I know the answer almost before I say it. “Use my birthday. That’s the cipher. Push every letter and number forward twelve, then take the four for the month, April, and—”
“Got it,” he says, completely locked on to the scribblings in front of him now.
“Do you recognize anything from the work you were doing with him?” Mia joins Neal, gazing up at the message, her voice barely daring to hope. “Could this be a way to shut down the portals?”
“Think it through,” I say, willing him silently to hurry, but trying to keep my voice calm. “Make sure you have it right.”
“I think …” I can hear the strain in his voice, and I can only imagine the mental calculations he’s performing. “I think it’s a frequency. It’s a microwave frequency. This would fit with our idea that the portals needed an activation signal. The ship will broadcast it via a satellite relay around Earth.”
“Great, so we need to getbackto the ship?” Mia’s voice is like lead.
“No, we just need to stop the portals receiving the signal. A frequency jammer. Or maybe jammers, all around the world, in each city where there’s a portal.”
“So we jam the signal,” Mia says, “and the portals don’t open? No toxin. No flu. No invasion.”
Then a new voice speaks from the doorway. “Beno,” says Atlanta, her tone subzero. “You’re not so dumb.”
My veins turn to ice as I drop my gaze, to find Atlanta and Dex standing side by side in the open doorway. She’s holding an IA pistol, hefting it in her grip.
But though I freeze in place, Mia’s instincts are completely different.
She darts forward, making a grab for the gun, wrapping her hand around Atlanta’s as she tries to get her finger on the trigger, already twisting it around to point it at the Undying girl.
Seeming to almostflow, moving with impossible speed, Atlanta wrests it away from Mia, turning the weapon to point it straight at her head, forcing her to stumble back to join Neal and me.
“You protos,” she says, her voice rich with disdain. “You protos and your weapons. You think they’ll keep you safe, but look how easy they’re turned yourways. Where is Elliott Addison?”
Despite the sheer terror that comes with having a gun pointed at your face, something in me releases just a fraction.They didn’t kill him.
Quietly, Dex rests a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Easy, Peaches,” he says softly. All his love for her is in those two words.Just as it was every moment I listened to them in their quarters, through the wall of their ship. I know that wherever they grew up, these two grew up together. Their ties go deeper than I can possibly understand.
“Enough,” she snaps. “It’s one thing to feel sorry for them, Dex, but they keep popping up—if there’s any chance they’ll interfere, it’s better to just kill them now.”
Mia’s breath hitches sharply, but I’m watching Dex, whose eyes go from the three of us beyond the barrel of Atlanta’s gun, to her profile. In that moment he looks so stricken, so sad, that my heart gives a sympathetic lurch.
Only too human after all.
“No,” he says finally, taking a step past Atlanta to put himself between us and the gun.
“What?” Atlanta snaps, jerking her gun away and taking a step back, as if even pointing the gun in his direction is unthinkable. “You fooling? It’s so not the time.”
But Dex’s face is grave, no sign of humor there. “Our people—we were wrong to come here like this,” he says quietly. “Our home has been the stars for centuries now—not this planet, not if it means genocide. Tell me you see that, A, deep down. That none of this is right.”
“Of course it’s right,” Atlanta retorts with confusion. “They’ve had their chance with this planet—we’re the ones who can save it from them.”
“Maybe.” Dex’s voice is still quiet. “But not like this.”
“Nothing has changed.” Atlanta’s lips quiver, her eyes anguished. “Dex, we grew up training for this, our whole lives. This one big push, and then all our people can come home.”
Dex draws a long breath, and though his features are calm, there’s a fight going on behind his eyes. “You’re right,” he says softly. “Ihavebeen training for this my whole life. I’m not who you think, Peaches.”
“Stopcallingme that!” Atlanta gestures with the gun, swingingit briefly toward Dex, who lifts his hands. For a long moment, she stares at him, uncomprehending. Then the barrel of the gun lowers, and her eyes widen. “You mean—all those stories. Dissenters, traitors among us working against us, tohelpthese protos? Those stories—they’re true?”
“The Nautilus is real.” Dex is still speaking softly.
My pulse quickens, a jolt of excitement drowning out the fear for just a moment.I was right.The symbols scratched all over the Gaian temples and embedded in the deepest layers of code in the original Undying broadcast—not only were they a real warning, but I’ve got living proof right here that not all of the Undying want to wrest our planet from us by force.
Atlanta’s shaking her head. “You’re not one of them. I’ve known you since before I can remember. I’dknow.You’re not a traitor.”
