Kaiju Corps

by Matthew Dennion

  Pieces of the concrete floor that had been thrown into the air as the robot tunneled its way into Hangar 5 rained down on the Horsemen who had not managed to escape. The robot quickly scanned the room, and the first thing that it did was to destroy the remaining TR-3Bs. Timothy was in awe of the robot’s speed and power. It took the robot less than ten seconds to smash eight TR-3Bs to pieces using nothing but its hands.

  What happened next terrified Timothy even more as the robot picked up one of the sonic cannons that was going to be attached to a TR-3B and effortlessly connected the weapon to its right arm. Timothy grabbed his tablet and entered in the code to cause the building to self-destruct. To his horror, nothing happened. He quickly looked toward the bay door operators who were staring at the robot. Timothy screamed, “Shut the bay doors! We need to keep that thing in here! We are going to have to initiate the self-destruct manually!”

  One of the men near the bay door hit the button to close it causing the doors to slowly slide shut. The closing of the bay door made no difference to the robot. The bay doors were far too small for the robot to exit through. The robot aimed its sonic cannon at the exterior wall of the hangar, set it continuous fire, and then blasted an opening large enough for it to walk out of right through the side of the mountain. The robot stepped away from the facility and then it ignited its thrusters and leapt into the sky. The robot altered its course to head east then it rocketed over the horizon.

  A second TR-3B robot’s head appeared out of the hole in the middle of the floor created by its predecessor. Timothy screamed, “Attack that thing with whatever we have! We need to keep it in the building!” Timothy motioned for one of the security guards to follow him. Timothy and the guard ran over to one of the magnetic missiles. They picked up the rocket and then Timothy motioned for two other guards to follow him. The four men then ran out of the hangar as guns opened fire on the robot. Timothy, the guard who was helping him carry the magnetic weapon, and the other two guards turned the corner and ran down the stairs leading to the basement and the explosives that constituted the facility’s self-destruct apparatus.

  In Hangar 5, rifles blazed as security forces fired their bullets in vain at the kaiju-sized robot that was tearing through Hangar Five. To their credit, each person in the hangar knew that they were going to die, and despite that fact, they fought with the courage of a pride of lions. Even the research team members grabbed emergency flares, fire hoses, and whatever else they could find to try and use to try and keep the robot from exiting the building.

  Timothy and the guards that had accompanied him ran to the doors that housed the explosives for the self-destruct system. Timothy pulled the magnetic missile over toward the door and quickly attached it. He activated the weapon and then he stepped back as the weapon created a small but powerful magnetic field that pulled the six-foot-high and two-foot-thick steel door into a sphere that was no larger than a bowling ball. Timothy could see the explosives that lined the bottom and the sides of the facility staring at him. He could hear the security forces above as they continued to fire at the TR-3B robot. Timothy looked at the guards who were standing next to him with their rifles in hand. He yelled at them, “Shoot it! Shoot it now!”

  The two guards unleashed the fury of their rifles on the explosives. Several floors above Timothy and the guards, the second TR-3B robots was making its way toward the opening created by its predecessor when the entire facility blew up in an explosion with a payload equal to a small nuclear bomb.

  Chapter 14

  Chicago

  Thomas and Clarissa arrived in Chicago roughly thirty minutes after the destruction of the Catskill Mountain facility. As their craft flew over the city, they were able to see the utter devastation that had occurred to it. They Instructors knew that death and destruction were occurring on a scale that was unprecedented but to actually behold what had occurred with their own eyes forced them to confront the horror that the Signal had brought to their planet on a personal level. The hundreds of thousands of dead bodies that lined the streets were difficult enough for them to look at, but when they saw the saw bloodied bodies of Garudasaurus, Bearadon, Chagon, and Leviathan resting in the middle of the city, it brought them to tears.

  They had helped in creating the Kaiju Corps for the very purpose of standing on the front lines of a battle to prevent the extinction of humankind. They had instructed and trained the members of the team to be soldiers, and like all soldiers, to be willing to give their very lives in order to complete their mission.

  While Thomas and Clarissa had worked with the Kaiju Corps toward this end for over two decades, they had also helped to raise to them. The Instructors had no other family save for the Horsemen themselves. The Kaiju Corps were their children. The scientist and trainers within the Instructors looked down on the soldiers they had generated to see that they had performed their duties to the utmost and it filled them with a sense of pride. Simultaneously, they looked down at the children they had raised to see them bloody and injured at the hands of the robots they had fought off, and the parents within the Instructors were overwhelmed with sorrow at seeing their children in such pain.

  Clarissa was starting to tear up when Thomas looked at her and put her feelings into perspective. “As I look down at them, I am filled with a sense of accomplishment and empathy. They are exactly what we had hoped they would be when we created them and prepared them for this moment. As scientists and teachers, we successfully prepared them to defend the planet. This is something I was prepared for. It’s the other feelings that I am experiencing that no one can prepare themselves for.” He shifted his gaze so that he was looking down at Garudasaurus. “Every parent eventually reaches that point of their children’s life when the child they raised has become an adult. The parent must face the realization that their capacity to protect and shield their children from the world is now limited to a role of merely supporting them as they can. I suppose that this must be particularly difficult for the parents of soldiers who watch their children place their lives on the line in order to protect others.” He looked back toward Clarissa. “Jerome is his own man now. He is a soldier, and I could not be prouder of him for what he has accomplished so far. I may not be able to protect him from what lies ahead, but I can support him in his cause.”

  He shifted gaze back to Clarissa. “They are going to need at least twenty-four hours to heal before we can talk to them anyway. Even after they return to their human forms, they are going to need time to eat and sleep before they can battle in another city.” He pointed to the six TR-3Bs that were lining the streets roughly ten blocks from where the Kaiju Corps were resting. “Let’s use our timely wisely and support them as best we can. We are going to fly those TR-3Bs over the city, and we are going to broadcast a message that the robots are defeated, the monsters are here to protect us, and that we need all remaining citizens to report to designated areas where they can best be utilized to help us enact the next part of our plan. We will need physicists, chemists, mechanics, meteorologists, and even people like jewelers and watchmakers who can help us with the collection, assembly, and deployment of the nuclear bombs that we are going to use to disperse our EMPs across the world.” He looked back toward the ruined city. “Then we are going to find police officers, firefighters, and teachers. People who are skilled at organizing others and conveying information to them to help us move the remaining population to an area where they can rebuild. Then we will need doctors and nurses to help address medical needs as well.”

  Thomas looked back to Clarissa. “If we can support the Kaiju Corps in this way… If we can organize the beginnings of the next stage of human civilization as well as orchestrate the attacks that will cease the creation of more robots across the globe, we can make a difference in this war. We can give our children the opportunity they need to recover and continue to fight.”

  He reached out and grabbed Clarissa’s hand. “Most importantly, we will be able to increase the chances that our children will surv
ive this war.”

  Clarissa nodded. “We have a lot of work to do.” She yelled up to the pilot, “Bring us down near those other TR-3Bs.”

  The craft quickly landed next to the other TR-3Bs, and as soon as Thomas and Clarissa stepped out of their craft, they saw the TR-3B that was carrying Susan flying toward their location.

  Clarissa jumped off the TR-3B, and she as did so, Brian Linke came running over toward her. She smiled at him. “Mr. Linke, my name is Clarissa. I am one of the people who was communicating to you through your tablet. I understand that you think you have made progress on disconnecting the TR-3Bs from outside communications?”

  Brian nodded. “Yes, ma’am, and please, call me Brian. As far as I can tell from the TR-3B’s schematics and its internal programming, all of the ships that I have addressed so far should be safe from being compromised by the Signal. The downside is that for now that TR-3Bs are also unable to communicate with each other when they are in the air.”

  Clarissa nodded. “Brian, you have been tremendously helpful. In the face of the greatest crisis humankind has ever faced, you have stepped up and done everything you can to fight against the threat. I want to thank you on behalf of everyone. Without you, the TR-3Bs may have fallen under the control of the Signal, and if that were to happen, this war would already be over.” She placed her hand on his shoulder. “I know that you are exhausted, but if you could disconnect this TR-3B and the other that has just landed, we will see that you can get some food and some much-needed rest.”

  Brian smiled. “Thanks that would be much appreciated. Let me get these two crafts disconnected before they start turning into giant robots.”

  Clarissa smiled at the young man’s attempt at humor, but in the back of her mind, she was thinking about the TR-3B robot that emerged from the Catskill Mountain Facility and disappeared.

  As Brian was disconnecting the TR-3Bs that had escaped from the Catskill Facility, Clarissa called over the pilots of the crafts. She immediately began outlining the next steps of her plan to the pilots, and in doing so, she was forced to rely on tools and methods that she had not used since her days in grade school. Clarissa quickly jotted down an announcement that she wanted the pilots to read over their loud speakers as they flew over the city.

  Citizens of Chicago, we represent the Horsemen. We are an organization that is dedicated to protecting the Earth from potential extinction-level threats. The giant robots that had attacked the city were created by a Signal that has taken over the planet’s technology. For the foreseeable future, we will not have power or electricity available to us. We are working to rectify this issue and to fight the threat presented by the Signal and the robots it is creating. We will require your help in continuing to fight this war. Please listen carefully to the following orders and enact them as quickly as possible. We understand that following these orders will require many of you to leave your families during a time of crisis. We will reunite you with your families at a later date, but for now, their safety and the safety of our entire species depends on you doing what you can to assist in this crisis. We need all physicists, chemists, mechanics, and watchmakers to report to Wrigley Field. All doctors, nurses, and EMTs, please report to the nearest hospital. For the rest of you, if you are near one of the many people who are badly wounded, please take them to the nearest hospital. Everyone else, please report to the waterfront where further instructions will be given.

  Clarissa had recopied the announcement for each of the pilots, and then within an hour, the TR-3Bs were slowly floating over Chicago as the pilots read the instructions over their loudspeakers to the people who were hiding throughout the city. Clarissa moved between hospitals, and she did the best that she could to coordinate the efforts of the medical staff there.

  Susan was stationed at the waterfront where she worked with the civic leaders that Thomas had mentioned on preparing the survivors for the lives that they would now have to lead. She instructed them on how they would need to work in cooperation as best as they could to scavenge food, use what they could to heat water so that it was potable, and to fish the lake for food. Some of the more forward-thinking survivors voiced their concerns about the lack of power and the harsh winter that was headed their way to Susan. She recognized their fears, but she also dissuaded them from discussing this issue with the other survivors for as long as possible in order to prevent a panic. Susan knew that more than half of the survivors within the city would die in the next year from cold, starvation, and disease, but she also explained to the people that approached her with these concerns that there was nothing they could do about it. She suggested that what they could do right now was to help the survivors deal with the challenges they currently faced in hopes that it helped them to find an inner strength that would allow them to face the greater challenges that awaited them down the road.

  Their current challenge was to remove the corpses and body parts that littered the streets before disease spread across the city. The people of Chicago were forced to gather up the remains of nearly half of the city’s population, including their friends and loved ones, and carry them to mass funeral pyres. The bodies of the dead were piled up in the streets, doused in accelerants, and then burned. The smell of the burning dead blanketed the entire city by nightfall.

  Thomas worked with the scientists and craftsmen. He gave them very specific details on the materials that they would need to construct the detonators needed to arm the nuclear bombs located in New Jersey.

  To the credit of both the Instructors and the people of Chicago, everyone was where they were supposed to be, working on the tasks given to them within twenty-four hours. During that time period, that Kaiju Corps remained in their monster forms and healed. When they had finished healing, they returned to their human forms. They ate a quick meal and then occupied one of the many hotel rooms where they were given twelve hours to sleep before they discussed their next mission with the Instructors.

  Chapter 15

  Once the Kaiju Corps had returned to their human forms, the pilots and the Instructors had to help them walk to the hotel, force them to eat a least an energy bar, and then help them into their rooms. Nick and Miki didn’t even have the chance to talk to each other about what had happened. He had no doubt that the time they spent embracing each other in their kaiju forms had conveyed to Miki that he shared her feelings, but he desperately wanted to talk to her in their human forms. He could see though as Susan had half-carried Miki to her room that she was in no condition to talk about anything until she had some rest.

  As Michelle and Jerome were being helped to their rooms, Michelle briefly asked Jerome if after a few hours of sleep that he would come to her room to discuss their plans regarding the continued war against the Signal and its robots.

  Jerome managed five hours of sleep before he woke up. He knew that his body needed more rest, but he pushed that thought aside, forced himself to get dressed, and walk down to Michelle’s room. Jerome had always taken his role of team leader very seriously. He had always tried to be available to his team members when they needed him. He also knew that if Michelle wanted to talk to him that meant she had something very serious to discuss.

  He walked down to her door and he knocked gently on it so as not awaken Miki who was sleeping in the room next door.

  Michelle was completely naked when she opened the door. Jerome didn’t think much of this, as all of the members of the Kaiju Corps had regularly seen each other without clothes as a result of their transformation process. Michelle would often forgo clothes if they were in the middle of a training session in order to transform into a kaiju as quickly as possible. Given the threat they were facing, he didn’t blame her for wanting to be ready to fight as quickly as possible. He was even a little ashamed that he did not think of it himself. Still, even though he knew that she was simply keeping herself in a state of being ready for battle, he kept his eyes fixed on her face. Michelle was a beautiful woman, but she was also a fierce warrior both as a human and
a kaiju, and Jerome had no intention of aggravating her in any of her forms.

  To Jerome’s surprise, she smiled as she opened the door. Jerome only took note of this fact because Michelle hardly ever smiled. She was the type of woman who kept her feelings to herself. Even when she was in her Bearadon form and engaged in battle, she never seemed angry. Michelle was always in control of her emotions, and she was always surveying the situation around her with a keen eye.

  She motioned for Jerome to come into her room. “Thank you for coming, Jerome. As I said, there is something of the utmost importance that I need to discuss with you.”

  Jerome walked over to a chair in the room and sat down. “As always, I value your perspective on missions, and given what we currently face, I can use your input now more than ever.”

  Michelle smiled at him and Jerome did his best to smile back. He could tell that something was bothering Michelle because her usual sense of self-confidence was gone. She seemed unsure of herself and how she should proceed. Jerome tried his best to probe her feelings without hurting her pride. “Michelle, I can see that something is bothering you. Whatever it is, if there is anything that I can do to help you with it, please just let me know. I know I don’t often discuss personal matters with you, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about your feelings. What we are currently facing is beyond what any of us were ever prepared for. If you feel the need to share what you are feeling with someone, you can feel free to do so with me. Nothing that you can say would ever change the respect that I have for you as a person or as a soldier.”

  Michelle did the one thing that Jerome would not have expected from her when she burst out laughing. She was laughing so hard that her eyes were tearing up. She looked at the confused Jerome, and she did her best to apologize to him in between laughing. “I am sorry, Jerome. It’s not you or what you said. It’s just that with what you and I are facing, I don’t know how to handle it, and for some reason, it just came out as laughter.”