Hindbrain

In the near future, humanity is an endangered species. It wasn’t until the world had fallen apart that the cause became apparent; a code hidden within fast radio bursts from an extragalactic source. An unknown agency embedded the code into viral media, somehow inducing cognitive changes in a substantial percentage of those that viewed it, as well as causing strange errors in any electronic system which the code passed through. Many of those affected began to propagate the code, either online or via such means as graffitiing public spaces with mathematical symbols.

The behavioural changes gradually became more violent, leading to an upsurge in horrific crimes and widespread civil unrest, a situation that dissolved into chaos as computer systems succumbed to serious malfunctions. Physical changes followed the mental ones, people mutating into rampaging reptilian horrors. Where these mutants were concentrated, in the major cities, the environment began to change; a hostile, alien ecosystem seemingly spreading out of nowhere.

This is where humanity finds itself now, driven into enclaves in the wilderness as the planet turns against them. There is hope, however, in those few who have experienced a different response to the code, developing bizarre new powers with which to fight back. Combined with as much cutting-edge technology as the survivors could savage, the fate of Earth is not yet sealed.