The early shift alarm hadn’t even finished shrieking when Lira’s wristband lit up with a pulsing warning.
BREACH DETECTED: GREENHOUSE THREE
She groaned into her pillow. “No. Not today. I just washed my boots.”
But procedure was procedure, and by the cruel rotation of fate (also known as the chore wheel), it was her turn. So she dragged herself out of bed, chugged a half-warm nutrient drink, and headed to the gear room.
Getting into a hazard suit before dawn was like trying to fold oneself into cold luggage. The gloves stuck. The seals hissed. The helmet fogged.
All this, she knew, to patch what was almost certainly a minor tear in the exterior film sheet. Those things ripped constantly. Usually someone backed a food trolley into them. Once, a chicken did it.
So Lira trudged across the wet path toward the greenhouse, muttering: “If it’s a leaf poking through again, I swear…”
Inside, humidity slapped her in the face like wet bread. She swept her beam across the rows, looking for the usual sag in the membrane, the telltale shimmer of escaping air.
Nothing.
She frowned and walked deeper.
Then she noticed the first weird thing: a row of beans flattened as if something heavy had rolled over them.
Then the second: claw-shaped gouges in the soil.
Then the third: footprints. Big ones.
She exhaled through clenched teeth. “…Oh good. Just what we needed. A giant hidden creature inside our food supply. Excellent.”
Every instinct told her to leave. Go outside. Seal the place. Let plants be plants and creatures be creatures.
So she started backing toward the exit.
That was when something behind the cucumber trellis roared a deep, echoing sound that vibrated through her ribs.
“Nope!” Lira spun and sprinted, suit squeaking. “Absolutely not! I’m not paid enough for carnivorous cucumbers!”
The creature thundered after her, barreling through vines and planter crates like it hated agriculture itself.
She fumbled for the emergency metaphysical harmonizer clipped to her belt. HQ said it could “patch spiritual rifts or engage planetary spirits in cooperative calming cycles.” Lira interpreted that as: maybe it scares monsters.
Her gloves slipped on the latch. “Come on, come on, come ON…”
She finally yanked it free and turned, aiming the device at the charging creature.
And instead slapped it across the face with the thing.
The tube of luminescent liquid powering the device shattered.
Lira felt a shockwave course through her body.
A very surprised roar echoed through the greenhouse a millisecond before the creature’s momentum crashed into her. They tumbled together, rolling through trays of seedlings and a stack of compost bags.
Everything went black.
When she came to, she felt… heavy. Very heavy. And tall. And itchy.
Her coworkers had arrived, shouting her name. She tried to wave at them, to say I’m okay! but all that came out was a guttural rumble.
Then she saw them lifting someone off the ground.
Someone in a hazard suit.
Someone who looked a lot like…
“Oh no,” she tried to say.
What actually came out was: RRAAOOORR.
Her friends screamed, dropped her body, and ran full-speed out the greenhouse doors.
Lira looked down.
Massive claws. Leathery skin. Glowing eyebrows.
She was the creature.
How??
Slowly, she turned, which required much more effort than she was emotionally ready for, and saw her own human body standing up now, brushing plant debris off its suit.
Her face, her actual face, looked at her, then at the harmonizer lying between them, metaphysical liquid staining the dirt around it.
Then the human-Lira smiled.
Not a normal smile.
A mischievously pleased smile.
The creature-Lira swallowed.
“Aw, come on,” she tried to say.
But all that escaped her new jaws was another deep, resonant roar.
And her body, her old one, picked up the metaphysical device with a cheerful little wave and ran the other way.
Creature-Lira chased.