Sea City garbage dump.
Little Bottle Cap sat atop a pile of garbage in a red dress.
Her tiny, frail hands held two red apples.
Gu Fan stood beside her. "You're finally willing to talk to your sister? Tell me, Little Bottle Cap, why won't you leave this place with me?"
Little Bottle Cap fell silent for a moment before slowly saying, "This is my home."
She had remained seated the entire time.
Her red dress concealed her entire lower body.
Because her legs had transformed into enormous pink roots, reaching deep beneath the entire garbage dump and extending throughout a ten-kilometer radius.
These tendrils could split apart on their own and become independent predatory organs, buried underground like bamboo shoots as they waited for their chance to strike.
Last night.
SDERS had also released several thousand giant spores into the air. Like white hot-air balloons, they drifted among the clouds, the stratosphere, and the atmosphere.
These were its and Little Bottle Cap's eyes watching over the entire world.
SDERS was waiting.
Waiting for the bacteriophages and decomposing enzymes to evolve again.
Once they could absorb silicon, calcium, magnesium, and various other chemical substances, they would be able to absorb human cities on land—the cement, glass, steel, and other materials that made up those forests of steel.
Then it could spread across the globe.
Your human traits remaining: 28%.
Little Bottle Cap was becoming less and less human.
She struggled to maintain her pigment molecules and cellular structure, making the upper half of her body look like that of a normal child.
So she would not scare her sister.
Gu Fan looked at the child beside her. Little Bottle Cap clenched the apples tightly, her eyes filled with confusion and helplessness.
She seemed terrified of the entire world.