Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (40 page)

She wasted no time in slowing them and then returning each one to its previous owner.

Fire erupted on the streets below her. There were no screams though, because all of the men lacked the air necessary to make such noises.

T
he Council’s
sessions were closed. Nothing that happened in this hall was ever broadcast to the public; indeed, the public didn’t know what the inside of this space even looked like. The gray walls made from rock, the way the planet’s heat never seemed to adequately filter into this room. No adornments hung in The Council’s hall, simply stairs carved from rock ascending on either side of the room as they led to the platform where The Council sat.

Morena had never wondered what the public might think the hall looked like. Did they think it was decorated with fabulous art or perhaps historical artifacts of Bynimian? The place was bare and stark, which Morena appreciated. The business here was bare and stark; nothing more so than what they would hear today.

The Council, for the first time in its history, decided to broadcast the proceedings. Every Bynum on the planet would see this playing directly into their minds. They would see their Var prosecuted. No one told Morena why, but they didn’t need to. She imagined Chilras wanted this to be without stain, that when they sentenced the first Var to death, there would be no one who said they hadn’t acted justly. The only way to do that was to make Morena’s humiliation public.

Morena stood before The Council, her husband to her left, though separated by fifty feet. Auras different from their own, miniature prisons, wrapped around their hands, feet, and necks.

Morena couldn’t even look over to Briten, though she knew she wouldn’t even if the option existed. She wanted to, of course, but with everyone across the planet watching, she would be nothing less than the ruler of this world.

Morena did want to smile though. Guards covered the hall. They lined the stairs leading up to The Council’s platform, surrounded both her and Briten, and stood strategically on the floor. There were more guards here than Morena had brought with her when she captured The Council.

That
was humorous.

She couldn’t laugh aloud though; she would need to keep it inside. A spectacle—that’s all this was, as if either her or Briten could escape from the auras holding them. Chilras may want it to look on the up and up, but this little show was created to give her a direct advantage.

The Council walked out of their chambers, moving from behind the stone entryway and out onto their platform. Morena had seen no other Council members since her coup until now, only Chilras.

She struggled to keep from gasping.

All of them, all six, had aged at least as much as Chilras. Their auras fading so substantially that at least two of them appeared to be blackening.

What have I done?

Had it, their capture, really taken such a toll? Would they die soon after this? Had she sentenced them to death the same as they would her in just a few minutes?
Now
she wanted to look at her husband, wanted to see his reaction and understand if he felt the same.

They did this
, she said to herself, the part of her that moved on them in the first place.
Your chains, their auras, all of it because of their ignorance and arrogance.

She watched The Council sit, steeling herself against the auras they showed. They were here to kill and they wouldn’t show any mercy; she must remember that. They were here to kill Briten, and perhaps show even less mercy for him than for her.

“Morena Var and Briten of Lornarus, you both are here to have your crimes read to you and then be sentenced based on such crimes.” Chilas stood as she spoke, her aura flowing outward, showing the strength she wanted the world to see. She couldn’t hide the fading color, but she certainly didn’t feel small in front of Morena right now.

“Morena Var, you are accused of committing treason against all of Bynimian, and Briten of Lornarus, you are charged as a co-conspirator.” Chilras stared down at Morena, not bothering to cast a single glance at Briten. Morena held her gaze, her face still and her aura spreading as far as it could given her constraints.

“I could go on,” Chilras said, “and name other crimes, but the six of us have determined that there is no reason for such extraneous issues. No crime you have committed, or will be accused of committing, can compare to trying to destroy our customs, the customs you were born to protect.”

Morena felt the anger rise in her, saw her aura flaring around her at the accusation. Those seeing from outside would see it, but she could do nothing to prevent it.

“We have found you guilty, Morena, as well as your husband.” Still no look toward Briten. Chilras’ eyes burned with a fury that her aura would never match again. This was her vengeance, this whole show, and Morena her foe. “Do you have anything to say before sentencing?”

Morena felt her aura wanting to reach out, to grapple the old creature and throw her to the ground, smothering her beneath Morena’s own power. She had to maintain control though, had to get a grasp on her own feelings, because this moment would be remembered forever. Her aura may never reach the Tower, not anymore, but Bynums would remember. They would tell the story of the one and only trial a Var ever received. It would filter down for generations, forever, or until Bynimian died.

Think of mother. What would she have done?

That thought struck Morena to the core. She remembered the first time she saw Briten and her mother’s calm even when she probably knew what would happen. That her daughter would marry this otherworldly creature, spoiling a bloodline that stretched back to The Makers. Helos had looked on in that banquet hall without her aura changing a bit.

Morena could do the same now.

She could be strong. The same strength that allowed her overthrow attempt, she need only focus it at a different place.

“Alright then,” Chilras said, taking Morena’s thought and silence as having nothing to say. “We will—”

“No,” Morena said. “I would like to speak.”

Chilras nodded slowly. “Go on then.”

“It is imperative, crucially so, that everyone hearing my words now look into the research that my husband did. Whether or not you agree with my actions, when you look into his work, you will see why I felt I had no choice. This world is dying and there is no way to save it. The only option for our species' survival is colonization. If you do not act soon, it will be too late, and your children will never have children.”

“Guards—”

“I am not finished,” Morena said. She looked on, not speaking though, daring Chilras to continue, daring her to not yield the floor. After a few seconds, she continued. “This Council puts the entire planet at risk with their refusal to acknowledge the facts before them. You all are acting recklessly and endangering countless lives, those of our species that are not even yet born. You, especially, Chilras, do this because of some misplaced notion that someone other than a Bynum cannot have a thought worth thinking. When this planet dies, and with it all we have built or will ever build, the blame will rest on the six placing judgment on me now. There will be no one to judge you, then, though—because everyone and everything you know will be dead.”

Silence ruled across the floor, across the entire chamber. No one moved, not so much as breathed loudly. Morena’s words rested in everyone’s minds, and though she didn’t know what they felt about those words, she knew she was heard.

“Is there anything else, former Var?” Chilras said.

“You cannot and will not take away my bloodline.”

“You did that yourself. Now let us be done with this. The Council has found both of you guilty and sentence you to death through public execution, to be completed two days from now.”

T
heir cells were separated
. Briten imagined it was to stop the possibility of collusion. Briten sat alone, seeing nothing but white surrounding him.

He wondered, for a long time, what type of ruler he would have made on his home planet. His temperament was very different from that of his father, or any of the other rulers that presided over their dominions. He was different, but this much so? No. He held some of the rage that the rest of his planet seemed to breed with happiness. Focused rage. That’s what his species wanted.

Here he was though, sitting in a cell, having just heard his death sentence, and only feeling the early stirrings of something that might grow into rage.

His parents, his people, they would have killed this world if someone tried to imprison them. Simply crushed any living soul on this rock. He though, Briten, he sat cross-legged on the floor, only considering such things. Was it Morena that helped him learn this calm? Or was this simply what The Makers set out as his path?

He smiled, thinking about Morena.

She might have made a better ruler on his planet than on hers.

He knew that if he contacted someone from his planet, he might be able to start a war, one that would free him and Morena. Bynimian could never hold up to the might that his father would bring to this place. It was too late for that though, because he couldn’t make contact. He would die here on this planet, and his parents wouldn’t know.

These thoughts went through his mind as he sat alone on the floor, but the stirrings inside him grew as well.

They came from his DNA rather than his conscious thought.

The DNA built from a lineage of warriors, and even if through luck or learning he had managed to curb that DNA, it rose to the surface now. He told Morena that if the opportunity presented itself, then he would fight. She said she thought it would. He didn’t know if she still believed that, but Morena had never predicted something that didn’t come to be. Her Knowledge was weak, but when it came, it was right.

He had agreed to die for her, and sitting in this cage, his inner workings decided that he was going to kill for her. His own death…perhaps that was where his calm came from. All creatures die and he knew that from a very, very young age—his whole species did, and had to when war came as natural to them as their auras. He accepted that he one day would die, but he didn’t think until today that he had accepted Morena would die too.

The rage grew, like a hurricane over an ocean. Large clouds beginning to swirl inside him, picking up speed as more of his anger evaporated into the winds.

They were going to kill her because of him.

They would murder his wife, the person that he left a planet for, gave up his life to be with.

The Council and all their inner machinations had considered so many options, so many variables, but Briten thought they forgot about him. He was only Morena’s toady. He was something that shouldn’t exist on this planet, but was harmless overall. His sense of calm throughout his time here left them feeling he was nothing to be reckoned with.

In his cell, alone, Briten contemplated what it meant that his wife would be murdered, and in that contemplation, murder was finally born in his heart.

I
t went
as Morena thought it would.

Death sent down from a group dying themselves.

The thought, that she would die very, very soon, felt strange. Bynums lived. They lived for a long time, and by any standard, she was just now reaching middle age. She had another half of her life to live, and yet a group decided that her time was over.

She finally understood Chilras' fear of colonizing other planets. Before, she had only been concerned with Bynimian’s survival, but now she saw why Chilras didn’t want to kill. The Makers decided when life ended; it was planned that way, and for another being to decide they know more than The Makers bordered on blasphemy.

Shut up with that nonsense, Morena.

If that was the truth, then why did The Makers create free will? She thought such idiocy right now because she was just told she would die. Chilras was frightened because she was old and couldn’t see around the corner, though someone was standing on the other side screaming at her what to expect. The Makers created this place, but they didn’t dictate what happened in it.

And if they did, if this illusion of free will was nothing more than that, then Chilras never had a choice in killing Morena. Her Knowledge grew in strength, telling her that whatever she needed to be looking for was rapidly approaching. She would die here, but only if she messed up. She would never get to the point of having her aura smothered if she paid attention and acted.

She wanted Briten next to her. Whatever happened over the next two days, they were going to meet their fate together, whether that be death or life. When the chance showed itself, she would only take it if Briten could take it too.

The world saw Briten as a slow moving river, or perhaps a still lake. She knew differently, though, because she saw inside his aura. She knew that if pushed, the power bred inside him would erupt on this world as lethal as any exploding core. Morena needed to get to him, somehow. She had to get out of this cage and find her husband, and then they would face their fate together.

Calm down; it’s coming.

Her thoughts were running away from her, would continue to if she allowed them. She had been sentenced to death and perhaps such a decree caused one to lose focus.

The decree didn’t matter, though. That’s what she was coming to realize. The moment of opportunity was approaching, and Morena smiled as she thought about it, because all of Chilras’ well laid plans would lay scattered like sand during a storm. Morena might not be able to save her people, but with each passing second, she felt she could save herself and her husband.

T
he path
out of the dark, for Bryan, took a few hours in reality, but in his head, the path stretched on nearly forever.

He walked it, because in darkness such as he found himself, there was no other way to travel. He didn’t know where he was going, only that he had to move forward, because to turn back meant death—if not of the physical kind, then certainly of the mental variety. He carried all the pieces of him, that shattered glass, in a bag over his shoulder, and he trudged a road that he couldn’t see, hoping it led to light. That’s what he was searching for, some kind of light. Something to illuminate the place his mind had become.

He came to very slowly, the darkness inside him lit by the outside world. It felt like the slowest sunrise to ever occur, as if the world nearly stopped its spinning. Yet it came all the same, and that was all that mattered. The darkness lifted and Bryan looked out into the world for what felt like the first in a lifetime.

His parents lay on either side of him, and he recognized the three of them lay in their room. He didn’t move, but just stared up at the ceiling, blinking sporadically. He didn’t know if he had been sleeping, only that he couldn’t remember how he got here. He remembered his mom, remembered watching Morena tie her up with
his
hands, and remembered leaving the house. He didn’t remember coming back, though.

Bryan sat up as his body finally came back to him, the need to use the restroom pressing on him. He scooted down the middle of the bed, trying not to disturb the two lying on either side, and went to his parents’ restroom.

“Bryan?” his mother said from the other room. “Bryan, are you up?”

It only took a second, but then he heard her trying the doorknob. Old habits died hard, he supposed, as he had locked it absentmindedly when closing the door.

“Yeah, just give me a second.”

“Oh, God.”

He heard her start crying on the other side and more movement as his father got out of bed.

“Bryan? Bryan, are you okay?”

The questions came then, but Bryan didn’t answer any of them. When he finished, he flushed the toilet and stared out the window in front of him. They were banging on the door, truly trying to get in, but he only wanted to remember. What happened, and why was he here? Something inside him felt wrong, though he didn’t know what it was. He thought if he could remember, he might be able to understand, though.

“Bryan I’m going to kick the door in if you don’t open it right now,” his father said, though the stress in his voice might was nearly enough to crack the wooden frame.

“No,” he said, turning around and unlocking it. He opened the door and his parents grabbed him, barely taking time to look, just grabbed him and pulled him in as if he would float off into the sky without them holding onto him. His mother cried, her tears transferring to Bryan’s neck, and his father too—though he did a better job at wiping them away.

“Are you okay?”

The questions again, firing at him with barely a second in between each one.

Remember,
he thought.

“Thera,” he said, the word rolling off his lips slowly.

“Thera?” someone asked, someone holding him, though Bryan paid no attention to the question or who asked it.

“Is Thera okay?” someone asked. Bryan ignored the question though, ignored the others that came next.

He was remembering.

Thera was dead.

She lay in a hole that Michael and he built years ago, a hole that was never meant to be her grave. A hole that they built for fun, but one that now housed only pain. And Morena. It had been real.
She
had been real. She
was
real.

For the first time since waking, Bryan felt the unsteady floor beneath him, the constant vibration that hadn’t ceased since he opened his eyes.

He saw her, Morena, standing out in the middle of that blackened ring and remembered the ground cracking around her. Remembered it falling in, revealing heat and light shooting up from beneath. Terror rose in Bryan, terror so large that the Tower of Babylon would have looked minuscule in comparison, terror that would have reached a god if one existed in some heaven above.

Tears streamed down his face—hot, burning. With questions still flying around him much the same as the bullets had in that forest, he interrupted them all.

“We have to leave. We have to get out of here. Now.”

K
enneth Marks sat
on a chair in the corner of the room with his legs crossed, keenly aware of what the people around him thought. He wasn’t a mind reader, but their body language said more than their mouths would ever dare. He watched their eyes, how Rigley’s darted and how Will’s moved slowly. Jenna was on her computer, the only one besides Kenneth Marks truly engrossed in her work.

The others watched him, even though they thought he didn’t know.

He talked, but it was mostly mindless chatter. Things to keep the room from turning into complete silence. He was waiting on a call, to understand what happened with the infantry that lined up outside Grayson. The talk in here didn’t matter in the slightest, but it did allow him to keep having fun with Rigley and to start understanding how he might enjoy this Will fellow as well.

Will was an interesting one.

He wasn’t anything abnormal; he definitely fell within the appropriate range of someone with his background and childhood. The interesting part was how Kenneth Marks could use him. He understood Rigley, through and through, and barring some new source of information, nothing would change there. Will, though…Kenneth Marks needed to devote some serious thought to understanding the best way to have fun with him. He rarely devoted serious thought to anything, but he wouldn’t waste this opportunity.

“Oh, will you pardon me for a second?” he asked as the phone in his pocket chirped at him. He pulled it out and put it to his ear. “Yes, General?”

The words came through the phone and Kenneth Marks’ excitement grew. He didn’t move, didn’t show a single facial expression, but was beginning to feel like a child the night before Christmas. This kept getting better and better.

“You don’t say?” he asked. “So what is going on down there now?”

He listened, categorizing and strategizing simultaneously. He did have a job to do here, one that he took seriously—or as seriously as someone like Kenneth Marks could take a job—and what the General said was making that job sound like it might be a serious challenge. Plans needed to be made, because he did need to put down this little uprising, but the new development meant his own fun could grow exponentially. Rigley Plasken would go for a ride, perhaps a long one, but certainly not a boring one.

He had to balance his fun with his job, though.

“Would you mind sending over that video you have?” he asked. He looked around the room for a brief second. “Would you mind sending it to the phones in my nearest vicinity as well? You should see them attached to mine. Thank you, General.”

He hung up.

“Well, at the risk of being a bit late, we’ve made contact.” Kenneth Marks smiled, the best one he could put on, the one that would woo panties off women at any bar in the world if he so desired. “You’re all going to get a video showing what this contact looked like. I think it would be a good idea for us to view it together, yes?”

Rigley reached into her pocket, pulling out her phone. Will only looked at him, not moving.

“Mine's ready. What about you two?”

Rigley nodded and Will took his phone from his pocket.

Kenneth Marks didn’t plan on watching his phone. He planned on watching the others as they watched theirs, but when the video started playing, Kenneth Marks lost himself in it. He didn’t look up, didn’t look away from the satellite images of the men choking like all of them had swallowed a bone. He saw the somewhat fuzzy image of the creature cloaked in green, flying thirty feet above the ground like Superman. He watched as the tanks’ missiles appeared out of nowhere, flying so fast and then stopping immediately. He saw the same green color that floated around the creature
infiltrate
the missiles, and then watched as they crashed back down to the ground.

Fire erupted everywhere.

The creature wiped out the whole division in perhaps thirty seconds. He looked into his phone and realized there wasn’t a single person alive, that the only thing still living from the encounter was the creature not of this planet.

Kenneth Marks looked up from his phone at the two people across the room. Wonder danced in his eyes, wonder and questions that no one here could answer. Except for maybe the first.

“So, Rigley. This is what we’ve let loose?”

K
enneth was talking
, but Will wasn’t listening.

He wasn’t even looking at the man.

He kept replaying the video. Over and over.

Will had missed his shot. He planted his feet, raised his weapon, aimed, and pulled the trigger. What did Bruce Lee once say?
I don’t fear the man that has practiced one thousand kicks a hundred times, but the man who has practiced one kick, ten thousand times.
Something like that, and Will had practiced that one, singular kick, ten thousand times. Still he missed. Left. The goddamn bullet went left.

And this was the result?

Again and again he watched the creature stop the tanks’ shots, stop them and send them right back as if it was catching a baseball and throwing it to the pitcher.

What could stop something like this? Had Will unleashed the world’s end by missing that shot?

He looked up for a second, letting Marks’ words filter into his mind. The man was talking to Rigley and in one complete moment, Will realized he hated Marks. Will realized that he would kill this man if given the chance, shoot him and take a nap right after. It was clear what was going on in this room, clear to Will at least. This is what Rigley feared, this is what made her run and cry and lose control throughout the operation. This man and what he was doing right now.

Tormenting her.

The questions he asked, the opinions he posed, every one of them dug at Rigley in a way that they couldn’t anyone else.

“What do you think we need to do?” he asked.

Will looked over to Rigley, now sitting on the bed, her own phone discarded next to her. She wasn’t concerned with what the video showed, because that’s not what she feared here. She had never feared the infection in Grayson. She feared this man.

What Will didn’t understand was
why
?

Marks turned his eyes to Will’s then, just as the thought moved through Will’s head. He felt a chill roll down his spine like someone dripping ice water down his back.

“Will, you’re awfully quiet. What are you thinking?”

His mouth suddenly felt like he tried to swallow a gallon of sand. It wasn’t fear but an impossible feeling that Marks already knew what ran through his mind. That Marks pulled him into this conversation at the exact moment he wanted to, and that while Will hadn’t paid any attention to Marks, he was definitely paying attention to Will.

“You keep asking her what’s next. I’m wondering what you think we should do next.”

Will held the man’s eyes and watched the joy bouncing around inside them. There wasn’t a single ounce of seriousness inside the man, all of him playing with the cleverness a cat must feel when pawing a mouse.

“I’m glad you asked,” Marks said.

K
enneth Marks entered
the hotel room reserved for him. Jenna passed behind him, moving to hers, neither of them saying anything to each other. Kenneth Marks closed the door and stood in front of it, statuesque. He looked into the dark room, but didn’t bother turning on any lights. He looked, but saw none of it.

He looked at the creature that flew above men as if they were merely ants. The green cloak wrapping around it, seeming to be a part of it, actually more like skin than any kind of cloak. The beauty of it, of the creature. No one in the other room had spoken of its beauty, because everyone besides himself was too concerned with the damage it doled out—as easily as a lunch lady handed out tater-tots in a cafeteria. Everyone in the room feared it, feared what it would do, and in that fear, they missed what it
was
.

Kenneth Marks walked into the room, taking his jacket off and hanging it up in the closet to his left. He closed the closet and went to the curtains across from the bed, pulling them back, and revealing Atlanta to him. The lights of the city poured into his room, fighting back the shadows.

They would need to evacuate the state. There wasn’t any way around it. The President would lose his mind and some international leaders might try to get involved, but keeping people in this city—or any other in Georgia—meant too many eyes on something that no one should see. He would let the storytellers concoct a rationale for why the state needed to be evacuated. His job was to end the threat, not contain the information about the threat. Someone else would need to handle that.

End the threat
.

He didn’t know if a neutron bomb would work on the thing he saw. He didn’t know if anything would work on it, but he knew he wanted to make Rigley use the bomb. Or he had.

Kenneth Marks had never in his life felt attachment to anyone or anything outside of his own enjoyment. Yet, looking at the video, he felt a stirring inside him that he didn’t understand completely. Even now, an hour later, with plenty of time for his mind to digest the feeling, he wasn’t quite sure what to think. His mind formed two paths before him, one that he should follow and one that he was beginning to think he
wanted
to follow.

Evacuate the state and bomb the foreign entity.

Or.

Talk to it.

The stirring in him, though he couldn’t be sure, might be kinship. There wasn’t any real emotion combined with it, only a thought that perhaps Kenneth Marks had met something he could identify with. Something that flew over men and destroyed them as humans did insects. He saw greatness in that video, even if everyone else in the room saw a threat. He saw something that felt like…home.