Project 731, page 2
part #3 of Kaiju Thriller Series
And then, with a bright flash, the Darwin exploded, erased forever. As the roar and pressure wave shook the helicopter, Johnson rolled onto his back and looked up at his teammates. Only Shadow looked back, his squinted eyes revealing a smile. “Now you’ve seen scary.”
1
Maine
“Stop moving,” she says.
“I’m itchy,” I tell her.
“You didn’t roll through poison ivy again?”
“Four leaves, shiny green. No way.”
“Poison ivy has three leaves.”
“Shit.”
A faint scratch, barely a whisper, silences us. Collins, whose fiery hair and personality are hidden by full-body camouflage, lowers her goggle-covered face to the ground, blending in with the leaf litter that surrounds and covers us. I lower my head, too, knowing that concealment is the only course of action. If our enemy is within a hundred yards, something as small as passed gas would give our position away.
So we wait in silence. I can hear Collins breathing through the earbuds that let us communicate over distances without having to shout. While the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves seeps through my facemask, I picture our future together. It’s totally inappropriate, both because I’m kind of in the middle of something and because my face is in the dirt, but I find it hard not to think about. I picture her in a wedding dress, red hair in curls, orange-brown eyes blazing. My mind’s eye travels south to her... No, I think. The wedding dress I’ve conjured is far too revealing, so I mentally censor the image to something more conservative. These camo fatigues are a little tight, and I don’t want to relive the last day I ever wore sweat pants in high school.
“Pervert,” Collins whispers.
“What?” I say, too loud. “How did— Get out of my head, woman.”
“You’re adjusting,” she says.
I freeze. Without realizing, I’ve reached down and shifted my boxer briefs. I generally prefer straight boxers, but that’s not always comfortable when in the field. A good sprint can leave a guy feeling like Sugar Ray Leonard discovered a new punching bag.
“What was I wearing this time?” she asks. “Bikini? Lingerie?”
I turn toward her, seeing only the side of her facedown head. “First, kudos on the confidence. How do you know I wasn’t thinking about a Kardashian?”
“You sound too nervous for that.”
“Too nervous? I’m not nervous at all.” Shit, shit, shitty-shit, shit. I can’t tell her the truth. We’ve been together for two years now. She knows how I feel, but she was married once before. The man abused her. Hardened her. I need to make sure that the idea of marriage hasn’t been ruined for her. Ted Watson and Anne Cooper, our co-workers at the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center – Paranormal division, FC-P for short, were married six months ago, before the birth of their son. Collins was a bridesmaid, but I couldn’t read how she felt about the situation. I might need to come right out and ask her, but that will kind of ruin the surprise...which I haven’t planned yet. To lead her away from the truth, I need to give her something embarrassing, something to justify the nerves she’s detecting.
I sit up, revealing myself to the enemy. “Uhura.”
Collins sits up beside me. “What?”
“Uhura. I was picturing you as Uhura.”
Collins lifts her facemask so I can see her squinting eyes.
I take her silence for not understanding, despite the fact that I know her fantasies probably involve Jean-Luc Picard. “Star Trek... Communications officer. Tight red uniform. Short skirt. Speaks Klingon.”
“Heghlu'meH QaQ jajvam.”
I have no idea what she said, but Collins’s Klingon sounds flawless.
I lift my mask away, smiling wide. “Oh my god. Where were you during my teenage years?”
A thud reveals the arrival of our enemy. I turn to the new arrival and casually say, “Oh, hey Lilly,” before giving Collins my full attention again. “Seriously, you know Klingon?”
Collins acknowledges Lilly with a wave, but otherwise ignores the girl, which is impressive, since the now six-foot-tall cat-woman with bright yellow eyes, black fur-covered body and long twitching tail is still amazing to witness—even after we’ve known her for a year.
“I had Watson teach me a few phrases. Thought you’d like it.”
“Thought right,” I say. “Bonus points for Collins.” I pantomime a scrolling scoreboard, complete with ticking sound effects.
The ridiculous conversation has the desired effect.
“You guys will never beat me if you don’t take this seriously,” Lilly says.
“We’re playing capture the flag,” I say. “It’s hard to take seriously. Not all of us are kids.”
Lilly’s pupils narrow and lock on me. Predatory. Intimidating.
I smile.
She stomps her foot. “I am not a kid.”
“You’re what, six years old?”
“I age differently than...humans...than regular people.”
I’m pushing the conversation into dangerous territory here. Lilly’s teenage self-esteem issues, unlike most, are rooted firmly in reality. While other teenagers feel like freaks, Lilly pretty much is one—at least to the outside world. To us, she’s family, and a part of the team.
“That doesn’t mean you mature any faster,” I say.
Lilly pulls back. Sucks in a breath. “I know what you’re trying to do.”
I grin. “You do?”
“I know that Dad is hiding beside you.” I turn to the long lump next to me, the camouflage fabric of Mark Hawkins’s fatigues hidden beneath the leaves. Lilly reaches out and taps my head, and then Collins’s. We’re officially captured.
“Okay, Dad,” she says to the stationary lump. “You can come out.”
I still get all choked up when this girl, who looks every bit the killer, speaks in such kindhearted tones, and gives those she loves honorary familial titles. We’re all uncles and aunts these days.
Hawkins doesn’t budge. Lilly nudges his still form with her sleek, black-furred foot, the retractable claws currently hidden. The leaves fall away, revealing an empty boot and pant leg.
“Oh my god,” I say in my very best sarcastic tone. “What did you do? You vaporized him!”
Lilly is too smart to fall for the continued distraction. She knows she’s been had, and like a true competitor, she’s once again on the hunt. Finding Hawkins proves easy. Even I can hear him running through the woods, which means one thing.
“He’s got the flag,” Collins says, sounding a little stunned. Despite her surprise, Hawkins was the logical choice for flag retrieval. He’s a first class tracker, trained by Howie Goodtracks, his unofficial adoptive father, who also happens to be a Ute Indian. After learning the trade from Goodtracks, Hawkins became a Yellowstone Park Ranger, specializing in finding lost, and sometimes dead, hikers, climbers and vacationers. An encounter with a grizzly bear ended that career, along with the bear’s life.
We’ve run through this simple exercise twenty times. At first, we were cocky. How could Lilly stop the whole group of us, in the woods, by herself? But she has—every single time. We’ve never even spotted her flag. Whether she catches us all, or simply steals our flag out from under our noses, we’ve never stood a chance. But this time...
I stand up, cup my hands to my mouth and shout, “Run, Mark! She’s coming!”
Lilly hisses at me and then she’s off and running, a black blur between the trees, and then in them, leaping from trunk to trunk, branch to branch.
Collins stands up and brushes herself off. “You know he’s screwed, right?”
“Nah,” I say, feeling less hopeful than I sound. “Hawkins is like a jackrabbit, and he’s got a head start.” I catch a glimpse of Lilly soaring between two-hundred-foot pine trees in the distance. “Yeah, he’s screwed. Let’s go watch.”
We run down the wooded hill toward the field at the bottom. Mark is making the same run, maybe a quarter mile to the west. If we hurry, we might reach the field in time to see him get tackled. Moving in a straight line, we reach the field and stop, watching the tree line to our right for any sign of Hawkins or Lilly. Did she catch him already?
A line of flags running through the middle of the field delineates the two sides. If Mark crosses the line, we win, and we seriously need to, otherwise all the sage wisdom and experience we have to offer Lilly will fall on deaf ears. She needs to know she’s not invincible. So far, all we’ve managed to accomplish is the opposite.
I walk out into the field, watching the line of tall pines for any sign of movement. All I see are puffs of yellow pollen being swept into the air on the breeze. Normally, in an open space like this, I’d be worried about someone spotting Lilly. In public, she wears a pretty badass looking suit—think Snake Eyes but with a woman’s figure, and no swords—she doesn’t need them. But the federal government, at the President’s insistence, was inclined to give the FC-P one hundred acres of land in Willowdale, Maine, where Collins served as Sheriff for a time, and where Nemesis was created in a secret lab disguised as an abandoned Nike missile site. The lab, leveled after Nemesis’s escape, is now hidden at the core of a massive, fenced-in preserve. We have fresh No Trespassing signs threatening prosecution, and the latest in high tech monitoring, which Watson can watch from the Crow’s Nest (the FC-P’s headquarters) back in Beverly, Massachusetts.
“See anything?” I ask.
Collins starts to reply in the negative, but she stops short and points. “There.”
Hawkins is distant. Small. His head barely visible above the tall, yellow grass, despite his height. He’s wearing just a T-shirt and shorts, which is supposed to be my uniform, and he’s running in a sprint, like Tom Cruise in...well, in every Tom Cruise movie ever made. His arms, rising and falling, are a blur.
As Collins and I jog toward the action, I let myself think, he’s going to make it, but I quickly follow that thought with, “Holy fuuuu.” I never finish the expletive. I’m too stunned.
Lilly explodes from a tree in a cloud of yellow pollen. She’s at least seventy-five feet up, and arcing downward toward Hawkins, who is oblivious to her aerial approach. I nearly shout a warning, but I realize Lilly would disqualify the win, if we won.
“Just a little closer,” Collins says, and I smile. She hated this at first, but once Lilly started getting cocky, she’s been on board.
For a moment, I think Lilly is going to land on top of him, but she lands right in front of him in a crouch, her back turned. Hawkins doesn’t miss a beat, diving over Lilly and rolling back to his feet. He doesn’t bother running now. It would be a wasted effort. He’ll be tagged in less than a second.
Lilly strikes, reaching out for Mark’s back.
But he manages one last move before Lilly tags him. He throws the flag, which is wrapped around its metal post. It tumbles through the air, landing just short of the dividing line.
Lilly thrusts her hands in the air. “Yes!”
Collins and I stop nearby, close enough to watch what happens next.
After a few seconds of victory dance, Lilly notices her three silent observers, stops and misreads the situation. Again. “Sorry,” she says. “That was over the top.”
“Bonus points for apologizing, but...” I point to the flag.
Lilly’s head snaps around, just as a blond head of hair, perfectly hidden in the yellow grass, rises up to reveal the lithe Dr. Avril Joliet. As a biologist and oceanographer, she lends her scientific prowess to the team. But to Lilly, she’s ‘Mom.’ Like Lilly, she’s prone to impulsivity and is widely considered the reason we lost the first five capture-the-flag matches, but over time, Joliet learned how to operate on a team. And as she casually bends over from her position behind the dividing line to pick up the flag, she delivers us our first win.
We don’t gloat. We don’t need to. Lilly is upset enough as it is, kicking grass and grumbling. She turns on Hawkins. “How did you get past the girls?”
The ‘girls’ are Lilly’s immaculately conceived brood of three black cats, which lack her human traits, yet are unlike any other big cat species on the planet. They are jet black, like pumas, the size and build of Siberian tigers, and they’re incredibly intelligent. While they can’t speak, it’s clear they understand most of what we say, and they don’t view us, or people, as prey. That’s not to say they’re not dangerous, but they are absolutely devoted to Lilly, who gave birth to them by laying eggs... True story. I wasn’t there, but Hawkins swears by it. And that’s just the tail end of the weirdness he endured along with Joliet and Lilly on an island in the Pacific.
“Bacon,” Hawkins says with a shrug.
“Wha—” Lilly’s head lolls back, her mouth open in a silent groan. “Bacon? For real?”
“Good game,” I say to Lilly, willing to leave it at that, and I raise my hand.
To my surprise and delight, she gives me a high five, and says, “Next time, I’ll feed the girls first.”
While the others hang back and talk and joke about the match, I stroll away and pull out my cell phone, tapping on a contact’s name and placing the phone to my ear. It rings six times and goes to voicemail. Although we’re in East Nowheresville, there’s always cell service on the preserve. I made sure of it.
She should be answering. She always answers. On my way back to the others, my heart starting to beat faster, I try again with the same result.
Collins must see the look of concern on my face, because she asks, “What is it?”
I lower the phone. “Something’s wrong. Maigo’s not answering.”
2
The black Suburban sits alone on what remains of the paved road leading to the ruined laboratory. Not far from here is a large cabin that belongs to the FC-P. Hawkins, Joliet and Lilly spend most of their time here, training in the woods and hiding from the public—Lilly for obvious reasons, Hawkins and Joliet because they’re convinced they’re being hunted by someone within the government, specifically within DARPA. While Joliet is now part of the team, her involvement is off the books, and Hawkins works under a fake name, Dustin Dreyling, though we just call him ‘Ranger’ when on mission.
I’m out of breath when I reach the Suburban, having run the distance. The others aren’t far behind. Lilly, as usual, is several steps ahead. Unable to see through the tinted glass, I reach for the SUV’s door.
“She’s not in there,” Lilly says. “I already checked.”
I believe her, but I open the door anyway, looking for clues. Maigo’s cell phone is in the back seat, where she’d been sitting. No signs of a struggle.
Maigo is kind of a solitary soul, except when it comes to me. We’ve maintained the bond developed while she was inside Nemesis—while she was Nemesis. It really is impossible for anyone to fully understand what she’s going through. Lilly gets what it’s like to not be fully human, and the two girls have made a connection. And I have a vague understanding of what it’s like to share a head with a three-hundred-foot-tall Kaiju. I got a taste of Maigo’s world, too, when I slipped my consciousness inside the Kaiju, Scylla. But Maigo...
She was once a normal little girl. She lived and went to school in Boston. Her mother was Japanese, and her father was a wealthy, white business man—and a murderer. He killed Maigo’s mother, and then, when the then ten-year-old girl walked in on the scene, he killed her as well. Maigo’s recollection of her previous self begins and ends with her own murder, the memory hazy but real, passed on through her cells.
Using Maigo’s harvested organs, General Lance Gordon—who is now dead, thank God—fused her DNA with that of an ancient, long dead Kaiju, who we now call Nemesis Prime, and whose origins are still a mystery. If mythology is to be believed, she was the ancient Greek goddess of vengeance, a role she filled again when the Maigo clone grew and changed, into a colossal monster. Nemesis reborn. She carved a path of destruction from this very spot in Maine, all the way to Boston, eating people—which Maigo remembers—whales and anything else she came across on her route. The smorgasbord fueled Nemesis’s rapid growth. The creature found Maigo’s father in Boston, turning him to dust, along with half the city. Then there was that whole mess in D.C., where instead of eating people, Nemesis was protecting them, though she was really just there to protect me. The monster Nemesis gave her life to save us, and somehow left Maigo, who was arguably the monster’s soul and conscience, behind in a giant chrysalis. Maigo was reborn again, this time as a teenage girl. She has no real age, but our best guess is sixteen, a few years younger than Lilly appears...though she’s also technically much younger.
The point is, Hawkins and I are now the father figures for the two most screwed up teenage girls that have ever lived. How the hell that happened, I’ll never understand, but here we are, doing our best to protect and raise two girls who shouldn’t exist, but do.
And right now, I feel like a pretty big failure.
Or maybe I’m just being overprotective. We’re in the deep woods of Maine, at a fenced-in preserve with a halo of motion-sensitive security cameras. If Maigo had approached the fence, Watson would have called. And I’ve got two of the world’s best trackers with me.
I turn to Lilly, whose acute senses can track most anything. “Find her.”
She bounds off the Suburban’s roof and darts into the woods. It won’t take her long to search the entire preserve if she needs to. I hope it doesn’t come to that.
Hawkins arrives, quickly assesses the situation and without saying a word, he goes on the hunt for a trail. While Lilly can instinctually track, Hawkins is a pro, teasing out details from the environment that even the cat-woman can miss.
Collins and Joliet arrive last, looking a little too casual for my taste. “You could help,” I tell them, still scanning the vehicle for any hint of foul play. While no one, and I mean no one, knows about Maigo’s, Mark’s or Joliet’s true identities, not to mention Lilly’s existence, the very public nature of the FC-P’s past exploits has made some of us celebrities. We’re targets for conspiracy theorists, secret hungry corporations, rival governments and worst of all, fanboys.
