Project 731 (27 page)

41

Nemesis spins in a circle, reaching for her side as the Tsuchi emerge. Her trident-tipped tail sweeps around behind her, hewing down the Church History Museum, the Plaza Hotel and the Family History Library—which contains the genealogy of just about everyone on the planet. The buildings crumble in unison, and I hope the church made digital backups of their genealogy information.

The emergence of three more Tsuchis is far more shocking than the destruction being wrought. They have the potential to destroy the world. The last Tsuchi leaps down from Nemesis’s side, revealing a bloody wound through her black skin, and the softer white flesh hidden beneath.

With a roar unlike anything I’ve heard from Nemesis before, the Queen of the Monsters enters a kind of berserker rage. The nearest newborn Tsuchi, still finding its legs, is stomped under foot, three times. On the third crushing blow, the small amount of explosive fluid in its body hits the air and detonates with a
whump
that’s muffled by Nemesis’s foot. But she doesn’t stop. She lunges at the second small Tsuchi that’s scaling a thirty-story apartment building. Before the small arachnid reaches the top, Nemesis’s long index finger punches through the creature, and the building. On the far side of the building, the claw exits with the Tsuchi dangling limp. When she extracts the claw, the Tsuchi is scraped away.

The third newborn is a brazen little bastard. It leaps off the top of a nearby building, legs splayed out, tail cocked back and ready to strike Nemesis’s head. I hold my breath. If the Tsuchi manages to tag Nemesis in the head, would that be it?

“Turn!” Maigo says, and once again, Nemesis seems to hear her, craning her massive head to the left and snapping her jaws open. Instead of landing atop Nemesis, the Tsuchi finds itself inside the massive jaws, which snap shut with the relative speed and power of a bear trap. The intense pressure bursts the Tsuchi’s insides out, the small amount of explosive fluid incinerating it all. Nemesis gives the limp, charred body a good thrash and then spits it out.

Rising smoke and dust swirls into the sky, obscuring much of the flattened church buildings, the surrounding city—and the big Tsuchi. It’s dropped back down onto eight legs.

Nemesis, coming down from her berserker rage, moves in a slow circle, her orange eyes squinting and suspicious.

“I should go now,” Maigo says.

I shake my head. “Not a chance.”

“I could help her. She’d be smarter with me.”

Collins crouches on the other side of Maigo’s kneeling form. “Jon’s right, honey. The way things are down there right now, you might not even make it down. You’ve seen how the Tsuchi detects people without even seeing them.”

“Nemesis would protect me,” Maigo says.

“And leave herself open to attack.” Collins rubs the girl’s back. “We need to protect you. Both of you. This only works if you both survive.”

“Here it comes,” Alessi says, turning our attention back to the battle raging below.

A swirl of motion in the debris cloud behind Nemesis reveals the Tsuchi’s presence. It moves with such speed that Maigo can’t even project a warning to Nemesis.

The Tsuchi rises up out of the smoke, flinging its massive form onto Nemesis’s back. While its back four legs grip Nemesis’s broad thighs, its four arms wrap around her, stabbing the scythe-like tips into her chest and shoulders, locking itself in place.

Nemesis reaches back with her hands, but two of the blade-tipped spider limbs snap up with shocking speed, impaling both colossal hands. As Nemesis roars in pain, the Tsuchi pries her arms out to either side, exposing her chest. Locked in place, hands and limbs impaled, bleeding from her side, Nemesis turns her head skyward and lets out a cry that sounds something like defeat.

As monstrous as Nemesis is, the sound breaks my heart. Nemesis has met her match.

“No!” Maigo shouts and punches the floor hard enough to put a dent in it and shake the X-35.

Below us, the Tsuchi’s long tail slips up over Nemesis’s head, the tip aimed toward her chest. The giant mutated spider lunges down, piercing Nemesis’s shoulder with her mandibles. Blue bolts of electricity tear through Nemesis, shaking her body, and silencing her booming voice.

“No!” Maigo screams. “Do something, you brainless bitch!”

Nemesis snarls. I’m not sure if she’s felt Maigo’s insult or is just moving beyond her pain and back into her berserker state, but the defeated look in her eyes is replaced by something else.

If I were Nemesis, what would I do?

The answer comes as the Tsuchi strikes.

“Get us higher!” I shout, and I’m crushed to the floor as Endo quickly complies, launching us upward at surprising speed.

As the view of the world below shrinks away, the Tsuchi’s tail stabs into Nemesis. But it misses the intended target, striking the membrane on the left side of Nemesis’s chest, one of the two largest on the creature’s body. The power in the cell is enough to level cities, and the Tsuchi seems to understand this, refusing to withdraw the stinger, perhaps trying to think of a way to avoid what will happen next.

But Nemesis, that ruthless and cunning monster, has no desire to wait. She flexes her chest exposing a small amount of the orange fluid to the air, igniting it, shooting the stinger free and unleashing the bright orange death within.

The light reaches us first, whiting out the cameras on the outside of the X-35, and sparing us from its blinding brightness. The shockwave hits us next, shaking the aircraft, but not endangering us, as we’re at least 10,000 feet above the action now. The cacophonous sound reaches us next, rattling the ship and my internal organs.

As the light fades, the view of the city snaps back on in time for us to see the explosion’s results. A wave of flame spreads southwest through the city, leaving a blackened half circle that I’ve seen before, in Beverly, in Boston, in Washington, D.C.

The explosion has also launched Nemesis and the Tsuchi back. The massive spikes on Nemesis’s back have impaled the Tsuchi’s chest, including two of its orange membranes. The pair are stuck together. They crash out of the Mormon district and into the more secular part of the city, demolishing buildings and ensuring the city won’t recover for years or decades.

When the giants roll and separate, the Tsuchi’s impaled membranes erupt with a second, blinding explosion that hammers Nemesis into the ground and launches the Tsuchi across the city. We’re once again blinded, holding on as the shockwave and rumbling din rolls past.

When the light clears, the two Kaiju are revealed. They’re separated by a half mile of ruined city. Nemesis lies face down, surrounded by burning city. The Tsuchi is on its back, its eight limbs clenched up over its body. I have no illusions that either Kaiju is dead, but they’re both knocked silly.

“I’m sorry,” Maigo whispers toward the floor, toward Nemesis. I realize too late that the apology is meant for me.

With speed I haven’t seen yet, Maigo grasps my wrist, slaps a handcuff around it and locks the other side to the leg of the seat in the cargo hold. Collins starts to react, but what can she do against someone as fast and strong as Maigo without hurting her? Nothing. Before I can complain, Collins is similarly locked in place. Maigo gets to her feet and thrusts a finger at Alessi. “Don’t try anything.”

Alessi just raises her hands. While Maigo might have only had two pairs of handcuffs—
Where the hell did she get them?
—Alessi doesn’t stand a chance against the girl with Kaiju blood. Maigo hits the button for the cargo ramp and it slowly, noiselessly opens.

Smoke-tinged air floods into the X-35. The sounds of crumbling buildings, sirens and alarms reach up from below.

“Maigo,” Endo says from the cockpit. “There’s another way.”

I’m not sure what Endo is getting at, but the fatherly side of me hopes he’s telling the truth. “Hear him out.”

“Love you,” Maigo says. She crouches down and kisses my head. Then does the same to Collins. “You’ll make great parents.”

You’ll make...
Future tense.

“Maigo,” I say, “If it doesn’t work—”

“I’ll call for a pickup,” she says, and jumps.

My despair is quickly replaced by shock as Endo leaps from his seat in the cockpit and charges into the cargo hold. He stops by Alessi for a moment, whispering in her ear. When he steps away, she reaches out for him, but he jumps out after Maigo.

My Devine phone rings, the tone telling me it’s Cooper, who is coordinating the evacuation and the military response, which, thus far, has been none. At my request. Missiles and bullets only cause more damage and put my people in danger. But if Nemesis falls...we’re going to throw absolutely everything at the Tsuchi while it’s injured. Since Salt Lake City is pretty much a wasteland already, we won’t have to hold back.

I answer the phone, and Cooper doesn’t wait for me to speak.

“Things aren’t going well,” she says, her voice calm and measured.

“Considering Salt Lake City is in ruins and my daughter and pilot just jumped ship, no, things are definitely not going well.”

“The military is...eager to get involved,” she says.

“What good have they ever done against a Kaiju?” I ask.

“Do you want me to relay that message?” Her calm demeanor irks me.

“Why are you so calm?” I grumble. “People are dying!”

She clears her throat, and equally calm, says, “Spunky is feeding.”

I can’t stop the laugh that comes. Cooper is breast feeding her son—whose actual name is Ted Watson-Cooper, but who was nicknamed ‘Spunky’ because of how much he kicked in utero—while she’s coordinating the U.S. military in response to a Kaiju attack. We are, without a doubt, the strangest government organization on the planet.

“Just keep them back,” I say. “But...if Nemesis falls, I want them to hit the Tsuchi with everything we have.”

“
Everything?
”

“Let’s hit it with multiple MOABs first. If that doesn’t work, then yes, everything.” Everything meaning nukes, and the idea makes me want to puke, because I’ll be responsible for dropping nukes on a U.S. city. Granted, the city is screwed already, but nukes will make the region off limits for hundreds of years and will likely increase the civilian casualty numbers by thousands. “Just get as many people out of the area as possible.”

“Will do,” she says. “What’s your plan, now?”

“Now?” I say, looking at the open cargo door my daughter leapt from. “I was thinking about praying, but not to Mormon Jesus. I’m pretty sure that guy hates us now.”

“Good luck,” she says.

“Thanks, Coop, and...if things go sideways for us—”

“You’ll be fine,” she says, and hangs up. It’s abrupt, but Cooper doesn’t do well with the mushy stuff from anyone other than Watson. Strong emotions make her uncomfortable, so I take her sudden departure as a compliment. Means she cares.

Alessi hits the button to retract the cargo bay hatch and then crouches beside me, unlocking my cuffs, and then Collins’s. “What now?”

I turn to the cockpit. “Woodstock?”

“I got this!” he says, hands on the controls. Future Betty rocks to the side, forcing us to hang on, but then levels out. “I got this,” he says again, less sure, but more focused.

“Jon,” Alessi says, her use of my first name grabbing my attention. “What are we going to do?” She’s worried about Endo, just as much as I’m worried about Maigo.

I look her in the eyes and deliver the news she doesn’t want to hear. “We’re going to wait.”