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

by Scott Nicholson

  If not for the sporadic patches of alloy overhead, the tunnel would’ve been a pitch black nightmare of claustrophobia. Even though she’d only been running for minutes, the tunnel felt never-ending. And although no living Zaps were in the factory, she couldn’t shake the sensation that something was on her tail.

  Then she heard muffled voices. She paused and cupped her hands. “Private Simms!”

  No answer.

  She called again, and this time Delores answered. “President Murray! It’s people! Living, breathing humans.”

  Murray sloshed forward again, and the trickling of water echoed, swelling to a stream. The faint murmur of excited conversation built until she could make out individual voices—she recognized K.C.’s voice, and then Squeak said something. A flickering glow revealed a side conduit where the murky water flowed more heavily.

  When she turned off the main tunnel toward the light, she stepped down into water that came up to her knees. Delores was up ahead with the others, including a bearded man about her age she’d never seen before.

  The conduit was larger than the tunnel, and K.C. carried a wooden torch that cast a smoky orange flame. A couple of tree branches with sodden cloth wrapped on one end lay on the platform beside her. Murray was relieved to see the rifle in K.C.’s arms. The group was gathered on a raised block platform a foot above the waterline, where a series of rusty fuse boxes were attached to the concrete wall.

  “You’re alive,” she said to K.C.

  “So are you.”

  They quickly exchanged stories about how they’d ended up here. Murray was introduced to Kevin Millwood, who was armed with a pistol. When Murray told them about the factory, Millwood told her about their plan to sabotage the underground plasma sink.

  “So this tunnel system must run all the way through the city,” she said.

  “Seems like it,” Millwood said. “Me and Franklin wandered through miles of it.”

  “We’re waiting on him,” K.C. added. “But he should’ve caught up by now.”

  “We can’t wait,” Murray said. “We’ve got to hit them now, before they locate us. That factory only has one main plasma tube running into it. That means there are probably four more factories somewhere under the city.”

  “Wait,” Millwood said, pointing ahead where the conduit broke off into two side tunnels with pipes and utility lines. “You came from the left and me and Franklin came from the right. We didn’t come down this way because the water was so deep. So at least two of the factories are pretty close together.”

  “If we can get one, maybe we can get them all,” Murray said.

  “How do you suppose we do that?” K.C. asked.

  “According to our field reports, the explosion in Wilkesboro was triggered by a plasma chain reaction. We don’t understand how it works, only that if the energy is funneled in a symmetrical loop, the electrons accelerate and the process becomes unstable at the atomic level.”

  “Kind of like a nuclear bomb,” Millwood said. “I was there. Your soldiers hit the plasma sink with grenades, and that was enough to trigger an explosion after Kokona forced the Zaps to sabotage it.”

  “So this Kokona is as insane as everyone says she is?” Murray sat down and rubbed her ankle, making sure no bones were broken.

  “Batshit,” Millwood said.

  “The children.” K.C. nodded at Squeak.

  “Oops. Sorry. I meant ‘bat poop.’”

  Despite her gaunt features and dark circles of stress under her eyes, the girl chuckled. The harmonious note of humanity gave Murray a jolt of renewed hope.

  “Then we hit them with all we got,” she said. “Even if we don’t have much.”

  The torch sputtered and the flame grew low, sending long fingers of gloomy shadows across the rippling water. Condensation dripped from the top of the conduit, and despite an evident breeze moving through, the odor was muddy and reptilian. Delores sat off by herself, arms folded, staring into the darkness.

  Squeak suddenly stiffened in K.C.’s protective embrace and tilted up her head. “What’s that?”

  They fell silent, and all Murray heard was the drip and trickle of water, the hissing and guttering of the torch, and her lungs rattling as she caught her breath from all the exertion.

  Then came a clicking sound.

  It was like moths banging against a porch light, soft thumps that gradually grew louder. Whatever was coming, it moved forward without disturbing the water. Just as she realized what it might be—at the same time Millwood shouted a warning—a flash of silver burst out of the darkness.

  The drone-bird dived right at Delores, striking her just below the chin. The bird flipped and spiraled, slamming into the curved concrete wall. Delores’s neck spouted a gush of blood, her open mouth releasing a silent scream. Before anyone could react, her head tumbled off her shoulders and plopped into the water, carried downstream by the current. Her body slumped at the edge of the platform, leaking from the jagged gash and staining the tea-colored water.

  As Millwood shielded Squeak with his body, fumbling to draw his pistol from its hip holster, a second drone-bird sliced through the tunnel.

  “Get down!” K.C. screamed, whipping her M16 into position and releasing an ear-hammering burst. Brass shell casings kicked out and hit the water with a whisper. The bird skipped against the ceiling with several holes in its metallic torso, and then it dropped into the water like a kamikaze plane attacking a battleship and coming up short.

  Murray slid into the water and reached for Squeak. “Give her to me,” she ordered Millwood.

  As she took the girl, the torch that K.C. had dropped dimmed to a low red glow and the darkness pushed in from all around them. Murray brushed against one of the drone-birds as it sank, and she feared for a moment it would revive and begin pecking at her leg with its hideous beak.

  Then it was swept away, and she embraced the shivering, shuddering child and tried to duck behind the platform. As she slid deeper into the water, another gleaming projectile swept in, this time from the opposite direction.

  “Behind you!” she shrieked.

  Millwood turned and fired wildly, three rounds that thunked against the concrete. The beady red eyes of the drone-bird appeared to burn right into Murray’s soul as it homed in on her. She knew it was a machine, but its soulless malevolence was somehow even more horrible than if it had been a mere predator looking for a meal.

  K.C. dropped to one knee and delivered a quick pak pak of two shots that shattered the avian nightmare’s head. Bits of alloy rained down on Murray, and she shook them off even as she kept one arm protectively poised over Squeak.

  “How many more of these shitbirds are there?” K.C. asked.

  As if in response, another drone-bird emerged from the darkness. When K.C. shifted into position to fire, she kicked the torch and it slid to the edge of the platform. It hung there just beyond Murray’s reach, and when she leaned forward to grab it, it dropped past her fingers and doused itself in the water with a stinking hiss.

  The darkness was so abrupt and total that it seemed like the death of all light everywhere. Squeak shook with a sob but bravely managed to stay quiet. But the silence lasted only a split-second before the black was pierced by a stroboscopic burst of red-yellows punctuated by loud percussions from the M16.

  The muzzle flashes illuminated the drone-bird directly overhead, the impacts lifting the drone-bird and slamming it into the ceiling. Then darkness fell again, although the flashes were imprinted in Murray’s eyelids. The drone-bird scuffed its way along the corridor for a bit, then skated along the surface of the water and went quiet.

  Did it sink or manage to get airborne again?

  “You guys okay?” Murray whispered, as if the machines had the hearing of a hawk.

  “Got me a little,” Millwood said with effort. “But I think it’s dead.”

  “They travel in flocks,” Murray said. “Odd numbers. That was only four, so there will be more.”

  There was a
scraping sound, and Millwood asked, “Where are those matches?”

  Moments later, Murray heard the skritch of a match head and the welcome stench of sulfur. A tiny flower of light bloomed to life and then swelled as Millwood applied the flame to another torch. He couldn’t hold the torch because his arm was nearly cleaved in two, white-gray ligaments protruded from his left forearm. The torch was propped between his legs, the dancing flame causing the gruesome injury to shine with butchery.

  “Jesus, Millwood,” K.C. muttered.

  “Ah, it’s just a scratch,” he said, already going pale from shock and ignoring the slick knob of bone that poked out of the gore. With his good hand, he shoved the pistol toward Murray. “But you better take this just in case.”

  Murray lifted Squeak out of the water and moved her onto the platform beside Millwood. She took the pistol. She had little experience with firearms but projected confidence when she said to K.C., “I got this direction.”

  “Where did they come from?” K.C. asked, still whispering.

  “Everywhere,” Millwood said, already sounding dissipated. “We should’ve known. We got too cocky and thought we had this thing figured out.”

  “We need to wrap that,” Murray said to him, nodding at his injury while refusing to look at it.

  “I can do it,” Squeak said. “You’re busy.”

  K.C. managed a weak smile, obviously proud of the child’s resilience despite the dire circumstances. Murray wished the child could be the foundation for the human race’s future. But she couldn’t allow herself such fantasies—they’d already been confined to the underground like mole people, and even that wasn’t safe.

  “Look in the pack,” K.C. said, nudging her rucksack over to Squeak. The girl rummaged in the contents and came out with a frilly cotton blouse. K.C. shrugged and said, “A lady never knows when she’ll get invited to dinner.”

  Millwood looked away as Squeak bound his wound, urging her to tie it tighter. When she did so, he stifled a grunt of pain, but the worst of the bleeding stopped. Still, he was ashen and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. Soon his eyelids were drooping and the torch sagged in its perch.

  “You’ll have to be lighthouse keeper,” Murray said to the girl. Squeak took the torch from him and braced herself beside Millwood, keeping the flame high. A couple of minutes passed, the soft lapping of the water growing more sinister with each second.

  “They must’ve gotten Franklin,” K.C. said.

  Murray had never met Franklin, but it was obvious how much K.C. cared for him. “If he’s half the man everybody says he is, then he’s probably fine,” she said.

  “Sorry about your soldier.”

  “Private Simms gave her life for Earth Zero. That’s the highest honor any of us can strive for.”

  “Sure, Missus President,” K.C. said. “But do you mind if I get rid of her? It’s starting to freak me out.”

  “I would love to have twenty-one guns for a salute, but as it is, we better save our ammo.” Murray peered at the edge of darkness until her vision swam and she imagined shapes moving in the gloom. “Mind grabbing her right boot for me? I lost mine.”

  “Let me,” Squeak said. She scooted forward, her little fingers tearing at the laces. She handed the torch to K.C. while she wriggled the boot off Delores’s foot. Squeak gave it to Murray, who slipped her foot into it.

  “You’re a brave young lady,” Murray said.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?” the girl said, with such a strained cheer in her voice that Murray wanted to cry, and she hadn’t done that in years.

  K.C. pushed Delores’s corpse off the platform. It landed in the water with a loud splash that flung water over all of them and caused the torch to hiss. The body hung there a moment, Delores’s arm dragging, and then the corpse slowly rolled away, off to whatever distant sea her head had previously sought.

  Murray granted her a silent salute as she vanished.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Franklin stood on the alloy plain of the outskirts—their territory—surrounded by two dozen Zaps and their canine sidekicks.

  Despite his disgust at the Zap baby and the carrier, part of him had to admire the marvelously engineered creatures. They were sleek and graceful, regimented and obedient, tools of the oligarchy that gave no thought to individuality. Their formative features were an affront to humanity, another sign that Zaps might be the master race but couldn’t come up with anything better than knock-off humans. And all of it made him want to vomit with disgust.

  The drone-birds had probably already discovered K.C. and the others. He couldn’t do anything to help, and he was damned tired.

  “Go ahead and kill me already,” he said to the baby. The blood had clotted on the side of his head, but he was still a little woozy. He would’ve surrendered to gravity and collapsed, except then he’d fall against one of those robots and that was a loathsome prospect. Besides, he wanted to die on his feet like a free man.

  “No,” the baby boy said, glaring out from the carrier’s protective embrace. “Kokona tried to betray me, and I want revenge.”

  “Fine. Go at it. Baby to baby, full-tilt boogie, the Diaper Derby of Death. Leave me out of it.”

  “Why would I do that? I need you for Rachel.”

  “I’m not helping you, you tiny-handed tyrant.”

  The baby’s eyes radiated hotly for a moment, and one of the robots stepped toward him and drove a metal fist into his abdomen. Franklin grunted and wobbled but refused to fall. Then a dog darted forward and snapped at his leg, ripping a hole in his cargo pants. Franklin kicked at it and stood defiantly while the robot and its canine companion fell back into formation around him.

  “You think I’m scared of that?” Franklin said, panting and gasping for air. “I already told you to kill me.”

  “Rachel is Kokona’s weak link,” the baby said. “If you can influence Rachel enough, I’ll have an opportunity to kill Kokona.”

  Before Franklin could respond, the streetscape quivered and a grating creak swelled to a crescendo. Franklin’s aching head shifted into a higher gear of pain. The high buildings swayed as if some kind of earthquake was underway. The crawling lightning overhead grew dimmer, briefly darkening the entire city.

  The baby and the carrier turned toward the city, giving Franklin a chance to flee, but he didn’t see any use. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Maybe the dome was collapsing due to some malfunction or sabotage. Surely Kokona had been plotting to kill this baby for weeks.

  A large rectangle of darkness appeared in the side of one of the buildings. It was the same area of town from where the drone-birds had flown. But this opening was much larger, at least three stories high.

  The thing that stepped out of it was like an apex predator of a world bent on eating itself.

  It resembled a reptile or dinosaur, walking upright with muscular thighs and a heavy, blunt tail. Its head was elongated and squat, swiveling back and forth on a graceful, elastic neck as if seeking meat. It sported a set of jaws as big as a backhoe bucket with rows of gleaming silver teeth. It was two-legged like a Tyrannosaurus Rex but its arms were thick and protracted, capable of scooping up things from the ground with those talon-tipped hands.

  It was entirely made of alloy, twenty feet tall, and it slithered forward with a horrifying grace. While most of the artifacts of Zap construction were copied from the natural world, this was the product of a demented imagination, drawn from the worst of those mutated creatures that now populated the toxic planet.

  Kokona. Only she could concoct this nightmare.

  As the creature he immediately dubbed the “Z-Rex” moved between the unfinished outskirts of the organic city, Franklin wondered how much influence Rachel had on its design and operation. He couldn’t imagine her voluntarily participating in the spawning of such a metal monster, but perhaps Kokona had picked pieces of it from Rachel’s brain—a Frankenstein assemblage of childhood memories, science lessons, television shows, and video games.

>   “Kokona,” the baby said, confirming Franklin’s suspicion.

  There was no panic in the ranks. The dome stabilized but the lightning remained muted, as if the Z-Rex was drawing much of the city’s energy for itself. The plasma flowing through the five tubes throughout the city radiated a brilliant aquamarine, casting a watery sheen across the buildings and deepening the shadows between them.

  As the Z-Rex moved down the alley, its lower half was lost behind the stunted, nascent buildings in the foreground. It moved with a fluid grace that belied its bulk, tiny eyes twinkling like ruby volcanoes as it cast about for enemies.

  The phalanx of robots strode forward, the dogs moving in unison with them. The baby and its carrier let them pass. The baby had apparently forgotten Franklin as he telepathically commanded his tin soldiers. Franklin looked around for some kind of weapon, knowing he was too weak to defeat the carrier in hand-to-hand combat.

  Before he could react, the carrier reached out and grabbed Franklin by the wrist, essentially locking him in place. It held the baby in its opposite arm, protecting him from Franklin. “You’re fortunate, Franklin Wheeler,” the baby said. “You get a front-row seat to a battle of the gods.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Franklin said, struggling fruitlessly to free himself. “You two want to kick sand in each other’s faces, that’s fine. But it looks to me like Kokona brought a cannon to a knife fight.”

  “She fooled me, I’ll admit,” the baby said. “She must’ve hijacked one of the factories and constructed a toy.”

  “Toy? Is all this a game to you? Destroying our whole fucking planet for your amusement?”

  “Mind your blood pressure, Franklin. You won’t be any use to me if you explode.”

  The Z-Rex turned a corner and came fully into view again, moving down the street, its big tail whipping slowly back and forth and banging off the facades of buildings. The robots divided into three small squadrons, spreading out into position without a word. The showdown was taking place barely fifty yards from Franklin—he didn’t know how fast the Z-Rex could move at full speed, but he was pretty sure the thing could grab him before he made it down into the tunnel.