“That’s more than enough to send a warning and leave,” Edison told her, taking her by the hand as they ran out of the ISS lobby and back onto the main floor of the corporate level, bringing them face-to-face again with the horror that had taken place. “We find Misato and get that hard drive, we send whatever warning we can, and then we get out. Bringing these assholes to justice will have to wait; you’re more important.”

Rosalyn wanted to scream, but held it in. Every step they took toward the other office suite degraded her oxygen filters further. She didn’t want to bump another body and watch it float away. There was the terror of the ship, and then there was the terror of this place, almost too bizarre, too inhuman to fully take in.

“They might be one and the same,” she whispered. “Misato is in there somewhere, and that’s where ISS got the Foxfire samples. It’s ground zero.”

Edison took her arm again, waiting until she walked of her own volition to lead her toward that office door and the octopus-like explosion of thick tendrils that had forced its way through the glass. The whole seething mass of it and every thickened growth around them pulsed in time, the same way it had on the ship, not steadily, but with a hitch, with the rhythm of a human heartbeat.

“You need to tell me something,” Rosalyn whispered, no longer trying to hide the deep tremor overtaking every inch of her. “You need to tell me if these things . . . if they’re still alive. Still . . . still human.”

She watched his chest expand with a stabilizing breath and knew the answer. “Yes.”

“Can you sense them like you did the others?” Rosalyn hadn’t looked closely at his face in a moment, but saw now that he was as tremulous and damp as she was. His eyes swept anxiously back and forth, his neck and shoulders stone stiff.

“Yes.”

“How is that possible? They’re . . . practically muck.”

He chose each word carefully, articulating himself with great effort. “I’m doing my best just to hold it together, but they’re waking up now that we’re here. Imagine five hundred voices all talking at once, right into your ear. Some are your mother. Some are your ex-wife. Your best friend. They all want you to join them. They’re all confused. Afraid. Hungry.”

“What?”

It at least shocked her out of the gripping panic. Edison paused, looking down at her blankly, and then he frowned, realizing what he had said. His eyes slid gradually to the right, and Rosalyn heard the sound of flesh unpeeling from flesh, a wet, swampy slide and slip that corresponded to a mossy blue body rising from the ground. There was no face to see, no eyes to look into, just a fur of tiny mushrooms covering a naked body.

“Run. Now.”