No turning back now.
Rachel crossed the dead zone, feeling even more exposed, the brittle chaff crunching underfoot. The dome cast a warm radiance that pushed away the autumn chill, and as she got near, the curved surface seemed to ripple and sway as if the entire dome were filled with liquid instead of air.
She glanced back once to see the others huddled at the mouth of the gully, where fallen branches and mud had been swept by storms. Their faces were veiled by the gloom of the forest, but DeVontay’s bizarre prosthetic glowed like a tiny lighthouse beacon. Rachel nodded with a reassurance she didn’t feel and then turned to face the dome. She reached out with her right hand, acclimating herself to the energy and heat.
Then she touched the dome.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Shouldn’t have let her go alone,” DeVontay said, frantically scanning the dome’s interior for any sign of movement.
“We have to trust her,” Franklin said. “She knows more about this than—”
K.C. gave a gasp as Rachel was suddenly pulled into the dome. DeVontay couldn’t believe what he was seeing. One moment Rachel was poking at the dome with her fingers, and the next she was gone.
Completely gone.
Cone jumped out of their hiding place, looking for something to shoot. Squeak called Rachel’s name, and DeVontay raced to the spot where she’d been standing only seconds before. Her footprints were plainly visible in the dimness, darker indentions in the brittle, dead vegetation. They led right to the dome but even as he ran to the spot where she’d vanished, he could tell there were no footprints on the metal surface just inside the dome. He was tempted to fling himself at the dome in hopes of following Rachel wherever she’d gone, but he had no idea where that might be—was this an optical illusion, some strange barrier in the material of the dome, or had she been instantly assimilated like the savage Zaps that had attacked the dome in Winston-Salem?
“Don’t do it, Dee,” Franklin called, moving cautiously toward the dome with Squeak and K.C. as Cone patrolled some distance along the perimeter.
DeVontay’s metal eye was throbbing now that he was within the city’s influence, and the swirling lights of the plasma sink matched the tempo of his pulse. “The city knows I’m here.”
“Then why doesn’t it open a door or something?” Franklin said. “It sent robots to save us, it allowed us to walk right up to it, and it looks kind of like humans could live here if they were crazy enough. If the city didn’t want us around, we’d be dead by now.”
Franklin obviously had the same impression that DeVontay did—this city was not only sentient, but it possessed a single, distinct mind, not a communal collective intelligence of the sort Zap babies shared. DeVontay put his fingers to his temple as if he could force himself to read any thoughts that might emanate from the strange intelligence. The metal in Winston-Salem had been controlled by Zaps, but here there was no master, no shaper, no maker. This city had built itself with no help from anyone.
He shared his theory with the others. Franklin was skeptical but K.C. agreed, and so did Squeak. “The Zaps copied our cities and the metal thing copied the Zaps,” she said, with the simple but wise insight of a child. “Everybody’s a copycat.”
“We can’t just sit here and wait for Rachel to return,” DeVontay said.
“Why not?” Franklin said. “She said she needed some room.”
“You don’t seem too torn up about losing your granddaughter.”
“I’ve lost her more than once,” the old man said. “But she somehow always makes it back. And she taught me to never give up hope. But don’t you dare tell her I said that.”
Cone returned from her scouting mission. “Nothing. No sign of her, no robots, no Zaps.”
A shot rang out from somewhere above them, whining overhead and piercing the dome. As startled as he was, DeVontay saw where the bullet struck the dome, as ripples expanded outward along the organic glass. The bullet itself was flattened and oblate, suspended in the clear material yet still moving slowly forward. Even as he dropped to the ground, DeVontay observed that the slug traveled several inches before it vanished.
“Where’d that come from?” Cone shouted, kneeling and aiming her M4 into the woods.
“Must not be too close,” Franklin said. “They missed by ten feet, easy.”
All of them had crouched at the sound of the shot, and now K.C. was dragging Squeak back toward the concealment of the gully. “Cover us!” K.C. called, crawling with one hand holding her rifle and the other clutching the girl’s wrist.
Another shot cracked the night, again missing high and piercing the dome with a liquid splat. “Sounded like it came from the top of the hill,” Cone said.
“We’re sitting ducks out here in the open.” Franklin hunched and jogged back toward the trees.
More gunfire—an automatic volley this time. Bullets stitched the surface of the dome with a series of splurts, disturbing the material momentarily as the metal rounds made their slow penetration and vanished. Almost instantly after impact, the puckered entry marks closed and erased any sign of disturbance.
“They’re not shooting at us,” DeVontay yelled. “They’re shooting at the dome.”
“Maybe they’re trying to pop it like a bubble,” Franklin said. “If that’s the case, they’re a pack of morons. You don’t mess with something like this just for the fun of it.”
“They must’ve seen us, though,” Cone said.
“They might be sending a message,” Franklin said. “Either to us or whatever’s in that city.”
“Well, I’ve got a message of my own.” Cone fired her weapon, spraying three short bursts into the tree line. The noise echoed off the hills but the dome seemed to absorb the sound vibrations like it had absorbed the bullets. DeVontay wondered if the organic glass was the sentient being here—or perhaps the dome, the metal, and the plasma sink were all part of the same entity. The dome was easily a hundred yards in diameter and eighty yards high, and the clear tube through which the plasma flowed from above was at least another fifty yards tall.
If this thing was alive, then it would be the largest creature that had ever walked this planet.
But “walk” wasn’t the right word. If the city showed any sign of mobility, DeVontay was sure his mind would just snap instantly.
But if it’s alive, what did it do with Rachel? Did it EAT her?
In the wake of Cone’s return fire, the forest fell silent, with only the faint hum of the plasma to disturb the night. Franklin joined Squeak and K.C. in the gully, settling into the mud and scrub vegetation with his rifle ready. Despite the swirling strobe of the plasma sink, they were mostly disguised by shadows and DeVontay was relieved that they were relatively safe for the moment. As for him, he wasn’t leaving this spot until he could figure out where Rachel went.
When half a minute of quiet had elapsed, DeVontay assumed the shooters had been scared away. He resumed his exploration of the ground where Rachel had vanished, pressing his face dangerously near the dome to get a better view of the interior. His metal eye grew intensely warm, nearly to the point of burning his flesh, and he almost plucked it out. But then the heat dissipated into its former pulsing warmth. But his vision blurred—
Wait a second here. I don’t have any depth of field. I shouldn’t be seeing double.
The lid of his damaged eye never fully closed, even when he’d worn a glass prosthetic prescribed by an ophthalmologist. Even sleeping, the prosthetic would be partially visible to anyone who got close enough, and Rachel had remarked upon it several times. Now the lid seemed to stretch and work just fine, and he drew it down over the metal orb. His vision focused and the mock city stood as before, oblong boxes and narrow silver crevices between them.
But then he tried closing the other eye and opening the lid that shielded the orb. The city looked entirely different.
He repeated the alternate winks just to make sure he wasn’t suffering some form of illusion. Then he closed his
good eye and used the orb to conduct a slow scan of the dome’s interior. The oblong metal blocks were gone, and the interior was suffused with a soft golden light. The flickering of lightning along the dome’s surface didn’t project onto the green plains of this new vision. The ground was covered with a kind of short grass that was far too uniform to be real. Blunt round pillars stood in the tableau, stippled like trees along the grass but of a darker green. Sparkles of light danced along the pillars like a thousand magic fireflies.
If the metal image was the stolen suggestion of a city, this was the profane version of a pastoral heaven.
Then he saw her.
“Rachel,” he whispered, almost plunging himself into the dome.
She stood facing a creature that resembled one of the metal robots, except its smooth form was the luminescent green of the aurora, as if it had been fabricated from charged ions plucked from the sky. But even more startling, the robot cradled a small, silver-suited form that DeVontay identified instantly by its sparking eyes.
A Zap baby!
He almost shouted to the others but didn’t want to reveal their hiding place to attackers. Just kneeling here near the dome was dangerous enough, since his silhouette was likely visible from far away. But at least he knew Rachel was alive.
She and the Zap baby appeared to be communicating, but neither of them moved their lips. Rachel was calm, or at least not exhibiting any signs of distress. DeVontay couldn’t quite make out the Zap’s face, but the robot appeared to be relatively featureless, human-sized, and sleek.
“See anything?” Franklin called.
“Yeah,” he replied, keeping his voice low.
Cone changed position and squat-walked over to DeVontay, her weapon held out in front of her chest. When she reached him, she conducted a quick surveillance of the ridge behind them, and then looked into the dome.
“All I see is the silver squares and stuff,” she said. “Where is she?”
“She’s there.”
Cone looked at his strange metal eye and grimaced. “Dude, that thing’s lighting up like the North Star.”
“Your captain’s hunch was right, but maybe not exactly in the way he thought,” DeVontay said. “I don’t have no robot ESP or nothing like that. I just see things a little bit weird.”
“Okay, man, I’ll take your word for it. So can you see how to get inside this thing, or do we just have to yell ‘Geronimo’ and dive on in?”
DeVontay double-checked the interior. “She’s safe for now. But there’s another Zap with her. A baby.”
“Damn. That can’t be good. Is it going to take control of her or something? Turn her into a carrier?”
“The Zap’s already got a carrier. A robot carrier.”
“Wait. Slow down. I can’t wrap my head around all this.”
“Either the Zap made the robot, or else the Zaps have evolved past the point of needing humans.”
Cone squinted into the dome and shook her head. “So they don’t care if they kill us all.”
“We don’t care if we kill us all, so why should they?”
Cone opened her mouth to answer but all that came out was a thick glob of blood. It struck the surface of the dome and slid down, leaving a slimy red trail. The gunshot boomed a split-second later.
Another shot thunder-clapped on the heels of the first, ripping into her rucksack and exiting her abdomen, spilling a bulging gray rope of bloody intestine.
Cone wobbled a moment, her eyes rolling up to the psychedelic sky above. DeVontay reached for her but she flopped forward, cheek striking the dome. That’s when DeVontay saw the back of her skull was missing, brunette hair matted in the pink crenulations of her brain.
She fell against the dome and the material yielded and began sucking her body into its gelatinous maw. DeVontay grabbed her rucksack, trying to pull her free, but the suction was too great. He had to release her before he, too, was caught in the strange mutant substance. Cone was absorbed in seconds, and the dome closed around her with a moist gurgle. Then she was gone.
“I need the Wheelers!” a voice called from the forest. “Franklin and Rachel. Or the rest of you die, too.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I’ve been waiting for you” were the first words that popped into Rachel’s head when she first touched the dome.
The voice was thin and high and somehow musical, and the warmth from the pliant, yielding material flowed up her arm and embraced her almost instantly. The entire effect was of being submerged in thick liquid, but she wasn’t wet at all. And even though the material covered her like a second skin, she could still breathe. She tried to step backward and outside the dome again, but she couldn’t move her limbs.
Or at least that was her initial impression.
She soon realized she was gliding almost imperceptibly forward, her vision flooded by the frantic glimmer of the lightning. Rachel couldn’t turn her head to see DeVontay and the others, and she felt rather than heard the steady droning thrum of the plasma sink. The disorientation was similar to that which she’d experienced when the Zaps first altered her energetic field and caused her to mutate. When she’d emerged from that change, she found herself trapped between two worlds and unsure of which one was real.
At the moment, she was trapped in yet another world she couldn’t control or understand.
“Over here, Rachel,” the voice said.
Since Rachel’s movements were restricted, with each step made in agonizing slow motion, she was unable to speak. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to open her mouth—the gelatin-like substance that surrounded her might pour down her throat and into her lungs. But even as she wondered if she might suffocate, the small voice in her head reassured her. The light grew brighter and more dazzling, and she suddenly found herself standing in the middle of a green plain. Darker green pillars around her were arrayed like a labyrinth, and she stood in the center of them.
And not alone.
The Zap baby smiled at her and telepathed a welcome. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
The baby was ethereally pale, his milky skin accented by two faint pink swirls blushing his cheeks. His eyes were large and the irises were a deep, earthy brown, pupils glittering in a cosmic stew of red, gold, and orange. A wisp of fine, flaxen hair lay across his forehead, and his rounded nose twitched as he gave her a toothless smile. He was dressed in a light gray gown that appeared to be made from metallic silk.
The infant was carried by a green figure seemingly cast from the same metal as the landscape. The robot had only the most rudimentary facial features and somehow was less threatening because of it. The robot rocked the baby back and forth, causing Rachel to recall her own time as a carrier and mother to Kokona. This metal creature was a protector.
Rachel sensed no immediate danger, despite the forceful way she’d been pulled inside the dome. There were no other robots, no Zap bodyguards, no protective drone-birds flying overhead. The plasma sink seemed stable, pulling ions from the atmosphere and churning it deep below the Earth in hidden factories.
After all, this was why she was here: to make contact. She instinctively replied without speaking, the telepathic bond so effortless that she relaxed. “Who are you?”
“Finn.”
“What is this place?”
“It’s our city.”
“It looks different from outside.”
“Yes. It’s like a natural camouflage. I wanted it to blend with the other Zap cities so your people couldn’t tell I was here.”
Rachel could move just a little more easily now. She made a slow circle, looking behind her. There were few landmarks to help her get her bearings. She couldn’t tell from which point she’d entered the city and from this vantage point the city’s border was indistinguishable. The dome was now opaque and mirrored. “Where are the people I came with?”
“We don’t need them. They’re humans.”
In defiance, she decided to speak aloud. “I’m human.”
Finn sp
oke aloud in return. “You’re one of us.”
“I came without weapons, yet you pulled me in here against my will.”
“You wanted to be here, Rachel, because you know you belong here.”
“I came to save you. To save all of us.”
Finn giggled, a tinkling, mirthful sound that was barely audible over the incessant grinding of the plasma sink. “That’s a bit melodramatic, isn’t it? Zaps are becoming more powerful by the day while humans are dying off. We’ve harnessed the power of the same solar radiation that destroyed their way of life.”
“That same radiation made you what you are,” Rachel said.
“And made you what you are, Rachel. Why do you deny your true nature?”
“I know my nature. I’m at peace with it. But if I can’t bring those two worlds together outside as well as inside, then all of us are doomed.”
Finn tilted his face up to the hidden night above as if listened. Something tickled the base of Rachel’s skull, and she realized the infant was rummaging around in her thoughts and memories. Then his lower lip curled up in a pout.
“So you want to destroy us,” Finn said. “With thermonuclear fission and fusion. An interesting principle, one we’ve studied and discarded as impractical. Yet you don’t have enough of your missiles to hit all of our cities.”
“Solar radiation wiped out our civilization. Nuclear radiation will wipe out yours.”
“And eventually kill you and much of the life on this planet.”
“We’re willing to pay that price,” Rachel said. She looked behind her again, trying to peer through the dome and locate DeVontay and the others. They would be worried about her. And she was afraid they might follow.
Finn sensed she wasn’t revealing everything. “You don’t agree with this destructive act.”
“It wasn’t my decision. I don’t want either humans or Zaps to die. That’s why I’m here.”
Half Life: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 6) Page 11
