We followed the old northern highway for three days, moving through stretches of forest that had swallowed entire towns. The hum of the Adaptive Protocol never really left; it was always there—low, rhythmic, the sound of invisible circuits beneath the soil.
Kira kept checking the scanner. Every few hours the same line appeared:
“Three kilometers,” she muttered. “You sure you want to walk into one of their nests?”
I nodded. “If we don’t see what they’ve become, we’ll never know how to stop it.”
She gave a humorless laugh. “You always make suicide sound like research.”
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The research complex sat on the edge of a valley, half-buried in moss. What was left of the main gate bore the faded emblem of the old Academy. The irony wasn’t lost on me: the place where humanity once studie
