Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

She pulls it out and after swiping it on, hands it to me. “Still no service.”


“Don’t need the phone,” I say, starting the phone’s photo app. I take a quick picture of the man’s full prone body, and then a close up of his face. Voices get louder, rolling down from the top of the hill. They’ve spotted the bodies. “Time to go.”





10



Ten Hours Later



Dr. Kendra Elliot’s eyes looked small behind her thick glasses, despite the fact that they were open wide. The bloodshot orbs stung, because she refused to blink for as long as she could stand. She didn’t want to miss a second.

The subject—Maigo—was exceptional.

Elliot had stayed in the lab for the past ten hours, just watching. She’d left just twice, both times to use the bathroom. She hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t drunk anything. Hadn’t slept. And she’d never felt better.

The rate of growth seemed to be following some kind of Moore’s law, which observes that computers double in power and speed every two years. Except instead of doubling every two years, Maigo’s growth doubled every two hours. The girl had far exceeded Elliot’s calculations, and further calculations became impossible to predict. She guessed the girl was eighteen, based on muscle tone (which looked like an Olympian’s), height, weight and development of her more feminine features.

And she was feminine. For the most part. Her breasts were full. Her hips wide. A cloud of black hair billowed around Maigo’s face, obscuring her smooth jaw, lush lips and long-lashed eyes. Elliot felt pangs of jealousy mixed with surges of revolt. A week ago, Maigo had been a real girl, though she hadn’t lived to see any of these features develop. That she had possibly been murdered by her father filled Elliot with an anger born from her own past.

Elliot shook her head. The life this girl could have lived...

Envy crept into her thoughts once again, but then she reminded herself that the girl, the real Maigo, was dead and buried. The picture-perfect thing of beauty would never exist in the world outside this laboratory, and within the day, this Maigo would be dead.

Again.

“My God,” General Gordon said. “Look at her.”

Elliot yelped and spun around. Gordon stood right behind her. “I—I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were too busy ogling her,” he said, pointing to Maigo.

Elliot blushed despite the accusation not being entirely true. Admiring was a more accurate word, though she didn’t bother correcting the man.

“Not that I can blame you,” he said, walking around the spherical womb, looking at Maigo from every angle. The curved glass distorted the view like a fish bowl, magnifying the portion of her body directly in front of the viewer. “I might have you make me another one when—” He stopped walking. “What’s that?”

Elliot stood and walked around the womb, stopping beside the General. He was pointing to the dimpled area where the girl’s back met her butt. Elliot fought her rising jealousy again and said, “Did you call me over her to admire her—”

“Base of the spine,” Gordon said. “Just above her ass.”

Elliot leaned in closer, squinting. There was a small bump at the base of her spine. “Could be the subject’s tail bone. Some people have oversized tailbones. Would be her single flaw.”

“I’d like a closer look,” he said.

“It’s really not a big—”

“Now.”

Elliot rolled her eyes and stomped back to her chair. She double-tapped the touch screen and began accessing the camera controls.

“How long until she’s ready?” Gordon asked.

Elliot released a single submersible camera into the womb. The small device operated like a baseball-sized ROV, complete with sample-taking abilities and robotic arms. “Best guess, two more hours.”

“My team is on standby,” he said.

“Your team?”

“Surgeons.” He stepped around the womb, eyes still on Maigo. “They’re in the med-lab, awaiting delivery.”

Using the touch-screen controls, Elliot manually steered the ROV toward the anomaly at the base of Maigo’s spine. “Delivery of what?”

“The girl,” he said. “And me.”

The display showed the view from the ROV’s camera as it lowered through the womb. Curves of tan flesh passed by like the polished wall of some deep sea discovery. “You’re really going through with it?”

“Either that or I drop dead sometime in the next six months.”

The aberration came into view. Elliot pushed the ROV nearer for a close up look. “That soon?”

“Was that hope I heard in your voice?”

Elliot glanced up at him, terrified that he was serious. He was smiling, which in its own way, was just as frightening.