Crucible: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 5)

by Scott Nicholson

  The thing bounded two mighty steps and pounced, tail curling behind it. Alexander ducked away even as the creature struck him, hissing and snarling. A claw raked along his weak arm and ripped cloth and flesh. Alexander kept rolling as he reached the lip of the gulley and went over.

  The private fired a couple of wild shots and the terrible animal gave up its pursuit and turned toward him. Alexander dug the tips of his boots into the leaf-covered slope, stopping his descent. With the creature in profile, Alexander could see it was a cat of some kind—except monstrously well-muscled in the chest and three times too large. Whether it was a mutated house cat or an overgrown panther, only the devil could say.

  But the private cared nothing for biological curiosity. He leveled his rifle with trembling hands and fired again. The bullet struck the cat in the shoulder but didn’t drop it. Instead, the cat hissed and arched its back, fur sticking up in dark tufts.

  Alexander fumbled for his sidearm, the pain on his left side nearly paralyzing him.

  “Here, kitty kitty kitty,” he cooed, hoping to distract the cat enough to give the private a better shot. But the poor fool was a moneychanger, not a warrior. And it cost him.

  The cat leapt on the private and knocked him onto his back, batting at him as if he were a broken mouse. As the man screamed, blood flew from the flailing, extended claws. The cat’s head descended, ears pinned back, as it hissed and mewled. The teeth clacked shut. The cat came away with the man’s nose and his screams transformed into wet grunts.

  Alexander reared up on his knees, barely able to manage a two-handed firing stance. “Kitty!” he yelled one last time, but the predator was too intent on its mauling.

  Alexander emptied his magazine into the creature’s flanks, causing it to collapse onto the private. But it wasn’t dead. It turned a glowering gaze toward Alexander as if promising to keep him on the menu, and then slunk into the woods with its belly and tail dragging, leaving a dappled patch of blood on the leaves.

  Soldiers ran up the trail, shouting and firing wildly.

  No discipline. Even with Munger’s hand on the whip, there’s no goddamned discipline in the ranks.

  Maybe the destruction of the human race was inevitable. Murray characterized Operation Free Bird as a “mercy kill.” He understood that now, because this terrible new world was merciless. But he refused to agree with it.

  “Sir!” one of the soldiers called, climbing down the bank to help him. “Are you okay?”

  Alexander assessed the deep gouges along his biceps, appalled to see bone. “I think I broke my arm again. Remind me to take the stairs next time.”

  The soldier’s face clouded with confusion, but he helped Alexander climb the bank where several soldiers checked out the private. The man was clearly dead. He’d never get to taste those Polish sausages or embark upon a promiscuous breeding spree.

  Good. His genes were for shit anyway. Don’t need any moneychangers in the new world.

  “You’d better sit down, sir,” a corporal said to him. “You might be in shock.”

  “We’ve already had the shock,” he mumbled, recognizing that his mind was clouded and not caring. “A big, almighty, come-to-Jesus shock.”

  As the squad led him back to the caverns and recovered the private’s body, Alexander was more determined than ever to stop Operation Free Bird. Once Munger returned with the codes, he’d shift into attack mode. They’d played defense for so long that it had become cowardice and ineptitude.

  “To hell with Earth Zero,” he roared, words that would’ve counted as sedition under the rule of President Murray. “We’re taking our country back. The hard way. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!”

  The soldiers ferrying him to the sick bay must’ve thought he was deranged from trauma, because they didn’t comment. Alexander didn’t give a damn what they thought.

  He was the general here.

  Once Munger dragged Murray back to Luray Caverns, perhaps he’d hold a public execution to show what happened to globalist traitors.

  Right after he tortured the codes out of her and aborted Operation Free Bird, of course.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Before descending back into the tunnels, Franklin and the others searched portions of the damaged houses, although little was left after years of decay. Despite the darkness, the eternal daylight of the aurora allowed enough light for them to scavenge the immediate area for anything useful.

  Millwood found a couple of rusty cans of tuna but little else. Squeak had to crawl through a narrow window and collect some rags, which Franklin dipped in oil salvaged from the silent automobiles. He wrapped the rags around the ends of three tree branches.

  “I hope you didn’t use up all the matches,” he said to Millwood.

  “Five left.”

  “Don’t waste them on cigarettes. If you need a light, you catch it off the torch, okay?”

  “Planning ahead for a change,” K.C. said with approval.

  “Yeah, but what do we do when we get there?” Millwood said. “How do we blow up a mutant plasma sink when we don’t have any bombs?”

  “We use their own power against them,” Franklin said.

  “Is that some kind of Japanese martial-arts bullshit? Aikido or some such?”

  “No,” K.C. said. “It’s called ‘freedom fighting.’”

  “If we could siphon some gasoline out of these cars, we might be able to do some damage that way,” Franklin said. “But I don’t see any cans to carry it in.”

  “Maybe we can find something down there underground that will burn,” K.C. said.

  “It’s all metal,” Franklin said. “I don’t think the plasma is flammable. But who knows? Bullets might trigger an explosion.”

  K.C. gathered her rucksack and Franklin reached for it. She stepped away from him and slid her arms into the shoulder straps. “You know I carry my own weight, Franklin.”

  “You carry more than that,” Franklin said, feeling a little foolish but with not a whole lot to lose. “You carry my heart.”

  “Awww, listen to the lovebirds,” Millwood said, which drew a giggle from Squeak.

  “The silver stuff has expanded five or six feet since we got here,” K.C. said, gracefully minimizing his romantic words. “We can’t say here much longer or this whole place will be coated and we’d be frozen like statues. I guess ‘down’ is the only to go.

  Franklin looked toward the shimmering city in the near distance and the colors sparkling off the top of central tower. Nearer, a series of oblong humps rose from the cityscape, the birthing of new buildings. The alleys were mostly veiled in gloom, but in the foreground he saw movement—lesser shadows moving among darker shadows.

  “Something’s coming,” he said. “Head for the hole.”

  He wasn’t sure the tunnel was the best escape route, but they had no choice. At least the robot Zaps couldn’t follow them because the mutants needed to maintain contact with the alloy. If those figures belonged to real mutants, they were in trouble.

  “Me first,” Millwood said, sliding down through the crevice from which they’d surfaced. “I know the way.”

  Franklin understood the man wasn’t being selfish. He was bravely taking on the risk of facing whatever unknown dangers might arise that they hadn’t encountered earlier. Or more rats might be waiting. At least now he was armed with a pistol.

  “Go on,” Franklin said to K.C., and after she scrambled down the broken concrete slope, Franklin eased Squeak down to her. He whispered to the girl, “Stay close, hon, okay?”

  She nodded, her big green eyes glinting with the aurora. Then she vanished into the dark. Moments later, a faint red-yellow glow pushed back the darkness, and the odor of burning oil rode the smoke up into his face. They’d lit the torch.

  Franklin waited a moment to give them a head start, in case the figures made a sudden approach. He wasn’t even sure the figures had spotted them, because they seemed to take an indirect path toward him. He guessed there were a dozen of them, and when
he saw the reflections off their uniforms, he knew they were Zaps—he just couldn’t tell if they were robots or the ones that had once been human.

  They were maybe fifty yards away now. Without a weapon, he wouldn’t be able to fight them. But maybe he could give the others a head start that might save them. So he stuck his head down into the tunnel and yelled, “Keep moving. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  Then he jogged back toward the ruined row of houses, making sure the Zaps saw him. He hid in a loose stack of cinder blocks that had once been a foundation, peeking over just enough to watch his pursuers.

  There were six robot Zaps, but they had hulking low forms beside them. They walked on four legs and were also composed of alloy. When he saw their red eyes, he knew they were the fabricated dogs K.C. had told him about. Luckily they didn’t bark or howl, or Franklin might’ve just clamped his hands over his ears and waited for the world to end.

  Just as he suspected, they stopped at the boundary where the silver seeped across the ground in a thin, impermeable sheet. The robots couldn’t leave their power supply.

  You fuckers just wait until we blow your plasma sink. I hope you melt like crayons in the sun.

  But then one of the figures stepped off the flat alloy surface and began walking slowly toward him. Although it wore the typical silver suit of the Zaps, this one had pale face instead a burnished metal sheen. Franklin recognized it as one of the carriers from the tower.

  And it had a Zap baby in its arms. The trademark twin furnaces of its eyes gave it away.

  The carrier was unarmed, but Franklin knew it was physically stronger than he was. If only he’d taken the pistol instead of Millwood, he could’ve killed two birds with one stone.

  “Franklin,” the baby and the carrier called in unison.

  How the hell did they know it was me?

  But when he thought about it, he was the only old fat man currently residing in the dome, so it wasn’t much of a guess. Franklin thought about running again, but the alloy surface enclosed him on all sides. He wouldn’t be able to flee for long without running into the robot Zaps.

  At least he could buy the others some more time. Or maybe the Zaps hadn’t even noticed them.

  “What do you want?” Franklin said, trying to sound casual, like a man with nothing to hide. He felt ridiculous even pretending.

  “We were led to believe you were imprisoned,” the baby and the carrier said, coming closer.

  “I was,” Franklin said. “I just felt like stretching my legs.”

  “Why would you stretch your legs?” the duo said in unison. “That would only put you farther away from the ground.”

  It was difficult to tell with both of them talking, but Franklin was pretty sure this baby was the male one of the three in the Conglomerate. “I’m surprised to see you out of the nursery,” Franklin said. “Did Mommy give you permission to walk around in the middle of the night?”

  This time only the baby spoke. “Did we put you in prison?”

  It took Franklin a moment to realize the baby was talking about the actions of the entire Conglomerate. Franklin assumed they were in constant telepathic communication even when they were separated. Given their ability to command the very environment of the city, he’d considered them one all-powerful mind. But if this baby was alone, then either someone else was operating the city, or it was somehow refining and building itself.

  Together they stand, divided they fall. If they control the robots with their minds, maybe all I have to do is distract this one and give K.C. and the others a chance.

  “I reckon I could fight you, but you’d probably win,” Franklin said, wishing he’d kept his sharpened length of pipe with him. The robots began fanning out along the silver plain, circling the patch of wasted ground.

  “We’ve already won,” the baby said. “Where are the others?”

  “Nobody here but us chickens.”

  “Your confusing attempts at what I presume to be humor are tiresome. How did you escape?”

  “I opened the chicken house and flew the coop.”

  The carrier and baby moved closer, now ten feet away. The carrier’s face was impassive, eyes smoldering a deep, dormant red. The baby’s eyes, though, were fiery and volcanic. “Did one of the others release you? Kokona or Girl?”

  “Who is ‘Girl’?”

  “The other of us.”

  Franklin glanced at the cordon of robot Zaps and their monstrous metal canines. More of the robots emerged from the edge of the city and marched toward him. Aurora washed their burnished skins with green and magenta, festive colors that did nothing to reduce their menace. He was cut off from escape, unless he raced to the hole, but that would mean giving away the others.

  “I thought you were all one,” he said. “Like some kind of hippie hive mind.”

  “We are, but I am the strongest one.”

  “That’s funny,” Franklin said. “Kokona told me she was the strongest.”

  “When?”

  It was time for Franklin to plant the bait and see if the little ego-maniac would swallow it. “When she came to visit me in prison.”

  The baby closed its eyes for a moment. Franklin couldn’t tell whether the baby was contemplating these revelations or whether it was attempting telepathic contact with the other babies. Or perhaps issuing commands to its robot army.

  “Why did she visit you?” the baby said.

  “She told me the Conglomerate wanted to kill us, but she needed us alive so Rachel would stay loyal. She said the Conglomerate was unstable. And if I remember correctly, she said she was the strongest. Yep, pretty sure I remember that.”

  “No. They are weak. I have the robots. I go out and protect and patrol the city. The other two are merely mental bureaucrats, weaklings, obsessing over plans and architecture and energy systems. Force is strength and power, but they could never understand that.”

  “If you’re so strong, why don’t you go ahead and kill me?” Franklin understood this baby was as psychotically unhinged as Kokona, intensely egotistical and craving power and control. Such a fundamental flaw offered an opening, but he would need great patience and cunning.

  “Because I can’t read your mind. If I could crack your skull open and pull the thoughts from your brain, I would do it with pleasure. But right now I need you to tell me what Kokona wanted with you.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but she’s the one who released us.”

  “You lie. Where are the others? I know how you humans accrete and gather in social units.” The baby grew more restless in the carrier’s arms, twitching and wriggling.

  “I’m a loner. They were slowing me down.”

  “Rachel is your genetic descendant. You would never leave her.”

  “What do you know about it? You have no loyalty to anything. Maybe we’re not so different.” Franklin was sweating despite the cool, constantly circulating air of the city.

  “Even after you escaped, you are still a prisoner in our city.”

  “Well, Chubby Cheeks, so are you. And how come Kokona’s carrier has a name but yours doesn’t?”

  The baby’s lower lip poked out in a pout. “Neither of us needs names.”

  “Chubby Cheeks, then. And I’ll call your Mommy Daddy there ‘Bony Cheeks.’ Does that work?”

  The carrier rushed forward, and Franklin braced for a blow, easing his way down the shadowy stack of bricks where a broken front porch slanted into the dirt. He couldn’t see a gap in the splintered siding boards that would allow him entry, so he collected one of the boards, turned, and waved its tip in the air.

  But the carrier hadn’t followed. It walked away from him, crossing the patch of dirt and weeds and debris. The baby must’ve seen the hole, or maybe smelled the traces of smoke.

  The carrier knelt at the mouth of the hole, allowing the baby to peer into the darkness.

  Franklin started laughing. “Your robots can’t get down in there. That’s our world, not yours. Concrete and dirt and raw
sewage.”

  Franklin was worried that the carrier and baby would disappear down the hole before he could reach them. He ran toward them, swiping the board in the air before him. When he reached them, he jabbed at the Zap baby, but the carrier plucked the board from his hands. Moving so fast that Franklin barely registered it, the carrier swung the board against the side of his head.

  His watch cap flew away. He dropped to the ground on his knees, blood running from his temple. His vision swam, not helped at all by the flickering lights. He figured the carrier would deliver a killing blow, and Franklin’s only solace was in distracting them from the hole.

  Or so he thought.

  A small square of darkness opened in one of the mutant skyscrapers. A flurry of shapes darted forth, gleaming in the air. The things swooped toward them at stunning speed.

  Franklin recognized them immediately: drone-birds.

  He’d seen the self-repairing entities massacre entire squadrons of men and women. He wasn’t sure what it would feel like as they plummeted toward him at a hundred and twenty miles per hour and penetrated his flesh, but he preferred a board to the noggin.

  Franklin could see their beady red dots of eyes and sleek silver beaks grow larger as they dropped, stiff metal wings spread wide. He braced himself for the final impact, even then wondering why the birds weren’t bound to physical contact with the city like the robots were.

  But he quit the theories when the drone-birds veered past him, seven in all, a soulless fleet in a V formation.

  They dove into the hole one after another and were soon gone from sight.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Murray clambered through the tunnel, squinting in the deepening darkness.

  Ahead of her Delores splashed in the shallow, torpid water, not making any allowance for Murray’s injured ankle. The sock on Murray’s right foot was soggy, and she worried about stepping on something sharp. But she couldn’t slow down, either. She wanted to get as far from the factory as possible, and if she didn’t keep pace with Delores, she’d be alone beneath the Zap city.