Yahvi registered very little of Counselor Cory’s message beyond the explanation for THE. But she had been genuinely interested in Counselor Nigel’s answer, right up to the word adjusted, which was one of those bullshit words grown-ups were always using to make you to do things their way. So far, in her fourteen years of life, Yahvi had yet to be convinced that grown-up ways were better. Look at this whole trip, which she hadn’t wanted to take—hadn’t wanted her parents to go on. They’d almost been killed at least two times while failing completely in their mission.

And they had had no fun, none of the seeing-great-sites-of-Earth crap Rachel had promised. The new people they had met? Please.

Yahvi wouldn’t have bothered. Going back in time even earlier, she wouldn’t have turned Keanu around . . . she and most of the yavaki were agreed on that: Go forward, into the universe. Earth was fucked up to begin with; the Reiver Aggregates only made it slightly worse. A group of a few hundred couldn’t change that, no matter how many Keanu-based weapons they cooked up.

But now that she was here—

“What does that mean, ‘be smart’?” She pointed to the lie detector. “I’ve answered all your questions. What else is there?”

“I don’t know yet. Offer to help, maybe.”

“Oh, come on, you aren’t going to tell me you have problems we could fix.”

“Of course not,” Counselor Nigel said. “But right now your strategy and that of your friends seems to be—we’re the enemy and you’ve been taken prisoner. Every interaction is a struggle.”

The man from THE was nothing but reasonable, but Yahvi not only didn’t trust him or respect him . . . she had no idea what she could do that would make her seem “reasonable.”

Yahvi unhooked the lie detector, slid off the bed, and pointed to the window. “By the way, what happened out there?”

“What do you mean?” Counselor Nigel said.

“That big cloud to the east.”

Counselor Nigel shrugged. “I must have missed it. Not important.”

But Counselor Ivetta was blinking like crazy. Which suggested to Yahvi that this cloud had been caused by something other than a forest fire. Interesting.

“We have to take her now,” Counselor Cory said.

“To my parents, I hope.”

“Eventually,” Counselor Nigel said, opening the door. Yahvi briefly considered resisting, but there were three of them and one of her.

Yahvi didn’t like the way that sounded. “What happens first?”

“We’re only phase one of the interview process.”

He stopped in front of a door farther down a dark hall. Only then did Yahvi see that it was covered with tiny Aggregates.

It opened.

The room was several times larger than the one Yahvi had been held in and looked just like the conference room at Yelahanka, minus the viewing screens and the table.

There was only a single chair . . . and half a dozen anteater Reiver Aggregates, all of them buzzing, chattering, and moving in that disturbing way, some twirling, some vibrating in place, all of them making Yahvi feel as uncomfortable and alone as she’d ever felt.

Counselor Nigel planted Yahvi in the chair, then withdrew from the room. As if responding to a signal, the anteaters closed in, one on each side, one blocking the exit, one facing her.

“You are Yahvi Stewart-Radhakrishnan,” the Aggregate thing said in its childlike voice. “You have entered Free Nation U.S. without permission and in a hostile manner.”

“Correct,” she said. Given her heaving chest and constricted throat, she was lucky she could utter a word.

“What did you hope to accomplish?”

“To reconnect with fellow humans,” she said. Then, realizing there was no point in hiding anything, she added, “And to destroy all of you.”

A different Aggregate to her left asked the next question. “How would this destruction be accomplished?”

Her parents would freak out if they heard this, but the Aggregates would learn anyway. “By importing a virus that would use your own ability to communicate as a vector.”

She had hoped for some kind of response: nothing. Maybe they already knew. Then a third Aggregate, to her right, said, “Are you carrying this virus with you?”

She so wanted to smile and say, “You bet! It’s right here in my pocket!” Except that this was no place for jokes . . . and she didn’t have a pocket. “It’s in our cargo.”

From behind her, a different Aggregate said, “Why are you so cooperative?”

“The counselors convinced me it would be to my benefit,” she said.

So far the questioning was no more taxing than what Yahvi had experienced with THE—aside from the creepy nature of the questioners. A pause gave her time to remember just what it was she and every human hated about the Reivers.

It wasn’t just their resemblance, in one mode, to terrestrial tropical bugs that would swarm and sting. Yahvi thought the anteater model was close to terrifying in its sounds, its inability to be still, its inexplicable behavior.

They reproduced quickly, too, using up resources and quickly imposing their will on everything around them. Creatures that got in the way or failed to get out of the way with sufficient speed were simply . . . eliminated. One fact Rachel had shared with Yahvi before Adventure’s launch: The population of the former United States had fallen from 330,000,000 in 2019 to two thirds that. “It might even be less,” she had said, “because that isn’t a census number, just an ISRO estimate based on acreage for food production and consumption. The Reivers are slowly eliminating human beings.”

And that was the problem, Yahvi realized. What she hated about the Reivers was their lack of any detectable emotions or concern for others—or for themselves! Their formations would march into harm’s way, being picked off in twos and threes like soldiers in a Civil War charge, never stopping or changing course. What kind of beings gave up their lives so easily? Eagerly?

Maybe you didn’t mind dying if you were just one element in a larger machine.

But that was a terrifying thought, too—

They were closing in now. She could actually smell them, a tangy odor that reminded her of the subway passages within Keanu: old, machine-related, nasty.

She wanted to scream.

And then she blacked out.

When she woke up, the Aggregates had backed off . . . and the first sensation she noted was a burning smell. Her? God, the skin on her left leg was blistered! It didn’t hurt, really. There was a gel of some kind on it.

Fearing that they had drilled into her skull and detected the transmitter, she touched her head. No, thank God.

But her clothes were in disarray, as if they had stripped and then possibly probed her.

And how long had she been out? It was night; the darkness outside the windows hadn’t changed.

She jumped to her feet, towering half a meter over them, shouting, “What did you do to me?”

An Aggregate in the corner said, “You were examined.”

She pointed to her leg. “Did you put something in me?” She was afraid that her head wasn’t the only possible receptacle.

A different Aggregate spoke. “You were examined.”

Was that a yes or a no? God, she hated these things. Her frustration caused her to lose control, weeping and shouting, “I’ve told you everything I know! I’m a child! And I need to see my parents!”

To her amazement, the Aggregate formation performed a dancelike maneuver, eight of them exiting the room, leaving four to arrange themselves around Yahvi. “Follow the formation,” the one to her left said.

That was easy enough, though the damage to her leg made walking tricky. It wasn’t the skin that hurt; she experienced sharp pains up and down the leg, as if it had been shot full of electricity.

Which was probably what had happened. Yahvi wondered why the Aggregates had resorted to these harsh techniques—hadn’t they been able to tell that she was being truthful?