Project Hyperion Page 2

  “I have a long memory,” Collins says, “and I know how you old timers need your sleep.”

  Woodstock’s only reply is indistinct grumbling.

  “Finish your sweep and call it a day,” I say. “Holler if you see something.”

  The ‘something’ this time around is the Great New England Sea Serpent. There are more than two hundred separate reported appearances of the creature, seen by more than two thousand people, since the first settlers arrived at the Gulf of Maine in the 1600s. On some occasions, hundreds of people lining the beach witnessed it swim past. In Gloucester, which is just North of the FC-P headquarters in Beverly, Massachusetts, two of the serpents hung out in the harbor for days on end.

  While reports of strange creatures have skyrocketed in the past few years—there’s even an entire DHS department tasked with weeding out illegitimate claims—creatures with mounds of historical evidence jump to the top of our growing list of cases. With two recent sightings of a sea serpent-like creature in the Gulf of Maine, we had to take a look. In part, because of the history, but also because Nemesis, and several other Kaiju, have all surfaced in this part of the world on multiple occasions.

  But I’m also realistic about our odds. It’s August. There are boats everywhere, buzzing, sailing and weighing anchor around the gulf while pods of whales swim all around. The odds of finding a sea serpent amidst all this activity—if it’s even here—are slimmer than Mary Kate Olsen’s waistline.

  So I’m channeling my old self and taking a moment to bask in the sun, and in the good fortune that allowed this DHS director to buy his own yacht, Penny, named for my third grade sweetheart. Unlike Betty, whose name graced my old pick-up truck and now the FC-P’s helicopter, not to mention our stolen future-tech X-35 aircraft, I have fond memories of Penny. She was funny. And chubby. Swam like a seal. A fitting name for a ship. I had wanted to use the name EndoSucksBalls, but Collins put the kibosh on that. And it’s probably a good idea since if we see Nemesis again, his consciousness might be part of the mix. But how funny would that have been? I grin at the thought, imagining Endo’s face as Nemesis leaned over to eat me and read the ship’s name.

  “What are you grinning about?” Collins asks, stepping out of the cabin. She’s got that ‘I’m a badass’ wrinkle between her eyes, but I’m distracted by the flowing white skirt and bikini top. The smell of suntan lotion, salty sea air and the sight of Collins’s red curls blowing in the wind make me forget that we’re officially on the clock. “You know she hates...feminine topics.”

  I shrug. “Well, she’s homeschooling, so someone has to tease her. Might as well be the guy closest to the grave already.”

  She sits down beside me and takes a deep breath. We’ve been so busy the last year that a day like today is a rarity. So what if it’s a Monday? We worked all weekend. We work every weekend. Luckily, our team is our family and our HQ is our home, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get burned out.

  “And besides,” I say, “he thinks we’re actually out here searching a grid, not working on our tans.”

  She opens the cooler, picks up a beer bottle and pops the cap...with her teeth. She spits the bent cap back in the cooler and takes a swig. “Your turn to drive, lazy bones.” She leans back in the lounge chair and nudges me with her knee.

  “Can’t argue with a girl who has a jaw PSI like that. Geez.”

  “No. You cannot.” She smiles. Fiendish. “No telling what might get bitten off.”

  I put my hand on her knee. “Maybe you can—”

  A clearing throat snaps us out of our dirty flirtations.

  I flinch and nearly fall out of the chair. “Oh, godamnit!”

  Maigo stands just a few feet away, hands on her hips. She’s dressed in red shorts and a black heavy metal t-shirt, her long, straight black hair tied back in a pony tail that reveals her normally hair-hidden face. She’s half Caucasian, half Japanese, and one hundred percent trying not to bust out laughing.

  “You and your silent ninja-like ways!” I shout, trying to mask my very own personal tampon moment. “I told you not to sneak up on me.”

  “I wasn’t trying to,” she says.

  “Just...stomp your feet when you walk. But not too hard. Liable to put a hole in the deck. It’s bad enough that you can get inside my head.”

  “Or you guys could just try to stop being pervs,” she counters.

  “You can take the perv out of the man, but not the man out of... Wait. You can take the man out of the... No. That doesn’t work. But you get it.”

  “I’m not the only one who gets it,” she says, snickering. “Right, mom?”

  “Oh, snap,” Collins says. She holds out her fist to Maigo, and the girl taps it with her own. They both raise their hands, wiggling them in the air.

  “Oh, sweet baby Buddha. Did you two just blow up a fist bump?” I ask.

  They’re laughing now, enjoying my discomfort.

  “You do realize the implications of your joke? Assuming the ‘get it’ about your mother relates to sexual intercourse?” And just like that, Jon Hudson turns the tables. I fist bump myself and make a ‘kaboosh’ sound effect. “Now who’s uncomfortable?”

  “I would just like to go on record,” Woodstock’s voice says in my earpiece, “and say two things. One, you all left your comms on. Two, you’re all fuckin’ bat-shit crazy.”

  We’re all laughing now, but quickly stop when Woodstock’s voice grows uncommonly serious. “Uhh, boss.”

  I stand from the lounge chair, trying to spot Woodstock somewhere in the distant sky. He’s too far away. “Remember those, ahh, feminine products?”

  “Yeah...”

  “They’re not tampons. They’re fish. A shit ton of dead fish.”

  2

  “Yeah, those are dead fish, all right,” Maigo says, leaning over the port rail, where an oily slick of decomposing fish floats in the waves. Their tubular white bodies lack fins and scales, and on some a lot of flesh is missing, too. The scent is...unimaginable. Rotted fish and something tangy.

  I throw a DHS T-shirt on, like it makes me somehow more official and back on the job, despite the fact that the only other people here are Collins and Maigo. “We should get a sample,” I say, glancing at the other two.

  “Yup,” Collins says, looking down at the scattered dead.

  “Uh-huh.” Maigo looks at me and offers a phony grin. “Go for it, Director Hudson.”

  “Damnit,” I say, thinking about how to do that. I hadn’t really expected to find anything today, let alone need to collect fish sludge. “Be right back.”

  My journey through the yacht’s air conditioned interior makes me shiver. Goose bumps rise on my arms. I blame the physical change on the temperature, and on Maigo, who likes to keep things cold. But if I’m honest, I’m feeling a little bit unnerved. Those fish haven’t just been killed. They’ve been digested.

  Whether they were a snack for a whale, a shark, a sea serpent...or something larger, I have no idea. And that’s what bugs me. The average depth in the Gulf of Maine, one of the most biologically productive ecosystems anywhere on Earth, is just 500 feet. That means Nemesis could be standing directly below us, and we’d have no idea. On the other hand, the Gulf is 36,000 square miles of open ocean. So the odds of that are... Who am I kidding? Nemesis has emerged from these waters twice before, both times arriving at my doorstep. If she’s here, she’ll find me.

  And now I’ve scared myself. Why did I want to come out on the ocean today? Why did I even want a yacht? I should be living in a mountain fortress in the middle of nowhere with a freakin’ TARDIS ready to sweep me away.

  Note to self, have the Zoomb techie nerds work on a TARDIS.

  I distract myself with visions of Collins dressed and speaking like Amy Pond, and I retrieve a gallon of water from the fridge. I pull the cap, drain it and use a fillet knife to carve off the top. The result is a big handled scoop, perfect for chumming, taking a piss or scooping up dead fish sludge.

  Goose bump
s pock my skin a second time as I step from the sixty-five degree cabin and out into the ninety degree summer heat. The stench of rot wafts over me, and I nearly gag. This time, smelling the scent anew, I recognize it. “Ugh, fish barf.”

  “You think this is puke?” Maigo asks.

  “Sure as shit ain’t shit,” I say, and head for the aft dive deck. “You can smell the bile. And the fish aren’t fully digested.” Hanging onto the rail, I crouch on the dive deck as waves slap and gurgle against the bottom, creating a rhythmic galoop that would normally relax me. Right now it’s reminding me of the Jaws chumming scene. But I’m not bothered by sharks. Not anymore. Not after what I’ve seen. If I see an open maw headed for the back of the yacht, it will likely be big enough to eat the whole boat.

  Just scoop the fish, Jon.

  I lean out over the water, reaching with the jug. Skimming the surface, I try to gather the oil slicked water without filling the plastic container. Then I lean a little further and go for a partially digested fish. The slender torpedo, ribs exposed, bounces off the edge of the jug and slides away.

  “Need help?” Maigo asks, leaning on the rail, all smiles.

  “You might have the strength of ten Hudson men—”

  “Closer to thirty,” she says.

  “—but I’ve still got a good ten inches on you and my lovely wife, so shut it.”

  “We could duct tape it to a fishing pole,” Collins offers, and that’s not a bad idea, but I’m committed and stubborn so I just reach a little further.

  The shrill whistle of DMX’s Party Up In Here blares from my hip, but I don’t really recognize it as Cooper’s ringtone until DMX shouts, “Ya’ll gone make me lose my mind.” That also happens to be the moment I flinch free of the rail and plunge headlong into the fish-gore-slicked ocean.

  I feel the film of nastiness stretch and give way to my body, or at least I imagine I do. Then I’m several feet beneath the surface, writhing and kicking and shaking my hands over my nearly bald-ish head, trying to cleanse myself, hoping that the sun block shielding my Caucasian pallor from UV rays will also prevent the stink from sticking.

  My eyes open despite the sting of salt water. Bits and pieces of fish cloud around me. I glance up. The warbling shapes of Collins and Maigo hover above, leaning over the rail. I don’t know if they’re talking, but since they’re not diving in, they must be able to see me scouring myself clean. And that’s when I realize that all my efforts have been wasted.

  I still need to go back up through that stuff. I’m going to smell like Moby Dick’s ass for a week.

  Movement spins me around, and for a moment, I forget all about how I’m going to smell, and think about how I smell right now, in the ocean, where animals that eat dead fishy smelling things live. The seven foot blue shark circling me is a perfect example. It’s the fifth most dangerous shark species in the world. Sometimes called the ‘wolf of the sea.’ But most of that is drama played up by Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. Only thirteen attacks on humans have been reported—ever—and only four of them fatal. Pit Bulls, which kill twenty-something people every year, are far more dangerous, and they can walk down the street with just a leash to keep them at bay.

  The shark cuts a lazy circle around me, and I spin to match him, no longer caring about the fish flakes settling on my head and shoulders. The shark opens its mouth and scarfs down a partially digested fish.

  Gross, dude.

  Then he’s on to the next, twisting toward me for just a moment before eating another. He moves with relaxed slowness, like he’s just munched on a pot brownie. Probably been out here for hours, filling his belly. And now he’s like my Uncle Tony, unbuckling his belt and pounding out a burp to make room for Thanksgiving thirds.

  And then, with a flick of its tail, the blue shark proves all of my assumptions wrong. Sunlight glints off its back as it charges—and flashes straight past me, disappearing into the gloom.

  What the—holy shit!

  A shadow slides beneath me. It’s the size of a submarine, but undulating side to side, like an eel, only with four long flippers. It slides into the depths, graceful and unconcerned.

  With a kick, I rise to the surface, and this time I really do feel the filmy sludge wrap around and cling to me. Collins’s hand reaches down for me, despite the stench, though she has her nose covered with her free hand, and looks like she’s just sucked on a lemon. With her help, I have no trouble getting back on the dive deck, despite my shaking legs.

  “Oh, God,” Maigo says, backing away. “You smell like an ostrich shart.”

  It’s a good one, worthy of the Hudson name, but I don’t laugh.

  “You okay?” Collins asks. “We saw the shark.”

  “Did you see what scared the shark?” I ask.

  She shakes her head.

  “Well, I think we can add the Great New England Sea Serpent to the ‘shit just got real’ list.” I look up at Maigo. “And for the record, I smell like sea serpent shart. Why would an ostrich shart in the ocean?”

  “For real?” my daughter says. “You saw it?”

  “Looked more like a Kronosaurus than the sketches I’ve seen. And longer. Maybe 150 feet.”

  “Should we call it in?” Collins asks.

  ‘Call it in’ is our nice way of asking, ‘Do we need the military to blow it up?’ But nothing justifies that action. In fact, all of the ‘monsters’ we’ve discovered are natural occurrences. Freaks of nature maybe, but part of the ecosystem. They’ve all been peachy to be around. It’s the ones created by humanity that have gone on rampages and treated cities like buffets.

  I shake my head and motion to the fish slick. “Pretty sure we’re not on the menu. And of the hundreds of sightings, not one of them involves an attack. We’ve been peacefully sharing the ocean with these things for a long time. No reason to change that now.”

  “A Kronosaurus,” Maigo says, smiling, eyes glimmering with excitement. Though she was born from a monster, she is the most excited of us when we confirm the existence of another. I think it makes her feel less strange. If the world is full of monsters, she’s not all that different. It’s part of why she and Lilly have become so close. Like sisters. Really kick-ass, super-powered sisters. “Maybe we could call it Kro—”

  A cell phone lets loose with a chipper ditty. It’s Collins’s.

  “You really need to customize your ring tones,” I say.

  “Because that worked out well for you,” she says with a sarcastic smile, stepping back to answer the phone. Speaking of which... I take my phone from my pocket and try to turn it on. Nothing. Good news is, I can have a new one delivered to the office before the end of the day. Bad news is it won’t have all those pictures I snuck of Collins’s butt.

  Live and learn.

  I shed my shirt and shorts before climbing back onto the deck in my mostly clean boxer-briefs. Maigo greets me with a gallon of water. She holds it out to me. “For real. You stink.”

  After leaning over the side and pouring the water over my head and shoulders, the smell that remains could be from me, or from the dead fish still surrounding us in the ocean. I take it as a good sign that the blue shark is back, returned to his fish binge.

  The world is a weird place, and getting weirder every day.

  I towel off and put it, and my clothing, in a plastic trash bag supplied by Maigo. The water and bag are small gestures, but I find them encouraging. In the past, she wouldn’t have left the cabin. She might not have left the house. She would have missed all this. But now she’s out here, part of the experience. As gross as it might be, it’s also part of what bonds us as family.

  Collins’s voice slides back into range as she wanders back out of the cabin and winces at the smell. “Okay. Yeah. We’re on it. Really? That soon?” She doesn’t look happy, but she’s listening. “Right. GOD.”

  For a moment, I think she’s cursing, but then I realize she’s using the acronym for the Genetic Offense Directive, a black ops organization within DARPA, the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. While the FC-P does our best to catalogue the strange and paranormal—and defend against it when necessary—GOD spends its time creating their own weaponized monstrosities. Although the creatures themselves aren’t always sinister—Lilly was created in a GOD secret lab once run by World War II Japan’s nefarious Unit 731—they do have a proclivity for cataclysmic destruction on an apocalyptic scale. Basically, the GOD are the bad guys. They don’t just use science, they twist it. And the results are...monstrous.

  But GOD’s tech was also instrumental in stopping the Tsuchi—Kaiju sized spiders with a penchant for violent and unwelcome procreation. Of course, GOD also created that problem in the first place...so they’re kind of dicks. The one good thing to come from the organization was Future Betty, a mirrored, wingless VTOL aircraft officially known as an X-35. One of a kind. Using ‘repulse engines’ it can hover just feet above the ground with little more than a hum, or zip up into orbit, which I’ve only done once before promptly puking. After some upgrades provided by my Zoomb techies, it’s invisible to radar now, and thanks to its active camouflage, it’s projecting the sky above onto its belly, and vice versa. It’s also invisible to the naked eye.

  “Understood,” Collins says in a formal way that tells me she’s ‘on duty,’ which means we just received a mission. “We’ll be waiting.” And that means we’re not boating back to port, we’re getting picked up. I’ll need to anchor Penny out here in the middle of Kronosaurus land. I pat the rail.

  Sorry, baby, duty calls.

  When Collins hangs up, I ask, “Do I have time to take a shower?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” she says.

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Cooper says we have to assume GOD is monitoring our communications and might already be en route. Our only chance of beating them there is—”

  “Future Betty,” I say.

  “Right.”