If I’m honest, I have no idea. He’s right. We play this stuff by ear, adapting as we go, because there is no precedent for what we deal with, and there still isn’t a weapon in the U.S. military’s arsenal capable of killing a Kaiju. I know from experience that the Mother of All Bombs (MOAB), the most powerful non-nuclear weapon we have, doesn’t work. And I’m not about to authorize or request that a nuclear device be used on U.S. soil, putting people at risk and maybe, at least in the case of Nemesis, who is a walking bomb, just making her angry. In her white form, it might work, but now? It’s not worth the risk. So I have no idea what to do, not without more intel. But I’m not about to let the man behind the curtain know...though I’m sure he already suspects.
“Remain silent if you choose,” he says. “Maintain some pride. But the truth is, you’re broken. Your team is broken, separated by thousands of miles, in hiding or injured.”
“Where is Woodstock?” I ask.
“Recovering,” the man says. “In a hospital. He was lucky to have survived.”
“And...” I’m about to ask about Alessi, but then I realize her identity might be worth concealing. “What about Lucy?”
“Lucy?”
Dammit. It was the first name that came to mind. I have always associated Alessi with Lucy Liu. They look a lot alike. But I can’t use that name. What’s a good Japanese last name?
“Are you referring to Maggie Alessi?” the man asks. “Half-sister of Katsu Endo, Zoomb employee and participant in corporate espionage, which in this case amounts to treason?”
I nod. “That’s the one.”
“She is alive.”
“Can we see her?” Collins asks.
“She will remain with us until her purpose is fulfilled.”
“And what purpose is that?” I ask.
“To ensure the cooperation of Mr. Endo, of course, who I have just come to understand has been operating under our noses. He’s quite a cunning character.”
“Yeah,” I grumble, “He’s a peach.”
“You should be grateful to the man,” the mystery voice says. “He played a part in your...team’s survival tonight.”
I want to make threats. To pound on the glass. But I know the effort will be wasted, and it’ll make me look like an idiot, in part because I’m trained to deal with stressful situations like, oh, I don’t know, three-hundred-fifty-foot-tall monsters, but also because I’m wearing a God damned toga!
Realization sneaks past my anger. Endo was undercover at GOD, and in a position to rescue the others, which means they raided the cabin, but took Endo along for the ride. “Specter.”
“He was quite good,” the man says. “Played by the rules and was happy to break them when asked. But he does have weaknesses, doesn’t he? Had we known he cared so much for his family and friends, we would have never hired him. But then, we didn’t know he had family or friends. The man must care about you, Jon. He risked exposure, and his life, to save you.”
The idea that Endo...cares about me is frustrating. Yes, we worked together—reluctantly—and yes, we had a kind of weird, adversarial bromance going on when dealing with the last Kaiju crisis in Boston and D.C., but the man is a criminal. A murderer. The only thing we really have in common is our...what—Love? Obsession? Relationship?—with Nemesis. Or in my case, with Maigo.
“And again tonight, to save Maigo,” the man finishes.
“Excuse me?” I say, tensing in a way that’s impossible to hide.
“She is unharmed,” the man says, “But she is no longer hidden.”
I stalk toward the window, but only manage to stare myself down. “She will not become one of your Dark Matter—”
“There is no need to worry about that. Dr. Brice and his Dark Matter research is no more. As of last night, the collection and research branch of GOD has been cleaved away.”
“Like the island,” Collins says.
“Less intentionally, but yes.”
“But isn’t that what GOD did?” I ask. “Without the lab, what’s left?”
“The lab was an invaluable part of GOD’s mandate, and it will be missed until it can be replaced, but the research already conducted is still enough to carry us into the future.” The mirror in front of me fades, becoming partly transparent to reveal a squat man in a suit coat. He looks more like a mafia don than a government agent. At least he has the mustache. He’d fit right in at the DHS. “My name is Zachary Cole. I’m the Director of GOD. What remains of my organization is focused on practical application. We take the raw material provided by Brice and turn it into something useful.”
“By useful, you mean weapons,” Collins says.
“Sometimes yes. Sometimes...yes.” The man smiles, his teeth perfect, as though chiseled from marble. “The point is, while you talk to the media and make a spectacle every time you face a Kaiju threat, we have been hard at work creating solutions.”
I say nothing, not because I don’t have a handful of Hudsonisms to fling at him, but because I’m listening.
“I’m pleased to see you’re interested,” he says.
Collins snaps her gaze toward me. “Jon, you can’t make a deal with this guy.”
“Sometimes you have to make a deal with a demon to kill the Devil,” I say, and I turn back to Cole. “That’s pretty much what you’re proposing?”