Kudzu, Chapter 17

Tags

book 3, chapter 17, kudzu, novel

Today, I reorganized the attic. A little. Enough to lay some fiberboard down over where I cleverly ripped up floorboards in a failed attempt to install a ceiling fan in the bathroom, years ago.

In other news, if you have been enjoying my writing, a story I wrote maybe six years ago has finally found its way into print – A Domestic Disturbance documents one of those rare occasions when the gods squabbled. And today, my story, Ink, was podcast over at Nobilis Erotica. In case the name of the venue wasn’t clear enough, this story involves “adult themes and situations,” and if that isn’t your thing, you should maybe avoid it.

Kudzu, A Novel

Chapter 17

The sudden light assaulted Sir Reginald’s eyes, blinding him, and his foot came down not on filthy, mist-damp cobblestones, but on a flat, slick surface. The entire room was white–floor, walls, ceiling–and high-lumen florescent bulbs hummed above his head. Steam assailed him, and the intermingled scents of mildew and floral soaps. There was the sound of water falling. He flailed as his foot went out from under him, grasped the first thing he came across to steady himself.

It was flesh, hot and wet, and a bit sudsy, and it squeaked. And squeaked again as it lost its footing as well, even as he recovered.

Instinctively, Sir Reginald caught the squeaker under its armpits–her, he realized, oh, most very definitely a her–arresting her fall before she could bruise her tailbone.

Kevyn, most likely, Sir Reginald thought. She had been the person he was closest to when he had slipped. Close enough to influence–to impress her presence upon–whatever it was that caused his curious excursions, and to thus become the anchor for his return. Ah well, he’d talked his way out of more embarrassing situations.

He tried opening his eyes. The light was a bit closer to bearable, but his eyes were tearing, and the steam had fogged his spectacles. He still couldn’t see properly. Just shapes in the mist.

A half-dozen of them, of various sizes, perhaps more.

They were turning toward the source of the commotion.

They were, one and all, most definitely female. There were also all most definitely nude.

This would take some explaining, indeed.

~

Kevyn looked up at her assailant, who had pulled her off-balance and then caught her, and now held her up under her arms. One hand firmly on her left breast. That hand let go quickly, with a gruffly muttered apology, and grasped her arm instead.

“Sir Reginald?”

“Ah, yes. Kevyn.” Sir Reginald lifted her to her feet. “I apologize for interrupting you…” he cleared his throat. “Your festivities. And I humbly beg forgiveness, from one and all, and assure you, I had no intention of intruding upon your private moments, and shall take my leave with the utmost of haste.”

So far, none of the prisoners had said a word; they just stared at the man in the improbably anachronistic clothing–double-breasted Westminster with velvet collar, pinstriped trousers, and (admittedly worse-for-wear) homberg perched atop his head–who had somehow gotten himself into the women’s shower of Haviland Penitentiary without anyone noticing.

“You left me,” Kevyn said. She slapped at him.

He caught her wrist. “One moment, please.” He removed his spectacles, then let go her hand.

This time, when she slapped him across the face, he made no move to stop her. “You left me. In the dark. Locked into a building I had to break out of.”

“Ah, yes. Well, entirely unavoidable, I assure you, and–”

“And stop talking in that stupid British accent!”

A rough hand pushed Kevyn aside; its owner stepped up to Sir Reginald. Erica. A lifer. She wore her scars and her prison tats with enough pride that standing stark naked with half a head full of shampoo in front of a man she didn’t know did nothing to diminish her authority. The other women formed a wedge behind her.

If Sir Reginald was even remotely wise, Kevyn thought, he should be terrified right now.

“Where’d you come from?”

“Ah, now that’s a bit complicated.”

Erica thrust a shampoo bottle up against Sir Reginald’s throat with enough force to push him backwards, pressing him against the wall. The sound of a key in the lock stopped her from doing more. Erica gestured for the man to move into the corner, where the open door would partially block him from sight. The door opened a crack.

“It’s awful quiet in there,” the guard said, glancing in. “Is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine,” Erica said.

“I’ll be really unhappy if I have to get my shoes wet. I want to hear from all of you, is everything alright?”

One by one the prisoners called out their names, and affirmed that they were unharmed. Kevyn went so far as to step in front of the door to demonstrate a lack of bruises. She was the new kid on the cell block, and the most likely to be targeted for any abuse. Everyone, with the possible exception of Sir Reginald, understood that that was the guard’s real concern.

Satisfied, the guard closed the door. Erica motioned for the other women to resume showering.

“Kevyn,” Sir Reginald said, “please tell me that I’ve walked into some sort of kinky Milgrams re-enactment.”

“What’s a Milgram?”

Sir Reginald sighed, then remembered they weren’t alone. “God’s teeth, woman, what have you gotten me into?”

Kevyn shoved past Erica, slammed a hand against Sir Reginald’s chest. “What have I gotten you into? You got me thrown in jail for trespassing in your precious observatory, and destruction of private property. I have been poked and prodded, and fingerprinted and strip searched and… and deloused because of you.”

“Well, at least you got something out of it. I have a very bad feeling about that spaceship we saw, and we won’t be able to do anything about it if we stay in jail. I suggest that you finish your shower so that we can get out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere ‘less you take me with you,” Erica growled.

“Of course, good lady,” Sir Reginald said. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you–” He looked around, and sighed. “Any of you–behind.”

Kevyn glared at him.

“Kevyn,” he said. “Trust me.”

And despite everything, she did.

Kudzu, Book III, Chapter 16

Tags

book 3, chapter 16, kudzu, novel, Sir Reginald F. Grump XXIII

I really need to figure out this time-management thing. Sunday has come and almost gone before I figured out that I should be posting something today. Linda and I managed to get some yard work done – I’m not certain, but this may be the first weekend all summer that hasn’t been either rainy or drought-ridden or mosquito-infested and oppressive. I also managed to break our brand new bathroom door. it hath been “fixed” with bits of wood, electrical tape, and spackle. Yay. And now, without further ado, we bring you another exciting episode of Kudzu.

Kudzu, a Novel

Book III: The Secret History of Trust

Chapter 16

Sir Reginald F. Grump XXIII hurried down the gas-lit cobblestone street. A furtive glance behind him assured him that his pursuers had not yet found his trail. Even this late at night the Whitechapel streets bustled with activity, but most of it was on foot; few people whose business interests kept them on the streets at this hour could afford regular meals, much less a horse. Still, he wasn’t safe yet. Those who sought him were not the sort to give up so easily one the hunt had begun.

And they were uncannily good at what they did.

Grump poked his head into a drinking establishment. No, it wouldn’t do. There was no rear exit that he could detect. And not enough people to effectively hide him, but enough to become significant collateral damage should he be found in their company. He kept moving.

The sound of horse hooves on cobblestone came from behind him, and the shouts of people scrambling to get out from under them.

Heart in his throat, Grump ducked into a narrow, dark alley. They couldn’t bring the horses through here, at least. He caught his foot on something as he ran through the darkness, and spun into the wall. His elbow struck brick, and numbing pain shot down through his fingers.

There was an alcove here. A locked door. He took shelter there, gasping for breath, and willing his eyes to adapt to the nearly absolute darkness.

He reached into his coat pocket. Yes, it was still there. He drew the pistol out and checked it. As his eyes adjusted, he could barely make out the shape of the thing. It was cold in his hand, a heavy, offensive weight.

He had two bullets left.

He risked a look down the alley. No dark-cloaked shapes with glowing red eyes were coming down the alley toward him. Not actually glowing, he reminded himself. Just a side-effect of their ritual pharmaceuticals. No shapes, glowing eyes or otherwise, human or otherwise, were coming down the alley toward him.

He put the pistol back in his pocket, and stepped out of the alcove.

And into the blinding light.

~

The worst part of jail, Kevyn thought, was the constant, casual humiliation. As if by having broken some law or another, one had abrogated one’s right to even the most basic of human dignities. Being herded naked with a half-dozen other women through the cell blocks to the shower room wasn’t even the worst of it.

There were eight of them, from three cells, and three guards, one male and two female. They’d been ordered to strip for shower time, searched for contraband, and then escorted through the jail to the showers, past all the other prisoners, who whistled and catcalled.

Kevyn ignored the running commentary from the male guard about her tattoos and piercings. One of the female guards called her a cunt and told her not to “get any fucking ideas.”

Kevyn noticed that the other female guard’s lips tighten at the assault. But she didn’t do anything to stop it.

They were escorted through what looked to have been a locker room at one point, but the lockers had all been ripped out. Only some plastic benches remained, bolted to the floor. At the end of the locker room was a heavy, metal door. One of the guards unlocked it. Beyond that was a room that had once held toilets and sinks. The stalls had been removed, and the sinks, and plumbing. All that remained were three seatless, dry toilet bowls, stripped of their plumbing, and a single storage chest against one wall. The prisoners and one of the guards entered, and the the others locked the door behind them.

Another door marked the end of what had been a lavatory. The guard unlocked it. She pushed the door open, then rummaged in the chest.

“Okay, ladies,” she said, “you know the drill. Here’s soap and shampoo. If you have any known allergies, I’ll try to accommodate. You’ve got fifteen minutes.” She glanced at the locked door behind them, shook her head. “Shit. Might as well make it twenty.”

She shut the door, locking the prisoners into the shower room.

The showers were not pretty. There were four corroded shower heads, each controlled with a timer switch. The timers shut the water off after thirty seconds, and couldn’t be restarted until another half-minute had passed, destroying any chance of actually enjoying oneself. The floor was cracked industrial tile, green—and slippery—with mildew.

Kevyn had been looking forward to her first shower since her arrest, three days earlier. Now she was less eager; no telling what she might pick up here, all before she had even managed to get a meeting scheduled with a public defender.

“When I get out of here,” she said, “I’m going to have a long talk with the mayor about the conditions in here.”

Kevyn’s cell-mate, Melissa, laughed as she ran water through her long, dark hair. “You think anyone out there cares what happens in here? Besides, what makes you think you’re getting out? Pass the shampoo.”

“I’m innocent, that’s what. This whole thing is just a big misunderstanding. Once I get to meet with my lawyer, we’ll get ahold of Sir Reginald and he can explain everything.”

Another of the prisoners spoke up. “Honey, if you’re depending on a man to save you, you’re gonna be here a long time.”

Melissa stepped away from the shower head as she worked lather into her scalp.

Kevyn pushed the button impatiently until water spat from the fixture. She stepped into the spray of hot water and, for thirty seconds, thought of nothing but the feel of water running down her skin, and the steam filling her nose and lungs.

Kudzu, Chapter 15

Tags

book 2, chapter 15, kudzu, novel

In space, there are no cliffs from which to hang.

Kudzu, A Novel

Chapter 15

Jaworsky repeated himself, more slowly, more deliberately, in case they hadn’t understood.

“How much time do we have?”

“Um. Fifteen minutes? Twenty?” Amelia’s voice was tentative. “It’s non-linear.”

“‘Kay,” Jaworsky said. “Did any of you geniuses bother to get some specimens of this thing?”

Ash spoke up. “I got some cuttings from Colleen before they went in. She asked me take them to her lab.”

“All right. Good. Go see what happens when you zap them with a strong electrical current. Report back as soon as you know anything. I’m going to get working on tying the reactor output to the outer hull, but we’ll need to know as soon as possible if that’s not going to work.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ash said.

“I’ll work on boosting the radio signals so we can get ahold of Michael and Colleen,” Susan said.

“Yeah, good. And Slim, too, right?” Jaworsky said. “Amelia, I need you on deck to fly the ship if this works. If it doesn’t, well, we’re not going to have time for a plan B. In that case, everybody get your ass to the docking bay and abandon ship. Tharp, I need you to get down there and start prepping the suits.”

“Just wait a min…” Tharp trailed off, catching a glimpse of Amelia’s face. “Okay, I’m on my way.”

~

Michael wasn’t stopping to sight-see. He propelled himself as fast as he dared down the tunnel, Slim trailing behind him. In gravity, the raccoons could outrun and out-maneuver a human with ease; weightless and not needing to make any sudden changes in direction, Michael’s human-long arms gave him the upper hand over Slim’s shorter limbs.

“Slow down,” Slim panted. “You don’t know what’s ahead. There could be anything out there. Bears, mountain lions. Even politicians.”

Michael ignored him. Just called Colleen’s name over and over.

And almost didn’t notice as the tunnel walls dropped away from him.

He kicked out with one foot, catching a vine with his toes. His momentum swung him against the chamber wall. He held on tight to keep from bouncing off and away from the wall.

When he recovered, he saw Colleen’s suited form lying against the wall halfway around the cavernous space. He called her name, but she didn’t respond.

Oh God.

Then she moved. She sat up and pulled her arm out of the depths of the kudzu wall. She was holding a specimen bag. Michael heaved a sigh.

Colleen sealed the specimen bag in her pack and looked around. She waved at Michael, pointed to her ear and shrugged.

“Colleen’s safe,” Michael said. “Her radio went out, is all.”

“So you almost got us both killed for nothing?”

A blast of static nearly deafened Michael. Susan’s voice rode the noise. “Away team, can you hear me? Emergency. I repeat, emergency. Return to the ship immediately.”

“What the hell? Susan, what kind of emergency?”

“Away team, can you hear me?” she asked again. “God I hope you can hear me now. Emergency. I repeat, emergency. Return to the ship immediately.”

Oblivious, Colleen pulled a fresh specimen bag from her pack.

“Shit,” Michael said. “Slim, get back to the ship. You don’t move as fast as we do here. I’ll get Colleen and join you.”

He shouted her name again, and then launched himself across the cavern toward her.

~

“I’ve got the signal boosted as high as I can, but I have no idea if we’re getting through,” Susan said. “We’re receiving nothing.”

“Okay. Amelia, how are we doing for time?”

“If we have to abandon ship, we need to leave our posts in maybe five minutes, to be safe. Sort of. That’s estimating five more minutes to get–”

“Yes!” Ash’s voice cut through. “Okay. Electricity damages it. It actually recoils from a strong enough charge. But it has to be serious power. When I used the output of a standard wall outlet, it sort of just ignored it.”

“Sort of?” Amelia asked.

“It grew a sort of rubbery insulating layer, real quick. So I doubled the charge, and that fried it.”

“Good to know. I’ve got the power spliced to the hull. I just need to get down to the reactor to get it all connected up. Susan, keep broadcasting. Give them more information so they know what we’re up against. Amelia, just stay ready.”

“Yeah, I’m on it.”

“What should I do?” Ash asked.

“You and Tharp suit up and get ready to pull people back into the ship. Bring a med kit. And oxygen.”

It took Jaworsky eight minutes to get the right connectors spliced onto the cable.

“Running out of time, Jaworsky,” Amelia said. “I hope you’re almost done.”

“Almost. Any sign of our away team?”

“Not yet,” Tharp said.

“Fuck. Okay, I’ve got everything hooked up. Just have to flip the breaker. In theory the outer hull is insulated from the inner hull and the rest of the ship, and the rings are even further isolated, but it hasn’t been tested with the amount of power I’m about to sink into it, not since the accident. As much as possible, I recommend that you stay away from metal surfaces. Got it?”

One by one, the remaining crew attested to their safety. Tharp and Ash floated in the middle of the docking bay, tethered to the interior wall but far from anything solid. Susan had crawled into her bunk. All but Amelia.

“The control panel is metal,” Amelia said. “I hope you wired this thing up right.”

“You and me both, kid. All right, here goes.”

Jaworsky pulled the breaker closed. There was a flash, and Jaworsky grunted, like someone had punched him in the gut. Then he was silent.

The ship thrummed with power.

“Someone’s coming through!” Tharp said.

“It’s Slim,” Ash added. “I’m on my way. I’ve almost got him!”

Greenery flashed, blackened, and separated from the ship. The Beagle lurched and twisted.

Amelia struggled to stabilize the ship.

The kudzu ripped away.

Ash reached, caught nothing.

Atmosphere spilled out into space through the docking bay door, and spraying through the hole cut in the kudzu, ejecting the hapless raccoon like a champagne cork.

The kudzu grew quickly, sealing the hole in a matter of seconds. Stemming the jet of gas, and trapping Colleen and Michael within.

“No,” Ash said, his voice soft, as the ship drifted away from the grasping plant, and Slim’s body tumbled in the widening gap. “Oh, no.”

End of Book II

Kudzu, Chapter 14

Tags

book 2, chapter 14, kudzu, novel

I have spots of green on my stomach. Is it possible that the kudzu within is finally breaking through this fleshy sack? More likely it is paint that failed to find its proper home on the woodwork. (Does this mean that the bathroom remodeling is finally finished, and I can spend more time writing? Why yes, yes it does.)

Kudzu, A Novel

Chapter 14

“I can’t decide if this is utterly creepy, or weirdly comforting.” Michael inspected one of the luminescent leaves. Each of the three leaflets that comprised it was as big as a plate, and gave off enough light to read by; the veins glowed brightest of all. They were warm to the touch.

Slim moved slowly across the surface, giving wide berth to anything that looked remotely like a hole something could hide in. “I keep thinking that my species memory should kick in any time now, or instincts, or something. But I vote for creepy. This ain’t natural. Give me steel and plastic over this any day of the week.”

Michael chuckled. “You’ve got to learn to relax. Experience the world for what it is.”

“I don’t need a lesson on experiencing the world,” Slim said. “I sprained my damn tail keeping you from getting cut in half. Do you see me whining? I’m just saying, maybe the world can give us a fucking break. We’ve had enough weird, bad shit already. Can we go back to normal?”

Colleen was characteristically silent. She just moved on, her explorations taking her further ahead of the others.

“Oh, damn!” Michael pulled back abruptly as one of the glowing leaflets snapped off its stem with a bright, electric spark. The spark was short-lived, though; the plant healed over quickly enough that very little of the luminescent sap spilled. The leaflet floated in front of him, still glowing, and he reached out a tentative hand.

Nothing bad happened when he touched it, even when he poked the fresh film that covered the broken stem. He tucked it under his air hose, wearing it like a corsage.

“You look like you’re ready to go spelunking,” Slim said.

“Yeah, works pretty good. I wonder how long it lasts.” Michael looked around. “Where’d Colleen go?”

As far as they could see before the tunnel twisted away, there was no sign of her. Michael bit back panic.

“Colleen? Can you hear us? Colleen?”

But all he heard in response was Slim’s rapid breathing, and his own heart beating in his ears.

~

Even with her radio off, Colleen could still hear Michael and Slim talking; their voices were muffled by their helmets, but still carried through whatever atmosphere filled this this strange place. She kept moving, even as they stopped to investigate things. Kept moving until they were out of sight, and out of earshot.

The tunnel twisted in a slow loop and then widened dramatically. The chamber was huge, big enough to fit the Beagle’s shuttle, if they hadn’t lost it in the accident, with a half-dozen other tunnels radiating from it. Colleen imagined that it looked somewhat like a knot viewed from the outside. From the inside, it was more like a cathedral.

It was also warmer, and more humid. A moist breeze cut across the open space, passing between the two largest tunnels, but also eddying around the chamber. Colleen’s helmet fogged as the moisture condensed. She wiped it away as best she could with the non-porous fabric of her glove.

It was almost too late when she realized that the currents had caught her up, and that she was drifting toward one of the big tunnels, the chamber’s exhaust pipe. She reached for the closest of the vines, but her fingers caught only leaves, which, after a second’s resistance, broke away from the plant. It was enough, though, to change her trajectory.

She came back within reach of the wall about fifty meters from where she’d started. The vines here were more loosely entwined, and the first few handfuls came away in her hands, but she managed to grab a strong, thick vine that stopped her momentum with a good two meters to spare. No problem.

The leaves she’d broken off in her scrabbling were swept into the tunnel. Colleen wrapped her arms around the vines and took a deep shuddering breath. No, she wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. Maybe, if how her body reacted in the face of nearly being swept away was any indication, not for a long time. Something to think about, when she was back on the ship.

Oh. This is interesting. With the leaves under her stripped away in her mad scramble, she could see beyond the first, the innermost, layer of the plant, and into the next. Moisture condensed on the leaves below her, gathering and dripping slowly in thin rivulets toward the tunnel.

Very interesting, indeed.

~

Earl Jaworsky whistled, off-key and aimless, as he muscled the massive cable into place. The thing ran three quarters of the length of the ship, all the way from the second ring to the reactor. Once he got the reactor side end measured out, he worked his way back up the ship, securing it to the hull at one meter intervals. Jaworsky knew better than to let anything with this kind of amperage flap around. If he’d had the time–and the materials–he’d have run it through a heavy, insulated duct. But he didn’t. The best he could do is come back later and paint DO NOT CROSS lines around it, and hope the others weren’t as stubbornly idiotic as they seemed.

He’d gotten the cable tied down as far as the third ring when Amelia’s voice crackled from the speakers.

“Folks, I think we may have a problem. From what I can see, the plant has started to grow around the ship. It’s already wrapped around the docking bay.”

Ash’s voice: “Oh, shit. I knew–” Ash stopped talking.

“Can we break free?” Tharp asked.

“I can’t reach Slim,” Amelia said. “Or Michael or Colleen. It’s like there’s some sort of interference. There was a lot of noise in the signal as soon as they got inside the thing, and now all I get is static.”

“But can we break free?”

“We can’t leave them behind!”

“We’ll go back and rescue them,” Tharp said. “I promise. But if we get trapped by this thing, that’s it for us. Get us free of it.”

“Shit shit shit.” Amelia muttered as she worked.

Jaworsky felt the engines fire, heard the vibration rumble through the hull. Metal protested. The Beagle lurched and strained. The engines cut out.

“No,” said Amelia. “Not without tearing the docking bay off the ship. And then we all die.”

“So that’s it? We’re stuck on this thing?” Tharp sounded close to despair.

“Castaways in space,” Ash said. “Brilliant. I get to waste away stuck on a giant space weed. With you people.”

Fuck. Jaworsky ignored the inevitable bickering that exploded between Ash and Tharp and Susan. He closed his eyes and pictured the ship with its rotating forward ring, and the massive plant, also rotating, but with a much slower rate of rotation.

“All right, shut up.” he said. “Everyone just shut the fuck up. It’s physics lesson time. When I was a kid we had these things called bicycles–they were before your time, but you might have heard of them: handle bar, seat, two big, spoked wheels. We used to ride them all over. And if there was some kid you didn’t like, you waited till the little bastard was riding by and you’d jam a stick between the spokes of one of the wheels. The results were, well, pretty much immediate.”

“What are you saying?” Tharp asked.

I’m saying you’re a moron. Jaworsky let that go unsaid. Instead: “How fast is that thing growing? How long before it reaches the first ring? ‘Cause that’s how long we have to live.”