Nemesis: Book Six (14 page)

M
orena had never seen
the room before.

Almost no one had, alive or dead.

Chilras sat in a chair ten feet from Morena. The Bynum didn't glance around the room as Morena did, but stared intently at the future Var.

The room was very long and narrow, with ceilings stretching a hundred or two hundred feet high. Morena wanted to scream out, wanted to hear her voice echo off the monstrous walls. Two chairs sat in the middle of the long corridor, and if Morena stretched her arms to either side, she would be inches from touching the walls.

She let her mind wander because she didn't want to turn her attention to the Yorn. She didn't want to face what she had brought on herself. In truth, Morena never thought it would come to this. Morena never thought life would put her in this chair, staring across at a challenger—and the head of The Council Morena was supposed to work with.

Her wandering mind let her avoid this, and not focusing on Chilras allowed her to ignore the fear-invoking fury the Bynum gave off.

"This is not a game, child," Chilras said.

Morena tilted her head as she had in her mother's presence, staring straight at the ceiling. How long ago was this built? The only piece of violence that her species tolerated, and not a single drop of blood would fall in these chambers.

"When this is over, your life is over. Do you understand that?" the Yorn said.

Morena didn't listen to her, but thought only of the history that occurred inside these walls. How many people had been banished because of these mini-wars? Very few, but that banishment ... it must
hurt
to be torn away from your kind. To be cast away and forgotten forever.

"Answer me, child."

Morena sighed. The time had come. She couldn't avoid it any longer. Her aura came to her, finishing its spread across the chamber. She brought her head back down and looked at Chilras. The Yorn thought Morena was either frightened or careless. Looking at her now, Morena understood Chilras thought the carelessness she apparently exhibited here extended to her marriage. That it would extend to every piece of her life, and thus to every piece of Bynimian.

Morena didn't avoid looking at Chilras out of fear or carelessness.

She pitied the Yorn.

She pitied the choice the Yorn made in coming in this room. She pitied what came next for Chilras.

"We do this once and never again," Morena said. "You understand?"

"Once is all we will need."

"Agreed," Morena said.

K
nox stood looking
up at the helicopter. He jumped first because he didn't want any surprises waiting for him if he came out after Marks. The jump wasn't high at all, perhaps three to five feet, but if Marks was down here first, he could easily place a well positioned knife in Knox's belly.

Marks looked down from the chopper, both hands on either side of the opening. He wore the same suit Knox did, the same one Will had. Knox thought that Marks might take a few minutes steadying himself for the jump, but he didn't. He stood for a second or two, and then hopped down, landing gracefully as his knees bent and his hands spread to the sides—making sure he didn't tilt one way or the other.

The man was athletic, exceedingly so. Knox made a mental note, not wanting to forget that if or when Knox confronted him.

The pilot from the helicopter looked down from his window, his thumb in the air. Knox returned the symbol and the chopper rose back into the air, the wind from its blades slowly fading away to nothing.

"How far away are we?" Marks said, sounding slightly muffled inside the glass helmet.

"About a mile," Knox said. He turned toward the direction Will had given them. He couldn't see the house, not with the white strands growing over everything in between them and it. "Supposed to be bare," he said as much to himself as Marks.

He heard the air vacuum unseal next to him, and turned to look at it, horror growing on his face like a bloody tumor.

Marks took the helmet from his head and tossed it to the ground. He looked back up at Knox, and for the first time, he smiled true.

Knox's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open. He didn't speak though. Couldn't speak, not even as Marks started to laugh. Hard. Tears came to his eyes and he bent over, his hands on his knees. Knox stepped back, slowly realizing why Marks was laughing so hard.

"Wait, wait," Marks wheezed from his knees. "Wait a second." He waived Knox back, who was taking more steps away. "Oh, God, that was too funny."

Marks straightened up, wiping his eyes with his gloved hand.

"You can take yours off, too," he said. "If you want. There's nothing in the air here that's going to get to you. If you lay down and put your face on the stuff, you might have a problem, but otherwise, you'll be fine."

Knox looked on at Marks, not seeing any veins bursting from his face or white cake crawling across his skin. The man still lived as normally as someone like Marks could.

"If you know anything, Knox, you know I'm interested in self survival. You'll be alright," Marks said.

Knox didn't shake his head but didn't reach up to remove his helmet either. "I think I'll leave it on," he said, trying to regain his composure.

"Suit yourself. You ready to go see Will and his newly captured creature?"

"We should talk about what you want to do when we get there, Marks. It's not wise to put you in front of anyone, because if you die somehow, we all die shortly after."

Marks looked at the hills of white life. "Remember, she knows that too. She won't kill me, because if I die somehow, she dies shortly after."

A few seconds passed as Knox realized Marks was right. At the moment, he was almost royalty down here, no one able to touch him. And that made him more dangerous, if anything. Knox hadn't considered it that way before, not completely. He realized he would kill Marks if he had to, but he didn't understand the gravity for
all
involved. Including the alien. Because now, if Knox went after Marks, she might defend the psycho. She might kill anyone who tried to kill him.

Christ Jesus in heaven, how did we let it come to this?

But he knew that answer too. The world let it come to this, and by world, he meant everyone involved in this fucking mess. They all let it get here by not stopping Marks in the beginning. By thinking that nothing could be done without Kenneth Marks, that he held answers the rest of them couldn't ever know.

And now, the President lived in a hole in the ground, and Knox would put himself in serious jeopardy if he tried to do anything to stop Marks.

"So are you ready to go?" Marks said, still staring off into the new world.

"We still need a plan, Marks."

The madman smiled. "I think you just realized that the plan is whatever I say it's going to be."

* * *

K
enneth Marks pulled
the small phone from the chest pocket in his suit. He hadn't looked at the device since leaving the compound, but now was as good a time as any. He turned the phone on, and the screen lit up. The phone could only do two things—nothing else. The President had a direct line to it, so that he could keep tabs whenever he wanted. It also showed how far the decay was moving across the nation. That's what he saw right now, a pattern of bright white and a clear line marking the black death he started hours ago.

The disease was making remarkable progress. Perhaps moving too fast, even. That could be a problem, as Kenneth Marks had things to do here, and he wasn't sure they could be done quickly. He calculated the rates at which the black spread across his screen. Everything would be finished within twenty-four hours. The President didn't know it, Knox didn't know it, and for sure Will had no idea. The rate at which the disease spread would continue on pace, and tomorrow at this time, the world would turn very, very cold ... or, Kenneth Marks would finally achieve what he came for. He would begin his ascent.

He didn't know what that looked like, but he knew it was possible. The creature across this mile of white desert had the ability and the knowledge to change DNA structure. Whatever she had evolved from, she definitely evolved with that ability.

"What are you looking at?" Knox said from his left.

"Basically a GPS service and a chain the President has me on. It lets us see how deep the disease has penetrated, and of course, the President can give me a call whenever he wants. I imagine he'd like us to call him right about now. What do you say?"

Kenneth Marks looked to his left, seeing Knox staring at the phone as he continued his walk forward.

"Would you like to speak with him?" Kenneth Marks said.

It didn't matter what happened with the President at this point. Kenneth Marks could speak to him, Knox could speak, God himself could dial the President and it wouldn't matter. He saw the change in Knox as the General understood what he had gotten himself into. Knox now saw that he had about a half mile left in order to kill Kenneth Marks, because once they reached the alien's door, he lost that ability. The alien would protect him even if she didn't know it yet.

Knox understood how perfectly Kenneth Marks played everything.

"No," Knox said, turning his head back to the path in front of him.

"Okay, I'll call him then," Kenneth Marks said. He switched screens on the phone and pressed send, dialing the only number the phone allowed. He hummed as it rang.

S
he could hardly believe
what she saw.

Helos knew what she looked at wasn't part of this world, not the natural ecosystem. The white life forms she saw came from her species, came from what had begun Bynimian. All of them, every single crisscrossing child, were so beautiful. Helos' white aura stretched out in front of her, reaching for the strands, wanting her to walk to them, though she remained twenty feet out.

Her daughter had spread this far. Indeed, the strands were still growing, moving across the ground and heading straight for Helos. They didn't know she was here, not yet—they couldn't know. Perhaps even when they came across her, they wouldn't recognize her as a past Var. Perhaps the creatures were mindless, having no concept outside of their need to grow.

Helos doubted it, though.

Bynums were never mindless. The entire structure of their society was built on rationality, creating a peace that nothing in the universe ever imagined possible—nothing besides The Makers. And that's why they brought her back, because the peace Bynimian created would be destroyed by these same growing strands.

Regardless of their beauty and their need to expand ... it wouldn't stop. Morena's thirst—if she was still Morena, still Helos' daughter—would expand until nothing remained but Bynums.

Helos looked down to the world at her feet. Pavement, though cracked and old. This world's creatures created this pavement, so very different from Helos' own world. She looked ahead, seeing the strands moving onward. The old being replaced by the new. Growing without stop, without conscience.

"Enough thought, Helos. Go on," she said.

She went, her aura eager, still moving in front of her.

Helos' foot touched down, feeling the soft sponge of the strands beneath her. Her other foot followed also landing on her kind.

Excitement as real as electricity jolted up Helos' legs, though not driven by her. The strands created it as they crawled upwards, wrapping around her body with almost ferocious speed. They didn't hurt her, didn't dare dig into her skin as they had so many before, but only lightly caressed.

They knew what she was, what she had been.

They knew the power that resided in her, the empathy she felt for all her kind.

And she understood them too, their need to grow, because in growing they protected the Var. They protected her daughter, Morena.

Morena would know of Helos now, if she hadn't before. The strands would pass along the information, across miles and miles of intricate life to tell their Var that another had arrived. Happiness filling each synapse as it passed the information along.

Morena would know. Perhaps not all, but enough to understand that the reincarnation of her mother didn't happen without The Makers blessing—unless her child also forsook them in this new quest.

Helos searched the strands, her mind expanding out to them, taking in their knowledge. She wanted to find Morena. It didn't take long, the strands willingly gave up all information they had to the Var.

Helos commanded them to fall away, and they moved back down her body, although slower than the rapidity with which they climbed. Finally, she stood clear of her child's children. Who were her own children in some way.

Helos would go to her daughter. How far had she come? How many millennia had passed? How much had her daughter accomplished? All of it ended now. The Makers set her forth and it no longer mattered what Morena wanted, nor Helos. The Makers began this universe on some grand scale that none of them could ever possibly comprehend, and they had spoken.

* * *

H
idden well
,
Junior thought.

He looked out across the expanse of land and if he didn't have the
army man
(such an odd term, one that Junior didn't really understand) in tow, he would surely have thought this place deserted other than for the wildlife. Trees grew all around him, though their leaves had fallen because of this planet's seasons. Junior saw no animals with his eyes, but he knew they were there. Not large ones, but tiny insects crawling amongst the dead plants at his feet.

What the army man might have called a second in command, a Bynum named Traese, stood to Junior's left. Buttonheim stood behind them both, and for the most part, Junior thought his people would be proud of him—despite the fact that he led their enemies directly to his leadership. He couldn't help that, though. The man held up relatively well, though his death would come soon.

Buttonheim knew it too. Junior could see through him in much the same way the Var had been able to when she first arrived.

"How do we get in?" Junior said, not turning around.

"I don't know. I know that they're here because I was in meetings I shouldn't have been. But we're short on troops."

"How are they here?" Junior said. "Are they in the sky? Do they walk amongst us now?"

"No, no. They're underground. Under your feet. Tunnels go deep into the Earth here, and they're down there in them."

"But you don't know how to get in?" Traese said. His aura flowed out confidently from him, a burnt orange that contrasted sharply with the forest’s color.

"No. Look in me like you've been doing; you'll see I'm not lying."

Junior hadn't dug too far into the man's mind. He didn't like it. He had no idea how the Var dealt with such emotions and uncertainty. It drove Junior nearly mad and he didn't have time for it. He always went in, found what he immediately needed, and left as fast as possible.

He wasn't going to go in now, though. The man wasn't lying. No reason to. He couldn't hide the information, not if Junior really wanted to find out.

"They're here, though," Junior whispered. "Your aura." He didn't turn to Traese, the meaning was clear enough. They had traveled too far to only use Junior's aura in searching this area.

Both would search and between the two of them, whatever way the humans entered beneath, they would discover it.

Junior's pale blue aura extended, spreading across the land quickly, not going higher than his ankles. He saw Traese's doing the same, both of them marking a clear line of where one would move whilst the other went in opposite direction.

It took ten minutes, but Junior found the entrance.

* * *

T
he ground opened up
, powered by a machine—one covered with this planet's plant life.

A long strip lifted, branches and dead leaves falling from it, revealing metal steps beneath. Junior's aura found it and then found the mechanism for opening it. It wasn't difficult for him, though he imagined it would be nearly impossible for anyone from this planet—even those familiar with the mechanisms—to open it.

The strip of metal moved until it reached a height of ten feet, then came to a complete stop. Junior stood in front of the stairs leading downward, his aura still spread across the ground, making sure that he wasn't vulnerable from some sort of attack on the outside of this fortress. He peered into the darkness below, dead leaves blowing in from the slight wind picking up through the woods. No guards stood at the entrance, but he already heard alarms sounding down below. An unauthorized opening wouldn't be met with a welcoming party.

Junior turned his head to Traese.

His brother looked at him, no fear in his eyes, just as none lived in Junior's.

He was so close to completing his mission, yet as he should be marching down those dark steps to meet whatever resistance the humans offered, he paused. Something was here, something calling to him that he didn't understand. Nothing human or foreign, but something of Bynimian.

"Do you feel that?" he said.

Traese nodded.

Junior looked back to the steps, the sirens seeming louder now.

Not yet. What's here, what is it that's calling you?

He looked up and away from the entrance, into the sky around him. He sent his aura up, moving from the ground to the trees around him, filtering through the branches and few remaining leaves.

"What is it?" he said, though not speaking to anyone else.

He saw nothing but the darkening woods as the sun slowly descended beyond the horizon. He couldn't rely on his eyes here; his aura would need to find whatever he felt.

Thirty seconds passed, and then a minute, his aura still spreading across the forest's canopy. It moved further and further out, and Junior felt the pull grow stronger.

Suddenly his aura sent it back to him, the knowledge of what pulled. A single strand hanging from a single tree branch, some five hundred feet away. How had it gotten there? Clearly the sun kept it alive, shining down just enough warmth to stop its death, but not enough to continue its growth. Had leaves covered these trees, Junior doubted it would still live.

His aura picked it up from the tree branch and brought it home. Junior looked at it, a thin thing perhaps five inches long, barely hanging on to life. And yet it nearly shrieked at him, trying desperately to tell him what it knew.

Junior opened himself up and let the knowledge flow to him.

* * *

T
hey connected everyone
, that's what Helos was beginning to understand. The strands. Any Bynum touching them could ... use them? That felt right. Something was using them now, Helos understood that too. She stopped walking, feeling the other.

How had it sensed her?

But that was a silly question. She was Var, perhaps of past, but Var nonetheless. These strands carried that message wherever they went; they might be in pain as the disease spread from the north, but Helos brought them hope too, and they would be eager to transfer that news to any Bynum they came in contact with.

And yet, was it a Bynum?

It moved with an aggression Helos hadn't seen in her kind before. Clearly it must know she was Var, the strands couldn't keep that information away. Even so, it gave no deference to Helos, but moved through her the same as it might an animal. Frantic, too. Trying to understand what she was, what she brought with her.
Why
she had come.

Helos said nothing, didn't search, but remained still—both externally and internally.

She would understand enough by sensing how this creature moved through her.

Anger lived in this thing. How could it use these strands if it wasn't a Bynum? How could it sense her? And it couldn't be a Bynum, not with such rage. Yet here the two of them were, connected by Morena's offspring.

Helos' mouth opened slightly.

Realization grew in her mind, quickly, like a massive star suddenly expanding in a dark part of the universe, illuminating everything.

This
thing
, this rage filled being, was Helos' descendant.

Oh, Makers
, she thought, unable to keep her despair hidden from this Bynum that now searched over her like insects on a carcass.
This is why. Oh, this is why.

She thought she understood before, as she looked at the wrecked world Morena created. She thought she understood when she witnessed the white strands and their never ending push for more. She thought she understood when The Makers showed that ship, traveling from planet to planet—colonizing everything it came in contact with. She hadn't understood a thing. All of it had been abstract, theoretical. Clinical.