Radiophobia_A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller by Scott Nicholson

Author:Scott Nicholson [Nicholson, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haunted Computer Books, Inc.
Published: 2016-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Mothership must be coming in for a landing,” Millwood said. “That freaky beam’s like LSD on steroids.”

The hippie’s garish assessment of the energy flowing from the plasma sink didn’t mean much to Antonelli, but one thing was sure, the thing was much larger than it had been this morning. From a block away, Antonelli could detect patterns in the flashing and blinking sparks that flowed up and down the chaotic column of light.

From afar, the beam had appeared almost like a solid thing, but from here, its animated and fluid nature was evident. The big metallic bowl nested in the street seemed to be drawing electromagnetic energy from the sky and feeding it back in an altered, supercharged form.

Whatever they’ve cooked up, aliens couldn’t have done it any better.

“What the hell is that thing?” Colleen whispered, peering over his shoulder.

“The target.” He wasn’t quite as confident as he made himself sound. Even with high-explosive rounds, the grenade launcher now seemed like a peashooter aimed at a dinosaur.

“Now you know why I come here all the time,” Millwood said. “The best show in town.”

They’d used back alleys and narrow service lanes to make their way closer, but now they waited behind a concrete highway barrier where road construction had once interrupted traffic. Pylons and erosion fences ringed a thirty-foot stretch of gravel and concrete, several deep ditches running through the work zone. A dump truck and back-hoe were parked where they’d died when the solar storms hit, their mammoth yellow bodies out of place among the many passenger vehicles stranded in the business district.

The concrete barrier provided some concealment from the horde of Zaps gathered around the tallest building in the city. When the mutants started murmuring and then chanting, Millwood said, “Never heard that before. What are they saying?”

“Kokona,” DeVontay said. He was huddled with an arm around the little girl, his back against the concrete. “They’re calling her name.”

“You think she’s in there?” Antonelli asked.

“We need a leader,” Bright Eyes said. “Without her, we are weak and vulnerable.”

Antonelli wondered if the presence of his tribe would make the Zap revert. If Bright Eyes was a plant or a spy, he’d show himself soon. Colleen was under orders to kill the mutant—any of the others, really—at the first sign of betrayal. But so far the mutant had helped them, as if he wanted Antonelli to destroy the plasma sink and free him from whatever bond might still connect him with the other Zaps.

There was some sort of triangular dynamic between Kokona, the plasma sink, and the rest of the Zaps. From what the others had told him, if Kokona remained here long enough, she would consolidate the tribe and continue developing their strange and potent technology. He’d witnessed the baby’s intelligence and cunning, as well as her bloodthirsty nature, and he was a believer.

If she brought two hundred Zaps under her power, armed with those devious hand blasters and fleets of dive-bombing metal birds, she could wipe out Col. Munger’s entire division.

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