Endo shakes his head. “She will come.”
He says it with such confidence, I nearly believe him. But without me being in danger, the plan won’t work.
“You’re life is in jeopardy,” Endo says, answering my unspoken question. “It has been since the moment you and I stepped on this roof.”
“How so?” I ask.
He looks at his watch. “Because in ten minutes, I’m going to kill you.” The cold glare he shoots my way removes any doubt that he’s bluffing. I take a step away from him, reaching for my sidearm and cursing when I find my hip empty. Endo had told me the metal weapon could interfere with the neural implant’s connection to the hardware on my head. In reality, it would have interfered with the severe ass-kicking I’m about to receive.
Reaching lower, I pull my cell phone out, swipe the screen and try to connect with Woodstock again. No signal. Since Devine can use any and all cell towers, it’s nearly impossible for me to not have a signal. That I’m unable to connect means Endo is blocking my signal, which also means he’s got Zoomb’s support in this.
Maybe the President’s.
Damn, damn, damn. How did I not see this coming? As much as I loathe Endo, he must feel similarly about me. Probably worse. I see him as a dangerous criminal. A murderer. It’s my job to not like him. But me? I stole his dreams, albeit, by accident. I’d really rather not have a 350-foot-tall guardian.
Endo keeps his back to me, knowing I won’t try to attack him. I’m not in a rush to die. I back step toward the roof entrance. Try the green door’s handle. Locked. The door feels solid. Metal. No way I’m kicking my way through in the five seconds it will take Endo to reach me. I look for Betty and find her five hundred feet up and a half mile away. Even if one of them is looking in this direction, which I doubt, they’d never see me.
I’m on my own.
“I think we’ve waited long enough,” Endo says, turning toward me, his hawkish eyes locked on me, unblinking.
I stand my ground, fists clenched. “How can you be sure this will work?”
“I can’t.” He circles me slowly. “But either of the two prospective outcomes will be positive.”
Two outcomes. 1) Nemesis shows up. 2) I die.
Great.
Endo breaks out of his circular route and struts toward me. His walk becomes a kick that misses my nose by inches. But this was just a diversion, because he’s spinning still and airborne, his other leg coming up. I raise both arms just in time to block the kick, but his shin on my forearms is still painful as hell. And the force of the blow knocks me to the roof.
The sticky tar clings to me as I push myself up. I’m not sure if Endo is being sporting or just trying to prolong my suffering, but he gives me time to collect myself. I shake out my arms. My fingers are cramping up as the muscles in my arms try to shift back in place. I’m lucky he didn’t break them.
He comes at me again, this time leading with his fists. The man’s a blur, punching from every possible direction with the quickness of a striking cobra. I focus on blocking. If I attempt to strike back, I’ll just leave myself open. He batters my aching arms, and despite my best efforts, he lands a few solid blows. To my cheek. My ribs. My gut. This last one pushes me back, hunched over, sucking in air. My heel hits something solid, and I start to fall.
When my body reaches a thirty degree angle, I catch a glimpse of what’s beneath me. Nothing. I’m falling off the side! My only escape. I embrace it and let myself drop.
Then I stop, hovering out over a 325-foot fall. Endo has me by the shirt. When I reach out to wrench his hand away, he catches my wrist, yanks me up and flips me. After a short flight, I reach the terminus of my descent, landing square on my back. I’m wracked by coughs, as I roll to my knees and climb to my feet. Endo stalks toward me again and resumes his merciless assault, this time landing more punches than not.
A slap strikes my cheek. An open-palm slap. The man is fucking with me. Humiliating me! Before I can think, I lean into his punch, absorb it with my kidney and throw my hardest jab. I’m not sure whether it’s a good punch or because of the sudden reversal in strategies, but the strike connects hard with Endo’s chin, snapping his head back. While he stumbles back, I crumple to the roof, clutching my side, wishing I had arms like Shiva so I could clutch the rest of me.
Endo rubs his jaw. Blood drips from his mouth. “You can’t win.”
His arrogance is really starting to grate on me. As he closes in to resume my beating, his guard up, I lose my patience. With an angry shout I charge forward, linebacker style, arms spread wide. He makes me pay for the sloppy move by driving his foot into my crotch, but momentum and anger carry me past the pain.
I hit him hard, lifting him off the roof. I can feel his elbow driving into my back, again and again, but the pain is numb. Distant. It’s like when you have a headache and someone tells you to bite your finger, one pain driving the other away. Whatever he’s doing to my back can’t compare to the pain in my balls.
I jump, lean forward and slam the much smaller man into the roof, allowing my shoulder to compress his belly. He shouts in pain. Satisfying pain. Before he can recover, I fling myself away from his fist and wrap his lower limbs in a vicious leg lock. When I’m done with him, his days of prancing around me will be over.
I squeeze hard, eliciting a scream of pain from Endo. His muscles tear. His ligaments stretch, ready to snap. “You can’t win!” he screams again. Before I can wonder why he’s still convinced of victory, I feel a burning sensation spreading through my thigh. The burn transforms into mind-numbing pain, and my brain screams at me that something is fundamentally wrong with my body. I lean up to look, my side roaring in pain, and I see what’s happened.
There’s a knife in my leg.
26
The part of my mind that hasn’t gone numb, quickly takes stock of the injury. The blade is buried in the muscle of my leg, to the right of my femur, nowhere near my femoral artery. So I’m not going to bleed out. But that’s a weak bonus when you consider the fact that I’ve still got a fucking knife in my leg.
And then, it’s not. Endo pulls the blade free, and the pain loosens whatever grip I still had on the man. While I scream through grinding teeth, Endo rolls back to his feet. His face is flushed with pain and anger. I nearly had him.
My eyes find the knife in his hand. A small, two inch blade. The damage to my leg won’t be severe. While I climb to my feet, mental gears spin, tumblers fall into place, and I come to a realization.
Endo could have killed me. Probably several times during our fight, but certainly with the knife. I checked for my femoral artery because in a fight to the death, that would get the job done. And Endo certainly has the skill to have inflicted the wound, even while leg-locked. But he didn’t. He stabbed my muscle. With a small blade. The effort was enough to free himself, but not to seriously wound me. Sure, I’ll be limping for a while, but I’m far from dead, or even incapacitated.
Fists clenched and head tilted to the left, I share my discovery. “You’re not actually trying to kill me.”
Endo is expressionless for just a moment, but then his shoulders sag in defeat, and I understand: Endo wasn’t trying to kill me, but he needed me to believe he was. That was the plan all along, but I couldn’t be told.
A vibration moves through the roof, nearly knocking me over. “The hell was that?” I ask.
Endo, eyes wide, reaches into his pocket, removes a device and pushes a button.
“…on top of you!” Woodstock’s voice suddenly fills my ear. “Do you copy? She’s right—”
He doesn’t need to finish his sentence. The building shakes again, and we know exactly what’s happening. “Copy that,” I reply, trying to sound unfazed by everything. “Get into position and stand by.” I turn to Endo. “I’d start running, if I were you.”
He does run, but not the direction I expect. He comes at me, reaching into his black sport coat. He removes a slender box from the inner pocket, opens it and pulls o
ut what looks like a black swim cap with white circles all over it. “Put this on.”
I do what he says, but ask, “What is this?”
“It will boost the strength of your interface with Maigo.”
I put my hand up to the headset in my ear, identical to the one Endo had worn when he controlled Gordon, and me. “But this...”
“Is just the transmitter.” He slides the tight hat onto my head. Feels like my beanie cap.
“But you weren’t—”
He taps his head. “Surgical implant.” He looks back over his shoulder while the building continues to shake beneath our feet.
I’ve got a long list of questions, about how things work, about safety and protocol, but we’re out of time. The sound of rushing water rises up over the building’s roof.
Endo removes his coat, revealing the base jumping parachute that is his escape route—the very same method of egress I’d attempted to use by falling over the building’s edge. “Good luck,” he says, and sprints away.
I might normally watch his fall, see if the chute deploys in time to keep him from becoming a stain, but the massive form rising up on the other side of the roof has me transfixed. Water is whisked away by the wind, and the giant face, now above me, turns her brown eyes toward me. I see fury and anger, terrifying in its closeness and scope.
This...was a mistake.
I’m a dead man.
A sacrifice, like Alexander Tilly.
I can feel it with every fiber of my being.
And then I can’t.
Maigo’s giant eyes shift back and forth, searching for something that is no longer there. Endo. His disappearance and my relative safety has her confused. Her giant body begins tilting to the side. If she sees Endo, he’s in a world of trouble, and so am I, because her rage is blind. In her pursuit of the man who would have killed me, she might plow right through this building.
“Endo,” I say quickly and quietly, “Stay close to the building. She’s looking for you.” I don’t wait for a reply. “Woodstock, are you ready?”
“Good to go,” he says.
Nemesis continues to lean, her head now level with the building, and I’m sure she’s going to spot Endo. I limp toward her, fighting against every one of my instincts that are screaming like terrified, high-pitched Japanese anime girls. “Maigo!”
She either doesn’t hear me or she’s ignoring me. I take a deep breath and catch the scent of ocean still dripping from her maw. I shout louder this time, my voice scratchy with desperation. “Maigo!”
The beast pauses.
The one eye I can still see shifts toward me. I can see my reflection in her pitch black pupil; I’m bleeding and leaning to the side, eyebrows turned up in abject fear. It’s an embarrassing image. But it’s erased as she stands up straight again, looking down at me. A hot breath, rank with the scent of oceanic decay washes over me. Nearly knocks me to my knees—from the stink, not the force.
“Woodstock,” I whisper, trying not to move my mouth. “Now.”
I hear the distant whoosh of a rocket being fired, but I try not to react. Instead, I sit down. Nemesis’s eyes track me as I move, perhaps confused by my attempt at communication. Or perhaps trying to understand why she’s compelled to protect me. Maybe she’s just remembering the last time I stood atop an apartment building like this on the other side of the ruined North End.
“It’s the hat,” I say, touching the tight blue cap on my head. “Looks weird, right?”
No reaction. We’re definitely not communicating in any meaningful way right now. The part of her that is Maigo seems to respond to the name, but maybe doesn’t even know why.
Doesn’t matter, in a few seconds I’m going to have a front row seat to the madness that is Nemesis’s mind. I lie back on the scorching hot, tar roof, feeling its pliable surface give a little. If there’s a chance I’m going to end up in a coma, I want to do it lying down.
The building shakes as Nemesis shifts her weight, perhaps bored or impatient, preparing to leave. But she doesn’t get a chance. The rocket arrives with a roar, on target and unavoidable. It strikes the side of Nemesis’s head. Her temple, if she’s got one. But there’s no explosion other than the outer shell shattering and flitting away. Nemesis reacts less than I would if a mosquito flew into the side of my head.
Before the device that remains can fall away, four sharp claws snap out from the sides and clutch to Nemesis’s rough skin. A whirring sound pierces the air—the machine’s diamond tipped drill, burrowing into Nemesis’s skin. The neural implant looks tiny on the side of her massive face, but it appears to be doing its job.
Nemesis huffs in frustration, looking back and forth for the source of the irritating sound, and I realize the mosquito comparison is even more accurate. It’s nothing but a—
“Ahh!”
Seizing pain lances through my body, which arches involuntarily to the point I fear my back is going to fold over on itself. Then everything goes black.
When I awake, I find myself standing.
The floor beneath my feet is tile. Hard and white.
There’s a wall of windows to my right. A view of Boston, unscathed by Nemesis. But something is off. My perspective. I’m...short.
I look down. My hands are small. Tan. I’m wearing the clothing of a young girl just home from prep school. A Hello Kitty backpack rests at my feet.
Oh, shit. I know where I am.
“It’s okay, Maigo,” a sinister sounding male voice says.
I turn my eyes slowly up, pausing for a moment to watch the dark red fluid trace a path through the squares of grout on the floor. Then I see him. His face, pale and fat. Eyes burning like blue dwarf stars.
I hate him. For who he was and for what he’s done.
“It was an accident,” he says.
I know he’s lying, but I can’t say anything. Instead I stare at the motionless form of my mother, her manicured nails soiled with blood.
Mother...
In a blink, I’m me again.
But I’m still short.
The world has changed, but I know where I am.
I’m home. Christmas Eve. 1979.
No...No! I try to shout, but can’t. I’m on autopilot, reliving a nightmare.
27
The shouting stopped ten minutes ago. But it didn’t end like normal, which would have been slamming doors. It just...stopped. Suddenly. Mid-shout. I weep for several minutes, clutching my knees in the corner of my bedroom, bathed in the rainbow glow of a ceramic Christmas tree. When I stand, it’s not out of bravery, but curiosity. Perhaps things are okay?
Maybe they’re still wrapping my presents?
I decide to check. I move slowly across my room, pausing every time the radiator hisses or clicks. But I don’t make a sound. I open my door, pushing against it with my foot to keep the tight latch from thumping open the way it does.
The stairs are covered in thick rug and don’t creak, so the next part will be easy. Still, I take it slowly, lying down beside the banister at the top of the stairs, peering down into the home’s foyer. The dining room to the right is lit by the warm glow of electric candles in each window. To the left, the living room blinks with light from the TV. They’re watching a show, I think, and I start down the stairs, confident that neither of my parents will move until a commercial.
When I reach the bottom, I slowly peek around the doorway, but my view is blocked by the Christmas tree mom and I put up and decorated. The ornaments are old. 1950s stuff. The bulbs are the fat kind, not the small ones my friends have. My favorite part is the candy canes. They’re real, and no matter how many I steal, my mom keeps resupplying them. I crouch and look beneath the tree. The red and green striped blanket is still draped around the base, but there are no gifts.
Maybe they’re wrapping after the show? Or during and just haven’t put them under the tree yet? Most of my friends still believe Santa does all that work, but I caught my parents last year. Got spanked for it, but now I know t
he truth. Remembering last year’s spanking makes me wary. But curiosity is blind to the past. I lie down and slide behind the tree, pausing to take a deep breath of its pine scent.
When my father laughs at the television program, the last of my fear melts away. The fight is definitely over. With eager eyes, I push myself up over the side of the couch. My father sits at the far end, turned toward the TV in the corner of the room. My eyes move to the TV. The Golden Girls. Dad doesn’t normally watch this. Certainly not alone. But I don’t see—
A pair of feet on the floor catch my attention. I lift myself up a little higher and find my mother, sprawled out on the rug. There’s blood on her forehead. A scream rises in my throat, but I’m shushed.
The part of me that is an adult spectator is confused by the noise. That’s not how I remember it. When I look up, there is a girl standing above my mother. The me from minutes ago: plaid dress, Hello Kitty backpack, Asian. Maigo is here with me. Watching. She has an index finger pressed to her lips. “Shh! He will hear you!”
But he didn’t hear me. I contained the scream, slunk back out of the room, ran upstairs and used my parents’ rotary phone to call the police. I never saw my father again. My mother recovered from the attack that broke ribs and knocked her unconscious, but she was never really the same.
The memory resumes, playing out differently than I remember.
I step out from behind the tree and say to my father, “You did this.”
He looks startled. Hurt. “No! I found her like this. She did it to herself.”
I look back down at my mother. She’s covered in blood. Shot.
“She killed herself, Jon.”
“She wouldn’t,” I say. I’ve never believed anything so firmly in all my life.
“She did.” My father stands to his feet, his shoes squeaking on the white tile floor.
I shake my fists. “You killed her!”
My father frowns, crouches by my mother’s body and moves her hand.
Project Maigo Page 14
