But here, warm and safe, he...
Gordon remembered he no longer had a bed.
Or a home.
He opened his eyes slowly. The subtle movement exhausted him. He hadn’t felt this weak in a long time. The darkness of slumber was unchanged by the opening of his eyes. So he focused on his other senses. He could feel the bed and blanket. The weight of it felt good, but it was warm...and damp. As was the air, which smelled of rotting meat. Whale meat. He’d come to know the scent well, as his children swam the oceans, consuming everything they could catch to keep up with their rapidly expanding size. Lacking the growth hormones given to Maigo, they couldn’t match Nemesis’s growth factor, but they were catching up. And while three of them were smaller, the other two...
Gordon grinned.
He knew where he was.
The blanket was a tongue.
Rise, he thought, and he felt the bed beneath him shift. When it leveled out again, he thought, open. Wide jaws opened slowly and carefully, like the cargo door of a C-130 Hercules transport plane, if you ignored the three-foot-tall teeth.
The tongue lifted, and Gordon stood. He walked to the edge of the mouth on shaky legs and held on to a tooth for balance. It was night, but he could see the ocean before him, lit by the moon.
He’d been afraid of the ocean as a young man. Mostly because of Jaws. Being eaten alive, while drowning, had been the most prevalent nightmare of his youth. Now, there wasn’t a creature alive that he feared. Save one. Part of him wanted to run the other way. He had the children. In time, their strength would match Nemesis’s. Combined, they already did. But while he had the children, he also had her heart, and it was impossible to ignore. He needed her back, or...
His mind, still in the gap between sleep and wakefulness, considered new options. He’d been driven to strengthen his tether with Nemesis, to make himself whole again. But what if that tether could be fully broken? Painful, perhaps, but he would be free from this constant nagging desire.
No, he thought, the idea of losing that part of him felt revolting.
But... If there’s no other recourse...
“I’ll kill her,” he said, speaking to the ocean. Saying the words aloud made him cringe. Could she hear his thoughts? Could she feel his desires? There were times he felt the connection between them growing stronger, but it always faded, leaving him feeling empty and lost.
His eyes dropped and his head turned down. He was weary. His chest looked different. Where there had once been thick, black skin, there was now a smooth, milky band of flesh. He placed a finger against the surface and rubbed. The white came away like wet chalk. He squinted at the gunk, confused by its presence, but he quickly forgot about it as a soft orange light glistened over the night time water. He searched the area for a boat. For a helicopter. But he was still alone, with his child.
The light is coming from me, he realized, looking down again. From my chest! He wiped at his chest, shucking away sheets of white until the darkness was pushed back by a warbling orange glow. Gordon grinned. His chest was full of swirling orange liquid.
Memories of his last confrontation with Jon Hudson and Katsu Endo returned. The explosion. It hadn’t been a weapon. It was him. He’d exploded! The blast had weakened him, but he had survived. For a moment, he dared to hope that Hudson had been killed in the explosion, but his connection to Nemesis had not changed. The man still lived.
For now.
And Endo. He’d done something. Violated his mind. Controlled him. But that wasn’t all. In the moments before the explosion, Gordon glimpsed Endo’s thoughts. He felt Endo’s desires. He saw how they would be accomplished. And he understood the enemy’s plan. Endo had unknowingly supplied Gordon with the keys to victory.
As his strength returned, Gordon smirked. He reached up to the side of his head, felt the device still there, and pinched it gently. With a secure grip, he pulled it from his thick flesh and looked at it. The small device looked harmless, but Gordon understood its threat. It could turn anyone, or anything into a weapon. It could undermine his control of the children and prevent him from reconnecting with Nemesis.
Endo and his employers would need to be eliminated. Then Hudson. And if the connection to Nemesis couldn’t be re-established, she would follow. It was a vague plan at best, but it was a start. And upon its completion, he and the children would carry out the deepest desires of their hearts—the judgment and execution of the human race.
Gordon closed his eyes and focused on the children, spread out around the world. At first, they had dispersed to feed, so that the disappearing wildlife would be less noticeable. When they rose to strike Hong Kong and Sydney, it was to spread confusion, to keep the enemy looking elsewhere while he closed the distance. If not for Nemesis, that plan would have worked. But now...there was no reason to hide. No reason to separate.
Gordon was still a general.
The time for war had come again.
He needed his army.
24
The roof of the FC-P headquarters has become my sanctuary while the work crews repair the damage to the stairwell wall. They’re using a lot of the original bricks, knocked out by Gordon, so it won’t look too funny. Not that I care about aesthetics, but seeing a lighter red circle of bricks in the wall every time I pull into the driveway would be a glaring reminder of what I had nearly lost that day. Collins, Cooper and Watson. All three of them could have been killed. Were damn lucky they weren’t.
Which brings me to my next source of constant agitation. Katsu Endo. Not only had he saved my life in Rockport, but he’d saved my team, too, at great personal risk. I still don’t trust his motives, or Zoomb’s, but I’d be an ass to not award the man some brownie points, especially since he was still in a coma.
The view here isn’t all that different from the Crow’s Nest below. I can still see the ruin of what once was Beverly’s coastline. Except out here, I can smell it, too. I barely notice the stink of ash. On the shore of what was once Dane Street Beach, a crew of Zoomb employees have descended like vultures. With practiced efficiency, they’re disassembling Scrion’s body and carrying it away by helicopter, large chunks of dark meat dripping brown all over the city.
This might even be the same crew that dismantled the Nemesis-Prime corpse—the first in a long line of people responsible for the birth of a city-destroying monster. And now they’re back to work, this time with the President’s stamp of approval, despite my best attempts to change his mind. In the months following the Nemesis disaster, I had the President’s ear. He took my warnings, responded to my requests and increased my budget exponentially. But since Nemesis’s reemergence, the man has gone silent. Since ordering me to work with Endo, he hasn’t taken my calls, and requests from the White House are once again being filtered through the mustache brigade that is the DHS.
I’m not out of the loop. Not entirely. And I’m still in charge of the FC-P, but there is an election coming up, and Zoomb’s support can help fill ballot boxes. Strangely, the security I feel about my job comes from Endo. Sure, he’s a threat, but he needs me.
After what happened to Endo, Collins would have me strung up and lashed with a barbed cat o’ nine tails before letting me mind-meld with Nemesis, but I’m convinced it’s our best option. Not only is Nemesis still a threat, but now there’s Gordon and three other Kaiju that are still growing. Something has to be done. Something drastic. And if I know the powers that be, and I do, they’re going to start dropping nukes. Call me crazy, but I’d rather risk a coma if it meant not dropping nukes on American soil. Or any soil for that matter.
“What do you think?” I ask. “Am I crazy?”
“Craziest son of a bitch, I know,” Woodstock says.
I spin around in surprise. Hadn’t heard the man’s arrival.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Didn’t know you were there.”
He looks back and forth. “Who the hell were you talkin’ to then?”
I hitch a thumb toward Bet
ty, resting silently on her landing pad. If anyone understands talking to inanimate objects, it’s Woodstock. He proves it by nodding like he should have known. “She’s a good listener.”
“Ayuh,” I say, offering some traditional Maine agreement.
He joins me at the roof’s edge. Sits atop the small wall, oblivious to the height. “You thinkin’ what I think you’re thinkin’?”
I sit down next to him, watching a crane peel back Scrion’s turtle shell-like carapace. “Probably.” Woodstock and I are often in simpatico. It’s why I like having him as a pilot. But it also means he knows when I’m thinking of doing something stupid or reckless. “You won’t tell Collins?”
“This one of them ‘bros before hoes’ situations?”
I nearly fall four stories from laughing. Collins would kick his balls into his brains if she heard him, and he knows it, which makes it all the more funny.
He shakes his head. “Can’t say as I’d blame her for stopping you, though. Heard ’bout Cooper and Watson. Having a kid. Good news. It’s not yours, but it could have been. And before you tell me you use protection, I fought my way past a condom and a diaphragm. If the kid wants to be born bad enough, it will happen. And if it doesn’t...well, you still have your lady to think about.”
I’m not sure what to say. Woodstock has never held me back before.
Then he goes and reads my mind again. “I’m not telling you not to do it, mind you. It’s risky, but that’s our job. I’m just saying that the damage you do by sneaking, by risking your life without saying goodbye, would be far worse than being up front and disagreeing. Even if she’s pissed. The easier option for you, in this case, will be the harder to forgive.”
“Sage relationship advice from an old, single man,” I say.
“The ladies don’t come to me for advice, son,” Woodstock says. His grin turns wicked. “They come to me for—”
Part of me is relieved by the sound of approaching feet that interrupts Woodstock’s sentence. The other part is horrified when I turn to find Collins, just a few feet away, arms crossed. She heard. I know she heard. But I don’t say anything yet. She has company.
“Endo,” I say, climbing off the wall and standing. “You’re awake.” He’s more than awake. He looks good. As usual. Like he’d suffered little more than the loss of a good night’s sleep. I look around his shoulder, carefully avoiding Collin’s eyes. “Alessi isn’t with you?”
It’s a strange question, I know, but the two have been inseparable since we first encountered them in Hong Kong.
Endo squints at me. Collins’s brows furrow deeper. They have both misunderstood my interest. Like I need any more help tightening the noose around my neck.
“She’s coordinating with Cooper and Watson,” Endo says.
The casualness with which he uses their names bothers me, like he’s just part of the team and always has been. It’s the familiar tone. He hasn’t earned it.
Woodstock clears his throat at me.
Right. Honesty. No TV romance.
I turn to Collins. “I—”
“—have no choice,” she says. “I know. Your new best friend—” she glances to Endo, “—told me all about it. To stop the monster, you have to understand the monster. Know your enemy. I get it.”
“It’s more than that,” I say. “We won’t just know her, we’ll understand her. What she wants.”
“Where she’s from,” Endo says.
“How to stop her,” I add, knowing that if Endo expressed this sentiment, it would be, ‘How to control her.’
But that’s not my goal. If she leaves the human race be, I’m content to leave it at that. I don’t see the need to pick a fight we might not win if we can avoid it. And I sure as hell don’t agree with using her as a weapon. Maigo tearing apart Boston in search of her murderous father, isn’t all that dissimilar from the American use of atomic bombs in World War II. Or our assaults on Iran and Afghanistan. Or Vietnam. Korea. How many innocent people have we killed to execute the villains we’ve targeted? I’m not opposed to just wars, I just don’t think our judgment is any better than Nemesis’s. The best solution is to appease her violent nature.
Or destroy her.
So as much as I’m playing along, I have no intention of trying to control her. And that’s why it’s going to work. Endo felt a backlash from Gordon that was strong enough to put him in a coma. But he was trying to control the man. I’m aiming for a dialogue. If that’s even possible. Who knows, maybe my head will explode. I just think it’s worth the risk.
“Well, then, since we’re all on board,” I say. “How do we get this done? It’s not like we can call Nemesis on the phone and invite her for dinner.”
“Actually,” Endo says, a gleam in his eye that says I’m wrong. “I think we have confirmed that there is one way to draw Nemesis out of hiding.”
Collins, Woodstock and I stand silent, waiting for his revelation, because we sure as shit don’t know what he’s talking about. But then Collins groans and turns her head to the sky. “You can’t be serious.”
“What?” I ask, feeling stupid for not figuring it out.
“You’re the bait,” she says.
“Not exactly,” Endo says. “Nemesis is not interested in harming you. Her intentions seem to be the opposite, in fact. She will come if you are in danger. In mortal danger. To save you.”
I turn away from the others. I’d rather watch Scrion’s body be dissected than look into Collins’s eyes. Not because she’s disapproving, but because I might change my mind. “I need to be in mortal danger.”
Endo nods.
“Still sounds like a worm on a hook to me,” Woodstock says.
“We can’t do that here.” Despite the charred remains of the city coast, the area is still densely populated. “And we can’t travel to a remote location without wasting a lot of time. Who knows how long it would take her to follow us, or even if she would? So there’s really only one place we can do this, right?”
I know he’s come to the same conclusion already, so it’s no surprise when Endo steps up next to me and says, “Correct.”
Looks like Boston gets to be Nemesis’s Tokyo after all. “To Boston, then.”
25
Fourteen hours later, I’m standing on top of a 325-foot-tall apartment building, not all that dissimilar from the one Maigo was murdered in—except that this building stands on the coast of Boston’s North End. Or rather, what once was Boston’s North End. While work crews have been slowly working their way toward this part of town, clearing debris, they’ve barely scratched the surface. I’ve heard estimates between five and ten years just to clear out the rubble. Needless to say, this part of town is empty. A wasteland. Although the building beneath my feet was somehow spared, the skyscrapers to my back, and the New England Aquarium to my left, look like they’ve weathered the apocalypse. Those buildings that are still standing are missing windows, their skeletons exposed and their insides rotting in the humid summer air. Straight down the middle is a stretch of molten destruction, where Nemesis self-immolated to clear a path.
So we’ve chosen this harbor-side high-rise with the hopes that Nemesis will choose the path of least resistance. She may not. She might tromp right over Logan Airport again, which has been rebuilt. But the airport has been evacuated of people and planes, so if she does take the shortcut, damage will be primarily to the runways.
Our plan was met with extreme backlash, but in matters of National Security regarding Nemesis, the FC-P pretty much has final say. And with Zoomb supporting the plan, the White House wasn’t about to decline our rather large requests.
So here I am, pacing over the tacky-hot surface of the black tar roof, waiting for Nemesis to come to my rescue. There’s just one problem. I’m not in danger. “We’ve been here for three hours now. I’m not sure Gordon’s going to show up.”
Endo, the only other person on the roof with me, glances back over his shoulder. He’s been standing at the roof’s edge, sta
ring out to sea, waiting for Nemesis’s arrival, pining for her return. “I’m not certain he will.”
I groan. The last thing I expected this mission to be was boring. I toggle Devine, connecting with Woodstock, who is circling the area with Collins and Alessi. Betty has been retrofitted once again, this time with Zoomb’s prototype, Kaiju neural implant. “See anything up there?”
“Not a thing,” Woodstock replies.
A year ago, I wouldn’t have volunteered to stand on a building, waiting for a man-thing who wants me dead, and his Kaiju pets, with the hopes that Nemesis will come to my aid, thus allowing me to enter her thoughts via a neural implant. And now that I’m thinking about it, I realize the ridiculousness of this plan.
“This isn’t going to work,” I say to Endo. “Gordon’s not an idiot. He’s not going to come after me here. Admiral Ackbar would see this coming a mile away.”
Endo actually chuckles and mumbles, “It’s a trap.”
I sometimes forget that this cold, killing, fighting machine was once a sci-fi loving kid who became obsessed with Kaiju. I’ve done my research. I know his public history, and his private. Interviewed his old friends. His parents. They haven’t seen or heard from him since he joined up with General Gordon, and thinking he was dead or missing, and that I was on the case, they filled me in on his geeky beginnings. That he understands my Star Wars reference shouldn’t come as a surprise. The humor doesn’t last long, though. “I never expected Gordon to show up.”
My pacing stops. “Excuse me?”
“Gordon’s not a fool.”
“I thought...” Past conversations play through my mind. I try to remember the specifics of this plan, as they were presented to me by Endo. I realize that every mention of Gordon in relation to my imminent danger was presented by myself or my team. Not by him. “So we’re just hoping Nemesis is going to show up, then?”
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