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



Gordon charges Collins, who is closest to him and drawing her .45. He strikes the gun from her hand and reaches out with both arms, no doubt intending to crush the life of out her. She ducks beneath his embracing arms and rolls to the side, as Endo leaps in the air and drives his foot into the General’s back, knocking him head-first into a stairwell wall. I follow Endo’s strike with a kick of my own, driving my foot into the back of Gordon’s knee. But it’s like kicking a tree trunk.

All three of us are forced back when Gordon spins around, swinging wildly. He’s not hurt. Not at all. He’s just really, really pissed off.

And maybe a little bit insane.

“Righteousness will fall from the sky,” he shouts. “She will judge the living and purify the land.”

Gordon steps toward the three of us, and we all take a step back.

“Do you know what he’s talking about?” I ask, stepping back again.

Endo shakes his head. “No idea, but the heart in his chest came from the creature, and it’s clearly consuming his body. Maybe it’s in his mind, too.”

“You’re saying he’s remembering something?” Collins says, aghast at the idea.

Endo shrugs.

Gordon lunges.

Collins and I dive to the sides. Endo is like living lightning, but he’s not fast enough to avoid Gordon’s outstretched hand. Endo’s feet leave the ground as Gordon lifts him up by one arm.

“And you have been judged—” Gordon looks up at Endo’s face with a sick grin. “—guilty.” He draws back his fist.

A gun fires, its unsilenced report booming across the roof. Gordon’s head snaps forward from the impact. But he doesn’t fall. Collins fires her weapon again, but the effect is the same. The thick flesh protecting Gordon’s torso is beneath his human skin, which I’m now sure he will eventually shed, like Nemesis.

But not all of him is protected.

“Collins!” I shout, reaching out to her.

She understands my request and tosses the gun to me. It breaks a few dozen safety rules, but I manage to snatch the weapon from the air without shooting myself and turn the gun around on Gordon, just as he whips Endo aside. I hear a pop, and a scream as Endo’s shoulder comes out of its socket, but I ignore it along with Nemesis’s distant roars, the sounds of explosions, and the pain wracking my body. I pull the trigger.

The .45 caliber round sails through the air, faster than even Gordon can move, and finds what might be the only soft spot left on his body—the center of his eye. The bullet penetrates the orb, turning it to jelly.

Gordon’s head snaps back.

He stumbles.

But doesn’t fall.

I fire again. And again. Each round strikes his head, pushing him back farther and farther. I run at him, still firing, still moving until the back of his legs hit the short safety wall at the edge of the building. After firing my last round I leap up, do my best Endo impression, and kick Gordon’s chest.

The impact stops me in my tracks and I fall to the concrete roof. Gordon is off balance, leaning back. His hands twirl in circles as he fights to stay on the rooftop. But he’s dazed. And blood pours from his wounded eye.

Still, he’s far from dead, and I suspect, thanks to his strength, he’s about to regain his balance.

But I’m not about to let that happen. I grab hold of his ankles and pull. It’s not much, but the top-heavy General is suddenly ass over tea kettle. He disappears over the edge, falling thirty-four stories to the pavement below. I grab onto the ledge and look over in time to see him pancake the roof of a school bus.

I’m about to stand and offer up a one-liner that would make a young Bruce Willis envious, but a bright glow filtering through the skyscrapers of the South End is followed by a BOOM that sucks the air from my lungs and knocks me to the Clarendon’s roof.





45



Despite the pain wracking my body and exploding in my ears, I hit the roof like a thirteen year old gymnast, springing back to my feet in time to see my worst fears realized.

Downtown is crumbling.

The core of the city is now a black husk of its former self.

Skyscrapers crumble and fall, one after another, dropping in on themselves like God is lowering a finger and pushing them into the Earth.

Not God, I think, Nemesis.

As the buildings fall, filling the air with a low rumble and roiling plumes of dust that roll over the much smaller buildings of Beacon Hill, sunlight cuts through the haze, revealing the silhouette of Nemesis. The monster thunders through the now clear path through the city, framed on either side by the skyscrapers that are still standing.