I can smell the taint that the new inhabitants have left on the
land, I couldn't avoid it if I wanted to since the gaia spirit chose
to modify the programming and hardware in my body. It feels wrong.
Occasionally my mind flashes with images of how the forest was
before, visions tinted with sorrow and loss. This place is the most
incredibly lush I have ever seen, yet it pales in comparison to the
myriads of life that once theemed across the face of the planet.
A warning icon flashes to my left, I freeze and meld with the
background. My mind enter Hypnochaotim to avoid detection by
possible telepaths.

/warm nourish send# sunlicks. oh, the touch of the rays of glorious
life. where is the other_? /an image of a horned creature passing me
slowly, muscles rippling and promising hurt in an instant. eyes of
fire.//come waterlife, fill me, sense through me as you did those
before me here. #where is the other? ?? lack. /this form of life is
no threat to the tree. it blesses the gaia consciousness, and
receives bliss. wave after wave. too much . too deep.
23---------3

It hurts to pull out, and all I want to do is to jack back in to the
stream. But my mission is alive in my mind, telling me what needs to
be done..what must be done, it is not an alternative to leave this
situation as it is. The Brood do not leave remains. They do not
leave remains. Thousands of worlds I have seen decimated, many more
crippled, the stench remains inside my construct. If there is life
in any part of me, I will resist that.
I put my body into motion, being led by the planet itself toward
the temple of The Brood.
While running I let myself remember the death scream of a gaia
consciousness, like letting razors caress the core of your spine,
there aren't concepts in most languages to describe the feeling of
anguish and horror you get at experiencing the fading memories of a
planet in one burst. My mind is not big enough to contain it, even
the memory makes wounds appear on my body. I heal them, and focus
back on the world around me.

Closer now, the tainting is clearer. Magnificent flowers, now rise
like flimsy wails of ash around me. The gaia mind doesn't speak to
me here, it would give away my presence. There is life, if you can
call it that, but it is all travelling toward the edges of the
ashlands.. presumably to feed. My warning systems are going nuts all
the time and I give a command to shut down all but the most basic
ones. Adrenaline and Pythox3 generates in my circulatory system, all
senses enhance and expand. Another layer of reality melts onto the
one I already saw, my senses now include what some would call the
astral.
It is full of machines and winged vampires that service them.
Energy moves only one way, towards the temple. There is constant
building everywhere I see, and there are sentinels looking for the
likes of me over every meter of the way. I remain hidden.