TangleRoot (Star Sojourner Book 6) (19 page)

I sat at a corner table in the compound's communal dining room as Sophia entered with Vito by her side. She paused and smiled at me. I smiled back. Vito ushered her to the buffet breakfast table and they filled dishes on trays. I ate a piece of spicy sausage and watched men follow Sophia with their eyes. I guess Vito was riding shotgun.

The room smelled of fresh-baked bread. Pans clinked. Families laughed and talked loudly. Some people glanced my way, pointed, and whispered to others. Kids ran around the buffet table, shouting and grabbing food.

A teenage girl, her red sweater tight across small, pointed breasts, her brown hair piled on her head and held with a ribbon, sauntered up to my table and winked at me. She tapped the edge with long red fingernails.

“Amelia!” an old woman at a nearby table called hoarsely, “
vieni qua.
” The woman's lips were curled down. Her black hair was tight in a bun.

The girl hurried to the table and sat down. The old woman raised her hand and shook it, then let it drop.

Beauty and the beast,
I thought as I watched Sophia and Vito walk to my table with trays. Sometimes I forget how exotic Sophia really is with her dark, slanted eyes, her black hair thick around those high, sharp-bladed cheekbones. We'd been given clothes to wear after stripping off our thermo dive suits; just plain black pants and white shirts, but she stood out like a flower among weeds. What makes her more lovable is that she is so unaware of her striking good looks.

Vito escorted her to my table and they both sat down.

“Sophia.” I smiled at her.

She just nodded. I saw the tears in her eyes. I think her throat was too tight to talk.

“How about a little privacy?” I asked Vito.

He took his dishes off the tray. “No can do.” His long, thinning hair fell across his bony face and hooked nose as he ate.

I reached a hand to Sophia, with a folded note between my thumb and palm. She felt it as I clasped her hand, and her eyes widened.

“How are they treating you, dear?” I glanced down at our hands.

She cleared her throat. “All right,” she said hoarsely.

I spread my fingers, and she curled her hand around the note and drew it toward her. She scratched her chest beneath the open top buttons of her shirt and I saw her tuck the note inside her bra.

I needed an answer to the question in it.

“How are you, Jules?” she asked.

“Oh, I'm OK. You know, working on the bristra project.”

We both started eating and I motioned toward the restroom with my head.

She put down her fork. “Excuse me, please. I need to go to the restroom.” She stood up.

“Aw, now?” Vito slammed down his fork. “C'mon.”

He walked with her to the ladies room door and stood there as she went inside.

When no one was looking my way, I slipped a ceramic salt shaker into my pants pocket. I went to an empty table, took the salt shaker and returned to my table, where I shook some on my already salted eggs and continued to nibble on them.

Five minutes later Sophia came out the door and walked to our table with her left hand balled into a fist.

“Dear,” I said as she sat down, and reached for her hand. “You look pale.”

“Oh, no.” She clasped my hand. I felt the note and slid it into my palm. “I'm really all right, dear,” she said.

I released her hand. “Well, I'm glad to hear that.”

“Are you two gonna eat or what?” Vito said with a mouthful of eggs. “The don wants you back in the lab,” he told me. A piece of egg flew out of his mouth. “This is just a break.”

I picked up my fork and let it slip from my fingers to the floor.

“Oh, butterfingers,” Sophia remarked and turned to Vito to distract him while I stuffed the note into my sneaker and picked up the fork. “He never could hold onto anything. I thought he'd never hold onto me, either. But then he –”

“Yeah, yeah.
Mangia!
” Vito bit into a sausage. “Eat.”

I nodded once to her and wiped my fork on a paper napkin.

“Hey, Mister,” a young dark-haired child came up to me, “are you the kraut?”

“Go back to your table, Francesca,” Vito told her.

She pointed at my shoe under the table. “But he just –”

Sophia stopped chewing.

“You heard me,” Vito said.

Francesca shrugged and skipped away.

“My stomach's kind of upset,” I said. “I think I'll just go back to the lab.”

“Yeah, go 'head,” Vito said. “You know the way.”

I got up and kissed Sophia on the cheek. “See you soon, dear,” I said. “Very soon.”

She nodded. “Soon.”

Back at the lab, I walked past Norma, who was studying a tank of young shoots and taking notes. I locked the bathroom door behind me and opened the note. It was my crude drawing of the compound and a message to Sophia:
Mark the place where they're holding you. Rescue mission by the team this afternoon. I love you.

She had ripped out a tiny piece of the paper on the area marked Top Floor, East Wing.

I tore the note into small pieces and flushed it.

Vito and Zach were waiting in the lab when I came out of the bathroom.

“What's up?” I asked casually.

“Francesca says you stole a knife an' put it in your shoe,” Vito said. Zach, the gorilla, just grinned. “Take off your shoes,” Vito ordered. “The socks too.”

“Whatever.” I took them off and shook them out. “You tags see a knife?”

“I don' see no knife,” Zach said.

Vito went into the bathroom. I heard him banging around as he searched.

Zach smiled at Norma. “You gotta boyfrien'?”

She backed away and nodded.

“Ah,” Zach said, “that'sa too bad.”

Vito came back out of the bathroom. “Stupid kid. C'mon, Zach!”

They went out the door and he slammed it behind himself.

I glanced at Norma, who was staring at me. “What's your problem?”

She shook her head and went back to the tank and her notes.

I walked past the rows of tanks. Somehow, I would have to destroy the roots before we left the compound. There were four Bunsen burners on a bench. No, they would never reach the tanks from their fuel source. The roots breathed through tracheae tubes along their bodies. Clog the tubes, and they die. Two fire extinguishers were clamped to the walls. That should do it.

“You seem distracted,” Norma said.

I jumped. “I was just thinking that we should do some clinical tests.”

“On animals?”

I nodded. “Pigs would be appropriate.”

“It's OK with me.”

“I'll talk to Vito about purchasing some piglets.”

“Uh, Jules, you know,” she came closer, pursed her ruby-red lips, and arched her back so that her breasts were against my chest, “I'm really glad we're working together on this project.” She let her lips stretch into a smile.

I smiled back as I thought of tying her to a chair when the rescue came. Let's see how sexy she could look with a gag stuffed in her mouth.

* * *

When Norma left with Vito for lunch, I washed out the salt shaker and opened a lower cabinet that held clean folded rags, cans of alcohol, propane for the Bunsen burners, boxes of lab gloves, instruments, and assorted paraphernalia. I found a roll of duct tape and a pair of dissecting scissors.

This will do,
I thought as I ripped off four pieces of tape and let them dangle from the counter, then slipped on a pair of gloves. I unlocked and opened the tank lid on some juvenile roots, lifted a tendril and cut it off with the scissors. The shoot spasmed and curled tightly around my finger. I closed the lid quickly and locked it as the other roots reared up and attempted to escape.

The shoot clung tenaciously to my finger and had already cut through the glove as I uncurled it and stuffed it into the salt shaker. I used the pieces of duct tape to securely close the bottom. The sticky surface would foil the bristra's tiny claws as it tried to cut through them. The holes in the shaker would provide air. I had my cutting for the Los Alamos Lab, if I ever got back there again.

Footsteps!

I stuffed the shaker into my pants pocket and went to the door.

Zach opened it and almost hit me with it. “Vito wants to know if you comin' fer lunch or what?”

“On my way,” I said and walked past him.

It was twelve forty-five pm by the dining room clock as I filled a dish with grilled peppers, meatballs, and pasta, and brought it to the table where Sophia and Vito already sat eating.

Huff hadn't told me what time to expect the rescue in his attempt at a tel send from the beach the night before.

“About time,” Vito said around a meatball. “You better eat fast.”

I kissed Sophia's cheek. She put her arm around my waist and smiled up at me. I saw Amelia watching as I sat across from Sophia and started eating.

I found myself staring at the clock as I chewed.

Would the team come for me and Sophia, or should we try to get to the laundry room, in a basement of the complex, and wait for them there?

Should I destroy the tanks of bristra right after lunch or wait for Joe? A diversion. That's what I needed, I decided, and stared out a window. Dark clouds drifted from the west.

“Looks like snow,” I told Sophia. “I think it won't be long now.” I nodded.

“We need a change…in weather,” she said.

“Will you two stop talking an' eat?” Vito asked.

We did. Now that I had made my decision, I felt relaxed and hungry. I knew what I had to do.

* * *

Norma was already in the lab when I got back from lunch.
The fly in the ointment,
I thought as I unclamped a fire extinguisher.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“What does it look like I'm doing? I'm about to destroy all the bristra and start a fire.”

She smirked. “I could almost believe you.”

“I could almost mean it.” I went to a tank, unlocked it and threw open the lid. Before the roots could react, I sprayed them with foam, slammed down the lid and locked it.

“Are you crazy?” she said and backed toward the door.

“Could be.” I went after her, grabbed her arm and dragged her into the bathroom while she pummeled me with small fists.

“What are you doing?” she cried. “You can't destroy the project.”

“I can't? Now stay there. I'd hate to hit a woman.” I closed the door and shoved a chair under the doorknob. I would let her out before I started the fire. Hell. I owed the bitch that much.

I did not feel good about what I was doing as I went from tank to tank and systematically sprayed the roots. The first ones were already dying, trapped in their tanks, when I reached the last root, a fully mature bristra, probably twenty feet long when uncurled, black, and thick around as a sapling. “Sorry, guy.” I opened the lid. It reared up so fast I didn't get a chance to step back. I gasped as I saw the row of small black eyes, like a spider's, just below its bulging head. It swung its body and sent the extinguisher flying from my hands.

I tried to close the lid.

Too late!

It rolled out of the tank and hissed as it wrapped a thick coil around my right ankle and pulled me down to the floor. I screamed as teeth on its legs raked my ankle, and dragged the creature along as I crawled to the extinguisher and grabbed it. I sprayed the heavy loop that was tightening around my ankle. A coil rose up over me and dropped across my waist with the weight of a truck tire.

I tried to spray it, but the extinguisher was empty. The creature reared up, hissed, and opened its wide pink mouth. I felt dizzy as I watched teeth like a shark's with rows behind rows, extend out from the mouth in a hinged jaw.

I yelled and shoved the extinguisher into its mouth as it plunged down at me. I rammed the extinguisher as far as I could between those jaws.

The creature lifted like a snake and shook its head from side to side, trying to shake loose the extinguisher. I pulled my ankle free, rolled under a table and crawled out the other side. I grabbed the second extinguisher from the wall bracket and turned in time to see the creature looping a coil above me.

I threw myself on the floor, rolled away and scrambled to my feet.

With a jerk of its head, the creature dislodged the extinguisher and came after me.

My back was against the bathroom door as I aimed for its eyes and sprayed, then leaped aside. Its head crashed through the door, but I knew it was blind behind the thick foam. The door hung by a hinge. I continued to spray its body as it sprawled into the bathroom.

Norma's screams were ear-splitting. I leaped over the creature's back and grabbed her arm. “C'mon!” I tried to drag her past the thrashing root but she was paralyzed with fear.

I picked her up by her waist and jumped over the creature. Those pits on its head must've been heat sensors because it swung around and grabbed Norma's leg between its claws.

She screamed as it drew her closer to its body. I pummeled its head with the empty second extinguisher and tried for its eyes. Its tail lashed out, hit me across the thighs and sent me sliding into the wall.

“Help me!” Norma cried and kicked the creature's side as the massive jaws opened and came down on her body.

“Oh my God!” I gasped as blood spurted from her smashed chest. She reached out to me. I grabbed her hand and yanked, but her eyes turned up and closed. I heard bones snap. Blood poured from her slack mouth and her head fell forward.

Oh my God!
The creature clamped down and her torn body hung in its jaws.

Great Mind.

Jules! Get out of there.

Either it was Spirit, or my own traumatized brain trying to save me.

I leaped the thick black body, oozing foam, with flowers spontaneously sprouting along its sides, and ran to the cabinet. I flung open the door, grabbed a can of alcohol and poured it across the floor and over the creature's body. Matches! I had no matches. I turned on a Bunsen burner and flung it into the spreading alcohol.

Fire raced across the floor and over the creature. I heard it bellow, a sound out of hell, as I ran to the lab door and slammed it behind myself.

“Call the fire department,” I yelled to a blonde woman who held the hand of a small boy and descended the steps from the upper floor. “Hurry up.”