by Wesley Chu
Stay with me, Roen!
“Can’t have you unconscious when you die, Mr Tan,” Jacob sneered.
“First of all,” Roen mumbled, “stop slapping me. It’s not manly. Second of all, you can call me Roen, you little psychopath.”
Jacob grabbed him by the side of the face and slammed his head against the metal railing. “As you wish, Roen.” He pulled Roen in close. “This is for Grandfather, you evil Prophus bastard.” And then he threw Roen over the side down toward the deck, four stories below.
Just as Roen went over, he reached out and grabbed at the railing. Grabbed at anything, really. An image of Jacob’s face and collar popped into his mind and instead of grabbing the bar, Roen got his hand on Jacob’s shirt at the collar right at the base of the neck. The kid fell forward and nearly decapitated himself on the metal railing. He saved himself by pushing his hands against the bar at the last moment. And there Roen dangled, with only his tenuous hold on Jacob’s shirt keeping him alive. He reached up with his other hand. Jacob’s face was turning purple as he tried to hold up Roen’s weight with his arms and neck.
See, I told you I would figure something out.
“Your dumb luck strategy has succeeded, great Napoleon.”
No need to antagonize me at a time like this.
Roen looked down at the deck as several cargo containers made a slow slide into the water, sinking into the black depths. Then he saw Dylan and two other figures he couldn’t make out run onto the deck. At least some of his guys were still alive.
Another explosion in the back of the ship shot a plume of fire up into the air. Imelda’s Song was singing her swan song, pun intended. Roen tried to will his arms to pull himself up, but it was all they could do to hang onto Jacob’s collar.
“Hey Tao, at least you got one of your wishes. We’ll fall into the ocean. You can find a new host then.”
Roen, listen carefully, if you swing to your right, you can try to land on the lower platform.
“Fat chance, Tao. My tank is on empty.”
“Mr Tan,” Jacob growled, obviously choking. He pulled Roen’s up enough to grab Roen’s wrist and tear his grip away from the shirt. “It seems your friends are down there, which mean I no longer have the luxury of killing you slowly. Why don’t you do them a favor and join them below?”
Jacob let go and all Roen could feel was the sensation of weightlessness before everything went black.
FORTY-FIVE
EPILOGUE
Roen, my friend, I have told you all of our history so that you can know and understand. The real reason I tell you this, though, is so that maybe you can hear me. I do not know if you are still here, but I pray that I am not alone in your body. You are my friend and always will be. In case you do not survive, you will live forever through me.
Tao
Enzo was in a hurry. He had been gone for nearly a month, but with the recent birth of new Quasing and the beginning of Quasiform, this was not the time to keep his eyes from the prize. With Phase III officially under way, his true life’s work was about to begin. The sideshow in Tibet was just that, a minor distraction that had to be taken care of. Some on the Council might call the encounter a loss, with the Prophus freeing the majority of the prisoners, but Enzo saw it differently. The delivery of test subjects was uninterrupted. That was the important thing. Add the fact that their overall strength had been diminished by that encounter was just an added bonus. In a game where pawns were exchanged, the side with superior numbers always came out ahead. With the death of their Field Marshal, his victory in Tibet was near-total. Stephen was just under the Keeper on the priority list, and it was Enzo who killed him. He had cut off the head of the snake, and now the body of the enemy was writhing aimlessly.
A momentary victory is not to be savored. Only the conclusion is worth noting.
Enzo jumped out of the helicopter before it touched down on the ground. He sped directly toward the research wing. While the reports from Chow had been glowing, Enzo knew better than to believe everything at face value without seeing it with his own eyes first. Immediately, the entourage that had been waiting on the platform organized around him as if an honor guard. Within moments, he had received a data dump of the events of the twenty-four hours since his last briefing.
“The Council is requesting a meeting at your convenience.”
Requesting.
“At my convenience? Interesting,” Enzo said, amused.
“The earliest possible, Father.”
Be wary of their reaction. Your victory in Tibet was not absolute. They might seize the advantage.
“The rest of the Council might still try to take Quasiform from me?”
Possibly.
“Still, their tone has changed.”
“Arrange it,” Enzo said. It would be interesting to see how they treated him now. They must feel threatened by his success. After all, he had accomplished more in a few short months than what most of them had in decades. Regardless of how they would try to spin it, they could not take away his accomplishments.
“General Marec, head of port operations, has reported an incident.”
“With the catalyst prototypes?”
“Among others.” Amanda clicked on her tablet. “Port security has concerns about the trade hub in Taiwan. There was a security breach and he believes it is a vulnerable single point of failure in this hemisphere’s operations. The Americas are still in turmoil.”
“Once our legislators assume full control of the States, that port will no longer be important,” Enzo said. He was at the cusp of a new era on this planet and all Amanda could do was ply him with silly logistics.
Supply lines must be maintained until that change takes place.
“Of course, Holy One.”
Enzo reached the research building, walking at a pace his aides found difficult to keep up with. He could feel Zoras’ anticipation as they reached the lab. This was an exciting time. Under Zoras’ direction, the future of humanity and this planet would bend to his will. He was truly blessed by the Holy Ones.
He bounded into the main lab with his entourage close behind. Chow was giving orders to the two dozen or so scientists in the lab. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and bowed. Enzo ignored them. He ignored everything but the glass vat and the swirling liquid inside. Except now, the red liquid was filled with thousands of small bursts of white light, as if there was a bubble universe right within the confines of the container.
“Praise to the Holy Ones. What is that?”
It is beautiful. Five Quasing are incubating two right now. We have birthed the first of our kind on this planet!
Enzo’s eyes traced the swirls circling around a large membrane that pulsed with a white light so bright that it was difficult to look straight into it. Yet, if he focused, he could make out the shapes of five separated individual blobs attached to each other. And in the very center of the combined form, two smaller membranes orbited each other. It was a celestial sight, and to Enzo, further proof of the Quasing’s divinity. He ordered the lights dimmed and for half an hour, just stood there and watched the kaleidoscope of Quasing incubation. Suddenly, one of his aides rushed to this side and grabbed him by the arm so forcefully it took Enzo by surprise.
“How dare you!” Enzo hissed.
“Apologies, Father,” the aide said, panicked. Then he pointed at one of the television screens on the side wall where a press conference was taking place. Then, one by one, every screen in the lab changed to that channel. Enzo’s face turned white.
On the screen, two United States senators stood behind a podium and addressed dozens of reporters on live television.
“My name is Senator James Wilks,” the man said. “As you know, there was an attack on our nation’s capital a few days ago and I was presumed dead. As you can see, I am very much alive. I bring ill tidings to the American people. There is a conspiracy in this world that affects all of us. It is foreign, and when I say that, I mean extraterrestrial.�
� The bank of reporters began to mutter. He held up hands. “I have evidence.”
The other individual, a good-looking older woman, spoke. “I am Senator Mary Thompson, and I too was a victim of the reckless brutality. Make no mistake, it was a coup d’état by this same group that my colleague Senator Wilks speaks of. Except the attacks and the conspiracy go far deeper. There have been aliens in our midst since the dawn of humanity. You see, I have one of them in me, and we have the technology here to prove it.”
What have those fools done?!
Enzo could only stare at the screen, frozen in shock. The world as the Quasing knew it had just collapsed.
The air ambulance transporting the survivors of Imelda’s Song landed on the helipad of the Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii at three in the afternoon. None of them had slept much since the fight at the ship nearly two days ago. Well, none except for Roen and Ray. Both were in medically-induced comas.
The survivors of the freighter were picked up by the remnants of Stephen’s air support, which had been redirected to search for them when Dylan had sent the distress signal out. The search and rescue teams had looked for the better part of a day and were about to call off the search because of the increased presence of the Chinese Air Force canvasing the same area. Luckily, a large explosion on the freighter in the middle of the night had pinpointed their location. The Prophus were able to get their people out minutes before the Chinese teams got there.
From there, it was a race to an airspace that the Chinese would not yet dare violate, regardless of their Genjix allegiance. Jill was waiting for them on the helipad as the medics unloaded everyone and rushed them to the emergency room.
The prognosis from the doctors weren’t good. They gave Roen less than a twenty-five percent chance of pulling through his injuries. He had spent a day clinging onto debris in the ocean with half a dozen broken bones and severe internal bleeding. Several of his injuries had festered and he was severely dehydrated. If Roen wasn’t going to survive this, Jill was determined that her son would see him one last time.
Jill swallowed the lump in her throat as the doctors lifted him onto the gurney and rushed him down the hallway. She ran alongside him, holding his hand as they weaved in and out of traffic. Dylan had taken over security and an entire squad of Prophus operatives were clearing the path for them to the operating room. Once the doctors and the nurses were there prepping for surgery, she was barred from going inside and ended up waiting just outside in the lobby.
Two hours later, Louis and Lee Ann arrived with Cameron. She rushed to her son and held him tight, tears flowing down both their faces as she told him how much she missed him. He didn’t know what was going on, and part of her thought it might be cruel to bring him to his father’s death, but she also knew that was what Roen would have wanted. It hurt her to know that Cameron was not at his father’s side until the last moment. They both deserved to have this and it was a lesson Cameron needed to learn.
“Jill,” Lee Ann said, giving her a hug. “What happened? Is he going to pull through?”
She dug face into her mother’s shoulders and wept. “I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. They just went in a while ago.”
Louis joined in on the hug and squeezed her tight. Then he pulled back and stared at her. “Why are you carrying a pistol?” he asked, looking wide-eyed at the holster half-hidden beneath her vest. Then he looked around at the half dozen Prophus agents standing watch. His eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”
It is time.
Jill wiped the tears from her eyes and exhaled. “We better sit down.”
Then she told them everything, from the moment she met Roen to the incident at Monaco to the time she went to basic training to when she was positioned with Senator Wilks. She kept the Quasing out of it. That would require a lot more explaining to do. For now, her parents wanted to know about her and Roen. She was about to tell them about her work on the Hill with the Senator when something to the side caught her eye. Wilks was on the television. Her face drained of some of its color as she pointed at the screen.
“Isn’t that your boss?” Louis asked.
She nodded in silence. Everyone in the room watched Wilks and Thompson detail not only the conspiracy of the Prophus and Genjix, but the technology of the Penetra scanners. The conference went on for another hour as Thompson laid everything out in the open, from the crash landing to how the Quasing had influenced humanity for thousands of years to their civil war to how they had infiltrated every aspect of human government. The conference would have gone on much longer had the FBI not interrupted it and taken them both away.
Jill knew this was coming, but she was still unprepared for it when the full brunt of reality smacked her in the face. After years of hiding the Quasing from the world, it was now all out in the open and she felt starkly naked.
“Shit just got real.”
No shit.
“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you swear.”
If this is not the most appropriate time, I do not know what is. Also, that is also because you do not understand Russian.
Lee Ann turned to Louis. “Were they just talking about what I think they’re talking about?”
Louis only nodded with a dumbfounded look on his face. “This is a prank right?” He turned to Jill. “That’s your boss. What’s this...” his voice trailed off as he looked again at the guards standing about.
Jill nodded. “I’m one of them, Dad.”
And then she told them about Baji and about the Quasing. There was too much to tell in one sitting, so she chose the important and less frightening aspects of her life as a Prophus. She was halfway through when a young operative walked up to her and bowed.
“Mrs Tan,” he said. “Lieutenant Jackson Riley, naval intelligence. I’ve been sent from Command.”
“For what,” Jill said sharply.
“In the event that Mr Tan does not pull through. I have been assigned to Tao. I just wanted to introduce myself in case the worst happens. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“He’s still alive!” she snapped. At that instant, Jill wanted to claw his eyes out and punch that old hag Keeper in the face. Her husband wasn’t dead yet and those vultures were already circling his spoils. But after taking several moments to compose herself, she knew it had to be done. It wasn’t this young man’s fault. He was just following orders. She thanked him and watched as he took a seat at the other end of the room. Then they all sat down and waited.
Six hours later, Dylan limped out of the emergency room and signaled for Jackson to follow him back in. Jill felt a lump crawl up her throat. That could only mean one thing. She picked up Cameron and ran after them, pushing past the two guards into the emergency room where the doctors were working frantically on Roen. The ECG was going off the charts, bleeping several times a second and the nurses were prepping a crash cart.
A minute later, Roen flatlined.
Jill held on to Cameron tightly as she watched in horror, being nothing more than an observer of her husband’s death.
“No,” she moaned.
I am sorry.
After a minute of attempts with no change to the ECG, the doctor pulled off his mask and read the time of death. Jill collapsed to the ground in sobs. Dylan knelt next to her and held her tightly as her body shook.
A sparkle of light left Roen’s body and circled the room. Tao flitted around the ceiling of the room and then moved down to where she and Cameron lay. Then he brushed by her face as if trying to reassure her, blinking softly.
Tao says he is so sorry and that he loved Roen more than anything.
Then Tao swirled around Cameron, as if caressing him, as if trying to tell him something as well.
Jackson walked up at attention to Tao and bowed. “Tao, by the request of the Keeper, I would be honored to be your host. Please, sir, when you are ready.”
Tao rose up to eye level with Jackson and paused, his membrane pulsating with light as he studied hi
s new assigned host, and then he moved past Jackson’s head and circled around the room. Then finally, instead of settling into Jackson Riley, he moved back down to Jill and Cameron.
A second later, Cameron began to scream with pain. His voice echoed through the room like a piercing siren. Jill clutched her little guy as tightly as she could as he writhed in pain.
What is Tao thinking?
“What Roen would have wanted I think.”
Then, joining Cameron’s scream, the ECG suddenly blipped. Once. Twice. Three times.
A lone figure, haggard and dirty, limped up to the MP at the gate of Caserma Ederle in Vicenza, Italy. He shuffled forward as if a zombie, half dead, weaving left and right, barely able to stand on his feet. The man was nearly bald with odd tufts of white hair sticking out of his head. All the other parts of his head were red with blood, as if he had been tearing hair out by the fistful. He stank of alcohol and stale clothing. His odor reached the two MPs before they even saw him. His eyes were vacuous and he moaned as he crept toward them.
As he got closer, the two MPs exchanged glances and lifted their rifles. “This is a United States Command Post. Step back immediately. This is your only warning.”
The half-dead man stopped and stared at them for several seconds. Then he opened his mouth and spoke in broken English, the words misshapen as if foreign to the tongue speaking them. “Code: The greatness of man is secondary to his use.” He paused, as if still formulating the thoughts in his head, before speaking again. “I am Shiva the Destroyer, and I must see Zoras. You will take me to him right away.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I never expected to write another acknowledgement so soon after the release of The Lives of Tao. After all, it’s only been a short six short months since my debut novel was introduced to the world and now The Deaths of Tao is following hot on its heels.
