The figures he’d seen from street level had been in the middle of the floor, so he would have to navigate the mess to find Kokona and Marina. The building stabilized but still gave an occasional quiver. Antonelli’s grenades hadn’t knocked out the plasma sink, but something was different now. The air was thick with a sonorous humming that drowned out the creaking and settling of the structure.
DeVontay waded down the hall, at one point coming to a doorway that contained a room missing its outer wall. The colored lights from the plasma sink were no longer confined to a column, as if its circuit from the atmosphere to the ground had been diverted. He eased from door to door, looking in each room, ready to grab a handhold if another tremor hit.
He thought about calling for Marina and Kokona, but if he was wrong about the figures and they were someone or something else—
Before he could carry that line of thinking too far, a door opened twenty feet ahead of him. Two people came out. He lifted his rifle.
Despite the dimness, DeVontay recognized her hair, her shape, and her glowing eyes all at the same time.
“Rachel!”
He ran toward her, tripping and nearly falling over a stack of shredded ceiling tiles. Rachel carried a bundled blanket in her arms that could only be Kokona, and Marina was right behind them.
He stopped just before he reached her. Even in the strange half-light, he could see her shirt and trousers were soaked with wet, dark fluid.
“What happened?” he yelled, his rib cage constricting around his heart and lungs in fear.
“She died again,” Marina said.
Oh God, what did Kokona do to her? What is she now?
Rachel looked the same, as far as he could in the strange light. DeVontay grabbed her by the arm and steadied her, giving her a quick hug as he gazed down into Kokona’s pinched, angry face.
“Go,” Kokona shrieked. “Go now! Hurry.”
“No time,” Rachel said to DeVontay. “We’ve got to get out of here before—”
The hum swelled like the roar of a massive dinosaur, and the walls warped and shook around them. A light fixture crashed down, swinging by a twin set of wires and almost knocking DeVontay in the head.
“That way!” Marina said, pushing past DeVontay and heading for the stairwell.
“No way down,” DeVontay yelled over the rending of concrete and tinkling of glass. “The stairs are gone.”
“The elevator,” Kokona shouted.
“There’s no power,” DeVontay said, as if the baby was stupid. Even if there was electricity, an elevator would be the worst place to be during an earthquake.
But this was more than an earthquake. This was a skyquake, and the ground just happened to be in the way.
DeVontay was worried about Rachel, even though she seemed to be more or less unharmed. She hadn’t spoken since he arrived, and she barely seemed to recognize him. Even her eyes were different—flecks of different colors floated in the fiery orbs. He touched her abdomen and then slid his hand inside the rip in her shirt, feeling the sticky flesh to make sure it was intact.
He looked into Kokona’s face, and he thought he saw fear. The baby said, “The elevator! Now!”
“The elevator,” Rachel repeated, staring past him to the middle of hallway where an alcove branched off to the side. The floor stabilized, although the building still shook as if its foundation was being ground to powder.
Rachel took off through the rubble, Marina following. It was only then he noticed both of them had rifles. But he couldn’t shake what Antonelli had said about Kokona initiating the slaughter of his soldiers in the bunker. Kokona was here with Marina, which was evidence that he was right about that part.
DeVontay didn’t have time to worry about it. They faced the more immediate problem of survival. And the disrupted energy source outside was rising to a crescendo that promised something unfathomably awful.
There were two elevators to serve the building, and one set of doors was wedged tight, half covered with rough concrete slabs. The other yawned open, but the shaft was in pure darkness, the car nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Pathetic. I’ve failed.
That was Antonelli’s first thought when the grenades delivered their concussive punch against the silver bowl. Sure, the explosions had knocked the bowl askew and caused it to tilt, but it was still intact and operating. The strange alloy hadn’t so much as dented, much less triggered a larger blast as he’d hoped.
“Is that it?” Colleen asked.
“That Zap has the backpack with the rest of the grenades. Not that it would make much difference.”
“Weak,” Millwood said from the adjoining bay door. “I came for a cosmic rift and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
Antonelli could see Colleen’s face more clearly, and the blue-white light penetrated into the shell of the fire station. Squeak sat ten feet away, her arms folded and resting on her knees, her head bowed. She was either praying or wishing Millwood’s mothership would whisk down and carry her away from all this madness.
“The light’s different,” he said. “It’s not colored anymore.”
“Look at the Zaps,” she said.
Antonelli only had a view of some of them, but they were all looking at the plasma sink now instead of the building. Their faces were washed with the white light, and the radiance diminished the glow of their eyes so that Antonelli could almost see them as the humans they’d once been. But their silvery, one-piece uniforms, blank features, and angular haircuts marked them as different and unnatural aberrations.
“It’s coming,” Millwood said. “They’re ready for the landing. Can’t you hear it?”
The whine grew louder and it did resemble a high-powered engine, but it was much too diffuse to be any kind of aircraft, alien or otherwise. “We got their attention, at least,” Antonelli said.
“Do you think they know what happened?” Colleen asked.
“Depends on how intimately connected they are to the plasma sink. If Kokona truly is controlling them like Bright Eyes said, she might know she’s been attacked.”
The ground rumbled, and bits of material fell from the surrounding buildings. An entire block of storefronts shattered, glass clinking to the sidewalk and reflecting the brilliance. The sunset, clouds, and aurora had all vanished as the plasma sink flared again. The noise gained intensity, so high and piercing that Antonelli covered his ears.
The column of light circulating in and out of the plasma sink broadened and the colors returned. Burgundy, saffron, pale indigo, and cerulean glinted and sparked as if particles of energy were breaking apart.
“Whatever you did, you knocked shit off its axis,” Millwood said. “These dudes had a sweet harmonic vibe happening, and now it’s like punk rock with a broken banjo.”
Antonelli didn’t understand the hippie’s metaphor, but Millwood’s take affirmed what Antonelli was thinking: something has changed, but I have no idea what.
Then the tall building quivered and a back corner broke away, exposing steel beams and cracked concrete. Something dinked dully off the dome, and Antonelli was glad they’d chosen the sanctuary, even though it had been constructed by Zaps.
“We’ve still got the helicopter,” Colleen said. “The Hellfires will take it out.”
“Anderson should’ve been here by now. Maybe he couldn’t get close enough.”
“That was only part of the mission. We still have to eliminate Kokona.”
“I bet she’s in the building.”
“Who’s Kokona?” Millwood asked.
“Zap baby. Supposedly their leader. Know anything about her?”
“I haven’t seen any Zap babies. These kids are creepy enough. They don’t ever get any older. That’s one reason I think they’re aliens.”
“Either way, we want them off our planet, right?” Antonelli figured he may as well use Millwood’s delusions as a manipulative tool.
“I just don’t want to be stuck here if they go. Anyw
here is better than this shithole.”
“The baby’s probably in the building,” Antonelli said. “Have you ever been in it?”
“No, man, too much activity around these parts. I just come for the show.”
The Zaps began to stir, moving toward the plasma sink. The ground shook again, accompanied by a flash of yellow-orange light and a thunderclap several blocks away.
“That’s heavy explosives,” Antonelli said.
“Munger?” Colleen asked.
“He should be reaching the outskirts by now. But what are they shooting at if all the Zaps are here?”
“Might be more of them. Or it could be monsters.”
“Aliens,” Millwood said. “When in doubt, go with aliens.”
Munger’s division had a couple of tanks, a number of grenade launchers, and several mortars. The colonel would likely lead off with a bombardment, however weak, to soften up the target before attacking. Munger likely didn’t have enough fresh intel on the enemy—Anderson would’ve reported that the Zaps were scattered and mindless, without visible weapons, and highly vulnerable. This morning seemed like an entire epoch ago, and in this rapidly evolving world, perhaps it was.
“They’ve got those hand weapons now,” Antonelli said. “If they get organized, they’ll melt Munger’s people like cotton candy in the rain.”
Antonelli jumped at the sound of Squeak’s voice—he’d forgotten she was there. “You’ve got to kill the baby,” the girl said.
The words were chilling under the hollow shell of the dome. The weird light of the plasma sink cast her face in steep, eerie shadows. Her eyes were tiny wet reflections in dark pools.
“What do you know about it?” Antonelli asked.
“When I was here before, there was another baby—her name was Geneva—and she made everybody do what she wanted. All the Zaps, I mean.”
The kid had been so quiet all day that this was practically an outburst. “Bright Eyes and your friends already told us that.”
“I was with her. They don’t know.”
“Don’t know what, honey?” Colleen asked in a calm, soothing voice.
“Geneva said she would burn it all down.”
“All of what?”
“The city. She said nobody could have it if she couldn’t. And that the light thing would explode if somebody else tried to use it.”
Antonelli couldn’t tell which was imagination and which was Squeak’s version of fact. Rachel told Munger the girl was separated from them during captivity and kept by Geneva as a kind of pet, but the kid remained silent about Geneva’s treatment of her.
Until now.
“Why didn’t you tell Rachel?” Antonelli asked her.
“Because she’s…you know.”
“A Zap?”
“Yeah. And Bright Eyes is always around. They might kill me like they did my mom.”
“Whoa. Fucking aliens, man,” Millwood said. “You just can’t trust them.”
“You better come see this, Mark,” Colleen said.
Antonelli returned to his post by the loading bay. The Zaps marched toward the plasma sink in unison, faces whitewashed by the fierce light. Some of them were close enough that Antonelli could throw a rock and hit them, but they seemed oblivious to the people hiding in the dome. The keening filled the air like an air-raid siren.
“Maybe these domes were to protect them in the event of a chain reaction,” Antonelli said. “Maybe the power build-up is a feature, not a bug. Their Doomsday weapon.”
“And you upset the tea cart,” Millwood said. “The little bitch was going to blow the city. She must’ve known your army was coming. Saving it up until all of God’s little creatures are on the ark. Then KA-BLOOEY!” The hippie broke into the cracked laughter of an acid burnout.
“But that would kill all of them, too,” Colleen said.
“Maybe they planned to be holed up in the domes when the blast hit,” Antonelli said. “These aren’t factories or houses. These are bomb shelters. Think about it. They don’t need food or water or light. Hell, they don’t even need to use the bathroom.”
“Then why aren’t they going underground?” Colleen asked. “Because something’s bound to give soon. You can feel it.”
“I knocked it off balance,” Antonelli said, feeling a surge of triumph and vindication. “However it’s drawing energy from the electromagnetic radiation, I altered the route into the sink. It’s screwed up now, like it’s not even completing the loop anymore.”
It was true—the tilted silver bowl bounced the reflected radiation in an ever-widening path, like a garden hose with a thumb placed partially over the nozzle. The colors were brighter and angrier, chartreuse sparks and scarlet tracers spitting across the sky like backwards rain. The hum shook the buildings around them again, opening rifts in the pavement. A two-story building collapsed with a thunderous roar, leaving only the rusted bones of skeletal framework.
“Are we safe here?” Colleen asked, as the Zaps around the plasma sink wobbled and swayed.
“I hope so,” Antonelli answered. “We couldn’t make it in time even if we ran.”
“What about Munger and the troops?”
“The radio is in the Zap’s backpack. Doubt we’d get a signal anyway with all this atmospheric disturbance.”
“Sewers,” Millwood said. “Shit hits the fan, go underground.”
“You want to run the Zap gauntlet, go for it,” Antonelli said. “I’m staying here and waiting it out.”
The first of the mutants reached the big silver bowl that was at least fifteen feet high. It was tilted so that one edge was much lower than the other. One Zap climbed atop a pile of rubble, quivering from the force of the dispersed energy.
Antonelli couldn’t tell the Zap’s age or gender—like many of them, this one had homogenized so much that it could’ve been fifteen or eighty, male or female, black or white in its former human state. Now it would never age, only continually mutate toward the most efficient form.
Antonelli watched with horrified fascination as the Zap scrambled for a grip on the bowl’s edge, grub-like fingers clutching at the thick, curved sheet of alloy. It slipped and fell backwards, lying on the broken bricks with fingers smoking like cigarettes.
Another took its place, even stepping on the stomach of its fellow Zap for better leverage. This one reached an entire hand inside the bowl and pulled itself up with a stiff hop. The mutant managed to get its head and half its torso over the edge before the strange rays burned the meat away. The remainder of the body folded and rolled to the street, the suit scorched and smoking but otherwise undamaged.
“They’re killing themselves,” Colleen whispered, covering Squeak’s eyes.
The girl yanked Colleen’s hand away. “I’ve seen worse.”
Colleen nodded and rejoined Antonelli. If they were going to die here, at least they’d do it together. And they had a ringside seat to the biggest death-cage match of all time.
“Wish we could warn Munger,” Antonelli said.
“Hopefully he’s figured out something serious is going down.”
“What about Kokona?”
“The way that building’s falling apart, anybody in there is already dead.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“The cables,” Kokona said. “Climb down.”
“You’re crazy,” DeVontay said. “This ain’t no action movie. This is a teenager, a one-eyed fool, and a half-Zap with blood all over her.”
The building shook again, and there came a crunching clatter as another section of the building tumbled to the streets below.
“We should leave Kokona,” Marina said, warily eyeing the baby in Rachel’s arms. “She’s already tried to kill both of us.”
The baby wailed in anguish. “Your army’s here. I’m the only one who can stop the plasma sink from blowing up the city.”
“She’s right,” Rachel said. “You have to save her or we’re all going to die.”
“That would make Antonelli
happy,” DeVontay said. “But I’m not ready for that yet.”
“Trust me, even if you don’t trust her,” Rachel said.
“Okay, okay,” DeVontay said. “We need some way to carry Kokona down.”
Marina quickly shucked her backpack, dumped the contents on the floor, and put it on backwards so that the pack was against her chest. “Give her to me,” she said to Rachel.
“No,” Kokona said. “Rachel’s my carrier now.”
“We don’t have much time,” Marina said, reaching for the baby. “Give me.”
Rachel drew back, raising her elbow to ward off Marina’s hands. “I’m her carrier.”
“This pack won’t fit you,” Marina said. “The straps are stuck. And you’re still woozy. You just died, remember?”
“Come on, Rachel,” DeVontay said. “This thing could fall down any second.”
Rachel looked down at Kokona. “Will you protect them?”
“We want to live,” the baby said.
Rachel gently slid Kokona into the pack just as the building shuddered again. DeVontay thought about ditching his rifle, but he didn’t know what threats waited on the street.
If we’re lucky enough to get there.
He braced himself against the opening and leaned out, feeling the cold depths waiting like an eager predator’s throat. He tried to block it out and think about the next floor down, not all six. He couldn’t reach either of the twin cables, but he figured they were secure enough or they would’ve already fallen.
There was no turning back once he grabbed the cables. He’d have to figure this out on the fly. He didn’t trust his hands—if he started sliding, the meat would melt away from his palms in seconds and he’d drop.
“See you at the bottom,” he said, with false bravado, wondering if maybe Marina should’ve gone first, and then he was out there in space, grabbing a cable and holding on for dear life, swinging around and banging his hip against the second one. He crouched against it to apply pressure, effectively wedging himself between the two cables with his legs and hands wrapped around one.
Radiophobia: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 3) Page 12