Project Legion (Nemesis Saga Book 5) Read online

  A backhanded blow caught the robot’s chest, dead center, sending Hyperion tumbling through the air and into the ocean.

  As water covered the mech, Maigo fought the urge to hold her breath, and she willed the robot to stand and fight. But when she cleared the water, Lovecraft wasn’t charging toward her, it was running away.

  “Damnit,” Maigo said, wanting nothing more than to chase after the monster, but knowing she couldn’t catch it at sea. Hyperion punched the water in frustration, letting anyone watching know that it was, in fact, controlled by a human being. “It had the advantage. Why run?”

  Analyzing.

  “Maigo, come in.” It was Collins.

  “I’m here, mom.”

  “Your father—”

  “I know. I saw.” As she said the words, Maigo realized her mother didn’t sound upset. At all.

  “Look again,” Collins said.

  Maigo watched Lovecraft splash down into the ocean, kicking up a massive wave, and then she turned her attention to her mother’s request. With a thought, she pulled up the visual information recorded from the moment Hyperion had arrived.

  She watched, cringing again, as her father was smashed out of existence.

  Then she slowed it down, zoomed in and watched again.

  A second before Lovecraft’s hand crushed them, Crazy put his hand on her father’s shoulder. And just a single frame before the wall of white struck, they disappeared. From Lovecraft’s perspective, there would be no doubt. Jon Hudson was dead.

  But now Maigo knew better.

  As she tried to re-establish her connection with her father—a much harder task when he was in another frequency of reality—she asked, “Where the hell did they go?”

  “Wherever they went,” Collins said, “I’m sure they’re working hard to get back.”

  6

  HUDSON

  “Have you ever had poison ivy on your balls?” I ask.

  Crazy gives me a sidelong glance, but says nothing. He’s edgy, hand never moving far from the .50 cal on his hip. He either doesn’t yet trust the Dread here or there are other things in this world that would like to make a snack of us. Maybe both.

  “Seriously,” I say. “It’s just about the worst thing I’ve experienced in my life. Mangled bodies? No problem. Kaiju gore? Been there, done that. Naked aliens in tubes with their dangly bits exposed? I’m a pro. But crusty, weeping, itchy nuts? Try walking ten feet without feeling envious of every neutered dog you see.”

  “Sounds like a nightmare.”

  “Note to self,” I say, flipping open and writing on an imaginary notepad. “Crazy feels no fear, but has a firm grasp of sarcasm.” I fold up the non-existent notepad. “Not to sound like a little kid, but are we there yet?”

  Crazy looks around with his split, goat eyes, seeing two worlds at once. “This will work.”

  We’re standing in a clearing covered in lumpy growths that ooze oily liquid when we step on them, and then they make a farting sound when we step off. It’s like walking in a field of gassy Muppets. And it smells about as bad as that sounds.

  Crazy stops and reaches his hand out toward me. I falter for a moment. Shifting between frequencies, since my body hasn’t adapted to it, is something to which I suspect I’ll never get accustomed. “Next stop, real world. Thank you for taking the barftown express.”

  Crazy smiles, revealing he does have a sense of humor, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. The bleak purple swamp of the MirrorWorld flickers and then disappears. The moment of relief I feel at seeing a blue sky above is replaced by a wave of nausea that drops me to my knees. I lean forward on my hands, spitting. My mouth salivates like a Saint Bernard. My stomach roils, but what little remains in it, stays put.

  “Don’t suppose you have a cell phone?” I ask.

  “My calling plan doesn’t exactly work in this dimension.”

  “Right.”

  “But I took that into account.”

  I look up and find myself looking at what might be the last phone booth in New Hampshire. It’s blue and gray with a folding door. The kind that Superman used to use. I glance around. We’re in a parking lot beside the toll booth on Route 16, northwest of Portsmouth. Cars flow through without stopping. Alarm bells ring incessantly, as people without an E-ZPass drive right through, fleeing the coast. In the background, I hear the whine of emergency vehicles, no doubt responding to the vast destruction in Portsmouth. I push myself up, brush myself off, and notice that my saturated clothes are now dry.

  Crazy must notice my confusion, because he explains, “I left the water behind.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Just takes focus. Discipline. I don’t think you’d be very good at it.”

  “Har, har.” I step for the phone booth, muttering, “I don’t think you’d be very good... Eat a dick, Yoda.”

  I pick up the phone’s receiver and am surprised and delighted to hear a dial tone. I punch in 911 and wait. It rings twice and is then picked up. After a brief conversation that involves me proving I am who I say I am, the call is routed to the FC-P in Beverly, Massachusetts.

  “Fusion Center – Paranormal.” The curt and formal greeting is music to my ears. “This is—”

  “Coop,” I say, “It’s me.”

  Anne Cooper, technically Anne Watson now that she’s married to Ted Watson, keeps our operation running smoothly. I’m relieved she’s already back in the office, no doubt making the tough calls about Lovecraft in my absence. I still call her ‘Coop’ because 1) ‘Anne’ sounds wrong, 2) I can’t very well call two people in the office ‘Watson’ and 3) I’m fond of the nickname. Even Watson still calls her Coop. I’m the director of the FC-P, but Cooper often speaks on my behalf, and no one questions her orders. What she doesn’t yet know is that I’ve already made her Deputy Director, giving her the authority to make command decisions in my absence. Filed the paperwork six months ago, but didn’t tell her, because she’d probably object to my stupid ideas even more often.

  “Where are you?” No relief. No, ‘Thank God you’re okay.’ She’s straight to business. Classic Cooper.

  “Dover toll booth on Route 16.”

  “Woodstock is en route with Cowboy. ETA one minute. Had them circle the area after you disappeared.”

  “You don’t sound worried.”

  “You mean because we thought you were dead?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We did. Maigo saw what happened.”

  “Geez. Is she okay?”

  Maigo is tough. A real badass of superhuman proportions, but she’s also lost a lot. I’m closer to her than her real father ever was, and thanks to the mental bond we share, probably closer to her than her mother ever could have been.

  “Her anger helped her save what was left of the city, but Hyperion saw what happened. What really happened. To anyone else who saw, including Lovecraft, you’re dead. I’m assuming that was your intention?”

  “Well, I am a master of strategy,” I say.

  “It was Crazy’s idea, wasn’t it?” she says. “Because you looked pretty—”

  “Ksssh.” I make a static noise. “Sounds like we’re breaking up. Ksssh.”

  “You’re on a landline, Jon.”

  “Good talk,” I say. “Anything else in the world going ‘boom’ that I should know about?”

  “Not yet. And Lovecraft has disappeared. But I think it’s safe to say this was just the beginning.”

  “Agreed.” Wind starts kicking up around the phone booth. It’s strange and out of place, but I recognize it for what it is. “Woodstock is here. We’re going to head to the Mountain and put Cowboy’s plan into action.”

  “The others are already there. They’ll be glad to see you.” There’s a pause, and an uncharacteristic deep breath. “Be quick, Jon.”

  Not only is Cooper an integral member of the FC-P, she’s also the mother of a toddler. She can probably stomach the idea of thousands of people dying, maybe even half the world, as long as Ted Jr
., aka: Spunky, isn’t among them.

  “I’ll do my best,” I tell her. “Also, in case things go sideways, I made you Deputy Director.”

  “I know.”

  “You what?”

  “There were errors in the paperwork you submitted. They asked me to fix them. Thanks, by the way. But you’ll come back. You always do.”

  “Like—”

  “Herpes,” she says, stealing my joke.

  “But without the burning itch. Later, Coop.”

  I hang up the phone and spin around at the sound of screeching brakes. Future Betty has just uncloaked in the parking lot, giving the cars rushing by a clear view of her mirrored hull. The rear cargo bay door lowers and Cowboy struts down, hands resting casually on the pommels of his six shooters.

  “Is good to see you alive,” he says. “But get on plane. Time is short.”

  “Plane is Future Betty,” I say, mimicking his accent and climbing up the ramp. “Respect Betty.”

  “Is ex-girlfriend name,” Cowboy complains.

  “Is tradition,” I say. “You can name the Bell whatever you want.”

  As the ramp closes behind us, and I strap in, giving Woodstock a casual wave that he responds to with a nod, Cowboy says, “Jindřiška.”

  “Gesundheit,” I say.

  Cowboy gives me a lopsided grin. “Jindřiška is name.”

  My belly sinks as Future Betty rises into the air without a sound.

  “Better clench your sphincters,” Woodstock says. “Gonna be feeling the ‘G’s for a bit.”

  My weight shifts toward the back of the vehicle, as the high tech machine accelerates to Mach 2. “Yinshishkabob is a name?”

  Cowboy’s smile falters. “Is mother’s name.”

  “Yinshishkabob Vesely. Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.”

  “He was like this in the MirrorWorld, too,” Crazy says. “Thinks he’s funny.”

  “A balding Ryan Reynolds,” Cowboy says, and both men have a chuckle at my expense. The joke makes me wish I had my red cap. I haven’t worn it as much since Collins said my balding noggin was sexy, like Jean Luc. But there are times when I see the sun gleaming where there used to be hair, when I long to cover it up.

  “If you fellas are just about done with the comedic circle jerk, we’re going to be touching down at the Mountain in about five minutes. Since time is short, you might want to sort your shit out and have a game plan for when your boots hit the ground.”

  Woodstock is a salty old bastid who flies like a maniac, but he’s also a veteran with a lot of experience and occasional good advice.

  “You have the list?” I ask Cowboy.

  We’ve been scouring worlds nearest to ours, looking for candidates like Crazy, who might help turn the tide of the coming war, but who also might be willing to leave their own plane of existence to help another. It’s a tough sell, but we’ve narrowed the list down to a handful of key people. If they all agree, we’ll have our very own Legion of Super Heroes.

  He tilts his Stetson in the affirmative.

  “Where to first?” I ask.

  “I think, the king.”

  “King of what?” Crazy asks.

  Cowboy grins.

  7

  COLLINS

  Ashley Collins looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. The first sign of wrinkles were forming beside her eyes and mouth. Hudson called them smile lines, but she didn’t see how that was possible. She hadn’t done a lot of smiling in her life. Not until that fateful Sasquatch hunt that led her to the Watson cabin, and her current husband’s disheveled, underwear-clad self. Strange to think that the past few years, filled with battles and monsters, and things beyond imagining, had been the best of her life, but that was what they were.

  The world was on the brink, along with countless parallel Earths, but she’d never been happier, and never felt such a deep sense of purpose. She had a husband, a daughter and was part of a team destined to save the world. Or not. But she looked forward to the fight. She understood it. Pummeling her enemies into submission was always good catharsis. Of course, there was only so much she could do. She was only human, after all. That was why Hudson and Cowboy were jaunting off to other worlds in search of more powerful people.

  “Human and getting old,” she said, eyeing the black military garb she wore, with a handgun strapped to her hip. “But I can still kick some ass.”

  She turned away from the mirror and exited the bathroom. Hudson would be arriving in minutes, and she wanted to be in the hangar to greet him. This mission upon which he was about to embark would take him beyond her reach, and it might be as dangerous as the war to come.

  The hallways were abuzz with personnel, most of whom Collins did not recognize. But they knew who she was, and they nodded as she passed. While the heart of the FC-P still operated out of the Crow’s Nest in Beverly, MA, it now felt more like a home. Their new base of operations, which had been dubbed, ‘the Mountain,’ because, well, it was inside a mountain in Rumney, NH, of all places, hadn’t been built, it had been found. No one knew who constructed it, but the base was set up for military, science and technology research and deployment. The base had undergone some refurbishing, mostly to create a hangar large enough to contain and hide Hyperion. But thanks to the considerable resources at their disposal, both from the U.S. government, and from Zoomb—the technology giant that Hudson had inherited—the base’s alterations had been completed in record time.

  Nothing like the threat of global decimation to cure the world’s incompetence, Collins thought, returning a nod from another stranger. She watched the very serious man as he passed, and she tried to guess whether or not he was human. She was still getting used to the idea that an alien species, the Ferox, had been living among the human race for thousands of years. They had guided humanity’s development, making them proficient at waging war, while simultaneously instilling revolt at the idea of being dominated. All to make sure that when the time came, humanity would be an ally in the war against the Aeros.

  And here we are, Collins thought, on the brink.

  “Human,” she whispered to herself when the man casually scratched his ass. Ferox could shape-shift into anyone they wanted. The team had all been fooled, working alongside aliens without even being aware. Zach Cole. Maggie Alessi. There were more than 200,000 Ferox on Earth, some of whom worked with them even now, but their identities were unknown, thanks to Hudson’s ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. He thought that people might not be able to focus if they knew the person working alongside them was actually a ‘fugly ass alien.’ His words. And he wasn’t wrong. Most of the people working for Zoomb and the FC-P still had no idea they were working with aliens, not to mention the fact that humanity had been manipulated by them, and dragged into their millions-of-years-old civil war.

  The solid metal door to the hangar bay opened without a sound. The hangar accommodated Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft such as helicopters, harrier jets and Future Betty. Right now, all it held was Helicopter Betty, and an otherworldly object associated with the Nazis, Atlantis and now with the Ferox. The twelve-foot-tall metal bell-shaped object went by several names, but its original name, translated into English, was Rift Engine. It contained enough energy to power something as massive as Hyperion, or, under the direction of a person who understood how it worked, to tear a hole in the fabric of space.

  She paused by the Rift Engine, looking at the alien language scrawled along its perimeter. How Cowboy figured out how to operate it, she couldn’t guess, but she knew he had experience dealing with them. His world had been assaulted by Nazis of the neo- and cryogenically-frozen variety. With the help of a man he called Survivor, the attack was defeated. In the year following the attack, Cowboy hunted down Nazis that had gone to ground, and had come across another Rift Engine, which he used to move between worlds.

  Par for the course these days, Collins thought, and she turned toward the large outer hangar doors, which had begun to grind. Sunligh
t poured in and then reflected off of the mirrored hull of Future Betty as it landed, sending shards of light dancing around the pale gray walls. She watched the display for a moment, and then headed for the vehicle’s rear hatch, which was already opening.

  Her very disheveled-looking husband stepped out, and despite everything that had happened, he smiled when he saw her. They reached for each other and embraced, rejuvenated in that quiet moment.

  “You see?” Cowboy said to Crazy, thrusting his hands out. “Is why we fight, no? Love.”

  Collins could feel Hudson about to fire back a witty retort. She squeezed a bit harder and whispered, “Let it go,” but she was surprised when it was Crazy who responded.

  He was a stoic and completely unpredictable man who spoke his mind, damn the consequences. “There’s nothing better to fight for.”

  Then he walked past, heading for the locker room. That one sentence was the biggest insight in the mind of Crazy that Collins had seen yet, and it gave her hope that the man wasn’t also crazy with a lower case C.

  “Thirty minutes?” Cowboy asked.

  “Fifteen,” Hudson replied, leaning out of Collins’s grasp. “Ready up and let’s boogie.”

  As Cowboy followed Crazy toward the lockers, Hudson leaned in and kissed Collins. When they separated, he said, “So, fifteen minutes.”

  “Not enough time,” Collins said. She knew Hudson wasn’t being entirely serious, but she also knew that if she said yes, he’d follow through. And part of her really wanted to say yes. Those few minutes when they’d all believed he died still haunted her. She wanted to feel him close, especially now, as he was about to embark on a journey that would take him further away than ever before.

  “You and I both know he’s a two-pump chump.” The gruff voice of Woodstock, who’d somehow snuck right up on them, made them both laugh.

  “I’ll take shit from the new guys,” Hudson said, “but not you, old man.”