“Collaborationists,” Sheldon replied. “More than two hundred powerful or influential humans who have thrown themselves in with the Loranna. Knowingly. The text below the images is a summary of their efforts in the service of the plan.”

“Any actual Loranna in disguise?” I asked.

“I would think that’d be poor strategy,” Nat interjected. “Too much risk. Disguises can break down; people can notice inconsistencies in behavior, inconsistencies with constructed history, and so on.”

“Natalie is correct,” Sheldon said. “Although the presentation doesn’t give details, there are numerous references to Lorannic ‘handlers’ and ‘influencers,’ all no doubt operating behind the scenes. There may in fact still be some embedded Loranna other than those here in Dunnville, but there is no mention of them in the presentation.”

Patrick made a face. “Damn. Too bad. I was thinking of unmasking someone famous as a Lorann in public, maybe even live on TV—sabotaging their disguise or something.”

“I’m not sure it would be all that effective, anyway,” I replied. “Deepfakes have gotten so good now, you can’t depend on video evidence. And if the Loranna are as embedded in everything as this indicates, then I’ll bet real money they’d have a campaign up and running to discredit us in no time.”

Nat sighed. “The Loranna seem to have everything sewn up tight.”

“It is possible that this is not their first hootenanny,” Sheldon said.

Nat snorted. “Rodeo.”

“Sure thing.”

“I agree,” I said. “This is too smooth, too well orchestrated. Minimal effort, minimal investment, using the resources of the host planet whenever possible. This is a practiced, optimized script. Like they’ve done this before.”

“We are so fucked.” Patrick leaned back and sighed. “Let’s review, shall we? We can’t call the Gen for help. We can’t go to the Gen for help. We can’t unmask any Loranna, and even if we could, it would be buried under a mountain of competing disinformation. We could release this PowerPoint presentation, but it would probably have zero effect. We can’t go to the media and expect any results, and if we try to go to the government, we’re as likely as not to get intercepted by a collaborationist or disguised Loranna. Have I got it all covered?”

Nat nodded. “Nicely summed up. Let’s go talk to my ex-boss. Maybe we can get some ideas.”

We stared at Karen. Karen stared back. For almost a minute, no one spoke. I wish I could say we were trying to unnerve her or some such psychological trick, but really, we were just all completely at a loss. And Karen was obviously not going to give us anything.

Patrick threw out the first question. “Why are you here?”

“You kidnapped me.”

“No, I mean—” Patrick paused to regroup. “Why is your species secretly on Earth?”

“We’re a research group, doing a study of Terran civilization.”