Laurence glanced out the window again, and this time he could see not just the tops of those trees, but the branches and some of the trunks. They were waving at him. He thought maybe if he did a good job of bonding with Milton, he would let Laurence out to take a walk in the woods. It would make Laurence feel closer to Patricia.

“History is just the flow of time writ large, man,” Milton said.

Laurence reached for another piece of chicken, then glanced up to see the trees from across the road. He could see way more of their trunks now.

“Get down!” Laurence threw himself on top of Milton on the floor, just as a branch, as wide as his rib cage, shot through the window and into the far wall. In seconds the room was crammed with leaves and branches. Laurence couldn’t see the walls or any of the desks, just dense, heavy, spiky green.

Laurence crawled on his belly toward the open doorway. From behind him, Milton said, “What the hell is…,” and Laurence just shrugged, since he couldn’t say anything without losing his voice forever. He had enough presence of mind to bite his tongue.

From downstairs, Laurence heard the firecracker laugh of a machine gun. Someone screamed in pain and fear. The guards were shouting for backup, and more and bigger weapons.

Laurence reached the door that led from the main office and got to his feet. He had fried chicken skin stuck to his knee. He ran to the other side of the building, where there was still clear space and he could see out the window. Standing in the disabled parking spot was Patricia’s friend Dorothea, wearing a floor-length floral skirt and Birkenstocks. He could just hear her chatting about a grandmother who left one of her grandchildren at the seaside, another at the edge of the desert, and a third at the foot of the mountains, and the grandmother couldn’t remember which child she had left where. Laurence guessed that Ernesto, the guy whose touch supercharged anything organic, was somewhere in the middle of the assault of trees.

“Mr. Dirth. Sir.” A couple of guys in all-black outfits, with big guns slung over one shoulder, came running into the big office. “There’s been some kind of attack. We need to get you out of here.”

“Screw me,” Dirth said. “Protect the machine. That’s what they’re here for.”

Laurence was still staring down at Dorothea. A man sprinted toward Dorothea, shooting his semiautomatic to no effect. When the man reached Dorothea, his head separated from his neck, as if she had a razor-sharp whip. The man fell one way, his head rolled the other. Laurence looked down at the dead body and hesitated one second longer. Then he turned toward Milton.