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had at least two daughters, and the line of one of them was L0, whereas the other line developed a mutation that became—” All at once she saw it, what Desai had already realized. She blinked at Smith and felt her mouth fall open, just as if she had no control over her jaw muscles, just as if the universe had been turned inside out, like a sock.
    NOAH
    An hour later, Ryan arrived at Elizabeth’s apartment. Repeated calls to their mother’s cell and landline had produced nothing. Ryan and Elizabeth sat on the sagging sofa, conferring quietly, their usual belligerence with each other replaced by shared concern. Noah sat across the room, listening.
    His brother had been short-changed in the looks department. Elizabeth was beautiful in a severe way and Noah knew he’d gotten the best of his parents’ genes: his dead father’s height and athletic build, his mother’s light-gray eyes flecked with gold. In contrast, Ryan was built like a fire hydrant: short, muscular, thickening into cylindricalness since his marriage; Connie was a good cook. At thirty, he was already balding. Ryan was smart, slow to change, humorless.
    Elizabeth said, “Tell me exactly what Evan said about the FBI taking her away. Word for word.”
    Ryan did, adding, “What about this—we call the FBI and ask them directly where she is and what’s going on.”
    “I tried that. The local field office said they didn’t know anything about it, but they’d make inquiries and get back to me. They haven’t.”
    “Of course not. We have to give them a reason to give out information, and on the way over I thought of two. We can say either that we’re going to the press, or that we need to reach her for a medical emergency.”
    Elizabeth said, “I don’t like the idea of threatening the feds—too potentially messy. The medical emergency might be better. We could say Connie’s developed a problem with her pregnancy. First grandchild, life-threatening complications—”
    Noah, startled, said, “Connie’s pregnant?”
    “Four months,” Ryan said. “If you ever read the e-mails everybody sends you, you might have gotten the news. You’re going to be an uncle.” His gaze said that Noah would make just as rotten an uncle as he did a son.
    Elizabeth said, “You need to make the phone call, Ryan. You’re the prospective father.”
    Ryan pulled out his cell, which looked as if it could contact deep space. The FBI office was closed. He left a message. FBI headquarters in D.C. was also closed. He left another message. Before Ryan could say, “They’ll never get back to us” and so begin another argument with Elizabeth over governmental inefficiency, Noah said, “Did the Wildlife Society give you that cell for your job?”
    “It’s the International Wildlife Federation and yes, the phone has top-priority connections for the loosestrife invasion.”
    Noah ducked his head to hide his grin.
    Elizabeth guffawed. “Ryan, do you know how pretentious that sounds? An emergency hotline for weeds?”
    “Do you know how ignorant you sound? Purple loosestrife is taking over wetlands, which for your information are the most biologically diverse and productive ecologies on Earth. They’re being choked by this invasive species, with an economic impact of millions of dollars that—”
    “As if you cared about the United States economy! You’d open us up again to competition from cheap foreign sweatshop labor, just let American jobs go to—”
    “You can’t shut out the world, Elizabeth, not even if you get the aliens to give you the tech for their energy shields. I know that’s what you ‘border-defense’ types want—”
    “Yes, it is! Our economic survival is at stake, which makes border patrol a lot more important than a bunch of creeping flowers!”
    “Great, just great. Wall us off by keeping out new blood, new ideas, new trade partners. But let in invasive botanicals that encroach on farmland, so that eventually we can’t even feed everyone