Tether

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Why would she—”

  “Because of you and your damn bleeding heart,” she growls. I’ve never seen her this angry, and I’d have never expected it to be directed at me.

  My mind flashes back to the last time I saw Morgan. I was up early. She was getting ready for work. Really distracted. A heavy heart. I asked her what was wrong, and when she didn’t say anything, I poked and prodded until she presented me with a hypothetical situation in which a research bunny developed human intelligence. The scenario she presented was long and complicated, with a lot of unnecessary detail. Boiled down, she asked if it was okay to continue the experiment.

  I argued it wasn’t. I waxed about the sanctity of intelligent life. Hell, I had nearly convinced myself to be vegan by the time I was done.

  What I didn’t know at the time was that the bunny was human and that the human was Rain. As a result, Morgan did something to save Rain, but somehow doomed the rest of SpecTek as a result. But that doesn’t really answer the question about what the kaiju are and where they came from.

  Doesn’t really matter now, I think, looking up.

  Dalí reaches us first. Its bulbous head flexing, its long mantis arms swinging down from the sky, reaching to stab and crush, or simply sweep through us and suck our souls away.

  I clutch Rain, hoping she’ll keep me from having my soul sucked out.

  And then—light.

  Despite being unconscious, Rain begins to glow. It’s subtle at first, but then it flares to sun-like brilliance.

  “What’s happening?” Bjorn shouts, safe again thanks to Garcia, who has heard everything that’s been said and looks appropriately pissed.

  “There’s something else here!” I shout, looking for signs of Dragonfish.

  And then I hear it.

  A sing-song cry. It’s mournful, and then angry, building in intensity.

  But no one else can hear it.

  “Can you hear me?” I ask.

  In response, a massive creature flickers into the world, loose dangling bits of its gargantuan self drooping down around us. A single strand touches Rain’s body, connecting me to it.

  To Wisp.

  Its flowering body opens in the sky above us, blooming with urgency. Long flowing ribbons shoot out, wrapping around Dalí’s wrists, halting its attack with just feet to spare.

  “You saved us again,” I say, knowing it can hear me through Rain. I don’t know if it can understand me, though. “Why?”

  The answer comes as a pulse of energy, flowing through Rain’s body and into mine. For a moment, I glow, too. It hurts like hell, but it also lets me see…lets me really see…Wisp.

  The creature’s dangling tendril slips away from Rain. The connection with Wisp should be broken, but it’s not. If anything, it’s stronger. A glowing blue strand stretches down from Wisp, pulsing with light, with feelings of love and comfort and closeness. And it’s not touching Rain.

  It’s touching me.

  The tether connecting me to Wisp pierces my heart.

  Without having to ask or think, I know that it’s always been there. For the past day, anyway. Ever since the explosion at SpecTek… Ever since I touched that cold blue light. And with that knowledge comes the realization that the kaiju aren’t beings from another dimension—they’re people. Used to be, anyway.

  I reach a hand up toward Wisp. “M-Morgan?”

  I’m infused with a sense of wellbeing and confidence, and then I hear two words that confirm my horrible suspicion and churn my insides.

  “Run, Saul.”

  32

  I’m undone.

  Tears in my eyes, my body goes limp with shock. Sobs bubble up out of me. Here is the irrefutable proof that Morgan is no longer living. That she is no longer my wife. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’s not just dead, she’s a ghost—a lost soul—roaming the Earth. As a damn monster.

  Whatever she was involved in at SpecTek, she didn’t deserve this fate.

  As questions without answers pile up, my heart breaks. In life, Morgan was a beacon of love, hope, and beauty. In death…

  I look up at Wisp and find it nearly impossible to think of the kaiju as my wife. But then I see past the sheer size and otherworldliness of the monster and see the same love, hope, and beauty.

  She is here to save me.

  She’s been with me since Cambridge, watching over me, entering the realm of the living when the other kaiju close in. She is my protector.

  I look for the tether connecting us. It’s invisible again, but I know it’s there.

  I can feel it.

  Can feel her.

  And now, more than ever, she exudes power.

  Before I can fully wrap my head and heart around this revelation, Wisp’s dangling ribbons pull up into the sky above, just as a wave strikes and carries us beneath her massive form.

  Rain’s glowing body nearly slides from my now limp grasp. My body flexes, snagging her before she falls away.

  The wave deposits us fifty feet behind Wisp’s hovering body. While the petals and ribbons that make up the massive form flow, twist, open, and close, she has no wings to speak off. No way to fly in the real world. The laws of physics that require technology to defy them, no longer apply to her—or the other kaiju. I suspect that Brute and Dalí might be walking out of habit, perhaps not fully realizing that they are dead and capable of floating.

  While the wave has moved us behind Wisp, we are far from being safe. If I could paddle, I would, but we are at the mercy of the waves.

  Wisp’s sing-song call fills the air. Instead of pursuing the raft, Dalí goes on the attack, reaching for and clutching onto Wisp’s flowing body. Sharp, hooked arms cut through petals and ribbons.

  The sing-song becomes an ear-splitting shriek.

  The kaiju might be dead, but they still feel pain, at least from each other.

  Brute lunges around the battle, its many eyes locked on us with rabid intensity, now that Rain is glowing again. Being unconscious, she has no way to squelch the power, as she did on the train fleeing Boston. Not that it worked earlier. She was dark and the kaiju still came for her.

  Do they remember her?

  Morgan remembers me.

  I look up at my wife-turned-monster, enraged by her pain, but incapable of doing anything for her. Unless…

  I pat Rain’s cheek. “Wake up.”

  When she shows no signs of rousing, I give her a shake and shout. “Rain! Wake up!”

  “What are you doing?” Garcia shouts to me.

  “She can stop them,” I say. “She did it before. In Boston.”

  Garcia looks me in the eyes, weighing the validity of what I’m saying against forcefully bringing Rain out of a concussion. Maybe worse.

  “Do it,” she says, as another wave picks us up and carries us a little farther away.

  After being deposited in another trough, I give Rain’s face another tap, harder this time. “Rain! Wake up!” I raise my hand to strike her a bit harder. Not enough to leave a mark, but it’s going to sting. I swing down, but my open hand never reaches her cheek.

  Rain catches me around the wrist, squeezing. “I’m awake.”

  “Thank God,” I say, relieved.

  “We’re alive,” she says, more surprised than observant.

  “You saved us,” I say. “And we need you to do it again.”

  She lifts her hand, looking at the glow. “How close?”

  Before I can answer, we’re lifted up and over a wave. On our way down the far side, Rain gets an upside-down view of Wisp battling Dalí, and Brute working its way around the action toward us.

  “Can you shut them off?” I ask. “Like on the train?”

  “I didn’t shut them off,” she says, rolling over with a grunt and a wince. Her head is no doubt pounding, and her body must have taken a beating. “I…don’t really know what I did. It was more like pushing. Denying.”

  “Then deny away, lady,” Garcia says. “Or we’re toast.”

  I notice
that Reggie hasn’t said much of anything. She’s just clinging to the raft, waiting. For death or rescue, I’m not sure. But she is no longer with us, if that makes sense. Neither is Bjorn. While Reggie presented him as someone who might be able to help, I wonder if the man was really just a pawn meant to distract. Even if his background in paranormal science isn’t a ruse, like his claim to be a warlock, he’s been reduced to a blubbering mess.

  “They’re too strong,” Rain says. “Too present.”

  Her eyes lock on Wisp. “Is that—”

  “She’s fighting for us again,” I say.

  “She?” Rain asks.

  “Later,” I say.

  Brute rounds Wisp and Dalí, closing in. Desperate frenzy fuels it. Long ropes of glowing hair stretch toward us with static energy. Its long legs carve through the water, body shimmering with each lunge.

  It will reach us in seconds.

  Wisp crackles with light. It flows from deep inside and then bursts out through her myriad flowing limbs. With a burst of energy, she tosses Dalí to the side. While the towering monster falls, long ribbons jut out, wrap around Brute’s front limbs and bind them together.

  The four-legged kaiju topples forward, plunging beneath the waves, sending another tsunami in our direction.

  “I hate to be that person,” Garcia says, “But there were four of them, right?”

  I lean over the raft’s side, looking down into water that glows so brightly, I can see the bottom, several hundred feet below…and the creature giving off the light. Dragonfish swirls in the depths, swimming in a tight circle. It’s only then that I notice that the continuing onslaught of waves is lifting us up, but not really carrying us away. It’s impossible to see from water level, but I’m pretty sure if we could look down, we’d see the beginnings of a massive whirlpool, locking us in place.

  I turn to Rain, intending to beseech her again, but she’s no longer lying next to me. She’s on her knees at the center of the raft, a heatless star.

  “They’re using up their energy!” she shouts. “Burning themselves out.”

  It’s then that the toppling Dalí finally hits the water, the creature’s bulbous body and head fully in the land of the living. I can’t imagine how much kinetic energy the impact generates, but we’re about to find out.

  Brute rises from the water, flexing its arms apart until Wisp’s ribbons snap, drawing a sing-song cry of pain from the thing that was once my wife.

  The whirlpool grows faster, and as we swing around the outer edge, I see a basin form. Dragonfish doesn’t need to surface to catch us. We’ll be sucked down to it.

  I’m struck by an intense sense of wrongness, of being out of place, a mortal among gods. I have no business being here. A trespasser. But that’s not the truth. It’s the kaiju who don’t belong. They shouldn’t be here—including Morgan. Whatever the human spirit is meant to do after death, this isn’t it. This is a perversion…and if we survive, I’m going to put a stop to it.

  Somehow.

  The sound of a fifth monster approaching from the sky dashes any hope of survival. Its thundering chop makes me cringe, not just because it’s loud, but because it’s close. I’m struck by a vibrating wind and stung by whipped water pellets. By the time I turn around to look, Reggie is already half way up the helicopter’s dangling ladder. Bjorn is right behind her, missing every other step in his panic, but somehow matching her pace.

  Garcia holds the ladder still. “Let’s go!”

  I have no idea if Reggie will have the helicopter peel away without us. We have just seconds to climb onto the ladder before she reaches the top. Before the tsunamis reach us. Before the kaiju creatures claim us.

  “Rain!” I shout, yanking her glowing body toward the ladder.

  “I’m close!” she says.

  “We’re leaving!” I shout, taking hold of the ladder and motioning for Garcia to go first. She’s brave, but not stupid. She gives a nod and starts up.

  I tug Rain to her feet, and put the ladder in front of her. She’s in another world, experiencing who-knows-what, but she needs to get on this ladder. “If you don’t go up the ladder, we’re both…”

  She’s not really hearing me.

  And I’m not leaving her.

  So I wrap my arms around her and take hold of a rung. Then I slip my legs between hers, sit on a lower wrung and lock her in place. The moment her weight is added to mine it seems to increase ten-fold, testing the strength of my already worn-down arms, and my pain threshold, as her body presses against my ribs.

  When I open my eyes again, the weight shift makes sense. We’re being lifted into the air.

  But is it fast enough?

  Multiple waves bear down on us.

  Brute is right behind them, despite Wisp’s attempt to stop the creature.

  The swirling light below rises toward the surface.

  And all I can do about it is dangle like a worm on a hook.

  The waves reach us first, slapping into us, trying to drag us away. It’s a one-two punch of water, each one submerging us for a moment. The second, larger wave nearly breaks my bond to the ladder, but we emerge from its crest, still rising, swinging back and forth.

  Brute lets out a roar, and I let the sound puncture my ears. Letting go means death.

  The creature reaches for us, five hundred feet above the lake’s surface, rising toward the lightning-filled skies, buffeted by twisting winds, heavy, wet, and cold.

  Dragonfish explodes from the water, mouth agape.

  If one of them misses, the other won’t.

  Above all the chaos is an almost sweet song, like that of a whale, but brewing with power.

  Wisp.

  Rain gasps out of her trance-like state.

  “Hang on!” she shouts.

  “What do you think I’m—”

  An explosion of energy bursts from Wisp, pulsing through the sky. The clouds above bend away from its force. The waves below are flattened. The kaiju creatures flail, as though electrified. And the helicopter…it continues on its way.

  When the wave hits me, I feel transformed. Renewed. Loved. The power of Morgan’s life flows out and over Lake Michigan, wounding the spirits bent on destruction, while freeing the living from their grasp.

  This is the Morgan I knew.

  Rain grows bright one more time, squinting her eyes shut. “That did it!” She flickers with intensity, and now far below, the kaiju creatures wink out of reality, one at a time.

  When they’re gone, and Rain is dark again, I turn my eyes up to the helicopter, where Garcia looks down at me. I give her a grin and then see the logo painted on the helicopter’s side. It isn’t the Coast Guard who has come to our rescue.

  It’s SpecTek.

  33

  My soaked body shivers, but not from the cold.

  The summer heat and the dry helicopter cabin are comfortable, but recent revelations and fading adrenaline leave me in a state of shock.

  Morgan is dead, and is one of those…monsters.

  Reggie has betrayed me.

  We’ve been rescue-captured by the same people who might want us dead—or worse.

  I wonder if the assassin was there to extract information without exposing Reggie. It’s possible Reggie hadn’t been in contact with SpecTek at the time, that the killer didn’t know she was with us, that they were acting to contain without realizing Reggie was already doing that and hunting down answers. As much as I want to know what happened to Morgan, Reg wants to know what happened to the experiment.

  Instead of turning us in, she made us allies.

  Unwitting accomplices to her crimes.

  Arms folded, I sit between Rain and Garcia, and across from Reggie and Bjorn, who are framing the entrance to the cockpit. The pilots are as much a mystery as the specters, their faces hidden behind helmets and visors. I can see them talking. Can see Reggie replying. But the sound-blocking headsets given to everyone aside from Reggie don’t let us listen in or join the conversation. Reggie, on the
other hand, has been talking the whole time.

  She’s taken control.

  That’s not true. She was always in control. The only difference is that now I know.

  I glance down at Garcia’s hip. Her weapon is still holstered there, so there is some hope.

  But do I really want to escape?

  SpecTek and Reggie have the answers I want. So there’s that.

  On the other hand, they’ll probably kill me if I get those answers. Hell, they’ll probably kill me for what I know already. Garcia, too. Maybe even Bjorn. The only one of us not headed to the gallows is Rain, and I suspect her fate will be even worse. Then again, Reg knows that I can commune with the dead via Rain. Maybe I’ll share in her fate? Lab rats together.

  I look out the side window. Chicago smolders, but the heart of the city has been spared.

  A subtle grin slips onto my face. I can’t guess how many people died, or how many millions, maybe billions of dollars of damage was done. But without us, it would have been worse. A lot worse. I take a small measure of pride in knowing that I played a part in saving an entire city.

  Two cities.

  We didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but there’s no telling how much damage Brute would have done to Boston had we not led it away.

  Wasn’t just you, I remind myself, and by ‘you’ I mean the living.

  Morgan was there with me. The whole time.

  I look down at my chest. I can’t see it or feel it, but I know the connection to my wife’s spirit remains, even though she might be in some other part of the world, even though she no longer resembles anything human.

  As we circle around, O’Hare International Airport comes into view. I don’t see any planes going in or out, but the terminals and runways appear undamaged. Looking for planes in the sky, my eyes drift up.

  The storm has faded. The spectral blue glow is gone. All traces of the otherworldly have fled. But a swath of destruction has been left behind, along with millions of witnesses.

  No way they’re covering this up.

  And maybe they don’t have to. In Boston, the epicenter was SpecTek. The lab’s destruction was a precursor to the attack on Boston. It didn’t take a huge mental leap to connect them. But SpecTek doesn’t have an active lab in Chicago, and the destruction was widespread. The kaiju might have been here because of some memory of a lab, but very few people know that.