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

  “They can’t read our minds,” Millwood said, waving away the food when Franklin offered it.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Franklin said, wiping his greasy lips with his shirt sleeve. They’d not been given any extra clothes and their body odor added to the stale, oppressive nature of the air. Their lack of hygiene was nothing new. The massive solar storms from five years ago had erased the old world and its social norms.

  The stink wasn’t fatal—but the Zaps, the monsters that roamed the Earth, and the contaminated climate certainly were.

  “They can read Rachel’s mind,” DeVontay said. “At least, Kokona can. That’s why they knew we were coming. That’s how they learned the layout of the bunker. So she’s had a hand in planning and building this city.”

  “All those Zap babies got a mind link going,” Millwood said, pulling a rumpled pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket for the tenth time that day. He again realized he didn’t have a lighter and put them away.

  “I think it’s bigger than that,” DeVontay said, rising from the bench and pounding the seamless alloy wall. “They’re linked to this damned city. The whole place is alive.

  “Then it might not be so smart to beat on it like that. Might piss it off.” Franklin pawed another handful of food and shoved it down his throat.

  DeVontay paced the length of their prison, searching for some sort of weakness or escape route. Like the military bunker in the mountains that had served as their home for years, the quarters contained five rooms, as well as the restroom and a couple of narrow rooms that were little more than closets.

  In the bunker, one small room had served as a telecom center, but in this metallic facsimile, it was devoid of any features or furnishings. Aside from the cans on the pantry shelves and the long bench in the main alcove, the other rooms were also bare.

  There was no light source, but the space was illuminated by a constant dull gleam, as if the alloy was producing its own glow.

  DeVontay tested along the walls as he went, pressing to see if the strange alloy would yield. It flexed slightly but would neither tear nor dent, much like the silvery material worn by the Zaps. DeVontay could only describe it as a kind of organic metal, an invention of the mutants. Their harnessing of the planet’s excessive electromagnetic radiation had produced changes to fundamental physics that were beyond DeVontay’s understanding.

  Or, as Millwood liked to say, it was “science on drugs.”

  Franklin tossed the empty can into the pantry, where it rolled and clattered against the others. “Try the front door again?” he called to DeVontay.

  “Headed that way.”

  Millwood rose with an exaggerated groan. “I’ll do it. You guys are too smart for your own good. Maybe it’s time for a little ‘dummy power.’”

  “Smoking all of those left-handed cigarettes will do it to you,” Franklin said. “Maybe you can hallucinate us out of this mess.”

  “Don’t tell me you never burned any wacky weed, old man,” Millwood said. “And you call yourself a rebel?”

  “It was cool until they started to legalize it,” Franklin said. “Then it became just another revenue stream for the government.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re stuck in a freaky dungeon and the jailkeeps are mutants with glowing eyes. The only ‘escapism’ we need is getting the hell out of here.”

  “You take all the fun out of dying horribly,” Franklin said.

  A squadron of silver-suited Zaps had escorted them into the subterranean cell after they’d been lowered from the top floor via the strange glass vacuum tubes. Although they’d seen none of the Zaps in the city upon their arrival, apparently some of them still toiled beneath the surface, tending whatever machines droned behind hidden walls.

  Millwood explored the entrance through which the Zaps had transported them. Millwood had never been to the bunker at Milepost 291, since he’d joined them in the ravaged city of Wilkesboro, so DeVontay had hoped he would see it with fresh eyes.

  The bunker door had an arm-bar latch as well as a levered lock, but this facsimile version was one solid piece with no moving parts. The door was nearly seamless, with only a faint indention showing its outline, but it had swiveled open during their incarceration.

  “Tighter than a mouse’s ear,” Millwood said. He gave it a kick for good measure, then hopped on one foot and muttered in pain.

  “So the dumb way didn’t work, either.”

  “Thomas Edison said every time an invention failed, he’d just discovered another way that didn’t work.”

  “So geniuses are just as dumb as dumbasses?” DeVontay eyed the low ceiling before giving up any hope of escape.

  “You worried about Rachel?” Franklin asked as DeVontay slid onto the bench beside him.

  “Ain’t you? Did you see those creepy things standing behind the babies? Not to mention the robot copycat they made of her?”

  “Looks bad, sure, but I do believe she can take care of herself.”

  “But how much of her is even left? Being around Kokona, she’s become more like a Zap. She might never make it all the way back, even if we manage to find her.”

  “Well, it looks like we’re stuck here,” Millwood said. “So we’re not much good to anybody.”

  “Makes you wonder why they’re keeping us alive,” Franklin said.

  “Raw materials.” DeVontay picked up the can opener where it lay on the bench beside him. He nervously scissored the set of handles back and forth in his dark hands. “They’re gonna open us up and yank out our organs and spin our insides into their silvery shit. Like they were doing in Wilkesboro.”

  “You escaped from Wilkesboro,” Franklin said. “You can get away from here, too.”

  Millwood limped in front of DeVontay and watched the can opener snapping open and closed. Then he reached down and plucked it from DeVontay’s grip.

  “Hungry again already?” Franklin asked.

  “All this silver stuff is basically the same, right?” the bearded hippie said. “Flexible, yet tough as hell. Then how come this can opener blade is able to cut into those cans?”

  “It’s not all the same,” DeVontay said. “That glass becomes metal, and then it disappears—I guess that means it turns to gas. Maybe it’s designed to change physical states. Like how water turns from liquid to ice when it freezes, or turns to gas when it boils.”

  Franklin sat up as Millwood stretched the can opener to its widest aperture. The blade itself was only an inch long and ended in a curving alloy beak. It was gray from use but still sharp.

  Millwood tested it against his palm, pushing hard but not breaking the skin.

  “Don’t let that damned thing have your blood, or it’s liable to turn into a robot spider and gnaw your fingers off,” Franklin said.

  Millwood knelt on the floor and applied pressure so that the blade made a crease in the alloy surface. DeVontay dropped to his hands and knees beside him, examining the damage.

  “It’s not going all the way through,” Millwood said, his forced Zen calm momentarily abandoning him. “But if I work it hard enough, I think I can do it.”

  “Like diamond is the only thing that can cut diamonds,” Franklin said, equally excited. “Goddamned, Millwood. You’re a bigger genius than Edison.”

  “That’s not technically true,” Millwood said. “About the diamonds, I mean. They’ve got—well, had—lasers that could cut them. But you’re spot on about the ‘genius’ part.”

  Millwood worked the blade back and forth in a smooth, sawing motion. The rasping echoed off the hard walls.

  DeVontay put a hand over Millwood’s to stop him. “What if they’re watching?”

  “I don’t see any cameras,” Franklin said. “Not that I would recognize a Zap cam if I saw one.”

  “Maybe they’ll hear us, then. And we don’t know what’s underneath us. Even if we can cut through, how do we know we won’t fall into a nest of Zaps?”

  “He’s right,” Franklin said.
“I’ve got an idea. A real shitty idea.”

  A minute later, they were gathered around the mock toilet. “If they’ve got a camera on us, they’re sure going to think human hygiene customs are weird,” Millwood said.

  “Just start sawing, my man,” Franklin said. “There’s likely to be some kind of plumbing chase beneath us. If we’re lucky, it will be big enough for us to crawl through.”

  “Or we might fall right into a big pool of Zap dookie,” DeVontay said.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Millwood said, digging the blade into the floor surrounding the toilet. Although the alloy was tough, the surface layer was as thin as a foil pie plate. The blade soon penetrated and Millwood worked it around the base of the toilet, just as if he was opening an industrial-sized can of pinto beans.

  The toilet had no visible connecting pipes, with the water evidently dispensing from inside the appliance. It flushed automatically, although there were no sensors of any kind. DeVontay suspected the thing was somehow aware—a sentient being much like the fake Rachel, an organic composition that imitated life in a horrifying, innocuous way.

  Next thing, you’ll be telling yourself it has ESP and is going to dime us out to the Zaps.

  But they managed to complete the incision without any interference. The Zaps had made no contact with them since their imprisonment, which was almost as nerve-wracking as if their mutant captors had kept a constant watch on them. DeVontay expected them to burst through the door at any moment and issue their eerie hissing noises in displeasure.

  “It’s loose,” Franklin said, hugging the toilet rim and pulling it upward, ignoring the faint stench.

  “Careful,” DeVontay said. “You’ll break the pipe loose.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Millwood grabbed the middle of the basin and twisted. DeVontay didn’t expect the plumbing connections to give way, considering the toughness of the material. But to his surprise, the metal toilet bowl separated, flooding the floor with water. As Franklin set the appliance to one side, DeVontay could see the ringed collar where it had joined the downspout.

  “Weird,” Millwood said. “This is all human stuff. Like they built it right on top of an existing building.”

  “Bastards are all show,” Franklin said. “They act all high and mighty, but when you get down to it, they’ve had to steal all our ideas. So much for the master race.”

  “Refining that plasma stuff is pretty original,” DeVontay said. “And their energy supply. And they can read each others’ minds, so I guess they’re still a step ahead of us.”

  “Who’s first?” Millwood crouched and peered into the opening. The downspout descended into darkness, the surrounding hole several feet wide and encased in jagged concrete. Moist, stale air wended up from the depths.

  Franklin sat on his rear, his khaki cargo pants instantly darkened by water. He dangled his legs into the cool opening.

  DeVontay put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Maybe we ought to think about this. Why would they leave us a tool to cut our way out? Why would they leave such a weak spot in their prison?”

  “Like I said, maybe they’re not as smart as they think they are,” Franklin said.

  “We don’t know where it’ll come out,” DeVontay said. A nameless anxiety plagued him. Perhaps he was worried about abandoning Rachel if they managed to escape the city, or maybe he was frightened about what awaited in the darkness below.

  “Anywhere’s better than here,” Millwood said. “Go for it.”

  The downspout was made of thick PVC pipe and was about six inches in diameter. Franklin clamped his stained watch cap more firmly onto his head, and then swung out and gripped the pipe with his knees, then wriggled down like a firefighter sliding down a pole.

  In seconds he was lost in the dark, banging and cursing coming from below. The pipe quivered and his grimy, wrinkled face appeared, his blue eyes glinting with mischief. “I’m going to need a light. Cut me a piece of that alloy stuff and let’s see if it keeps its glow.”

  DeVontay used the can opener to shear an oval piece of floor about a foot long. He punched a hole in it, and then cut a length from his boot lace. He threaded the string through the hole, and then tied a loop so that Franklin could wear the faintly glowing alloy around his neck.

  “Never needs recharging,” Millwood said. “Edison would have you shot for that.”

  “Stay close,” Franklin said. “I’m not slowing down for anybody.”

  “I’m staying,” DeVontay said.

  Millwood and Franklin both gaped at him, their bearded faces almost comical. Despite their differences, DeVontay noticed the two men shared a few deep qualities: independence to the point of stubbornness, a refusal to shave, and an expectation that everyone should think and act just like they did.

  “Dude,” Millwood said. “Zap prison, or sewer? That’s no choice at all.”

  “I’m not leaving without Rachel.”

  Millwood started to protest, but Franklin gave him a gentle shove. “Leave it. A man in love is beyond reasoning with.”

  As the two men worked their way into the depths, Franklin gave one shadowed look back and grinned. DeVontay was sure the old man’s expression was one of gratification.

  But Franklin only said, “Whatever you do, don’t flush.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Abigail Murray leaned against the mangled plywood overhang and peered into the street.

  After being trapped inside the domed city, she and her small band of soldiers had prowled the streets, expecting at any moment to be set upon by metal beasts or murderous mutants.

  But they’d been allowed to live. Murray had no delusions about that. At best, the humans scurrying along the silver streets were like roaches to the omnipotent Zaps that presumably populated the metal towers—contemptible pests who were ignored as long as they kept to the cracks and crevices. At worst, Murray and her troops were laboratory rats whose behavior taught the Zaps more extermination tricks.

  Despite the city’s advanced architecture as viewed from a distance, the construction wasn’t complete. They’d found sections on the outskirts that were ruins of human structures, as if the mutant city had been overlaid atop a former human settlement. Now, holed up in a chamber of rubble where the fabricated streets ended in frayed metallic ribbons, Murray took stock of their situation.

  Six trained soldiers, a civilian, and a seven-year-old girl at my command. So much for being leader of the free world.

  Murray had been Secretary of State when the solar storms hit, and after the mass exodus from Washington, D.C., she’d ended up at a secret military installation in the Luray Caverns of Virginia. With the president and vice-president dead, along with the rest of the Cabinet, Murray found herself leading the hundreds of survivors.

  The remnants of the military, outfitted by equipment in the caverns that had been shielded against EMP, organized to fight back against the mutants that had become the world’s apex predators.

  But their attacks had proven futile. A coup displaced Murray and she’d escaped Luray Caverns only through the help of a daring young communications specialist. Her standing orders to NORAD were for a full-scale nuclear launch in a final, desperate act of suicide. But she’d lost contact with the base in Colorado and had no idea when—or if—the arsenal would be unleashed.

  “When do we attack?” asked a hard-faced female in tattered camo fatigues named Delores Simms.

  “When we can win,” Murray said.

  “What does that look like?” asked a sienna-skinned man with a purple scar running down one cheek. “If the Hellfires couldn’t make a dent, a few bullets and hand grenades are a joke. And I don’t see anything around here that will burn.”

  “Maybe the Blackhawk will come back,” Delores said.

  “It can’t get through the dome,” Murray said. “And there are no more missiles. We’re on our own.”

  The rest of the group gathered around, restless and scared. Some picked at their MREs a
nd food they’d scavenged from abandoned houses along the way South. A couple cleaned their weapons, working off nervous energy through routine.

  K.C. Carr, the fiftyish woman who’d driven them to the city and was self-appointed protector of the young girl, sharpened her knife on a broken brick. She pushed up the brim of her battered fedora and glared at Murray. “My man’s in here,” she said. “We’re not bringing it down until I find him.”

  “I’m sorry, K.C.,” Murray said. “But this isn’t your call. I’m sworn to uphold the Earth Zero Initiative and act under its authority.”

  K.C. gave a menacing wave of her knife. “That’s just a bunch of globalist doubletalk. Let Berlin and Beijing clean up the messes over there. We need to fight for our own little corner of the world.”

  Murray looked up at the clear tubes that descended from the top of the dome. Unimaginable power sluiced down into the bowels of the city. Even without the advantage of strange new technologies, the Zaps had an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Victory had always been a pipe dream, and hope was nothing but human arrogance in the face of undeniable evidence.

  “We’ve all lost people we love,” Murray said to the woman, who wrapped the child in a one-armed hug and pulled her close.

  “And I don’t want to lose any more,” K.C. said.

  Murray saw no need to tell the woman about Operation Free Bird—the human race’s final refusal to surrender. If K.C. knew the world was probably going to end no matter what, she’d be uncontrollable. The soldiers were uneasy enough in their knowledge, but they shared an unspoken belief that the worst would never arrive. Hope was arrogance, but it was a necessary evil.

  “The more we learn about the Zaps and this city, the better we can help plan its destruction,” Murray said. “But that means being smart. We can’t just go storming down the streets banging on these faceless buildings. We don’t even know what we’re up against.”

  “We’ve seen the monsters,” said the soldier with the scar. “Metal son-of-a-bitches that are worse than anything out there in the wild. But we haven’t seen a single Zap since we got here.”