By the time I did notice that Gifford, Hunter, and other members of Major Justice’s team as well as Shifter were sinking toward the ground, they were shouting at Gifford who was staring off into space.

Was he too tired or had one of the mushroom tendrils gotten lucky and hit him? Either way they were dropping into range of not only the tendrils’ shots (which might not get through the wind), but also the clouds of spores that puffed outward whenever the shots hit something.

At ground level, the spores hung in the air, blown around by three heroes worth of air manipulation—four depending on how South Beach Surfer’s powers worked.

Near the ground they appeared as dust clouds. I could only guess how many were higher in the air where they couldn’t be seen.

If I had some time, I could reconfigure the suit’s sensors to detect particles per million, but not identify specific particles.

Fortunately, it didn’t all depend on me.

Shouting, “Wake up,” at Gifford, Vuaghn directed his winds to push Gifford and the others upward.

“Try not to take the spores with them,” I suggested.

“I’ll try,” Vaughn said, giving me a look.

To be fair to him, it was easier said than done.

As Gifford and his group began to float upward, he looked around in jerky motions, almost as if he were waking up from a nap. That was a good sign. It might be that the spores were something a person could choose to resist.

Then he started talking, “I have to go down. We need to go down. Down is where… Down is where… Down is where… home is.”

Next to him, Hunter started shouting back, “Are you crazy? If we go down there, they’ll use the pacification tendrils on us. You know what those are. What are you thinking?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gifford stared at him, “We have to go down.”

Making mental note of the fact that firing off spores at people from tendrils wasn’t a new evolution, but a planned for feature of the mushroom zombies, I thought about my options for doing something about it.

“Hal,” I said over the comm. “Now would be a great time to destroy as many of the tendrils as possible.”

[If I have your permission,] he said, [I can, but be aware that my lasers aren’t well designed for exterminating fungus. Also, I recommend that you move the spores away before they infect more of your companions.]

Duh. I should have thought of that earlier or maybe they should have. “Hey”, I said over the PA in my suit, “anyone who can create a wind should blow the spore clouds away from us and toward the forest. I’m beginning to think the spores allow the zombies to control you. Menagerie, am I right?”

Hunter stopped shouting at Gifford long enough to reply, “I don’t know what they can do anymore. Look, we fight criminals. I was trying to come up with a way to take them down without a fight. I can make people confused, but that’s it.”

“Okay,” I said, “I hope they don’t take it further.”

By then, I was feeling a breeze from behind me. South Beach Surfer flew from side to side in the air, turning her board around and throwing a gust of wind in this direction the same way she would have thrown a small wave in water.

Held up in the air by Gordon’s wind, Mime held both hands in the air as if he were gripping a fan or maybe a giant hair dryer, pointing downward.

The clouds of spores started blowing toward the chunks of road that now ran parallel to the fence in front of the forest.

Even better, the jet arrived and started firing its anti-personnel lasers, efficiently hitting tendril after tendril.

This was good. We could win this.

A message appeared on the main League channel from Hal, [I don’t have enough evidence to predict this with confidence, but this may be a feint.]

“Understood,” I said.

Next to me, Amy threw the Bloodspear again, hitting another tendril and draining its life. She let out a sigh as the tendril turned to dust.

“How are you doing?” I asked, firing the laser at a tendril. Cassie fired at the same time.

“Okay,” Amy said, “There’s enough life in them that I absorbed some power, but there isn’t enough of a mind that I’ve figured them out.”

She paused, “I did get enough out of them that I’m immune to their spores.”

That got my attention, “Can you pass that on?”

She shook her head, “Not any more than I can pass on any of my powers.”

Her spear appeared in her hand again and she looked out toward the empty neighborhoods behind us and their police barricades, “It’s doing something.”

In that moment, Kayla talked over the comm, “The police at the barricades are reporting tendrils like the ones near you. They’re saying that they’re seeing humans with growths on their skins.”