by David Beers
He certainly had plans for Rigley.
So either she left now, or she risked never leaving.
She couldn't see the white growth, the cake as they were calling it, without binoculars, but she knew she would find it soon enough. It was coming to her just as she would come to it. She didn't have a plan as to how she would deal with the cake, but she hoped that the creature in the tent listened when Rigley spoke. She hoped that the creature would make a way.
Rigley walked into the parking lot, feeling her pocket for keys. They were still there, where she put them before going into the tent. She didn't slow down, but went straight to the Humvee she took the keys from. She checked the back seat again, making sure that the hazmat suit was still there. She didn't know how far out the white cake had spread exactly, and whether or not the neutron bomb would stretch to its frontier, but she wouldn't risk having her flesh rot off before she got the chance to talk to the creature.
Rigley stepped into the Humvee and put the keys in the ignition.
No one said a word as she left the camp, intent on committing treason.
19
Present Day
Knox didn't care what Marks said to the President, not outside of any peripheral effects it would have on Knox's operation. If the conversation did somehow derail what Knox wanted to do, he would simply make the leap and get in touch with the President himself. There wasn't time for dealing with Marks and his wants anymore.
Knox stared down at multiple tablets in front of him, all of them together creating a tapestry of the land outside. The advance he saw didn't quite make him speechless, but it was close. He certainly didn't say anything when he first saw the images. He stood next to his direct reports looking at the scene, and wondering how in God's name they would deal with it. Knox didn't know if it was possible, but the radiation might have sped the whole process up. When the sun went down last night, the white cake was only beginning to stretch outside of Gwinnett County.
It took days to do that.
Now, looking at the state of Georgia, Knox saw that the white cake had nearly reached the Alabama border—and was quickly making gains on Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Knox couldn't see for sure, but it looked like the cake was actually spreading into the ocean. Simply leaving the land and going beneath the water, into the Atlantic Ocean.
His camp would need to retreat again today, would need another fifty miles between it and the growth. Many would fall back, but some would go forward too.
"We're going to start killing this shit today," Knox said, his hands on the table and his eyes still assessing the situation.
"How so?"
Knox looked up, knowing who spoke before he saw him. Marks stood behind the circle of men around the table, had walked in without being noticed. Had stood silently, watching everyone… for how long? They must have been looking at this thing for three or four minutes, no one speaking, but just taking it all in. Had he watched them? Because he certainly wasn't impressed by anything on the table. He kept his hands folded behind his back, and that goddamn smile across his face.
Knox broke eye contact, looking back down at the table.
"We're going to surround it, like we did before. The perimeter is large now, nearly as large as the state itself. The creature won't be able to patrol the entire area." Knox had been thinking about something, but he was nearly scared to mention it, especially with Marks standing there. Amongst his own men, they could brainstorm, and even stupidity wouldn't be discarded immediately. Here, with Marks, the magnifying glass shone on every one of them.
It doesn't matter what he thinks anymore. You have a job to do.
"I want to try the opposite of everything we've tried so far. I want to try ice on it." He nodded. The words felt okay out of his mouth now, not stupid, not silly. "We can't use fire. We can't use radiation. Tanks are going to be useless against the growth. Ice though, might retard its spread. The entire thing stems from a hole that travels to the Earth's core. It thrives on heat. So let's see what it can do against the cold."
"How does that look, sir?" an officer said to his left.
"We wear hazmat suits, just like before, but this time we're not holding flame-throwers. We're going to pump out ice slush. And we're going to keep pumping it until that bitch shows up, the growth eats us, or it dies." Knox looked up to his men, glancing around the table. They all stared at him, and there didn't seem to be any doubt in their eyes. They were with him in this, ready to follow his orders.
Are you right?
He didn't know. He only knew that everything else they tried was useless. Everything else ended in death.
Knox looked to Marks, who stood as calmly as he had in the tent with the creature—not a hint as to what he thought.
"Let me hear what you think can go wrong before we do this."
* * *
"That's a stroke of genius," Marks said.
The tent was empty except for the two of them and the tablets still beaming up from the table.
"Thank you, sir," Knox said.
"It looks like some of the cake might be escaping out into the ocean. How do you propose to deal with that?"
Knox had thought about it, knowing that the stuff in the ocean might very well be growing at the same pace as the land.
"We'll need to involve the navy," he said.
"Oh yes. I think so as well. I just got off the phone with the President. He wasn't… happy, I suppose, would be the word to use. World leaders will have to know soon. There will be meetings. People will discuss things. They will try to come to conclusions on those things discussed. You and I, though, General Knox, are still here in the thick of it, and we must deal with what we see before us. We cannot wait for the suits in Washington to give us direction, am I right?"
Knox said nothing for a few seconds, letting the question hang in the air like a rotten smell. The man was insane, but too goddamn smart for Knox to truly read him. This was a change, a pivot in strategy. Before the plan had been top down, with Marks directing, and now it appeared that Marks would follow Knox's lead.
The General knew he now walked in a pit full of vipers, actually walked on top of them. Sooner or later, whether sleeping or drugged right now, they would wake and all descend on him at once.
Move quick, then.
"Yes, sir," he said.
"So, ice. I like it. Let's use ice and see how much of the crud we can kill. Deal?"
"Yes, sir," Knox said.
Marks nodded, looking on for a second longer than Knox liked.
As if you like him looking at you at all.
He did turn though and walk out of the tent, leaving Knox alone.
The General sighed, sounding tired to his own ears—a noise that he couldn't make with anyone else in the room.
* * *
Morena hung just below the cloud line. The sun had reached its peak, was shining down on the world beneath it. Morena relished the heat that beamed down on this planet; it would supplement the heat growing from the ground in a way that never occurred on Bynimian.
And yet, she wasn't happy right now, despite the habitability of this planet.
She looked down, to the west, and saw what the humans developed. She had listened to the man speak in the tent, to Kenneth Marks go on and on about how he would kill what mattered to her. Trite, nonsensical. Yet, the man appeared to be onto something here, if what Morena saw now was correct.
It made sense.
Was laughable, even, that she hadn't seen it before now. Had her species been one of war, certainly they would have thought up alternatives to this, but at Stage Five, they faced no threat from one another. Heat gave Bynums life and the cold would strip it from them just as easily.
They were using the cold to wipe out the strands, to push back her children.
And when Morena turned around, viewing different parts of the land she laid claim to, she saw that they had surrounded her. That they were using huge pipes to spew the cold at her, at h
er children. It would take time, she knew that, because massive amounts of heat stemmed from the core—however the edges of her boundaries were the furthest away, and thus weaker than the strands near the hole.
She felt their pain in a way she didn't know possible. She was always her species' mother, since birth, but when those Bynums died, they possessed no physical connection to her. Not so with this. Her aura ached, felt the cold chill of the ice drowning her children. She couldn't hear them, thank The Makers, because it would have been too much to bear. Both the pain and their voices, begging her for help.
The cold hadn't reached actual Bynums yet, resting in their pods. It was only a matter of time though, unless she did something. Yet looking down to the land beneath, the area they spanned was so large. The humans weren’t attacking one single spot, or using heat, which the strands could handle. They launched a massive assault, one that Morena couldn't fight by herself.
She floated down from the clouds, moving to the woods—or what had once been woods. Now a white canvas lay before her, filling with growing Bynums.
Morena walked across the strands, the pain in her aura not dissipating. She tried to ignore it, tried to focus on the task at hand, but it was constant. Nothing attacked her actual body, but her aura begged for relief, and that meant her offspring were begging as well. She didn't want to think about what she saw above, the withering white strands trying desperately to find safety, but dying as the unending cold poured across them. Shriveling, turning black.
There is work to be done, she thought. You can't help anything by fretting.
Morena heard the woman talking in the humans' camp. She didn't know everything the woman wanted, or could give, but Morena believed the lady wanted…
To help as she termed it.
Perhaps she could help against the assault. Perhaps she had knowledge that would allow Morena to create a new threat against this planet. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
She stood in front of the blue pod, the Bynum's eyes open and looking out.
The first, she thought.
She had made her mind up without knowing it. Morena realized that now. There were moments when she wanted to hurt these humans. Bryan, tearing a fingernail from his hand—though, that was necessary because it allowed her to reach this point. The Marks character; she still wanted to hurt him due to his arrogance, for the way he seemed to trash those around him, sending the other human in here knowing the danger. All for his own personal gain.
And yet, part of her sided with Chilras. Part of her had hoped that she could allow them to live, that Bynums would rule, but humans needn't die. No more. Staring at this blue aura in front of her, ripe for birth, and feeling the pain happening all around her, she understood that they would die. All of them. It didn't matter the good that she saw in Thera. They made this war and now she would kill them. If she didn't, they would kill her children, and then her, and everything her species built would finally end.
It's time, she thought. The reason she came down here, to witness.
It started at the top.
The pod opened in a small circle, and a wisp of blue shot out, licking the air like a flame. The circle grew, spreading across the top of the pod, and then falling down, opening the Bynum inside to the world around it.
The ache faded, not in reality, but Morena's awareness of it. Her mind focused on the creature before her. On the first birth of what would become a new world for her entire species—those lost millions of years ago. Even Chilras, this was for her. Because despite what happened between them, Morena wouldn't deny that Chilras cared for Bynimian, cared for it even if in a different way than Morena. This was for everyone that died, and she would bear witness for all of them.
She wept as her child came into the world.
20
A Long Time Ago, in Another Place
Morena kept her aura close, nearly wrapped around her like a cocoon. She wanted no one to see her; the green was unmistakable. She didn't know how much of the world knew about what happened at her execution, but certainly The Council was aware. If they caught her now, she would need to kill again—and she didn’t want that.
Enough killing had taken place.
Her husband lay in a ship, his aura barely surviving. A room full of dead Bynums sat merely clicks away from Morena. She would leave; she would take Briten with her and maybe live somewhere else, at some other time. Maybe, or maybe they would float forever in an endless dark space. Either way, she didn't want to kill more Bynums. They were all innocent, all lied to, and now all searching for her and Briten.
She only had one last thing to do here, and then she would leave as quietly as possible.
Morena knew Veral would hide, that his bravado only existed when Chilras stood by him, while Morena sat locked inside a cage.
She thought she had found him though.
The structure was bare, the outside walls a plain, nondescript white. The building held no transparent parts; the yard was bare without any Solarity coming from the ground. An old building with no purpose any longer. Morena thought it once was used as a training facility for The Games, but that had been centuries ago. Now it was empty, yet not torn down.
Veral was inside, hiding from his fate.
It took her a while to find him, forcing her Knowledge in a way that she hadn’t before. Through sheer will, she demanded her Knowledge search out this single Bynum, and after wasting precious hours she thought she had a lock on him.
She stood on the bare walkway leading to a gray door. The building held no windows, no way for the athletes that used to train to look out and dream about doing something leisurely. Veral liked it, probably, because no one could see in—but he couldn't see out either.
Morena tried to force her Knowledge inside the building, but not even a dull image came back to her. She had exhausted her Knowledge’s capability, leaving Morena on her own with nothing to do but go inside. She didn't know how many other Bynums were inside, nor what weapons they might possess. She didn't want to harm anyone else, no one but Veral. Morena couldn’t turn around, though. She risked her husband's death, and whatever life they may have together, to come here. She wasn't leaving without the Assistant. No more time, for anyone involved. All three of them had reached their existence’s end on Bynimian, and Morena bore the responsibility of taking them away.
Her head down, she went to the door, her aura attuned to everything around her, every small happening that it could pick up. She would know if anyone walked on this small street besides her, would know if someone saw her, if they made any kind of movement.
She reached the door and paused for a moment. She brought her aura in closer, so close that it hovered maybe an inch off her flesh. She placed her hand on the door, her aura moving slightly into the white structure, communicating with it, and then it vanished—leaving an opening to the building.
Morena stepped in, looking across a long, long, empty room.
Empty except for him. For Veral.
No other Assistants occupied the room. No other Bynums at all. No weapons. Only him, sitting in a corner, his own aura plastered behind him against the wall, trying to get as far away from Morena as it could.
The door reformed behind Morena.
"Why didn't you go to The Council?" she said. She was genuinely confused at why he came here to hide, why he surrounded himself with no one.
Veral swallowed. Gone was the confidence of before; never again would he call her by her name instead of her title. "They're walled off. They think… you're coming for them."
"You knew better though, didn't you?" Morena whispered as her aura spread out around her, moving both forward and backward, revealing the power that rested inside her.
Veral's legs came to his chest and he slowly pushed himself up against the wall. "Please," he said. "You don't have to do this. You don't."
Morena moved forward. "Don't beg. It's beneath an Assistant."
"YOU WERE GOING TO KILL THEM!" he screamed at her, his voice rippin
g through the room like a squawking bird.
"They were going to kill us all," Morena whispered, moving closer to him. "They still will. Except for you and I. We're going to live, Veral."
He shook his head in short, quick movements.
"Yes, we are. You see, we can't stay here anymore. We'd most certainly be caught and killed. Escape is the only way we live. Do you know how we're going?"
"No," he said. "No, please don't. Let me go. PLEASE LET ME GO!"
Morena smiled, the hatred for him rearing up in her and her aura—this man was the reason for Briten, the reason her husband lay still, barely breathing, his aura a pale shade of what it once was. "We're all leaving in a ship. Briten and I in one, and you in another. We'll float forever. Doesn't that sound nice?"
She reached him, his yellow aura climbing the wall behind him, trying to leave in a way that he couldn't. It looked like someone threw paint up against the wall, recklessly—but no one besides Veral controlled his aura; it fed off his fear.
"PLEASE!" he shouted again, standing up and trying to scatter himself against the wall as well—as if he could somehow move right through it.
"I told you that whatever befell us would befall you too, Veral."
21
Present Day
Michael Hems stood before a god.
He didn't know any other way to term it, any other way to view what looked down on him.
The poison had entered Michael's veins, but at the same time, part of him must have been flowing into the creature. Michael didn’t inhabit his own body right now, but he wasn’t in the creature's either. He resided in some middle ground. Some place between both.