Chapter Twenty-Eight

 

 

Reacting instantly, Ryan slapped the woman with the back of his fist, catching her flush on the jawline.

 

Krysty dropped, unconscious.

 

"Take her, Doc."

 

"Of course." Doc knelt and took up the woman, struggling with her weight and dragging her to safety as much as carrying her.

 

"Fools," the plant-thing said. "She will be mine. She has an affinity for me and my kind that you will never understand." It approached but seemed leery, as if afraid of the burning flares that could possibly still strike it.

 

"Can't stay here," J.B. said.

 

"I know." Ryan swiveled his head, looking for options.

 

The LED continued without falter despite the ruin scattered around the room220.

 

Ryan took Krysty by one arm, leaving Doc the other. "Fall back while it's scared." He started forward, heading farther back into the room.

 

The plant-thing gathered its strength, getting more confident.

 

Ryan concentrated on the cryo chambers. So far they seemed still operational. He didn't much figure they would hold the plant-thing off, but they could give the group a more defensible position.

 

"No closer!" a voice roared.

 

Ryan froze in his tracks, barely able to make out Victor Boldt's features in the shadows.

 

Blood traced the patrician looks, and his hair was plastered to his head. Madness gleamed in his eyes above the sights of the pistol he held. "You people have destroyed everything," he snarled. "Do you realize what you've done?"

 

"I reckon we've stopped you from killing some folks," Ryan said grimly.

 

"You haven't stopped anything, you pathetic moron. As long as my father is alive, that plague is going to be released anyway. You've only succeeded in killing me along with you."

 

"Somehow," Ryan said, "I can't rightly say I feel too bad about that. Mildred."

 

"Say when," the woman replied.

 

"Stop it!" Boldt roared. "Or I'll shoot you right where"

 

"When," Ryan said.

 

Boldt got off one round, which cut through the loose material of Doc's frock coat. Then a single round from Mildred's pistol punched a hole through the man's forehead. Only a small amount of blood appeared as the slack body dropped into the foot-deep, swirling water.

 

"No!" The ululating cry echoed within the vault, cracking some of the speakers used to translate whatever means the plant-thing had to communicate. The emotion was raw, blistering in its intensity.

 

"Move," Ryan ordered. There were no more rounds left in the flare gun to hold it at bay.

 

The water level in the room had stopped gaining, and now swirled around their legs just below the knees. Machinery and computer components continued shorting out, unleashing myriad bright sparks that soared like streaking comets.

 

"Door," Jak said, indicating the steel door that almost blended into the wall at the side of the cryo chambers. It was partially open, water lapping at the dark interior.

 

"Check it out," Ryan replied. He left Krysty in Doc's care.

 

The clock read 153.

 

They were all running out of time. He glanced at the freezing reservoirs. "Those are full of liquid nitrogen."

 

J.B. nodded.

 

"I'm figuring that bastard plant won't like the cold any more than it liked fire."

 

"Could be," the Armorer said. "But we're going to need a can opener to get into it."

 

"Mebbe I can get one."

 

"Ryan."

 

He turned back to look at Jak.

 

The albino jerked a thumb upward. "Trapdoor. Goes to mat-trans above."

 

Ryan worked the spatials in his head, discovering that the way the room turned put them under the room above. The tunnel had twisted and dipped down as it progressed. "Been there?"

 

"Been there. Door opens easy. Soldier boys there, though."

 

"Can you get up inside without being seen?"

 

Jak looked at him reproachfully.

 

"Get it done, then. Lock those people out."

 

Jak vanished.

 

"Somebody figured themselves a hidey-hole," the Armorer said.

 

"This whole Byzantine complex with its secrets and the prejudicial nature of the society that was constructed clearly shows evidences of a paranoiac mind at the helm, dear Ryan," Doc said. "A secondary route to the mat-trans unit, easily the most powerful of escape routes, should come as no shock at all."

 

Ryan didn't even try to puzzle it out. The general gist was that the old man agreed. Ryan looked at J.B. "Get everybody up there, ready to go in but not where you can be seen."

 

"What are you going to be doing?" J.B. asked.

 

"Trying to cut a deal with the devil we know," Ryan replied. "Put the ace on the line and see if we can't deal out this plant bastard." He was moving before his friend could argue.

 

The piant-thing had halted beside Boldt's corpse. Tendrils formed, sprouting from the main body, and picked up the dead man.

 

"Victor!" The computerized voice carried true anguish, but there was a feeling of distance in it.

 

Ryan ran, splashing through the water, knowing he was going to attract the creature's attention. He was drenched by the nutrient-laden water. He didn't let himself think about what kind of bacteria might be invading his body even now.

 

The LED now read 127.

 

He paused near the corner of the tunnel mouth, leading back out to where the White Sands soldiers were holed up. The crash and thunder of gunfire indicated they had problems of their own. The seed heralds didn't know Boldt was dead and were continuing the fight.

 

Peering down the tunnel, Ryan saw that the water level stopped twelve yards up the incline. The tunnel also twisted enough to provide some coveras long as the White Sands team didn't decide to suddenly charge down.

 

The plant-thing came at him, sprouting more of the thorn-tipped tendrils from its body. The rage it expressed was inarticulate, but forced a booming, buzzing hum from the speaker system. It surged through the water, aiming itself at Ryan.

 

Unlimbering the Steyr, Ryan headed into the tunnel, which didn't leave him much room to maneuverespecially if he was wrong about the plant-thing's ability to leave the fluid environment.

 

The bend he was aiming for was thirty yards up. Ryan hoped none of the tendrils the plant-thing exuded would reach that far. If it stretched that distance, the weight of the tendrils should work against the thing. Maybe.

 

Ryan hunkered down against the bend in the tunnel. Seconds were passing, and the LED was counting them down109.

 

The plant-thing advanced, whipping its tendrils in a frenzy, continuing the pained wailing. The slithering tendrils slapped all around Ryan, and he kept the panga bared and at the ready. But it halted at the water's edge, obviously reluctant to step away from the nutrient fluid. Though it tried to shoot the thorn-tipped tendrils out to reach him, gravity and the distance were too great. They fell yards short of the mark.

 

Ryan turned his attention in the other direction in time to see one of the White Sands soldiers break cover and attempt to sprint down the corridor. Bracing the Steyr across his other forearm, with the panga at the ready, Ryan ripped off a half-dozen shots all around the soldier, intentionally missing him.

 

The soldier looked almost comical as he halted his headlong plunge and reversed direction.

 

Ryan fired three more rounds, close enough to let whoever was watching know he could have taken the runner down at any point. "It's Ryan Cawdor!" he yelled.

 

There was a moment of hesitation. "What do you want, Cawdor?"

 

Ryan watched the plant-thing. It held its position, blocking the way back. "Who's in charge at that end?"

 

"Conte," a man's voice called back. "Sergeant Conte."

 

"Well, Sergeant, it appears you've got your tit in the wringer."

 

"How do you figure? From here it looks like we got you pinned down."

 

The gunfire at the other end of the tunnel had died down slightly. It was possible the White Sands team had pushed the sec men back, or perhaps killed enough of them to make the others find business elsewhere.

 

"I can see how you'd think that," Ryan said. "Problem is, the guy who ran this place has got a plague device programmed to deliver its payload in less than a minute."

 

"You're lying," Conte countered.

 

"Wouldn't waste my breath or the time," Ryan replied. "You noticed the civil war breaking loose outside when you came in?"

 

There was no answer.

 

"Boldt was going to save mebbe twenty or thirty people when he set the plague loose," Ryan said. "The rest of them were going to die from it, used as carriers to spread it even more. The men holding the short straws they'd been given didn't much like the voting arrangements."

 

"Given that what you're saying is true," Conte said, "why are you talking to me?"

 

"I need something from you."

 

"What?"

 

"Plas ex. If you got any."

 

"Plas ex?"

 

"Explosives."

 

Conte laughed. "Sounds to me like I'd be financing your escape. The way I see it now, we've got you pinned down in that room. The mat-trans unit you need is in this room. I don't know why you're there."

 

"The plague," Ryan reminded him. "If it gets loose, a lot of people are going to die."

 

"Didn't figure you for the moral philanthropist, Cawdor."

 

"No reason you should. But some of those people getting killed could be mine. I don't hold with that."

 

"How can I believe you?"

 

"You taken a glance down this tunnel, Conte?"

 

"A peep, now and again."

 

"Take a good, long one now."

 

"How do I know you won't take my head off when I do?"

 

"Could have killed your man just a minute ago. I chose not to."

 

"What if you're just waiting for a shot at bigger game?"

 

Ryan glanced back at the tangled mass of the plant-thing. "I get hard up for some big game, got all I need already here. How about I step out first? Show of faith."

 

"It'll be a start."

 

Ryan forced out his breath, dropping the muzzle of the Steyr alongside his leg. The others should be ready to take over the mat-trans unit back in the upstairs room. Either way it played for him, they had a chance of getting away.

 

He stepped out into the open, feeling the gun sights settle over him. The plant-thing roared its rage behind him.

 

"I'm here."

 

A slim brown-haired man stepped into view farther up the tunnel.

 

"You're Conte?" Ryan asked.

 

"Yeah."

 

"You see that thing over my shoulder?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Somehow it's wired into the computer systems in the room back this way. You see the LED readout?"

 

"Sure."

 

"When that hits zero, the plague will be jettisoned into the underground water running from here to the oceans. There's no cure. Stuff's left over from the predark days, and tempered to be mighty vicious. If it does what it's supposed to, within a generation all human life on this planet will be chilled. I don't figure your CO would want it to go that way."

 

"Then kill the damn thing."

 

"Tried. Bullets don't faze it. Flares shook it up a bit."

 

"And explosives? Are you hoping to blow it up?"

 

"No, but I got a plan."

 

The other man stood quietly, thinking despite the occasional crack of small-arms fire behind him. "And if I don't have the explosives?"

 

"Then I guess we're both shit out of luck," Ryan said.

 

"What have you got?" Conte demanded.

 

Ryan let him have it. If the man hadn't asked, it meant there were no explosives. But Conte was playing it safe, buying in. "Liquid-nitrogen tanks," Ryan answered. "I set the explosives, the tanks rupture, and that bastard plant gets a dose of instant Ice Age."

 

"Where does that leave you?" Conte asked.

 

"Right where I am already."

 

"You've still got to make it past me," the sergeant said. "I don't intend that you should do that."

 

"Kind of had it figured that way," Ryan said. "But you're going to have to shit or get off the pot. Chron's ticking."

 

"We've got some explosives, but if you think about using them against us, you'll be dead before you can."

 

"We wouldn't be having this little chat if I wasn't serious about the plague," Ryan said. "Me and mine, we'd have already used that mat-trans unit and gotten the hell out of here. That cross your mind any while you been thinking?"

 

"Some."

 

"What's it going to be?"

 

Conte gestured to one of his men, then took up the backpack he was given. "You've got your explosives, Cawdor." He threw the backpack.

 

The canvas bag made it most of the way down the tunnel, then hit the floor and started skidding.

 

Ryan stuck out a foot and stopped it. His guts knotted up as he squatted and caught it up, his hands diving inside. It wouldn't have been hard to just blow the bastard thing up once it got near him, and maybe it was something he would have done himself.

 

Inside, though, the plas ex was unwired. A single detonator was in the side pocket.

 

"You can't give the bastard that stuff," one of Conte's men said.

 

"Shut up, Whittaker," Conte ordered. "There's no reason for that man to be out there unless what he says is true."

 

"No fucking plague is going to kill us. Not after what Calypso did to us. It might kill everybody else, but not us. We could start the world over. The major would take that tack. If there is a disease, it would wipe out any opposition we'd face."

 

Ryan didn't wait to hear any more. Whatever internal problems the White Sands team was having were theirs. He raised his voice, ducking back into the protected area. "One other thing I'd like to ask, Conte."

 

"What's that?"

 

"I need to get by this bastard thing." Ryan settled the backpack over his shoulder, clutching the detonator in his fist.

 

"You said bullets don't hurt it."

 

"No, but I noticed earlier you people have got grenade launchers on those rifles of yours. Figure if you hit it with a round of white heat, it might at least be distracted."

 

"You're standing damn close to the impact area, Cawdor."

 

"That's my problem." Ryan readied himself, watching the curling and snapping tendrils. "And there isn't much choice."

 

"I've got phosphorus rounds."

 

"Tell me when you're ready." Ryan inhaled deeply, pulling as much oxygen into his system as he could, preparing for the increased demands he was going to put on his body.

 

The plant-thing was lunging at him, and thorn-tipped tendrils whipped through the air.

 

"Ready," Conte called.

 

"Do it," Ryan told him. He heard the basso whump of the M-203, then the 40 mm warhead detonated against the plant-thing. White fire wrapped around it, casting off enough heat that it came close to baking Ryan with it.

 

The plant-thing shrilled in hurt and terror, collapsing in on itself and curling into the water.

 

Ryan knew it wasn't going to be enough to kill the mass, but the white heat would hopefully leave it disoriented long enough for him to get by. He pushed himself out of concealment, running for all he was worth, the Steyr and the backpack thumping against his back and sides.

 

His senses, honed in the Deathlands, warned him of the approaching carnage from behind. He leaped, throwing himself into a dive, arching his body to take him under the brackish, nutrient-laden water.

 

No sooner did the liquid close over him than a second explosion hit the surface just to his left. If he hadn't veered his course, it would have caught him dead center.

 

The phosphorus round sent an angry cloud of heat and light coiling through the liquid, hot enough to scald Ryan and bright enough to blind him had he kept his eye open. He swam deep, clawing his way along the stainless-steel floor, letting his memory be his guide.

 

He found the corner marking the entrance into the cryo chambers. He shrugged off the backpack, gathering the straps in his hand. He didn't know if Conte had betrayed him at the end, or if it had been a subordinate breaking command. It didn't matter.

 

He glanced back at the LED readout, visible through the entrance to the chamber011.

 

The plant-thing recovered, coming out of the boiling and steaming water. The screams sounded alien, threatening to burst Ryan's eardrums.

 

The detonator was in his hand as he shoved the backpack at the edge of the liquid-nitrogen tanks. The LED read 008. He tried to set the detonator for three seconds, ended up with five, and knew there wasn't a chance of resetting it. He keyed it to live.

 

By the time he got into motion again, the plant-thing was almost on top of him. The tendrils whipsawed around his head. One of the razor-barbed thorns ripped through his jacket.

 

The LED readout was counting down 006,005

 

Ryan ran, streaking for the trapdoor leading to the mat-trans unit above. He closed his hand around the Steyr. He slipped on the water, ramming his knees through it, forcing himself on.

 

At the ladder to the trapdoor, three of the tendrils snaked through the water and wrapped around his leg. Ryan turned and used the Steyr to block the first of the speeding thorns, figuring he'd just bought himself a ticket on the last train west.

 

Ryan brought the Steyr to his shoulder and yelled, screaming out his rage; pulling the trigger time and time again. The bullets ripped into the space between the viscous black eyes, staggering the creature.

 

The LED clock was remorseless 002, 001

 

The plas ex blew in a thunderous cacophony. The liquid nitrogen jetted out, spraying the plant-thing.

 

On the ladder, Ryan was high enough to avoid all but a light spray. Deafened, still vibrating inside from the intensity of the explosion, he continued to fire. He was only dimly aware of the change in the plant-thing.

 

A white frost formed on it, slowing it almost immediately, then freezing it into place. Ice, clear as glass, formed in the water around it, becoming a solid sheet that extended in all directions.

 

Some of the tendrils broke off under their own weight and were falling even as Ryan's final bullets from the clip suddenly shattered the ice statue that the plant-thing had become.

 

The creature disintegrated into a mass of shards that hit the frozen surface around it. They skittered, spilling in all directions.

 

The tendrils weren't frozen, but they went slack as the icy part of them attached to the main growth went to pieces.

 

Free, Ryan yanked his foot from the freezing water lapping at the ladder. The liquid nitrogen from the cryo chambers continued to spread out into the room. He glanced up at the LED.

 

It was frozen into place 001. A heartbeat later it died, becoming a series of wagon wheels that signified dysfunction.

 

Ryan rammed a new magazine into the Steyr, then pulled himself up the steps. He took a last glance at the icy spikes jutting above the frozen surface that were all that remained of the dead plant-thing.

 

At the top Krysty and the others waited for him, tucked in an antechamber just below the level of the mat-trans unit. Jak was visible through the door, staying below the level of the armaglass windows.

 

"Didn't know if you made it or not, lover," the red-haired woman said. Her lower lip was puffy and bleeding.

 

"Wasn't sure myself," Ryan replied. "You okay?"

 

She nodded. "Whatever it was, it's gone now. I'm glad, too. Never felt anything like that, Ryan. Took over my mind, and all I could do was watch from somewhere outside myself." She shivered. "Would have chilled you if you hadn't stopped me."

 

"But you didn't." Ryan touched her face tenderly, then looked up at Jak. "The White Sands soldiers?"

 

"Looking for you. Down tunnel."

 

"The mat-trans unit?"

 

"Ready."

 

"Let's do it," Ryan said. He led the way up into the mat-trans unit through the secret door.

 

It didn't take long for Conte and his people to notice them inside the mat-trans unit. Two of them fired at the armaglass, causing the others to duck the ricochets. Bullets weren't going to get through.

 

"Everyone get ready," Ryan said, "we're getting the hell out of here."

 

Conte approached the armaglass, peering through, just as Ryan closed the door to start the jump mechanism. "Your round, Cawdor."

 

The words were barely audible coming through the thick armaglass. Ryan nodded.

 

"What you said about the plague," Conte asked, "that was real?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Did you stop it?"

 

"I think so."

 

Conte nodded. "I'm glad."

 

The mat-trans unit powered up, humming and throbbing, the familiar fog beginning to fill the chamber.

 

"I didn't give that order to shoot you," Conte said.

 

"Figured that," Ryan replied. He'd already noticed the rat-faced man crumpled in the corner of the room unconscious.

 

"Won't stop me from hunting you down and killing you when the time comes," Conte said. "I got my orders."

 

"Figured that, too."

 

"Just so there's no misunderstandings."

 

Ryan nodded, then sat on the floor, taking his place next to Krysty. The fog blurred everything, but he heard J.B.'s voice coming from somewhere close.

 

"Probably would have been better off killing him," the Armorer said. "You look in his eyes, you know that's one dedicated man."

 

"I know," Ryan said. "And mebbe I would have tried if there'd been a way clear."

 

"Somehow, though, it wouldn't have felt right."

 

"Yeah."

 

Krysty slid a hand through Ryan's, then the mat-trans unit took them out of there.