“Can’t it be both? A lot of myths and legends began as a way to make sense of a truth people couldn’t quite grasp.”

“The bloodwork reveals they’re all experiencing a fungal infection.”

“The bloodwork isn’t wrong,” he says.

Annabelle says, “We’d be very curious to see the blood and tissue samples you’ve harvested.”

“Harvested?” Dr. Johnson says.

“Yes?”

“That’s a word that makes this sound like a farm.”

“In a way, it is.”

She gives Annabelle a sidelong look before waving to a nurse with rhinestone-studded glasses and asking her to bring over one of the files.

“Which one, Dr. Johnson?” the nurse says.

“Doesn’t matter. They’re all the same.”

A few manila folders are slapped on the counter. Noble, Darla. Gordon, Robert. Isaac takes one and flips it open. He reviews the chart on Chives, Augustino, licking his fingers as he flips from page to page. Dr. Johnson shakes her head at him. “Here we all are, taking every precaution, and here you are, no mask, no gloves, licking your bare fingers like you just finished a plate of ribs.”

“He’s not the same as you or me,” Annabelle says. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

He finishes the final page and says, “Would you please introduce me to Mr. Chives?”

Dr. Johnson leads them to a man with a squat build and a graying crew cut. His paunch pushes against the hospital gown. His eyes are pouchy, and he looks as though he hasn’t slept or shaved in a few days. He seems not to see them as they approach. He is too busy painting his blood along the glass. His mouth hangs open, revealing coffee-stained teeth.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Annabelle says, tracing her finger along the glass, following the shape of what he’s drawn there.

“It’s a code,” Isaac says. That’s why she originally hired him away from Big Ag—because he could see and manipulate genetic sequences to build better seeds. Drought- and blight- and fungus-resistant.

“And?” she says.

Isaac leans into the glass, studying the crosshatched glyphs. “We’ll crack it, of course. Code is language. It’s meant to communicate and instruct. We’ll need to photograph each of the etchings separately for comparative study.”

Annabelle says, “I’d say this is rather promising, don’t you think?”

He tips his head. “Promising?”

She motions a hand around the room, indicating the collective. “The way in which they appear to be locked into a kind of hive mind.” This is her job. She encounters the kill power of a brain-hijacking spore, and she immediately thinks about how she can use it. Control the uncontrollable. Science as a military-industrial tool. She’s generating a wish list of organic mind-control serums, dreaming about how the nation might one day put this threat to use and control a political or business leader or even entire populations.