“Fine. You win. Just let me go out there and help them. I’d rather die for the ones I love than live in here forever with you and your fake friend.”
“Who said you had a choice?”
Rachel glanced above, to check the progress of the slowly sagging dome. Distances were difficult to judge, but the plasma column seemed much shorter now. “The Zap half of me has no choice. You made sure of that. But I’m betting on the humans.”
“The same humans who invented a way to destroy their own world? They pursued that self-destruction long before we arrived on the scene, Rachel. You see us as an extinction event, but you gleefully chased that fate. If love had any substance, would it allow such an awful outcome? I think not.”
“So, what do we do? Debate moral superiority until the end of time? While you stay a baby for the rest of your life and I…well, I guess I’ll eventually grow old and die, and it will be just you and your robot carrier and a poisoned world outside. You’ve made your own prison and sentenced yourself to life without parole. If you can even call this life.”
Finn squirmed in agitation, nearly crawling from the robot’s embrace. The robot readjusted its grip and Finn closed his eyes, his cheeks rosy with anger. “I can make food for you. I can make the robot talk. I can give it a face and a name. We can make this city whatever we want.”
“But it’s false. All lies. A Zap pretending its existence is wonderful through self-deception—what could be more human than that?”
Rachel shuddered inwardly as she imagined herself trapped here forever, like a bug in amber. Would Cone’s corpse keep orbiting the dome, never decomposing? Would plasma continue to cycle to the underground machines and keep the merry-go-round going? Would the dome stop collapsing and just hang from the tops of the strange pillars as the nuclear weapons of the world rained down and blasted human history from the planet’s skin?
All she knew was that if she had to die, she wanted to be with DeVontay when it happened. DeVontay and Franklin and K.C. and Squeak, her fellow survivors, the people who’d fought for her and with her. Zaps could take away her world but never kill her beliefs. And she believed in love.
Finn detected her determination and perhaps a sense of her devotion. His tiny eyebrows raised and his smooth forehead creased in surprise. He batted his stubby hands together with glee. “You believe it!”
“I don’t want you to die,” Rachel said. “We can all live together.”
“You’re worried about DeVontay.”
Of course the little mutant could read her mind, even in its most secret, sacred places. She again tried to block Finn’s voyeuristic probing, but then decided she didn’t care. She had no shame. And nothing left to lose.
“I see that love makes you think about other people,” Finn said. “I don’t quite understand—”
“Because thoughts aren’t feelings, you sick little monster.”
Finn pouted. Unlike the savage Zaps that mindlessly pursued violence, Zap infants understood emotions. They took pleasure in their superiority, found joy in deception, and lusted for power. No wonder they couldn’t understand love—they had no basis of comparison.
“Why don’t you love me?” Finn said.
“I tried to love Kokona. And she manipulated me and used me. How can I ever trust another Zap again?”
“I want it. I want you to stay here with me.”
“No, you only want me as a possession, a toy. That’s not how love works.”
“I don’t want to be alone!”
The baby actually closed his eyes as he wailed with such desolation that Rachel almost fell for it. Tears even squeezed out and ran down his chubby cheeks and his lower lip quivered. Then she found that his defensive mental shield was down—whether deliberately or through distraction—and she was in his mind for just a moment.
He’s afraid to die.
He’s evolved so far he can’t bear the thought of not existing.
“You don’t have to die,” Rachel said. “We can find a way to stop this. But we have to work together—you, me, all the Zaps, all the humans.”
Finn was practically blubbering. “The same humans who are out there shooting each other while trying to figure out which of them gets to kill me?”
“I’ll deal with the humans. You just have to contact the other Zaps in as many cities as you can.”
“You know how our telepathy works, Rachel. We have to focus, and we can’t project across great distances. I won’t be able to keep this city operating while I try to reach out to other Zaps.”
“Then let your robot do it. Give it control of the city—it’s already sentient. All you have to do is trust that you’ve created something truly good.”
“I don’t…” Finn trailed away. For all his supreme intelligence, it seemed he’d never considered his own motives and intentions. He’d needed a city, so he’d built one. The city was so complex that it required an organic material that could maintain itself. Finn’s half-Zap carrier died, so he dreamed another one to life. All built to serve him.
“You understand fear,” Rachel said, still struggling in vain to move toward the dome and escape, frantic over the idea that DeVontay and the others might end up like Cone. “I know it’s difficult, but imagine the opposite of fear.”
Finn shook his head in confusion, his eyes smoldering in a steamy red-orange glow. The robot rocked him with something approaching sympathy, and Rachel couldn’t be sure if Finn had commanded it to do so or if it had originated the act through its own volition.
“Love is the opposite of fear,” Rachel said. “Love is the absence of fear.”
“But…you love DeVontay and yet you’re still afraid.”
“Because he’s in danger. Because we’re all going to die. Because I’m going to lose him though other people’s fear.”
Finn nodded. “I think I understand. A little.”
“Help me, and you’ll understand more. I promise.”
“Will you…will you love me?”
“That’s something I can’t promise.” Rachel could scarcely believe she was talking like this—that her desperate mission as an ambassador would take such a turn. “It’s possible. That takes time and trust. And you have to prove your trust. It’s not just something I can give you.”
“I told you I summoned you here, Rachel. I wasn’t sure why…and I don’t even know how I did it. I knew about you from reading the minds of Kokona and the other babies. I was curious.”
“You knew we would destroy you?”
“If we didn’t destroy you first,” Finn said.
“Yet you risked letting me inside your city.”
“I made sure you reached it. I sent those robots to protect you.”
Rachel gasped. “That was you?”
“Yes.” Finn flashed a pleased smile.
“You saved us.”
“So I can be good. Maybe I’m good, Rachel.”
“Maybe.”
“I want to try. Will you let me? Will you try to love me?”
Rachel nodded her head, finding herself able to move more freely. The constricting quality of the air lessened and she could take full breaths of the chemical-tinged air. “But I have to warn you. Love can be scary, too.”
The robot held Finn out to Rachel like a gift. Finn’s eyes sparked with yearning and hope and delight and perhaps a little anxiety.
Do I really want to do this again? It didn’t work out so well the last time. If I cross this line, I’ll never be mostly human again.
But when love died, your heart didn’t. It just shrank and slept until a new spark set it aflame again.
She took Finn in her arms, cradling him to her chest, now regaining full mobility. She was a carrier again. But she wasn’t just carrying a Zap baby. She was carrying the hope of all their futures.
Cone’s corpse collapsed onto the solid green metallic surface of the plain, landing with a meaty thud. Bullets whined through the air. The top of the dome began rising back to full height, the plasm
a sink churning and grinding as if its capacity had doubled.
Rachel headed for the edge of the dome and whatever waited outside, in the real world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The robots were on Munger’s squad before DeVontay could react, although his pulsing orb warned him something was up.
The soldiers shouted and opened fire, spraying bursts at the metallic creatures that emerged from the woods. Despite the heavy fusillade, the robots charged forward, strips of ore peeling from their bodies and shrapnel dribbling to the ground. Two of the five were already ravaged from their battle at the Dairy Queen, which is how DeVontay realized these were the same robots.
A third, the one DeVontay had shot in the head upon their first encounter, darted from the trees toward Munger and Franklin. The one whose torso was nearly torn in half limped and wobbled toward the scar-faced soldier like a silver-gray nightmare. The soldier fired several rounds at it, slowing it down. DeVontay didn’t know if the organic creatures could “die” in the normal sense of the word, but if they were shredded to pieces, they probably couldn’t inflict any damage.
Maybe the pieces are alive, too. Just like your eye.
Munger locked the butt of the M4 against his shoulder and fired at his attacker. The three-round burst stitched the length of the robot’s leg, shearing away a strip of metal and leaving it dancing on a thick wire. Franklin bent to scoop up his discarded Glock but Munger saw him and kicked the old man in the face, sending him grunting to the ground. In a burst of anger, DeVontay stepped toward his own rifle but the scar-faced guard barked, “Don’t even think about it, you burr-headed son-of-a bitch.”
The third soldier, on the right flank, was set upon by two of the robots at once. He screamed for help, unleashing a hail of bullets even as one of them pulled his arm to the side. The stray rounds skipped through the forest and across the dead zone, a few of them piercing the dome. The second robot drove its blunt, mitten-shaped hand into the soldier’s throat, eliciting an urk of pain.
Each of the two robots took one of his arms, pulling him in a game of meaty tug-of-war. Still clutching his rifle, the panicked man fired again, nearly striking Munger, who was busy with his own charging adversary. DeVontay watched with horrid fascination as the soldier’s arms were yanked from their shoulder sockets, spouting great geysers of blood as the man screamed. He spun in a circle, ghastly pale and eyes so wide they were like Christmas ornaments glowing with aurora, before he realized just what had happened.
He fell to his knees and bowed his head, blubbering and weeping. One of the robots gripped a severed arm by the wrist and swung it like a baseball bat, clubbing the man in the back of the head. He flopped forward like a sack of wet cement and lay still. The other robot tossed the human arm it held onto the man’s corpse, as if wanting to keep all the parts together for some nefarious ritual.
The scar-faced soldier sent another volley into the teetering robot that was now within twenty feet. Even though it bore only the faintest outline of facial features, DeVontay imagined pain was written upon them. He knew it was just his own empathy projected onto the creature, but he couldn’t help thinking about the theory that the robots were mirrors of DeVontay and the rest of the group. His rifle was only four steps away, and Scarface was occupied, but DeVontay still didn’t think going for it was worth the risk.
Munger’s target was now down and disabled, a quivering heap of shredded limbs and jagged metal. The colonel turned his attention to the two homicidal robots that were now spattered with wet, red stains. Franklin crawled toward his Glock, recklessly determined, and Munger gave him another kick without altering his aim. Franklin rolled over onto his side, his watch cap tumbling to the ground and his wiry gray hair spilling out.
Just when it seemed Munger’s two attackers were going to reach him, a fourth soldier stepped from the forest. DeVontay figured Munger had at least three others in his squad, but this one must’ve held back for emergencies. And this certainly qualified.
The man held a short, stocky weapon with a fat barrel that DeVontay recognized from his previous encounters with the military. The grenade launcher was probably the wrong weapon for this kind of close fighting, but the man aimed and fired. A hollow whoomp was followed by the whistle of a projectile, and then the nearest robot was engulfed by a flash of fire and smoke.
The explosion was deafening at such close range, and DeVontay could swear his metal eye grew intensely hot. Bits of shrapnel whipped through the air, pelting the dome and plowing up dead grass and dirt. The scar-faced man groaned and grabbed at the side of his head. When he brought his palm away, the lower half of his ear was missing and blood streamed from the gash.
That’s when DeVontay made his play. He rolled, sweeping his legs out to scissor-kick the stunned soldier. The man lost his balance and stuck his gun barrel in the ground to keep from falling. Before he could pull it from the dirt, DeVontay wriggled forward and grabbed the gunstock. The two of them wrestled for a moment, the soldier snarling and spitting as he drove his knee into DeVontay’s rib cage, pinning him to the ground.
Just as DeVontay lost his grip on the rifle, the final robot—the one DeVontay had shot in the head—reached Scarface and chopped with both hands, striking each side of the soldier’s neck. His night-vision goggles flew into the air as he yanked back his head. The robot lunged forward and used a jagged portion of its chin to peel a strip of flesh from Scarface’s cheek. As Scarface whimpered and grunted, DeVontay scrambled free of the fight and grabbed his fallen M16.
He lifted it just as he remembered that he’d emptied the magazine and never reloaded.
The grenade launcher chuffed again and a second explosion amputated the legs off one of the robots approaching Munger. It pitched forward, did a push-up, balanced on the stumps, and stubbed its way forward. Since it was now greatly slowed, Munger shifted his fire to the intact robot, drilling holes in its face and torso. Metal rained from the figure, head lolling to one side like a broken Jack-in-the-box. Munger actually laughed, as if he was shooting in a carnival booth to win prizes of stuffed animals.
DeVontay didn’t have time to reach his pack and reload, so he grabbed Scarface’s gun. The man wouldn’t mind, since he now lay on his back with the mangled robot atop him, chopping and slapping at his bleeding head. DeVontay didn’t trust the clogged barrel, since it might backfire or explode in his hands, so he ejected the magazine and swapped it for his own.
He aimed at Munger forty feet away, but Franklin lay squirming weakly at the man’s feet and DeVontay was afraid of hitting him with a stray round. So he dropped to one knee, steadying himself and sighting down the barrel with his good eye as he changed targets. His monocular vision meant he had no depth perception and he was a lousy shot under the best of circumstances, but something told him to shift his head forward a little and sight with the metal orb.
It made no sense, but none of this made sense, so he surrendered to the urgent inner voice and aimed at the man with the grenade launcher. Just as another projectile flared from the fat barrel, DeVontay fired a single shot. The soldier jerked in surprise as the grenade detonated near the stump-legged robot, rending it into several large, twisted pieces. The man dropped the grenade launcher and fell atop it.
Now only one robot remained, and Munger poured the rest of his magazine into it. The robot was pocked, scarred, and torn, but still it wobbled forward, one unsteady step at a time. Munger rested the rifle in the crook of his left arm and drew his service revolver with his right. He’d forgotten all about DeVontay, he was so enthralled with his kill.
Franklin rolled over on his side, reaching a trembling hand toward DeVontay. “Don’t.”
DeVontay didn’t understand. This lunatic had threatened them all. He’d abused Franklin and killed the robots that had helped them. Even though the metal humanoids were silent, their screams seemed to resonate inside DeVontay’s bizarre orb, crying out for revenge and human blood.
DeVontay’s finger paused on the trigger.
Franklin’s right. Look what we’ve come to . . . killing each other on the eve of our destruction.
Before he could make a decision, though, the dome lit up with an intense blue light, pushing back the night and fully revealing the dead bodies and torn, quivering heaps of metal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
No way.
At first Franklin thought he was seeing things, or maybe he’d been kicked so hard that he was unconscious, or else he’d suffered brain damage.
Rachel stepped from the dome with a tiny form cradled in her arms, and its glittering eyes revealed its identity. Surely Rachel would never serve as a carrier again, not after Kokona’s betrayal and the death of so many of their friends and allies in Winston-Salem.
But she’d come here to make contact. Franklin assumed the mission was a wild goose chase, a desperate Hail Mary to kill time before the bombs fell. He expected them all to die long before they reached this place, victims of the thousand ills and evils of this horrible new world. But they’d made it and then Munger had found them.
And all this death and violence was absolutely insane now. Nobody had the code to abort Operation Free Board. That’s why he signaled DeVontay not to kill Munger. He didn’t even hate the colonel—he felt pity for him.
What was the point now? Why not die with a little dignity and a little less blood on their hands? After all this fighting, why not surrender and seek some inner peace before time ran out?
But Rachel’s appearance reminded him of why he was here—as long as there was hope, he’d pledged to give his all.
As battered and cut as he was—and he was pretty sure some internal organ was badly bruised and maybe bleeding inside his abdomen—he still had some fight left. Not the fight of guns and fists, but the fight to finish the job one way or another.
Half Life: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 6) Page 13