The next day, I was standing in some kind of conference room. We were supposed to be leaving for Earth soon, and Toll was telling me about the first step in his plan.
“You will go to this Font, gather the demons there, and attack this major city just 10 miles west,” he said, pointing at a map-screen on the wall. “I don’t expect you to be able to “convince” them to do it for you just yet…for now, just control them as you usually would.
“Approximately 5 percent of the Earth’s population lives in that one city. They’ll never be able to fully evacuate before you get there. I want you to consume every single person you find. But remember never to show yourself. If anyone sees you in this form, they’ll recognize you and trace the problem back to me. And if we lose our anonymity, it will become exponentially more difficult to complete this task.”
“Got it.”
“Good. Now, after that, you’ll spread out over the area surrounding the city. If the humans see it as more of a “natural disaster” than a targeted attack, those furthest away from the area will be lulled into a false sense of security. They may even take in the survivors from the first attack, putting more people into the same places. Which will be convenient for you when you launch your second attack-”
He changed the picture. “On this major city on the other side of the planet. There is a nearby Font on an island off its coast. Travel underwater from there, and they won’t even see you coming until it’s too late.”
Then he turned off the screen. “We can discuss that in detail much later. After all, there should be at least two months between the first and second attack, in order to dispel suspicion. Make them feel as if they’re ‘recovering’ before we surprise them again. We probably won’t get another chance after that.”
“What do you mean?”
“After two attacks like that wipe out such a sizable portion of their population, they won’t want to risk another. Hysteria will take root, and they’ll scatter like insects. We won’t catch very many in one place ever again. Which is why, while you’re busy eating them, I will be sowing seeds.”
He pinched off a piece of his skin. It dissolved into a cluster of tiny black dots. “Remember what I told you about Starship demons and Fonts? I will be working on growing the demon population the entire time you’re down there. Of course, I expect the humans to start taking drastic measures to destroy the Fonts- better to bomb half the planet into oblivion than lose their precious species, after all- but, hopefully, if I can get enough seeds into the ground before they realize how serious the problem is, the advantage we gain will more than outweigh our losses. Within the year, humanity will be extinct.”
I stared at him quietly. It was a good plan. Good, and scarily simple. It just went to show how powerful the demons were: all you had to do was get them in the right places and increase their numbers, and pretty soon they would be the only species left around.
Clarion told me once that that’s what happened to the animals. In ancient times, there were lots of kinds of species on Earth. Animals that lived in the ocean, in the sky, and on the ground. Tiny ones like bugs, and really huge ones with hearts as big as cars.
Then the demons came and picked them all off. Most animals don’t have very strong mental abilities, so they didn’t stand a chance. Now even the oceans are empty, and Clarion said they never even got to see all the things that lived in them. All that’s left in the world is some plants, some bugs, a few special animals that people tried to save, and of course, humans.
If Toll’s plan worked, there wouldn’t even be that much anymore. And half of it didn’t even involve me. I needed to do what I needed to do now more than ever.
Time to save the world.
Toll started to look at me weird. Maybe I wasn’t hiding my thoughts as well as I was supposed to. Maybe my face was showing how scared and nervous I was. Which only made me more scared and nervous.
He knelt down to my eye level. “You aren’t having second thoughts, are you, Knell…?”
“No, I…I’m just wondering about…the angels. And the other aliens that are probably out there. Do we…have to make them extinct, too?”
“Naturally.”
“But angels have space-travel technology! They’re not trapped on one planet like humans are! And who knows what other aliens have…even with all the demons and half-demons working together, killing everything else in the universe could take…eons.”
“I’m sure it could. Which is why, after our immediate threats have been extinguished, we need to focus on establishing our own society. We will take the angels’ infrastructure and build from there. Dominion over the other races will come to us in time. Everything takes time, Knell.”
“But none of us are going to live forever. What if, over time…the future half-demons decide they don’t want to do it anymore?”
Toll blinked. Maybe he hadn’t considered that. Maybe he had, and was about to tell me about his master plan to make himself the immortal king of the half-demons forever. I never got to find out.
“Blare! You have to come find me now! It’s time to go!” I thought.
And Toll heard it loud and clear.
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