“Like telling someone to sit,” I say. I’m facing forward, watching Beverly Farms pass by beneath us in a blur. Endo can’t see my face. My clenched jaw. But the anger in my voice is impossible to disguise. “Devine’s security isn’t flawed, you stole the access codes from my fucking mind.”
I can’t look at the man. If I see even a hint of a smile, I’m going to jump back there and throttle him.
“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” Collins asks. “What if the target’s mind is more powerful?”
It’s a good question, but I wish she wouldn’t have asked it. Because if the answer is that Endo’s mind is more powerful, my ego is going to be flushed down the toilet.
“The electrical impulses guarantee that the conversation is one way. The target won’t even be aware of the intrusion.”
He’s right about that. I had no idea he was in my head, which begs the question, what else did he learn about me? I draw my pistol, lean around the seat and level it at his head. “If you ever use that thing on me again, I will kill you, without warning, without mercy. Understood?”
For the first time I’ve ever seen, Endo looks a little unsettled. He’s a smart guy. He sees my finger around the trigger. The safety off. The look in my eyes. I’m one smart remark from putting a hole in his head. He does the only thing he can. He nods. Lucky bastard.
I face forward again, holstering my weapon. “You took a peek inside my head. Should have seen that coming.”
It takes a lot to get me angry. But man, Endo gets under my skin. And the fact that he violated the privacy of my mind... If I’m ever able to control Nemesis, that guy is getting an atomic wedgie the likes of which has never been seen in the history of the universe.
“We’re over Rockport, now,” Woodstock reports quietly after a few minutes spent in silence. “ETA, two minutes.”
I close my eyes for thirty seconds of those two minutes, focusing my thoughts, erasing all trace of my feelings for Endo. He’s working with us for now, and having an antagonistic relationship with the man is going to end up getting someone killed. Besides, I don’t think he’ll be pushing me again anytime soon. When I open my eyes again, I can see the quarry ahead. “Endo, how sure are you that your neural implant is going to work?”
“Gordon, at the core, is human,” he says. “It will work on him the same way it worked on yo—our test subjects. The challenge is punching through his thick skin. If the hole I began hasn’t healed yet, it will take just a second.”
“Going to be one hell of a bronco ride,” I say.
He laughs lightly “Second one today.”
“Any chance Zoomb is working on a projectile alternative?”
“For the Kaiju,” he says. “The prototype is nearly complete.”
“So Gordon is kind of a beta test then?”
“How do you mean?”
“Cause you and I both know that he’s not at all human anymore.”
Endo grunts. Maybe it’s something he hasn’t considered.
Woodstock sets Betty down on the stone barrier between the dark blue ocean and the light blue quarry pond.
“Only one way to find out, I suppose.” I open the door and hop out onto the light brown stone. Ocean air fills my nose, lacking the stench of ash that I’ve become familiar with in Beverly. Endo exits beside me as Collins and Alessi hop down from the other side. Once we’re clear, I give Woodstock a thumbs up, and he heads for the sky. He’ll circle the area, keeping an eye out for trouble. He can provide some heavy hitting backup if we need it, sans the thirty-eight rockets that have yet to be replenished.
I place an earbud in one ear, toggle Devine to communicate with Woodstock and say, “You read me?”
“Ayuh,” he says. “Be careful.”
As the dust kicked up by Betty’s rotorwash settles, I scan the area. The park is basically a big circle of land surrounding the old quarry. Tall grasses, small trees and large stones cover the area. Came here with a girlfriend once. Almost got to second base. Good times. Not the worst place in the world to die. Nice view anyway. If the quarry weren’t captivating enough, the view of the ocean stretches out three miles to the horizon. The few boats on the water are streaking steadily north, evacuating like everyone on land.
A loud seagull perched on top of a dark rock catches my attention. It’s holding a crab, panicked legs spread wide. The bird lets loose a white stream of crap before smashing the crab down. For a moment, I sympathize with the smaller creature. I’ve felt just like it.
I nearly miss what happens next. A shifting darkness behind the stone pinches the bird’s neck, eliciting a high pitched shriek that’s suddenly cut off. The bird tumbles to the side. The crab scurries free.
I take aim with my M4 and say, “Gordon’s behind the rock.”
Endo steps up next to me, a taser in one hand, his drill-tipped neural implant in the other. “No,” he says. “Gordon is the rock.”
The used-to-be man must hear us, because the dark rock shifts and stands. I haven’t seen Gordon since Boston. The man is a giant. Far larger than I remember. While he’s covered in thick, black skin like Nemesis’s, his facial features are still distinct enough to recognize him as the former general-turned-traitor, turned monster. When he sees me, a grin slowly spreads across his face. I’m beginning to think that not bringing a squadron of Apache helicopters was a big mistake.
19
A violent blossom of orange fire erases Gordon’s face. The explosion makes Endo, Collins and Alessi jump.
“A little warning next time,” Alessi grumbles.
I move my finger away from the grenade launcher’s trigger. “If I had warned you, I’d have warned him.” The under-barrel launcher is typically a one shot deal when the stinky, brown fan is spinning. It’s not like bullets. There’s no magazine full of grenades. Seasoned warriors can reload in two seconds flat—under fire. But I’m still getting used to the heavy hitting gear. Still, I manage to use the ten seconds it takes for the swirling smoke to drift away from Gordon’s face to eject the spent round, pull a fresh grenade from my mole pouch, slide it in and slap the breech closed. Locked, loaded and ready to rock ’n’ roll.
I’m going to need it.
Gordon is still smiling.
This is going to suck.
“Keep him occupied,” Endo says. “I need to get on his back.”
Really suck.
“You heard the man,” I say, stepping toward Gordon, M4 aimed and pressed against my shoulder. “Time to make a sacrifice play.”
Before I can engage Gordon, Alessi runs past me, headed for Gordon. Endo runs out diagonally, ducking behind some tall rocks, no doubt looking to come up behind the monster of a man, while Alessi distracts him. He wasn’t even speaking to me.
I lower my weapon and glance at Collins. She looks as mystified as I feel.
“Should we help?” I ask.
“Probably should,” she says, not moving. “In a minute. I want to see what they can do.”
So we watch the show.
Alessi lets out a banshee wail that instantly attracts Gordon’s attention. He no doubt knows that Endo is the true threat, but the fearless woman charging him, no weapon in sight, is hard to look away from. She’s got guts, that’s for damn sure. But if she’s not careful, they’re going to be spilled all over the rocks for the gulls to snack on.
Gordon’s fists clench. He doesn’t wind up for a punch, but I doubt he has to. When he strikes, it’s a blur, but he strikes nothing. Alessi slides between his legs. As Gordon spins in pursuit of the small woman, Endo emerges from behind the tall rocks, coming back around. The whole move was choreographed to make Gordon believe Endo would be coming up behind him. When he turned around after Alessi, he might have expected to also find Endo. Instead, he became an unwitting participant in a practiced maneuver.
Alessi ducks two close punches, and just when I think she’s run out of fancy moves, Endo leaps from a two-foot-tall boulder and lands on Gordon’s back like he’s a Velcro wall. Gor
don flails, but Endo clings on tightly with his legs. Unshakable. With his left hand, Endo stabs the taser into Gordon’s left temple. With the right, he jams the drill-tipped neural whatsamabob into Gordon’s right temple.
Gordon shouts in frustration, but not pain.
Then some part of Gordon’s mind remembers that he, like Endo, is a highly trained soldier who knows how to fight. And when someone is on your back, you don’t reach for them or shake around.
Gordon flings himself backwards toward a tall, brown stone rising up from the beach rocks like a long-lost Easter Island bust. Despite my distaste for Endo, I flinch. The man’s about to die.
As the pair falls back, Endo punches his fist into Gordon’s temple and then leaps away. He falls clear of the rock as Gordon slams into it, but this part of the dance hasn’t been choreographed. Endo hits hard, landing in a field of slippery seaweed-covered boulders. Despite his best effort, there’s no way to slow his fall. He takes a hard hit to the ribs and then rolls away, disappearing into a tide pool with a splash.
To hell with this, I think, and toggle Devine to transmit. “Hawk-one, this is Hudson. I need three birds to my coordinates, ASAP.”
“Our target, sir?” Hawk-One’s voice fills my ear.
“Lance Gordon,” I say. “This is a priority one target. Lethal force authorized. Be aware, there are four friendlies on site. Pick your target carefully, but be quick about it.”
“Copy that,” Hawk-One says. “ETA, ten minutes.”
Shit. This will be done in ten minutes. The only friendlies they’re going to find are smears. I should have never listened to Endo. At least we still have Betty.
“Woodstock, come around for a flyby,” I say. “If we’re clear, light him up.”
While Betty’s rocket pods are empty, she still has a high powered chain gun. It’s nothing compared to the heavy hitting armaments of an Apache attack helicopter, but it should do more than tickle.
“Let’s go,” I say to Collins, raising my weapon again and heading for Gordon. While Endo and Alessi have clearly been training for an up close and personal confrontation with Gordon, Collins and I have been working on coordinated weapons assaults. Granted, we generally have about twenty more men supporting us, but we’re both competent.
“Aim for the eyes,” Collins says. “Won’t do any permanent damage, but if he can’t see, it will slow him down.”
Gordon shoves himself off the rock and looks for Endo. Not seeing him, the traitorous general throws himself at Alessi, who looks a lot less sure of herself, now that the plan has fallen apart. She manages to duck his sweeping arms, but he recovers quickly and reaches out to grab her head. One good squeeze and she’s done.
She stands in between Gordon and me. His hunched body is just a little taller than hers. And they’re both moving. It’s an impossible shot. The odds of my hitting her are—
Crack!
Collins squeezes off a single round. It doesn’t hit Gordon’s eye, but the impact on his cheek is enough to get his attention. Alessi uses the distraction to duck away, running into the maze of rocks lining the ocean. And now Collins and I are Gordon’s only remaining targets.
He lumbers toward us, yellow eyes blazing. “You’re making this too easy for me. You should have stayed away.”
As I depress the trigger and hold it down, emptying my magazine at Gordon, I realize he’s right. The attack in Beverly was all about me. If I really am what’s keeping Gordon and Nemesis from having a mental pow-wow, the results could be catastrophic, especially if he’s able to influence her the way he is these other Kaiju.
As Collins and I both run out of ammo and move to reload, Gordon breaks into a run. I quickly move my hand to the weapon’s second trigger and pop off a grenade. It hits Gordon head on, stumbling him, but nothing more. While I unload another magazine at his head, Collins fires her grenade. The fragmentation device strikes Gordon’s forehead, exploding with enough concussive force to knock the wind out of me. The shards of metal sprayed by the grenade have no effect on his thick skin, but there’s enough of the stuff flying around that his eyes both take hits. His approach grinds to a halt as he rubs at his face, growling in frustration.
It’s just a momentary delay. But it’s enough.
When Gordon opens his eyes again, fully healed, Collins and I are gone, hiding behind a granite block inscribed with information about the park. In our place is Betty, chain gun already spinning.
A look of unadulterated annoyance wipes across Gordon’s face a second before Woodstock pummels it with a stream of bullets. The weapon sounds like a giant, angry bee, firing ten rounds per second. Just a fraction of a second is enough to reduce the average person into a hunk of unrecognizable meat. Nasty stuff. But Gordon takes it like it’s a fire-hose blast of water. He just leans forward, arms raised to protect his face, and keeps on coming.
For me.
But then there is hope. Flecks of black start shooting away from the flesh on Gordon’s arms and chest. The high caliber bullets are punching through his skin!
And that’s when Betty runs out of bullets.
Gordon straightens up and flexes his chest. The black flesh is all torn up. As his broad chest widens, its cracks open up, revealing lines of bright orange.
Then he’s running again, his big feet pulverizing the earth with each step. At least it won’t be hard for a forensics team to put together the story of my death. Realizing that wasting more ammo on Gordon isn’t going to do anything but put us in harm’s way, I shout, “Run!” and turn to follow my own command.
I’m a pretty observant guy, so as I spin 180 degrees and move my legs, I notice the tall, green grass ahead, the way it glows yellow in the sunlight and waves in the cool ocean breeze. I also notice the grasshopper, clinging to a thick blade, perhaps watching the unfolding scene with detached curiosity. But all of this flashes in and out of my mind in a fraction of a second, overwhelmed by the appearance of a moving shadow. It slides across the grass, shrinking just above the grasshopper, until Gordon lands. He jumped clear over me.
The grasshopper is a goner.
So am I.
Before I can fully stop, Gordon reaches out and catches me around the waist with his left hand. He lifts me from the ground, and I feel like a kid again, lifted off my feet by that horrible Gravitron carnival ride, helpless and ill. He quickly drives his right fist into my stomach. The armor I’m wearing helps absorb and redirect some of the force, but I still feel like I’ve been hit by a car. And I’m promptly hit by it two more times, each impact getting closer to liquefying my insides.
A gun fires, close and fully loaded. Six shots. Collins. She manages to pause his barrage, but only long enough for him to spin around and use me like a club. When my body strikes Collins, Gordon lets go, and the two of us topple to the ground. I’m not sure if I black out or not, but before I can even think about getting up, he’s above me, blocking out the sun, the grin still on his face.
He has no quipy final words for me. He just raises his meaty fist, eyes on mine, ready to squash my head. Bruised, battered and out of breath, I don’t have the energy or ability to move anything more than my hand, which I use to find Collins’s hand, and squeeze. A silent goodbye.
The fist descends like a blunt guillotine.
20
“Stop!” The voice is distant and weak, but the effect is impressive.
Gordon’s fist freezes, cocked back, still ready to mash my face, but unmoving. That’s not entirely true. The limb shakes against the invisible force holding it. Gordon, his face scrunched tightly in anger, teeth bared, is still trying to kill me. He just can’t.
Still unable to move and save myself, I let my head loll to the side. Endo limps toward us, his weight supported by Alessi. He’s clutching his ribs and he’s soaked through, dripping tide-pool water.
Why is Gordon—the neural implant! It’s attached to his temple. And it works.
“Step away,” Endo says. It’s almost a request, but Gordon obeys. Not wi
thout some resistance though. His body shakes with agitation, revolting at the idea of obeying his former subordinate.
A deep growl builds in Gordon’s chest, escaping through his grinding teeth as a muffled roar. His yellow eyes blaze with fury. I suspect the growl is an outward sign of his mental resistance, because Endo grunts and falls to his knees, holding his head.
I push myself up, despite the pain. If Endo loses his grasp on Gordon, I don’t want to be laying down waiting for him like a loose floozy.
Alessi helps keep Endo upright. “Are you okay?” She turns to Collins. “Help me.”
Collins seems torn between helping me up and assisting Endo. It’s nice that she cares, but we kind of need Endo to stay conscious.
“Go,” I tell her, pushing myself up like I’m tough shit and quickly regretting it. My whole body hurts. Going to for days. Despite me being Gordon’s punching bag, Endo looks worse off than me.
“What’s wrong with him?” Collins asks Alessi, helping hold Endo up.
“It’s Gordon,” Endo says between gasps. His eyes are clenched shut. “He’s fighting it. He’s—”
“Get out of my head!” Gordon screams, clutching the sides of his skull. I don’t think he knows the neural implant is there, but he could still break it by accident. However this ends, it seems clear that Endo’s control of Gordon is only temporary.
Endo spasms and falls back, hanging limp in the women’s arms. “I...know...what...he—argh!” Endo’s back arches. Blood pours from his nose.
This connection with Gordon’s brain is killing him. I reach for Endo’s ear piece and yank it away. Nothing changes. I’d assumed the headset was what allowed Endo to connect with the target mind. I was wrong. “How can I break the connection?”
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