Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (38 page)

T
he plane burned beautifully
.

Kenneth Marks looked at it from his place on the railing. The room below him had stilled as everyone watched the plane first tilt slightly downward, and then within seconds spiral out of control, falling to tragic doom. Kenneth Marks heard a few people gasp below, but he didn’t look down, didn’t take his eyes from the screen. The satellite showed the whole thing, and it sparked a single question in him.

Why?

He didn’t say it aloud. Anyone looking at him wouldn’t have known that he was thinking anything at all.

The plane’s mission had been going as planned; he heard the pilot ask for permission to engage, heard permission granted, saw the small downward turn, and then everything changed. No more transmissions from the pilot, no more controlled movements in the plane, just certain death.

It didn’t make sense, because Kenneth Marks saw nothing on the large screen that could account for what happened. Nothing attacked the plane. No reason for it to fall, yet it had.

He didn’t feel angry, or really even disturbed by it. He liked the way the plane burned, the orange wrapping around the twisted metal so elegantly. He just wanted to know what happened, though he wouldn’t ask anyone over any phone line. It was time for him to get down there, to see Rigley, see General Knox, to really
assess
what was happening.

Kenneth Marks reached into his pocket and tapped a button on his phone. He pulled his hand back out and put it on the railing, where he remained like a Sphinx for a minute and a half. He heard the steps approaching but kept watching the fire burn. Burn, burn, burn. It would go on until there was nothing left for it to grasp onto, and in that way, it was similar to humans.

“Yes, Mr. Marks?”

“Is the plane ready, Jenna?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Will you be accompanying me down to Georgia?” he said.

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t,” she said.

He knew he chose well when he hired this one. Perhaps his best hire ever. He would hate to lose her but knew that if she came, the chances of her not returning to work one morning rose greatly. Still, it might be interesting, watching Jenna in Grayson. She was used to a place like this, a place like DC. She was used to things being
sanitized
and seeing her surrounded by
filth
might be fun.

“Okay then. You’re ready to leave?”

“My bag is in my office.”

“Great. Fifteen minutes, then?”

“The President called ten minutes ago,” Jenna said.

Kenneth Marks nodded, barely perceptible. Jenna walked away.

He sighed once he heard her footsteps fall far enough away. He was not a fan of this President. He would, in all honesty, like to have some fun with him, but the time hadn’t presented itself—and Kenneth Marks didn’t know if it ever would. He had hoped he could keep this silent, but knew things were growing too big for that; the news was fluttering out of Grayson like black doves.

Kenneth Marks turned around and walked back into his office, closing the glass door behind him. The quicker he got this over with the quicker he could move south.

He sat down at his desk and looked out the window for a few minutes. He had nothing really to think about; he only wanted to make the President wait a bit longer.

There was some fun in that.

K
enneth Marks wasn’t bothered
by this man being the
President
. He had met other Presidents before and imagined he would meet one or two more before he was done on this planet. Kenneth Marks didn’t care about power being wielded over him, which all Presidents did—or at least thought they did. That was fine, because for the most part he was indispensable and at least someone in these administrations knew it. This President, though, was different.

This President didn’t
get
it.

It’s not that he didn’t want to get it, or that he acted like he didn’t get it—he just talked like the power rested with himself. Both of those things happened before and it was fine, because in the end, Kenneth Marks did what he wanted.

This President was different because he actively believed that Kenneth Marks was just another cog in the machine. Something that could be replaced if he didn’t grease up correctly.

And really, that was fine too. Kenneth Marks didn’t care. The President would find out soon enough, if he acted on these beliefs, how wrong he was.

The piece Kenneth Marks really disliked was how that belief translated into the way the President
spoke
. That was it. The whole thing when he got right down to it. The man spoke to him like Kenneth Marks was some kind of child, and Kenneth Marks couldn’t stand it.

He picked up the phone on his desk.

“Put him through,” he said. He waited on the click from the line and then said, “Yes, Mr. President?”

“What the fuck is going on in Georgia?” the man said.

Kenneth Marks closed his eyes. He leaned back in his chair, holding the phone to his head with one hand and putting his feet up on his desk, his body turning to stone.

“We have a visitor,” Kenneth Marks said.

“Did you plan on telling me about it?” President Hayley said.

“No, sir. I didn’t.”

“I didn’t fucking think so. I found out because a news crew saw the goddamn crash but aren’t allowed into the area. I got a goddamn call from my Chief of Staff instead of you. So since you decided to run a goddamn black op down there, you have about fifteen seconds to tell me what is going on.”

Kenneth Marks saw the man’s heart racing in his mind’s eye. The ventricles opening and closing faster than usual, his blood pressure rising as his anger grew. He saw it all as clearly as if he was a blood cell traveling through Fisher’s veins. It ended there though, because the hope in his head wouldn’t happen. The hope that Fisher’s heart would seize up like an engine running too hot, for too long, without oil. That the blood wouldn’t flow any longer, cutting his brain off from the necessary oxygen, which ended with Fisher falling face first on his desk, his phone sprawling onto the floor, and a large purple vein sticking out of his head as his eyes bulged like a dead fish’s.

“Marks? Are you fucking listening to me?” the President said.

He didn’t sigh, though he wanted to. “Yes, sir. Of course. We have a stage five containment. We currently do not know why the plane went down, but will know shortly, and I’ll make sure to get that information to you immediately. I’m heading down there momentarily to oversee the entire operation. Unfortunately, with something this large, it is going to be difficult to contain the information flow. However, my team is currently working on a plan to control the narrative—”

“I don’t give a goddamn—” Hayley interrupted, but Kenneth Marks quit listening. Of course his brain continued taking in the information and filing it away for later use, but he couldn’t handle actually listening to another second of this idiocy. If Kenneth Marks stepped away from this thing for one day, just walked away and came back the next evening, the entire country would be in upheaval. Fisher had no idea what a stage five containment entailed, but more, he was messing with Kenneth Mark’s
fun
. This whole conversation held him up from the fun that awaited when he got down there to Rigley Plasken.

At last he heard a respite from the President’s diatribe.

His mind relayed everything that he missed in the past few minutes and it really came down to nothing, which is what Kenneth Marks thought it would be about.

“I’ll handle it,” he said and then hung up the phone.

He left the office with his briefcase in hand, closing the door and turning the lights off behind him.

Jenna met him in the hallway, and they headed to the waiting plane.

“
H
ello
?”

Rigley understood fear. It wasn’t what movies showed. It wasn’t running around and screaming; it wasn’t something jumping out of the dark when you least expected. Fear was something that rested very, very deep inside you. Perhaps so deep that it existed in something that wasn’t quite you, in something before you—something that predated everything but the beginning of the universe. Maybe, even, that thing lived inside you and grew fear the way a greenhouse grows plants.

The fear crept out slowly, growing over hours and hours, unlike the huge growth spurt that horror movies showed. That wasn’t fear, not real terror. Rigley knew that now. Real terror slowly seeped into your flesh, your bones, your marrow. There was no running from it. No escape. You sat with it and you knew that it told you the truth. That what came next, that what was just over the horizon, would break you in way that you never thought possible when you were a child.

That was fear.

And that’s what she had felt for the past few hours as she waited for Kenneth Marks, PhD, to call her back. The call was coming. He was coming, and she believed
that
with the same ferocity an evangelical Christian believed in Christ’s second coming.

And then it arrived. Not with the harkening of angels or lights screaming down from the sky, but with a tiny ringtone that signaled all was lost.

“Hi, Rigley, it’s Kenneth. How are things going down there?”

A chill moved down the back of her neck, causing her to squirm where she stood. “Will is on his way. I'm here.”

“And that would be?”

“A Motel Six off the highway heading to Atlanta.”

“Good. Good,” he said as if she had told him how much cumin she put in a pot of chili. “I’m on my way down there now, so we should be able to have a reunion of sorts. How are things on the ground, any idea?”

“No,” she said, telling the truth. She fled like an antelope barely escaping the mouth of a crocodile and hadn’t looked back. Not until she got to this hotel and told Will to come.

“Ah, that’s okay. We’ll figure it out together when I get there. Did you hear about the plane going down?”

Rigley looked at herself in the mirror; her left hand started shaking as the word plane passed from the phone to her ear.

“I take your silence as no. Well, we sent a plane over the wooded area, the one I believe you were in. It targeted the blackened spot, but was brought down in just a few seconds. Really peculiar.”

“What are you going to do?” She didn’t know what else to say, the fear in her bones rising up to her mouth, asking the only thing it really wanted to know. What was this man, this cheery voiced man who seemed unbothered by an alien force having arrived on this planet, going to do with Rigley?

“Oh, I haven’t decided yet. I usually let the situation dictate these things. I do think you’re going to have a pretty big role to play though. I wouldn’t want to take over your operation, not completely.”

And the fear released. Completely and at once. All of it rising up out of her bones and flooding her veins. She froze, unable to say another word into the phone.

“Rigley, are you there?” he asked, sounding like he might have been trying to find out if an ice-cream shop had strawberry shortcake as a flavor.

“…Uh-huh…” she finally forced out.

“Good. You sound like something might be in your throat. Maybe get some water? Anyways, I’m going to get off the phone. I’ll be there in a couple of hours. Talk soon.”

She heard the call disconnect and Rigley’s phone dropped from her hand to the floor. She didn’t look down at it, but stared into the mirror, finding her reflection looking back at her. Her eyes looked black from the distance she stood at. Black coals that said what her voice couldn’t.

Time was up.

“
Y
ou’re not serious
,” Will said.

“There’s no other choice. There’s nothing else that we can do.”

“Yeah there fucking is. You can wait. The city is done. The whole thing is flattened. All indications are that the Sherman is gone. Completely. So we wait, we observe, but we don’t goddamn kill them.”

Rigley shook her head, looking down at the ground in front of her.

The firebombing finished ten hours ago. The city smoldered out in the distance, the heat so great she could feel it from her small office when she stepped out onto the terrace. All the men that worked on this, all of them but she and Will, were in the large room encircled by the one way mirror and digitally locking doors.

Rigley told Will they were all to die.

Every one of them.

“How long do we wait? How many years? Do we let them out into the world and hope that their heads don’t explode on a public train one day, and that the whole mess doesn’t start again? Or do we just keep them in that room down there forever? Is that your fucking plan?” Anger ripped through her like a flooding river, overtaking banks at each turn. This wasn’t a discussion. This wasn’t something to hash out. All of them, every one of them had to go.

“And what about us?” he asked. “Are we getting the axe too? We were down there.”

Rigley looked to her left, out the open door at the city that looked like some kind of giant, dying bonfire. She had thought of that. Will didn’t even know it, and she certainly wouldn’t tell him right now, but he barely made the cut. She thought about putting him down with the rest, because there was a chance he’d been infected. She didn’t think it was high, but there nonetheless.

If she told him now though, she imagined she would have a bullet in her brain.

“We weren’t down there when the infections started. We left before it learned what we were doing. We're safe.” She didn’t look at him.

“Have you ever killed anyone, Rigley?”

She didn’t answer.

“Don’t sit there fucking silent. Have you ever murdered someone? Face to face.”

She shook her head.

“How do you plan to kill all of them? Not with your hands, I’m assuming.”

Rigley didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to even think about it. Because of where it came from, of who did it first in another war, a long time ago.

“Christ Almighty. The room. The air vents. You’re going to gas them, aren’t you?”

She nodded, still staring at the city she just destroyed.

“How old are you?” Will said.

“Twenty-eight.”

Will grabbed her by her arm, the first time he ever touched her. He wasn’t gentle, and she felt the power underneath his grip, felt the truth—he had murdered. His hands had killed even though hers hadn’t. She looked at him, but didn’t pull away. She couldn’t have moved if she wanted.

“Let’s go look at them. The ones you’re going to gas.”

R
igley had seen them before
, but there were more now. A lot more. She didn’t want to ask Will because she was afraid of the answer, of the number he would give her. She didn’t want to even try and count.

“That’s seven hundred men,” he said as they stood shoulder to shoulder, looking through the mirror. “You brought every one of them down here. They knew the risk when they got started, but no one thinks that you survive the mission only to be killed when it’s over. You believe you’re safe until the next mission.”

He didn’t sound angry. His voice was low and he spoke with a knowledge that came from experience.

“I don’t know what they’re thinking about. I doubt any of them have family, but they do have lives. They do have…I don’t fucking know…what it is we
have
when we leave these shit holes. Seven hundred of the best men in the entire world, the best at doing this job, and all of them ready to go back home. All of them came down here and did what you asked and now they’re ready to leave.”

She needed resolve here. Will was giving her this sob story, was making her look at them, and that was fine. If he wanted her to prove herself by sitting here and listening to him, then fine. She would. She wouldn’t break though; that wasn’t allowed. These men weren’t going home.

“What do you want me to say? That I don’t like it?” She looked over to him and away from the men behind the glass window. “Fine, Will. I don’t like it. I wish they could go, but they can’t, and if you think about it, if you pull yourself away from
being
one of them, you’ll see it too.”

Will didn’t look over at her.

Minutes passed with neither speaking.

“No, you’re probably right,” he said. “The risk of them somehow being infected is huge. Uncontrollable once they disperse.” His voice was still low, almost reverent. “That’s not why I brought you here, to convince you otherwise. We’re all just a line of defense. That line can’t turn into the offense.”

Will stepped away from her and walked to his right. He went to the door that let them into this hidden observatory. “Come on,” he said, looking back at her as he opened it.

“Where are we going?” she said from her spot at the window.

“I want you to see why I brought you down here.”

Rigley didn’t want to go with him. His eyes said she didn’t have a choice though. His body held an edge that looked as sharp as any blade.

She didn’t drop her eyes as she walked to him. She followed him through the door and out into the hallway. He went left and she walked two or three feet behind him.

Thirty seconds later they stood in front of the doors to the chamber that held the seven hundred possible infections.

“What are we doing, Will?” Rigley said.

He moved to his right just a bit, revealing the switch on the wall. She hadn’t seen it before because she had only walked around the observatory. She had never led men in here.

“That right there opens this door. It’s the only door to the place, where we marched each one of those poor souls through. When it locks, there’s nothing that can open it short of an explosion. That switch is the only thing that’s going to open and close the door. These Bolivians, they love their prisons, and I suppose before Sherman decided to march through, they were upping their technology. It doesn’t matter.” He turned slightly so that he was looking at the door. There was a tiny window at the top, which showed the inside, though not a wide view of it. “You’ve never killed anyone, Rigley. So what I’m going to do here is open the door. I’m going to tell all of those men what you plan to do.” He pointed through the window, looking back at Rigley. “Most likely, they’re going to charge and try to get out.”

He pulled the gun holstered on his waist, grabbing it by the barrel and handing the trigger end to Rigley.

“Here. I’m not closing the door until you shoot one of them. If you don’t, then they’re coming out.”

Rigley didn’t take the gun. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”

“Maybe, but I’m still going to do it. You better take the gun. You just need to kill one and I’ll hit this switch again, then they’re all locked up.”

Rigley didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Her eyes focused on the gun in front of her as she realized how serious this had become. Before, sitting in her office, she spoke of killing. Now this gun, its whole business was killing. And Will spoke the truth; he was going to open that door and if she didn’t shoot someone, they would flood out.

“What if I shoot you instead, and then close it myself?” She asked, her eyes flicking up to his.

“That’s fine. But you’re killing someone with your own hand today.” The gun didn’t waver at all.

She watched as he reached behind him and flipped the switch upward. Rigley heard the airtight chamber release inside the wall, and watched as the door opened up in one swift movement. Will stepped in front of the door, still holding the gun out to Rigley, away from the eyes of anyone inside the room.

“Listen up!” he shouted. “Orders have come down. Everyone here is at risk of being infected, and because of that, you’re not going to be able to leave this country. You’ve all been scheduled for elimination.”

Rigley’s heart thumped against her chest as if made of steel instead of flesh. She thought she felt her ribs vibrating from its strength. This was happening. This wasn’t some possibility, but reality.

She couldn’t see inside the room from where she stood, but she heard the rumbling inside. Shouting. Men moving.

Will looked back at her. “I’d say you have about thirty seconds.”

His hand wasn’t shaking, though hers were.

“Twenty five. They’re coming now.” He stepped back and she saw he wasn’t lying. Ten men walked toward the door, all of them looking like hulking gods compared to Rigley.

If she didn’t act, it was all over. Her career and thus her life, because there wasn’t anything to go back to in America besides this job.

She grabbed the gun, stepping into the doorway.

Rigley saw them in all their deadly glory. One hundred men marching straight for her, and such a great number behind them that she didn’t want to look.

The first man, that’s who she raised the gun at—the one maybe a foot in front of the others, and maybe twelve feet from her when she leveled the gun at him.

He stopped and the others behind him did as well, but she knew instinctively that it wouldn’t last. That already their minds were calculating with rapid speed that one bullet might stop one man, but there were too many of them.

She sighted the gun and watched as the leader stuck his hand out. His mouth was slightly open and she saw in his eyes what his lips wouldn’t say.
Don’t shoot. I’m one of you. Don’t shoot.

Those around him moved, not walking any longer, but rushing.

Rigley didn’t look at anyone else, ignoring their coming onslaught, and focused on the man still standing there, still pleading.

She pulled the trigger and the man didn’t move, his hand still faced her, palm out, still pleading—except his eyes no longer pled, because blood from the hole in his forehead leaked over them. He collapsed. The door in front of Rigley closed, the air-lock tightening inside the walls. The men collided with the door, screaming, pounding on it. Spit spewed from their mouths onto the small window.

Will reached for the gun and pulled it from her hand.

“There,” he said. “Now we can gas them if you’d like.”

“
R
igley Plasken
?”

She heard the voice over the phone and couldn’t believe anyone sounded so happy. The world she lived in didn’t allow for happiness like that.

“Yes,” she said, holding her desk phone to her ear.

“This is Kenneth Marks. We met briefly at the beginning of this, though I was in a bit of a hurry and didn’t introduce myself. I set you and Will up together.”

“Yes, sir. I remember.”

“Oh, no need to call me sir!” The man laughed. “I’m not in the military and neither are you.”

Rigley didn’t say anything, didn’t even feel awkward about her silence or inability to think of how to respond. She stared across her empty office at the white wall on the other side.

“So how have things turned out down there?”

“We’re leaving momentarily,” she said.

“Who is we?”

“Will and myself.”

“That’s it?” he said. His voice sounded like some kind of kid’s television show theme song. Up and down, but always happy.

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s just great, Rigley. I was worried about what we would do with the extras; especially after I heard what was going on with the foreign entity spreading. Will, though, are you sure he’s safe?”

Rigley blinked. This was the longest conversation she’d had with anyone since pulling the trigger. Will had taken the gun and walked off down the hall, holstering it as he went. Rigley stood there for ten minutes staring at the men banging against the door. Her hands didn’t move to open it, nor did they move to wipe away the tears streaming down her face—

“Rigley?”

—That was two days ago. She called in one last strike yesterday to bomb the building containing the bodies. She wouldn’t risk some kind of secondary contamination even though the men were dead.

She could have left last night, but instead sat in this office and watched the fire die down over ten hours of night. She hadn’t slept since she pulled the trigger. She was supposed to leave today, within the hour actually, but she didn’t know how to pull herself out of the chair. Before this man’s call, it was the most important question on her mind.

“Rigley, are you there?” the song came over the phone.

“I’m sorry—what did you ask?”

“Will…” the song slowed down, taking on an ominous tone. “Is he safe to bring back, do you think?”

“Yes, sir. I believe he is. He wasn’t in any of the quarantined areas once the infection began adapting.” Her voice sounded dead next to his. She sounded like someone had pulled her from a crypt and put a phone to her head.

“You sure?”

“No. But I’m not sure I’m clean either.”

“Ah!” The man laughed in what was the most good-hearted roar Rigley thought she had ever heard. “That’s good, right there. That is gooooood!” After a few seconds, he calmed down. “Alright, I’ll take it. Both of you are fine and can come home. I’ve been watching you for a while Rigley; that’s why you were picked for this job. I wanted to see what you could do, because you’ve had some considerable success in your former role, even if you were looked over a bit. I consider myself a pretty good judge of talent, and I’d like to offer you a permanent job based on your performance down there.”

Rigley let the words permeate into her brain, listening intently and hardly hearing them at the same time. How does someone offer a job based on what just happened down here? How could this man be so
goddamn
happy?

“Sure,” she said. What did it matter? Home or here or wherever this man sent her, it would all be the same.

“That’s good to hear, Rigley. I’m really glad to have you on the team. You’re heading home today?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why don’t you take the week off and report to DC next Monday?” he said.