Never go anywhere without a knife

<snip>
“Yes, the... The building” Jamie shook his head in exasperation and muttered something under his breath.

Jason frowned “What do you think it is?”
</snip>

"It's... A building." Jamie said. "Let's go check it out." he said, and let out a short sharp whistle, the kind you can hear for miles, but can never pinpoint the direction.

"What's up?" Jay asked a minute later as the rest of the group caught up with their scouts.

"We found a building." He said, and motioned in its direction again.

"That must be the irrigation control." Cass said. She'd done the smart thing and checked the old records for what the arboretum was supposed to be like. "We must be at the centre of the Arboretum now."

"That tallies with my thoughts." Jamie said, with little emotion behind them. His jungle senses had been working their way back up to form, and the old ways he learned involved not letting emotion take over. Emotion leads to hesitation.

"There's no creatures or moving trees between us and there." Jason said, "we should go check it out."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and Jade pushed herself forward, and looked over Jamie. "You should take a break. Those scratches need to be cleaned." She said, doing the doctorly thing. Indeed, Jamie was scratched all over his upper body. He looked more like an actor auditioning for James Kirk than himself, as his shirt had even been torn in places.

The group walked together towards the small hut, and when they arrived, the worst of Jamie's scratches had been tended to, but he wouldn't let medical supplies be used on them, calling it a waste of the resources. Jay knew what that was like from all his excursions through time, especially the ones to before medicine had been properly invented.

Cass was the first one to enter the hut. It was two storeys tall, and yet the terminals and controls were all right in front of them. She went straight for them, and started poring over the dials. Everyone else entered after.

"What do you make of it?" Jamie asked. He'd looked around the edges of the single room first. He did various things like poking a finger through a pile of dust, or plant debris; smelling piles of obvious animal origin; and generally looking around. This took several minutes while Cass examined the still working computer terminal. Everyone else seemed to spend most of the time being disgusted at Jamie's actions in nearly sticking his nose in a pile of poo.

Rackham and his marines stayed outside to guard the place.

"Well.." Cass said, then a minute later, "That's not so bad. Still seems to be in working order. It's no wonder the plants are so overgrown here. The irrigation system has been set to the highest growth speed."

"Probably done by the tree." Jamie said as he sniffed a small pile of pink sap that had stuck to the wall near a broken window. He followed the trail up the wall, to the cavity above them, in the overly tall building.

"Someone." Jamie said, a note of urgency in his voice. "Shine a torch up into the ceiling now."

Jay did so, noticing the urgent tone. He'd been too annoyed at Rackham's leaving him out of the plan to have done the checks for himself, and swore under his breath when the light hit the objects above him.

Bodies. Bodies wrapped in vines with pink tinted leaves adorning them.

"We need to leave." he said.

Then the screams from outside, and gunfire.

"Now." Jay said. "Through that exit." He said, pointing at the other exit at the far side of the control hut.

Behind them, a pink branch smashed through a window and started edging towards them. Jade yelped and quickened her pace across the room, while Jamie and Jay turned to face it, machete's held high and backed towards the exit, giving the others time to escape.

<So, the pink tree has found us, but is currently engaged with a marine and Rackham. I'd like to think Gibbs is still alive. Still, we've got a small headstart, and need to get out of here.>