Isaac spent his days at the computer, cycling through data, while researchers in white coats flowed past him in his peripheral vision as if in fast-forward, and he heard a babble of intersecting words like phylum and hyphae and zygospores. They studied slides. They used droppers. They ran cultures. They jotted results onto charts. They made small talk about plant pathology while drinking coffee in the break room. They were all once professors at research institutions or scientists at Syngenta and DuPont and BASF and Monsanto. They had published papers and they had filed patents for biochemical sequences. But now they were doing something different. Now they were studying the otherworldly.

Several times a week a helicopter would touch down on the landing pad or an armored semi would pull in through the gates and unload a fresh specimen. There was a new species of tree in Central Park that grew taller than any skyscraper. There was a translucent flower that thrived in salt water and had the look of a petaled jellyfish. There was a purple fern exclusive to Antarctica that was snatching, poisoning, and consuming penguins with its fronds.

Director Ricketts oversaw Isaac as the administrative head of the facility. She called him in for private meetings now and then. Unlike the industrial sparseness of the larger facility, her office felt crowded with comfort. There was a fake fireplace, an Oriental rug, fleur-de-lis wallpaper, glittering sconces and candles, pots of potpourri, wingback chairs, and a massive burl-mahogany-and-gold-leaf executive desk.

On this desk she had the standard arrangement of a keyboard and monitor, notepad and pen pot. But she also had a curious rod that was shaped like a thin tuning fork. It was the size of a wand and made of omnimetal mined in Minnesota. She would flick it with a fingernail or rap it softly on the side of the desk and a humming energy would pour off it. You could feel it as much as you could hear it. She would bring it close to her ear and get a faraway look in her eyes and move her lips as if speaking to someone. Sometimes, when she was in such a trance, it took her a minute or two to realize Isaac was waiting at the door to her office.

She would tell him to have a seat. She would offer him a Diet Coke and he would say no, thank you, and then she would pout her lips and say, “You’re not going to make me drink alone, are you?” He would then agree, and she would pull two cans from her minifridge and pop straws in them and set them on floral coasters.