Invasive Read Online Free PDF Page A

pay the bill.”
    â€œLet me. The Bureau can pay.”
    â€œI don’t think America’s tax dollars should go toward paying for my beer tab, Stander. I’ll take care of it.”

    Ez drops her back at the hotel, a three-minute drive. Hannah gets out and asks, “You’re okay to get started tomorrow?”
    â€œThis morning I got a box full of dead ants, human blood, and fungal skin remnants. Santa was good to me this year.”
    â€œYou’re weird.”
    â€œ You’re weird.”
    â€œFine, we’re both weird.”
    That exchange: Not the first time they’ve shared it. Won’t be the last.

4
    I t’s 3:30 A.M. when her phone dings.
    She’s asleep—the hotel bed isn’t comfortable and she needs to use three pillows to give her the support of one real pillow, but everything has caught up with her and she’s down. The phone dings again and she swims up out of that dark place, hand pawing at the side table. Knocking the alarm clock over. Finding the phone. She winces against the glow.
    A text:

    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Ez: i’m downstairs
    She thinks: Stupid phone . It’s recirculating yesterday’s text for some annoying reason. Digital detritus washing back up on her shore. But then the phone vibrates and dings again, making her heart jump.

    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Ez: get dressed and meet me out front. asafp.

    Hannah staggers downstairs in last night’s clothes, which smell of wine and garlic and a hint of cigarette smoke.
    Outside, the early-morning Tucson air is surprisingly chilly. The predawn sky is the color of gunmetal.
    Parked nearby is Ez Choi’s little two-door Honda. Hannah pops the door and sits and Ez gives her a look.
    â€œThese ants don’t exist,” Ez says. She chucks Hannah a folder sloppily stuffed with pages and printouts.
    Hannah lifts the manila folder and shuffles through the pages, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. Images of DNA sequencing, a spreadsheet of various codes and descriptions, some macro snapshots of the ants. One of those photos is a portrait of sorts: a dead-on shot of an ant’s face. It’s shaped like a Satanic black heart: what would be the two top curves are instead pointed, almost horned—this from the antennae. The jaws at the bottom close tight like a pair of serrated scissors tapering to hooks. Dead black eyes. Little hairs all over. Black, shiny, demonic.
    â€œI went back to the lab last night,” Ez says, breathless with what seems to be excitement. “I had a few minutes, so I started pulling out samples. Next thing I knew, it was hours later. Your dead guy’s blood was a cocktail of tryptase and histamine, which is in line with anaphylaxis.”
    â€œAn allergic reaction.”
    â€œAn allergic over reaction, but yeah. And I checked the skin samples: unnatural swelling beneath the subdermal layer, which is consistent. So I cracked open one of our little ant friends. It’s a stinging ant.”
    â€œDo leaf-cutters sting?”
    â€œThey do. A lot of ants do. They’re Hymenoptera—same order as wasps and bees. Fire ants clamp down with their jaws, but the pain comes from the sting. We’ve got these ants locally, the Maricopa harvester ant—”
    Suddenly, movement by the car door. A hand comes down against the passenger-side window, and Hannah’s heart hops into her throat—she feels at her side for a knife or pepper spray or her keys, but the only thing in her pocket is a hotel key card and it makes her feel suddenly naked. There, at the window, is a man: scruffy, older, lizard-like skin, eyes pinched behind folds of flesh. Half his face is red with some kind of dermatitis or eczema.
    Her window starts to buzz down. She looks to Ez in panic.
    Ez says, “It’s all right.” Then, louder: “Hey, Carl.”
    â€œOh. Hey! Hey, is that you,