Jensen looked down at his own hands. The skin was beginning to split, just at the knuckles. Inside, instead of blood, a pale, fibrous thread curled out, tasting the air.
The collar screeched feedback. A synthesized voice, sweet as honey, replied: “Sergeant Vance. Your loyalty is noted. But the core has already been compromised. From the beginning.”
Now, Jensen’s boots squelched through the mud of the 7Z agri-dome, the air thick with the smell of overripe fruit and ozone. The dome’s bioluminescent lights flickered erratically, casting long, warped shadows. The apple trees—genetically engineered to feed the sector for a century—stood in crooked rows, their branches heavy with fruit that glistened like polished blood.
“Movement,” hissed Private Liao, pointing. warped apple undermine 7z
“Please,” it gurgled, voice like wet paper. “Don’t run. The harvest is almost complete.”
Sergeant Vance didn’t look up from stripping his rifle. “New pacification protocol. Sector 7Z went dark six hours ago. No comms, no drones, nothing. Command thinks it’s a logic plague.”
Jensen raised his carbine. “Sarge?”
Corporal Jensen stared at the dispatch screen, the words OPERATION: WARPED APPLE glowing a sickly green.
A figure shambled out from between the trees. It wore the uniform of a 7Z security officer, but the fabric was fused to its skin, and its head… its head had split open along the jawline, revealing not bone, but a dense, fibrous mesh of white mycelium.
Vance stepped forward, face pale. “What is the harvest?” Jensen looked down at his own hands
“A what?”
It wasn’t hostile. It just stood there, trembling.
He tried to delete it. It duplicated.