Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (35 page)

I
t was time
.

And Morena’s children knew it.

They felt her, above, and at a very specific location. She had come for them, and throughout the Earth’s core, excitement and rejoicing rose from every piece of every strand.

The children moved as one, all of them working together, a symbiotic relationship that only wanted one thing. To find their mother. No arguments, no differing opinions, just a single goal.

The strands pushed, digging—much like the spore had when it made its descent. An incalculable number of entities all pushing at a singular point inside the massive cavern of molten lava. The Earth didn’t care one way or the other, but the strands? A happiness they would never know again, for they were digging to their death. They were going to their mother and when they reached her, their life would cease the same way a worm’s does when it transforms into a butterfly. Their purpose ended when they breached the surface, and they wanted nothing more than to complete that task.

The rock fell away, down into the intense heat of the core, and the strands continued. Pushing. Fighting upward.

The lava below traded the strands for the rock that fell into it, continuing its endless churning.

Upward and outward, the strands continued, moving quicker than any human made instrument could hope to. The closer they got, the greater the feeling from their mother pressed on them, causing more frenzy, more
need.

And then they were there, so close, they could feel atmosphere cooling the rock they moved through, felt that freedom, that death, that sweet release when their purpose would be complete in only a few feet.

As the earth fell away, and sunlight poured in, the white strands reached upward in a triumphant grasp, finding themselves with their mother at last.

T
he light would blind him
; Will held no doubt about that. He was going to stand here staring at it, both hands on his weapon, pointing it directly at the light, but unable to fire—and when he finally put the gun down, he would be completely blind, unable to see to even run.

His shot had missed, a deep part of him knew it, but that part was crowded out by the dawning realization that bullets were far too late to do anything about what was happening in front of him. About two million years too late, because whatever this thing was, it long ago passed the age of small pieces of metal flinging around through the air. He heard people still firing shots, but he wouldn’t anymore.

This is where you die, Will
, a playful voice said.
Here, blinded by something you can’t begin to understand.

He had seen the ship, at first that’s where the light shone from, but now the white glow stretched out so far and so bright that it was hard to make any distinctions, hard to understand just what in the hell he was looking at. Still, he knew. The ship—and that’s what it was, an orb that had carried this blasphemous creature here—had appeared and was opening up. That wasn’t all though, that wasn’t the only place light originated from.

The world was falling away.

You’re going to be eaten alive by it,
that playful voice said.
By the earth itself.

The ship sat still, luminous in its white glow as if God Himself had cast his light down. But there was another glow, arising from beneath the ship, bringing with it a ghastly heat. The glow was bright orange, and the heat—
Maybe you won’t be eaten, Will. Maybe you’ll burn alive—
caused sweat to bubble up across Will’s forehead.

White strands leapt out from the opening beneath the ship. White strands that looked nothing like the pink shit he and Rigley had seen in Bolivia. These things were straight and strong, looking like they could support any amount of weight applied to them. Looking like fire wouldn’t burn them. Pure white, like the light from the ship. They catapulted upward then fell to the ground surrounding the hole, touching for a brief second before breaking the world inward in a wrecking crunch that vibrated inside Will’s teeth.

It’s creating a nice little hole, huh?

The strands continued rising above the Earth like some kind of solid geyser, and then falling back down as everything Will knew to be possible dissipated.

It’ll be here soon, and then we’ll find out whether you’ll burn up or simply be eaten.

He couldn’t pull away though. His eyes—somehow in spite of the miraculous destruction of the Earth—found the orb again. The glow was there, but transparent, and he knew he was going to see something he didn’t want to. Not that any of this was nearing pleasantries, but whatever happened with this orb would change the way he looked at the universe. It would change the way he looked at himself. It would change everything.

He saw the first leg move out from the orb, and the color of green swimming—
tell me, Will, how does something swim without water?
—outward everywhere.

Will couldn’t watch anymore. Blindness, death, or whatever was supposed to arrive for him next, he wouldn’t let insanity be a piece of it, and if he stayed here and watched one more leg emerge from that ship, he would fall into a cavern much worse than the one those white strands were making.

He turned, still holding his gun, and ran. He fled through the woods the way a man would flee the Devil, if that horned creature were to rise from hell.

W
ill broke
the tree-line and didn’t immediately slow. He kept his feet rushing forward, wanting to get even further away. He didn’t stop until he was twenty feet into the field, with grass surrounding him instead of trees. Sweat dripped down his back; his shirt stuck to his skin, and air heaved in and out of his mouth. He didn’t bend over though, didn’t put his hands on his knees, but instead turned around in one quick, sure motion—leveling his gun up to his eye at whoever he heard running behind him.

His finger was a single pound of pressure away from killing Andrew.

“Woah! Woah! It’s me, Will!” Andrew halted, his hands shooting up in a defensive gesture.

Will looked at him for another few seconds, his eyes narrow, and with a cold reptilian mental eye, wondered quickly if he should kill him. Will didn’t know anything about what he had just seen, didn’t know what it meant, or what could have happened to Andrew while they were out there. Letting him live could be disastrous, if…if he was somehow infected.

Will lowered his weapon.

“Fuck,” Andrew said, his own breath leaving in huge gasps. “Where’s the car?” His eyes were looking past Will now, already forgetting his brush with death, or maybe not realizing just how close that brush had been.

Will turned around, having forgotten about the car, only concerned with getting out of those woods—away from that thing that was going to get in his head and drive his sanity right out.

The SUV wasn’t there.

“What the fuck?” he said, walking a few feet further into the field. It had been right there, right there in front of him, but now he only saw the torn up grass where wheels once sat. Mud was strewn on the field, and where green grass once grew, only dirt showed now. The SUV had taken off, jetted out of here just as Will jetted from the woods. “Rigley…” he whispered.

“What?”

“Rigley,” he said louder. “She fucking left.”

Will suddenly felt the gravity of those three words. She. Fucking. Left. He was standing out here in this small field, maybe a half-mile from what he had just fled from, and without any transportation. A half-mile from death, from insanity, from a goddamn world collapsing in on itself.

“GODDAMNIT!” He reached into his pocket, pulling out his cellphone and finding her number as quickly as he possibly could. His hands were still. Despite everything, his fear, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his hands were still.

The phone rang but no one answered. When he heard Rigley’s answering service, Will hung up. Again, he called, and again, and again, and each time the result was the same.

“I’m going to kill her,” he said as he put the phone in his pocket.

“She’s not answering?”

Will shook his head.

“And she took the SUV, you’re sure of that?”

Will looked back at Andrew. The man’s hands weren’t shaking either, and his chest’s heaving had alleviated quite a bit. Physically, the man was top notch, but mentally? Was he really asking those questions? Will knew the kid wasn’t dumb, not at all, but naive. Of course the bitch took the SUV, who else would? “She’s not back there in those woods,” he said. “If Rigley’s anything, she’s smart, and she got the fuck out of there before either of us did.”

Andrew didn’t say anything, and Will was glad for that. Didn’t ask what they were to do next.

“Let’s go,” Will said, and he didn’t wait. He started jogging. He didn’t know where he was going, only what he was getting away from.

T
he phone wouldn’t stop vibrating
.

Rigley tried to ignore it—God, did she—but she couldn’t turn the phone off. She couldn’t turn up the radio so that she didn’t hear the damn thing jittering and jiving in the seat next to her. She needed it live, needed to pay attention to it because if it started vibrating and a different number showed up, she had to answer it.

Right now, Will was calling.

She respected Will, but she wasn’t turning around to get him. She wasn’t going back to those woods for all of Midas’ wealth. So there wasn’t any need to answer the phone. Hopefully, if he was in a place safe enough to call her, he was in a place safe enough to not die from whatever the hell was just born out there in that forest.

Rigley wasn’t concerned with Will at all, not anymore. There was someone else that mattered, someone that mattered more than Will ever could. She had always looked down when it came to her job, at the people under her, because those were the people that would get the work done—the ones she could influence some. Looking up was like looking into the sky; it might be nice to gaze up there every once in awhile, but if you did it for too long, life passed you by.

Now though, with life in flames around her, something was going to descend from the sky.
Someone
was going to descend from the sky.

She knew Kenneth Marks about as well as she knew her unborn child. She had worked for, or under, him since Bolivia, and directly with him the past couple of years. He was a mystery, wrapped in a fog of his silence and joviality. He was always silent and yet seemingly always happy. Only…the happiness felt closer to how she imagined a bear might feel after a kill. Kenneth was always feasting in the joy of his own kills. Only Rigley didn’t know what he killed.

And yet on facts alone, the man had been beyond instrumental in Rigley’s rise.

Even so, that didn’t matter to her at all. It had never mattered. She held no loyalty or delusions about the man. People call one another snakes when someone is deceptive or treacherous. Rigley didn’t feel the word was accurately used though. Snakes weren’t treacherous, they weren’t deceptive. They followed instinct and their instinct was to consume. Their instinct was to survive by killing, whether to eat or to remove a threat. She felt the animal fit perfectly for what she knew about Kenneth Marks. He wasn’t deceptive; he didn’t lie. He only followed his instinct as carefully as that of a snake. His instinct was to consume and he did so without apology.

The man wasn’t calling her back though, and she had already driven for twenty solid minutes. She drove down random roads, turning left or right whenever she came to a full stop, but not concerned with where she was going. She wouldn’t go back to the motel. That wasn't a possibility.

A thought trickled into her head.

Why not just leave? Just roll through the stops set up around the perimeter, flash your credentials, and then head west. When you hit Mexico, show them your passport, and head south. Keep heading south until you’re far enough away from Kenneth Marks that you can’t feel him breathing on you. Maybe you can’t run far enough to not feel his eyes searching for you, but his breath? That might be possible, and that might be best.

Rigley had never thought anything like it before. From the moment she went to Bolivia until this one, leaving had never, ever come up.

And why not? Because she was invested. Because this was everything.

And now everything was burning, and that fire would catch onto her clothes soon.

So leave.

She slowly rolled to a stop at a four-way. No cars anywhere. She sat, hands on the wheel, thinking. If she stayed here, she was dead. She wouldn’t try to deny it. Kenneth Marks would consume her the same as he did his daily bread. She had to try. Try to get away. It was her only chance.

H
e stepped
out onto the walkway and platform that stood above the computer bank beneath him. Kenneth Marks paused momentarily just outside of his door to button his blazer. He didn’t need to check his cuffs.

He stepped to the railing, placing his hands gently on the cool metal. He peered down at the people below him, at the massive screens lining the walls and desks of everyone working. He took it in, understanding that they had no idea what was about to come their way. A storm. One that nobody on Earth had ever seen before, and with any luck, nobody would ever see again.

Kenneth Marks was beginning to think that luck might play a significant role in this. Luck had very little to do with his life up until this point, but the formulas just weren’t directing him where he wanted to go.

C’est la vie.

There were one hundred and twenty-two people sitting below him, all tracking the whereabouts and happenings of any number of different events across the world. Kenneth Marks could pull the number and the details of each event, but why? Only one thing mattered now.

He stood very still, just as he had sat in his office—as if absolute control of his body was the highest form of perfection he could show. Kenneth Marks heard the steps coming from his right, though he didn’t turn to see who it was. There was no need for movement when his ears could describe perfectly who it was. He heard the footsteps, immediately understanding the materials that made up the shoes based on how they fell on the walkway.

People were used to this as once they worked around Kenneth Marks for a little while, they grew accustomed to him not acknowledging their approach with his body.

The person next to him said what she needed and then walked back the way she came. She was used to the way Kenneth Marks operated and knew that if he had anything to say, he would say it, and if he didn’t, she would stand there for all eternity if she didn’t decide to leave on her own.

Kenneth Marks moved for people when it pleased him, and if it didn’t, he couldn’t care less what happened to them.

His ears transmitted the information the woman provided to his brain, where it was immediately categorized. The whole operation was miraculous, really, how his brain operated—much closer to a computer than something evolved over millions of years on Earth. It was an important piece of information, but of course his assistant wouldn’t have brought it otherwise. Kenneth Marks didn’t really like anyone in this world, but if pressed, he would say he liked his assistant. He didn’t respect her; it wasn’t a meeting of equals, though in her own way she was similar to him. She sought perfection in her job, and that made her very, very good. He sought perfection in his pleasure, and that made him very, very good as well.

He had once thought there was an equal to his mind. Kenneth Marks studied the man pretty intensely for a bit, following his headlines from early in his career to his death in a lighthouse a few years prior. Matthew Brand. Kenneth Marks understood the math that Brand had done out there in that lighthouse, and it was impressive—no doubt. He didn’t know exactly where he would rank in terms of IQ if matched up against Brand, and there would never be a chance now. The real difference though was Brand’s inability to evolve past the primate brain that said he needed a group structure. His love for his boy, his wife, and all that nonsense. Thus, Brand was dead and Kenneth Marks still lived.

He came back to the present, to the computer banks. He would need to deal with the piece of information just given him, but first he needed to let those that worked for him know what was coming.

He breathed out of his nose slowly, the exact words he wanted to use springing to his lips just as he finished his breath.

“Everyone,” he said, his voice booming naturally. He had designed the building this way, so that his voice would carry perfectly, at just the right volume. The sound of keys and conversations ceased as heads turned upward, recognizing his voice as easily as they would Morgan Freeman’s. “I hope you all are having a grand day; I know I am.” He smiled, a real smile, one that looked radiant to those beneath. “We’ve reached a stage five containment. When you turn back to your computers, you’ll see the necessary information. Please act according to protocol, and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.”

He nodded, his smile fading, and those looking up went back to work, a fury possessing them as they turned to their computers. His smile might have come off as shocking or disturbing—just like his non-acknowledgement—except these people had worked with him for quite some time.

No one really
knew
Kenneth Marks, but these people were used to him at least.

T
he business
down below reminded Kenneth Marks of an ant hill. One perhaps that had been fed a great deal of cocaine, such was the energy with which they worked.

It made him smile. All those little ants tapping away at keys, fretting over the information running across their screens. All of this was input into the formulas in his mind, and all still ended in too many paths for him to possibly understand how things would end. They didn’t know this, couldn’t know it even if he tried to tell them. There was no such thing as determinism in America, only free will.

Kenneth Marks believed with enough inputs everything could be calculated to an exact precision.

And with that said, he was perfectly fine living in this gray area he now found. He didn’t have the inputs, but as they came, he would move closer and closer to the predetermined outcome. The advantage of understanding this determinism was that he could walk between the raindrops—to steal a phrase.

He stepped away from the railing and returned to his office, softly shutting the door behind him. He went to his desk, each movement a clinic in efficiency. He picked up the phone and chose one of the three numbers programmed.

“Sir?” the voice came from the earpiece.

Sir.

Only the military spoke in such ways. The man on the phone probably wasn’t a fan of Kenneth Marks, probably thought Kenneth Marks a bit of a cold fish despite the smiles and warmth always present in his voice. Kenneth Marks used probably when thinking about the General, but that was a mental failing of his own—adapting to the words of his time. He knew the General felt him a cold fish, felt him a dangerous, cold fish. It was the General’s training. Civilians, those outside working like ants, didn’t have that training—the kind that identified threats.

“Hi, General Knox. How are things going?”

“Well, sir. How may I be of service?”

Kenneth Marks’ smile broke out across his face though no one was around to see it. He could turn it on and off like a light, but this was just entirely too much fun.

“Not much for the pleasantries. That’s why I like you, General Knox. A man of business, and the world could use more like you.”

The General said nothing back which made Kenneth Marks’ smile grow just a bit more.

“Okay, okay. I’ll get down to it. Right now you’re receiving information about a town called Grayson. It’s in Georgia. We’ve reached a level five containment and are sending the necessary civilian tools down now, but we will need heavy artillery as well.”

“Level five?” Knox said.

“The number after four and before six, good sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re aware of the protocol for this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there anything you need from me, General Knox?”

A pause came over the line.

“Are you thinking that Presidential pass-codes might be needed for this?” Knox said.

The man was far too smart to use words like nuclear and bomb over a phone line. Presidential pass-codes. Kenneth Marks couldn’t see his own fate yet, there weren’t enough inputs, but he knew he was going to enjoy every moment of this tragedy. Goodness, each moment was just a bit better than the last. Presidential pass-codes? Of course. If the southeastern part of the United States was livable within fifty years, Kenneth Marks would be very, very surprised. There were
elements
of this, and he didn’t know how they would play out, but that didn’t mean they weren’t all hurtling down train tracks at warp speed heading in the same direction. Maybe they could switch tracks—that’s what Kenneth Marks didn’t know.

“If I’m being honest, General Knox, I think that’s a real possibility. Unless you can get down there and do something about it.”

Silence over the line.

“Yes, sir,” he said finally. “I’m starting preparations immediately.”

“Good, General. I knew I could count on you. I’ll see you soon.”

“You’re coming down, sir?”

He sat down in his chair, leaned his head back, and was perfectly still as he answered. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”