Chương 372: Book 6 - Chapter 33 - Biology lessons

After Deadbeat arrived with reinforcements, my position stabilized, although it quickly became clear that the battle down here was becoming just as hopeless as the one above. The Antithesis had been advancing so slowly that the fungus had a chance to advance right along with them. Now it was consuming the dead Antithesis nearly as fast as we could kill them. [We need to figure out a way to push the Antithesis back. If we don't, the Antithesis will keep opening up more and more tunnels and drawing our forces away from the walls. Suggestions?] I asked over the command network. [Why don't we just collapse the tunnels?] Bob asked. [It's a temporary fix, at best. The Antithesis will probably just end up digging through the blockages or around them. That'll just result in us playing an extended game of whack-a-mole,] Deadbeat replied. [But it WILL slow them down, right?] Bob prompted.

[The big bear's got a point,] I said, [but I'd prefer a more reliable, long-term solution. If we have to start pulling troops off the walls to deal with the tunnels, the situation topside may deteriorate.] [The pollens and spores are doing a good job of slowing the Antithesis down. If Wildwalker spread her plants out a little more, it might slow the Antithesis down enough to make our 'game of whack-a-mole', as Deadbeat put it, more manageable,] Dusty suggested. [It's possible. I can certainly ask if she could plant a few more defenses down here,] I said. [Can you guys manage without me for a few minutes?] [Against a bunch of Twenty-Threes and Twenty-Eights? No problem,] Bob declared proudly. [It would take something a lot stronger than that to dislodge us.] [At least, at their current numbers. If the Antithesis start digging additional tunnels and opening additional fronts, things could get a little hairy,] Deadbeat added. [Don't worry, I'll be quick,] I said.

I quickly emptied the rest of my magazine into the oncoming horde before swiftly withdrawing from the frontline and heading back towards the main intersection and street access. The further I retreated down the tunnel, the thicker the cloud of spores and pollen became.

Although I was relatively sure that the various plant matter would be inert when it met any sort of terrestrial matter and safe for me to inhale, I was also fairly sure that there was so much of it that I'd probably choke to death if I ever took off my helmet. I made a mental note not to try. As I approached the surface access road, I was surprised to find the tunnel covered in lush vegetation.

When I'd watched Wild plant the first couple seeds in the walls and floors of the tunnel, I hadn't expected a veritable jungle to pop up because of it. When I got closer, I finally spotted Wild wandering through the mass of vines and flowers, checking on the various plants. Although she had no problem striding through the foliage, I really had to struggle through the mass of grasping plants and oversized flowers.

"Teddy, I didn't expect to see you so soon, did you manage to drive back the Antithesis already?" Wild asked when she noticed me struggling through the underbrush. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Not yet. We're holding our own for now, but I'm a little concerned that if we don't find a way to discourage the Antithesis from digging new tunnels, things might spiral out of control down here. They're throwing some heavy hitters at us, and there's not a lot of room to bring armor down here," I explained as I tried to untangle a particularly stubborn vine that had wrapped around my ankle.

"If that's true, why come to me?" Wild asked warily.

"Because your plants are helping, causing the Antithesis some serious problems, but it's not enough to stop them. I was wondering if you had anything else in your seed bag of tricks?" I said.

"Unfortunately not," she sighed.

"Although my plants are an effective deterrent for smaller, scattered groups of Antithesis wandering around in the wild, they're significantly less effective against a determined assault like we're experiencing now. When they're alone, there's no chance for the Antithesis to survive an encounter with my spores and return to the hive to pass on the genetic knowledge so they can develop immunity to my plants.

However, since that damned fungus has the ability to consume the dead and pass their genetic information back to the hive, the Antithesis have been slowly developing immunity to my plants, requiring me to invest in new strains. I'm stuck in an evolutionary arms race!"

"So no way you could whip up something more… virulent to drive them back?" I asked hesitantly.

"I think the word you're looking for is 'potent'," Wild grumbled.

"I raise plants, not diseases."

"Potent then," I corrected.

"Something to really mess the Antithesis up."

"I wish I could," Wild replied, throwing her arms up in exasperation.

"The problem is I can't plant anything that self-propagates, because the Antithesis adapt too quickly for it to be worth it, and the plants could mutate after a couple of generations and become dangerous to the local flora and fauna, or even humans. I can't take that risk. I also need to use plants that are sufficiently complex, so the Antithesis can't take awhile to adapt."

"How long?" I asked.

"I don't know… with the number of Antithesis affected by the pollen and getting returned to the hive, it'll probably take them a couple hours to adapt," she replied defeatedly.

"That's the best I can do."

"Seriously? A couple hours? I expected them to only last a couple minutes considering the state of the battle."

"Please give me a little credit," she scoffed.

"The whole reason I started working with plants is so I could create long-term solutions, not short-term stopgaps."

"And while I appreciate that… If you switched to short-term stopgaps, could you make something more potent? Perhaps potent enough to push the Antithesis back down here?" I asked.

"I could, but as I said, I have to plant each of my flowers individually, and if I cut back on the complexity too much, the Antithesis would adapt before they had a chance to reach critical mass," Wild replied hesitantly.

"So, what if you didn't use flowers? I know that's your preferred method, but if you used something bigger, like, I dunno, a tree, you wouldn't have to plant so many," I suggested.

"A tree, down here in this cramped space?" Wild asked, raising an eyebrow so high I could see it through the visor in her helmet.

"I don't know! I'm an undercity dweller. Until last year the only plants I'd ever seen were on billboards," I grumbled.

"Shrubs then!"

"Also not a great option," Wild replied.

"The problem would be that once the tree or shrub outlived its usefulness, I'd need to remove it to make room for the next species. This does give me an idea though; parasitic flowering vines might work."

"Parasitic?" I asked hesitantly.

"Selectively parasitic," Wild confirmed.

"I'm sure that with my Catalogs I could make it so each new species could feed upon the previous generation."

"But why? Wouldn't it just be better to leave the older generations there until they completely outlive their usefulness?"

"Technically yes, but if you wanted short-term stopgaps, then there's no point in leaving in the older generations; they'd only take up space. However, by making each sequential generation parasitic, I can make sure the plant won't be able to propagate, because each generation will kill off its only food source, and the vines will be able to grow at an accelerated pace because they can just steal the energy out of the previous generation!" Wild explained excitedly.

"Uhhh… if you say so," I replied blankly.

"I'm not going to lie, this is all going over my head. Does this mean you're planning on trying to make a more potent version of your plants?"

"Well, it's worth a try, and if I'm right, I'll only have to plant half a dozen vines, instead of dozens of flowers, which'll make maintenance and replacement much easier. Give me a couple minutes and I'll see what I can whip up," Wild declared excitedly.

"Alright… I'll just leave you to it then," I replied. Wild didn't appear to have heard me though, since she'd already wandered off towards the back of the cavern, muttering something to herself, or more likely her AI. When it became apparent that she'd become too absorbed in what she was doing and had forgotten about me, I just slipped away and returned to my defensive position in the tunnels.

"Hey boss, how'd your discussion with Wild go?" Dusty asked when he saw me.

"I'll be perfectly honest," I replied.

"I don't know."