James Axler – Bitter Fruit

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.”