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The cryo chambers were built into the third wall, to his right and behind him. All he had
to do was activate the plague program, then crawl into the cryo crypt and let Merlin put
him away for the next few decades.
He walked to the fourth wall, which held a hydroponics vat that stretched nearly a
hundred feet back, carved from the rock walls outside the root branch. Thick, nutrient-
rich liquid filled the various chambers, throwing out smells that were both intoxicating
and repellent.
The vats were seven feet deep, the bedding grounds for so many of his father's hybrids
and creations. The liquid was soupy, greenish black and sometimes bubbling white froth.
Boldt climbed the ladder beside one of the glass sides, ignoring the churn of vegetable
matter only inches from his face. At the top he stepped out onto the narrow runway going
across the heart of the hydroponics vats. Hoses and nutrient tubes depended from the
ceiling in a spiderweb of chemical support.
The hydroponics experiments had been his father's greatest love. It was here, in this self-
contained world, that he'd had control over all the variables that turned life into a thing of
chance and random mutation.
Boldt stood out over the genetic stew. He could feel eyes upon him, knowing his arrival
had been noticed, then feeling guilty because his visits had been so few. But he'd been
told to stay away, to leave things alone.
And, in truth, knowing what lay here, he'd been happy to do that.
He gazed down into the swirling organic mix and fought the urge to wretch. The old fear,
from the time he'd been a child looking at some of his father's creations, returned. He felt
it crawling under his skin.
"Father," he said, "I have come." He waited. The lights were dim across the hydroponics
tanks, mimicking a night cycle. Mostly long shadows lay undisturbed.
At first it seemed as though nothing would happen. It was possible. Years had passed
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since the last time he'd been here. Still, Merlin would have notified him if something had
gone wrong.
Then, incredibly, a vine-veined bubble oozed to the top of the hydroponics glop. It
popped at the surface, throwing root-haired tentacles into the air ten feet up. In a matter
of seconds the tentacles wrapped themselves into a vaguely humanoid shape, complete
with a head, chest and arms. The legs were hinted at by definition, but bled back into the
hydroponics glop. Chunks of the glop shot up the tentacles, fleshing out the hairy root
infrastructure.
The thing looked nothing at all like the elder Boldt, but there was a presence that had
always been there. It had been one of his father's most macabre experiments, even by the
precedents already established: a combination of plant cells and the elder Boldt's own
DNA, fired by solar energy stored in the hydroponics tank and aided by a computerized
memory dependent on Merlin. It was intended to be the first evolution of an
environmentally correct life-form. If successful, the elder Boldt had intended to replace
humankind altogether.
"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."
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"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!"
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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. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]