But not like this.

“Will you be able to get anything finished?” Rachel was asking him.

“One of the packages. Maybe.”

“It should be—”

“The second one.”

Rachel nodded, as if to say, Thank God someone is doing what I need. “Should you be—?” Up here with me, she was going to say.

“It’s on auto. I’m going right back. I just wanted to”—he shrugged—“see how you’re doing.” He inclined his head toward Yahvi, who had herself bent pretzel-like, head bowed, eyes closed, hugging a pillow to her chest.

Rachel didn’t bother to fake a smile. “We’ll just see, won’t we?”

Colin Edgely had been peering out the right-side windows. “Those are F-22s, for sure,” he said.

“That’s what I said,” Pav told him.

“Sorry, mate.” The Aussie smiled. “A bit nervous, I guess. Trying to find the silver lining.”

“How’s that going for you?” Xavier said. He couldn’t help it.

“Those planes got close enough to show that the pilots were human. How about that?”

“That’s good how?” Pav was taking up the argument.

Edgely was game, however. Xavier was fascinated by the way people responded to stress—including himself. He knew that he tended to wind down, to feel sleepy, like a small animal in the jaws of a larger, hungrier one. This couldn’t be true, of course; such a trait would have evolved out of existence due to the early deaths of its holders. So, fine, then, call it calm in the face of danger.

Others, like Rachel and Pav, got tense and couldn’t hide it.

Some, like Chang and Yahvi, became tense and quiet.

Then there were those, like Edgely, who just got stupid. “It means we’re not dealing with Aggregates.” Not until we land, Xavier thought. As did everyone who heard this.

“It’s Edwards,” Jo told them, popping her head out of the cockpit for a moment. “On the ground in ten minutes.”

“Then what?” Pav said. He stood up and stretched. To Xavier, he seemed spring-loaded, ready to fight . . . someone.

“Well,” Rachel said, “if they wanted us dead, they would have just blown us out of the sky like the other plane. So I’m guessing it’s prison and interrogation.”

“Probably some kind of show, too,” Edgely said.

“Colin, please stop speaking,” Rachel said.

Chang finally spoke. “I’m guessing we should all belt in.”

“Thank you for that,” Pav said, not hiding the sarcasm.

“Who speaks for us?” Chang said.

“Why would it matter?” Rachel said.

Chang turned toward her. Xavier could see genuine fear on the man’s face. “Let me rephrase that: How are we to act? Do you plan to cooperate, or resist?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Rachel said. “Are you in a hurry?”

“We might have different agendas,” Chang said.

“Meaning you’ll, what? Surrender? Rat us out?” Hearing this, Xavier remembered that Chang knew something of their plans. His lassitude vanished, replaced by fear: Even in 2019, it was possible to drug a prisoner and get him to say every secret he knew. He couldn’t imagine that the Aggregates were less capable.

He glanced back at the proteus, still laboring away. The second package wasn’t going to be done, anyway, but Xavier hated the idea that the Aggregates would know all about it the moment they shot his brain full of truth serum or the Reiver equivalent.

“I can try to bargain,” Chang was saying. “My government might have some leverage. The question is . . . do you want to be included? Or is it everyone for himself?”

“Given that we have no weapons,” Rachel said, “no idea where we are, and no cavalry to ride to the rescue, I am eager to tell you, sure, do what you can.”

Even with Rachel’s cold, accurate description of the situation, to Xavier, fighting still sounded like a better idea than simply taking what the Aggregates handed out.

Xavier sat through the by-now-familiar touchdown and used the longer-than-expected taxi to squeeze a few more precious minutes out of his 3-D printer. The package was not complete; he would need another hour, perhaps two. And clearly he wasn’t going to get it.

He hoped Rachel and Pav had a Plan C. “We’re not going to the main base,” Pav said. “They’re taking us to the north end.”

“Probably more secure,” Edgely said. He had recovered from Rachel’s rebuke. “And look at that!” He pointed out the window. In spite of his other concerns, Xavier looked, too, seeing a giant cube-shaped structure off to the north and west. It appeared to be featureless, dun-colored, twenty stories for sure, three or four times taller than any of the more normal-looking towers and office buildings that made up the Edwards main base. “Some kind of Aggregate thing, you suppose?”

“Tell you what,” Pav said. “Let’s just ask when we have time.”

The plane stopped in front of a weathered, ancient hangar. Xavier decided to keep the proteus running—what the hell.

Rachel and Pav were out of their seats instantly. Pav went to the door. “Can you see who’s out there?” Rachel said. She was headed to the rear of the plane.

“People,” Pav said. “No Reivers yet.”

Rachel patted Zeds on his massive shoulder, then crouched next to Xavier. “How are we doing?”

Xavier chanced a look and saw the expected armed guards, four helmeted U.S. military types with weapons waiting where the Gulfstream’s door and ramp would land. Behind them were half a dozen other humans, three of them in strange black uniforms. “Not finished.”

“Shit.” Rachel turned to Zeds, then back to Xavier. “Keep it running as long as possible. We don’t know if they’ll realize what it is.”

As she stood up, and Zeds began the process of standing up and moving, the cockpit door opened. Steve and Jo emerged, looking shaken. “Let us go first,” Jo said.

Except for Xavier, they were all out of their seats as the door opened, letting in fresh desert air. Such a pretty day, Xavier thought, so much more inviting than Bangalore.

Such a shame.

As Steve and Jo went out, Xavier could hear harsh voices and words from outside. Xavier could make out words. “Down!” “Hands up!”

Two soldiers entered, weapons tracking from person to person. Yahvi whimpered. “For Christ’s sake,” Pav said. “We’re coming out.”

At that moment the soldiers registered Zeds’s presence. One of them shouted a muffled, “Jesus!” and backed up, bumping into Edgar Chang.

The other soldier misinterpreted that as Chang attacking the soldier, slamming him with the butt of his rifle. “Hey!” Pav shouted, grabbing the first soldier. Suddenly four men were shoving and shouting—the two soldiers, Pav, and Edgely. Chang lay slumped in a seat.

“Leave them alone!” Rachel was shouting. “We aren’t resisting!”

Xavier glanced at the proteus. He still needed more time—

Another human entered, a young man in black. “Oh, no,” he said, swiftly inserting himself between the combatants and preventing real injury, not that it was possible, in the tight space, for anyone to do much damage with bare hands. The soldiers had not fired their weapons.

“Everyone, I am Counselor Nigel.” The young man’s voice was confident, relaxed, as if he broke up fights every day. Perhaps the English accent helped. From what Xavier could see he was thin, south of thirty, the kind of person who handles large sums of money with little awareness. “These are my companions, Counselors Cory and Ivetta.” Two more young people in black had crowded into the cabin. They were young, too: a thickset man and a petite, dark-haired woman.

Meanwhile, the soldiers backed themselves up against the cockpit bulkhead. “We welcome the crew of Adventure to Free Nation U.S.”

Rachel slid forward. “Wow, so polite, considering you just shot down one of our planes and killed two of our friends.”

“That was regrettable and avoidable,” Counselor Nigel said. “We mean you no harm.”