by David Liss
That’s what I told myself to keep from peeing in my pants.
Two of my shots missed, but I still maintain they were perfectly aimed. It wasn’t my fault the heads moved. One landed, taking out that Phand. After about twenty more less-perfect shots, the other two were down.
The good news was that these seemed to be the only Phands we were going to have to face. The other good news was that there were now three unconscious Phands blocking the doorway. The bad news was that there was no shortage of humans, and they were now doing their best to step over their fallen buddies and make their way into the room. They wore black Phandic-occupation military uniforms, but they moved like they had real military experience, advancing in tight formation, flashing each other hand signals, and acting in general like a deadly assault on a couple of kids was a typical afternoon for them.
The other bad news was that they weren’t just acting like that; they were trying to actually kill us. They were firing guns at me—Earth guns. The kind with bullets. You can’t set bullets to stun. I was in real danger of getting killed, but I couldn’t let that slow me down. I had to protect Tamret and make sure that she had the time to do what she needed to do. Everything depended on her. Billions of beings on Earth, across the galaxy, needed us to get this job done. Even the future happiness of the guys currently trying to kill us depended on that, though they seemed pretty content at the moment.
At least I didn’t have to worry about a stray bullet hurting her. I knew her shielding augmentation would filter anything like that out. All I had to do was keep these people from getting past me, and preferably I should avoid getting shot while doing it.
I began firing my PPB pistol at the soldiers who were coming through the door. Each one who fell only made the bottleneck harder for the enemy to squeeze through. I was able to pick the soldiers off fairly easily, especially the ones who paused to survey the room, take stock of the situation, and make a reasonable effort to kill me. The loud popping of weapons fire was unnerving, as was the clang of bullets hitting the desk I was hiding behind. Most of the shots went wild, though. The ones who tried to take careful shots ended up stunned. The others weren’t giving themselves enough time to aim. It was starting to get hectic in there. The bullets theoretically aimed at me were now slamming into walls, furniture, and Phandic computers. Dust from plaster and wood, and smoke from the guns, were starting to obscure their vision. Then a window shattered, letting in a gusting wind. It cleared the air, but papers began to fly around the control room. It was chaos, but I felt sure that the chaos worked in favor of the few making the stand rather than the many trying to prevent us from liberating them.
Then, all at once, no one was trying to get through the door. Had I gotten them all? I’d never stunned 137 beings before, so I couldn’t speak from experience about how long it was supposed to take, but I didn’t feel like I could have taken out more than a couple dozen by that point. I certainly hadn’t taken on anyone who had been augmented. They were up to something, and I didn’t know what.
“Clear!” One of them shouted.
That’s when I figured out what they were up to. They were up to making something explode.
Then something exploded.
• • •
The blast shook the desk I was hiding behind and filled the air with smoke. It was the doorway. They’d blown away the first bottleneck, sending bits of plaster and wood flying through the air. That was the bad news. There was a silver lining, though. They clearly had explosives, but they hadn’t used them on me. Maybe they wanted to take us alive after all. It could explain their lousy shooting.
I wasn’t enough of an optimist to think I didn’t have to worry about getting shot. I didn’t doubt for a second that these guys would be happy to shoot me somewhere just to slow me down. Tough guys in movies could carry on heroically with a bullet in the shoulder, but I wasn’t so sure I could. Even if I tried, how long could I really keep stunning bad guys if I was bleeding from a bullet wound? For action heroes, blood loss doesn’t seem to have much effect until a dramatically appropriate moment. I couldn’t depend on things working that way in real life.
As interesting as these questions were, I had other things to worry about: namely the dozens of armed men moving through their newly made hole in the wall and directly toward me.
I began firing frantically, but there were simply too many of them. They filed into the outer room, crowding like guests at some kind of military cocktail party. I fired through the door, but they were hard to hit. They knew how to avoid me, and they were staying out of sight. That meant they were preparing to blow the second doorway. When that happened, I was going to face more soldiers than I could possibly handle. Once they got through the second door, they would shoot me or at least get past me. They would be able to stop Tamret, and everything we’d done, everything she’d sacrificed, would be for nothing.
Fortunately, I had one shot at dealing with a whole bunch of bad guys in a relatively enclosed space. I lay down some suppressive fire to keep them occupied; then I took Villainic’s stun grenade out of my pocket, armed it, and threw it into the outer room.
If they knew what a Phandic stun grenade looked like, and they knew how to disarm it, they would have about a second to get the job done. If the augmented person was in the room with them, it would be an easy task, and I’d be out of luck. On the other hand, if the augmented person was there, why hadn’t he just stormed in and disarmed me? He was either holding back for some reason or was really clueless about his abilities. I hated to take a bet on the second option, but it was either that or be overwhelmed.
I threw myself on the floor behind the desk and closed my eyes. An instant later I saw a bright flash through my eyelids and felt the shock wave of the grenade pass through me. That was all very positive, I thought.
I peered up over the side of the desk, pistol out, but saw no movement in the other room.
“How long?” I asked Tamret.
“Ten minutes,” she said.
“Ten minutes?” I asked.
“Yes!” she snapped. “I haven’t forgotten. I’m almost there.”
“I think we’re good on my end,” I said.
Then I saw the figure emerge through the hole in the outer wall. It was the augment, and her name was Nora Price.
She looked at me and smiled, looking like a CEO in her expensive gray skirt suit. Also, her eyes were glowing red. That is pretty much never a good sign.
• • •
“Hey, Tamret,” I shouted.
“Kind of busy.”
“I know, and I hate to bug you, but can you check real quick to see what it means if your eyes are glowing red?”
There was a brief pause.
“Death-ray eyes,” she said.
“Death-ray eyes? That’s a thing?”
“Yeah.” There was a brief pause as her fingers clattered over the keys. “Seems like kind of an unfair advantage, don’t you think?”
“I am thinking that, yes.”
“Hello, Zeke,” Nora Price said, walking slowly into the room. She didn’t bother to hide or take cover. Why should she? She knew a PPB pistol couldn’t hurt her.
“Wow,” I said. “I get a visit from the viceroy. I must be important.”
“Oh, you are,” she said, her lips twisted into a cruel sneer. “You are the most wanted criminal in the entire Phandic Empire, and I’m going to look very good when I hand you over.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “You’ve always had a decent sense of style.”
She pointed her death-ray eyes toward my hiding place, which suddenly felt completely inadequate. “You’re funny. Funny until the end.”
“I’m also funny in the after-credits sequence,” I said. “Impatient people miss out on that.”
“I heard your girlfriend say she needs about ten minutes to finish what she’s doing,” Nora Price said. “My attack saucers will be here in less than six. I’ve already won.”
“Whic
h is why you’re not bothering to attack me and why, after I’ve taken care of your dozens of goons, you’re now just speechifying in my general direction?”
“That is correct,” she said. “I don’t need to get my hands dirty. I know your pet Rarel could challenge me if she chose, but she will make every effort, no matter how pointless, to complete whatever sabotage she’s attempting. So, you see, this is how civilized people use their abilities—to avoid violence, rather than create it.”
“I have to tell you, you’re really inspiring me to expand my horizons right now.”
“You really never change, do you?”
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities to put on fresh clothes during intergalactic emergencies,” I said.
“So witty,” she said. “Especially as you face devastating emotional loss. I also know about the Rarel girl’s unfortunate roll of the die. You didn’t shut down the surveillance cameras. Very sloppy. So I’m aware that she’d rather go out doing something heroic than waste her short time in a pointless fight with me.”
“Yeah, well, there’s still me,” I said, springing up from behind my desk. I fired a dozen bursts at her. They all hit. They did nothing.
“Did you expect that to harm me?”
“I was hoping I might get lucky,” I said, trying to sound disappointed. I needed her to think I had hoped exactly that. I had one chance, and I didn’t want to blow it.
Ms. Price had described what Tamret was doing as “some kind of sabotage.” That meant she had no idea what exactly we were up to. If she did know, then she would have captured our two other teams by now, which she clearly hadn’t. She wouldn’t be able to keep herself from gloating if she had them in custody. Our plan was still alive, and I needed to make sure we stayed that way.
I fired a few more bursts at Ms. Price.
“Really, Zeke. What’s the point?”
“It’s actually very therapeutic,” I told her. I fired a few more times. “It relieves the stress. You should try it. Okay, maybe you shouldn’t since you have death-ray eyes.” I sighed and raised my hand with the pistol, letting it dangle from my fingers so she could see I wasn’t about to shoot. I let it fall down on the desk. Then, very slowly, I raised my hands into the air and began to stand up. I would not have been entirely surprised had she hit me with her death-ray eyes, but she probably wanted to hand me over alive. This seemed like a fairly safe gamble.
She squinted her glowing red eyes at me as she tried to figure out what I was doing. “What is this?”
“It’s the intergalactic gesture for ‘I surrender.’ The raised hands are supposed to let you know that I’m now unarmed and can’t hurt you. I think there might be a pamphlet around here somewhere to explain it. There are pictures and everything.”
“I don’t believe you’re surrendering.”
“I’m unarmed, and my hands are in the air,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I’m doing this right.”
She continued to consider the situation.
“So, now what?” I asked.
“Now what? Now you wait until my attack vehicles arrive and you’re stunned. These are your last moments of freedom, Zeke. I suggest you enjoy them.”
“But they don’t have to be, right? I mean, you’re viceroy and everything. You could cancel those attack vehicles if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”
She smirked at me, like this was exactly what she was expecting. “Why would I want to do that?”
I took a step toward her. I moved slowly, nonthreateningly. I slumped my shoulders to signal my defeat, but I also lowered my hands a little. “Come on, Ms. Price. I know you like power and telling everyone what to do, but this is your home planet. Do you really want Earth to be part of the Phandic Empire?”
“You are so naïve, Zeke. Since the Phands have come, we’ve seen a virtual end of war, crime, cruelty. I understand why you, personally, don’t welcome the change, but that’s just selfishness. You like the Confederation, and the Confederation lost, so now you’re sulking. You must see the truth as it is. Under Phandic rule, humanity will know peace, comfort, and security, but you want to stand in the way of all of that. You’re the villain here, Zeke, not me.”
“Hmm, that’s interesting,” I said, taking another step closer to her. “But the Confederation is offering the same thing, only without the enforced reeducation and military oppression. Maybe you can explain how that’s not better.”
“The Confederation is a temporary blip in galactic history. It can’t last. Look how easily Junup was able to take control of their government. A single being was able to undermine their entire political system. The citizens of the Confederation are sheep, Zeke, and sheep always get eaten in the end.”
“Or they get sheared. Or is it shorn?”
“I’m not sure I see your point.” She was clearly losing patience with me.
“Sheep,” I explained, scrunching up my forehead in concentration. “Think about it. Someone comes along and cuts off their wool. And that wool gets turned into a sweater. Maybe a nice striped one. Or a turtleneck.”
“Zeke, what are you going on about?”
“Come on,” I said. “It’s not that complicated. When it’s cold, people can put on those sweaters, and they can sit by a fire and roast marshmallows.”
“Are you trying to distract me with nonsense?” Ms. Price asked. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Marshmallows,” I told her. “That’s what I’m talking about.” My eyes went wide as I worked myself up to a frenzy. “I’m talking about marshmallows!” I shouted. As battle cries of liberation go, this was, admittedly, kind of ridiculous, but my point had been to get closer to her and to put her off her guard. What, after all, did a superaugmented meanie like Nora Price have to fear from an unarmed, idealistic troublemaker shouting about marshmallows? She probably thought the answer was gibberish, but she didn’t know that I was concealing an upgrade neutralizing injector in my hand. So now that I was close enough, I jabbed it into her arm.
Nora Price looked at it. Then she looked at me. Her eyes were no longer glowing red.
“I’m talking about marshmallows,” I said again, this time my voice low and menacing. I hadn’t meant for this to be my cool line, but it was out there, and I was going to run with it. And having said it, I took out one of my spare PPB pistols and stunned her.
The instant she hit the floor, I heard an electronic whir coming through the broken windows. I turned to see two saucers, at least a mile distant, but closing fast.
“How much time?” I asked Tamret.
“Maybe a minute.”
I was still pulling a lot of my battle tactics from Star Trek II, so I’d asked Tamret to double any time estimates while enemies were lurking. When Ms. Price had said she had attack ships six minutes out, I knew we were cutting things close, but there hadn’t been much of a choice. Now things were desperate. We had a narrow window to get things done.
I keyed my bracelet to talk to both teams. “Take care of opposition!” I shouted. “And do it fast! Things are going to be tight.”
Both teams acknowledged. I watched helplessly as Tamret’s fingers danced over the keyboard. The saucers were moving in. I had no idea how close they had to be in order to stun us. Once they realized Tamret wasn’t affected, they would very likely use more aggressive methods to stop her. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to hurt her, but they could keep her from completing her task.
“We’re good in Beijing,” I heard Steve announce.
“All set in London,” Mi Sun said a few seconds later.
Finally Tamret looked up. “Done,” she said.
She had overridden the security blockades and broadcast the message we’d prepared. Now it was up to the others to kill the power feed.
“Go!” I shouted at them. “Now! Now! Now!”
It took them less than a minute. The bright beam of energy jutting out from the Empire State Building in Manhattan suddenly switched off. The two saucers on the horizon must have k
nown that this meant that things had become critical, because they suddenly sped up. They were moving in on us, and I had no illusions that they planned to stun us. They were going to take this building out.
“Insulate!” I shouted into my bracelets.
“Insulated,” Mi Sun said.
“Insulated,” Steve said.
I nodded at Tamret. Our EMP insulation fields were up. She hit a few more keys and deployed the massive electromagnetic pulse. Except for the systems within our personal insulation fields, every single electronic system on the planet just went dead. The saucers that had been preparing to fire on us fell from the sky, spiraling into the river. We’d done it.
I looked over at Tamret, who was smiling at me.
That smile reminded me of the price she had paid to complete the mission. We’d done what we had set out to do, but the price had been too high.
Then we heard the alarm sound. Tamret’s console had also been insulated from the EMP so she could send the record of what we’d done out into the larger galaxy. Now, however, it was alight. A message flashed along her holographic screen. electromagnetic pulse detected. emergency retaliatory measures initiated.
Tamret’s eyes went distant. I knew she was trying to pull up data that could explain the message. Then her look turned from blank to alarm.
“They have a protocol for this kind of attack. In the event of an EMP assault that knocks out planetary control, they have a biological response that is designed to target the source of the pulse.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded. “What is a biological response? Like a deadly virus or something?”
“Not that. The word I’m getting, it doesn’t process through the universal translator, and it doesn’t exist in any Earth language but one called Japanese.”
“What’s the word?” I had a feeling I didn’t want to know.
“Kaiju,” she said.
I sat down heavily in an office chair. I looked out the window and saw a sudden upheaval in the river. Then it began to emerge—massive and reptilian, and heading directly toward our building. Thousands of gallons of dirty river water rolled off its glistening green body, and it swiveled its massive head, looking for its first target. Then it stopped, and its huge yellow eyes seemed to find mine. It opened its mouth and showed rows and rows of pointed teeth, each as long as a telephone pole.
