End Program

by James Axler

  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.

  “Relax, Mr. Cawdor,” the softly spoken male voice instructed from the hidden speakers in the coffin walls. “You’re quite safe here.”

  Ryan clenched his fists tighter. He would get one chance at this, one chance to surprise whoever the hell was waiting outside this sealed box. Ryan was a survivor—he would take that chance.

  Above him, the illuminated panel seemed to be receding, but Ryan realized that it wasn’t the panel that was moving but him. Beneath him, the traylike floor of the coffin bed was drawing backward in the direction that Ryan’s head pointed. He tilted his neck back, craned his head and peered up at the panel there as it swished back on some kind of hidden runners.

  After that, the bed of the coffin, as he had come to think of it, slid out from its position, and a room came into view, painted white and lit with subtle sidelights that were still dazzling after so long in the box. A man stood to the side of the retreating bed, dressed in white and facing the wall, his head tilted down to look at some kind of panel or screen that jutted there. The man was bald and wore a tinted visorlike item hooked over his ears that shielded his eyes. The man’s hands were poised on the panel as if he was playing a piano.

  As the bed slid out from the wall, the man in white turned to Ryan and smiled. “How are you feeling, Mr. Cawdor?” he asked.

  Ryan moved then, rolling off the bed before it could fully retract from the wall, and powering his left fist at the man’s jaw. He moved fast, his feet slapping against the cool floor tiles of the room. Ryan’s fist met the man’s jaw with an audible crack, and the bald stranger went crashing backward in a confusion of suddenly awkward limbs.

  Everything was different now. Ryan had two eyes where he had become used to just one. Everything seemed suddenly more vivid, the whiteness of the walls brilliant, like lightning in the mist.

  Naked, Ryan stepped forward and brought his right fist around in a brutal cross, striking the stranger’s face high on the left cheek before the man had even finished falling. Ryan felt light-headed, unsteady on his feet, but he knew he had to survive, which meant getting out of this trap—or whatever it was—as soon as possible.

  “Mr. Cawdor, please—” the man cried, blood showing now between his teeth.

  Ryan leaned down, his head still reeling, and punched the man again, striking him dead center of that weird visor he wore and snapping the plastic in two. The right half went spinning across the white-tiled floor while the left shattered, still clinging to the bridge of the man’s nose. A thin line of blood began to ooze from the man’s nose, following a slow path down the side of his tilted face.

  “Where am I?” Ryan spit, crouched over the bald man, his face close to the stranger’s.

  The man’s eyes rolled around in their socket
s, struggling to keep focus. Ryan took that moment to look around him. He was in a small room, twelve-by-ten with plain white walls and a series of drawers running up the wall from which his bed or coffin had emerged. A single, plain door that looked like a flat panel was set in a recess in the wall opposite where the man had been standing. It had no handle and no control mechanism that Ryan could see. He waved one of his hands close to the door to see if he might activate a sensor, but nothing happened.

  “Locked,” Ryan muttered, shaking his head.

  There were no windows in the room, but where the man had been standing was a pane of glass at roughly waist height, recessed and tilted at an angle so that a standing person could look down into it. With his left hand pressing firmly against the bald man’s breastbone, Ryan raised himself and peered at the glass: it was smoked but otherwise appeared blank.

  Beneath him, Ryan felt the man stirring, and heard him mutter something. “Not...going...to hurt you,” the man said, blood washing across his teeth. “Please.”

  “Where are my blasters?” Ryan growled. “Where are my friends?”

  The bald man’s pink head swayed on his neck like a flower in the breeze, his eyes drifting in and out of focus. Then, as Ryan watched, his victim’s eyes rolled back so that all he could see were the whites behind the flickering lids.

  “Fireblast!” Ryan growled, clambering up from the sprawled figure in the white overalls. The man was a weakling, glass jaw, no stamina. He wouldn’t last five minutes outside his lab.

  Ryan peered around the room, searching for his weapons. Without warning, the vision in his left eye—the new one—flickered and changed. Ryan started as he saw something appear to scramble across the surface of the eye, flicked his hand before his face without thinking to brush it aside. It was a kind of cross-shaped overlay, like looking through the crosshairs of his Steyr longblaster.