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need to finish searching this place, and then we’ll decide our next move.”
    His mouth shuts, but his chin trembles as he nods. Christina stands close to him, her arm over his scrawny shoulders. Her scowl tells me she no longer believes my behavior is an act. She’s just thinking I’m an asshole. And I don’t really have the energy to explain myself to her, so I head over to the population counter screen. When I touched the display in the other lab, it had showed some plans, like a blueprint for something. It might be for the satellite, or it might be for the scanner itself. And since my dad said the scanner was the key to our survival, I need to find out as much about it as possible. If I can do that here and now, so much the better, because the Core is probably—
    â€œTate.” Christina’s voice is like a whip, sharp and sudden. “Look at the surveillance screens.”
    I do. And my heart just about stops. There are people in the New York apartment. In the middle row of screens, the ones that show the place where I’ve lived for my entire life, black-suited men are milling about in the living room. Core agents. In my home.
    I lunge for the display, seeking a volume switch, anything to activate some sound so I can hear what they’re saying, but there’s nothing. So I squint at the screens, trying to read lips. I don’t recognize any of the men. Race isn’t there. But one of them, a guy with a hook nose and hair the color of a storm cloud, seems to be in charge. He partially covers his mouth as he points around the apartment, directing the men where to search. It’s like he knows there are cameras on him, and knows exactly where they are.
    I watch helplessly as they ransack my living room. Something dark streaks across the floor at the agents’ feet, and with a pang, I realize it’s Johnny Knoxville, my cat.
    â€œWhat are they looking for?” Christina asks.
    I have a sinking feeling I know. Somewhere, probably in his lab, my dad is storing wreckage of an H2 spaceship, the alien technology he used to make the scanner. Race told me he wanted to get to my dad’s stuff, and now they’re trying to take it by force. I’m willing to bet that they tried something yesterday—whether it was attempting to hack his system remotely or trying to enter one of his other safe houses or labs—that triggered that text message that was sent to his phone. “They’re trying to get their flying saucer back.”
    Leo bolts up from his stool. “Are you serious? An actual spaceship—in your dad’s lab?”
    â€œIf they try to get in my dad’s lab,” I continue as I search for a remote in my dad’s desk drawer, “they’ll be in for some nasty surprises. He has lethal security measures in place.” I’ve seen the plans in his files. He probably had the same setup outside the lab in this safe house. Hydrogen cyanide, which boils at just over room temperature. If the keypad registers three fails within ten minutes, wall panels open to reveal vents, within which are blowers motion-activated by movement in the hallway. As the door to the first floor closes and locks, heating elements beneath the eight cyanide canisters hidden in the walls melt the cap-seals and turn liquid to gas. No one in the basement would survive. I hope they give it a try.
    I turn around to expand my search for the volume control. I need to hear what those agents are saying. Leo’s drifted over to the monitors. He still looks like he hopes I’ll tell him the only thing about my dad he doesn’t seem to know. Christina frowns as she watches the Core agents in my living room. And then her expression fills with horror, and she starts to scream. I whirl back toward the screens to see what’s making her freak out, and my blood turns to ice. The hook-nosed agent is standing right in front of the surveillance camera hidden in the