I picked an orange from a nearby tree and rubbed it against my spacesuit. “So here we are—in search of the black swan. The unexpected event that led to—all this.” I peeled the fruit as I scanned the shopping center, settling on a storefront with a car crashed through its window. “This—what shall we call it? Death by invasive species.” I split the orange down the middle and tossed him half of it. “This lost country. ‘Untrodden by man, almost unknown to man ... a world tenanted by willows only, and the souls of willows.’”
We raised the portions to our mouths and paused, staring at each other. One of us had to be the Guinee pig, who knew what toxins had bled into the ecosystem, or what poisons had entered the food chain. But which one?
“Algernon Blackwood,” I said, attributing the quote—whe
