by Chris Ward
Ken spun, his fist crunching into Forbes’s face. The old man groaned and staggered backwards, but Ogiwara caught him and turned him towards the door.
‘Just get out of here, you old clown, or we’ll put you out as food for that thing.’
He shoved Forbes out into the corridor and closed the door again, turning a key in the lock.
‘Thanks.’
A hand closed over Ken’s arm. O-Remo’s fingers dug into his jacket, and Ken looked down at the stricken singer.
‘Do you remember that time?’ O-Remo said, the smile still on his face, but his eyes closed. ‘Do you remember that time?’
‘What time?’
‘The … the show at … Metal Garden in Osaka.’
Ken smiled fondly. ‘Yeah, I remember it.’ They had been sandwiched between Slipknot and Metallica on the final night of the three-day open air festival.
‘That was it, Ken,’ O-Remo gasped. ‘That was the best one … of all of them. You remember what we said before we went on stage?’
Ken felt a tear in his eye. ‘No prisoners.’
‘Yeah … and we took none, did we? We took none.’
‘No, we didn’t.’
Ken glanced at Ogiwara, who was standing by the door with his arms crossed and his head down, lost in his own misery.
‘We ascended that night, didn’t we, Ken? We weren’t just … a band. We were … gods.’
Ken smiled. The crowd had been baying for blood that night, a hostile mix of dysfunctional Japanese kids and Western soldiers from off the military bases. They had stepped up on to that stage with their amps turned up to max, their guitars tuned, and with battle in their hearts. They had come to fight, and they had conquered.
‘The best one,’ Ken said, wiping away a tear. ‘Hell fucking yeah. That was the best one.’
‘Yeah…’ O-Remo gave a slight nod, his smile slowly fading away. Ken stared helplessly as O-Remo took one last breath and then was still. He stared at his bandmate for a few more seconds, then he sank to his knees and lowered his head on to O-Remo’s chest.
And then there were two.
37
Underground lairs
Karin had already headed down a staircase at the back of the apartment. Akane turned to Jun and gave his hand a little squeeze. ‘Are you scared?’ she said, and from her tone he could tell that she was genuinely asking, not simply confirming he felt the same way she did.
‘I’m not sure if I’ve ever been more scared,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to be brave, trying to hold myself together with every second that passes. I feel like if I let up my intensity for just one moment I’ll fall apart.’
‘Are you being brave for me, or for yourself?’
The shock must be frying her brain, he thought. ‘Both,’ he answered. ‘I’m trying to be brave for myself so that I can be brave enough to protect you.’
‘When you faced that bear and shot it with the flare, how did you feel?’
‘You saw?’ When she nodded, he said, ‘Like I was going to die. I didn’t just feel it, I knew it.’ She nodded thoughtfully again, rubbing her chin. ‘And you?’ he asked.
Akane shrugged. ‘That’s just it,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel anything at all. I feel like this is all just one long dream and that any moment I’ll wake up.’
‘You won’t,’ he said, a little harsher than he intended. ‘Come on, let’s get moving before that thing comes back.’
Jun went after Karin, with Akane coming up behind him. The first flight of stairs was gaudily decorated with framed 1950s movie posters and plastic pot plants standing on wooden tables, but from the second landing down it reverted into prefabricated concrete blandness, lit at each turn by a single naked bulb hanging from the ceiling. From below them came Karin’s echoing footfalls. Jun wondered why they didn’t just stay here; in this concrete tube they were quite safe, even if it did make him feel like a prisoner descending towards some hellish torture chamber.
Karin’s footfalls had stopped. Jun turned another landing and found her standing at the beginning of a corridor that stretched away into the gloom.
‘I don’t think we’re in British Heights anymore,’ she said as they crowded in behind her. ‘Any guesses where this goes?’
‘Only one way to find out,’ Akane said, taking the lead and heading down the corridor. Jun shared a glance with Karin, then they both hurried after the girl, who was already disappearing into the gloom.
They reached a corner and turned right. Jun guessed they were somewhere under the courtyard, but he couldn’t be sure. They saw no other routes to the surface, although several doors led off the corridor. Jun tried a few as they passed. Most were locked, but a couple opened into blank concrete rooms like prison cells, while another contained just a couple of mops and a bucket standing in one corner. He had the distinct impression that this part of whatever underground complex they were in wasn’t used very much.
‘How far does this place go on for?’ Karin asked.
Jun shrugged. ‘I really wish we could turn back, but for some reason I feel safer down here.’
The corridor made a couple more turns, and seemed to be angling downhill. They reached a set of steps leading down into darkness. Akane stopped halfway down and turned to look back up at them.
‘What do we do now?’
Jun reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He pressed a button and a flashlight lit up the steps below them.
‘It’s useful for something at least,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first if you like.’
The corridor stretching away from the bottom of the stairs was similar to the first, only without any power. Jun saw lights embedded into the dull concrete walls, but none were working.
‘What’s that smell?’ Akane said.
Jun had noticed it too. It smelled distinctly like rotting meat. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Wow, that’s something else. My god.’
The corridor ended at a large steel door with two heavy bolts pulled across it. Jun passed the phone to Karin while he began to pull one back.
‘Do you really think that’s a good idea?’ Akane asked. ‘It looks like that’s designed to keep something out.’
‘Only one way to find out what’s going on here,’ Jun said, as the first bolt slid out of the heavy locking mechanism. The second groaned in its fittings but came away with less resistance. Jun took a step back and pulled the door open.
Bright lights blinded him. He cried out and flinched away, covering his eyes with his sleeve. As they began to adjust, he peered around his arm into the room in front of them.
‘Wow,’ Karin said.
Jun stepped through the door onto a metal walkway some thirty metres above the floor of a massive cavern carved out of rock. Lit with huge floodlights set into the cavern roof, it was a complete microcosm of a forest, complete with pine trees, rocks, and even a small stream flowing through the centre.
The cavern appeared to have been tunneled out of a natural cave. Parts of the roof were smooth and water-worn, while others had the rough-hewn lines of drilling and boring equipment. Perhaps forty metres high, it stretched for several hundred metres, like a giant road tunnel. At intervals of fifty metres or so, it was partitioned by tall wire fences. More wire mesh like netting had been strung across the cavern from one side to the other, but below the walkway it had been ripped and damaged.
Jun spun at the sound of someone retching, and saw Karin on her knees, vomiting over the edge of the walkway. As it passed through the remains of the wire mesh, little sparks fizzed and jumped.
‘There’s the source of the smell,’ Akane said, pointing.
The remains of a man who had been wearing grey work overalls lay beside the door. Jun could only tell it was a man from the pieces of beard on what was left of his face. His body ended just below the waist, the other half of him nowhere to be seen. Bloody handprints covered the back of the door.
A cloud of flies bloomed up from the corpse as Karin found her feet and took a step ba
ck. Jun stepped out across the walkway to give the women more room.
‘I guess we found where those bears came from,’ Karin said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘What are they for?’
Jun told them what he knew. Both Karin and Akane stared at him as he recounted what Forbes had told him and Ken.
‘This is insane,’ Karin said. ‘I had no idea. I thought his companies were legitimate. I mean, I didn’t expect him to be a saint, but developing something like that…’
Akane shrugged. ‘It’s no worse than building any weapon though, is it? The only difference is that we’re in the firing line.’
‘I say we go back,’ Karin said. ‘Maybe that bear’s gone and we can get back out the way we came.’
‘No.’
Jun and Karin looked at Akane. ‘We’ve come this far,’ the girl said. ‘Wherever those bears are now, they’re not here. They’re up above us somewhere, hunting. We might have a chance to stop this.’
Before Jun or Karin could answer, she pushed past them and started running across the catwalk towards a door in the wall of the cavern on the far side.
Kurou stared at the video screen in amazement. How had they got into the facility? He could see them down there on a grainy video feed, running across Catwalk Three, which crossed the rear enclosure where Lolo had been kept. They were heading for the development laboratory and the incubation rooms. If they found some way to disconnect the power again they could jeopardise the entire shipment.
Kurou raised his hands in the air like a man praying for divine intervention, and squawked at the top of his lungs. Then, pushing himself back from the desk, he got up and headed for the door.
He would have to put an end to them himself.
Rutherford Forbes rubbed at a fresh bruise on his cheek as he ran down the long main corridor on the ground floor of the Fort. What had those idiots expected, that he would just sit around and wait for them to finish their moment of grief before getting stuck into him again? He wasn’t some chump they could just push around; he was one of the richest men in the world. It was time they learned a thing or two about him. You didn’t push Rutherford Forbes around and get away with it.
Once he had seen the end of these idiotic people, he would find Professor Crow and deal with him. The Professor’s behaviour had become too unpredictable. In truth, the Professor’s work was done; he had created the prototypes from which other scientists could work. The ugly bastard was a genius, but he wasn’t the only one. Forbes would find others, and next time he would keep a tighter rein on them.
But first, it was time for a little payback.
He went through a set of stairs at the end of the corridor and took another corridor heading left. It was just another row of guest rooms and conference suites, but at the end was a small service door. He pulled a master key from his pocket, opened the door, and headed down a dark staircase.
At the bottom he reached up into the dark and pulled a string cord from memory. Overhead strip lights stuttered into life, illuminating a large subterranean hanger containing a huge snowplow and several smaller snow-clearing machines. The plow’s regular driver had taken the sick students down in the snowmobile, but Forbes knew the basic controls. In his younger days he had always made a point of understanding as many of the lackey jobs as he could, because there would always be a time when the skills came in handy.
With an average of four metres of snowfall per season, he had needed an impressive vehicle to clear the roads around the complex. Forbes could do nothing about the landslide, of course, but his intention wasn’t to clear the snow.
He climbed up over the huge wheels and into the cab. Locking the door, he felt safe even from the bears, although he would have to hope that their sensors recognised the vehicle for what it was rather than as prey. Crow had instilled them with size and weight approximators to ensure they didn’t go chasing after every rabbit or young deer that came across their path. They were designed to hunt and kill humans only.
The engine burst into life with a huge roar, and Forbes grinned as the headlights illuminated a large garage door. A remote control was resting on the dashboard. Forbes jabbed a fat finger at a button and the garage door creaked as it began to rise.
38
The king of all beasts
Bee stepped away from the window, a wide grin on his face. ‘He comes!’ he said, turning back to Kaede. ‘The greatest of all bears is approaching!’
She shook her head. ‘Let me out of here, you crazy prick! Can’t you see the smoke? The building’s on fire!’
Bee just threw back his head and laughed. ‘Stop making excuses, you silly girl. These events have been preordained.’
He went over to the wall and adjusted the angle of one of the computer tablets he had set up, so that the live webcam was pointing directly at the chair in the centre of the room where Kaede was tied. The whole world would get to watch how he tamed the giant beast, with only a minor time lag. He was still rather annoyed that the Wi-Fi wasn’t working, but the stream would be sent off into cyberspace to connect whenever British Heights’s servers were ready. It didn’t matter when. He had all of eternity to show his mastery of nature to the world.
Ignoring the smoke, he went out through the gym door and pulled open one of the corridor windows that looked out on to the courtyard below. He was aware of the flames licking at some of the windows, but it was mostly smoke and very little fire. He had opened the high windows in the gym, so they were safe for the time being.
Here he comes, Bee thought. The kaiju himself. The king.
The enormous bear passed through the entrance to the courtyard, his shanks pressing against the stone lions that topped each gate post. He was larger than a male African elephant, making the other bears look tiny, insignificant.
Bee had read about him on the Internet. Roaming the woods of the North Korea-China border, he was considered quasi-mythical, a legend. As a child he had watched endless TV reruns of Monster Hunter, and was fascinated by legendary beasts of all kinds, from those considered real like Nessie and the Sasquatch to those created by film studios like Godzilla and King Kong. From the first time he had read about Lolo, Bee had longed to learn more.
Of course, he’d quickly become suspicious of the accounts of Lolo’s life, because all of the evidence littered across the net seemed to be coming from the same source. As someone who built websites in his spare time while the band was on the road, it hadn’t been difficult to trace the source information to the same IP address, and then attach a GPS tracking location, to find out exactly where every original claim of the legend of Lolo, the giant black bear, had come from.
Right here, in British Heights.
Bee hadn’t expected to find anything other than a crackpot computer nerd making up stories and posting them online, so things had proven a little more exciting. Now, of course, he had to give something back. He had to show the world how the beast was tamed.
‘Hey!’ he screamed, waving his hands out of the window. ‘Over here, beast!’
The bear ignored him. It sauntered up to the wreckage of the helicopter and sniffed around it, then started chewing something half buried under the snow. Bee shouted and waved his hands some more, but Lolo was more interested in breaking open the cockpit of the helicopter with its huge paws so that it could get at the meat inside.
Bee looked around for something he could use to attract its attention. Against the opposite wall was an ornate dressing table holding several large porcelain vases. He chose the biggest one, hefted it in his hands and carried it back to the window. It had to weigh at least ten kilograms, and he was terrified of overbalancing as he leaned out, but he didn’t want to just drop it. Instead, he slammed it down against a small ledge just below the window.
As the vase broke into pieces, the bear grunted and looked up towards him. Bee waved his hands frantically and finally it took notice. It sat back on its haunches and gave a bellowing roar, then began moving quickly towards the buildin
g in a lolloping run.
Bee had expected it to go in through the door, and up the stairs, but instead it rushed straight towards him, leaping against the wall and creating its own footholds by smashing into the rock with its paws. He gasped and fell backwards as one huge paw swung in through the window, tearing it out of its frame. A roar rattled the building, and then Lolo’s head appeared, teeth bared in a vicious snarl.
Bee ran backwards into the gym as Lolo smashed his way in through the opening, his massive bulk filling the corridor. In the gym, Kaede was screaming behind her gag. Bee glanced at the three computer tablets set up around the room and hoped that the stream would be clear. Retreating to a rear staircase leading down to the lower floor, he ducked down and waited to see what would happen as Lolo broke through the double doors into the gym.
‘See the beast tamed,’ Bee whispered, wishing he had thought to set up some kind of microphone to allow him to provide a running commentary on this momentous event. ‘Watch the creature fall, as so many others have done, to the charms of a beautiful lady.’
That, to Bee, Kaede was about as beautiful as the dirty prostitutes who littered the ends of shopping arcades after nightfall in every major population centre in Japan, was irrelevant. He wasn’t expecting the beast to fuck her, only to fall in love with her, placating its anger. The moment would be beautiful, perfect, and the world would be watching.
Lolo growled and sauntered up to Kaede, looming over her like a great dark raincloud. Kaede struggled in her bonds, shaking her head back and forth, kicking out her heels. His huge shaggy head lowered until he was looking right into her eyes. He sniffed at her. Bee, crouched by the top of the back staircase, barely dared to breathe. I hope you’re all watching, he thought. This is a moment that will go down in history.
Lolo lifted his head. For a moment his eyes seemed to meet Bee’s, and Bee shivered at the darkness he saw in those crimson orbs, a lifetime of killing and anger about to be absolved. ‘Let love into your animal heart,’ Bee whispered.