“Glad you could make it,” Cole says, and I can’t tell if he’s being honest or facetious.
Since I can’t slug him, I decide to be a dick instead. I hold a hand up to silence him, and toggle my throat mic. “Alessi. ETA on—”
“The delivery has already been made, Jon,” Alessi says, but it takes a moment for me to realize her voice didn’t come from my ear bud. It came from behind me. I spin around, but find only Cole, smiling at me like I’m adorable.
I glance at Collins. There’s a look of horror on her face. She saw something I missed. When Lilly hisses at Cole, the puzzle pieces fall into place.
Alessi’s voice came from Cole.
The big man steps to the side and sweeps his hand out at three coffin-like containers being rolled toward us by a group of people who look like random citizens gathered from the streets. The storage units are, in fact, what I was waiting for.
“We’ve made some modifications,” Cole says in Alessi’s voice, souring my stomach. “And some improvements.”
“What have you done with Alessi?” I ask, hand on my sidearm. I’m not going to punch him, but I might very well shoot him.
“Absolutely nothing,” he says.
I toggle my throat mic again. “Alessi, are you there? Answer me!”
Cole reaches up to his own neck and toggles a mic. “I’m right here, Jon.” Cole’s Alessi impersonation reaches my left ear normally and right ear through the bud. “Right where I’ve always been.”
“You are Maggie?” Collins says, using Alessi’s first name.
Cole motions to the men bustling around behind him, prepping the two cannons and arming themselves with an array of weapons I don’t recognize. “Sometimes me. Sometimes one of them.” He sets his eyes on me. “For all you know, your new wife is one of us, too.”
I clench my fists, but show impressive restraint.
“The real Maggie Alessi died seven years ago, in a car accident. When Katsu Endo became involved with General Gordon, we resurrected the half-sister he didn’t know existed, built a life for her and reached out.”
My anger shifts to a strange kind of sadness, like mourning the death of a friend. Since inheriting control of Zoomb, I’ve become...close to Alessi. Despite the rocky start to our relationship, I came to trust her. We had personal conversations. She gave me advice, often good advice. And all that time, she—was him? Or one of them?
“Did Endo know?” I ask.
Cole shakes his head. “And I suggest you keep it from him, given his volatile position.
“You might not see it now,” Cole says, “but we are friends, Jon. We are allies. And I know you better than most. How you feel. How you think. What you’re capable of. I know you’re about to punch me, but—”
“You’re a hologram, right?” I say.
He reaches out a finger and pokes my chest. “We don’t have time for theatrics. I showed you one of my true selves because I need you to know you can trust me. We have worked together for years, Jon. And you need to believe me when I tell you, the fate of your planet depends on our success today. You want to kill me, I know. We helped make you that way. But right now, we have a common enemy.”
He glances across the city. Giger is coming for us, crushing buildings beneath its rigid mass.
“The Luminox is a gateway,” Cole says. “The first of many. And when it is complete, our forces from around the universe, in all dimensions, will be able to join the fight, here, just as we will be able to join the fight there. We are uniting the resistance, but if we lose the Luminox, Earth will face ruin.”
Some of what he’s said is mind-boggling. The Luminox will be some kind of wormhole connecting Earth to other worlds, and other dimensions? This is nuts, but then, what about the past few years isn’t nuts? I loathe this man, and what he’s done to us, but if Lovecraft and Giger are just the beginning, I won’t deny that Earth is going to need help. “Okay, Paul Revere of the Cosmos, I’ll bite. What’s the plan?”
He nods at the men behind us, and they open the three containers, revealing the battlesuits within. They’re black, and kind of horrifying, with armored plates, face masks and red eyes that contain reverse-engineered sensors taken from GOD’s night-vision goggles, which colorize night vision and provide battlefield data. The suits contain synthetic muscle fibers triggered by the wearer’s actual muscle movements. With the suit on, I’ll be as strong and fast as Lilly, with enhanced vision and situational awareness. And Lilly...I suppose she’ll be more like Maigo.
The synthetic fibers also go rigid when impacted from the outside, protecting against falls, bullets, knives or claws. Added to all of that is an array of small repulse discs that allow for some serious jump distance, and with the wingsuit function enabled, flight...in theory. Collins and I have practiced with most of the functions, but we haven’t attempted flying yet. How different can it be from piloting a drone while clinging to its back?
“You said you made changes,” I say.
“To the weapons system,” he says. The suits were designed with one thing in mind, responding to a Kaiju threat. The weapon we developed was essentially a laser bomb. Once launched, it would attach to the target and fire a high-powered laser into the target for an extended period of time. The four circular devices attached to the suit around the waist, have been replaced by something else...something I recognize. The four simple-looking black discs appear innocuous enough, but they’re deadly as hell.
“Are you shitting me?” I ask. “Bacteria bombs?”
These things were the inspiration for the laser bombs, but are far more volatile. While the laser’s power is finite, lasting only long enough to do significant damage, the bacteria consumes and multiplies exponentially, eating through anything it touches, including Kaiju flesh. Once released, it can be neutralized only by incineration or by salt water.
“Your use of the Swarm in Boston revealed the ineffectiveness of directed energy weapons against the Gestorumque. They’re useful for causing temporary damage, and as a distraction, but we already have that covered.” He motions to the two cannons tracking Giger. With a vibrating hum, one of them fires, sending a bright yellow beam of light through the side of the thirty-story PacWest building and into Giger’s charging form. The Kaiju is knocked sideways, and a black line is carved into its exoskeletal body, but the damage to the monster is minimal. The building, on the other hand, is now on fire. The second cannon fires with similar results, knocking Giger onto its back, its limbs rapid-fire scurrying in the air. The blasts are really just annoying it.
“We’re at war, Hudson,” Cole says with a snarl. “Half measures and hopeful thinking aren’t going to win. This time there is no one to sacrifice to the Gestorumque. The only lives we have to offer, are our own. Now will you fight with us, or not?”
Before I can answer, a massive explosion rises in the distance. The light plumes high as a shockwave rolls through the city, flattening buildings and tossing cars. It races toward us, shattering the windows of the skyscrapers around us before slapping into the Luminox with a concussive roar.
Then, out of the still rising ball of brilliant flame, a smoking projectile rises into the sky. Cloaked in smoke, I don’t recognize it until Collins does.
“That’s Karkinos,” she says.
I nearly laugh. The Kaiju has been launched miles into the sky, and its smoldering core reveals a massive wound. But then I remember it was Maigo and Hyperion who were facing the giant.
Karkinos arcs toward the city and drops like a bomb, landing a mile away, but with enough force to knock out the rest of the windows in the city and shake the Luminox beneath us. The sound of shattering glass resounds from the shaken city, and millions of tiny dancing lights bounce off the still standing buildings, sunlight glinting off the falling shards. The sound and light display is drowned out when a twenty-story building topples on top of the smoking and unmoving Kaiju.
“Maigo,” I say, speaking into my comm. “Are you there?”
When ther
e’s no reply, and I clench my eyes shut, Cole puts his hand on my shoulder. “This. Is. War. People die.”
I glare up at the inhuman man, who has defiled my life and the lives of everyone I love. “Give me a damn suit.”
41
Dressed in battlesuits, Collins, Lilly and I stand on the Luminox’s edge. Cole and six of his men stand with us. They appear ready for battle, too, but they’re unarmed and not wearing suits.
“Lead the way,” Cole says.
“Umm, okay?” I say, and I prepare to launch myself off the edge. There’s a grinding of bones and a slurp of flesh from behind me. I turn around slowly and find seven transformed Ferox gnashing their teeth, twitching their tails and looking absolutely ferocious.
I leap from the side of the building, but instead of falling, I launch upward. The repulse discs built into the suit turn my jump into a thirty-story vault. I catch myself on the side of the forty-one-story Wells Fargo Center building and have no trouble holding on, thanks to the strength granted to me by the suit, and the fact that every single window in the building has been blown out.
Collins lands beside me. Lilly touches down three stories above us. Dressed in the battlesuits, with their faces covered by masks, the only way I can tell them apart is by their body shapes, Collins being the taller and the more curvaceous of the two. I look back for the horde of Ferox, but they’re not in the air, they’re below us, charging up the side of the building, relying on their natural abilities.
I push off hard with my feet and engage the repulse discs, shooting to the top of the building and landing on the roof. From my new 546-foot-tall point of view, I can now look down on the scene. Giger is below us, assaulting the smaller PacWest building, which is now riddled with fiery holes, as the laser continues to shoot through it. The freakish Kaiju drops down low, splaying its legs wide, and scrambles at the building , avoiding the next barrage. It then spins in a tight circle, whipping its tail around and slicing clean through the already ravaged PacWest building. The structure falls in on itself and collapses, revealing the Luminox to Giger.
“Now or never, people!” I shout. Then I jump off the edge without looking to see who’s with me.
The Kaiju starts through the ruined building as I fall toward it, and I have to engage the flight suit to adjust my course. The wings pop out between my extended arms and waist, as well as between my legs. My fall transforms into a glide, and when I engage the repulse discs, powered flight.
“Whoohoo!” Lilly shouts, and I know that she’s still with me.
As I arc around behind Giger, and angle in toward its massive upper back, which is divided by those long, swaying spines, Hyperion winks into existence between the Kaiju and its target. The giant robot is charred, but functional.
“I’m here!” Maigo says.
“Keep Giger there!” I shout. “We’re coming in behind it.”
“What?” she says, and then she must see us, because she follows up with, “Are you guys insane?”
“You all should know, I’m seeing movement from Karkinos,” Woodstock chimes in over the comms. “Nothing major. Just some twitching in its neck. But I wouldn’t count it out yet.”
“We’ll check it out,” Cole says, his voice deeper and more gravelly. By ‘we’ll,’ I assume he’s talking about himself and the fugly brigade at his command. They’re agile and strong, but since they can’t fly, they’re probably having a hard time keeping up. And if they can take out Karkinos on the ground, that’s a win-win.
A roar rolls up over my back, and as I close in on Giger, I glance back. Lovecraft surges toward us, using its massive wings to lift itself over the ground. It can’t fly, but it’s moving quickly. And I see why a moment later. Nemesis is barreling forward like a bat out of hell, gaining on the big Gestorumque, which seems to have no interest in fighting.
They really are just here for the Luminox.
“Jon!” Collins shouts, and I turn forward in time to see some of the thick black spines on Giger’s back whip in my direction, as the monster rises up and grapples with Hyperion. The robot’s weapons systems have been reset to Level One. I roll hard to the side, getting under and inside the swaying Kaiju spines, but I’m still on a collision course with the solid plates covering Giger’s back. I retract the wings, flip myself forward and give the repulse discs everything they have, which isn’t enough to stop me completely. The battlesuit absorbs a lot of the impact, but I tumble down the spine-covered back until I’m caught by my wrist and pulled back up.
The strength behind the grasp fools me into thinking it’s Lilly who caught me, but when I look up, it’s Collins who is pulling me up. “Always slacking off,” she says. “Can we get this done now?”
“Are you with us, Lilly?” I ask.
“Up here,” she says, waving at us from forty feet higher up, closer to the Kaiju’s neck.
Giger roars and thrusts forward, nearly dislodging me again.
“Hurry up!” Maigo urges. “I can’t hold it much—gah!”
Giger’s tail has just whipped around and struck Hyperion someplace sensitive enough for Maigo to feel it.
“Two bombs each,” I say, holding onto a spine with one hand, and plucking one of the smaller discs off my belt. I slap the device to the shell and am surprised when it vacuums itself down tight. Cole upgraded the bacteria bombs, too.
“These things have a one minute—” I start to say, but then I hear a hiss from the bomb I’ve just planted. “Scratch that. They trigger on contact. Plant what you have and get away!”
I slap down a second bacteria bomb and am about to jump away when a panel of Giger’s bony armor pops open between me and Lilly. A black sphere shoots out, headed for the sky overhead. The last time I saw one of those was over Boston Harbor, where it created a cyclone.
“Cole,” I say. “There’s a black sphere headed into the sky.”
“Weather generator,” he says. “We’ve used them in the past. Things are going to get uncomfortable. Approaching Karkinos now.”
“I’ll see what I can do about the weather doohicky,” Woodstock says.
When I see Collins and Lilly jump away, propelled by their repulse discs, I leap out, extend my wings and I’m struck in the side by something like a falling tree. I topple through the air and fall several stories before landing inside the blown out Wells Fargo building and tumbling through office desks, chairs and computer stations. When I finally come to a stop, forty feet from the window, I’m covered in office detritus and twisting power cables. Happily, the battlesuit has done its job. Other than some soreness—that will probably hurt like hell tomorrow—I’m in one piece.
I’m brushing debris off me, grumbling and cursing, when Maigo shouts, “Dad! Look out!”
Hyperion’s face slams into the side of the building and crashes in, its blazing red eyes rushing toward me.
I try to get up and run, but slip on a stack of paper and go down. Hyperion’s face stops moving just a few feet away.
“Dad,” Maigo says, sounding worried. “I can’t—”
Giger’s tail punches through the side of the building, wraps around Hyperion’s face like a constrictor and pulls the giant robot back out. I watch them fall away together, leaving a massive hole in the side of the building. I barely notice the roof crumbling in as Hyperion falls back and Giger lunges atop the robot, scratching and clawing its metal surface. Then Maigo gets in a good swing with a blade attack, severing one of the four arms completely. The result is a frenzied attack. Giger flails all about, while stabbing down with its tail, plunging the end into Hyperion, over and over.
“No!” I scream, as dust falls past my face.
Giger lifts its tail again, and stops, frozen in place as though it heard my scream. But then it arches its back and wails in pain. For a moment, it reaches for its back, like the creature’s trying to dislodge something that’s not there.
But it is there, I realize. The bacteria bombs are eating through its exoskeleton.
The Gestoru
mque flails to the side, striking the Wells Fargo building and toppling over into the street, where it thrashes about.
Hyperion lies amidst the rubble of the PacWest Center. Its red eyes are dull. All three rings on its chest are extinguished, and surrounded by an array of puncture wounds. “Hyperion is out of the fight,” I say, and then I notice for the first time that the building above me is leaning at a sickening angle.
Holy shi—
Something gives way and the building snaps, collapsing downward. I leap through the ruined wall, falling for fifty feet before engaging the wingsuit and the repulse discs. Pursued by fifteen stories of building, I soar toward Hyperion’s still form and pull up at the last moment. Debris crashes down behind me, sending a plume of smoke out to chase me. A thunderous crash shakes my body and knocks me to the ground, just beyond Hyperion. My landing isn’t graceful, but I end up on my feet. I turn in time to see the building land on Hyperion’s lower half, burying the robot in debris.
“Hey, boss,” Woodstock says. “You have incoming!”
I leap to the roof of a fifteen story building and then bound off its roof, rising quickly from street level to the top of Congress Center, a three-hundred-twenty-foot-tall building. The new vantage point puts me roughly at neck level for both Lovecraft and Nemesis...who happen to be tumbling in my direction, limbs, wings and tentacles thrashing about in frenzied combat. They land atop a domed building, taking down the nearly three-hundred-foot-tall building under their coiling bodies. Smoke billows around them, swirling from the Kaijus’ breath as they roar at each other. And then, they’re both rising from the smoke, facing off.
I’m unsure about what to do. With the battlesuit and the bacteria bombs, I might be able to help Nemesis, but in situations like this, it wouldn’t be uncommon for Nemesis to self-immolate and level several blocks of the city, which would currently include me. I either need to take action, or get the hell back, but for the moment, I’m rooted in place.
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