Anya flew the V-200 past Chicago. The stealth vehicle soared over the bustling city at something close to Mach 7. She pulled to a smooth and silent stop over a vast and empty field miles beyond the city, and plummeted at speed toward the earth.

Pan didn’t even look up from his menu in the seat behind Anya as they fell like a stone. The V-200’s updated systems all but negated most major shifts in direction one might feel within the vehicle. Anya eased up on the guidance discs and the V-200 halted a few yards above the field, breaths away from crashing.

“Are we there?” Pan asked. He had been slowly typing a message out to Brody the shark with his claws. The menus had video functionality of course, but Anya (and Cooper, Brody’s human friend) had insisted the two type more to improve their English.

“Yup,” Anya said as the cameras below the V-200 showed the surface of the grassy field splitting open and exposing a long metallic elevator shaft lined with lights. The magnetic guidance systems locked onto the V-200 when she lowered the aerodynamic and protective fields around it and drew her down into the earth. The thick hidden doors, over five feet of Gary’s most durable metal, closed behind her with a pressurized hiss and a bang.

When Gary had told her and a few others that he’d been building a factory just outside Chicago, Anya had expected it to be like most of Gary’s projects. She’d envisioned a refurbished old building with some new tech slapped on: a physical oxymoron of outdated advancement.

“He did a really good job,” Felix said from the dashboard as the magnetic levitation shaft opened up onto the factory floor.

If Willy Wonka had been asked to build a giant machine shop, Anya supposed it might look something like Gary’s subterranean factory. The main floor of the factory was enormous, as big as at least a couple football stadiums. That didn’t include the smaller rooms and testing chambers he had laid out along the sides, as well as an armory, hangar, and strategy/meeting hall. There were dorms too, but these had been last minute additions and paled in comparison to the rest of the place.

The main floor was a constant whirring maze of conveyor belts, loading arms, duplicators, printers, and mobile builder bots. The biggest spaces were dedicated to robot assembly and repair. Flying drones that were the size of small planes but looked like dragonflies were constructed at a rate of one per day. Far slower than the Chinese factory, but the DragonDrones, as Anya had begun to think of them, were far superior in every regard, and were the weakest of Gary’s mechanical menagerie, but the most specialized. He’d been tinkering with their design non-stop since the factory had been up and running.

There were several other kinds of robots, mostly dedicated to fighting, but quite a few were medical aid and service bots designed to help survivors and emergency services following alien attacks.

That was why Anya had come.

The mag-lev shaft carried her past the factory floor and across to one of the hangar’s receiving tunnels for small aircraft like hers. The hangar was mostly empty at the moment, save for Gary’s truck (fully restored and charged up after the night of the Manhattan Tornado), and a white oblong craft with wings like a stubby manta ray and painted white with the American flag on either side. Normally this would be where the DragonDrones came to recharge or get repairs, but they were all on patrol.

“Uh oh,” Felix said as he saw the large oblong white craft. “Gary’s gonna be in a mood if MacDougal’s here.”

“Maybe she’ll have good news?” Anya asked. As she stepped out of the V-200 and onto the smooth concrete floor. Felix floated beside her and Pan rolled out and then hopped to his feet.

“She never lets me eat ants during meetings,” Pan said as he waddled out of the V-200 behind Anya. “She’s a dickhead.”

“Pan!” Anya said as her eyes widened.

“You say no-no words all the time. Brody told me if you get mad at me for using them, it makes you a hypochondriac!”

“Hypocrite,” Felix corrected.

“Hypocrite!” Pan said and nodded.

“Don’t help him,” Anya narrowed her eyes at Felix and her AI whistled tunelessly. “And I’m an adult, and I have practice.”

“So?”

“So last week you called President Hanover a fuckface.”

“Brody calls Cooper a fuckface all the time and they’re best friends!” Pan said.

“You can’t call the President a fuckface,” Anya sighed.

“You absolutely can. You did me real proud little guy,” a deep voice echoed across the hangar.

“Hi Gary!” Pan said and held his arms out wide as he waddled forward to hug Gary’s leg. A stern-faced woman with short gray hair and a black pantsuit walked behind him. She was flanked by a middle-aged blond-haired man in a blue windbreaker and a much younger, boyishly handsome Hispanic man.

Agent Riley and former-officer Ramierez waved at Anya as they followed USAIF Director MacDougal and Gary.

“Riley! Ramierez!” Pan said and hugged the other two men on the leg. They smiled and patted Pan’s head. Pan let go of Ramierez’s leg and looked up at Director MacDougal.

She looked back.

Pan opened his mouth and said, “Di——”

“Okay, hey, hi!” Anya interrupted and jogged forward. Felix floated beside her and glowed brighter as they approached.

“Nowicki,” MacDougal said.

“How’s it going Anya?” Ramierez said and waved. Riley smiled and nodded.

“You guys heading out?” Anya asked and gently pulled Pan back away from MacDougal. He had taken out his ever-present bag of ants and begun to slurp them noisily. MacDougal glanced down at the pangolin and rolled her eyes.

“Yes, we just wanted a personal check-in, see if Hendricks had any new updates for us, that sort of thing,” MacDougal said and looked at Gary.

“You can do that over the phone. That camera you hid in your lapel shorted out the second you landed. And the mic,” Gary said. “I told you I’d loan you all the use of my equipment, but you’re not getting it, so quit pestering me.”

“Hmm,” MacDougal said and turned to Pan. “Glad I ran into you, though.”

“Me?” Anya asked.

“There’s quite a lot of public pressure to reveal the hosts. At least one or two of them, to prove we’re not just blowing smoke and that you’re all on our side,” MacDougal said. “We’d like to have you sit for an interview with a member of the press.”

“What?” Anya's eyebrows shot up.

“Press? Those are the serious people on TV, right?” Pan asked. Gary nodded and sighed, making his mustache puff out.

“Why me?” Anya asked

“Mr. Hendricks has repeatedly refused to sign on and even if he had, his temperament isn’t quite what we’re looking for. Dr. Immonen is with Finland and doesn’t represent the United States. Samaira Upadhyay is a little too, ah, soft looking, even with that tiger. Our newest recruit is still getting used to her powers. That leaves you. Tall, strong, resident of New York. A bit foul-mouthed but that has its appeal for some demographics.”

“I really would rather not,” Anya said.

“Then we’ll go to our number two choice: Pan.”

Anya blurted out a laugh and a snort at once. “Why him? No offense, Pan.”

“I prefer defense anyway,” Pan replied. Gary and Ramierez both chuckled and Riley smirked. MacDougal looked down at the pangolin and grinned.

“He’s very clearly not human, so the effects of the alien technology should be visually evident as soon as he’s on camera. He’s also kind of cute, so he should be endearing to audiences. But his armor and claws make him look strong, too, so we’d have that working for us. Endearing but fierce. Also, Pan likes friends, don’t you Pan?” MacDougal asked.

“I do,” Pan said but with hesitancy. He held his claws close to his chest and turned to the side as if he thought MacDougal might be about to leap at him.

“Friendship, unity, cooperation among people and nations, is definitely a message we’re trying to convey. Those are all easy enough concepts for Pan to grasp,” MacDougal said.

“And not much risk of him knowing enough about politics to be overly critical on camera,” Anya said dryly. Gary grunted his assent and Ramierez smirked. Riley had the decency to look away while MacDougal gave Anya a tight-lipped smile.

“There is that, but we run the risk of any host that isn’t trained in media relations putting their foot in their mouth. But if Pan happens to say something a little off-color, well, he’s just a pangolin. Such things are expected,” MacDougal said.

“I can’t fit my feet in my mouth. It’s too small,” Pan said. Anya snickered.

“Just something to think about. But you know the drill: you signed on with us. We aren’t going to attempt to force you to do anything you don’t want to do but your cooperation is always appreciated and rewarded,” MacDougal said over her shoulder as she walked to the sleek white aircraft. A doorway hissed open as she approached and a staircase unfolded automatically that carried her up into the waiting vehicle.

“See you next time Gary. Maybe get a beer or something,” Riley said and shook Gary’s hand. He smiled and nodded at the agent.

“Later Mr. Hendricks,” Ramierez said and he and Riley boarded the vehicle behind MacDougal. Quiet anti-grav thrusters glowed blue beneath the stubby wings, and the main hangar doors yawned open for the large craft. Gary watched it go and sighed when the doors closed.

“Fun meeting?” Anya asked.

“Same old same old,” Gary replied. “They ask me about the aliens like I’m the one giving them orders. Harass me to sign the same deal you did instead of just acting as a contractor. I say no. Then she submits a bunch of weapon requests from the military. I say no again: defensive and transportation tech only. MacDougal fumes a bit, then pouts and leaves.”

“You know they gotta be reverse engineering those planes and forcefields you gave them,” Anya said. Gary shrugged.

“Yeah I know. Let ‘em. It’ll be another five-to-ten years before they even have the tools to properly examine and make sense of the stuff I put in there, and another three-to-five to make their first prototype. And by then, assuming the aliens haven’t killed us, I’ll have a million ways to shut their cheap knock-offs down or figured out some other solution to all this.”

“Speaking of our would-be executioners, still no sign of the aliens? Not even any attacks? It’s been weeks since New Delhi was hit,” Anya said as she, Gary, Pan, and Felix left the hangar. They entered a side corridor that was just sleek walls and recessed lighting. The non-factory parts of Gary’s hidey-hole were far less enthralling than the main floor.

“Two weeks since India, yeah,” Gary said. “About a dozen more hosts disappeared, but no huge collateral damage like usual. They’ve gotten smarter, more careful. Speaking of, how’s the portable scrambler?”

Anya held out her left arm. She still had her watch that held her new and improved armor, and next to it was another band of dark metal. A tiny green light on its surface glowed, the only indication that it was on.

“Fine, I guess. No aliens have tried to kill me, and when I do take it off and ping, Felix can’t find any even when we go hunting with the others,” Anya said.

“I’ve continued to confirm host signal disruptions every ten seconds since we last spoke,” Felix said. “Your bracelets are obscuring Anya’s signal. It’s still there, but just as wiggly and uncertain as the aliens’. We’re still able to contact and track hosts we’ve got on our contact list, but new hosts finding us is going to be next to impossible. Though that’s true for the aliens too.”

“Pan?” Gary asked.

“No problems here!” Pan said and raised his left arm where a smaller but identical metal band hung. “Bee-Eff says it’s working okay too!”

“And the aliens haven’t tried assaulting this place yet?” Anya asked. Gary grunted.

“No. To my continuing disappointment. The big signal jammers I’ve got installed here work a little too well, maybe. I’ve got enough counter-measures in place that I’d really love to see them try to get at me.”

“And nothing else on the menus?” Anya asked.

“No. There’s no skill anywhere for actually using the menu itself within the menu skill lists. I’ve been checking since day one. You saw yourself. And no matter how much I dig at it, there’s nothing in any of my skills that are shedding any light on how to manipulate the menu system itself. No back door, no raw “code” no switch in our bodies or access point at all.

“The best I’ve managed is to isolate the outgoing signal and muck it up. The DragonDrones have been searching for alien signals non-stop, but they keep changing. Maybe because they’re shapeshifters. I dunno.”

“So can we finally say that Renn’s Beijing meet-up last month wasn’t a scam to gain access to all of our menus?” Anya asked.

“I don’t know if he was hoping to get some kind of backdoor entrance to our menus, but any chance he has of doing that is nil. I’ve tried enough to suspect it might be impossible by design. That doesn’t mean he didn’t have any other reason for getting us together, just that if he was or is trying to get into our menus, it’s a waste of his time,” Gary said. They left the corridor and now entered Gary’s “Ready Room.”

The Ready Room was a circular chamber with tiered tables and chairs along the outside and a vast 3D projector in the center. It reminded Anya of a futuristic planetarium, or something that belonged on a spaceship. Gary, in his flannel shirt, faded jeans, and scuffed work boots looked as out of place as he could be.

Small robots about the same size as Pan hovered around the room and monitored data transmitted from labs across the world that had granted Gary access, as well as his own labs within the factory. Screens along the outer walls showed rendered models and photographs of various samples. The samples had been collected from dead aliens and sights of alien attacks and the robots were collating it all into a central database that was shared back with the other labs. Any important or especially relevant information was transmitted into the huge central holographic display. Currently it showed a rotating 3D model of the alien that had attacked New Delhi.

It was the same alien that had first landed in China——one of the two big ones——and had come to be known as Alien Alpha, or Big Al. Big Al had taken the form of a small apartment building with spider’s legs during the attack on New Delhi, based on the limited footage they had received. The hologram showed that data analysis was still on-going and samples were being studied in a few allied laboratories across Asia.

Anya looked away from the nightmarish apartment building as she thought of Renn. It was no small relief to hear he likely wouldn’t be able to hack a menu system, and by all accounts he was being perfectly helpful.

Renn had been quiet since Beijing, apart from some statements in the shared chat. From everything on the news, it sounded like he was helping get Europe back under control with the help of the EU, and he had even managed to help clear up the radiation from the nuclear strike in Belarus.

Everything she did know about Renn pointed at just another person worried about the future and doing their best to stabilize things. But something about him still made the back of her neck tingle whenever he sent out a message or she got news of him, Mona, and Kan.

“I don’t have a lot of knowledge of biomechanical engineering,” Gary said, interrupting her thoughts. “But the menu system doesn’t seem to fall into any one category of technology. It’d be better to think of the menu systems as changing our species entirely rather than just making us humans with some extra bits.”

“The systems changed our species?” Anya asked.

“A metaphor,” Gary said. “You, and me too for a long time, are thinking of the menu like something that was plugged into us. But all the scans I’ve done, all the research, it doesn’t show anything but a normal human. Your Sun’s Heart is an exception but you get my drift. We don’t have a ‘menu organ,’ or any kind of foreign material in us, unless we put it there ourselves.

“We’re still fundamentally human, Pan and Brody excluded, but we just have access to the menus somehow. I’m still looking for what’s giving us that access, but nothing yet. Just theories.”

“Care to share any of them?” Anya asked.

“Not really. I’m just guessing for the most part, don’t want to say anything until I’ve got an idea pinned down. Our signals are one thing I can comment on though,” Gary said and pointed at the black bands on his, Anya’s, and Pan’s wrists.

“We’ve been calling them ‘signals,’ and until recently I’d thought of it like a radio wave. It’s closer to…how should I put this? Brain pheromones.”

Anya blinked and stared at Gary.

“Brain pheromones,” she repeated.

“I don’t have an ‘apt metaphor,’ skill,” Gary said and squinted at her. Anya smirked and gestured at him to continue. “We’re not machines, and we’re not emitting radio waves. I talked to that psychic kid from North Dakota, one of the new hosts. She said it’s not psychic, really. It is similar to thought patterns, though. But according to her, psychic waves are more like voices you can hear. Whatever signals we’re putting out, its closer to a smell, according to her. And she’s not convinced it’s strictly a brain-only thing, it’s just that that’s what she can detect.”

“Because psychic,” Anya said and Gary nodded. “So it’s not mechanical, it’s not electrical, it’s not entirely mental, and even if it is, the one psychic we know of hasn’t encountered anything else like it yet. Felix, I don’t suppose you have anything you can tell us?”

Felix paled a bit and shrugged their tiny shoulders as their blossom folded in on itself. “Sorry, no. All data related to menu functionality like that is locked up in a data cache. I can confirm who has a menu and who doesn’t but that’s about it.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Figured that was too easy. What about Immonen? He’s scanned enough of us already,” Anya said.

“They’ve got him in New Delhi going over alien remains. Still no luck connecting up to that alien network he described, at least not with the dead ones. As for us, no. He boosted his Body Analysis skill and still nothing shows up for him when he scans hosts, aside from whatever physical traits we’ve chosen. So he’s as stumped about the menu’s integration with us as I am. Speaking of the doc, when was the last time you talked to him?”

“A few days ago. Why?” Anya asked. Gary smirked.

“You should just ask him out. Doc’s kind of in his own world most of the time, probably doesn’t notice you making googly eyes at him when he’s around,” Gary said and continued to smirk as a robot passed him a thin glowing screen which he studied before passing it back.

“What? C’mon,” Anya said tried to laugh. Gary raised his eyebrows at her.

“Kid, I’m old, not dead. I ain’t blind either. Though I’m starting to think Doc might be.”

“What’s going on?” Pan asked. He had his sack of ants out and was slurping them up several at a time.

“Nothing,” Anya said at once. “Gary is being…silly.”

“It’s the end of the world, kiddo. Nothing silly about telling somebody you wanna grab dinner,” Gary said and looked at her over the tops of his glasses. When Anya only cleared her throat Gary sighed and shrugged. “I could also just be acting nosy. Old man being a busybody, don’t mind me.”

“So, since you can’t find any way to pinpoint or manipulate the menu system, what are we gonna do?” Anya asked, eager to change the subject.

“Well, since the only thing I can get any sort of handle on is the signal itself, I’m currently seeing if I can duplicate it,” Gary said and waved at the central display. It changed and showed a spinning model of the world with known host locations, and the few scattered solo hosts who were still unknown. After India, most of the remaining hosts had come forward out of sheer terror, but there were still several who wouldn’t or couldn’t reveal themselves for whatever reason.

“Duplicate a host signal?” Pan asked.

“Mm, as best I can,” Gary said.

“Why?” The pangolin asked and tilted his head to the side. An ant fell off the side of his mouth and his tongue darted out and snatched it back.

“I want to make a decoy,” Gary said. “Something to lure the aliens in. The duplicate signal I’m working on would hopefully reproduce the same sort of beacon that a bunch of hosts would if they gathered together without putting any actual hosts at risk. Well, sort of. If we can set up a trap, maybe get one alien alive, then the doc or one of the others with similar skills can do their thing, trace the shared link they have, and we can hunt the bastards down.”

“A decoy signal,” Anya repeated. “Do you have one up and working yet?”

“I have plans for a prototype, but nothing ready yet. I’ll need to field test it with a host nearby to see how close I’ve got my fake signal to a real one.”

“Ah,” Anya said. She suddenly realized why Gary had wanted to see her. “And you’d like me to be your test host. Which means taking off my scrambling band.”

“Which means taking off your scrambling band, but for now, only in here. There will be an outdoor test later which has the potential of you getting targeted but I’ll have back-up for you. For now, it’s just diagnostic stuff.”

Anya sighed and smiled at Gary.

“Ready when you are.”

He smiled at her and gestured at her wrist. “Get rid of that thing and then follow me to one of the labs.”

Anya removed her scrambling band without any concern and put it in her pocket as she followed Gary out of the Ready Room. Gary had some major league scramblers in his factory that blocked host signals better than the tiny bands, as well as any other signals Gary wanted a tight rein on. The factory was probably the safest place on the planet for hosts. It would keep her signal from leaving the area, but within the factory walls, it was nice and strong.

They arrived at one of Gary’s smaller labs that held a large glass cylinder laid on its side, monitoring station, and a few offline servitor bots plugged into the wall. Anya approached the long, horizontal glass cylinder which she had become familiar with. It was a scanning tube, sort of like a beefed up CAT scan machine, but more comfortable and a lot faster and more thorough.

It didn’t quite have a bed inside of it, it was too narrow and lacked any sort of covers for that, but it did have a soft interior that provided some gentle cushioning for anybody inside. The cylinder slid open as she approached and Anya laid down while Gary began pressing buttons on a panel nearby and lights within the scanner moved up and down over Anya.

She——and several other hosts including Samaira, Immonen, Pan, and some others——had all been in the scanning tube a few times each by now. It was a little stuffy, but otherwise no more invasive than somebody pointing flashlights at her.

“This may take a bit longer than expected,” Gary said.

“Why?” Anya asked.

“It’s the first time I’ve scanned a host after they’ve respecced,” Gary replied. “What’s it been, about two weeks?”

“Yeah. Is my signal different?”

“A little. Gimme a few minutes and just uh, hang out,” Gary said as he studied a dozen holographic screens that appeared around him.

Anya sighed. It had been exactly two weeks since she had respecced. Two weeks since she had hit level 50 and taken another two dominions, a second class, and an advanced class. Anya closed her eyes as Gary’s machines beeped and hummed. She thought back to the night she and Samaira had bought their respecification tokens together, and the changes that had followed.