“The archives are up here,” Sam tells me. “Dad’s been in there nonstop. The Mogs recorded everything.”

We stop by a small room—almost like an office—with a huge bank of monitors. Malcolm sits behind the room’s single computer terminal, bleary-eyed from watching who knows how many hours of footage. On-screen, a Mogadorian scout speaks directly into the camera.

“It has been three days since we leaked rumors of a Loric presence in Buenos Aires,” the scout reports. “There has yet to be any sign of Garde, but surveillance continues—”

Malcolm pauses the video when he notices us, rubbing his eyes.

“Find anything useful?” I ask.

Malcolm shakes his head and pulls up a list of files on the computer. He brushes a finger down the touch screen, and the files begin an endless scroll. There are thousands of them, and all their titles are in Mogadorian.

“From what I can gather, this is almost five years’ worth of Mogadorian intelligence,” Malcolm explains. “I’d need an entire team to go through it all. Even with Adam translating these titles, which are basically just dates and times, it’s hard to figure out where to begin.”

“Maybe we can hire some interns,” Sam suggests, then tugs my arm. “Come on, we gotta see Adam.”

“Do what you can,” I tell Malcolm before Sam drags me away. “Even the smallest bit of information might help.”

A few more steps down the hall and we reach the room Adam described as the control center. The room is pretty much undamaged, so it’s where we set up shop. The walls are covered in monitors, security-camera footage from Ashwood streaming over some, but also video feeds from other places, including one hacked security camera outside the barricaded John Hancock Center. Beneath the monitors are a row of computers, not exactly user-friendly since all the keys are in Mogadorian.

I put my hands on my hips and survey this place, watching the camera feeds that not too long ago would’ve been trained on me. It feels strange to be on the other side. Like Sam, this place makes me uneasy.

“Are we safe here?” I ask. “All these cameras . . . there aren’t any pointed back at us?”

“I’ve disabled them,” Adam replies. He’s in a swivel chair at one of the computers, typing out a string of commands. He turns around to face me. “Using the General’s authorization, I’ve sent a code back to the Mogadorian command in West Virginia reporting that the salvage team uncovered a toxic chemical leak. It’ll take some time to clean up. They’ll assume the failed cameras have something to do with the salvage team’s work.”

“How much time does that buy us?”

“A couple of days? A week?” Adam replies. “They’ll become suspicious when the General doesn’t check in, but we should slip through the cracks for a while.”

“What do we look for in the meantime?”

“Your friends,” Adam replies. “In fact, I believe I’ve already found them.”

“Yeah, Florida,” I say. “We already knew that.”