The last infected on the block came out through the broken entrance of a convenience store.
Three shots struck its chest before the Guardian GI finished it with another round through the head. The body dropped beside the doorway, joining several others scattered across the street.
"Clear."
The squad continued forward.
Most of the fighting in their sector had ended hours ago. Artillery had broken the larger concentrations farther inside, and the remaining infected were either trapped inside buildings or wandering through streets the bombardment had already emptied.
A Scout checked the next intersection while the others covered the windows above him.
"Movement. Second floor, left."
An Army Soldier shifted his rifle toward the building. A figure appeared behind the shattered glass and pushed through what remained of the window.
The first burst caught it before it could fall properly. It struck the pavement several meters ahead and stopped moving.
The squad crossed the intersection.
The pale haze still covered the deeper streets, though it sat considerably farther back than it had the previous morning. Several buildings that had disappeared completely behind it were visible again, their upper floors rising through the thinner outer layer.
One of the Scouts slowed near a section of road torn open by an earlier shell.
Something thick ran through the broken asphalt.
He stepped around it at first, assuming it was part of a buried pipe or cable exposed by the blast, but the surface was uneven and split into long ridges.
"Hold."
The squad stopped.
The Scout crouched beside it and brushed loose dirt from the side.
Brown bark appeared underneath.
He looked along the exposed length. The growth was nearly as thick as his leg and disappeared under the road in both directions, with several smaller roots branching away through the soil.
"Root."
The squad leader moved closer.
"A tree?"
"Looks like it."
There were trees along the sidewalks farther behind them, but none stood close enough to explain something this large.
The Scout took several photographs before standing again.
"Mark it."
They continued another block.
A second root had lifted part of the sidewalk near an abandoned bus. This one was larger, wide enough that the concrete had cracked around it before rising several centimeters from the ground.
Another crossed through the foundation of a collapsed storefront farther ahead.
The squad leader stopped beside it.
Unlike the dark biological growth they had seen around infected sites elsewhere in Grefort, this one did not spread over the concrete or wrap itself around the structure. It had simply forced its way through.
The Scout recorded it from several angles.
"Same direction?"
"Approximately."
The squad leader looked toward the haze.
More of the street had become visible while they were moving. Pale material drifted between the buildings several blocks ahead, thin enough now that the outlines behind it could be seen.
Their radio interrupted the inspection.
"Forward elements, current sector is secure. Return to the defensive line and prepare for reassignment."
"Copy. Alright folks. Vacation is over. Check your equipment then retreat on me."
The squad turned back toward the cleared intersection.
On the way out, the Scout passed the first exposed root again and looked down at it for a moment.
The photographs were already attached to the sector report.
...
Hans was halfway through another sector summary when the photographs reached his desk.
The first image showed a broken section of road in Cinderrow. A thick brown root crossed the exposed soil before disappearing beneath the pavement again, with one of the Scouts crouched beside it for scale.
Hans stared at it for several seconds. He opened the next image. Same root, different angle.
The third showed another growth pushing through a sidewalk beside an abandoned bus.
"What the hell?"
Matilda looked over from the other side of the room. "What?"
Hans turned the screen toward her.
She stepped closer.
"Cinderrow?"
"Forward clearance team."
Hans went through the attached report. Nothing unusual had happened during the patrol beyond several isolated infected and the roots themselves. The squad had marked the locations, photographed what they could see and returned when their sector was closed.
He enlarged the second image. The surface bothered him the longer he looked at it.
He had seen plenty of biological growth around Hives by now. Ironford alone had left enough of it buried through factories, utility routes and broken streets for Tyrus to spend weeks pulling samples from the district.
Those growths looked alive in a very different way.
Dark tissue spreading over concrete. Thick strands disappearing through foundations. Organic mass wrapping itself around whatever happened to be in the way.
This looked like something that had simply grown underneath the road until the road lost the battle.
Hans leaned back.
"Do we have anything similar?"
Matilda looked toward one of the personnel sorting the newest sector reports.
"Check the other approaches."
Several storage drives had arrived with the morning returns. The officer went through the index while Hans continued looking at the photographs.
A few minutes later, another file appeared.
"Aldermere."
Hans opened it.
The image had been taken after artillery collapsed part of a residential building near the inner approach. Concrete had fallen away from the lower wall, exposing a thick root running beneath the foundation.
Another photograph showed smaller branches spreading into the surrounding soil.
Hans sat forward.
"Next."
Kingswell had one as well.
The recording came from a soldier moving through a damaged underground parking entrance. Part of the concrete floor had split upward, with something broad and brown wedged through the opening. The camera passed over it briefly before returning several seconds later for a closer view.
It had shown a bark. Hans paused the recording.
"That’s three."
"Rushfield has two reports mentioning unusual vegetation," the officer said.
"Show me."
The first was mostly useless. Smoke covered half the street and the exposed growth sat too far from the camera to make out properly.
The second was better.
A shell had opened part of an intersection and exposed several roots beneath the road. One of them was thicker than the others, wide enough that the broken asphalt had folded around it.
Hans pulled all four approaches onto the same display. Matilda studied the positions.
"These weren’t mentioned before."
"Maybe nobody had a reason to care about that."
"Or something’s up here, Commander."
"No, something’s down there."
Fifty million infected had provided considerably more interesting things to report.
Hans opened the latest Raptor recordings from the visibility windows created during the bombardment. Most of the footage showed exactly what they already knew: ruined streets, dense infected concentrations, collapsed buildings and pale haze farther toward the center.
He slowed one of the northern passes.
"Back."
The recording reversed several seconds.
"Stop."
A dark line crossed part of a ruined courtyard below.
Hans enlarged the image.
At that altitude it could have been a collapsed beam, exposed utility line or part of the surrounding debris. The camera had passed over it without lingering.
Except it continued beneath the remains of one building and appeared again on the other side.
Matilda leaned closer.
"Another one?"
Hans moved farther through the recording.
Another line appeared two blocks deeper. Then another.
The farther the aircraft looked toward the center, the more difficult it became to separate the growth from streets, shadows and ruined structures.
He switched to one of the eastern recordings only to find the same problem.
Hans rubbed his chin.
"Go get Tyrus."
"He might still be busy inside his experiments," Matilda replied.
"Then give him these. Show him something more interesting."
Hans tucked some of the photographs back.
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