Project 731 (8 page)

9

Hawkins and I survived the blast beneath the water, but nearly drowned as a result. It took some last-second teamwork to escape the torrent of water pouring over us—water that had gotten hot enough to burn—but we survived. And from what I saw, we were the only survivors inside a square mile. The mysterious DARPA hit squad had done their job. But did they do it well enough?

So far, it seems that way. Hawkins found no traces of the things, and there hadn’t been any more reported sightings. We almost got cooked, but we also got lucky.

Not that you’d be able to tell by talking to Hawkins. While I’m feeling happy to be alive and not the proud father of three baby-killing machines, he’s upset that the DARPA guys got away. Stopping the BFSs, or Tsuchis, was our primary goal, but Hawkins wanted more. He wanted a lead. But it seems that our only lead is cracked, waterlogged and lacking in clues.

“So you’re telling me they’re useless?” Hawkins says, pacing in front of the long window back at the Crow’s Nest. The view looks out on Beverly-Salem Harbor, which is now under repair. Two years ago, Nemesis, on her way to Boston, made a pit stop in the harbor, decimating the area with a fiery detonation matching the power of the cluster bombs dropped on the Tillamook State Forest. A year later, Nemesis returned, this time with Maigo’s consciousness at the forefront, battling a smaller Kaiju named Scrion, and protecting me. The view outside the window now is blessedly clear and calm.

Can’t say the same for the view on the inside. Hawkins’s pacing is making everyone nervous. The office space is clean, each of our desks separated and the neatness contained, evidence of Cooper’s continued influence. The walls are covered in maps, with pins showing the locations of active FC-P cases, closed cases and general reports of weirdness. There is a global map specifically for Kaiju threats. It hasn’t been used in a year. There are pins showing the locations of Nemesis sightings, as well as the five Kaiju born from Nemesis Prime, all now dead, along with Nemesis. The last pin was placed in Washington D.C. A large red question mark was drawn next to it, by Maigo. She, like me, would like to know where Nemesis’s body was taken.

Two days after the battle that leveled much of the capital, also under reconstruction, Nemesis’s body simply vanished in the night. I haven’t been able to find out who took it, how they managed to move her, and where she was taken. Monster or not, Maigo came from the creature, and she did save Washington, probably the world and on a more personal note—me.

“I can’t turn them on, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” Watson says. His chubby face is flushed. He’s been intimidated by Hawkins since they first met. Hawkins is a big guy with a deep voice. Where I’m casual and chummy, he’s rugged and serious. But this is the first time Watson has seen him angry. He turns his attention away from Hawkins and back to the futuristic goggles left behind by the man known as Specter, who for some reason spared our lives. “
Nobody
has seen anything like this. Best guess, they’re some kind of vision-enhancing goggles. Like night vision, but something else. There’s all sorts of sensors in here, but I can’t tell what they’re for. Batteries. A transmitter.”

That perks up my ears. I take my crossed legs down from my desktop and sit up. “Transmitter?”

“Yeah,” Watson says, happy to have me in the conversation. He’s got the goggles opened up on his desk, its insides laid bare.

“Not GPS, I hope?” I’d have to adopt a self-flagellation policy if I led them straight to us.

“No, nothing like that, though we might be able to trace the signal back to its source.”

Hawkins stops his pacing. “You said it wasn’t working.”

“Because it’s not
on
,” Watson says, losing his patience. “The insides are still soaking wet.” To my surprise, he stands up, facing Hawkins down. “Do you want me to turn the power on now? Fry everything inside? You might be a magician in the woods, but we’re not fly fishing or tracking down a deer, here. Just—just, leave. Go find a tree to climb.”

Watson sits down, picks up a hair dryer and resumes the task of drying the goggles’ insides. I meet Hawkins’s eyes, offer him a consolatory smile and the motion for him to leave with my head. He’s not exactly pleased, but he follows my lead.

To his credit, Hawkins stops next to Watson and taps him on the shoulder.

The hair dryer cuts off. “What?”

“Sorry,” Hawkins says. “I just get nervous...about Lilly.”

Watson moves his head in a weird way that I can’t discern as a nod or a head shake. It might be both, some inner battle between competing emotions. Then he waves his hand behind his head. “I get it. Just give me some space.”

“You got it,” Hawkins says and leaves, heading downstairs to where everyone else is currently congregated, having dinner. The FC-P headquarters is in what once was a large brick mansion set atop the highest point of Powder Hill in Beverly, Massachusetts. The insides feel old and regal, with thick wood floors that creak when you walk on them, wide staircases with polished banisters and large brick fireplaces on each floor. It feels like a museum, but with bedrooms, computers and kick-ass WiFi. The kitchen, where Collins, Cooper and Joliet are waiting for us, is large enough for a gourmet chef to have a field day. I mostly use the microwave. The building is old, but it has stood the test of time, an assault courtesy of the deceased General Gordon and the ghost of old Mrs. Rosen, who most of us believe still roams the house, spying on the weirdness that is our day to day.

When Hawkins is gone, I push myself toward Watson. The chair rolls over the wooden floor and doesn’t stop until it bumps into Watson’s desk. I lean my head back. “So...”

That’s all it takes. He’s already smiling.

“Piss or shit?” I ask.

“What?”

“Which one was it?” I say. “You’re only this grumpy on days when you’ve been pissed on or shat at. So which was it.”

He glances at me without moving his head. “Both.”

“Gross.”

He lifts his right hand up. Wiggles his fingers. “There was a hole in the wipe. Fingers right through it. Have you ever had bright yellow crap under your fingernails?”

I’ve endured a lot of horrible things in the last few years, but nothing as horrible sounding as that. I wince and lean away from his hand. “Nasty.”

“Our talks are always so helpful,” he jokes.

“It’s what I’m here for.” I spin around and face the desk, looking at the open goggles. The insides are a mess of wires and small microchips. They’re kind of like Google Glass on steroids. Beyond that, I’m clueless, and so is Watson, so I stick to the personal stuff. “Getting much sleep?”

“A little.”

“How about Coop?”

“Less.”

“Listen...” My hesitation draws his eyes. “I want you guys to take a break soon. I know you believe in what we do here. We all do now. But you guys are wearing yourselves out.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “I know, I know. We need you guys, and it’s true, but we need you at 100%, not half-asleep and covered in poo. Just...when you’re done with the goggles, take a few weeks. If I need you, I can reach you at home. You don’t need to be here.”

“Cooper’s not going to like it,” he says.

“She’ll get over it.”

“Just...try not to ruin the place while we’re gone. And don’t let Paul Bunyan use my computer. Or Lilly. Or you.” He smiles. “Maigo can use it, though. Kid’s got a mind for this stuff, you know. She’s a pretty good hacker already. Showed her a few tricks, but she’s moved pretty far on her own.”

“I didn’t know,” I say.

“She must be holding out on you,” he says, smiling.

“You have no idea.” I stand and pat his shoulder. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Just let me know the moment you figure something out. Then you and the missus are out of here, okay?”

He just nods as I show myself out.

An hour later,
after a long meal, while being regaled by Woodstock’s stories, some of which are either exaggerated or totally fabricated—much to Lilly’s delight—I find myself on the second floor balcony, beneath the Crow’s Nest, with Collins and Maigo. Hands on the brick wall, I look out toward the darkening ocean. It’s eight o’clock, but the summer sun is still setting behind us, casting the long shadows and orange light out toward the water. The still-charred land provides a dark, but stunning contrast to the color.

“It’s beautiful,” Collins says, standing next to me, two of her fingers atop mine, our affection now reaching a more comfortable level. After returning from Oregon, bruised, singed and alive, she crushed me with a hug that might have caused more pain than nearly being fire-bombed did, but we’re pretty casual with our affection now, trying to stay professional. While the FC-P is now made up of three couples, two teenage girls and a foul-mouthed pilot, we still try to keep the mushy stuff for after hours.

When I don’t reply, Collins taps my head. “Where are you?”

Before I can answer, Maigo does. “He’s thinking about how to propose.”

My eyes widen so far it feels like they might peel off the whole top of my head. I turn around slowly, away from Collins, and glare at Maigo, whose hood of long black hair covers her face and conceals the smartphone she’s staring at. But I’m not just upset at her for revealing this private detail, I’m also wondering how the hell she knows what I was thinking.

Maigo reaches around and pulls the shade of hair away from her face to reveal apologetic eyes. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“How did you know?” I ask.

“Wait, what?” Collins says, and I suddenly realize I’ve just confirmed what Maigo said. “She was right?”

“Nevermind that,” I say, keeping my eyes well clear of Collins’s gaze. I sit down at the outdoor table, across from Maigo. “You’re
still
holding out on me.”

She looks up at me, but says nothing.

Collins sits down beside me. I can feel her staring at the side of my head, but I don’t look. To acknowledge her means to answer her question, and I’m not ready for that. It’s why I was
thinking
about it.

“Spill it,” I say to Maigo.

“Jon...” Collins says.

“Hey!” a voice shouts, making all of us flinch. It’s Watson, from the window above. “I did it! They’re working. I know where they are!”

I stare at Maigo for another moment, and then stand. “Saved by the chubby man with the future goggles.”

“That makes two of you,” Collins says, standing.

I acknowledge her for the first time, unable to stop my smile. “Yes. Yes it does.”

10

Watson is generally uncomfortable being the center of attention. He’d normally balk at having this many people standing around him, watching him, but he barely notices that the gang is all here. Me, Collins, Cooper, Woodstock, Hawkins, Joliet, Lilly and Maigo. We’re more like a weird dysfunctional family than a government agency, but my superiors don’t need to know that. With Joliet, Lilly and Maigo being off the books, and my relationship with Collins not public knowledge, only Cooper and Watson are under the DHS’s ever-bureaucratic microscope that says office relationships are a faux pas. Not that any of us have to worry. Since saving Washington D.C., and securing the current President’s unshakable trust, we’re becoming fairly autonomous.

“Once the circuitry dried out, it was pretty user friendly. You said a soldier was wearing it, so that’s probably why.”

“You sayin’ soldiers ain’t smart?” Woodstock, a long since retired Marine, says, stroking his white mustache. I told him mustaches were creepy without an accompanying beard, but he waved me off and said all the hipsters were doing it and that he was finally back in style.

“I’m saying they made the glasses easy to operate while in the field,” Watson says, with that ‘I had crap under my nails last night’ snip creeping back into his voice. “Which is probably important for when you’re getting shot at.”

“S’pose,” Woodstock says, which was as close to an apology as he’ll ever get.

“What do they do?” I ask.

Watson hands the goggles to me. They’re still open, with wires trailing down to his computer. “Put them on.”

I slide the goggles over my eyes. I see nothing unusual, just the people around me. “Am I supposed to be seeing something?”

“Button on the right,” Watson says.

I feel the right side of the goggles and find the small, flush button. I press it once. Words spring into my vision, quickly identifying Cooper and Collins, listing their full names and affiliations with the DHS. I turn to Woodstock and the words ‘Chief Warrant Officer 5, Richard Woodall, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired,’ slip into view beside his face, followed by his FC-P employment status. When I look at Hawkins, the name displayed is Dustin Dreyling. Wherever this information is coming from, it’s a government source, picking information from official records before delving into the DMV. But then new information appears, correctly identifying Dustin Dreyling as an alias for Mark Hawkins.

That’s not good...

Around the room, various objects are identified. Weapons. Maps. Computers. Even the view through the window is correctly identified as Beverly-Salem Harbor. But when I turn toward Lilly and Maigo, the names disappear, replaced by blinking dots. The words ‘identity unknown’ appear over Maigo, which is to be expected, but a more disturbing message is displayed over Lilly, ‘Dark Matter identified.’

Dark Matter?

Before I can ask what it might mean, Watson presses the button again, erasing the words. “Watch what happens now,” he says, and he claps his hands twice. The lights go out.

“Seriously?” I say. “Who installed a clapper?”

“I put it in when I was pregnant,” Cooper says. “When walking wasn’t fun.”

A hundred different jokes flit through my mind, but they’re all silenced by what happens next. For a moment, the room is displayed in standard shades of green night vision. But then I can see. Perfectly. Well, almost. Colors flicker to life as I look around, slowly at first, and then as fast as I can move, including clothing and faces. “Are the lights on?”

“You can see fine, right?” Watson says.

“Perfectly.”

“The goggles send information to a server and then receive color information. It all happens in real time. Whatever computer is on the other end must be amazing, like quantum amazing, storing data on everything—people, places, everyday objects, exotic objects, and then using that information to colorize the wearer’s night vision.”

“Or identify targets.”

“Right,” Watson says, “And I was able to trace the signal back to its source. Back to the super-computer’s location. They’re in Lompoc, California, north of Los Angeles.”

“Uh,” Cooper says in her tone that says she’s about to point out something obvious that the rest of us missed, but shouldn’t have. I turn to her colorized face, her hair tied back tight, her eyes looking at me over the thick, black-rimmed glasses. “If the goggles are communicating with a computer operated by the people who designed these things, and who nearly killed Hawkins and Hudson in Oregon, isn’t it likely that we’re not only receiving data, but sending it?”

Watson’s response is quick. He yanks the wires attached to the goggles, tearing them out. Then he stands, pulls the goggles from my face and slams them down on the hardwood floor.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Damn. I’m sorry.”

“GPS could still be active,” Maigo points out, and I wonder how she knows about such things, despite Watson’s revelation that he’s been teaching her.

Watson shoves his way past the group and tosses the goggles into the fireplace and douses them with the lighter fluid Woodstock likes to use when setting a fire. The ambiance is nice, especially during the winter, but I think Woodstock just likes setting fires, which is once again proved when he quickly strikes a match and tosses it into the fireplace. The goggles catch, slowly melting into acrid smelling slag. Happily, the flue is open and most of the foul chemical smoke rises up and out the brick chimney.

“Who did you look at?” Collins asks me, but the real question, barely disguised, is who did they see.

“Everyone,” I say. “Except for me, which is good.”

“How is that good?” Hawkins asks.

“Because I’m supposed to be dead,” I say. “Probably better if they continue believing that.”

“But you looked at me,” he says.

“You were covered in mud in Oregon. They won’t make the match.”

“But they know we have the goggles,” Cooper says. I have a love/hate relationship with how often she’s right.

“You could have recovered them while looking for us,” I say. “And that Specter guy spared us and gave us the goggles for a reason.”

“Maybe to track us down,” Hawkins says.

“The FC-P’s location isn’t exactly a secret from other government agencies,” I say. “They wouldn’t need—”

“Not you,” Hawkins says, glancing toward Lilly.

Shit.

Collins places her hand on my arm. “Did it identify either of the girls?”

“Not Maigo,” I say.

“They know who I am?” Lilly asks, sounding surprised and nervous.

I shake my head. “You were identified as ‘Dark Matter.’” I turn to Hawkins. “Any idea what that means?”

“It means,” says a new voice, feminine and vaguely familiar. I spin around, reaching for my sidearm, and I see a face I haven’t seen in a year, not since Washington D.C.—Maggie Alessi. “That none of you are safe here.”

Alessi was Katsu Endo’s right-hand lady at Zoomb, the technology giant behind the rebirth of Nemesis, whose interference has had long and destructive consequences without much in the way of repercussions, mostly because of its massive ties to Washington and lucrative government contracts. While Hawkins’s thorn has been DARPA, ours has always been Zoomb. It shouldn’t surprise me that they are, once again, involved in shady dealings, but it does. Endo and Alessi were instrumental in stopping Gordon and a handful of Kaiju from turning the world into a human-life-free zone. While I still hold a grudge against Endo, it’s mostly for kicking my ass on a few occasions. He’s still a fugitive, and it’s still my job to bring him in, but I had no plans on tracking the man down. He’s earned that much.

I have a lot of questions for Alessi, specifically about Zoomb’s potential involvement with Nemesis’s disappearance, but the problem she’s just posed dwarfs them all.

“Who will come?” I ask, drawing my weapon, but not aiming it at her. She’s unarmed and dressed like a civilian. She’s not here to hurt us. If she’s telling the truth, her goal is quite the opposite.

“The BlackGuard,” she says.

“Who?” Hawkins asks.

“The men responsible for destroying the Tsuchi in Oregon.”

I don’t miss the fact that she used the same name for the BFSs as the BlackGuard she’s talking about.

“The DARPA special ops team,” Hawkins says. He’s fishing, but he doesn’t let on.

Alessi’s momentary surprise is confirmation enough, but she says, “How much do you know about them?”

“Enough to know they’re bad news,” I say, “which brings us back to the problem at hand. When are they coming?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “but if they’ve seen Lilly, they’ll come for her. Soon.”

Alessi and Endo both know about Lilly. They’ve seen her in action. They don’t know her origins, and they didn’t ask, but they’ve obviously kept quiet about her. But now, it seems, we’ve put the crosshairs that Hawkins has always feared right on Lilly.

“You need to leave here,” Alessi says. “All of you.”

“I suppose you have someplace for us to go?” I ask. “I’m sure Zoomb would like to get a peek at Lilly.”

“And at her,” Alessi says, pointing at Maigo, “but they don’t know about them. About
either
of them. And we’re going to keep it that way.”

“Why?” I ask, unable to restrain my skepticism. “Does Endo want to keep them for himself? Or is he simply waiting for the highest offer?”

“That’s not fair,” Alessi says. “He saved your life.”

“He also serves himself.”

Alessi is silent for a moment and finally says, “Endo’s allegiance remains where it has always been.”

After leaving the Japanese Defense Force, Endo served under General Gordon, and then in the private sector, working with Zoomb, but in each of those instances, he was involved in all things—

Maigo screams and falls to the floor, clutching her head.

The conversation with Alessi slips from my mind, all fears of exposure and impending BlackGuard doom forgotten. I hurry to her and fall to my knees. “Maigo what’s—”

My voice is cut short when I reach out and take her hands. The physical contact acts like a conduit, slamming me into Maigo’s mind for a moment. We stand across from each other, both ten years old again, on Christmas morning, dressed in footie pajamas and staring at each other. I reach out for her, opening my mouth, but then the world becomes a blur.

Heat surrounds me, pulsing in the darkness.

Maigo is here, too. I can feel her.

Where are we?
I think.

Back.
The mental voice belongs to Maigo.

Back where?

Stabbing pain fills my body, pulsing through me three times, growing in intensity like a migraine headache.

She’s alive,
Maigo thinks to me.

Who...
And then I know.
Oh my God...

My eyes snap open, and I sit up from the floor, where I must have collapsed. Maigo sits up next to me, pulled from the strange mental connection.

I grip her shoulder. “Was that?”