by David Beers
Go on, she thought. Go on and get this part of your life over with. You press that button and Kenneth Marks dies, at least to you. You push that button and you're free. Stop thinking about it and make it so. You'll come out the other side of this perfectly.
Rigley looked down at the five letters: E-N-T-E-R.
She reached forward and pressed the button.
* * *
Kenneth Marks didn't look at the screen, didn't look at anyone else in the entire room. He didn't care if the goddamn plane dropped the bomb, at least not in that singular moment. His whole world, in that moment, was Rigley Plasken.
And as her hand moved down, her face didn't change. Kenneth Marks saw it all in nearly slow-motion glory, or what should have been glory, but the change didn't occur. At that moment, when her finger touched the key, when her muscles extended just the tiniest bit of force, he should have seen her face twist. Should have seen the physical representation of wires inside her head overheating, breaking, fusing with those they shouldn't.
Instead, she pressed the button, and then simply put her hand to her side, watching the computer screen to see if anything happened.
People surrounded Kenneth Marks, perhaps a hundred. The inner circle contained he and Rigley, then Knox and Jenna, and outside that all of Knox's men. They all stared at the screen, stared at Kenneth Marks, stared at Rigley.
He was the only one not staring forward. Because he stared at Rigley.
And everything, all the planning, all the thought, slipped from his fingers, the same as sand through a strainer. All lost in a single moment.
The emotions that had commanded Kenneth Marks to dance around the room died. A cold, cold rage swept through him. Not a muscle in his body moved, no inkling as to what occurred inside him showed—but in that moment, he decided he would kill her in the most painful way imaginable. He decided to flay Rigley. He would peel back her skin while she looked on, starting with her extremities. He would take his time. He would do it over days, making sure that she didn't bleed out. Moving up her body, peeling away the skin one strip at a time, trying his best to keep infection from growing, because he wanted to make her watch him peel her tits off. Wanted to feed her fucking nipple to her. And finally, when he was ready to let her die, he would peel her face right off her fucking skull, so she was nothing but a goddamn meat statue.
That would be fun.
Not as much fun as what she just took from him—stealing his dry run from him at the moment of ecstasy—but enjoyable, certainly. She owed him that, now, even if she didn't realize it. There had been an agreement here, one that she knew about even if only subconsciously. Kenneth Marks allowed her career to blossom, all the while knowing that she would break—and she had to fucking know it too. Her mental state was never created to withstand what Kenneth Marks put on it. And now, when the time came for her to pay up, she welched.
He saw her in his mind, raw, bleeding, and screaming. That image was the only thing that kept Kenneth Marks from losing his mind.
He had to wait, though. He couldn't do it now—God, no, not with all these people around him. But when this ended, she would understand how bad she just fucked up. She would see and see and see.
15
Present Day
Kenneth Marks turned to the flat computer screens in front of him.
He had to let go of Rigley for right now, mentally at least. He wasn't letting her out of his sight, not until she was a bleeding hump of flesh—but right now he needed to focus on the aftermath of the bomb.
The plane dropped it without any problems, no crash landing, no more dead soldiers. But this bomb didn't come with an explosion; it dispersed in the air, cascading down until death reached everything under it. So they had to wait for answers.
Kenneth Marks' pocket vibrated, going on and on in endless repetition. The President, wanting an update. Because his screens showed the same things as Kenneth Marks'. Something in the town wasn’t giving any visibility. Nothing changed, only the day to night, while the underlying town continued looking the exact same as two days ago—though anyone with binoculars knew it wasn't possible. Grayson was a twisted nest of white cake.
Kenneth Marks reached into his pocket, not taking his eyes from the screen in front of him, and answered the phone.
"Yes, sir."
"We can't see anything from here, Marks. What are you able to see?"
"The same thing, basically," Kenneth Marks said. "It's inconclusive yet, though."
"And how long before you have something conclusive? What about the high powered binoculars, what are they showing you?"
Kenneth Marks looked at the tent's opening where Knox stood with binoculars to his eyes. He'd been standing there for two minutes or so, not moving, and Kenneth Marks knew everything he needed to from that fact. He stood there staring because there wasn't any point in turning around. What they just dropped hadn't had any effect, that's what Kenneth Marks guessed from where he sat.
"It's too dark right now to know for sure. Can you give me until six to have an answer?"
The president said nothing for a few seconds.
"I'm going on the television at seven tomorrow morning. I've got to address the whole goddamn nation. I want to know what's going on when I walk off that stage; I don't want to know before I go on, because it's not going to change anything they've written; it'll just make me look like I'm lying. When I’m done speaking at eight, you better have me some answers."
"Yes, sir," Kenneth Marks said, still staring at Knox.
He dropped the phone back into his pocket. He wanted to see what Knox saw, because if Kenneth Marks was right, then his plan for the creature in the other room would change drastically. If radiation didn't kill any of it, then what could? No fire. No radiation. They would be completely immune to attack.
He raced through the possibilities, trying to understand where they all ended.
Not good for humanity. That was certain. They could go down different routes, but in the end, without any offense, they couldn't survive this.
But that really didn't matter, did it?
Kenneth Marks wasn't overly concerned with the human race. He used the bomb to threaten the creature, to scare it into taking him on as an apprentice of sorts. Now, though, if what he thought he saw was accurate, that plan was gone.
He straightened up and walked over to where Knox stood.
* * *
Rigley watched as Marks moved away from her and across the room to Knox. The General walked away from the computer bank a few seconds after she hit the enter key, knowing that they wouldn't see anything from the screens. Rigley still stood in front of them though. Waiting.
Marks said something to Knox and the binoculars passed to him.
She heard what he told the president, that everything was inconclusive, but she didn't believe that for a second. Rigley saw the way Marks walked to Knox, and the way Knox didn't even turn when he arrived. He stood there staring out into the night, staring at whatever those binoculars brought him. Marks might be able to hide his emotions right now, whether or not things had gone the way he wanted. Knox though? No way. No human, no one normal, could keep his emotions hidden if something good happened here. They were trying to save the fucking human species, after all. Rigley knew she wasn't on the same level as Marks when it came to brains, but that didn't mean she couldn't read tea leaves.
Rigley smiled, standing there with maybe a hundred people behind her, all of them looking at the same screens. She smiled, looking at the two men’s backs who had hoped the bomb would kill everything they now looked at. She smiled, because she had hoped the exact opposite. She hoped that it would all survive, because her penance was over now. She owed nothing else to Marks. She did as he willed, and if it survived, she was gone—heading back into that town to do what no one here would, to create a world where everyone could live together.
And do you think she's going to want a symbiotic world now? After your kind just tried to kill her off? And what a
bout the white cake, does that stuff look like it wants a union with anything, or does it look like it wants to spread at everything else's expense?
The thought flared like a match, bright and hot, but she killed it quickly with a single breath. Nonsense. She did her part. She did Marks' bidding. No more problems awaited her now. No more negative thoughts, no more wondering if she had made the right choice. She knew what to do; she saw it clear in her mind and nothing would turn her from it. Everything that didn't coincide with that would have to cease existing.
She stepped away from the screen and walked over to the silent men staring out of the tent into the black night.
"What do you see?" she said, speaking loud enough for Marks and Knox to hear her.
No one answered, and Rigley's smile grew larger. A part of her knew that to smile right now, to be seen smiling, could be dangerous—but she couldn't help it. Neither of the men turned around to look at her; they were concerned with what lay outside. Concerned… what a grand word.
"How long is that radiation supposed to hold its potency?" Rigley asked.
* * *
Kenneth Marks heard the question, and it brought him away from his focus on the land in front of him.
She wanted to know how long the radiation would have its hold on Grayson? On Georgia?
What the hell did that matter to her? Why could she possibly care about the half-life?
"Why?" Kenneth Marks said, not removing the binoculars from his eyes.
"Just wondering," the answer came back.
He would deal with Rigley soon, but right now he had to deal with what he saw outside. Not good was an understatement. Nothing had changed; twenty minutes into the radiation's fall, and everything he saw looked as pristine as six hours ago. He saw no rotting, no twisting, no cancerous growth on any of the white strands he saw through the binoculars. He knew that by now the radiation would have reached the outer limits of Gwinnett county. There should have been some changes in the molecular structure of the strands. The neutron bomb's greatness stemmed from its initial strength, combined with its half-life. It killed everything it touched, and then allowed conquering armies to walk in without ever having fired a single shot. It wasn't used in actual war because of the message it would send to the rest of the world: don't fuck with us.
Yet none of that was happening. Even now, the radiation's power was weakening rapidly, and it would only continue with each passing second.
He bought himself a few hours with the President, but what about with the creature in the other room, the one possessing Will's body? He hadn’t bought a single minute with her; in fact, he had probably lost time—a lot of it. He threatened her, and then failed miserably on his threat.
Kenneth Marks handed the binoculars back to Knox, who had said nothing to him the entire time they stood next to each other. He knew as well as Kenneth Marks what this meant, at least when it came to humanity's safety. None existed. They lost this war tonight. He could think of other options, an atom bomb, all out warfare. Things would be brought up and tried, of course. Humanity wouldn't simply roll over and let this white growth walk over their prostrate bodies, but….
"It doesn't look good," Knox said.
Kenneth Marks nodded. Indeed, General. It doesn't. In fact, this might be the worst look that any human has ever seen.
Laughter started behind him. Laughter that didn't sound human, but yet no other animal on Earth had the ability to laugh. It sounded forced, as if coming from strange vocal chords that had never tried to perform such an action before. Kenneth Marks knew immediately that it didn’t stem from this tent. No one in this room would make such a sound. They wouldn't laugh like that, and they wouldn't laugh with the current silence pinning everyone's thoughts down. No, the laughter came from another tent, echoing its way into this one. The laughter came from Will's mouth, from vocal chords controlled by another being, one that couldn't exactly imitate the creature it possessed.
Kenneth Marks needed to go to her. That laughter was his cue. She knew what he now knew, that what he just tried had no impact, and she was telling him that. By laughing at him. And what would he say to her? Because laughing was out of the question. Bravado, confidence—all of it gone with this single move. And yet, Kenneth Marks wasn't finished. He wanted her, wanted what she possessed, and there had to be a way for him to get it.
He turned around and walked past Rigley. His eyes caught her smile, registered it with his brain, but he had no time for her. Her importance, outside of her gruesome death, was finished.
16
Present Day
Morena saw the man standing in front of her, Kenneth Marks. She wasn't going to speak to him though; instead, she kept Will's throat laughing into the surrounding room. The man could talk as much as he wanted, but he knew as well as she did that his little game was over. Morena had no interest in talking to him. She just wanted him to hear that she knew what had happened.
Which was absolutely nothing.
These humans used primitive weapons, typical of a Stage Two species. In Stage Three, a species usually learned to adapt to radiation, as it is necessary for survival purposes. Bynums were Stage Five, and no amount of radiation would harm any of her children. Kenneth Marks knew that now, or at least he should.
She watched the radiation fall. Humans couldn't see it; they didn't possess the necessary rods inside their eyes. But Morena could. The beauty stretched across the sky, like an infinite number of tiny stars falling on the land, lighting up the entire night. It fell directly on Morena, and she watched as her aura lit up briefly with the gold flakes. The radiation faded quickly, and she realized that it had been a high dosage, meant to kill immediately, but allow for humans to come through soon after.
Even the plant growth beneath the strands would be unharmed—the bomb hurt nothing in Grayson.
Kenneth Marks was clearly disappointed. Maybe Morena would drop in and say hi when she finished—drop in as herself and see how he was holding up. She thought she might like toying with him; his arrogance was such a nuisance. The other humans she came in contact with, all of them recognized the difference between her and them immediately, and it created a sense of respect, of fear. Even when Thera tried to stop Morena, it hadn't been with any sense of equality. This man though, he somehow thought that he was owed something.
There's not time for this now, she thought. Morena knew there wasn't; it was just that the man seriously annoyed her.
She stood near the core, a hundred feet from the massive hole opening up into the lava beneath. The heat had burned everything, charred earth lay underneath all the whites strands growing from the core. The trees had been leveled. The animals unlucky enough to be caught in the heat were now ash as well. Morena dared venture no closer than this, because even her aura wouldn't protect her from the danger below.
She needn't go any closer, though. She stood in front of what she wanted to see.
It was an interesting thing, how birth worked for Bynums. It felt normal to her, of course, but after meeting humans, and understanding their process, it seemed… advanced?
Humanity relied on only one source for reproduction, the union of a sperm and egg. It created a need, an imperative, that two humans always exist—one of each sex. If only one human ever remained, their species had no chance of survival. Thus why their society wasn't such an obvious matriarchy as Bynimian had been. Because the Var was mother, the Var was the only being which had the power to continue the species. And yet, reproduction could occur in other ways as well. The sperm and egg still existed for Bynums, if union was reached differently.
As long as a Var existed, though, Bynums had a chance at survival.
And now she looked at their survival full on. No one outside of this town could see what Morena did, and that was good. Because the danger came next. All the rest had been a lead up to this point, to the actual birth of Bynums.
Before her stood a capsule with the palest blue swirling inside. The capsule was the same size as
her, the first one to have grown out of the white strands. The first of her children, here, ready to be born onto this strange world. It would be the same size as her, would have an aura—a pale blue one, nearing the color of white—but it would have none of the knowledge or skills that Morena possessed. Radiation wouldn't hurt the male she looked at now, but a bullet? A missile? Yes. He would have no ability to protect himself from such things. And this was only the first one. Many, many more were coming and Morena had to find a way to protect them all.
She saw the Bynum's eyes, the same pale blue as his aura, staring out at her. Soon, minutes maybe, the capsule would deteriorate and this beautiful child's aura would expand out into the world, tasting strange air—air that no other Bynum besides Morena had ever tasted.
This is what you wanted. This was the reason for everything that happened on Bynimian. So that you could see your species survive. Briten might have died for this. Now comes the hard part, the part Chilras couldn't handle. The part the whole Council couldn't handle. You have to handle it alone. You have to be willing to make sure this Bynum lives, no matter what. That all his brethren live. No matter what.
She would need to name him.
What would this first Bynum be named? What would be fitting?
But the answer was clear, and needed no argument from any piece of her. She would name her first child after her husband. Briten.
* * *
Wren Hems was doing the same thing that much of the rest of the world was doing. He held a remote and his eyes focused on the television in front of him. This television resided in Tennessee, but that didn't matter. Wren didn't think it mattered where you were anymore. As long as you weren't in Georgia, you were most likely doing the same thing as everyone else. At least in America. You were watching the news, trying to understand how bad the situation was in Georgia.