- Bestest Girl
The makeshift launcher bucked against Char’s shoulder as she pulled the trigger. A thwump echoed through the factory, followed by a hollow pop as the bottle arced through the air toward the colossal knot of pulsing vines.
‘Go, go, go…’
The bottle hit just short of the creature’s heart, bursting open against a vine the size of a phone pole and spraying ruby-red poison in a wide splash. The vines bubbled and smoked, and an ear-piercing scream rang out through the factory. Char couldn’t be sure if it was the sound of the creature in pain, or the rasping of thorns against the metal of the walkway as the vines stirred and lifted.
Char ducked back behind the stack of broken conveyor housings and sucked in a breath, heart hammering. “Well,” she muttered to Lulu, “We pissed it off. That’s… something.”
She hadn’t been sure it would even work. Her one test shot had landed short of her target, but she couldn’t afford more than one. There was only enough CO2 in the canister for a few more shots.
She risked a glance over the top. The vines were twitching, agitated. She’d hurt it, and it was searching for the source of its pain. Ducking back down, she pulled out the second bottle of herbicide. There was one other bottle in her inventory, but that one was her Hail Mary.
Wrapping the bottle in layers of cloth from a torn-up t-shirt to ensure a snug fit, she shoved it down the barrel of her Frankenstein’s monster of a spud gun. It looked like a death trap, cobbled together from bits and pieces, and liberally coated in melted rubber to seal the seams.
“Lu, if this thing explodes in my face, go find someone smarter than I am to hang out with, OK?” She reached back over her shoulder to turn the valve on the CO2 canister. It was held on her back with a makeshift harness of cargo straps. The gas hissed from the pressurized canister into the green plastic sprayer tank that she was using as a pressure chamber. It was designed to hold liquid fertilizer under much lower pressure, not this kind of stress. She prayed that it wouldn’t split apart on her. She listened to the hissing transfer of the pressurized gas, and when it slowed, she closed the valve.
“OK, let’s see if I can get it a little closer to the center,” she muttered as she popped up over the barricade and took careful aim. This time, she remembered to pause and use Assess Foe:
Vasculex Hybrid Mother-Root
Level 26
Elite
“Elite? What the hell does that mean?”
The mass twisted and writhed like a nest of snakes, thorns flashing like rusted daggers. In the center of it all, a bulb of fleshy leaves, veined and malignant, pulsed like a beating heart.
She lined up her shot, aiming just a little higher this time. It was going to be a difficult shot. The vines writhed into her line of fire and back out again. She slowed her breathing and watched, waiting for the perfect chance.
There.
The vines parted, and she pulled the trigger. The thwump sounded again, and the launcher jerked in her hands. The bottle arced through the air, slipping past a thrashing vine and bursting against the fleshy leaves of the bulb. Acrid smoke rose from the bubbling leaf-flesh, and the vines went wild.
Char watched for a few seconds, gauging the damage. The areas where the herbicide had splashed against the creature were turning brown, drying out, and dying. Good. She smiled as she ducked back down to load her last round.
This round was different. She’d found an old generator with a little diesel left in the tank. It wasn’t much, and it was full of rust and sediment, but it should still be flammable. Currently, it was sloshing around at the bottom of her last empty water bottle. The road flare was shoved in through the mouth of the bottle, and a ring of melted rubber sealed the opening. This one was going to be tricky. Once the flare was lit, she had to fire immediately to keep from melting the barrel of the launcher, and it was going to fly differently, so she couldn’t be certain of her aim. But if it worked…
She pulled her thoughts away from that, not wanting to jinx herself. “Plan for the worst, Adair. If this doesn’t work, what’s the next step?” She didn’t have an answer. Those thorny vines were a blender, and she didn’t care to become a Char Margarita.
She decided to get closer. The flare shot was lighter than the others and not as aerodynamic. The other bottles had been filled to the brim, but this one was going to slosh. She didn’t want to risk it tumbling and coming up short. It was her last ace. She had to make it count.
The two of them had taken the time to clear out the patrolling vine-puppets in this section of the maze, so they were able to move quickly. Char took them right to the edge where the passage out of the maze opened onto the open area at the back of the factory.
This boss area was different from the other two. Where those had been metal walkways over a lower level, this was a wide area of grating with three circular openings leading to vats of glowing chemicals below. Large, industrial pipes and strange machinery extended through the openings, all of it overgrown with the vines and roots of the Vasculex-hybrid. The tanks glowed with the same virulent, unsettling green light as the others. The writhing vines above the light cast twisting shadows against the walls and ceiling that made the whole area seem to squirm with life.
The back wall of the factory was lined with hydroponic tanks, water lines, and banks of darkened grow lights. The massive heart of the Vasculex trailed out of one of the tanks, as though it had grown too large and burst free.
Lulu sat watching, her eyes on the Mother-Root, while Char climbed to the top of some unidentified machine to find a better vantage. She loaded the launcher with the road-flare round, seated carefully to keep the business end of the flare just outside the launcher tube. When it was time, she’d light it, then use a makeshift tamper to shove it down inside just before firing. It was an awkward and chancy way of doing things, and there was a lot that could go wrong.
She had to take her time, watching the creature carefully and waiting for an opening. As she watched, she noticed something. She’d thought that it was the glowing green chemicals in the vats that had caused the Vasculex to mutate into a monster, but she had it backward.
As she watched, a viscous glowing green fluid dripped from the bottom of the pulsing central bulb into the tanks below. Two of the larger vines spread out, and the green fluid ran along them to drip into the other two tanks, as though the plant-monster was spreading her corruption on purpose. Was it sentient? That thought sent a shiver down her spine.
The herbicide had done its job better than Char had expected… but not as well as she’d hoped. Some of the vines were withering and turning brown, and there was a spreading brown patch on the central bulb. The spread was slow, though, and as she watched, Char could see that the spread was slowing. If the Vasculex could heal like she could, then she couldn’t afford to wait much longer, or her efforts would be undone.
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The Mother-Root had calmed from its earlier wild flailing. Something seemed purposeful in the way the vines moved now, almost as if they were systematically searching the space around the bulb. ‘It doesn’t know where the attack came from,’ Char realized.
Holding the strike cap ready to ignite the flare and focused on watching the monster, Char lost track of what was going on below her until Lulu let out a sharp bark of warning.
Char spun, startled. Her foot shifted and caught the pressure tank of the spud launcher. The striker cap in her hand made her catch awkwardly, and she fumbled her grip. The jury-rigged weapon slipped off the side of the machine, the plastic tube connected to the tank on her back snapped, and the launcher fell to the concrete factory floor below, landing between the two vine-puppets that had been advancing on Lulu, and breaking onto three pieces and a spray of plastic shrapnel as the pressure tank shattered and the makeshift seals and connections failed with the impact.
So much for her last ace.
She didn’t have time to mourn the loss. The vine-puppets were backing Lulu out into the open boss area. She slipped her arms out of the harness to ditch the now-useless CO2 tank and leapt down the ten feet to the ground.
“Shit, shit, shit,” she chanted to herself as her boots hit the ground hard. The launcher was ruined. There was no putting it back together. She called her sword out of her inventory and slashed through the tether vines of one of the vine-puppets menacing Lulu. Lulu tackled the other one, her weight bearing it to the ground, her teeth buried in its throat. With a powerful overhand slash, Char brought her sword down in a crosscut, slicing through the puppet she faced from right shoulder to left underarm. Before the top half of the puppet could hit the ground, she spun to sever the tethers of Lulu’s opponent.
The Vasculex Mother-Root had stopped moving. The hairs on the back of Char’s neck stood on end as she felt like she was being watched by an apex predator. The smell of diesel cut through the background stench of chemicals and rot, and her eyes fell on the barrel of the launcher with the flare still sticking out of it.
She couldn’t fire it from a safe distance, but she could still use it. Checking back down the passage and not seeing any more puppets coming, she stowed her sword again and snatched up the broken pipe. She pulled the bottle and flare free, shaking off the scrap of fabric that wrapped it. The striker cap was still attached. Good.
She judged the distance between her and the heart of the Vasculex. The bulb pulsed, but the vines were still, waiting.
“Lulu, stay,” she ordered, holding out her hand, palm out to reinforce the command. “If I fuck this up, there’s no point getting both of us killed.”
Lulu gave her victim one last shake to be sure it wouldn’t move again and looked up at Char. Her tail wagged, and she let out a soft whine, but she sat with a chuff, ears perked and alert.
Char sparked the flare to life as she took her first few steps, then she broke into an all-out run.
As soon as her footsteps rang out on the metal floor, the vines flashed out, seeking her. She blanked her mind, feeling for the twinges of warning from her Foresight, and letting Primal Grace guide her movements as she leapt and dodged in the most high-stakes game of football she’d ever played.
The flare bathed the area in flickering shadows and hellish red light. Shadows writhed around her as the vines lashed out to stop her. She didn’t stop. She didn’t think. She ran.
Over that vine, under another, sway to the side, jump. Her steps and the impacts of the vines made the metal floor ring. A passing thorn tore open her left shoulder, but she didn’t stop. Almost there, she raised her right arm high, aiming for the dry brown patch on the bulb’s side. Two more steps… one… her Foresight screamed at her and she tried to duck aside, but it was no good, two vines were converging on her, and she wasn’t going to be fast enough.
She threw. The vines hit her. She was tumbling, her breath knocked from her. A familiar burning itch spread from a thorn broken off in her side. She rolled to avoid another blow, struggling to pull in a breath.
With a whoomp, the bottle burst against the base of the bulb. The diesel spread across the fleshy leaves, and the flare… bounced off.
It lay there, still burning, a foot away from anything flammable. Char’s heart sank into her stomach.
“No, no, no, no,” she muttered as her breath came back, “I did not go through this shit just to lose now.” She rolled to her hands and knees and scrambled closer, dropping and rolling to avoid another flailing vine. “Oh, yeah, let's dive into the creepy dungeon, get a little experience, what could go wrong? Great thinking, Char.” She kept moving. Got to her feet. Juked and limboed and wove through the Cuisinart of thorny, thrashing vines, moving sideways or backwards as often as forward.
She took glancing blows and scratches, but she didn’t give up. When she was close enough, she threw herself forward into a baseball slide, kicking the flare into the diesel-soaked flesh of the pulsing heart. She wasn’t able to move in time as a vine as thick as her waist clipped her across the forehead and sent her reeling. White stars exploded in her vision, and she lost track of where she was and what she was doing.
Her ears rang, and everything spun. Heat bloomed across her back, and she rolled to her side. Blurry light blossomed and spread, slowly resolving as her vision returned. She was surrounded by fire. It raced down the vines. A piercing scream came from the Mother-Root, a sustained boiler-whistle like hell’s own teakettle. The vines were going insane, and the waving and flailing were only making the fire burn hotter and faster.
Bits of burning plant sloughed away, raining fire down on the grating all around Char. Her head was still reeling from the blow, and the room seemed to be spinning around her. Another vine slammed into her legs, and she added her voice to the cacophony as her right tibia snapped. Conscious thought shattered in a flash of white hot pain. Her vision tunneled down, going black around the edges, and her whole world became nothing but pain and fire and confusing motion.
She knew then that she was going to die there. The memory of Ty’s smiling face danced through her scattered thoughts, and she hoped that she’d get to see him again.
A bolt of panic zipped through her when she felt teeth dig into her shoulder.
Her eyes shot wide, and she tried to bring her arm around to knock away whatever was trying to eat her, but then she saw Lulu. The pit bull had her shoulder gripped between her teeth and was pulling her away from the burning, shrieking monster.
Lulu pulled with all of her strength. She paused and ducked low to avoid a wildly swinging, burning vine, then pulled again. She yelped and let go when burning embers fell across her back, scorching away her fur, but she clamped her mouth back on Char’s shoulder and pulled again.
She didn’t quit. She wasn’t about to let her human die. She pulled with everything she had, and everything she was, and, inch by inch, she dragged Char to safety.
At some point, Char lost consciousness. When she found it again, she was lying on her back in one of the maze passages with walls of piled manufacturing equipment on either side of her, and Lulu above her, frantically licking her face. She sputtered, let out a sound that was half laugh and half groan, and gently pushed Lulu’s slobbering face away from hers. “I’m alive?” Her voice was a harsh croak from a dry and painful throat. She wasn’t sure if the pain was from inhaling smoke or screaming.
Blinking her eyes, she reached for Lulu with both hands and scritched her ears. “Thank you, Lu. You are the bestest girl ever, and you get all the treats.” The thickness in her voice came from more than the pain in her throat. Tears of gratitude welled up in her eyes, and she blinked them back.
She was in bad shape, and Lulu was hurting. Her eyes flicked to their health bars in the corner of her HUD. She was down to 20%, and Lulu was at 35%. Flashing color at the edge of her vision told her there was a stack of notifications to read.
Her leg ached, and her burns throbbed. It was hard to focus, but the dark clouds of smoking billowing up around the ceiling meant she had to try. It would be the worst sort of irony to have come this far only to die in a fire that she’d started.
“Healing. That’s the first step.” Her dad’s voice echoed in her head. He’d drilled into her that when life went sideways, you take it one step at a time, and start with your safety. One step at a time. She clung to that memory like a rope in a flood. Right now, the next step was getting herself and Lulu healed up. Everything else would keep.
She started by putting her five free stat points into Willpower. That brought the base stat to 51, and the bonuses took it to 61. Her second-highest stat. She was going to need the extra stubbornness.