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“All good points,” she said.

“Can I ask why you’re only wearing underwear?”

“I think you just did,” she says, and she smiles in a way that says she thinks I’m going to let the subject go with a joke.

I take her arm. “Seriously, I need to know if there’s anyone I need to murder. Where are your clothes?”

“Nothing like that happened,” she says. “I...I was captured.”

I already knew that. Hawkins filled me in on Lilly’s side of the story. But I need Maigo to tell me. “By the Russians?”

“I think they were working for GOD. Or at least with GOD. But Brice set me free.”

“And your clothes?” I ask.

She smiles. “There’s no one you need to kick in the junk.”

“Get out of my head, kid,” I say, unable to hide my own smile.

“Doesn’t take a mental connection to know that’s what you were thinking.”

Collins joins us on the broad flat surface of Hyperion’s shoulder. She greets Maigo with a hug, kissing the flat black hair atop the girl’s head. Then she helps Watson make the jump from the bobbing yacht to Hyperion’s shoulder.

When Watson gets his feet beneath him, he studies the broad surface of Hyperion’s body, his facial expression torn between horror and fascination. “Are we sure this is safe? Couldn’t it stand up or something?”

“Hyperion and I...” Maigo looks at me, like what she’s about to say will disappoint me, “...are tethered. Mentally.”

I can’t say I’m surprised. That’s how this Voice thing seems to work, and Nemesis’s response to Maigo’s presence confirms that the connection isn’t forgotten, though it can be replaced. I cross my arms. “How long will that last?”

She shrugs. “Until I die. I think.” She turns to Watson. “He knows I’m here. Knows that people are supposed to be protected. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt us.”

“Like Asimov’s laws of robotics?” Watson asks.

“More like Maigo’s rules for good behavior,” she says.

“And if Nemesis shows up?” Collins asks. “Or Lovecraft?”

“Then Hyperion will be the least of your concerns,” Maigo says, revealing a twinge of annoyance. She is the most powerful woman on the planet, now in control of the most powerful technology we’ve ever seen. But she still has parents, and like all parents, we’re doubting her, second-guessing her and worrying about her. It’s not that we don’t trust her, we just don’t want her to make any mistakes.

But maybe that’s the mistake? People don’t learn much when everything is peachy and life presents no challenges. And the last thing we want to do is push her away. The most powerful woman in the world, with the most powerful robot, would make a horrible rebellious teen.

“Nemesis was last seen headed north, toward the Arctic,” I say, trying to put everyone at ease. “And the reports of giant waves making landfall an hour ahead of her seem to indicate that Lovecraft is headed in that direction as well.”

I turn to Maigo with an exaggerated grin that says it’s time for everyone to be nice. “Now, what can you tell us about Hyperion?”

She gives us a basic run down of what we already knew or suspected. Hyperion was built by the Ferox for use by the Atlantide, for the express purpose of killing Gestorumque and defending Atlantis. While it failed to protect the fabled city, it did kill Nemesis Prime, and that ain’t nothing. Its size and physical strength is equal to most, but not all, Kaiju. It’s also faster than the average Kaiju. Like Nemesis, it’s a good balance of strength and speed. And what it lacks in ferocity, it makes up for with firepower—including face-melting laser cannons. They make my recently defeated Swarm seem like bees rather than the most advanced, unmanned aerial-combat vehicles ever developed.

“Where does all this power come from?” Watson asks. His eyes are wide and squirrely, darting back and forth as he takes in every inch of the impressive metal physique. And I’m using the word ‘metal’ loosely. It will probably be a while before we fully understand how this thing was built. From a distance, its surface looks like solid sheets of armor, but an up close inspection reveals countless octagonal cells that can actually heal in time, which is what Hyperion is doing right now. Maigo says the puncture wounds inflicted by Nemesis were nearly catastrophic, but since they damaged only armor, it would be just a few hours before the big robot was battle-ready again.

“It’s called a Rift Engine,” Maigo says, leading us from the shoulder to the broad chest.

I feel like a kid, scrabbling over the ridges of armor like rocks at the beach. Maigo leaps up onto the chest with ease, but I have to give Collins and Watson a ten finger boost and rely on Maigo to yank me up.

“Rift Engine,” Watson says once he’s back on his feet. “That implies some kind of splitting is taking place. It’s not nuclear, is it?”

Maigo shakes her head. “I don’t know the science behind it, and even if Hyperion could give me that information, I doubt I’d understand it. But I’m pretty sure no atoms are being split. I think the ‘rift’ is closer to a description of what it can do, rather than how it works.

“Teleportation,” Watson says in the way a preteen might whisper the name of the latest prefab heartthrob’s name. And I’m right there with him. As a fan of Star Trek, there are two things that have always been on my future bucket list: 1. Getting beamed up, and 2. Thirty minutes in a holodeck preprogrammed with Seven of Nine and T’Pol.

“How long did it take to get from Big Diomede to Boston?” Watson asks.

“It was instantaneous.” Maigo snapped her fingers. “I was there, and then I was here. It wasn’t really something I meant to do. It was more like Hyperion inferred it, and took action. I wasn’t exactly prepared for what came next.”

“You weren’t the only one,” Collins says. “Lovecraft seemed caught off guard.”

Maigo stops short of the large three-ringed Atlantean symbol on Hyperion’s chest. Each ring is embedded a little lower than the first, fifteen feet down from the edge to the core.

“We can fill it with water,” I say. “Go for a swim.”

Collins and Maigo both give me the one eyebrow-raised stink eye. Watson just smiles and nods. The over-stimulated fan boy in him would be willing to try anything associated with the giant robot.

“So,” I say, “can we see the Rift Engine, or is that a secret?”

Maigo rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t keep secrets from you.”

“You just steal aircraft,” Collins said, and the two women direct their stink eyes at each other.

I clear my throat, “Ahem,” and sweep my hand over the broad chest. “Mighty Hyperion. Reveal the source of thy power!”

Nothing happens.

I glance at Maigo when nothing happens. “Spoilsport.”

She crouches and places her bare hand on the octagonal pattern covering the chest. She blinks twice and one of her cheeks twitch. She might be connected to Hyperion in some kind of loose way, but she still needs to make physical contact to command the thing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

There’s a clunk as the center ring moves inward and slides to the side. The second ring splits down the middle and pulls apart. The outer ring breaks into three triangular segments and twists apart. When everything is done moving, there’s a massive hole revealing Hyperion’s inner workings. Most of what’s inside is covered in a second layer of armor, including a large bronze ball at the core. The sphere lifts up, and its octagonal plates flip back and scroll away, revealing a device that must be the Rift Engine.

It doesn’t look like much, and I have a hard time imagining that this thing could power a giant robot, let alone transport anything from one side of the country to the other.

“Looks like a bell,” Collins says.

As she speaks the word ‘bell,’ Watson flinches like he’s been slapped. “Oh my god. I’ve
seen
this before.”

That gets my full and immediate attention. “Excuse me?”

“The bell. Die Glocke,” Watson says. “It was a secret weapon, a Wunderwaffe—a wonder weapon—developed by the Nazis during World War II. There have been reports that the device could fly, that it melted people and that it opened a portal...a rift...between dimensions.”

“Why would technology developed by Nazis power an Atlantenevermind.” The pieces fall into place just a moment before I make myself look like a doofus. “They didn’t build it. They
found
it.”

“Possibly at the ruins of Atlantis,” Watson says. “Heinrich Himmler led an SS unit called the
Ahnenerbe
for a decade. Part of their mission was to search for the location of Atlantis, which they believed was populated by an Aryan master race.”

“An
alien
master race,” I say. “I wonder how they would have felt if they’d known the genes they cherished so much weren’t even human.”

“I think they would have been pleased,” Watson says. “But by that time, the Atlantide had likely polluted most of humanity with their genetics.”

“While the Ferox polluted us with their warlike ways,” Collins says, arms crossed, frowning deeply. She doesn’t like the idea of being ruled over or controlled, but that’s exactly the kind of personality the Ferox built into us, along with a healthy dose of, ‘That thing with tentacles! Kill it!’

I keep that to myself, though. While I’m not a fan of being manipulated, there’s a possibility that the Ferox influence that kept the human race warring and refining ways to kill each other, gave us the tools to fend off the Aeros, who would enslave us all...they say. According to Zachary Cole—and the files stolen from GOD—the few survivors of an encounter with an Aeros named Artuke confirmed the squid-faced alien race’s nefarious intentions. That didn’t make the Ferox our friends. From what I understand about them, their human equivalent would be a terrorist organization...if terrorist organizations had just causes. But does any cause justify the killing, manipulation and endangerment of entire civilizations over thousands of years?

Where is Jean Luc when I need him?

“What happened to Die Glocke?” I ask.

Watson shakes his head. “Disappeared at the end of the war. Could have been hidden, destroyed or lost in the shuffle. For all we know, it could be collecting dust in a warehouse.”

I grasp Watson’s arm, smiling. “Are you saying...”

It takes him a moment, but he sees where I’m going and says, “Yes. We have top men working on it right now.”

“Who?” I ask.

“Top...men.”

“Ugh,” Collins grunts and then says, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” Followed by a thick Aussie accented, “That’s not a knife, this is a knife.” And she finishes with, “Get to the choppah!” She looks back and forth between us. “Will that hold you over for a little while?”

I raise an index finger and say, “They mostly come out at night—” but she slugs my shoulder before I can finish. “Yow!”

“Jon,” she says. “Seriously, a lot of people are dead. There are at least three Kaiju on the loose, and no one knows where they’re going to show up next. We—”

“Portland,” I say.

“
Maine?
” Watson asks.

“Oregon.”

“What makes you think that?” Maigo asks, adding her skeptical eyebrows to the others already conspiring against me.

The long answer is that I’ve had a team of trusted and well paid Zoomb techs—my very own ‘top men’—going through the GOD files, searching for patterns, clues and details. They’re looking for anything actionable or pertinent to our safety, with a focus on Aeros and Ferox activity. Up until now, aside from the events ten years ago in the Arctic, it’s been clear that the Aeros haven’t been hanging around. But in those same ten years there has been an influx of new residents in Portland. People who have suddenly changed career paths and moved. People who have left families and friends to start new lives. It’s the kind of thing normal people sometimes do, but the sheer amount of these people moving to Portland has been vastly disproportionate. “If you were a shape-shifting savage alien and wanted to hide in plain sight, there’s nowhere better to go then the land of happy-tappy hipster-lovin’ Portland.” When all I get are looks of doubt, I add, “Seriously, who would suspect a lumbersexual riding a banana seat bike?”

Watson is the first to admit defeat. “No one.”

Maigo raises her hand. “I would.”

Collins raises her hand. “I have a standing policy to coldcock the first lumbersexual I come across.”

“Well,” I say, looking out over Hyperion’s massive body. “If I’m right, you might get a chance sooner than later. Just try not to get your hand bitten off in the process.”

30

Lilly felt like she had dodged a bullet. So far, the ramifications of stealing the X-35 had been fairly tame. Hardly a stern talking to. She knew that taking the craft had been reckless and impulsive. But she was a teenager, right? That’s what real teens did. Stole the car. Got drunk. Stupid stuff that wasn’t nearly as forgivable once you were an adult—a line she and Maigo were going to cross in record time, thanks to their unique physiologies.

In fact, she could probably argue that stealing the X-35 had saved Boston. Sure, the futuristic aircraft would have helped keep the team safe, but Hudson’s best shot—some kind of aerial swarm—had failed. Thanks to Lilly and Maigo, Hyperion had arrived in Boston just in time to turn the tide and save the others. And they’d managed to keep the robot out of the reach of the Russians and GOD. Granted, neither of them had known there was a giant, Kaiju-fighting, alien mech hidden beneath Big Diomede, but results were results. They couldn’t be argued against.

She glanced at her father, seated beside her in the cockpit. He had interrogated Brice, but he hadn’t even needed to resort to a raised voice. The man was a free-flowing fountain of information that lent credit to his claim of wanting to defect from GOD. But they still didn’t trust him. There was a chance that every truth he told was laced with lies and misinformation.

“We’ll believe it when we see it,” Hawkins had said at the end of the conversation that had set them on their current course over the Pacific Ocean.

The Genetic Offense Directive had redefined its core values and operational parameters in recent years. Though they had been created, in secret, as a black operation with DARPA, they now claimed no allegiance with any single nation, and were willing to work with any country that didn’t require oversight—meaning they could continue their inhuman brand of experimentation, unhindered by laws or morality. Brice had defended the move to a point, noting that the enemy GOD was preparing for didn’t see humanity in terms of nations, but he had backed down on the experimentation, which continued at locations around the world, including aboard a Russian aircraft carrier.