She heard the pneumatic hiss behind her.
Something was coming up through the second cylinder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Which way do we run?” Millwood said, as the robo-deer pawed at the street with a scrape of metal and the faint wheeze of some strange inner hydraulic system.
“Run?” Franklin said. “Don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian.”
“No, but that thing isn’t food. It looks like it’s the one doing all the eating.”
Franklin lifted his rifle, wondering if the 5-mil rounds would penetrate the metal animal’s skin. But the muscles rippled as if it wasn’t made of typical metal—it suggested an animation resembling living tissue. He imagined a bullet penetrating the surface and fusing with the alloy, becoming part of it.
“I’m not fighting that,” DeVontay said. “I’m here to get Rachel.”
“Well, maybe we have to get past that thing first,” Franklin said. “Looks to me like it’s blocking our way.”
“The street runs two directions, Franklin,” Millwood said. The hippie slowly backpedaled, not quite trusting the sinister machine enough to turn his back on it.
The deer closed toward them with two massive steps, little more than thirty yards away. Its size was difficult to judge given the sameness of the burnished metal around them and the strange blue light imbuing the city with slanted shadows, but Franklin put it at eight feet hoof to shoulder. That was about the size of those in the herd that had pursued him and Stephen through the forest weeks ago. They had leapt from a riverside cliff to save themselves, and only Franklin had emerged from the churning water.
It was silly to seek revenge for Stephen’s death against this unthinking, fabricated creature. But humans were irrational.
If you’re not crazy by now, you’re not paying attention.
He was about to squeeze off a burst when something soared straight down from above and slammed into the street behind the deer. The impact sent a shuddering thoood beneath their feet, momentarily muting the constant throbbing noise from deep below. The object sank into the alloy as if into mud, and then slowly rose to street level. The metal around it seemed to shimmer for a moment and then reconstituted itself.
The deer turned completely around so that it now faced this new intrusion.
“It’s a person,” DeVontay said.
Franklin’s already-stuttering heart took another lurch, and he wondered if it was finally exploding after several million beats and too many years of survival stress. “Rachel?” he whispered, peering past the robo-deer’s bulky form.
“Not unless she has a beard,” Millwood said.
The metallic monster was more interested in this new artifact than the three men behind it. The thing sauntered up to the corpse and seemed to sniff at it, the massive, gleaming horns dipping low. DeVontay tugged on Franklin’s shirt, dragging him away while the robo-deer was distracted. Just before they rounded the next corner, Franklin was sure the thing was feeding.
“It’s a carnivore,” Franklin said, leaning against a wall to catch his breath, even though he didn’t fully trust the fabric of this strange city.
“I don’t think so,” Millwood said. “It’s chewing but I don’t think it’s eating.”
“Its skin is just like those Zap suits,” DeVontay said. “So it was made by Zaps.”
“Why the hell would they do something like that?” Franklin said.
Millwood shrugged. “That’s why they’re Zaps, I guess.”
Franklin peered up at the dizzying towers around him. There was no sign of life or activity beyond the rows of windows. “Where did that guy come from? He didn’t just drop from the sky.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” DeVontay said. “I wouldn’t bet on anything in this place.”
“So, what now?” Millwood asked, peeking around the corner to confirm the beast was still busy shredding its plaything. “I don’t think we can go that way.”
“This street looks just like the last one,” Franklin said. “It’s like we’re in some kind of massive metal maze.”
“We’re the lab rats,” DeVontay said. “The Zaps know we’re here. They’re probably watching us right now.”
“I’m guessing that guy didn’t just suddenly decide he was a bird. Maybe ‘up’ is the way we need to be heading.”
“Sounds good to me,” Millwood said. “I don’t want to see what’s waiting around the corner. And that deer thing’s going to run out of entertainment soon.”
“All right,” DeVontay said. “But which building, and how do we get in? No doors or windows down here.”
“Zaps have to get inside somehow,” Franklin said. “Unless they’ve built themselves little hover-cars or jetpacks or something.”
“If they can build a drone bird and they can build a Frankendeer, then air transportation’s no big deal.”
Millwood moved along the wall, his rifle tucked in one elbow as he pushed against the wall with his free hand. “I thought it might be like the dome and let us pass right through, but it seems solid.”
“If we could get up to one of those windows, maybe we could bust in,” Franklin said.
“How do we do that? Nothing around here to climb.”
“Let’s check a couple more blocks. Maybe there’s more to the city than just these same buildings over and over.”
“That man fell out of this one,” DeVontay said. “Rachel’s up there. I just know it.”
“Well, if she got up there, and he got up there, then there has to be a way in,” Franklin said. “And Rachel would be carrying Kokona, so she probably didn’t climb.”
“Maybe there’s a back door,” Millwood said.
Franklin was about to come back with a smart remark, and then remembered Millwood had been right about just walking right up to the dome and entering. “Worth a try.”
“Just make sure we don’t go all the way back around to Frankendeer,” DeVontay said.
They headed down the street, walking abreast, Millwood glancing anxiously behind them. When they came to the next corner, the entire block looked changed in subtle ways from the previous one. Glass doors and windows were set along the bottom floor, and the scenery looked much like an early Twenty-First Century business district.
Metal planters in front of the doors featured the same fake flora that bordered the base of the dome. Benches, trash cans, and even a newspaper rack were clustered between the parallel buildings. All of them were made of the same burnished alloy as the streets and buildings, cerulean blue glinting against all the surfaces. They contained just enough detail to show contempt for the lowly humans that had invented them—cast scrollwork on the planters, a NO LOITERING sign on the benches, and a stamped-leaf newspaper written in a language that defied logic.
“Millwood, did you dose our water?” Franklin said. “Because this is like a bad acid trip into George Orwell’s worst nightmare.”
“I haven’t had a good buzz in years, man. The solar storms fried all my connections.”
“In more ways than one.”
“Who could deny a man a little escapism, given the state of the world?”
“You two can hang around out here and enjoy the view, but I’m out.” DeVontay headed for the nearest door, which appeared to be a simple hinged affair used millions of times a day in the civilized world. Franklin waited for him to try it, fully expecting it to be another prop created just to frustrate whoever passed this way.
Instead, the door swung open, acting just like a door. DeVontay poked his head inside and then declared, “All clear.”
Millwood shrugged and followed. Franklin checked the intersections one last time and then he, too, entered the building. The interior resembled some of the federal facilities he’d visited after receiving polite invitations from certain national security agencies during his Wings of Eagles days. Yet it looked unfinished, all stairs and no elevators, and nowhere to sit, no receptionists, no armed guards.
“At least the Zaps have gon
e to the trouble of making it look real instead of metal,” DeVontay said.
“If we’re going up, does that mean we have to climb these stairs?” Millwood said. “Must be thirty floors.”
“Well, you can stay down here and wait for Frankendeer to come busting through the door, but I’m moving.”
Franklin wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the climb, especially with his heart acting up, but he saw no point in standing around a hollow lobby. Besides, from higher up they could get a better view of the city and anyone—or anything—that might be living here.
DeVontay was just mounting the stairs to the left when the interior wall across the lobby parted with a hiss.
The dark outline of a figure stood in the shadowed opening. It would’ve been nearly invisible except for those familiar, glittering eyes that sparked red and yellow.
“Rachel!” DeVontay said, sprinting a few steps forward before the figure stepped from the dark recess into the lobby. DeVontay faltered when he realized what Franklin had instantly realized.
It was Rachel, all right.
A perfect metallic facsimile.
Right down to the wavy hair, strong chin, and slender fingers, the baggy cargo pants and denim jacket that even had patches of frayed silver threads.
“Holy shit,” Millwood said.
DeVontay took another faltering step. The metal Rachel waited.
Franklin didn’t know whether to hug her or shoot her, but it didn’t matter because he couldn’t move. The staggering discovery was too much, the final proof that Time was way past its expiration date, Nature was a profligate whore, and God was a sick jester that had revealed its final punch line.
“What…what did they do to you?” DeVontay asked.
The Rachel-thing’s mouth opened and the voice that came out was utterly, horrifyingly hers:
“We finished me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
When the cylinders finally opened, DeVontay could barely stand even though the black hole vanished and the floor reappeared under his feet.
Millwood and Franklin flanked him, also disoriented after their strange ride up through the building. The replica Rachel remained below after escorting them into the clear cylinders, and although Franklin had rebelled at first, the machine assured them they would find their answers at the top.
One answer revealed itself right away: the level featured clear windows all the way around, as well as a clear ceiling, which DeVontay surmised was constructed of the same material as the cylinders. The rich blue glow of the dome was all around them, revealing a lurid but oddly majestic scene with the city spread out around them.
But it wasn’t the view that shook DeVontay. It was the row of figures behind the long table across the room.
The four babies sat upright in uncomfortable-looking seats that restricted their movements, with four adults standing behind them, one for each baby. Kokona grinned in greeting at them, but the others were impassive.
Rachel—the real one, as far as he could tell—stood behind Kokona, staring forward like the others. Her expression was devoid of recognition, her face even less animated than the replica they’d encountered on the ground floor.
But it was her. She was alive.
DeVontay’s joy and relief at seeing Rachel was overwhelmed by his disgust at seeing the tiny psychotic tyrant sitting before her. DeVontay raised his rifle to shoot at her even though Rachel was right behind her.
“No!” Franklin yelled, running at DeVontay. But DeVontay’s finger squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, but by then Franklin was on him, tearing the gun from his grip. He tossed it to the floor and then shouted at Millwood to disarm as well.
“We can’t kill these things,” Franklin said. “They let us live for a reason.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that,” DeVontay said, shaking his head at the old man. “You, of all people.”
DeVontay shoved Franklin aside and charged for Kokona. All of the suffering, despair, and grief of the apocalypse crystallized into a consuming red rage. An uncanny strength surged through him and he wondered if he, too, was somehow affected by the pulsing of the plasma energy.
But just before he reached the Zap baby, he slammed into an invisible wall and dropped to the floor. Stunned, he struggled to his hands and knees, his bruised body throbbing with pain. He’d bitten his tongue and the blood was salty sweet. His prosthetic eye had loosened in its socket but he didn’t give a damn if it rolled away.
From his position near the floor, he could see the prismatic effect of the clear wall that shielded him from the Zaps. He reached out a tentative hand to test it.
“It’s like the dome stuff, man,” Millwood said. “Everything here is either that weird glass or metal.”
“But the dome let us through,” Franklin said.
“Yeah. Because they allowed it.”
“Yes,” the babies and their carriers said in unison. “We welcomed you here.”
“Rachel!” DeVontay said, pressing himself against the barrier, searching for a weakness. “Look at me.”
“We see you,” they said.
“No, not all of you,” DeVontay bellowed. “Just her.”
“She is us now,” they said. “As she was always meant to be.”
Finally, Kokona spoke alone. “Rachel called us the ‘Conglomerate.’ If you need a name, you can use that one, because Rachel doesn’t exist anymore.”
Although the other Zap babies maintained neutral expressions, Kokona kept grinning. Whatever power they used to link their minds, the baby was somehow able to operate slightly outside of the group. DeVontay wondered if the others were aware of it, or if Kokona possessed some special ability hidden from the others.
She must be powerful if she’s forced Rachel to carry her all the way here and then surrender to these little shits.
Franklin’s hand fell on his shoulder and gently pulled him away from the barrier. DeVontay resisted for a moment. Rachel stood there eight feet away, as beautiful and unique and amazing as ever, and she might as well have been a million miles away. Although her eyes were always difficult to read because of the glittering, there was no recognition in her features, no pleasure at seeing him. No acknowledgement that he was even there besides her communal participation in the speaking.
“You can’t have her,” DeVontay said. “I came here ready to kill anyone and anything necessary to take her back home. And you freaks ain’t going to stop me.”
“We already have, DeVontay.”
The words were even more chilling because he was sure he distinguished Rachel’s voice in the chorus. She’d accepted this fate, for some reason. Even if she’d been forced, DeVontay could never see her willingly surrendering to the Zaps. She’d been fighting her inner nature for years, alternately sickened by her mutant abilities and determined to use them to help her fellow humans.
But is she really a human? Would a human stand there like that and serve the Zaps? Would a human help them destroy the world while living in a literal shell that separated her from that world?
As he yielded to Franklin and let himself be guided away from the barrier, he wondered if Rachel would devolve like the other carriers had. Was she destined to become an atrophied, genderless statue of flesh whose only purpose in life was to care for the one that had enslaved her?
True, he’d invested a great deal of the past few years caring for and teaching Kokona himself, as had Rachel, Marina, and Stephen. Only Franklin had been wise enough to remain wary of the strange mutant. What DeVontay had considered paranoia and xenophobia had instead proven to be wisdom. But Franklin didn’t seem in the mood to rub it in.
The three men gathered across the room, feeling the eyes of the Conglomerate studying them. DeVontay was pretty sure their telepathy couldn’t pick up human thoughts—Rachel had certainly never exhibited that talent with him, only with Kokona and other Zaps—but he kept his voice low just in case their sense of he
aring was as superlative as their other abilities.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “Kokona’s been seizing power everywhere she goes, and now she gets with some other Zap babies and acts like one big happy family.”
“She used to act like your family, remember?” Franklin said. “Until a better deal came along.”
“It’s not just her, though,” Millwood said. “It’s this whole city. They’ve totally fucked with physics. It’s like science on drugs, man.”
“Yeah, but what can we do about?” DeVontay said. “Guns don’t work, they can block us in wherever they want, and we don’t have any way out of here. Those cylinders we came up in—the holes in the floor are gone, and there ain’t no stairs up here.”
“And it looks like we’re at least twenty stories up.”
“That man must’ve jumped or fallen from here, but how did he get out?” Millwood said. “These windows are hard as steel.”
“The Zaps are able to move them around,” DeVontay said. “They threw up that barrier in front of me after I jumped Kokona. It popped up out of thin air.”
“It’s like they have some sort of mental control over all this material,” Franklin said. “The whole damn city is alive. Like it’s part of the Conglomerate.”
“And Rachel’s part of it now.” DeVontay glanced over at the mutant assembly. He couldn’t bear to look at Rachel for long, but he wondered about the other adults. They still clung to some semblance of their human selves, but in the pulsing blue light of the plasma tube above, they might as well have been ghosts.
“Look at them,” he said. “Those carriers just waste away and lose their genders. Get all homogenized. Just like rager Zaps.”
He didn’t want to think of Rachel adapting to such a condition. She’d rather be dead.
But did he really know her? What if she’d been plotting right along with Kokona, her mutant half growing stronger and taking over day by day? What if their love had been a lie all these years?
He refused to let his mind wander down such a dark path. Not while they still had breath and hope.
Directive 17: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Page 17
