Divorced on Monday, Bought the City on Tuesday: The Infinite

The Fear Plague

Chapter 48

While Hyperion crushed the armada in the Mediterranean, the true war was being waged in the shadows.

In London, Patriarch Roth was in a state of absolute, unhinged panic. The sudden disappearance of three trillion dollars in physical gold bullion had triggered a cascading collapse of his banking empire. Global markets were in freefall. His politicians were refusing his calls.

He sat in his fortified, underground panic room, flanked by six elite, cybernetically augmented bodyguards.

"Lord Roth," the captain of his guard said, his hand resting on a heavy pulse rifle. "The bunker is secure. It is entirely cut off from the global network. Arthur Vance cannot hack his way in here."

"He stole a mountain of gold!" Roth wheezed through his cybernetic tubes, spittle flying from his lips. "He doesn't need to hack us! He possesses technology we cannot comprehend!"

Suddenly, the ambient lighting in the panic room flickered.

It didn't go dark. The light simply shifted, taking on a sickening, sickly grayish-green hue.

The six elite bodyguards instantly raised their weapons, scanning the corners of the bunker. "Secure the perimeter!" the captain shouted.

From the center of the room, a shadow detached itself from the floor.

It rose smoothly, forming into the silhouette of a woman. She wore no armor. She had no weapons. Her eyes were completely pitch black, radiating an aura of paralyzing, mind-shattering dread.

Nemesis had arrived.

The captain of the guard aimed his rifle at her chest and pulled the trigger.

The pulse rifle whined, but the shot never fired. The captain froze. His hands began to shake violently. He stared at Nemesis, his augmented eyes wide with a terror that bypassed his military conditioning and struck directly at his primal brain stem.

"What are you doing?!" Roth screamed, pressing himself against the far wall. "Shoot her!"

The captain didn't shoot. He dropped his rifle. He fell to his knees, clawing frantically at his own face, weeping uncontrollably. "No... please... the dark... it's in my head..."

Nemesis didn't speak. She simply exhaled.

A wave of invisible, psychological warfare rippled through the bunker. It wasn't a gas. It wasn't magic. It was a localized disruption of human neurochemistry. Nemesis actively triggered the absolute, maximum capacity of the brain's fear receptors in everyone within a hundred-foot radius.

The remaining five bodyguards collapsed instantly. Two of them curled into fetal positions, screaming until their vocal cords tore. Another began violently smashing his head against the concrete wall, desperate to knock himself unconscious to escape the visions flooding his mind.

Patriarch Roth watched his invincible guard break down into weeping children in a matter of seconds.

Nemesis glided across the floor, her footsteps entirely silent. She stopped inches away from the old man.

Roth’s heart rate spiked to fatal levels. His cybernetic tubes hissed frantically, trying to pump synthetic adrenaline into his failing system.

"You..." Roth choked out, tears of absolute, unfiltered terror streaming down his wrinkled face. "What are you?"

Nemesis leaned in. Her pitch-black eyes swallowed his soul.

"I am the Sovereign's shadow," she whispered. Her voice sounded like grinding gravestones. "He told you to surrender. You chose to fight."

She reached out with a pale, cold hand and lightly touched the cybernetic control panel embedded in Roth's chest.

She didn't kill him. She simply overrode the neuro-inhibitors keeping the old man sane.

Roth let out a horrific, gurgling scream as the full weight of a century of guilt, paranoia, and primal terror slammed into his fragile mind. He collapsed onto the floor, his brain completely, permanently fractured.

Nemesis turned and faded back into the shadows, leaving the most powerful banker in the world trapped in a waking nightmare.

Back in San Marcos, Arthur sat in his boardroom.

Victoria Sterling stood behind him, massaging his shoulders. She was trembling slightly, fully aware of the apocalyptic forces Arthur had just unleashed across the globe.

Nyx spun around in her chair, her screen flashing with updates.

"Boss," Nyx reported, her voice quiet. "Roth is incapacitated. His mind broke. The banking syndicate is leaderless and currently begging for a bailout from Vance Corp. The armada is immobilized. We hold total global supremacy."

Arthur looked at the holographic grid displaying the remaining Sovereigns.

Madam Chen and Lord Romanov were still unaccounted for.

"Sir," Vera spoke up, stepping into the boardroom. "What of the remaining two?"

Arthur stood up. He adjusted his tie, his golden eyes glowing with chilling finality.

"Nemesis broke their minds. Hyperion broke their fleets," Arthur said, walking toward the glass doors. "Tell Goliath to wake up. We're going to Moscow to break their bodies."