“I’m not moving.” With the door open, the room seemed less oppressive. I could stay here for a while. I might need to stay here forever. The idea wasn’t appealing, but it wasn’t the end of the world. If I needed to get used to being a houseplant, I could do it.

At least until the invasion came. When our ships darkened this planet’s skies, then things were going to change, and quickly. There was no way to say that without making my own situation worse, and so I said nothing at all.

“You need to talk to me.”

“No, I don’t.” I looked over my shoulder at her. “You’ve threatened my friends. You’ve threatened me, through them, and with your casual little comment about your ‘scientists’ waiting for me to wake up. You haven’t introduced yourself. You haven’t even told me which agency currently has us detained. You’ve done literally nothing to make me feel like I need to talk to you, and a hell of a lot to make me think the silent treatment may actually be more than you deserve. So give me one good reason to have a conversation that consists of something more than me telling you to go fuck yourself.”

“They’re coming.”

I said nothing.

“That signal your friend—Dr. Fabris—decided to release wasn’t the first one we’d intercepted. It wasn’t even the tenth. They’ve been getting more frequent over the last few years, but we’d been able to keep them from making the news before this. It helps that people still think anything that includes ‘and it came from space’ is a lie.” The woman lowered her Taser. “We’d been hoping to keep suppressing them until we figured out how to approach your species. Unfortunately, Dr. Fabris has made that impossible.”

“So you abducted us from a plane.”

“Miss Miller, I don’t think you understand how important this is to national security.”

“I don’t think you understand how much I don’t like being abducted from a plane,” I countered. “I want to go home. I want to see my cat. Is that a thing you can help me with?”

“Miss Miller, you will be lucky if you ever see the outside of this facility again.”

My hand went to the bandage on my inner elbow. “Because of what I am.”

“Yes.” She nodded once. “Because you’re not a human being. You have no right to walk freely on the soil of this world, and we want you to cooperate. We want you to help us prepare.”

“Why me? Why not one of the others?”