Holly Truong is a biologist on the verge of a game-changing experimental breakthrough. But when she receives news that her long-estranged mother has been found dead in faraway Papua New Guinea, she is compelled to put everything on the back burner and go in search of answers.

Waiting for her there is an experiment of a completely unexpected kind: a recreation of alien life, made possible by a secret SETI program called Metis Eye. Earth is now host to a terrifying new life form, one unlike anything it has seen in its four and a half billion years of existence.

Before she knows it, Holly is sucked into a brutal conflict over control of the island, where mere survival may not be enough. As bewildering as the xeno-organisms are, there is a darker secret hidden in the heart of the jungle. A secret, that if left uncovered, will mean the end of civilization itself. And deciphering an alien mind may be the only way to it.