“I’m not sure yet,” I reply, an edge to my voice, keeping my guard up. Six circles around the couch so she can stand where Walker can’t see her.

“Hm,” Malcolm says. “I was about to put a pot of coffee on. Would anyone else like some? I think I saw some tea in the kitchen, too.”

A shaky smile forms on Walker’s face. “Is this some kind of good-cop, bad-cop routine?” She looks from Malcolm to me. “Is he one of your . . . what do you call them? Cêpans?”

Six raises her hand to Malcolm. “I’ll take a cup, actually.” When I flash her an annoyed look, she shrugs. “What? Trust me, I can drink some coffee and take down this lady at the same time, if I need to.”

Agent Walker glances over her shoulder at Six. “I believe her.”

I stride forward so I’m standing right in front of Walker and snap my fingers in her face. “All right, stop wasting time. Say what you came here to say.”

“Agent Purdy is dead,” Walker states, looking up at me. “Had a heart attack at Dulce Base.”

“Aw, I remember him,” Six says. “What a shame.”

I remember Agent Walker’s partner, too—an older guy, white hair, crooked nose. I shrug, not seeing what this has to do with us. “Condolences, I guess. So what?”

“Guy was a prick,” Walker replies. “It isn’t so much that he croaked, it’s what happened after.”

Walker shows me her hands, then very slowly reaches into the front pocket of her FBI-issue Windbreaker. She removes a stuffed manila folder, rolled-up and rubber-banded. She opens it up, reaches inside and pulls out a Polaroid photograph. Walker hands it to me and I find myself examining a close-up of a dead Agent Purdy—or what’s left of him. Half his face is melted away, disintegrated into ash on the concrete underneath him.

“I thought you said it was a heart attack,” I say.

“It was,” Walker replies. “Thing is, afterward, Purdy started to dissolve away. Just like one of the Mogadorians.”

I shake my head. “What does that mean? Why?”

“He’d been getting treatments,” Walker says. “Augmentations, the Mogs call them. Most of the senior MogPro people have been getting them for years.”

The term “MogPro” rings a bell from They Walk Among Us, but I don’t know how this all adds up with the augmentations Adam told us about.

“Back up,” I tell her. “Start at the beginning.”

Walker self-consciously touches her streak of gray hair and for a moment I wonder if she’s having second thoughts about this confession. But then she hands me the folder she’s been clutching, meeting my eyes.

“First contact was ten years ago,” she says. “The Mogadorians claimed they were hunting fugitives. They wanted to use our law-enforcement network, have free rein to move around the country, and in exchange they’d provide us with weapons and technology. I was just out of the academy when all this happened so I obviously wasn’t invited to any meetings with the aliens. I guess no one wanted to piss them off or turn down weapons more powerful than any we’d ever seen, because our government caved real quick. The director of the bureau himself was in on the negotiations. This was before he got promoted. Might’ve been why he got promoted, in fact.”