Waking Gods (Themis Files #2)(63)

Now the world is ending and somehow I’ve managed to make that about me too. Millions of people are dead, so my grief isn’t that special. But I’ve killed the one person who was needed to save the world. Themis can’t fight anymore. She’s a paperweight now. I do my best to avoid going outside. I can’t stand to look at her. I can’t bear the thought of walking into that sphere and seeing Kara’s gear hanging from the ceiling. I always had my back to her in there but I could feel her presence behind me. I would follow her voice, her breathing. There’s no Themis without Kara.

I’m useless here now. I can’t help Rose. I can’t help Eva. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.





FILE NO. 1593

DISCOURSE TO THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY—BRIGADIER GENERAL EUGENE GOVENDER, COMMANDER, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

Location: UN Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, members of the General Assembly, ladies and gentlemen. I am here today … I am here today to tell you … Ah, to hell with my notes!

I was asked to provide a summary of our current situation, but you already know we’re in deep shit. We’re up to our eyeballs in it. There are thirteen alien robots on Earth. All of them have the ability to transport themselves anywhere on the planet in a nanosecond. They can also release a gaseous substance that kills, almost instantly, 99.95 percent of the human population in a twenty-mile radius, all in a matter of minutes. I should point out it only kills humans; cats, birds, bugs, they’re all fine. Each robot has done so twice in the last five days, except for the one in Madrid, which didn’t get a chance. As of now, London, Tokyo, Jakarta, Delhi, Cairo, Calcutta, Paris, Mexico City, S?o Paulo, Johannesburg—I need to catch my breath—Beijing, Seoul, Mumbai, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Karachi, Bangalore, Shenzhen, Santiago, Kinshasa, Riyadh, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, and New York are all ghost towns. Moscow is in ruins, with a population of zero. Madrid is now a crater.

You may also have heard rumors that we lost one of our pilots. The rumors are true. Captain Kara Resnik is dead. She died in New York two days ago. We’re working on a contingency plan, but it’s a long shot at best. That means, for now, we can’t use Themis for anything but transport. We can teleport her, but she can’t walk. And she can’t fight. Right now, she’s lying in the woods, covered with branches and a whole lot of camo netting.

The alien robots are immune to … well, to everything we’ve got. Just ask India how effective their ground assault was. Russia dropped more firepower on Moscow than they did during World War II. It didn’t do anything. A nuke didn’t work. Let me say that again. A nuke didn’t work. Half of Europe will glow in the dark for the next decade or so, but the Madrid robot’s still standing. I told you people all of that the last time we met, but you didn’t listen. You got scared, and you did stupid things like scared people do. You need to stop that now. Stop fighting. You can’t win! They are better than us. Stronger. They have the upper hand.

I see by your faces you were hoping for something a little more positive. There’s nothing rosy about the situation. There are over one hundred million dead—one hundred million. Probably a lot more coming. Civil liberties have been curtailed, everywhere. Most of the governments represented here have imposed some form of martial law. We’re losing lives. We’re losing our way of life. We’re losing, big-time.

I lost someone … someone very close to me. He’s the reason I’m standing here today. He got me into this mess. I didn’t want this job. I didn’t want to be a general either, but I understand the army. This? I’m a soldier. The last thing I wanted was to deal with you people. But he thought that was a good thing, and he convinced me. For those of you who know who I’m talking about, you know how convincing he could be. To be honest with you, I was really counting on him to make everything better. He won’t. He’s dead. Lots of people are. I came this close to losing my whole family. I didn’t. I was lucky. I know some of you weren’t that lucky. You have my deepest sympathy. A lot of people are grieving today. There isn’t anything I could say that would make it … better.

The only piece of good news I have is that they’ve stopped killing us for now. It’s been thirty-six hours. They stopped shooting out gas, all of them. They’re not moving around. They’re not doing anything.

Why? I don’t have a goddamn clue. Maybe they’re waiting to see if we’ll nuke ourselves into oblivion. How long will it last? I don’t know that either.

So … Why am I here? What do I want? Before I can answer that, we have to talk about the giant elephant in the room. Why should you listen to me? What good is the EDC without its only weapon? Well, I don’t know if we’re good for anything! I don’t know that anyone is. What I do know, and what I told you before, is that if there’s a solution to the goddamn mess we’re in, it won’t be a military one, it’ll come from our science team. We don’t have a big robot we can use anymore, but we still have what matters most: smart people. Big brains! They’re working right now, in a cave, trying to save this world. Let them do their job.

There might be a way to stop these things. There might be a way to neutralize that gas. Even if we can’t, roughly one out of every two thousand people survives it. They do more than survive. They’re completely immune to the alien gas. We have no idea why. I’d call them lucky, but most of them have had to watch their loved ones die in front of them. Still, if we can replicate whatever makes them … not die … Well, I’m sure all of you would like to have that pill.