Project 731 (29 page)

“You asshole!” I shout. Nemesis just stares back at me. “You were a pain in the ass when you were a person, and now I have to deal with you as...” I motion up and down at Nemesis. “...as this? Fuck you, Endo.” We stand there, eye-to-giant-eye for a moment. My shoulders sag. “And...thank you. For everything.”

Nemesis stands still for a moment, and then huffs, the rank air nearly knocking me over. With an almost indifferent air, she turns west and strikes out, following the plan.
Just go
, I think.
All the way to the coast and stay there. Eat whales and enjoy being a monster.

I step back and raise the cargo hatch. “Woodstock, do me a favor and pick up my daughter.”

The thick mustached man looks back with a grin. “You got it, boss.”

I turn to Collins, who has remained unscathed during the last few days. She’s looking fine in her armor, red curls hanging on her shoulders. I feel like crap, and probably look worse, but I find myself smiling, perhaps fueled by relief, or adrenaline. “Hey.”

She turns to me, smiling.

“Wanna get hitched?” I ask. “Like right now?”

She nods, and laughs. “Let’s do it.”

I turn to Woodstock, but the man reads my mind. “First stop, Maigo. Second stop, Vegas.”

44

We didn’t quite make it to Vegas immediately after finding Maigo in the blackened city. We escorted Nemesis west as she followed her direct path back to the coast. She moved at a steady 70 mph clip, not quite a run, but she wasn’t taking her time, and I suspect she wasn’t moving faster because of the injuries to her side, her hands and all the internal injuries we couldn’t see. But she never slowed.

Military jets swarmed around us the whole way, eager to take a crack at the city destroyer, but it was easy to see that Nemesis wasn’t attacking, and no one wanted to be responsible for setting her on a rampage.

Like Boston, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, several suburbs of Salt Lake City, and the central part of the city itself were a total loss. But the early evacuation efforts saved several hundred thousand people, including the suburbs to the north and southeast. The loss of life, combined with the destruction of Los Angeles, Lompoc and everything in between has been estimated to be upwards of five hundred thousand, most of them lost during the battles with the Tsuchi or consumed by the Tsuchis, fueling their rapid growth.

That number makes this the most deadly Kaiju attack since Nemesis first appeared. The FC-P, once again with Endo’s help—and sacrifice—managed to aid Nemesis and stop the Kaiju threat. Strangely, despite the loss of life, and previous actions in Boston, Nemesis is getting a reputation for being mankind’s protector, even if she’s also our judge, jury and executioner. She’s now, very publicly, stopped seven other Kaiju whose threat to the planet was even more severe. The question I have is this: will Nemesis, bonded with Endo, be content to remain in the ocean?

Not a chance
, I think. When you come right down to it, Endo was a very serious, very deadly fanboy. He’s not going to want to swim around the oceans munching whales. He’s going to want the full experience. Maigo says that he’ll feel Nemesis’s thirst for vengeance just as strongly as the goddess. He’ll just process it differently...and I hope, differently enough to show a little restraint and maybe avoid casually strolling through cities while en route to his targets. Of course, the hardest part is that it’s going to be my job to stop Nemesis.

It was night when the Queen of the Monsters reached the ocean and slipped into the waves without a look back. We parted as allies, but if she returns for anything other than putting the hurt on another Kaiju...and puts people in danger, I’m going to have to hit her with everything we have. And yeah, despite Endo being a part of the Kaiju now, Nemesis will always be a ‘she’ to me.

It’s been two
days since then, and we’re back in Beverly, most of us walking around the joint like it’s a geriatric home. But we’re not complaining. While Woodstock, Lilly, Hawkins, Joliet and I are bruised, broken and perforated, Maigo, Collins, Cooper and Watson are doting on us, and Buddy makes the rounds licking people’s feet, and arms, and hands, and pants—his stubby tail wagging madly the whole time. I think he’s losing his mind, or just really happy to see us alive. Even Lilly is letting the dog lick her.

I’ve talked to the President and briefed representatives of every agency involved in investigating and responding to the aftermath, which, thankfully, isn’t our job. The last few days have been a blur of phone calls and meetings. And right now, sitting on the deck of the Crow’s Nest, hard cider in hand, sun on my face, it all feels a million miles away. With my eyes closed, head tilted back, I try to forget the horrible things I’ve seen. But I can’t.

Of all the things I’ve seen—destroyed cities, people eaten whole, genetic monstrosities—my thoughts keep wandering back to Area 51, and what’s hidden beneath the sands. What it means for all of us.

The sound of a shifting deck chair pulls me back to the here and now. Collins sits down beside me, beer in hand. We look at each other, sharing words without speaking until we both smile. I hold my bottle up in a mock toast. “Hello, wife.”

She clinks her bottle against mine. “Husband.”

Yeah, we eventually made it to Vegas. The brief ceremony was conducted by a stunned justice of the peace, who watched us land in what was essentially a bona fide UFO—which we are
definitely
keeping. The service was attended by Maigo and Woodstock. Alessi had been with us when we set down, but she had quickly disappeared into the city. The wedding was a quick and simple affair, followed by a flight back to the East Coast.

“I’m trying to think of a good honeymoon location,” I say. It’s a white lie, but a good subject to distract me from the truth.

“Someplace not marred by Kaiju attacks,” she says.

“Siberia? I hear it’s nice in the summer. We could spend a few weeks in the gulag. Just the two of us.”

“I’m thinking Rome,” she says. “And Greece.”

“Pretty sure that part of the world saw its fair share of Nemesis back in the day.”

“Good place to start if we’re going to find Atlantis,” she says.

I freeze, hard cider tilted, almost at my lips. “Are you serious?”

“This is our life now, Jon,” she says. “We might as well embrace it.”

The bottle lowers as I smile. “It would be a pretty epic honeymoon. But...we’re not roughing it. Search by day, fine food and four-star hotel at night.”

“Deal.”

“So,” Maigo says from above us. “We’re going to Greece?”

Collins and I look up. Maigo and Lilly are clinging to the brick wall above us. Lilly is healing quickly, but still acting like her bold self, despite the cast and bandages. She’s giving Maigo pointers on being super human, and Maigo is officially out of her shell.

She no longer feels the connection to Nemesis. Endo’s bonding to the monster seems to have broken it. At first, I thought she might be disturbed by the loss, but it really just set her free. She keeps her hair tied back now. She laughs more. And she’s embraced the parts of her that aren’t human. Lilly has taken to the task of schooling her ‘sister’ in how to push the limits of their abilities.

Maigo’s connection to me, however, remains. It might even be stronger. She promises she’s staying out of my head, but I occasionally see her laugh when I’ve thought of something funny. As long as she’s not in there all the time, especially when I’m alone with my wife, I can deal with it. Maigo is, after all, a Hudson.
Holy crap...in the last week I’ve become a family man.

I’m about to tell Maigo that Collins and I will be going alone, but Collins beats me to the punch. “If we’re lucky, we’ll find Atlantis, too.”

I guess we’re all going
.

Collins takes my hand, “But we need to check out the lay of the land first.”

“I know what they’ll be laying,” Lilly says, nudging Maigo with her elbow.

“Aww, c’mon!” I say, but I can’t stop from laughing.

“Lilly!” Maigo says, embarrassed.

Collins just laughs.

Our laughter is cut off by the sudden roar of a helicopter surging over the Crow’s Nest roof and swinging around toward the lawn below us. There is a landing pad on the roof, but it’s currently occupied by Helicopter Betty and Future Betty, from which we’ve taken armor, weapons and tech we’re still trying to figure out. The dark blue, Bell 525 Relentless is instantly recognizable, not only because of its resplendent appearance, but because the Zoomb logo is hard to miss.

I remain seated while the helicopter lands in the yard. It takes a lot to ruffle my feathers these days. So I sit and sip my hard cider, waiting to see what unfolds. The girls, however, are on guard. They climb through a window back into the building, and disappear.

I have to admit, I’m a little surprised when three figures exit the helicopter dressed in armor and facemasks that resemble the BlackGuard’s. The deck door opens. Joliet steps out, shotgun in hand. The ghost of Old Mrs. Rosen, who was known to chase trick-or-treaters off with a shotgun, is probably watching with a grin. Hawkins emerges next, limping, but carrying a KRISS rifle taken from the X-35.

“What’s the situation?” Hawkins asks.

“I’m just having a drink with my lady,” I say.

He squints at me. Lowers his weapon. Looks back at the girls in the doorway behind him. They both look a little sheepish and defensive. Who can blame them for being jumpy? Lilly had been hunted by men wearing uniforms a lot like these.

The three armored visitors stop at the bottom of the brick stairway. “Can we talk?”

I recognize the voice as Alessi’s. While Endo has always been on and off my shit list, Alessi hasn’t done too much to irk me, even if she is his half-sister. “Come on up.”

She removes her mask and starts up the stairs. While Joliet ushers the others inside, Alessi pulls a chair around, facing us. She sits, takes the cider from my hand and takes a drink.

And now
she’s
on my shit list.

When she doesn’t speak, I decide to. “What did he tell you? Before he jumped.”

“That’s kind of what I’m here to talk to you about.” She leans back in her chair, looking exhausted, but also with a trace of fire in her eyes. “Endo was a...resourceful man. In the last year he managed to coerce, bribe, manipulate and threaten his way into being the primary shareholder of Zoomb.”

The news straightens me up in my seat. “Endo
owns
Zoomb?”

She shakes her head. She takes a deep breath, holds it and lets it out slowly. “I was a ten percent share holder before. Endo...I’m not sure how he did it, though I suspect certain people might have been beholden to him in the same way the President is to you. The end result is that he managed to take control of fifty-one percent of the stock, meaning that even if everyone else united against him, nothing could be done about it.”

“That was a lot to say before jumping,” I point out.

“I already knew all that,” she says. “But... He... I’ll just show you.” She digs into her coat and pulls out a sheet of paper. She hands it to me. I unfold it with Collins looking over my shoulder.

Collins, who is a faster reader than me, says, “Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
”

And when I get to the real meat of the letter, I have to re-read it three times. “Is this for real?”

She nods. “You are now the primary stock holder of Zoomb. The company is yours. You’re the seventh richest man in the world.”

“But...but why?”

“I think you know why,” she says, but then she elaborates. “There are threats in this world, that even with the President’s ear, you are unprepared to face. Black organizations within your own government prefer to remain clandestine, performing their unscrupulous research in the shadows, but never really facing threats head on.”

I know she’s speaking about GOD, but maybe there are more organizations like them.

“When he learned about the Aeros, Ferox and Atlanteans and their connection to Nemesis, he wished for Zoomb’s relationship with the FC-P to improve. He decided to...” She’s holding back her emotions. “...merge the organizations through you.”

I’m stymied. “But...this is crazy. I don’t know how to run a company. The FC-P is enough to—”

“I will run the company for you as I have been for Endo,” she says. “But you will have full access to all of our research, technology and—”

“The flashdrive,” I say, remembering Alessi’s espionage back at GOD. “You have all of GOD’s files, too?”

She grins. “All of their biological research, including files on the extraterrestrial life forms and a few hundred other projects I think you’ll be interested in looking over...or assigning a team to, which you can do. Or have me do.”

Here I was, worried that she was going to hand the information over to her cold corporate bosses at Zoomb, and it turns out that
I’m
the cold corporate boss.