James Axler – Bitter Fruit

“I am here, Victor,” the plant-thing said.

Boldt’s mouth was dry. “The plague, Father. It is time to set off the plague.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Ryan peered through the gap in the steel door Krysty had left. Already the mutant rush of incredible strength was leaving her. Spots of high color dotted her cheeks, and her arms trembled.

Often, the aftermath of calling on the power left her depleted of strength. Occasionally it hadn’t seemed to affect her at all.

“You okay?” he asked gruffly, raking his gaze across the computer systems.

“I will be, lover,” she said in a shaky voice. “We’ve got to be moving.”

“Can you?”

“Yeah.”

Ryan nodded, then stepped through the gap. The only movements were the lights racing across the machinery and the images flickering on the monitor screens. He spotted the door against the far wall with his second look, his perspective blunted by the equipment.

Ryan crossed the room, his eye smarting some with the adjustment to the greater light in the nerve center. He switched off the flashlight and slipped it into a pocket.

The mat-trans unit was in the corner where he remembered seeing it in the monitor view. All it would take was a matter of minutes to get the others. Then they could make the jump back to Deathlands, leave this mess behind.

Except there was the matter of the plague.

A heartbeat later he was down the tunnel, going slower than he would have had Krysty not been so exhausted. He’d just reached a sharp corner, where the tunnel sloped down, when the bullet tore through the air above his head and bounced off the root, scarring the fibrous surface.

Ryan turned, taking three quick steps back to bring Krysty down with him. Her reflexes were slowed, coming back online with real effort. He squeezed off quick rounds, backing off the sec guards who suddenly filled the mouth of the tunnel they’d passed through.

The bullets sent the sec crew dodging back. “Can’t stay here,” Ryan said. “You’re going to have to move on. I’ll cover you.” He didn’t like it that she was going on unprotected, either, but there seemed to be a shortage of choices.

“I know, lover.”

Ryan fed a fresh magazine into the SIG-Sauer and snapped the slide to strip the top round. “You tell me when.” He hefted the Steyr and managed to snap off a round that caught one of the sec men in the chest, driving the guy back and down.

Krysty dropped to her knees, her eyes rolled back in her head. “Oh, Gaia, he’s talking to the Other! The Other is going to set loose the plague! We’ve got to stop him!”

Ryan fired two more rounds, covering the red-haired woman with his body. He felt her convulsing against him, her strength almost more than he could handle.

“Gaia, Ryan, can’t you sense it? Can’t you sense the Other?”

Ryan didn’t know what she was talking about. But one thing he did knowthey were definitely between a rock and a hard place. Death lay ahead and behind them.

“I SEE THEM!” Turley radioed. In the empty silence filling the tunnel, his voice carried more than Conte would have liked. Of course, there was the matter of the lights they were carrying, too.

The sergeant scanned the intersection up ahead, trying to see which way Turley was looking. “Where?”

“Up ahead and to the left.”

“How far?”

“Seventy, eighty yards.”

“They know you’re there?”

“Don’t appear to.”

“Okay,” Conte said, “let’s follow them, see if we can box them in somewhere and terminate them.” In a way he was surprised Cawdor was going to make it this easy. “How many of them do you see?”

“Four.”

“Cawdor?”

“Doesn’t appear to be among them.”

“Close in. He can’t be far.” Conte moved with his team, listening as Whittaker tracked the sec teams that were vectoring in on them. If Cawdor didn’t have a way out figured, the sergeant knew it was possible they were all dead men.

“BEING FOLLOWED,” Jak said.

“Already noticed them,” J.B. replied. The Armorer was running point position, but the group was so close, a couple of strides and he could have reached back and touched the albino.