“No.” He shook his head, hard. “We just intercepted a hoax. Or this Vornholt guy is trying to manufacture a hoax. You’ll see. This will play out for a while, soak up some news cycles, and then get unmasked as the pile of shit it is. In the meantime, you want to pump Stasia for information about her little fantasy world, and you don’t want to think about the way it’s going to change things. Because it will. It will change everything.” He gave me a look, half-pleading, half-sympathetic. “Once we make her tell us how her game works, it won’t work anymore. Everything she does will be proof of her humanity, and we’ll have to think hard about how seriously she takes this, and whether we owe it to her to help her find, well, help.”

I put Seymour on the floor and stood. I didn’t think before I moved, but once I was moving, it seemed like the only possible response to the situation. Mandy grimaced.

“Stasia, don’t go,” she said.

“I don’t think you need me here for this conversation,” I said. “It feels like you’re talking about me, not to me, and I don’t have time for this. Not if the armada is coming.”

“That’s the problem,” said Lucas. He sounded frustrated—but under the frustration, there was fear. “The armada isn’t coming. The armada can’t be coming.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re humans!” He stopped, looking startled by his own vehemence. Then he straightened, cleared his throat, and continued more quietly, “Because you’ve been telling us this whole time that you came from outer space to conquer the planet, and we laughed at you, and oh my God I can’t believe I’m saying this, this is ridiculous, but you realize if you’ve been telling the truth—which you haven’t been, because you can’t have been—that makes me, and Mandy, and Graham, and Roxanna, and anyone else you’ve had a conversation with in your lifetime, complicit in aiding the invaders. We’re traitors to our species and our planet if we knew what you were and never told anyone.”

“No one would have believed you.”

“Just like we didn’t believe you.”

“You mean you didn’t believe her,” said Mandy. We turned to look at her. She shrugged. “Believe everything that isn’t actively trying to eat your face. That way, when it shows up and does try to eat your face, you’ll at least know what it is. I always believed you, Stasia. I just didn’t think it was important.”

“Me being an alien wasn’t important?”

Mandy shrugged. “People called my grandparents ‘aliens,’ but they were American citizens before they died. You’ve been there when someone asked me where I was really from, and got pissed off when I kept repeating, ‘Pasadena.’ If you’re from outer space, why should I care? I just want you to take me to your place for Christmas. I’d like to see the Milky Way from the outside.”

“You’re both insane,” said Lucas.