“You just said—”
“I know what I just said. We’re human, but also aliens. To this planet, anyway.”
Sam rotated her head back and forth between the two of them as each spoke, trying to make sense of their words. She reached forward and turned off the radio just as the lyrics “highway to hell” sounded for what felt like the hundredth time.
“You’re losing me,” Alex said.
Raiff’s eyes fixed on the side-view mirror. “It’s them I want to make sure I lose.”
“‘Them’ as in the drone things?”
“Interesting term.”
“It’s what the ash man called them,” Sam interjected. “Drones. Back in Alex’s house after…”
“It’s okay, Sam,” Alex said, trying to sound reassuring.
“Ash man?” Raiff repeated.
“Before Alex split him in half. He kept talking out of both sides of his mouth.”
“That’s because he wasn’t real,” Alex added.
“No, he was a projection,” Raiff noted.
“Like a hologram or something?” asked Sam.
“Far more advanced,” Raiff said, holding both of them in his gaze. “Holograms don’t split in half. Weapons go right through them, for obvious reasons.”
“Like a drone’s severed arm,” Alex told him. “That’s what I used.”
Raiff glanced over at Alex to make sure he’d heard that right. “Not holograms as you understand them. Next generation, actually about five hundred generations. I call them Shadows.”
“Shadows,” Alex repeated.
“But they’re more like astral projections—with actual mass created by a gas and gamma rays; the particular gas is found only on our mother planet.”
“What,” Sam speculated, “like an out-of-body experience?”
“No,” Raiff said, impatient to have to be addressing her at all and aiming his response at Dancer instead. “Our world is so far away from this one, there’d be no way to hold the signal carrying the hologram together. So this projection who spoke to you, the Shadow you call the ash man, is instilled with gamma energy to simulate form and matter in order to maintain structural cohesion during the transmission.”
“Okay,” Alex managed.
“Like pouring sand into water,” Sam concluded.
“Pretty much.” Raiff nodded.
“So he was talking to me from your planet.”
“Our planet, Alex, but yes.”
“He said I had something he wanted, something that belonged to him.”
“You do, but it doesn’t.”
“Oh, boy,” Alex said, shaking his head again.
“It belongs to us,” Raiff told him. “That’s why you were smuggled here.”
“Smuggled?”
“How many androids, drones, were there in your house?” Raiff asked, hands squeezing the wheel tighter, eager to change the subject.
“Four. Dressed as cops.”
“And you killed them all?”
“You can’t kill a machine but, yeah, I messed them up pretty good. What are they, exactly?”
“Long story, Dancer.”
“Dancer?”
“Your code name. What I’ve always referred to you as.”
“You can call me Alex. Now, tell me about these drone things, androids, or whatever they are.”
“They’re soldiers.”
“From?” Alex demanded.
“From the world you and I come from,” Raiff said, then added, “Well, not exactly.”
“Not exactly? What, then?” Alex asked.
“The technology comes from our world, but they’re manufactured here. Truly made in America.”
“Like in a factory?” Sam asked before Alex could.
“Sort of.”
“Could you be any more vague?”
Raiff shot her a look. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“His tutor,” Sam said, gesturing toward Alex.
“You’d think I’d be smarter, coming from a world that can manage all this shit. What’s your name, anyway?” Alex asked him. “I mean, you do have a name, right?”
“Clay. Clay Raiff. Call me Raiff.”
“And why do I need a Guardian, Raiff? Why have I needed one all of my life? What the hell is going on here—just who, what, am I?”
“Tell me what you know, and I’ll fill in the rest.”
“That’s easy: nothing, I know nothing!”
“Wrong. You know plenty, lots more than you realize. Think!”
*
Alex summarized what he’d learned from the flash drive hidden inside Meng Po as best he could, his mother’s final message to him, those test results still tucked into the pocket of Dr. Payne’s jeans. He hit on all the most salient points, including Dr. Chu’s findings, as well as the circumstances of his rescue and “adoption” by the Chins as a baby.
“Guess I’m the ultimate illegal alien,” he finished.