Project Maigo

by Jeremy Robinson

  We just need to get out of the way!

  Chris shouted to his friends to follow him as he ran for the shore. They could never outrun the monster, but if they could just get out of the way, they might—

  BOOM!

  The riverbed beneath Chris’s feet lifted up and then fell away. He toppled forward, striking his head on a stone. A flash of white filled his vision for a moment and sent a wave of nausea through his body. He rolled over—and screamed.

  A giant clawed foot with black and twisted skin descended toward him. He shrieked with primal fear, wondering what the end would feel like, wondering if he had a soul and wondering if he’d condemned himself to some kind of torturous afterlife. And then the giant foot struck.

  Twenty feet away.

  Chris bounced into the air, landing hard, but this time avoiding hitting his head. Rolling over onto his hands and knees, he managed to stay upright with each shift of the earth, which came more rapidly and more powerfully, now that he was in the gap between the two giants.

  As the immense foot lifted up and away, he saw the three villagers’ bodies crushed into the folds of the foot, bloody and very dead. Before he could react to this sight with relief or horror, a loud rushing sound like thunder locked him in place, his breath held.

  The massive tail whipped past, sliding from one side of the barren river to the other, passing just a few feet over head. Flattened trees landed all around Chris, lashing him with thin branches, but he remained mostly unscathed.

  I’m safe here, he told himself. As long as I don’t move, I’m safe.

  Part of him knew this wasn’t necessarily true, but he was a believer in luck, and this spot, for whatever reason, was lucky. So when the second set of gargantuan footfalls approached, he remained riveted to the stone beneath him.

  When the giant emerged, its head turned down, like it was looking straight at him, Chris lost control of his bladder. But still, he didn’t move. The colossal monster made no move for him, and Chris could see by the thing’s wide gait, that he wouldn’t be stepped on.

  Just stay still. Don’t draw attention. Don’t fucking move.

  The sound of a new roar turned his head skyward. It sounded different from the two Kaiju, whose roars sounded like a mix of tubas and high pitched violins gargling water through a loud-speaker. This new sound was crisp. Modern. The white streak across the sky confirmed it.

  A missile.

  Just one.

  The military didn’t have a strong presence in this part of the world. This missile must have come from far away—the ocean on the other side of the peninsula that was southern Thailand.

  Chris tracked its path and then looked ahead. It was going to strike the man-monster. An easy target. Then he realized where it was going to hit.

  “No,” he whispered. “God, no!”

  Back to his feet, Chris ran for the shore. He tripped and fell into the muddy bank, getting tangled in the roots and slippery grime. He spun around as he fought to free himself, just in time to see it happen.

  The missile struck the manly Kaiju’s chest. It disappeared with a whump and a small burst of flame. For a moment, he thought that was the end of it, that the missile had failed to inflict any damage at all. But then he saw the spray of orange liquid jet out of the monster’s chest. Before he could scream, or pray or fully comprehend what he was seeing, the world turned white and disappeared.

  31

  The worst part about staying in a hospital for two weeks isn’t the food. I’ve probably gained five pounds in chocolate pudding. And this time, it’s not the company. My roommate is Endo, and we’ve been pretty content to not speak to each other much. No, what really irks me is that I’m helpless to stop the global rampage being carried out by three of Gordon’s Kaiju. With nothing else to do but lay in bed, I’ve named them all.

  There is Scylla, who first appeared in Sydney and worked its way along Australia’s southern coast. It’s a sharp-toothed monstrosity with a hammerhead. I named the second Kaiju to emerge from the ocean, Karkinos, one of the two monsters who attacked the port of Hong Kong. In many ways, it resembles Nemesis. The spikes. The long tail. But the eyes are all wrong, and the claws on its hands have fused together, forming two large blades, like serrated shears. It’s the third Kaiju, Typhon, that really freaks me out. It stands tall on two legs. Like a man...a man dressed in Nemesis skin: spikes, carapace and all. Not only is it powerful, but in the video footage, it appears to think before acting. Considering strategies. While the others seem to be all instinct, Typhon has a brain. The fourth Kaiju, Drakon, the svelte lizard-like monster, hasn’t been seen since it rescued Gordon in Rockport.

  While Nemesis is nowhere in sight, Scylla made its way around Australia’s southern coast and then disappeared. Typhon and Karkinos left a path of destruction along China’s and Vietnam’s coasts before stomping across Thailand’s peninsula and disappearing into the Bay of Bengal. They made a brief stopover in Sri Lanka before showing up in Madagascar, and then again in Cape Town, South Africa. The duo sometimes attack separately. Sometimes together. But they’re clearly travel-buddies.

  And like Nemesis, they seem to be fairly unstoppable. The response to their journey has been global, with militaries from different regions joining to fend off the threat. Each time the Kaiju have moved on, it’s been hailed as a victory. A retreat. But I don’t think that’s the case at all. The creatures are simply stopping in for a bite to eat while they head west.

  Despite the appearance of five new Kaiju and Gordon’s assault on the FC-P, my superiors refuse to believe that a traitorous general, who is supposed to be dead, is influencing or directing the monsters. I agree that it sounds unlikely, but unlikely is pretty much the new norm. So while they’ve been knee-jerk reacting to the situations as they arise, I’ve been trying to get into Gordon’s mind. Not literally. Endo demonstrated the folly of that idea.

  Assuming Gordon is in control, what does he want? Vengeance. Naturally. What else would a man who received a heart transplant from the goddess of vengeance want?

  But vengeance on who?

  “What was Gordon like before all this?” I ask.

  Endo turns from the TV to me. He’s been watching cartoons, of all things, which is far more bearable than The Golden Girls. After watching an episode of Dexter’s Laboratory, we’d jokingly discussed the possibility of constructing a giant robot to fight the Kaiju. While that works for cartoons and men in rubber suits, the physics of building a suit that large, makes it impossible. Which kind of sucks, because it would be awesome.

  “I didn’t know him before,” Endo says. “We met after I discovered the Nemesis-Prime corpse.”

  “Did he ever express anger at anyone?” I ask.

  Endo grins. “At everyone.”

  “From his past,” I say. “A wife. A bully. Co-worker? Someone he really hated.”

  Endo falls silent, biting his thumbnail, a habit he picked up a few days ago. It’s how I know he’s really thinking about something. He probably won’t emerge from his mental filing cabinet for a few minutes, so I pick up the remote and change the channel.

  My mind drifts as I push the button. I’m no longer seeing the TV, but am thinking about life. Specifically, my life. Endo and I are scheduled to leave in the morning. We’re ‘out of the woods,’ according to the doctor. I’m pretty sure we were never actually in the woods, but I suspect Collins threatened the doctor to hold us here longer than normal on the grounds that we’d only exacerbate our injuries by returning to work.

  And she’d have been right about that. Sitting in this bed is nearly intolerable. The one thing that has kept me obeying the doctor is the fact that there is nothing I can do about the Kaiju attacking other countries. I can’t command their militaries or even advise their governments. For all I know, they’ve all got their own versions of the FC-P working on the problem. Had a Kaiju made landfall on U.S. soil, I’d have been up and out of bed, doctor’s orders or not. Also, the pudding helps.

  Som
ething snaps me back to reality. I blink my eyes while my mind rewinds for me. The TV. A news report. Shaky video. I switch channels again, heading in the opposite direction. I stop after three pushes of the button. It’s a news network. A close up of Karkinos fills the screen. There’s no sound, but the upturned head and open maw tell me it’s roaring. The image pulls back to reveal a packed city and a tropical coastline. The scene is dark, the sun cloaked by a tropical storm. I glance down at the news channel’s image label: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

  “Holy shit,” I say, not because I’m surprised that yet another city is being attacked, but because Karkinos has made really good time crossing the Atlantic. It’s only been three days since the attack on Cape Town.

  The camera turns to the right. Typhon. He’s bigger than I remember. Easily 300 feet tall. They both are. The orange membranes covering his chest and abs glow brightly in the gloom. His brilliant yellow eyes seem to be peering straight at the camera. At me.

  Impossible, I think, which is enough beyond ‘unlikely’ that I believe it.

  The two monsters rise from the turbulent ocean unchallenged. They’ve managed to cross the deep undetected, and I doubt anyone in all of South America expected a visit. They’re probably wondering what they did wrong as several ‘authorities’ on the subject have decided that the Kaiju operate similarly to Nemesis, proclaiming judgment, carrying out death sentences. Wishful thinking.

  I glance at Endo. He’s paused mid-thumb nibble to watch the TV. When his eyes widen, I look back to the news feed and gasp. An orange glow moves through the ocean, sliding up behind the two Kaiju. For a moment, I think it must be some kind of weapon. A torpedo or suicidal submarine. But then a 50-foot wide, black head lifts from the ocean. Scylla. Like its siblings, the destroyer of Sydney is pushing 300 feet in height now. All three monsters are together, one big happy family. The camera operator zooms in on the new arrival. Scylla opens her mouth, roaring. Her curved needle-like teeth hold the remnants of meals past. Boat parts. Large hunks of whale meat. Human bodies. Of the three, Scylla is the smallest, but her savage appearance is unnerving.

  As frightening as Nemesis is, she’s never put off the kind of vile hatred these three put off. Even Scrion and Drakon were different. Scrion was a monster, but had the personality of a pug on crack. And Drakon, compared to Nemesis, wasn’t very threatening; dangerous for sure, but built for speed, not sheer power. But these three... If the Earth was the prize and Nemesis the champ, Typhon, Karkinos and Scylla would be serious contenders. And the problem with that is I’m not expecting a fair fight. Three on one, the odds are not in Nemesis’s favor.

  Brazil’s military is quick to respond. Before Scylla is even out of the water, jets streak past the camera operator, nearly knocking him over. But he rights the camera in time to see missiles streak away. He follows their course all the way to Typhon’s head, where they explode. Harmlessly. I’m not sure the giant even noticed.

  More missiles cruise by. Helicopters sweep in from the sides, launching rockets. The camera lurches to the side as the operator picks it up and runs. When the view stabilizes again, the camera twists to the side, as a tank rolls into place, stops and fires a rounds. The camera shakes, moving further back. The operator is running again. If there was sound, I’m sure he, or she, would be screaming. Who wouldn’t be?

  A safe distance from the action, the camera operator sets up again, pointing the lens back at the mayhem. We’re higher now, viewing the city from more of an angle. Scylla is still on the beach, ravaging the string of hotels that line the shore. Karkinos is the closest. His massively thick, armored body is bent forward. His giant jaws are snapping open and closed. I’m not sure, but I think he’s eating people.

  And then there is Typhon.

  “Jesus,” I say, and it’s not a swear. I avoid using the name as a cuss, out of respect for the people it deeply offends. In this case, I’m literally talking about Jesus. Typhon has tromped across the city and is scaling a mountain toward the Christ the Redeemer statue. It’s not as big as the Kaiju, but standing on top of that mountain, with his arms outstretched, the giant Jesus must look like a potential threat. Or a very large meal. Typhon makes short work of the mountain, grips Jesus’s arms and snaps them off. Then, with a single swipe, he knocks the top half of limbless Jesus off and sends it rolling down the mountainside, toward the city. Rio’s most famous symbol of hope and forgiveness crushes through the mass of small homes at the base of the incline.

  “Hey,” Endo says.

  Lost in the scene of destruction, I flinch at the sound of Endo’s voice.

  Endo turns toward me. “Jon.”

  Considering that this is the very first time Endo has referred to me by my first name, I’m a little disconcerted when I look at him. Not only does it reflect the somewhat friendly rapport that has developed between us while being bedridden, it also means he must have had some kind of revelation.

  “I know who Gordon is after,” he says.

  “Please don’t say me.”

  “Besides you,” he says.

  “That’s still includes me,” I point out.

  “Just shut up,” Endo says. “When Gordon first found Nemesis, he took the information—”

  “To Zoomb,” I say. “I know.”

  Endo shakes his head. “They were his second choice. Gordon was a good soldier. A true patriot. He brought it to the one person in the government he thought would take his wild claims seriously.”

  I wait for the revelation, eyebrows raised to say ‘any day now.’

  “At the time he was Senator Gary Beck.”

  My mouth slowly opens.

  Endo nods. “Two years later he became—”

  “President Dickface.”

  Son-of-a-bitch. “So if they’re not coming for me...”

  “They’re headed for the Capitol,” Endo says.

  I hold up my hand. “Wait. Stop. Two things. First, we need to stop finishing each other’s sentences. This isn’t a bromance. Second, we need to warn—”

  “Nobody,” Endo says, face grim.

  I groan in annoyance. “What did I say about finishing my sentences? And why the hell would we not warn the President? Besides the fact that he’s a tool.”

  “If the President feels that he is a target, he will run. Inland. He’ll try to hide, but there isn’t anywhere he can go that Gordon doesn’t know about. The Kaiju will pursue him across the country, destroying everything in their path. And when that happens—”

  “The king of bad decisions will start dropping nukes,” I say, ignoring my bromance moratorium. Endo is right. President Beck is two balls short of being a man and a few billion brain cells short of the scarecrow. He’d put the whole country in jeopardy. The question is how do we prepare to fend off three colossal Kaiju combatants without tipping our hand or evacuating the nation’s capital? It’s damn near close to treason.

  Gordon is the answer. Without him, the Kaiju might become subservient to Nemesis. They might go mad. Or they might just swim around the ocean gobbling up whales. They never endured the tortures of Nemesis’s past, so it’s very possible the thirst for vengeance that drives her, and Gordon, won’t be part of the equation.

  The door opens. Collins rushes in, holding my clothes. Alessi is behind her with a bag for Endo.

  “Have you seen?” Collins asks.

  I point to the news channel still playing the live footage of Rio being used like a bag of snack chips.

  “I brought you some clothes” she says, placing them on the bed.

  While I’m pleased to see the shorts, t-shirt and red beanie cap, I ignore the change of clothes and sit up. The pain meds I’m on dull the lingering pain I feel, for the most part, but I’m still kind of a mess. I reach my hand out to Alessi. “Phone?”

  She glances at Endo and he nods. Alessi hands me her phone. “This thing is secure, right?”

  “What are you doing?” Collins asks.

  I dial the number. “Calling backup.”

&nb
sp; 32

  I toured the White House once, when I was a kid. Eighth grade. Worst few days of my young adult life. I had to sleep in the same room as my childhood bully. My wallet with $57 of birthday money I brought was stolen—I’m pretty sure by the same bully. And my girlfriend broke up with me in front of the Washington Monument. Our nation’s capital has left a sour taste in my mouth since, despite the fact that my childhood bully is in jail for stealing a tank and my girlfriend blimped out, which I discovered while honing my Facebook stalker skills.

  That I’m about to start my fourth White House tour of the week has me feeling a little bit of nausea. Reservations are typically made six months to twenty-one days in advance, long enough for the Secret Service to find out what they can. Using his considerable computer skills and bending a few rules, Watson managed to get us in four days in a row. And by ‘us,’ I mean Endo and me. As much as I prefer Collins as a partner, Endo’s presence is necessary, and Collins is harder to forget. We’ve changed our identities each day, posing as tourists from different parts of the world, never directly communicating. Just observing. Waiting. When things go sideways, we need to have access to the President, and he’s been here all week. Starting tomorrow, he’ll be touring Europe, so I’m willing to bet Gordon knows this and will make his move sooner than later—and by sooner, I mean today.

  This afternoon’s tour guide, Mindy, is a peppy young woman with a pony tail and a bright smile. She’s a real girl-next-door type, but in love with the history of her country and its capital, which I’m putting at great risk. It’s an acceptable risk, I try to tell myself. Making a stand in Washington is better than letting the nation get tromped into oblivion. Of course, there’s a real risk that my plan, formed without the support of our military, is going to fall apart like a roll of toilet paper strung beneath a waterfall.