Suzume was huge; eight feet tall with two huge wings that were much
larger than her body. Vash had coaxed the healthy plant being out of plant
number three and into the long gray coffin-like sleep chamber. Four large men
placed the chamber on a large metal cart and pushed the plant being down the
hallway to plant room two. Michael was one of the men pushing the plant being.
He demanded to be present during the plant transfer process for fear that Vash
might steal the plant being away. Michael talked to Vash as little as possible
during the whole process. Despite his young age, Michael was one of the best
plant engineers. Exchanging few words, they brought the being to plant room two and attached the sleep chamber to a large crane. The crane lifted the plant up to the raised level of the plant bulb and onto another cart placed at the edge of the level. The engineers walked up the stairs and unhooked the sleeping chamber from the crane. Four men put on insulated plant suits while four others activated the plant controller. Vash finished putting on his plant suit and opened the hatch on the base of the new plant bulb. He took
hold of one corner of the sleeping chamber and James took the other corner on
the same end. The two other suited men took the opposite corners. Vash and James
got into the plant and steadied the descent of the being's case as it was
lowered into the plant base. Vash motioned for James to leave and everybody else
cleared away from the plant bulb. Vash opened the case and lifted the plant
being out, placing her on the bottom of the bulb. He pushed the case out of the
hatch and James steadied it as it landed back on the cart. Vash climbed out of
the hatch just as the plant was waking up. She opened her solid bright green eyes and quickly ascended to the middle of the bulb.
"Power levels rising," said James, from the controller. "Still rising ...
They've reached normal levels. Dampeners and interface are working perfectly."
"Good work, men," said James as all the plant engineers cheered. Vash looked at
Suzume as he placed his hand on the hatch door.
"Thank you, friend, for coming back," he said to her through telepathy.
"You ..." was all that Vash could hear of her reply before four shots were rapidly fired into Vash's back.
"We don't need you any more, Vash. You can die now," said Michael as he stood on
the far side of the plant platform holding a laser scope gun. Vash turned around
and Michael fired three more shots into him. James ran up the stairs
and tackled Michael, knocking the gun out of his hand. Vash slumped against the plant and tried to keep from losing consciousness.
"Doc ... Doc ... get down here" he said into his earring.
Just then two enormous gray hands reached out of the open plant hatch and grabbed Vash by the shoulders. He was lifted up and dragged into the plant. He screamed as he
was hit with the full force of the plant's energy as she carried him into the
center of the bulb. His suit incinerated.
"Close the damn hatch, Karl," shouted James to one of the suited engineers, "before she gets anyone else."
James was still holding Michael who struggled tenaciously to get free. Karl
ran to the hatch and slammed it shut. A second later Suzume appeared
expressionless at the edge of the glass holding Vash's naked unconscious
bleeding body. She stared at Karl intently as he backed away from the plant.
"She's going to kill him. He deserves it. She knows the bastard almost killed
her," shouted Michael as he broke free from James throwing the older man to the
floor. Michael picked up the gun and ran down the stairs away from the plant
firing warning shots at the men at the controller. He left the room and headed
out to meet his team of companions. It had gone better than he had possibly
imagined. He could blame it all on the plant.
"Idiots, lower the power levels, we need to get him out," James shouted from the
top of the platform.
"The plant has disengaged from all of the control mechanisms," an engineer said
with a panicked shaking voice.
That was the damn thing about plants. They usually liked giving up a little
control so they would emit their energy in a constant serene flow but when they
were stubborn there was nothing any normal human could do about it. James ran
down to the controller and tried every trick he knew to lower the power levels.
Everything failed. One minute ago it had all been perfect.
"Damn it," he said in frustration as all plant engineers gathered around him.
He repeated everything his knew in different combinations just to try, try and
get the power levels to drop. Nothing worked.
"It's been ten minutes, James. He's dead. No one can survive being in there that
long, not when they're at full power."
"He's not a damn human," said James as he tried another unsuccessful
adjustment.
"He's alive. He has to be. Aren't they his people? She wouldn't kill him. She
wouldn't."
"Look at the signal we're getting," said Karl.
"On the other two output frequencies we always saw a mixed signal from both
plants when they were in the same bulb." The engineer pointed at the display.
"We're just getting one signal. After this amount of time we saw two signals in
both cases. There's nothing here. He's dead. If the plant didn't do it Michael
did."
James slammed his hand against the sides of the controller.
"Martin, Karl, get the guards and find Michael and whoever gave him that gun."
Doc came rushing in through the doors.
"What happened? Vash told me to get down here," he said as he rushed over to the
men gathered down at the controller.
Martin and Karl ran past him. Nobody wanted to speak. On the thirty-fourth floor, in the nursery Milly was giving a reading lesson to several of the older orphans. This group wouldn't talk to anyone yet, but Milly had gotten them to the point where they would read out loud.
"And then the black cat said 'nya' and everybody new the cat was okay. The End,"
said one little boy finishing the last page of his book. Just then a console on
the wall beeped.
"That was great Jimmy! You stay right here, I'll go see who's calling." Milly
pushed a button and spoke into the panel.
"Hello? Nursery ... Clara it's your husband."
Milly went back to reading with Jimmy as Clara came in to the room from where
she had just finished changing the diaper of the newest arrival. Clara pushed a
button on the panel so the call would be private, her husband's words only
appearing in writing on the screen.
Clara turned back to the room after a few minutes. "Ladies, they got the plant
working again! The whole process was a complete success."
"Yay!" said Milly as she gave Jimmy a celebratory hug.
Jimmy smiled at her and blushed.
"Ladies, lets celebrate with some special mango juice I just squeezed this
morning. It's right from my own garden."
Clara went to the kitchen and prepared several glasses. Milly's glass had blue
birds painted on the side. All of the other glasses were clear. Clara never told
Milly her husbands name. The woman put an extra white tasteless powder into the
marked glass. She brought out the glasses making sure to give Milly her juice
first.
"Wow, mango juice. I've never had that before!" Milly took a sip of the juice.
"Num!" she exclaimed.
She gulped down the rest of the juice.
"Oh! I forgot!" said Clara suddenly. "Milly, the tailor cut a whole bunch of new
diapers for the new arrival. I need some help bringing them up."
"No problem, mango lady," said Milly giggling.
Clara did like Milly. She liked her a lot. That's why she didn't kill her like
her husband had wanted her to do.
"I'll be back in a bit, Jimmy, keep reading!"
The little boy blushed again and picked up another book. Milly was so wonderful
for the children. She couldn't traumatize them any more by taking Milly away.
Vash was the killer. The two women walked out of the nursery and entered the
elevator.
"Clara? I'm starting to feel really dizzy," said Milly grabbing on to one of the
side bars in the elevator.
The large women swayed a bit, lost her grip and fell to floor. Several seconds
later the elevator door opened and Michael and his three cronies were waiting on
the other side holding large heavy tools used for fixing the plants. Dean kicked Milly out of the way as he entered the elevator.
"Stop it, Dean. You can do what you want with her after she's cold," said
Michael before he kissed his wife.
"Where's Melissa?" Clara asked her husband as two of the men lifted Milly just
high enough to press her hand to the console.
"She tried to get the little agent to have a special cup of coffee but she
wouldn't take it. She was too sick to her stomach worrying about the plant
transfer. She'll get her eventually."
"Why can't we crush his scull?" asked Dean eager to get on with their plan.
"He didn't kill any one on board this ship. Vash did," explained Michael.
"They're twins. We have our fun with him and then turn him into the government
and get the sixty-billion double dollar reward. I want Knives to be in pain till
the moment the government shoots him in the head for being Vash."
The elevator went up to the fifty-seventh floor. Two of the men carried Milly
down the hall to Knive's room. They pressed Milly's hand against the console.
The door opened. Knive's arms locked into place. He saw them dump Milly's body
against the far wall of the hall and walk in with their cold metal implements.
"Where's, Vash?" said Knives unnerved at the new humans' presence. Several of
the large men reminded him of Steve. Steve used a club when he beat Knives;
these men had larger heavier weapons. Dean walked up to Knives and hit him on
the knee breaking his knee cap. The doors to the room closed.
"Vash where are you?" Knives screamed.
The pain ran through his whole body. Michael stopped Dean from hitting the man
again so soon.
"Your brother's dead. I shot him ... and then the plant fried him."
Tears started to form in Knives' eyes as he looked at the smiling humans. Steve had smiled like that. Then Michael hit him.
Clara stayed out in the hall. She couldn't stand the screaming. It came though
the door and filled the hallway with the panicked shrieks of the damned man.
Clara dragged Milly's body away from the room, away from whatever torture they
were planning for her. She dragged her past a bend in the hallway. The screams
weren't as loud here. Clara couldn't drag her any more. She left Milly in the
hallway and ran to the elevator away from the muted screaming. She couldn't
stand it any more.
"You have to try this new blend. The people will love it. I just added a little
bit of vanilla and cinnamon to it," said Melissa holding out a pitcher and cup
to Meryl.
"I don't want anything until this whole mess is fixed with the plant. Plants can
be very dangerous," said Meryl. The transfer should've been done by now, but Melissa had been bothering her about this new beverage all morning and she hadn't had time to check with the engineers herself. She knew all about Melissa and didn't want to have a thing to do with her.
Meryl was plugging in the main coffee machine in the cafeteria when James
ran into the cafeteria. He spotted Meryl.
"Meryl, its Vash, we think he might be dead. Come to the plant room now."
He grabbed Meryl's arm and half-carried her off to the plant room.
"What happened?" she said, her voice filled with surprise and fear.
"I'll show you when we get there," he replied.
He explained to her what he could as he dragged her off through the hallway and
up to the plant room. Inside the plant room he took her up the steps to the base
of the plant. There was a spattering of blood by the hatch and on the floor. James lifted her up and showed her where bits of bloody metal were dropping from the glowing mass of plant energy centered in the bulb forming a pile down on the base of the bulb.
"Did anything like this happen when he was on the outside?"
"Not since I knew him," said Meryl, tears gathering in her eyes.
"Do you think he could survive being in there?" he asked clutching her arm
roughly.
"If he could survive July and Augusta, he has to be able to survive being in
there. That's what he is, isn't he?"
All of the other plant engineers had left either searching for Michael or they
were reviewing their plant records for any kind of help trying to get the power
lowered. James set Meryl back on the ground. They tried to look up through the
light of the bulb for any sign of Vash. They couldn't see him. James left the
room to try and find Michael. Meryl sat down next to the plant, still looking
up at it the mass of energy for any signs of Vash.
James met Kevin in one of the hallways. They both were out of breath. Everybody
on the ship was searching the levels trying to find Michael.
"We searched levels one through 30. Have you found any of them?" asked James.
"No, thirty-one through fifty-six are clean. You don't think they left the ship,
do you?"
"Hell, no. Didn't Doc fix it so nobody could get to level fifty-seven?"
"No one but him and his girls can get up there."
"Meryl's in the plant room. Have you seen Milly?"
"No. She's in the nursery isn't she?"
They ran to the elevator and got out on the nursery floor. They ran down to the
nursery. Clara was sitting with Jimmy trying to get him to read.
"Now Jimmy, you were reading so nicely for Milly, you can read for me too, can't
you?"
Jimmy crossed his arms and turned away.
"Shit," thought James, "Michael's wife."
"Clara, can we talk to you outside for a moment?" asked Kevin.
"Sure." She got up and walked out with the men into the hallway closing the
nursery door.
"I'll be right back, Jean," she called behind her.
"What did you do with Milly?" asked James roughly.
Clara looked astonished.
"Milly's missing? She said she had a few errands to run for Vash after we picked
up some diapers. I haven't seen her for about a half hour. I don't think that's
anything to worry about."
"Did you know what your husband did in the plant room today,?" shouted James.
"He tried to kill Vash."
"Well, he deserved it," she said calmly.
Kevin grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her back.
"James, get Meryl."
"Let go of me! I have children to take care of. I'm not responsible if Milly
took a wrong turn in the corridor. She's not exactly the brightest person."
Kevin hauled Clara down the hallway to Doc's hospital area, shoved her into an
old quarantine room, and locked the door. James went back to the plant room.
He ran up the stairs yelling, "Meryl, we need you now. They got up to the
fifty-seventh floor. Milly may be up there."
James grabbed Meryl before she could say anything and carried her down the
stairs to the elevator. They met Kevin at the door. Meryl put her hand on the
console and the elevator went up to the fifty-seventh floor. The doors opened
and they saw Milly lying on the floor against the wall just before the bend in
the corridor. Meryl ran out of the elevator over to Milly.
"She's breathing. She's not bleeding any where," Meryl said as the men laid
Milly down more comfortably in the hallway. Suddenly a twisted wretched scream
filled the hallway. Meryl jerked her head up.
"That has to be Knives."
She ran down the corridor followed closely by the two men. She put her hand on
the console opening the door to Knives' room. The floor was speckled with
droplets of blood. Three men stood around Knives as he lay on the floor. Dean
was holding Knives head against the floor. Michael and his men
ran at Kevin and James with their bloodied weapons. Meryl ran back to her room
to get her derringers and Milly's stun gun.
Kevin knocked Dean out with one punch to the side of his head. James fell back into the hallway as Michael rushed at him. Kevin took one blow to his back before knocking Barry and Jason to the ground. James got one good hit to Michael's chin sending him sprawling to the floor, but before he could get up Kevin grabbed Michael's head and rammed it against the wall knocking him out.
Inside the room Knives crawled across the floor dragging his body with his
broken arms. His entire body was covered with blood, bits of bone sticking out from
his limbs. He left a thick trail of blood behind him as he crawled to the
console. Bracing himself against the cabinet he raised himself just high enough
to reach the console. He typed in a code permanently locking the door.
"One hundred and thirty damn years and they don't change any of the override
codes," he thought as he dropped back to the floor.
He wanted to die now. Vash was dead. The humans had won. They'd broken the
concrete around the fasteners holding Knives after they had broken all his
limbs. Several large smears of blood on the walls marked where they had thrown
him trying to get the plant being to lose consciousness and stop that damn
screaming. That was when they'd decided to kill him. They didn't have long to
wait. Knives lowered his head to the floor and prepared for his journey to hell.
Meryl came back with her cape and the stun gun. She put her hand on the console
outside Knives' room.
"It's not opening. I don't know what's wrong."
James and Kevin tried the few codes they knew and nothing worked. Kevin left to
get Doc and some rope for Michael and his men. Meryl braced herself against the
wall and fired the stun gun at the door. The blow dented the door but it didn't
open.
Knives shouted his voice raw from screaming, "Leave me alone. Vash is dead. I
want to die now."
"Vash isn't dead," Meryl shouted back.
"He has to be. He would never let this happen me," screamed Knives. James tried
to explain what happened to Vash but he got no response.
"Meryl, wait in the elevator when Kevin comes back with Doc. They'll need you to
get back up here."
Meryl showed him how to use the stun gun and ran back through the hallway. Milly was just waking up.
"Ugh. Meryl, have you ever had mango juice before?"
Meryl helped Milly up off the ground and they walked to the elevator. They waited for the elevator to be called to another floor. In a few seconds the elevator moved down to a lower level. The doors opened and the ladies were joined by Doc, Kevin and several other men. Meryl put her hand on the console.
The console flashed the words: access denied. Meryl tried it again: access
denied. Milly tried her hand on the console: access denied. Doc tried every code
he knew.
"Knives must have cut off entry to the whole floor from his room, " said Doc,
"We'll have to cut in a way through the floor."
On the fifty-seventh floor James fired the rest of the stun-gun bolts, denting
the door but it didn't come any closer to opening.
"Where are you, Kevin?" he shouted as the minutes slipped by.
He got tired of waiting and dragged the unconscious bodies of Michael and the others into an empty room across the hall. He found some rope there and tied the men securely
to a support beam. He put a code into the room's console it hoped would keep the
door locked. James sat down on the floor opposite the captives and waited.
Doc was in the main control room surrounded by a dozen people looking at the
master plan of the ship.
"Vash sealed off every possible entrance to to floor fifty-seven except the
elevator," Doc said as he scrolled through different screens of the floor plan.
"The quickest way to get to the floor is to cut through the floor under the
hallway. There's eight layers of metal so it'll take a while. James? Where's
James?" asked Doc.
"He's stuck on the fifty-seventh floor," said Meryl.
"Damn," said Doc. "Get Martin and Karl. They'll know how to cut through the
floor."
The mass of people spread out from Doc's office searching for the two men. Meryl
stayed behind.
"Is Milly going to be okay?" she asked the doctor.
"Yes, she was given a non-lethal dose. After about a day she'll be back to
normal. She just needs to stay off her feet until then. Her baby will be fine
too. This poison doesn't cross through the placenta."
Meryl's eyes bugged out. "Pregnant! She never told me!"
"She came in early this morning for the test results. Apparently she hadn't been
feeling as well as usual. She's just about two months along. With all this
happening today I'm not surprised if she hasn't told anyone yet."
"Milly?" Meryl said vaguely.
"Now Meryl, Milly will be fine. Vash and Knives should be your concern now."
"I'll go down to the plant and tell you if there are any signs of Vash," she
said. "That sounds like a good plan."
Doc gave Meryl one of his radio pens and she took a blanket off an empty cot.
She would've gotten her pair of binoculars from her room but that wasn't possible
right now. She headed down to the plant room. After wiping up the blood on the floor and the hatch, Meryl made a little bed out of her
blanket next to the hatch door. She sat down for a while and wondered why she'd completely missed Milly's sickness, why she hadn't heard the right rumor about Michael and his group. She lay on her blanket staring into the bulb hoping that the peaceful glowing light hadn't destroyed Vash, and that the humans hadn't destroyed Knives. She really hoped that psychopath was alive. He deserved having grapes shoved up his nose .
Suddenly Meryl heard a loud 'clank' coming from the plant. Meryl climbed on top of the cart next to the plant and looked inside. There was now a larger pile of metal bits on the
plant bottom. One of the pieces on the far side of pile looked like a section
of Vash's mechanical arm. Meryl looked back up into the bright glare of the
bulb. She couldn't see him, but he had to still be there. She climbed back down to her
blanket. Was there anything else she could be doing now? Sawing through metal
wasn't her specialty, neither was talking with plants or figuring out computer
codes. Now, she just had to wait. She radioed to Doc the news about Vash's arm.
Doc was still hopeful Vash was alive. She tucked the pen into her pocket
and lay back on the blanket. After about an hour of spinning her thoughts in
circles and damning herself a thousand time for not hearing the right rumor at
the right time she fell asleep.