Project Maigo Read online

  Project Maigo

  By Jeremy Robinson

  Summary:

  BOSTON IS IN RUINS

  Jon Hudson, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Fusion Center – Paranormal division, is haunted by Boston’s destruction at the hands of Nemesis, a three-hundred-foot tall monster with the heart of a murdered little girl, Maigo. In the time since Boston fell and Nemesis retreated to the ocean’s depths, Hudson has helped prepare the United States against future attacks. But no one is prepared for what rises from the depths.

  THE WORLD BURNS

  Five Kaiju attack cities and consume the world’s citizens in an unstoppable rampage around the globe. But it soon becomes apparent that these attacks aren’t all random events. Hudson is targeted, putting the FC-P headquarters, known as the Crow’s Nest, and his team, in the very large crosshairs. General Lance Gordon, a man who carries Nemesis’s vengeful heart in his chest, directs the Kaiju, and when Hudson finds protection from an unlikely source, the General turns his attention to his next target.

  THE NATION’S CAPITOL IS NEXT

  While Gordon and his Kaiju storm toward Washington D.C., Hudson, along with his team and some new and unusual allies, race to stand in their path, hoping to spare the nation—and the world—from destruction. But salvation at the end of all things will come only through the gravest of sacrifices.

  ---

  With Project Nemesis, Jeremy Robinson introduced the world of popular fiction to Kaiju, a word that has become popularized by the movie Pacific Rim, and is associated with classic movie monsters such as Godzilla and Gamera. In the year since the release of Project Nemesis, the book has become the bestselling original Kaiju novel of all time, and it is being featured in the video game Colossal Kaiju Combat: Fall of Nemesis. In Project Maigo, Robinson amps up the scale, the characters and the city-stomping action, treating readers to a truly monstrous experience typically reserved for the big screen.

  PROJECT MAIGO

  Jeremy Robinson

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I must first thank the awesome Matt Frank, for his amazing creature designs. He has helped shape the look and feel of Nemesis and without him, I’m not sure the series would have got the traction that it did. With Project Maigo there is even more art from Matt and five brand new creature designs.

  For supreme editing, big thanks to Kane Gilmour, who also prodded me into writing my dream Kaiju project. This book is not only better for your edits, but might not exist without your nudging. Thanks to Roger Brodeur for cleaning up the text and hiding my many typos.

  Thank you to Simon Strange at Sunstone Games, for making Nemesis the boss character in the Colossal Kaiju Combat video game and for lending your support to the book. I very much look forward to kicking some Kaiju butt with Nemesis!

  At the end of Project Maigo, you will find a fan art gallery, including more than twenty-five pieces of art. Thanks to everyone who submitted their work. None of my novels have inspired such a creative, talented response, and being an artist who grew up drawing Kaiju, I’m extremely grateful for it.

  And as always, thanks to my amazing family. My wife, Hilaree, is my biggest supporter, and my three Kaiju, err, children...you continue to inspire me and keep my imagination rooted in my monster-loving childhood. I love you all.

  For all you crazy Kaiju fans who made PROJECT NEMESIS a hit, and helped make PROJECT MAIGO a reality. Thank you for your support, and all the art!

  Prologue

  Hong Kong

  “Somebody shut that bitch up.” The sound of flesh striking flesh followed the command, stifling the chained woman’s whimpers and reminding the others why they shouldn’t speak, cry or even breathe loudly.

  Satisfied with the silence, the man known simply as Tinman crouched down to inspect the woman. He reached out a dirty hand, held her chin and yanked her face back and forth. She was hard to see in the dim multicolored light provided by the distant towers of Hong Kong. He snapped his fingers. “Flashlight.”

  A light was flicked on and placed in his hand. The inside of the blue, 40-foot-long, steel shipping container lit up, revealing two rows of young women. Thirty-three in all. They were prisoners. Slaves. And yet, not one of them was bound. Not physically, at least.

  The light shone into the eyes of the slapped woman. She didn’t blink. Her pupils remained dilated. She simply stared straight ahead, no longer afraid. No longer...anything. Tinman noted the red hand print emerging on the woman’s face. Dingle had struck her hard, but he had remembered not to use a closed fist, at least. Damaged goods fetched a lower price. And this one—a Japanese girl—would get good money from their Western patrons. “How long will they be...pliable? The auction starts in thirty minutes. Most of our guests are already here.”

  “They’re pretty doped,” Dingle replied. He was a skinny man with greasy blond hair, shiny black leather garb and purple sunglasses—despite the late hour. He shook his hand, still recovering from the open-palm blow he’d given the woman. “But they’ll be able to walk, among other things.”

  “Nothing happens on the premises,” Tinman reminded him. “We’re not a brothel. We’re an outlet. What they do with the product is their own business and on their own time.”

  Dingle nodded. “I know the drill.”

  Tinman knew Dingle was capable. They’d bought and sold more than two thousand women during their last three years together, and they had become the number one import/export outfit in the Asian flesh trade. Business had slowed after that mess in Boston, though. People had grown afraid. Some of his clients even attempted to return their merchandise. But the monster—Nemesis—hadn’t returned. And business was booming, or as Dingle liked to say, their ‘business was banging.’

  Tinman sometimes told himself that some of the women were being used for more noble pursuits, like house cleaning or manual labor, but if he was honest, he knew the lucky ones found themselves locked inside a plush hideaway for a few years before being used up and discarded. The unlucky ones wouldn’t make it a week. Some might not even survive the night.

  Not my problem, he told himself.

  He looked down the row of women, casting the bright white light along their faces. Most were Asian—Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese and Chinese. Most of them Chinese, on account of Chinese parents not putting up too much of a stink when the girls disappeared. Mom and dad might not appreciate them for being born female, but Tinman’s clients would. At least, Tinman thought, some of them will feel desired before dying. A few of the slaves were Western girls. A couple of sluts from California who practically volunteered. Two Germans. A French girl. And two Spanish—Mexican Spanish. While the Asian girls attracted Western clients, these Western girls would fetch top dollar with his Eastern clientele. Everyone always wanted what they perceived as exotic.

  He crouched to the left, shining his light in the next girl’s eyes, seeing the same vacant look. Like this, mindless and oblivious to what was going to come, Tinman didn’t find the girls attractive. He thought the kind of men who did were...off. But they paid well enough for him not to care.

  The girl had a bit of an overbite. He pulled a black marker from his pocket and placed a single dot on the back of her right hand, signifying that the bidding on her should start at a lower price. She’d be one of the unlucky ones. No one spent good money on a temp.

  “Hey, Tin,” a man called from the container’s opening. Tinman turned to find his two guards silhouetted against the city lights. A stiff breeze brought the scent of smog and ocean decay to his nose. He hated Hong Kong. This was as close as he ever got. The docks. The auction and the exchange of money and girls would all happen on his freighter, which also conducted more legitimate, but le
ss profitable business. When they were done, he’d sail away richer than when he arrived.

  Tinman blew Hong Kong’s stink from his nose. “What is it?”

  “They’re all here,” the guard reported.

  Early, Tinman thought with a grin. Early meant eager. Eager meant high bidding. He clapped his hands together and glanced up at Dingle. “I’ll inspect each girl before she’s made available.”

  Dingle nodded. “Going to be a good night.”

  “Very good,” Tinman shuffled to the left one more time, out of habit. He raised the flashlight to the girl’s face. One of the Americans. A blonde. Fit and slender, which was a hard sell in Asia, since they were accustomed to slender builds, but at least she wasn’t slender in the places that mattered, and her face... She was stunning.

  She squinted at the light.

  Her pupils constricted.

  Brows furrowed.

  Tinman’s distracted mind registered all this too late to stop the foot rising for his crotch. The woman’s boot found the soft flesh between his legs and crushed it upwards, while the rest of him crumpled down. He was in a full fetal position by the time he hit the steel floor.

  Through clenched eyes, Tinman looked up to see the woman standing, her fists clenched, her eyes set on Dingle, who had drawn his beloved knife. It was usually more than enough to keep the women in line. But this one? Not only had she clearly not been drugged with the rest, but she had a fire in her eyes. She’s a cop, he thought. The American’s slutty ignorance had been a ruse. But there had been two of them. Where was the—

  The sound of fighting at the far end of the crate answered his question. He tried to shout an order, but he hadn’t yet taken a breath.

  Suddenly, the container tipped forward, then back, as a large wave passed beneath the ship. It didn’t feel big enough to worry about, but it was the kind of wave encountered on the high seas, not in port.

  The descending crate knocked Dingle off balance. It was the opening the woman needed. She lunged forward, and with a speed and precision Tinman had never seen, she knocked the knife from Dingle’s hand. Before the blade struck the metal floor, she broke his wrist and punched his throat, dropping him hard.

  A second wave struck. He could hear the dock’s moorings creaking under the strain.

  Tinman took his first gasped breath. The woman looked down at him, sweat melting away makeup from her forehead, revealing a red scar...or was it something else? She paid him little attention and shouted to her partner. “All clear?”

  “Affirmative,” the other woman replied, her accent Russian. “We are good.”

  “Let’s wake ’em up,” the blonde said, pulling a cylinder from her pocket. She mashed down the top of it. White gas hissed out, quickly filling the container.

  Tinman tried to hold his breath. He didn’t know what kind of gas the woman had deployed. But his need to breathe after being kicked overrode his caution, and he sucked in a lungful. His body felt instantly revived. Energized. Though the intense pain of his injury remained.

  He heard the women around him wake from their stupors, their confusion melting away with a din of rising voices. The blonde was now a ghost in the mist, but he could hear her shouting commands in a variety of languages. More than a cop, he realized.

  The ship beneath them shifted again, canting backwards at a sharp angle. For a moment, Tinman thought he was feeling another wave, but he quickly realized the ship was tilting in the wrong direction. And they weren’t dropping back down. It was as though some immense weight were pulling the aft down.

  He wracked his mind to come up with a theory of what could cause the massive ship to tip back so quickly. Only one theory made sense. The realization helped him to his feet, but the shipping container was struck hard from above. The jolt swept his feet out from under him. He hit the floor again hard, leading with his face this time.

  The woman’s shouting grew more fervent, and the sounds of running feet echoed all around him. Then her boots clanged on the floor. Despite the danger, she was leaving last. Well, not exactly last. For a moment, he hoped the sudden flood of women fleeing across the deck of his ship would buy him time, but then he remembered what motivated the monster.

  Nemesis.

  Poems called her the winged tilter of scales.

  She’s here for me, he realized.

  A shriek of metal turned his eyes upward. Huge claws hooked into the container’s ceiling and pulled. The top came off like the lid of a can of soup. The white gas the blonde had deployed was sucked up by the lifting ceiling. The breeze carried it away. The container was empty now, save for him and Dingle. The two guards lay at the end, dead or immobilized. The women, all thirty-three of them, were gone.

  Tinman got back to his feet, stepped over Dingle, who sounded like he was gagging, maybe even dying, and ran for the shipping container’s end. Before he made it five steps, he noticed his shadow, long and framed by bright orange light from above.

  He was right. She was here.

  For justice.

  For vengeance.

  For him.

  Tinman turned around to confirm his fate. He turned his eyes upward and screamed more loudly than any of the women he’d bought, sold and tortured ever had.

  1

  Colorado

  You would think that being deep in the woods of Southern Colorado with a smoking hot redhead, with no one else around for miles, would give me nothing to complain about. Under other circumstances, that would be true, but it turns out I don’t know what poison ivy looks like. Also good to know, if you get the oil on your hands and then proceed to scratch your arms, stomach and balls? Your world pretty much goes to hell.

  Seriously.

  My arms and stomach are bearable, but it’s the middle of summer. It’s hot and humid here on the Ute reservation. So I decided to go commando. Didn’t even pack underwear. My boxer-briefs would have at least held everything in place. But now, every movement instigates a wicked stinging itch. My loins are literally burning. What should have been another useless, but otherwise memorable, investigation of a strange-creature sighting has become an itchy wet blanket the likes of which I doubt any man has ever before experienced in the history of the world.

  To make matters worse, we’re leaving. Again, doesn’t sound too bad, but we’re ten miles from our car and another twenty from the nearest pharmacy, where I will single-handedly boost the stock of calamine lotion.

  I’m walking like I just spent the past month riding bareback, and the toe of my boot strikes a rock funny. I stumble forward just a little bit, but it’s enough for things to move around like some kid with ADHD is ringing the bells of St. Mary’s.

  I stagger to a stop, wincing. Legs splayed like the St. Louis Gateway Arch. “Fuuuck.”

  Ashley Collins, my investigative partner at the Department of Homeland Security’s one and only Fusion Center dedicated to protecting the United States from paranormal threats, stops in her tracks. She turns around with that adorable smirk of hers, and I already want to slap it off her face. Of course, she’d kick my ass if I tried. “Man up, Hudson.”

  “I will only accept criticism from someone with testicles,” I say, hands on knees.

  “I’ve got an elastic band in my pocket,” she says, still wearing the smirk. “My uncle showed me how to castrate a goat once. Just put the elastic on tight, stop the flow of blood and—”

  “C’mon,” I say, unable to keep myself from chuckling. “Seriously, this hurts.”

  She digs into her pocket, pulls out the elastic, stretches it a few times and in a sing-song voice, says, “We could be gal-pals.”

  I find myself unable to reply. Not because I don’t have a comeback. We tease each other like this frequently. We could ping-pong creative insults back and forth for hours. It’s the hair on the back of my neck, standing straight up that stops me. And I have no idea why. I didn’t hear anything. Or smell anything. It’s just an instinct. Some part of my mind shouting at me to run, or fight.

>   When Collins slowly moves her hand to her sidearm, I know she feels it too.

  We’re being stalked.

  “What is it?” she whispers.

  I shake my head, but I know it’s one of two things: a brown bear or a mountain lion. Both are common enough in this part of the country, and both occasionally take a whack at people. My preference would be the bear. Not only do I have experience fending off bears, but we’d hear it coming. A cougar...their hunting and fighting abilities are nearly supernatural. So much so, that they’re revered by the local Ute population. We wouldn’t know it was here until it attacked, which is exactly what’s happening. I give my answer without fully processing the potential ramifications. “Mountain lion.”

  Collins’s hand moves from the holstered handgun on her hip and shifts toward the tranquilizer rifle slung over her back. Dressed in camouflage, carrying a backpack and armed like a guerrilla, she looks like she should be in a Red Dawn reboot. I’m dressed the same, but right now, with me all hunched over and uncomfortable, she’s the only one who really looks the part. “Or maybe another big cat,” she says.

  The realization causes me to stand up straight and ignore the molten lava between my legs. Like Collins, I reach for my rifle. But while hers contains a tranquilizer dart, mine contains a tracking device. We’re not exterminators. We’re only here to find out what people are seeing. In this case, the creature of choice is a black, cat-woman. Over the past year, Collins and I have investigated scads of creature reports, including chupacabra, the Jersey Devil, a handful of ghost sightings, poltergeists, UFO sightings, alien abductions and natural phenomena. If you don’t count the 300-foot tall monster that laid waste to Boston—and Bigfoot, which we found and tagged a few months later—the FC-P department of the DHS has once again become a black hole of wasted time. That’s if you’re only looking at our investigations into the strange. We’ve also been busy building cases against several people involved in the debacle that led to thousands of deaths at the hands, and feet—that’s awful—of an ancient vengeance goddess genetically merged with a murdered little girl named Maigo. I shake my head at the thought. Nemesis. That a laboratory could take the DNA of a girl and merge it with something probably long dead, and horrible, to create a gigantic, city-destroying monster, still sounds impossible. Yet, that’s what happened. And she stomped her way south, from Maine to Boston, eating people, whales and everything else with a heartbeat. With each meal, she grew, every pound of flesh eaten transferred to her own mass. But she wasn’t just eating. She decimated everything in her path—homes, ships, entire cities and everything the military threw at her—until her thirst for vengeance was sated by the dramatic slaying of Maigo’s father.