Project 731 (19 page)

29

I’m caught from above and look up into Collins’s eyes. She’s got me, both strong hands gripping my arm, Hawkins behind her, holding her belt with both hands. But Collins can’t lift us both. Like me, her shoulders will give before she can haul us up. Maigo steps calmly into view, lays on her stomach and reaches out over the edge. She locks up for a moment, looking at Nemesis far below, but then she reaches out further, to Lilly. “Take my hand.”

Lilly lunges up, tugging me down, and catches Maigo’s hand. The weight falls away, granting relief. But then Maigo surprises me by taking hold of my arm and lifting both Lilly and me up onto the ramp. We all crawl back up into the X-35, its ramp already closing.

Endo, standing above the group as we huff and puff on the floor, greets me with, “Did you do it?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” I say. “Thanks for asking.”

Endo crouches in front of me. “I know that humor is how you communicate, but right now, my sister—”

“Is alive,” I say.

He lowers his voice to something like a growl. “You have no idea what kind of people these are.”

“I imagine they’re a lot like you,” I say, and that shuts him up, not because it was the world’s most witty comeback, but perhaps one of the more accurate. “They have Woodstock, too. I don’t intend on letting them keep either of them. As bad as you think they are, we’re equally good, and I don’t mean that in a happy-go-lucky kind of way, I mean that in a kick-ass kind of way.”

“Damn straight,” Lilly says.

“Now if you can back off, there are a pair of Kaiju destroying Los Angeles.”

Endo stays locked in place, staring at me.

“Right. Yes. We put the bacteria bomb on the Tsuchi.” I pull myself off the floor and into one of the cargo seats. I look down through the floor at the action below. “It should have gone off by now.” I turn toward the cockpit. “Did the bacteria bomb explode?”

“They don’t explode,” Silhouette says. “They open, exposing the organic material to the bacteria. Then they eat their way through.”

“How long does that take?” I ask.

“For the armor? A few minutes. After that, it should be like acid on a head of lettuce.”

“A few minutes?” Sonofa... “That’s too long. What else can we do?”

“Let them fight?” Obsidian suggests.

I throw my hands in the air. “What the hell? Are you all quoting a movie or something?”

“Actually,” Lilly says, but I cut her off.

“Never mind,” I say, watching the Tsuchi topple through the city, landing at the base of Wells Fargo Tower, a fifty-four-floor building shaped like a blade, perfectly matching its sister building, the KPMG Tower. The thousands of windows normally reflecting the sky, burst, sending twinkling shards of glass down onto the Tsuchi, which is struggling to right itself atop a McDonalds. As Nemesis heads for the creature, her back to us, I look at Lilly and she nods. I hate to say it, but today, that cat-lady and I are simpatico.

I look at Maigo, her scowl deep and concerning. As much as I’d like to talk this out with her, there are people dying down there, and it’s my job to put a stop to it. The Nemesis below us is not Maigo anymore. She’s—
it’s
—a monster, no different from the Tsuchi. I stand, and grunt from the effort, my battered body resisting every motion.

Collins puts her hand on my arm. “You’re in no condition.”

“I’ll go,” Endo says, pulling out a wingsuit. But before he can start dressing, Obsidian steps into the cargo hold, already dressed to jump and with the third bacteria bomb strapped to him. The whole point of two people going was so that if one died, the other could finish the job. The bomb—a generous word for a device that simply opens—on his stomach ends the conversation. The back hatch opens again.

Obsidian smiles at Lilly and gives her a wink. “Just you and me, pretty kitty.”

She hisses at him, while Hawkins sneaks up behind the big man and puts a knife to his throat. “If you come back without her...”

Lilly smiles up at Hawkins, puts her hands over her heart and silently says, “Aww.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the big man says, not at all intimidated. He puts his fingers on the blade and pushes it away from his throat. Then he steps to the edge of the ramp. He looks back with a slick grin, “Watch yourself, Ranger. We know all about your bear-killing days, your girlfriend back East, your old Indian step-dad, and—”

The man’s threat is cut short when Lilly takes hold of the man and throws him out the back. She gives a wave and jumps out after him.

Pure, unadulterated rage
flowed through Nemesis’s body with the speed and energy of lightning. The raw power of it felt good, but not nearly as good as the rush she would feel when she took vengeance for the crimes committed against her. She learned that, when she had awakened. She had been struck first by the knowledge that she had been violated, her very flesh stolen from her. And then she had sensed the cries of hundreds of living things inside the building. While she had managed to exact vengeance on one of the creatures that had sprung from her body, she had also destroyed the building and those in it who had been guilty—of what, she did not know. Still, she had felt empowered when they were dead.

While the world around her cried out for vengeance, nothing called to her as loudly as the two remaining creatures. She recognized part of herself in her opponent, but she felt no kinship with it. The creature was a corruption. An abomination. And it needed to be destroyed. Not only because she had been wronged, but because its eradication would feel so right.

She craved it.

Hungered for it.

And yet, there was something else tugging at her thoughts, quietly whispering for her attention. Something familiar was nearby. Something...missing. And welcome.

The gentle tug pulled her attention upward, to a strange diamond-shaped object hovering above her. She had no memory of it. No knowledge about why such a thing would feel familiar. So she ignored it...too late.

Her opponent recovered from the blow that had sent it tumbling through the city. With impressive agility, it rolled back to its many feet, leaped up and clung to the side of the building. Its eight eyes glared at Nemesis with hunger of their own, but a different kind of hunger. If Nemesis fell today, she’d be eaten. But she felt no fear, only surprise as the creature sprang forward, limbs outstretched and open, tail pulled back and poised to strike.

The creature landed on Nemesis’s chest, its eight arms wrapped around her, its bladed talons slipping past armor and into her thick, black skin. Nemesis roared, but her voice was cut short when the creature’s mandibles bit into her neck. Bright blue bolts of electricity sparked in the air, coursing through her body, paralyzing her as the long tail stabbed toward her side.

But then, like Nemesis, the creature went rigid for a moment, as though struck by the same paralyzing energy. The blue arcs stopped, and Nemesis quickly regained her senses. She took hold of the long tail, stopped just feet from her side, and yanked. The eight blade-tipped limbs slurped from her back, and the creature came free, suddenly back to life and thrashing. Nemesis spun, swinging her enemy out, into and through a building.

As the building toppled, Nemesis released the creature, sending it sprawling into yet another building. The creature’s back impacted the tall structure, holding it in place for a moment, before gravity pulled it out. The creature fell, landed on its feet, and charged.

But its aim was off. It ran sideways, stumbling about.

Injured
, Nemesis realized, and her body flowed with energy once more, vengeance and the rush it brought within her grasp. She tilted her head back and roared into the sky.

30

Holy shit
, Lilly thought as she watched Nemesis throw the Tsuchi through one building and into another. Joliet didn’t like it when she swore, but she let the curse words fly in her thoughts. How could she not? Uncle Jon used them so often, and so creatively. He’d exposed her to the wonders of colorful language.

Obsidian, on the other hand, had no filter. The man was a few feet below and ahead of her. His voice was caught by the wind and dragged out as he soared on his open wingsuit, shouting a single word for a hundred feet, “Fuuuuuck!”

Despite his evident fear, Obsidian angled himself toward the back of Nemesis’s head. It was a much smaller landing zone than the Tsuchi’s back, but the dark skin up there wasn’t armored. It would be a softer landing, and the bacteria bomb would work faster, too. Of course, if Nemesis made any sudden movements, they could be cleaved in two by one of the massive blade-like plates protruding from either side of her back, or they might roll off the side of her head, into one of the spikes, or they might follow countless other paths to doom.

Of all the potential for error, there was one problem Lilly had to overcome in the next few seconds—she had already used her chute. She had a secondary, but it was just your run of the mill parachute, not a rapid-deploy chute. In the time it took her parachute to expand, she’d hit the ground, or Nemesis. And even her physical abilities couldn’t overcome terminal velocity.

She tucked her arms back, dropping and picking up speed, as Obsidian opened his arms and legs wide, slowing down in preparation to deploy his chute. She ducked her head, zipping right under the big man, and then, with a quick spin, turned and faced him, reaching up and grabbing hold, adding her weight to his own.

“The
fuck
!” the man yelled. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the mask, but she imagined they were twisted up with fear. And that made her happy.

She looked ahead, her view upside down. They were rapidly approaching Nemesis’s head as the creature kicked its way through heaps of debris, closing in on the Tsuchi, which now seemed confused. As Obsidian tried to shake her off, Lilly extended her claws into his armor and reached between them with one hand, triggering the man’s rapid deploy chute. It burst up, filled with air and then snapped them to a stop—just twenty feet above Nemesis. But the Kaiju was moving fast. She’d be beyond them by the time the chute lowered them the rest of the way. Lilly reached up and swung her claws out, cutting through the cables. She and Obsidian fell the remaining distance. Lilly landed first, catching Obsidian and putting him down on his feet...on top of Nemesis’s head.

If the monster felt their arrival, it showed no indication.

And if Obsidian felt any thanks for her catching him, he didn’t voice it. Of course, he hadn’t really reacted much to her hitching a ride, either. In place at the landing zone, he was already going to work, extending his suit’s claws and removing the bacteria bomb from his waist. She was happy he was the one doing it. Nemesis might be a killing machine, but she could see Maigo still felt a connection to the monster. For the sake of their relationship, she didn’t want to be the one ultimately responsible for the Kaiju’s death, but she also couldn’t ignore what she felt was her duty.

After leaving Island 731 with Hawkins, Joliet and Uncle Bray, Lilly had felt lost and alone, hiding from the world on a Ute reservation. Then came the FC-P, with Kaiju and action, and she helped save Washington D.C.! She might still have to hide from the world, but she was also living. Really living. And being part of this team meant everything to her. It was their job to protect the world from the weird, and that’s what she intended to do. But in this case, she was happy Obsidian was the one pulling the trigger. And while he set the bacteria bomb, Lilly watched the Tsuchi stumble through the city.

It’s working
, she thought.
The bacteria is eating its brain
.

Lilly’s heightened senses suddenly warned of danger. She ducked and spun around, claws extended, muscles ready to spring. Black tendrils reached out for her, snaking out of a weird-looking opening where Nemesis’s neck met the head, just above the massive carapace that hid her deadly wings. It looked like a slimy, orange cocoon of some kind.

It wants to pull me in there. But why?

She backed away, bumping into Obsidian. “Hey, watch your—” He stood suddenly, eyes on the tendrils reaching for them. That also happened to be the same moment the Tsuchi twitched its legs out and caught Nemesis in the gut. The Kaiju pitched forward, flinging Obsidian from her head. Lilly reached for him, but the man fell down, straight into the waiting jaws of the Tsuchi, which, despite its melting mind, was still eating everything, and everyone, that it could.

Lilly lowered herself down, clinging to Nemesis’s warm flesh. She checked the bomb. It was counting down. Fifty seconds left.

As Nemesis righted herself, the three-hundred-fifty-foot-tall behemoth came level with the now windowless thirty-fifth floor of the KPMG building. Lilly sprang out, leaping the fifty foot distance, but she fell several floors before reaching the building’s exterior. She caught hold of an empty window frame on the thirty-third floor, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. She dug in her claws but felt the ruined wall giving way. Before she could fall, a pair of hands reached over and took her arm. “I have you,” said a man with a thick Mexican accent.

While most of Lilly’s cat-like features were concealed by the tactical suit she wore, her hands and face were exposed. The man showed a moment of surprise, but then started pulling. Lilly reached up and put her claws into the floor, pulling herself up. The man helped, but he couldn’t have pulled her all the way inside by himself. Inside, they both fell back onto the floor.

“Are you like a super hero or something?” the man asked.

Lilly smiled at the man, who was dressed in a blue uniform sporting the logo of a cleaning company. “Let’s go with: ‘yes.’”

Nemesis’s massive form moved past the building, her arms grazing the facade and peeling it away. The whole structure shook, but instead of running away, Lilly moved to the open window and watched. Nemesis dove forward, landing atop the now twitching Tsuchi, its brain and insides being turned to putty. The impact rattled the building top to bottom. Lilly watched as the sister Wells Fargo building, already weakened at the base, swayed back and forth.

The janitor stood next to her, looking down at the carnage. “Ay Dios mio.”

“No shit,” Lilly said. The Tsuchi was crushed beneath Nemesis’s girth, but the larger Kaiju was still moving, slipping its massive claws between her and the Tsuchi.
What is it—?
Lilly realized what Nemesis was up to just a second before the claws pierced two of the membranes on the Tsuchi’s belly. Exposed to the air, the fluid within detonated. The force of the blast struck the earth first, and then the Tsuchi, decimating the creature. Then, as the force met Nemesis’s body, it exploded outward in a razor-sharp ring of destruction, slicing the bases of four skyscrapers—including the KPMG building. All four buildings toppled inwards at once. As the ground below came into view, Lilly grabbed the janitor, whose calm demeanor was replaced by a high pitched scream, and they ran for the far side of the crumbling building.

Desks, chairs and other office detritus rolled toward them, tumbling out of cubicles and offices. As the building’s angle increased, the bombardment became airborne. Fighting gravity, Lilly dug her claws into the carpeted floor, using her legs and one arm to run, and the free arm to hold the man. As the floor’s angle passed forty-five degrees, an office on the far side of the building exploded, releasing a desk, a chair, two filing cabinets, reams of loose paper and a photocopier. It also opened a clear path to the windows on the far side.

Leaping over the desk and shoving off it, Lilly toggled her comm and was immediately greeted by Hawkins’s worried voice. “Lilly! Where are you!”

“KPMG building,” she replied, shouting over the cacophonous rumble of a crumbling skyscraper.”

“Oh God,” Hawkins said.

“I’m not dead yet!” Lilly spun around a water cooler, getting splashed in the face as it passed. She looked at the janitor. “What floor is this?”

“Treinta-tercer!”

“In English!”

“Thirty-third!”

“Thirty-third floor,” she shouted to Hawkins. “Near the middle of the building. We’ll be out in five seconds.”

She heard Hawkins yelling to someone and then to her. “We’ll be there!”

Lilly focused on running the distance, ducking, dodging and scaling up the sides of the floor-bolted cubicle walls when she needed to. A ream of paper struck a cubicle wall and burst open, obscuring her view. With no other choice, she pushed through it and was greeted on the other side by the falling photocopier. It struck her left side hard, knocking her back, clipping the side of her head, breaking ribs and her arm in two places.

Lilly roared in pain and frustration, but she didn’t fall. Her feet remained rooted in the floor. She turned to her passenger. “You need to hold onto me!” She put him in place beneath her, and the small man clung to her underside the way she had held onto Obsidian. With screamed exertion, she pulled herself back up and dug her right hand into the floor, which was now nearly vertical.

She glanced back. The ground raced toward them. Scaling the angled floor, Lilly charged upward. The way forward was empty of debris now, which had all fallen past them. Blue sky beckoned her upward. She roared again, pursued by the explosive sound of the building reaching the ground.

She leapt, slipping up and out of a window on the far side.

Smoke exploded up behind them.

Lilly looked for rescue, but didn’t see it.

Then, at the apex of her leap, the X-35 swung around, its hatch open, Maigo in the opening. Their eyes met, and for a moment, she saw anger in her adopted sister’s eyes, and then worry. They reached out in unison, catching each other’s wrists, and through mutual, superhuman strength, they swung Lilly and the man inside the cargo hold. The rescued duo sprawled onto the floor, and passed out.