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All heads turn toward me.

“The shape is wrong,” I explain. “And it’s swimming with its legs, not its tail. I don’t even
see
a tail.”

“Does its identity have any bearing on our response?” Cooper asks. And that’s the million dollar question.

If this
is
Nemesis, with Endo as her ‘voice,’ then he/she/it/they might not be coming here to lay waste to the Massachusetts coastline. Not that there’s much left to lay waste to. But that can’t matter. Where Nemesis goes, destruction follows.

“No,” I reply. “Hit it with everything we have in the area, from a safe distance. Nemesis or not, I want it reduced to a lifetime supply of chum before it reaches land.”

As we start to disperse to our various stations, Joliet takes my arm in her hand. “What about the girls?”

That last image of Maigo laying on her back, about to be captured by Russian soldiers flashes through my mind. They’re half a world away, beyond our legal reach, and without Future Betty, our physical reach. “They’re on their own.”

“They don’t need to be,” Hawkins says, arms crossed, his anger barely contained. But is he upset that the girls have screwed the pooch, or that I’ve declared them a second priority? Probably both. I’m not a fan of the situation, either. “Send me after them.”

“How are we supposed to send—”

“Don’t send Dustin Dreyling,” he says, using the name we gave him. It’s a cover. None of us use the name, but it’s on his ID badge, and his true identity, Mark Hawkins, is now a ghost. Technically, he doesn’t exist, just like Lilly. Unlike me, he has remained out of the public eye. No one would recognize him if he was caught. But there is still the question of transportation.

“You have the President’s ear,” he says, one step ahead of me. “We know there are options.” He’s referring to a ride I took on a supersonic stealth transport a few years back. It could whisk him from here to the other side of the planet nearly as fast as Future Betty. The VTOL plane could pick him up anywhere there was room, like at Hurd stadium, just down the street. But they wouldn’t be able to drop him off. And he once again shows he’s thought this through.

“If they can get me there, I can jump.”

“Over the Bering Strait?” Joliet says, her shock finally catching up with her. “Onto a Russian island? It’s a small target, Mark. If you miss—”

“They are our daughters,” he says, looking from my eyes to Joliet’s. “They might not have been born to us, but they’re still ours. I was raised by a man who wasn’t my father, too, and he would have given his life for mine. Would have risked starting a war to save me if he could. It’s our job to put them first.”

“I don’t know,” I say. It’s a compelling argument, but being the Director of the FC-P means that I’m in charge of protecting millions of sons and daughters around the world.

Hawkins leans in close and says, “You know what they’ll do to them if they’re captured, right?”

“You should have led with that,” I say, and pull out my phone. A speed-dialed call to the U.S. President later, and the gears start spinning. Hawkins will reach the far side of the country around the same time the rest of us rendezvous with the big-ass something cruising toward the coast.

11

“The Dalai Lama said that sleep is the best meditation,” said a deep voice with a trace of electronic distortion. “He was speaking of dreams, of course, of how the subconscious mind can work through problems while the body and conscious mind slumber. It’s not really meditation, mind you, that’s a simple explanation from a simple mind with simple views of the world and the universe that surrounds it.”

Maigo opened her eyes. A man stood above her. He was short and broad, with slicked back hair and a perfectly trained mustache. Dressed in an expensive looking suit coat, he reminded her of her father. But this man wasn’t her father. He was Zachary Cole, director of the Genetic Offense Directive. She wasn’t surprised by his presence on the island, but she was taken aback by his apparent collusion with the Russians. GOD was a black organization within DARPA. And while Hudson had tried to route the organization through his DHS and White House connections, GOD remained elusive. Now she knew why.

“Not much of a patriot, are you?” Maigo asked and tried to sit up. Restraints snapped her back against a cold metal surface.
Cold,
she thought.
They’ve taken off my clothes!
She leaned her head up and looked down. Several pairs of handcuffs held her hands to the sides of a bare metal stretcher. Her ankles were restrained in the same way. She had been stripped to her bra and underwear, but most of her body was covered by a long black strap that had been wound around her and winched tight.

“My loyalty doesn’t belong to any one nation, but to the human race. The future.” Cole leaned closer. “I wonder, what do
you
dream about?”

Maigo lay her head back down and looked at the room. She was inside one of the domed prefab structures. It looked like a medical bay of some kind, stark white and clean. She couldn’t see any supplies. Wall mounted cabinets wrapped around the curved sidewall were closed. But the smell, and the stretcher she lay on, smacked of a doctor’s office, for healing—not the kind she had to worry about being dissected in.

That opinion changed the moment the door slid open and a second man stepped inside. She recognized him, too. Dr. Alicio Brice. The FC-P had files on both men. Most of the information was from their own experiences, and the images of their faces were hand drawn, but she’d studied them enough to recognize both. Brice looked a good twenty years younger than the sketch.

“Which generation are you?” she asked Brice. The original Alicio Brice had been dead for more than thirty years, but had been cloned multiple times, passing down his mental capabilities and knowledge to each subsequent generation. The first Brice had worked on Island 731, and he had been partially responsible for the monster known as ‘Kaiju,’ not to mention the Tsuchis. But his work also resulted in Lilly, her best friend.

Brice looked confused for a moment, looking her over. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

“Pretty sure the Brice whose memories you’re missing got blowed up,” she said, trying to mirror her father’s sarcastic confidence, which was often just a show. He’d never admit it, but when things got rough, he got funnier. It kept people off balance, not knowing if he was serious, afraid or just plain nuts.

Brice smiled and ran a hand through his thick blond hair.

“Hasn’t started falling out yet,” Maigo quipped.

Brice locked his eyes on hers, looked ready to say something, but grinned instead and turned to Cole. “We’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

“Ready for what?” she asked, showing a crack in her confident veneer.

“For you.” Cole folded his hands together over his belly. “We’ve been studying Atlantean technology for a long time, and while little has survived the ages, what we do have can be utilized only by those with certain genetic predispositions. My intention was to try something...less conventional, but your presence here makes that a risk not worth taking.”

“You think I’m going to find the door in?” Maigo asked.

“No, my little Kaiju friend—”

Maigo sneered at the man.

“—I think you’re the key to
open
the door. You have a unique genetic code—human, Atlantean
and
Kaiju, that could—”

“How do you know what my genetic code is?” Maigo looked at her bound arm and saw red needle marks. She clenched her fists in anger, but maintained control, doing her own kind of wide awake meditation.

“It’s what we do,” Brice said, looking a little sheepish. “Your DNA could help us control—”

A look from Cole silenced him. Brice tilted his head in something like shame and took a step back.

Maigo’s head swam with questions. About what they’d done to her. About what they would do with her DNA. But none of that mattered right now. “Outside...is that Atlantis?”

Cole chuckled. “Good God, no. If you were an ancient alien civilization far more advanced than the indigenous life, is this frozen hell where you would build a vast city? No, this is where you would go to hide something important. As far as we can tell, Atlantis is in ruins, and even if it was found, it would be entirely unrecognizable.”

“Why?”

“Because it was destroyed. By you. Well, not you exactly. More like your grandmother.”

“Prime,” Maigo said, squeezing her eyes shut. She tried her best to look calm as ancient memories transported through alien DNA resurfaced. She remembered a city. The screams. Red eyes. And a face. A
metal
face.

She opened her eyes and gasped when she saw Cole leaning right over her, staring into her eyes. “You...
remember?
”

Maigo shook her head.

“You
do
, don’t you?” He turned to Brice. “We’ve underestimated her importance. When you’re done here, sedate her and bring her with you.”

“But Hudson,” Brice says. “You promised him—”

“Promises are for presidential candidates and middle school girls,” Cole said. “The FC-P has proven itself irrelevant and woefully unprepared for what is coming.” He turned his attention back to Maigo. “Aside from you, showing up here alone. You felt it, didn’t you? Knew it was here? We had feared our intelligence had been intercepted, that the X-35 might be used to infiltrate Russian territory. God knows, your ‘father’—” He made chubby-fingered air quotes, “—is brazen enough to try it. But the island was empty, until your poorly timed arrival.”

“Sir,” Brice said. “What if she’s not alone?”

Cole squinted. “They would have come for her by now. They’re not without the means. Nor is this one.” He motioned to Maigo’s arm. “Best to keep her partially sedated.”

Brice gave a quick nod, opened a drawer and started preparing a syringe.

“The X-35
is
out there, isn’t it?” He turned to Brice. “Have the men look for it. If you can’t find it, feel free to
persuade
her cooperation in the matter. Learning her...tolerances will be enlightening.”

“Yes, sir,” Brice said, and he stepped
through
Cole on his way to the stretcher. The big man shimmered for a moment and rolled his eyes at Brice.
Another hologram
, Maigo thought. Cole rarely made in-person appearances, which given his work—creating genetic monstrosities to be used as weapons—the precaution made sense.
How many Brice clones have they lost over the years?

Maigo tensed as Brice leaned closer with the needle. Before she could pull away, he put a hand on her arm and said, “It’s only a sedative. It will make you sleepy, but not knock you out.” Then he winked. And it wasn’t in a creepy way, like he was getting his jollies from giving her an injection. The wink was conspiratorial. Like he wanted her to trust him. She didn’t, but she still wanted to see how this played out. She was gambling with her life, with her future, but that came with the job, didn’t it? Her life had stopped being a cakewalk the moment General Gordon had pulled her heart from her chest and triggered her transformation into Nemesis.

The needle slid into her arm without a trace of pain. She watched the clear fluid slide into her arm. Then Brice withdrew the needle and stepped back, keeping his eyes on Maigo’s. “She shouldn’t be any trouble now.”

He’s telling me to play along. But is this a game? Are they manipulating me?

The only way to find out was to play along. She feigned sleepiness.

Before she could test out her groggy act and try to get more information from Cole, he turned to the side like someone was speaking to him. Then he looked genuinely surprised by something. Concerned. “Yes, yes. It must be there for the triad. Let them loose.” Annoyance swept over his normally calm features. “I realize that, but there is little choice. Set them loose!”

Cole steadied himself with a deep breath and waited for his face to fade to a lighter shade of red before facing Brice again. “Take care of this quickly. Things are progressing in Boston and Tokyo. We need to get inside,
now.
Understood?”

“Y-yes, sir, “Brice said.

“Do keep in mind that unlike me, you are very, very expendable.”

“Yes. Sir.” Brice squinted subtly at Cole’s back.

Was that defiance in his eyes?

“Kozlov,” Cole said, and the door opened immediately.

A brutish and scruffy looking man dressed in a parka and carrying an AK-47 stepped into the room. “Sir.” His Russian accent was thick.

“Contact me the moment you gain entry,” Cole said.

“Sir.”

“And if you run into any trouble—”

“Any incursion by foreign agencies will be treated as an act of war, and we will respond accordingly.”

Cole nodded to Maigo, looking a little annoyed. “I was talking about her. If she causes any trouble, use the Leshiy.”

The big Russian paled, but managed a fervent “Yes, sir.”

Cole turned to face someone none of them could see, saying, “Leave Boston be. Focus on Japan.” Then he flickered and was gone.

Brice cleared his throat and turned to Kozlov. “We’ll just be a minute. Then I’ll need a few men to carry her out.”

Kozlov sneered at Brice, who apparently wasn’t normally in a position to boss the big Russian around. “The men are deployed around the island. It will take time to—”

“She’s been sedated,” Brice said. “We need to transport her to the doorway at the center of the rings and allow her to make physical contact. It’s the only way we can get inside.”

Maigo didn’t feel tired at all, and felt certain Brice’s words were really meant for her. But was it a trick?

Brice took her wrist in his hand, the multiple handcuffs clanging against the rail. It took all her will power to not react to his touch. “She’s nearly ready,” Brice said, monitoring her pulse. “Four men, please. She’s heavier than she looks.”

Kozlov grunted and turned toward the exit. It was as close to a ‘yes, sir,’ as Brice was going to get. When the door closed, Brice leaned in close to her. “Where are the rest of you? Are they on the island? In the X-35?”