“Bring us up to eye level,” I say.
“Roger that, Cap’n Ahab.”
As we rise up, growing closer to Nemesis, her brown eyes track us, still oblivious to the helicopters and jets swirling around her like black flies in the summer.
“That’s as close as I get,” Woodstock says, when we’re a hundred feet away. Just out of arms reach. Unless she decides to step forward when she swats us down. They we’re just screwed. But I don’t think she’s going to do that.
Betty rises up until we’re at eye level. The chopper is about the size of Nemesis’s eye, but at a hundred feet away, her face is about the size of someone standing a few feet away. And there is no doubt she’s looking straight at me.
“I’ll be damned,” Woodstock says. He sees it, too.
Then I do something stupid. I reach out a hand and wave, saying, “I’m okay,” quickly adding, “We’re okay,” mostly so I don’t feel so weird.
And then, I’ll be damned, she turns away and starts trudging out to sea.
I go to toggle Devine and find the system still set to broadcast.
Damnit. I hate myself. Everyone heard our little Kodak moment.
“All units, stand down,” I say, trying to sound more authoritative than embarrassed. “Begin tracking protocols. Follow her for as long as you can.”
I switch off Devine and lean back, watching Nemesis retreat peacefully back into the depths, leaving a trail of Scrion’s brown blood in her wake.
“Sooo,” Woodstock says, turning to me. “Wanna tell me what just happened?”
I really don’t want to, but seeing as how I’m going to be asked the same question by just about every damned person on the planet, I decide to answer truthfully, or at least what I believe is the truth. “Nemesis wasn’t here to kill me. Or anyone.”
“But Scrion was,” he says, starting to understand. “It was after us. After you.”
I nod. “But Nemesis...she was here to protect me.”
15
The flight back to the Crow’s Nest is made in silence, both Woodstock and I processing the things we just experienced. I feel shaky, mentally and physically, thanks to a now dissipating adrenaline rush. Were I on the ground, I’d take my mother’s frequent advice to me as a child and run around the house a few times. Stuck in a chopper, all this nervous energy has nowhere to go, so I’m bouncing my legs like I’m Lars Ulrich playing Enter Sandman double time.
As we descend toward the landing pad atop the FC-P headquarters roof, Woodstock speaks up. “You gotta plan?”
“For what?” I ask, knowing exactly for what, but trying to downplay the whole thing.
“Maigo,” he says, using the name freely.
I shrug.
“You know...” His voice is uncommonly unsure, like he’s going to say something he shouldn’t. His body language belies nothing, but that’s probably because we’re coming in for a landing and one wrong move could send us plummeting to the lawn or smashing into the Crow’s Nest’s thick windows, which actually look a little dirty from the outside. “I always sort of rooted for her. For Nemesis.”
I forget all about the dirty windows. Before he can continue, I double-check to make sure Devine’s transmit function is disabled.
“Not for killing all those people, mind you. But...who she was...once. All she wanted was justice. You helped make that possible. And you saved a lot of people because of it. And I think she knows that. She owes you. I know you feel the same. We all do. You don’t hide it as well as you think.”
I smile. “Not like you?”
“Boy, I was in the Marines for thirty God dang years, and I was never once written up for anything unsavory. You know why? Ain’t cause I was a goody two-shoes. It’s cause I can hide shit from a turd-burglar. But you? You transmit your feelings to the world like a billboard. I swear if you weren’t an FC-P agent you’d be some kind of crunchy artist type, thrusting your inner self all over everyone.”
He’s got me laughing now, despite the shit-storm no doubt descending on the FC-P. “You realize how gross that sounds, right?”
“Other people’s emotions usually are,” he says. “Point is, you gotta work on keeping that shit to yourself. Cause your job isn’t about paintin’ happy trees or retarded looking faces. It’s leading the damn world against a monster who also happens to be a little girl. Now git out of my chopper and go face the music. I’ll be down in a few.”
I was so intent on listening to Woodstock that I hadn’t even noticed we’d landed. After removing my headset, I give him a pat on the shoulder. “Thanks.”
“Ayuh,” he says, and that’s the end of it. Everything he just told me amounts to a few weeks worth of talking to an old Mainer like Woodstock. Means he cares. And ‘Ayuh,’ means it’s time to shut the hell up about it.
I find myself running toward the roof exit. I’m not sure why. There shouldn’t be anyone here. The rest of the area will stay evacuated for 24 hours, but Cooper, Watson and Collins will come back sooner, along with other emergency services. The evacuation alone probably caused more than a few accidents, heart attacks and violence. The police, fire department and hospital are going to have their hands full for a few days at least.
As I drop down the stairs three at a time, the dirty window returns to my thoughts. I’d stared out that window this morning. There wasn’t a spot of dust or a smudge anywhere on it—well, except the line I drew. So what had smeared all over it while the Crow’s Nest and everyone else for ten square miles was busy evacuating?
For some reason I’m not consciously aware of, I draw my sidearm upon reaching the bottom of the stairs. When I shove through the door to the Crow’s Nest, I have the gun up, sweeping back and forth, looking for trouble. The first thing I notice is that there’s no one here. That’s a good thing, because they’re supposed to be gone. The second thing I notice is that it looks like someone rolled a giant bowling ball down the middle of the space. Chairs are overturned. Two workstations have been obliterated. And the water cooler is slowly bleeding to death through a crack in the blue plastic. But it’s the third thing I notice that holds my gaze. The smear on the window is fluid—and brown. It’s either a chocolate milkshake or Kaiju blood.
My gut says it’s the latter.
Seeing no one inside, I head for the main stairwell and slide to a stop. There’s a big, round hole in the wall directly across from where I’m standing, ten feet up from the first landing. My first thought is rocket-propelled grenade, but there is very little debris on the stairs, meaning that whatever punched the hole in the wall, came from inside.
I descend the stairs like a peregrine falcon, shrieking out names, “Ashley! Watson! Coop!” Part of me is relieved when I get no reply, but silence often means one of two things: they’re gone or they’re dead. Detecting no signs of life or trouble on the second and first floors, I sprint over the dark hardwood floor and make for the home’s rear exit. The wooden door is open.
While we don’t have a ton of security here, we still follow the basic rules of a mansion living on the fringe of an urban city. The door should be closed and locked. Whatever happened here, it led outside. Of course, the rhinoceros-sized hole in the wall told me that, too.
I hit the screen door at a run, smashing the handle down as I barrel outside onto the driveway and a scene of destruction.
The first thing I see is a body laid out on the pavement, by the husk of what used to be Cooper’s car, ironically, a coupe. Even the clothing I can see—black pants and slick black shoes—is all wrong. My first thought was that this was Collins. But then she stands up on the other side of the wall that is Watson and looks my way.
My relief is short-lived. Collins is alive, but her eyes look a little hazy and her blouse is stained with blood. As is her hair. I rush toward her, lowering my weapon. Then I see the body’s face. Endo.
Something about Endo being unconscious doesn’t make sense. Collins couldn’t take him by herself, and I don’t think Watson or Cooper would be mu
ch help in a fight. But I really don’t give a shit. It’s clear that he attacked the Crow’s Nest, but they somehow got the upper hand.
Despite my growing anger, I pause beside Collins. “You okay?”
“Probably a concussion,” she says, sounding more lucid than she looks.
Endo groans.
Without a thought, I reach down, grab his shirt and pull him up roughly. “You don’t get to wake up yet!” I move to knock him out again, breaking all sorts of rules, but no one’s going to care if he assaulted a government facility.
My arm is caught mid-swing. I turn to question Collins and find the face of the Asian woman from the port of Hong Kong glaring at me. “Let. Him. Go.”
“Go. Fuck. Yourself.” I say. Collins is going to pop her any second now, and then we’ll have both of them in custody.
But my partner doesn’t move. Instead, she sits down on the pavement, looking tired.
I look from Collins to the stranger and then to Watson and Cooper. “Could someone please explain why you haven’t pig-piled Lucy Liu over here?”
“That’s racist,” the woman says.
For some reason, this totally flabbergasts me. Not only is she kind of right, but I’m really not in the mood to have a conversation with an associate of Katsu Endo, who freaking paralyzed me the last time I saw him.
“Look, if it makes you feel better, Lucy Liu is a hottie.”
“It does,” the woman says, “but she’s also Chinese. I’m Japanese.”
“Actually,” Watson says, raising a finger. “She’s American. Born in—”
“You know what I meant—”
“I can see you’re going to fit right in.” All eyes turn down to Endo. He’s awake and looking at his partner, who is still holding my hand back.
Fit in?
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t club you,” I say.
“She could kick your ass,” he says, smiling, motioning to the woman.
“Two good reasons.”
“I saved them.”
“Saved who?”
“Us,” Collins says. “If it makes you feel better, I already knocked him out once.”
The tension goes out of my clubbing arm, and the woman’s grip relaxes. Saved them? From who?
The hole in the wall.
The destroyed car.
The brown blood.
“Gordon was here,” I conclude, yanking my hand away. If what I’m being told is true, I won’t knock Endo senseless, but I will arrest him. Standing clear of the woman’s reach, I aim my weapon at Endo. “Why didn’t you let us know?”
Endo sits up, feeling the goose egg on his forehead where Collins must have clocked him.
“About what?”
“Gordon.”
“I didn’t know he was here.”
I turn to my team. “Did he try to put something on Gordon’s head?”
Collins’s shifting expression answers the question. “He had a drill. He was...” She was with me in Hong Kong. She saw what happened to me. Even knocked silly, the pieces aren’t hard to put together. She turns to Endo. “You were trying to control him.”
“Empty your pockets,” I say, shaking my handgun at him.
He complies. There’s a folding knife, a pack of Juicy Fruit, a wallet and the same device he slapped on the side of my head. He must have been trying to drill through Gordon’s thick flesh so the device could work.
“I was following orders,” he says.
“Zoomb is not the United States government,” I reply. “You don’t have to do what they say, and their orders do not put you beyond the reach of the law, no matter how much money they have.”
Endo stretches, working out the kinks. “My employer didn’t send me here. I was requested.”
I make a show of aiming my gun more carefully, leveling the sights at his wang. I nearly say so, but I quickly realize Lucy Liu will just accuse me of being racist again. “By who?”
My phone rings. The ring tone—Marylyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President—tells me who’s calling. It the boss. Not my boss. The boss. I dig the phone out of my pocket, accept the call and place it against my ear. “Mr. President, the situation is—”
The man cuts me off with a very curt explanation of my situation, which feels like an enema while he’s talking, and something a little rougher when he hangs up before I can argue. I manage to maintain my composure, say “goodbye” to cellular silence, and lower my weapon. “Well, looks like we’re pals now.”
“What?” Collins, at least, shows an appropriate amount of disgust at this announcement.
But I can’t talk about it now. I head for the door.
“Where are you going?” Collins shouts after me.
“To squeeze the shit out of my stress doll!” I didn’t need to shout, but after everything I just experienced, everything I just survived, the last thing I needed was to be told to play nice with a guy whose nuts I’d like to use for a punching bag. I step inside, slam the door behind me and head to my room on the second floor.
After recovering my stress doll—I think his name is Bob—I head for the bathroom, yank down my pants and sit down on the toilet. If I lay down on my bed, someone would be in to get me inside of five minutes. Here, I can have some quality me-time. Here, I can—
A familiar-shaped white and pink plastic device is poking out of the top of the small trash can beside the toilet. I share this bathroom with Collins. Our rooms are joined by it. With a shaking hand, I reach down to the trash can and move aside the unused toilet paper that had been placed to partially cover the device.
My throat feels like Gordon’s got his hands wrapped around it.
I lift the pregnancy test, looking at the two windows. For a moment, I can’t make any sense out of it. One line, not pregnant. Two lines, pregnant. I look back and forth three times, because the test must be wrong. Two lines means pregnant. And there are two lines.
Two lines means pregnant.
Two...lines...
Bob’s head cracks open.
16
I’m ten years old. Lying in bed. Another sleepless night seeing monsters in the shadows and skulls in my discarded tighty whities on the floor. To say I had an active imagination is an understatement. But that’s not what kept me awake. Not really. To this day, I don’t know why, but some nights my arms and legs would feel heavy. Really heavy. Like they were moving through swamp muck. This unnatural and strange feeling drove me to my parent’s bedside. More than the monsters. Or the noises. Or whatever else kids fear in the dark. It pushed me past my fear of violent repercussions. To seek comfort from the unwilling.
The heaviness in my limbs faded as I grew older. I haven’t thought about it in years. But as I climb the stairs toward the Crow’s Nest, pregnancy test in hand, I finally understand the heaviness that plagued my childhood nights. It was fear. Primal, unfiltered fear. As a person grows, barriers are erected. Mental defenses are fortified. Pride becomes the dominant emotion, keeping fear from being fully expressed or perhaps even realized. It’s how Woodstock and I can look into Nemesis’s eyes and not scream like frightened goats.
But now, my legs have never felt heavier. As my bare feet pad across the cool, hardwood floor of the Crow’s Nest, heading for Collins, who is sitting at her work station talking to Cooper, I feel like I’m ten again. I can feel the hallway floor beneath my feet. The humidifier hums behind me. The orange glow of the bathroom night-light guides my path. I expect no real comfort on the other side of my parent’s door, just the knowledge that the world as I know it still exists. An assurance that reality hasn’t fundamentally changed.
My hand reaches for the knob and turns. But the knob is Collins’s shoulder. She spins around, tired eyes like my mother’s. But then she smiles and looks concerned. She asks, “What is it? What’s wrong?” Then, I realize why I love this woman so much, and why I shouldn’t be terrified right now.
Not that this knowledge lightens my arms any. Lifting the pregnancy test fee
ls like I’m bench-pressing Watson. My lips stay firmly shut, pinched white. The visual aid and my mortified expression will say everything that needs saying.
Collins’s eyes widen as the pregnancy test rises.
She reaches for it, but my leaden arms pulls it away.
“No one is supposed to know!” she hisses.
I’m instantly offended.
The weight lifts from my limbs like I’ve been touched by Jesus himself. A quick cure for fear is anger. “Not supposed to—how the hell do you keep something like this from me?”
“Jon, I—”
“You’re a field agent!” I’m shouting now. I’m not sure who else is in the Crow’s Nest now, but I’ve just included them in my drama. “You could have been injured on the reservation. You were injured today!” My eyes look her up and down. “You need to go to a hospital.”
I take hold of her wrist, but Collin’s yanks away. “Jon!”
“We’re not even married yet!” I shout.
“Jon!” Collins now has a hand on my wrist. Her crushing grip is made more painful by the skillful thrust of her middle finger into a pressure point. My head clears instantly. A quick cure for anger is pain. “Shut-the-fuck-up.”
I lower my voice. “Tell me why I shouldn’t be angry at you for hiding this. Give me one good reason.”
“It’s not mine.”
“It was in our bathroom.”
“Because no one was supposed to know yet.” The words come out as a low growl. My anger is in full retreat now, pursued by Collins’s. Mercifully, she releases my wrist.
“But...then who...” I glance at Cooper. She’s white as a sheet. Eyes locked across the room. I turn to follow her gaze. Endo is there, sitting with Lucy Liu and Watson. Endo and the woman are smiling. Enjoying my faux pas. Watson...poor Watson. He’s now in the position I was just ten seconds ago. I’m not sure how I missed their relationship. They did a better job hiding it than Cooper did this test. But I’ve also been in the field a lot.
“Two things,” I say, all of the childhood trauma and fresh anger gone from my system. I turn to Cooper with a grin. “First, congratulations. Second, the wetness on this test is from your pee. Gross.” I drop the test into the empty waste can besides Collins’s station.
Project Maigo Page 9
