Goldstar climbed her container's side ladder, hoodie up, boots silent. She needed a better look at all the commotion. The port had grown louder since she'd woken. Buzzing. Voices. Military cadence.
Halfway up, her eyes caught something new.
Someone had spray-painted a word across the side of her container in bright, luminous colors. m00m. The 0's were cartoonish and wide, like blinking eyes. The M's looked a bit like claws. It too glowed a faint blue and pink, like a blacklight reactive tattoo.
"Huh," she muttered. "Kevin at it again. Always doing graffiti in the weirdest hours of the night."
She rolled her eyes and kept climbing.
She crouched low at the top of her container and scanned the yard. A few hundred feet away, F8 agents hovered over a football field sized impact crater. One held a small jar. Inside: the tiniest amount of the same blue goo that had infected her home.
Their movements were deliberate. Precise. They didn't talk unless necessary. They observed, and were clearly on the hunt.
Agent J handed the sample off to another agent with an alphabetic alias, labeled C.
"Swab and scan. This is the only intact sample we've recovered on record so far."
They ran the goo across the glass-plated scanner.
"Sir, the readout says: mycelium, plus an unknown, classified compound."
"Fungus?"
"Yeah. Like mushrooms. Says here it's something like their spores, how they spread. But there's something else mixed in, the unknown compound, and the classified compound."
Goldstar slid her phone from her pocket and typed into the BBS:
F8 investigating strange blue goo at Los Angeles port. Possibly dangerous. Be careful. Saw it in my container and have no clue what it is…
She sent the message, then froze. Below her, a figure moved: Kevin.
Goldstar spotted him and shook her head. "Dumbass," she exhaled under her breath.
He was casually tagging a mural on the container across from hers, spray cans in hand. She grabbed a pebble, chucked it, and nailed him in the chest.
"What the fu–?!"
He looked up. Their eyes locked.
Goldstar waved her arms frantically, part Navy SEAL hand signals, part "OMG, you're an idiot" interpretive dance.
Kevin squinted. "Why you wavin' like that? Just use your mouth, girl."
"Shhh!"
She motioned: Get. Inside. Your. Container. Now!
In that moment, Kevin quickly became a master of interpreting her signals, suddenly realizing something was off. Something involving F8. Just as he turned to go, moving to obey the silent order, he was tackled to the ground by an agent.
"Unchipped illegal," the agent said, bracing Kevin to the ground with cold precision.
Kevin never stopped talking. Sometimes his best trait, other times, his worst.
"Listen man, I'm just out here walkin'! I didn't see nothin', I don't know nothin'! I stay minding my own business!"
An aggressive boot dug further into his ribs.
Agent J turned his head slightly. He activated Mind-Link—the silent, networked communication system embedded directly in the minds of all F8 Clarity users—transmitting a command into the neural net of surrounding agents. His lips also moved, because speaking out loud still served a purpose when communicating with the unchipped: fear, dominance, protocol.
"I need a Vision Officer," he said. "Time to chip another stray."
Kevin's voice cracked. "Please don't chip me! You're a long ways away from your evil little corporate brainwash base, and I got nothing against you guys. Just let me up and I'll be on my way out of here."
"Shut your mouth and comply, or I'll kill you instead," J growled.
A Vision Officer dressed in a "where the hell did this guy come from" lab coat approached with F8 Clarity chip in hand. Vision Officers were the employment role tasked with chipping citizens. He unboxed it as he spoke with the tone of a living infomercial or artificially enthusiastic product-reviewer.
"Congratulations! You're about to be the recipient of the latest F8 Clarity technology!" the Vision Officer announced, grinning like a used car salesman closing a new victim. "Clarity enhances your life in every way imaginable. Visualize your entire contact list in your mind—every piece of information you could ever need, instantly available with just the power of thought! Think 'Call Mom' and you'll be connected right away. Think 'Text Dad' and let those loving thoughts and meaningful conversations fly. An instant connection to everyone you love!"
"My parents are dead," muttered Kevin.
"Overall, irrelevant!" The Vision Officer snapped back, tone a bit darker. "Learn a new language by simply thinking about the one you want to learn. The possibilities are endless!" the Vision Officer continued to tout. Then, with a sudden tonal shift from smarmy salesmen to corporate enforcer, his eyes narrowed. He knelt beside Kevin with a serial-killer smirk, while unboxing the chip to build suspense, as Agent J pressed the cold barrel of his gun harder against Kevin's temple. He cocked it back as the Vision Officer armed the Clarity chip for implantation.
"Don't worry, buddy. This isn't even going to hurt. These little sensors here attach themselves to your temple, nanobots penetrate your neural cortex, and before you know it, your entire brain gets upgraded with our software. Bug-free for 298 days! Within hours, you'll become a highly intelligent, functioning member of society with a guaranteed job serving the One-World community. You'll be able to make yourself some money—and make great new friends within the Clarity network!"
With the gun still pressed to his head, mere millimeters from the Vision Officer planting the Clarity chip on his temple—the graffiti on Goldstar's container blinked it's eyes... The 0's glowed, almost looking suspiciously cute for half a second. Goldstar, clinging desperately to the roof, felt the metal shudder and lurch beneath her. Then, like a scene ripped from a classic kaiju film, blue antennae sprouted and burst through the top of the container as giant legs punched through the bottom. She held on for dear life, riding it in shock, as the entire container sprung to life and rose nearly thirty feet tall, towering over the yard.
The F8 agents had no time to process what was unfolding. The Vision Officer's hands went slack, the Clarity chip clattering to the ground. In the same instant, Agent J pivoted, yanking his gun away from Kevin's skull and unleashing a volley of 9mm rounds into the rising beast—all while firing off a frantic call for backup over Mind-Link.
Kevin had curled into the fetal position, covering his eyes like a kid hiding from the monster in his closet. Gunfire echoed, and before the agents could even reload, several pink, gooey tongues lashed out—like a chameleon striking prey—snatching the F8 agents and slingshotting them into the creature's mouth. In seconds, they were gone, swallowed whole. Devoured. The container rapidly shrunk back down, shrinking and reshaping itself until it looked ordinary again, like nothing had happened.
Goldstar, eyes wide, still holding on to the retracting antennae as it slurped back into the top of the container. She crouched low, confused but inspired, touched a smear of goo still clinging to the roof, and, with a glint of sunlight catching her eyes, smeared it across her face like war paint.
She jumped down from the top of the container to Kevin, still curled up tight on the ground.
"Oh my god, dude, did you see that!?"
"No! My eyes were closed! I heard gunshots and a bunch of crazy noises. Where did they go? What the hell's happening!?" He gasped.
"If I were to explain it, you wouldn't even believe me. We need to get inside—right now."
She shoved open her container door and slammed it shut behind them. Goldstar grabbed Roger, docking him back into the wall.
"Roger, play security footage starting thirty minutes ago."
"Roger," the device croaked, as a thin puddle of blue goo seeped out from its circuitry.
She didn't know what was happening. But she knew one thing for sure:
Shit just got real.