Magnolia leaped over clusters of thick roots. The beast was inside the room now, trying to flank her on the left. She kept moving, matching its pace, keeping it in sight. She could not allow it to get behind her.
Wind rustled her suit as she crossed the room. It was rushing in through the missing windows. She pivoted her helmet slightly so she could see the ocean lapping at the shore less than a mile away. The move cost her dearly. Staggering, she fought to regain her balance as she tripped over a vine. She managed to fight her way upright and continued running, but the floor ended in a sheer drop. The seven-story fall would kill her outright or at least break her legs—in this place, a fate worse than sudden death.
Two options remained: turn and fight, or jump.
Magnolia eyed the nearest building. It was close enough that with a running start, she might make it across. Assuming that the beast wouldn’t follow, it was her best way out.
The monster screamed, and she screamed back at it. It was galloping toward her, the stalked eyeball leering.
Magnolia pushed hard, trying not to second-guess her decision. The winking red stems guided her path. In the glow, she saw the vines shifting and breaking away from the surfaces they had grown on. The central trunk creaked and groaned behind her, as if it was coming to life and might attack at any moment. She had thought the one-eyed creature was the biggest threat in the room, but what if she had been wrong?
She shoved her curiosity aside and sprinted toward the ledge. About ten feet lay between her and the sloping edge of the next tower. To clear the gap, she would need to leap as she never had before.
One of the stems snapped free of the concrete and shot through the air past her helmet. She moved to the right at the last instant. The ground raced by below her as, arms flailing, she jumped. A screech followed her across the gap between the buildings, but that didn’t concern her right now.
She was not going to make it.
Her momentum quickly dissipated, and gravity took hold. She reached out for the ledge of the building, but she was still a good five feet away, and then she was falling headfirst toward the pavement.
Time seemed to slow and speed up at the same time. Lightning surged above the city, giving her a snapshot of her landing zone. Derelict vehicles littered rubble-strewn asphalt. Would it hurt more to land on one of them, or should she aim for the bare ground?
Something wrapped around her left ankle, jerking her upward. The abrupt motion put her stomach in her throat. Blood rushed to her head as she stared at the ground, which was now falling away.
Magnolia twisted to look at the vines that had caught her boot. They had snaked up to the floor she jumped from. She caught a flash of movement between two broken pillars. She wasn’t the only thing the vegetation had caught. The beast fought the vines wrapped around all three of its limbs. They pulled from all directions, as if determined to tear it apart.
Magnolia did a midair sit-up and grabbed the stems so she faced upward. She hacked at the vines just as the creature above came apart. Stems snapped the two legs and single arm away from the body, carmine blood gushing from the wounds as more vines pulled the torso away from the ledge.
Her heart was beating at double speed now. Red sap oozed as she sawed through one of the vines holding her left boot. It snapped free, and the wounded vine writhed back to the floor above.
She grabbed the remaining stem with one hand and sawed at it with the other. If she cut herself free now, she would fall to the street. Her only chance was to wait until she was close enough to the building she had jumped from to grab on to something.
Above, dozens of the stems waited at the ledge, their snakelike heads weaving back and forth in search for prey.
Magnolia waited for the right moment, then gripped the vine right above her saw marks and cut herself free.
The shortened tentacle pulled her back to the floor she had jumped from. Her helmet and shoulders rose above the ledge, and in the hellish red glow she saw something that took her breath away.
Hundreds of vines were squirming around the central tree, which had split down the middle. Something that looked horribly like a mouth surrounded the torso of the one-eyed beast, and jagged teeth the size of her hand chopped the creature to pieces.
A dozen of the vines shot toward her, and she let go of the one she had cut. She was dropping again, this time not to the ground but to the next floor. The vines there pulsated at her presence, but Magnolia was off and running by the time they started crawling toward her.
Nothing was going to stop her from reaching the ocean—especially not some big, ugly tree with teeth.
Weaver had pushed all his thoughts and worries aside the moment the launch tube doors opened.
He led the other two divers through the clouds, constantly checking the subscreen in the upper right corner of his HUD. The data was a jumble of meaningless characters because of the electrical currents they were passing through. The hair on his body prickled. He was giving the storm a run for its money, as he always did.
One day, the storm would win, but maybe not today.
Weaver was falling at 150 miles per hour. This was his eighty-ninth time reaching terminal velocity in his career as a Hell Diver. He had shattered all records but the one held by Xavier Rodriguez. And somehow, he continued to make it back from each dive. But part of that was due to the so-called safe dives Captain Jordan had assigned them. Jordan favored green-zone jumps, where the biggest threat was lightning. This was the first dive into a red zone in over a year, and now he wasn’t sure he would ever break X’s record.
Thunder boomed, farther away now. The storm had weakened, but sporadic lightning still flashed across his flight path. He bit down on his worn mouth guard. The piece of plastic should have been jettisoned from the Hive with the rest of the trash long ago. But he had kept it for sentimental reasons ever since the last dive from his home ship, Ares, when he lost everyone and everything but the equipment he was carrying.
He searched the clouds below for a glimpse of the city that could possibly harbor survivors. Janga had said that a man would lead them to the promised land, but the transmission from Hilltop Bastion had been a woman’s voice. Weaver hadn’t told any of the other divers about his visits to Janga. They wouldn’t understand. Worse, they might laugh at him. Hell, right now the prophecy looked silly to him, too.
The bed of wind pushed up against him as he slowly turned his body in the air to look for Andrew and Rodger. Both divers were to his east, the cool blue of their battery packs sparkling in the clouds. Weaver was glad Jordan had sent Rodger, but he feared that an extra team member wouldn’t be enough. He had no idea what they would find on the surface. Maybe there was a bunker full of supplies. Maybe Magnolia would be waiting for them, wondering why it had taken them so damn long to show up. Maybe Rodger would give her the toy he had made her, or whatever it was, and they would live happily ever after in the promised land. But for now, Weaver just needed to get his team safely to the surface.
As the storm weakened, the data on his HUD sorted itself out, and he bumped his chin pad. “Apollo One and Raptor Two, you guys okay?”
“I’m good,” Andrew replied.
Rodger let out a belch. “I don’t feel so good, Commander. I think I’m going to have—”
“Keep your cheeks clenched. That’s an order.” Hadn’t he just been thinking how glad he was about having Rodger along? The guy was brilliant, but he needed to figure out when it was time to be serious.
As the thunder waned, Weaver turned his mind to the next hazard. The landing could be just as deadly as the lightning. His neck ached as he tilted his head. Everything hurt when you were over fifty years old, especially if you had spent most of those years trying to get yourself killed.