Kimmy held her breath as her hand pushed the last inch into the exposed skin of the hive's tendril.
A warm sensation flowed into her, the thick flesh squirming beneath her fingers. As she exhaled, the world in front of her stopped.
A canvas formed in her mind, one so large that it encompassed more than half the size of the northwestern industrial sector.
The tendril extended through the underground pathways—once built for passage by humans, now inhabited by the hive's dense mass of flesh.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
One.
Two.
Three.
Then the hive noticed her, like an eye of snake that snapped its slumbering attention toward the intruder.
The canvas inside her mind twisted violently. Shapes moved back and forth, to and from.
Thousands of them at once.
The tunnels that once lay silent suddenly flooded with motion as the hive reacted to her presence.
A sharp pain shot through her arm.
Click!
Something inside the tendril tightened around her fingers.
