Nemesis: Book Four

by David Beers

  You're imagining it. This is withdrawal. It's the way he is leaning against the railing.

  Linda wasn’t speaking though; Wren heard his own voice. Linda wouldn't lie to him.

  Wren blinked and then shook his head a few times, trying to make sense out of what was happening. His kid had stood up from the bed, left the room without speaking, and now leaned on a balcony, looking like he had been lifting weights for the past five years instead of working at a chicken shop.

  "Michael?" he said.

  Michael didn't turn around, didn't show any hint that he even heard the words.

  Wren took a step out onto the breezeway, letting the door close behind him. What was he going to do, run from his son? After everything Wren did to get him here? That wasn't even a possibility.

  "Talk to me," he said, and even though he wasn't running, he didn't reach to touch Michael. Still, no response, nothing but silence and the sound of the road in front of the motel. "You've got to tell me what's going on." His voice sounded weak to him, pleading and frightened. And, goddamnit, he was. He didn't want to be here, didn't want his son acting like this. He didn’t want his wife dead. He didn’t want anything that happened in the past ten years.

  Here he was, though, with all those years lying behind him on a trail of empty, plastic vodka bottles, leaving him in this exact location, staring at a son he didn't know, and one that was in serious trouble.

  Fuck this, he thought. Fuck all of it.

  It wasn't the bottle he went to, though. He didn't turn around and use his key to step back in the motel room. Wren stepped forward and put his hand on his son. He might be bigger, or he might be the same size he'd always been, but Wren wasn't going to let fear dictate him any longer.

  He touched Michael's shoulder, and then almost took it away as quickly as he placed it down. Heat radiated off Michael's shirt, unnatural heat. Hotter than someone working out, and yet as Wren looked at the back of Michael's neck, his own eyes widening, he didn't see a drop of sweat anywhere. Wren left his hand sitting there, but said nothing.

  He watched as Michael turned, Wren's hand falling away.

  Wren thought he had been frightened before. The fright he knew before was a gust of wind compared to the hurricane wrapping around his brain now.

  Michael looked back at him, but with red eyes instead of the brown he was born with.

  * * *

  Rigley leaned down for the third time, pulling up her pant's leg, and looking at the flesh beneath. She had taken off the hazmat suit completely—it served no purpose with holes in it. The wounds should hurt, but didn't. Tiny red holes dotted her calf, and a sticky clear substance covered each one. She didn't dare touch the viscous substance, or anything for that matter—she only looked.

  She felt those things digging into her, pressing down with an intensity that showed her just how alive they were. They dug in more like starving wolves than some plant life form. It had been weird, to say the least, feeling their hunger, their need. She hurt, but she also understood a bit more too; wolves eat to survive, and some of that resided in the creatures deciding they would make her their lunch.

  Yet, that didn't encompass everything, though; Rigley felt something that wolves didn't have the capacity for. Those things, those strands, they dug into her not only for themselves, but for the pods emerging from the white landscape. They were concerned with something other than themselves; compassion was in them.

  As Rigley looked at her skin, she thought she understood that feeling. No, thought was the wrong word. She knew she understood. Perhaps all mothers realize that feeling, the willingness to sacrifice for their offspring. Rigley didn’t understand the exact relationship existing between the strands and the pods, but she respected what she saw in them.

  She had been scared when she stepped into the white spread.

  But now, she was starting to feel at home.

  She felt like she might belong here, because mindless plant-like creatures showed more compassion for their fellow kind than half of the human world. She hadn't doubted her choice since starting this journey; anything was better than working under Marks, but thinking about those strands, about the knowledge they passed over to her, she knew she had been right.

  As Rigley looked up, her heart thumped up against her ribcage. She released her pant's leg, letting it fall lazily back in place.

  There it was. There she was. A mile off? Maybe less?

  The green color that Rigley had seen in the video spread out like a sunrise before her. It stretched in either direction, up and down, and she in the middle of it all. To the side of the alien stood another one, with a bright blue color surrounding it.

  There's two now, she thought, though the thought moved through her mind like a feather floating across the wind.

  She didn't look at the blue one; it was peripheral. The green, it enraptured Rigley, calling to her, pulling her in, because of its magnificent spread.

  This is why I came. The thought said nothing about the other predominant reason she had come, to try and instill peace between the two groups. Because when she decided on this path, she had wanted two species to live together, to stop needless deaths. Perhaps that want still existed, but perhaps not. Perhaps only the green filled Rigley now.

  * * *

  "We found her," Knox said.

  Kenneth Marks looked up from his phone. He didn't turn his head to look at the general; he didn't like the tone coming with the voice, one that said Kenneth Marks wouldn't like where they found her. He was reading the news mindlessly, categorizing what reporters said about the quarantine, but not really giving it any true focus. He had been trying to figure out where Rigley went, letting Knox look with satellites and search parties. Knox wasn't happy about that, of course, but Kenneth Marks didn't care in the slightest.

  He was going to find Rigley.

  Yet he couldn't piece it together in his head. Something happened to her, and he thought it might be structural inside her brain. Not just a personality shift, but an actual reshaping, reconnecting of her mind. If he could open up her skull and poke around, he could probably tell exactly what happened, and then there would be no need for him to sit here and think about where she might have gone. He would know.

  Perhaps that bothered him more than anything else. Not where she was, but that he couldn't figure it out.

  "Tell me," he said. The silence had hung in the air for a while as Kenneth Marks thought, which just reinforced his original assessment of what Knox knew: Knox didn't want to tell him.

  "She's inside the white cake."

  Kenneth Marks looked over at him, terror birthing in his stomach like a stillborn baby. "What do you mean?" he said.

  "She's inside the perimeter."

  "Is the white cake taking her like it did the rest?"

  Knox smiled at that and looked down at his tablet. "That's the damndest thing. It doesn't look like it's harming her at all."

  Kenneth Marks stood up and walked over to the General. The tablet showed an overhead view, a still photo, zoomed in, though he could only see the top of Rigley's head. Brown hair and not much else.

  "Look," Knox said, his finger pointing to the other figure in the scene. You could see much more of it, the green waves rolling across the screen almost like a gas. "And here." He pointed again, to another creature, one with a brighter color surrounding it, if not as expansive as the other.

  Kenneth Marks said nothing, only felt the terror spreading out of his stomach. Up his esophagus. Into his lungs. Down through his legs and into his groin.

  Madness.

  That's what he saw. Total lunacy. He hadn't been able to find Rigley through his own thoughts because none of this made any sense. The structural damage to her brain, it had to be the prefrontal cortex, completely ripping through her executive decision making capability. He couldn't cope with insanity, because he wasn't insane, and Rigley clearly was.

  "She's switching teams," he said.

  Kenneth Marks saw Knox look up at
him, though he didn't look away from the tablet.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Look at her, General. Why is she out there?"

  Knox's head went back down. "You're fucking kidding."

  "No, General. I'm not. She's there to…."

  He trailed off as he thought how he wanted to finish the sentence. He didn't understand insanity, couldn't grasp it or the decisions that Rigley would make from here on out. Still, he needed to have some idea of what she might do.

  "There to what?" Knox said.

  "To help, I think." And that felt right. Kenneth Marks had been missing the underlying motivations behind Rigley. She was there to help it; whatever loyalty she held for the human race had fallen away, much like Kenneth Marks'.

  Were they similar now?

  He dismissed the notion immediately; she and he held no more similarity than an insect and himself. She had lost her mind, snapped—and he found happiness in that. Perhaps she hadn't broken the way he wanted her to, but this… this escape showed that she wasn't what Kenneth Marks would term healthy. So she had broken, in her own way, and that was good. He only hoped that he drove her there, that his pressure and prodding created the opportunity for this break to happen. That would give him a little more satisfaction, despite the position he found himself in.

  But he wasn't done with her.

  Not at all.

  She didn't get to walk away into the sunset, thinking that she avoided her punishment.

  Kenneth Marks didn't look up from the screen, but said, "Go get her. I don't care what it takes. She comes back to me."

  * * *

  Kenneth Marks felt unsure for the first time in his entire life. It was a feeling as foreign to him as the one of kinship when he first looked at the alien flying above the tanks. Even when he couldn't map out the entirety of what was to come, he never felt unsure, because he was always so far ahead of everyone else. Now, though, he felt behind for the first time in his life.

  He walked on the parking lot’s black asphalt, alone. Tents lined the pavement every fifty feet or so, with men coming and going; Knox’s men working on subduing the enemy. Even that little bit of genius had surpassed Kenneth Marks. He hadn't thought of the cold. Knox had.

  His hands rested in his pocket as he walked, his head down, looking at his feet move slowly across the white parking spot lines.

  Now, Rigley was gone, and he didn’t see that either. Hadn't even thought it possible. He felt embarrassed, really, thinking that for a moment he felt Rigley was upstairs in that hotel room banging someone. All of this happening directly under his purview, and yet he had no idea.

  He needed to prioritize and then he needed to act.

  Fine.

  Kenneth Marks' mind moved intensely slow as he walked, matching his stride, grinding through every piece of information he could find. He didn't want to miss anything. His next move had to be perfect, and as he prepped for it, he took in everything that his mind had segregated.

  Once he decided his steps—prioritization and then action—his brain roared to life. Humanity would never see anything like it; an act of such glory that God sinned by making it so private.

  Neurons fired at rates nearing triple what other humans could accomplish—indeed, by Kenneth Marks’ calculations, it was the closest that anything would ever reach to hitting the speed of light. More, the sheer number of his neurons created something of a computer in his mind, much more so than any other brain on the planet.

  He closed his eyes as he walked, not picking up his physical speed any, even as his mind lifted off the ground and began to soar.

  More troops.

  Corner her in the center of Grayson.

  Save Rigley.

  Force alien to his will.

  Dispose of Rigley and Knox.

  That was the order in which things would flow from here on out. Knox wanted troops and so did Kenneth Marks, and when this creature had nothing left, he would grab Rigley out of the alien's clutches, then make the alien bend to what he wanted. Perhaps Rigley wanted to help her, but Knox only wanted to help himself. The alien could have this world once she took him into her counsel.

  And then Rigley and Knox would die.

  He nodded to himself, as his mind kept forcing its way forward, figuring out exactly how he would trap the creature in what used to be woods, trap the creature where it first landed. He didn't care if the entire United States military watched when he trapped the creature. He would give her the ultimatum in front of them all, because she would choose his side—she was, like Kenneth Marks, full of too much logic not to. And then they could both turn around and wipe out the army staring at them. The army Kenneth Marks would use to get him to the center of Grayson.

  Everything would still work out the way it should. Kenneth Marks would have his fun. He would have his birthright. He would have what his intellect entitled him to.

  He opened his eyes and pulled the cellphone from his pocket. He found the President's number.

  "Sir, I've got great news," he said. "We've got the creature on the run. I need more troops. As many as you can spare."

  27

  Present Day

  Michael sat in front of them, yet Bryan knew it wasn't Michael. Hell, everyone had to know it wasn't Michael. Nobody had red eyes. And it wasn't just the pupils, but Michael's eyeballs had turned a bright red, like Bryan imagined the inside of a star looked like.

  Michael stayed still, not say anything to any of them. He had walked into the room willingly, not being cajoled or forced, and Wren hustled to get all five in this room. They stood circled around Michael as he sat in a chair, staring straight ahead. His breathing was shallow and he didn't blink. He could have been in a catatonic state for all Bryan knew. He certainly looked like it,.

  "Michael," Wren said again, for maybe the fifth time since he got them all in. Michael didn't answer, nor whatever was controlling him. And then, after a few seconds, "He's bigger. It's not just me, is it?"

  "No," Glenn said, speaking from Bryan's left side. "It's not just you. He's… growing." The last word was a whisper.

  A dull apathy had taken over since Bryan returned from the Ether. A single wish really dominating his mind, a wish to go back and get Thera—that and perhaps a desire to see the friend that now sat in front of him. Yet this thing wasn't his friend. Maybe Michael was inside somewhere, as Bryan had been with Morena, but he certainly wasn't staring at Wren's chest right now.

  The apathy centered around the broken pieces inside him. The glass that cut near constantly, cutting so many times that he had no choice but to ignore it, to ignore everything. And yet, here, with this faux Michael right in front of him, he felt…

  One of those jagged pieces sliced deep into him, opening a wound that bled fresh, sending bright, searing pain across the whole of his being.

  Thera was dead.

  And this thing right here? This meant Michael was in danger.

  Bryan hadn't helped Thera; he watched as she took steps forward, intent on trying to save them all, and then watched as her neck snapped like a chicken's.

  "Whatever she is, Morena, this is something similar," he said, not breaking eye contact with the red-eyed being.

  "What do you mean?" Wren asked.

  "He's like me now. He's locked inside. He's hearing us, listening, seeing everything around him, but he has no control. Whatever he found on the other side, it's come back with him. It's taken over."

  "This isn't some horror movie," his mother whispered.

  "No," Bryan said. "This is real. I don't know how it happened over there, and clearly what happened to me was somewhat different than what is happening to him, but the important parts are the same."

  "What are you saying?" Wren said.

  Bryan could feel Wren's eyes staring at him, could feel the fear baking off the man.

  "We have to find a way to… " To what? What the hell had Thera and he done when they were trapped? They waited until Morena left, but that wouldn’t work here. "To
get it to leave."

  "Hold on," Rita said. "You're saying that this thing in front of us is like the thing that took you?"

  "Yes."

  "We're not going to do anything about getting it to leave," Rita said. "We're going to leave, right now. Thera's dead, and you nearly were too. Wren, I'm sorry, but I'm not putting us at risk any longer. I understand if you can't go, but we have to."

  Bryan still didn't look away from Michael.

  "What?" Julie said. "We're just going to leave them here?"

  "Julie, I love you, honey. But yes. We're leaving. You can stay if you want to, but I don't think you should. You need to come with us. We're too close to this, all of us. Glenn, let's start packing."

  "I'm not going anywhere," Bryan said. He felt his father's hand touch his shoulder.

  "Bryan, there's nothing we can do. You see that, right? Wren, you see it?"

  Bryan looked to Wren, who stood with wide eyes, staring at the whole group.

  "You're going to die if you stay here with it," Glenn said. "Because whenever it wakes up from whatever dream it's in right now, it's going to kill you. It's going to kill all of us standing here."

  “Bryan, honey, listen to what you're saying," Rita said. "There's nothing for us here."

  And that was it, when all the cards lay face up for everyone to see. His mother and everything she wanted, everything she needed, was safe—so take your winnings and fucking leave. Thera, Michael, Michael's dad, all of them were in the past, a life that no longer mattered.

  Wren said nothing, but Bryan saw the same feelings in his eyes. That rough glass slicing vulnerable flesh, twisting, rending, and tearing.

  Bryan didn't know if Wren had felt, like him, apathetic before this, but he saw that Wren wasn't leaving. Shock may have been draped across his face, shock at what these people were saying to him, but his eyes—wide or not—said they could all jump off the balcony outside. He was staying here with his son.