The canopy was a cathedral of wrongness. Bioluminescent moss painted the massive branches in ghostly blues and greens, while the oversized black leaves overhead blocked what little light came from the cracked sky. The air smelled of wet earth and ozone, with an undercurrent of something sweetly cloying—decaying nectar.
Kai moved first, testing each branch with subtle weight shifts before committing. His enhanced vision painted the world in structural integrity gradients. Some branches glowed steady green—solid, trustworthy. Others pulsed amber—viable but with risk. A few flickered red where hidden rot or predatory symbionts waited.
"Stay on the green paths," he said over his shoulder.
Lena followed, her movements careful. Her regeneration was working—the gash on her arm had closed to a pink seam, and she put more weight on her injured leg. But she was breathing heavily, sweat beading on her forehead despite the cool air.
Companion status: Fatigue at 67%. Dehydration likely. Performance degradation imminent within 30-45 minutes without rest/hydration.
Kai filed the information. They had no water. The streams they'd seen from the ridge were likely contaminated with the same arboreal parasites that had infected Lena. Drinking would be a calculated risk—a faster death versus a slower one.
Ahead, the canopy opened into a natural platform where several massive branches intersected. In the center grew a tree unlike the others—its bark was silver-white, and crystalline fruits hung from its limbs, glowing with soft inner light.
Analysis: Lumina Tree. Fruits contain hydrating sap with mild regenerative properties. Low toxicity to humans. High nutritional value.
A resource. In a game of scarcity, that meant one thing.
"Wait," Kai whispered, pulling Lena behind a curtain of hanging moss.
Three people were already at the tree.
Two men and a woman, all showing signs of correction. One man had skin that shimmered like oil on water—a camouflage adaptation. The woman's fingers ended in sharp, bony points that she used to expertly slice fruit from the branches. The third man seemed normal until he moved, and then his joints bent slightly too far, too smoothly. An elasticity correction.
They worked efficiently, stuffing fruits into makeshift sacks. They hadn't noticed Kai and Lena.
Threat assessment: Moderate. Camouflage male is scout/guard—positioned at perimeter. Elastic male is primary combatant—muscle density increased by approximately 40%. Sharp-fingered female is gatherer but capable of close-quarter damage.
Lena leaned close, her breath warm against his ear. The contact triggered the aversion response—Kai's skin crawled—but he didn't pull away. Information transfer required proximity.
"We need water," she whispered. "Those fruits—"
"I know. But they have claim. Engaging would cost resources and risk injury."
"So we just watch them take everything?"
Kai's threat simulation activated automatically, presenting options:
Option A: Negotiate for share. Success probability: 23%. They outnumber us, are better equipped, and show coordinated group behavior indicating established hierarchy.
Option B: Wait until they leave, scavenge remaining fruit. Success probability: 64%. Risk: they may strip tree completely.
Option C: Ambush. Eliminate one quickly to shift balance. Success probability: 51%. Moral cost: high. System repercussion: unknown.
The simulations played out in flickering overlays. In Option C, he saw himself dropping on the camouflaged guard, using a fallen branch to crush his throat. Efficient. Brutal. The other two would either fight or flee. Probability favored fight, given their numbers advantage even reduced.
"Kai?" Lena's voice held a question. She was watching his face, seeing the distant focus of the simulation.
"We wait," he decided. "Ambush is inefficient. Too many variables."
He didn't mention the moral cost. That factor registered as a data point—"social repercussion probability with companion"—not as an ethical consideration.
They watched as the group harvested. The woman with sharp fingers cut carefully, avoiding damage to the tree. She murmured something to the elastic-limbed man, who nodded. There was a familiarity to their interactions—not just survival partnership, but pre-existing connection.
"Family," Lena whispered, seeing it too. "Or close friends."
That changed the calculus. Groups with emotional bonds fought harder, took greater risks for each other. Their threat level increased.
Just as the group finished filling their third sack, a scream echoed from somewhere below in the grove—long, drawn-out, ending in a wet gurgle.
The camouflaged guard snapped his head toward the sound. His skin rippled, shifting to match the bark pattern behind him. Perfect stillness.
The other two froze, listening.
A second scream, closer this time. Then a sound like tearing canvas and breaking branches.
Something was coming up through the canopy.
"Move!" the elastic-limbed man barked.
They abandoned the third sack, grabbing the other two and beginning to retreat along a thick branch leading east.
Too late.
The creature that burst through the canopy floor was a nightmare of mismatched biology. It had the body of a large panther, but its skin was bark-like and cracked, with glowing green veins pulsing beneath. Instead of a head, it had a cluster of thorned vines that whipped through the air, each ending in a mouth lined with crystalline teeth. Six insectoid legs clawed for purchase on the branches.
Analysis: Chimera-class predator. Multiple corrected organisms fused by grove. Threat level: High-Extreme. Weakness: Central neural cluster likely within torso.
The camouflaged guard reacted first. He didn't run—he attacked, leaping at the creature with a crude wooden spear. His strike was precise, aimed at the junction of two of the creature's legs.
The chimera didn't bother dodging. The leg he struck shattered like dry wood, but two thorned vines lashed out. One wrapped around his neck, the other plunged into his chest.
There was no scream this time. Just a horrible sucking sound as the vine-mouths drained him. His body shriveled, the camouflage adaptation flickering and dying as life left him. The vines discarded the husk, which fell through the canopy into darkness.
The remaining man and woman froze in horror for a critical second. Then the woman turned and ran—not away, but toward the abandoned sack of fruit. She grabbed it, hurled it to her companion.
"Take it! Go!"
He caught it, hesitated. "Anya—"
"GO!"
The chimera turned its attention to the woman, Anya. She stood her ground, fingers extended into deadly points. "Come on then, you ugly bastard!"
Her bravery was statistically meaningless. The chimera had six remaining legs, multiple attack vectors, and a mass three times hers. Her survival probability was less than 5%.
But she bought time. Her companion, the elastic-limbed man, fled along the eastern branch, moving with unnatural grace, leaping gaps that should have been impossible.
Kai watched, analyzing. The chimera's attack patterns, its sensory apparatus (the thorn vines seemed to taste the air), its turn radius, its reaction time.
Lena gripped his arm. "We have to help her!"
"Help is impossible. Engaging that creature results in death with 96% probability."
"She's going to die!"
"Correct. In approximately 12 seconds."
Anya dodged the first vine strike, raking her finger-blades across it. Green sap-like blood sprayed. The vine recoiled, but three others struck from different angles. One wrapped around her ankle, yanking her off her feet.
"NOW, Kai!" Lena was already moving, breaking from cover.
Cursing the inefficiency of emotional responses, Kai followed.
He didn't attack the chimera directly. Instead, he grabbed the abandoned sack of fruit Lena had been eyeing earlier and hurled it not at the creature, but at the Lumina Tree itself.
The sack struck the trunk, bursting open. Crystalline fruits shattered, their glowing sap splattering across the bark.
The effect was immediate. The luminescent sap acted like a beacon—no, like an irritant. The tree's bark began to pulse with angry red light. From its branches, tendrils unfurled—defensive mechanisms Kai hadn't detected earlier.
The chimera, distracted by the sudden brightness and the tree's defensive response, hesitated. Its vine-mouths turned toward the tree, tasting this new stimulus.
Anya took advantage, slashing at the vine around her ankle. It parted with a sound like tearing leather. She scrambled free, bleeding from a dozen puncture wounds but alive.
"Here!" Lena called, reaching for her.
But the chimera wasn't done. It registered the movement, the new prey. It abandoned the tree, six legs churning as it charged toward them.
Simulation request: Optimal evasion path.
His ability responded instantly, painting a blue trajectory through the canopy—a path that involved leaping to a lower branch, swinging on a hanging vine, landing on a thicker limb twenty feet away. Survival probability: 78%.
The path didn't include Lena or Anya.
Kai hesitated. For 0.8 seconds, he ran new simulations:
Path with Lena: survival probability drops to 41%.
Path with both Lena and Anya: 12%.
The numbers were clear.
Then Lena did something inexplicable. Instead of running, she stepped toward the charging chimera, hands raised. Not in surrender, but in a gesture Kai's ability couldn't parse.
And she began to hum.