₴₮Ɽ₳₦₲ɆⱤ ₮Ⱨ₳₦ ₣ł₵₮łØ₦ | 7 | The Storm
The last time they spoke, the red-headed scientist disappeared in such a hurry that Gaby didn't get a chance to ask for her name or contact information, though she doubts the woman would have given her either. Luckily, Gaby's able to track her down mere hours after gathering the infection profile data. Most of the military scientists have fled town by now, but something is keeping this one around. As tight-lipped as she's been, it's obvious she's personally invested in putting an end to the madness.
When Gaby hands over the data, the scientist's eyes glimmer with what Gaby interprets as hope, but she's still reticent, shoving the sheaf of papers inside her coat and responding in a hushed voice. "Meet me at 8 Bells later tonight," she says, "around six. If this data is correct, I'll have a filter ready in no time."
Keeping to her word, she meets Gaby at precisely the time they've arranged, though she's switched out her lab coat for a bizarrely revealing outfit more suitable for clubbing until three in the morning. "What?" she exclaims when she notices Gaby staring. "I wanted to blend in, avoid arousing suspicion. Isn't this the sort of thing you would wear to a bar?"
"Me, personally?" Gaby asks, heading inside. "No way. I'm sure someone would, though."
Daphne is already posted inside to distract the bar's other patrons, particularly the military crowd, from listening in on the conversation. Even though she hasn't entered 8 Bells once since Ros and Juniper rescued her from those belligerent soldiers, she surprised them all by volunteering herself for the job as soon as Gaby asked. So far, she feels like she's contributed so little to the investigation, and if there's anything her green skin is useful for, it's distraction. All eyes immediately pivot in her direction, though at least these ones seem more curious than threatening. At any rate, they don't immediately shout at her to go back to where she came from, which is a relief.
The scientist orders drinks as cover. Then, when she's sure no one is watching, she transfers a bulky manila envelope from beneath her skirt to Gaby's lap. After, she picks up her beer and gulps it down without missing a beat.
"Are you sure it'll work?"
"It'll work," the scientist mutters, and Gaby strains to hear her over the pounding bass that rattles the bar's speakers. "But you have to promise me one thing. My friend Lilly was a scientist at the lab, too... but she's infected now. They had her in too deep. I haven't spoken to her in months, but I've seen her stumbling around like the rest of them. Promise she'll be one of the first people you help."
Gaby had thought Daphne would be the one impatiently waiting around for her to be finished, but it turns out to be the other way around. She's caught the eye of one female officer in particular, who's flirting up a storm, though Daphne seems oblivious to it. Before she walks away, the woman slips a small piece of paper into Daphne's hand.
"Did she just give you her number?" Gaby asks as they're leaving.
"Yes," Daphne admits, her permanent blush growing five shades deeper, "but it's not what you think. She says she can help. She was worried about what might happen to her if she spoke up, but now she's more afraid of what might happen to the world if she stays quiet."
Gaby files this development away for later use. "Okay, but she was also definitely flirting with you."
"You think so?" Daphne wrinkles her nose as if she isn't quite sure if that's a good or a bad thing. Then she's across the street and heading into the trailer park before Gaby can take the conversation any further.
In the middle of the night, Juniper wakes up to find that Ros has vanished. Wandering out into the eerily green-tinted darkness, it doesn't take long to find her. She's in the open expanse of desert just behind the trailer park, standing in front of one of those creepy flowers in full bloom. She stares blankly at the glowing fruit perched atop the plant's stalk, seemingly lost deep in thought. Juniper cautiously edges closer so as not to catch her off-guard.
"What are you doing out here?" she asks quietly.
"Biological warfare," Ros says mechanically, like she's a robot programmed to recite only a rudimentary cache of words.
"What?"
Ros turns to meet her gaze directly. "According to the documents I found, the military was - is, I guess - researching more discrete methods of attack, ones the enemy would never see coming. Of course, the seemingly logical conclusion they arrived at was that they needed to find a way to weaponize soldiers' bodies. The files I read detailed a gene experiment. They were trying to isolate and mutate human genes to make them more resilient to diseases that would otherwise be life-threatening..."
"At first, I wasn't sure what it had to do with all this." She gestures toward the plant, which pulses with energy, almost as if it's feeding off her words. "But now I think I understand. They wanted us to be resistant to a disease that didn't yet exist, one that would turn us into killing machines whose only purpose was to infect an enemy who didn't have the same tolerance, who would perish instead of flourish. They were inventing a new kind of biological warfare. But these plants... whatever they are, wherever they came from... must have become too powerful for them to control."
She sighs wearily, a deep, heavy tiredness etched across her face. "I can't help but feel like I'm partly to blame. I could have sounded the alarm before it escalated to this point. I could have saved so many innocent people, like Daphne's mom, who never deserved to be exposed. But, instead, I got scared. I've spent my entire life building up this tough exterior, acting like nothing could ever rattle me, only to run away at the first sign of trouble. I'm a coward."
"You're not a coward," Juniper says quickly. "You're human." Her heart is beating a hundred miles a minute, but she's not sure if it's because of the sinister plot Ros has just pieced together or because she's reminded of her own cowardice, her inability to spit out, once and for all, how she really feels. Before her mind can catch up to her actions and start overthinking them, she finds herself taking Ros' hands and cradling them in her own. "Ros," she whispers, and as she searches for the right words to say, she realizes they've been staring her in the face all along. "I love you."
Ros chuckles lightly. "Junie, you idiot."
Juniper braces herself for the inevitable sting of rejection.
"I love you, too."
Ros reaches upward to pull Juniper into an intimate embrace then leans in to kiss her, lightly but with absolute certainty, on the lips. They gaze wordlessly into each other's eyes for a long moment, unsure of what to say next now that the truth is finally out. It's always been there, they both realize, this shared attraction. They've just been too blinded by their own feelings to realize that the other has felt exactly the same way all along. In the end, they opt for more kissing, not wanting to ruin the revelation with clumsy words.
Before they head back to bed, Juniper hugs Ros one last time. "Just promise me you won't do anything stupid, okay? None of this is your fault, and we're all going to work together to figure it out."
Ros offers a slight smile in response but promises nothing, though Juniper's brain and body are both overflowing with so many woozy, chaotic feelings that she fails to register the significance behind that silence.
Meanwhile, Gracie, momentarily back at home in Oasis Springs, has been trying to catch up on the sleep she's been neglecting to chase one fruitless lead after another in Strangerville. Although she's got an entire notebook full of tantalizing crumbs of information, she's struggling to transform those crumbs into a story meaningful, impactful, and truthful enough to make the front page. The fact that she's come home to a house noisy with the screams, giggles, and halting first syllables of a pair of rambunctious toddlers isn't helping things become any clearer in her mind.
In the time she's been away, she's become a near-stranger to Ari and Cleo, who quickly whine and wriggle away from her attempts to nurture them and waddle off to play in their room instead. She worries she's missed out on the optimal window in their lives to establish herself as a present, involved parent.
Not that Ana has fared much better in that regard. She may be around more reliably, but the children barely acknowledge her either. There's an unnatural distance between them she seems entirely unbothered by. In fact, she seems unbothered by most things these days. Since Gracie's been home, they've barely spoken more than a couple words to each other at a time. For the most part, Ana spends her days locked in their bedroom learning lines for her next film, occasionally surfacing in the kitchen to pour herself another drink.
On top of all that, Gracie's boss keeps calling and emailing to request status updates and article drafts, even though she has little more to offer than the last time they talked. The stress is starting to get to her. She's uprooted her perfectly content suburban life - and for what? What if she's squandered her only shot at having a happy and stable family, all for an insane story that may or may not prove to be worthwhile? Even if she ends up with a piece that catapults her to journalistic fame, is she willing to pay the ultimate personal price? More than once, the thought crosses her mind that maybe she should just tell Gaby she's finished, effective immediately, and walk away before it's too late.
After her talk with Juniper, Ros spent the rest of the night tossing restlessly, turning the question of what she can possibly do to ease her guilty conscience over and over inside of her head. When Gaby finally wakes, rummaging in the refrigerator for cold leftovers, Ros approaches her.
"You planning on heading back into the lab today?" she asks.
Gaby shrugs in response, chewing thoughtfully. Finally, she says, "I don't see much point in waiting any longer."
"I want to go with you."
Gaby's eyes widen in surprise. "But we've only got the one hazmat suit..."
"Come on. You know that guy's hoarding a whole stack of them somewhere. Plus, that scientist gave you an entire envelope full of filters, right?"
"Yes, but... It might not be safe. We don't know what's down there."
"All the more reason you need back-up. Let's go while the others are still sleeping. They'll try to talk us out of it if we wait."
Gaby is confused by Ros' sudden resolve. It's like she can't wait to get inside the lab again, even though up until now they've practically had to drag her kicking and screaming through its doors. Still, she agrees to let Ros come along, since it's true she'd rather not face whatever secrets lie buried in the lab's basement alone. They barter with Erwin to procure another suit and head out, leaving only a vague note behind.
Their suits, fitted with the scientist's specialized filters, are put to the test when they pass through the ominous violet hallway. They reach the other side feeling no adverse effects. That was almost too easy, Gaby thinks. She worries now that her pilfered key card won't grant her access to the next level of the lab. What if its owner didn't rank highly enough to be allowed down here?
But the automated door whooshes open easily. Gaby and Ros briefly exchange glances through their restrictive hoods then step tentatively inside. The room they enter appears to be a holding area of some sort. A dozen plant specimens in various stages of development are held captive inside air-tight containers.
Even more alarming is the experiment seemingly left abandoned mid-completion in a corner of the room. The fleshy arm of one of the plants has been amputated and connected to a tangled assortment of electrodes and wires. It still throbs faintly, though God knows how long it's been lying like this. They stare at it for a while before moving on to be certain it won't jump off the table of its own accord.
As soon as they turn around, though, their attention is entirely consumed by the trailing purple vines that have overtaken the passageway leading to the lowest level. The walls and floor are both thick with a carpet of ropy vines just like the ones that have begun invading the town's plumbing. It appears to be the site of either a plant massacre or a plant uprising. The thought of either makes Gaby shudder involuntarily. "Nothing good happened here," she turns around to tell Ros.
"No," Ros agrees soberly, but she doesn't even try to convince Gaby they should turn around.
Again, as soon as Gaby waves her card in front of the sensor, the door slides open with an almost terrifying ease. Stray spores drift out from within, and, for a moment, their slow dissolution obscures what awaits inside from sight. But Gaby feels it, and she can tell by Ros' labored breathing that she does, too. Something is alive in there, something too massive and powerful to comprehend. They have no idea what they're walking into.
Once the haze clears and they take their first tentative steps inside, the scene before them is entirely beyond description. The heaving, screeching thing at the center of the room looks a lot like the flowers overtaking the desert landscape outside. Only it's about a thousand times larger, nearly as big as the cavernous room itself, its stalk almost reaching the vaulted ceiling, its roots twisting and tangling beneath the floor. It's fully surrounded by a high-voltage electric fence, with a raised platform constructed before it. As Gaby and Ros ascend the stairs, they can't help but think of the scientists and soldiers who surely came before. Did they climb onto this platform to nurture the towering plant or torture it? Did they attempt communication, and was their goal to command, to reason, or to plead? It's unclear how much intelligence this monstrous botanical beast actually possesses.
Whatever the answers to these questions may be, one thing is clear: this must be the primary source of the infection, the mother plant that somehow birthed and now controls all the others, not to mention the possessed humans stumbling mindlessly around town. For the first time in her life, Gaby is at a true loss for words, and Ros seems equally stunned into silence. But Gaby must give the vast space some sound to echo that isn't the plant's bone-chilling scream.
She recalls all the alien invasion movies she's ever seen and shouts as loudly and steadily as she can, "We come in peace!"
Ros scoffs at her in disbelief. "You really think that's going to work?"
"Well, maybe..."
But Ros is quickly proven right. The mother plant's only response is to spew a torrent of sticky bile directly at them, though they are thankfully spared by the impenetrable face shields built into their hazmat suits.
After one failed attempt at contact, Gaby is ready to jump ship, but, out of nowhere, Ros whips out some sort of high-powered blaster, which disperses a substance indiscernible from the goo produced by the plant itself.
"Where the hell did you get that?" Gaby yells over the machine's incessant growl.
"I swiped it from a closet beside the doorway when we came in. There was a whole pile of them. Quick, grab another one! Maybe we can take this fucker down!"
"But we don't even know if killing it-"
Gaby never has a chance to finish her sentence because she blinks and Ros is down. The plant has wrapped its glowing stigma, which behaves more like a giant lapping tongue, around Ros' legs, imprisoning her within its grip.
Gaby watches in open-mouthed horror as the plant plucks Ros up from the platform and holds her body upside down, carelessly swinging her around like a rag doll. Gaby feels powerless. All she can do is scream Ros' name until her lungs are sore. The plant's "mouth," a grotesque assemblage of massive fleshy petals, is wide open, seemingly awaiting its next meal.
Then, just as abruptly, the plant roughly deposits Ros back onto the platform, snaps its mouth shut, and stands fully upright again. It seems this was a warning: the next person to aggravate it might not be so lucky.
Gaby slowly edges her way back toward the platform. "A-are you okay?" she stammers, her hushed voice the loudest thing in the room now that the plant has gone quiet.
Ros' breathing is raspy and labored, but the entire bulk of her nods in response. Juniper's voice from the night before echoes inside her head: Promise me you won't do anything stupid. Well, that was just about the stupidest thing she could've possibly done... but she survived. Somehow, she survived.
However, it's clear they can't fight the mother plant alone. It's far too powerful to be wrangled by a couple measly humans. Besides, they need to be certain that fighting it is even the right thing to do. They'd do better to concentrate their efforts on trying to formulate a vaccine, however impossible that may seem, because what if they kill the source, only to leave its victims permanently infected? They may as well have achieved nothing at all.
Outside, things are looking grim. The sky is clouded by a soupy orange-pink veil, sandstorms kick up in all directions, and bolts of blindingly fluorescent lightning crack loudly, sending white-hot sparks flying from the metal towers that surround the lab. Disturbing the mother plant seems to have directly impacted the environment, which means it's become even more vital to put a stop to all this. If they don't find a way to end it soon, the apocalypse may be closer than anyone ever would have guessed.
Once again, Ros is drawn to the plants by some inexplicable impulse inside her. She's been looking for a way to ease her sense of guilt, some grand gesture she can make to redeem herself for turning a blind eye when she had the chance to blow this entire scheme wide open - because now she's more convinced than ever that what they just witnessed is the horrific end result of what was detailed in the documents she stumbled across more than a year ago.
"Where do you think that thing came from?" Gaby asks, unaware of the conflict brewing in Ros' head.
"I don't know," Ros replies, "but it doesn't matter. Whether it was grown in a petri dish or on another planet, I'm sure it was benign once. It's the military who have turned it into what it is now. If they don't understand something, they'll prod and poke at it until they do. Then they won't be satisfied until they figure out how to turn it into a weapon."
"We have to find a way to combat the infection."
"Yes, but those people don't deserve to be our guinea pigs. They've already suffered too much. What we need is a willing participant." With calculated calmness intended to disguise the relentless nervous thumping of her heart, Ros reaches up to pluck the plant's single fruit, offered forth so temptingly. "We need a volunteer."
"Ros, no!" Gaby shouts when she realizes what's going on, but it's too late. The fruit is already nearing her mouth, as she prepares to do her second stupid thing of the day. Her teeth sink into the fruit's spongy, vibrant flesh.
Gaby is forced to witness every grisly second as the infection takes hold after only a single bite. Ros doubles over, clutching at her stomach and grimacing in pain, but she doesn't make a sound. When Gaby steps closer to offer whatever comfort she can, Ros waves her away with a trembling arm.
She has to endure this alone. This is her punishment for thinking only of preserving herself. As her limbs twist and contort, like those of a ventriloquist puppet at the whims of its master, she feels the last vestiges of her identity trickle away. Soon, she will no longer be able to think her own thoughts. Her mind will become a blank, her body a vessel compelled to do the bidding of a mysterious, malevolent force. Who knows when - or if - she will ever feel like herself again. Her last conscious thought is a single word: Juniper. It's the only part of her humanity she has left to cling onto, her last fighting chance.
Gaby swallows hard. "Ros? Are you still in there?"
But when Ros' body swivels back toward her, it's clear that it no longer contains the person she's come to know. She can tell right away that this is no temporary possession. This is the real deal. A single phrase escapes Ros' mouth, distorted and croaky.