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Venn’s finger tightened on the trigger. Standard protocol: any cognitive contact, immediate termination. But something in that eye—something familiar—stayed her hand.
She flinched. Oleson gasped beside her. “Sergeant, I heard that. How—”
Venn’s blood ran cold. 7.0—the original unit sent into Zone 7 twenty years ago, declared lost with all hands. Their memorial was a brass plaque in a hallway no one used anymore. bbdc 7.1
“They learn,” Venn said. “Last week it was rabbits with ears like listening dishes. Month before, a tree that whispered coordinates. The Mold is testing the fence.”
The deer took one step forward. The boundary hummed louder, and a shimmer of blue light flickered—a warning arc. The creature stopped, tilted its fungal crown, and the eye blinked. Venn’s finger tightened on the trigger
“We were your soil,” the thought continued, calm and terrible. “Your cells. Your dead. You built a wall against your own reflection.”
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Venn, you seeing this?” came the voice of Private Oleson, her spotter, through the crackling comms.
