"We shouldn't have come here at night," Clara grumbled.
Andy checked his watch. It had been a couple hours and nothing had happened. A cluster of pollen drifted past the window, glowing blue luminescent. The lights were pretty, but likely poisonous. Andy put his hand against the aircon vent, just to make sure it wasn't blowing pollen inside their jeep. Vines draped overhead, caressing the roof like a prehistoric car wash. Ahead, the Trojan battlewagon plowed through the undergrowth, following what remained of a motorway. Behind it, the other mercs trailed in their pickup trucks. Their headlights shone off the rusty skeleton of a lamppost, a crooked signpost displaying a faded, wordless warning.
Ahead, the canopy formed a solid wall blocking their path. The convoy slowed to a crawl, then firelight lit their surroundings. The Trojan battlewagon was spurting flamethrower fire over the jungle blockade.
"Wow," Andy said. "Why don't we have a flamethrower?"
"Where would we put one?" Clara asked.
"I could carry it. Maybe just a little one."
"Add it to the wishlist."
Andy took a notepad out of the glovebox and marked it down. Inside were diagrams and descriptions of all the weapons he wanted, most of which he'd seen in games and movies.
"When are we gonna get a gravity cannon?" Andy asked, pointing to a drawing he'd made near the beginning of the notepad. It was drawn in three frames like a comic book, depicting a stick-figure Andy blasting an angry mutant off the page. "How cool would that be?"
"Yeah, I'm keeping my eyes out for one," Clara said, but her voice sounded distant and distracted.
Each spurt from the flamethrower revealed more of the jungle. Andy caught glimpses of their surroundings, and his Combat Conceptualization module worked to fill in the gaps. Another spurt of flame, and something looked wrong to Andy. The image seemed imperfect. Something had changed. As he shone a torch into the dark, the Trojan hissed and another spurt of flame roared forth. Something flinched in the firelight. A clump of moss shifted, growing in size and shrinking into the shadows.
"Something just moved."
Clara was alert, one hand on the wheel, one on the gear stick. "What we got?"
"Some sort of moss thing."
"What's it doing?"
"I don't know." The clump seemed to oscillate in the dark. It flitted like a lump of butter boiling in a pan, swelling and diminishing with each burst of flame. Andy checked on the Trojan. It had burnt a hole in the solid wall of vegetation. He could see a steel bridge now which had acted as a frame for the blockade, buried deep beneath the jungle. The plant life was too wet to catch alight and spread, forcing the battlewagon to burrow like a mole.
A horn screamed. Andy checked the wing mirror. Something loomed over one of the pickup trucks of the mercenaries following them. A shadow with blue specks.
The gearbox growled as Clara tried to reverse, but their truck wouldn't move. Something must have clogged the gearbox. His sister flinched as a thick limb-like vine slammed into the windscreen. They both drew their pistols in unison, but did not fire. If the creature was trying to get in, the worst thing they could do was create a hole for it.
"Flares," Clara said, digging out her rucksack.
"Not sure that'll cut it," Andy said, tapping on his driver side window with the barrel of his 9mm. Tiny blue flowers sucked against the window like leeches as the clump of moss slowly enveloped their jeep. A crack appeared on Clara's driver side window. Andy tasted the metallic tang of his Augmentation hormones firing, but couldn't think of any of his abilities that would be useful. Clara pulled a flare out of her back and struck it, igniting a pink flame. Andy squinted as she pressed the flare against the window, singing tendrils that had begun to take root in the crack. The moss abetted, but only for a moment.
A vine burst through Andy's window, shattering glass and grabbing his neck. He drew his knife and severed it, but the breach was already made. Moss bloomed in the opening, expanding inside their jeep, clutching and cracking the glass. Andy slung off his leather jacket and pressed it against the hole, shoving the moss back.
"Got anymore flares?" Andy asked.
"In the boot."
If he let go of the jacket now, they'd be swamped. "What about a grenade?"
"It'll damage the jeep."
"Fire? From the fuel canisters?"
"You wanna choke to death?"
Vines clutched Andy's wrists, dragging him through the glass. The moss swarmed in through the opening, blue flowers puckering and probing for flesh. When they latched onto his arms, he could feel their tiny teeth tugging at his skin. What a horrible way to die, death by a million needles. Andy slashed wildly with his knife, cutting the moss to ribbons, but let go of his jacket in the process. Andy snatched at the collar as his trusty leather friend was dragged out of the window, then something caught his eye inside a pocket—the drawing of a bear's maw. The words DESPERATION PERSPIRATION were written across a metallic can.
Sheathing his knife, Andy grabbed the can and sprayed it through the crack into the moss. "The flare," he shouted. Clara leaned over and jammed the sizzling flare against the deodorant can's muzzle. A burst of pink flame sprayed forward, drenching the window in fire. The moss creature hissed, sizzled, and popped, tiny flowers burnt to a crisp.
"Woo!" Andy yanked his jacket back into the jeep and grabbed the flare from Clara. Shouldering the door open, he sprayed his miniature pink flamethrower in a wide swath over the jeep. The moss shriveled away, receding underfoot like a tide. The jeep revved, and Andy jumped back inside as Clara stuck it into gear and sped off. They drove in the Trojan's smoldering wake beneath a tunnel of vines until they were out on the jungle road again. The battlewagon's headlights had disappeared in the undergrowth, but their path of destruction was easy to follow.
Andy shook the can. About half of it remained. "Got enough for one more stop if you need a leak."
Behind them, gunfire cracked, muffled by the jungle. Then a low boom.
"Damn," Andy said. "I think our friends are struggling."
"Either they make it or they don't."
"Damn, sis, cold."
"Well, we can't turn around now, can we," she snapped. "It's not cold, it's just the job."
Andy had meant it as a compliment, but clearly she hadn't gotten it. They caught up to the battlewagon as, around them, the dilapidated ruins of a city rose out of the undergrowth. The husks of brick buildings were seized by vines. A huge freight truck carried a cargo of fat-headed mushrooms, gleaming with a viscous secretion. A steel gate stood poised, guarding nothing. Clumps of moss of every texture and color dotted the roadside, clinging to signposts and derelict cars. Mist evaporated in their headlamps where, ahead, the Trojan had burned a path through the congestion, not wanting to get bogged down on the road again, ripe for another ambush.
Finally, after hours of cautious travel, the jungle opened up before them, stretching its tendrils over a wide, cluttered bridge. A cemetery of rusted vehicles was packed on the bridge, their oxidized orange hulls had been transformed into artsy plant pots by the spreading jungle. Spindly creepers wrapped around doors and window frames, joined by ferns sprouting from the vehicles' sodden seat cushions. Moss coated the seams as though someone had gone over the car frames with a highlighter pen, filling in the cracks. There was a path through the vehicles where someone had pushed them aside, which the Trojan battlewagon was now widening with its beaked dozer blade.
Below them, the murky river gushed towards the coast. Beyond the bridge stood the silent city, shaded as the sun rose at its back. There were crops of trees on the opposite bank, but the type Andy had come to associate with this region of the world, not so much the killer-moss kind. It seemed that the jungle had failed to cross the wide river and conquer the city streets beyond it.
Clara parked their jeep at the edge of the bridge as the Trojan waded through the wreckages.
"Let's wait for them here," Clara said. "Give them a chance to catch up."
Andy got out and stretched his legs. His passenger side was cracked beyond the repair of any tool other than heaven-sent duct tape. He fetched a roll from the boot and started to repair the damages, applying the tape like bandages over holes and cracks in the glass. After a few more minutes, Andy heard the sound of engines approaching from behind. Two pickup trucks staggered out onto the road stained green from veggie juices, their windows and bonnets shattered and battered.
"Good," Clara said. "I was worried we were working with amateurs."
Andy unscrewed his hip flask and took a sip, then offered some to his sister, which for once, she accepted. "Yeah, we'll see."