by Joel Ohman
Plus, he wouldn’t dare get past Grigor, Orson’s protector.
Grigor looked at Sven, the usual smile gone from his broad face. “No,” he said simply.
“Well, the only way forward is forward.” Charley creaked his neck from side to side, and twirled his blades in a fancy pirouette designed to display a lot more confidence than he actually felt.
He looked at Hank and Sandy, then down at his pollen-encrusted body, and sighed. “Well, I guess I’m the bait.” Looking to Grigor and Sven, he motioned to those milling behind. “We will keep it busy, just get everyone past.” Grigor nodded his assent, as did Sven, his eyes still on Orson.
Charley threw himself into the task. He zigged and zagged, twirled and whirled, a dervish of loopy disjointed movements that caused the Venus mantrap to snap and interlock its spines, shutting on empty air time and time again. As Charley approached the tree, he found that the closer he came to the stalk, the less in danger he was from the gaping mouth. Standing next to the tree, he was surprised to find that the mouth was unable to strike him; the thick fibrous stalk wasn’t flexible enough to twist and bend straight down on itself.
Sandy loosed a bolt from her crossbow straight into the pink mouth. It was a direct hit.
“Nice shot!” Charley called out. But his celebration was short-lived.
“Aww, great,” Hank moaned. “Look, it’s just digesting the arrow in some kind of plant acid.” He looked over at Sandy. “Don’t shoot anymore. We can’t afford to waste arrows.” He turned to Charley. “Do something! Climb up and cut off its head or something.”
Charley hesitated; the little hairs on the stalk stretched outward toward him, seeming to sense his every movement. Gently, he reached out with his blade and stroked along the tips of cilia. The plant rotated into a frenzy of snapping, its toothy spines gnashing in vain at the base of the trunk where Charley stood just out of reach. “Umm, I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“Uh, Charley you might have to. Look!” Sandy called out, a slight note of panic rising in her voice. She pointed frantically to a fast-moving snarl of six more mantrap heads, all much smaller than the first, but each intently scrabbling along the jungle floor in Charley’s direction. “Climb! Start climbing, Charley—now!” she shouted, joining Hank in hacking ineffectually at the massive tangle of roots extending outward, while they tried to get to Charley.
Charley rotated his two blades into an overhand grip, hesitated a moment, jumped up, and stabbed directly into the side of the stalk. He alternated staking left then right, swinging his legs back and forth while climbing up the stalk purely with the strength of his arms, as if assailing a green twitching pegboard climbing wall. Sticky, noxious fluid oozed out of the gashes Charley’s blades made.
The stalk’s circumference slimmed as he rose, climbing higher and higher. The head continued to snap furiously, unable to twist in on itself to reach Charley. Just below his feet, the smaller mantraps gaped open, straining upward like young birds hungry for meat from their mother’s mouth. If he fell, he knew he would be mauled from seven directions: six below and one above.
He was almost to the top.
Up close, the mouth was a bright pink that sloshed with sticky goo. Dozens of spines protruded outward like little fangs, each straining to pierce into Charley and ingest him. Charley watched in amazement, still dangling precariously, as the mouth opened and closed rapidly, the spines snapping shut as perfectly interlocked as a zipper. It was surreal to be up close to what was essentially the plant’s desperately ravenous mouth.
Charley was high enough on the stalk that he could wrap his legs completely around it and hold on. For a moment, a vision of jumping on the bion outside of Meritropolis flashed through his mind. He jerked his two blades out of the stalk, careful to slither away from the ooze, and then began to vigorously hack just under the thing’s head.
It jerked and bucked. After his earlier encounter with the llamabill, Charley couldn’t help but hesitate briefly, as his thoughts spiraled. Could the thing feel pain? It was just a plant, wasn’t it? Just an intracellular chemical reaction, a simple action potential that was a cause and effect triggered by the hair-like cilia, right? Then again, wasn’t human pain an intracellular chemical reaction, too? Charley pushed the thought from his mind, squeezed his knees even tighter, and continued with his blades, now in a sawing motion.
The head had now ceased opening and closing. With a final scrape of his blades, the head toppled.
Charley looked down. Sandy and Hank had done the same with the cluster of much smaller mantraps. He reversed his way down the stalk and landed with a thud on the ground.
“You look a sight.” Sandy grinned, her nose wrinkling up, and her eyes hopeful that Charley would laugh in return.
“More like an idiot,” Hank said, then laughed, “Just kidding, kind of—not too shabby work with that big one, I guess. Of course, you left Sandy and I to dispatch the six others, though. But yeah, look at you. And your blades, too.”
Charley looked himself over. He was still coated in a patina of grainy pollen that had hardened into a kind of crusted shell that made him look like a giant yellow sugarcoated marshmallow. His blades were slicked with viscous green goo from the mantrap. He looked up. “Maybe the blades will be poisonous to anything I use them on.” He smiled, lifting one in Hank’s direction.
“Okay, okay, whatever. You’re brave.” Hank backed away, but then looked at Sandy, placed his hands on his cheeks, and pitched his voice an octave higher. “But you look a sight! Oh my, I could still just kiss you, though!”
“Shut up, Hank!” Sandy’s cheeks bloomed as pink as the mantrap’s mouth. “Let’s go, we need to catch up to the others.”
They set off toward Grigor, Sven, and the others who were clustered in a clearing up ahead. The sun was setting, and the open space was as good of a place as any to make camp.
Camping.
In the Bramble.
It was bound to be a long night.
***
Sandy warmed her hands over the fire, as she watched Charley out of the corner of her eye. He was still caked in yellow pollen, his blades were stained with green goo from the mantrap, his hair was disheveled—in short, he was a mess. He was already nodding off, his mouth beginning to gape open, a string of spittle stretching from his bottom lip. She had to fight to restrain a smile.
She wondered to herself what it was that she saw in him. Of course he was brave, and strong, and possessed an unbending sense of justice for those who were weaker. In a way, she had fallen for him from the moment he had attacked those guards in Meritropolis to protect that little girl. But he was also brash, and bullheaded, and when he wasn’t consumed with himself—he could be infuriatingly selfish, treating Sandy as if she was just a helpless female with nothing of value to offer—he was consumed with a maniacal rage that he couldn’t always control. He wasn’t just scary to those he was fighting against; he was—if she was honest—scary to her as well.
Sandy knew that his anger was likely going to get him killed—probably get them all killed. She looked deeper into the flames that licked hungrily upward, bright fingers stretching skyward, hurling sparks to the stars. In times like this, all alone at night, she thought of her first love.
Carl. His name was Carl. His eyes were a soft cornflower blue; that was what she remembered about him the most: those kind eyes. He had been caring, and patient, and even brave, in his own way. And Sandy had fallen for him, too.
But he was a Low Score.
They knew their love was forbidden under the System. Their scores meant they could never be together. But they had been. For a blissful four months, three weeks, and six days. They had been together. Sandy clung to this fact. They had defied the System, even if only in that small way, and for that small amount of time. But soon enough they were discovered; she had been reprimanded, after all she was a High Score, and
important to the System, but he had been forced to marry another Low Score as his punishment. Either that or get zeroed, put outside of the gates for good. So he broke up with her. She couldn’t blame him, not really. But deep down, she couldn’t help herself. She had wanted him to defy the System, to refuse to give her up, to be willing to die to be with her.
But he hadn’t. He was kind and caring, but he was also practical, sensible, cautious. He wanted a family. So he had married the other woman.
Sandy stared at the fire, unblinking. That rage she saw in Charley—she also recognized it burning inside of her.
The day Charley had killed the guards to save the little girl from being zeroed at her gate ceremony, something in Sandy had screamed out. The bubbling resentment was given a conduit, a valve for release. She realized this—this was what she had wanted her first love to do.
To fight for her.
She knew, though, that the way she was drawn to Charley and his rage was a little unhealthy. He was not her first love. That person was gone forever; he had chosen someone else. But in Charley she saw traces of her first love.
She gazed into the fire, pondering the choices she had made in life, and the choices in life that had made her. The sparks from the fire flittered upward, fluorescent butterflies chasing the stars: here for a moment and then gone. She couldn’t help but compare Charley to Carl. She wondered if maybe that’s something unavoidable about your first love, that every person to follow you only love for the ways they remind you of your first. It’s as if a first true love casts the mold for all future loves. In some ways, Sandy believed this, and yet with Charley he had opened her eyes to an entirely new possibility of love.
He was different.
Charley snored a rough snort, jerking himself awake. Sandy tore her gaze away from the fire and met his sleepy eyes. She twitched her mouth into a little smile.
He mumbled, “Get some sleep; I think we’re safe by the fire.”
“Okay,” she reassured him. But her eyes remained open long after his had closed again.
She loved a lot about Charley, yes. But for all that she loved about his brash, take-charge attitude, it was not without its drawbacks. She was the one who had figured out how to get through the Bramble, and she had even successfully led them into the Bramble, and all the while she could feel resentment rising off Charley like steam from concrete. He had remained silent, but she could feel it. She had led the way, and led the way well. But it was something about the way he looked at her, as if he could only ever be happy together if he was firmly ensconced on the throne in what he deemed his rightful position. Well, if he considered himself the ruler, she wondered what that might make her? She wanted him to fight for her, but she wanted him to appreciate her, and respect her, too. Sandy sighed.
But Sandy was aware there were bigger things to worry about. Around the fire, and inside of an outward ring of smaller fires they had lit as a precaution, they were safe from the Bramble, for the time being, but who knew what lay ahead? She looked up at the starlit sky, willing her eyes to close and her mind to shut off. It was going to be a long night.
***
When Charley awoke, he was lying on a bed of flowers. He looked around, his movements sluggish, seemingly still in the fog of sleep. Everywhere he looked lavenders, saffrons, azures, and cyans burst into his field of vision; everything was coated in vibrant blooms of pastel. He shook his head, slowly pushing himself up onto his elbows. He was sure he was dreaming.
Even the mat made of vines he had bedded down on was raised off the ground by the closely clumped florets. The smell was fragrant but overpowering; the notes of honey blossom, pine, lilac, and bergamot melded into an unholy mixture that assailed his nose. Forcing himself onto his feet, Charley wobbled unsteadily. He felt as if he was being waterboarded in a perfume factory.
The others were also waking, each recreating Charley’s confused state from moments before.
Charley scrunched his eyes shut forcefully and then opened them again. The flowers were still there. Finding it difficult to breathe, he needed to do something about the smell. Moving as if underwater, he strained to rip a corner from his shirt. Reaching up, slowly, he aimed the tiny fabric square for his nose and missed, poking himself in the eye.
Charley swore under his breath, but then looking up, he met Hank’s eye. They both began to laugh uproariously. Standing, Hank picked an amethyst flower, staggered drunkenly to one side, lifted the bloom to his nose, and inhaled a deep sniff. Immediately, he started giggling, collapsing rapturously into a bed of harlequin hydrangea-esque bouquets that looked like giant clustered mopheads.
His depth perception still fuzzy, Charley rubbed his sore eye and attempted to plug his nose again. Finally succeeding, and the cacosmia slightly receding, he felt himself regain some semblance of control. Charley wobbled his way over to Hank, the degenerate flower sniffer still picking little blooms and cramming them up to his nostrils in an ecstasy of delight. Charley paused, watching. He remembered learning about strong drink firsthand, even as a young boy, and how while under the spell of an intoxicating substance he imagined himself the possessor of truth or special insight. But in reality, it’s fool’s gold—he just looked like an idiot.
Charley reached to help Hank, then stopped.
There was something important here. Something his still-cloudy mind was furiously trying to process and alert him to. He closed his eyes, motionless, then opened them again, squinting. What was it?
Sandy approached. “Well, are you going to help him, or just stare at him?”
Charley turned slowly. “Yeah, I was—it’s just, I don’t know, something …”
Sandy reached down and crammed two little sprigs of cloth into Hank’s nostrils. “There you go, buddy.” Sandy rolled her eyes as Hank gave a snort, shook his head, and started breathing through his mouth. “Be lucky you weren’t rescued by Grigor. I think he peed on his shirt strips before cramming them into people’s noses. I guess maybe he thought the ammonia would counteract the flower smell …”
Both Hank and Charley’s eyes grew wide, before Sandy guffawed. “Just kidding!” She looked over at Grigor and Sven, who had finished helping the others. “I think …” Holding her stomach, she suddenly doubled over, chortling in an uncharacteristically exuberant display.
Grigor and Sven strode up, accompanied by a still under-the-weather Orson. Grigor gestured in a circular motion. “Everyone has some kind of nose plugs in, but we’re surrounded. These flowers are everywhere.”
Sven spoke next. “They’re just flowers. We can just hack through them, right? I mean, we could just pick them, if we need to. It would literally be like a nice walk in the park.” He giggled. “It would be a really fun walk in the park, too. Picking all of these flowers …”
Charley looked from Sandy to Sven, his concern growing. It appeared that the nose strips were not a perfect antidote; they were both still loopy.
Grigor shook his head. “We are all still under the effects of the flowers. We need to hurry and hack, pick, uproot our way through—”
“Wait!” Charley exclaimed. It was coming to him, the warning his subconscious had been trying to signal to him earlier as his fuzzy brain strained to make sense of Hank’s earlier flower frolic. It was something about picking—what was it about picking flowers? Charley looked closely at Hank, and it came to him. “I don’t think we want to start picking any of the flowers, or hacking our way through them.”
“Why?” Sandy asked. “Don’t tell me you are falling under their spell again, too …”
“No, that’s not it,” Charley said. “Just watch.”
Charley bent down and plucked a single amaranthine bloom. Before he had even pulled his hand back, two blooms sprouted to replace it.
“Whoa—Charley, that’s awesome!” Hank chortled, reaching to pull a handful of his own.
Sandy shouted, “Stop it, you
lush!” But she was too late; the spot where Hank had culled his bunch immediately bloomed into a bush-sized bouquet.
“Heh, heh, that’s what I’m talking about.” Hank reached down again, eyes shining.
“Oh no, you don’t!” Sandy swatted his hand away. She stepped in front of him, attempting to shield him with her body. “I think Hank has too much in his system already for the nose plugs to do much good.” She looked to Charley, her eyes widening. “Charley, do something!”
Orson perked up. “It’s a hydra—a hydra bush. It will keep regrowing double.”
Hank giggled. “A hydra—a hydra-hydrangea. Heh, heh.” He degenerated into a strange little fit of sniggering.
“A hydra hydrangea …” Charley muttered softly.
Orson looked at Charley, cocked his head sideways, and stumbled forward before catching himself with an uneven jolt. “Too bad you destroyed that mantrap—some of that acid would be nice for cutting through this tangle. Works every time.” He looked at Grigor. “Or so I’ve been told.”
Grigor shrugged. “It is powerful stuff. I’ve heard mantrap acid can digest just about anything; that is why there were no other smaller plants close by the mantrap Charley cut down.”
Charley drew his two blades slowly, flipping them over from side to side, looking at the metal still stained green from the mantrap goo.
“Charley, what are you doing?” Sandy asked.
Stepping forward, Charley raised both of the poisoned blades. “I don’t exactly have a vat of acid, but let’s see if this works.” He slashed both blades down in a vicious circular scything motion and began to vigorously chop through the now bush-sized flowers. It seemed wrong somehow; he hacked violently through the polychromatic pastels, sending florets, big and small, sliding along on the wind like so much common brush.
But it appeared to be working. His poisoned blades were cauterizing the hydra bushes and preventing their regrowth.
“Let’s go—follow me!” Charley called out, slicing his way out. In mere moments, the plants before them, eerily sentient, seemed to sense the presence of his poisoned blades and rapidly recoiled, presenting a clear pathway.
