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Baebong,” he says, sitting up straighter. He probably expects Baebong to be the good cop to my bad cop, but if that’s the case, he doesn’t know my lieutenant very well.
    “Hello.” Baebong has his mask on, the expression that is impossible to read. With his arms crossed and his chest puffed out, the whole package makes him really intimidating.
    Tam withers under Baebong’s empty stare.
    “We’re here to get your story,” I say, “before I decide what to do with you.”
    “Captain.” Adelle’s voice comes out over the comm.
    “Yes, Adelle.”
    “I have the results of the sweep for you.”
    “Not right now. I have something to do in here first. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
    “Yes, Captain.”
    I turn my attention back to Tam. “As I was saying … if you tell us the truth and are totally honest with us, I might not float you. Not right away, anyway.”
    Tam leans forward eagerly. “I’ll tell you everything. We never meant to hide it from you in the first place.”
    I lift a brow at that. “We’re starting with lies? Right off the bat? That’s not good, Shadow. Not good.”
    “It’s not a lie.” He starts to stand but then sits right back down when Baebong unfolds his arms.
    “It’s not,” he says in a softer tone. “It’s just that we hardly knew you, and it’s not like anyone in a hosting situation is going to walk up to a stranger and say, ‘Hey, nice to meet you, call me Shadow.’” He tries to smile, but when he gets no positive response, he stops.
    “Feel free to introduce yourself properly this time,” I say, trying not to sound too sarcastic.
    “Fine.” He lifts his chin. “I’m Tam. Twin brother to Gus …”
    I can’t listen to another word. “Uh, no. If you’re going to claim you’re some kind of science experiment, you can’t also claim to be Gus’s twin. You are not Tam. You are the shadow of a man formerly called Tam.”
    He looks at the ground, his head shaking side to side and a sad smile on his face. “You need to let me do this my way.”
    I’m kind of taken aback by that, so I don’t respond right away; something inside me says yelling my head off is the wrong way to go here.
    Baebong holds an arm out that goes across my chest. I guess he thinks I’m going to go smash the guy or something.
    I take a step back and gesture with a hand. “Go ahead. I’m listening.” I’ll show Baebong how wrong he is. I can be a great listener when I want to be .
    “My name is Tam. My brother Gus and I were born on the same day, six minutes apart, twenty-one years ago. Our mother’s name was Salta and our father’s name was Jerod. Our home was in Biodome Eight on Lapoma. When we were sixteen, nearing the end of our schooling, our family was attacked by scavengers who were raiding our work area for parts.” He glances up at me. “You might remember the OSG being involved in an eventual rescue.”
    I don’t say anything, because I do remember it, and the acrid smoke of shame is starting to leak into my heart from that memory. The biodomes are full of sitting ducks if the OSG fails to respond in a timely fashion, and my father was the commander in charge of Lapoma’s defense that day five years ago. He was the one who said it wasn’t necessary that we defend Biodome Eight’s position. He was also the reason why the scavengers were able to wreak as much havoc as they eventually did. We lost twenty-eight souls there before peace was restored and the scavengers brought to justice.
    I’d harbored suspicions for a while that the delay sanctioned by my father wasn’t just the result of a bad decision; that there was someone in that dome my father wanted to teach a lesson. But I was never able to come up with a name or a face to pin that suspicion to, and then the history of that place just faded into the back of my mind because no one I knew was ever affected by it. Until today.
    “Gus is the only one of our group who escaped unharmed. He was down in a