Nemesis: Book Six (5 page)

Morena felt Rigley nod mentally, trying to compose herself. She wanted to help. This woman always wanted to help, nearly as invested in Morena's children as Morena herself.

Kenneth Marks. You know him,
Morena said.
Right?

Again, that small mental nod.

I have to get in touch with him. I have to speak with him.

HE'S RIGHT THERE!
Rigley screamed.

Morena paused, unsure what the woman meant. Kenneth Marks wasn't at the house; Briten would have already acted. She was insane, Morena could think of nothing else to justify the woman's words. She didn't have time to search and understand what was going on inside—she had to push forward. Each moment that passed brought the wave of death just a bit closer to the core. A bit closer to the complete eradication of Bynimian.

Listen, Rigley. Listen.
She tried to soothe her words, speaking to Rigley as her own mother had spoken to her as a child. She hadn't used the tone before, never having had the chance without her own Var-to-be daughter to teach. She felt Rigley's tension fade a little.
Please focus, just listen to the sound of my voice. There has to be a way to get in touch with him, to talk to Kenneth Marks. I need you to think about how it might be possible. How can we talk to him?

Rigley went quiet.

Morena waited, not probing. She left the woman alone as much as she could given the current situation. Rigley was searching, doing what Morena asked.

My cell phone
, she said.
His number is in it. There's a land line inside. You can get the number and call using the land line.

Morena wasn't immediately sure what the woman meant, but it came to her after a few seconds—the memories from Bryan filling in the gaps of Morena's knowledge. Phones. Numbers.
Fine
, she thought to herself.

Morena waited as Briten went inside the house, finding the necessities.

A few minutes passed and then Rigley held the two phones.

I'm going to take control for a few minutes, Rigley. Don't be scared; I won't hurt you.

Morena slipped through the strands into Rigley, taking control as one would a glove once their hand was inside it. She ripped through the mental notes regarding the two phones, understanding exactly what Rigley meant. She went through the cell phone first, finding the number, then dropping it to the ground. Moving slowly, carefully—as to not rip any of the strands from their connection to Rigley's skin—she keyed the number into the portable phone.

Static blared over the line.

You're too far away from the receiver
, Rigley said, her voice shaking, yet still trying to help.

Morena could still hear the phone ringing, despite the static.

"Hello?"

Morena remembered the greeting from her time with Bryan, dismissing it as she would an insect.

"Kenneth Marks?" she said.

"Rigley?" The voice sounded genuinely surprised, yet Morena could still hear the control moving through it.

"No. I'm using her to speak with you."

"Morena?" Surprise changed to happiness.

"Yes. Pay attention, Kenneth Marks."

"I'm all ears," he said.

"What you're doing, it won't stop once it kills me. You do realize that, right? It will drop down into this world's core and kill it the same as it killed us. There will be nothing left on this planet. Not a plant, animal, or human being. You have to stop it."

Morena listened to Kenneth Marks' silence coming back over the line.

Finally, he spoke. His voice had lost the surprise and happiness, but sounded like gray death would if given a voice. "I'm not too worried about it, Morena. There hasn't been a whole lot of good that's come off this rock anyway."

Insanity. Different than Rigley's, but still insanity. The man held no allegiance, no love for anything, perhaps not even himself.

"You'll die," she said.

"Yes, I did put a lot of chips on this move, didn't I?"

Morena didn't fully get the idiom, but the gist came across fine. "You have to stop it," she said.

"No, Morena, I don't think I do."

* * *

"
N
o
, I don't think I do," Kenneth Marks said.

He had set Knox on a near impossible task of creating a communication link with this creature, but it appeared Kenneth Marks was in God's favor, because she called him. He was glad to hear Rigley's voice, that she wasn't dead. At least he hoped not, because he hadn't forgotten Rigley—not at all. She still had a major role to play in his fun, whether she or this alien realized it or not.

"I think I can do exactly what I want." Kenneth Marks knew the phone call was monitored, especially an incoming on his line. That was okay; he would be able to deal with it. What he wanted now, was to converse as openly as possible given the constraints. "You know I'm not going to stop any of this. You know that I'm going to back you into a corner, but that might be the wrong tense. I think I already have backed you into a corner."

Rigley's voice didn't say anything for a few seconds.

"You're willing to kill everything." It wasn't a question, just a statement, and Kenneth Marks thought she finally understood. He wouldn't move an inch. He would risk everything, indeed, kill everything, in order to get what he wanted—which was very simple, just an ask of Morena, really.

He wanted to
be
her. Or as close as his own DNA would allow. The more he contemplated the subject, though, the more he thought that she probably had the ability to alter his DNA.

"And what if I kill you, instead?" The alien asked.

"Why would you want to do something like that?" Kenneth Marks said, his voice as cold as the ice his formula spread amongst her kind.
I can set you free, just as you can me
, he wanted to say, but knew that he couldn't with the recording picking up his every word.

"Have you seen the world I'm leaving you?" she said. "Have you seen your west coast? I'll lay waste to the entire globe, so even if you do somehow survive, this planet will be nothing more than remnants of a holocaust."

"Again," he said. "I'm not too worried about it. I think we'll all get along just fine."

She said nothing, letting silence take over again.

"I did want to talk with you, however," Kenneth Marks said after a few seconds. "I was actually asking some of my colleagues to help set up a link between the two of us." He paused for a second, his mind running through permutations of how he could code what came next in a way that bypassed the thought police listening. "I will tell you how to stop it, though, if you'd like. Would you like that?"

She said nothing.

"I imagine math truly is the universal language and that you're well versed in it. If you figure out this formula, you'll be able to put a stop to the whole business. Ready, Morena?"

Again, nothing.

"F equals M squared."

He disconnected the line.

* * *

M
orena left Rigley
, not caring what she did next.

The motherfucker
, she thought, still using Bryan's word.

It wasn't a mathematical formula. She didn't know exactly why he said it like that, but she understood what it meant.

F.

Equals.

M squared.

Freedom.

Equals.

Marks and Morena.

If she took him as her own, he would call it off, but not for anything else.

Wait,
she said to Rigley. The woman was trying to climb to her feet, her body riddled with the tiny holes the strands created. She stopped, some of the strands still connected to her body, allowing Morena to communicate. Morena could feel the hot tears streaming down Rigley's face and understood the toll this took on her. Understood how far her mind had been stretched already. Morena couldn't concern herself with it, though. This woman didn't matter outside of what she could do for Morena.
Where are they, Kenneth Marks and whoever he's with?

I … I don't know.

Think, Rigley. Where are they and how can I get to them?

Morena saw the storm inside Rigley’s head, full of fear, and destroying her ability to think rationally.

I don't know,
she sobbed.
Maybe they went underground. That's where I imagine they'd go, given what we did. They would hide in underground caverns.

Morena released her fully, saying nothing else.

Rage and despair spun inside Morena like oil and blood. Two very separate things, unable to mix, yet filling her head with both black and red. Depression and anger. Death for her or death for him.

She felt Briten attach himself to the strands, felt his calming presence much like she had tried to be for Rigley.

What happened?
he said.

Morena tried to focus on his question, wanting to let the oil and blood inside her head settle, drain away. She found it so incredibly tough to do, though—to focus on the moment. Morena had never encountered defiance like that, not even Chilras' dictums on Bynimian approached what the human just told her. Just commanded of her. An ultimatum.

Morena?
Briten said.

Yes, yes. I'm sorry. I can barely process what just happened. I spoke to him, the man who's doing this. He wants, Makers, he wants to become me. To become like us. He says that's the only way he'll call it off.

Can you make him like us? Would you?
Briten said, neither of them bringing up the fact that 'us' didn't exist anymore—only Morena.

Could I? Of course. Would I? Never, under any circumstances.

Not even if it allowed your children to live?

Morena stopped, the blood and oil in her head flying around like hurricane rain quit their acceleration. Would she kill all she cared for in order to keep this man where he was?

Is there no compromise?
Briten said.

Is that what we do now, Briten? Do we acquiesce to the demands of creatures who wouldn't know we existed had we not made ourselves known? This human, he isn't … sane. If he became one of us, everything we know would be at risk.

Everything we know is at risk now.

Morena couldn't believe the argument her husband was making. The being supposed to rule the most violent species to exist, asking her to call a truce.

No, Briten. I'm not going to do it. I'd rather die than give this thing what he wants.

Okay,
he said.
I just wanted to make sure. I think there may be another way.

* * *

W
ren had left
the living room; he knew now that he wouldn’t find anything in the rest of the house for him, not as long as that beast walked around inside.

Now he sat back in his chair, staring out the window at the front yard, his eyes growing wider by the second.

Wren watched the strands grow over the woman, climbing on her like strange species of moss, one injected with steroids. It grew on her like wolves falling on wounded prey. He saw her body tense and watched as the thing wearing Michael stepped away.

Was it sacrificing her? Feeding her to the strands?