Rogue (12 page)

“My mother often wears a perfume reminiscent of this,” said Ajay, sniffing again. “You know that familiar aromas activate an extremely powerful section of the brain strongly associated with memory—”

“Stand still for a second,” said Will.

Will blinked the Grid back on, looking up and around, trying not to alarm his friends. There were many more of the heat signals now, and the small shapes were still moving when he saw them from the corner of his eye, but when he looked directly at them, they stopped. He picked out a spot on an overhead branch with a dozen of the shapes on it, waited until they stopped moving, and then blinked off.

Flowers. Small, delicate red and white buds, on a short green symmetrical stalk. Common specimens from a million suburban gardens. Harmless and benign.

“Ajay.”

“Yes, Will.”

“A while back you told me you were working on a freeze-ray-type thingy.”

“Oh, yes. A liquid nitrogen dispenser. Very effective, if I do say so myself.”

“Did you by any chance bring it with you?”

“Of course I did, Will.”

Get ready to run,
he sent to Elise.

She glanced over at him calmly and nodded, then tilted her head toward Ajay.

What about him?

Take him with you. I'll follow.

Say when.

“Could I have it now, please?” asked Will.

Will blinked and turned slowly around. Viewed through the Grid, the shapes were moving again. There were hundreds of them now, massing, crowding in from every direction, above, below, and behind, into his field of vision.

But there was still a clear path straight ahead, through a gap between two huge trees.

Ajay rummaged in his pack for a few moments, then emerged with a short, thick stainless-steel canister that looked like a small fire extinguisher.

“Here you are,” said Ajay, handing it to him. “Just switch off the safety—here—point the nozzle, pull the trigger, and it should be good to go. I'm quite pleased with it. What do you intend to use it for?”

Go.

Elise grabbed Ajay's hand and yanked him with her, dashing toward the trees.

“What are you doing, woman?!”

Will switched off the canister's safety and blinked on the Grid again. As one, the massed flowers reacted to their movement and swarmed toward him. A packed wave of the things wriggled rapidly toward him over the ground on stalklike roots, while what looked like a curtain of them swept down from the branches above.

Will realized they'd hooked themselves together using rows of small thorns on their stalks. As they swung toward him, he also noticed their petals hinging back uniformly to reveal a round jagged mouth in the center of each blossom, filled with a circular row of sharp white fangs.

Will quickly pivoted around, pointed the nozzle, and pulled the trigger, shooting a freezing mist into the heart of the descending creatures. When the spray made contact with the flowers, a cloud of vapor erupted and they froze instantly, and when the center of their solidified mass struck his shoulder a moment later, it fractured into a thousand icy shards.

He lowered the nozzle and sprayed all around him as he spun around in a tight circle, freezing the flowers on the ground as they neared him, leaving a ring of tiny statues frozen on the verge of taking a bite out of him.

He felt a bunch of the things scampering along his arms and shoulders, survivors of the curtain that hadn't been hit by the spray, so he shook himself like a wet dog—a hundred times more rapidly—and they flew off him in every direction.

And more kept coming, pouring out of the trees, dropping from the branches, blanketing the forest floor, mindless and hungry. He felt teeth nipping at the cuffs of his pants and shoes. He hit the nozzle again and then took off running after the others, pointing it behind him as he went, trailing the freezing spray behind him.

He blinked on the Grid and spotted Elise and Ajay through the mist, about fifty yards ahead. No sign of more flowers in that direction: They seemed to have all massed back where they'd attacked. Glancing behind him, he saw a large, amorphous red blob of the things still moving after him but slowed by the frozen path he'd left behind.

Will took his finger off the trigger and brought up the canister, much lighter in his hands; he'd used more than half of its contents by now and decided to hold the rest in reserve. He picked up his pace, dodging through the underbrush, and quickly closed in on the others.

I'm behind you,
he sent to Elise.

What
else
is behind us?

Nothing you want to stop and smell. Keep going.

A few moments later he was beside them.

“Oh, Will, there you are,” said Ajay, slightly panting for breath. “What seems to be the trouble back there?”

“Carnivorous pansies.”

“WHAT! Oh dear God, man—there's one on your shoulder!”

Will looked to his right; one surviving flower had clung to him and, using its thorns like Velcro, had crawled up near his neck, teeth exposed, reared back, poised to strike. Before Will could react, Elise shot out a knifed hand and lopped off its head. Will quickly brushed its body to the ground.

“Looks more like a snapdragon,” she said. “Crossed with a crocodile.”

“We'll be okay. We can outrun them—but don't look back and keep moving.”

“Issues I did not expect to face upon waking this morning: being chased by a rabid pack of carnivorous delphiniums.”

“What do you see in front of us?” asked Will.

Ajay peered ahead, trying to hold his eyes steady as they trotted along.

“I think we may be approaching a river, or some kind of moving water.”

“I hear it,” said Elise.

“By the way, your freeze spray? Aces.”

Ajay couldn't suppress a smile. “Oh. Thank you very much.”

Thirty seconds later, they broke into a clearing by the sandy banks of a flowing river, about forty feet across to the opposite bank, where the edge of an even thicker forest awaited. Will scanned left and right; there was no obviously easier place to make a crossing, before the river curved around a slow bend in either direction. He glanced behind them again using the Grid; the large red blob of flowers was still at least a hundred yards back in the forest but gaining steadily.

“How do you feel about a swim?” asked Elise.

“To be honest, I'm carrying a large assortment of equipment indispensable to our mission that would not necessarily benefit from complete and extended immersion in any form of—”

“Let me put it a different way,” said Will. “
Can
you swim?”

Ajay shifted uncomfortably. “For short periods. In still water. Preferably a swimming pool. With the assistance of a generously sized flotation device, of course, should I require it. Fortunately, I've brought one with me—” He reached back toward his pack.

“Never mind about that,” said Elise, dragging him toward the water's edge. “We'll hang on to you.”

“Hold on a second,” said Will.

He looked out at the river. The current was visibly flowing from right to left, but not dangerously so. But something was nagging at him—
intuition
—to take a closer look. He blinked on the Grid.

He detected a lot of movement in the water, although he couldn't make out many heat signatures—whatever was down there was most likely cold-blooded, schools of small fish, maybe, or whatever passed for fish here. But he quickly zeroed in on three larger stationary heat signatures lurking near the river bottom.

Not
cold-blooded. Each one about the size of a car.

“Both of you take a look down there and tell me what you see,” he said.

Ajay opened his eyes wide, then squinted, then opened them wide again and glanced up at the misty sky. “I'm afraid the perpetual glare on the water makes it difficult for me to see anything below the surface.”

Elise immediately got down on her hands and knees, tied her hair back, and stuck her face into the water. They heard her send out a series of the pulsating echolocation sounds. A moment later she pulled rapidly out of the water, stood up, and backed away, then turned to them, pale and alarmed.

“We are
not
going for a swim.”

Will blinked again and immediately caught the signature of one of those large shapes racing up from the depths a split second before it breached out of the water near the shore right behind Elise.

Will saw only rows of eyes, a blunt porcine snout at the end of a brutally ugly gray torso, and a gaping, loose-lipped rubbery mouth. Moving as quickly as he could—as quickly as he ever remembered moving—Will planted himself between the monster and Elise, raised the nozzle of the canister, and sprayed a load of liquid nitrogen straight into its mouth; that part of the thing stiffened and froze instantly, and as it reached the apex of its breach, Elise let out a thumping blast of sound.

The creature's frozen face and head exploded as it hit the ground. What was left of its broken, misshapen body splashed back into the river and sank swiftly out of sight.

Will looked at the others and realized that, like them, he was dripping wet with the spewed liquefied remains of whatever wretched beast had just vaulted out of the river at them.

Ajay, who had received the worst of the drenching, looked down at himself, shocked and disgusted. “I am more desperately in need of a shower than at any previous time in my life.”

Will glanced back at the forest and blinked: The great red blob of the massed flowers was less than fifty yards away and appeared to have doubled in size. He could already hear the creepy whisperings of their stalks shuttling through the mulch.

“Which doesn't change the fact that we still need to get across,” said Will. “Fast.”

Elise had her hands on her knees, panting for breath; the exertion of that last blast had depleted her for the moment. She didn't look like she could recover in time to do the same to the flowers. And Will realized that meant she might not be able to run for it right away either.

While Will racked his brain for a solution, Ajay unexpectedly waddled toward him—still dripping—and held out his hands.

“Give me the canister,” he said firmly.

Will handed it over. “What do you have in mind?”

Ajay looked out at the river. “I can't promise this approach will work, but in my expert opinion, it provides us with the most reasonable probability of success. It also requires that you both follow close behind me in very short order—”

“Ajay—”

“Just this once, Will, please do as I say.”

Will studied him. He'd never seen his little friend so determined, and considering he was almost entirely covered with a layer of repulsive slime—a condition that normally would have emotionally incapacitated him—this felt like no time to argue.

Ajay marched to the river's edge. Will took Elise by the arm and helped lead her after him.

“You'll need to stay right on my heels,” said Ajay. “With
extreme
alacrity. I can't emphasize that strongly enough. And please make every effort to hold your breath as often as you can in order to avoid the vapor.”

“Wait—why is that?”

Fiddling with the device, Ajay ignored the question. “Let's just hope Boy Genius here has left us with enough propellant to make this work.”

Ajay pointed the nozzle at the edge of the water and pulled the trigger for a moment. An enormous cloud of vapor erupted and immediately dissipated in the light breeze. As the mist cleared, Will could see that the spray had frozen a foot-wide strip of the river ahead of them. Ajay stepped out onto it, with first one foot, then the other, testing his weight; the ice cracked slightly but otherwise held firm.

“I can't predict how long this will hold, so we mustn't hesitate at any point,” he said. “Here goes.”

Ajay held the nozzle down right at water level and hit the trigger again. He shuffled forward, bent over, spraying continuously as he advanced, stepping lightly along the flash-frozen surface as it formed. Will steadied Elise as she followed Ajay onto the ice bridge, hurrying out onto the river close behind him.

They kept their heads turned to the right to avoid the continuous shroud of vapor, which drifted quickly to the left on the wind. The ice cracked and fractured with every step they took, sending up small shards of crystals and making strange pinging sounds as the flowing current passed below it.

But Will stayed behind on the shore.

About one-third of the way across, Elise glanced back, saw Will standing there, and nearly lost her balance.

What the hell are you waiting for?

Will waved her on.
I'll be all right. Keep going.

But Will looked down at the shore end of the ice bridge and saw it was already starting to flake and splinter into crystallized fragments. He swiveled around again; the mass of flowers broke out of the forest behind him, a huge, slow-motion wave of brightly colored mayhem, wriggling forward onto the sand.

Will looked at his friends, now in the middle of the river, then back at the flowers. He started running directly toward the flowers, then turned and accelerated up the beach. If this was going to work, he would need to hit top speed by the time he turned back around and reached the water's edge.

Deep in concentration and still unaware that Will had stayed behind on shore, Ajay continued frog-marching forward. They advanced more than two-thirds of the way across when Ajay paused momentarily to shake the canister, then called back over his shoulder to Elise.

“Running extremely low on refrigerant now. We'll have to pick up our pace!”

“Then go! Go! Go!”

Ajay hit the trigger again, laying down an even thinner layer in front of him as he hurried forward in an awkward trot on top of the freshly forming ice. Elise matched his pace step for step. At this increased speed, the ice hardly had time to form before they passed onto it, and water sloshed almost up to their ankles on every step.