Tamia gritted her teeth and scrolled through every menu on her phone. Where the hell was the video? Just yesterday she’d played it for the chief of staff, Derrick Jones, and now it was gone. And it was her own stupid fault.

Here she’d thought it was luck—fate, even—that she’d bumped into him on her way into the office yesterday. She’d been so excited to finally meet her mentor, and he’d been so approachable. Her face flushed as she recalled how she’d blathered on about her extensive research, her initiative in contacting Dr. Block, and capturing the actual human-tree interaction on video. She’d intended to follow protocol and go to Rima first, but he’d asked her what she’d done over the weekend, and seemed so interested in hearing about it, and it was sure to impress him—and hadn’t Greg always come out on top by taking his chances when they presented themselves?

She swallowed a lump in her throat and continued searching through her phone. She felt like such an idiot now, recalling how Jones’ smile had faded as she’d shared what she and Dr. Block had discovered. She should have known from the quick invitation to his office and his stony expression while watching the video that all was not well. She’d even chided herself for feeling a pang of panic when he’d asked to borrow her phone. After all, wasn’t it a good sign that he wanted more time to look at the evidence?

But now her little speck of doubt was confirmed. His assistant had returned her phone, and the video was gone. And Derrick Jones hadn’t said a word to her since.

Tamia fanned her face with a memo and clicked in to the staff schedule. He didn’t have any meetings just then, and his assistant left for lunch at the same time every day like clockwork. This was her chance. She stepped quietly down the hallway toward his office, blood pounding in her ears. Bad enough to break protocol once; now she was forced to do it again.

She smoothed a hand over her hair and knocked on his office door.

“Enter,” he said, his tone sharp and formidable.

“Excuse me,” she stammered. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Yes, Tamia?” His face, so friendly the day before, was unreadable now.

“Well, I was wondering . . .” She clutched the doorframe. “I wanted to see if I could follow up on yesterday.”

“Come in,” he said curtly, waving her into a chair.

“Thank you.” She closed the door before sitting down in front of his spotless desk.

“You did get your phone back, didn’t you?”

“Um, yes, but . . .” Tamia looked up from his superior, paperless workspace. “I wanted to follow up, to see what the next steps are.”

“Next steps?”

“Well, you said you’d look into it, what we talked about, and I just wondered if you’d had an opportunity to discuss this with anyone else.”

The chief of staff’s face pinched into a brief, almost imperceptible frown before he heaved a large sigh. “Yes, Tamia, we’ll look into it. I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

“So that’s it?” How could he not care? Had she landed on a bizarre parallel planet where talking trees were as common as potholes?

He shook his head, condescendingly it seemed to her. “Tamia, until we have evidence of anything . . .”

“But I saw it myself! And the video—”

He raised his hand to silence her. “The video I saw shows an impressionable young woman believing everything she’s shown.”

She desperately wished she could stop the heat climbing to her cheeks.

“Tamia, really. Talking trees?” He looked at her with a mixture of pity and mirth.

She clasped her hands even more tightly on her lap.

He shook his head and tilted his smile ruefully. “I was trying to be kind, but as your mentor I should have been direct. I can’t do anything with this. It’s so . . . fantastical. I don’t know how this professor created her illusion, but it’s just not possible.”

“But that’s why—”

He raised his hand to stop her again. “I am convinced that you believe this. I have no doubt about that. But listen.” He leaned forward and held her gaze. “I want you to succeed. I want you to do well, not just because I’m your mentor, and you’re a talented young woman, but also because it’s important for us to provide an example.”

He paused to let “us” take hold.

“You are on your way up, Tamia. You are on the first step to a great career for yourself and a fine example for your sisters and brothers coming up behind you. And I need you to reflect on that when you make your decisions in life.”

She held her breath and blinked.

“Now,” he said, his eyes flicking away to release hers, “if you still want to pursue this . . .” He waited.

Disappoint him by saying yes, or betray herself and Dr. Block by saying no? She couldn’t speak at all.

“. . . then you need to trust me to pursue this quietly,” he continued, “to spare you and the governor’s office any potential embarrassment.”

She nodded stiffly. She was not an example, then. She was a potential embarrassment.

“All right,” he said, with thinly veiled disapproval. “But you are not to speak with anyone else about this, you understand? This will not work otherwise. I will shut it down if we can’t handle it properly, with discretion.”

She nodded again, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering.

“Good. Now, I know we both have work to do.” His quick, grim smile was her signal to leave. Her legs felt so numb she had to look down to keep from tripping on her way out. She was getting what she wanted, wasn’t she? They were looking into it. But if this was what success felt like, she wasn’t sure she was cut out for it.

And so much for Derrick Jones taking her seriously. Was he saying he’d look into it just to get her off his back? Would he even bother to pursue it at all? She felt a sudden need to reach out to Dr. Block. Instead of going back to her cube, she left the building and dialed the scientist’s number.

“So, where do we stand?” asked Dr. Block. Tamia guessed from the background noise that she was in her truck somewhere out on the road.

“I’m not sure,” she murmured, looking around for anyone else from the office. “I met with the Gov—his chief of—people.” Dr. Block was still paranoid about phone surveillance, so Tamia had to choose her words carefully.

“Yes?” said the botanist expectantly.

“Well, he said they’d look into it.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all, really.” She cleared her throat, trying to shake off the shame of how Jones had dismissed her. “We just have to be patient, and discreet.”

“Patient? Discreet? About trees that—about something like this?”

Tamia shrugged helplessly. “I’ve talked to him about it twice already.”

“Well, you’ll just have to talk to Governor Palmer directly,” Dr. Block said matter-of-factly. Apparently she’d grown tired of their cryptic, anonymous conversations. “You have to make sure Palmer sees the evidence himself. Can’t you show him the video?”

Tamia couldn’t suppress a bitter little laugh. “Look, it’s not that easy. Even if I could get in to see him, I . . . I don’t have it anymore. It’s gone.”

Dr. Block gasped. “I hope you don’t mean ‘erased’ gone.”

She gritted her teeth. “Jones borrowed my phone to review the video, but when I got my phone back, it wasn’t there anymore.”

“You can get a copy from him, can’t you?”

“Nope, no way,” said Tamia. “I can’t go back to him again.”

“Do you have a backup?” pressed the scientist. “You must have some kind of backup.”

“I don’t know.”

Dr. Block made an exasperated noise. “I’m on my way out there again, and I’ve got my camera. I just hope it wasn’t a one-time occurrence.”

“Me too.” Tamia switched the phone to her other ear and shook out her hand. She hadn’t realized how hard she’d been gripping it. “But even if we get more video, I don’t think it would matter.”

“That’s impossible,” snapped Dr. Block. “They can’t just ignore this.”

“Well, they might if . . .” How could she say this? “If they think I got taken in by some quack scientist.”

Dr. Block was silent for a moment. “Or perhaps,” she said carefully, “they’re already aware of this and don’t want anyone else to know.”

Tamia bit her lip. That ghost of a thought had been flitting around her mind, poking its head up between her embarrassment and shame. She felt a little light-headed just thinking the word conspiracy, but why else would Jones so quickly and definitively dismiss her video as a hoax? Why was no one being sent out to investigate the reports of anomalous tree activity, and why wasn’t there any new information on the investigation about those poachers who were killed down at the Palalla reservation? People had been hurt, and two had died. Would Jones actually be able to suppress such a serious investigation?

“Hold on,” said the doctor. “There’s a roadblock up ahead. They’re not letting anyone through.”

“Why? What is it?”

“Fire crews. Smoke. Oh god.”

“What?” Tamia pressed the phone to her ear. “Dr. Block, what’s burning?”

“It’s the trees,” said Dr. Block, voice cracking. “Our trees. I’ve got to go. Our trees are burning!”

Tamia slowly lowered her phone, stunned and helpless in the silence Dr. Block left behind.