My eyes didn’t move from Isaak’s. He was staring at me, brows furrowed, expression unreadable, waiting for my response.

I turned to Gitrin. “I am. Just tell me when.”

Chapter 35

“So, how does this work?” I asked, staring at the jumbled pile of tools and supplies Gitrin had dumped out on the table between us. In the midst of the clutter sat Delia’s 3-D printed key. Nadin had opened it with her medallion, and I ran a finger absently over the irregular curves and corners of the unnameable shape and glanced over at her.

She was mad at me. She still wouldn’t even look at me. I didn’t know why I’d said what I said after the forum. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to come. After all, like she’d pointed out, this whole thing was my idea. It wasn’t even that Ceilos was coming, too—although, if I was honest with myself, that was part of it.

It was that I didn’t know what was waiting for me when I got back. I was wanted by GSAF, and so was Emil. I’d been gone for sixteen months. And now I was going to be turning back up accompanied by three aliens and my prodigal dad, and I’d have to explain to everyone where the hell I’d been, hopefully without winding up in jail and/or some kind of mental institution. I’d promised the Iamoi a means of survival, and I had no clue how I’d be able to deliver on that.

And then there was Tamara.

And, yeah. That was part of it, too.

So you couldn’t really blame me for being a little bit antsy about the whole thing. But I didn’t know how I was supposed to explain that to Nadin. I wished I’d never said anything at all.

One of the diodes on the key sparked purple, and I yanked my hand back with a start. Gitrin laughed and made a tsking noise at the back of her throat. “It’s going to be a bit harder to program without full access to the System,” she said, strapping on a pair of goggles that looked uncannily like my Speculus headset back home, “but it’s not impossible.”

Emil, sitting on the bench to the left of me, prodded me hard in the ribs. “Well? What’s she saying?”

I rolled my eyes and grudgingly translated. Emil had demanded to be part of the building process, since he’d spent so long decoding the technology with Mama D, so I got roped into translating for him while they worked. Most of it was going right over my head—hacking and programming was never my strong suit. That had always been Henry’s territory.