The Genius Plague

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In the Amazon rainforest, more kinds of plants and animals thrive than in the rest of the world combined. A single square kilometer can host over a million different species, each relying on its relationship with the others to survive. But the Amazon covers an area nearly the size of the contiguous United States, and much of it is still unexplored.

A single creature dominates this ecosystem, a creature neither plant nor animal. It is new-grown, and yet it is old. Extending across thousands of acres of rainforest, it stretches through the soil, wrapping around the roots of trees. It has no central organ by which it can be killed. It branches and divides, its millions of microscopic tendrils transmitting information about moisture, nutrients, and genetic diversity through the network of its body. It exudes enzymes in response to this information, culling and shaping. Changing the rainforest to meet its needs.

It grows rapidly, yet it is not satisfied. Its fruiting bodies swell and burst, ejecting spores into the wind. The spores find the stalks of plants, are inhaled into the lungs of animals. There they implant and grow, sending filaments through soft flesh. They sift, taste, adapt, and ultimately, control. The animals continue on their way, unaware of the thing inside them, but their behaviors are subtly influenced in ways advantageous to the creature. It grows in reach and strength.

Eventually, toward the edge of the great forest, the creature encounters something new, a species more sophisticated than any it has yet encountered. A potential threat. But also an opportunity.