The creature unfolded slowly from the burning crater.

Rain hissed against its silver-black flesh while twisted skeletal limbs extended outward one by one with sickening cracks. It stood nearly fifteen feet tall, impossibly thin, its translucent skin glowing faintly from within as though silver fire burned beneath its body.

And its face—

Its face was assembled from human remains.

Dozens of mouths moved across its skull beneath stretched translucent flesh. Some whispered. Some screamed silently. Others smiled.

Maya felt terror freeze her blood.

"What is that thing?" she whispered.

Ethan stared at it in horror from the back seat.

"That's not an infected," he said weakly. "It's a collector."

The creature's massive head turned unnaturally toward the truck.

Every mouth across its body opened together.

Then came the sound.

A deep harmonic vibration rolled across the highway like a living signal. The silver-eyed infected behind them instantly stopped screaming and dropped to their knees again in worship.

Selena slammed the accelerator.

The truck surged forward through rain and smoke.

"Hold on!"

The Collector moved.

Not fast.

Worse.

Smooth.

Its enormous body glided sideways across the ruined checkpoint with horrifying grace, stepping over burning military vehicles while silver tendrils extended from beneath its arms into the corpses scattered across the road.

Dead soldiers began twitching instantly.

Maya watched in disbelief as silver fungal growth spread across the bodies in seconds. Bones cracked. Limbs jerked upward.

The dead were reanimating.

"Oh God…" Selena whispered.

Gunfire suddenly erupted from the surviving soldiers near the checkpoint barricades.

Tracer rounds tore through the storm and slammed into the Collector's torso. Silver fluid exploded outward—

—but the wounds healed immediately.

The creature didn't even react.

Instead, its mouths spoke together calmly.

"Biological resistance negligible."

The nearest soldier screamed as silver tendrils burst from beneath the asphalt and wrapped around his legs. He was dragged beneath the road before anyone could help him.

Then the ground itself began moving.

The highway cracked open around the crater as black organic growth spread beneath the pavement like roots beneath skin.

The Collector was terraforming the earth.

Maya fired through the truck window as they sped past the burning barricades. Bullets punched holes through one of the creature's human-like faces.

The face smiled wider.

"Genetic marker confirmed," it whispered directly toward her.

Maya froze.

It recognized her.

The truck smashed through the remains of the military checkpoint and roared onto the northern highway beyond. Behind them, panicked soldiers were overwhelmed as silver growth spread across vehicles, bodies, and concrete alike.

Ethan clutched his head violently.

"It's inside the signals now," he gasped. "They're all connected."

"How many are there?" Maya shouted.

Ethan looked toward the storm.

And went pale.

"Too many."

Lightning flashed across the clouds again.

More descending pods became visible now across the horizon—hundreds burning through the atmosphere toward Earth like falling stars.

Some landed far away.

Others descended terrifyingly close.

One streaked directly over the truck before crashing into distant forested hills ahead with an earth-shaking impact.

The road trembled beneath them.

Selena gripped the steering wheel harder.

"We won't survive another encounter like that."

Maya looked down at the PROJECT GATEWAY files spread across the dashboard.

Site Zero.

The original impact crater.

The first place humanity touched the signal.

If answers existed anywhere—

They were buried there.

Suddenly the truck radio crackled alive by itself.

Static hissed through the speakers.

Then a calm distorted voice spoke:

"Gateway survivors detected."

Selena's face drained of color.

A second voice answered through the radio.

Not human.

Layered.

Silver.

"The First Daughter must be recovered intact."

The signal cut instantly.

Silence filled the truck.

Then Ethan whispered the truth none of them wanted to say aloud.

"They're hunting us now."