The first gunshots rang somewhere in front of her. The vanguard was lost in the haze, already exploring the strange city and apparently engaging the enemy.
Which enemy? Savages? Silver Zaps? Something worse?
Murray stumbled over the stippled shapes at the edge of the city. The fabricated buffer of vegetation apparently ringed the entire perimeter, with no streets connecting with the outside world. But the insane design provided for a useful defensive line, and two soldiers took positions behind the landscaping. Murray and K.C. half-dragged and half-carried the little girl over the boundary and into a hard alloy street.
This was Murray’s first direct exposure to the Zap’s progress and technology. She’d spent most of the last five years in New Pentagon, running a community and planning scouting missions, patrols, and major attacks. Aside from the violence in the initial aftermath of the solar storms and the invasion of the caverns by the primal Zaps, she’d experienced no personal contact. She only knew of the silver-suited Zaps, intelligent babies, and their advanced technology from field reports and the occasional seized artifact.
Even her aerial view from the helicopter didn’t fully reveal the strange and almost senseless design of the city, its uniformity and harshness. Now, with the sheer walls rising around her and the streets unfolding in silver precision, she was overcome by a wave of futility despite the apparently successful missile strike—if these domed cities existed all across the world, and the Zaps were so advanced as to construct such monstrosities, what hope did the human race have?
Not just to defeat them, but to destroy everything so the Zaps didn’t emerge as ultimate masters of the Earth?
The tide of savage Zaps rolled past the Humvee and they were now less than a hundred yards away. Murray could only imagine what the soldiers on point were shooting at, the scattered percussion of gunfire echoing down the alleys of the Zap city.
“This way,” K.C. said, leading the girl deeper into the city. Murray hesitated, not wanting to abandon the two soldiers in the face of the assault.
“Hold out as long as you can and then retreat,” she ordered them, giving one a pat on the shoulder. The young face that looked up at her had the weary, hooded eyes of a centenarian. Murray had to look away before she wept in front of them.
She caught up with K.C. and the girl, who were already in the gloomy shadows of the nearest building. The many colors of the aurora cast a bruised color against the burnished surfaces around them, further disorienting them. The girl had barely spoken, and Murray wondered if she was so deeply traumatized that she’d mentally shut down. But she listened to K.C. and responded, so the girl was at least superficially functional.
If we get out of this, Operation Free Bird will ease our pain. Nuclear annihilation as mercy killing.
Murray pushed away the fatalistic thoughts. This was still a fight, and no one here knew Murray had already decided their fates.
Shouts erupted ahead of her, punctuated with sporadic gunfire. The confusing shadows made it impossible to see what was happening. The subtle rumble she’d heard since entering the city as well as the faint vibration beneath her feet seemed to increase. With the chopper now out of earshot, the hissing of the Zaps swelled like a crashing tidal wave.
“Holy hell,” K.C. said, pulling the girl against a wall. On the street ahead of them, dim hulking shapes appeared out of the murk.
“What is it?” Murray asked, instinctively raising her pistol.
“Looks like…”
Murray didn’t know whether K.C. truly didn’t know or was staying quiet so as not to scare the child. But now she could make out the pointed face, glittering eyes, and gleaming teeth of the nearest creature.
The dogs!
A whole pack of them thundered down the street in great loping strides. Their claws clattered on the street, digging into the alloy just enough to maintain traction. A low growl added to the chaotic symphony of the battle.
Why is no one screaming? These things have run right through the squadron.
K.C. felt along the wall, seeking a door or window, but there was no escape. Murray stepped in front of the girl, determined to spare her from a horrible death. Even if it meant granting her a mercy kill.
But even as she did, she realized something was wrong with the animals—their coloring was not mottled and they moved with a fluid but rolling gait that seemed somehow unnatural, even for beasts mutated by the new laws of science.
The pack leader raised its head—even though Murray perceived the dozen or more behind it, this aberrant canine held her attention—and revealed its metallic composition.
A robot? A machine? A new kind of monster?
Then the pack closed the distance, barely twenty yards away, the menacing shapes solidifying from silhouettes into snarling, sinister beasts. Murray fired at the pack leader, close enough to hit it somewhere despite her trembling hand. Yet the metallic dog only glanced at the three of them as it sped past, its silvery flank impossibly long and thick.
That brief moment when their eyes met seared through Murray’s soul. The thing’s gaze was cold and appraising and somehow worse than if it was slavering with hunger. The girl shrieked and buried her face in K.C.’s stomach as the pack swept along the street, growling and chuffing in synthesized voices.
The two soldiers guarding the perimeter fired a salvo at the charging dogs and then dove out of the way. The dogs leapt the landscaping border, tiny wires of fur bristling as they soared beneath the aurora.
They landed in the charred wasteland beyond the city and plowed into the advancing Zaps. Just as the living, breathing, but horrific dogs had earlier done, these manufactured monstrosities tore into the Zaps. The Zaps didn’t scream or alter their course as the dogs clawed and snapped at them, but their blood spewed and their flesh tore beneath the onslaught.
Even though the Zaps had once been human, and Murray and the others could easily have shared their condition, she felt no pity for them. These metallic monsters had delivered Murray and the squadron from a vicious threat, but that left a deeply troubling question.
Who has saved us?
And why?
Before she could guess at an answer, the sky overhead flashed with the cerulean blue glow and the dome appeared around them and over them, fully intact, trapping them inside the bizarre city.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rachel wasn’t sure if it was safe to think.
She was part of the Conglomerate—of course she was, because the Conglomerate was all-powerful—yet she also was able to keep a little of herself apart. She hoped it was her human self, buried somewhere inside the Zap carrier that was helping control the city.
She couldn’t speak. Well, perhaps she could, but then the others would know she was still resisting. And then what would they do to her?
What would they do to Franklin, DeVontay, and Millwood?
All she could do was stare straight ahead as best she could and wait until Kokona needed care. As awful as the replica Rachel was, it probably had more freedom than she did. After all, it was moving and living and interacting with the city while she stood here two hundred feet above the street and helped make everything work.
And there was a lot of work going on—plasma tubes shucking electrons to harness energy from the stripped-down atoms, filters cleansing the air of outside toxins, subterranean manufacturing facilities crafting copies of many different creatures, tracking systems that recorded data gathered by drone-bird surveillance, and continued construction of the city that would house the Conglomerate until the world was once more safe for habitation.
She sensed—but couldn’t confirm through telepathic penetration—that Kokona was also not fully subsumed by the Conglomerate. Maybe the assimilation was a function of time, and soon Kokona would not express herself as an individual and Rachel would become as lethargic and featureless as the other carriers. Maybe soon Rachel would not even remember Rachel.
And perhaps the replica Rachel wouldn’t remember her, e
ither. And that would be worse than death. That would be obliteration.
Would DeVontay remember?
She dared a glance at him, still trapped in the clear cylinder with the others, the entire level awash with the blue glow of plasma. It was only a subtle shift of her eyes, but DeVontay caught it. She had no idea how, since her eyes were a maelstrom of swirling fire.
But maybe that was all love was—understanding things you shouldn’t.
And he seemed to understand that he couldn’t acknowledge the contact, as if that would reveal her secret and put them all in great danger. He gave the slightest of winks with his good eye, a gesture so quick and subtle that even a supreme intelligence would consider it a tic or muscle flinch.
“It is we who make reality,” the Conglomerate said, Rachel speaking in unison with them. “Free your selves from the illusion of control and this will be easier for you.”
The cylinder evaporated, and the three men parted with groans and grunts as they fell to the floor gasping for breath. But the release was just another illusion, for they were still trapped within the domed city.
All of them were prisoners, including Kokona and the Zaps. The hostile world beyond the dome was their warden. Their judge, jury, and executioner.
But Rachel was going to escape.
She didn’t know how, or when, or where. But as long as she was Rachel, she would plot just as hard and deviously as Kokona ever had.
But to remain Rachel, she had to hide Rachel.
DeVontay called her name but she ignored him, staring straight ahead, the thoughts of the Conglomerate forming for another high-minded declaration of superiority. She let them have their way.
For now.
Only for now.
THE END
Look for Next #5: Crucible!
Survivors must overthrow mutants to seize control of a strange, highly advanced city.
NEXT #5: CRUCIBLE at Amazon US or Amazon UK
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NEXT #1: AFTERBURN at Amazon US or Amazon UK
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NEXT #6: HALF LIFE
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AFTER: THE SHOCK
Book 1 in the post-apocalyptic series
By Scott Nicholson
A massive solar storm erases the world's technological infrastructure and kills billions. While the remaining humans are struggling to adapt and survive, they notice that some among them have...changed.
Rachel Wheeler finds herself alone in the city, where violent survivors known as "Zapheads" roam the streets, killing and destroying. Her only hope is to reach the mountains, where her grandfather, a legendary survivalist, established a compound in preparation for Doomsday.
Other survivors are fleeing the city, but Zapheads aren't the only danger. Rogue bands of military soldiers want to impose their own order in the crumbling ruins of civilization. When Rachel discovers a 10-year-old boy, she vows to care for him even at the risk of her own life.
And the Zapheads are evolving, developing communal skills even as they lay waste to the society they will eventually replace.
Get After #1: The Shock free at Amazon US or Amazon UK
FREE!
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
An After spinoff series
By Scott Nicholson and Joshua Simcox
When Mackie Dailey survives a cataclysmic solar storm that wipes out civilization and mutates others into violent killers, he seeks out the one person he cares about most.
But when he returns to a college campus looking for Allie, he discovers she is a Zaphead—nearly unrecognizable as the human he once loved. Mackie becomes caught in a power struggle among a small group of survivors who turn the campus into a stronghold against the Zaphead threat. His old nemesis, Lucas Krider, has taken charge, but Krider’s vision of a new world is just as horrifying as the extinction they all face.
Will Mackie sacrifice himself so the group has a chance to survive, or will his demons turn out to be more dangerous than the strange, rampaging creatures that nature has unleashed?
Get Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder free at Amazon or Amazon UK
***
About the author:
Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 20 thrillers, including The Home, Disintegration, Liquid Fear, and Speed Dating with the Dead. His books have appeared in the Kindle Top 100 more than a dozen times in five different countries.
Visit his website at AuthorScottNicholson.com or view his Amazon Author Central page. Sign up for the Tao of Boo newsletter for giveaways and book releases.
Thanks to Sharon Stogner at Devil in the Details editing, as well as proofreaders Meghan Gurley and Frank Pero, and technical advisor Steve Lowe, SSRG (R).
VIEW OTHER KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Novels
After #0: First Light
After #1: The Shock
After #2: The Echo
After #3: Milepost 291
After#4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
Next #1: Afterburn
Next #2: Earth Zero
Next #3: Radiophobia
Next #5: Crucible
Next #6: Half Life
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Zapheads #3: Blood and Frost
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)
The Preacher (Solom #3)
The Home
McFall
Creative Spirit
Disintegration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
Kiss Me or Die
Liquid Fear
Chronic Fear
October Girls
Crime Beat
The Dead Love Longer
Fangs In Vain
Burial to Follow
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)
Spider Bite (with J.R. Rain)
Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)
The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)
Meat Camp (with J.T. Warren)
Playin’ Possum (with Milton Bagby)
Story Collections
Curtains
Flowers
Ashes
The First
Zombie Bits
Head Cases
Gateway Drug
Missing Pieces
These Things Happened
American Horror
Children’s Books
If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)
Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)
Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)
Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)
Bad Day for Balloons (with Sergio Castro)
VIEW U.K. KINDLE BOOKS BY SCOTT NICHOLSON:
Next #1: Afterburn
Next #2: Earth Zero
Next #3: Radiophobia
Next #5: Crucible
Next #6: Half Life
After: First Light
After #1: The Shock
After #2: The Echo
After: #3: Milepost 291
After #4: Whiteout
After #5: Red Scare
After #6: Dying Light
The Scarecrow (Solom #1)
The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)
The Preacher (Solom #3)
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
Zapheads #2: Scars and Ashes
Zapheads #3: Blood and Frost
McFall
Liquid Fear
Chronic Fear
Creative Spirit
The Home
The Gorge
Disintegration
The Red Church
Speed Dating with the Dead
The Skull Ring
Drummer Boy
The Harvest
Kiss Me or Die
October Girls
Crime Beat
The Dead Love Longer
Burial to Follow
Fangs In Vain
Cursed (with J.R. Rain)
Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)
The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)
Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)
Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)
Spider Bite (with J.R. Rain)
Meat Camp (with J.T. Warren)
Playin’ Possum (with Milton Bagby)
Collections
Curtains
Flowers
Ashes
The First
Zombie Bits
Head Cases
Gateway Drug
Missing Pieces
These Things Happened
Children’s Books
Bad Day for Balloons (with Sergio Castro)
If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)
Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)
Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)
Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)
Table of Contents
Next #4: Directive 17
Next #5: Crucible
After #1: The Shock
Zapheads #1: Bone and Cinder
About Scott Nicholson
Other Scott Nicholson Books
Directive 17: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Page 19