Nemesis, page 12
“You know who I am,” I say, “so you know what I do. I’ve stood before Nemesis more than most people on the planet, and she’s never even given me a sidelong glance. Me and the big girl, we’re simpatico. And I’m pretty sure that you trying to take her job isn’t going to go over well.”
A profound worry bubbles to life within me, like the first roiling of water over a flame.
There were a lot of people here.
A lot of needles left behind.
But only one Golyat.
Did the others become like this creature? Are they above ground now? If they are, we are in a shit-ton of trouble. The whole island is. This misguided devotee thinks it’s doing the will of Nemesis, but I don’t think she’s going to see it that way. This thing is dark. It’s evil. And she’s going to come for it. Come for them all.
All they’ve managed to do is ring the dinner bell, and all of Martha’s Vineyard is on the menu.
“Guilty!” The creature shouts and leaps down to the floor, my bullets chasing it, but never making contact. I’m a sure shot at the range, but nothing there moves this fast, and they say reaction time slows as you age. The Golyat has got the advantage over me, but I have, “Maigo.”
“Left,” she says, and I step left.
A single round buzzes past my ear just as the horrible creature leaps for my throat, claws extended, mouth open so wide I can see down to its luminous, lava-like gullet.
The bullet finds its mark, punching through the domed forehead and exiting the back. I duck farther left and it sails past me.
The floor shakes when it lands, slides along, and slams into the wall. A streak of black blood trails it. More pools around the creature’s shattered head.
Maigo and I stand over the thing.
Before either of us can speak, the creature twitches, and I put two more rounds in its head. Some of the black spatter strikes Maigo’s shoes.
She tilts her head to the side, annoyed. “Was that necessary?”
“Needed to feel like I contributed,” I say.
“You shot it. Once.”
“I missed its heart.”
She crouches over the creature. “Not sure it has one.”
“It does,” I say. “Because it used to be human.”
When she looks up at me, I explain. “The needles. I think this was some kind of send-off. Not a mass suicide, but more like a group transformation. Into this.” I motion to the creature.
“It’s extreme,” she says, “but that charts with DR’s scriptures. There’s always been a strong sense of self-righteousness. Of purification, sacrifice, and at the end of all things, becoming either one with Nemesis, or becoming like her.”
“Looks like they pulled one of the two off at least. Not counting Frankie Robles, who is definitely one with Nemesis right about now.” I take out my phone and start snapping quick photos. Of the body, the sanctuary, the grotesque worshippers, and the statue of Nemesis. Then I slide my camera away and turn back to Maigo, who has just finished carving off a sample of the Golyat’s skin and dropped it into a Ziploc bag.
“Good call,” I say. “We need to get topside ASAP.”
“You want to call it in now?” she asks.
“What? No.” She hasn’t put the pieces together yet. Eventually it will become second nature, understanding what kinds of things set Nemesis off. For now, she has me for a vengeance barometer. “A bunch of mutated lunatics might be on the surface carrying out judgment in Nemesis’s name. She’s not going to take too kindly to that. And, given her recent location, it’s not going to take her long to get here.
Maigo’s eyes widen. “Shit.”
“Yeah…shit.” Unlike most major cities, smaller population centers like Martha’s Vineyard don’t have walls. If Nemesis even comes close to making landfall, anyone without a life preserver is going to be swimming. That’s the bad news.
Good news is that this mess just became official business, and I’ve got somewhere between fifty and seventy-five targets to hunt down. The contingency for a mass target situation—developed in case of a prison break back when that was still a concern—is to capture a handful of targets and eliminate the rest, hoping that Nemesis will follow the few and just kind of overlook the ones that become corpses. Problem is, the protocol is still untested.
Not much of a choice, though.
I head for the door. “Let’s move. Double time.”
You can do this, I tell myself.
It’s not that far. Just a couple of hallways and staircases. Used to do stuff like this all the time. That person is still in me. I dig down and find him. My lungs and heart will forgive me later. We reach the stairs and Maigo takes the lead, setting the pace. She takes them two at a time, and the way she’s moving, I bet she could do three.
It’s not hard for me to take two steps at once, on account of my size, but my thighs are already feeling the burn.
“You okay, old man?” Maigo taunts.
“Jane…Fonda…eat your…heart out…” I catch a second wind halfway up the last staircase. The exit is just ahead. I’m spurred on faster as my imagination sees the bulkhead doors slamming closed above us. But the doors don’t budge and there’s no one waiting for us when we lunge back out into the light of day.
Nemesis really isn’t going to like this. Not only are there a lot of targets, but she doesn’t like showing her face when the sun is up. Some people think she’s ashamed of how horrific she is, but I reckon there isn’t a mirror large enough for her to get a good look. I think it’s more about her seeing us. We…disgust her. On account of our flaws. She can see them all, large and small, and she’s repulsed. Luckily, revulsion isn’t enough for her to want us all dead. Just the worst offenders.
I nearly trip over Munk, still out cold against the old house.
Hands on my knees, I catch my breath.
“Who…is Jane Fonda?” Maigo asks.
I wave her off and dig my phone out of my pocket. No notifications. No messages. This would be strange on a day when nothing is happening. I’m about to ask about cell reception when I remember that I put the phone in airplane mode, so I could be all sneaky and shit. I press the airplane mode icon and switch it off. While the phone connects to the local cell network, the worry in my guts boils up, threatening to spill out.
Please don’t have any messages, I think.
For a moment, all is well, and then a series of texts and voicemail alerts begin to appear. All from Owens. All within the last fifteen minutes.
I don’t bother reading any of the messages.
I just call.
Owens picks up before the first ring has finished, but I don’t give him time to complain about me being unreachable. “Where is she?”
“Thirty miles off Cape Cod,” he says.
“How long until she reaches Martha’s Vineyard?”
“Thirty minutes,” he says. “Wait, how did you know where she was—”
“Maigo and I are already on the ground, and there isn’t time to explain. There are fifty to seventy-five targets in the wild.”
“F-fifty? To seventy-five targets?”
“Honestly,” I say, “there could be more. Point is, you need to mobilize everyone and everything that can get here ahead of Nemesis. We’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up before she makes landfall. And then we need to get the survivors back to Neo-Boston. Understand? We have protocols for this. Follow them. Now.”
“But—that will… You’ll be in danger.”
“Already in danger,” I say. “Do it. Unleash hell.”
22
“Okay, Spunky,” I say to Maigo, “You up for another run?”
“Whatever it takes,” she says.
“Good. Go get the car. Fast as you can. Then come get me.” We left the car parked in town because the church wasn’t a long walk from the bar. But it is a long sprint. And I’m going to be carrying a heavier weight than usual on my shoulders. I look down at Munk and say, “I’ll get her to the road. Meet you there.”
Maigo nods and then says, “When you said ‘unleash hell,’ did you mean protocol JH-345?”
“That the one with a fleet of explosive kamikaze drones?” I ask.
She nods.
“Then, yes. We need to be mobile when they get here in oh, fifteen minutes, which is just fifteen before when Nemesis makes landfall. And if we don’t have a handle on the situation by then…well, been nice knowing you.”
She smiles. “Has it been?”
I give her an incredulous look, but then say, “You’re growing on me. Now go.”
She breaks into a sprint like she’s been training for this moment her whole life. Kid runs like a fuckin’ gazelle with a cheetah on her tail.
Left alone, I look down at Munk and sigh. “Between you and me, I regret putting you to sleep. But protocol is protocol, and that means I can’t just leave you here. Not that I would, you know, in case you’re just paralyzed and can hear me.” I bend down, pick up her arm, and then hoist it over my head. “On the count of three, I’ll heave, you be a dead weight. Cool? Fuck it. Three.”
With a grunt, I lift Munk up and over my shoulder. She’s not tall, but I think we weigh about the same. Feels like I just stepped onto the surface of Jupiter. “Fuck,” I say, stumbling back. Hoping my old bones don’t snap, I shift myself forward and use core muscles that haven’t been flexed in a long while. “Fuck. Oh, fuck.”
I sway back and forth for ten more seconds, unleashing a litany of curses every time I’m sure I’m about to go down. Then I get Munk into a good position, find my center of gravity, and stand still on two aching legs. “Okay… I got you… I got you… Now just need to walk around this house…and to the road… No big deal.” I take a deep breath. “Whew.” Then strike out for our destination. Very slowly. Baby steps the whole way, our combined weight somewhere in the range of Andre the Giant’s.
My voice quivers as I breathe hard and give myself a pep talk. “If Hulk Hogan…can lift the weight, so…can you. Just take the next step, Spider. God damn. One more. And another. Fucking hell.”
We round the side of the house. The road is a good hundred feet away. I could just plop Munk down by the dirt driveway, but then I’d have to pick her up again, and it would be yet another sign of my age, or weakness, that I don’t feel like showing today.
“Sorry about all the cussing, Munk,” I say. “I don’t normally unleash them all at once. Like to store them up throughout the day, but…ugh…I don’t normally carry people around.”
Feels like I’ve covered the hundred feet, so I look up and discover I’ve only covered ten. Before I can swear some more, the phone in my pocket rings. That would be Owens. I knew he’d call me back, if I didn’t ring him soon. Things are in motion, but there are still a lot of details he needs to know, including who the targets are. Not that I know who. I just know they look like an emaciated, hairless sasquatch with no eyes and no lips, roasted and blackened over a spit. Can’t forget the glowing stomach and Cheshire grin.
They’ll be easy to spot amidst the general population, which should help minimize collateral damage, but there’re no guarantees. And once the AI targeting system has full control, it picks the targets. It’s supposed to have a higher safety rating than human operators, but it hasn’t been used in a live fire incident with this many targets and twenty-thousand potential innocents on a populated island. There’s no telling what could go wrong.
But they should give us a buffer from Nemesis’s wrath as well. If a computer drone takes down an innocent bystander, Nemesis shouldn’t sense it as something like murder. After all, the drones feel nothing. They have no hatred or murderous intent. As long as people aren’t maliciously attacked, Nemesis should detect their deaths as just accidents. Happens every day, all the time, including when she makes landfall and stomps around. Hell, people have heart attacks and die when they just see her on the horizon. And she’s not out there impaling herself over it.
All this is wishful thinking, though. No idea if she’s smart enough to understand the drones were sent by human beings.
The still-ringing phone beckons my hand into my pocket. With one less hand on Munk, she starts to shift, and my straight path to the road becomes an angle.
Don’t fall on my face, or ass, though, so I’m calling this a win. I answer the phone without looking at the caller ID. “Speak.”
“Where the hell have you been, asshole?”
“Nice to hear your voice, too, Blackwater.”
“Been trying to reach you. There’s some seriously screwed up shit going down on this island.” She’s shouting over the rumble of her motorcycle. Still on the move. Good.
“Right,” I say. “About that. You packing?”
“Pretty sure you know I am. That going to be a problem?”
“Hell no,” I say. “Have you seen any people running around…no clothing, or eyes… Kind of messed up looking skin?”
“They have like a mini-Nemesis vibe. Yeah, I’ve seen one or two, and they’re chasing people down. Eating them alive.”
Shit.
“Well, if you see any more, shoot them. In the head works.”
“Probably not for long,” she says.
“The hell does that mean?”
“When they eat someone…” She sighs. Sounds nervous. “When they eat someone, they grow. Fast. And then shit out what they don’t use. Happens in seconds, like they’ve got a boiler in their gut.”
“Understood,” I say. “Look. This is what Divine Retribution has been up to. They screwed with their DNA somehow. Turned themselves into these things. These Golyats.”
“Goliaths,” she says.
“What?”
“You know, like in the Bible? David and Goliath. Golyat is the original Hebrew name.”
I’m stunned into silence for a moment, aside from grunting on account of Munk still being on my shoulder.
“What?” she says. “I went to Catholic School.”
“We can dig into the whole Divine handbook after we survive what’s coming next. Stole a copy from their church.”
“What’s coming next?” she asks.
“What do you think?”
“She’s on the way?”
“ETA, twenty-five minutes,” I say.
“You got a plan?”
“Fire and brimstone,” I say. “Get to the dock we came in on, ASAP. Copy?”
“Ride like hell. Kill nasty sunsabitches on the way. We’re on it.” Her motorcycle revs louder just before she hangs up.
I’m about to pocket the phone when it rings again. Owens. I answer. “SitRep?”
“Everything is in motion, but—”
“You need targets,” I say.
“Don’t suppose you have a list of names you can rattle off? Betty is listening. She can update the drones with facial recognition profiles as you speak.”
“No names,” I say. “But they should be easy to spot.” I give as detailed a physical description of the Golyats that I can, including the information provided from Blackwater—that they’re eating people, and growing.
I expect Owens to balk, but we live in a world with Nemesis. Things like this might be surprising, but they no longer feel impossible.
“Anything else?” Owens asks.
“Aside from the obvious?”
“Transports are already en route for you and Agent Tilly,” Owens says. “She is with you, correct?”
“Affirmative…” I say, reaching the road. “But…running late. As for the transports…I need six more.”
“You have other agents with you?” he asks.
“I suppose you could call them conscripts. They’ve been invaluable to uncovering this mess. I owe them a ride.”
“On it,” he says, which is unusual for him. I expected some pushback. The NSO doesn’t normally give civilians a ride. He’s probably too distracted to really think about how much trouble we could be in for most of what’s happened over the past day.
Problem for the future.
Right now… A car’s engine roars. Coming in fast.
“Thank god,” I mutter, and step out into the street.
“Send the transports to the Oak Bluffs dock. We’ll be there with bells on.” Before he can respond, I hang up.
Maigo skids to a stop in front of me. Rolls down the window. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”
“You look like you’re about to get punched in the face,” I grumble, opening the back door and depositing Munk in the back seat. A quick stretch works out some of the kinks, but it’s going to take a while to decompress, literally. I close the door and turn around just as Maigo shouts, “Behind you!”
I spin around, drawing my weapon, but I’m too late to shoot the Golyat, or prevent its teeth from sinking into my leather jacket.
23
Shouting in pain, pinned against the car, I squeeze off every round in my gun into the thing’s gut. It winces and shakes with each impact, the PSI on my shoulder letting up and then giving way as the monster staggers back, hands over its stomach.
I give my shoulder a quick inspection. The fabric is torn up, but I can’t see the blue shirt underneath. The teeth didn’t make it through all the jacket’s layers. Going to bruise like an apple that went three rounds with Mike Tyson, but I’ll live.
This asshole on the other hand…
The creature staggers farther away, lowering itself into a surprisingly flexible squat. That’s when I see a few distinct features. The wider hips protruding from its emaciated body. The subtle hint of what once were breasts, stretched out over its expanded ribs, which are so pronounced they appear to be outside the thing’s body.
This used to be a woman, I think, which seems impossible because it’s a foot taller than me and, despite the creature’s wiry frame, stronger than me.
Maigo rounds the car from the other side, gun raised at the Golyat.
“Save your ammo,” I say. “I put seven rounds in it.”
“But not in the head,” she says. “Again.”
“Didn’t really have room to aim,” I say. “When it kicks the bucket, help me throw it in the trunk. We need to know what it is.”
