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“Maigo.” Lilly stood between the girl and the giant head. The masked, metal face looked like all robotic visages, in that it lacked any emotion other than the stern gaze with which it had been constructed. But she hoped blocking Maigo’s view would snap the girl out of the trance. “Hey!”

Unblinking eyes stared right through Lilly. “It killed me.”

Lilly leaned in close. “Hate to break it to you, but you’re still alive.” She gave Maigo’s face a pat. “Snap out of it.”

“It
killed
me.”

Lilly nearly lost her patience, but then realized there might be some context for the statement that she hadn’t fully realized. Maigo had been murdered, after all. It might not have been this Maigo, but she still had some of the first Maigo’s memories, transferred by DNA, much of it not human. But her murderer had been a man. Her father. Not a giant robot.

“It didn’t kill you, Maigo. You’re alive. You’re with me.” Lilly leaned in closer, her piercing yellow eyes impossible to ignore. But Maigo pulled it off, staring straight ahead.

Lilly lifted her black gloved hand, and with a quick flex, pushed her long black claws out through the fingertips of her thumb and index finger. “Have it your way.”

Using her claws, Lilly pinched the skin on Maigo’s arm. No reaction. “I know you’re tough, but
come on
.” She looked down at the skin pinched between her claws and winced. “You asked for it.” She pushed hard, harder than she thought she’d have to, and punched two small holes in Maigo’s arms.

The reaction was powerful and unexpected. Maigo kicked out hard, sending Lilly sprawling away. Then she clawed at the air and fell to her butt, trying to push away from something unseen.
She’s lost in a memory,
Lilly realized.
But not her own.

Maigo’s body seized for a moment and then went slack.

Lilly dove to her side and caught the girl before she slumped over. “Hey.” She checked Maigo for a pulse and after finding one, tapped the girl’s cheek. “Hey. Wake up.”

Maigo’s eyes fluttered and then opened. For a moment, Lilly thought her friend was still out of her head, but then Maigo looked up at her. “It killed me.” Her eyes welled with tears.

“Who killed you?”

Maigo leaned over and looked past Lilly at the robot. Its face hadn’t changed. The glow of its serious red eyes remained constant.

“Uh huh,” Lilly said. “Whoever it killed, it wasn’t you.”

Maigo crushed her eyes shut and rubbed her head. “It wasn’t me.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position. “It was Nemesis. The first one.”

“Prime.”

Maigo nodded. “It was a long time ago, but I think I just relived it. Some of it anyway. I remember that face. And pain. And anger. I haven’t felt like that since...ugh. We don’t need to talk about it.”

Lilly pulled Maigo to her feet, glad to have her friend back. “So, what now? We came here to find and take what was hidden here, but...”

“The plan hasn’t changed,” Maigo said.

“You want to take
that?
” Lilly thrust her hands out at the robot head, and then waved them up and down to indicate its entire, massive body. She moved to the edge of the platform and looked down at the armored body. The broad chest bore the three-ringed Atlantean symbol that had brought them to this island. The silver body, almost like brushed metal, gleamed like new. It looked built for power, its limbs thick, and yet somehow it appeared ready for action, as though it could spring to life at any moment. In some places it bore the marks of ancient battle, including claw marks. In many ways, it reminded her of some kind of ancient warrior, like a Spartan, or Samurai, but it lacked any real resemblance to any single human culture.

Because whoever made this wasn’t human,
Lilly thought. “How the hell are we supposed to get that out of here and past the Russians, never mind to the other side of the planet?”

“I’m going to talk to it,” Maigo said.

“You’re going to what now?” Lilly looked at the large face, searching for hints that it was anything more than a giant robot. Badass? Yes. Dangerous? Absolutely. Alien? Without a freaking doubt. But
alive?
“You’re not saying this thing is—”

“Artificially intelligent,” Maigo said, putting some of Lilly’s concerns to rest. “But it can’t function without a Voice.”

“So it what...needs a speaker system?”

“Voice with a capital V,” Maigo said, stepping closer to the head. “A pilot.”

“And what makes you think you can—”

“I have experience,” Maigo said.

Lilly squinted at her friend. “You mean Nemesis.”

Maigo gave a faint nod and raised her hand back to the metal orb at the center of the platform. She twitched as though shocked, but then turned to Lilly. “Last time, it was communicating. Now, it’s waiting. It’s listening.”

“For what?”

“For orders.”

Lilly smiled. She couldn’t help herself. This was mind blowingly awesome.

Maigo returned the smile, reaffirming their conspiratorial relationship. “Open sesame.”

A loud clunk made both girls leap back. Maigo withdrew her hand from the orb, but the noise continued. After several clunks and a whirring of gears, the massive face split open at the center, and segment by segment, it slid apart.

“It’s like that lady’s face in Total Recall,” Lilly said. “You know, when it splits open and Arnold is underneath looking all like, ‘shit, my covah is blown.’”

“Haven’t seen it,” Maigo whispered, and she stepped to the edge of the platform. The open head was ten feet away, the gap between them hundreds of feet deep.

Lilly followed her to the edge and cringed when she saw what was inside the head. At first she saw a rough approximation of what she expected. Metal parts. Cables. Lights. But at the core of it all, was what looked like an oval shaped bed mounted at an angle and covered with a shiny black sheet. Then it began to warble. “It looks like a funky-ass water bed from some kind of 70s porno.”

“You know far too many pop culture references for someone who has only lived in this country for two years,” Maigo said.

Lilly bristled at the comment. “You try spending all your days in hiding.”

“I do,” Maigo said. “We just hide for different reasons...and only one of us watches 70s porn.”

Lilly chuckled and shrugged. “People were hairier back then.”

Then the water bed sprang to life, as the black separated into tendrils and reached out.

“Nemesis did the same thing,” Maigo said. “When Endo...” She closed her eyes, sounding a bit more afraid than she had a moment ago.

“You don’t have to do this,” Lilly said. “We don’t know anything about it. We don’t even know if you’ll be able to get out.”

“This thing is selective about who it lets inside.”

Lilly rolled her eyes, took off her glove and put her hand on the orb. It was probably a stupid thing to do, especially if there was a result, but nothing happened. She felt absolutely nothing.

“It has less to do with your physical or mental abilities and more to do with biology. Neither of us is fully human, but you’re at least made from creatures that evolved on this planet. Part of me is human. But the rest of me...it’s not even terrestrial.”

“So it’s biologically locked?” Lilly asked.

“In part,” Maigo said. “But it also got a good look at what I was, what I did and who I became. It knows that I was part of Nemesis, but it also knows I was revolted by it. I think that qualified me. Look, the real point is this, there is a chance that anyone...or any
thing
else that passes the same test could be very bad for the human race. It needs to be guided by the right person, or we could all be screwed.” She turned to Lilly. “No one else can do this.”

Lilly took a step back and flashed a feline grin. “Then do it.”

Maigo didn’t hesitate. She jumped out over the gap and easily cleared the ten feet to the open head. She climbed up toward the black tendrils, which seemed to relax as she got closer. Standing before the oval, the thin limbs opened to receive her. She turned back toward Lilly, gave a wave and fell back into the black surface. The tendrils caught her, wrapped around her body and then enveloped her, pulling her down.

Seeing Maigo slide away filled Lilly with a sudden panic. Her muscles tightened as she prepared to jump the distance and tear her friend out. But the head slammed shut, one section at a time, until it looked like it had, just minutes ago.

Lilly stood, dumbfounded.

Nothing changed.

Then a booming voice filled the chamber. “Can you hear me?” The voice was deep and masculine, digitally enhanced to sound foreboding, but it was still Maigo.

Cringing from the volume of the voice, Lilly cupped her hands over her ears and shouted, “Too loud!”

The deep, commanding voice whispered, “Oh my god, I’m sorry,” and drew a cackling laugh from Lilly.

“You did it,” Lilly said. “Are you in control?”

“I don’t know,” the mighty whisper said. “I’ll try, but I think you should get out of here first.”

“Makes sense to me,” Lilly said. “Just don’t waste time coming up. There’s still a bunch of salty Russians topside.” Then she sprang up onto the staircase and instead of taking the long, tedious way up and around, she leapt from level to level, climbing hundreds of feet in under a minute. She reached the top of the spire, expecting to be greeted by bullets, but instead she found a complete lack of welcoming committee.

Either the Russian military is slacking, or they’re just waiting us out.

The spire shook beneath her. Maigo was moving.

No choice
, Lilly decided. She sprang up through the hole high above, teeth bared, claws extended and ready to fight.

18

Water sprays through the lighthouse’s broken windows with the frenetic energy of a psychotic waterpark fun house. The torrent surges against us, pushing us down the spiral stairs. The only thing that keeps Collins, Woodstock and me from spiraling down to the bottom is the fact that we’re all twisted up with each other and the metal balusters. Saltwater forces its way into my mouth, gagging me. I turn my head, coughing hard, as more water cascades over my head.

I blink away the stinging saltwater and see Collin’s face beneath mine. At the bottom of our human pile, she’s being doused again and again, but she never flinches. She’s got her eyes clenched shut and her teeth grinding.
Why isn’t she moving?
I wonder, and then I see the truth. We’re not tangled in the balusters, Collins is
holding on to them,
supporting our weight and fighting the rushing water. Her Herculean effort is keeping us alive. Could there be a better woman than this?

The spray of water stops as quickly as it arrived. The wave is beyond us. Collins sucks in a deep breath and coughs. Her arms start to shake. “Get...off.”

Muttering curses to the sea, the Kaiju and a bunch of people I’ve never heard of, Woodstock pries himself off of me and takes hold of one of Collins’s arms, easing her burden. I push myself up next and take her other arm. Working together, we pull her up.

There’s no congratulations, praise or thanks between us. That will come later. Right now we’re still in survival mode, and that means pleasantries can wait until after we’re sure a 400-foot-tall, violent death machine isn’t about to squash us.

Leaving Collins to catch her breath and Woodstock to work the kinks out of his old joints, I scramble back up to the lantern room and out onto the catwalk. The wave rolls toward Boston Harbor, but I don’t see anything else.
Where the hell are you?

I take out my phone, but when I try to wake it up, the screen blinks funny shapes at me and then goes blank. It’s soaked. Two in one day. I grip the railing, fighting a growing sense of hopelessness. I can’t communicate with the Crow’s Nest. I can’t coordinate with the military. I can’t even summon a boat to come pick us up. Even if I can figure out how to beam lighthouse Morse code back to the coast, there won’t be many people paying attention. Granted, the military might see it. Might even understand an old fashioned S.O.S., but they won’t know it’s me, and odds are, they’ll be facing down Lovecraft.

Then I remember the Zoomb case, and I nearly leap for joy. There is one person I can contact,
and
I’m not actually out of the fight. Far from it. I’m about to head inside to find the case and make sure its contents are still in one piece, when something about the fading wave catches my attention.

It’s not straight.

The further away it gets, the clearer it becomes. The wave that nearly drowned us is shaped like a V. It’s not really a wave at all.

It’s a wake.

Lovecraft is
here.

Chased by the first hint of sunlight on the horizon, the monster slides through the lingering gloom, rising from the depths. I’m sure the monster has been sighted by now, but no one is taking action. Are they waiting for me? Are they sparing the city from an assault they know will be futile? After all, we don’t really know what this creature intends to do once it rises from the ocean, but if recent history has taught us anything, it’s that when a Kaiju steps onto dry land, cities are destroyed and people are killed. Maybe it’s just looking for a good spot to bask in the sun, and tan that pale skin. But even a benign Kaiju will still lay waste to anything it touches.

I hurry back into the lantern room and nearly knock Woodstock over. “The case. Where is it?”

Collins rises from the watchroom hatch, holding the case up to me. “Lovecraft is here?” When I take the case and place it on the floor, she answers her own question. “Of course it’s here. You know, I was kind of hoping our dates would improve after we got hitched.”

“Well, you know what they say about relationships forged in stressful circumstances,” Woodstock says, but he stops short when Collins gives him what he calls, ‘that look.’ The old pilot raises his hands. “Won’t be a problem for you two, of course. Stressful circumstances are what we handle.”

“Nice save,” I say, and I open the case. The waterproof seal has done its job. The devices inside, encased in foam, are dry and held perfectly in place. Two black remotes, comparable in design and function to Wii remotes, lay on either side of a virtual reality headset. I pry the black headset out of the foam and slide it onto my head. The black design with a red band across the front makes me look like the X-Men’s Cyclops, and ultimately, the effect of this helmet isn’t too dissimilar from the eye-laser-blasting mutant. The lasers just won’t come from my head, and they won’t be bright red. They’ll be invisible to everyone, but me.