Bitter Fruit: Book Summary
The book begins with Ryan and J.B. outside a military base located inside the White Sands range in New Mexico. They started out in the redoubt near Dulch, and headed down to White Sands to explore. They spent several days resting up in the redoubt near Dulch before heading out.
The others split up and go to explore the base, discovering all manner of tech. Ryan and J.B. find themselves under attack by a large number of mutants. The mutants consider the grounds sacred and worship an invisible creature, despite the fact that it attacks and kills them. Ryan is attacked by the creature, and discovers that the creature they worship is a giant mutant spider that has amazing chamoflaug abilities.
While exploring Krysty and Doc find themselves in the office. While checking out the book shelf, Krysty triggers a secret door which takes her to a gateway. At the same time Mildred and Jak find a area that had been used by the survivors as shelter for many years after the war ended. Here, the corpses rest, undisturbed. She finds the corpse of a little girl and a child, as well as a journal.
Reading the Journal, she learns that Major Drake Burroughs wrested control of the base over a period of a years, killing anyone who wouldn’t follow his orders. What happened is recorded in the journal.
The mutants attacking Ryan and J.B. are wiped out by Burrough’s men using FAV’s and a M1 MBT. The major comes out of the tank and comes up to talk to Ryan. He offers to let Ryan join their organization. Ryan flat out refuses, despite the fact that they know about him. He tells him to forget it, making his way to the base. Burrough’s pushes the attack, forcing him into the base.
The others are attacked by Burrough’s men. Something they discover is that Burrough’s is the original commander of White Sands, and somehow due to a project known as Calypso they have managed to survive ever since the war.
They fight their way through the base to the gateway, killing a large number of the base personnel, then finally enter the gateway jumping out.
When they come to, they are inside a gateway with indigo colored walls. It is very cold inside the gateway and they discover that the redoubt it’s self is tiny. There are three cryo chambers inside the redoubt, one contains a corpse. There is also equipment, weapons and food stored here, as well as a war wag.
The soldiers are attempting to follow the group, so they take the .50 caliber weapon off the wag and jam the gateway door with it. They don’t waste any time leaving the gateway. They notice that it is very cold outside, and frost is covering the ground. They know that they are no longer in the Deathlands, and Doc is quite certain that they are in England, or damned close to it.
Two hours after leaving the gateway they find a trio of castrated corpses, obviously killed and put up as a warning. They also know that the men were carrying drugs of some sort.
At the same time, two young boys, one named Tarragan, and the other Bean are being chased through the forest by a hunting party. The boy Bean, is hit in the stomach by a crossbow bolt. He dies in Tarragan’s arms. Tarragan is worried about the great uprooting that is about to occur, and trying to avoid the hunting party, lead by a man named Pepper.
Ryan and the others go hunting for shelter. He and Jak go ahead and find a cavern. At the cave, they are encounter a pair of wolves which they quickly kill. After the killing of the wolves, they bring the others to the cave and everyone hunkers down for the night.
The next day Jak goes out hunting and kills a big buck. Mildred is watching from a distance, and is amazed how he literally tackles the buck and cuts it’s throat. At the same time she is reading the journal that she took from White Sands. According to what she reads, it takes several years of executions and terror for Burroughs to finally take full control of the base and the surviving personnel.
Back inside the cave Ryan awakens and Krysty lets him know that she found a natural hot water pool. She already cleaned herself and Ryan goes to use it. Krysty joins Ryan and they make love while in the water. Later, they get out and go to join the others.
Without warning, they come under attack from green clad men. Mildred gets knocked out and is captured by the men and Jak climbs the cliff side. He nearly looses his grip but grabs Ryan’s hand and is pulled to safety.
Despite the loss of Mildred to the green clad men, they retreat deep into the cave, knowing that they will be able to find a way out. Along the way, they encounter Tarragon, and end up taking him with them, as he was wounded, and he knows about the people that are chasing them. They hear the green clad men behind them and use their blankets as sleds to escape them.
The soldiers from White Sands, led by Sgt. Conte arrive in the gateway when the .50 caliber weapon finally collapses and allows the gateway door to close. He is leading a small squadron of men in pursuit of Ryan and his band. His orders are clear. Terminate Ryan Cawdor and the others with extreme prejudice.
Ryan and his group have been pinned down by the Green Clad men when they hear wags approaching. They meet the leader of the group riding the wags, a man named Blackjack Gehrig. He offers to help them out. Ryan is hesitant, but doesn’t want to risk fighting the others.
They are forced to knock Tarragon out to place him inside the wag. Gehrig takes the group to New London, since old London was destroyed in the war, and is now deep under water. They learn who are the important in the ville.
In the ville they stop at a gaudy called the Bent Rose. Krysty takes the boy up to a room and JB stands guard over him. Ryan has a beer and shares a meal with Gehrig. He wants to know why they were in the Celts land. He shows him a basket filled with genetically engineered and mutated vine they harvest for the poison it produces. They turn the poison into a powerful drug.
Back at the celt compound, the Prince Boldt shows Mildred around, explaining to her that the vines surrounding the compound provide food, protection, and clothing. He also shows her that the base was built using the root system of a giant plant. He also tells her that he is from the past, like her. He was nine when the war occurred and spent all but the past 42 years in cryosleep. When he woke up, his father was dead, and he was alone. All the people living in the compound were created by using embryo’s obtained before the war.
Ryan and Gehrig talk about Boldts compound and how they harvest the vines, also what has been going on between them and the celts. Ryan is insistent about going back to try and rescue Mildred.
Doc goes for a walk and stops at a toy maker shop. The owner sees him crying and goes to find out why. The owner is named George Ellison and they talk for a while. He lets Doc know about a man named Long Johnson who might be able to tell him about any friends that might have survived the war. He tells him where he can find the pirate and he goes there.
Doc arrives at the Globe and asks Jak to join him since Ryan sent the boy to watch over him. They go inside and watch a twisted version of Romeo and Juliet. They then meet Long Johnson. He is ready to attack Tanner, as he knows him from operation Chronos. He may know what has happened to Doc’s family, and promises to get revenge on Doc’s family. A fight starts, and Long Johnson and his men escape. Doc and Jak track them all the way back to the docks and they arrive just in time to see Johnson’s ship leave. Disheartened they head back towards the inn.
About this time, the soldiers from White Sands arrive inside the ville and know where Ryan and the others are holed up. They are preparing to attack.
While JB is watching over the boy, some locals decide to try and kill him. They come up from outside, and JB spots them. He butt strokes one of the men with his shotgun, knocking him off the ledge. He then forces the others away. Tarragon wakes up and talks to Ryan. He lets Ryan know that there is a rebellion brewing in the ville and that the prince is going to release a plague, to wipe out mankind. This is the great uprooting.
They know that they are going to have to leave and soon, not only to rescue Mildred, but to stop the release of the plague. JB slips out and knocks out the stable hands and steals some horses. He then spots the soldiers from White Sands. To create a distraction, he sets fire to a dentist office across from the inn.
Mildred learns from the prince that he is going to release a plague, a mutant form of the bubonic plague. He plans to infect some heralds and have them travel all over Europe and elsewhere, spreading the disease. He figures that within ten years time, the disease will touch every corner of the globe, and everyone will be wiped out. She also learns how his father killed his mother when he learned she was going to betray him to the government before the war.
As JB sets the office on fire, the soldiers attack. At the same time the group makes their break. In the confusion of the attack, Jak blows up one of the vehicles and wounds one of the soldiers at the same time. They are able to make it all the way to the compound.
They are attacked by the mutant vines, and Tarragon sings to them, calming the vines down, allowing them access to the compound. They go to a fellow rebels home, a man named Cardamon. They are taken to meet the other rebels and are taken to a location under ground where they can break into the inner compound and hunt down the prince.
The soldiers have followed them all the way to the compound, where they use flash bang grenades to clear a way through the vines. The men lead by Gehrig are close behind and enter just after them. At the same time the rebellion begins.
Mildred seduces the young guard and knocks him out, breaking free. At the same time, the prince, who his full name happens to be Victor Boldt, can’t believe that someone has managed to break into his compound. He has his computer, Merlin, initiate the automated defense, as well goes to start up the countdown to release the plague.
The others meet up with Mildred and Ryan as well as Krysty end up at the blocked off entrance to Boldts inner sanctum. Krysty uses her mutant strength to open the door and they continue to chase after him.
Victor Boldt goes deep into his compound and to the where the cryo chambers are stored. Here there are large tanks filled with a nutrient solution. He climbs to the top of one of the tanks and a mutant life form, created by his father and contains a part of his fathers DNA. He greets the mutant plant as his father and asks him to initiate the countdown.
Ryan enters the chamber. He sees Pepper and gets into a fight with him. It doesn’t take long before he kills the man, but in the fight the nutrient tank gets ruptured and Ryan finds himself under attack by the genetically engineered plant creature who calls itself Boldt’s father.
The fight is desperate, and they discover that the plant man is all but impossible to kill. At the same time the White Sand soldiers arrive. Mildred kills Victor with a clear shot to the head. His Death sends the plant man into a frenzy.
Ryan talks to Conte and convinces him of the danger they are facing. Conte tosses him a charge of C-4 and he uses it to blow open the tanks containing liquid nitrogen, which freezes the plant man, killing it, and halting the countdown to the release of the plague. Ryan knows that it won’t be long before the soldiers continue after them, so they waste no time entering the gateway and jumping out.
When they come around, they discover that they are located on the east coast, not too far from Virginia. They consider going to Front Royal to pay his nephew a visit.
End of Bitter Fruit.