by David Beers
Click. The screen turned to a map of the town, showing a satellite view of houses and streets.
"The two kids are missing. Three of the four parents are missing as well, though the last one is being accounted for now. Those are superfluous issues though. Our job here is to find those two infected humans, and eliminate them. This map is your guide. You'll see the red x; that's where it landed, though nothing’s there right now but blackened earth. Every piece of this map needs to be examined, and as you know, we'll be able to track where you're at so that we understand what ground still has to be covered."
Will saw the door opening in the back of the room, stopping his speech. He didn't know who would be entering or why one of his men would let them in, but whoever it was wouldn't see anything besides the map behind him until Will laid eyes on them.
Rigley Plasken.
She had come. How long had it been since they saw each other in person? How long since she stepped out into the field? And, God, look at her. It was almost a different person than the one he'd known before, than the one that showed up in Bolivia. She was thin, her face wearing lines of stress that nobody under fifty should own.
A few men in chairs were turning around, following his eyes to see who had entered. They knew who she was, the same as they knew him. She was the voice that called. She was the voice that directed. She was, to these men, the voice that seemed to understand and know all. Will did the job, but this woman created the jobs.
"I want to talk about what's expected out of you," he said, interrupting their stares and open mouths, bringing the room's attention back to the podium. "This is not a nuke and pave mission. However, it's understood that certain people might need to be eliminated for various reasons. I leave that to your discretion. Remember that word, discretion. We're here and we're going to kill that fucking thing, but we're going to do our best to not be seen while we're doing it."
* * *
"Came all the way down, huh?" Will said, opening the door to his motel room. The lights were on and the bed still made up. He took his coat off and threw it over the chair to his right. He turned around and sat down on the bed, leaning back on his hands and looking at Rigley.
"Your plan is to search the whole town?" She asked, her face looking like a cord that has been stretched too far, the internal binds ready to break soon if the pulling doesn't stop.
"I'm not sure there's any other way to do it, Rigley," Will said. He purposely measured his voice, not wanting to show any emotion. That's the last thing this woman needed. Emotion right now would be like grabbing that cord with two hands and yanking as if in a tug-of-war battle. Will was nervous, was thinking that this whole thing would leave him dead and perhaps the whole division he worked for, but he still thought his skin looked like a newborn babe compared to Rigley.
She moved to the chair that he had tossed his coat over, picking it up and placing it on the small, round table. She sat down, facing him, and leaned her elbows on the table. "There has to be something else, Will. There has to be. We can't just send that fucking group marching through the goddamn town hoping that they find this thing somewhere."
Will looked at her, not speaking, not sure what to say. She wanted there to be another way, but there wasn't. Not without alerting the entire world. And they could do that, but it wasn't the way things had ever been handled.
"We can bring in helicopters and martial law, but other than that, it's this or the hammer," he said finally.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," she said, dropping her eyes to the table. "This is wrong. We shouldn't have gone about it this way; we're not going to find this thing. The place is too big. Should we bring in more men?"
"Rigley, let us try this for a few hours. Let's see what they turn up. We've used this technique before and it's worked; that's why I'm using it now."
He watched her stare down at the table, and an odd feeling that he had never before felt with Rigley came over him. He pitied her. Rigley Plasken, harbinger of discipline, now a recipient of such an emotion. He realized in that moment that he had respected Rigley. He never thought about it before, working with her when he was needed, but bouncing from country to country on an almost yearly basis. She wasn't weak though, and maybe that was his own chauvinistic bias, but it said a lot to him given her gender. You didn't see a lot of women in this line of work, and one to rise as fast and sure as she did was someone to respect.
Now, looking at her staring at this ratty motel table, he realized she was done. He'd seen it before, but most times people realized they were finished. Rigley didn't. She couldn't let go, couldn't believe that her mind was rejecting the pressure. She was hanging over a canyon, gripping a rope that she didn't realize had already been cut. The wind she felt rushing around her wasn't her hanging in the open air; it was her falling to her death.
"Hey," he said, trying to soften his voice some. "Let's work through the day. Those guys out there, they're the best of the best. If anyone in the world can find this thing, it's them. We can still do this."
She looked over at him, her eyes squinted, seeming to search his words for some underlying meaning. Will realized she was frightened of him, frightened that he knew how far gone she was. His change in tone, that gave it away, and in that fear, her animalistic instinct came to the forefront. She had to protect herself, from him now. Because he knew.
"Rigley, I can handle this," he said. "Go get some rest; you don't have to be down here. You haven't come to a job site since the nineties. Let me work."
"Shut the fuck up, Will," she said. "I've let you work and that's why we're in this goddamn mess."
* * *
Morena learned early in her arrival that humans knew little about Earth's core. Their inability to develop tools that could dig deep enough, combined with the intense heat inside, kept them from truly knowing what happened there. Most of what they knew came from theories and models, with the little held as fact evolving from when the core erupted through volcanos.
Within thirty seconds of entering the swirling lava in the middle of Earth, the spore knew more about the planet than the entire history of mankind combined.
It entered as a ball of individual entities, all with one purpose, but that was only the first part of its life. It dropped through the final layer of rock, and instead of burning up, appeared to melt. The individual pieces stretching out amongst the molten material, and if one were to view it, almost as quickly as it appeared to be melting, one would realize it was actually growing. Each of those small white components beginning to stretch, not extremely fast, but noticeable. Each of them moving out at both ends, no longer shaped like orbs, but lines—each moving in two directions.
The spore was gone and so was its knowledge of the process. These new strands were much more mechanical, because at this point, intelligence wasn’t needed. No danger lurked inside this place; nothing could hurt them. What they needed was simple action. To grow, to stretch, so that the strands could reach across the diameter of this place.
A beacon, of sorts, went off — but again, the action was mechanical, no more than a mechanism to let whoever sent these strands here know that they had arrived and that future steps would need be taken if the job was to be finished.
Hours and hours passed of this growth, and eventually new paths grew out from the white lines, new lines that began moving in different directions.
Part of this was mapping the territory. The lines already understood that the heat here was sufficient for their purpose; growth would be impossible otherwise. They needed to understand how far across it stretched, whether there were other objects in here that needed to be accounted for. That took growth and the automatic communication between the lines.
The other part of this was preparing for what came next.
That's when the lines would change again.
Another metamorphosis.
37
A Long Time Ago, in Another Place
Morena waited until The Council called her. She wanted as much protecti
on over her actions as possible; she wanted to be able to say that she gave The Council all the time they asked for, that she worked with them in every possible way. Of course she made her preparations in case The Council decided something unwise, but that was her duty as Var. No one could blame her. No one could expect any different.
Morena played the politics of the situation, though she knew in the end, it would come down to war.
War.
That's what this was, and Morena moved through the hallway knowing she would soon be both a general and a foot soldier. Guards stood behind and next to her now, and while it wasn't exactly normal for Morena to walk the hallway with such an entourage, it wasn't uncalled for either. She was the Var and she could do as she pleased in such matters. She needed these guards for what came next, but she didn't want to arouse The Council's suspicion before it was too late for them. If they had any idea what was coming, they wouldn't show up to this meeting. They would go into hiding or begin mounting their own coalition. Truly, Morena didn't know what to expect because no one had ever attempted something like this before. The Council and the Var were supposed to be copacetic, almost interdependent on one another. Not at odds. Not like this.
Morena stopped outside of the entrance, the barrier tinted dark so that no one could see in or out. She looked down at her hands, seeing her aura. It was still strong. She was still strong. She had to do this, because if she didn't, everything she loved, everything she had been born for, would end. There wasn't any other choice, even if this all rested on her shoulders. Had she chosen a different husband, someone other than Briten, someone other than a Lorn, The Council might have listened.
Those were all memories that she couldn't change. They mattered not now. She had to perform her duty.
She stepped through the barrier, her guards following in tandem. She walked forward and they spread out to her left and right, their faces solemn, their weapons in hand. It was all for show, guards like this. The Var need never fear for her life and Bynimian had never been to war. These people were here to showcase her power as The Council tried to tell her that they would not move forward with Briten's advice. That's what Morena hoped they took from this.
The six of them sat above her, in the same semi-circle, raised platform she had sat in when Briten presented. Chilras was in the middle, the Hindran obviously prepared to be the leader in this ordeal. She would enjoy it too, Morena thought. She would enjoy this slap in Morena's face, would enjoy showing her how bad her choice of a husband had been. This would be Morena's punishment for spoiling the Var's bloodline.
"Thank you for coming, Var," Chilras said. She didn't smile, but spoke with a stone's emotion.
"Thank you for inviting me," Morena responded.
"You have brought quite the crowd to hear us speak."
"I believe that sometimes a crowd is necessary, depending on what is to be said."
"Very well, then," Chilras said. "We have looked through your husband's data and have decided that more research should be done. We want different eyes on this, and we want to test other theories out besides the mathematical proofs he made. We want to make sure that just because the theory says it is impossible, that reality doesn't tell us different."
Morena looked down. Here was the moment, the one she traveled to The Tower to understand. Here was the moment when everything that Bynimian was built on would be burnt. Peace. Respect. All of it ashes.
"So your plan is to sacrifice the safety of our people by trying out any idea but the one with the greatest likelihood of working?" Morena asked.
"We plan on finding other ways, besides leaving our world for foreign places to battle foreign creatures."
Morena looked up at Chilras, her eyes hard. Doubt lived in her up until now, up until she heard that single sentence. Doubt about ships she was building, doubt about what she was preparing for. As she looked on the Hindran, Morena lost that doubt, replacing it with steel. With certainty.
"Seize them," she said, her voice echoing across the chamber, reaching up to the lofty heights that The Council sat at. She saw Chilras' face turn to a bright shock, heard the gasps as the others understood what she just said. Morena heard the footsteps of her guards as they moved to the sides of the room, moving up the staircases that led to The Council. She watched as one of the members on the end tried to stand up, tried to run, but the sonic wave from one of the guard's hands caught him before he had taken a step, freezing him in an almost comical posture. His hands up to help him run, his mouth twisted in a grimace of fear and hope. All of it for nothing.
"I'm truly sorry," Morena said as the other five were taken.
38
Present Day
Michael moved his head slowly at the sound of the door. It was instinct more than anything else that made him look. Exhaustion weighed on him like the weight of the ocean. The fucking guys at the front of the room, the questions didn't stop. If he began to drift off, a quick slap across his face woke him up. The fucking questions, the same ones over and over. He couldn't even remember his answers anymore. They were all the same and they were all different, but the questions didn't stop no matter what he said.
He knew, at least on some level, what they were trying to do. They were trying to drive him and Julie insane. To make them lose their minds and…that's where he lost the trail. He didn't know what came after that. What would they get out of him or Julie if they were legitimately insane?
Probably the same answers they were getting right now.
Michael didn't have any idea how many hours they had been at it. He knew the sun was up outside because the dingy blinds let a little light through, though not nearly enough to illuminate the dusky room. He blinked hard a few times, trying to see who was walking in.
The man in charge.
The man that had been in the SUVs that picked them up. Michael hadn't seen him since; he disappeared as soon as the two question men took over.
Michael's brain started waking up, adrenaline flooding through him as he realized something might be changing.
The man in charge closed the door behind him before speaking. "Their parents?"
The man in the left chair, the one that smoked, looked over to him. "Alpha isn't responding. We've sent someone to find hers."
"What the fuck do you mean, not responding?"
The man pulled a cigarette out from his pack. The whole goddamn room smelled like cigarettes, almost to the point that Michael barely noticed it anymore except when someone lit a new one. "We've been trying to contact him for an hour, but nothing comes back."
The man at the door took a step forward so that he stood directly above Cigarette Smoker. "An hour and no contact? Were you going to let me know? Did you have any plans?"
Cigarette Smoker took a drag and blew the smoke out, not looking up. "What do you want us to do?"
The leader walked across the room, passing both of Michael's interrogators, and found the sink on the other end of the room. He turned the water on and dipped his hands into it, then splashed his face. Michael watched, fully awake now.
It was clear they were sending someone out to his and Julie's parents, and it sounded like Alpha was the one that had gone to his father. Michael didn't say anything, but looked over at Julie. She was much more awake too, except she had heard something completely different than Michael. She hadn't heard that Alpha wasn't answering. She heard that they'd sent someone to find her parents.
"Don't hurt them," she said.
"Someone needs to get out there to that trailer right now," the leader said from the sink. "When is someone scheduled to get to the other house?"
"Within the hour," the man next to Cigarette Smoker said. Michael hadn't thought up a name for him, hadn't been thinking much at all up until this interlude.
"How bad is it?" the leader said.
"They haven't stopped calling the cops, but we've intercepted them all."
"What about other calls, family?"
"We put in a lot of busy signals," Ci
garette Smoker said.
"Good. Someone needs to get out to his house immediately. If you can't find anyone, then one of you do it."
Whoever they had sent out to Michael's home hadn't made it back. What did that mean?
"Our parents aren't involved in this," Michael said. "They didn't do anything." He tried to keep his voice from shaking, tried to sound like some sort of man instead of a high school kid who hadn't slept for twenty-four hours.
"Don't hurt them!" Julie shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her face was red, and she looked ready to scream again, but then the leader was standing at the side of her bed, above her. The man moved fast, and his presence above Julie killed the next scream dead in her throat.
"Not another fucking word," the leader said. He stared down at her with eyes that spoke only of murder. Not anger, not insanity, just that he would kill her if she said anything else.
Michael listened to Julie whimper as she looked down at the bed, bringing her hands to her eyes.
The leader turned away from her, looking to the two men at the front of the room. "Get people out to both of their fucking houses."
* * *
The flask sat on the passenger's seat of the truck. A metal thing, old, with scratches across it. Wren looked at it, his vehicle pulled over at a gas station. His hands weren't shaking yet, but they would be soon. That's what the flask was for, to keep the shakes away. A sip now and then, maybe a swig, just to keep the buzz going all day.
A buzz, Wren, that's all you get.
She was right; all he could have was a buzz. Anything more and the wheels would come off.
Have they not already? But that was him talking, not Linda. His eyes moved away from the flask and to the rearview mirror. Wren stared at himself for the first time in a while. He had no reason to look at mirrors. No job to go to. No one to see. And if he was being honest right now, he didn't look because he didn't want to. He knew what he would see, knew—to a degree—what was happening to him. He could say it was age, could blame the goddamn headaches on anything he wanted, but the truth came down to the stuff in that flask next to him.