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.