Bloom

In Seth’s sketch, Anaya looks like a human-feline-kangaroo hybrid. Petra resembles “some kind of ferocious reptile” (192). The next morning, Dr. Weber tells them only half of their genomes are identifiable as human. This half matches DNA samples taken from their mothers. The other half contains sequences they see only in the cryptogenic plants. Dr. Weber theorizes their mothers were abducted, and impregnated, by cryptogens. She believes it happened to her as well. She “lost time” on a camping trip while stargazing. Shortly after, she realized she was pregnant with her son. His birthday fell within the same four-day span as Anaya’s, Petra’s, and Seth’s birthdays.

Anaya shares a story her mom told about her conception. She was flying when her plane was hit by lightning and she lost 45 minutes. She realized she was pregnant soon after. The only other passenger on that flight was Petra’s mom. Dr. Weber tells them not to tell their parents about this yet. If that information got out, they might not be safe. If Col. Pearson learns they’re “cryptogen hybrids” (201), Dr. Weber warns, he might consider them enemies.

As they take turns undergoing MRIs, the teens discuss the implications of their discovery. Petra sees the plants as weapons of an alien species, rather than the alien species themselves, sent to do “their dirty work” by wiping out humans (202). Anaya realizes she and her friends might have been conceived as experiments, to see if cryptogens could survive on Earth. The allergies she and Petra developed showed they weren’t prime specimens, so the aliens sent new seeds in the rain to create a new ecosystem. The changes brought by the rain and the new plants possibly triggered something in the teens’ DNA, like flipping a switch.

Petra is terrified at the prospect of changing into something reptilian. Anaya’s greatest fear, for the moment, remains the danger her father might be in. Dr. Weber agrees to request a search and rescue mission for him. During Seth’s MRI, quills burst through the skin along his arms. The quills are incredibly sharp, cutting through the mesh holding him still and drawing blood. Fibers appear along the quills as they turn into feathers. He hides when Col. Pearson comes in unexpectedly to tell Anaya they reached her father and have a recording of the video call to show her.

The video call recording reveals Anaya’s dad is unable to escape Cordova Island. His colleague is dead. He confirms, however, the presence of soil on the island that kills the alien plants. The recording ends when a vine grabs his phone and destroys it. Col. Pearson hesitates to divert resources to rescue Anaya’s dad, but Petra convinces him it might mean finding a weapon capable of killing the plants and saving everyone. He even agrees to let Dr. Weber and the teens accompany the rescue mission, hoping their immunity to the plants will provide a needed advantage.

Captain Brock leads the mission, with a woman named Jolie as his second-in-command. The lake on Cordova Island has seemingly disappeared, but they realize cryptogenic vines have simply created a canopy that hides it from view: “It’s like they don’t want us getting that soil” (223), Seth points out as it dawns on the group the plants may be intelligent. Vines grab the hovering helicopter and try to pull it down. It crashes into the treetops. Anaya, Petra, and Seth climb out into the branches, unable to tell who else escapes the helicopter before it plummets to the ground.

The helicopter explodes. Dr. Weber, Brock, and Jolie emerge from the smoke. The pilot and co-pilot don’t. All they manage to salvage is a first-aid kit, a shovel, and a chainsaw. The group heads toward the lake shore on foot. The teens try to hide their cryptogenic features from Brock and Jolie, but they’re discovered when vines snatch Dr. Weber and Brock and Seth has to use his sharp quills to cut the vines and free them. The soldiers confront Dr. Weber and force her to admit the truth about the teens’ unique traits. Jolie draws her weapon and aims it at the three teens and Dr. Weber in turn. A vine grabs Jolie around the neck, lifts her high in the air, and strangles her to death.

The rest of the group must keep moving for safety. Soon they reach an impenetrable wall of black grass, taller and denser than any before. Each stalk is like a massive tree. Brock takes the chainsaw to the wall, but it soon runs out of fuel. Seth uses his incredibly sharp quills to cut the stalks, making a way through the wall. On the other side they see Anaya’s dad on a small island in the middle of the lake. His canoe is adrift in the water, which is infested with cryptogenic water lilies that shoot acidic seeds like a machine gun. Petra swims to the canoe while the others fight off vines and lilies from the shore. They’re unable to stop a vine from grabbing Brock and carrying him toward a giant pit plant. He cuts himself free but falls into the lake. Cryptogenic water lilies converge on him, and he goes under.

Petra makes it to the canoe, where she finds the body of Mr. Riggs’s colleague. She brings the canoe to shore, where she stops the water lilies from killing her friends by ripping their roots from the lake-bed. Anaya, Seth, and Dr. Weber lie in the canoe while Petra ferries them across the lake from underneath. In a battle against vines that grab the canoe, they all end up in the water but are able to swim to shore and pull Dr. Weber to safety. Anaya’s dad quickly smears them with soil that’s toxic to the vines. Anaya notices a plant growing from her dad’s neck, where he says a water lily seed embedded itself.

Mr. Riggs explains how isolated places can produce rare fungal ecosystems with unique bacteria, which may be why the soil there is toxic to the cryptogenic plants. If they can isolate that bacteria and culture it, he says, they may find a way to kill the plants on a mass scale. Anaya, Petra, and Seth begin itching and realize they’re also reacting to the soil.

The group realizes they’re stranded. The vines growing from the giant pit plant on the lake’s island are too formidable. They develop a plan to kill the pit plant with the toxic soil. The only way to get close enough, Anaya insists, is to let it eat her. Petra and Seth decide to join her, to make sure they’ll be able to fight their way out of the pit plant. All three are picked up by vines as planned, but things go wrong when they drop only Anaya into the pit and she’s sealed in alone.

The inside of the pit plant blisters and oozes tar-like fluid when smeared with the toxic soil, but just before Anaya can escape, the pit seals. Spikes on its contracting inner walls close in, threatening to impale her before long. Anaya decides to cut through the bottom of the pit and try to slash the main vine, which should kill the rest of the vines if she can do it before the spikes reach her.

Outside the pit, the vines seem to be communicating, working together to foil the teens’ plan. They drop Seth into the lake where water lilies attack him. They coil around Petra, squeezing, but she eats some of the berries and gets a surge of strength that enables her to fight her way free. After falling into the lake, she helps Seth fight off the water lilies, even grabbing hold of one to use like a machine gun against the others. They reach the pit plant and cut it open to find Anaya just as she finishes sawing through the main vine, mere seconds from being run through by spikes. Anaya jumps free as the pit plant spasms and dies. The vines around them wither, and soon chunks of the canopy are collapsing. Through one of the canopy holes they see a rescue helicopter approaching.