Chapter 15: Stalker Season
POV: Adam
Detection failed for the first time.
The Stalker ambushed the Firefly patrol Adam was accompanying through the eastern tunnels—his enhanced senses gave no warning whatsoever. One moment the passage ahead registered empty, the next moment infected claws tore through Rodriguez's throat before he could scream.
Three dead before Adam's Stone Skin activated instinctively, hardening flesh just as the creature's secondary strike carved gouges across his ribs that would have disemboweled normal anatomy. The two remaining Fireflies scrambled behind rubble while Adam faced something that shouldn't exist.
"Detection shows nothing. No heartbeat, no biological signature, no spatial presence. But it's right there, moving, attacking."
Examining the corpses afterward revealed the nightmare: cordyceps growths specifically evolved to mask biological signatures. The fungal tissue wrapped around vital organs in patterns that created null zones—spaces where Detection couldn't penetrate, entities that registered as empty space instead of living threats.
Evolution targeting him personally.
"They're learning. The cordyceps is studying my abilities and breeding countermeasures."
The Prophet's words echoed from months ago: "Your blood sings to them. They're changing to match your song." He'd dismissed it as ravings. Now the evidence lay scattered in chunks across tunnel floor—infected designed to hunt the hunter.
Five more encounters over three days confirmed the pattern. Stalkers hunting with new intelligence, specifically targeting moments when Adam traveled alone. Normal infected avoided conflict unless cornered—these sought confrontation, tracking him across sectors like bloodhounds following scent trails his enhanced abilities couldn't detect.
Detection recalibrated desperately, learning to sense negative space where signatures should register. The absence became presence, empty zones that moved with predatory purpose. But the adaptation came at cost—constant scanning drained mental stamina, left him with splitting headaches that made concentration difficult.
Stone Breathing became mandatory defense. Form Three: Stone Skin held continuously, muscles and flesh hardened beyond normal human durability. But the technique required perfect breathing rhythm, and maintaining it constantly exhausted reserves faster than rest could replenish them.
Form One: Serpentinite Bipolar required modification for blind fighting—flowing strikes that didn't depend on visual targeting, guided by sound and spatial awareness rather than Detection's enhanced perception. Learning to fight without his primary advantage forced rapid tactical evolution that left him constantly off-balance.
"They're making me adapt faster than I can safely manage. Every encounter teaches them more while teaching me less."
The third attack came in Sector 9's maintenance corridor. Four Stalkers coordinating ambush patterns, using tunnel acoustics to mask approach vectors. Adam fought in total darkness, guided only by audio cues and spatial intuition, Stone Breathing flowing through combat forms that felt increasingly desperate.
Shambles repositioned him mid-combat when claws found gaps in Stone Skin protection. Counter Shock bought seconds of stunning effect. But each technique revealed tactical information that the cordyceps collective absorbed and catalogued for future encounters.
He was teaching them how to kill him by demonstrating what didn't work.
POV: Adam
The Prophet's return came with warnings that made previous revelations seem optimistic. Adam found him raving in tunnels deeper than anyone ventured safely, covering himself with fresh self-inflicted scars that formed patterns resembling fungal growth.
"The Mother adapts!" the Prophet screamed, clawing at wounds that wept blood mixed with something darker. "You killed her children, so she births new ones in your image!"
"You said that before," Adam replied, kneeling carefully outside striking range. "Tell me something I can use."
"Distributed intelligence! Every infected you kill teaches the whole!" The Prophet's eyes held fever-bright clarity despite obvious madness. "Your surgical removals especially informative—showing her exactly what you can do, how you can do it!"
The implication hit like cold water through enhanced perception. Every cordyceps removal demonstrated Ope Ope capabilities in detail. Every infected killed with Stone Breathing revealed combat techniques. Every use of Detection showed the fungus exactly what enhanced senses could perceive.
"I've been giving them blueprints for my own destruction."
"Most chilling truth," the Prophet continued, voice dropping to whisper that carried perfectly through tunnel acoustics. "She knows you don't belong. Senses wrongness in your existence. Breeds children specifically to purge the anomaly."
Adam's transmigration status wasn't hidden from cordyceps intelligence. The parasitic collective recognized him as foreign element, something that shouldn't exist in their calculated ecosystem. His very presence represented threat to natural order that the fungus was evolving to eliminate.
"Primary target for evolved strains. They're not just adapting to fight me—they're designing themselves to kill me specifically."
"How long do I have?"
"Time moves different for her. Generations born and dying while you sleep. Soon she births perfect killers. Then..." The Prophet's voice trailed into babbling that Detection couldn't parse into coherent warnings.
But the message was clear enough. Evolution worked faster than human adaptation. The cordyceps would eventually create strains that his abilities couldn't counter, variations that could kill him despite supernatural enhancements.
Unless he evolved faster.
POV: Adam
Detection finally located the breeding ground three levels below QZ foundation—cavern that had once been subway maintenance facility, now converted into nursery for horrors. Thirty Stalkers specifically evolved for anti-Detection properties, probably dozens more in development stages.
"Bomb it," Tess argued, studying structural maps with tactical precision. "Controlled demolition, bring down that entire section."
"Too close to civilian populations," Adam countered, pointing to residential sectors directly above the breeding chamber. "Collapse would kill hundreds."
"Better hundreds than thousands when those things finish developing."
The logic was sound but unacceptable. Adam's medical oath rejected casualties of convenience, even when mathematics supported sacrifice for greater good. Some lines couldn't be crossed without losing essential humanity.
"I go in alone. All abilities active. Clear them before they can spread."
Tess's expression shifted through anger, resignation, fear. "You're not invincible. Eventually something's going to be fast enough, strong enough, smart enough to kill you."
"She's right. But that risk is mine to take, not theirs to bear."
The descent took thirty minutes through passages that Detection mapped in negative space—areas where evolved Stalkers clustered like inverse constellations. Stone Breathing Form Four: Volcanic Rock cleared initial waves with rapid strikes that shattered fungal armor and severed spinal connections.
Ope Ope's Curtain technique muffled sound within ROOM radius, preventing combat noise from attracting reinforcements. Detection adapted to sense negative space painted movement patterns that let him anticipate attacks from creatures designed to be invisible to his enhanced perception.
Thirty minutes of sustained combat pushed him beyond previous limits. Shambles for repositioning. Stone Breathing for offense and defense. Detection for tactical awareness despite evolutionary countermeasures. Every ability cycling at maximum intensity while stamina reserves drained toward dangerous depletion.
The final kill combined all three power sets: Shambles to position behind the largest Stalker, Stone Breathing Form Two for devastating strike force, Detection predicting its reflexive counterattack. The creature's head separated cleanly, ending the immediate threat.
Emerging victorious but understanding the futility. Cordyceps would always adapt. He'd always need to evolve faster. The evolutionary arms race would continue until one side gained permanent advantage.
"This was just one breeding ground. How many others exist? How many evolved strains are developing in laboratories I haven't found?"
POV: Adam
Tess found him collapsed in the clinic six hours later, exhausted beyond safe limits and staring at walls like they held answers to impossible questions.
"You can't keep doing this alone," she said, checking his pulse with partnership's casual intimacy.
Adam's bitter laugh carried no humor. "Every person I bring into this becomes target. You're already at risk just knowing me."
"The cordyceps learns from every interaction. Studies everyone close to me, catalogues their weaknesses, designs countermeasures. My allies become liabilities through association."
She kissed his forehead gently, human warmth against fever that came from abilities pushed past safe boundaries. "Then we're targets together."
First admission that their partnership had evolved beyond professional necessity into something deeper, more personal, more dangerous. Detection showed her elevated heartbeat—fear masked by bravado, determination layered over terror that she might lose him to evolution that moved faster than human adaptation.
He was endangering everyone close to him simply by existing. The cordyceps collective viewed his connections as vulnerabilities to exploit, relationships as weapons to use against him. Love had become liability in war against intelligence that learned from every demonstration of caring.
"Maybe isolation is kindness. Maybe keeping people at distance protects them from becoming targets in evolutionary struggle they never chose to join."
But Tess's hand in his felt real in ways that supernatural abilities couldn't match. Human connection worth protecting despite risks it created. Worth fighting for despite costs it demanded.
"How do we win against evolution?" Adam asked quietly.
"Same way humans always have," Tess replied. "We adapt faster, fight smarter, refuse to give up."
She curled beside him on the clinic's narrow bed, partnership becoming something that transcended professional cooperation. Both understanding they were choosing each other despite dangers that choice created.
Outside, Boston QZ settled into uneasy night while in tunnels below, cordyceps intelligence designed new horrors that would test whether human determination could outpace biological adaptation.
The evolutionary war had only begun.
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