Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (5 page)

M
orena looked
out into the world.

She found the name of the planet, at least the name that the creature she inhabited used: Earth. Perhaps Bynimian had a different name for this planet, but Earth would work fine. And Bynimian was no more, so it mattered not what anyone on that planet called anything.

That’s not true.

It was only irrational anger rising to the surface; she knew she couldn’t hate her home anymore than she could hate her husband. She couldn’t deny her heritage, couldn’t deny the beauty that her society had created, the genius. There was too much pride, too much good that her kind had done for her to simply discard that knowledge. She was the last of them, the last Bynum to exist, and so she had to carry that legacy onward. She had to do what she and Briten set out to do in the beginning of all this.

She stood in a dark place with large objects shooting up from the ground all around her. She found the names to those objects quickly, as all of this creature’s thoughts were laid bare to her. Earth had a cycle of darkness and light, and she was in the dark part of the cycle. It would change though, within the next few hours. Good. She searched through the creature’s memories, trying to find if this was a place where she could start, if this was a place she could bring Briten back to. That was step one. Her husband, she needed him, and then they would decide about the rest of Bynimian.

Morena began walking through the forest, her steps as sure as her host’s had been when he arrived—his body was now hers.

She needed to understand this place, because this creature’s memories didn’t have everything. He didn’t know the specifics. Someone would though. Someone out there had to know about the core of this planet. Someone had to know if this was an inhabitable planet for her kind. Someone had to know if she just traveled through the universe only to land somewhere useless.

Morena walked out of the woods and into the field, looking at this creature’s…vehicle, that was the word. She got in and after a few minutes of sifting through the creature’s brain, she started the vehicle’s engine and drove off.

W
illiam J. Thompson
never liked going by William. He had preferred Will since he started grade school. He wasn’t really sure that anyone even knew his name was William anymore, because he hadn’t been called it in so long. Certainly no documents had his government name listed so in all reality, his name was whatever he chose it to be. His mother had birthed a William, but that person pulled a Star Wars, died a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (at least it felt like a different galaxy, even if he was born in the States). All in all, he didn’t feel too bad about it. It had been necessary, and now Will J. Thompson could be anyone he wanted, or at least his outer appearance could—the core of Will, well that didn’t change regardless of who he was. Not anymore. The time of metamorphosis for Will was over.

He had told Rigley he would make it here in forty-eight hours, and it took him forty-seven. Had he been late, he wouldn’t have cared too much—Rigley wasn’t his boss in any real sense of the word. Nominally? Maybe, in some org chart somewhere a blank box rolled up to her name, but in reality? Their roles were set long ago.

Will looked around the diner, a Waffle House that sat in the middle of a shopping center. He’d looked at the signs when he pulled in, seeing a grocery store called Publix, and other businesses not holding the same prominence. Great Clips. A Chinese restaurant. Not necessarily small town America, but not quite medium either.

He was looking over the menu as a waitress sat silverware and a napkin down in front of him.

“Hey, honey. What can I get you to drink?” she asked.

“Water’s fine,” Will answered, looking her in the eye as he did.

“Sure thing, be right back.”

She walked off and Will went back to the menu. He wasn’t reading it anymore, but looking out across the restaurant, seeing the people in here. It was one in the morning on Monday, but five or six people filled up booths. A few older folks, a few teenagers—probably eighteen, old enough to not have a strict curfew at home, but still in high school. No one else was looking around, no one else observing the rest of the restaurant. The people might not mind their own business, but they didn’t find anyone in here interesting. The town, to them, was simple, understood if not boring.

Will was looking for infection.

Infection could appear as any number of symptoms, and even that word wasn’t accurate. The infection, which was how Will classified these things even if the suits in Washington didn’t,
manifested
itself in different ways.

Will had looked at all the data sent over by Rigley. Something was here, he felt pretty confident about that, though he had no idea what. If the people in here were infected, they showed no outward signs. No ticks. No rashes. No strange questions. Just people shoveling food into their mouths, food that would kill them the same as cigarettes, but that didn’t matter to anyone anymore. It didn’t matter to Will either; he’d eat this slop and be happy about it. He might even have a cigarette when he walked out of here.

He had seen a lot of things, cancers that came both from infections and from man. He was fifty years old and had started this when he was twenty-two. That’s a long time and a lot of infections. In all those years, he’d never seen data that looked like the stuff on his phone. This was new, different. Will hadn’t eaten at a place like this in ten or fifteen years, not after he decided that age wasn’t going to slow him down—or at least not as much as it wanted to. Now, though, age didn’t matter. Looking around at the people in here, he didn’t think it mattered what he put into his body. Slop from diners, cigarettes, or a bullet. Everything in this town was going to end the same way and sooner rather than later.

Whatever infection had come to this place, whatever made that data, it wasn’t something that could be allowed to survive—nor could anyone that even chanced contact with it.

Will pulled out a newspaper from his bag and laid it down across the table. He read it while he waited for his food, and when it came, he folded up the paper and ate in silence.

W
ill rented a large truck
, a newer model, one that could handle whatever he needed to do in this town. Grayson, Georgia. He liked the name, it sounded…quaint, he supposed. It sounded like a place to raise a family.

Will parked the truck at the edge of the forest, leaving the lights blazing. He put on his vest while still in the cab, picking up his lantern with his left hand and the pistol with his right. He stepped out of the truck and nudged the door closed with his elbow. He let the lantern illuminate the darkness around him while he walked across the grass, his eyes down.

He looked at the dirt and grass carefully, his eyes focusing on the bend in the blades, looking for anything that said someone might have been here recently. He took an hour canvassing the entire field, walking in rows like corn grew here instead of grass. Quite a few times he squatted down, bringing the lantern closer to what he wanted to see. He would move his hand across the grass, and stare for a few minutes, then stand up and continue his progress.

At the end of the hour, he went back to his truck and stood in front of it, the lights shining deep into the forest. People had been here, recently. A lot of people, and then at some point, a smaller group. Maybe even one person. The tracks that led up to the forest line, two pairs of tracks, showing him that the infection most likely wasn’t contained. Every other car that parked here stayed up on the hill, but twice someone had driven down here to where Will stood. And for what reason? To see what was in these woods, the same as him.

Will started walking, moving through the brambles and dead pine needles. He kept the gun holstered as he walked, sure that he would be quick enough getting it out and up if he needed, but also sure that it would do little good. Humans, Earth animals in general, were fragile creatures. It was amazing that so many species had managed to progress for so long. Infections, though, weren’t as fragile. A bullet, in most cases, did no more damage than a strong wind. He kept it on him though, because…well, just in case. There were other things he could use against infections, of course, but that wasn’t
his
job. He was recon. He was containment. He was the first on the ground, and the first on the ground brought pistols, not real weapons. Will hadn’t started out wanting to be containment or killer, but in time he had been both.

He kept walking for a while, becoming more and more sure with each step that whatever had been here forty-eight hours ago wasn’t here any longer. Infections, they often times gave off something. He didn’t like calling it telepathy, because that was an Earthly trait. They gave off their infection, and you didn’t have to be right up on one to start catching it. Will didn’t feel that now though. Something had been here, but not any longer. The wood was dark, quiet, and still. Peaceful, as if the danger had passed from this place.

His lantern’s power showed him the black, scorched ground a hundred feet from it. He didn’t stop when he saw the black area, but kept walking, knowing that he had reached his destination. This was what Rigley wanted him to see, and at four on a Monday morning, he was here.

He looked at the nearly perfect circle of burnt earth, completely empty besides the ash. He walked toward the middle, his black shoes causing small puffs of ash to shoot into the air. When he stood in the middle, he turned around three hundred and sixty degrees, looking at the entire area. This is where it landed, whatever it was. Gone now. Back there in the town, doing whatever it was this infection did.

They were too late, at least for a Stage One containment, but he had figured as much. He feared that whatever was here held intelligence. That was the part that most scared Will, scared him in a way that other assignments hadn’t. Infections infected, but none of the ones before had any real intelligence; they were like moss, growing wherever they found a hospitable environment. Here though, the fact that something so large left only a burnt field, and no impact crater, told him this probably wasn’t a moss. There should have been a massive hole here, one that stretched maybe even all the way to Will’s truck. Nothing, though. Just him, his lantern and pistol, and this circle of faded fire.

“Alright then,” he said aloud, his first words since speaking to the waitress three hours ago.

R
igley picked
the phone up on the second ring, just enough time to see who was calling.

“One second,” she said into the receiver, and then looked up at the people around the table. “I need to take this. We’ll have to reschedule. I’ll have Sarah send you all appointments. Thank you.”

No one raised their eyebrows or showed any sign of discomfort. Rigley knew, in all reality, they were probably ready to leave. Anything to get out of this meeting and the questions she was asking everyone. More than that, what could they say? No? We’d like to finish now, please?

They picked up their things, laptops, tablets, notepads, and headed out the large wooden doors in front of the conference room. Rigley waited until the doors shut completely before she spoke again.

“You’re there?” She asked.

“Yeah, got in last night. Just finished up surveying the area,” Will said.

“And what’d you find?”

“Hard to say for certain yet, but it’s not good, Rigley.”

“No impact?” She asked.

“No, not a single indentation. Whatever came through our atmosphere slowed itself down rapidly. We’re talking hundreds of thousands of miles per hour, slowed down to a standstill within ten or fifteen seconds, if we believe what the satellites are telling us.”

“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” Rigley said. She knew that would be his answer. How could it not be? The world wasn’t in turmoil. Something of that size, at that speed, should have caused serious planet wide disruptions, but there were none. Not a peep. And yet, still, hearing him say it was so much worse. Hearing him say it out loud put everything she had been thinking in clear focus.

“Yeah,” Will answered. “And it’s no longer there. Whatever dropped in left and not the same way it came. It’s in the town.”

“Jesus…” Rigley said, putting her forehead on her left palm. She wouldn’t have said that word in front of anyone that just left this room, and she didn’t want to say it in front of Will either. No one needed to see this, needed to hear her sounding desperate. She hadn’t planned on it; the word just escaped. She forced the slip from her mind, knowing that she couldn’t focus on it now, couldn’t think about what Will’s reaction would be to it. “Okay,” she said, lifting her head up. “What do you need?”

“I’m thinking two scouts. These need to be people that are good, Rigley. The best you have.”

It didn’t sound like he had noticed, heard her momentary desperation. He was worried, but as worried as she was? Maybe, but she could hear it in his voice; he sounded different than when she called him two days ago.

“They’ll be there by noon,” she answered. “Can you find this thing?”

“Yeah,” Will said. “We’ll find it; that won’t be the problem. The problem is going to be if we can contain it.”

He had to contain it. Had to. That’s what Rigley knew, because if he didn’t, then Rigley would have to—
don’t go there yet.

The point was, despite her goddamn worrying, that Will had a job to do, just as she did. That Will was down there to ensure that she didn’t have to do anything drastic. He needed to get it together. She might be fretting up here, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t work in Grayson, didn’t mean he could skate. He needed to know the consequences if he messed up, and not just the worry blossoming across her mind.

“I’m giving you forty-eight hours to get it under control. After that, the hammer comes down.”

“Roger,” Will said and hung up the phone, leaving Rigley alone in her office.

The hammer. That’s what this was going to come to—the blooming worry. She could give him ten years, and the hammer would have to come down. They’d used it before on a similar situation, out in the desert, disguised as an atomic bomb test before they dropped the one to end World War II. That was long before her time and there hadn’t been any reason to use it since. Last time it had been in the desert. This time it would be on an American town, and the clean-up of something that massive would be…

She didn’t want to say impossible. Nothing was impossible. But it would be very difficult. People would need to know, people that shouldn’t know about any part of her job. Governments were toppled because of things like this.

But the alternative? A government could collapse if it meant the human race lived on.

Even though she didn’t want to think about it, she knew it was more than that, though. More than her job. More than the government. If she didn’t stop this, if Will didn’t stop this, then she would have to do
it
again. She swore she wouldn’t, that she would never need to. She swore it on her goddamn child, and if she didn’t get this thing fixed soon, she would have to go back on that promise.

That promise she made to herself and no one else. That promise she didn’t even want to name right now, because in naming it, she reminded herself what she had done all those years ago—in Bolivia.

“It might not be that serious,” she said, leaning back in her chair. Whatever landed didn’t have to be aggressive. It could be…but she knew her mind was going to reject
peaceful
before she even thought the word. None of the contacts made had ever been peaceful. When things showed up here, they wanted to spread, just like humans. Anytime a human culture met a new human culture, violence occurred as one tried to dominate the other. As far as she could tell, intergalactic cultures were the same.

Rigley regained her composure slowly, the desperation taking a backseat to logic. She would get them out of this, one way or another. And really, if that’s what she needed to do in order to navigate America—the human race, really—out of this predicament, maybe she should go ahead and drop the hammer. Maybe waiting was a mistake, a large one. Just go ahead and call in the team, and leave Grayson, Georgia as a hotspot for the next hundred and fifty years.