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

For the second time today, I’m flying, or at least that’s what it feels like, except that this second flight lasts just a second and ends without a parachute. I slam into the hard roof and slide across its rough surface. The wingsuit is thick and helps absorb much of the impact, and it prevents my skin from being sandpapered away, but my body is still reeling from the previous day’s pummeling. I struggle to regain my footing as Gordon, who caught and flung me as easily as a cat taunting a mouse, closes in.

It could be worse, I know. If he’d punched me instead of thrown me, I’d be dead. I’m certain that’s what he did to the FBI agent with the caved-in chest. He’s got his fists clenched now, so I’m pretty certain that’s what’s about to happen to me too.

I scramble away backwards on my hands and feet, but there’s no way I can outrun the man. The best I can manage, as he cocks back a fist, is to squint in fright.

But his punch never falls. Instead, a heavy haymaker slams into the side of his face. His head snaps to the side, but he doesn’t lose footing, stumble or even grunt. He swings a backhand at his unseen attacker, but finds only a few strands of red hair as Collins ducks beneath the blow.

“Don’t let him hit you!” I shout. “Not once, he’s—”

My shouts bring Gordon’s attention back to me, but his attack is once again interrupted by a black-shoed foot that kicks up and catches him in the face, not once, but three times. And this time, Gordon stumbles back, a hand to his nose.

I look to the new attacker and I’m shocked to find Endo standing next to me, offering his hand. I’m not sure what to make of this turn of events, but there’s no question that he arrived with Collins, which means we have some kind of truce. Endo, for some reason, is now working against the General. I take his hand and get back to my feet.

Gordon chuckles. “The prodigal son, returned to die.” He waves his hand to Endo, egging him on. “Come on, boy.”

But Endo is unfazed. “You know that’s not how I operate.”

Gordon’s face morphs from confident to confused to understanding in the exact same time it takes Endo to draw a sound-suppressed 9mm handgun and pull the trigger—about half a second. The first bullet catches Gordon dead center in his chest. The big man stumbles back, looking down at the hole in his shirt.

Endo pulls the trigger until the clip runs dry. Gordon, who remained standing throughout the barrage, is still looking down with a look of shock on his face.

But not pain.

He smiles and then laughs, standing up straight and gripping his hole-filled shirt in both hands. With a yank, he tears the shirt apart, revealing an inhuman black torso that looks very much like Nemesis’s. All thirteen bullets are embedded in the thick flesh, and when Gordon puffs out his chest, many of them simply fall away.




Her body itched more than hurt, but the warplanes continually bombarding her body with cannon fire and missiles had begun to annoy Nemesis to the point where she could no longer ignore them. But she could not reach them either. Her fury was reaching a breaking point. To make matters worse, she had reached the edge of the city and found her way blocked by a thick patch of skyscrapers that dwarfed her.

She tried to push her way through, but the streets were too narrow for her bulk, and the tall buildings were built solidly. In anger, she struck out at the nearest building, a five-hundred-foot column with thousands of windows but no glass. Her massive hand and thick fingertips tore through steel and concrete easily, and she struck out again and again. Then there was a crack and a rumble, and the top half of the building collapsed, tipping like a falling tree and dropping toward her.

Nemesis leaned forward, shifting the protective carapace on her back to deflect the falling debris, but the weight of the massive structure bent her legs and nearly forced her to the ground. Seeing this as a sign of weakness, the jets pressed their attack, blowing more flesh from her body and increasing the persistent itch.

She could sense her goal nearby. The beacon shrieked at her from beyond the towering buildings, beckoning her to move faster.

But she was stuck. It would take hours to force her way through this forest of metal and stone.

Unless... Her intellect provided an idea that her emotions embraced. Her physical instincts riled against it, but the closer she got to the beacon, the more power her emotion wielded.

She turned her back to the sea, letting the incoming missiles explode harmlessly against her carapace. Then, with a shriek of pain, she dug her fingertips, each the thickness of Boston’s Bunker Hill Monument, into the glowing orange flesh beneath her ribs—

—and yanked them out.