Project 731, page 13
part #3 of Kaiju Thriller Series
Collins shakes her head. “Not going to happen.”
The ape turns his finger to his exposed brain. “He do this! To family!”
Collins’s aim waivers. I don’t blame her. Unlike much of the world, who have been conditioned, through movies and novels, to view monstrous things as simple-minded killing machines, we know better. They’re complex creatures with genuine emotions that are sometimes deeper than we can comprehend. It sounds like this great ape saw his fate befall his family before it was done to him. I don’t know what family means to a gorilla, but I suspect it’s similar to a human family: children, a mate, maybe even brothers, sisters and parents. It wouldn’t surprise me if GOD took an entire troop of gorillas from the Congo.
“I gave Tilly to Nemesis for less,” I say.
The scientist flinches like I’ve just punched him. “You can’t be serious!”
“Did you do this to him?” I ask the man.
His silence is answer enough, and I step away from the man.
“Jon...” Collins glances at me, the look in her eyes is stern, but unconvincing.
“Would you stand in my way if they did this to our children?”
“You people are crazy!” The scientist says, and he breaks away, running along the edge of the roof. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s just triggered his own doom and taken away some of the burden I might have felt if I had simply stood aside.
The roof shakes beneath our feet. At first, I think it’s from the charging gorilla, but the sound of wrenching metal spins me around, and I see the hangar roof bending upward.
“Coming in low,” Woodstock says. “From the n—what the hell is that thing on the roof!”
The hangar roof is struck from below, two long, blade-like spines punching through.
“Holy sheeit!” Woodstock shouts. “Is that—”
“Meet us on the west side of the roof,” I shout, running toward the still charging gorilla. “West side!”
As we pass the silverback, it makes eye contact with me, and it’s the strangest thing, not because it’s a giant talking ape, but because I see intelligence in there. It grunts and dips its head in thanks, before continuing past us toward the scientist, who has realized he has nowhere to run and has turned to meet his end face on—and screaming.
Several things happen at once.
First, the silverback reaches the scientist. It doesn’t stop, doesn’t speak, doesn’t grant mercy. It simply tackles the man, crushing bones and internal organs, as it lifts him off the rooftop and launches into the air, intending to end both of their miserable lives.
Second, the warehouse explodes, sending massive sheets of curved metal sailing through the air. One of these giant hangar pieces spins around, and slams into the GOD building. I don’t see it happen, but the whole building shudders from the impact. The first of many, I think, running as fast as I can.
Third, the Zoomb helicopter rockets into view, spins and angles too fast to the side, and then, somehow, miraculously—what Woodstock would call just another day at the office—sets down hard on its wheels, just thirty feet ahead. The door springs open automatically.
And finally, last, but most graphic, Nemesis rises, her mouth agape. Just as the gorilla and scientist reach the apex of their leap, the Kaiju snaps its jaws over the pair like a trained dog. The crack of her teeth coming together is like pealing thunder, and if not for the chopper’s rotor wash pushing me in the other direction, it would have knocked me off my feet.
Standing beneath the spinning helicopter blades, I can’t help but turn around and watch Nemesis stand. She’s as massive as I remember, shedding building debris as she pushes her massive girth up, until she’s standing nearly twice the size of the building I’m standing atop.
I’ve been in a similar position more than once before. But this feels different.
Nemesis feels different.
And that’s when I realize I am feeling her. Not like before, when I touched Maigo, but just a hint...like an instinct. I feel her anger. Her hatred. Her loathing.
And then, she feels me.
Nemesis’s giant head turns down, looking at me. Her eyes, I think, they’ve changed. Where Nemesis used to have almost human brown eyes, they’re now lifeless and glowing orange, like the membranes covering her neck, chest and torso. There’s nothing of Maigo left in the monster, which means there is no affection left for me. No protection.
“Oh, shit,” I say, just a moment before Collins wraps her arms around me and wrenches me back into the chopper.
“Go, go, go!” Collins shouts, and the chopper pitches to the side even as it lifts off, pulling us west, across the roof and away from Nemesis.
The goddess of vengeance roars. I’m pretty sure everyone in the helicopter shouts in pain from the sound, but I can’t hear anyone, not even myself. Looking out the side window, I see a giant arm swooping down. The massive hand, tipped with five long, hooked claws, will pass through us like we’re nothing more than air. We will simply cease to exist.
The roof fades away below us, and the swinging arm strikes the building, disintegrating it and all those horrible experiments. A shockwave rattles the chopper, but we’ve made it out of range, thanks to the building’s sacrifice. But that doesn’t mean we’re out of danger. Nemesis doesn’t give up easily.
But then the giant flinches, her arm snapping up to something on her chest.
A Tsuchi.
An elephant-sized Tsuchi, with its tail poised to strike the orange membrane on Nemesis’s chest, unknowingly dooming us all.
20
Raw anger boiled through Nemesis. Her blood felt like acid. Her skin, fresh and thick, squeezed her body, making every movement a fight. But she was alive, and the world around her assaulted her senses.
The pain that had awakened her had numbed some, but she still felt as though something had been stolen from her. Part of her body. Her essence. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The entire world and all its misery washed over her. Crimes committed around the globe filtered through her mind, lighting fire to her synapses and bringing back memories of tortures at the hands of those who...attuned her to injustice. She could feel them all. The murdered. The raped. The enslaved. The atrocities of mankind fueled an ancient furnace that flickered to life and then burned white hot. She would smite them with glorious vengeance until the injustice and misery broadcast by every wronged person fell silent, or until there were no more people left.
But there was something else, something missing. She felt...alone. And cold. And unrestrained!
Nemesis twisted her body and stood. She met a momentary resistance, but then she shoved against it, and like everything she encountered, it yielded to her might. The metal roof sheared away, and Nemesis saw the sun. She also felt a sudden and ripe burst of injustice, just above her, dangled out like a treat. She opened her jaws and snapped them closed, uncaring that she’d consumed both wrongdoer and victim. She felt the tiny bodies in her mouth, and she crushed them with her tongue, silencing their blaring moral foghorn. Millions more remained, but the nearest of them was—
As she stood to her full height, more nearby voices reached her. Hundreds of them. All coming from the building below her. She turned her head down toward the offending structure. So many voices in one location, all crying out for vengeance, could not be denied.
Then she saw him. A man standing on an adjacent roof, eyes turned up. He was afraid, but he did not cower from her judgment. Memories of this man returned in flashes, but she didn’t understand them. The places and words and emotions associated with that face lacked meaning. All she felt for him was indifference, and while he did not deserve her wrath, many of those cowering in the building beneath him did.
Nemesis raised her massive, armored arm, the dark gray skin between the thick plates bending and flexing. She watched the tiny man run toward an awaiting helicopter. She didn’t direct her blow toward him, but she didn’t try to avoid him, either. He was simply a curiosity. Something from a past she no longer felt anything about.
The building provided no resistance for her strike. It crumbled beneath her massive claws, as though it were little more than air, but it did provide her some relief from the anguish oozing out of its walls. The voices within were silent now.
After unleashing a victorious roar, Nemesis noted the small man still lived, carried away through the air. She watched him for a moment, able to pinpoint his tiny face, framed by a window in the moving vehicle. And, for a moment, she felt something. It was fear, but not just for himself. He was afraid for them both. But why—
Then she felt it.
On her chest.
At first, the poking of its talons into her skin was a mere itch, but now she felt the thing. Really felt it, the way she felt most life, by detecting the lightness or darkness of its soul. In this case, the creature scurrying up her chest, both familiar and unknown, exploded with darkness. Not only that, it bore a resemblance to Nemesis herself. She recognized the traits that came from her, and for a moment, she felt a kinship, the way a mother might feel for her spawn. But then she remembered. This is what she’d seen upon waking. What she had struck away. This is the creature that had stolen from her. Had violated her.
And it was poised to strike.
Nemesis knew what would happen if the creature pierced the membrane on her chest. The creature would cease to exist in a fiery explosion. Had the creature been a bigger threat, she might have been inclined to let the thing have its way. But such an attack was reserved for far graver threats.
Moving with surprising speed, Nemesis brought a single claw up to scrape the creature away. The small thing didn’t strike, but Nemesis didn’t hit it, either. The creature leapt away, wrapped its long tail around Nemesis’s wrist and then swung onto her forearm, where it did strike.
Three times.
21
My relief at Nemesis taking action against the Tsuchi is short lived. The creature, while much smaller than Nemesis, is agile and lightning fast. I flinch when it leaps away, wraps its tail around the Kaiju’s arm and swings onto her wrist. “Oh, crap,” I say, when I see the thing’s tail jab Nemesis’s wrist three times.
Nemesis backhands her arm into what remains of the GOD building, and it comes away free of the Tsuchi, but the damage has already been done. The skin on Nemesis’s wrist bulges and then splits.
The massive Kaiju roars in pain, sending shockwaves through the air. The chopper shakes, but we’re far enough away now to not be in any real danger.
“Woodstock, hold us here,” I say, and the helicopter levels out to a smooth hover, the rotor blades almost silent in the regal interior. “Collins, get on Devine.” The Digital Vanguard Intelligence Network, designed to help us coordinate a response to Kaiju threats across all emergency channels, including the military, has been unused for the past year. “I want airstrikes on the—”
Two F-22s roar past. I’m about to ask how they got here so fast, and then I remember that we’re technically still on an Air Force base. The two jets, America’s most advanced 5th generation fighters, unload their full payloads. Between the two fighters, twenty-four missiles streak through the air.
My body tenses for a moment, as the white smoke trails seem to point toward Nemesis’s chest, but the missiles angle upwards, locked onto Nemesis’s head. While there is no threat of detonating one of Nemesis’s membranes, they’ve just guaranteed she’s going to be really pissed off, and with a city of 43,000 people within stomping distance, that seems like a really bad idea.
The missiles strike Nemesis in the side of her face, pitching her sideways as the cracking bulge on her wrist ruptures with bright red gore. She roars, sounding more angry than hurt.
Part of me wonders if the combination of modern military mixed with the Tsuchi assault might be enough to take Nemesis down for good, but I know that’s the wrong call. Small Tsuchi are a threat to the whole planet. I hate to think about what an army of giant Tsuchi could do.
I turn to Collins. “Tell them to target the Tsuchi! Not Nemesis!”
Collins has her smartphone to her ear. “They’re not going to know what Tsuchi are.”
“The spiders!” I shout, remembering their more descriptive name. “The big fucking spiders!” I see Alessi, sitting beside Collins, but looking past me, out the window, widen her eyes.
I turn back to the action in time to see Nemesis twist and arch her back in pain. But it’s not from the missiles. The smoke from those twelve strikes rolls away from her face, revealing no damage at all. The old girl is as tough as ever...if you ignore her wrist. As she bends back, Nemesis lifts the offending wrist up, letting out a sharp wail as her flesh bursts from the inside out.
Three new Tsuchi, smaller than the one that implanted them, tear out of the arm, twitching and shaking gore away from their bodies. Like the first, they’re much bigger than a normal Tsuchi, and even from this distance, I can see they share some attributes with Nemesis. These aren’t the spindly, turtle-shelled monsters I fought in Oregon. These are Nemesis-Tsuchi, having borrowed some of their DNA from the Kaiju.
How big will they get?
Nemesis reacts to the new creatures with her normal unhinged vengeance, slapping her massive hand down on the opposite wrist. All three Kaiju Tsuchi, still young and unfocussed, are crushed. A flash of light bursts from beneath the giant hand, and then, all at once, an explosion is released. Nemesis’s hands separate, unleashing the bright orange fluid contained in each new Tsuchi. The creatures are torn apart, along with what remains of the GOD building.
I avert my eyes from the brightness and hold on, as the shockwave shakes the chopper. When I look back, Nemesis stands alone, surrounded by a black, charred circle and a giant pile of rubble that used to be GOD. Beyond, I see what little remains of the mammoth hangar, inside of which are the mummified remains of a second Kaiju, similar to Nemesis, but thicker, even in death.
Nemesis Prime. I’ve never seen the body before. She’s uglier than I imagined.
“More F-22s are en route,” Collins says. “Targeting the Tsuchi. ETA thirty seconds.”
Then I see movement on the ground. A Tsuchi, larger than the first, scurries away, heading south. A second one, still larger, bolts east.
“Let them know there are three targets,” I tell her. “One engaging Nemesis, one headed south and one headed east. We need to intercept all three before they reach civilization.” A map of the region pops into my head. Downtown Lompoc is seventeen miles away by car, but that’s via a long winding route. To a giant Tsuchi, able to run right over the tall hills separating us from the town, that distance would be cut in half. “Priority should be given to the Tsuchi headed east!”
Nemesis, turns south, clearly intending to give chase, despite the obvious speed advantage the Tsuchi have, but she doesn’t make it more than a step.
The charred corpse of the GOD building bursts open, and the first Tsuchi, the smallest and boldest of the three giant spiders, leaps onto Nemesis’s back and scurries up, working its way through the double sets of towering spikes. Nemesis reacts quickly, spinning in circles, leveling the area with her long, trident tipped tail, trying to reach the Tsuchi.
The giant spider stops at Nemesis’s shoulder, clinging with all eight legs. Nemesis tries to bite the thing, but can’t reach it. As she lifts her hand to crush it, like she did the others, the Tsuchi strikes with its tail, three times. But the syringe-like stinger can’t pierce the armor on the Kaiju’s shoulder.
Nemesis’s big hand hits hard, but there’s no explosion. The agile Tsuchi suddenly appears on the far shoulder, striking with its tail again, to no effect. Then it’s gone, and faster than seems possible, it’s atop Nemesis’s head.
In a flash, I see how this could all end. Three new Tsuchi, bursting from Nemesis’s head, destroying her brain and forever killing the Kaiju.
Before Nemesis’s raised hand can crash down on her own head, the Tsuchi does something new. It bites down. Blue arcs of electricity spark between the two mandibles. The charge can’t be enough to incapacitate the much larger Nemesis, but it does make her flinch long enough for the Tsuchi to raise its tail, ready to strike.
It never gets the chance. A lone missile streaks in from the south, striking the Tsuchi. The armored spider spins away through the air, its legs like the spokes of a bike wheel, spinning madly.
Before the Tsuchi hits the ground, a line of white web streaks from its backside and strikes Nemesis’s wrist, just below the fresh wound, which appears to have been cauterized by the explosive end of the three newborn Tsuchis. The spinning Tsuchi’s fall is turned into a swing, bringing it around toward Nemesis’s back. The BFS’s legs splay wide, ready to land. Its tail arches and twitches, ready to strike.
But the Tsuchi fails to hit its mark. Nemesis’s large but fast tail swings around and strikes the Tsuchi like a baseball bat hitting a golf ball. The impact’s force snaps the web line and sends the now limp Tsuchi sailing—toward us.
Woodstock angles the chopper to the right, pulling us out over the ocean. The Tsuchi falls short of striking us, landing on the ground and rolling several hundred feet, stopping just before toppling over a cliff, into the ocean.
“Pulling back,” Woodstock announces. Since Nemesis is charging in our direction, I offer no complaint. She roars at us, perhaps seeing the chopper as a threat now, or maybe as competition for her prize, but when we’re far enough away, she ignores us and turns her full attention back to the now twitching Tsuchi.
Nemesis leans over the creature, and with surprising gentleness and accuracy, places one of her colossal claws on the Tsuchi’s underside. The pinned spider flails, its tail stabbing at the claw but ricocheting away. While the Tsuchi goes ballistic, Nemesis reaches down with her free hand and with a quick flick of her finger, she severs the tail, effectively castrating the thing.
The Tsuchi’s legs go rigid with shock for a moment, but then it starts twitching again. Nemesis reaches down, and one by one, she flicks off the spider’s eight legs, which continue to twitch, despite being separated from the body.
