I can smell a socialist hippie from a mile away. While I was hanging out with the Wings of Eagles, this clown was probably mailing Marxist manifestos to the New York Times. The kind that talks revolution but doesn’t want to do the dirty work. Shitterhawks like that were a dime a dozen in the old days, wishing the Eighties were the Sixties so they could get laid without catching AIDS.
Millwood picked up on Franklin’s hostility the moment they entered the house during the rainstorm. He became wary and kept his distance, watching from the window while the sallow fingers of sunrise crawled across the world outside. The others listened intently as Franklin described how they rode from Stonewall on horseback, ran into Munger’s military unit, and joined it when he heard a helicopter had dropped Rachel and DeVontay as part of an infiltration mission in Wilkesboro.
Marina told how she’d carried Kokona to the city, and DeVontay explained how Kokona had triggered a massive explosion that wiped out most of the Zaps in Wilkesboro and nearly killed them all.
“And Kokona made Rachel carry her away?” Franklin asked.
“Yes. But Rachel also wanted to protect us,” DeVontay said. “She was afraid Kokona would make her kill us.”
“Kokona did something to her,” Marina said, closing her eyes as if wanting to forget her experience as the manipulative mutant’s carrier. “Made her even more of a Zap. So Kokona could control her better.”
“Capt. Antonelli helped trigger that explosion,” Kelly said, with the kind of pride that only the young and idealistic could muster. Franklin found himself admiring the private. She reminded him of Rachel in a way. Not in looks, since she was Irish red and Rachel was angular brunette, but in attitude—the kind of woman who could take care of business.
“Well, either way, I guess we lost,” Franklin said. “We walked right into a trap. Munger sent us in as bait to draw out the Zaps, only he didn’t have enough firepower to get the job done. If not for that explosion, the Zaps would’ve wiped us out.”
“They developed a plasma sink,” DeVontay said. “A kind of cold fusion that draws on the surplus electromagnetic energy in the atmosphere to compress electrons. The Zaps explained it to me, but it was all gobbledygook. Whatever they’re doing, they use it as a power source. And it connects all of them like an electrical current, too, so they can route the power through those little hand blasters they carry.”
“No wonder we couldn’t beat them,” K.C. said. “All we had were bullets and bureaucrats.”
“That’s what happens when you sell out to the Man,” Millwood said from across the living room.
Franklin let that pass, wanting to hear more about Rachel. “So how do you guys know Rachel came this way?”
“We don’t,” DeVontay said. “Not for sure. But Kokona had some kind of motive for destroying the Zaps. She knows something, but we’ve seen signs that suggest they headed east.”
“The blue lights on the horizon?” K.C. said.
“That’s got to be something big, right?” Kelly said.
“If I know Kokona, the little tyrant wants the bright lights and big city.” Franklin resisted the urge to say “I told you so,” because he’d passed up several chances to kill the baby himself. He tried to tell himself he was a compassionate libertarian with live-and-let-live ideals, but he secretly suspected he was just a gutless coward. He’d been frightened of the little creature.
“It’s probably a Zap city,” Kelly said. “Our field communications were spotty, but aerial reconnaissance suggested an outpost maybe thirty miles from here, between Winston-Salem and Kernersville. It wasn’t an existing city on our maps, but recon detected some unusual activity.”
Franklin snorted. “Is there any other kind of activity these days?”
“Hush or I’ll feed you to the bugs,” K.C. said.
Damn. Already acting like we’re married.
“What about Stephen?” Marina asked for the third time. Squeak sat beside her on the couch. The little girl was a few years younger than Marina had been when Franklin first rescued her family from the Zaps. Now both her mother and father were dead, and Franklin wasn’t about to tell Marina she’d lost Stephen, too. Even though the two hadn’t quite figured out whether they were brother and sister or romantic crushes, Stephen meant a lot to her.
Me, too, kid. He was like a grandson to me.
Franklin settled on a half-truth. “When we left the bunker to look for Rachel and DeVontay, we were jumped by a pack of weird critters with hooves and horns,” he said. “Mutant deer or some shit. They chased us into the woods and we got separated. I haven’t seen him since.”
“But that was about two months ago!” Marina’s voice was high and nearly breaking. Squeak instantly put an arm around her friend in comfort.
“He could still be alive,” DeVontay said, his one eye locking on Franklin as if imploring the old man to give Marina hope. But DeVontay knew the truth. People died in the apocalypse. That was just the nature of the beast.
“Probably so,” Franklin said with false cheer. “Old Stephen’s a crack shot and he’s tough as boot leather. It will take more than a herd of zombie animals to take him down.”
Marina sobbed quietly and Franklin let a few respectful seconds pass before he continued. “As soon was we get Rachel, we’re backtracking to Milepost 291 and looking for him.”
“But you said we’re going to Stonewall,” K.C. said before Franklin could shush her with a glare.
“Let’s just find Rachel and then we’ll figure out the next move,” Franklin said. “No point in making long-term plans when we could all be dead by noon.”
“A regular old Mister Sunshine,” Millwood said.
“How did you hook up with this loser?” Franklin said to DeVontay, ignoring Millwood’s taunt.
“He helped us in Wilkesboro. We probably wouldn’t have found Rachel without him.”
“He’s with us all the way,” Kelly said, with a stern tone that suggested she’d taken over as the leader of the group. Franklin wondered if he would have to engage in a power struggle with her.
To hell with it. I haven’t done such a great job when I get to call the shots. Maybe I should just keep my mouth shut and go with the flow.
He glanced over at Millwood, who smirked and pushed his granny glasses up his long nose.
Well, maybe I won’t keep it TOO shut.
“What’s in it for you?” K.C. asked Kelly.
The freckle-faced soldier tilted up her chin in defiance. “I pledged to serve the Earth Zero Initiative. And as the ranking officer here, I invoke Directive Seventeen and take command of all available personnel and resources in service of the Initiative.”
“New World Order bullshit,” Millwood said. “I’m happy to help, and I’m happy to die for the cause, but not because you’re making me. I’m doing it because I want to. For us, not them.”
At least we agree on one thing.
“You’re welcome to the Humvee,” Franklin said. “As long as the mission includes rescuing Rachel.”
Kelly’s green eyes flared as bright as emeralds in a fire. “If she’s with that tiny little bitch, then we’ll find her. Because I’m going to send that baby straight to Zap hell if it’s the last thing I do.”
K.C.’s expression was half amusement and half consternation. Franklin regretted dragging her into this mess, and then remembered she was also a volunteer. He wasn’t entirely sure of her motives, but when you had a Doomsday squeeze, maybe you just hung on for dear life and hoped for the best. Of course, that was true throughout the course of human history.
Love is the only form of suicide that can reasonably be classified as “self-defense.”
Marina’s grief settled into red-eyed sniffles, and Squeak held her hand and spoke for the first time since K.C. and Franklin had entered the farmhouse. “I’ll be your friend until you find Stephen.”
That drew a soft smile from Marina, and Franklin rose from the recliner where he’d parked himself for the last half hour. His hip was
stiff and sore, but he forced himself not to limp since Millwood was watching. He strolled over to Marina and gave her a hug. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss on the cheek that made the entire journey from Stonewall worthwhile.
“Full daylight and the weather’s clear,” Millwood said. “Except for a one-hundred-percent-chance of auroras.”
“Let’s saddle up and get this party rolling,” Kelly said, shoving supplies into her rucksack.
“That’s a mixed metaphor,” Millwood said.
“Well, when you write your memoirs about how you won the war and saved the human race, you can edit that part out,” Franklin said.
“I’ve got a feeling the Zaps are going to do a lot more editing before this is all said and done.”
“Are you old farts going to have a pissing match all morning, or do you want to find Rachel?” DeVontay said.
They gathered what supplies the kitchen pantry offered, checked their ammunition, and reloaded their clips. K.C. found some cotton pads in the bathroom cabinet and helped Franklin bandage his scraped skin. Kelly went outside to check the Humvee, with Millwood standing guard. By the time they were ready to leave, Marina’s sorrow had melded into a cold determination that alarmed Franklin.
These kids grow old before they ever get a chance to grow up. This is the shittiest apocalypse ever.
They went outside to find shimmering bands of multi-colored chiaroscuro that stretched overhead in the wake of the storm. The mockery of a rainbow was far from a cheerful symbol of hope. Franklin could only imagine what kind of poison dribbled from the vibrant mist. The Earth itself was a mutant, transformed into something it was never meant to be.
“Thar she blows,” Millwood said, pointing east where the sun was now fully above the horizon.
Just below the dull orange glow of dawn, a brilliant blue light clung to the rim of the visible world.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Blue City was hauntingly beautiful.
For the first time, Rachel understood just how tenuous the human race’s hold was over the world. The aggressive Zaps in the immediate wake of the solar storms were a predatory threat due to their viciousness and their population advantage, outnumbering human survivors a hundred to one.
As Zaps evolved and formed tribes, they adopted language and gleaned knowledge from human captives. Once they developed telepathic links, they disregarded humans the same way people had once viewed mice and cockroaches—nuisances that were more easily ignored than exterminated.
But while Rachel and her friends blissfully buried themselves in the narrow routines of bunker life and basic survival, Zaps had taken a massive leap forward, mastering cold fusion to power the manufacture of synthetic material. In Wilkesboro, the mutants constructed buildings on top of existing ruins, as if still linked to their genetic ancestors and as yet unable to map their own blueprints of the future.
The Blue City was a clear sign that tomorrow was theirs.
Even from several miles away, the city was a testament to Zap potential. The sleek structures were imitations of those designed by humans, but were built of the same strange silver alloy the Zaps used for their suits, drone birds, hand weapons, and fabrication machines.
Considering how Zaps harvested organic material for industrial use—including fiber flensed from human corpses—the method of construction was likely nightmarish. But the result was as bright and brilliant as anything God might grant to the faithful who arrived in heaven.
The Blue City was maybe a square mile in size, set amid a bleak tract of land. The rectangular spires ranged from fifty to two hundred feet high, arrayed so they all faced in the same direction. They appeared to feature few windows or doors. A series of four thin, antenna-like towers rose at evenly spaced intervals across the landscape.
A large dome covered the city of a material that resembled cobalt-blue glass at first glance, but on further study appeared to be flexible, like a massive soap bubble. Blue lightning tracked across the dome’s surface in erratic bolts, as if the entire city sat beneath a massive plasma sink.
“What do think?” Goldberg said, jolting Rachel from her rapt reverie.
“It’s…extraordinary.”
“Are you saying that as a Zap, or are you saying it as a human?”
“I told you, I’m a human, and I plan to stay that way.”
Kokona kicked her little legs and giggled aloud, perfectly imitating a human baby. She was strapped to Rachel’s chest via an altered backpack that had holes cut in the sides for Kokona’s limbs. The makeshift papoose was turned so that Kokona faced Rachel and therefore couldn’t see the Blue City, but clearly the mutant was excited.
“Your little friend sure likes it,” Goldberg observed.
“She’s glad to be out of your tunnels,” Rachel said. “It’s dark and stinky down there.”
“Blame the Zaps for that. We didn’t move underground just for the hell of it. We’re not the ones who poisoned the world.”
Goldberg was bundled in his outdoor wear, his goggles in place and hood pulled down so it hid his forehead. The other three patrol members were likewise bundled, and aside from the one with a scraggly beard, she couldn’t tell their genders. Goldberg made Trudy stay behind, promising she’d be able to hold Kokona upon their return.
Rachel had borrowed a coat to go over her thin jacket, even though the temperature was only in the low fifties. Their fear of fallout from the plasma gave Rachel pause, even though she suspected her Zap constitution gave her some immunity from the radiation.
Human when you want to be, Zap when necessary.
They were on a wooded hill overlooking the valley housing the dome. While some houses were visible along the perimeter, a large swath of flora surrounding the Blue City was withered and yellow. Gray tree trunks rose from the ground, their few remaining branches bare.
A creek ran through the valley, its sluggish waters coated with a greasy, colorful sheen. Rachel couldn’t tell if the Blue City was causing the contamination or whether the Zaps had chosen this site because the old world was vanishing from it in a diseased erosion.
A crow flew overhead and winged across the valley, letting out a lonely caw that was made even more forlorn by the relative silence. Besides the creek and the threads of lightning that crawled over the dome, there was no other movement.
“Calm before the storm,” Kokona said.
The air was filled with expectation, as if the mounting static was threatening to crack the sky. They’d walked through the broken boulevards of outer Winston-Salem, encountering only a skinny stray dog that growled and slunk away, a large rat that watched them for a few moments before hiding, and a dirty-faced old man whom at first they’d taken for a Zap until he’d shouted at them in Spanish and hurried back inside the scorched shell of a church.
All the while, the blue glow intensified and the sun crawled between the thin strips of cirrus clouds. Rachel and Kokona had carried on a silent conversation about Goldberg’s band, but if Kokona had any knowledge of their destination, she kept it hidden beyond Rachel’s reach. Now she ordered Rachel to show her the city.
When Rachel lifted Kokona from the papoose and cradled her, one of the hooded men let out a grunt and pointed to the sky. Three silver drone birds appeared as if out of thin air, swooping toward the crow.
“They think it’s a threat,” Kokona said.
The nearest drone bird swerved in front of the crow, intercepting its route over the dome. The other two flanked it from behind, closing in on its tail like fighter pilots zeroing in on the kill.
A man lifted his rifle and aimed at the drone birds, but Goldberg ordered him to hold fire. “Let’s watch what happens,” Goldberg said. “If you make that kind of noise, everything in the valley will know we’re here.”
“I don’t see anything going on in there,” the man said. “We can go in and take it right now.”
“What about it, Rachel?” Goldberg asked. “Any of your Zap friends inside?”
/> “I can’t tell.” Rachel was intent on watching the aerial battle.
The drone birds forced the crow away from the dome, and Rachel could see the blinking of their tiny red electronic eyes. The crow’s squawks grew more frantic. The two flanking drone birds squeezed in from each side, and the lead drone bird cut a sudden arc upward and nosedived from above.
Its protruding metal beak pierced the crow’s neck and continued through, tossing black feathers and blood into the air. The crow’s head dropped like a rock while the torso tumbled awkwardly behind, wings spread wide.
“Damn,” one of the hooded men said. “These bastards are protective of their air space.”
“Looks to me like somebody’s home,” Goldberg said. “Those things are acting like they’re following orders.”
“That wasn’t your doing, was it?” Rachel silently asked Kokona.
“I don’t call the shots here. Not yet, anyway.”
The three drone birds veered into a triangular formation and circled the plummeting crow for a moment, as if to make sure it was dead. When the two severed parts hit the parched ground, the drones headed directly for the dome, effortlessly cruising through the high-elevation wind current. They dove into the swirling threads of lightning and slammed into the dome.
The surface of the dome yielded and allowed them through, seeming to envelop them in blue oil for a moment. Then they were gone, the dome instantly resealing itself. The drone birds appeared as tiny specks for a moment, and soon they were lost among the tops of the buildings inside the Blue City.
“How do you fight something like that?” one of the hooded men said.
“Very badly,” Kokona said.
“Why don’t you act normal and cry?” Rachel telepathed back.
“I can’t. I’m too happy.”
Goldberg pushed his goggles up onto his forehead and fished a pair of binoculars from one of his many bulging pockets. He glassed the valley, spending a long time peering inside the dome. Finally, he lowered them and said, “Nothing in there.”
Directive 17: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Page 5