Chapter 1: Nemesis
60,000-year countdown has ended
Nemesis 1 launched
Please acknowledge
James blinked blearily and swiped his gloved hand on the glowing letters. They didnt disappear. He frowned, turned away, they usually tracked together with his line of sight, brilliant inexperienced in opposition to a subtly darker rectangle, hovering in mid-air at a distance of some three toes from his face.
He tried to show away once more, however the middle arms on the wood bench had been designed to maintain folks like him from getting too snug.
Didnt cease him from making an attempt, although.
Rattling it, he hissed finally, and sat up. It was chilly. His breath misted within the air. He seemed round. The subway platform was empty. The fluorescent bulbs of their lengthy casings stuffed the air with poisonous white gentle. The tracks on both facet of the platform had been limitless black strips of rusted rails, outdated wood ties, and the shifting, scurrying type of New York Citys truest residents, the rats.
He was on their lonesome down right here.
What the hell? James rubbed at his eyes after which frowned on the inexperienced lettering. His head swam from the final results of the wine hed completed earlier that night time. However the inexperienced letters had been crisp and clear.
And so they werent going anyplace.
Too regular and peculiar to be a hallucination. Some type of new promoting? Who the fuck would trouble advertising and marketing to him, although? And this wasnt promoting something. It was threatening.
Nemesis 1?
Had the federal government implanted one thing in his head? Some form of ocular overlay? Hed been within the hospital six months in the past when that asshole had swerved to hit him on function. Concussion, damaged left leg, damaged ribs. Had the hospital employees realized hed by no means pay, and put in one thing to maintain monitor of him?
James screwed up his face in annoyance. Didnt make sense. The message could be about hospital payments in that case.
Once more, he waved his hand earlier than his face, then stopped. The lettering disappeared when his hand interposed itself. If it was an ocular projection, theyd merely ripple over his palm.
However no. He may block them out.
Which meant they werent originating from him.
James sat up just a little extra.
Once more, he seemed up and down the platform. No person. Had been there cameras? Was he on a actuality present?
Hell, was he nonetheless asleep?
James slapped his bearded cheek. Slapped himself tougher.
The phrases remained within the air earlier than him.L1tLagoon witnessed the primary publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l–B1n.
Absolutely awake now, he learn them once more. 60,000 12 months depend down. What was that about? People had found agriculture twelve thousand years in the past. What had began fifty thousand years earlier than that? And whod been round to start out a depend down? Aliens?
Nah.
Nemesis 1 launched. Code for some form of virus? Army operation? Some form of loopy gamer factor?
No concept.
The final line although was a query.
Acknowledged, he rasped and the phrases disappeared abruptly.
James jerked again, shocked, and seemed up and down the platform once more. Silence. The trains ran twice an hour this deep into the night time. The white lights blared down onto the intense yellow stippled strips on the platforms edges. The white tiles on the partitions past the tracks appeared to glow. The tunnel mouths at both finish had been cavernous and hungry.
Ominous, one way or the other.
Had he activated one thing?
Instincts honed by 5 years residing on the streets informed him it was time to go.
He rose, slung his grubby backpack over one shoulder, and began making his method towards the broad staircase that led as much as the station after which the road.
Panicked squeaks.
All of the rats had been abruptly pouring down the tracks, dozens of them, racing in unison away from the left tunnel mouth simply past the steps.
James froze.
Hed seen New York rats ignore trains, empty cans thrown at them, flaunting their possession of town.
Nothing scared an enormous metropolis rat.
He squinted into the darkness. The brilliant lights ruined his darkish imaginative and prescient. He shielded his eyes. The darkness was virtually impenetrable.
Nearly.
Was that motion?
James darted into Paddys.
Hey! shouted the bouncer angrily. You cant –
The air turned heat, full of the smells of sweat, cologne, booze. Individuals largely ignored him, which pressured him to shove previous, incomes indignant phrases that was recoil and shock.
Social gathering youngsters didnt like seeing homeless dudes of their bar.
James glanced again. The bouncer was surging after him, all kindness gone, expression like a closed fist. However the gremlin had additionally entered the bar. James caught a flash of its black scaled type because it slid forward of the bouncer, quick and nimble within the crowd.
Get out of the way in which! hollered James, abandoning his backpack because it turned entangled within the press. Hed by no means make the rear of the place. He wanted excessive floor.
He shoved his method as much as the bar. Drinks spilled, folks shouted, and one of many bartenders scowled at him, an enormous dude with tattoo sleeves up each arms.
The place was it? The place was it?
James needed to get out of the press of our bodies. He slammed a dirty hand on the glowing white bar and heaved himself up.
There was nonetheless a few of that outdated power in him. Up he hoisted himself, knocking extra bottles and glasses over, onto his knees, to show and stare down on the floor.
The entire bar was gazing him now, ignoring the ending to the music, the singing having died down. The bouncer was there, reaching up for him, and he felt a powerful hand seize his pants by the knee.
However the gremlin. There. Eyes burning like twin embers within the gloom by the ground. It grinned up at him after which, like a flea, it leaped.
James screamed because it latched onto his chest, talons reducing by means of his thick military jacket, weirdly gentle however viciously robust. It was all ropy muscle and sinew.
James tried to wrest it away, however it jerked ahead and bit into the facet of his neck.
He didnt really feel a lot ache, or, there was ache, however it was medical. Sheer adrenaline saved him going. He grasped the gremlin by the throat and shoved it away.
It got here off with a piece of flesh in its mouth.
Blood splattered over the white bar, over the upturned faces, over the bouncers outstretched arms.
The music was blaring, however a second later screams stuffed the air as school youngsters turned to one another, large eyed with horror and panic, blood working down their cheeks.
The bouncer froze.
The gremlin squirmed in James grip. However he wasnt going to let it get away. It lacerated the sleeves of his thick coat, shredding the stiff canvas materials. James shook it, however this was going nowhere.
He wanted to kill it.
With a shout he dropped to the bar and slammed the gremlin as onerous as he may in opposition to its white glowing floor.
The thick plexiglass cracked because the gremlins head bounced off it.
Nonetheless, it hissed and scratched, tearing at his arms now. Blood was pouring from James neck, stark and crimson on the luminous bar, smearing because the gremlin wrenched this manner and that.
However James was larger.
Concern, doubt, panic, all of it went away.
Leaving solely chilly fury.
His outdated fury, his truest companion. A fury that was at all times with him, however at all times undirected, or pointed at himself.
Lastly, although, on this second, he had one thing to take it out on.
He grabbed a bottle by the neck. Liquid flowed out the open high as he raised it up on excessive and clubbed the gremlins hideous face.
Once more. And once more. And once more.
The bartender had him by the waist, was making an attempt to tug him off the bar. However James was inflexible. He smashed the bottle until the gremlins cranium break up, until black blood poured out to combine together with his crimson, until brains oozed out and its legs and arms ceased twitching.
The group was shoving away, making it onerous for the opposite bouncers to get to him, however the bartender was larger than all of them put collectively and eventually heaved James down onto the rubber mat that coated the ground behind the bar.
The man was shouting one thing down at him, however James had ceased struggling. He knew he needed to apply strain to his wound, that anyone wanted to name 911, that he was coming into shock, that relying on how a lot blood hed misplaced he didnt have a lot time.
However he stared previous the bartenders pale smear of a face at the place new phrases had appeared, one way or the other exact and legible at the same time as the remainder of the world grew blurry after which pale away:
Nemesis 1 Defeated
Private Statistics Unlocked
You might be #2,789 to outlive International First Wave Nemesis 1 Incursion
Title Earned: Vanguard
4 Days until Nemesis 2 Launched
90 Days until Pits Open
Daybreak of the Void has begun