well be invisible, but it just means I can scan for Atlanta, for some sign that Dex is trying to trick us. But his bodylanguage, reflected in the glass uniform case, is urgent rather than aggressive.
“Why wouldn’t we memorize every lecture Elliott Addison ever gave about the Undying, check every paper and book he ever published on us, every video of his meltdown on your TV?”
Jules’s jaw clenches, but he manages to keep himself under control.
Dex shifts his weight from foot to foot. “That’s how we knew we could win. When we saw the way they treated Addison when he tried to tell the truth, that was when weknewwe could win.” His eyes are shadowed, expression grave. He glances over his shoulder, but there’s no sign of Atlanta. Instead he sees Neal, who gives him an awkward little wave, like he wasn’t considering trying to attack him thirty seconds ago.
When Dex turns back to Jules, he lets his breath out in a sigh. “That day in the landing pod, when you guys shifted planetside with us, I know you saw me look at you. You saw me recognize you.”
Jules says nothing. I could burst with pride that he’s learned to keep his mouth shut and not volunteer or confirm anything he doesn’t have to, except that I’m pretty sure he’s just silent because he’s standing there in some stunned combination of shock and fury.
Dex shakes his head. “But it wasn’t that I realized you were from Earth, that you were a proto. I realized you were Jules Addison.”
That shatters Jules’s stillness, and he raises a hand to gesture in a way that’s so like how he speaks when he’s correcting me on history or language that I fight the insane, fleeting urge to laugh. “Hold on, you couldn’t possibly have—”
“Your voice sounds like his,” Dex interrupts without missing a beat.
Jules, floundering, is silent again.
“You said, ‘Onward, if you dare,’ ” Dex presses. “His words, his voice. You’re here for your father. Yeh?”
Jules’s eyes flick toward me. But at this point, I’m out of mydepth. No amount of quick thinking or understanding of human nature is going to help us here. I lift one shoulder, gazing helplessly back at him. In the glass of the case, Dex’s reflection is wearing the Centauri uniform now, and it steals my gaze. A few moments ago I was thinking about what our species can accomplish when we remember we’re not actually all that different. And now that symbol of unity is superimposed on a human from outer space.
“Yeh?” Dex’s voice cuts through my thoughts, and Jules’s too, his urgency obvious.
“Yeh,” Jules says finally.
“So are we.”
The words hit hard enough to knock the wind from me, and from Jules’s stunned face, I know he’s half a heartbeat from total breakdown.
“You’ve got to get to him before we do. Prime-One, it isn’t just about IA Headquarters. Our destin is to kill the one man with the know-how to stop us. Unless someone else gets there first.” Dex’s hand comes out of his pocket, this time holding a small electronic device, which he hands to Jules. “Take it. We got backups on backups when it comes to infiltrating this place. Atlanta will get us inwards even if it turns out I forgot to pack the code breaker. I can slow her down, but I can’t do anything if we reach him before you do.”
Jules stares at the device, which is about the size of a drinks coaster, blankly. “You’re here to kill him?” he whispers.
Impatient, Dex jostles his shoulder. “This thing—it unscrambles door codes. You can get to the secured underground wing where prisoners are kept before we do.”
Those words seem to shatter whatever spell is holding Jules, because he reaches out as if to take Dex’s sleeve and blurts, “Wait—wait, we need you. We’ve got too many questions. … Who are you?Howare you human? Why are you trying to take Earth, and how did you even get into space so long ago to begin with? Why all the elaborate lies and puzzles and—”
“I don’t havetimeto answer.” Dex’s voice lifts a little in irritation, but he gets himself under control. Neal has crept up alongside us, and he’s watching the Undying teenager with an unreadable expression. “I’m not fooling, I can’t, not right now. I’ve gotta shift.”
Jules’s arm moves again, though he still doesn’t actually take hold of Dex. But instead of a torrent of questions, this time he just asks one. “Why are you helping us?”
