Project Maigo (10 page)

Before his hand reached her face, she ducked down and tightened into a ball. Gordon’s foot struck her, eliciting a cry of pain, but he hadn’t kicked her, he’d simply tripped over her. He sprawled forward, off balance, headed for the large windows.

He glanced through the glass and caught sight of the battle outside. Hudson was still on the run. Still hopelessly outmatched. But then five Apache attack helicopters roared past overhead. They would only aggravate his child. The fools hadn’t learned anything.

Gordon’s eyes returned to the glass. Like all good soldiers, he thought several steps ahead. He knew he was going to break through the window and fall four stories. But he also knew he’d survive the fall, recover quickly and have no problem cutting off the three fleeing FC-P agents. The first thing he’d do was rip the fat man’s spine out. That would take the fight out of the other two.

His face struck the glass first.

It didn’t break.

Instead, his flesh folded inwards, compressing the thick bones of his face. As momentum carried the rest of his body forward, the pressure on his face grew. Something popped and then crunched, and for the first time in a year, Gordon felt pain.

He put his hand up to his nose. The flesh felt looser. Warm fluid covered his fingertips. He couldn’t make out the color against his charcoal flesh. But he knew what it was. Blood. The bitch had actually hurt him.

He thrashed out an arm, obliterating a workstation with one strike. He turned toward the woman, who he expected to find on the floor, clutching her side in pain. She was gone. As were the other two. His plan was falling apart.

“No!” he screamed and charged toward the stairwell. When he reached the top, he leapt out over the stairs, compressed his body into a ball and struck the wall. Unlike the windows, this part of the house had not been reinforced. He broke through wood and plaster like a wrecking ball.

His fall was broken by the crunch of a car roof folding in. His body struck hard, face down. The car compressed loudly, and then all at once, it exploded into flames. The searing heat surprised Gordon, but it didn’t harm him. When he stood in the flames and stepped through the curtain of smoke, he was very glad to see three sets of stunned eyes staring at him.

Ignoring the flames flickering over his chest, Gordon grinned and said. “Let’s try that again.”

12

I hold my finger down, launching all thirty-eight rockets. It might be a little excessive, but the rockets aren’t smart. They can’t lock on to targets. They just fly straight until they hit something and explode. And sometimes they don’t even fly straight. Considering the amount of firepower I’ve just launched, the rockets don’t make much noise. They just kind of whoosh away, swirling trails of smoke. There’s so many of them twisting through the air, the sight reminds me of those
Robotech
cartoons I used to watch when I was a kid...and a few years ago. The twisting streaks of white are almost beautiful.

“Holy shit,” the whispered curse comes through my headset. One of the helicopter pilots commenting on what I’ve just done, which serves to remind
me
about what I’ve just done.

“Where is the car?” I ask, shouting into my headset.

“They’re away!” someone replies.

“Up!” I shout to Woodstock, even as he pulls us higher into the air and to the side. It’s like a backwards rollercoaster ride, but I hardly notice. All of my attention is on the now-small streaks of white, headed for Scrion’s underside.

The Kaiju has just leapt up, exposing the three orange membranes.

The first rocket strikes with an orange explosion that sounds like a distant firework. But nothing happens. The rocket struck high, between Scrion’s neck and armor planting. I don’t think it even noticed the impact.

But it’s sure as hell going to. It’s easy to see now, as Scrion rises and the rockets continue to strike—

It happens.

A rocket punches through the top membrane and detonates. But even as that explosion begins, at least eight more rockets pierce the other two slices of orange flesh. I don’t even have time to cringe at what I’ve done.

The way people experience explosions is basically a race. The light, traveling at 186,282 miles per second, comes first. The bright white forces my eyes shut for a moment before it fades to luminous shades of yellow and orange. Next, comes the shockwave, which contrary to popular belief, travels faster than sound. The science of it is gobbledygook to me. Something about the compression of wave fronts or some such thing. What’s important to know is that you’re going to get punched first and then yelled at.

And the punch is hard. Kaiju Mike Tyson hard. The helicopter is slammed back, and for a moment I’m looking through the windshield at nothing but blue sky. Warning lights flash. Woodstock utters a string of unintelligible curses like it’s the Pentecost. Before all the shaking is done, the sound hits. If not for the sound-canceling headphones on our ears, I’m positive Woodstock and I would be deaf. The pulse of sound knocks the air from my lungs and pitches me forward as my insides quiver. Woodstock somehow manages to fight this effect and not only keeps his hands on the controls, but regains control of Betty. He brings us level again, about a mile from the explosion—over the harbor—but just a couple hundred feet up.

Not that I’m concerned about height. I don’t think Scrion would be able to reach us at this height while swimming. And then there is the fact that the monster is gone.

Totally.

A crater the size of a football stadium is all that remains.

“Did you vaporize the dang thing?” Woodstock asks, leaning forward in his seat like the extra foot of nearness will help him see more. “Ain’t nothin’ left!”

I have a hard time believing it. Whenever one of Nemesis’s membranes were punctured, the resulting explosion would lay waste to the surrounding area, but it would also cauterize the wound, healing her. But Scrion appears to have been obliterated.

Then I remember my analogy.
A cherry bomb beneath a trash can.
The energy, directed down toward the Earth, would reflect back and slam into Scrion. While it might not scorch the monster, it would no doubt propel it...upwards.

I lean forward as far as I can, searching the blue sky for an aberration. I toggle Devine. “Any eyes on the target?”

“No, sir,” says the lead Apache pilot. “It’s g—”

“Eagle-Eye Three,” calls out a pilot. “I have eyes on target.”

“Where?” I ask.

“About five thousand feet.”

I can’t help but smile. Woodstock actually lets out a chuckle.

“Forty-five hundred,” adds the pilot.

The new information wipes the shit eating grin from my face. It’s coming down fast, though I still can’t see it.

“Is the target alive?” I ask.

“And pissed,” the pilot says. “Target is above the water. Are we clear to engage?”

“Engage!” I shout. “Engage!”

Looking through a pair of binoculars, I see the planes—three F-22 Raptors, just small triangles in the sky high above—the moment they let loose a barrage of missiles. And these aren’t like the rockets I shot off. Not only are the AIM-7 Sparrow missiles guided and guaranteed to hit a target without countermeasures, they’re real heavy hitters. And they should be since each missile costs more than my yearly take-home pay. Six years of working for the DHS and my collective taxes aren’t enough to pay for just one of those missiles. So when the first missile strikes, the explosion is satisfyingly large, though still dwarfed by the conflagration I caused on the ground. But it’s joined by another, and another. The string of orange flame allows me to track Scrion’s descent.

It’s headed for the harbor, behind us. Woodstock swings us around slowly so we can follow its fall.

“Gonna make one hell of a splash,” Woodstock says.

I barely hear him. I’m too busy trying to control the missiles through sheer willpower. If one of them can sneak inside those now open membranes, there’s a small chance we might actually kill the monster. If not, I have little doubt it will survive the fall and swim away—if not press the attack once more. If that happened, there would be little we could do about it. The only silver lining is that the evacuation is well underway.

Of course, it’s not interested in wreaking havoc. It’s after me. “If Scrion survives, and still has eyes for me, we need to lead it away.”

“Right,” Woodstock says with a nod. “The aircraft carrier.”

The ninth and final missile detonation fills the sky with an orange plume of light. Man-made thunder rolls past. Scrion descends. I find it in the sky, now just fifteen hundred feet up. I have trouble tracking the beast at first, until I bring the lenses into focus. It’s like a giant flying turtle-dog, which is just ridiculous. When I see its flailing limbs splayed wide, Scrion looks borderline silly. But it’s not really funny, because it’s still alive, even after a severe beating. But is it hurt? I shift my view to the side, finding its head.

The still crazed eyes are staring straight back at me like some obsessed ex-girlfriend who doesn’t know when to stop wearing a guy’s jersey, or whatever it is women do these days. “Shit!” I pull the binoculars from my eyes.

“Aircraft carrier?” Woodstock asks.

“Hell ye—”

A mash of voices fills my ears. Shouting. I can’t make out a word of it, but the tone is unmistakable. Shock. Panic. Urgency. Somewhere in the mix, I hear the words “Behind Betty.”

As the words register, a dark shadow falls over us, like a cloud has just blocked the sun. Some days just start out shitty. Like today. No coffee. Then Scrion. And now... I don’t even need to look. The blocked sun and the fear in the voices of military professionals tells me everything I need to know.

It’s like the cliché moment in a TV show or movie, when Jack (or whoever) is bitching about Steve, who just happens to be standing behind him. He stops and say, “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

That’s where my mind is as I come to grips with what I suspect will be my last few seconds on the planet.

She’s behind me, isn’t she?

But it’s not a grumpy boss or an over-emotional wife.

It’s Nemesis.

And this time, it’s for real.

Woodstock must be having the same realization I am, because he acts without being told what to do. Our slow spin becomes rapid as we snap around.

Fifty feet from Betty’s windshield are Nemesis’s brown eyes. Like with Scrion, her massive brown eyes seem to be locked on me.
It’s the helicopter
, I think.
She must remember the helicopter.
We should have painted Betty blue instead of matching her truck’s namesake.

But I see no anger in those eyes. Instead, I see...

“Maigo.”

The name comes from my lips as a whisper, though Woodstock can hear me.

Water pours from her head as she rises from the ocean. Her jaws open wide, revealing sharp white teeth bigger than me. Her skin, gleaming white the last time I saw her, is thick and gray once more. She’s whole again.

She rises in time with the chopper, her head—
her jaws
—remaining level with us as we ascend.
She’s taller
, I think, glancing at our altimeter as we pass three hundred feet. While we haven’t flown above her yet, we are moving back. As the distance increases, more of her massive body comes into view. The orange membranes lining the sides of her neck glow bright orange, reminding us of her deadly potential. The thick folds of skin on her neck shift and stretch, as she lifts her gaze away from the helicopter.

“What the hell is she doin’?” Woodstock asks.

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t expecting an answer, but I have one. “Playing fetch.” I toggle Devine. “All units, hold your fire. I repeat, hold your fire!” I ignore the litany of doubt-filled complaints that enter my ears, but when no missiles streak past, I know my orders have been followed. They’ll understand it in 3...

Nemesis’s height tops out at three-hundred-fifty feet. Her giant arms rise up, trailing waterfalls. A shredded fishing net clings to the sharp spikes on her left elbow. Clumps of seaweed slip from her chest and fall away. The pulse of her orange membranes is bright. The explosive liquid within swirls, as though eager to get out.

2...

Her long tail snaps up, twisting back and forth like an agitated cat—if cat’s tails had a trident of spikes the size of 747 wings. I note that the color of her claws and spikes has changed from black to beige. The armor plating on her shoulders looks thicker. She’s ready for battle, radiating power. I catch just a glimpse of her back as we twist away. The massive spikes have moved back to the middle, the thick armored carapace once again protecting delicate reflective wings capable of great destruction.

And then it happens.

1...

13

Former small-town sheriff turned FC-P special agent, Ashley Collins struggled against her fight-or-flight instinct, which was cheering wholeheartedly for her to make like a freshly baked gingerbread man and run. But she couldn’t. Not while Cooper and Watson were still in harm’s way.