Leech Girl Lives by Rick Claypool

Author:Rick Claypool [Claypool, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Spaceboy Books LLC

TWENTY-SIX

Belga led Margo out of the Asylum. Belga’s cyborg followed. As they waited on the ground floor for Margo’s paperwork to be finished, Belga explained to Margo what the Executive Designer expected from her in exchange for her freedom.

Margo’s ugly, insubordinate attack on the Art Safety Department’s Chief Austen would be forgiven, at least as far as the Administration was concerned. Her willingness to selflessly put herself in harm’s way for the people of the Bublinaplex had been noted. Her death-defying repair job to the spore tube was, in the Executive Designer’s words according to Belga, “nothing short of heroic.”

Now Margo’s help was needed on a different matter—a dire situation the Executive Designer ominously called the “tardigrade apocalypse.”

“Tardigrade apocalypse?” Margo repeated back to Belga.

“The Executive Designer says huge tardigrades are gathering outside of the dome and trying to climb up onto it. Pest Control says they’re attracted to the plume of goblin polyp spores being siphoned out of the museum, which are now erupting from the top of the dome. Tardigrades love to eat goblin polyps, apparently.”

“So why is it an ‘apocalypse’ then?”

“The Administration believes there are enough big tardigrades out there that if even a tiny fraction of them are able to climb up onto the dome, the dome will collapse.” Belga took a deep breath. “It could be the end the Bublinaplex.”

“The end?” Margo had only been half paying attention. She was still ruminating on the idea that banishment might or might not be what she’d always thought it was, and that much of what she’d supposedly known about the world was based on lies. Now Belga was asking her to confront the idea that her world—founded on lies or not—faced imminent destruction. She felt sick. They stepped outside.

“I know no one worked harder than you to stop the goblin polyp spores from spreading, and to eject them from the dome.” Belga pointed upward. On the dome there was an irregular blotch like a black cloud. “See that darkness overhead? That’s the polyps growing on top of the dome.”

“The tube that was supposed to funnel the spores out,” Margo muttered. “Oh god. They botched it. And I helped.”

Belga nodded. “If that dome comes down, everything you encountered out in the Fungus Wasteland will take hold inside the Bublinaplex. First the predators, then the fungus. Everyone will die. Everything you’ve ever loved, every work of art, every place, every person, destroyed.” She hugged herself as if she was cold. “This is not how it’s supposed to happen.”

At that moment the sun must have come out from behind some clouds. An abnormal, diffuse brightness shone down from overhead from around the fungus blotch. The leeches withdrew into the long sleeves of Margo’s inmate pajama top. “And the Executive Designer thinks I can somehow stop this from happening?”

“Apparently.”

Margo felt overwhelmed. She’d made Lorcan Warhol’s installation safe. She’d fought for her life in the Fungus Wasteland. She’d been imprisoned and told to expect banishment, she’d been told banishment as she knew it

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.