Mable Wilkinson is close to getting everything she ever wanted. She has a home in a facility in New York, a job extracting parasitic insects, and she's even made some friends. If she can keep up this pace for a few years, she’ll earn a lifetime of security for herself—and for Hadley. But that doesn’t mean her job is easy. Each time she begins to discover something about the bugs, they strike again, wreaking havoc on the world. Researchers are dying with increasing frequency, and Mable is powerless to stop it. As the mounting bug attacks threaten to destroy humanity, Mable realizes she’s out of time. Her team has only days to find a solution before the human race loses its homeworld—if the bugs don’t infect them first.