“Who’s in there with you, Jon?” Hawkins tone has shifted again.
“If I can work with Endo, you can work with these guys.” My patience starts to wear thin, but I remind myself that he doesn’t know about the Tsuchi threat to this area. “Just call Lilly back, and let’s talk this out face-to-face. We have bigger problems.”
The phone muffles for a moment, and I hear Hawkins whistle through his fingers and then shout something. There’s a gentle thump on the roof. “Okay,” he says. “She’s pulled back.”
“Coming out.” I look back to the cockpit. “You guys are horrible at making friends. You know that, right?”
Obsidian gives me a sort of half smile and presses a button. The back hatch slides open without a sound and settles on the tarmac. We’re on the southern end of the airport, where private jets are kept. Most of the small planes around us are gleaming white luxury planes, but the bright yellow Zoomb jet, sporting a logo on its tail and wings, shines like a beacon, despite the still rising sun just starting to peek over the distant mountains.
At the bottom of the ramp, the FC-P awaits, and they’re not happy. They are, I note, dressed for war—even Maigo, who is wearing our standard, night-op garb and armor, which isn’t as sophisticated as the gear Collins and I are wearing. Lilly is crouched, ready to pounce, but she doesn’t move. Hawkins is trying to look around me, into the X-35. But Maigo...
She steps around the others and hugs me, breaking the tension. I squeeze her back as best I can with all the armor between us. “You okay?” I say into her ear.
“I’m not hurt,” she says.
“That’s not what I mean.”
She leans back. Looks me in the eyes. “Been better...but I’ve been worse, too.”
Good perspective, I think, and I smile. “That you have.”
“Hudson,” Hawkins says, but I hold up my hand before he can finish.
“First thing we all need to agree on is that sometimes, to do our job and protect the world from the kinds of threats the FC-P is charged with facing, we have to work with people we don’t like. Take Lilly for example—”
“Hey,” the cat-woman says, but smiles.
“And sometimes we have to work with people we loathe.” I acknowledge Endo for the first time and offer my hand. He shakes it, and I add, “Been a while, douche-breath. How’s the corporate espionage thing going?”
“Where’s my sister?” he asks.
“And there is the problem,” I say. “Your former employers, or faux employers, whatever you call them, currently have possession of Alessi and Woodstock. I’m going to assume you’re all bright enough to understand the position that puts us in.” When no one responds with anything more dramatic than Endo’s twitching lip, I continue. “What do you know about Lompoc?”
“Nemesis is alive,” Maigo says quickly, and with a trace of excitement.
“And you’re lucky to be,” Hawkins adds. “Nemesis did a number on Lompoc and the GOD facility.”
They don’t know.
“Well, you’re right and you’re wrong,” I say. “Nemesis destroyed the GOD laboratory, but not Lompoc.”
Endo puts his hand on my arm, and I have to fight the urge to sock him in the nose. I manage to resist, mostly because he’d probably dodge the punch and then level me with a spinning kick of some kind. “What happened?”
“Short version—” I start to say, but I’m cut short by what sounds like an air-raid siren. I’m about to ask what it means when I remember that I’m the one who picked it out. The sirens, installed in all major coastal cities, warns of an impending Kaiju attack. “—that.”
“What is it?” Hawkins asks.
Collins lifts the Devine phone to her ear, saying, “A Tsuchi,” before turning away, listening to the voice on the other end.
“I thought the Tsuchi were little,” Lilly says, and then she reveals why hers and Buddy’s relationship is the most strained at the FC-P. “Like a stupid dog.”
“They are. Until they find a living Kaiju and do their thing to it.”
“The Tsuchi implanted young into Nemesis?” Hawkins asks, jaw slack.
“And now we have Nemi-Tsuchi running amok. Yeah. Two of them. One here in LA and one headed east, whereabouts currently unknown. When I first saw them, they were the size of elephants, but I think we should assume they’re growing.”
“And fast,” Hawkins adds. “As fast as Nemesis grew, the Tsuchi are faster. As long as they have the raw material to fuel it, they could be as big as Nemesis in a day.”
“What raw material?” Lilly asks, her suspicious tone suggesting she’s already figured it out.
“People.” Maigo looks haunted as she speaks the words, no doubt recalling her own feeding frenzy.