Unity

by Jeremy Robinson

  But I suppose that’s about to be put to the test.

  “Copy,” Daniel says, and I realize he’s speaking to Vegas or Gwen. “Umm, I’m not sure.”

  “What’s the problem?” I ask.

  “Gwen can’t figure out how to get the Striker running.”

  That’s a bad sign, I think, but I keep it to myself. Then I ask what I think is the most obvious question. “Is there a place for a key?”

  “Uhh,” Daniel says. “Is there a place for a key?”

  He waits, and then his face lights up. “Yes. Use that.” He turns to me. “It’s the badge,” he says, tapping the center of his chest where the metal badge would be if Bases wore flight suits.

  “Why are you guys even talking?” I ask. “I thought you were supposed to be—” I tap my head. “—mind-melded or something.”

  “Technically, it’s called a psy-net, but it doesn’t engage until the others are wearing their—” Daniel goes rigid, his eyes opening wide. He sucks in a deep breath, as a shiver rolls through his body. “We’re connected.”

  “Us, too,” Duff says from his console.

  Motion through the hangar window draws me toward it. On the other side of the glass, two Strikers are lifting off the floor, held aloft by humming, blue repulse engines.

  Light from above pours into the open space. Sunlight. Triangular sections of the circular ceiling lift up and separate, revealing the inside of the volcano’s crater.

  Is this really happening?

  The Strikers rise straight up through the opening, and once they’ve cleared the top, the white Shugoten to my right and the maroon one next to it, step into the center of the room. Now fully powered, the pattern of stripes and spots covering the bodies glow; the maroon robot is covered in a luminous yellow pattern, the white one in red. As they move, a barely perceptible mesh of yellow hexagons appears and then fades. The giants move with the fluidity of human beings, crashing through the uncanny valley—that uncomfortable feeling when humanoid robots creep you out—and stepping into awe-inspiring awesomeness.

  Despite weighing untold tons, I can’t hear or feel their movements. When they’re both positioned at the center of the room, the floor rises beneath them, lifting the two giants toward the sky. Everything happens so smoothly that I think the four operators have done all this before. But then I realize they’re being directed, without a spoken word, by Daniel and Duff, who are also fully present in this room, their fingers clattering over keyboards, their eyes scanning information, schematics and readouts.

  “Here it comes,” Gizmo says, and I turn to the big screen in time to see the daikaiju rise from the ocean and take its first monstrous step onto the island’s tsunami-ravaged western side. Onto our island.

  “Can they hear me?” I ask Daniel.

  His fingers tap a few keys. “They can now.”

  “Vegas,” I say.

  “I hear you.”

  “Kick its ass.”

  36

  Using the island and its trees for scale, I guestimate the creature’s size to be around five hundred feet. And as big as that is, it’s the least horrifying thing about the monster.

  It emerges from the ocean on all fours, like the one we saw rampaging in Southern California. The dark gray skin of its vast armor plates glisten from the water. It’s torn up a bit in places, but it looks more like scratched leather than any kind of real damage. Wounds from its rough landing, maybe.

  Unlike the first daikaiju, this one is fully armored on all sides. Where most creatures on Earth would have a nose and mouth, this thing has folds of armor, like overlapping plates, speckled with blue. As the sun shines over its body, I see glimmers of light refracting off the water rushing down its coarse-textured body. If I hadn’t already seen one of these treating San Diego like a smorgasbord, I might have been able to find some beauty in it. But I really just want to crush this thing under my heel. To stamp it into oblivion. Unfortunately, the opposite is far more likely.

  The creature stops on the shore, its hind legs still in the ocean, its long tail cutting back and forth through the water. I imagine the force of that sweeping tail, the amount of liquid it’s moving, and I can see these things pushing back the tide.

  They’re going to reshape our world. And they’re going to start with us.

  Since the human race figured out we were destroying the planet and instigating an extinction event on par with the asteroid that ended the Cretaceous Period and wiped the dinosaurs from the face of the planet, we’ve tried, and mostly failed, to undo the damage. But we’ve also romanticized what the planet would be like if people simply ceased to exist. The environment would rebound. Species on the brink would recover. New species would evolve. In short, life would go on without us, and in a few thousand years it would return to the pristine state it was in before the Industrial Revolution. But in all our imaginings, humanity never pictured the end like this, at the hands of colossal aliens with the power to leave our planet a lifeless husk. The human race was responsible for kicking off a mass extinction, but now we might be the only thing that can prevent a final extinction.

  The daikaiju narrows its four yellow eyes. Then it flexes and stretches, the massive plates of armor shifting around, leaking sea water out from between the armor’s fault lines. The body puffs up and expands, revealing an almost heart-shaped, reddish underside. The world’s worst valentine. The armor covering its chest splits and separates, exposing more of the ruddy skin. Thousands of black holes covering the red flesh open and close, like mouths the size of cars, saying ‘mop, mop,’ and pushing out dribbles of fluid. The shell-like folds composing the creature’s neck peel open to the sides, like big, spiky clam shells, revealing even more pores. The last bit to open is its mouth, which isn’t really a mouth at all. What looks like armor covering the lower half of its face, snaps open like mandibles, revealing more of the pocked flesh. Then it shakes like a dog, spraying ocean water and some kind of viscous goo from its pores. The daikaiju’s whole body sneezes the stuff.

  I glance through the hangar window. The Shugoten are nearing the top.

  Moving images appear on two of the screens, circling the giant at a safe distance. Video feeds from the Strikers.

  “How are you doing, Gwen?” I ask.

  “Like riding a bike,” she says, “if you learned how to ride a bike on a simulator. I’ve got the hang of it, though. Daniel’s teaching me how to use the weapons. The ones he knows about, anyway.”

  The lost look in Daniel’s eyes reveals his level of concentration. It’s like his consciousness isn’t in the room anymore. There is just a hint of a smile on his face. But is that how he’s feeling, or how Gwen and Vegas are feeling, their emotions filtering back to Daniel? It’s all three of them, I realize, but are they just geeking out or looking forward to a little old-school retribution?

  The main viewscreen shows the daikaiju from one of many hidden cameras mounted atop the volcano, tracking every one of the creature’s movements. The alien invader flexes its three nubby fingers. When it brings them down, long hooked, retractable claws slide out, puncture the sandy beach and dig troughs, as they slide back inside their fleshy sheaths.

  “Can they see the feeds?” I ask Daniel.

  I’m not sure if he’s heard me for a moment, but then he blinks, apologizes and says, “I can see them, and they’re getting all that info from me. They knew about the claws the moment I saw them.”

  “They can’t see through your eyes?” I ask, sounding more aghast than I feel.

  He shakes his head. “Information I take in is passed on to them in real time. They don’t feel it. They can’t experience the flow of data. They just simply know things they didn’t the moment before, like they always knew. There’s nothing jarring about it.” He sucks in a quick breath. “It’s standing up.”

  I turn to the big screen and see the daikaiju rising up onto its hind legs. While Gwen and Vegas are knowing things through Daniel, he’s also getting knowledge from them—in this
case, from Gwen, who’s still circling the monster.

  I can’t tell where its four yellow eyes are looking, but its face is upturned right toward the camera.

  Toward the volcano.

  And the rising Shugoten.

  The clamshell plates on its face snap back down. Its body clenches from the inside out, and the armor snaps back together.

  That’s where it’s weakest.

  “Tell them to attack the points where the armor comes together,” I say.

  Daniel smiles. “They already know. Vegas saw the same thing.”

  “Effie.” It’s Sig, sitting at a terminal, looking a little surprised.

  I lean in next to her. “Yeah?”

  “I just found a network of camera feeds around the island.”

  “More security cameras for the base?”

  She shakes her head. “I think it’s more than that. I’ll put them up.”

  All around the room, the screens change to views of the island. Cameras aren’t just atop or around the volcano. They’re everywhere.

  I guess Vegas only found some.

  I recognize several locations. The landing pad. Several views of the river. Every single coastline. The Unity campsite with its hammocks. The Perseverantes campsite. A third campsite I don’t recognize, but assume belonged to Los Diablos.

  They knew.

  She knew.

  About the island’s real dangers. And they sent us here anyway, knowing full well that some of us, maybe even all of us, would die. They clearly hoped that wouldn’t be the case, that we would rise to the occasion and overcome hardship, but they were willing to risk all our lives.

  One of the video streams catches my eye, and it has nothing to do with the daikaiju. It’s a beach, devoid of everything but a strip of sand separating ocean and jungle. I reach for my chest pocket, which is no longer there. “My photo,” I say, speaking to myself, but Hutch answers.

  “I took it from your flight suit,” he says, digging the dented rectangle from his pocket and handing it to me.

  I hold the photo up beside the screen in question. On the left, I see empty beach. On the right, my parents embracing on the very same beach. They were here, even back then, on this island. Is this where I was conceived? Where I was born?

  Vegas snaps my attention from the confusing past, and back to the horrible present. “We’re going in.”

  His words are for the benefit of those who aren’t connected via the psy-net. From a variety of views around the room, the action unfolds like some kind of immersive movie experience.

  Moving with surprising grace and speed for their size, the Shugoten slide down the mountainside like surfers catching a wave. But there is no rumble inside the mountain. Onscreen, the trees beneath them simply bow away before springing back up. They’re not actually touching the ground. The repulse engines in their feet keep their weight off the ground, allowing them to move without relying solely on mechanical muscles.

  The two Shugoten separate halfway down the mountain, carving the invisible wave in opposite directions, putting them on either side of the daikaiju. Vegas’s white Shugoten reaches the ocean first, and I expect it to plunge in, topple and sink to the bottom. But it slides out over the water, kicking up twin streams of water behind its feet. Flaps in its back open up, revealing two more repulse engines that kick in with a flash of blue light, pushing the giant robot forward, even faster.

  Berg mirrors Vegas, bringing his maroon Shugoten around toward the monster’s other side.

  The daikaiju seems confused, pulled in two directions, unsure which side to defend. But it doesn’t back down, either. It’s not afraid.

  It should be.

  Blades extend from both robots’ forearms.

  They close the distance, spraying arcs of water out behind them.

  I’m so captivated by the impending collision that when a cloud of rockets hit the monster’s back, I hiccup in surprise. When two Strikers punch through the rising ball of fire, spinning before pulling up over the island, I let out a cheer that is joined by a, “whoop!” from Gwen in her Striker.

  But the pitched-forward monster still moves within the cloud of smoke, rising back up.

  Not fast enough, I think, as the Shugoten close in, leading with their blades and aiming for the seams between the armored plates.

  Just when the collision seems inevitable, the daikaiju moves with surprising speed, leaping off the ground, reaching out and spinning. Berg misses his mark completely, sailing beneath the monster, which hooks its claws into the robot’s back and throws. At the same time, Vegas leaps up over the daikaiju, flipping upside down, hundreds of feet in the air, and swiping his blade across the monster’s back.

  The monster continues its spin, swiping at Vegas, but it falls short. The robot lands on its feet and is carried out of range by the repulse engines.

  Vegas cruises in an arc, out into the ocean, coming back around. Berg climbs back to his feet and turns to face the creature. He’s not moving quickly though, and I think his repulse engines have been damaged.

  Sig looks up at me from her station, pointing at the scrolling information on screen. “They’re going to hit it with rockets again, from Berg, Gwen and Ghost. Vegas is going to hit it from behind.”

  Sounds like a good enough plan, but I think they’re underestimating it. It’s faster than I thought possible. Vegas’s first strike scratched the armor, but nothing more. And he’s headed straight toward the creature’s monstrous tail. I want to say something, but in the time it takes me to voice my concerns, the attack will be over.

  Large flaps on Berg’s shoulders snap open, revealing rocket pods.

  Vegas cocks his blade back, aiming to impale rather than cut.

  The two Strikers descend from each side, ready to unleash rockets before narrowly missing each other and flying away in opposite directions.

  It’s a carefully timed and coordinated attack, all thanks to the psy-net. But will it work?

  The daikaiju answers the question even before the first rocket fires.

  No.

  The armor covering the thing’s sides peels open. The face opens up. The tail rises from the ocean, its many segmented shells pulling wide to reveal softer flesh. For a flash, it appears to be taunting us, daring Vegas to strike its exposed flesh. Then its pores open up, unleashing a wriggling mass of red tendrils, and along with them, our darkest, most vile fears.

  37

  “Euphoria.” The voice, followed by a slamming door, brings tears to my eyes. The house is too small and sparse to hide in, so I hide my tears instead. He finds me sitting on my bed, eyes on the floor. I see the colorful construction paper and scissors I stole from school—I was cutting the paper into the sun and planets—and his grime covered toes poking out from his worn down sandals.

  “Euphoria,” he says. “Hey.”

  I don’t look. I don’t dare. But he’s not going to give me a choice. Never does.

  “Hey!”

  “That’s not my name,” I say when I look up. I’m not sure why I said it. I’m seven years old and smarter than most twelve year olds. I know that I shouldn’t even talk to this man, let alone mouth off to him.

  “Your name is whatever damn name I decide to call you, Shithead. And that’s with a capital S. You know what that is, right? A big S before hithead, which is what I’m gonna do, if you don’t—”

  My legs and mouth move on some kind of autopilot, like I’ve been possessed. I stand up and level a finger at his face. “You’re not my father.”

  He smiles at this, revealing what I’m sure are wooden teeth. “Your father ain’t your father.”

  “I’m going to tell him about you.”

  “Are you now?” He pushes the door open all the way and steps into my room, stepping through the force field I’ve always imagined, but never had. A six pack of beer dangles from two of his fingers. The cans are unopened, but his breath says it’s not his first for the day. “You think my brother gives two turds about you, ot
her than the money the state sends him?” He holds up the six pack. “Keeps us fully stocked.”

  “My mother will—”

  “She’s not your mother,” he says, stepping closer. “And today is Friday.”

  Friday.

  Two days to heal.

  The slap comes fast and hard, knocking me back onto the bed.

  I hear the front door open and close again. Howard ignores it. His predator eyes are locked on me.

  “Howie?” It’s Jenny, his girlfriend. Like Uncle Howard, she’s an addict. Her escape of choice is a white powder that sends her somewhere else. But when she is here, she’s nice.

  My uncle ignores her, but the smack of his back-hand, across the other side of my face, can be heard throughout the house. The first slap stung, but the knuckles of his back-hand shake something loose in my mouth. I taste blood.

  “Howie, what the hell?” Jenny stands in the doorway behind him, heavy purse weighing down her shoulder. She looks like a vampire in serious need of a drink, dressed in a cheetah skin top and very short shorts.

  “Take a hike, Jennybird.” He glances back at her. “Mirror’s in the living room.”

  “Howie...” Jenny looks unsure. “If she gets too hurt, they’ll—”

  Too hurt. She only cares about me the way a trucker cares about his truck. I’m a means to an end. I’m money for their various addictions. And like a truck, I can be broken.

  Howie’s retort is another hand against my cheek. I fall to the side, seeing stars. I’m too hurt to cry, in part because of the very real physical pain, but also because I know that come Monday morning, the yellowing bruises will be easily covered up by make-up that I’ll be too afraid to wash off. Or they’ll just keep me home again.

  “You dumb, sonuva—” The sentence ends in a mumble somewhere else. She’s stormed away.

  “Atta girl, Jennybird,” Howie says, with a hacking chuckle. “You go fly away.” He turns back to me. “We’re all just gonna fly away.”