He held her tighter. “The bottom line is we don’t know. There’s simply no way of finding her unless I can get closer—”

“You’re wrong, my boy,” Lynn said. “There is a way.”

“What is it?” the general demanded.

Lynn’s sad eyes turned to William. “I should have told you. When I first suspected it. But I couldn’t. The truth was too difficult for even me to share.”

“I don’t understand,” William said.

“There’s nothing that can be taken out of us, William, to erase the danger we pose. There’s nothing implanted inside you, or me, or that sweet girl in your arms. We are the weapons. They changed us, William. Down to our very DNA.”

“How could you possibly know that?” the general said.

Her eyes flickered to him. “Because I am a Researcher, General. While you and your agents and soldiers were either trying to contain or use us as weapons—I was trying to understand how to make us safe again. And it was there, in the very skies above my woods.”

“Nanna.” William stepped towards her, but the general held up his hand and the soldiers moved in. “Nanna, what do you mean?”

“They swarmed when you first disappeared. The ladybugs. I thought it was some bizarre reaction to the abductions. But in the last year, they started acting strangely again. I’ve seen it documented, in photographs or video, all over the world, in all the sites of abductions and where they are returned to earth. It only happens for a moment, and you have to know what to look for. Sometimes you see it in swarms of flies, in locusts, in ladybugs, or even in snow or rain. Whatever is indigenous to the area or its weather patterns. Look closely above and you will see it. The shapes of DNA strands.”

“Impossible,” the general fumed. “The very best minds in the world scoured those sites for anything like that.”

“None of those people live at an abduction site. Or know that a year ago, when I felt the first tremor, the first inkling of control over me, I saw it for the first time, before my very eyes. I saw it again in Maryland just a week ago—in the form of swarming cicadas—where I suspect the boy, Ryan, was taken. I can tell by your expression that I am correct. The cicadas took the form of the strand.”

The general stammered. “What does it mean?”

“I believe … it’s how they mark what they’ve done to us. What each person taken or returned is afflicted with. It’s how they’ve engineered us. Ultimately, where to position us.”

William looked out. “So you think … out there … wherever Lily and her sister were returned to earth, there will be some indication? In the skies—”