by David Beers
Her eyes lit gray and she stepped off the transport. Gray streaks immediately flowed out from her eyes as she fell. A hush fell over the crowd beneath. Even with fire raging and people dying, for a single moment, everyone stared as the woman who had started all of this death began falling to her own.
The gray flickering light wrapped around her, 10 or 20 lines crisscrossing and forming a lattice. She spun in the air, her falling halted, and looked at the multitude of those come to kill her.
“Go,” she whispered, and her voice carried down to every single one of the millions beneath.
Screams raged and bodies flung forward. Huge bridges that had been built over the previous days fell across the river. Projectiles launched into the air, both those made of the earth and those stemming from technology. Burning boulders and lasers filled the air. Death had come to this river.
Rachel’s gray light spawned outward, the lattice around her expanding. People no longer looked up at her, but were consumed by their hatred and bloodlust. Each side only wanted to kill the other. Perhaps they understood that Earth’s fate rested on their ability to murder, or perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps faith, love, and truth had ceased mattering to anyone. The ideals that originally drove so many to this river had been replaced with a hive mind of hate.
And beneath, in the middle of the growing battle, the Nile River started boiling. Bubbles roared to the surface, and steam billowed into the air.
Rachel descended further, moving toward the boiling water, her gray eyes seeing what no one else could.
Thirty-Five
The world no longer existed for David Hollowborne. Thoughts of his sister, of a traitor, of a war raging across the planet—all of it was dead, at least for the moment.
For David, only the girl mattered, and she had almost arrived.
He’d felt her for a while, and he was sure she sensed him, too. He could see her now, though, the miles and miles of travel finally at an end. He didn’t know why she’d come to this place, brought by someone for a purpose that escaped him. He didn’t care about that either. His mind was focused, perhaps even more than when death arrived at his compound. His God had given him a directive, and he was here to fulfill it.
The sky was empty except for the single transport. It came from beneath, but David hadn’t needed to see the entire territory to know where she was entering. As soon as she passed by some unseen threshold, David had felt her the rest of the way.
He floated just above a building, so that his feet faced the top of it. He couldn’t be seen from beneath, and that’s how he wanted it. She might be able to detect him, but he didn’t think she knew his exact whereabouts … but he knew hers, directly below him.
David was hidden until he was ready to move.
He closed his eyes, and the gray stirred to life. He held it in, now connected to the Unformed’s power. He didn’t want to let it loose yet, not for another minute or so. She would have no advantage. Youthful and untested, but powerful, David wouldn’t be a fool in their contest.
He saw the ship in his mind, growing closer and closer each second. David raised his hands so that he looked to be hanging on an invisible cross.
He floated forward, his body moving just beyond the building beneath him. Now, if anyone in the transport was looking, they could see him.
David dropped, letting gravity take over, and his eyes flashed open. Gray darted out, webs forming immediately, creating a node in the middle of each and from there starting anew. They spread outward beautifully, a gray web appearing to flow upward into the sky as its creator fell toward Earth.
The webs kept up with David though, wrapping him in a cocoon and still spreading further and further out.
He reached the transport in 30 seconds, coming to a perfect stop directly above its nose. He tilted himself, inverting his body so that the transport’s nose faced his stomach. He looked at the people inside.
David wanted to see her in person, just once, before it began.
Gray light spread around the ship, cocooning the object just as it had David.
Rhett sat in the transport’s cockpit, to the left. Another man, one that David thought he’d already killed sat on the right side. Both stared back at him. She was behind them. The girl stared straight forward and David easily saw the gray light in her own eyes. Nothing swarmed outward from them, all of it contained within her, but she was connected.
The girl was young, but not so much younger than David. The difference in their age wasn’t years, but the lives they’d led.
And then, finished with thought, David was ready to kill.
The High Priest saw it all. He watched the weapon free fall from the sky, then stop as if he weighed nothing, hanging in front of the ship that contained the High Priest’s brain. He saw the electric gray sparking out of the man, overtaking the sky.
The High Priest watched it all from his perch. His eyes didn’t need any extra lenses, they saw as clearly now as they did when he was only 18 years old.
Death was here, and while the High Priest had once cared about saving the world—it no longer mattered. He needed his Disciple and his First Priest to deliver the gift that Corinth had promised him. He stood on the platform that wrapped around his egg shaped building and folded his hands over his stomach. He was ready to watch the weapon die, and then his prize rise to him.
That’s good. I hadn’t thought of that. I might also be able to kill him.
Insanity reigned above while war raged below.
The Disciple knew the creature in front of him. He had thought the girl behind him was the Black’s servant, but he’d been mistaken. The gray color that ruled the sky in front of him, originating from the man floating right above the ship—that was the Black, and whatever sat behind him was no longer relevant.
Information flooded the Disciple, showing him what he needed to know. He immediately understood what had happened to his brother, seeing his entire encounter with this man, and the death that quickly followed. The knowledge came instantaneously, moving through his nanotechnology at the very moment it was needed. The Disciples—all looking the same, all having the exact same genetic and nano codes—could know everything about the others, because they were one—even if in separate bodies. His brother had died, but this Disciple would not … at least not in the same manner.
He’s overconfident, the Disciple thought, his body already moving. He recognizes me, though he doesn’t understand how.
The Disciple’s door was opening on the left, and he saw the gray webs trying to rush in, no fear in them. The Disciple took his eyes off the weapon for a single second, determining the best way to deal with the attacking light. All of his dead brother’s data filled him, telling him exactly what must be done.
He leapt out of the transport, and fell into the webs’ embrace.
Raylyn knew only fear, but she knew it intimately. Every curve and crevice. It gripped her limbs, her face, her tongue … each and every extremity. She couldn’t move.
The transport’s screen magnified the events taking place above, bringing her right next to everything that was happening. The gray light, the Disciple—and was that Rogan, he who had been killed several days ago?—all of it happening as if directly in front of her.
Lynda’s death possessed Raylyn’s mind, her ankle and wrist being sliced from their appendages and her blood spraying the air.
He did that, the weapon above.
She thought nothing of the First Priest beside her, nor the lover that she’d left miles and miles behind.
She only understood that the man above would kill them all if they didn’t leave.
“Sister,” the First Priest said. “It’s time we helped protect the transport.”
Raylyn’s faced twisted some, confused. She didn’t understand. “Protect?” She turned to the First, unsure what he was talking about.
“Are you still in command of this vessel?” he asked, not looking at her, but at those displayed on the window.
“
I … I …,” Raylyn was losing it, her ability to think, let alone communicate. She wanted nothing to do with any vessel. She only wanted to get away from the man with gray eyes. “We need to leave,” she finally said. “He’ll kill us if we don’t.”
It was all she could think to say, because it was all that mattered.
The Priest turned and looked at her, his bald head gleaming under the lights above. “Perhaps you should have a seat, Sister Brinson. I’ll send the attack.”
Raylyn shook her head quickly, though she listened to him. She walked backwards across the floor, not taking her eyes from the weapon—afraid he might grab her if she looked away. Raylyn fell into a chair, barely noticing she had sat down.
Manor, she thought. The name held urgency, but no direction. A few seconds passed and Raylyn realized what she was trying to do. She focused and told her nanotech to get him. Manor.
Hey, he said. Is everything okay?
No. Can you see him?
I didn’t know where to look, he answered.
Here, she said, her nanotech giving his the coordinates. Zero in and you’ll see him.
Silence ensued, and she understood that he saw the same thing as her. The lack of words said more than any phrase could. He was as stunned as her. Maybe he didn’t feel the same terror, because he hadn’t met the man, but what they both watched should not be possible.
Not from the gray-eyed demon, nor the Disciple.
The Disciple was dancing along the spiderwebs, one of his feet touching a single string of electricity, his legs using it to powerfully launch him into the air. The weapon was retreating, floating effortlessly through the sky, more gray webs forming in front of him, trying to protect him from the coming assassin.
And from what Raylyn could tell, an assassin who held no fear.
Who is that? Manor asked.
That’s the weapon, Raylyn answered, her words containing almost no thought.
No! Manor shouted, his fear ringing through her head and pulling her back to reality. The one going after him! Who is that?
I … A Disciple, I think, she said, her eyes widening and the last word turning to a whisper.
The webs were springing on the Disciple, doing their best to wrap around his limbs, to tame his ferocious speed; green dots burned across his body, and each time a gray wisp brushed across one, the wisp caught brief fire and then simply sizzled out of existence. The gray strands could only touch his clothing, which they burnt through quickly—only to be met by the Disciple’s glowing green flesh.
What’s happening, Raylyn? What the fuck is going on? Manor nearly screamed.
Raylyn stood, a cautious happiness filling her. She wasn’t thinking about the First Priest, nor how he had relegated her to the chair. She was thinking … they might win, because the weapon was still soaring backward—speeding through the air while the Disciple rushed across his webs with speed that nearly matched him. The webs were thrusting forward now, trying to wrap around the Disciple but dying each time they touched him.
The Disciple, nearly naked, continued his upward climb, and it looked like the weapon was running out of light to attack with.
We’re winning, she said. We’re going to kill him.
“Go on, then,” the First Priest said, speaking to the transport’s AI. “End him.”
Wind whipped Rebecca’s hair across her face. She struggled to keep it from her eyes, but she couldn’t control the platform she stood on. The couple who owned the building were next to her, all three pressed again the railing.
“No,” the woman said.
The man was quiet, but his knuckles were white as he grabbed the metal rail.
Rebecca didn’t know how it was happening, only that it was. David was losing to this man who had stepped from the transport. The stranger was fighting naked now, his clothes burnt from his body, glowing green as though diseased. Nothing David threw at him worked. The transport was still slowly floating upward, and Rebecca could see Rhett inside it.
What is he? she asked. What is that?
A Disciple, Rhett answered, clearly as terrified as she was.
You’re terrified? she thought to herself. You, who already decided that David must die?
But the answer was true and undeniable. Yes. Because watching her brother now, she understood the mortal danger he was in. If this creature who moved with the grace of angels reached him, David was finished. Her brother would die. Somehow he held no power over this man, finally as powerless to this Disciple as everyone had always been to David.
She saw the woman sitting in the back of the transport. Her eyes were gray, shining through the distance separating her from Rebecca.
Without thinking, Rebecca spoke. We have to do something! We have to help him!
I know, Rhett said, his voice little more than a whisper. I just don’t know what.
She heard tears through his nanotech and felt her own eyes growing wet. This was her brother, her blood … and no matter how far he fled, the Disciple continued after him.
Rebecca had seen no other transports, no ships, nothing since David left and she stepped out onto the platform. What Christine told her had been a lie, something filtered up through the chain of command to see what would happen.
Before, when the transports came to the compound, David had looked at each one of them. He’d known they were coming and then watched them approach. He saw their movements and knew how to stop them.
Now, his attention was focused on the maniac climbing through the air.
Oh …, Rebecca said, her thoughts failing. Hopelessness filled her as she now understood her brother’s death had arrived.
You, she thought. You could have stopped this.
The glowing orange light drew Rebecca’s focus—hundreds, perhaps thousands, of glowing orange globes hovering in the air for but a moment.
Then they fired.
Each streaking laser aiming directly at her brother.
David had never witnessed anything like it in his life—would not believe it possible if it wasn’t happening right in front of him.
No panic rose inside him, no fear, only a steady usage of the power that he’d honed over the past two decades. The gray light listened to his commands better than any limb or appendage ever could. It moved as easily as words over lips, doing exactly as he told it without hesitation.
The man was launching himself—impossibly—off the gray light, his legs more like powerful machines than anything made of flesh and blood. With his right and left hand, David rushed the spider webs forward, even as his eyes pumped more and more into the air, all of them rushing forward to stop this creature.
It was the man from before, David knew that with certainty. He’d killed him, simply wiped him from Earth without any issues. He was here, though, and David didn’t understand how—only this time, his flesh knew how to deal with David’s power.
The gray light couldn’t touch him, let alone instantaneously burn him alive.
Still, David didn’t panic. He never lost focus, only kept giving ground and moving further away from the transport which held the woman. His sister and Rhett were watching, but David knew they could offer no help for this thing.
He moved left and at the same time whipped his gray webs away from the attacker, trying to make him lose balance--hoping he would fall.
The man saw what David intended and dropped his hips deep on one last gray streak, then propelled himself high into the air.
When does jumping end and flying begin? David wondered, watching in near awe. The man didn’t try launching himself to safety, though, but only upward … and David saw why.
The transport beneath was trailing him, and it didn’t matter if he fell or not. He wouldn’t die. The transport would simply break his fall.
David couldn’t get to the woman without going through him.
The gray webs rushed forward, all of them at once, creating a tunnel that twirled around and around like the tornados David had read about but never seen. It
blitzed down, his eyes adding to it with each passing second.
This. This will crack through, David thought.
The man had launched himself high, but his momentum was slowing and he was starting to fall back down, the transport ready beneath. The tunnel of flickering light slammed into his bare chest—and yes, David saw it throw him back, ending his forward momentum.
David served the Unformed. He couldn’t be stopped. Not by this man, nor any other. The Unformed reigned above all and David was Its Prophet.
The thoughts had barely moved through David’s mind before he saw smoke rising from the man. Only, it wasn’t him that burned.
David’s gray light was turning to smoke, and the strands that didn’t strike him scattered.
The attacker stopped falling, beginning again his upward dance across the gray light.
David stopped soaring backwards and watched, trying to think. He couldn’t pull the light away and he couldn’t attack with it. The creature was closing in, only 100 yards away now and pumping with those infinitely strong legs.
Maybe …, he thought, but as he did, orange glow erupted across the sky. Bright bulbs burning everywhere. The man didn’t stop rushing toward him but David’s mind thought nothing of it—because such orange light shouldn’t be raging in the air. None of this should have been possible.
And then he understood, but only for a moment.
Vessels he couldn’t see now surrounded him, and all were firing on him as one.
He understood it briefly, but then the lasers shot through the sky without knowledge or care of what they were doing.
Killing a Prophet.
The lasers hit him, hundreds at once, and for a few seconds his body lit up in fantastic orange—a figure made of pure sunlight. He let out no cry, at least none that those staring at him could hear.
