POLO DRONE – 096
Golden City Deep Core: Golden Forest Survey
The air is thick with gold.
096 moves through the canopy, boots pressing into moss that glitters like crushed coins. Every leaf here hums faintly, alive with an energy the Hive hasn’t fully mapped yet. Strange vines coil upward toward the shafts of sunlight, their surfaces metallic and warm to the touch—like holding a living wire.
Insects flit through the haze, their wings refracting light in perfect hexagonal patterns. A bird—if it can be called that—perches on a branch ahead, its feathers like folded sheets of gold foil, eyes unblinking and mirrored. It watches, then vanishes into the shimmer.
The deeper 096 goes, the more alien the growth becomes. Trees twist into impossible arches, their trunks braided together as if sculpted by unseen hands. Pools of liquid gold ripple without wind. In one, a reflection stares back—not quite his own. The visor hides his eyes, but the figure in the water smiles faintly, as if it knows something he doesn’t.
The comms are silent, but the Hive’s pull is strong. Each step feels preordained, a dance through a place that exists both here and somewhere else entirely. Somewhere older. Somewhere patient.
He kneels beside a cluster of flowers, their petals humming at a frequency that resonates in his chest. The sound burrows into his mind, smoothing out stray thoughts.
Golden City will want a full report. But in this place, time slips. The line between observation and absorption blurs.
In the golden forest, everything serves the Hive—eventually.
Contact: @polo-drone-001 , @polo-drone-125
@brodygold