Do Not Eat.

<snip>
The giant fungus reared its head to face Thomas Plisken, who was stuck on the ladder right next to the elevator door, his large bottle of nova shine in one hand. The fungling bared its teeth at the gardener, Thomas merely winked and took a swig from the bottle and then spat it in the thing's face. The creature shrieked as its face melted. It panicked and tumbled over the edge and fell down to the burning wreckage of the lift below.

Everyone watched the thing fall and hit the bottom before turning to look up in surprise at Thomas, who was in the process of taking another drink from his bottle.

"Told ya it works." He said with a grin.
</snip>

The group hovered on the ladder for a moment, before shifting their gaze to one of the doors to the lift shaft, which was opening slowly, a crowbar appearing in the middle.

"Hey, what are you lot doing in there?" Jamie asked, peering in.

"We were on our way to security." Jay explained. "But the fungus thing cut the cable."

"Yeah, then I spat at it inna face." Plisken slurred. "an, an it fell." He said, pointing.

"What, alcohol hurts them?" Jamie asked. "Isn't this universe a bit low on imagination?"

"From what I can tell, that never happened here. It's an original idea." Cass shrugged.

"You'll want to get out of the lift shaft. Sprinklers will be activating soon." Jamie said, reaching a hand into the lift shaft to help everyone out. Artemis floated out first, and soon, Plisken was the only one still in the lift shaft when the sprinklers finally activated, soaking him.

"We still need to get to security." Jay said, looking around to judge what level they had arrived on, and how to move on from there.

"The lifts will be out until a repair crew cleans up the fire debris." Jamie said, knowing the procedure. "I can override it, but it'll add heat stresses to the other cables, and they might snap too."

"No, we're clear from the fungal levels for now." Cass said, with total confidence. "We..." She began, before tailing off as she saw Jay's eyes open wide, looking back towards the lift.

"We need to run. Now." Jay said, stepping backwards, away from the opening. A big purple nodule was rising up, absorbing the water from the sprinkler system.

"Smeg, it's absorbing the sprinkler water like a lake fungus on Fernandos!" Jamie said, pulling Artemis' monitors further away, and then pushing Cass past him.

"We need to get somewhere cold, and dry." He said as they ran. "The lake fungus shrivelled up in the dry season. With luck, this is the same."

Behind them, the fungus continued to expand towards them as one big bulbous bubble, and it showed no signs of slowing.

"Cryo-lab?" O'Malley queried, not overly confident.

"I have a better idea." Cass smirked. "Silica gel."

"That's just crazy enough to work." Jay said. "There's enough shoe shops on the promenade to arm everyone with some."

<tag! Who wants to kill water-absorbing fungus with little bags of silica gel?>