Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (31 page)

Endo didn’t reply to that, he just turned and headed up the stairs.

Collins followed.

44

For the second time today, I’m flying, or at least that’s what it feels like, except that this second flight lasts just a second and ends without a parachute. I slam into the hard roof and slide across its rough surface. The
wingsuit
is thick and helps absorb much of the impact, and it prevents my skin from being sandpapered away, but my body is still reeling from the previous day’s pummeling. I struggle to regain my footing as Gordon, who caught and flung me as easily as a cat taunting a mouse, closes in.

It could be worse, I know. If he’d punched me instead of thrown me, I’d be dead. I’m certain that’s what he did to the FBI agent with the caved-in chest. He’s got his fists clenched now, so I’m pretty certain that’s what’s about to happen to me too.

I scramble away backwards on my hands and feet, but there’s no way I can outrun the man. The best I can manage, as he cocks back a fist, is to squint in fright.

But his punch never falls. Instead, a heavy haymaker slams into the side of his face. His head snaps to the side, but he doesn’t lose footing, stumble or even grunt. He swings a backhand at his unseen attacker, but finds only a few strands of red hair as Collins ducks beneath the blow.

“Don’t let him hit you!” I shout. “Not once, he’s—”

My shouts bring Gordon’s attention back to me, but his attack is once again interrupted by a black-shoed foot that kicks up and catches him in the face, not once, but three times. And this time, Gordon stumbles back, a hand to his nose.

I look to the new attacker and I’m shocked to find Endo standing next to me, offering his hand. I’m not sure what to make of this turn of events, but there’s no question that he arrived with Collins, which means we have some kind of truce. Endo, for some reason, is now working against the General. I take his hand and get back to my feet.

Gordon chuckles. “The prodigal son, returned to die.” He waves his hand to Endo, egging him on. “Come on, boy.”

But Endo is unfazed. “You know that’s not how I operate.”

Gordon’s face morphs from confident to confused to understanding in the exact same time it takes Endo to draw a sound-suppressed 9mm handgun and pull the trigger—about half a second. The first bullet catches Gordon dead center in his chest. The big man stumbles back, looking down at the hole in his shirt.

Endo pulls the trigger until the clip runs dry. Gordon, who remained standing throughout the barrage, is still looking down with a look of shock on his face.

But not pain.

He smiles and then laughs, standing up straight and gripping his hole-filled shirt in both hands. With a yank, he tears the shirt apart, revealing an inhuman black torso that looks very much like Nemesis’s. All thirteen bullets are embedded in the thick flesh, and when Gordon puffs out his chest, many of them simply fall away.

Her body itched more than hurt, but the warplanes continually bombarding her body with cannon fire and missiles had begun to annoy Nemesis to the point where she could no longer ignore them. But she could not reach them either. Her fury was reaching a breaking point. To make matters worse, she had reached the edge of the city and found her way blocked by a thick patch of skyscrapers that dwarfed her.

She tried to push her way through, but the streets were too narrow for her bulk, and the tall buildings were built solidly. In anger, she struck out at the nearest building, a five-hundred-foot column with thousands of windows but no glass. Her massive hand and thick fingertips tore through steel and concrete easily, and she struck out again and again. Then there was a crack and a rumble, and the top half of the building collapsed, tipping like a falling tree and dropping toward her.

Nemesis leaned
forward,
shifting the protective carapace on her back to deflect the falling debris, but the weight of the massive structure bent her legs and nearly forced her to the ground. Seeing this as a sign of weakness, the jets pressed their attack, blowing more flesh from her body and increasing the persistent itch.

She could sense her goal nearby. The beacon shrieked at her from beyond the towering buildings, beckoning her to move faster.

But she was stuck. It would take hours to force her way through this forest of metal and stone.

Unless... Her intellect provided an idea that her emotions embraced. Her physical instincts riled against it, but the closer she got to the beacon, the more power her emotion wielded.

She turned her back to the sea, letting the incoming missiles explode harmlessly against her carapace. Then, with a shriek of pain, she dug her fingertips, each the thickness of Boston’s Bunker Hill Monument, into the glowing orange flesh beneath her ribs—

—and yanked them out.

Gordon charges Collins, who is closest to him and drawing her .45. He strikes the gun from her hand and reaches out with both arms, no doubt intending to crush the life of out her. She ducks beneath his embracing arms and rolls to the side, as Endo leaps in the air and drives his foot into the General’s back, knocking him head-first into a stairwell wall. I follow Endo’s strike with a kick of my own, driving my foot into the back of Gordon’s knee. But it’s like kicking a tree trunk.

All three of us are forced back when Gordon spins around, swinging wildly. He’s not hurt.
Not at all.
He’s just really, really pissed off.

And maybe a little bit insane.

“Righteousness will fall from the sky,” he shouts. “She will judge the living and purify the land.”

Gordon steps toward the three of us, and we all take a step back.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I ask, stepping back again.

Endo shakes his head. “No idea, but the heart in his chest came from the creature, and it’s clearly consuming his body. Maybe it’s in his mind, too.”

“You’re saying he’s remembering something?” Collins says, aghast at the idea.

Endo shrugs.

Gordon lunges.

Collins and I dive to the sides. Endo is like living lightning, but he’s not fast enough to avoid Gordon’s outstretched hand. Endo’s feet leave the ground as Gordon lifts him up by one arm.

“And you have been judged—” Gordon looks up at Endo’s face with a sick grin.
“—guilty.”
He draws back his fist.

A gun fires, its
unsilenced
report booming across the roof. Gordon’s head snaps forward from the impact. But he doesn’t fall. Collins fires her weapon again, but the effect is the same. The thick flesh protecting Gordon’s torso is beneath his human skin, which I’m now sure he will eventually shed, like Nemesis.

But not all of him is protected.

“Collins!”
I shout, reaching out to her.

She understands my request and tosses the gun to me. It breaks a few dozen safety rules, but I manage to snatch the weapon from the air without shooting myself and turn the gun around on Gordon, just as he whips Endo aside. I hear a pop, and a scream as Endo’s shoulder comes out of its socket, but I ignore it along with Nemesis’s distant roars, the sounds of explosions, and the pain wracking my body. I pull the trigger.

The .45 caliber round sails through the air, faster than even Gordon can move, and finds what might be the only soft spot left on his body—the center of his eye. The bullet penetrates the orb, turning it to jelly.

Gordon’s head snaps back.

He stumbles.

But doesn’t fall.

I fire again.
And again.
Each round strikes his head, pushing him back farther and farther. I run at him, still firing, still moving until the back of his legs hit the short safety wall at the edge of the building. After firing my last round I leap up, do my best Endo impression, and kick Gordon’s chest.

The impact stops me in my tracks and I fall to the concrete roof. Gordon is off balance, leaning back. His hands twirl in circles as he fights to stay on the rooftop. But he’s dazed. And blood pours from his wounded eye.

Still, he’s far from dead, and I suspect, thanks to his strength, he’s about to regain his balance.

But I’m not about to let that happen. I grab hold of his ankles and pull. It’s not much, but the top-heavy General is suddenly ass over tea kettle. He disappears over the edge, falling thirty-four stories to the pavement below. I grab onto the ledge and look over in time to see him pancake the roof of a school bus.

I’m about to stand and offer up a one-liner that would make a young Bruce Willis envious, but a bright glow filtering through the skyscrapers of the South End is followed by a BOOM that sucks the air from my lungs and knocks me to the Clarendon’s roof.

45

Despite the pain wracking my body and exploding in my ears, I hit the roof like a thirteen year old gymnast, springing back to my feet in time to see my worst fears realized.

Downtown is crumbling.

The core of the city is now a black husk of its former self.

Skyscrapers crumble and fall, one after
another,
dropping in on themselves like God is lowering a finger and pushing them into the Earth.

Not God, I think, Nemesis.

As the buildings fall, filling the air with a low rumble and roiling plumes of dust that roll over the much smaller buildings of Beacon Hill, sunlight cuts through the haze, revealing the silhouette of Nemesis. The monster thunders through the now clear path through the city, framed on either side by the skyscrapers that are still standing.

A loud tinkling sound turns me around. Glimmering shards of glass descend from above. I look up and see the John Hancock Tower, one of Boston’s tallest buildings, shedding its all-glass exterior. As the reflective shards fall into the street at the corner of the Clarendon building, they form a hazy, moving mirror, through which I see Nemesis looming larger and larger.

Screams rise up from below. The panicked
people
who weren’t sure which way to go, now have a solid direction—away from Nemesis. But in their panic, they’re trampling each other, adding more numbers to the death toll. I want to shout at them to stop, but they wouldn’t hear me over their own screams, the thirty-four stories between us, and the Air Force, which has taken the destruction of the South End as permission to unleash hell on Earth.

Missiles rain down from the sky, striking Nemesis hard, knocking the monster around and tearing off heaps of dark flesh.

“Jon, look!” Collins shouts, stepping up next to me and pointing at Nemesis.

I’m not sure what she’s talking about at first. Nemesis is hard to miss. But then I see it. The orange membranes...are black. Whatever was in them got used up when downtown was incinerated.

My attitude toward the Air Force one-eighties and I grip the side of the building, saying, “C’mon... C’mon...”

Nemesis falls forward, landing on her forelimbs. But she’s not seriously hurt, just allowing her armor-plated back to take the hits. In fact, now on all fours, she’s moving faster, trampling through Beacon Hill and into Boston’s Back Bay area, where the John Hancock building and the few towers around it are the only skyscrapers around.

But the monster doesn’t appear to notice us. In fact, she seems to be wandering around aimlessly.

It’s Gordon, I think. Gordon was leading her to us. Without him, she’s confused, unsure of where to go, and she’s leveling the city as a result. This isn’t like Portland where she just wanted to get from one side of town to the other. Without Gordon guiding her, Nemesis is going to flatten every last bit of Boston looking for what?
Some guy?

I look back at the underwear-clad man. He’s still hooded, but bound and struggling.

Could this really all be about him?

If so, we need to get him out of here, but I’m not sure if Nemesis will follow us without Gordon drawing her in, but maybe if she sees the man. Of course, if she sees the man, she’s likely to just smash the chopper out of the sky. Still, it has to be done.

“Get Woodstock here,” I say to Collins.

She pulls a radio from her belt and starts talking. I head for the fat man and am about to call out to Endo for help, when I remember his arm was dislocated. Not that it matters. He’s gone. The man is a killer and should be locked up, but he’s pretty close to the bottom of my list of concerns right now.

I turn back to Collins.
“Knife!”

She takes a folding knife from her belt and tosses it to me. I catch it, pull the blade out and make short work of the man’s plastic bonds. He cowers and yelps as I free him. “You’re safe,” I tell him. “I’m with the DHS.”

“Thank God,” he says, his voice trembling. “Get me the hell out of here!”

“Gladly,” I say, and I yank off the hood.

The man blinks several times, eyes adjusting to the brightness of day. Then he sees the smoldering ruin that is Boston and the three-hundred-foot plus
freakshow
that is Nemesis slowly working her way toward us. He lets out a shrill scream that’s so loud I’m almost certain the monster will hear him. I slap the man hard across the face, point my finger at him and let my glaring eyes do the talking.

He clamps his mouth shut. Collins arrives and together, we help the man to his feet.

Just then, the heavy bass beat of a helicopter rises up next to the building. Woodstock brings the chopper over the roof, finds a clearing free of obstructions and lands. The side door slides open. Collins hops in first and turns around to help the stranger on board, but he’s dazed, terrified and looks weakened by his ordeal. It’s going to take both of us to get him in, and my phone has just started ringing.

I would normally ignore the phone, but something tells me this call is likely time-sensitive. I tear through the Velcro and zippers of my
suit,
pull out the phone and shout a, “hello!” over the chopping rotor blades.

“Hudson?” shouts Watson in reply. “I can barely hear you!”

“Just tell me what you have!” I yell.

“The condo,” he shouts. “One of the units was owned by someone who rents an apartment in the Clarendon building.
The penthouse.
His name is Alexander
Tilly
!”

Tilly
?

Then it registers. Alexander
Tilly
was the father of
Maigo
Tilly
, the girl who was murdered.

The girl whose DNA was used to grow organs.

The girl who became Nemesis.

I turn to the fat man. “Alexander
Tilly
?”

He looks at me. “Help me up!”

“Are you Alexander
Tilly
?”

“Yeah,” he shouts, “Which is why you better damn well—”

I take the man’s shoulder and yank him back away from the chopper.

“What are you doing?” Collins shouts.

“You wouldn’t like it if I told you,” I reply. “You’re going to have to trust me.” When she doesn’t move or reply, I add, “Partners have to do that sometimes.”

She purses her lips for a moment and then nods.

I slide the door closed and then open Woodstock’s door. “Take her up. Stay close. Be ready.”

“For what?” he asks.

“Anything,” I tell him. Then I slam the door and step back. The chopper lifts off and banks away from the building, leaving me with a very confused, very angry man.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he screams.

I’ve still got Collins’s gun so I point it at him. It doesn’t have a single round left, but he doesn’t know that. I motion toward the roof edge nearest Nemesis, who is still a half mile off and still on all fours.

The man looks like he’s about to argue, but he’s had a rough day and concedes without incident.

As we walk toward the edge of the roof, closer to Nemesis, his legs start to quake. I’m tempted to feel pity for the man, but before I can change my mind, I ask, “Did you do it?”

“W—what?” he says.

“Did you kill your wife?” I ask.
“And your daughter.”

His legs give out and he falls to his knees. “Just shoot me.”

Not exactly the words of an innocent man.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because she was a cheating bitch,” he says, growing angry. “And the stupid kid came home early! That the answer you wanted?”

“I had a girlfriend who cheated on me,” I say. “I’m pretty sure I loved her, too. She gave a hummer to a guy named Sven, if you can believe it. I didn’t kill anyone, though.
Didn’t even cross my mind.
I did keep this cool suit, but she never asked for it back, either.”

Tilly
looks up at me like I’m nuts.

“Look at the city, Mr.
Tilly
.”

He does.

“All of this is because of you. The thousands of people that died over the last few days are because of you. And even though I believe in the laws of this country and the system that puts people like you in jail—” I point to Nemesis. “—she does not. Here is the simple fact.”

“What do you intend to do?” he asks, a bit of fear creeping into his voice.

“I’m going to invite her over,” I say, and then shout, as loud as I can, “Nemesis!”

Nothing.

The monster is still heading toward us, but shows no reaction to me calling her name.

A missile catches her in the side, blowing off a chunk of her skin and revealing a patch of white beneath it. Is that bone? She rears up on her hind legs and roars. I nearly fall to my knees beside
Tilly
, but manage to stay standing and shout her name again.
“Nemesis!”

Still no reaction.

I watch the jet that fired the missile turn and fly away, its ammunition apparently exhausted. That’s when I notice that the skies are now empty, save for a few daring news choppers hovering a mile away.

I’m on my own.

With a single giant step, she’s nearly reached the building, but she’s paying no attention to it.

I’m really struggling to not run in fright, because I’m now standing at eye level with Nemesis. But my fright turns to confusion as a chunk of the monster’s shoulder falls away to reveal white flesh beneath.

Not bone.

The white flesh is brilliant, almost reflective, and makes me squint until I look away from it.

“Nemesis!”
I scream, and am ignored once more.

Then I remember Gordon’s words, “That’s not her name.” Then what is her name? I look down at
Tilly
and suck in a gasp. I shake my head against the idea, but it’s the only thing that makes some kind of ridiculous sense. As the monster starts turning away to trample some other part of the city, I fill my lungs and scream, “
Maigo
!”

The eyes shift first.
Then the head.
Then all at once, I’m standing face-to-face with a city-destroying monster who somehow believes that she is a thirteen-year-old girl who was murdered by the man now quaking behind me.

This isn’t going to end well, I think.