Project 731 (22 page)

“We’ll use our best discretion,” Woodstock says and gives a lopsided grin. “Of which I have none.”

Endo heads for the door, opens it and leans out. The hallway is empty. The guard now missing. When he catches my odd expression, he says, “Must be the Tsuchi.” Then he points to my mask and pulls his down. Collins, Maigo and I do likewise, and we follow him into the hallway. We backtrack toward the elevator, and I steal a second glance inside the control room. The large viewscreen is now split, one side showing Nemesis, still charging over empty desert, the other side showing the Tsuchi above us. Helicopters swoop around it, firing missiles and chain guns, all with no effect. It’s no longer walking. It’s stopped in the middle of the base and appears to be...digging.

The people inside the room are moving about quickly, gathering equipment and laptops, driven by Zach Cole, who is clearly shouting, but unheard thanks to the thick door.

“Looks like they’re bugging out,” Collins says.

A vibration rocks the tunnel.

Endo, against his own advice, breaks into a jog, and we follow. We quickly reach the elevator. Endo punches the 3, and the doors shut.

“Why the rush?” I ask.

“The base will be liquidated before risking the release of what’s below.”

“And what is below?”

The elevator stops and opens. No guards.

Endo jogs down the metal-floored hallway, identical to the one above. When he reaches the first door, he stops at the palm reader and places his hand on it. The door clicks open, and he enters.

Maigo tenses, gripping my arm.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“I can feel them.”

“Feel who?”

She looks at the open door. Collins is inside with Endo, standing still. She glances back. “Jon... You need to see this...”

I hold my hand out to Maigo. “Whatever it is, we’ll face it together. No matter what.”

She takes my hand, and we step inside together, both of our grips tightening as we see what’s inside. As my heartbeat ratchets up, I ask, “Endo, what... Who are they?”

He turns to me, and then Maigo. “You don’t recognize them?”

And then, at once, I do.

And so does Maigo. Her hands go to her head as she screams in pain, the very sight of these...things...returning her to a memory of ancient tortures that are fresh for her and faded for me.

We’re looking at Nemesis’s creators.

34

Alan Baxter stood on the tarmac of Area 51, surrounded by his fellow Marines—a special detachment assigned to the defense of Area 51. They waited amidst rising waves of hundred degree summer heat and abject chaos. The monster was approaching. He had no other name for it than
Kaiju
, the generic designation now used for the gargantuan creatures that seemed to be a part of the world. He’d never seen one in person before. Never had a desire to. And now that he was up close and personal with one, he wanted nothing more than to run the other direction. Not because he was a coward, but because he knew a losing fight when he saw one.

Like most of the men streaming out of hangars, he carried a fifty pound FGM-148 Javelin missile on his shoulder. The missile was powerful, and the fire-and-forget capability meant he could take a shot and run, but he didn’t see how it would help. While the missile could punch through the thickest modern armor, giving a lone Marine the ability to take out a tank or a helicopter, the Kaiju approaching the base had already shirked off an array of surface-to-air, surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles, all of which outclassed the Javelin.

He’d seen the other Kaiju spider on TV, just an hour ago, as it rampaged through Los Angeles, wreaking destruction on a massive scale. If not for the arrival of Nemesis, the monster might have continued up and down the coast. Looking at the Kaiju spider on the outskirts of the base, he could clearly see it shared some of Nemesis’s physical traits, just like the monsters that had attacked D.C. the year before. And if that was true, this thing would likely be just as resistant to modern weaponry as Nemesis, who took a MOAB in Boston and shrugged it off. While no one had tried to nuke the monsters yet, he really hoped they didn’t try it now. Although there wouldn’t be civilians to worry about, he was pretty sure that the higher-ups and eggheads who worked below ground were important enough to not obliterate.

“Baxter!” It was his friend, Scott Smith, who was smiling like an asshole. He was an action junkie to the core. Complained daily about being assigned to the most boring security detail in the world. The only action they ever saw was when, once or twice a year, a UFO enthusiast would cross the fence, set off alarms and be stopped before making it fifty feet. But this...this must have been like a wet dream come true for Smith. He looked almost giddy as he ran toward the Kaiju, which had reached the first in a series of hangars.

“Let’s do this, man!” Smith said.

The man’s excitement was infectious. Baxter picked up his pace, running toward the Kaiju. His instincts screamed to head the other way, but the danger was minimized by two things. First, all he had to do was fire the missile and run. By then, once everyone figured out they were just wasting ammo, the situation and the tactical response to it would probably change to more of a ‘lock down and wait it out’ strategy. Second, there were now hundreds of men, Humvees, helicopters and jets all vying for the monster’s attention. The odds of being attacked were as small as the Kaiju was large.

But then, the Kaiju got larger.

Even Smith stopped running.

The spider pushed off the ground with its four front limbs, rising a good two-hundred-fifty feet in the air. Its long tail doubled its length. It wasn’t quite as tall as Nemesis, he knew, but it was big enough. The monster rose up quickly, its body cracking and snapping into a new position, held aloft by its four, rear, wider legs. Its eight-eyed, snapping mandible face craned downward, making it look much less like a spider, and more like Nemesis, with four thin arms ending at wicked looking blades.

An F-18 Hornet swooped in from behind the creature, and unprepared for its sudden rising, tried to pull up, but was clearly not going to make it. The pilot must have seen it, too, because he ejected just a second before the plane collided with the Kaiju’s armored back. While the jet went up in flames, the pilot, still strapped into his ejection seat, rocketed away, his chute quickly deploying.

“Oh my god,” Smith shouted, laughing. “Did you see that?”

As Smith continued laughing, Baxter made a mental note to reconsider their friendship. This was not the kind of man with whom you wanted to share the battlefield. He was what many of the younger, video-game playing, troops referred to as a ‘Leeroy Jenkins,’ the first to charge, the first to die and the demise of the men with whom he served.

Smith’s laughter was cut short when the Kaiju turned, reached out and skewered the pilot on the tip of its taloned limb. It then shoved the man into its mouth. If the man screamed, no one heard it over the continuing thunder of exploding missiles. But then all noise was drowned out by the Kaiju’s high pitched roar. The battalion of Marines, three hundred strong, all stopped as one, placing hands over their ears and falling to their knees.

When the wailing cry finished, the Kaiju dropped back down to all eight legs, decimating the hangar beneath it, which must have contained a fuel truck or a fueled jet, because the whole thing went up in a ball of flame.

The Kaiju slid out of the rising black smoke, its frenetic energy gone. Its smooth movement and lowered head reminded Baxter of a lion slowly emerging from tall grass, stalking prey.

About to charge.

We’re its prey!

Someone else must have realized the same thing, shouting, “No, no, no!” and firing off his Javelin before sprinting in the opposite direction: duty done, commence ass saving.

A high-pitched warbling growl slid through the air, rippling from the Kaiju as its eight orange eyes locked on the battalion of men. The lone Javelin missile struck its face and exploded harmlessly between two eyes. But the detonation triggered the monster’s charge.

It roared again, paralyzing the men with its volume. Baxter wanted nothing more than to fire his single missile and run, but the sound kept him on his knees, hands over his ears. When it ended, the Kaiju was through the hangar and charging toward them, closing the distance.

A barrage of Javelin missiles ripped through the air at once, meeting the Kaiju head on. But it just plowed straight through the bright orange balls of light, lowering its head and snatching up men. Stunned, Baxter stood still for a moment, watching the monster’s long tail swing across the base, leveling three more hangars, the last of which exploded.

Apache helicopters rained down Hydra rockets, Hellfire missiles and chain-gun fire.

F-22 fighter jets roared past, adding Sidewinder missiles to the mix.

The cacophony of explosions, sent shockwaves in every direction, knocking the wind from Baxter’s lungs every time he tried to take a breath. The wave of impacts kept him on the ground, which was now shaking from the monster’s approach.

Men screamed all around as they ran. Those who ran the fastest seemed to attract the most attention, and they were impaled or simply sucked up into the grinding mouth. The mammoth creature darted back and forth with surprising speed, plucking men from the ground with ease.

Baxter looked at Smith, who was just getting back to his feet. He looked shell-shocked for a moment, but when the two men made eye contact again, Smith cracked a big smile and shouted, “Aww, yeah, mother bitches! Time to fuck some shit up!”

He might as well have added a shout of “Leeroy Jenkins!” but instead, he fired off his lone and completely useless Javelin missile. Instead of running, Smith watched the missile streak toward the monster and connect with its side, the explosion just a small orange circle, causing no visible harm. What it did though, was get the Kaiju’s attention.

When it turned toward them, Smith bolted, all of his fervor sucked away, a scream tearing from his mouth.

Baxter wanted to run, too. God, he wanted to run. But he stayed on his knees, as though in supplication, bowing to this god on earth, begging for mercy. But he wasn’t really doing any of that. He was simply trying to not be noticed.

The spider-thing skittered across the tarmac, tearing it to shreds, until the creature stood directly over Baxter. Smith screamed again as he was skewered, lifted up and silenced inside the monster’s mouth. It then spun in a circle, plucking up other nearby men. From beneath the colossal creature, Baxter looked all around him. The tail swept out, flattening buildings and smearing men. Explosions rocked the monster on all sides. Eight legs, moving with surprising speed, spun the thing one way and then the other, faster than he imagined possible.

He was in the eye of the storm. Safe, for a moment. Protected by the swirling mass around and above him. But it wouldn’t stay here for long. More distant men were getting away. He thought about running, but discounted it. The first to be captured were the runners. But it gathered the motionless with equal efficiency. And, he noted, without even looking at them.

It already knows I’m here
, he thought.
It will take me along with the rest as soon as it steps away.

So what can I do about it?

Nothing.

I’m going to die.

The only real question left is: how am I going to die?

The answer came from the voice of a Drill Sergeant, “If you die in combat, I expect the bullet to hit you head on. Anything else means you were running away, and I don’t train cowards, do I?”

“Sir, no sir,” Baxter said to himself. But what could one man with a single Javelin missile do to a Kaiju spider built like Nemesis?

Baxter found the answer when he realized the ground around him was still brightly lit, despite the Kaiju above him blocking out the sun. He turned his eyes upward. Like Nemesis, the Kaiju had large, bright orange membranes on its underside. He could see the luminous liquid above him, swirling with catastrophic potential. Then he recalled the footage from this morning. The Kaiju in Los Angeles had been destroyed when Nemesis ruptured the membranes on the creature’s underside. The explosion destroyed buildings, and would likely now do the same, killing men on the tarmac, and maybe those below ground, too, but the Kaiju
could
be destroyed. By one man, with the power of Nemesis.

It was a hell of a way to die. He smiled, feeling oddly like Smith for a moment, then he aimed his Javelin straight up toward the orange membrane, just fifty feet above his head. Once he pulled the trigger, the missile would cover the distance in a second. The resulting explosion would be faster.

It’s not going to hurt
, he told himself. He’d be there one moment and gone the next. But if it worked...if it worked, he would be remembered forever.

Good enough
, he decided, and pulled the trigger.