“Check your fireteam,” Vance whispered.
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.
The creature’s split jaw stretched into a grin. “ ”
“The enemy doesn’t just kill people anymore, Jensen. It convinces them. Twists their loyalty. Like a perfect apple that’s rotten at the core—looks fine until you take a bite, then you find the worms.” warped apple undermine 7z
Jensen raised his carbine. “Sarge?”
“The apple was warped from the seed,” the creature—the former guard—said gently. “You were never here to save 7Z. You were here to spread it.”
Liao was already gone—standing twenty meters away, back turned, hands calmly picking an apple from a branch. She took a bite. The juice ran down her chin like plasma. She smiled, and her eyes were white all the way through. “Check your fireteam,” Vance whispered
From its open mouth, a cloud of microscopic spores erupted—not visible to the naked eye, but Jensen felt them: a million pinpricks of cold on his exposed skin. His HUD flickered. A new file appeared in his neural interface, unrequested, unencryptable.
Jensen’s HUD refreshed. Their mission orders had been rewritten. OPERATION: WARPED APPLE was not a pacification. It was a delivery.
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.” The creature’s split jaw stretched into a grin
Corporal Jensen stared at the dispatch screen, the words OPERATION: WARPED APPLE glowing a sickly green.
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.”
It wasn’t hostile. It just stood there, trembling.
“Command,” Vance shouted into his collar. “7Z is lost. Enemy uses airborne memetic vectors. Requesting immediate—”
They were the spores.