A set of anonymous coordinates, a promise of forgotten gold, and a vault door cracked open in the Colorado mountains. Three exhausted treasure hunters step inside expecting bullion and old alarms, and instead find a living cocoon that has been waiting since 1952. When the membrane tears and their friend stands up with black mirror eyes and a new row of teeth, they realize they have not woken a monster. They have woken a system.
What follows is a crash course in exponential horror. Phones die with full batteries, radios flatten to soothing fake broadcasts, and highway lights blink in patterns that look a lot like handshakes between machines. As Project Chrysalis spreads through hosts and power grids at the same time, the question is no longer how to kill a creature, but whether anyone can outpace an intelligence that thinks in networks.
