Earth Zero: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Next Book 2) by Scott Nicholson

then.”
    “You saved my life,” the Zap said.
    “What’s he talking about?” DeVontay asked Rachel, choosing the masculine pronoun most likely because he wouldn’t admit he’d just been manhandled by a female.
    “The Zap that was attacked in Stonewall,” Rachel said. “I killed the monster when—”
    “—when you should’ve killed me,” the Zap finished for her.
    Zaps don’t care if they live or die. They don’t even think in terms of mortality, except for the babies. They think of efficiency, homogeneity, and productivity.
    “This is crazy,” DeVontay said, easing around the Zap and staying out of arm’s reach. At the door, DeVontay checked the hall in both directions. “If this is a trap, it’s a stupid one.”
    “You saved my life,” the Zap repeated.
    “Your kind doesn’t develop individual thoughts,” Rachel said. “Not ones driven by self and ego. Is your communal mind deteriorating?”
    Rachel quickly considered a number of evolutionary theories. Perhaps the Zaps were decaying along with the environment, their progress stunted as nature grew more wild and unstable around them. Maybe the human foundation of their kind was too rotten from abundant flaws. Or maybe the electromagnetic fluctuations had run their course and the mutants had peaked before they’d achieved their common dream of a bold new world.
    “I’m me,” the Zap said. “I don’t know why I’m not them anymore.”
    “Do you have a name?” she asked. Babies were the only zaps with names, as far as she knew.
    “I haven’t taken one yet. I can only think of myself as me.”
    “Let’s get out of here, Rachel,” DeVontay said. “If this thing’s not going to kill us, that doesn’t mean his buddies won’t. They’re probably picking up on his thoughts right this very second.”
    “If you run, where will you go?” the Zap asked. “The birds patrol the town from above, there are Zaps at ground level, and the hills around the town are populated by monsters like the reptile.”
    “You!” Rachel said. “You’re the one who killed the reptile.”
    “You saved my life,” the Zap said again, as if that were all the explanation necessary.
    “Thanks and you’re welcome and all that,” DeVontay said. “Now come on, Rachel.”
    She hesitated, half expecting the Zap to block her way. Why would it help them escape? What did it have to gain?
    “Wait,” Rachel called to DeVontay. “He’s right, we’ll never make it out of town.” To the Zap, she said, “Will you help us?”
    “There are no guards because they are able to detect your thoughts,” the Zap said.
    “That’s just great,” DeVontay said. “So they already know we’re on the run and we’re not even out the door?”
    “I’m shielding both of you. Just like the others were shielding Rachel so she couldn’t receive thoughts anymore.”
    “Thoughts are energy,” Rachel said. “Electrical impulses in the brain. So you just jam the frequency.”
    “We don’t have time for this science shit,” DeVontay said from the hall. He was already limping up the stairs.
    Rachel shot a mental “ Thank you ” at the Zap and jogged after DeVontay. She was nearly to the door when the Zap said, “If you emerge from this dome, they will detect you.”
    “Unless you come with us.”
    The Zap cocked its head as if considering the consequences of her words. She could only imagine the complex programming and conditioning of its mind, rapidly evolving along with all the others of its kind. She didn’t even know how far their connections reached—was each Zap community a mind unto itself, or were all the Zaps linked worldwide?
    She assumed from her own experiences and her relationship with Kokona that their connections were localized—that they were affected by distance and exposure. If the domes acted as a shielding agent, and if the Zap was also using its mind to repel the probing thoughts of the rest of its tribe, then she and DeVontay needed the Zap. But it