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Slowly the virus and the chromosomes and the radiation cooked up a monster. The virus spread, but instead of creating life it began to infect the very fabric of reality. It spawned mutations. It created its own unhinged version of evolution.
Some living things were affected, and others were spared.
One was especially vulnerable: a strange little boy whose own brain made him a prisoner, whose own mind made life painful and terrifying. Unbearable.
It would be a while before the gaiaphage began to suspect that it had unwittingly created its own nemesis. When the warping of physical laws sent the nuclear plant spiraling into a meltdown, that little boy, overwhelmed by sensory input he could not understand, sirens blaring and screens flashing warnings, created the barrier. In a flash of inconceivable power Peter Ellison simply removed all the noisy, troublesome grown-ups, silenced all that overload, and protected himself as best he could.
The gaiaphage’s malignant effect was contained. The world had found its defense against alien infection. The antibody was a then-four-year-old boy with powers made possible by the gaiaphage virus.
Nature had found the way to defend itself.
And now, at last, gaiaphage and Nemesis stood facing each other.
“Why didn’t you just . . . fade?” Gaia demanded plaintively.
“You hit me,” Nemesis said. It was a little boy’s voice coming from Caine’s mouth. “And that’s not okay.”
Sam let go of Diana’s hand, seeing Astrid ahead. He saw her blond hair from the back and almost wept with relief. But then he saw that she had been hurt.
“Astrid!” he cried.
But she held up her hand, silencing him. He looked past her then and saw Caine and Gaia, no more than a hundred feet apart.
Diana stepped closer.
“Diana, move back.” Edilio, trying to get her to a safe distance.
Diana shook her head. “I don’t think so, Edilio. He wanted a blaze of glory. He deserves an audience.”
Gaia raised her hands, fury and fear on her blood-red face. Blistering green light blazed from them.
At the same moment, Nemesis returned fire, but his light came from every direction at once. It was a white light that shifted into blue and purple and red. It came down as lightning from the sky, a thousand thunderstorms.
The entire FAYZ burned as bright as a star.
Gaia’s light hit Nemesis as she herself absorbed the awesome fire.
The girl and the boy burned bright and yet still fired.
And burned and still fired.
Their hair and clothing were gone.
Their flesh crisped.
Their eyes boiled out of their skulls.
And still the terrible light.
Their legs melted beneath them like candles. Holes appeared in their torsos. And only when they fell, each into a heap of glowing ash, did the light die.
“Well,” Diana said, with tears running down her cheeks. “That was a blaze of glory.”
There was a moment, a frozen, eternal moment, when no one breathed, and no one spoke.
Then: a sudden rush of wind. Wind! There had been no wind since—
“RUN!” Sam cried. “The fire! Run!”
