Viridian (10 page)

‘But that'll take ages!'

‘We used to go on raids,' Toni explained. ‘That was really quick. We stole food from closed-down shops, mostly tins. But there's no tins left now.'

For the first time, Jay felt he knew more than she did. ‘I know where there are hundreds of tins. If I take you there, do you
promise
to take me straight to the other Immunes?'

‘I promise.'

‘But we've got to go for the tins now,' said Jay.

‘Now?' said Toni. ‘It's too dangerous.'

‘But you were out in daylight!'

‘I told you, I can take care of myself,' said Toni.

Jay was suddenly angry at the implications of what she'd just said, like he'd be a risk, or she'd end up having to save his life or something. He really resented that, after all he'd been through, all he'd seen.

‘We go
now
,' he said, with a steely glint in his eye. ‘Or I'm not showing you where the food is.'

Toni sighed. ‘OK,' she said. ‘How far is this place?'

He took her through the wood. They could see some Verdans straggling back from the town square into the countryside. But they were no threat. They walked slowly, scared that a Cultivar might pounce on them.

There was no path through the wood anymore. It was choked by nettles. Tender plants had been suffocated by briars and spiny brambles. A tabby cat, gone feral, snarled at them from a thorn thicket like a fierce little tiger.

Jay and Toni threaded their way through the clasping, prickly plants.

‘Careful,' warned Jay, automatically. ‘Don't get scratched.'

‘We're Immune, remember,' said Toni. She checked her arms. ‘Anyway, I haven't been scratched.'

Jay said, ‘Do you come out to get food often? I mean, alone?'

‘Oh yeah,' said Toni breezily. ‘My dad knows I can look after myself.'

‘Is your dad an Immune too?' asked Jay.

‘Yes, you'll meet him soon. He's a plant scientist.' She laughed when she saw the alarm on Jay's face. ‘Don't worry, he's not making freaky plant mutants. My dad is one of the good guys.'

Then they were out in the fields, wading through long grass, still slippery and wet from the recent rain.

‘What's that over there?' asked Jay.

On the horizon, plumes of thick black smoke were rising. Long red tongues of flame leapt up, licking the sky.

‘They've lit the funeral pyres again,' said Toni.

Jay could smell an awful stench of burnt bones, carried by the wind across the fields. ‘What funeral pyres?'

‘It's cows,' said Toni. ‘There's been a mass slaughter of all the cows around Franklin and now they're burning the bodies.'

‘Why?'

‘Viridian ordered it. He says all animals are dirty Polluters. He's started by getting rid of cows.'

‘You mean, he wants to get rid of
all
animals on Earth? He wouldn't do that!'

‘He's a psycho. He wants to go back to a time when plants ruled the world. And guess who's going to be top plant? Him!'

‘But even Verdans wouldn't like a world without animals. People love animals!'

‘Verdans aren't people,' Toni reminded Jay, whacking at the willowherb with a stick she'd found in the wood so that
downy seeds rose in clouds. ‘They don't think like humans do. Anyway, the Verdans do anything Viridian tells them. He's got them scared out of their little planty brains.'

‘He scares me too,' admitted Jay, staring at the funeral pyres smoking, burning and stinking in the distance like the fires of hell.

Jay and Toni climbed over the fence, into the plot by the motorway where the Diner had once been parked.

It was all overgrown now, and so eerily quiet, you could hear the birds sing. Living here, Jay had got used to the drone of traffic. It had even lulled him to sleep. But there was no traffic at all on the motorway now.

The shipping container had survived the blast. Jay was relieved to see it, scorched, but still standing. Already ivy was claiming it, snaky creepers curling up the sides. In places, Jay could still make out Sage's hate-filled message:

Toni picked up a piece of twisted aluminium.

‘What's this?' she asked Jay.

Jay said, ‘Me and Dad had a business here, an American Diner. It got blown up when the Cultivars came to get us. We escaped, and hid down the mine.'

Toni's eyes widened. ‘You escaped a Cultivar attack? How?'

‘Er, luck,' said Jay, uncomfortably. ‘That's where the tins are.' He pointed to the container.

‘There's a pond over there,' said Toni.

‘No, there isn't,' said Jay.

Then he saw water glinting in the light. He stared in surprise, then realised it was the huge crater, made when the Silver Bullet blew up. It must have been filled up by rain.

Toni was already running towards the container.

When Jay joined her she was stuffing tins excitedly into her backpack. It was like she'd discovered treasure. ‘Dad and the others are going to be really pleased when I turn up with all this stuff,' she said.

Jay found a strong plastic sack and started putting things in it.

‘Do you want cooking oil?' he asked Toni, pointing to two catering-size plastic bottles.

‘Yeah! Great! And get those scissors. And that frying pan.'

Jay picked up the scissors. They were big cutting shears that could hack through metal.

‘Just take as much as we can carry,' he said, testing the weight of his sack. ‘We can come back.'

Toni took some tins out of her backpack, shrugged it onto her shoulders and sagged with the weight.

‘Come on,' said Jay, grabbing his sack.

They staggered out of the container. Toni looked around, to get her bearings. ‘This way.'

Jay plunged after her, through the undergrowth. She led them round the edge of the crater, full to the brim with rain. Weeds crowded its edges and trailed in the water.

Bubbles were fizzing to the surface in a steady stream, coming up from somewhere beneath. Toni stopped and stared at them.

‘That's not oxygen, is it?' she asked. ‘It could be just methane gas, from something rotting down there.'

Jay gazed into the depths. It was hard to see. Ripples and refracted light distorted everything. But there were the mangled remains of the Silver Bullet – and some other big, bulky shape.

Jay opened his mouth to say, ‘What's that?'

Then suddenly, he found a hand clamped over his face. Toni's eyes were centimetres from his own. She looked petrified.

She jerked her head towards the water and mouthed words.

Immune Hunter
.

She took her hand away from his mouth and made pawing motions with her hands, like they should tippy-toe quietly away.

But Jay couldn't help looking down again, into the water. The bulky shape resolved itself into a crouching figure. Then it raised its head. Triumphant eyes glowed up at them.

‘He's seen us!' said Jay. ‘Quick, run!'

‘No use. He'll catch us. Give me the sack.'

‘What?'

‘Give me the sack!' she shrieked.

The water was breaking into waves, as if something was about to surface.

Frenziedly, Toni unscrewed the cooking oil bottle and began to pour it over the water surface. It spread out in a thick golden film, breaking up in the centre into rainbows.

‘Pour the other bottle!' she yelled at Jay.

His mind a whirl of confusion and panic, Jay poured, watching the oil glug out and a grease slick slide over the water.

Toni hurled her empty bottle away, just as the Immune Hunter, like a guided missile, blasted up from the depths of the pond. His head came first, breaking the floating layer of oil. His green hands clawed at the crater's edges, to haul himself out.

‘Run!' shrieked Toni. They blundered away, through the tangled plants.

But the Immune Hunter was out now, a hulking green monster, his hair dripping oil and water, his skin glistening with grease and oxygen bubbles. He broke into a sprint, loping easily over the briars and stinging nettles.

Toni was way behind Jay already, slowed down by her heavy backpack.

‘Dump the food!' he yelled.

She struggled out of the backpack, but it was too late, the Immune Hunter would catch her…

Then he began to slow down. His legs seemed to be buckling. He staggered, recovered, stumbled a few more steps, then fell to his knees.

Toni raced to join Jay. They watched the Immune Hunter crash down on his face into the grass, arms and legs flailing.

‘What's going on?' whispered Jay. ‘Is he dying?'

‘I don't know,' said Toni. ‘But he's covered in oil, so he can't take in CO
₂
through his skin and convert it into energy. That's why he's collapsed.'

‘Have you tried this before?' said Jay, gobsmacked.

‘No,' Toni admitted. ‘But my dad said it might work. Like,
theoretically
. But it does work, doesn't it? I mean, he's not getting up.'

Hidden down in the grass, the Immune Hunter had just enough strength to rip off a green plastic glove that protected his right hand. The latest experiments at the Research Station involved surgically grafting bits of plants onto Cultivars. The scientists had very ambitious surgery in mind. But they'd started with something simple. This Immune Hunter had had hundreds of sticky hairs grafted into his palm. They were taken from a tropical plant whose hairy leaves had glue so strong that rats could get stuck to them. The more the rat struggled the more glue the plant produced. The rat usually died, of fear or exhaustion or suffocation, long before it starved to death.

The Immune Hunter lay still.

Toni crept a few steps closer to the fallen Cultivar.

‘What are you doing?' said Jay, dismayed. He picked up the sack. ‘Let's go, before he recovers. It's not safe.'

‘It's OK, he won't recover until the oil gets cleaned off,' said Toni. ‘If he ever recovers.'

‘Who cares? Let's get out of here.'

‘I need to see if he's dying, to tell Dad. It's useful information.'

Toni peered over the long grass. The Immune Hunter's body lay, unmoving, in a soggy, oil-soaked heap. His long, tree-trunk arms, glistening with grease, were stretched out in front of him, palms down. His dark green face was turned to one side. His eyes were closed, his green lashes dripping oil, like golden tears. Could he be dead?

Eagerly, Toni knelt down, not too near. She inspected the fallen monster. Was it really this easy to kill Cultivars?

‘It's OK,' she called back excitedly to Jay. ‘Dad works night and day to find ways to defeat these things. And all I used was cooking oil! Come and look.'

Suddenly the Cultivar's eyes shot open and his hand lashed out at her.

Toni screamed in shock, tried to scramble to her feet. But her long hair was caught, stuck to his palm by powerful glue. The Immune Hunter was squirming forward on his belly, his toenails leaving long scratches in the dirt. His blazing eyes fixed on her like a wolf's on its prey. His other arm tried to grab her, but she twisted out of his way. Then he collapsed, his last strength gone.

Jay came crashing through the grass. Toni was screaming and struggling, trying to free herself from the Immune Hunter's hand. The glue from the sticky hairs on his palm was matting her hair into stiff clumps.

‘Get me free! Get me free!' she was shrieking.

Jay threw himself on his knees, tried to tear her hair off the Cultivar's palm. ‘I don't want to hurt you,' he said.

‘It doesn't matter!' shrieked Toni. ‘Just get me free!'

But the more Jay pulled, the more glue seemed to ooze out, setting her hair like concrete. He realized he'd get stuck himself, and snatched his hand back.

‘Look!' screamed Toni. Jay twisted round, and saw another hulking green figure marching across from the Research Station.

‘Use the scissors,' Toni begged.

Jay tipped Dad's scissors out of his sack. For one mad moment he thought she meant him to cut off the Immune Hunter's hand.

‘I need a knife…' he started to say.

‘Cut my hair!' Toni shrieked. ‘Hurry up, the other one's coming!'

Clumsily, Jay started to chop off her long hair with the heavy shears. It was set so hard that he had to hack it really close to her head. When the last strand was cut, she leapt up.

Together they dived into the vegetation, burrowing deep into the bushes. They sat huddled together, Toni hugging her knees to stop them from shaking. Jay could hear the
thudding of his own heart. He prayed the Immune Hunter couldn't hear it too.

They stayed there, listening. They heard deep menacing growls. They heard a grunt, branches snapping, heavy steps. Then nothing.

They stayed hidden, not daring to move or speak. Toni ran a hand over her hair, hacked close to her head in spiky clumps.

Jay gave her a brief, rueful grin.

To his surprise she grinned back, as if to say, with everything else going on, a bad haircut wasn't that big a deal.

Jay sat hunched up until he couldn't stand it a second longer. ‘We can't stay here, we're wasting time.'

He scanned the plot. Both of the Immune Hunters were gone.

Toni's head popped up beside him. ‘He must have recovered,' she said sounding crushed. ‘The oil didn't work.'

‘Or the other one took him away,' said Jay. ‘At least you've got the food.'

He offered to carry the backpack, but Toni refused and trudged off, bent under the weight. Jay scooped his things back into his sack. He put Dad's shears into his hoodie pocket. They'd probably saved Toni's life. That would be a good story to share with Dad later, after Jay and the other Immunes had freed him from the Research Station.

Jay caught up with Toni, the heavy shears slapping against his ribs as he ran.