Unity

by Jeremy Robinson

  “You’re drifting,” Sig says.

  I smile at Sig and lean back, watching the sunset. We’re sitting at the edge of the Unity campsite’s cliff, feet dangling over the precipice of doom, just like the rest of the planet. Some of the hammocks behind us have been replaced by graves. Mandi is there, visited once every day by Hutch. While everyone is quiet for their own reasons, Mandi is his. And if I’m honest, a large part of mine. Freckles is there, too, along with the rest of the Unity bodies we could recover from the crashed transport.

  Quinlan, Luiz, Bear, Whitey, Twig and even Mack, have been buried in the field by the landing pad. We buried the long-dead skeletal remains of those slaughtered by Quinlan, as well. I was surprised that Vegas wanted to honor Quinlan’s final request, but despite being a hardened soldier, he’s shown a great capacity to forgive. “Some people break easier than others,” he said, after shoveling the final bit of soil over his old friend’s body. “Sometimes even the best of us. I’ll miss who you were, buddy, and try to forget who you became.” He looked at me then and said, “Overcoming an enemy is just the first step. Making peace with them, that’s the hard part.”

  For a moment, I thought he was suggesting there was some way for us to come to some kind of peaceful agreement with the invaders, but that would be like lions making peace with zebras. Sure, the zebras would be all for it, but the lions...they need to eat. And so do the daikaiju. We might just be one stop on some kind of intergalactic migration. Maybe some of us will live, and in a million years, they’ll be back for more. Maybe they’ve been here before?

  Visions of the slain daikaiju flit through my head. It invaded my dreams that first night, but I’ve managed to not think about it since we put it under the ground. That was the first body we buried, using Shugoten to dig a massive grave where the tidal wave flattened the jungle—where we first washed up on Unity Island, as we now call it. We didn’t bury the creature out of some kind of respect for our slain enemy. We just don’t want it to be noticed. We’re not ready to face another of those things, let alone have a bunch of them come to find out what happened to poor old Howard.

  “Still drifting,” Sig says. “You do that a lot now.”

  “There’s a lot to think about now.”

  “There has always been a lot to think about,” she says. “It’s just unavoidable now.”

  “Thank you, Socrates.” A twitch of movement pulls my attention down to her hand. A spider creeps along her skin, toward her knuckles. “Spider on your hand.”

  I say the words casually, but her reaction is big. She snaps her hand up, flinging the arachnid away. But even after it’s gone, she keeps shaking. “Where did it go? Where did it go?”

  I’ve never seen her in such a panic, and in that moment, I know the fear of spiders I felt while connected to the psy-net, belonged to her, not Hutch.

  “Is it in my hair?” she asks, shaking her head.

  I point at the small spider, scurrying away. The size ratio between Sig and the fleeing creature is comparable to a daikaiju and a human. “It’s right there.” I point at it. “See? I don’t think it’s going to mess with you again.”

  She catches her breath for a moment, relaxes again and leans her head against my shoulder. I place my cheek against her smooth hair and close my eyes to the sun, drifting once more.

  This time inside the mountain.

  Daniel, Gizmo, Duff and Doli have set themselves to the task of repairing the damaged Shugoten. There’s a repair bay with an army of robot arms capable of disassembling the giant machines, fixing damage or replacing parts. There are also forty-seven perfectly functional Shugoten standing idle in the hangar bay’s sublevels, including F-B0MB-002 and F-B0MB-003. But the Bases seem more interested in the damaged machines, taking them apart, seeing how they work and exploring how they can be made better. Seeing their excited faces, as they peel back plates of armor the size of buildings, reminds me that they’re just kids.

  Kids turned soldiers.

  It’s tragic, but a common occurrence in conflicts throughout history. Industrialized nations cry out against the practice when warring African nations recruit the young, often brutally. But those same nations take eighteen-, seventeen- and sixteen-year-olds into their militaries, sending them out into combat from which there is no return. The First and Second World Wars were full of child soldiers, on both sides, the youngest being an eight-year-old boy. The Hitler Youth served the Nazis, while at the same time, Jewish youth resisted the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghettos. Kids in the allied nations, as young as twelve, fueled by national pride, signed up for active duty.

  Part of me wants to be aghast that it has happened again, that Unity took a bunch of kids and thrust us into this war. Made us killers. Made me a killer. Again. But I’m having trouble staying angry at them. Unity believed that we had twenty more years. And the alternative, in this situation, would have been to sit back, do nothing and let us all die.

  But like New Hampshire’s John Stark once said, ‘Death is not the worst of evils.’ Though I doubt he ever pictured being eaten alive by a daikaiju. As the words sift through my thoughts, I find myself feeling connected to America’s revolutionaries. ‘Live free or die.’ Also Stark’s words. The point is, living in fear of losing your life is worse than fighting for it, and losing it. To die fighting is an American cliché, but it still rings true with anyone who has ever been oppressed, humiliated or abused.

  Don’t run.

  You can’t.

  You have to fight, Effie.

  That advice saved my life nine years ago, and again, three days ago.

  And I intend to follow it again.

  I’m just not sure how. Guerilla warfare works, but I can’t recall a situation in history where just eleven people, age eighteen down to nine, fought off an army of ten thousand, never mind an army of ten thousand five-hundred-foot-tall daikaiju from another world.

  The situation is hopeless. The realist in me knows that. But it will be better to die fighting. And take as many of them with me as possible.

  “Mind if I sit down?” Gwen’s voice startles me out of my glum determination.

  I look back at her. She’s dressed in a white flight suit that matches Vegas’s and shows off curves I would have never guessed she had. I see Hutch behind her, kneeling at Mandi’s grave, hands gripping the cross that marks it. They came here together, probably not expecting company.

  I pat the solid cliff edge beside me, inviting Gwen to sit, which she does.

  After a moment of silence, Sig says, “Are you drifting, too?”

  “What’s that mean?” Gwen asks.

  “Means you’re not really here,” Sig says.

  Gwen leans forward, looking past me. “Who’s not really here?”

  I raise my hand.

  “Well, there is a lot to think about,” she says, making me smile and Sig laugh.

  “Always has been.” I give Sig a little nudge.

  “S’pose,” Gwen says, and we all fall silent again.

  Hutch joins us in the sun’s setting glow a moment later, sitting down beside Sig and putting his arm around her.

  I’ve never had a family, but I think it would have felt something like this.

  It’s a perfect moment.

  And that’s as long as it lasts.

  The stone beneath us shakes. Not violently. But it feels like the whole island is quivering.

  “Back from the edge,” I say, pushing myself away. Then I take hold of Sig and drag her with me.

  When we’re far enough away from the cliff, we stand on shaky ground and move back further, past the campsite and into the jungle, some primitive instinct telling us to hide.

  I search the view before us for some sign of an approaching daikaiju, but the only monster in view is the one we buried far below.

  “What is it?” Sig asks, but none of us has an answer.

  Crunching leaves turn us around. I’m expecting some kind of attack, but it’s just Vegas and Ghost, shirtless and buff, out
for a run.

  “What’s happening?” Vegas asks, addressing me.

  “No idea.”

  “Have you asked Operations?” he asks.

  We keep one person in Operations at all times, monitoring the situation around the world, keeping watch on the island’s perimeter, ready to sound the alarm. Right now, that’s Gizmo. And the nine-year-old is probably freaking out right now, trying to reach the person in charge—which is somehow still me—and failing. I had shut my comm off to enjoy the sunset. To connect with Sig, the way we used to. A sacred moment.

  But nothing is sacred anymore, it seems.

  I tap the comm unit on my black flight-suit collar and Gizmo’s high-pitched voice fills my ear. I can’t understand a word of it.

  “Gizmo!” I shout. “I can’t understand you. Gizmo!”

  He stops talking, breathing hard. “Effie?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I couldn’t reach anyone. I thought they got you.”

  “Who?” I ask, not really wanting to know.

  “Who?” He says it like it’s the stupidest question I ever asked. “Look up.”

  I turn my head up, but all I can see is the jungle’s canopy. The leaves overhead are shaking, filling the air with a loud shhh, but it’s not being caused by the rumbling moving through the ground. There’s something above them.

  I run back through the campsite, past the crosses and hammocks, sliding to a stop before careening over the cliff. I look up again, and see it.

  A massive object, perhaps a mile across and miles long, cruises past—flying, not falling—high in the atmosphere, but still looking way too close. Its surface is black and jagged. Long black spines protrude from the front of it. It makes no sound as it flies past, but the effect of its passing can be seen in the trees, and in the rippling ocean.

  A cloud of smaller objects buzz around it. They look like black sea urchins, spiked on all sides.

  This is how the daikaiju got here, I think. But did they pilot this thing, or were they passengers?

  From their altitude, miles above us, I would look like nothing more than a fleck of dust on a boulder seen from a hundred feet away. But I duck back anyway, sure I’ll be spotted. “Back,” I tell the others. “Back inside. Now!”

  When no one moves, Vegas rounds the others up and herds them toward the nearest hatch, all of which are now programmed to open for any single brand. But I linger, watching the massive ship head toward the horizon. Vegas returns for me, gripping my arm when I don’t reply to the three times he says my name.

  A shadow falls over us, as the setting sun is blotted out.

  Vegas steps in front of me, my eyes at hardened pec level. He puts a hand under my chin, lifting my eyes toward his.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many, long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny...”

  I smile, despite the—for lack of a better word—mothership, framing his head. “Did you just quote Churchill at me?”

  “Sig says you’re a history buff. I considered Patton, but that guy had a potty mouth. Sig also said you’re trying to clean up your language. So, did Churchill help?”

  I look around his big shoulder. The ship and its gnat-like fleet of smaller vessels continues toward the horizon, not interested in our tiny dot of an island or the people hiding on it. There wasn’t a single moment of World War II, with all its horrors, that looked this bleak. “Not really.”

  “I’ll use Patton next time,” he says, and he motions to the jungle with his square jaw. “You should get back. They’re going to be scared if you’re not there.”

  I’m about to argue. That other people could gain strength from my presence still doesn’t feel right. I get how it worked with Hutch and Sig, connected through the psy-net, but I’m not some kind of great leader. I was just lucky that my past was worse than anything the daikaiju could conjure.

  “I’ll be scared without you,” he adds, catching me off guard. “We’d all be dead, if not for you. You’re stronger than any of us. You’ll need to fight. There’s no doubt about that. But you also need to come home alive. If you die, our hope dies with you.”

  “Great. No pressure.”

  He grins. “The point is, get your ass inside before I pick you up and carry you.”

  I turn my back on the impossible view, forced smile fading away. I start through the jungle, each step either carrying me closer to the end of mankind or our rise from the ashes.

  Epilogue

  The only time it’s quiet in Operations is at night. People talk. Noise from the hangar—drills, machinery, grinding—filters in. Computer systems chirp and chime whenever a new event is detected around the world. But at night, with all the alarms shut off, the only sound in the room is the gentle shush of cooling fans. It’s why I volunteered for the night shift.

  I’m not shirking my duties or ignoring the world outside, I’m just maintaining my vigil like a monk, watching in silence, as one person after another is plucked from the ground. They writhe in some kind of nightmare, before being pulled inside the daikaiju...and what? Are they killed? Are they slowly digested?

  Questions I never really want answers to. Whether the end comes quick or long and torturous, it comes just the same. The moment those people are trapped in their own nightmares, they’re dead.

  I watch it happen all over the world. In Japan. Siberia. Iceland. Brazil. Hawaii. The monsters wade through cities, moving slowly out into less populated areas, following the scent, or something, of fleeing people. The assault is organized, like archeologists working a grid, making sure nothing is missed. Only the smallest of islands, like ours, seem to be out of the current game plan. Maybe we’re just too far away? The energy it would take to reach us greater than the benefit of consuming us? Maybe that’s how humanity will survive?

  Mind numbed by the thousands of murders I’ve watched from a distance tonight, I dig the photo out of my pocket and look at the two smiling people standing on this same island, sixteen years ago. What were you doing here? Why did you take me away from here? The list of questions has grown longer. While I’ve seen my mother and know she’s alive, and aware of me, I still don’t know her name. Or her place in all this. Or if she’s even still married to my father—or ever was.

  The only real change is that I’m no longer angry at her.

  The choice she made sixteen years ago nearly destroyed me.

  But in the end, it saved me.

  And everyone else in this base.

  Was my abandonment sage foresight, cowardice or circumstantial necessity? Beats me. But if I had to go back and change it, I wouldn’t. The only thing it would really change is the quality of my life up until this point, at which time I’d be dead and eaten, or soon to be.

  A chuckle rises from my core. And I’ve discovered the answer to my own question.

  Why would God allow bad things to happen?

  Because they make us—or those that survive us—stronger for when things get worse.

  All of my pain and fear and loneliness were a forge, melting me down and remaking me into something stronger and sharper.

  Suffering is a teacher that cannot be ignored or forgotten.

  But does that still apply if there’s no one left to live the lesson learned?

  Will we—the human species—be remade fast enough to survive?

  “Too many damn questions,” I say to myself, and I lean back in my chair, feet up, fingers massaging my temples. I turn my eyes to the ceiling, seeing through it, the volcano above, the atmosphere and stars, to whatever creator it is that hides behind a curtain of dark energy universe glue. “A little hope would go a long way. You know, if that’s something you still do.”

  The only answer I get is the tap, tap, tap
of bare feet on the hard floor. I lean back a little further and tilt my head, watching an upside-down Daniel walk down the stairs.

  “Feet off the console,” he says, rubbing his eyes.

  When I don’t budge, he pushes my feet off and takes a seat. He’s bleary-eyed, yawning and stretching.

  His exhaustion is contagious. I find myself yawning, tired and annoyed. I look at the time. 2:15 am. Ghost is scheduled to relieve me at 3:00 am. “Your shift doesn’t start until nine in the morning.”

  “I had a dream,” he says.

  “Most people go back to sleep after having dreams.” And I’m one of them. I’ve been plagued by nightmares since arriving on Unity Island.

  “Most people don’t dream inventions,” he says, “or in this case, solutions.”

  His screen blinks on. I can’t follow the streams of code that flow down multiple windows. His finger scrolls over the screen, tongue wedged between his lips. “Uh-huh. Hmm. Yes.” He taps the touchscreen with his index finger and declares, “There it is! I can’t believe we didn’t think of this before.” He turns to me. “Well, not you, but the—”

  “I get it,” I say. “It’s a Base thing.”

  He snaps his fingers and points at me. “Exactly.”

  Then he’s back to work, tapping the keyboard like a mad scientist.

  “Have you seen Sig much?” The question stumbles his fingers, and he smashes the Backspace key until the error is erased.

  Typing again, he answers, “Not much.”

  It’s been four weeks since the motherships arrived. We’ve counted twenty-five of them around the world, but Sig insists there would need to be three times that number to contain all of the daikaiju. And even then, it would be a tight fit. Daniel has spent the majority of that time with the Shugoten. Day and night. Meals. This is the first time I’ve seen him up close in two days.

  “We need to make sure the Shugoten are ready for—”

  “No point in fighting for something you’ve already given up,” I say. He’s smart enough to know I’m talking about Sig, not the world.