Edge of Human, Page 3

hovered just above ground level was beginning to dissipate.

  He looked back at Cain. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you so bent on world domination?”

  “Why not? I was created for a purpose – to rule. I will bring order to the chaos of this world. I will guide the human race with my superior intellect. I am power. It is my destiny.”

  “Well, I just don’t understand the attraction to power. Give me a nice quiet island all to myself, maybe a good woman. But lording it over people? That’s just not for me.”

  “Very well. An island it is. Or how about a whole archipelago? Would that do for you?”

  “Yeah, that’d be great.”

  “I will make it happen.”

  “Yes, but at too big an expense. You would murder millions of innocents to get your way. That’s not my style. It’s not worth it to me. I’ll make my own way, thanks very much.”

  “Very well.”

  Raife turned around and looked at Cain.

  And he drew in a sharp breath.

  Cain’s face was mutating. Morphing. Changing into something else.

  Into another man’s face.

  Into Ryan Gainsboro.

  Gainsboro saw the look on Raife’s face and began to laugh hysterically.

  Raife jumped on the nano-scientist and pinned him to the grassy ground with a vice-grip around his neck. “Where is he? Where’s Cain?”

  Gainsboro continued to laugh and choke at the same time.

  Raife yelled at him some more, but soon realized it was useless.

  He’d been fooled by his own tactic.

  And this servant of Cain was surely too loyal to break. The fact that he’d taken this assignment proved he was willing to die for his leader.

  Raife released Gainsboro’s neck, and slugged him hard across the jaw, knocking him unconscious. Then he looked back toward Cain’s compound in the valley below.

  He switched his lenses to telescopic and magnified the view as several large doors opened in the dusty ground of the complex.

  Missile silos.

  Was it possible he’d been played all along – that the control center had also been a decoy?

  As the tips of the missiles rose out of the ground, Raife couldn’t believe he’d been so wrong about this mission.

  He’d been warned about Cain, but was confident he could handle him.

  But he’d underestimated this man.

  And he only had minutes left to determine what Plan B would be.

  Given that he was over a mile from the compound, returning to make an overt assault and neutralize Cain was now an impossibility.

  There would be no more hope of taking the monster alive.

  Which meant no Plan B.

  Raife assessed the grid of missiles and quickly calculated there were forty-eight.

  All the eggs were in one basket.

  He tapped his ear bud and contacted his employers. “I’ve failed. Initiate the option.”

  The option.

  His employers would target the beacon Raife had left behind inside Cain’s lair.

  And deliver a five megaton nuke from a satellite that was keeping geosynchronous orbit over Raife’s position.

  Such a blast would decimate the launch pads of the missiles and destroy the compound, as well as lay waste to the land for a great distance in all directions.

  Certainly more than a mile.

  Today was the day, indeed.

  Raife closed his eyes and waited for the bomb to drop.

  THE END

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