Jut

I saw the expansion in action.

I was working in the map room, struggling pointlessly with one of the computers, when I heard an alarm. The beeping was piercing, and I stood up to see what was happening. Quite a few other researchers came running in from elsewhere, and they all looked excited. They clustered around the map, and I pushed through the group to a point where I could see it.

As I watched, a small portion of the border between the Yellow and the Green began to waver. Then, the Yellow bulged out into the Green, pushing the Green into the area past the boundary. The researchers began to chatter, and a couple of them started drawing on the white board. I asked the woman next to me what we'd seen. She smiled, and told me The Sick Land had just expanded, and that it was rare to see a fluctuation in real time. I couldn't figure out the scale on the map; only a portion of The Sick Land was shown. I asked her about it; she said the Green had just taken about 200 square miles of the surrounding area.

I felt dizzy. I moved to a nearby wall and leaned against it, watching the others. They didn't seem concerned about the expansion in the slightest. I thought about the rapid expansion, about The Sick Land growing relentlessly while we did nothing to stop it. I started to feel sick, and went back to my room.