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

  Can I stand in judgment of something that I could’ve easily become? Just because I have an ego and memories and people I love, does that truly make me more worthy of existence?

  It was just such questions that that made her human. From her telepathy with other Zaps, she’d rarely uncovered any introspection or philosophical contemplation of the larger world. The communal mind that made the mutants such a potent threat to humans allowed no room for individuality. As Kokona had noted, individuality was dangerous and must be crushed.

  “Kokona,” Wisp said, and Rachel could feel the baby mentally probing them, wondering why DeVontay was with them. “You’re supposed to be up in the tower watching over the city.”

  “We had a situation,” Kokona said. “Our guests tried to escape. We caught one, but the other two at still at large.”

  DeVontay paced in the clear tube that confined him near the lowest level, occasionally banging on the sides in anger. He shouted, but the sealed air muffled his words.

  “We will send out some of the new units,” Wisp said. “They can’t escape the dome.”

  Rachel knew that was untrue. She had infiltrated the dome with some soldiers via a drainage pipe pointed out by Kokona. Unless Wisp was lying, Kokona had hidden that information from her. These mutant mind games were confusing.

  “Of course,” Kokona said. “No need for panic. How is the manufacturing going?”

  “Operating smoothly.” Wisp glanced in DeVontay’s direction. “Why did you bring him here? We should go ahead and utilize his resources.”

  “I couldn’t make Rachel do it. They were lovers…before all this. Even though it’s meaningless now, she’s my carrier, and there’s no need for excessive cruelty.”

  “Ah.” Wisp nodded thoughtfully. “Would you like me to escort him to the factory for you?”

  “For all of us. We are one.”

  “We are one, indeed.”

  The mutant’s thoughts broke into Rachel’s mind, and she could feel her probing. Rachel tried to think of other things, but that only caused her thoughts to race faster. Before she could reveal their political plot, Kokona was in her mind, too.

  You were right. Allowing the humans into the city was a mistake. We need their bodies, but it’s not worth the risk when our units could go out and capture animals in the wild.

  “Yes, but they’re here now, so there’s no need to waste them,” Wisp telepathed.

  Rachel surrendered, subsuming her thoughts to Kokona. The mutant baby provided an effective shield, dominating Rachel and letting Wisp assume Rachel was weak and had nothing to hide.

  We are one.

  “We are one,” Rachel and Wisp said aloud, with Wisp’s carrier joining in.

  “Where is our other?” Kokona said, now communicating verbally.

  “Transporting humans captured in the Unfinished Zone. They entered the city during the attack of the savages.”

  “More resources,” Kokona said. “Our work will soon be finished.”

  “With only us remaining.”

  Rachel wondered whether the sly taunt in Wisp’s voice was real or imagined. Perhaps Wisp was playing the same dangerous game as Kokona, a round of psychological roulette until the time came to seize power.

  Driven by a silent command, Wisp’s carrier walked toward DeVontay with smooth, gliding steps. Aside from the low throbbing of the subterranean machines, the lobby was hushed, the alloy walls radiating a soft, surreal luster.

  “Now,” Kokona whispered to Rachel.

  As the tube imprisoning DeVontay dissolved, Wisp and her carrier turned to Rachel. “And now what?”

  Rachel reached for Wisp. Wisp’s carrier moved with stunning speed, drawing the baby away and backpedaling. Its eyes shifted to the building’s entrance as if considering a run for it. Rachel moved to block the exit, still holding Kokona.

  DeVontay, now unrestrained, leapt for the carrier, wrapping his arms around the strange mutant. Despite the smooth, featureless face, its glowing eyes projected hostility, or maybe the imperative to protect Wisp drove it into defensive action.

  It flung an elbow into DeVontay’s ribs, eliciting a grunt of pain. Despite DeVontay’s size advantage, the carrier deflected his assault and spun, kicking out one leg and slamming its foot into DeVontay’s thigh. DeVontay nearly fell, grabbing at the carrier’s silver tunic, but his fingers slid off the sleek material. He dropped to his knees and the carrier raised a fist.

  Without thinking, Rachel placed Kokona on the floor and charged. Kokona screamed at her—both verbally and mentally—but Rachel was entirely focused on the other carrier. But the carrier must’ve detected her approach, or else Wisp had telepathically tipped it off, because it pirouetted away from DeVontay and swung a fist directly at Rachel.

  Rachel ducked but wasn’t fast enough. The blow struck her high on the temple, sending lemon-lime sparks of agony bouncing around inside her skull.

  She regained her balance, ears ringing, but the carrier was already on the attack again. The seemingly frail and atrophied mutant was startlingly fast and powerful, driven into a fury by its instinct to protect Wisp.

  The second blow landed in the pit of her stomach, driving the air from her lungs. Since her transformation, she didn’t require as much oxygen to function, but still she reeled from the impact, gasping for breath. The genderless creature now took on an aggressive, masculine aspect, as if reverting to the primal state infused in it during the solar storms.

  “Rachel!” DeVontay called in desperation, scrabbling for footing on the smooth alloy floor. Before he could reach the carrier, a section of the floor gave way around him, bulging down into a bowl-shaped cavity.

  Wisp is messing with the physics of the building.

  Kokona had told her the Conglomerate telepathically guided the construction of the city, which Rachel assumed meant they controlled the very molecules of the strange alloy. But this new event revealed Wisp was acting on her own power, proving her dominance over Kokona. No wonder Kokona wanted Rachel and DeVontay to kill the other babies—she was perhaps the weakest of the three.

  Expecting the floor to fall away beneath her, she drew a breath that went down harsh and broken. She jumped at the carrier, suffering another punch to the head that momentarily blinded her. But now she had her arms around the thing’s neck and she hung on for dear life.

  “Get off of us!” Wisp cried, and the carrier echoed the words, flailing with its free arm.

  Rachel ignored the piercing wall of images and sound fragments that sluiced through her brain, forcing herself to concentrate.

  Wisp…the baby…that’s the key…

  She let the carrier continue to punch at her neck and back, taking the rain of blows as she worked one hand down to where Wisp was cradled. Rachel’s fingers slid along the soft material of the carrier’s sleeve and then met flesh. The mutant baby cried in dismay, wailing in perfect imitation of a distraught human child.

  But Rachel wasn’t fooled. She grappled for the baby, her hand encircling either a flailing leg or arm. Despite the alloy sleeper that covered the Zap’s tiny body, Rachel was able to clamp down on the limb and jerk with all her strength.

  Both the carrier and Wisp screamed in unison, the building’s walls quivering in sympathy. Rachel slammed her forehead into the carrier’s face, mutant bone crunching as a thick spout of blood gushed down between the two struggling combatants.

  The carrier clutched a handful of Rachel’s loose auburn hair, leveraging back her head so that she was staring up the corrugated levels that led to the top of the tower. The arcing of the plasma, the darkening scarlet sunset, and the permanent aurora combined in a chaotic mélange of color and light. Or maybe she was losing consciousness, slipping into a blank void free of thought.

  Then the carrier’s rubbery lips were on her neck, teeth nipping at her esophagus. The desperate mutant was using every weapon at her disposal, its sickening breath soughing over her skin and eliciting chill bumps.

  But Rachel was ju
st as desperate as the carrier, and when DeVontay called her name again, she channeled her energy and plucked the infant from the carrier’s grip. Just as the carrier’s teeth clamped together, Rachel twisted to one side, throwing the mutant off balance even as she flung Wisp toward DeVontay.

  The walls of the lobby closed in as the two of them fell, their combined weight landing on Rachel’s shoulder and causing something in the gristle to pop. She gazed behind her to the floor near the entrance, where Kokona had rolled onto her belly and squirmed forward in a hapless crawl.

  The building trembled, walls bending and flexing with a strange, wet-sounding creak. Rachel crawled atop the carrier, some of her hair snapping loose between the clutching fingers. She heard Wisp wailing frantically from below—she’d fallen into the depression where DeVontay was trapped.

  The floor suddenly flipped all of them up as if they were on a trampoline. As she spun in the air, Rachel broke free of the carrier, flipping in an awkward somersault some ten feet up. As she descended again, she tried to swing her feet beneath her but couldn’t quite manage.

  The more lithe and powerful carrier landed in fighting position as Rachel bounced heavily on the floor. The alloy that had been so flexible moments before turned as hard and unforgiving as steel, the impact jarring Rachel deep into her bones.

  “I’ve got her,” DeVontay called, momentarily distracting the carrier. When the mutant sprinted toward DeVontay holding Wisp fifteen feet away, Rachel extended her leg and tripped it.

  The carrier fell forward, arms splayed out to either side. With a sinuous ripple, the alloy floor rose in narrow fluid ropes and ensnared the Zap. The silvery ropes hardened and pulled themselves tight, wrangling the carrier in place despite its writhing and kicking. Kokona had taken control of the building.

  “Kill it!” Kokona shrieked at DeVontay.

  DeVontay held Wisp before him, looking down into the glowing eyes that illuminated his dark face. “I…can’t do this alone.”

  Rachel rose painfully to her feet and limped over to DeVontay, one arm dangling loose and a thin stream of blood trickling down her neck. She gave the trapped carrier a wide berth. The mutant glared up at her, hissing from deep in its throat. The telepathic connection between Wisp and her carrier was evidently broken.

  “Hold her for me,” Rachel whispered when she reached DeVontay. He cradled the baby tightly against his chest as the helpless Zap infant squirmed and wriggled.

  Rachel clamped her palm over the baby’s mouth, lifting her injured arm to pinch the Zap’s nose closed. Zaps breathed only sparingly, their bodies fueled primarily by their mental connection with others of their kind and the plasma sinks they constructed. Suffocation might take ten or fifteen minutes, but Rachel was going to see it through.

  DeVontay gave her a look of horror, but they didn’t break their gaze as the infant’s stifled grunts grew quieter and quieter. His glass prosthetic remained impassive, but his good eye shifted from revulsion to acceptance and then grim determination.

  Part of Rachel’s remaining humanity drained away during the infanticide. She tried to tell herself the Zap had no soul and was a biological deviation that was never meant to populate the earth. The thing lacked a soul and had no hope of spirituality. By any reasonable measure, it was an evil, loathsome creature.

  But murder was murder, no matter the justification. If not for DeVontay’s support and participation, she never could’ve finished the grisly task.

  And even then, Kokona’s squeals of delight as she urged them on—“Get rid of it! Make it go away!”—nearly caused Rachel to quit.

  DeVontay whispered, “I wish this was her!” and nodded at Kokona, who had managed to crawl only a dozen feet across the floor.

  “It will be,” Rachel promised.

  “Hey, what are you two plotting over there?” Kokona said.

  “Your victory party,” DeVontay said.

  When the Zap infant finally went limp in their grasp, Rachel turned away. The walls now stood firm and tall, gleaming with the multi-colored lights spilling from the glassed top of the tower.

  Rachel knelt and checked the imprisoned carrier. It was dead, too.

  Rachel glanced over at Kokona, knowing that their twin fates were also inextricably linked.

  Kokona lifted her tiny hands and wriggled her fingers. “Come to me, Rachel.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Where are you taking us?” Abigail Murray asked the nearest metal Zap.

  It didn’t matter which one she asked—none of them seemed to be the leader and they were so homogenous that she wasn’t able to tell one from another. The things had taken their weapons, rucksacks, and personal effects, their searching lukewarm hands somehow sickeningly perverse.

  A squadron of twenty Zaps flanked her, Lonnie, and Delores, ushering them down the metal streets into the heart of the city. Murray counted the intersections as they made each turn, trying to map out the city in her mind. Dusk was settling out on the horizon of the real world, creating even more contrast between the sky and the jagged skeins of lightning flickering across the dome.

  Despite her utter hatred of the Zaps and their technological creations, she couldn’t help but wonder how this harnessed energy could help the human race. If they could somehow forge an alliance—as distasteful as coexistence would be after the many atrocities—then humans might be able to build a new civilization and gain a measure of security.

  Then, at some far-distant point in the future, perhaps humans could apply those advances to new weapons and turn the tables on their oppressors.

  But those were the dreams of a diplomat, and she was now a warrior.

  None of the Zaps answered her query, instead simply nudging them forward. The top of the central tower was about two blocks away, its translucent penthouse resplendent with ribbons of green, violet, and yellow light. She imagined they were being taken there, to whatever ruler controlled the city and these organic robots.

  “I don’t hear any more shooting,” Delores said.

  “That means the others are dead,” Lonnie said, with a dull tone of defeat.

  “We don’t know what it means,” Murray said. “They could’ve escaped, or maybe they’ve been captured, too.”

  “Nothing we can do either way,” Lonnie muttered.

  “Chin up, soldier. We still have a duty. We pledged out lives to the Earth Zero Initiative and the defeat of these monsters. As long as we have breath in our lungs, we’re still fighting.”

  “Yeah, but who knows what we’re breathing inside this freaky-assed bubble?” Delores said. “They might be pumping it full of poison gas like the Nazis did to the Jews.”

  “Then they’d die, too,” Murray said.

  “Unless they’ve evolved to the point where they don’t need air, or maybe they have their own little oxygen tanks.”

  “Then we’ll make them choke on it.”

  Murray didn’t want to discuss any plans in front of the robots. The mutant facsimiles appeared to have some level of functional intelligence. But perhaps being captive was for the best. It would likely bring her face-to face with whatever entity ruled and controlled this city.

  “We should’ve just kept fighting,” Lonnie said. “Some of the rumors I’ve heard—”

  “—are just rumors.” As they passed through another intersection, Murray noticed that the design features here were more finely articulated. There were benches, street signs that appeared to have faint impressions of letters, utility poles, landscaping planters, paper dispensers, fire hydrants, curbing, portico railings and fascia, and occasional awnings. All of it was sculpted from the same burnished alloy as the streets and buildings, but some of it was taken on faint hints of color.

  Murray glanced at the nearest metalloid face, and she was surprised to see its features had sharpened and its eyes projected a stronger, blue-white glow. Surely that was her imagination.

  It was as if the city was discovering shapes and colors as it grew, like an infant learning abo
ut and interacting with its environment. Or maybe whatever was building the city was mastering new skills, a diligent apprentice in the field of godhood.

  But what if there was no divine hand shaping this mockery of human civilization? What if it was some sort of virus, a self-replicating force that grew out of the biological soup of an altered Earth? Would that be any stranger than the spark that had spawned the planet four and a half billion years earlier, or the numerous chemical processes that had led to life?

  Wasn’t unlife, or inverse life, or anti-life, just as valid?

  Shut it down, President Murray. You need to keep your wits if you have any hope of finishing the job.

  The Zap robots took a detour at the next intersection, moving away from the center of town. At the next street, the milieu grew darker, the building facades devoid of any features. The city here looked naked, and not in any alluring way—this was a dissolute whore waiting to conduct corrupted transactions in the shadows.

  Please, God, let K.C. get Squeak out of this. Have at least that one little shred of mercy.

  Murray’s Episcopalian upbringing belonged to a different era and she’d peeled that away in the face of the solar storms and the apocalypse. Part of her was bemused that the apocalypse foretold in the Book of Revelation had arrived in a surreal series of events that no parable could possibly explain.

  But nothing in her religious instruction prepared her for the unimaginable. She was left with desperate prayers that the only innocent among them might be spared.

  They came before a sheer wall of metallic material. Instead of any luster, this alloy was imbued with a smoky gray quality that suggested disease and rot.

  “What happened to the robots?” Lonnie asked.

  Murray looked at the same Zap to her left whose features had become more sculpted earlier, but now the face was nearly smooth, with only a few bumps and bulges to suggest features.