Half Life: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 6)

by Scott Nicholson

  Two narrow strings of lights were hung overhead like Christmas decorations, the only thing saving the shaft from total darkness. Alexander felt the crushing weight of millions of tons of rock all around him. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but he spent little time in the command center, even though it was the safest location in the entire facility. Part of it was his desire to be visible to enhance troop morale, but an equal part was his uneasiness at being stuck down a deep hole in the ground.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and the alcove that featured the entrances to the subterranean rooms. Alexander was exhausted. He could hear Sketch calling into the radio, but instead of using standard military protocol, he was talking like a radio disc jockey.

  “Hey, let’s party like it’s 1999, folks, hit me up here at the Doomsday Paradise, over,” his young voice resonated in the small cinder-block room. “Anybody out there ready to rock? Bring it back, yo.”

  The elevators had long since failed, requiring more electricity than the solar array could generate, and the cabs were now used as storage closets. Munger suggested stationing a special unit of personal guards down here, but Alexander didn’t want to remove any soldiers from the front lines. He didn’t find the spoils of power as seductive as Munger did.

  Alexander ordered Reeves to release him and he worked his way to the radio room, pressing his good hand against the wall to keep his balance. When he reached the doorway, he said, “You’re on duty, Private. What’s this nonsense?”

  Sketch swung around in his swivel chair and leaned back. “Damn, Chief, you look like shit.”

  “I’m fine. Have you had any more contact with NORAD or Munger?”

  “No. Picked up what sounded like Russian, but it could’ve been Mexican for all I know. They all sound the same, know what I mean?”

  “You might’ve intercepted important communications.”

  “Well, if it was so important, why didn’t they just talk English?”

  A wave of nausea rolled though Alexander. He wondered if he should send Reeves for medicine and painkillers. “I’ll be in headquarters if you receive anything.”

  Sketch spun back around without saluting. Several pieces of electronic equipment and circuit boards were scattered on the table in front of him. It looked like Sketch was trying to build a television or computer, for all the good it would do him.

  “Carry on,” the general added for no reason.

  Reeves helped him into the headquarters and sat him before the large, map-covered table that dominated the room. He looked at the New Pentagon flag—the two large fields of red and blue with a ragged white star sewn in the middle of the cloth. This was what Alexander was fighting for, what drove him when despair and exhaustion set in. One day they would refill the flag, a star at a time, until this country was fully restored. It wouldn’t happen in his lifetime, but he would do his part for that noble future.

  Unless you stop Operation Free Bird, that’s the last star you’ll ever see.

  Reeves took a seat opposite him at the table, and Alexander realized it was the one where Murray used to sit. He almost ordered her to move, but what was the point? He placed the Beretta on the table in front of him.

  “We could make it down here,” Reeves said.

  Alexander was staring at the flag in reverie. “Pardon me?”

  “Through Operation Free Bird,” she said, her eyes shining with a hitherto-hidden fervor. “We can stay down here and just wait it out. We could even bring a few more people down here, the strongest and best. We have filtered air, a good supply of water, and a few cases of MREs. We’ll have to deal with the loss of power, but we can make do with candles for a few months.”

  The idea of being trapped down here for months sent black snakes of anxiety crawling through his gut. “And go back up to what, Lieutenant? A sheet of scorched glass? Certain slow death? An inhospitable hell where even the devil would never set foot?”

  “A world with no Zaps!” Reeves spoke as if enraptured by the idea. “Even if it was just for a little while, the world would be ours again.”

  “We’ll beat the Zaps, all right. But we’ll do it the old-fashioned way. The right way.”

  At the moment, he was more concerned about the metal monsters. Where were they from and what was their purpose? They’d had a chance to swarm the camp and seriously damage the defensive perimeter, but they seemed more interested in hunting Zaps. Did the intelligent Zaps in the domed cities create them solely to wipe out the savage Zaps that they loathed? Were humans next on the list of targets?

  Reeves was saying something to him, but her face blurred and her words turned to a distant, watery drone. He leaned back in the cracked leather chair and closed his eyes. He didn’t dream of anything, even freedom, for a while.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “They didn’t want to hurt us,” Rachel said.

  “Then why were they following us?” Private Cone asked.

  The sun was sliding into late afternoon, the first dark green of nightfall appearing in the East. They’d argued about the robots since they’d got back on the road twenty minutes ago. They all told their stories, trying to make sense of the encounter.

  Rachel and DeVontay had been circling the Dairy Queen looking for a way to take down the two kidnappers, but the robots had appeared so suddenly that they’d been unable to decide on a plan. K.C. and Cone had nearly opened fire on the robots but stopped once the metal beings entered the restaurant. After the robots finished their grisly work and fled, Cone and Franklin conducted a quick search of the bus and decided that other gang members were likely in the area and it was best to keep moving.

  “They didn’t even look our way,” K.C. said from behind the wheel. “If ‘look’ is even the right word for things that don’t have eyes.”

  “They were trying to have a face,” Franklin said. “If you get close enough, you can see. Like they’re trying to be human.”

  “Or something’s making them look like us,” Rachel said.

  “They were scary,” said Squeak, who was once again nestled with Rachel in the Humvee’s cargo area. Rachel gave her a comforting hug. The concussion she’d suffered during her capture was mostly healed now, with only a faint dull ringing of her ears still remaining.

  “They could’ve easily killed us,” Franklin said. “But they saved us.”

  “Like guardian angels,” Rachel said. After experiencing the menace of the sentient metal concocted by Kokona and the other Zaps, Rachel was reluctant to grant them any spiritual provenance. But what if the metal was evolving like the Zaps evolved, changing behavior as it interacted with the world?

  “Robots don’t go to heaven,” Franklin said.

  “And a couple of them got torn to pieces,” Cone said. “Did you see them running away, carrying their scraps?”

  “Maybe they’re going to rebuild the broken ones,” K.C. said. “Take all the pieces and carry them back to the factory.”

  “That means the Zap city,” Rachel said. “We must be getting close.”

  Cone glanced out the window. “That little hill to the north is Mt. Airy. If the reports are correct, the city should be somewhere over there.”

  “Maybe we should change plans,” Franklin said. “Why not try to find the robots and communicate with them? Why risk entering the city when we don’t know who’s running it?”

  “We have orders,” Cone said. “Directive Seventeen and all that.”

  “It’s Rachel’s decision,” K.C. said, interrupting Franklin who had leaned toward the rear passengers as if delivering a sermon.

  Rachel looked at DeVontay, who had spoken little since killing the woman on the bus. “You’re awfully quiet, DeVontay. What’s your theory?”

  “I’m not sure you want to know,” he said.

  “Honey, the sun burned us back to the Stone Age, mutants are taking over and harnessing the radical ions in the atmosphere, and living metal has a mind of its own. I don’t think any theory is too farfetched at this point.”
>
  DeVontay turned to her. His metallic prosthetic was still lustrous, imbued with a faint gleam like a silver pearl. “My eye…I think that’s how they tracked us. I felt it get warm just before the robots showed up.”

  “Pluck that shit out and throw it out the window,” Franklin said.

  “No,” Rachel said. “It’s a connection. Just like I get telepathic signals near Zaps, you can sense the metal. It’s a gift, not a curse.”

  “Sure don’t feel like it,” DeVontay said.

  Now DeVontay had a taste—a very small taste, in Rachel’s opinion—of what she’d been going through for the last four years. He hadn’t even had to suffer a near-death experience to get his power. All he had to do was stick a round piece of metal in his eye socket.

  “Checks out,” Franklin said. “That must be why Ziminski wanted you to have it. If all the Zaps are connected as one mind, then why shouldn’t this organic metal share the same mind?”

  “Easy for you to say,” DeVontay said. “You’re not the one with Zap stuff in your head. What if it suddenly turns into a stack of razor blades and starts slicing my face off?”

  “Oooh, gross,” Squeak said.

  “Here’s another thing to blow your mind,” Cone said. “I’ve been thinking about this. The robots aren’t all the same size. That doesn’t make any sense. If the Zaps are so damn smart, it seems like they would come up with the one perfect design and just stamp out a million that are all alike.”

  “But we don’t know if the robots all share the same creator,” Rachel said. “When we were in the city with Kokona and the other Zap babies, the metal was shaped by whichever Zap happened to be controlling it. When they all worked together, they could create some extremely sophisticated organisms—”

  “Like that robot that looked just like you,” Franklin said. “That one was a classic.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Cone said. “Five of them, five of us.”

  K.C. slowed the Humvee and whipped her head around. “They’re becoming us?”

  “But there’s no me!” Squeak proclaimed with such cute indignation that Rachel gave her a kiss on the forehead.

  “Maybe one was little and couldn’t keep up,” DeVontay said. “When they popped out of nowhere at the pile-up, did any of us even look for more of them?”

  “I don’t want to go down this road,” Franklin said.

  “Sorry, Groucho, this is main highway,” K.C. said, accelerating again as she swerved between two stranded sedans.

  “I meant this road of thought. It’s starting to feel like some kind of ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ shit.”

  “Nothing new about that,” Rachel said. “Zaps used to be humans, remember? Maybe they still are, somewhere way down inside.”

  “If they are us, or trying to be us, then maybe we shouldn’t be shooting the hell out of them,” Cone said. “What if one of us dies when our robot dies?”

  “I don’t think we’re connected like that,” DeVontay said. “They’re just copying us. We’re not…what’s that comic-book word for it? Where’s Stephen when you need him?”

  Dead, Rachel thought. Stephen is dead when you need him. Just like we’re all going to be in a few days.

  No. She wouldn’t let that happen. If she had to crawl to the Zap city and become some new baby Zap’s carrier, she’d do it. As long as the Zaps spared the ones she loved, she’d pay any price.

  “Symbiotic,” Cone said. “Comics aren’t just for boys, you know.”

  “Yeah,” DeVontay said, not responding to her sarcasm. “We’re the opposite of symbiotic. Like, maybe, parallel or some kind of mirror images. They’re living our lives in their metal world.”

  “I think we might be getting close,” K.C. said as the Humvee crested a hill.

  A bluish glow filled the valley over the next hill, with little flickers brightening the sky above it. With the sun sinking in a magenta haze, the aurora was asserting its dominance, shifting and shimmering bands of green and yellow wending through the atmosphere. A concentrated column of the surreal radiance swirled down toward the earth. The air coming from the vehicle’s vents carried a faint chemical smell.

  “That’s the place,” Cone said. “About two miles from Mt. Airy. But…there used to be a little community there. Arrowood. Post office, a convenience store, couple of shops, a riding stable.”

  “Lots of things used to be,” Franklin said. “We better worry about what is.”

  “We should park,” Rachel said to K.C. “We’ll walk in from here.”

  “Why?” DeVontay said. “If Zaps run the city, they picked up on you from miles away. If it’s some kind of big, freaky metal god, then they already know I’m here.”

  “We don’t know anything for sure,” Franklin said. “Let’s play it safe.”

  Cone laughed. “‘Safe’? You’re hilarious, Franklin. If we ever survive all this, you should become a stand-up comedian.”

  “Only if I can get my robot double to do it for me. Haven’t you noticed I can’t stand people?”

  “That’s why he’s so cranky,” K.C. said.

  “He’s really nice,” Squeak said. “He’s just pretending all the time.”

  Rachel smiled. Franklin was one of a kind. But no matter how much he hardened his shell, his heart was evident to anyone who was around him for long. Guardian angels came in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes they had possum-colored beards.

  “Can’t blame me for living a fantasy,” Franklin said. “There’s way too much science fiction in this world.”

  K.C. eased the Humvee onto the shoulder, parking near a truck with a flatbed trailer. As she killed the engine, she said, “Hate to bring this up right now, but I’m not sure we have enough diesel fuel to make it back.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Rachel said. “If we fail, we won’t need to go back.”

  “Always the optimist,” DeVontay said.

  “That’s why you love me,” she said.

  “You right about that, girl.”

  They packed in near silence, weighing the need for extra ammo when their rucksacks were filled with rain gear, signal flares, food, bottled water, and the field radio. K.C. insisted on carrying a tent, even though their destination was less than an hour away by foot. Private Cone carried a luminescent solar lantern her unit had found in the survivalist bunker.

  Darkness seeped through the trees in the surrounding forest. Crickets sang of an old world, troubadours from another time when a natural order reigned. Something growled far in the distance, a massive predator seeking to feed. The group’s anxiety was palpable, and Rachel understood it.

  The fate of the planet was in their hands.

  “Well, gang,” Franklin said. “We’re not getting any younger.”

  “Our robot doubles might be,” Cone said.

  “Just for that, you get point,” Franklin said.

  She headed along the grass median, the solar lantern casting just enough light to keep her from falling into a hole. “It’s my home turf. Just make sure you keep up, old man.”

  “I’m in just as much of a hurry as you are.”

  DeVontay and Rachel hugged, and then Rachel pulled Squeak in between them so they flanked her as she walked. K.C. brought up the rear. Rachel’s coruscating eyes illuminated their path along the highway, and DeVontay’s prosthetic added a silvery gleam. Cone stayed just at the edge of the radiance, her M4 ready to spit rounds at any second.

  They were so intent on the blue glow and the city that waited beneath it that they failed to see the set of running lights that appeared at the top of the hill behind them. The engine’s faint rumble was carried away by the wind, and then died altogether.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  They’d gone barely a quarter of a mile when they realized the highway was veering away from the city and they’d have to find an alternative route.

  “So, which way now, Private?” Franklin asked Cone. “It’s your home turf.”

  “Hard to say,” she said
. “Everything looks different now.”

  “A few years of apocalypse will do that.” Franklin didn’t like being out in the open like this anyway. If they were attacked—by Zap, robot, man, or beast—there weren’t enough vehicles to provide refuge. The aurora suffused the night with a malevolent gleam and somewhere beyond it the moon lay wreathed in green smoke. The blue light of the city and its column of plasma provided enough additional illumination that Cone no longer needed her lantern, so she’d packed it away.

  “Should we take one of these side roads?” Rachel asked.

  “We could cut through the woods, but then we got other worries,” DeVontay said. “We won’t be as exposed, but we won’t see what’s sneaking up on us, either.”

  “I’m not just saying this because I really dig my Humvee, but if we leave the highway, we’ll have a harder time finding our way back,” K.C. said.

  No one spoke for a moment, letting the insects play their music. Franklin wondered if nature was regaining a foothold after all the mutations and toxins had been visited upon it. Despite the late autumn, the trees didn’t seem sickly and the predators were much rarer than they had been even weeks ago. For that matter, they’d covered eighty miles without encountering a single Zap, savage or otherwise.

  “I recognize that radio antenna,” Cone said, pointing to their left. “Arrowood is maybe half a mile from it. If we walk straight toward the antenna, we’ll hit a country road and can go right to the city.”

  “So, the woods then,” Franklin said.

  “We can go to the next exit and head east, but that means another five or six miles of walking.”

  “Maybe we should’ve kept driving,” K.C. said.

  “No,” Rachel said. “This is good. I’m not picking up on any Zap brainwaves. Our plan was to walk in just for that reason—because we don’t know what we’re getting into.”