Nemesis: Book Five

F
or David Beers
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G
eneral Knox would've rather had
sandpaper scraped across his eyeballs than watch the conversation before him. Knox didn't like confined spaces to begin with, so the whole bunker made him feel like a rat inside a cage. Add that to the conversation taking place in front of him, and he almost couldn't handle it. He kept checking his hands as they tried to clench into fists.

"Do you know how much of my cabinet is gone?" President Hayley asked .

Of course Marks knew. Everyone in the room knew. The question, though—as all of the President's questions seemed to be right now—was rhetorical.

Hayley had no cabinet left.

He had himself, the Vice President, and the few people in this underground bunker. They brought twelve people down here, Marks and Knox were two of them. They were all rushed into this labyrinth an hour after the attack running up the east coast. An hour after Earth's inner layer was draped across half of the United States. Even thinking about it now, after it happened, it seemed unbelievable. Yet, here they were, and above them? Hundreds of miles—all life forms: humans, animals, and plants—lay suffocating underneath the cooling lava.

"I don't want either of you two down here," Hayley had said when they first arrived. "I'd rather you were up there with the riots and whatever else that alien has in store for us, but unfortunately others here think that I need you."

That had been a day ago.

Knox didn't know if anyone else had slept, only that he hadn't. His clock read 0400, though without the sun or moon, it mattered little. The President called this meeting, and now all twelve sat in a single room.

"Since it seems you don't have much to say, Marks, I'll let you know," Hayley said. "None of my fucking cabinet is left, outside of Albert here. They're all dead."

The twelve sat around a table, a lot like the ones Knox used when he had been above ground, planning what they could do to combat the alien. The plan was to plan. Knox found the word a bit strange though, sitting in this artificially lit room a half mile beneath the Earth's surface, hiding. He had planned but
she
acted. He sent ice water to fight the white strands, and that creature pulled lava from the Earth and threw it across the land.

Knox wasn't a religious man by any means, but he was thinking this might be the End Times.

And planning? President Hayley didn’t seem to have that in mind right now. He wanted to berate instead.

"Have you had the chance to watch television the past few hours?" Hayley said.

"I can't say I've turned it on too much," Marks answered.

He wasn't smiling, and thank God for small favors. He still looked impeccable, as if the world above wasn't burning down. He stared at the President with a coolness that Knox couldn't comprehend, a reptilian gaze that said the President might be a cricket in need of eating.

"Well, there isn't much activity on the bottom half of the east coast. That's mainly because it's fucking destroyed, though. The upper half? Plenty of activity there; New York is on fire, and not because of anything new the alien did. The citizens are burning it down."

The President let the words lay across everyone at the table.

"Do you know what I've been doing the past day, Marks?"

"I can't say that I do."

"I’ve been on the phone with world leaders, all of them in bunkers as well, doing their best to not be caught in a hail of lava. We're trying to get a response team together, trying to figure out some fucking way to perhaps stop this thing," Hayley said.

Knox figured all of that. The world knew now, of course, and all the other leaders were in hiding as well. Perhaps some kind of international force could stop what was happening above, but Knox had his doubts. End Times were called End Times for a reason—because no one could stop them.

"I called you here because I wanted to tell you in person that you're fired, Marks. I wanted everyone still alive that's a part of my administration to hear it, and I wanted to look at you as I said it. You're fucking fired, and I want you out of my bunker. Whatever you brought down here, including your two thousand dollar suit, needs to get the fuck out within the hour. If you're here a minute after that hour is over, I'm going to have you killed."

The thoughts in Knox's head screeched to a halt like a speeding train at a hundred miles per hour, sparks flying from the tracks beneath. The President said he would murder Marks. If he stayed a minute past the timeline Hayley laid out.

"Any questions?" The President said.

* * *

K
enneth Marks heard the President
. Indeed, he was as fully engaged as he had ever been with this President. He remained leaning back in his chair as the President told him that his services were no longer needed.

Kenneth Marks hadn't seen any of this coming. His plan didn't include the alien creating a traveling volcano. He hadn't foreseen the White House turning into a smoldering ruin, something that would be remembered in textbooks and photos—if textbooks and photos existed when this was all done. No, all of these things had escaped Kenneth Marks' purview, and now the President wanted … him to leave? To simply take the elevator back up to surface and then walk out into the new America?

He knew the President wanted some kind of answer, but Kenneth Marks wasn't ready to give one yet. He missed what the alien had done, perhaps the first large miss in his life. The world above had radically changed over a few hours. Now, Kenneth Marks needed to determine his next move.

He decided that this wasn't really all that bad.

Kenneth Marks saw into the future, and he saw a path that might lead him to something more powerful than anything else he had imagined. The path was risky, without a doubt—something he wouldn't have seriously considered until this moment. The path lay out before him, as if lit by lights stemming from the heavens—perhaps he had been waiting on this the entire time. No longer would he have to bide time or wait under the President's thumb. This path, if it worked, would lead him to total control. Over both this government and the alien herself.

Kenneth Marks tilted his head slightly to the left as he studied the President.

Yes, it could work.

And if it didn't?

That was the rub.

"Are you listening to me?" The President said.

No, he wasn't anymore.

If this failed, he lost the opportunity to ascend. Everything he hoped to accomplish with the alien would fade away, like so many other dreams humanity thought up. The risk was huge, but so was the reward.

Kenneth Marks made his decision. He would have everything or nothing, but he wouldn't live with this in-between world any longer, having others dictate his actions.

He stood up from his chair, and reached to each of his shirt cuffs, pulling them slightly out from underneath his jacket. He studied them briefly before looking back up at the President.

"Yes, sir. I hear you perfectly," he said. He stepped out from the table, pushing the chair in, where he then stood with his hands on its back. "Is there anything you'd like me to do before I leave?"

The President looked over to General Knox. "Is there anything you need from him?"

Knox shook his head, which is exactly what Kenneth Marks thought he would do. None of them saw it, not yet. That's why what came next would work, because when they saw it, they would have no choice but to give him the keys to the Kingdom.

"Then we're good. Within the hour, Marks. Get out of here."

Kenneth Marks nodded and let the smirk he had hid finally glide onto his face. He stepped around the small table, moving past another General and some other bureaucrat he didn't care to know.

"Mr. President, it was an honor serving under you."

He took another step closer and extended his hand.

Hayley looked at his fingers like they were diseased, as if Kenneth Mark's fingers even touched the air Hayley breathed would infect him. He brought his eyes back up to Kenneth Marks’ face. "Get the fuck out of here."

The smirk grew, changing to a full blown smile, one that would light up a room if anyone besides Kenneth Marks wore it.

His hands shot out like a snake leaping on a mouse; Will would have been able to keep up, to see the actual movement, but everyone in this room was too surprised. Both hands moved at one time, the left snatching onto the back of the President's head and the other grabbing the bottom of his jaw. With a single jerk, he felt the bones inside Hayley's neck snapping, both small and large, as he stretched them further than they were ever meant to go. Kenneth Marks didn't let go immediately though, instead he pulled even harder on the President's head, making sure that no amount of emergency medical help would save him. Hayley let out a small grunt, the last sound the man ever made.

Kenneth Marks enjoyed the feeling of bones snapping, the tiny vibrations running up his fingers like a secret language that no one else could hear.

When he released, the President slumped down in his chair, and then slowly collapsed forward, his head banging on the desk and his neck looking entirely too long—the skin unable to repair Kenneth Marks' damage. His skin was almost slick plastic, thin and oily, stretched to nearly the point of ripping.

The President's eyes remained open, staring at a room that he would never see again.

Noise rang out around Kenneth Marks, but he said nothing. Not even as guns pointed at him, perhaps each a mere half pound away from injecting him full of metal. He simply complied with the directions screamed at him, lying down on the floor with his hands spread out in front of him.

* * *

K
enneth Marks looked
across to Will, or what was left of Will. He hadn't thought they would throw him next to Will, but it didn't really matter, he supposed. The mechanisms would grind on whether or not he was in this room or another, and when they reached their conclusion, Kenneth Marks would be released.

That was the hope, anyway.

Or he would die. If so, he imagined it wouldn't be anything as humane as injection, not for someone who assassinated a President—a hanging, or perhaps a firing squad? If the mechanisms now at play didn't work as he planned, not much would remain after they killed him. Nothing left of America and nothing left of the world, either.

He sat in a cage right next to Will's. So close that their bars touched. Both had the same tiny mesh, so that Kenneth Marks could only get a tip of his finger out if he tried. He wouldn't try, though. When he finally left this cage, it would be at their request.

He sat only a few feet away from the creature that he would soon become, and yet, she didn't recognize it yet. If she was curious about why she had company now, she didn't ask. Perhaps she wasn't even here really—maybe he only stared at a shell, a body not yet told it should die. It didn't matter what happened to Will or his body, though, because
she
lived outside these cages, and that's where he was heading, even if it took him some time.

Kenneth Marks had murdered before, of course, though nothing as brazen as what he just did. He could still hear the screams and see the shock plastered across everyone's face as he slowly descended to the floor, placing his hands so that they weren't a threat to the secret service holding weapons on him. Had they fired, the murder would have been for nought, but they froze, unsure what to do to such a high ranking official. And now? Well, they couldn't kill a man no longer posing a threat.

The wait had begun, but he didn't think it would take too long. He would sit here staring at the silent Will, while those outside scurried to develop a defense. Kenneth Marks thought the alien was probably plenty busy out there in the world, trying her best to replace the native life of this planet with what she brought. Once Knox and the Vice President realized they didn't know how to handle her, they would come to him, to Kenneth Marks, and what could they say?

Help us.

Please.

They would sell their souls for his help, and Kenneth Marks was in a buying mood.