I catch Walker staring at me with that same look of awe her driver had after I healed his neck. Sanderson, still sitting in front of me, looks close to tears. The black spiderwebs that crisscrossed beneath his skin have disappeared; his face no longer droops, his muscles aren’t atrophied. He’s still an old man, deep-set wrinkles lining his face, but he looks like a real old man, not one who’s slowly had the life drained out of him.

He looks human.

“Thank you,” Sanderson says to me, his words barely above a whisper.

Nine looks at me, checking to see how I’m holding up, then turns to Sanderson and snorts derisively. “It’s all for nothing, Grandpa, if you let those pasty-faced asshats land on Earth.”

“I’m ashamed of what I’ve done, what I became . . . ,” Sanderson says, his gaze pleading and confused. “But I don’t understand what you expect me to do. Let them? How can I stop them?”

“We don’t expect you to stop them,” I say, “just slow them down. You need to rally people against them. When you give your speech tomorrow at the UN, you need to make it clear that the Mogadorian fleet can’t be allowed to land on Earth.”

Sanderson stares at me, confused, then slowly swivels his gaze towards Walker. “Is that what your mole told you? Is that what you think will be happening tomorrow?”

“I know what’s happening,” Walker replies, no less caustic now that Sanderson seems to be coming around to our side. “You and the other leaders who the Mogs have bought off will get up onstage and convince the world we should coexist peacefully.”

“Which is really just code for surrender,” Nine adds.

“Yes, that’s planned for tomorrow,” Sanderson says, with a dark, hopeless laugh. “But you’ve got the order confused. You think I give some speech and then their Beloved Leader lands his ships? You think he cares about the slow-turning wheels of human politics? He’s not waiting for permission. The UN will convene to save lives, to calm a frightened population, because a military resistance is doomed against that—”

Sanderson gestures wildly through the door, at the television still buzzing in the other room. Slowly, we each turn, leaving Sanderson’s bedroom for the penthouse living room, drawn in by the ashen face of a cable news anchor. She stumbles over her words as she tries to explain the unidentified flying objects manifesting in the air over dozens of major cities. The reception goes in and out, the bursts of static getting more and more frequent, as something interferes with the signal.

“. . . reports coming in that the ships have been sighted overseas as well, in places like London, Paris and Shanghai,” the newscaster says, eyes wide as she reads from her teleprompter. “If you’re just joining us, something literally out of this world is happening, as ships of alien origin have appeared over Los Angeles, Washington . . .”

“It’s happening,” Sam says, stunned, looking at me for some kind of guidance. “The warships are coming down. They’re making their move.”