When I let go of the rope and dropped the last half-meter, dry gravel crunched under my feet. By the light of the torch, I could see that something had started to break the solid concrete. Tiny cracks had formed everywhere. Better be careful. Breathing was difficult through the tight filter, and, just for an instant, I was tempted to raw-dog bunker air.
"FUCK NO!"
It's hard to describe to a non-symbiont what it's like, your thoughts being interrupted by your own thoughts, which are not your own. I mean, I know which ones are mine mine, they (for lack of a better analogy) taste different. But still.
"I'm not dying in this shithole because you're TOO LAZY TO BREATHE!" Fran had a point. You never knew what old-worlders had done to their places, even if the sensors were happy-ish.
"Probably just some fungus, eating the concrete." I dumped a probe in a container and stared at it for a minute, just to see if whatever was in there also had an appetite for sample tubes.
"Exactly! It's weird enough in here; don't need no other hitchhikers." Fran was also watching the tube. When nothing happened, I stashed it and sent out our drones.
"I don't think syngus just evolve in an old-world bunker." I started working on a lock on the biggest door while Fran was busy annotating the incoming memory streams and making sure they were solidly stored.
"Yeah, we're a pain in the ass to raise." Fran admitted. "I'm a special little snowflake 🤣!"
It's also very hard to explain how emojis in thoughts work.
