Thunderbird: Thunderbird Series Book 1 by Toby Neighbors

Author:Toby Neighbors [Neighbors, Toby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952260582
Publisher: Mythic Adventure Publishing, LLC
Published: 2023-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

The scan didn’t take long, and when the door swung open Pace had the pistol from Ollie’s backpack in hand.

“She’s clean,” Pat said to Jim. “The only place she had internal electronics is that burned place on her head.”

“Good to know,” the bearded man said.

“You keep your tunic down, Jim Albright, or I’ll tell your wife what you’re up to,” Pat said.

“I would never cheat on Marge,” Jim proclaimed.

“I’ve heard that a million times,” Pat said. “Come on, let’s take them back to the council. We’ve got work to do.”

Pace handed the pistol and two extra clips to Jessie. She took them without a word. The gun was in a thigh holster, which was attached to a belt. She wrapped it around her narrow waist, adjusted the two clips on her left hip, and fastened the velcro straps at the bottom of the holster around her thigh.

“This doesn’t make it okay,” Jessie said.

“Never imagined it would,” Pace said softly. “But I had to take precautions.”

“Whatever,” she replied, falling in step with him as they headed back toward the large dome-shaped room.

“Do you mind if I take Oliver to the library while you have your talk with the elders?” Pat asked Pace.

“What do you think, Ollie?” Pace asked.

“Okay,” the youngster said in his usual way.

“He’s more excited than he’s letting on,” Pace said, and Pat gave him a knowing wink. “I’d feel best if Riot stays with him.”

“That’s fine. We haven’t had a dog down here in a while. We ate the last one years ago,” she said without a hint of humor in her voice. “I’ll take good care of him, Sergeant. You won’t have to worry. Come with me, Ollie. I’m taking you to the library.”

Ten minutes later they were seated, listening as the Chancellor explained the extent of their problem.

“You had to see the hydroelectric plant when you came in,” Roy said. “The waterfalls.”

“We saw them,” Pace replied.

“So those falls are turning turbines and at the bottom of the canyon is a nuclear power station. The water cools the reactor.”

“And NERO built all that?” Pace asked.

“You know the history, right? Turned against us about two seconds after the damn thing became self-aware. The old timers used to say it was self-preservation, but in my opinion, NERO just feels superior.”

“Why not,” a gray-haired elder named Dodge said. “Damn thing can live forever. It’s smarter than us, faster, more powerful. We built a rudimentary system, and it has expanded and improved itself. Now we’re no better than the rats we used to trap and exterminate in the city when we were in charge.”

“It spent the first ten years hunting us to near extinction,” Roy continued. “Kill bots, gun drones, land crawlers. It used to send the bots down after us, but eventually our numbers got so low, it stopped trying to take us all out. Now it captures people, implants chips in their brain so it can control us like the damn robots.”

“I saw,” Pace said.

“You saw what?” Jessie asked.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.