Nemesis: Book Five

by David Beers

  Briten looked to her, the blue of his eyes deeper than that of his aura, and standing out like lights in the night. "It means that I'm fully aware."

  "And what about them out there?"

  "They're unaware. They'll remain unaware for a while, as long as I did."

  "Are they helpless?" Rigley said, yet not turning to reference them, unable to take her eyes from his.

  "Somewhat, yes. The longer they're alive, the less helpless they'll grow, and their auras will protect them to some degree no matter what. But yes, right now they need protection." He broke eye contact and went back to staring at his kin.

  "How long will she be down? Morena?"

  "I don't know."

  Rigley kept staring for a few more seconds, and unsure what to do, turned back to the yard. She didn't want to believe she was here, looking at this or standing next to the creature beside her. Because the aliens in the yard, their eyes all focused on him. Before, they stared mindlessly ahead, as if unable to focus on anything.

  And now, they stared at him the way a dog does a piece of food—almost ravenously.

  "I need to know what they're capable of," he said. "I need to know everything you can tell me about them, what they're likely to do next, and what type of weaponry they'll use."

  Rigley nodded. "When?"

  She wanted this. She wanted to help. She wanted to keep pushing, to keep saving lives.

  Is that what you're doing?

  "We should start immediately."

  Rigley swallowed and closed her eyes. She thought the battle inside silenced for a moment during their conversation, but in the darkness of shut eyes, she realized that it wasn't leaving—that it might actually be heading toward its apex.

  Morena saw Briten staring at her. Not her child, but her lover, the one lost.

  She hadn't seen him in … well, forever. Millions of years. The last time was when she put him in the ship, when she held him, before locking herself in.

  Where had he gone? The thought came to her as she looked at her dead husband. His body wasn't in the ship when it landed. She had been alone. No answer came to the question; perhaps The Makers knew, but Morena didn't.

  And yet, here he was, his red eyes finding her through his dancing aura.

  They stood ten feet from each other, and yet Morena couldn't move. She didn't feel weary, not like after her struggle with the Earth's core—she couldn't move because …

  You're dreaming, Morena.

  Something else she left behind on Bynimian. She didn't dream as she crossed the universe. None since she arrived here either; her mind had been silent, until now.

  You can't go to him because he is no more.

  Had she lost herself? Had she forgotten about him since showing up here? She left Bynimian, if not fully, then at least partly for him. And now, she came to this planet, this Earth, and hadn't looked for him at all. She let him fade from memory as she faced the problems of colonization.

  And what of him? Did you simply stop loving him because new pressures showed up? What about when the world was nearly collapsing on your neck—did he stop loving you, or did he sacrifice himself?

  Briten blinked in front of her, a single time. He didn't move either, only stood there with his perfect body, his god-like presence.

  They tried to save her world, together. They tried to live together, forever. All of that was gone now, with only her left to carry on—and looking at him now, Morena didn't know if she wanted to. She told her mother long ago what she would do to keep him, and now he was gone.

  "I'm sorry," she said, her voice barely escaping her lips. "I'm so sorry."

  Because he was dead, and she only saw a memory now; because she had let him go.

  "Please forgive me…."

  She stood and stared, for a long time, refusing to turn away and yet unable to go forward—all of her aching.

  5

  Rigley's Mind

  The paintbrush faced the floor, with red blood dripping to the white floor every few seconds. Sam squawked behind Rigley, an angry, hateful sound. None of the fun he possessed before. Rigley didn't feel much fun was left in this room; she certainly didn't feel that it contained the same qualities as when she first arrived: safety, security, a sense of home.

  The wall in front of her was a dark red, the color of dried blood. Yet, she couldn't quite see what she created; no matter how she turned her head or how far she moved forward or backward, the image appeared to be no more than a blob of red. Yet that wasn't what she had painted, and she knew it, even if she couldn't remember what it had been.

  "SHUT UP!" she screamed at the bird behind her. If Sam heard her, he didn't care; his incessant bleating continued.

  A large drop of sweat rolled down her forehead, caught briefly on her eyebrow, and then spilled to the floor, landing a few inches from the drying blood.

  It's hot.

  She hadn't thought about the temperature in here (Is that right? Didn't you notice the floor warming a little while ago?), but now it felt pressing. Because the room was heating up, and all she had to do was look at her sweat on the floor to understand that.

  Where's a thermostat?

  She turned from the painting, forgetting it for the moment, and searched the walls for something that could turn down the temperature. The room was huge, but she scanned the whole thing quickly. Nothing. Only the white light looking back at her, though it had lost the calm of before. Now it looked like the white, glaring light she might have seen in an interrogation room. All the beauty gone.

  She looked to her left at the bird.

  Was it smiling at her?

  Its beak open and it finally silent, staring right at her. Marks' face beneath a tattered mass of flesh, pink sticking out every which way, the tan skin nearly nonexistent.

  She needed to get out of here. She didn't know exactly why, but she felt it the same as she felt the heat starting to wrap around her. Rigley couldn't see the door anywhere, the room so long it seemed more like a corridor now.

  She felt her heart pounding in her chest. Her breath coming a bit heavier.

  Don't panic.

  "Don't panic," she said as if the words spoken aloud could hold off the terror rising around her.

  "PANIC!" Sam screeched.

  Rigley jumped, the sound louder than anything the bird made before. She turned fully to it, and Sam dropped his beak into the skull's flesh beneath him. He tossed it up like a pelican and swallowed the bloody meat in one gulp.

  She backed another step away and quickly glanced down the room.

  Just go, she thought. You'll find the exit.

  6

  Present Day

  "There aren't a lot of options."

  Knox watched as the new President leaned back in his chair. Probably not the one he was used to. Knox doubted anyone had time to gather the chairs from his office and bring them down here before the lava poured down on his furniture.

  "The last plane we sent in dropped from the sky, and clearly bombs don't have an effect," Knox said.

  This President was quieter, different than the now deceased President Hayley.

  "Troops?" Trone said. Albert Trone. What a name.

  "You know what happened the last time, right?"

  Trone nodded.

  "But the ice, that was working, right?"

  Knox nodded. Worked great until the fucking bitch decided to create a traveling volcano. Now, all those men lay under layers of the white cake—if anything remained at all, if the molten core hadn't melted their very teeth.

  "Well, that's where we have to go. We have to figure out a way to use more cold."

  "And what if she brings more of that lava up?"

  "If she brings up anymore, I don't think we'll have to worry about her. The core isn't inexhaustible."

  "True," Knox said, looking away as he thought.

  The problem wasn't that he didn't want men to die. He knew they would die. War's only creation was death, nothing else, and he understood that as w
ell as any man to ever live. The problem was, he didn't want to send them to certain death.

  "What other choice do I have?" he whispered, not realizing he spoke aloud.

  "What?"

  "Nothing," Knox said, snapping his attention back. "We can use ice, but it's going to be tough. It's not winter in Georgia, and if we drop it from a plane, it's going to be water by the time it lands."

  The Vice President (President, he's the President now) nodded and kept staring directly at Knox.

  "Then we send troops in, just like we did before, but more of them. The entire military."

  Knox nodded, knowing that was the only thing they could do.

  "We'll have help," Trone said. "I'm about to be on a call with basically the entire UN. We'll have unlimited men once they understand what's happening."

  "Are they going to believe us, about the ice?"

  "If they don't, they'll find out soon when they try some of the things we already have."

  "We're going to allow foreign armies on our soil?" Knox said. It was unheard of, a tactic that third world countries used.

  "There aren't a lot of options," Trone said, repeating Knox's words.

  More truth. Foreign armies on American soil beat annihilation. And that's what they were dealing with here. Not a human war, not we install a government when we bomb your place to rubble. This was it. The Final Solution, only instead of Hitler's focused genocide, this time it would encompass the entire human race.

  "Yes, sir," Knox said. "I'll start making our preparations."

  "Good. Other generals are flying in now, and should be here within the hour," Trone said.

  Somehow this man reminded Knox of Marks. He was too calm right now, leaning back in his chair with hands folded in his lap. And Knox, the one who had been to war, seen body parts scattered around grass like Easter eggs, felt the end in the pit of his stomach.

  "Sir, how are you so calm right now?" Knox said, discarding propriety.

  Trone didn't say anything immediately, only held that hundred yard gaze.

  "I suppose," he said, "I've been waiting for this opportunity for a while."

  "Excuse me?"

  "You're not a politician, General Knox. We … all have dreams, I guess. The ultimate being the seat I'm now in. The Presidency. I've prepared my whole life for this, and I don't plan on squandering the opportunity we have. We're going down in history as the men who saved the human race."

  Knox nodded, unsure how to respond. Politicians … he always thought they were scum, but he understood now. The man was calm because at least part of him wanted this to happen. A part of him wanted this threat under his watch, because in the end, they all want glory. Trone had never seen war, so he couldn't understand what it meant. He hadn't seen the alien's power, so he didn't understand the threat. Instead what he saw now was opportunity, a chance for him to make his mark on history.

  Knox wasn't stunned. Nothing in this affair could stun him any longer.

  "Yes, sir," Knox said.

  Even now, Will watched Marks smile. A cage trapping him just like a rat, and yet he stared directly at Will's catatonic body with that million dollar grin.

  Will had stared at Marks for the past two hours, unable to do anything else. The alien was done here, Will felt that completely; she was no longer interested in Marks, but Will couldn't regain control. So he sat and stared, and Marks stared right back at him, blinking every now and then, but otherwise still and silent.

  And then, as if struck by an idea from heaven, Marks spoke.

  "Can you hear me?"

  Only silence answered him.

  "I think you can. I think you're the same as the kids you found out there. I don't think she murders you, just kind of pushes you to the side. Is that right?"

  Marks stood up, lifting his arms into the air so that his fingers nearly touched the top of the cage. He stretched for a solid five seconds and then walked forward, closer to Will.

  "I have a pretty decent plan lined up, though I don't think you're going to play a part in it, unfortunately. The difference between us, Will, besides the obvious intelligence factor, is that I'm indispensable. The world will spin without you, but if I step out, as I've done now, everything will come to a halt very quickly."

  He looked to the door across the room.

  "They don't realize it yet, that's why I'm in here. I never liked the sitting President. He didn't understand my indispensability, and when he didn't, none of his administration could either. So I took care of two things at once; I killed Hayley, and now I get to show them that they can't live without me. I don't mean that in a hyperbolic sense; they're going to discover quite quickly that everyone on this planet will die if I'm not let out of this cage and given control."

  Marks quit talking and his words hung in Will's brain like light from a dirty bulb. The light didn't reveal Marks' whole plan because dirt clouded much of it, but it revealed enough. Hayley dead? A Presidential assassination? And the man who did it stood in front of Will, grinning.

  "You're going to get to watch it happen. Or at least watch me leave this cage, though I doubt you'll be able to turn your head to watch me leave this room. A free man, I'm betting within five to six hours." Marks paused, and wet his lips. "What would you like to do to me, Will? I know it's something awful. Something for Rigley, perhaps? Maybe, but I think it's more about what I plan on doing for myself."

  Marks turned completely to the door. His smile vanished and he stared, looking to Will like a robot. One that was waiting, and one that would continue waiting until what it was programmed for arrived.

  Marks hadn't even cared if the alien was listening; that's how sure the fucking psycho felt.

  Will couldn't listen to it anymore. He couldn't rest inside his mind and listen to this madness. He would lose his own sanity hearing Marks talk as if he could stop this thing, as if the entire world would bend the knee to him.

  And what if they did?

  Then the world ended. No other option existed, because Marks wasn't going to walk out of this cage and try to save anyone. When he left, he would try to gain control of Morena and then the human race would cease to matter.

  Will went into himself, leaving the world behind, wanting to focus on the space he had carved out mentally. The alien left him alone for the most part, not caring one way or another what he did. And now she was gone, at least partially. His body was still locked down, but he saw nothing of her inside this place. Inside his mind.

  And what if he walked out of this mental room he'd created? What if the door wasn't locked? What if he just left? He sat in here because he felt some kind of worse punishment awaited if he tried to leave; he knew if he tried to face Morena in his own mind, he would lose. But now he felt nothing.

  Emptiness.

  The worst punishment was listening to Marks. The worst punishment was watching him walk out of this place without being able to say a word. The worst punishment was that he would die anyway, most likely listening to this madman.

  Will stood up and walked to the mental door, turning the knob.

  Will thought Kenneth Marks resembled a robot waiting, but the truth—as Kenneth Marks saw it, and what other truth mattered?—was that he waited like a serpent. Snakes wait until they're ready and everything around them is perfect, because when they snap, it's going to be once. No more.

  Kenneth Marks would snap once, and his venom would kill all opposition.

  He wanted to tell Will what he planned to do, because he knew Will now. Knew him the same as he knew Rigley. A deep connection with the human race ran through Will, and was the only thing that allowed him to do the deeds he considered awful for so long. He killed creatures from this world and others, all because in the long run he thought it meant humanity could push on for another day. Will would sacrifice anyone for that goal, including himself, even if he didn't know that yet.

  So to tell him Kenneth Marks' plan … well, it tasted delicious. Because Will would sit in that cage without any ability to
stop Kenneth Marks. He would fume and rage and look out on a world that he could no longer affect.

  Kenneth Marks wasn't lying, either. No, the world would bend their knee, and very soon.

  He stared through the cage’s bars into the open room, his mind rapidly working through formulas, ideas, and scenarios. When they came for him, which they would, begging for him to drag them out of the quicksand rising to claim their mouths, he would have the solution to his problem. Not the world's problem. The world had gone on and would continue going on whether or not humanity walked across it; Kenneth Marks would have the leverage to bend this alien when the President came and asked for help.

  The solution wasn't easy though. Indeed, Kenneth Marks had been thinking on it for two days now, by far the longest time he had spent on any problem. He had six hours left, at the outside, and then they would be here. He didn't feel pressure, exactly, but he knew the risk he took by killing Hayley would only work if, when they came, he had something for them. His plan would solidify his place in this worldly hierarchy. But if he didn't have anything?

  Then he would meet his death. Probably sooner than the rest of the world met theirs, as well. Those were his options, the corner he put himself in. He liked it though, in all honesty, couldn't be much happier given everything around him. He wasn't scared of death; but Kenneth Marks enjoyed life too much to die, and so he stared out of the cage's tiny bars and let his brain take over.

  7

  Present Day

  Is this where it ends? Briten thought as he looked out at Morena's creation.

  He put the car in park and looked out the windshield at the continuously growing white land. Briten hadn't seen anything like it before, but understood intuitively that this was Morena, that he had nearly reached her. How far had he traveled, all in hope that he could see her again? How many years had passed; how many people had died?

  All of it almost countless.