A shit ton of weapons that Aminat doesn’t know how to use and all the soldiers have gone home, that’s what she has to work with. The plant is bigger, and the weapons didn’t work on it, according to her briefings. Standing helpless. Thinking. Okay, not thinking, just being helpless and wallowing in pity. She fires off a few rounds from her rifle and they bounce off the vines without scratching the integument. She tries explosive rounds, a burst of plasma, a chemical shot, nothing. Zero.
Four reanimates are on the street just standing there, without will, nobody home, and cherubs swoop down and crush them in grips, then take them into the plant. They don’t struggle. It makes sense, if it grows, it needs material to grow from.
Then two cherubs come for Aminat. She fires at them, incendiary. They both keep coming without heads. She fires again, slices them in half. They fall, but still writhe.
More. They have noticed Aminat.
This won’t end well. What was I thinking? A solo assault on this… whatever it is?
Drones and COBs draw closer, hover, for better shots at her demise, no doubt. Some analyst in six months’ time will come across the footage and release it on to Nimbus as a snuff film for degenerates to jack off over. Beyond the machines, a skein of geese make their way across the sky, but stop and hang there.
The drones aren’t hovering; they are stationary. The quadcopter blades are not moving, yet the drones do not fall. Nothing moves, everything is still, even the air.
“Don’t panic,” says Kaaro from behind her.
He is in gryphon form, and he is moulting, feathers floating everywhere.
“Baby,” says Aminat. “Aren’t you supposed to be—”
“I’m not really here, and nothing has stopped, it’s just reeeeeally slow while you become aware of this. I placed a small tangle of xenoforms in your nervous system to be activated in the event of a certain combination of thoughts and emotions. Okay. In a minute you’re going to see Bad Fish—”
“Wait, when did—”
“My love, you have to listen. I’m sorry, but there’s no time. Bad Fish knows some esoteric stuff and he owes me a favour. Well, no, he doesn’t. I’m kind of blackmailing him, but the point is he will do this for me. As soon as I sense him—”
“Kaaro, this is invasive,” says Bad Fish. He appears in a white gown, bulging at the belly, as bewildered as Aminat.
“Aminat’s in a tight spot. Do something about it and you’ll never hear from me again.” Kaaro goes quiet and starts scratching his forepaws.
“What ails you, my lady?” asks Bad Fish.
Aminat points. “Giant potted plant, eats flesh, kills aliens, and impervious to everything we have, probably about to kill me.”
Bad Fish turns around, looks at every aspect of the scene in front of him, strokes his chin. “You still have that ID hack I did for you?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“All right. I need five minutes, and I don’t know if what I plan will work, but you’ll need to stay alive for a bit. Can you run?”
“I can, but I won’t. I’m not going to spend my last hours on Earth running from anyone or anything. I can fight for five minutes.”
“That’ll have to do. Good luck, Aminat. Kaaro, fuck you as usual.”
“You have done a good kind thing, Bad Fish. I’ll buy you a present, with wrapping and a bow and everything.” The gryphon seems to purr. “Aminat—”
“I’m not talking to you,” says Aminat. “Let’s go. Crank this baby up again.”
“I love you,” says Kaaro.
“Shut up. Crank.”
Time speeds up again.
Right.
Aminat builds a fort of supplies, using only what she can understand or is trained to use. The rest she uses as crude mechanical barriers, praying that nothing explodes or sprays noxious chemicals in her face. She works steadily, hearing the beating of wings and noting how far away the sounds are. She turns and lifts a gun at the same time. This cherub is lacking a head, but has all six wings and thorny limbs flailing towards her as if falling rather than flying. She fires at it, and the super-dense bola tangles up the wings, bringing it down to the ground in a dead drop.
It struggles against the cable, and seems to be tearing off parts of itself in order to still come at Aminat. She switches guns and shoots white phosphorus. She does not have the time to see if it was effective as two more cherubs descend, too fast for her to draw a bead. She waits, and when the first is within a foot, she slams the rifle stock against it, which seems to stun it into disorganised movement. The second one is on her before she can swing back.
Its embrace is like fire, latching on to Aminat and tearing her skin where the armour is absent. She does not scream. She breathes away the panic as she has been taught. It is like being surrounded by a rainforest, and there seem to be leaves, vines and thorns everywhere, trying to kill her. She draws her hunting knife and begins to slash, range limited at first, and the wood-like parts do not sever, but slowly, she gets freer, enough to grab a sidearm with a Magnum load. Covered in sap and blood, she slashes and blasts her way free. Still they writhe at her feet. Still more come.
She drops remote-control charges at intervals and backs away. When the cherubs descend she activates the charges and flattens herself. Limbs of grass and bough scatter in all directions.
Still they come, spawning from the Beynon, smelling of rot.
Damn it, there are turrets, but she doesn’t know how to use them. Where the fuck is that miracle from Bad Fish?
The mind behind the plant is aware of Aminat now, as the sporadic spawning stops and a concentrated front of cherubs advances on her. Dozens. Absolutely no way to fight them in the open like this.
“Bad Fish, you asshole, what the fuck are you waiting for?” But she fires at the wall of green anyway, realising that there is a narrow window of survival here, but not knowing if she can fit herself in it. “Shit, I’m going to die here. Shit.”
The change in the air is pleasurable at first. It becomes warmer, and an electromagnetic change tugs at the body hair. There is gooseflesh, a feeling of an angel tickling the front of the brain, an impulse to laugh, a bubbling of the urine in the bladder. Or maybe Aminat imagines all of this while fighting homicidal plant proxies.
The plant, its leaves, vines, stems and flying cherubs, the drones and COBs above it, all glow golden yellow, then turn black, then fly apart in the wind, an ash shower being all that remains.
The cherubs Aminat is holding at bay stop fighting, become confused, and move without purpose, enlivened but mindless. She leaves them where they writhe and scuttles forward to get a closer look at the place where the plant was, to be sure it is indeed dead and gone. Her phone rings.
“Are you still alive?” asks Bad Fish.
“What the hell was that?”
“Ha-ha, I’m so glad you’re here. Kaaro would have killed me. That, darling, is a particle weapon from the Nautilus. Did it work, or do I need to fire again? It’ll take longer to charge, like thirty minutes or so.”
Aminat brushes ash off the tip of her nose. “No, we’re good here.”
“Glad to hear that. If you’re ever in Lagos…”
Aminat sits cross-legged at the edge of the destruction zone. She is silent, but it is a loud silence, deafening. Her heart feels bald, shorn of all emotion, useful only for pumping cold blood through her exhaustion. She is unsure of where her body is, or where the Earth is moving her to, or why she is.
How long she stays she does not know, or recall later during debrief, but she does know that it ends with the cracks of lightning coming from the remnants of the biodome.
“Alyssa.”