Apex Cypher (Prequel to The Techxorcist series) Read Free

hopeful sanctuary.
    Ten minutes into their run, Gabe spotted the vertical stabilizer fins of an old passenger plane behind a fence stretching for at least a kilometre across the horizon.
    “This must be it,” Gabe said, just as a strike of lightning from the dark, ominous clouds above lit up the scorched earth and shined briefly off a metallic fuselage. Three seconds later, a clap of thunder crashed across the sky, rumbled against the ground, making Gabe jump with surprise.
    Petal screamed with excitement, not realising that they, being the only two things apart from the rusting aircraft in the desert, were prime targets for a lightning strike.
    They dashed closer to the scrapyard. A light glowed from behind an ancient bomber, bathing its disintegrating shell in a kind of holy light that stood up to the indomitable darkness of the storm clouds. How brave, Gabe thought, of that little light to shine when all around the world looked to swallow it whole and snuff it out for good. How brave.
    Gabe fixed his attentions on it as if it was a safety beacon.
    The counter had thankfully grown quieter. They had passed through the worst of the lingering radiation. How much damage was done during their exposure, he couldn’t know. Hopefully it would be minor, if not negligible. It had been over fifty years since the The Family dropped the nukes and EMPs. Time does heal, even from the worst atrocities of humankind.
    It was ironic that the one thing that still worked properly in this desolate, post-Cataclysmic place was the wind turbine, considering it was designed and manufactured by The Family when they were a renewable energy company. That was before the economic collapse. Before they changed tack and applied their technology and immeasurable resources to arms and weapons manufacture. Before they became the superpower.
    “Can you imagine what we could salvage from here?” Petal said.
    “They’re dead, girl. Doubt any of the gear inside these planes survived the EMPs. Half of ‘em never left the ground. Besides, the Tinker would’ve grabbed anything of use by now, I’m sure. It’s a crying shame though. Look at those beauties just sitting there.”
    He pointed to the far left of the yard. Ten pristine Anglo-American drone-controlled F300 stealth fighters sat lined up like they just came out of the Skunkworks. Trillions of dollars worth of dead, pretty metal rusting on the desert planes of north China.
    They were nothing more than rusted garden ornaments now.
    Back before the war, this place would have been covered in lush agricultural land, growing cotton and rice. The nukes and subsequent fallout had killed most of that off. The main foods available consisted of leftover powdered foods, sugarweed, and surprisingly, soya.
    After the fallout dropped to a certain level, soya started to regrow. According to the gangs that Gabe ran with in Hong Kong, before he met Petal, there was something about the soya plant that trapped and made safe the dangerous isotopes. Since then, soya beans, milk, oil, and its proteins have been the main source of food—for those who could find the fields. They were few and far between. Gabe and Petal’s own rations, stored in her backpack, were running dangerously low.
    Petal shrugged her shoulders, “Yeah, real shame. All that money, and now they ain’t worth crap.” She moved closer to the chain link fence and reached out a hand.
    With a sharp cracking sound, she flew away, her body hitting the hard ground like a doll. A shower of blue sparks arced from the electrified fence as her body jerked briefly before tensing up and then becoming still. The sparks, like blue shards, fell around Gabe’s body as he dropped the Geiger counter to the floor and rushed to Petal’s prone body.
    “Jesus, girl!”
    He shook her gently, tried to wake her, but she didn’t move.
    Taking off her goggles, her eyes were still that solid black, only now they weren’t doing their weird swirling thing. He checked her