Chapter 1: Nemesis

Chapter 1: Nemesis

60,000-year countdown has ended

Nemesis 1 released

Please acknowledge

James blinked blearily and swiped his gloved hand at the glowing letters. They didnt disappear. He frowned, turned away, and they tracked with his line of sight, bright green against a subtly darker rectangle, hovering in mid-air at a distance of some three feet from his face.

He tried to turn away again, but the center arms on the wooden bench were designed to keep people like him from getting too comfortable.

Didnt stop him from trying, though.

Damn it, he hissed at last, and sat up. It was cold. His breath misted in the air. He looked around. The subway platform was empty. The fluorescent bulbs in their long casings filled the air with toxic white light. The tracks on either side of the platform were endless black strips of rusted rails, old wooden ties, and the shifting, scurrying form of New York Citys truest citizens, the rats.

He was all alone down here.

What the hell? James rubbed at his eyes and then frowned at the green lettering. His head swam from the last effects of the wine hed finished earlier that night. But the green letters were crisp and clear.

And they werent going anywhere.

Too steady and weird to be a hallucination. Some form of new advertising? Who the fuck would bother marketing to him, though? And this wasnt selling anything. It was threatening.

Nemesis 1?

Had the government implanted something in his head? Some sort of ocular overlay? Hed been in the hospital six months ago when that asshole had swerved to hit him on purpose. Concussion, broken left leg, broken ribs. Had the hospital staff realized hed never pay, and installed something to keep track of him?

James screwed up his face in annoyance. Didnt make sense. The message would be about hospital bills if so.

Again, he waved his hand before his face, then stopped. The lettering disappeared when his hand interposed itself. If it was an ocular projection, theyd simply ripple over his palm.

But no. He could block them out.

Which meant they werent originating from him.

James sat up a little more.

Again, he looked up and down the platform. Nobody. Were there cameras? Was he on a reality show?

Hell, was he still asleep?

James slapped his bearded cheek. Slapped himself harder.

The words remained in the air before him.L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.

Fully awake now, he read them again. 60,000 year count down. What was that about? Humans had discovered agriculture twelve thousand years ago. What had started fifty thousand years before that? And whod been around to start a count down? Aliens?

Nah.

Nemesis 1 released. Code for some sort of virus? Military operation? Some kind of crazy gamer thing?

No idea.

The last line though was a question.

Acknowledged, he rasped and the words disappeared abruptly.

James jerked back, surprised, and looked up and down the platform again. Silence. The trains ran twice an hour this deep into the night. The white lights blared down onto the bright yellow stippled strips on the platforms edges. The white tiles on the walls beyond the tracks seemed to glow. The tunnel mouths at either end were cavernous and hungry.

Ominous, somehow.

Had he activated something?

Instincts honed by five years living on the streets told him it was time to go.

He rose, slung his grubby backpack over one shoulder, and started making his way toward the broad staircase that led up to the station and then the street.

Panicked squeaks.

All the rats were suddenly pouring down the tracks, dozens of them, racing in unison away from the left tunnel mouth just beyond the stairs.

James froze.

Hed seen New York rats ignore trains, empty cans thrown at them, flaunting their ownership of the city.

Nothing scared a big city rat.

He squinted into the darkness. The bright lights ruined his dark vision. He shielded his eyes. The darkness was almost impenetrable.

Almost.

Was that movement?

James darted into Paddys.

Hey! shouted the bouncer angrily. You cant -

The air became warm, filled with the smells of sweat, cologne, booze. People mostly ignored him, which forced him to shove past, earning angry words that turned into recoil and shock.

Party kids didnt like seeing homeless dudes in their bar.

James glanced back. The bouncer was surging after him, all kindness gone, expression like a closed fist. But the gremlin had also entered the bar. James caught a flash of its black scaled form as it slid ahead of the bouncer, fast and nimble in the crowd.

Get out of the way! hollered James, abandoning his backpack as it became entangled in the press. Hed never make the rear of the place. He needed high ground.

He shoved his way up to the bar. Drinks spilled, people shouted, and one of the bartenders scowled at him, a huge dude with tattoo sleeves up both arms.

Where was it? Where was it?

James had to get out of the press of bodies. He slammed a filthy hand on the glowing white bar and heaved himself up.

There was still some of that old strength in him. Up he hoisted himself, knocking more bottles and glasses over, onto his knees, to turn and stare down at the ground.

The whole bar was staring at him now, ignoring the ending to the song, the singing having died down. The bouncer was there, reaching up for him, and he felt a strong hand grab his pants by the knee.

But the gremlin. There. Eyes burning like twin embers in the gloom by the floor. It grinned up at him and then, like a flea, it leaped.

James screamed as it latched onto his chest, talons cutting through his thick army jacket, weirdly light but viciously strong. It was all ropy muscle and sinew.

James tried to wrest it away, but it jerked forward and bit into the side of his neck.

He didnt feel much pain, or, there was pain, but it was clinical. Sheer adrenaline kept him going. He grasped the gremlin by the throat and shoved it away.

It came off with a chunk of flesh in its mouth.

Blood splattered over the white bar, over the upturned faces, over the bouncers outstretched arms.

The music was blaring, but a moment later screams filled the air as college kids turned to each other, wide eyed with horror and panic, blood running down their cheeks.

The bouncer froze.

The gremlin squirmed in James grip. But he wasnt going to let it get away. It lacerated the sleeves of his thick coat, shredding the stiff canvas material. James shook it, but this was going nowhere.

He needed to kill it.

With a shout he dropped to the bar and slammed the gremlin as hard as he could against its white glowing surface.

The thick plexiglass cracked as the gremlins head bounced off it.

Still, it hissed and scratched, tearing at his arms now. Blood was pouring from James neck, stark and crimson on the luminous bar, smearing as the gremlin wrenched this way and that.

But James was bigger.

Fear, doubt, panic, all of it went away.

Leaving only cold fury.

His old fury, his truest companion. A fury that was always with him, but always undirected, or pointed at himself.

Finally, though, in this moment, he had something to take it out on.

He grabbed a bottle by the neck. Liquid flowed out the open top as he raised it up on high and clubbed the gremlins hideous face.

Again. And again. And again.

The bartender had him by the waist, was trying to pull him off the bar. But James was rigid. He smashed the bottle till the gremlins skull split, till black blood poured out to mix with his red, till brains oozed out and its arms and legs ceased twitching.

The crowd was shoving away, making it hard for the other bouncers to get to him, but the bartender was bigger than all of them put together and finally heaved James down onto the rubber mat that covered the floor behind the bar.

The guy was shouting something down at him, but James had ceased struggling. He knew he had to apply pressure to his wound, that somebody needed to call 911, that he was entering shock, that depending on how much blood hed lost he didnt have much time.

But he stared past the bartenders pale smear of a face at where new words had appeared, somehow precise and legible even as the rest of the world grew blurry and then faded away:

Nemesis 1 Defeated

Personal Statistics Unlocked

You are #2,789 to survive Global First Wave Nemesis 1 Incursion

Title Earned: Vanguard

4 Days till Nemesis 2 Released

90 Days till Pits Open

Dawn of the Void has begun