Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

So they will leave us here. They won’t risk contamination to send a team for these children—not unless Willard is exceptionally eloquent in his persuasive tactics.

And I know he can be.

“Tucker,” I call as I enter the room, my voice exploding in the silence.

“Yeah?” For once, the invisible man sounds startled.

“I need your help.”

He sniffs and shuffles his feet toward me. “Okay?”

I can already feel the adrenaline accelerating my heart rate. For the first time in a very long time, I feel alive.

“We need to take them away from here.” My hand rests on the chamber of the young male I watched earlier. Offspring of Shechara and Samson’s seed.

“All of them?” At first, Tucker seems confused. But a moment later, he understands the situation completely—without a single word spoken between us, thanks to my gift. “I see. Just these two.” He sounds awestruck.

“Yes.” I place my other hand on the chamber where a young female sleeps peacefully, the daughter of Daiyna and Luther.

You two are the most special of them all. I can already perceive their shared ability.

The female’s eyes blink open in the gelatinous artificial uterus. Where are we going? her mind asks.

I smile. Home.

4 Bishop18 months after All-Clear

I taste stale ash and worry my suit has been compromised. My eyes dart, scouring the interior of my helmet for any cracks in the polymer. None that I can see. The heads-up display flashes OFFLINE in bold crimson letters along with showers of static, obstructing my view of the sandy landscape around me.

A high-pitched whine hums in my ears. I can’t tell if it’s from the suit or inside my skull. I try to swallow and cough instead against the dryness in my throat. I lie on my back like some kind of pathetic creature unable to turn itself over while the sun scorches its underbelly.

That scientist didn’t exaggerate about the heat inside a hazard suit. I’m being cooked alive.

“Cool down,” I murmur, remembering the voice command.

No response from the HUD.

I curse and strain to rise. Useless. The suit won’t cooperate.

Clenching my teeth, I focus all my strength into one arm, forcing it upward. I groan and will it to rise, straining against the weight of the suit. As my arm slowly levitates and then bends at the elbow, my fingers curl into a fist. Gloved knuckles tap against my helmet, and I knock once, twice.

OFFLINE jitters on the display.

My knuckles crunch into a pocket of broken polymer. That can’t be good. I spread my fingers and slide them across the helmet’s surface, probing as far as I can reach around the outer layer. The tips of my gloves discover three other fractures.

Not good at all.

Why am I holding my breath? It’s futile. The damage has been done. I drop my arm back to the hard-packed earth in disgust. It’s too early for despair.

“Anybody there?” I shout.

No response.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head sharply. The ringing in my ears remains undiminished. I’ve gotta get out of this thing. But it’s insane even to think it. Just because some ash has gotten into my helmet doesn’t mean the entire system has been compromised. The suit still provides protection, even as it pins me to the ground, exposing me as easy prey for whoever shot down the chopper.

We were passing over the coast where rusted hulks of old sea vessels sat overturned, planted in the sand. No signs of life there—other than a security fence of some kind, topped with scrolls of barbed wire. Remnants from before D-Day, the scarecrow scientist told us. The pilot headed due east, straight into the interior of the continent. At the time, Granger, Sinclair, and the others were fully engrossed in their operations manuals, studying up on how everything worked. They didn’t see the clouds of dust on the surface below or the trio of black solar jeeps tearing across the sand on an intercept course.

“Hostiles sighted—advise, Argonaus,” the pilot barked into his headset.

“Our welcoming committee?” I strained against my suit for a better view.

The UW scientist sat frozen and unresponsive. His bulbous eyes stared out from behind his face shield, and his thin lips parted as if to speak. But no words came.

“Captain Mutegi is saying to turn back.” One hand on his earpiece, the co-pilot turned in his seat to face us.

The scientist nodded quickly, mute. The jeeps beneath us halted.

“Binocs,” I gave the voice command. My helmet’s HUD zoomed to focus on the first of the three jeeps. There were four men, two seated, two standing in the back behind the roll bar. But they didn’t look exactly...human. “What the—?”

One of them lifted a Stinger missile launcher to his deformed shoulder and swung the business end up toward the chopper. Chaos ensued as the pilot attempted to evade the heat-seeking rocket. The scientist hit a manual release lever, and the clamps on my hazard suit unlocked as the hull beneath me gave way. I was jettisoned from the chopper—and just in time. As I spiraled end over end to the earth below, the missile found its mark above me, exploding like a massive wildflower in reds, oranges, and black smoke. The concussion that followed plowed into my midsection like a two-fisted blow to the ribs.

“Captain—is that you?” Granger’s voice comes over the comm channel in my helmet. Boots shuffle across the sand nearby.

“Give me a hand.” I reach out blindly, unsure the short engineer will be able to help me up.

“What the hell happened?”

“I can’t see a thing.”

Granger takes hold of my arm and heaves, hoisting me into a seated position.

“HUD on the fritz?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Naw. Guess I landed on my feet.” Granger sniffs. “You get a good look at ’em before?”

“No.”

Hostiles—that’s what the pilot called them. They hadn’t moved like men. More like humanoid animals, garbed in sun-scorched skins. But that’s impossible. The animal kingdom was obliterated years ago across the globe, on both land and sea.

“Something you’re not telling me, Captain?”

“You know