Free Nemesis: Book Four by David Beers Page A

down, raining its death upon whatever it touched. And a half life of days. In a month, the state would be clean again. In a month, everyone could go back home and be none the wiser.
    "Sir, that's the beautiful part. We only need to cover for thirty days. At the end of the thirty days, the radiation is cleared out."
    "I'll call you back," the President said and Kenneth Marks heard the line drop.
    "Good bye, sir," he said before placing the phone back into his pocket. He looked out the tent’s flap for a few more seconds. He saw the growth he told the President about, could see a direct line to it, all the tents in front of this one purposefully placed to reveal how close it was moving. It looked beautiful in the night light. Peaceful.
    "Bring me the bag, please. The bag with the piece of growth in it," Kenneth Marks said to whoever was listening. "Has anyone thought of a name for it? I'm not fond of calling it the growth."
    "White cake," Knox said.
    "White cake?"
    "Like yellow cake. Whatever this is, it's as bad as anything nuclear."
    Kenneth Marks shrugged. "Sounds good. Someone bring me the cake, then."
    He didn't look up as the person approached, only took the bag handed to him. He had seen it through satellite images, seen it with the moon shining down upon it, but until now, he hadn’t seen it up close. The creature sitting in the cage created this. He had seen Sherman up close, but it was a different material than this. Sherman was a sponge, but these things were tiny wires. They looked hard, stronger than Sherman. Nothing like cake, except for icing perhaps—the purity of its white nearly startling.
    "What's this?" he asked as he turned the bag over. A tiny orange bubble grew up from the wires.
    "It appeared today, but we've been somewhat busy so I haven't looked into it," Knox said.
    Kenneth Marks spread the bag out a bit more, so that the nonporous material flattened across the orange object. The bubble didn't move at all, but poked upward into the bag. It was hard, like glass or plastic.
    He looked at it, wondering what it could be. He took in all the sensory data around him, even bringing the bag to his nose to smell its odor. Nothing he did though opened up any paths in his mind. This was something new, completely new, like the creature in the cage. The creature would have to tell him what it was, because although he could see the orange color inside….
    Click .
    His mind found the track it wanted.
    The color. Different than the creature's, but similar too. It wasn't opaque; Kenneth Marks could see through it just as he saw through the green surrounding the alien. Was it… one like her? Another one? And if so, were they growing out there in that field of white, growing like corn crops, populating everything that the cake spread over?
    Possible.
    Probable, even. And did that change things? If he held one of this thing's children, did that give him leverage? Or could it hurt him in some way, hurt what he was trying to do?
    The majority of people on Earth, indeed the vast majority, would have jumped to a conclusion based on instinct. Kenneth Marks' mind traveled down multiple paths at once, but with one guiding factor underlying each path like asphalt under cars: his wants came first.
    The paths led him to a certainty; this changed nothing. Not yet. He would still act as he had planned, and this might actually help his cause. Because if this orange capsule was actually one of her own, then he would kill them all. He would wipe out an entire species, just as she threatened to do with him.
    They were similar, even if she didn't realize it yet. He saw it clearly and it was his job to make her see it, because when she did, the truth would be like staring into the sun, so bright it could blind.
    His phone began vibrating again and Kenneth Marks brought it to his ear.
    "Yes, sir?"
    "You're sure about this. You're sure this is the only option we have?"
    "I may have just found out something new that increases our need to