Chapter 7
527words
Deep in the tower, a little girl wrapped in a blanket looked up.
She clutched half a jar of glowing moss, her eyes clear and white.
"They keep me warm." The girl's voice cracked like thin ice.
Lila suddenly bolted from the vehicle.
She trembled as she stroked the girl's frostbitten cheeks, then glanced at the moss on the corpse pile—it was absorbing the bodies' last warmth.
"Symbiosis..." Lila whispered. "The fungi and moss have formed a symbiotic relationship..."
The bald man suddenly let out an inhuman howl.
He lunged at Lila, his fingers elongating into sharp fungal spikes!
BANG!
Buck's 1911 spat fire. The bullet blew open the bald man's skull, but instead of blood, a fountain of glowing spores erupted!
"Into the tower!" Kay yanked Lila backward.
The three retreated into the tower, the heavy iron door slamming shut just before the cloud of spores reached them.
Darkness enveloped them. Only the moss jar in the girl's arms emitted a faint glow. Lila suddenly groaned—the seed bank USB drive burned against her skin.
"Electromagnetic anomaly!" she gasped as the screen data jumped wildly. "The tower's a conductor... lightning—"
Before she could finish, the entire tower violently shook! Kay rushed to the window—the miniature wind turbine on the vehicle's roof spun at impossible speed, drawing down a pale lightning bolt!
"Thunder trigger!" Buck's face drained of color. "The fungi are controlling the weather!"
Lightning struck the "Ark."
Blinding electrical light burst inside the vehicle as the aquaponics tank shattered with a deafening boom! The mutated tilapia jumped frantically in the electric discharge, their scales surging with blue luminescence.
Kay suddenly understood.
He rushed to the control panel, ripped out generator wires, and plunged the exposed copper ends into the fish tank!
ZZZAP! Current surged through the fish bodies into the water.
The blue light from fish scales connected into an electrical web, instantly carbonizing the remaining fungi on the roof in crackling arcs.
"They're evolving..." Lila held the trembling little girl. "Using fish scales to generate electricity..."
Ice cracked outside the tower. Kay glanced at the monitor—fungal filaments wrapped around the tower's base, and the entire structure was tilting!
"Dismantle the magnets! Fix the car!" Buck lunged toward the wind turbine motor, dragging his damaged prosthetic.
But Kay stared at Lila. "How's the seed bank?"
Lila's face turned ashen. The USB drive's screen was completely black.
"Cold failure..." she desperately unbuttoned her clothes and pressed the USB drive against her bare chest. "Only option... body heat..."
Kay looked at her thin frame, then at the fungal mat devouring everything outside the door.
Buck suddenly held up a neodymium magnet. "Generator fixed! But there's only enough juice for one start!" Determination flashed in his eyes. "Ditch the seed bank and we might live!"
Lila clutched the USB drive and the little girl tightly, shrinking into the shadows.
Wind and snow battered the iron door. Kay's gaze moved from Buck's blood-stained prosthetic to Lila's frost-cracked lips, finally settling on the monitor.
Amid the fungal tide, the glowing moss on the "Ark's" roof suddenly went dark.
In absolute darkness, Kay pressed the ignition button.
