Pandora's Redoubt

by James Axler

  Locating a breach, he lumbered onto the muddy shore and directed Leviathan along a cracked concrete stretch that angled off in the correct direction. Soon, the burned-out frames of individual homes marked the beginning of the old civilization. Sometimes only a bent stack of chimney stones remained to show where a home had once stood. Wordlessly, they passed the crumbled remains of stores and shops, the glass windows long gone, molding leaves piled high inside.

  Then the road became smoother, with more ruined houses appearing until they regularly lined both sides of the street. As Leviathan advanced farther, the buildings looked to be in better condition, until they crossed some railroad tracks and entered a warehouse district Here the streets were covered with a thick cushion of green ivy that grew along the outside of everything in sight. Odd lumps dotting the street were presumably parked cars. Filling every block, hundreds of green buildings rose six or more stories tall. And standing as sparkling glass giants among these were the skyscrapers, their pinnacles nearly out of sight. The company names on the lintels were readable, but meant nothing.

  "How big?" Jak asked, furrowing his brow.

  Abandoning her attempt to read a vine-covered movie marquee, Mildred answered, "Thirty stories. Maybe forty. Surely no higher than that"

  Jak stared at the woman as if she had clearly gone insane.

  "People," he said.

  "Oh, population. I don't know. Maybe a hundred thousand."

  "I would postulate a neutron bomb," Doc said, and he shuddered.

  "I agree," Mildred replied softly. "Damn the fools. God damn them all."

  "A what?" Dean asked, unable to look away from the city. So much green! Could the ivy be protecting the city from the terrible effects of the acid rains?

  Making sure Leviathan didn't bump into any of the lumps in the street, Ryan said, "The ancient whitecoats had lots of different boomers. I read a long time ago that the worst was the Hellstorm. It set fire to the atmosphere. Second worst was the neutron. It killed people, but didn't damage the buildings or machines."

  "Just killed the people?"

  "Killed everything alive," Krysty said angrily. "People, bugs, bathroom fungus, anything."

  "Except ivy," J.B. added, scowling at the lush plants rustling at their approach. All this green was unnatural.

  "How find what we need?" he asked.

  "Keep a watch for machine shops and gas stations. If need be, we'll climb down into some elevator shafts. Maintenance department is always in the basement. The oil from the hydraulic pumps will do fine for the transmission."

  "Excellent"

  "I wonder why this city has not been occupied," Doc remarked. "These buildings are in perfect condition."

  "Impossible to defend." Krysty pointed with her gun barrel. "Too many windows."

  "Rad is clear," J.B. told them, checking his counter.

  Leviathan proceeded slowly toward the center of the wide street, the ivy crushing softly under the military tires. Most of the store signs were impossible to read, either covered by the plants or damaged by minor rust The few they could decipher weren't helpful-clothing stores with mannequins in the windows, pizza parlors, bookstores with white rectangles displayed, the covers bleached from decades of exposure to sunlight

  "No people in sight, or any sign of them," Ryan said. He turned to Krysty. "You feel anything?"

  Krysty shook her head. "No norms or muties, but there's something alive out there."

  "Mebbe the ivy?" Dean suggested.

  She was tolerant "That's just a plant"

  "Not exactly," Doc stated. "Ivy isn't a separate crop such as stalks of corn, or groves of apples. Ivy grows together into a single homogenous plant"

  "Covering a whole city?"

  "The old coot is right for a change," Mildred said. "If nobody's here to prune it, why not? Stuff's more resilient than kudzu, or even horseradish."

  "Mebbe," Krysty said, sounding unsure.

  Ignoring the side streets and alleys, Ryan kept traveling through the main thoroughfares of the downtown area. A few of the smaller buildings were no more than squarish mounds of ivy, the millions of pointy leaves covering whatever edifice of humanity had once stood proudly at that location. The normal hard angles of corners and sharp outlines of the city were pleasantly softened by the living blanket.

  "What's that place?" Dean asked, gesturing.

  "Which?" Ryan asked.

  "There. The only building not covered by the ivy."

  "Odd that the plants don't grow there," his father admitted.

  Doc said, "I do not see any charred residue, so it was not burned away."

  "Not trimmed," Jak added. "Edges not smooth."

  "Millie, why wouldn't plants grow there?" J.B. asked.

  Meticulously, Mildred counted on her fingers. "Gas leak, radiation sources inside, microwave leakage, toxic waste, excessive salt concentrates or maybe acid spills."

  Ryan let Leviathan move on. He wanted nothing to do with any of that stuff. If ivy didn't go there, they didn't want to, either.

  "From the air, this place must seem to be wild country," Kiysty observed. "Wait, there's a parking garage!"

  Studying the gate, Ryan didn't slow. "Cars only. Wrong transmission fluid. We need trucks."

  "Dark night!" J.B. yelled, pressing his face to the window. "There it is!"

  "Public works? Sanitation department?" Dean asked.

  "Auto store?" Jak asked.

  "The Ranger," J.B said softly, as if it could hear him through the composite hull. He jerked a thumb. "Next street over."

  "Gaia save us," Krysty prayed, hauling out the binocs and scanning the area. "And we're a sitting duck."

  "Mebbe we could get inside that garage," Dean suggested hopefully. "Hide in there."

  Ryan vetoed that idea. "If it's got infrared, as it almost surely does,

  it'll find us in a minute."

  "Rather face the machine out here anyway," J.B.

  said, going to the starboard Remington and working the bolt. It engaged with a loud snap. "Besides, we can always make a run for it on foot."

  "How could it have found us?" Doc demanded. "The radar is off, and the river should have muddied our tires tracks."

  "Fuck!"

  Turning in the direction Jak was facing, the friends saw the Ranger crest a corner and stop dead in its tracks before the facade of a one-hour vision center. Instantly, every dish antenna and radar array the war machine boasted spun madly and froze, pointing straight toward Leviathan. It almost seemed as surprised to see them as they were it.

  "Swap seats," Ryan ordered, freeing his harness. As he left the driver's seat, the Ranger's main cannon shifted aim and once more the crawling Leviathan was bathed in the harmless light show.

  In sudden understanding, Mildred cursed. "God's blood, it's parked in front of an optometrist's office. The damn thing is here to repair the focusing lens!"

  Taking the gunner's chair, Ryan quickly activated the front missile pod and tracking system. "Angle us more," he snapped. "I need a clear shot backward!"

  "So there is somebody inside that thing!" Krysty remarked, correcting their course. "I knew it wasn't just a comp!"

  "Who cares?" J.B. grabbed his satchel of explosives and moved for the exit. "Come on! We'll climb on top while it's standing still and blow open

  the hatch."

  Ryan flipped the main sequence control to salvo and hit the launch button. Leviathan bucked six times as the remaining rockets from the pod streaked away on fiery tails, smoky contrails filling the air.

  "Those won't penetrate tank armor!" Mildred told him.

  "Don't have to," Ryan said, staring hard at the enemy tank.

  "Krysty keep moving! Head for an alley!" The woman did as requested, although she had no idea why.

  Again, the Ranger pumped out gigawatts of rainbows at the crawling Leviathan as the half dozen Air Force missiles streaked past the tank and punched through the big picture windows of the tall brick building standing on the corn
er-the one without any ivy. Smoke and glass vomited into the intersection, a maelstrom of chaos masking the Ranger from their view.

  "You missed!"

  "Now!" Ryan ordered, raising a clenched fist. "Go!"

  Krysty yanked the wheel hard about, and Leviathan casually rolled toward an alleyway several yards away.

  "We're not going to make it!" she shouted over the grinding gears.

  "Got to! No time to escape on foot!"

  The Ranger fired again and started toward them when a much larger explosion rattled the building to its foundation. Fireballs blew out of every ground-floor window, then the side of the structure became canted, angling dangerously as more detonations shook the building again and again, ripping apart the inner walls.

  Smoke washed over the street, the squat body of the tank barely visible through the swirling clouds.

  "Here it comes!" Ryan shouted as a gigantic shadow engulfed both machines.

  Acting on impulse, Dean put a stream of 40 mm shells into the street directly in front of the Ranger. The HE rounds blew apart the ivy and asphalt, chewing a gaping pit in the concrete foundation. Shifting treads, the Ranger dodged the blasthole just as the building finished its brief journey downward. The whole world seemed to jump as the irresistible force met the immovable object with disastrous results. The robotic tank disappeared as countless tons of brick and concrete deafeningly crashed onto the street. Windows shattered from the thunderous concussion as the smashed road buckled and sank. In every direction, sidewalks splintered, cracks racing off like crazed lightning bolts. Telephone poles toppled, as dirty water erupted from a score of burst hydrants.

  Debris pummeled the back end of Leviathan as the craft was shoved forward into the alley. Standing on the brakes, Krysty managed to bring the tank to a halt just as they were completely enveloped by the swirling dust storm.

  The rumbling of the crash echoed throughout the dead city, reverberating along the concrete canyons. Then an eerie stillness descended, filling the void with a ringing silence louder than any possible detonation.

  Getting stiffly off the floor, the friends checked to make sure none was injured, then grabbed weapons and headed for the door. Half climbing, half falling out of Leviathan, they stood beside the vehicle and stared dumbfounded at the broken building lying sideways in the street, blocking the mouth of the alley.

  "Missed us by feet," J.B. whispered, respectfully removing his fedora.

  Doc made the sign of the cross, and somebody else said amen. Dean started forward, and Ryan grabbed his arm, stopping the boy.

  "Careful. The ground is still shaky."

  Accepting the wisdom, the group waited a few minutes, closely watching for any additional destruction from the endless little aftershock quakes caused by the titanic pounding. All around them, the bedraggled fields of ivy were shaking madly, waves of agitation moving out over the city like ripples in a pond.

  Minutes passed, and finally Ryan permitted himself a satisfactory grunt. "Sounds like it's over."

  "I certainly hope so," Mildred said, licking dry lips.

  "Hot pipe, I never saw anything like that!" Dean gushed.

  "Not want again," Jak said, scrutinizing the sideways building.

  Beaming delight, Doc patted Ryan on the back. "That was inspired, my dear Ryan. Inspired! A tactic from The Art of War, perhaps? Or the ruminations of Julius Caesar?"

  Ryan looked at the man with no amusement. "You never swatted a fly?" he asked simply.

  Doc opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap. "I stand corrected," he said, bowing. "It was genius born, not borrowed."

  "Good shooting," Krysty said to Ryan. He shrugged. "Kind of hard to miss a stationary building."

  Muffled detonations sounded from within the collapsed structure and with a grinding screech, the middle of the skyscraper tumbled apart, sending another plume of dust into the murky sky.

  "Is there enough room for us to get out?" Krysty asked, studying the mouth of the alley.

  "Sure, plenty," Mildred said confidently. J.B. started for the street, both hands tight on the strap of his bag full of explosives. "More important, let's go make sure the bastard thing really is dead."

  And that was when the ivy attacked.

  Chapter Seven

  Vines lashed out from every direction. Ryan dodged and only got a stinging gash across his cheek. His Steyr was leveled in a second, firing into the thrashing ivy. Movement out of the corner of his good eye made the man spin, firing instinctively. The plants were crawling over Leviathan, wrapping around the wheels and covering the windows in a thick protective blanket of living green.

  Cursing, Jak fired his .357 Magnum, blowing off the leaves covering the door latch. But try as he might, the hatch couldn't open. "Jammed! Ivy in the hinges!"

  "Why is it attacking?"

  "We dropped a building on it!"

  Turning in a circle, J.B. sprayed his Uzi in a figure-eight pattern, not sure what to aim at. "How the fuck do you kill a plant this big?"

  "Flamethrower" Doc shouted, his pistol holstered, his sword out and moving. The slashing steel blade sliced a clear space around them, but more ivy filled in the spot almost instantly. "We have got to get inside! Use the flamethrower!"

  "Dean," Ryan shouted. "The can!"

  The boy lifted the container of fuel in his hand and threw it at the side hatch of Leviathan. The canister was still airborne when Mildred blasted it with her revolver. The fuel detonated, fire spreading over the side of the craft, and the ivy retreated.

  Together, the group grabbed the door. Forcing it open, they piled inside and slammed the hatch shut. A single tendril of ivy stabbing for Mildred was cut in two and fell to the floor, quivering.

  "Dark night," J.B. heaved, a thermite gren primed in his left hand, his index finger in the ring. "No wonder nobody has ever looted this place!"

  "Not deserted," Jak agreed, a dark spot on his arm spreading outward, a thin trickle of blood appearing on his wrist.

  Crushing the vine under her boot, Mildred grabbed her kit and ripped open the teenager's shirt. "Just a flesh wound," she declared. "Nothing senous.

  "Poison?" Jak asked, ready for the worst.

  She wrapped a white bandage made from a naval officer's class A uniform around his forearm. "No sign of it," the physician said, splitting the end with her teeth and tying it off in a fast field dressing. "I'd say you're clear."

  "Everybody else okay?" Ryan queried, sliding shells into J.B.'s M-4000 scattergun.

  "I thought..." Dean started again. "Where's Krysty?"

  Startled, Ryan jerked his head around. One glance told him that she wasn't in the tank with them. Rushing to a blasterport, the one-eyed man blew away the outside greenery with a single discharge and looked frantically at the alleyway. Ivy was everywhere, thickening by the second like an incoming tide.

  "Second floor!" Doc cried, standing at the rooftop periscope.

  Ryan turned and found her, dangling from the grip of the mutie plant twenty feet in the air. Her .38 discharged once, pointing at nothing in particular. Then she was hauled over the rooftop and gone.

  "Combat positions," Ryan ordered, striding past his friends and sliding into the driver's seat. "We're going after her!"

  Nobody spoke. They just obeyed, knowing that seconds counted if they wanted the woman back alive.

  Callused hands darting over the controls, Ryan primed the flamethrower pump, set the spray for maximum and hit the switch. It was a design similar to the flamer used by the Trader in War Wag One. Orange hell hosed outward from their roof and the windshield cleared of the plants, giving them a clear view of the rustling green alley. Ryan lowered the angle and washed the craft itself with burning gasoline. Waves of heat flooded in through the blaster-ports, and a thin wavering lance of flame reached inside from the rear louvers, hovering in midair to stretch toward a startled Jak before dying away.

  The ivy retreated. Already in gear, the freed Leviathan lurched into motion and started to crawl a
way at its pitiful top speed.

  "Watch for her," Ryan said, fighting to retain control of the vehicle as it bumped over the mutant plant. "It must be taking her somewhere. When it sets her down, we do a recce and snatch."

  "Sure as hell going to try," J.B. said, scanning the sky. "But where could it be taking her?"

  "And us," Mildred added softly. She- wondered if the plant wanted just the redhead, or if it was only using her to pull them someplace special. Cheese on a string.

  "A rooftop," Doc said, bare sword in hand. "The heart, head, whatever, of the plant will be on the roof."

  "Plants need sunlight," Jak agreed.

  "But they feed from the roots!"

  Feed. Ryan felt ice fill his veins, but forced the word out of his head. Thoughts like that would only muddle his thinking. This was a time for quick action. He could consider the danger later, after he had her back safe and sound.

  "What's our missile status?" Mildred asked, sliding into the front gunner's chair and hitting switches.

  "None," Doc replied, loading a fresh belt of shells into the Vulcan 40 mm cannon. "We have several of the LAWs left, but they're armor piercing. No napalm or AP rounds."

  "Useless against this," Mildred stormed.

  Pumping the clutch and working the choke, Ryan maneuvered Leviathan past the roof of the toppled building lying shattered in the street. "What about the 75s?" he asked, putting a burst of flame before them. The wiggling ivy crisped into ash, the rest fleeing to a safe distance. For a while.

  "Willy Peter and AP both."

  "Excellent."

  Dean was confused, then remembered Willy Peter was oldtalk for white phosphorus. The chemical burned at a thousand degrees and water only made it hotter. Killed nearly anything.

  "Fuel level?" Ryan demanded. The building on the corner over which Krysty had disappeared was a clothing store with something unreadable on sale for half price. A flexible iron grating covered the big windows as protection against thieves in the night. Unfortunately, Ryan wasn't sure the slow-moving tank could get through any of those.

  "Half full," Mildred answered, checking a dial. "Goddamn flamethrower eats gas like crazy."

  "You kill, we'll fill," J.B. told her, unscrewing the internal feeder pipe to the gasoline tanks. Without being asked, Dean arrived with two of the twenty-gallon cans from the lockers.