[Static crackle. Heavy breathing. A low, rhythmic hum in the background.]
One of the colonists, a geologist named Patel, looked at me through the amber membrane and said in perfect, unaccented English: "We are not parasites, Aris. We are the immune response. Your species was the fever. We are the cure."
"
We should have killed her. But the Hive knew we wouldn't. It knows us better than we know ourselves. It learned from the first game: humans don't abandon their own.