End Program

Chapter Three

The cloud of thorns hurtled toward Jak. He saw them and rolled, moving faster than he could consciously think, pulling up the collar of his jacket even as the thorns thudded against his back. The garment held, the tough fabric repelling most of the spines, a handful embedding up and down its length. Around him, hunks of trees and bushes were obliterated, cut to ribbons by the deadly onslaught.

Jak scrambled forward like a predark sprinter at the starting blocks, launching from the ground back onto his feet. He sprinted back toward the hole in the ground where the redoubt was located.

Behind Jak, the mutie plant’s limbs flailed through the air, sending a second volley of thorns at his retreating figure. Jak peered back over his shoulder just once, saw the way the plant was moving, long, snakelike roots pulling up from the soil and slivering across the ground, propelling itself after him. Amid the green leaves, the man-face was strained, mouth open, eyes wide, watching Jak angrily as the plant trailed across the ground. Jak whipped up his Colt Python pistol and fired a lone .357 Magnum bullet at the face looming in the heart of the monster. He had turned away by the time the bullet struck, but he heard the swish of leaves tearing as the projectile slapped against the plant’s greenery.

* * *

DOWN BELOW, RYAN and his companions heard the shot and went on high alert.

“Triple red, people,” Ryan ordered, bringing his blaster up to cover the hole in the ceiling through which Jak had exited the redoubt. “We don’t know if that was Jak or someone else—”

“It was Jak,” J.B. confirmed. “Sound of a Colt Python, can’t mistake it.”

“What if someone else has the same weapon, John Barrymore?” Doc asked without looking away from the hole, his LeMat trained on the tiny patch of sky that could be seen through it. “Or what if they took it.”

“Point taken,” J.B. said, “though it’d be a bastard coincidence if it was someone else’s.”

Before the companions could discuss the issue further, Jak leaped through the opening above them, moving with the agility of a monkey. Behind and above Jak, the companions saw the thick, trailing cords of the mutie plant as it reached into the hole. In a second, it launched another wave of razor-sharp thorns—straight into the redoubt.

“Gaia!” Krysty cried as Jak came into sight.

“Get back!” Jak screamed as he dropped through the gap in the ceiling.

His six companions stepped back without question, and the clutch of thorns thudded against leaves and the hard surfaces of the walls and floor, striking with rattling beats. Doc took two on his left sleeve, while three more struck J.B.’s fedora—but none of them penetrated its target.

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc gasped, brushing the thorns from his coat before they scratched him.

“What the hell is that?” Ricky hissed, stepping forward and raising his Webley Mk VI to target the shadowy mutie plant as it reached through the hole.

“Get back, kid,” J.B. cautioned, reaching forward and shoving Ricky back. The youth was adventurous and courageous, but he had an impetuous streak that could get them all into trouble, J.B. knew, if he didn’t keep his eyes on him.

Jak stood on a branch twelve feet above the floor of the control room. He leaped, tucking and rolling as he landed amid the dense foliage, his blaster clutched close to his chest.

“Friend of yours?” Krysty asked as Jak recovered at her feet.

“Angry plant,” Jak replied, turning to face the gap in the ceiling.

“So I see,” Krysty stated.

Impossibly, the plant lunged into the redoubt, roots trailing behind it, branches flailing ahead like the limbs of an octopus. With the plant blocking the hole in the roof, the control room became suddenly darker, its details lost in shadow. Whatever the plant was, it had a hunting nature and a rudimentary instinct, chasing after the young man who had disturbed its resting place.

The human face in its center eyed the companions in the semidarkness, eyeballs swiveling. It spotted Mildred with her colourful beaded plaits and sent one of its snakelike limbs toward her. The limb was fifteen feet in length and lined with thorns and budding flowers the color of sour milk.

Mildred stepped back and blasted a shot from her ZKR 551 target pistol, the weapon booming in the underground chamber. The bullet struck the limb, carving a line along its surface before embedding halfway down its length. At the same moment, another cluster of thorns spit from its surface, striking her along the left side of her torso and both legs.

Mildred yelled in pain, dropping to the floor.

The limb flailed toward her face, but Doc stepped in to block it, slicing at it with his sword stick. Then he fired his LeMat directly into the crook of the joint where that limb met the trunk. There was no time to check on Mildred’s condition.

Across the room, J.B. and Ryan were busy fencing with another limb.

“Ugly green son of a bitch,” J.B. snarled as he fired a burst of 9 mm bullets at the flailing limb.

The narrow end of the spiny protrusion whipped around and around like a bolo before grabbing J.B.’s blaster arm and yanking him off his feet.

J.B. yelled in agony as he was lifted from the floor and felt the thorns digging into him. Ryan took careful aim, holding his SIG Sauer in a two-handed grip. The one-eyed man squeezed the trigger, sending a 9 mm slug into the limb that clutched his oldest friend. The Swiss bullet drilled into and through the limb, three inches in diameter, pulling a great gout of green bark and fibrous material with it as it emerged from the other side.

There was a sound like splitting wood and suddenly, the fractured plant limb struggled with J.B.’s weight, swaying to and fro as it tried to hang on to its victim. Still in its grip, J.B. brought around the muzzle of his mini-Uzi until it pointed at the core of the plant, where that human torso rested amid the green. Then he fired, holding down the trigger for a short burst as the limb tossed him left and right. The volley of 9 mm bullets punched into the main stem of the plant in a line of dark circles, moving upward toward the human lungs and face in its center. As the bullets reached for the man within, other parts of the plant seemed to lunge forward—thick, waxy leaves swishing across the path of the bullets like a gaudy slut doing an old-style fan dance, each fan shuttering into place.

“The man’s the driver,” J.B. hollered as he swayed six feet off the ground, still snagged in the plant’s grip. “Chill him and we might get out of here with our asses inta—”

J.B.’s statement was cut short as he was slammed headfirst into a wall by the flailing limb, the brim of his fedora snapping back, his throat issuing a croak of pain.

Ryan took another shot, lining up carefully with the figure in the center of the mutie plant. Around him, Ricky, Jak and Krysty were doing the same while Doc thrust and parried a lively limb with his sword cane.

Thorns whizzed from the fast-moving limbs, hammering into the walls and striking the companions as they fought.

Ricky held his hand up to shield his eyes as a wave of thorns rattled against him, ripping threads from his clothes and embedding themselves into his flesh.

The mutie plant loomed through the gap in the ceiling, half in and half out of the control room, but it was large enough to crowd the room itself. A tendril lashed toward Ryan as he loosed another shot from the SIG Sauer, whipping him across the face and knocking him back.

“Fireblast!” Ryan yelled as he toppled backward, slamming against the overgrowth, the leaves and ferns forming a soft bed beneath him. He was momentarily disorientated, the hard impact of the floor cushioned only slightly by the springiness of the flattened leaves. Ryan heard a whisper of sound, felt fléchettes of thorns pepper his chest and face, digging in with vicious precision.

Across the room, Jak found himself tangled with one of the vines, one arm and both legs trapped in the whipcordlike tendril as it snaked around him. Jak grunted as the vine pressed against his chest and legs, lifting him up from the floor. His blaster hand was trapped, the Colt Python useless where it was pressed against his right leg as if he had been tied.

Jak struggled as the mutie plant dragged him over the undergrowth.

“Got me!” Jak shouted, trying to alert his companions. But even as he said it he could see that only Krysty and Doc remained standing and they were both busy with their own battles. The plant, it seemed, could multitask, combating multiple foes at once.

Jak was dragged up high into the room, and he dipped his head as the ceiling came racing toward him.

Crash!

Jak found himself slammed against the ceiling, gasping as pain erupted across his back and his right shoulder began to go numb. Then he felt something squeeze against him where the plant held him, like a boa constrictor ensnaring its prey. Jak felt the press of spines against him, pushing through the protective material of his clothes.

He twisted and turned in place, felt the rain patter against his skin as he was dragged through the hole in the roof. His blaster was useless where it was, but his left arm was still free. In a fraction of second, Jak flipped his wrist in a sharp movement and a throwing knife dropped into his hand from his sleeve. As he was drawn toward the human head amid the monstrous plant, Jak thrust the knife forward, stabbing the man’s face right across the jaw. A gout of flesh and sap went sailing into the air, and the man made a kind of ticking noise from somewhere deep in his throat.

“Let. Go. Me,” Jak snarled, forcing out the words as the pressure of the vines increased on his ribs and lungs.

Still inside the room, Krysty heard Jak’s strained words and looked up. She was fencing with another of those tendrillike vines, this one thick as a person’s leg. The tendril kept trying to cinch around Krysty’s feet and she kept dancing out of its way, using the butt of her blaster to rain hammer blows against it rather than waste precious bullets.

At Jak’s call, Krysty leaped over the swinging tendril as it made another pass for her, grabbing an overhanging branch and pulling herself up from the floor. As she clambered up the branch, she called to Doc, who had drawn his sword from its sheath and was hacking at the writhing tendrils of the plant.

“Doc! Jak needs our help!”

Surrounded by a cloud of debris he had hacked from the living plant, Doc looked up, his pale blue eyes sweeping past Krysty’s hurrying figure and up to where Jak was being drawn toward the human face that waited at the plant’s core.

Krysty began to chant quietly, calling on the goddess of the Earth, Gaia, who had gifted the women of Krysty’s family with an incredible power. Krysty felt a surge of strength rush through her, like a jolt of electricity firing through her muscles, igniting every artery, every vein. With the surge of strength came speed and stamina, turning the titian-haired woman superhuman for just a brief period.

With the power channeling through her, Krysty skipped over a grasping tendril as a wave of thorns launched from its surface. The thorns punctured her jeans and she was spattered with sap, but she felt no pain from the impact, merely kept moving through the vegetation toward the squirming thing that loomed above. Her hair seemed to jut around her in lightning bolts now, great slashes of red encircling her face like blood held frozen in the air.

Behind Krysty, Doc raised his LeMat and rested his finger against the secondary trigger, the one that would unleash a blast from the shotgun barrel.

The mutie plant jabbed at Krysty with its tendrils, but she batted them aside, yanking one so hard that it snapped in a shower of gooey yellow sap. Jak was above her now, his feet dangling inches above Krysty’s head.

Without slowing, Krysty leaped, grabbing the thick vine that had wrapped around her pale-skinned partner and pulling herself up. The vine struggled with the weight of two bodies, and as Krysty rocked it the vine sagged toward the floor, depositing Jak there with a thump. The tendril was still wrapped around the albino, thorns digging into his clothes and the flesh beneath. Krysty took a secure hold of the tendril midway between where it held Jak and where it emerged from the stalk. And then she pulled, yanking both sides apart, twisting and ripping until they split, vomiting a splurge of yellow gunk as they tore.

From across the room, Doc’s voice carried with eminent clarity. “Krysty—get down!”

Krysty dropped, her red hair trailing behind her like a flame. Then Doc squeezed the trigger of the LeMat, sending a burst of buckshot at the heart of the predatory plant. The sound of the blaster was like the crack of thunder in the enclosed space. In the center of the plant, the man’s face and neck exploded as the buckshot struck, chunks of flesh, leaf and branch sailing in all directions.

The plant wavered for a moment, unleashing the last of its projectile thorns in a cruel flinch that peppered the room with debris, rattling against the armaglass of the mat-trans chamber with a sound like rain on a tin roof. Then, finally, it was still.

Doc let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, his blaster still pointing at the center of the sagging plant. “Is...is everyone all right?” he asked.

Jak lay on the floor gasping, like a man who had been drowning tasting air thought lost. The tendril was still cinched around him, but the pressure had eased. Krysty crouched beside him, using the last vestiges of her enhanced strength to untangle Jak from his attacker. The Gaia power’s fury could be measured in heartbeats, long enough to save a companion’s life but not enough to change the world. In its aftermath, Krysty began to weaken, feeling utterly drained. As she loosened the tangle from Jak, he pulled his right hand free and helped her, producing another of his knives from a hidden sheath and using that to hack at the last of the sickly green limb.

Across the room, Ryan lay in agony, spines from the plant embedded across his face and chest. Mildred had recovered and, though woozy, she made her way past overgrown comp consoles to assist Ryan. He clawed at his face, plucking the thorns away before they could sink any deeper. They were nasty things, barbed down their sides with little spiny hairs that felt like needles pulling at the skin when Ryan removed them. A big thorn had embedded in the leather patch that masked his missing left eye, and Mildred pulled the whole patch away. Ryan hissed as the thorn’s point scratch at his flesh.

“You’re okay now,” Mildred soothed. “It’s okay.” Though she said that, she saw that Ryan’s face was dotted with black spines.

J.B. emerged from the deep vegetation close to the door of the room, wiping blood from his split lip and brushing himself down. He was scratched all over and he walked heavily, as if he had hurt one of his legs, but he seemed mobile at least.

“People,” he said, getting the attention of the others. “Our troubles aren’t over yet.”

“What do you mean, J.B.?” Ricky asked. He was still disentangling himself from a wreath of spiny briars, pulling them carefully away from the bare skin of his hands and arms.

“The mat-trans took a hit,” J.B. said, nodding toward the armaglass walls of the chamber, which were now almost entirely hidden behind the creeping vines of the mutie plant. The little that could be seen of the tinted glass was pocked with hundreds of thorns, their dark spiny protrusions trailing across the surface. The walls creaked ominously.

“¡Salir!” Ricky cried. “How will we use—?”

“I’m thinking it might be now or never, kid,” J.B. interrupted as he strode hurriedly toward the mat-trans. “These walls are supposed to be tough, but I have a feeling that they won’t last more than a few minutes under that pressure.”

“Can we remove the creepers?” Krysty asked weakly.

In reply J.B. merely shrugged before turning his attention to Jak.

“What did you see up there? Anything worth sticking around for?”

Sitting on the floor, plucking thorns from his jacket, Jak shook his head. “Leaves everywhere. Sun hidin’, rain pissin’.”

J.B. was the unofficial second-in-command of the group, and he accepted the leadership role when the situation demanded it. With Ryan wounded and the clock ticking, J.B. figured now was the right time to take charge.

“Any more of these muties?” the Armorer pressed, indicating the dying plant. It had taken all seven of them to take out just one of the strange hybrid plants—J.B. didn’t relish taking on another, especially given the injuries they were now suffering as a result.

Jak looked thoughtful, shaking his head slowly. “Not sure. Not see.”

With his mind racing, the Armorer looked around the overgrown control room, picking out the struggling forms of Ryan, Krysty and Jak, the scratches on the exposed skin of Ricky, Doc and Mildred. Acid rain. Deranged plants. Wounded among their ranks. A mat-trans on the brink of dying. It all added up to one thing. “We should bolt, right now,” J.B. announced. “Anyone disagree? Ryan?”

The one-eyed man looked up from his position among the vegetation where he and Mildred were removing thorns from his flesh. J.B. could see the hollow in his face where he no longer wore his eye patch.

Before Ryan could reply, he added, “If we don’t leave now, that mat-trans won’t be running when we need it.” As if to emphasise the Armorer’s point, the walls of the mat-trans let out a loud creak under the pressure of the creeping vines, a fracture appearing in the armaglass like a streak of black lightning.

Ryan nodded. “Lead the way then,” he said, rising slowly from his sitting position with Mildred’s assistance.

The rest of the team moved toward the mat-trans doors, with J.B. standing in the open doorway itself, hurrying them along. “Triple red, people,” J.B. said. “We count this place’s survival time in minutes, not hours.”

Krysty stumbled through the doors with Jak’s assistance, as weak as a kitten after using the Gaia power. Now she was barely able to stand even with Jak’s help. Still, she stopped just inside the mat-trans chamber and waited, her arm propped against a glass wall, watching as Ryan and Mildred made their way inside. Ryan was Krysty’s lover, and they cared deeply for each other in this unforgiving world.

She joined Ryan as he pushed through the doors. Though weak herself, she asked how he was before he could speak. “Were you hit bad, lover?”

Ryan wiped a hand across his face. It was dotted with red marks where blood surged to the surface. “I’ll live.”

The walls of the mat-trans seemed to bulge as the creepers pressed against them. J.B. saw one of the strange creepers move, whipping upward across the armaglass as if it was still alive. A multiheaded tendril crept around the edge of the open door, reaching inside. Through the few plant-free gaps that remained in the armaglass, J.B. spotted the shadow of something moving in the room beyond. Something green and fleshy.

“Time to go, people,” J.B. said the moment Doc and Ricky were through the door, pulling it closed in an instant.

The armaglass cracked with a sound like thunder even as the mat-trans powered up, sending its human cargo on its way to their next destination.

Chapter Four

Laying in the darkness, Ryan rolled his head back and forth. All he could remember of the jump was the armaglass imploding, accompanied by a whole lot of hurt. Wherever they had jumped to, wherever they had materialized—that was something he didn’t know. If he had ever had that knowledge, it was lost to him now.

Ryan reached up again, knocking his right elbow on the side of the confined space where he lay. His hand played across his face, feeling that uncanny intrusion to his empty eye socket, the eyeball that hadn’t been there hours—days? weeks?—earlier, when he was last conscious.

“Fireblast,” he muttered, the word barely louder than a breath.

He listened to the whisper echo around him, the way it was contained in the tiny space that he was sealed within. The close walls, the scant room for movement, the panel above his head—it all spoke of one thing: a coffin.

He was inside a coffin, trapped here by person or persons unknown.

Ryan took a deep breath, wondering in the back of his mind just how much air he had. The air smelled okay, fresh not stale, and he couldn’t detect any hint that he was being poisoned by the carbon dioxide buildup from his own exhalations, or by anything else for that matter. So maybe he hadn’t been here that long, or the box wasn’t sealed as tightly as it might be.

Ryan raised his hands and pushed, shoving at the panel above him. It felt cool and slick, more like plastic molding than wood. He pushed once, then tried harder but it didn’t move.

He tried with his legs, pulling them up as far as he could and kicking first forward, then straight below him where his feet had been resting. There was a panel below but that didn’t give either.

“Dammit,” Ryan growled. “Where the nuking hell am I? Let me out of here!”

There was silence for a moment, just the ringing echo of his own words racing around and around in his ears.

Then something happened.

A light came on, softly at first, illuminating the top panel of the coffinlike space. It faded up from a dark gray to a lighter one, then took on a soft, yellow tint that grew brighter and warmer as Ryan watched. He blinked, both eyes getting used to the brightness.

Both eyes. Well, that was new.

Ryan peered around his container. It had white walls with a glossy finish like plastic or painted metal, though it was warmer than metal, coated wood maybe. The ceiling was made from some translucent material, behind which an unknown illumination device had been set. The device showed no bulb, it merely seemed to make the whole panel glow, though Ryan noted that the edges were slightly dimmer, especially where the corners met. The whole unit appeared to be sealed closed, offering no obvious way out. As he looked, his hands automatically moved across his body, checking for his holster. It was gone; and so were his clothes.

“Who’s there?” Ryan asked, pitching his voice loudly.

“I am,” a male voice replied softly. The voice seemed to come from either side of Ryan, close to his ears.

“Where am I?” he demanded, agitated. As he spoke, his fingers curled, turning his hands into fists. He might have to fight his way out of this; it wasn’t the first time he had awoken inside a prison.

“Remain calm,” the soft male voice replied. It was emanating from the walls to either side of Ryan’s head. He couldn’t tell how; he turned but could not see any evidence of a speaker or a hole. “I’ll be with you momentarily.”

Ryan lay there under the illuminated panel, clenching his hands into fists, ready to take a swing at the face of his jailer.

Chapter Five

Ryan listened intently as he lay beneath the illuminated panel. He was trapped, at the mercy of the person behind the voice, and he didn’t know who the voice belonged to or why he was being held.

There was silence for a minute, maybe less, it was hard to tell. Then Ryan heard the soft susurrus of machinery coming to life, and he felt something subtly moving beneath his back.