In the Everglades, what you hear is as important as what you see. The team deployed 360-degree binaural microphones inside airboats and submerged hydrophones in alligator holes. When you watch the cut, the rustle of a heron’s wings or the subsonic bellow of a bull gator moves around you.

The man smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Knew him? I’m the reason he’s extra quality now. They paid me to bury him in a gator hole. He found the ghost orchid—the one that blooms only in mercury-free water. That flower’s location is worth more than your life, girl.”