Mycology—the study of fungi. Most would consider it a sedate, even bland career choice. Suzy didn’t fault them for it. When the average person thought of fungi at all, they imagined the things they sauteed for dinner—or the mildew they scrubbed, grumbling, off their shower walls.

She was different. Her journeys took her to the scarcely-traveled reaches of the tropics, searching for elusive species no human had ever catalogued. After all, the greatest medical advancement of the 20th century—penicillin, which kneecapped bacteria as a cause of human death—was a fungus. Why not try for more?

Of, course, even for an accomplished mycologist, there were certain… career risks. Like an undiscovered fungus puffing open and spraying your face with spores, for instance.

Suzy’s companions cried out with dismay, only for the scientist to turn and wipe her face shield clean with one heavily gloved hand. “You see?” she said cheerily. “That’s why we wear stuff like this—no matter how muggy and humid the jungle gets.” She didn’t name names, but her intern Todd looked suitably chastened in the back. “A shame,” she sighed, glancing at the ruined specimen. They’d searched for almost a week down here, tracing local folklore that told of “demon plants” that “corrupted the body and soul.” To Suzy, it seemed like tales of a toxic shroom—and many poisons, used in minute doses, made excellent medicines.

“Still,” she said, cutting a sample free. The mushroom had been spherical, like a puffball back home, but nearly the size of a soccer ball, its outer surface an almost emerald green pebbled with a stormy grey-blue. “I’m sad to have seen it go.” It had burst at the slightest touch. “Let’s get back to camp, shall we? We can resume the search tomorrow.”

Their little group, consisting of her, Todd, and her coworker Tandi, headed back to their base camp, a mess of tents and cots in a cleared part of the rainforest. Once Suzy handed her assistant, Lyfa, the sample—making sure to warn her to only handle it with protective gear—she headed to the decontamination station to rinse off her outer wear.

So excited was she to get out of those cloistering clothes, she didn’t notice a tiny chip—little more than a crack—in the very lower-right corner of her helmet’s face shield. It was miniscule, so small that even a flea wouldn’t have been able to wriggle inside.

But then, some spores were far smaller than fleas.

---

Suzy was feeling a touch of malaise by the time she hitched down in her cot, but she was certain it was exhaustion. Jetlag never really got its hooks out of you, and spending all day traipsing about the rainforest in a protective suit was hell on the body. She was sure that after a good night’s sleep, she’d be right as rain.

Her sleep was fitful, punctured by strange dreams—dreams dominated by an odd sort of hum, almost a song, that seemed to permeate every strain of her. In the dream, she saw others in her group—Todd, Lyfa, Tandi—looking sad and distressed, only to slowly melt down into a kind of goop. They looked happy as they gooped, as if they liked it—appreciated it.

A strange sense, almost sensual, spread through Suzy in the dream, and she looked down. She was gooping too, the sensation divine, and she sighed with joy.

And all through it, the thrumming song continued.

Suzy woke in the middle of the night, her heart beating—or was it? She felt odd… disconnected. Like her whole body had the pins-and-needles sensation of a limb gone asleep. Rolling off her cot, she noted clinically that she had strange, moist patches on her arms and legs; that her cheeks felt fuller; that her stomach was soft and squishy, as if she’d acquired love handles. She could feel her body… plumping. In her belly, mostly, but also her arms, her legs…

Her clinical scientist’s mind tried to rouse itself into alarm, this isn’t normal, I have to do something, I have to SPREAD—

She blinked. What… was that… the beat-that-was-not-her-heartbeat seemed to pick up. She felt woozy, as if having just stepped off a roller coaster. I… need to step outside… she thought. Clear my head. If I go outside, then I can SPREAD—

She tottered outside. The moist air of the night-shrouded jungle was heaven to her, heaven, she loved the moisture, she loved it, it helped her SPREAD—

A whisper touched on the back of her neck. She turned and no one was there, but she followed it nonetheless.

The whisper got louder, pressing on her neck and her spine and her brain, a thing you felt rather than heard, and it was in tune with the throbbing beat. She rounded a corner and found Lyfa there.

The analyst looked sweaty, plump. Her body was discolored a… an emerald, not unlike the mushroom Suzy had found earlier.

It was the same color as the patches on Suzy’s arms which had grown to swallow her arms, her legs, and she could feel the discoloration staining into her torso, could feel it want to SPREAD—

At the command both women shuddered and the whisper, which Suzy now knew was Lyfa, spasmed at it. Lyfa looked up at her boss like a dog begging for a treat. “I touched the sample… just a bit…” she whined. Suzy wasn’t sure if she could hear Lyfa or just sense her words. “I want… it tells me… to listen to you… and SPREAD—”

Both of them shuddered again, the distant beat hammering down on both of them, and Suzy knew what she had to do.