by David Beers
Knox thought about this conversation for the past thirty minutes, about how he would approach Marks, trying to line up his words so that he had a chance of getting what he wanted out of Marks: instructions on how to move against this thing.
"What's your game plan?" he said.
"Mine?"
Knox didn't respond.
"I'm in here, General. What game plan could I possibly have? I'm out of the game, no?"
"He's expecting this," Will said from the other cage. "He's expecting you to show up and ask what you're about to ask."
Knox looked at Will. "What?"
"The whole thing, him killing Hayley, was to put him in control. Because to get anything out of him, you'll have to make concessions."
Knox understood then, staring at the man claiming to be Will. Concessions. The largest one being that they would free the President's assassin. And when they did that, what else could they say? What else could they do? They needed him, even if no one else saw it yet—not the other way around.
"You're not getting out, Marks. I want you to understand that with a clarity that only God knows. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you in here. Understand that. You'll starve to death in this cage while I watch before you leave."
"Ah, you and Will take all of this too seriously. Really. You have to smile more." Marks stood up, his body limber despite having sat for who knew how long. "But I understand. I killed the President; I can't be let go. So what did you come here for, General Knox?"
The General watched him smile, knowing that Marks set this up perfectly. Because Knox came here to ask for Marks' help, and yet told him he would never get what he wanted, despite Knox needing him.
"I want to know if we should go ahead with what we're doing." Pride couldn't play any part in this, not right now. He needed to ask and then hope Marks was willing to discuss.
"Well, what are you planning?"
"The same basic attack, using the ice, but we're adding the entire military's force, plus other nations."
"Other nations, huh?" Marks said.
Knox kept quiet. Marks knew other nations would be involved by this point. He was just toying, like the biggest fucking cat in the world.
"That's interesting, General. It really is. But, I'd like to take you up on your offer to keep me in here. I like my digs and I like my company." Knox nodded to Will. "I think I'll let you handle things out there, okay?"
11
Present Day
Briten didn't know if the strands could communicate with Morena, but if so, enough time had passed for them to tell her that Briten stood just outside of their reach. They were almost to him by now; so unless he reversed the car a bit, he didn't have much choice but to head into the white landscape.
Enough, he thought. The only reason you're waiting like this is because you don't want to miss your chance at seeing Morena. Death isn't what scares you and if you don't go in there, you'll never see her anyway, so get started.
He stepped out from behind the car door, not bothering to close it. The boy inside his head was completely still, watching Briten with full attention. The people in the car were probably doing the same, but Briten didn't care about them right now—didn't care about the boy, either. He had stood out here too long with nothing to show for it.
Time to go.
Once he started walking, he didn't stop. He moved across the asphalt with a speed that showed nothing of the doubt he felt back at the car. He kept going as his foot touched down on the first strand, bringing his left forward, and his right again.
Even as the strands jumped onto his shoes, he kept moving.
Even as they plunged into his toes, searching for the heat they needed to grow, he kept moving. They dug through his toenails, into the meat beneath, and then went further, wrapping themselves around his bones.
Pain jumped up his body, following the strands as they started consuming him. From his shoes, to his ankles, to his knees, to his hips, the white wires spread upward, grabbing hold of everything they could. Blood spurted from the tiny holes they made, filling his shoes so that as he kept moving, his feet squished around as if he had stepped out of a pool.
They plunged into his arms, and while Briten kept his eyes forward, he saw blood shooting from his body.
Morena, he thought. Please. Come for me.
He kept moving. Stopping didn't even enter his mind. Just the continual need to move one foot and then the other.
Even as the strands tried to slow him down, tried to hold him back so that they could grab more pieces of him, could steal more of his life.
He kept moving.
Even as the strands reached his face, his cheeks, pushing through them and into his mouth, where they met each other, intertwined, and then grabbed onto his tongue.
He kept moving forward. To his wife. Because for Briten, there was nothing else.
The book lay discarded on the floor, the pages bent from being thrown without a thought.
Michael stood knee deep in blood.
It poured down from the ceiling, coming in through the vents. Some of it dropped straight down, splashing onto the tiled floor, and some flowed across the ceiling and down the walls as if running through tiny pipes—gravity not affecting it. In the end though, all the blood rushed to the floor.
Michael couldn't hear anything besides the liquid's rush.
He had watched as Briten started walking, his intention clear as any morning sunrise. He was going into the white and if he died doing it, he had decided that was completely fine.
Michael tried to wade through the blood, his clothes drenched, looking for an exit somewhere in this place. The thick liquid now approached his thighs, and his breath quickened with each half inch it rose. A part of his mind felt the pain running through his body, his actual physical body, but somehow the brunt of it was blocked. The blood inside this library was more pressing…
But isn't it just a representation of the pain outside? a part of him said, a rational piece.
Michael stopped walking as he understood the meaning. His brain dealt with the strands grabbing hold of his body here, like this, drowning him in his own blood—he wouldn't find a way out of the library, no matter how hard he looked. If his body died out there, then he would drown in here, without a doubt.
The blood reached his waist and still Michael didn't move.
He had to see what was happening outside, on Earth. What happened in here didn't matter, not right now.
Michael peered through his own eyes, the one's that looked out on a white landscape. The strands were grabbing every piece of him, yet Briten still kept trying to walk forward. He was slowing, but not stopping. Had Michael ever seen someone with such drive, such intense focus even though the creature was essentially doomed?
Wren screamed from behind Briten, and Michael heard his feet pounding on the pavement.
NO! he shouted at Briten. NO! He can't come out here! Turn around and stop him!
Even as he screamed, he knew that wouldn't happen, knew that nothing would stop Briten from moving on until the strands ripped his body apart. Yet his father didn't stop either; Michael heard him screaming, though he no longer heard his feet slamming against the pavement.
Becausehesnotonthepavementanymorechristhesonthestrands.
Panic rose inside Michael, panic and a deep fear that he had never felt about his father before. His father was dying, was going to die, behind him where Michael couldn't see.
The screams changed abruptly, from Wren yelling at Michael to a primal burst that told Michael one thing—the strands had him too. Wren shrieked, and Michael almost felt the pain erupting in his body as the strands reached his feet and started climbing up his body—quickly, because they wanted him, his body and whatever they could get out of it.
TURN AROUND! PLEASE!
But nothing Michael said made any difference. He didn't even know if Briten heard him. The strands to the front and side of his body were covered in blood, looking like red snow. Briten's
own mind was shutting down, Michael could feel it, because the pain grew too much for him. The only thought still beating through him was Morena, Morena, Morena.
Wren's screams grew in intensity as Briten's strength weakened.
The creature started walking forward and Wren understood at once what it meant to do. This thing could go no further by car, and now it meant to go by foot. Wren was fine with that, all of it, except for the part involving his son as the method of transport.
That couldn't happen, no matter what.
Wren hopped from the car, knowing that he would need to run to catch up with the alien. He didn't want to alert it, so he kept his mouth closed as he rushed forward. Tackle it, bring it down, knock it out if he had to. It didn't matter, just as long as it didn't reach that white shit.
Only the thing was too goddamn fast. Its feet pounded against the ground like pistons in a car, propelling it forward with a speed Wren couldn't hope to match.
He didn't stop though. If the alien went forward, then Wren did too. White strands or the pits of hell, Wren was following. He didn't look back at Bryan, didn't even think about the other person involved in all this.
"MICHAEL! STOP!" he screamed, his lungs forcing out the words as hard as they possibly could. "MICHAEL!"
He knew Michael wasn't in charge, but he knew nothing else to say, no other way to ask. His own legs kept moving, slamming up and down as fast as they could, forgetting momentarily about the years of drinking that laid waste to his body. All that mattered was stopping this creature, stopping Michael from what would come when he touched the strands.
But Wren was too late.
He watched as the alien crossed the threshold, and even as Wren kept running, he saw the strands wrapping themselves around his boy's foot, digging in like hungry wolves. The alien didn't make any sounds, only kept rushing forward. For a single moment, Wren recognized that he would cross the threshold too, and that what he saw happening to Michael would happen to him. A flicker of fear lit in his mind, but died as soon as it showed its face, like a lighter in a wind.
Wren went forward, leaping as far as he could from the pavement into the white strands, feeling the footing beneath him change from the hard of rock to the soft of something living.
It'llbefinejustkeepgoing.
He didn't look down as the strands grabbed hold of him just as they had Michael. He didn't look down when he felt the first one dive into his foot, though the pain radiated like a nuclear bomb, sending off flares in his brain that something was desperately wrong. He kept his eyes up, on Michael.
He kept running, but stopped shouting his son's name. He screamed now, screamed from pain, but Michael was still too far ahead. He couldn't grab him yet and only that mattered, getting to his son and dragging him back out if necessary.
Wren felt more pain as the strands spread their touch up his body. His screams stretched out across the land like some kind of dying animal, but he stayed on his feet. Kept trying to move just another foot forward, just another foot closer to Michael. How many feet off? Thirty? Fifty? He couldn't tell and his eyes were blurry, filled with tears or blood, he didn't know.
He wasn't going to make it.
The thought fell on his mind like an anvil, the futility of this finally coming to him. He would die out here, on this white creature, more dangerous than anything ever conceived on Earth. He would die and God help him, he might see Michael die first. He might watch his son fall over and see the strands eat his body just as they ate his own.
Please no, Wren thought as his mouth shrieked out the pain. Tears ran down his face, and though he told his feet to move forward, he fell to his knees.
The world ceased to exist for Morena.
One second she had been looking forward, in the clouds, and slowly moving to the edge of the northern strands, wanting to glimpse what humanity might be preparing to attack her with. More ice, perhaps. More of the cold, which would be fine. They could push back the strands some; as long as Briten had her children ready to go within a day or so, it wouldn't matter. Bynums would wipe the humans away like a cloth wipes away a spill.
And then, the sky, the world beneath, the entirety of Morena's desires simply disappeared. Truly, she still stared forward but saw nothing at all.
Except for Briten's aura.
The red cloud covered everything, the entire world and her entire mind.
He's here.
How?
She couldn't think, not fast, couldn't remember what she was doing or what she had planned to do. Her husband, here, on this world, and Morena knew it as surely as she knew she was Var.
The strands.
They had him.
They revealed his aura to her, bringing the deep, bright red that she knew for so long in her previous life.
They're killing him. She felt it, his pain, their eagerness.
Stop. The word was the most ruthless command she ever gave, the word telling the strands that if they didn't obey, death would befall them all—them, her children, everything they had built. Such ruthlessness unnecessary, but she couldn't help it; she wouldn't let him die.
The strands stopped their feast and immediately began reversing, fear and shame running through them as thick as any emotion they ever felt. She didn't know if it was too late, didn't know how much damage had been done, and she didn't have time to probe. Time wasted here was time she wouldn't get back. All she could do was get to him, and then—Makers, please—perhaps help.
Morena flew, her past intentions forgotten. The world turned into a blur, a blue one with not a single shape jumping out at her.
Her husband was here, and hurting.
The blood stopped pouring.
Michael stood neck deep in it, sure that he would have to start swimming soon in order to keep from drowning, but knowing that it wouldn't matter—he would die in here the same as his body died in the white, alien field.
But then it stopped. Not even slowing down to a drip, but just completely shut off—no more exiting the vents above.
He looked out from his eyes and saw the strands retreating, pulling back from the endless holes they had dug, exiting muscle and fat at the same speed.
Is it her? he wondered. His mind could still think somewhat calmly, because the pain wasn't reaching him in the same way it did Briten.
Dad? was the next thought that shot through his mind, pushing the question about Morena away. Oh God, are they leaving him too?
TURN AROUND! he screamed. TURN AROUND AND LOOK AT HIM!
Could Briten hear him? Could he hear anything or had too much blood left his body already? Was it too late?
TURN THE FUCK AROUND!
Michael's eyes slowly moved, casting his vision across the bloody but clearly active life around him, until they stopped on his father.
He was on his knees. Strands growing into him, connecting with every part of his body all the way up to his head, as if they were electrodes in a science experiment. Blood flowed from him, creating his own massacre scene twenty feet behind Michael's. His father was dying, and yet he remained upright, as if only Michael mattered. As long as he could see Michael, he would be okay.
Make them stop. Please make them stop, Michael whimpered. Michael couldn't stand it; blood draining from his father, and yet his eyes open, pleading with some unseeing God to allow him to reach his son.
Briten could hear him, but could he do anything besides barely turn his head?
The blood inside Michael's library was draining out, opening his shoulders and chest to the air, revealing skin slick with red.
Please, Michael said, knowing that nothing would happen, that no one would save his father, on his knees with his eyes still open, looking at Michael's prostrate body lying across the bed of bloody aliens. He came for me. He came twice for me. Please save him.
Briten saw the same thing as Michael. He looked at a man resembling himself, with white strands hanging off his body like some kind of moss and blood covering it all.
Briten heard the boy asking him to save the man. They both were dying out here on the same field; Briten didn't have the strands inside him now, but it didn't mean he wouldn't bleed to death. They left him, though he didn't know why. He only knew that he couldn't go forward anymore. This body's strength had finally given out, and with it any chance of him meeting Morena.
And still the boy pleaded.
Begged.
Cried.
Briten saw some of the same things in this kid that were in himself. And the father? He went out into this field of death the same as Briten, chasing something very similar to what Briten chased. The person he cared about.
I can't, he answered the boy.
And he couldn't. He didn't control these things; perhaps the strands had enough of his body, perhaps they thought more nourishment would come from the father. It didn't matter. They would all die out here, and was that so bad? Briten did his best, did everything he could to reach her, and he could die knowing that. That knowledge didn't come close to fulfilling Briten, nor to giving him what he wanted—but what else was there when you lay dying?
Just the knowledge that you tried.
The green color embraced him all at once, enveloping everything from his feet to his eyes, so that the world appeared as if he looked through a green film. That green, he saw it in his dreams, he had seen it when he woke back on Bynimian; nothing could fake that green, nothing could substitute for it.
"Morena," he whispered, understanding now why the strands relented.
The blood surrounding him began moving, drawn back by the green aura wrapping around him. It moved across the tendrils, heading straight toward his body. The bloody pools turned into tiny trails, nearly invisible, as it flowed back into him. Filling him, giving back what was taken. Briten didn't move, didn't try to find Morena with his eyes; it didn't matter what was happening around him, his body was still close to death.
The boy was pleading again, screaming now, begging him to ask Morena to save his father the same way he was being saved. Briten couldn't lift his head to Morena yet, couldn't see her, only the man a few feet away. And why not? Why not save him? He had been willing to die the same as Briten, and if he didn't try, what would it do for the relationship inside his head?
