“Yeah, he does that kinda thing a lot.” Sam turns his head, speaking into my ear. “John? Can you hear me? You can shut off the lights. We can make it in the dark for a bit.”

That’s when I realize that I’m still illuminating the tunnel with my Lumen. Running on fumes, and still I’m instinctually keeping the lights on. It takes a conscious effort on my part to let my Lumen go out, to not fight against my own exhaustion, to allow myself to be carried.

I let go. Trust in Sam.

And then I can no longer feel Sam’s and Daniela’s arms around me. I can’t feel my feet dragging through the thick slop of the subway tunnels. All my aches and pains melt away until I’m peacefully floating through darkness.

A girl’s voice interrupts my rest.

“John . . .”

A cold hand slips inside mine. It’s slender and girlish, fragile, but it squeezes with enough force to bring me back to my senses.

“Open your eyes, John.”

I do as she says and find myself stretched out on an operating table in an austere room, an array of ominous-looking surgical machinery spread out around me. Right next to my head is a machine that looks almost like a vacuum cleaner—a suction tube with scalpel-sharp teeth at its end is attached to a barrel filled with a viscous, writhing black substance. The ooze floating through the machine reminds me of the stuff I cleansed from the secretary of defense’s veins. Just looking at it makes my skin crawl. It’s inherently unnatural and Mogadorian.

This isn’t right. Where am I? Were we captured while I was unconscious?

I can’t feel my arms or my legs. And yet, strangely, I don’t panic. For some reason, I don’t feel like I’m in any real danger. I’ve had this kind of out-of-body experience before.

I’m in a dream, I realize. But not my own dream. Someone else is controlling this.

With some effort, I manage to turn my head to the left. There isn’t anything in that direction except more bizarre-looking equipment—a mixture of stainless-steel medical tools and complicated machinery like the stuff we found inside Ashwood Estates. On the far wall, though, there’s a window. A porthole, really. We’re in the air, the sky dark outside, lit only by the fires in the city below.

I’m on board the Anubis, floating above New York City.