Tether

by Jeremy Robinson

  I can do this, I tell myself. I can do this.

  A gust of wind from a side street tips us to the left. It’s just a nudge, but it’s enough to redirect our course so that we’ll crash into a building inside of four blocks. At our current speed, that will be just a few seconds.

  Don’t panic. I turn the control stick to the right, hoping it’s the right thing to do. Don’t freak out.

  Captain Handsome slides out from under me, as Rain drags him away.

  “We’re descending,” she says, calm as can be.

  “Shit,” I say. She’s right. I’d been so focused on not crashing into a building that I forgot the ground. “Doesn’t this thing have autopilot or something?”

  “Not for navigating a city,” Reggie says, unbuckling the younger pilot and wrestling his body to move it backward. “Why doesn’t he know that? He does. He’s just panicking. Can’t say I blame him.”

  I glance at Reggie. Her self-conversation is on rapid-fire. She’s panicking, too.

  “This was a mistake,” she says, grunting as she drags the dead-weight pilot toward the door. “I belong in a lab, not in the field. Shouldn’t have brought them. They didn’t give you a choice.”

  “Reggie,” I snap. “Quiet!”

  I have no idea if I’ve hurt her feelings, but she falls silent.

  I slip into Captain Handsome’s empty seat and focus on the view ahead. My stomach twists. The street below is full of gridlocked cars. People flee, ants through a maze, running away from the plane crashing toward them.

  “Pull back on the stick,” I say to myself, tugging back gently, afraid pulling back hard will put us into a full loop.

  The nose comes up a bit, and as it does, I see something strange. The people running away from the plane stop in their tracks and start running toward the plane.

  What the hell?

  As the ground rushes up, I pull back harder, careful not to twist in either direction.

  We level out just twenty feet above the ground, screaming over the heads of fleeing pedestrians. And then I see it. Brute. Sensing Rain’s unleashed brightness, Brute has made a beeline through the city, cutting off our path ahead, charging straight toward us.

  I lock up, unsure about what to do. I’m not a pilot, and I think it will take some kind of ace to maneuver through the city, or around the kaiju.

  “Umm,” I manage to say again, and then I wince as my brilliant co-pilot takes the seat beside me.

  “Everyone buckle-up,” Rain shouts, taking the controls on her side. To me, she says, “I’ve got it from here.”

  “You can fly a plane?”

  “I have no idea,” she says, “but I feel like I can.”

  “Great,” I say, starting to feel a little punch-drunk. “Awesome. Channel your inner R. Kelly.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Rain says, taking the controls. “You can let go now.”

  “You don’t know I Believe I Can—whoa!”

  The plane angles up into a steep climb that takes us straight toward Brute’s head, six hundred feet up, a half mile out and closing.

  “Okay, yeah, I suppose that could be taken the wrong way,” I say, gripping my armrests. “I wasn’t telling you to channel your inner sexual predator.”

  Rain shoots me a brilliant glance.

  “Sorry,” I say, pushing myself deeper into my seat—or is that the G-forces? “I’m nervous.”

  “Well,” Rain says, still sounding calm. “You should be.”

  Brute’s two-fingered hand reaches out for the front of the plane. I have no idea if we’ll collide and explode or pass straight through and have our souls sucked away. Either way, we’re about to die. I don’t think Rain is suicidal, but if we pass through the kaiju, she’ll survive. That was established in Boston. So maybe she’s planning to save herself, and not the rest of us?

  That doesn’t really jibe with her character, though.

  And she confirms it a moment later, twisting the stick to the left—and then we’re upside down, pulling back hard. It’s hard to describe what happens here. It’s kind of a nauseating blur. But I’m pretty sure we’ve just twisted around the hand, dived back toward the ground upside down, then leveled out just above the street again.

  My head spins for a moment, but it clears in time for me to see us pass between Brute’s hind legs, which are something like a goat’s legs, covered in long, thick strands of glowing hair that stretch out toward us as we pass. We clear Brute’s far side and exit the city’s core unscathed…not counting the pilots…

  Then we ascend again, this time at a more reasonable pace.

  Realizing Rain can not only fly, but can do so with skill, I say, “Take us out over the lake. Let’s see if they follow.”

  “And then?”

  I shrug. “We do circles until this blows over?”

  “You’re a tactical genius,” she says, deadpan. When a hint of a smile emerges on her bright face, I can’t help but laugh.

  “How long was the attack in Boston? Ten minutes? Maybe there’s a time limit for how long they can exist in the land of the living? That’s my only idea.”

  “Well,” Rain says, turning the plane toward the lightning-illuminated lake. “It’s an idea.”

  I look out the cockpit window, straining to see the city to our right. What I can see looks mostly unharmed. But what I can’t see are the kaiju.

  Reggie returns to the cockpit, looking a little green. When she reaches for the control panel, Rain says, “What are you doing?”

  “Rearview,” Reggie says. “You can fly in a straight line without the fancy screens? Of course, she can. She can do loop-de-loops in a city street.” She pushes a few buttons and the screen switches to a multi-spectrum view of what’s behind the plane. While she might not be able to pilot the plane, she knows her ways around the controls, which isn’t really surprising. Hell, she might have designed parts of the Cessna.

  The city is easy to see in the image, its digitally rendered buildings are stark against a simulated and stormless sky. But there’s something wrong with the image. The buildings are intact—all of them. The system must be combining the camera data with GPS, radar, and who-knows-what else to create a live 3D map of the area. Which might be why the image also doesn’t show any of the kaiju.

  “Sorry,” Reggie says, rapidly adjusting the image until all that remains is a visual display of what’s behind us.

  The dark sky flashes blue. In between lightning pulses, when the city is dark, the monsters behind us stand out, their shimmering bodies wavering in and out of the world. All three of them are there, storming after us.

  With each step, Dalí and Brute slash their way through buildings. The destruction is immense, but at least they’re not rampaging through the city’s core. In a few seconds, they’ll enter the lake. If they remain fixated on whatever energy Rain puts out, we’ll do a holding pattern over the water until they fade back out of existence. We could lead them all the way to Canada, if we needed to.

  “C’mon, assholes…” I whisper. “Come and get us.”

  “I’m not really sure taunting the monsters is a good idea,” Reggie says.

  “Are we clear?” Garcia says, on her feet again.

  “For now,” I tell her.

  She tugs Reggie’s arm, pulling her out of the doorway. “You can sit.” Reggie is about to complain, but Garcia cuts her off. “I think your boyfriend needs a hug.”

  A buckled up Bjorn is fetal-positioned in his seat, his shade drawn. Reggie hesitates and then gives in.

  Garcia takes her place in the cockpit doorway. “Nice flying. Where’d you learn to do that?”

  “She doesn’t know,” I say.

  “I don’t know,” Rain confirms, when Garcia calls bullshit with her infamous eyebrow.

  Garcia notices the rearview screens. Leans in for a closer look. “What the hell are they?”

  “Still trying to figure that out,” I say. “But…this is going to sound insane.”

  “
There are giant monsters destroying Chicago.” She motions to Rain. “And she’s a damn human flood light. Whatever you’re thinking, it can’t be weirder than that.”

  “They’re ghosts,” I say.

  “Ghosts…” She cranes her head toward me, but the eyebrow isn’t raised. “Great… Of what?”

  “I can only guess,” I say, “and my guesses are definitely weirder than the ghost part.” She raises both eyebrows this time. I give in. “They could be demons.”

  Garcia flashes a faux smile. “Let’s stick with ghosts. What makes you think they’re…supernatural?”

  I motion to Rain, “She can connect with them…feel them, I guess.”

  “A glowing ghost-magnet.”

  “Pretty much, yeah. And if she touches a ghost, they can speak through her.”

  “Like a medium,” Garcia says.

  “But real,” Rain adds, piloting us out over the water.

  “And…” I say, unsure about where her suspension of disbelief is going to hit a wall. “…if I touch her, while she’s in contact with the ghost, I can talk to it.”

  “Have you tried that with them?” she says, pointing at the rearview and rolling with the freakshow punch like she’d heard it before. And maybe she has. I can’t remember exactly what was discussed when she was pretending to be unconscious, but communicating with the dead was probably part of the mix.

  It’s my turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow in her direction.

  “If they’re ghosts, then they’re here for a reason, right? They want something. That’s the way it works in movies. Find out what they want, give it to them, and hello afterlife. Best way to get answers is to ask questions.”

  I try to find a flaw in her logic, but can’t. What I do find is fear. A lot. To connect with one of the kaiju would mean Rain coming into contact with it, and me being close enough to touch her…putting me easily within soul-sucking range. I’m not sure I’m brave enough for that…even if I do have nothing left to live for. The problem isn’t death itself. Now that I know there is some kind of life after death, I really don’t want to be trapped inside a kaiju for all eternity. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re just roaming the Earth, or in some kind of Heaven or Hell, but I can’t shake the feeling that all those people now belong to the kaiju that extracted their spirits.

  While I have zero information to back the hypothesis up, fear doesn’t require evidence or facts.

  “Looks like you might get your chance sooner rather than later,” Garcia says.

  My eyes snap to the rearview. As Brute pounds into the water, sending out a wave that will damage the lake’s far side, Dragonfish soars up and over its unholy brethren, its deranged eyes locked on us, its long lower jaw—full of dagger-teeth—unhinged and ready to feed. Its broad, hairy wings beat at the air as its serpentine body writhes.

  The monster is quicker than its legged friends, and judging by how large it’s getting in the rearview, it’s also faster than us.

  Rain glances back at Garcia. “Better sit.”

  Garcia rushes to the back, telling Reggie to buckle up, fastening herself in and then shouting, “Punch it!”

  29

  I look for the Cessna’s speedometer, assuming planes have speedometers. I don’t spot a familiar car-style gauge, but I do find a digital readout in the top left-hand corner of the display screens.

  965.606 kph.

  Kilometers per hour.

  This means nothing to me. I’m an American, after all. But I think it’s fast. Probably close to the plane’s top speed, though the digits are slowly climbing.

  The plane shakes as strong winds roll off the lake and slam headlong into the Cessna. Dragonfish is still gaining. Whatever supernatural energy powers the thing has, it’s got more punch than jet fuel, and I suspect the wind has little effect on a creature that can be fully part of the world, and then not.

  Distance is hard to judge through the view screen, but we’ve got just seconds before it reaches us, whether it be five or fifteen.

  “Any ideas?” Rain asks.

  Her simple question nearly undoes me. At every turn, Rain has proven herself to be resourceful and knowledgeable. My very own Ethan Hunt, despite her lack of memory. That she’s asking me for ideas means she’s out of them.

  “Uhh,” I say. I feel bad that my most recent contributions to our predicament have been a series of ‘umms,’ and ‘uhhs,’ but shit, I’m about as far out of my comfort zone as a hamster in one of those little runny balls…at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

  “Never mind,” she says, and she yanks back on the controls. We’re thrown into a rapid ascent that pins me to my seat. In the back, Bjorn groans.

  Focus on Dragonfish, I tell myself. Don’t puke.

  The rearview is empty. I can see the lake’s frothing waters reflecting the shimmering clouds above.

  For a moment, I think we’ve out-maneuvered Dragonfish, but then its awkward jaws snap shut just behind us. A loud snap rolls through the plane, and the volume of those massive teeth clashing together is painful to hear.

  The plane twists 180 degrees and then pulls back in a tight turn that shifts the view out the windshield from the lightning-filled sky to its reflection in the water below.

  In the back, screams. I’m not sure who from. Maybe all of them.

  On our way back down, Rain pilots the plane around the backside of Dragonfish’s long body. Though the creature has turned to follow us again, its thousand-foot-long body is still rising. Not only that, it’s still reaching for us.

  “Damnit,” Rain grumbles.

  The tail tip sweeps toward us, on a collision course with the cockpit.

  This is it, I think. This is how I die.

  My soul will either be sucked away, or I’ll be crushed in the air over Lake Michigan, destined to haunt boaters as a spirit, because I am not ready to die. Not until I know what happened to Morgan. Not until I have justice for her.

  “Take my hand!” Rain shouts, reaching out. I can’t see her fingers. They’re lost in radiance.

  I reach out, feel her fingers lock with mine, and I’m slightly comforted by the fact that I will not die alone.

  The bright blue tail flickers as it swings into the cockpit, shifting out of the physical world and into the ether. It slips through the nose and console without damaging the plane. Then it strikes Rain, whose light goes supernova.

  And then…

  It hits…

  Me…

  I’m stretched out. Time slows. I see my body below me, mouth open in anguish, eyes clenched shut, frozen in place. My hand is still touching Rain, who looks…angelic.

  The light emanating from her is no longer harsh to my eyes. It’s…beautiful. It calls to me, promising peace. I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life. I try to go to her, but I can’t move.

  Like my physical body, I am frozen. Locked in place.

  I see my new self for the first time. I’m still me, but transformed. A being of light. Of energy. Like the kaiju. Like the light streaking into the sky at SpecTek. And I’m stretched out. Distorted, as part of me still clings to my mortal coil, part of me stretches for Rain, and the rest of me is yanked away by Dragonfish.

  The moment I give the monster the slightest bit of attention, I’m washed in raw emotion. I feel confusion, rage, betrayal.

  “I want to go home!” The voice is feminine. Desperate.

  Is it Dragonfish or one of its victims?

  An electric jolt courses through my soul, arcs through my body, and draws a scream of pain from Rain.

  For a moment, I feel her hand squeezing mine. My real hand.

  She is anchoring me. Resisting the monster’s pull.

  “Who are you?” I ask the monster, speaking without lungs, vocal cords, or mouth. It’s more like pure thought, and it is heard.

  “Arrgghh!” The voice booms, vibrating my spirit. Loosening Rain’s grip. Anger. Burning. “Pol-ash-kee!”

  Everything I’m experiencing supports my theory
that these things have been ripped here from some other plane of existence. It wants to go home. Its name is otherworldly. And there’s no way beings so large could have naturally evolved or existed on Earth.

  Then again, it’s speaking English.

  Or perhaps that’s just how I’m hearing it, the unspoken-yet-heard words understood by supernatural means.

  Bullshit, I think. All of it.

  “Where is home?” Rain’s voice filters to me from the real.

  I repeat the question with a thought. Where is home?

  I’m struck by a series of images, each carrying the weight of turbid emotion.

  A desk. Small. Inside a school. A pencil scratching over paper. Adventure.

  I smell chemicals. There’s glass everywhere. Liquids. Community.

  A laboratory. Clean and brilliantly lit. A breakthrough.

  I miss it.

  I miss it so much.

  Where are you?

  These are not my thoughts. Nor are they the thoughts of a monster.

  Another lab. Tension. Blue light. Screams. Betrayal.

  A face. Out of focus. Full of sorrow.

  She did this.

  SHE DID THIS!

  I wake from the dream, back inside my body. Just a moment has passed. The flickering tail tip slips away from me and out of the plane’s nose.

  I’m alive.

  Rain saved me.

  Again.

  I turn to thank her when a vibration rocks the plane.

  “It hit the wing!” Garcia shouts.

  Alarms sound. The plane’s nose dips down, as Rain pulls back on the stick.

  We’re going down.

  “Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

  “Get in the back,” Rain says. “Put your head between your knees.” For a moment, I think she’s joking. Then she shouts, “Now!”

  I unbuckle from my seat, but don’t stand. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  “Saul,” she says, and I think it’s the first time she’s actually said my name. The light billowing from her face dims. I can see her eyes, blue and piercing, locked onto mine.