And right now, that was vengeance. Against Jon Hudson. And against Nemesis for turning away from him.
His dark skin kept him concealed in the shadows, as he watched the woman in the car. She looked to be waiting for someone. A moment later, a red helicopter lifted away from the roof and headed toward his child.
His distraction.
He couldn’t see who was inside the chopper, but he had little doubt Jon Hudson would be one of them. Hudson would either die in that chopper or upon his return. Either way, he was going to die. Like all people, Hudson was frail, but his real weakness was the people he cared about.
When the helicopter disappeared from view, Gordon slipped from the brush and moved for the car. His instincts told him to charge forward, to roar and beat his fists. But he still had the mind of a military man. Stealth was the superior tactic. Even for a monster. An enemy taken by surprise is an enemy defeated.
The black-haired woman didn’t detect his approach until he was two steps away. Before she could scream, he’d punched through the driver’s side window of the small car with his sledgehammer fist, taken hold of the door and yanked it off. She fought to escape, but the seatbelt already around her chest held her in place. He took hold of the belt with both hands and tugged. It came apart like old yarn.
She fought against him, kicking and screaming, but when his large, thick-fingered hand compressed her forearm, the fight went out of her. Just a little more pressure and the bones would break. Gordon lifted the woman from the car and turned toward the large brick building’s side entrance, just as a pudgy man with curly brown hair exited. A dog jumped out after him, but took just one look at him and bolted.
The man jiggled as he stopped in his tracks. A ridiculous man.
Gordon lifted the woman by her arm, her toes dangling a foot above the gravel driveway. “Back inside.” His voice was deep and rumbling, unrecognizable to anyone who’d known him before—
“General Gordon...” the man whispered.
—except, apparently, this man.
“Inside, now,” Gordon said. “Or I’ll remove her arm.”
The man nodded and turned to the door. He struggled to get through it thanks to his bulk, nervousness and the several bags he carried. Gordon watched the man through squinted eyes, wondering how such a person could work for any government agency, and how he would taste. Nothing sated a hunger like fat.
Later, he told himself. He needed them alive until Hudson returned, or died in battle.
After squeezing through the door, Gordon let go of the woman’s arm. Pudgy wasn’t going anywhere fast, and the way the woman ran into his arms meant she wasn’t going anywhere without him.
“Upstairs,” he said. He knew they operated out of the fourth story, which would also provide a view of the battle below. He took the stairs four at a time, the old wood creaking, but not breaking beneath his sizable mass. “Solid construction.” He spoke the words like he was considering buying the place. Really, he just liked seeing the pair squirm when he spoke. So frail.
The top of the fourth flight of steps opened up into a large space with enough computer terminals for a decent-sized intelligence team. “You’re the only ones here?” Despite Gordon’s gruff voice, he couldn’t hide his surprise. He’d seen only one person come and go that morning, but he had assumed a large crew was working inside.
“Just the two of us,” the woman said. “Everyone else is evacuating.”
“The woman,” Gordon said. “The redhead.”
The fat man nodded.
“There are only five of you here?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He just chuckled like Jabba the Hut. This was going to be so easy, it was almost disappointing.
“Hey!” the shout was so loud and forceful that Gordon nearly jumped. Instead he turned toward the voice. The redhead had returned. She was a tall woman. Curvy too. Dressed in tight jeans and a not quite too tight blouse. Gordon glanced at her feet. Boots. Real shitkickers. This woman was a looker, but she was more than that. She held a large revolver in two hands. Probably held .50 caliber rounds. A good weapon. And it was aimed between his eyes. Gordon liked this one. Too bad he had to kill her.
“Ashley,” the fat man said. “You weren’t supposed to—”
The thunderous crack of the gun firing drowned out the man’s voice. The bullet covered the distance between the gun and Gordon’s head before the sound reached their ears. The impact knocked him back, throwing him into the room’s back wall, which cracked from the strain.
Gordon’s head lolled forward.
The bullet fell away, clattering to the floor.
“Get out of here!” the woman named Ashley shouted.
Gordon raised his head, glowering at the woman with his yellow eyes. A sneer formed on his lips. “I like a woman who can fight.”
He shoved himself away from the wall and charged across the room.
The gun fired six more times before he reached her. He felt the impacts as little more than punches from an old lady. He reached for the woman, not intending to kill her. The other two were no doubt already running, so he’d need this one alive.
Before his hand reached her face, she ducked down and tightened into a ball. Gordon’s foot struck her, eliciting a cry of pain, but he hadn’t kicked her, he’d simply tripped over her. He sprawled forward, off balance, headed for the large windows.
He glanced through the glass and caught sight of the battle outside. Hudson was still on the run. Still hopelessly outmatched. But then five Apache attack helicopters roared past overhead. They would only aggravate his child. The fools hadn’t learned anything.
Gordon’s eyes returned to the glass. Like all good soldiers, he thought several steps ahead. He knew he was going to break through the window and fall four stories. But he also knew he’d survive the fall, recover quickly and have no problem cutting off the three fleeing FC-P agents. The first thing he’d do was rip the fat man’s spine out. That would take the fight out of the other two.
His face struck the glass first.
It didn’t break.
Instead, his flesh folded inwards, compressing the thick bones of his face. As momentum carried the rest of his body forward, the pressure on his face grew. Something popped and then crunched, and for the first time in a year, Gordon felt pain.
He put his hand up to his nose. The flesh felt looser. Warm fluid covered his fingertips. He couldn’t make out the color against his charcoal flesh. But he knew what it was. Blood. The bitch had actually hurt him.
He thrashed out an arm, obliterating a workstation with one strike. He turned toward the woman, who he expected to find on the floor, clutching her side in pain. She was gone. As were the other two. His plan was falling apart.
“No!” he screamed and charged toward the stairwell. When he reached the top, he leapt out over the stairs, compressed his body into a ball and struck the wall. Unlike the windows, this part of the house had not been reinforced. He broke through wood and plaster like a wrecking ball.
His fall was broken by the crunch of a car roof folding in. His body struck hard, face down. The car compressed loudly, and then all at once, it exploded into flames. The searing heat surprised Gordon, but it didn’t harm him. When he stood in the flames and stepped through the curtain of smoke, he was very glad to see three sets of stunned eyes staring at him.
Ignoring the flames flickering over his chest, Gordon grinned and said. “Let’s try that again.”
12
I hold my finger down, launching all thirty-eight rockets. It might be a little excessive, but the rockets aren’t smart. They can’t lock on to targets. They just fly straight until they hit something and explode. And sometimes they don’t even fly straight. Considering the amount of firepower I’ve just launched, the rockets don’t make much noise. They just kind of whoosh away, swirling trails of smoke. There’s so many of them twisting through the air, the sight reminds me of those Robotech cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid...and a few years ago. The
twisting streaks of white are almost beautiful.
“Holy shit,” the whispered curse comes through my headset. One of the helicopter pilots commenting on what I’ve just done, which serves to remind me about what I’ve just done.
“Where is the car?” I ask, shouting into my headset.
“They’re away!” someone replies.
“Up!” I shout to Woodstock, even as he pulls us higher into the air and to the side. It’s like a backwards rollercoaster ride, but I hardly notice. All of my attention is on the now-small streaks of white, headed for Scrion’s underside.
The Kaiju has just leapt up, exposing the three orange membranes.
The first rocket strikes with an orange explosion that sounds like a distant firework. But nothing happens. The rocket struck high, between Scrion’s neck and armor planting. I don’t think it even noticed the impact.
But it’s sure as hell going to. It’s easy to see now, as Scrion rises and the rockets continue to strike—
It happens.
A rocket punches through the top membrane and detonates. But even as that explosion begins, at least eight more rockets pierce the other two slices of orange flesh. I don’t even have time to cringe at what I’ve done.
The way people experience explosions is basically a race. The light, traveling at 186,282 miles per second, comes first. The bright white forces my eyes shut for a moment before it fades to luminous shades of yellow and orange. Next, comes the shockwave, which contrary to popular belief, travels faster than sound. The science of it is gobbledygook to me. Something about the compression of wave fronts or some such thing. What’s important to know is that you’re going to get punched first and then yelled at.
And the punch is hard. Kaiju Mike Tyson hard. The helicopter is slammed back, and for a moment I’m looking through the windshield at nothing but blue sky. Warning lights flash. Woodstock utters a string of unintelligible curses like it’s the Pentecost. Before all the shaking is done, the sound hits. If not for the sound-canceling headphones on our ears, I’m positive Woodstock and I would be deaf. The pulse of sound knocks the air from my lungs and pitches me forward as my insides quiver. Woodstock somehow manages to fight this effect and not only keeps his hands on the controls, but regains control of Betty. He brings us level again, about a mile from the explosion—over the harbor—but just a couple hundred feet up.
Not that I’m concerned about height. I don’t think Scrion would be able to reach us at this height while swimming. And then there is the fact that the monster is gone.
Totally.
A crater the size of a football stadium is all that remains.
“Did you vaporize the dang thing?” Woodstock asks, leaning forward in his seat like the extra foot of nearness will help him see more. “Ain’t nothin’ left!”
I have a hard time believing it. Whenever one of Nemesis’s membranes were punctured, the resulting explosion would lay waste to the surrounding area, but it would also cauterize the wound, healing her. But Scrion appears to have been obliterated.
Then I remember my analogy. A cherry bomb beneath a trash can. The energy, directed down toward the Earth, would reflect back and slam into Scrion. While it might not scorch the monster, it would no doubt propel it...upwards.
I lean forward as far as I can, searching the blue sky for an aberration. I toggle Devine. “Any eyes on the target?”
“No, sir,” says the lead Apache pilot. “It’s g—”
“Eagle-Eye Three,” calls out a pilot. “I have eyes on target.”
“Where?” I ask.
“About five thousand feet.”
I can’t help but smile. Woodstock actually lets out a chuckle.
“Forty-five hundred,” adds the pilot.
The new information wipes the shit eating grin from my face. It’s coming down fast, though I still can’t see it.
“Is the target alive?” I ask.
“And pissed,” the pilot says. “Target is above the water. Are we clear to engage?”
“Engage!” I shout. “Engage!”
Looking through a pair of binoculars, I see the planes—three F-22 Raptors, just small triangles in the sky high above—the moment they let loose a barrage of missiles. And these aren’t like the rockets I shot off. Not only are the AIM-7 Sparrow missiles guided and guaranteed to hit a target without countermeasures, they’re real heavy hitters. And they should be since each missile costs more than my yearly take-home pay. Six years of working for the DHS and my collective taxes aren’t enough to pay for just one of those missiles. So when the first missile strikes, the explosion is satisfyingly large, though still dwarfed by the conflagration I caused on the ground. But it’s joined by another, and another. The string of orange flame allows me to track Scrion’s descent.
It’s headed for the harbor, behind us. Woodstock swings us around slowly so we can follow its fall.
“Gonna make one hell of a splash,” Woodstock says.
I barely hear him. I’m too busy trying to control the missiles through sheer willpower. If one of them can sneak inside those now open membranes, there’s a small chance we might actually kill the monster. If not, I have little doubt it will survive the fall and swim away—if not press the attack once more. If that happened, there would be little we could do about it. The only silver lining is that the evacuation is well underway.
Of course, it’s not interested in wreaking havoc. It’s after me. “If Scrion survives, and still has eyes for me, we need to lead it away.”
“Right,” Woodstock says with a nod. “The aircraft carrier.”
The ninth and final missile detonation fills the sky with an orange plume of light. Man-made thunder rolls past. Scrion descends. I find it in the sky, now just fifteen hundred feet up. I have trouble tracking the beast at first, until I bring the lenses into focus. It’s like a giant flying turtle-dog, which is just ridiculous. When I see its flailing limbs splayed wide, Scrion looks borderline silly. But it’s not really funny, because it’s still alive, even after a severe beating. But is it hurt? I shift my view to the side, finding its head.
The still crazed eyes are staring straight back at me like some obsessed ex-girlfriend who doesn’t know when to stop wearing a guy’s jersey, or whatever it is women do these days. “Shit!” I pull the binoculars from my eyes.
“Aircraft carrier?” Woodstock asks.
“Hell ye—”
A mash of voices fills my ears. Shouting. I can’t make out a word of it, but the tone is unmistakable. Shock. Panic. Urgency. Somewhere in the mix, I hear the words “Behind Betty.”
As the words register, a dark shadow falls over us, like a cloud has just blocked the sun. Some days just start out shitty. Like today. No coffee. Then Scrion. And now... I don’t even need to look. The blocked sun and the fear in the voices of military professionals tells me everything I need to know.
It’s like the cliché moment in a TV show or movie, when Jack (or whoever) is bitching about Steve, who just happens to be standing behind him. He stops and say, “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”
That’s where my mind is as I come to grips with what I suspect will be my last few seconds on the planet.
She’s behind me, isn’t she?
But it’s not a grumpy boss or an over-emotional wife.
It’s Nemesis.
And this time, it’s for real.
Woodstock must be having the same realization I am, because he acts without being told what to do. Our slow spin becomes rapid as we snap around.
Fifty feet from Betty’s windshield are Nemesis’s brown eyes. Like with Scrion, her massive brown eyes seem to be locked on me. It’s the helicopter, I think. She must remember the helicopter. We should have painted Betty blue instead of matching her truck’s namesake.
But I see no anger in those eyes. Instead, I see...
“Maigo.”
The name comes from my lips as a whisper, though Woodstock can hear me.
Water pours from her head as she rises fr
om the ocean. Her jaws open wide, revealing sharp white teeth bigger than me. Her skin, gleaming white the last time I saw her, is thick and gray once more. She’s whole again.
She rises in time with the chopper, her head—her jaws—remaining level with us as we ascend. She’s taller, I think, glancing at our altimeter as we pass three hundred feet. While we haven’t flown above her yet, we are moving back. As the distance increases, more of her massive body comes into view. The orange membranes lining the sides of her neck glow bright orange, reminding us of her deadly potential. The thick folds of skin on her neck shift and stretch, as she lifts her gaze away from the helicopter.
“What the hell is she doin’?” Woodstock asks.
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting an answer, but I have one. “Playing fetch.” I toggle Devine. “All units, hold your fire. I repeat, hold your fire!” I ignore the litany of doubt-filled complaints that enter my ears, but when no missiles streak past, I know my orders have been followed. They’ll understand it in 3...
Nemesis’s height tops out at three-hundred-fifty feet. Her giant arms rise up, trailing waterfalls. A shredded fishing net clings to the sharp spikes on her left elbow. Clumps of seaweed slip from her chest and fall away. The pulse of her orange membranes is bright. The explosive liquid within swirls, as though eager to get out.
2...
Her long tail snaps up, twisting back and forth like an agitated cat—if cat’s tails had a trident of spikes the size of 747 wings. I note that the color of her claws and spikes has changed from black to beige. The armor plating on her shoulders looks thicker. She’s ready for battle, radiating power. I catch just a glimpse of her back as we twist away. The massive spikes have moved back to the middle, the thick armored carapace once again protecting delicate reflective wings capable of great destruction.
And then it happens.
1...
13
Project Maigo Page 7
