“What was Gordon like before all this?” I ask.
Endo turns from the TV to me. He’s been watching cartoons, of all things, which is far more bearable than The Golden Girls. After watching an episode of Dexter’s Laboratory, we’d jokingly discussed the possibility of constructing a giant robot to fight the Kaiju. While that works for cartoons and men in rubber suits, the physics of building a suit that large, makes it impossible. Which kind of sucks, because it would be awesome.
“I didn’t know him before,” Endo says. “We met after I discovered the Nemesis-Prime corpse.”
“Did he ever express anger at anyone?” I ask.
Endo grins. “At everyone.”
“From his past,” I say. “A wife. A bully. Co-worker? Someone he really hated.”
Endo falls silent, biting his thumbnail, a habit he picked up a few days ago. It’s how I know he’s really thinking about something. He probably won’t emerge from his mental filing cabinet for a few minutes, so I pick up the remote and change the channel.
My mind drifts as I push the button. I’m no longer seeing the TV, but am thinking about life. Specifically, my life. Endo and I are scheduled to leave in the morning. We’re ‘out of the woods,’ according to the doctor. I’m pretty sure we were never actually in the woods, but I suspect Collins threatened the doctor to hold us here longer than normal on the grounds that we’d only exacerbate our injuries by returning to work.
And she’d have been right about that. Sitting in this bed is nearly intolerable. The one thing that has kept me obeying the doctor is the fact that there is nothing I can do about the Kaiju attacking other countries. I can’t command their militaries or even advise their governments. For all I know, they’ve all got their own versions of the FC-P working on the problem. Had a Kaiju made landfall on U.S. soil, I’d have been up and out of bed, doctor’s orders or not. Also, the pudding helps.
Something snaps me back to reality. I blink my eyes while my mind rewinds for me. The TV. A news report. Shaky video. I switch channels again, heading in the opposite direction. I stop after three pushes of the button. It’s a news network. A close up of Karkinos fills the screen. There’s no sound, but the upturned head and open maw tell me it’s roaring. The image pulls back to reveal a packed city and a tropical coastline. The scene is dark, the sun cloaked by a tropical storm. I glance down at the news channel’s image label: Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
“Holy shit,” I say, not because I’m surprised that yet another city is being attacked, but because Karkinos has made really good time crossing the Atlantic. It’s only been three days since the attack on Cape Town.
The camera turns to the right. Typhon. He’s bigger than I remember. Easily 300 feet tall. They both are. The orange membranes covering his chest and abs glow brightly in the gloom. His brilliant yellow eyes seem to be peering straight at the camera. At me.
Impossible, I think, which is enough beyond ‘unlikely’ that I believe it.
The two monsters rise from the turbulent ocean unchallenged. They’ve managed to cross the deep undetected, and I doubt anyone in all of South America expected a visit. They’re probably wondering what they did wrong as several ‘authorities’ on the subject have decided that the Kaiju operate similarly to Nemesis, proclaiming judgment, carrying out death sentences. Wishful thinking.
I glance at Endo. He’s paused mid-thumb nibble to watch the TV. When his eyes widen, I look back to the news feed and gasp. An orange glow moves through the ocean, sliding up behind the two Kaiju. For a moment, I think it must be some kind of weapon. A torpedo or suicidal submarine. But then a 50-foot wide, black head lifts from the ocean. Scylla. Like its siblings, the destroyer of Sydney is pushing 300 feet in height now. All three monsters are together, one big happy family. The camera operator zooms in on the new arrival. Scylla opens her mouth, roaring. Her curved needle-like teeth hold the remnants of meals past. Boat parts. Large hunks of whale meat. Human bodies. Of the three, Scylla is the smallest, but her savage appearance is unnerving.