“We?” He paused in the process of peeling down the bandage. “Is there another of us with you? Will they be joining us?”

He sounded so hopeful, so lonely, that I wanted to lie. Instead, I shook my head and said, “He’s human. He wants to hear the signal in its raw form. To talk to the scientist who intercepted it. We’re trying to figure out…” I stopped, letting the words taper off.

The stranger smirked. “Trying to figure out whether it’s real, huh? Well, don’t worry. You’ll know soon enough.”

He yanked the bandage away.

I sat upright with a gasp, opening my eyes on the cabin of the plane, and on Graham looking at me with open concern.

“Bad dream?” he asked.

I grabbed the inside of my elbow with the opposite hand, feeling the unbroken, still-human skin there, and sagged in relief.

“Bad dream,” I agreed.

Under my hand, my elbow began to itch again.

Chapter 5

Portland, Maine: July 20, 2031

Eighteen days pre-invasion

1.

We landed after local midnight, collecting our bags from the carousel and following the signs to the taxi station. A man who looked as weary as I felt was there to help us load our suitcases into the trunk of his black town car. Graham rattled off the address of our hotel as we slid into the backseat. The driver nodded, and that was it: we were free from the orbit of the airport, pulling away without interference from the security guards we had seen stationed at unnervingly regular intervals throughout the terminal.

Portland looked like any other city in the dark. We drove past homes and businesses, most with their lights turned low or entirely off, letting the night sky shine through. And what a sky it was. It was like climbing up Mt. Rainier, far from the city light pollution, and looking out across the endless sea of stars. I barely managed to fight the urge to roll down the window and stick my head out of the car, like a dog overjoyed by the idea of going for a ride. I wanted to see those stars. I wanted to see where the signal, my signal, was coming from.

I wanted a distraction from the itch that still burrowed in the crook of my left elbow, roiling and stinging and catching my attention every few seconds, whether I wanted it to or not. It hurt. Not constantly, but often enough that I could never quite forget that it was there, or allow it to fade away.

The face of the man in the forest … I couldn’t quite remember what I’d seen, but I knew it wasn’t anything that could ever pass for human, not once he took the bandage away. Jeff. His name was Jeff. It was a silly name for an alien invader, simple and ordinary and human.