Nemesis: Book Five (15 page)

T
he world was
black and thick. It looked nothing like what The Makers had presented to Helos. Had her aura not adapted, she would have died in this … liquid. She couldn't breathe in air, couldn't suck anything into her lungs but this salty, cold water. Her aura began working as soon as she made the plunge, though, filtering oxygen through the water, and bringing it back to her body, where it seeped through her skin and into her lungs.

Helos hadn't even known it possible, to breathe like this.

Her feet felt ground beneath her, though she couldn't see it. She wasn't sure how long she had been down here, only that she slowly came to consciousness.

Things moved around her, things she couldn't see, though she thought they knew she was here. Helos was in their home, and what creature did not know the way around its own home? Her aura brought as much information back as it could, telling her the sizes of the animals moving around her, the temperature of the water, her current depth.

It didn't look like the world she thought she’d arrived at. Still, Morena wasn't down here, which meant this world contained more than what Helos now saw.

She needed to move upward, because she had reached the bottom of this planet. She could go no further down. Morena was above, she had to be, and if she wasn't then The Makers brought Helos back to play a cruel joke.

Her white aura, colorless in this black abyss, spread out in a wide globe, preparing to take her toward the top, and also readying itself to understand the new worlds she moved into.

It couldn't have been a joke. The Makers didn't play games—they didn't bring the dead back to existence for some sort of personal joy at their suffering.

Morena was here, and Helos had to find her. She didn't know how much time passed since The Makers set her free, but each minute that came and went with Morena alone on this world was a minute closer to the universe's change.

That's what her daughter was doing. Changing the universe. Rebuilding it as she saw fit, and in the end, it all would be a graveyard—in honor of Bynimian.

Helos began her ascent.

"
I
t's working
," Trone said.

No one else in the room replied. They all sat quietly at their places around the table, watching the wall to wall screens. They showed aerial videos, front line videos, and maps of the white cake's defeat.

No one at the table could say that it didn't appear defeated, or at least, in the process of being defeated.

Though, Knox thought most people here weren't focusing on
appearances
. All of them were hoping and praying,
believing
, that the attack was working. Soon, the world would be free from alien threats again, and everyone could get back to Russia and America's diplomatic wrestling for power.

"Sir, we still don't have any idea where the queen is."

The word just came to Knox,
queen
. He kept his eyes on the screens, but didn't see anyone turning to look at the person who uttered such a strange phrase. It fit. Like an ant or bee, she was the queen of these overly powerful insects.

"She's in there somewhere," the President said, gesturing with his hand to the aerial view. "That's a lot of space to cover, but we'll get to her, as long as we keep moving forward like this."

"Will the cold stop her?"

Knox knew everyone's name around the table; that kind of parlor trick was a necessity in his line of work, the ability to meet and remember everyone's name he came in contact with. The man was a French diplomat—his name Adrien, accompanied by the head of their army, though the diplomat spoke much more than the General.

Adrien didn't look at Knox, but at the President, which was fine. Knox thought this idea up, but he didn't believe in it, and he didn't have any answers for Adrien or anyone else.

"We think it will, though we haven't seen it in action with her yet."

Adrien stood from the table, reaching into his pocket for his phone. "Excuse me a moment."

He left the room, and no one turned as he walked away. Everyone stared at the screens as if it showed the final seconds of a tied Super Bowl.

Knox looked to Trone, wanting to know if he needed to follow the diplomat. Trone only looked ahead, which meant that every conversation the people in this room had would be monitored. Nothing Adrien said would be a secret from Trone.

The man wasn't incompetent, Knox had to give him that, if nothing else.

He didn't know how long everyone would stay in this room. Perhaps they would want to keep watching this slow take back of America for days, only leaving to use the restroom. That's what Knox wanted. No one in here had any clue that he let Will loose. He had a plan as to what he would tell them when they finally found out, though Marks could destroy it with a few words—if he had been listening.

He was and you know it
.

Knox wouldn't try to keep everyone in here, but his long term prospects increased with each hour they didn't venture in to talk to Marks. That was coming, though—really,
that
was the whole reason he let Will go, because they would end up back in Marks' room, begging him to lead them to victory.

If this didn't work, the ice storm they unleashed on the alien, then Will was their last hope. Marks was a false prophet. He would lead them to victory, but only
his
victory. The rest of the world was expendable. Will was their last hope.

Knox brought his hand to his mouth, hiding the smile coming to his lips.

Hope. They had none anymore. Because each path they laid out for themselves only ended in either ineptness or full disaster.

* * *

T
hey called this place Texas
.

They called a lot of places a lot of different names, that's what Junior understood. Even inside Texas, humans created names for subdivision after subdivision, all the way down to individual streets. How any single one of them could ever hope to know them all was beyond him, the thought alone so idiotic he didn't truly comprehend how they managed to move across the world.

Junior found himself wondering about these questions as he made his journey across this 'country' (yet another name for something that was little more than imaginary lines enforced with weapons).

He had outpaced the strands' growth, and now floated above a city. He saw what humanity created clearly, things that he couldn't see when the Var's strands covered the landscape. Buildings, tall, trying to stretch to the sky, shot up from everywhere. Roads wound around them, some lifting off the ground and taking to the air, others going beneath the ground. These creatures created far too many roads, an overproduction without any doubt. He simply couldn't see a reason for the endless miles—most of them not used for much of the day.

He saw very few people beneath him, though. They were down there though, hiding. And wouldn't he be too, had he been facing what they now were? If his world was being consumed by something he couldn't understand, something he couldn't fight?

"Now you want to be philosophical?" he said.

That time had passed, if it ever existed at all. Perhaps on Bynimian, but in the end, it overstayed its welcome, resulting in the destruction of the entire planet.

Junior floated downward, slowly, his aura wrapped tight around him. The closer he moved to the ground, the more people he saw, though still too few out and about for a city of this magnitude. He didn't want anyone to see him, not yet. He didn't want them to scatter, because he planned on using them for what came next.

He landed at the city's outskirts.

Dallas
, he thought. He didn't know what the name meant, nor the history of it. Perhaps humans would still be able to track their history, at least for a bit, and Dallas would have something very important to remember after today. More important than anything else to ever happen here.

He stood in the center of one of those never ending roads. None of the traveling machines moved around him and he felt sure no one saw him as he came down. He imagined this city and the people in it weren't looking at the sky. They were looking across the landscape, trying to forecast when the white plague would reach them.

Junior waited.

He wanted some theater.

He came alone, the others not quite ready for this, and he didn't want to make things harder on himself than need be. Theater created fear, and fear created confusion, and confusion would allow him to march straight through the city, changing it as he saw necessary.

An hour passed, and still Junior didn't move. He thought, perhaps too much, but other than that remained still.

And then they came, as if The Makers themselves created the situation for him.

One heading in either direction, into the city and out of it. Their passing wouldn't be perfect, but Junior didn't need perfection to complete what he came here for.

He waited until the vehicles were close, one on either side of him. They slowed as they looked at the strange thing in the middle of the road, the vehicle's inhabitants all resembling each other—mouths agape, eyes wide. Neither vehicle stopped, though. Of course not. They had somewhere to be, and strange sightings in the road couldn't stop that.

Junior's aura whipped out to either side of him, moving much faster than the cars it went after.

Each car, facing opposite directions, kept driving at their slow paces even as the blue color wrapped around their undercarriage. The aura sped over the top, and then back down again, creating a loop over each car, stretching out as they finally passed Junior.

He tightened his aura and listened as the tires screeched and metal crunched. Burning rubber filled Junior's nostrils, though he didn't look to either side. He kept his eyes focused ahead, on Dallas. The people in the vehicles screamed, somehow their voices louder than the twisting metal around them.

Junior didn't consider whether he should leave them alive for what came next. If he thought about their wants, they probably would have rather died quickly, immediately.

His aura lifted the bent cars off the ground.

The screams from inside continued. The burnt smell still rose from the ground.

Junior launched them, first the one on his right, followed quickly by the one on his left. He threw them with all the force he could find, and the cars flew through the air like broken, metal birds. His aura released them, and they tumbled over themselves, climbing higher and higher into the air.

They reached the top of their arc, and began their descent.

Junior had launched missiles.

He watched as they plunged into two separate buildings, tall ones that tried to reach the clouds.

Fire exploded as huge, gaping holes appeared.

Junior couldn't hear the screams, but he knew they were there—screams, and even terror, rising off the inhabitants like heat from the asphalt beneath him. He rose off the ground and headed toward the city.

* * *

T
he woman
, Rigley, was worried about these humans coming for the Var. For him. For her. For all of them. Junior didn't understand that worry though, now that he saw the enemy up close. These creatures were weak, less than anything he had imagined.

They tried, though.

He would give them that—even if trying had little to do with accomplishment, at least in this endeavor.

A man stood in front of Junior with what looked to be a weapon in his hand. Other men surrounded him, all of them wearing the same clothing, all of them holding similar weapons. Junior looked to his left, seeing another huge building next to him, in fact, more buildings surrounded him than these uniformed attackers.

People fled, up and down the street. They probably screamed, but finally the noise rose above any sounds they could make. Fire roared, coming from windows, cars on the street, and even people themselves. They rolled around on the ground, trying to extinguish the pain engulfing them.

The men around Junior shot things at him, his aura telling him they were small pieces of metal. The objects entered his aura and then dropped to the ground, lifeless and immobile. Junior wasn't concerned with these men or the objects they flung at him. To fight these humans one by one would be a tragic waste of time. He needed massive destruction.

His aura streaked up the building on his left, leaving his body slightly vulnerable as it spread around the structure. The small objects flying at him wouldn't break through, but perhaps something more massive might. It didn't matter. This wouldn't take long. The light blue spread across the base and rose fifty feet high, enveloping the building like a sleeve. He looked to it briefly, able to see the building through his aura.

Junior closed his eyes and tilted his head toward the ground.

His aura told him what he needed to know. The weight of the building, the important structural pieces, even the amount of people inside. None of it mattered, though. He simply wanted to experience it, the knowledge, and yes, even the power.

Junior's faced tensed as his aura did. The building was so much larger, so much more structurally sound than the cars had been.

Focus
, he thought as the magnitude of what he wanted bore down.

His aura pressed inward, and with his eyes closed, Junior heard the minor explosions as metal and glass burst from the building. He didn't stop, kept his aura pushing inward, collapsing the building in on itself. He heard the shots around him slow, heard their complete absence as the men firing looked at what he was doing. They shouted, ran, and Junior felt people trying to leave the building as well, trying to escape through the bottom doors, though his aura had them trapped like a net, refusing to release them. Some even tried to escape through the windows, ready to fall to their death, but his aura caught them—keeping them alive for just a few more moments.

The building swayed, the top moving to and fro as Junior's aura continued working.

He would bring it down.

He felt it fall, slowly, moving toward the street, toward him. He didn't run, but stood solid, his aura already retreating back to him, forming a protective cocoon around him since it didn't need to continue pushing the building.