Free Nemesis: Book Four by David Beers Page B

use your pass-codes. It appears that this alien is multiplying, actually creating young." He let the words hang over the airwaves, wanting them to soak into the President's brain like marinade into a steak.
    "Send me the information; if you're right, we'll strike tonight."
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    K enneth Marks looked at Rigley .
    She was staring outside the car's window.
    They were driving away from Georgia, getting out of the blast zone. He had already developed the plan, one that would drop a neutron bomb low enough so the wind couldn't catch too much of the radiation and throw it to neighboring states. As long as he cleared Georgia, nothing would die but animals and plants.
    Rigley knew what was coming; Kenneth Marks made it known, had to so that Knox removed his troops from the blast zone as well. They were all traveling to the same place, moving headquarters to a new location, though none of that mattered much to Kenneth Marks. Will's body traveled with them, locked up in the same cage, and soon the neutron bomb would drop down and end much of the creature's ideas about the power she held here.
    That's when Kenneth Marks would come forth, would let her know that they were kin—if not physically, than mentally, and that she would teach him, unless she wanted to die as well.
    He was going to ascend.
    First, though, he needed to deal with Rigley.
    Because she wasn't getting out of this unscathed. No one sees the Wizard, no way, no how.
    "Rigley," he said, speaking softly as he looked away, out his own window.
    "Kenneth," she said.
    She was mocking him. He heard it in her tone, heard it in the way she simply repeated his name. The only reason that Kenneth Marks had made it this far in life flowed from his consummate ability to control all emotions, to keep from taking the little bitch's head and smashing it straight through the window. He'd dealt with controlling these emotions since three years old, when he first realized that the people around him would never be anything more than objects for him to move.
    So he would control it now.
    And once he had his fun, he would kill her. Maybe an accident. Maybe not.
    "It's time for you to make a choice," he said. "Whether or not we drop this thing."
    She said nothing, just continued staring out the window, her body moving slightly with the car's motion.
    "I told the President we needed to, but in the end, it's your call. You're in charge of this operation, not me," he whispered loud enough for her to hear, though anyone in the front seat wouldn't be able to decipher what he said. "I want to be honest with you, Rigley, because I want you to understand the moral peril that comes from both sides of the coin. If you don't drop it, this alien will spread. It's already moving into the surrounding towns, Loganville, Snellville, the larger Gwinnett County area. It's not just the white cake either, this isn't Bolivia redux. There's life out there on that white shit covering the whole county. Life like the one we saw flying around."
    He turned to her, positioning his whole body so that it faced Rigley.
    "If you decide not to drop it, people will die. I don't know how many, but it's going to be hard to stop the spread.
    "And if you do drop the bomb…." He paused, taking in a breath and letting it out slow. "You're going to wipe out her species. This isn't like when you wiped out Sherman, a relatively unintelligent plant. These creatures, from everything we can tell, are much like us. Emotions. Intelligence—"
    "I'll be committing genocide," Rigley said.
    Kenneth Marks stopped speaking. He was laying it on thick, wanting her to really think about what it all meant, wanting her to make the connections between what she had already done and what she was about to do. Had it been too thick? Because she still stared out the window, adequately capturing exactly what would happen, but her voice wasn't shaking. Tears didn't cloud her eyes.
    "And you're okay with that?" he said. "You're okay knowing you're going to