James Axler – Gaia’s Demise

Mildred reached out and lifted a green leaf off the sharp end of an easel. “I’d say we found them.”

The service elevator was straight ahead, steam tables and room service carts in neat rows along a wall with faded lines painted on the floor.

“Tidy folks,” J.B. commented, the Uzi sweeping for targets.

Mildred nodded. “Hyatt was the best.”

At a door marked Service Stairs, J.B. and Dean stood guard, while Mildred turned the handle and eased it open. Almost instantly, a hairy fat spider darted around the edge and dashed onto her hand. Disgusted, the physician shook it off. The insect landed on the floor, and Doc crushed it under his boot.

“Filthy things,” he muttered. “Always did hate them. Especially since our past close encounter.”

As expected, the stairwell was pitch-dark, but under the candles they could dimly see the stairs were marked with the prints of countless bare feet. Assuming combat formation, the companions started up the concrete stairs, watching for traps.

Oddly, their footsteps didn’t echo, and, reaching the fourth floor, they discovered why—the stairwell ended abruptly. Nothing was above them but the empty interior of the gutted hotel, each level painstakingly removed to make the building hollow.

Astonished, the companions stepped onto on the carpeted floor, looking upward at seventeen stories of banked windows and a very distant skylight. Vines and creepers covered the interior; hammocks hung like nesting pods along the sides. The middle was clear all the way to the roof, the ragged ends of steel beams and rough concrete slabs marring the vertical checkerboard of mirrored glass.

“Those hammocks are arranged so the greenies can catch sunlight while sleeping,” Mildred guessed. “They climb the vines to get to their beds.”

“We can’t follow up there,” Dean stated, listening to the building creak faintly as it swayed in the wind. “We get halfway and snip! Down we go.”

“By Gadfrey, this is a mighty fine defense,” Doc said in annoyance. “Positively Horacic in its simplicity.”

“But where the hell are they?” J.B. demanded, studying the floor underfoot. The carpeting was clean, no spots from dropped food or drink. “There’s hammocks here for a hundred, mebbe more, and we’ve only chilled twenty or so.”

“Could be room for new families,” Mildred said, wrinkling her nose at the sharp smell of the vines. It was similar to ivy, but resembled hemp. Clearly another mutation. “But more likely, the rest are chilled. ”

“Hey, that’s why they risked death to get our horses,” Dean realized, a flash of anger coming, then going just as quickly. “They were starving to death.”

“Not much to eat in the desert,” she agreed as a spider ran by, boldly going over the toe of her boot.

“Sure as hell hope they’re chilled,” the Armorer said gruffly. A vine brushed against his neck, and he swatted it away. “Otherwise, there’s only two options. They’re either terrified of our blasters and have ran away in hiding—”

“Or else,” Doc finished with a grimace, “the greenies are preparing a major ambush, and this whole city is one huge trap.”

AS THE MISTS faded from the mat-trans unit, Dr. Silas Jamaisvous appeared, standing on a hexagonal platform of tiny lights twinkling from inside the hidden machinery. Next to him was a forklift, its prongs filled with foam boxes sealed with yellow-and-black-striped warning tape.

The man waited a few moments for indications of jump sickness to hit, and was relieved when none occurred. Sometimes he was driven to the floor in retching agony, but those bouts were occurring less frequently these days. It was as if his constant nightmares of the chron jump were somehow making him immune to the smaller miseries of disintegration and instantaneous travel.

Climbing into the seat of the forklift, Silas started the electric motor and carefully drove the machine off the portable gateway and onto the bare concrete floor. Stacks and crates of every description filled the Quonset hut, long rifle boxes, drums of fuel, foot lockers, backpacks, everything his growing army needed. Even the hut had come through the gateway, painstakingly carried one piece at a time until Silas was finally able to have his troops take down the canvas tent around the gateway and surround the unit with the more secure domain of the hut.