Mr. Hernandez gave her a suspicious look. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” she said quickly. “I—we’ll ask.”
“I really have to get to soccer practice,” David said. “Is there anything else?”
Mr. Hernandez went over to his desk and opened the briefcase. Reese held her breath, but he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. He returned with the small plastic device that Reese had thought was a USB drive. He placed it squarely on David’s desk. “This is a camera.” He pointed to a tiny button on the side of the device. “Here’s the shutter.” Then he showed them a clear bump on the tip that looked like a miniature bulb. “That’s the lens. Just point and click, and make sure you’re a couple of feet away from what you’re photographing. We have reason to believe that the Imria have an adaptation chamber on board their ship. They’ve released several reports about the science involved in the adaptation procedure, but there are holes in the research. They’re not revealing everything. One of the major gaps is the way the adaptation chamber actually works. Your job is to find the adaptation chamber and photograph it from as many angles as you can. Then you’ll bring this camera back to me and my team will look at the photos and determine whether you need to take additional shots.”
David fingered the camera. “But we don’t know where the adaptation chamber is.”
“It’s your job to find out,” Mr. Hernandez said.
Reese stared at their fake teacher. “How are we supposed to do that?”
“I suggest you start by asking them.” He leaned on the edge of the desk nearby. “You’re their first successfully adapted subjects. You have more right than anyone to view the place where you were adapted.”
“You think the adaptation chambers where they adapted us are in the ship?” she asked, surprised.
He nodded. “There’s no other place they would be.”
She swallowed. David looked unnerved. If that was true, they had spent a lot more time in that ship than they remembered, and that disturbed her. Had Eres Tilhar visited them while they were unconscious? Had Amber?
“The General Debate of the United Nations begins on September fifteenth, exactly three weeks from today,” Mr. Hernandez said. “I’ll expect you to find the adaptation chamber and bring me those photos before then.”
CHAPTER 20
Reese knocked on Julian’s bedroom door, and when she heard him call “Come in,” she opened it. He was sprawled in his beanbag chair in jeans and a black T-shirt with some kind of decal on it, his laptop open. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, and she wondered if he had heard her arrive a few minutes ago. Her dad was downstairs, probably making awkward small talk with Julian’s mom, who had never really liked him.
“Hey,” he said.
She closed the door and pulled out Julian’s desk chair, straddling it. “What were you doing at Angel Island?” she asked.
He closed his laptop. “I’m fine, how are you?”
“Jules. What were you thinking?”
He set the computer on the wooden floor and looked out the bay windows, avoiding her gaze. “I had to do it. I had to try.”
“Try what? Start from the beginning.”
He rubbed his hands through his curly hair, fluffing it into a puffy dark brown crown. “I wanted to see if the Imria were what they said they were. Whether they really wanted to help humans. So I went to Angel Island and volunteered to be a test subject.” He finally looked at Reese, and his eyes seemed to glitter with excitement. “They rejected me.”
She stared at him, her forehead furrowed. “Thank God!” Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you so happy about it?”
He sat up, punching the beanbag into shape behind him. “Because if they were crazy evil colonizers, they wouldn’t have rejected me. They would have taken me and done whatever tests they wanted to do. But since they didn’t, this proves they’re here to help us.”
She blinked. “That is some seriously flawed logic.”
“It makes total sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. All it means is that they knew who you were and they didn’t want to make me mad at them. Because I would have been seriously mad if they had done anything to you.”
Anger darkened Julian’s face. “It’s not always about you, Reese.”
His comment stung. “I’m not saying it is!”
“You just said they only didn’t take me because I’m your friend.” He jumped to his feet and began to pace in front of the windows.
He had a point, she thought, chagrined. She watched him for a moment, then asked, “How did you get there? My mom thinks you hired someone.”
“Yeah, I hired a boat. It’s crazy, the things money can buy,” he said sarcastically. His shoulders drooped a little. “I wiped out my savings.”
“Okay, so you paid someone, but there are soldiers all over that island. How did you get to the ship?”
He stopped pacing and pushed his hands into his pockets. He looked at her defiantly. “Amber met me.”
She felt as if he had shoved her. “What?”
He shrugged. “She met me at the harbor and took me to the ship.”
“How did she even know you were there?”
“I e-mailed her.”
Reese’s stomach flipped. “Even I don’t have her e-mail address. How did you get it?” His gaze shifted away from her. “What’s really going on? You didn’t go there to volunteer. That’s ridiculous. You knew they wouldn’t take you. What were you really doing?”
He crossed the room and sat on the edge of his rumpled bed, pushing a pair of sweats out of the way. He leaned over, elbows on his knees, and looked down at the floor as he spoke. “She e-mailed me a couple of weeks ago. Right after you and David returned from Area 51.”
Reese was shocked.
“She wanted to find out if I thought you would take her up on her offer. To let the Imria teach you guys how to use your adaptation.”
“But… how did she get your e-mail address?”
“I’m on the Internet. I’m listed on Bin 42. It probably wasn’t that hard—it’s not like I try to hide my identity. Anyway, I told her I didn’t know, that she should ask you herself. But she didn’t seem to want to do that. We’ve been e-mailing since then.” Finally he raised his head to look at her. “She feels really bad about what happened.”
Reese stiffened. “Did she ask you to say that?”
“No. It came up.”
“It came up? What, you and Amber are pen pals now?” She couldn’t hide the bitter edge in her voice. “Do you like her?”
He sat up, an incredulous expression on his face. “Are you kidding me? I’m your friend. Plus I’m gay! And if you’re jealous that I’ve been e-mailing her, you’re pretty fucking gay too.”
She gaped at him. She felt as if she had walked into an inferno. Julian gave her a challenging look, as if he were daring her to contradict him. Her fingers, resting on the back of his desk chair, gripped the wood harder. Finally she said in a low, tight voice, “Is that what this is about? Are you still pissed at me for not coming out to everyone?”
His jaw clenched. He shook his head. “No. You can stay closeted as long as you want.”
“I’m not closeted!” she exploded. “I don’t think being gay is wrong—is that what you think I think? How could you think that? I’ve known you my whole life. I was there when you had your first crush on Logan Jacobsen at summer camp. I have no problems with being gay.”
Julian squirmed. “The way you feel about me could be different than the way you feel about yourself.”
“I feel fine about myself! I don’t think I’m going to hell because I liked Amber.” She lowered her voice. “I just don’t need to explain every last detail of my personal life to the public. Do you know what kind of shit they write about me and David on the Internet? Can you imagine what they would say if they knew about me and Amber? She’s not even a human girl. She’s an extraterrestrial.”
“Reese, I—”
&
nbsp; “It would be insane,” she continued, ignoring him. “The stuff they say about David is racist. Flat-out fucking racist. If they knew that I had been dating Amber, there would be no end to the crap they throw out about us. Maybe I’m being selfish for not wanting to deal with the homophobes, but think about what they would say about David, too, for dating me. I know what people think about bisexuals. That we can’t make up our minds or that we’re nymphomaniacs or that we’re just doing it for attention. Think of what they would say if they knew I’m bisexual and that I was with an alien. Believe me, it fucking gives me nightmares.” She ran out of breath, face red, and glared at Julian.
He blinked at her, clearly taken aback by her rant. After a long pause, he said in a soft voice, “So you’re bisexual?”
She threw up her hands. “Whatever. Yeah, I’m bisexual. Are you satisfied?”
He smiled slightly. “Maybe a little.”
She groaned, laying her arms on the back of the chair and dropping her head down.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t think through what it might mean for you to come out like that.”
She exhaled. “Apology accepted.”
He gave a short laugh. “So do you still like her?”
Her head snapped up. “No.” At the doubtful look on his face she relented. “I don’t know, okay?”
His eyes widened. “But you’re with David.”
“Yes, I know that,” she said crisply.
“Are you not over her?”
“Why are you asking me this? Are you going to e-mail her?”
He held up his hands in submission. “No, no. I’m just asking as your friend. I like David. I think he’s great. But you—” He made an apologetic face. “You really liked her. I could tell.”
She frowned. “Well, it’s over.”
“I hate to break it to you, but that doesn’t mean your feelings are over.” He had a wry expression on his face, and she remembered the months after he had broken up with Sean. Julian had been the one to end it, but he had moped around for weeks. She had dragged him out with Madison and Bri for a seemingly endless series of ice cream and boba tea sessions in which he sat in moody silence, only looking up when someone who resembled Sean came into the room.
Something inside her seemed to crumple at the memory of Julian dealing with his breakup. Something that she had been shoring up daily with denial and willfulness. She dropped her face into her hands. “I like David. I really, really like him. I don’t want to hurt him.”
“So you do still like her,” he said gently.
“Maybe.” It was the first time she had truly admitted the possibility to herself, and saying that single word out loud sent a pang through her so sharp she had to suck in her breath. “But I can’t,” she said forcefully. “I can’t like two people at once. I won’t. Talk about stereotypes. And I haven’t even seen her in—in almost two weeks.”
“She’s been avoiding you.”
She lowered her hands to look at him in surprise. “Really?”
He had moved and was now leaning against his headboard, legs stretched out on his bed. “I think it’s hard for her to see you with David.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Not directly. But it’s obvious. Or it was obvious when I saw her last night.”
She considered him. His black T-shirt had a green alien in a spaceship printed on it, and she realized it was the logo for Bin 42. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “You still haven’t told me what you were really doing there.” The expression on his face told her that he had been hoping she wouldn’t bring it up again. “Why were you there?”
He bent his right knee, resting his right hand on it. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but we have to come clean with each other, okay? I know you’re not telling me stuff.”
“We were in a fight,” she pointed out. “Wait, are we done with our fight?”
He grinned. “I’m done if you’re done.”
She let out her breath in relief. “Thank God. I was getting really tired of being annoyed with you.” He threw a sock at her, and she ducked. “Gross. How old are you, three?”
He rolled his eyes. “So you promise to tell me what’s going on for real? You still haven’t given me that recording of the meeting you had with Charles Lovick.”
She hesitated. “All right, I’ll tell you what I can.”
“Reese. Everything. Am I not your best friend?”
“Of course! But I can’t, Julian. I made a promise to David. Some things I can’t tell you.” She waved her hands. “But I’ll tell you everything I didn’t promise I wouldn’t tell you.”
He finally nodded. “I guess that’s fair.”
“Good. Now tell me what the hell you were doing at Angel Island.”
He smiled. “I went there to interview Amber for Bin 42.”
She had definitely not been expecting this. “Seriously?”
Julian’s eyebrows lifted. “Yes, seriously. Do you not know what I’ve been doing for the past six months?”
“You’ve been doing some stuff for Bin 42, I know, but—”
“No, not ‘some stuff.’ This is major, Reese. I know you’ve always thought my obsession with UFOs was kind of funny, but it turns out I was right.” Excitement lit his face again. “I was fucking right on, and this is the biggest story of the millennium. You think I’m going to sit back and let somebody else take it?”
She was uncomfortable. “I didn’t think it was funny.”
He gave her a pointed look. “Well, you definitely didn’t think I was going for a Pulitzer Prize or anything with my UFO blogging. I know you only agreed to start that Black Mailbox site to humor me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s totally true. I thought we were supposed to be honest with each other now.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling like the worst friend in the world. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now. The point is, this has always been what I’m interested in. And I want to break the story. Not because I’m superexcited that aliens exist—although I am superexcited—but because the government of this country should not be hiding this shit from us. The public deserves to know the truth, and I want to expose it.”
She shifted in her seat. “Okay. So what did she tell you?”
“Her story, basically. Where she grew up, what happened to her after she was shot.” He saw the look on her face and raised his hands. “She didn’t say anything about you. She said you told her you hadn’t said anything to the press and she didn’t think your relationship was relevant.” He smiled. “Just like you said.”
She was relieved—and ashamed of the relief. “When are you going to post the interview?”
“Not right away. I’m working on a big feature. That’s why I need you and David to sit down for an interview too. You guys are at the center of this. You have to get your story out there.”
“We already tried with Sophia Curtis, but the government shut that down,” she reminded him.
“I know. I’ve been in touch with Sophia Curtis.”
She was dumbfounded. “You have?”
“Yeah. Through Keith—you know, ‘Jason Briggs.’ He and I have been working with Sophia; she still has the footage from your interview, and on some of it you can see Jeff Highsmith from the DOD telling you guys to stop talking. It’s a gold mine.” He leaned forward, gesturing enthusiastically with his hands. “We’re building up this story piece by piece. The Amber interview is pretty awesome, because she’s not talking to anybody else, and everybody wants to know about her.”
She studied him. “Who else is involved in this investigation?”
“Just me and Keith. Sophia’s giving us info but she’s working independently. We haven’t agreed to totally share everything.” He grinned. “Yet. When she finds out I’ve got Amber on the record and if you and David agree to talk to me, I think she’ll be all in.” He drew both his knees up, wrapping his arms around
them loosely. “Okay, so now it’s your turn. Tell me what’s been going on since the Charles Lovick meeting.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pieces of paper she had taken from Mr. Hernandez’s briefcase. She got up and walked over to Julian, handing him the temporary ID. “I found this in Mr. Hernandez’s stuff today.”
He looked at the piece of paper, puzzled. “Isn’t this our new Principles of Democracy teacher?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought his name was Hernandez, not Vargas.”
She nodded. “That’s because he’s actually not a real teacher. He’s been planted there to watch me and David.”
“Shit, really?” Julian climbed off his bed and went to grab his laptop from the floor.
As he opened it and plopped back down into the beanbag chair, Reese finally told him about the meeting with Charles Lovick, his Blue Base guards, and the Corporation for American Security and Sovereignty. Julian’s eyes widened as she explained that CASS had been in control of American policies toward the Imria since 1947.
“Why have I never heard of them?” he asked.
“I’ve looked online. There’s nothing about them.”
“Are you going to do what they want? How do you know if they’re telling the truth?”
Reese sat on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know, but Lovick had those Blue Base guys with him. It’s not like we could refuse. But we’re not going to tell them everything.”
He looked up, giving her a conspiratorial grin. “You’re going to lie to them?”
“We’re trying to buy time. We don’t know who to trust yet. So we’re going along with what CASS wants for now.” She watched Julian typing furiously into his laptop. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for Andrew Vargas,” he said, gesturing to the ID. “Where did you get that, anyway?”
“I found it in Mr. Hernandez’s briefcase.”
“You ‘found’ it?”
She smiled. “Yep. Found it.”
He laughed. “Okay, well, look what I found.” He turned the laptop around to face her and she joined him, kneeling on the floor beside the beanbag. “Andrew Vargas was on President Randall’s reelection committee until June of this year. Looks like he left right after the June Disaster.”