Project Legion (Nemesis Saga Book 5) Read online

  I’ve never had to try this tactic before, but it works like a charm. People turn to look as I pass, and I hear some of them whispering.

  “That’s Jon Hudson.”

  “The FC-P is here.”

  “Is Nemesis coming, too?”

  Turns out my speech to the Matriarch wasn’t too far off the mark, but I still find it odd that the FC-P has become a beacon of hope for this world. And it’s downright retarded that I hold the same status. As the crowd clears, allowing us to sprint for the solid steel-and-concrete, five-story-tall parking garage, I’m glad for it. I just hope they’re putting their hope in the right person.

  I’m winded by the fourth story, and I have a cramp by the time Crazy kicks his way through the solid metal, bright blue door on the roof level. He’s not only fearless, he’s also a machine. I suspect the Dread genes, bestowed upon him by a corporation named Neuro Inc., did more than allow him to shift between frequencies.

  “Sonuvabitch,” I grumble, clutching my side as I step onto the parking garage roof. I’m in reasonably good shape. In preparation for the coming intergalactic war, I’ve beefed up, worked on my stamina and have taken all sorts of hand-to-hand combat classes. But the spur-of-the-moment, adrenaline-fueled sprint and stair climb, after a meal at Moxy, leaves me feeling ill. I lean against one of the many cars and trucks parked on the open-air level and catch my breath.

  The view from the top of the garage replaces my physical discomfort with a numbing sense of dread. Lower case D.

  Lovecraft is closer than I thought, having carved a path through Portsmouth’s east end. There’s a path of destruction stretching from the Piscataqua River, through Strawberry Banke and a portion of downtown. Moving on all fours with its pale white, but somehow luminous ape-like body, Lovecraft looms three hundred feet above us, closing in on the city’s landmark North Church, the white steeple and brick building dwarfed by the kaiju.

  Before it reaches the church, it smashes through an old bank that’s been converted into businesses, including a bookstore and Anchor Line, a video production company that directed a kaiju PSA with me. “Get the hell out of there, Ken,” I say to myself, and then I start thinking the same thing about Crazy and me.

  If Lovecraft stays on course, he’ll pulverize the parking garage in under a minute. I take a step back toward the stairwell door. I pull my cell phone from my pocket, hoping to call in backup, in the form of the FC-P’s invisible, future-tech transport. But when I hit the power button, the screen stays blank. When water drips from between the phone and its case, I groan. The phone was in my pocket when Crazy dropped me in five feet of liquid MirrorWorld.

  “Crazy,” I say, my voice a warning. “We need to—”

  There’re several replies that I would have found acceptable, ranging from ‘Holy shitballs, run for your life,’ to ‘Yeah, we should probably leave.’ But waving me off like I’m an overprotective mother and stepping toward the towering kaiju is not on the list.

  And me being a fellow idiot, I follow after him. “Hey. Hey! We need to—”

  Crazy casually looks back at me. Points a finger up at the tentacle-faced behemoth. “Don’t you want to know why it’s here?”

  “I won’t be able to find that out, if I’m a pancake.”

  Lovecraft roars again. The sound, this close, is painful. As I crouch and clamp my hands over my ears, I’m almost happy to see Crazy do the same. At least part of him is still human. Of course, it might have also been useful if he was invulnerable.

  The monster opens its massive wings, stretching them out to their full six-hundred-foot width. They glow bright orange in the setting sun, and then ripple with pink and blue light that resembles a cuttlefish’s illumination. The wings snap forward, kicking up a wind that rips through the city, shattering windows, overturning cars and tearing shingles from roofs—sending the rectangular sheets of asphalt spinning through the air like thousands of shuriken.

  Crazy and I hit the deck behind a pickup truck and wait out the barrage. When we rise again, ten seconds later, the vehicles on the roof look like they’ve been through a war. Windows are shattered and shingles poke out of the metal bodies. Had either of us been hit, the wounds would have been fatal.

  “We need to leave. Now!” I shout.

  “Not yet.”

  I grab Crazy’s arm. “You’ve been in the military. You know how this works. If you want on this team, you need to fall in line and follow my lead.”

  He stares into my eyes, unflinching. “Or what?”

  The sound of destruction pulls my eyes away from him. I stand in time to see North Church’s spire topple over. Frustration bubbles up inside of me, ready to burst forth in a constant stream of creative obscenities. But my foul fusillade is squelched when, three hundred feet above me, the bulbous head of Lovecraft turns in my direction. I stand frozen, watching as the thing’s massive double-fingered hand clutches and crushes the church’s brick walls. Color flashes through its face and over its head. The creature’s two swimming pool-sized eyes glare down.

  At me.

  Right freaking at me.

  That’s why it’s here. Because of what happened in Portland, the Aeros, or perhaps just Lovecraft—I have no idea how intelligent it is—identified me, and probably the rest of the FC-P, Nemesis and Hyperion, as threats. If it’s here now, looking to smear me and the others to jelly, it’s to pave the way for the invasion.

  The Aeros won’t be too far behind.

  I take a step for the stairwell door. By the time I hit the ground floor, I’m sure the building will be crumbling above me. And if Crazy isn’t afraid enough to run, that’s his problem. But I need to survive this encounter, not just because I’m not ready to die, but because for Cowboy’s crazy plan to work, I need to be a part of it. No matter how much help we’re able to muster, I’m still the lead in this story.

  When my second step hits the concrete, Lovecraft lets out an earsplitting roar that drops me again. Then the monster twists its body, thrusting out a wing, like a spear. The parking garage shakes, as the northern side and one of three stairwells are peeled away.

  Crazy casually watches a quarter of the building we’re standing atop crumble. The destruction stops just ten feet away. He looks down at the ruins below. “I think it’s here for you.”

  “No shit, Columbo.”

  He smiles. “Good show, though I prefer The Price is Right.”

  “Of course you do,” I turn and start toward the exit on the far end, but Lovecraft isn’t about to let me get away.

  The garage’s south end caves in under another wing strike, and Lovecraft steps closer, tilting its head down toward us. The creature’s warm, fishy breath descends like a fog. Massive coiling tentacles writhe above us.

  “I’ve had just about enough of facial tentacles today.” I draw the sidearm holstered behind my lower back, aim it high and unload at the kaiju. I know it will have no effect, but I’m pissed and I need to vent. When the gun clicks empty, I hear Crazy chuckling.

  “Feel better?” he asks. While I was firing, he must have been walking toward me. His sudden proximity makes me flinch.

  “You’re an asshole,” I tell him, holstering my gun. “I just wanted you to know that before we die.”

  A shadow falls over us. It’s Lovecraft’s open palm, descending to crush the remains of the parking garage and me along with it.

  A second before the big white hand crushes us, Crazy puts his hand on my shoulder and reality shifts with a flicker.

  We enter the MirrorWorld, spared from Lovecraft’s strike, but forty feet up. As we fall to the swamp below, I have time to flip Crazy not one, but two middle fingers. He smiles back at me, and then we plunge into the swamp, descending fifteen feet before coming to a stop. I swim to the surface, feeling a mix of rage and relief.

  Crazy surfaces next to me.

  “How did you know the water was deeper here?” I ask.

  “I didn’t.”

  “What... Ca... Ugh. How are you even
still alive?”

  “That’s a fair question,” he says, and then he swims for the shallows. Remembering the glowing yellow things lurking in the waters on our last trip into this realm, I kick after him.

  Sopping wet, I climb onto the shore, catching my breath and trying hard to ignore the scent of alien decay. It’s like a mix of boiled skunk cabbage, rotten eggs and what I imagine Julia Child’s buttery farts smell like. “Why did you wait? Seriously? We could have been killed.”

  “And any person—or alien—who was watching Lovecraft’s actions most likely believes we were killed. How does that Southwest slogan go? You are now free to move about the country—or in this case, the multiverse. That creature clearly singled you out as a threat, and now they believe you’re dead. War is as much about cloak and dagger as it is about brute force confrontations. They won’t be ready for what they can’t see coming.”

  “That...actually makes a lot of sense. Next time, fill me in first.”

  “When I pretend to be afraid, I look constipated. I wanted your fear to look authentic. If neither of us looked genuinely afraid, it would have raised suspicions.”

  I start walking, my shoes scrunching with water. “Let’s go. I need to call my team and let them know I’m not dead.”

  “You’re going the wrong way,” Crazy says. He points in the opposite direction. “That way.”

  I about-face and stalk past him. “If I get chafed from this, I’m going to make you apply the lotion.”

  Crazy sighs.

  “Have a problem?” I ask, as he falls in line behind me.

  “Just trying to get my head around the idea that you’re in charge of saving an infinite number of parallel Earths from destruction.”

  “Yeah, well, get in line. Once I get back, you’ll get to see how we really do things.”

  “You mean with Hyperion? Contrary to you, it is impressive.”

  He hasn’t seen the giant mech yet, so how can he... My eyes go wide as I turn around.

  He’s looking up at something I can’t see.

  “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “The robot doesn’t look like a she,” he says.

  “Not the robot; its pilot. Maigo.”

  “Ahh,” he says. “She arrived just before our apparent deaths.”

  “Goddammit,” I say, and I pick up the pace to a jog. If Maigo believes I was killed, she’s not going to handle it well.

  5

  MAIGO

  Maigo Hudson was cursed. She had a monster living inside her. Two of them actually, both genetic. The first was a murderer whose victims included Maigo’s mother, and Maigo herself. Memories of her first life were scattered, returning in bursts as cells regenerated, accessing genetic memory in a way that had never been seen before. But that was probably thanks to the other genetic monster, whose DNA turned her into the Goddess of Vengeance herself—Nemesis. She’d been freed from that horrible existence, but the alien DNA was still part of her, making her stronger and faster, like the new guy, Crazy, but even more so.

  Crazy became part monster. Maigo had been born that way.

  She spent most days living in fear that nature would win over nurture. Not that her childhood was happy, but her life for the past few years, with Hudson and Collins and the rest, had given her several years of development with a family who loved her. They were the weirdest family in the history of the world, but still a family. In spite of that, every day was a challenge, crushing down her anger and hiding her temper. They thought she was shy, but her silence was mostly self-containment. Engaging with people outside her family risked triggering the murderer inside her, never mind the Goddess of Vengeance, who ultimately had delivered justice to that murderer, her biological father.

  Her connection with Hudson, her adoptive father, who had soothed the savage Nemesis, helped a lot. She tried hard to not ‘hear’ him all the time. His mind was a wasteland of bad jokes and dirty thoughts, mostly about Collins, her adoptive mother, but sometimes about Seven of Nine or Barbarella. But she always felt that connection. It gave her strength.

  And now...

  It was gone.

  The attack began seven minutes after Hudson and Crazy left, while she was still having a mental conversation with the Christmas Matriarch. She’d been yanked out of that strange world when the team evacuated to the roof, where Woodstock waited in Future Betty. The craft, which looked something like the shiny metal UFO in Flight of the Navigator, could also cloak. They had no trouble evading the massive kaiju rising from the coast, where water flooded the streets and robbed more people of their lives. It was a thirty second flight to the coast, and that was where Maigo had summoned one of the world’s most powerful protectors: Hyperion.

  The giant mech was created by the Ferox, for the alien race known as the Atlantide, who were the founders of Atlantis. They had used it to kill Nemesis Prime—the source of the DNA that had turned Maigo into Nemesis. While Prime had been a Gestorumque—the alien term for a kaiju—Hyperion was a ‘Mashintorum.’ And now, those ancient enemies, Hyperion and Prime, had come together in the form of Maigo, who had bonded with the mech and become its Voice. Like a pilot, but more conversational.

  The massive mech stood at three-hundred-and-fifty-feet tall, and when she found it, it was thick with self-healing armor. In the past year, as she trained with the machine, and got to ‘know’ it, the massive body had adapted to her fighting style, becoming faster and more slender.

  Maigo had just entered the cockpit, falling into the black tendrils that reminded her of the monster that had enveloped her father in the other world, when she felt Hudson return. As her senses merged with Hyperion’s and she saw through his eyes, she watched in horror as Lovecraft brought its massive hand down on the parking garage.

  “Dad...”

  Father, designation: Jon Hudson, has perished.

  The mental voice heard only by Maigo belonged to the AI operating the massive robotic body. It had gone by the name Watcher, before she had renamed it Hyperion. She was connected to the AI, and in charge of it, but it often spoke without being asked a question, and it didn’t quite understand the intricacies of human emotions.

  “I can see that, you dumb son-of-a-bitch!” Maigo shouted without having to actually speak a word. All of her rage exploded into the AI’s systems and the mech took action, following her lead. Blinded by rage, she nearly stomped right through the still-populated city, but the AI understood what was about to happen and obeyed its parameters, which included avoiding human casualties. Instead of running the distance, the Rift Engine in Hyperion’s chest—what Cowboy called ‘the Bell’, teleported them across the distance. Doing so got them there in a fraction of the time, but it also drained a significant amount of power from the mech’s weaponry, meaning it couldn’t use its array of heavy hitting armaments.

  But it was far from defenseless.

  Upon arriving in the ruins of the parking garage, Hyperion’s forearms rotated and opened, allowing three long blades to extend out beyond, and around, its fists.

  On the inside, Maigo roared as she commanded the mech to strike. On the outside, Hyperion silently delivered a sudden blow to Lovecraft’s side. The massive kaiju reeled back in pain and surprise, standing to its full height, two hundred feet above Hyperion.

  As Maigo looked up, seeing Lovecraft’s fists rising above the creature’s head to pound them into oblivion, her rage sobered some.

  “Can we teleport?”

  We lack sufficient power.

  “Well, can we take the hit?”

  Calculating.

  The big fists dropped like mansion-sized hammers. Hyperion followed Maigo’s instincts, raising its long-bladed fists into the air.

  Affirmative, the AI said. We—

  The massive white fists pounded down on Hyperion’s much smaller hands. While the long blades punched through the kaiju’s flesh, the force of the blow dropped Hyperion to one knee. Perhaps sensing victory, or not caring about the pain, Lovecraft roared and pushe
d harder.

  Maigo’s mind filled with something close to pain, as she felt the mech reaching its limits. “What do we have power for?”

  Electrodes will become available in ten seconds.

  Maigo gritted her teeth and willed the mech to push harder. She still wasn’t sure if her own strength or willpower actually added to Hyperion’s abilities, but it kept her focused.

  Hyperion’s arms began to shake.

  “We don’t have ten seconds!”

  Locking limbs and diverting power.

  Maigo felt the mech’s body go rigid, locking in place rather than pushing back. But how long could it resist the kaiju’s crushing fists?

  Electrodes powered.

  Maigo willed the long blades to retract. They slipped out of Lovecraft’s hands and slid back into the robot’s forearms, which rotated quickly and opened again. They gave birth to three metal prongs on each side. The prongs snapped up, punching into the holes left by the blades. Then they delivered an electric shock powerful enough to throw Lovecraft back.

  The massive Gestorumque stumbled backward, tripped over the remains of the North Church and fell onto its back.

  “Unlock the limbs!” Maigo shouted.

  Power transfer complete.

  Hyperion launched from its crouched position, took two long strides and leaped into the air. The electrodes slipped back inside the forearms, replaced once again by the long blades, which Maigo aimed toward Lovecraft’s rounded, elongated head. “One good strike to the brain might be enough.”

  As Hyperion’s arc brought it down toward the monster, Maigo let out a battle cry.

  But the blow never struck.

  Maigo’s passionate shout changed into a yelp of surprise, when Lovecraft’s mighty wings snapped together, creating a torrent of wind powerful enough to lift Hyperion up. The robot’s adjusted course took it beyond the kaiju, dropping it on Strawberry Banke, a museum and park that had already been reduced to rubble.

  Hyperion stood and whirled around, blades ready to cut, power returning. But even with the mech’s improved speed, it wasn’t quite fast enough.