Or did they? The whisper was sweet, insinuating itself into my thoughts as smoothly as a worm slides into the soil. The humans had done nothing to keep their planet safe. They hadn’t put up orbital defense stations, hadn’t learned to protect themselves from asteroids—hadn’t even listened when the scouts of another world’s army started loudly announcing themselves. We had never been subtle. But we had been laughed at.

“It’s all right,” said Jeff. He reached for the bandage, beginning to peel back the tape. “You don’t have to know what you want yet. You’re still figuring yourself out, and that’s cool. That just means you’re going to be real sure when you finally believe. You’re going to be a juggernaut.”

“How are you sure already?” I asked. “You know as much as I do.”

“Like I said, I’m in computers. I like to understand things. I started digging a long time ago, looking for the holes that fit us. I found a lot more than most people. More than a human could ever have pieced together, that’s for damn sure. Did you know we’re not alone? I mean, literally. There have been earlier waves, although they were never quite as dense as ours. I think there might be people like us in their eighties, still wandering along, waiting for an invasion they don’t believe is ever coming. Can you imagine? Getting old waiting to be needed, and then turning around and realizing there’s a line of people behind you young and strong enough to do what needs to be done? It’s got to be breaking their hearts.”

He pulled the last of the tape off the edge of the bandage and rolled it down, revealing the skin beneath. My breath caught in my throat and my heart stopped in my chest, leaving an aching stillness inside me. It didn’t hurt, exactly. It didn’t even feel all that uncomfortable. It was like a system had gone offline, something unnecessary but convenient, and the rest of me was adjusting to its absence.

The skin on Jeff’s cheek had been ripped cleanly away, leaving thin, jagged edges to outline the wound. They were translucent in places, like they were being slowly worn away.

The wound itself was not a wound, not exactly: it was a patch of skin as green as maple leaves in the spring. Thin lines ran through it, sketched in darker green, like the veins on those same leaves. I made a soft sound of protest and dismay. Jeff smiled, a little ruefully.

“I heard the signal,” he said. “The next day, I was fixing a solar panel on the roof when I slipped and scraped my cheek. Pretty standard … except this time, the scrape didn’t heal. Instead, the skin started to die and peel off, and this was what was underneath.”