To the Time Machine! - Part 10

The Past


When they talked her into time travelling, they did not mention she would be arriving the day that Buies Creek was marauded by a giant plant monster. Maybe such events happened so frequently that it was not considered worth noting in the historical records?

The botanical behemoth towered over them. It towered over most of the building.

She gulped as the plant thing munched on what had been the ceiling of the control room. Even in the company of Dossey and Rockel, as she looked up at the botanical beast, Lorma Doom suddenly felt very exposed and very small.

From her vantage point in the control room, Lorma Doom could see that the leafy leviathan's lower trunk positively filled the courtyard in the middle of the edifice.

That left only two escape routes: they could flee into the corridor or they could get eaten alive.

"Time to go," she said, and hopped right over the counter and into the hall. Dossey and Rockel followed. As the control room was ripped out behind them, the trio literally ran into a broad-shouldered man in uniform.

"Comrades, what --?" he stopped, and watched in horror as the jungle jaws swooped in and gulped down two music students not far away.

He looked from the plant monster to Dossey and back again. "Dossey, what did you do this time?" He spoke with a Russian accent. The uniform was probably Russian, too, but it looked out of style, maybe from WWII.

“It wasn’t me,” Dossey said.

"We can't do anything from this vantage," Rockel said. "To the roof!"

"You can't go up on the roof," chided Spitler. "It's against regulations."

"I think it's against regulations to be a giant plant and attack the fine arts building," Rockel retorted.

Spitler gave the cyber-assassin a hard look. He'd always had a few doubts about this one's motivations, but he had to admit Rockel was right.

They hustled down the hall, Lorma Doom bringing up the rear. She hacked off the tendrils that raced after them, but she was afraid the plant had more vines than she had Ax.

"Priority One Alert,” a voice blared through hidden speakers. “Security Breach in Progress. Campus Security to Fine Arts Building. Repeat: Priority One Alert. Major Breach in Progress. All units, respond."

The fab four raced up the spiral staircase, dashed across the grid, and pushed open the overhead doors. They parted with a satisfying FWOOMP sound.


They were nearly even with the "head" of the vegetable. It was too busy wrapping its vines around victims on the ground; it had not noticed our heroes on the roof of Ellis.

From Rockel's outstretched arm sprung a device. It fired a line, which whipped out into the empty air as if it were rocket-propelled and sunk into the roaring monster. It must have had a hook on the end, for he pulled it taut and it stuck.

The hook certainly got the beast's attention. It turned its eyeless head toward them and gnashed its terrible teeth in anticipation of fresh meat.

A plant that eats meat. That's a reversal.

"Quick, shimmy across," Rockel told his rooftop companions.

"Pardon me?" asked Lorma Doom. "I do not shimmy."

Quick as a wink, the Dossey pulled his nunchuku out and used them to slide down the zipline into the plant. As he sped toward the monstrosity, he contemplated what he would do once he arrived.

He never had to decide, for the plant intercepted him with a leafy tendril, pulling him and his weapon off the line like old laundry off a clothesline. The terrible thing raised the Dossey up to its mouth, and Dossey wished he could see his lovely but ornery wife one last time.

But before it could devour Dossey, the maniacal mouth was suddenly consumed in a fire ball. The mistake of nature screeched in rage.

Dossey turned, as he dropped out of the creature's grip, to see smoke wafting out of a large barrel on Rockel's shoulder. Dossey grinned. And then Dossey remembered he was falling to his death.

As he thought back on the many Choices he'd made in his lifetime, he was scooped up by a winged woman. He recognized her by her strong grip immediately, even though she only held him by his suspenders. It was General Kolberg, commander of the Imperial Army.

"Kolberg!" Dossey looked up. The good general was sporting her favorite pair of rocket-powered wings, strapped on over her heavy trench coat.

"Dossey," she growled, "quit messing around. We've got to disable this abomination. I have more pressing matters. I cannot abide distraction here on the home front."

"Well excuse the hell out of me," Dossey sneered. "Just get me close to that thing and I'll show you some messing around."

"Yes, we saw how well that went last time," Kolberg scoffed, as she banked around, making a wide circle around the plant monster, careful to stay out of its ever-expanding reach. "I will not have time to keep rescuing you."

"Just put me down!" Dossey shook his fists at her.

"As you wish" Kolberg said, and fell into a sharp dive down toward the creature.


The plant had seen the source of the rocket blast as well, or sensed it somehow, for it wrapped a vine around Rockel's cable and began to pull. Rockel was jerked forward, and even as he dug in his heels, he slid as the plant dragged him forward.

The brave little assassin dug in his heels, and managed to halt his forward progress. He grabbed the cable and tugged on it. He turned into it, and wrapped it around his body, slowly making progress against the beast in this deadly tug-of-war.

But the flowering fiend was just toying with Rockel. With a sickeningly quick motion, the vile vegetation jerked the line hard. Rockel spun around, unraveling, but managed to stay on his feet.

He was once again in the creature’s power and began to slide across the rooftop.

Lorma Doom raised her Ax to sever the line, but Rockel waved her off. “I can beat it,” he said.

What looked like raptor claws erupted from Rockel's feet and attempted to clasp into the roof. The effort was for naught; he could not find a hold. He slid right across the pebbles.

Soon he was atop the short wall that encircled the rooftop. He dug his claws in, and they stuck, but the wall groaned to indicate it would not hold for long. Rockel had to make a Choice.

Rather than wait for the plant to pry him loose, Rockel leapt off the roof of the building. He swung from his end of the zipline not unlike Tarzan. Sadly, he did not quite have the vocal chords of the Lord of the Apes, but for a transhuman he managed a fairly intimidating war cry.


"Help me turn these guns around," Spitler ordered Lorma Doom. Lorma looked up from watching the Dossey get dropped on the head of the plant monster, to see what Spitler was going on about. He was pulling protective tarps off what looked like a World War II era ship-mounted anti-aircraft gun.

"How old is that thing?" Lorma asked.

"Turn that crank there," Spitler ordered, as he climbed into the gunner's chair. "These have been here at least as long as this building, maybe longer. No, crank it the other way." As Lorma operated the hand crank to turn the gun around to face the plant, Spitler likewise lowered the barrel level with the unruly vegetation. "Those bins contain ammunition. Just keep it coming." He lined up plant in the sight. "I hope this thing still works."

It made an awful racket, but it sure worked. The aging gun pelted the hide of the monster, but instead of doing much damage, it just pissed it off more.

Spitler and Lorma Doom barely managed to leap out of the way before a leafy fist smashed in the gun and the top corner of the building.


Dossey was once again about to be swallowed up by the plant monster. This time, Dossey’s untimely death was prevented by the timely arrival of Rockel.

Catching Dossey in mid-air, Rockel said, “Oomph.” They landed amidst the thing’s teeth. Rockel released the cable, which meant he could have done so all along. When the gigantic jaw began to close, Rockel reached up and stopped the Venus Dosseytrap in mid-bite.

"Rockel, keep it occupied," Dossey shouted, crawling down the stalk. "I have to get to the Armory. I have a few surprises for our friend the foliage."

Rockel strained to hold the chlorophyll choppers apart, the spiny teeth closing on the desperate assassin, his cybernetic augments whirred and grinding to handle the excess pressure. "Hurry every chance you get," he grunted.