Midnight City Read Online Free PDF Page B

Quickly. Within a year, they had become the huge, abhorant organisms they were now.
    Globulous masses of putrid blackness that constantly changed shape and could form and dissolve eyes, maws, and other appendages as needed.
    They were predatory to the extreme. Instead of the Assembly, the Fallout Swarms may well have overrun the Earth, if not for the fact that they found bright sources of light intolerably painful. Plus, they were attracted to sources of radiation; they seemed to live off it. Places like Clinton Station were natural homes for them, with its leftover radiation and its inherent darkness.
    This Fallout Swarm had temporarily been pushed back by Mira’s artifact. It was a major artifact, from deeper into the Strange Lands, and she had traded for it in Midnight City long before she had been forced to flee, thinking she might one day need it for just such an adventure. It was one of the few things she could think of that might help her survive entering a Fallout Swarm lair.
    So far, it was working. In the bright light, Mira could see from one end of the tunnel to the next. And there was no sign of the swarm.
    Except for the clicking. The sounds of gnashing teeth, from hundreds of sources, all ticking and grinding and echoing everywhere.
    The swarm may not have been visible … but it was nearby. Looking for its chance to get to her and rip her apart.
    She rushed down the hall, looking for the door she wanted. She knew the lantern wouldn’t burn forever, She had to hurry. As she moved, the bright light pushed into and through each door she passed, followed by shrieks from inside as the Fallout Swarm twisted and crawled back into the dark. All around her, at the edge of the lantern light, the shadows writhed and fluctuated, following hungrily after her.
    She found the door she was looking for and stepped quickly through it.
    The room on the other side was immense, stretching high above her, most likely all the way to the surface. In the light, she could see crates of all kinds and shapes, stacked high off the floor, all sitting untouched and covered in dust.
    It had been the power plant’s main storage area, as big as a warehouse, and it was what she was looking for.
    A lift mechanism sat in the center of the room, directly underneath a large mechanical door in the “ceiling” above. Mira assumed it was used for bringing material to and from the surface.
    The Fallout Swarm had made this room its main lair, it seemed. It was revoltingly, impossibly, densely covered with the black, oozing creatures, all swarming and contorting throughout the room, dripping from the walls, the ceiling, the floor.
    When Mira’s pulsing lantern light entered, they emitted a collective shriek of pain and anger, swarmed up and away in a shuddering wave of blackness that receded into the shadows.
    The clicking sounds were overpowering now, echoing everywhere. If the lantern were to fail … she wouldn’t last long.
    Mira’s heart raced as she moved toward a series of stacked metallic crates. They were sturdy and solid, seemed to have weathered the years well. It was a good sign. She wiped the dust off one, revealing a circular symbol divided into six yellow and black triangles pointing at a black circle in the center.
    In the World Before, it had meant radiation.
    Mira’s relief and elation were enough to make her forget about the clicking sounds filling her ears, the swarming mass of blackness trying to get to her outside her light. It was what she had risked everything for. And she had found it.
    One of the crates sat by itself, and she undid the locks on its front, yanked it open. Inside, completely dust-free, was a layer of black foam protectively holding half a dozen water-filled glass cylinders. The cylinders were full of slivers of a dull, brownish compound.
    Mira smiled at the sight. She reached for one of the canisters and pulled it free of its foam. At the same time she took something else from her pack. A strange