“Misato,” he said, shaking his head. “We have to find her. Look at this. Look at it. We have to get a signal out. We have to send a warning.” He spun and laughed, a little crazed, half tripping on a corpse covered with purplish-blue growth, colonized and consumed.

“And we will get a warning out. But there’s more to this, we know that. Piero was trying to cover his tracks, and he was working with my dad’s company and ISS and Merchantia.” She licked her lips nervously, pulling him away from the left-hand side of the corridor and toward the less hideously overrun area leading to ISS. “I’ve been thinking about this. It’s all I’ve been thinking about. What if they already know? The man I spoke to in HR this week at Merchantia seemed suspicious of this big new partnership. He wanted me to investigate the Brigantine for him. What if they all know? What if Foxfire wasn’t an accident but . . .”

She stopped herself. It was too evil to consider.

Edison nodded along as she spoke, listening intently, letting her guide him toward the large, black doors, INNOVATIVE SHIPPING SOLUTIONS spanning them both in bold, red print.

“But?” he prompted.

Checking her suit pockets, Rosalyn shoved aside her schematic and message chip, finally finding the copy of Piero’s ISS badge.

“But an experiment,” she said. A box at about shoulder height flashed with a holographic beam and ID reader. There was no telling if the 3-D printed copy would be enough to get them through without trying, so Rosalyn took a deep breath and placed the badge up to the scanner.

The scanner beeped once, twice, then chimed, and the doors to her left began to open. Something had jammed them, Foxfire growth no doubt, and she rushed forward, bracing herself in the gap.

“Help me with this,” she said, and they each took a door, throwing their weight against it until the blockage gave and the doors screamed open, locking in place.

“Welcome, Danny Russo. Please have a productive day!”

The voice that drifted down over reception had once been bouncy with enthusiasm, but the recording had corroded, twisting the message into a broken whine.

A body slumped forward in its chair, leaning against the surface of a half-circle reception desk. It was covered in a thin, blue skin of mushrooms, and Rosalyn couldn’t tell if it had been a man or woman. She skirted around the edge of the desk, holding her breath as she eased over the frozen body and carefully moved one of its hands aside. A puff of spores drifted upward, and Rosalyn stifled a scream, watching the fingers all but disintegrate.