Nemesis: Book Five (22 page)

* * *

T
he hours stretched on
, but Kenneth Marks didn't tire. Apparently neither did these scientists, including the American—which surprised him a bit, given how woefully inadequate Americans had become at any problem containing a number or symbol. Kenneth Marks blamed it on the parents, not the public schools or the lack of funding, but education reform wasn't his battle to fight.

Kenneth Marks stayed away from the actual work, letting them pull apart the strand, then run it through the machines that attempted to explain the DNA structure. None of it, of course, had ever been seen on Earth before, but that didn't mean they couldn't figure out how to kill it.

The key was, which Kenneth Marks explained to them in great detail, that cold temperatures destroyed some piece of this thing's DNA—maybe multiple pieces—and they needed to understand which piece, so then they could tailor this poison.

He read the reports the machines spat out. He understood them well enough, and his mind was rapidly expanding to understand them on the same level as these scientists. Still, they all were necessary right now. They would move quicker than Kenneth Marks in the beginning, and ten hands could always get more done than two.

The rest of the world was concerned about time. Indeed, Trone came down hourly to inquire about their progress. Kenneth Marks gave him nothing. He simply kept looking at the scientists, or reading whatever report was new. The President was a non-factor now, and Kenneth Marks wouldn't let Trone disturb his creation. Kenneth Marks didn't care in the slightest about time. What mattered was getting this right, for multiple reasons. He would only have one chance. If the strands didn't die, then Kenneth Marks would—at Trone's command, most likely. It didn't matter to him at all if the strands devoured the rest of the world; a long time would pass before they found these tunnels—and if he had the antidote ready?

All that mattered was getting it right, which Kenneth Marks planned on doing.

"How long, Marks?" Trone said, standing behind him in the open doorway.

The tone in his voice had changed, and Kenneth Marks read the strain in each word. He turned around, understanding Trone was nearing a breaking point. The man had proven extremely resilient up until now—actually impressing Kenneth Marks.

"I'm going to put you back in the cage if you don't start answering me."

The two stared at each other. Kenneth Marks read every piece of Trone's physical reactions, processing them for likelihood of either breakdown or him actually following through with his threat. The man was a better actor than Kenneth Marks realized; the president's voice had thrown him. The acting came from a lifetime of politicking. He wasn't breaking, though Kenneth Marks thought Trone might put him back in the cage. Not forever, but for a time, to prove who was actually in charge.

Which wouldn't have bothered Kenneth Marks at all, under normal circumstances. Certainly not six hours ago. Now, things were a bit different. These scientists could continue the work, at least for a while, which might give Trone confidence they could finish it. They couldn't, of course, because Kenneth Marks was holding another card he hadn't laid down yet.

How long would he sit there? How many hours would be wasted while Trone thought the scientists could finish Kenneth Marks' work without him?

"I'm not sure," he said. "This has to be right. We don't have any room for error."

"We also don't have time."

"I don't have an answer, because I don't know when they'll fully understand the genome."

Trone stared at him for a few seconds. "Hurry," he said, and then left the room.

H
ow did you do it
?
Bryan said.

I don't know,
Michael answered.

What's it mean?

I don't know.

"Is he here?" Wren said.

Bryan's eyes focused on the world around him, his attention leaving his mind. Wren was still climbing to his feet from where his body dropped.

"He made it?"

"He's here," Bryan said.

And hell in heaven, he was. Bryan felt Michael—not like he had felt Morena, though. He wasn't shoved aside and then cast away, this time. Michael was there, but segmented, as if Bryan's brain accepted him, but would remain in control.

"He can hear me?"

I can hear him
.

"He says he can."

"Christ," Wren said, staring at Bryan.

Bryan felt the crossflow of information starting; it happened with Morena, and would happen here too, apparently. Neither of them could stop it, as their minds intermixed with one another.

"What do we do?" Wren said.

* * *

M
ichael heard
his father ask the question, but he didn't have any answer.

His body lay on a couch in another room, while he shared his best friend's mind. He didn't share his friend's body, though, because Michael had no more control over this one than he did his own.

What do we do?
His father asked.

The only answer that came to Michael was,
we die
.

As he looked on the landscape of Bryan's mind, he understood that a large part of Bryan already had. Michael didn't know how his mind created visual representations of the neural pathways he encountered, but it did. Always.

And here, he stood in a desert. A dark one, with the moon high above, and a deep chill rolling across the sand. Space, everywhere he looked—space and loneliness. Not even animals moved across this world; no snakes slithered along the sand.

We die
, he thought again.

Was this all there was to Bryan anymore? This desolation?

Michael didn't move, only stood in the sand, unsure where to go, because even if he went, he'd still be looking at the same thing.

What do we do?
Bryan said internally.

Could he see what Michael was looking at, this desert? But as soon as Michael wondered it, he realized the silliness of the question. Whether or not Bryan saw the same as Michael, he lived in this. He knew this desert better than Michael ever could, because he'd been in it since all this started.

Michael didn't want to respond aloud. To speak of death in a place like this might blacken the moon—leaving everything in darkness.

I need to think
, he said instead, as if he was in charge here. As if he had a clue as to what to do next, and all he needed was just a little downtime to wrap his mind around it. He didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do, and didn't think he ever would.

"He needs to think," Bryan said out loud.

Michael watched as his father nodded, but didn't turn away. Wren looked at Bryan as if he thought he might be able to see his son if he stared long enough—like Bryan's eyes might turn into Michael's.

Except my eyes are on the couch in the other room
, he thought.

Bryan walked to the bed and Wren watched him go, while Michael watched it all from the desert.

I need to think? And what am I going to come up with? What kind of revelation am I going to find that will tell me anything besides we're all going to die?

* * *

A
nother four hours gone by
, and Trone hadn't shown up, thank God.

No one in the room had slept for a long, long time, but none slowed down, either.

Everyone was
engaged
in a way that Kenneth Marks wasn't sure he had ever seen before. Their inspiration didn't inspire him at all, but it was still nice to see.

They were close to the solution.

Kenneth Marks walked across the room and stood a few feet from the table that the scientists sat around.

"Are we done?" he said.

"I think so," one of them answered. He didn't know any of their names and none of them had bothered to tell him, either. Perhaps they heard about his snafu with the former President, or perhaps they only cared about their job.

"It's this one. Right here."

Kenneth Marks watched the woman point to a number on a piece of paper.
R679
.

"That's it? That's the one that can't handle cold temperatures?" he said.

"Yes. Now we need to understand how to dose it."

"Well, that's the easy part, darling," Kenneth Marks said. He reached into his pants' pocket and pulled out a tiny chip. "We're going to program it."

His smile was perhaps as wide as it ever had been.

* * *

K
nox stood on the road
, bright lights shining down around them all as if it this was a movie set. No one had time to wait until morning, and no one would attempt this with only moonlight guiding them.

The General remained on the edge of the group, standing by himself. He didn't want to be within a thousand feet of Marks, though he didn't have a choice right now.

"We're ready," Trone had said, coming into Knox's bunk. Knox wasn't sleeping, only looking up at the bare ceiling, thoughts flowing freely through his head. They all stopped with Trone's announcement, though. It meant Marks finally created something he thought would halt this continual onslaught. It meant that the human race might have a chance, or it would have—if Marks wasn't the one directing this.

Looking at the flurry of activity now, Knox tried to focus on the positive. If they beat this shit back, they could find an opportunity to stop Marks and whatever it was he wanted to do. They could use him just as he thought he was using them. Because the most important part about this, the thing they all needed to deal with first, was stopping the alien's assault.

A massive computer stood fifty feet from the slowly spreading white strands. Still spreading. Always spreading. It wouldn't stop, and in the distance, Knox could see why. Looking into the land the white cake already conquered, he saw the color filled capsules. The strands spread because they brought alien life everywhere they went, while killing anything else they touched.

Knox didn't understand the complexities of what they were attempting, though he was briefed on his way over. Marks' plan was to put a program into the white cake, as if it was a computer and not a biological organism.

"He says it's not fully biological. He says that the DNA, the aliens reengineered it somehow, and there is… I don't fucking know, a digital piece to it all," Trone had said.

"What's it do?"

"He thinks it allowed them to control their world in different ways, thinks that it contributes a lot to the green color you've seen wrapping around her."

"And how did he figure all this out?" Knox asked. "You believe him?"

"The one piece of the white cake that they studied to figure all this out, he said everything was in there. Though, of course, the rest of the scientists missed it during their initial investigation."

Knox didn't say anything else. He rode in the armored caravan without another word.

And here they were, Marks no longer near the massive computer bank, having done whatever he needed there. Now he stood twenty feet from the edge of the white cake, with a small chip in his closed right hand.

* * *

K
enneth Marks felt
the small piece of metal resting in his hand.

Trone stood a few feet from him. Weapons of all sorts surrounded the whole group, ready to open fire into the sky if anything showed up that might even hint at a threat. The President stood in a hazmat suit, as did about ninety percent of the people around Kenneth Marks.

He didn't need one. None of them did, but the President certainly wasn't allowed to stand out here without every possible protection in place. What happened next wouldn't be quick, but the danger from the strands would cease to exist, at least in this area.

He hoped
she
would know immediately. He wanted her to understand that she hadn't won, despite the current circumstances. That all the wreckage she caused, and her minion was currently causing, would end soon. What he held in his hand wouldn't stop with the strands. It would infect everything, every child not yet born, every creature that touched it, all the way to that open hole in Grayson. So unless she planned on floating above the ground for eternity, she was done.

Or, she bent to him.

And then he would stop it.

Because this chip wasn't the only one that could be created.

Trone said something to him, but Kenneth Marks paid him no attention.

He brought his hand back slightly, closed with his palm facing up, and then tossed the chip into the air. It moved in a heavenly arch, floating as if angels carried it up. Kenneth Marks watched it flip as if the whole thing moved in slow-motion.

And finally, it landed without a sound, coming to rest on the bed of white.

The strands wasted no time in growing over it, consuming it.

A silence as deep as the loneliest part of the universe dominated the group, as all eyes watched the spot where the chip landed.

Nothing happened.

No one spoke, and the seconds ticked on. Kenneth Marks didn't care about the rest, though his mind felt the shift in tension around him. Hope quickly being replaced with doubt. The strands consumed it just as they had everything else, and they were still
growing
, not dying.

Kenneth Marks waited. If he had ever worried before in his life, he didn't remember it, and even now, with doubt growing all around him—faster than the strands continually trying to reach the group, he knew he was right. He knew that what came next would change the course of the entire universe.

And then it happened.

The white strands that grew directly over the chip crystallized, or at least that's what appeared to happen. In reality, they iced over—all at once, even with the air warm enough to melt it, which it would in a few moments. By then though, it wouldn't matter. The ice killed, and when it turned to water, the death would remain.