“I see here that your final destination is Portland, Maine. Is this correct?” The question was mild, but when she looked up to study our faces, her eyes were sharp. “What is your business in Maine?”

“We’re visiting the observatory that captured the alien signal,” said Graham. “I’m a scientist, I work in novel fields, and we’d like to see if we can get access to the raw data feed.”

“I see,” said the guard. “Is there a reason this data feed can’t be provided to you here, in Seattle?”

“Data changes when it’s compressed or re-expanded. There may be no fidelity loss within the signal, but it’s possible there’s something I can’t find unless I study the original.” Graham smiled, trying to look easy in his own skin, like this sort of thing didn’t bother him in the slightest. “It’s like an art historian wanting to go to France to see the Mona Lisa. Yes, she’s been scanned and photographed more than any other painting in the world, but there are things that can only be discovered by sitting down with the lady and really getting to know her.”

“I see,” said the guard. She tapped her tablet surface. “Miss Miller? Why are you accompanying Mr. Fordham? I don’t see anything here about your having a background in data analysis. Or art history.” There was a cruel lilt to her last two words, like she was mocking not just the analogy but Graham himself.

So much for the pretense that we needed to carry our IDs for easy review while in the airport. We’d shown them at the check-in desk, and that had been enough for the airport security systems to know who we were. Security cameras, complete with facial recognition and gait analysis, had been following us ever since. The TSA knew exactly who we were, and wouldn’t be losing track of us until we exited the airport at our final destination … if even then. It would be easy to yield to paranoia, picturing a world where we were tracked all the time, no matter what we were doing.

Maybe we were witnessing the latest steps toward exactly that. Privacy has been dying since I was a child, and the alien signal—the potential for invasion—could be the excuse the government needed to clamp down hard and never let go.

“You know who I am,” I said, not making any effort to keep the weariness out of my tone. “You know why I’m going.”

“Anastasia Miller, age thirty-five, master’s degree in computer science, currently employed as a second-tier customer service technician for a local internet provider—really?” For the first time, the guard looked faintly bemused. “Why bother with an advanced degree if you were going to take two steps past entry level and stop?”